Only For A Knight (13 page)

 

“You can and you shall,” the Black Stag decreed. “Make the saucy wench you rescued your leman if you desire her so hotly—though, such a dalliance, too, is something I would frown upon. But anything else, and it shall be the worse for you.”

 

His lairdly word spoken, Duncan MacKenzie gave his friend and his only son another of his famed black scowls and made for the door, striding out, and slamming it hard behind him.

 

The walls of the solar vibrated for a long moment, then seemed to contract, closing in on Robbie. His gut clenching, he lifted a hand, swiped dampness from his brow. More shaken than he was willing to admit, he snatched the ale jug off the table, tipped it to his lips, and drank deeply.

 

Then, and without a further word or even looking at Sir Marmaduke, he exited the solar.

 

But much more quietly than his father’s leave-taking, and with a heavier heart than he would have believed.

 

Cares and regret weighting his shoulders, he made his way down the winding turnpike stair. His oh-so-dearly-longed-for homecoming had fallen out worse than he’d imagined and he should have taken his beauty when he’d had the chance . . . riding away with her to the edge of the world.

 

A possibility he might yet explore.

 

And fie and damnation on any who might think to try and stop him.

 

 

About the same time, nestled deep in the quietude of another tower, Juliana tossed and turned in a restless sleep . . . a fitful slumber held in sumptuous quarters once belonging to the Black Stag himself and latterly to Sir Marmaduke Strongbow, the puissant chieftain’s good-brother, most well-loved friend, and self-proclaimed nonmeddler into the privy doings of others.

 

Quite unaware of whose one-time chamber now sheltered her, Juliana’s exhausted body welcomed the smooth, fresh-scented linens of the great four-postered bed, every inch of her savoring the indescribable comfort of the bed’s mound of cushiony-soft feather mattresses and silken pillows.

 

But untold luxuries or no, her brow furrowed and, even asleep, some hidden part of her stirred with awareness. Something ominous lurked in the shadows of the grand chamber’s silent, inky corners.

 

A sinister and watching presence, crouching in its lair, waiting.

 

And even the soothing ablutions spent her earlier by the lady of the keep and her oh-so-capable female seneschal could not prevent the dark little nibbles of foreboding nipping at the edges of Juliana’s troubled dreams.

 

Dreams she’d surely slipped into so deeply thanks to the ne’er-before-bliss of having two sets of caring hands settle her into a tub of heated rainwater. Hands that then scrubbed the travails of her journey from her tired limbs, and with skilled fingers, massaged her head to toe with sweet-smelling essence of lavender.

 

Faith, the two women had even washed and combed her hair, rubbing each curling tendril with thoughtfully warmed drying linens before brushing Juliana’s sometimes-unruly mane to sleek, bright-gleaming brilliance.

 

At last satisfied with their ministrations and pampering, they’d slipped the softest wisp of a night-camise over Juliana’s head and tucked her into the cocooning embrace of the magnificent canopied bed, leaving her, they’d surely hoped, to a restorative slumber . . . and not the whims of terrifying, clutching nightmares.

 

Never-ending horrors even the four-poster’s carefully-closed bed curtains could not hold at bay.

 

“Blessed Jesu . . .” Juliana breathed, rolling onto her belly and tangling her limbs in the constricting welter of mussed sheets and encroaching darkness.

 

Ill ease descended, a dank and cloying curtain of dread as chilling as the cold, damp air permeating the bedchamber, and persistent as the sluicing rain pounding the stone window ledges.

 

Somewhere not too distant a loose shutter banged, its loud thumping an unwitting echo to the hammering of Juliana’s heart, the futile pounding of feet that ran but could not speed her from the reach of the raven-winged devil-demon racing along behind her, so close on her fleeing heels.

 

A creature fashioned of wrath and brimstone, he spewed fire and chased her, damning her with white-faced fury and red-glowing eyes. Hurling slurs she could not escape.

 

Curse you, wraith of the past, for daring to come here.

 

Be gone and away—now, this night!

 

You will know no peace if you stay . . . not so long as I have breath in my body . . .

 

But then the bitter, sulfurous wind swirling round the savage-staring ogre shifted and changed, and the biting sting of hell’s own fumes faded away to leave naught but a sickly-sweet sourness . . . the telltale stench of nearing death.

