TemptationinTartan (19 page)

“Hmm,” he said. “There is a rumor of a very old blood sucker
who lives in the ruined tower at Kilborn Castle.”

“’Tisn’t a rumor,” Angus MacReiver said. “’Tis true. Others
saw him. He murdered every man in my clan last night.”

Hamish rubbed his chin. “If that’s true, none of us
roundabout is safe.”

“And what of the other Kilborns?” Angus asked. “Kieran
Kilborn tore off my laird’s head and drank his blood. I was there. I saw it. I
saw the body.”

“Ye were there? How did ye survive?”

Angus flushed and turned away. “I ran,” he said in a low
voice. “May God forgive me, I saw the
diabhol
Kilborn behead my laird
with his bare hands and I ran.”

Another man touched Angus’ shoulder. “’Tis no shame to live
to fight another day.”

Angus straightened his back and faced Hamish. “And so I
shall fight another day. With or without ye.”

“Where is your laird?” Hamish asked, aware that Angus had no
power.

“The young laird is missing and so is his uncle, who has
been leading us until Laird Edgar is of age.”

Hamish nodded slowly, his mind churning. Empty land meant
strife. If the Kilborns did not take the MacReiver lands, another clan would
move in. War would likely follow. Would it be best to keep out of the
inevitable violence?

Father Paul cleared his throat. “The minions of the devil
must be cast out. I have spoken with Lydia Kilborn this day and she has
confirmed that Kieran Kilborn is a vampire.” He fixed Hamish with a steady
gaze.

“She said he was a vampire? She used that word?”

“Nay, but—”

“What, exactly, did she say?”

“Her husband is oft abroad at night. She cannae recall a
time when she has seen him in the sunlight. His icy skin is like white paper
and his eyes and hair the color of the devil’s heart. We already ken he’s a
blood drinker. There is neither priest nor church at the Godless castle the
Kilborns call home.” The priest’s voice rose. “He is unnaturally strong.
Milaird, thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!”

Hamish rubbed his chin. “I need not be reminded of my duty
to my clan and my God.”

Chapter Twenty-One

When Owain returned from reconnoitering the area, Lydia
glanced at his frown and finished her tea. She thanked her hostess, explaining
that she was needed back at Kilborn Castle before sundown. She rode back home
with a head full of questions and misgivings, unable to sort them out as her
gelding clippety-clopped along the cliffside trail.

Kieran a vampire! It couldn’t be, and yet…

He waited for her at the gate, smiling. She practically fell
off her horse in her eagerness to hold him again and reassure herself of his
humanity, but stopped when she saw that a boy lingered by his side.

“And who have we here?” She knelt so she was at the child’s
eye level. He was grubby, skinny and blond, p’raps ten, she reckoned. Older
than her brother’s sons, but with an ancient soul that shone out of his clear
blue eyes.

“This is Edgar, Laird MacReiver. He will be fostering with
us.” There was pleasure in Kieran’s voice, and something else she couldn’t
identify.

She looked at her husband, seeing an unfamiliar expression
of…pride? Joy? Good heavens. She’d known he wanted her to increase and took
every chance he could to get her pregnant, but she hadn’t realized that he
liked children. She’d rarely seen him roughhousing with one of the clan’s younglings.
But now he seemed truly pleased by the small hand clutching his, and glanced
down frequently as if to reassure the child, who seemed to be unusually
interested in the ground beneath his feet. No doubt terrified, the poor little
mite.

She smiled at the boy. “Welcome, Edgar. I’m Lydia.”

“Milady.” He executed a bow that was quite elegant,
considering he was only ten.

Looking up at her through downy golden lashes, he gave her a
quick, shy smile and she was lost, ignoring the flow of warriors leading their
mounts around them and into their stables. Her scrutiny was interrupted only
when Kier nudged her.

“Milady, we must away.”

“Away where? I just got back.”

Kieran nodded upward. “Come.” Still holding Edgar’s hand, he
led them to the highest wall-walk, facing the ocean.

A flattened round sun was setting, glimmering red-orange
through the mist-shrouded evening. She glanced at her husband. He seemed
unperturbed by its light, such as it was. She resolved to wait. Surely the sun
would shine brightly at some point in their lives, and she’d know. In the
meantime, she would watch to see if Kier ate the boar sausage their kitchen
produced, which was heavily flavored with herbs and wild garlic, or if he
turned into a bat, or…

What silliness. How could one know if anything the priest
had said was the truth? He’d seemed to believe what he said, but surely he was
wrong.

Mayhap part of it was true and the rest fancy. Foolish, the
tales of creatures who didn’t cast reflections and who slept in coffins. But
the parallels did trouble her. She had cast aside her concern about the killing
of the MacReiver. P’raps now that his son was part of their household that old
worry had re-emerged.

The scrape of boots on stone warned of someone else’s
approach. Dugald. He was panting as though he’d rushed.

