Read Only For A Knight Online

Authors: Welfonder Sue-Ellen

Only For A Knight (39 page)

BOOK: Only For A Knight
13.22Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

 

She lifted a brow. “Aye, Mother gave the parchment to me, but mayhap she told you what was on it?”

 

Kenneth compressed his lips into a hard tight line.

 

The sudden burst of increased ticking beneath his left eye spoke the truth.

 

His guilt.

 

Indeed, ne’er good at lying, he fair glowed with discomfiture.

 

“What did she want him to know, Kenneth?” Juliana demanded, certain now. Her pulse pounding, she narrowed her eyes at him, did her best not to blink. “Tell me true or I shall forget I have a brother.”

 

“By all that’s holy!” Kenneth swore, swinging down from his garron. He strode over to her and pulled her into his arms so tightly he near crushed the breath from her.

 

“I did not want to tell you—thought it best you ne’er know,” he said, his voice filled with such agony she almost regretted pushing him. “I especially vowed not to tell you when I arrived at Eilean Creag and discovered you’d become the . . . er . . . that Sir Robert had taken a fancy to you.”

 

“Hah—you say so!” Juliana lifted her chin, held her ground. “And I say I meant what I said—speak true or you are no longer my brother.”

 

“Aye, but
that,
my heart, is the sorry truth of it!” he cried, letting go of her to ram both hands through his hair. “See you, I am not your brother . . . not your full brother, anyway. You have nary a drop of MacKenzie blood in your veins . . . only I do. You—”

 

Shock slammed into Juliana, the length of her running icy cold. She stared at her brother, her
half
brother, too stunned to speak. Then, as the full impact of his revelation hit her, she swayed, her legs giving out on her.

 

“How could you?” she cried out, dropping to her knees. “Ne’er would I have kept such a secret from you.”

 

The blue world all around them began to swirl and dip beneath her and from somewhere distant, she heard her own sobs, loud and ringing in her ears. Heart-wrenching sobs of mindless joy, they ripped her dread to tiniest pieces and cast her cares to the wind.

 

Wind that hooted and cried in triumphant, gleeful delight.

 

“What are you saying? Who, then, was my father?” she heard herself ask, comprehension still washing through her, her voice coming from someplace so far off she scarce heard the words.

 

Just as she could scarce see her brother, for so many hot-streaming tears blinded her she could barely see her own trembling hands pressing hard against her cheeks.

 

“I am sorry, lass. I but meant to protect you—but I did not harbor secrets from you.” Kenneth’s voice came to her, equally distant, but so warm, comforting. “I ne’er knew myself until our mother told me on her deathbed,” he admitted, pacing back and forth in front of her as he spoke.

 

That, too, reminding her of her knight.

 

A reminder that filled her heart to bursting and let her spirit soar, despite her agitation at Kenneth. Looking away, she stared off at the great, moody hills, the heavy clouds resting on their peaks, so many questions still swirling through her mind. Then, glancing back at Kenneth, she dashed a hand across her cheek, drew a deep, quivering breath.

 

“I would know the whole of it,” she said, peering at him as the cold wind scurried round her, pulling at her
arisaid
, and somehow, at times, feeling almost like caring hands trying to tug her to her feet. “Tell me true—if Kenneth MacKenzie did not sire me, who did?” she asked again. “Do you even know?”

 

“Ah, well,” Kenneth began, his voice resigned, “if I understood rightly, it would seem that when my father’s amorous attentions turned elsewhere, our mother, may the saints rest her soul, thought she might win back his affection if she told him she’d grown heavy with another child.”

 

Juliana swallowed, staring at him. “But he was no longer . . . paying her court?” she supplied, seeing the truth of her guess in her brother’s nod.

 

“Aye, that will have been the length of it,” he admitted. “So she sought the . . .
assistance
of a pleasing man who was apparently fond of her, and when you were born, she told my father that he had sired you as well—which, of course, he had not.”

 

“But the deception availed her nothing.” Juliana made the words a statement, comprehension striking her full in the heart. “Her great love—your father, Kenneth MacKenzie—abandoned her regardless.”

 

Again Kenneth inclined his head. “By all accounts, my father had wholly besotted himself in your Robbie’s mother. Beyond all measure and deeply enough to allow his passion for her to ignite the heather with the greatest scandal and shame e’er to stalk these hills.”

 

“Our poor mother . . . to keep such sorrow locked in her heart all these years.” Juliana’s own heart clenched with memories of how good her mother’s life had appeared on the surface.

