Devil in a Kilt (38 page)

The
most important needs, the needs of their hearts.

But
she remained silent, the closed look on his face turning any words of protest
she might dare utter to dust afore she could even form them coherently in her
mind, much less give voice to them.

Shifting
uncomfortably under his fierce perusal, she drew her mantle up over her exposed
shoulders.

"I
must leave you now." He reached out to adjust the woolen cloak for her.
"Go to your chamber and heed my words. We've tarried here overlong. I've
much on my mind and shouldn't have given in to my baser desires."

His
words doused whatever longing still lingered within her as surely as if he'd
tossed her into the icy waters of Loch Duich.

Baser
desires?

Linnet
bristled. "Am I naught but a vessel to you, my husband? Do you see in me
only a means to take your manly ease when the lust to do so overcomes you? Am I
but a burden to be borne, a wife to feed and clothe, but not care about the
rest of the time?"

By
the Rood! Duncan's eyebrows rose in astonishment at her accusation. Did she
not ken the sounds of his men manning the walls had smote him with sheer dread
o'er the possibility of harm being done her? Did she not realize he'd pulled
away from her because he was appalled at
himself!

Shocked
to the core he could think of lust whilst a score of his people lay slain and
maimed, awaiting his vengeance?

Had
she so quickly forgotten the tenderness he'd bestowed upon her whilst she'd
recovered from the disturbing vision she'd had in his former solar?

"Think
you truly I care naught for you?" he asked, unable to keep the accusing
tone from his voice. "That I almost lay with you here, upon the stone
floor, without even the comfort of strewn rushes, because I need a
'vessel'
to slake my manly needs with?"

To
his dismay, she nodded.

"Christ's
bones!" he roared, too angry to care if all under his roof heard him.
"I vow you have held your hands o'er your ears each time I've told you I
am not good with words. I am a man of deeds, not pretty speeches. ‘Tis up on
the wall walk with Marmaduke I should be, not standing here feeling sick at the
thought of harm coming to you."

He
paused to catch his breath. "For one blessed with a gift such as yours,
‘tis beyond belief how dense you can be. Do you not ken I kissed and touched
you to banish the horrors of this day from my mind? So I could take sweet
memories of you with me when I ride out of here?" He caught her chin,
gently forcing her to look at him. "And do you know why?"

The
stubborn vixen shook her head again.

He
opened his mouth to tell her ‘twas because he cared, but the words lodged
firmly in his throat. She might construe caring with
loving.

And
he did not love her.

He
loved no one.

An
uncomfortable silence settled over them, and to escape it, Duncan withdrew a
two-edged dagger from a leather sheath attached to his belt. "Thomas will
be standing guard outside your door," he said, handing her the knife.
"Give this to him and tell him not to give entry to any save myself,
Marmaduke, or Fergus."

She
stiffened visibly, but took the blade. "You think we are in danger of
being attacked?"

"Nay.
None but a fool would attempt a siege against these walls. Kenneth is many
things, but not a fool."

"Then
why such precautions?"

"Because,"
he said, trailing his knuckles down her cheek, "naught but a fool would
not ascertain his loved ones' safety when peril, real or imagined, is near. And
I am even less a fool than my bastard half brother."

Turning
away from her, lest he be tempted to reveal further sentiments best kept to
himself, he made to march up the turret stairs to join Marmaduke, but his lady
wife rushed after him.

"Wait,
please," she called, sounding flustered.

"Aye?"
He stopped on the third step, but didn't turn around.

"Does
Robbie count as one o' your 'loved ones'?" she asked, taking him
completely by surprise.

Once
more, the gruesome image of the wee lad, pale and lifeless as he knew his poor
crofters' bairns to be, flashed before his mind's eye. The very thought turned
his blood cold, made his innards quake and his hands tremble.

Sweet
Jesus, he'd
said
his loved ones. Wasn't it enough to have spoken the
words? Was she so blind, so deaf, she couldn't hear the truth when he'd fair
bellowed it at her?

He
would not voice the sentiment again.

Not
when he himself wasn't prepared to accept the words his lips had spewed forth
almost of their own accord and afore he'd even realized he'd spoken them.

He
heard her come up behind him, felt her place a hand on the back of his arm.
"Is he?" she breathed, her voice eager, expectant. "Are you
telling me you do care about the boy?"

"Is
he my son?" Duncan asked, the turmoil inside him finding release in the
coldly spat words.

"Would
it matter?"

Kenneth's
face, so like his own but marred by a gloating sneer, chased the sickening
image of Robbie, his small body bloodied and twisted, from Duncan's mind.

"Aye,
it matters," he said, hating the way his stomach turned inside out at the
lie. And hating himself more because he was too cowardly to admit, even to his
own self, he did indeed care about the lad.

"Is
he mine?" he demanded once more.

"I
canna say," Linnet said in a small voice, disappointment weighing heavily
on each word.

Duncan
stood, ramrod straight, holding his shoulders and neck so rigidly he might as
well been carved of stone. He would not turn around, would not let her see the
pain he knew had to be mirrored in his eyes.

After
what seemed an eternity, she took her hand off his arm and walked away. He
waited until he heard her repeat his instructions to young Thomas outside her
door, then trudged the rest of the way up the stone steps to the battlements.

Bile
rose in his throat.

Had
he truly claimed he was not a fool?

An
unceasing and exceedingly annoying thumping noise disturbed Duncan's
much-needed sleep. Determined to ignore the infernal sound, he flung out his
arm, intending to draw Linnet to his side, but his outstretched hand
encountered only matted straw, not his sweet wife's slumbering form.

"What
the—" he began, only to leap to his feet, wide-awake, when he realized
where he was and why.

