The Beast of Clan Kincaid (35 page)

Eyes wide with sadness, Elspeth whispered, “It is true.”

The Kincaid clenched his fist between them. “There were others also, warriors with unseen faces and unknown loyalties, who came down that night from the hills—belonging neither to the MacClaren nor the Alwyn—who carried out the massacre. We must learn their identities.” His tone became more urgent. “Faelan, the Alwyn knows who they are.”

It was too much. The thoughts crowding his mind. He needed time to think, to be alone, and decide what to do.

One hand staving through his hair, he backed away, muttering, “I must go. I … I will … return when I can.”

His boots crunched upon the path, as he stalked away from them, delving further into darkness.

“That's it?” the Kincaid called after him, his voice hollow with dismay and accusation. “You're just going to leave?”

Magnus stopped, and looked down at the earth. At the stones and dirt and grass beneath his leather boot. Kincaid land.

His land.
His legacy
.

Turning, he found them all gathered in a line, shoulder to shoulder, looking at him.

He took several steps toward them, until he was close enough to look into his brother's eyes.

“I don't know you.” Looking aside, his gaze swept across the faces of the others. “I don't know any of you. You are strangers to me—and I'm angry about that.”

Anger. Yes. That was what he felt. He wanted to rage. He wanted to punch a stone wall. He wanted to bellow until he was hoarse from it.

“Then stay,” said the Kincaid, stepping forward out of the line. “Take your place here.”

“Yes, stay,” Elspeth pleaded.

He shook his head and exhaled through his nose, commanding self-control as a fury such as he had never known reverberated through his veins.

“A brother. A mother and father. A clan.” He lifted his hands, as the fire in his soul burned hotter. “It is all I ever wanted.”

He paused, and clenched his hands into fists.

“But it was stolen from me.” His heart thundered in his chest. “I have been
grievously
deceived. Because of that deceit, all these years I have lived at that lecher's feet, a cast off. His bastard. His second best.” He again met Niall's gaze, and slowly nodded. “Aye, there is revenge to be had against the Alwyn, brother—but know this. It is I who will take it.”

 

Chapter 1

“Awaken, child,” said a woman's voice, low with urgency. The dim light of a lantern washed over the stone walls of Tara Iverach's small chamber. “Your guardian sends word that he travels near and wishes an audience.”

Tara pushed up on the narrow bed. The drab blanket fell away, exposing her skin to the chill. She shivered and seized the wool back against her neck and shoulders. Sister Agnes' words echoed in her ears.

Her guardian
 … Alexander Stewart, the powerful earl of Buchan …
here
, in this humble place?

To see her?

“You must be mistaken,” she said, her voice thick with sleep.

She had never even met him. He had shown no interest in her in the five years since her parents' deaths, when he had become responsible for her and her older sister, Arabel. Almost immediately he had summoned Arabel to be presented at court, while she had been delivered to Duncroft Priory where she had remained ever since, with only a rare letter from Arabel—once, perhaps twice a year—to remind her she had not been completely forgotten.

“I wish that I were mistaken,” Sister Agnes replied with a peevish lift of her brows. “I would much rather be sleeping than tending to you. Now hurry. You must be ready before sixth hour prayers.”

So it was true.

Tara's heart jumped, beating faster. What did Buchan's visit mean? Would she be taken away from Duncroft? Would her life change somehow, from this day on?

Sister Agnes took hold of her braid. Deftly unfastening it, she combed out Tara's hair with quick, brusque strokes.

Tara gasped, wincing, and rubbing at her temple.

Others entered then, two sleepy-eyed sisters carrying a small hip tub and servants with steaming buckets of water. Oh … a
real
bath—a rare luxury here. Most certainly she would be rushed through, and not allowed to enjoy it.

That much proved true. In less than an hour, she stood in the chapel along with the other inhabitants of the priory reciting prayers, her skin scrubbed pink and her hair tightly braided into circlets on either side of her head—but covered, as it was
always
covered with a veil. She dutifully murmured the words, but her thoughts wandered elsewhere.

Might this be the last time she stood here? The last time she would wear this shapeless gray gown? It was almost too much to hope for. After years of the cloister's quiet, uneventful existence, she had come to believe she would be confined here forevermore, forgotten by all, her life unlived—her heart never having loved.

Not that the other women who resided at the priory served an unimportant or unfulfilled purpose. They had chosen to devote themselves to the Lord, striving each day to center their thoughts and energies on Him.