“Ye’re just in time.” Kieran looked over the parapet to the
cove.

Dugald followed suit and Kier lifted Edgar up to see,
keeping a firm hold on the boy by grasping the waistband of his trews. Lydia
noticed that the pants were not only grubby—which she would have expected,
considering that their owner was a ten-year-old boy—but worn and odorous as
well. She decided that a bath and clean clothing were in Edgar’s immediate
future, hoping that he wouldn’t resist. At times her nephews had stridently
resisted bathing.

She peered over the wall. Far below, on their pebbly beach,
stood a gaunt, white-haired figure clad all in black. She sucked in her breath.
“Is that…himself?”

“Aye,” Kier said.

Dugald’s features were set and still. Edgar watched wide-eyed
and silent while the thin old manput a plaidie-wrapped bundle into a
wooden box. He then set it on a flat platform that bobbed in the surf rolling
ceaselessly onto the cove’s shore.

Apparently unconcerned about the effect of the seawater on
his rather fine buckled boots, he walked the raft-like platform out into the
ocean. When he was hip-deep, he took a tinderbox from inside his shirt and
struck sparks into the box. She guessed that the plaidie was dry, for a plume
of smoke soon emerged.

He continued walking the platform out, then began to swim.
She was astonished to see the speed at which he cleaved the water, even while
pushing the box in front of him.

Darkness continued to fall. Kieran put his free arm around
her waist and she snuggled into his bulk.

“That’s its…um…his head, is it not?” Edgar’s voice was high
and a little scared.

“Aye, I believe so,” Kier said.

“Aye.” Dugald sounded hoarse.

Edgar opened his mouth, then closed it. Lydia sensed that
the child was full of questions but politely restrained himself. An interesting
ten-year-old, one who had learned rigid control and at such a young age. But at
what cost?

She looked out over the sea. He was now far from shore, but
she could still see them, the old man and his glowing burden. She blinked back
tears. Though she feared the tower’s crazed inhabitant, she found this small
ceremony to honor Euan deeply touching, even heroic. She wondered how he had
retrieved the head and resolved to ask Kieran during a private moment.

When she had regained her equanimity, she saw that the old
man and his burden had disappeared, swallowed by the darkness and the fog. She
touched Dugald on the shoulder. “’Tis full night, sir. Will you join us for a
bit of supper?”

He glanced at her. His eyes were puffy and his skin pale.
“Thank ’ee, milady, in a few. I have duties to perform before I may rest.” He
glanced at Kieran.

“As do we.” Kier looked from Dugald to Edgar to Lydia.

“Ah,” she said. “I understand.”

“I don’t.” Edgar now sounded plaintive. “When may I learn
this trick of speaking with few if any words?”

Lydia joined in the men’s uproarious laughter.

* * * * *

Kier was still laughing later at dinner, when, damper than
before, he led an even wetter Edgar into the Great Hall. Though the boy had
been towel-dried, his blond hair was still dark with moisture. He was dressed
in a clean shirt and fresh trews. Lydia couldn’t see bruising on either her
husband or the boy, so p’raps Edgar was more obedient than her nephews. He
certainly seemed to have a tight hold on his dignity, seeming older than his
stature indicated. That troubled her, but she didn’t know the reason. Seemed
unnatural.

Kier led him to the high table, where tonight extra places
had been laid. He described what they’d discovered that day and explained the
terms of the truce to Lydia.

She tipped her head to one side and regarded the two of
them. “So you’re to be my son in marriage as well as my fosterling?”

Edgar bent his head. “Aye. If you’ll have me, milady.”

“Well, as we don’t yet have a daughter, the matter is one of
speculation, is it not?” She eyed her husband.

Kieran grinned back. “P’raps we need to be more,
um…determined on that score.”

“I don’t know how we could be.” She returned his smile.
“Mayhap we should discuss that…later. In any event, Edgar, you are welcome in
our home, for as long as you like.”

The boy’s cheeks grew pink and she hurriedly said, to cover
his discomfort, “Please, sit. Have a bite to eat. You must be famished.”

After Edgar had toyed with his stew and even swallowed a few
bites, Kier tugged him to his feet. “Now, lad, your first lesson. Ye must
always talk to your people as honestly as ye can.”

He was every inch the proud papa as he led Edgar to each
group of clansmen during the meal, introducing the boy and explaining the
situation. From her seat, she could see the people’s reactions.

The usual tumult that reigned in the Great Hall at
dinnertime quieted, then rose again as noisy discussion exploded. After initial
reluctance to welcome a MacReiver as anything but a prisoner, the clan was won
over by the excellent terms. And why not? Clan MacReiver’s lands were, in
effect, added to Clan Kilborn.

And everyone liked their new fosterling. The women wanted to
cuddle the skinny, quiet child while the men wanted to toughen him up so he’d
become a proper laird, a strong ally and a good husband to their unborn
princess.