As
quickly, the source of the loud thumping became apparent when two of his men
lumbered into view from the base of the turret stairs. They carried a limp
MacKenzie in their arms.

A
bloodied MacKenzie with an arrow shaft protruding from his neck!

"Saints,
Maria, and Joseph!" Duncan yelled, girding on his sword belt.
"Fergus! Rouse the men! We're under attack!"

"Cuidich'
N' Righ!
Save the king!" Fergus shouted in answer,
scrambling to his feet as swiftly as his age-bent legs would allow. At once, he
began scurrying about the hall, delivering a sound kick in the ribs to any kinsman
not yet awake.

"Get
yer arses off the floor!" he scolded, waving his mace in a wild circle
above his grizzled gray head. "Cease lolling about like witless varlets
wi' their feet caught in a sea o' muck!"

"Man
the walls!" Duncan thundered, running toward the two kinsmen bearing the
injured man. Halting before them, he cleared the nearest trestle table with a
broad sweep of his arm.

Duncan
leaned over Iain, the wounded clansman, the moment the others lowered him onto
the table. He'd meant to offer him a bit of comfort, but the intended words
stuck in his throat when he got a closer look at Iain's blood-drained face and
the unnatural stillness of his broad chest.

Although
he knew what he'd see, Duncan carefully lifted Iain's eyelids. Sightless eyes
gazed up at him, their vacant stare piercing him with dread, filling him with
rage, and making him aware as naught else could, of the danger lurking outside
Eilean Creag's thick walls.

A
danger he would not allow entry.

An
enemy who'd soon suffer Duncan's vengeance, taste his fury, and rue the day
he'd dared thought to lay siege to the MacKenzie stronghold.

"God's
blood!" Duncan hissed, thinking not only of Iain's spent life, but also of
the young wife and four small bairns left without husband and father.

His
mouth set in a grim line, Duncan eased down Iain's eyelids, then covered his
waxen face with a linen napkin. Closing his own eyes, he shook his head to rid
himself of the white-hot fury threatening to consume him.

After
a moment, he opened his eyes and scanned the hall for his first squire. The
youth stood about twenty paces away, tucking all manner of weapons into his
belt and boots. "Lachlan," Duncan called, "hie yourself over
here."

He
came at once, leaping over a table and knocking down a bench before skidding to
a halt on the slick rashes. "Aye, sir?" he panted, nigh breathless.

Duncan
rested a hand on the lad's shoulder. "Becalm yourself, boy. You willna be
able to aim your crossbow if your chest is heaving with each breath you
take."

A
dark stain colored the squire's cheeks, but he nodded in acquiescence.
"What would you bid of me, my lord?"

"Have
Cook boil lard and see the kitchen boys gather whatever nastiness they can
find," he ordered, his voice steady despite the heated anger coursing
through him. "Tell the pages to fill buckets from the cesspits, then make
haste getting it all to the battlements." Duncan paused, tightening his
hold on the lad's shoulder. "But not afore you've taken a few deep
breaths."

Lachlan
bobbed his head in answer. His cheeks still flamed, though Duncan suspected his
high color came more from nerves at seeing his first true fighting than over
embarrassment at having been told to compose himself.

Bracing
his hands against his hips, Duncan watched the squire hurry toward the screened
passage and the kitchen beyond. On sudden impulse, Duncan halted him with a
sharp cry before he disappeared through the darkened archway.

The
lad spun around so quickly he almost collided with two burly warriors hastening
past him. "Aye, sir?" he called, his arms flailing wildly as he
sought to regain his footing.

"Dinna
fret, laddie," Duncan's deep voice boomed across the hall. "Whoe're
would attempt to breach these walls will taste the bite of our steel... or gag
to death on the muck we're going to dump on them!"

Hearty
cheers went up at Duncan's words. Lachlan's face turned a deeper red, but he
made Duncan a low bow before turning and dashing off about his task, a most obvious
new bounce to his steps.

Satisfied,
Duncan waited until Lachlan disappeared into the shadowy kitchen passage, only
then allowing his own face to settle back into a tight grimace.

Once
more, he leapt onto a table, this time loudly banging two tankards against each
other to get his men's attention. "Cease bellowing, lads, and take your
positions!" he roared, tossing aside the tankards when the cheering
stopped and all eyes turned his way. "We'll soon have hot oil and refuse
enough to drown the bastards in! Now, be off, and may God be with us!"

No
sooner had the words left his mouth, than the sounds of angry shouts and the
furious clash of steel against steel reached them from above.

‘Twas
a clamor so earsplitting, if he didn't know better, he would've sworn men were
coming to blows in the far end of the hall. Duncan cast a quick glance at each
of the hall's dark corners before jumping down from the table.

Impossible
though it would have been for an enemy to gain entry to the sanctity of his
hall, a great surge of relief washed over him at seeing none but his own men
hurrying about, arming themselves or hastening to their posts.

Nay,
the loud ruckus echoing through Eilean Creag's cavernous hall, bouncing off the
cold stone of its massive walls, came from above, not within.

Men
were fighting on the ramparts.

On
the ramparts!

With
the realization, an unholy chill seized Duncan, curdling his blood and sending
icy fingers around his neck. Fingers of dread, cold and unerring, hailing from
the blackest pits of hell.

And
if he didn't soon free himself of their stranglehold, they'd cut off his air,
squeeze the very life out of him.

Saints
sustain him, if the attackers had gained the walls, they had scaling ladders
and might, even now, be laying one against Linnet's window. Might be attempting
to reach her chamber and lay waste to all that was dear to him.

With
sickening clarity, the images that had plagued him since first learning of
Kenneth's attack on the crofters came back to revisit him.