 

Despite the harshness and toil, Marjory Mackay had e’er brimmed with bright smiles and warmth, and her home always rang with laughter and cheer, happy voices e’er calling, each new day cozy and comforting as the smell of peat smoke and fresh-made oatcakes.

 

Juliana blinked back the hot tears stinging her eyes. “I had no idea. She must have faced unbearable pain, the blackest days . . .”

 

“She was a strong woman. She had courage—as do you. But this, she ne’er wanted us to know for fear we would think ill of her.” He paused, gave her a penetrating look, his eyes warming with compassion. “With her end approaching, she fretted for us, our future. She wished to straighten her past . . . even implored me to go to Eilean Creag, believing Kintail would accept me into his fold.”

 

He glanced aside, shoved the hair back from his forehead. “That is what stood on the parchment, see you? She hoped to win peace for us . . . see past wrongs righted. She felt the Black Stag might be moved to find a good match for you, whether you were his true-born niece or nay.”

 

Juliana stared at her brother, not quite yet daring to hope. “But I am not his niece, am I?”

 

Her brother shook his head, the hard firm line of his mouth confirming it. Juliana’s temples began to throb, her own mouth going dry. For one fleeting instant a bolt of white-edged fury shot through her, making her itch to wring his neck, pommel him with tightly-clenched fists until her face stopped burning and she could breath again.

 

Instead, she dug trembling fingers into her skirts and met his guilt-laden gaze with the most penetrating stare she could aim at him.

 

“It is true,” she got out on a choking cry. “I see it writ all o’er you, yet you held your tongue at Eilean Creag—let us journey all this way! And that without the least thought to my own wishes, knowing how much I lov—”

 

“’Tis damnable, I will not deny,” Kenneth jerked, shoving a hand through his hair. “But, see you, lass,” he protested, looking miserable, “I but meant to shield you, to spare you grief at the hands of—” he broke off, scowled blackly as if he could find no more words.

 

“So—why did you tell me now,” Juliana prodded, the sincere look of remorse clouding her brother’s face dousing her own flashing burst of anger. “Come you, I would hear why,” she added, the prickly golden warmth of excitement beginning to rekindle inside her. She lifted a brow, thrust her chin at him, waiting. “Out with it, Kenneth.”

 

“God’s holy bones!” Kenneth thundered. “I told you now because I could no longer bear to see you in such despair. For truth, I vow you would pry a confession from a tree stump!” he added, glowering at her. “Saints save me—and have mercy on the MacKenzies, with the likes of you in their midst!”

 

“In their midst?”
Leaping up, Juliana launched herself at him, hugging him as tightly as she could before reaching to wipe the surprising dampness from his cheeks. “Does that mean you are ready to take me back to them?”

 

Kenneth hurrumped, glanced aside. But after a tense moment, he nodded. “Think you I do not ken that you’d walk the whole distance if I did not?” he ventured, his handsome face lightening a bit.

 

And upon seeing his capitulation, the sweetest joy swept through Juliana, tightening her throat and blurring her vision. A great peace came over her, a precious golden warmth filling even the deepest corners of her heart with such bliss she wondered her happiness did not spill over to flood the vast moorland stretching so endlessly around them.

 

“So!” she cried then, blinking hard. “Our mother hoped the Black Stag would see me well settled?” She looked up at the sky, dashed the tears from her own eyes. “I vow he already has! Not that he knows it yet . . . or even my Robbie,” she added, her voice thick with emotion. “But they will anon—so soon as we can return to Eilean Creag.”

 

 

A journey that took all of two days . . . one day less than the number of days they’d ridden north.

 

Juliana’s breath caught in her throat when, at last, the great MacKenzie stronghold rose up out of the mists before them. Though she would have ne’er believed it possible, Eilean Creag Castle loomed even more dismal than it had on the day when her knight had galloped up to its forbidding gatehouse. When he thundered across its stone causeway with her, taking her into his home and his heart, only to lose her again so soon as love was found.

 

Indeed the castle appeared deserted, with nary a guard to be seen on the ramparts, the portcullis gate firmly in place, and only a scant few of the narrow window slits showing glimmers of light.

 

But as they raced nearer, a lone figure appeared on the battlements.

 

He watched them with apparent interest, staring at them as raptly as the Black Stag had glared down at her on her first arrival here. Although this figure was of the same great height and also cloaked in black,
this observer
stared in disbelief.