 

The chamber’s rich trappings and even the seductive haven of the massive oaken bed vanished as well, every tinge of wealth and refinement replaced by the ravaged weariness of a tiny cot-house of sod, heather, and stone.

 

A place dark and smoky with burning peat, where times were rough and food scarce, but where Highland honor flourished nevertheless and every harsh-spent hour came blessed with soul-deep smiles and boundless love.

 

A legacy now marred by the crushing heartbreak of life almost spent and urgent wishes not yet fulfilled.

 

Juliana sobbed in her sleep, her throat tightening nigh enough to suffocate her. Searing heat pricked the backs of her tight-pressed eyelids, but even trapped inside her most wrenching sorrows, she wore a bold and determined countenance, refused to allow the teensiest tear to slip down cheeks gone icy cold.

 

Near as cold as the thin, blue-veined hands reaching out, imploring her.

 

“No-o-o,” Juliana cried, flipping onto her back and wrestling with the tangled binds of her stubbornness. “I will not go there . . . cannot carry
recompense
to one whose callousness caused you naught but pain . . . a heartless dastard who considers us little more than a ragged brood of beggars—”

 

“You err, Juliana,” her mother lamented from the darkness, her words scarce audible above the iron clang of the bells tolling her end.

 

“See you, it was my own beloved hearth-mate who proved pernicious,
his
wickedness that closed the hearts of others,” she rasped, her tired voice breaking. “Do not blind yourself to your destiny for railing o’er ifs and might-have-beens. Do not fear—”

 

“Och, I see well enough,” Juliana sniffed, a sharp-taloned fist squeezing her heart. “You have been deluded by a man without the least tincture of virtues. A blackguard whose hardness and tyranny has earned him an eternity of contempt.”

 

Her saturation point well reached, she kicked at the bed linens holding her captive, clawed at her wispy-thin camise until nary a shred of its borrowed fineness yet clung to her riled and hot-flushed body.

 

“And let it be known I fear naught,” she added, sitting bolt upright, impotent fury coursing through her as her mother’s gaze began to glaze and grow unfocused. “I am not affrighted of the greatest hardship or misery, nor this black-hearted scoundrel you speak of as a friend—and if he and a full legion of his horned minions should come hallooing down the glen!”

 

Marjory Mackay’s face loomed over her then, infinitely sad and impossibly near, the sunken eyes bright and pleading.

 

“Juliana . . .”
she began, only to fall silent when everything shifted and the devil-demon himself stood leering at her again.

 

Nay, not . . . leering.

 

He no longer stared with narrowed, anger-filled eyes, all red-rimmed and spitting fire, but looked at her in terror . . . as if
he
feared her.

 

A vulnerability that wiped away his horns and hid his forked tail, the haunted look on his handsome face making him appear almost human.

 

Sympathetic and . . .
needy.

 

A prospect that chilled Juliana to the marrow of her bones.

 

 

Robbie walked into Sir Marmaduke’s erstwhile quarters and froze. The entire bedchamber, dark but for the dim glow of a low-burning fire, reeked of essence of lavender—a scented oil his stepmother e’er favored for her baths.

 

Only, as all at Eilean Creag knew, the lady Linnet indulged her ablutions in the seclusion of her own chamber’s tapestried walls.

 

Suspicion beginning to tickle the sensitive skin at the back of his neck, Robbie peered deeper into the gloom, his keen wits and sharp eyes probing the darkness for evidence of his good-uncle’s . . . meddling.

 

He found what he was seeking almost at once.

 

The validity of his instincts roundly confirmed by the large, cloth-lined bathing-tub whiling innocently in the shadows next the hearth. Cooled, oil-slicked water and the little half-emptied jar of lavender-scented soap a-winking at him from a three-legged stool conveniently placed nearby told the rest of the tale.

 

His own linen shirt and the MacKenzie great plaid hanging on a wall peg gave him irrefutable surety.

 

For whate’er his reasons, Sir Marmaduke Strongbow, master of mischievous subtlety but oh-so-good of heart, had sent Robbie strolling straight into a lavender-scented trap.