As Kier and the boy traversed the room, oohs and ahs sounded
with necks craned to see the lad. “Welcome!” someone called. Lydia thought it
was Niall. More voices joined in. Cheers sounded and cups were raised as the
pair returned to the laird’s table.

Edgar turned astonished eyes on Kieran. “I have always been
told the Kilborns were our enemies.”

“Friends are better,” Kier said. “Elsbeth, a stool for young
Edgar. Dugald, sit and eat with us.”

As the males attacked the venison stew, Lydia folded her
hands in her lap and looked at them.

She’d wanted a family of her own, and here it was. Not the
family she’d envisioned—her children would come later—but a family
nevertheless.

And she hoped that the spate of terrible events and bad luck
had come to an end. What more could happen?

Then she remembered Kieran’s warning—
I fear that this
murder will bring neighboring clans down on us. They ken Euan’s value. They ken
that his loss will tear out the heart of us. I’m worried.

But who would attack them now? The MacReivers were destroyed
and the Gwynns seemed peaceful. Nice, even. And they were religious. Hadn’t
Christ said, “Love your neighbor”?

* * * * *

Sir Gareth swam back to the cove after pushing the raft with
Euan’s remains out into the north-flowing sea current. By that time, the wooden
box and its contents had almost completely burned, and he was sure that no
further defilement of his brother would take place.

Though he’d drunk his fill the previous night, the exertion
had left him cold and hungry. After walking to the back of the sea caves in the
cliff, he found a narrow staircase—really no more than rough cuts in the rock
with a few ancient metal cleats here and there—and climbed it to the next
level. Unused by others, it was twisting and rickety. It led to the oubliettes,
dark cells pocking a rough rock corridor winding through the interior of the
sea cliff beneath the Dark Tower.

Securing one such oubliette was a rusty gate composed of a
latticework of crumbling metal, encrusted by barnacles at the bottom from the
high tide. Its crude lock was no more than a twist of wire, too heavy for most
men but easily disentangled by Sir Gareth. No light from nature or fire, but
the lack of illumination didn’t trouble him.

Inside, secured to rings bolted and sunk into the cliff, was
his larder—two men and a woman. They were naked, shivering and close to
unconsciousness, hanging from their chains with muscles limp and weak. The
woman he’d already sampled, and he knew he liked her. The men—well, they were
MacReivers, so how good could they taste? He could save them for later.

He approached Moira and dragged her head to one side by the
hair before sinking his teeth into her neck. She groaned and twitched, her chains
rattling. He set his other hand on her breast, tugging on her nipple. It
hardened and distended between his fingers. She whimpered.

“For Lord’s sake, stop!” The hoarse cry echoed through the
dungeon, louder than the rush of the sea.

Louder even than the rush of the blood through his gut and
into his veins. Louder than the frantic pulse in the woman’s breast. Sir Gareth
removed his teeth from Moira’s neck. “Why?” He pinched her tit.

“She doesnae deserve to die like that! None of us do.”

“Pardon me, but I believe that the three of you are
responsible for my brother’s death.” Sir Gareth licked the two wounds he’d left
in Moira’s throat.

“Moira Cameron is a fine, brave woman. She defended her
honor.”

He threw back his shaggy white head and howled with mirth,
the insane laughter bouncing off the damp stone walls of the dungeon. He
followed the sound, dancing and jumping about, for the blood burned and boiled
and leaped as it flowed within him. And all the time the rushing, the rushing
in and out of the tides and the blood in his body and his veins drummed, and
the eyes inside wept for Euan.

“So she told you her name was Moira Cameron, did she now?”
Sir Gareth pushed his mind past the rushing of the blood and the tide, and the
eyes inside went dry and cold and hard. He slapped her face and her head
bounced against the stone with a crack like the lightning strike of death.
“She’s Moira Kilborn, you great fool.”

“That cannae be.” The fool of a MacReiver was insistent.
“She’s got red hair!”

Sir Gareth laughed some more, then calmed, leaning against
one of the walls for support. “I’m mad, you know.”

“So it seems.” The MacReiver was grim.

“But I’m not so insane as to forget my family. Her red
hair’s from her mother. She’s Moira Kilborn, daughter of Fenella MacLeod and
Ivor Kilborn, who was lost at sea five years ago.”

The man sagged in his chains. “She lied to us.”

“Aye, she’s a bitch born. I do not know why. Fenella’s a
sweet lassie and Ivor was a fine man. But this one has ever been a trial to the
clan.”

“Are you going to kill her?”

Sir Gareth shrugged. “I do not usually kill women, but for
this one, I might make an exception. But you, MacReiver, you will surely die in
this place. If you worship any god, it is time for you to make whatever peace
you can. Especially given the blood on your hands. How did my brother hurt
you?”

“What? Who?”

“Euan Kilborn was my brother,” Sir Gareth ground out, the
snarl of his voice echoing the great, scowling soul that lurked and hid within
him but occasionally insisted upon coming out to play.