 

Disbelief, awe, and joy.

 

Bright-shimmering joy streamed out from him, lighting his handsome face even from this distance and warming Juliana to the roots of her soul.

 

Even wee Mungo, secured in his saddle basket, yipped in happy, excited recognition.

 

Aye, there could be no mistake. ’Twas her knight . . . and he’d seen them.

 

As they thundered closer, a great sob of joy gathered in Juliana’s breast and she stared through her tears, watching as he whirled around and vanished from the battlements. The speed with which the portcullis began rattling upward bespoke of how swiftly he must have raced down the tower stairs, ordered the gates thrown wide.

 

Then he was there, bursting from the shadows to run toward her as quickly as his long legs would carry him, tearing her from her brother’s horse before Kenneth could even draw to a full halt before the gatehouse.

 

“God be praised!” he cried, crushing her to him, not even sparing a glance for Kenneth or the many kinsmen now appearing from everywhere, the lot of them, circling round to stare. And cheer. “Saints! Can it be true?” He rained kisses across her face, murmuring endearments against her damp cheeks, holding her so fiercely he nigh squeezed the breath from her. “I thought I’d ne’er see you again, but . . . but . . .”

 

He set her from him, a shadow crossing his face, blotting his joy. “It may have been best if you’d stayed away,” he said, the whole of his body trembling as he held her, the regret in his eyes lancing her. “We—”

 

“Nay, you err, my Robbie. I
had
to return . . . to tell you the best of tidings!” She threw her arms around his neck, beamed up at him, her heart swelling, her mouth curving in a shining, tremulous smile. “I am not a MacKenzie, not your cousin in any degree. I—”

 

Her words were lost in the crashing down of his mouth on hers and a furious, breath-stealing hug as he tightened his arms around her, pulling her ever harder against him.

 

“What are you saying, lass?” He broke the kiss, crooked his fingers beneath her chin so she could not look away. “You are not my Uncle Kenneth’s daughter?”

 

“Nay, I am not,” she said, lifting up on her toes to brush the tenderest kiss across his lips. “’Tis a long tale, best left for the fireside, but, nay, nary a drop of MacKenzie blood flows in my veins. There exists no reason I cannot be yours . . . if you still want me?”

 

“If I want you?”
Robbie let loose a great shout of exaltation. “Does the sun rise each new day? Does—” but his words were lost in the joyous cries and hoot-hooting of his kinsmen. Loud, boisterous cheering, well peppered with a wet snuffle or two and the barking of the frolicking castle dogs.

 

But at last, when the ruckus began to lessen, Robbie turned to Kenneth, gesturing him near, for Kenneth stood alone, a good ways apart from the jostling, happy throng of his MacKenzie kinsmen.

 

“You, my friend . . . my good
cousin,
” Robbie called to him, laying especial warmth on the word, “come away in and help my lady tell me what this is about . . . o’er a fine cup of heather ale in our hall, if you will, eh?”

 

Kenneth looked at him for a long moment, hesitation and a touch of resentment still clouding his features. “You name me cousin—what makes you think I am? Now that you have heard my sister is not of your blood?”

 

“Hah!” Robbie hooted a laugh, a broad grin spreading across his face. He planted his hands on his hips, looked round at his grinning kinsmen. “Did any of you e’er hear a more fool question?”

 

No one answered him in words.

 

Every man present shook his head.

 

Looking supremely satisfied, Robbie strode forward, clamped a firm hand on Kenneth’s shoulder. “See you,
cousin,
even if we forget your looks”—he slanted a glance at the Black Stag—“the stubborn set of your jaw and the twitch beneath your left eye give away your blood. Dinna tell me you will deny it? Turn your back on your own family?”

 

“Nay, I will not deny it, and I accept your offer . . . gladly,” Kenneth said, the words choked, his deep voice suspiciously thick.

 

Then, to Juliana’s amazement, his face suffused with pleasure. Seeing it, she blinked, her heart swelling as, equally startling as Kenneth’s unexpected acquiescence, a smile began quirking at the corners of his lips.
BOOK: Only For A Knight
13.22Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

The Kissing Stars by Geralyn Dawson
The 7th Canon by Robert Dugoni
Carnival of Shadows by R.J. Ellory
Jane Doe January by Emily Winslow
Chasing Cezanne by Peter Mayle
Broken Spell by Fabio Bueno
The Efficiency Expert by Portia Da Costa
Burned by Jennifer Blackstream