 

His beauty held her sweet, lush self somewhere within these thick, expectant walls and a quick, assessing glance around the dimly-lit room told him she could be but one place . . . ensconced behind the tightly-drawn curtains of the four-poster bed.

 

Reposed there alone and freshly bathed, her voluptuously curved body oiled and scented.

 

Mayhap even naked.

 

The thought sent heat pouring into his loins. Need and want flared within him, an inexorable force blazing hotter than a thousand bonfires. His heart swelled, too, the whole of it welling with an ache of yearning such as he’d never known.

 

Scarce aware of his actions, he unbuckled his sword belt, letting it drop to the rushes before he turned back to the closed door and slid its drawbar soundly in place.

 

The only other corner in all Eilean Creag not crowded with slack-mouthed, loud-snoring kinsmen at this hour were the deep vaults cut into the living rock far beneath the keep. The foul place his father had used to goad Sir Marmaduke.

 

Dungeon pits where naught but ghosts and water rats might find a decent sleep.

 

Robbie shuddered.

 

He would take his rest here.

 

Mayhap even steal a goodnight kiss.

 

Or more.

 

Desire thundering through him at the notion, he stripped off his tunic and crossed the room, his hands reaching for the closure of his leggings until awareness and a decidedly sharp prick of conscience halted him.

 

He might have just faced down his formidable father, and would surely do so again soon, and he most definitely possessed the cheek, and bone-deep weariness, to bed down in this chamber no matter who presently occupied it.

 

But he was not so bold-hearted and calloused to allow a possibly untouched maid catch him parading about with a lancelike protuberance rising in his braies!

 

Clenching his hands, he stood stock still, heated tension twisting through him, the whole of his tight-drawn body as granite-hard as the pulsing need at his groin.

 

Grateful for the shielding barrier of the closed bed curtains, lest his beauty waken and discover him in the all-too-obvious throes of such
un
knightly behavior, Robbie began slowly counting backward from one hundred and willed his raging
ache
to subside.

 

And so soon as it did, he’d gather up his discarded sword belt and tunic—along with his almost-abandoned honor—and exit the chamber as swiftly as he entered. He’d make his pallet in the hall with the rest of his father’s men and kinsmen . . . as all goodly knights ought do.

 

And where naught but moonbeams and snores might keep him from his sleep.

 

Aye, that is what he would do—after having words with a certain one-eyed Sassunach champion who just happened to be his good-uncle.

 

Or so he thought until he heard his beauty’s first moan.

 

 

 

 

Chapter Six

 

 

 

“N
O-O-O . . . I DINNA WANT . . .”

 

The muffled cry came from behind the drawn bed curtains, the anguish marring the cadence of the softly-

 

lilting voice wrenching enough to lance the most hardened of hearts.

 

Robbie’s plummeted to his toes.

 

“God’s wounds!” His blood freezing, he sprinted across the rushes to the great four-poster and yanked open the enclosing curtains.

 

The sight within squeezed his best restraint with a hard and heavy hand and sent all his just-banished licentious cravings crashing back over him in a surging, unstoppable
whoosh.

 

His beauty knelt in the middle of the bed.

 

Full-naked and singularly sweet, her bright-gleaming tresses spilled free to her hips and every gold-gilt inch of her shimmered in the dim light of the hearth fire.

 

Robbie stared at her, hardly able to breathe.

 

She scarce noticed him.

 

Clearly caught in the grasp of troubled dreams, she looked past him, her beautiful eyes opened but unseeing. She held one hand pressed tight against her breasts and flailed the air with the other, waving it before her as if to stave off a blow.

 

Or block out something she did not wish to see.

 

He saw . . .
everything.

 

A welter of bold and minute details seared themselves into his consciousness, rooting him in place and making it impossible to look away.

 

“Holy saints . . .” He smoothed a hand down over his mouth, his entire body thrumming with a fervency that stunned him.

 

Certain he could now be styled the most execrable rogue to e’er stalk the heather, he continued to stare, well aware of the scalding flush creeping up his neck. More damning still, hot blood scourged his loins until a certain roguish part of him swelled and lengthened, running full-stretch to boldly lift the fine-woven linen of his braies.