Well,
most
of them had chosen to be here. Some were here, not precisely by choice. There was Lady Mary, a lively and intriguing gentlewoman who had been deposited here around the same time as Tara, but by a husband who claimed she was mad in order to repudiate her so that he could marry her prettier and much younger cousin.

Lady Mary was not the only “mad” wife at Duncroft Priory. Indeed, there was a row of rooms, just beside Tara's, each one occupied by a raving lunatic who never raved, never lunaticked. Scattered among them were a few accused adulteresses.

Some of the sequestered ladies seemed completely content to exist in the peace and quiet, away from the turmoil that had committed them here. Indeed, some only left their chambers for prayers.

Others ached to return to at least some aspects of the life they had left behind—as did Tara. She remembered happy scenes of life as it had been when her parents were alive. Now, no longer a child, she wanted to attend festivals and tournaments, as her sister described in her letters. She wanted to gossip with friends, and dance and laugh, and be introduced to—and flirt—with young men, the sort of creature she'd not caught a single glimpse of in her five long years here. Her chest tightened with wistful hope.

She wanted to
live
.

And now Buchan was coming, which gave her hope. Perhaps now that she was twenty, he would present her at court, as he had Arabel, and she and her sister could spend their days together in happy coexistence, as they had when they were younger. Maybe not every day, because Arabel would be married soon, if she was not already, as the last letter she'd written several months before had shared the news the earl had betrothed her to the eldest son of a powerful ally.

Just as the prayers came to an end, from behind Tara there came a sudden, excited whispering of female voices. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw two dark haired, angular-jawed young men in the doorway wearing fine leather hauberks belted with silver studded scabbards. They peered inside, their cheeks ruddy, their hair ruffled as if from travel, smiling arrogantly, at least to her unpracticed eye, though she could not claim to be an expert on male expressions. Several of the younger ladies from the Mad and Adulterous Wives corridor smiled back at them.

An older man with a close trimmed dark beard and imperious bearing joined them, shouldering between them, his features drawn with impatience. All three men had similar prominent noses and dark eyes that identified them as kin to one another. Tara's pulse tripped. It had to be Buchan. She had imagined someone older, and gray haired.

“Where is my ward?” he demanded testily, causing her heartbeat to ramp higher. “Come now, my time is important. Please don't waste it.”

Sister Agnes approached him quickly, nodding and extended an arm toward Tara. “Mistress Iverach, this way.”

Tara moved quickly as well, not wishing to be barked at for tarrying overlong. All along her way, the ladies stood back, watching the moment unfold. As she drew near, three pairs of male eyes latched onto her. It had been years since she had drawn the attention of anyone besides that of her fellow ladies. Her cheeks betrayed her self-consciousness, filling with heat.

Her gaze met the earl's for the briefest moment—and they struck her through with their intensity.

“My lord,” she murmured, bowing her head and curtsying as her mother had taught her to do so many years before, arms slightly extended.

“Mistress Iverach,” he said in a low voice. “How … lovely you are.”

“This way,” said Sister Agnes.

Tara held back, waiting for the men to follow, but they only stared at her in darkly amused silence.

The earl gestured that she should go before them. “I insist.”

She lowered her gaze and followed Sister Agnes. The heavy fall of their boots sounded on the stones close behind her and she felt their stares on her back. Perhaps it was only her lack of familiarity with men, but there was something distinctly unnerving about the earl and his sons. Though handsome and clearly schooled in all manner of noble manners, they cast an intimidating …
predatory
energy that put her on her guard.

Once inside the room, in which a large table had been laid out with an extensive breakfast, Sister Agnes remained near the door, silent and watching, while Tara moved toward the hearth, turning to face her visitors. The earl approached her, all elegance and good graces.

He smiled. “Most certainly by now you have surmised that I am Buchan, your guardian. These are my sons … Duncan Stewart, my eldest—” He gestured to one, with a wider face and a lock of hair that fell across his forehead, who nodded solemnly—and then to the other, who boldly held her gaze like a sharp-eyed, overconfident wolf. “And that is Robert.”

Tara acknowledged each with a nod.

“And you, Mistress Iverach … you are … a child no more, a woman full grown.” The earl moved closer to her, so close she could feel the heat of his body through the leather he wore. Lifting a hand, he pulled the veil from her hair, and grasped her by the shoulders.

She tensed, every fragment of her body going aware at the strength in his touch.

His eyebrows rose as he stared at her hair, which was tightly braided and fastened demurely in coils at her nape.

“How very … uncommon,” he breathed, nostrils flaring. “The shade … so unlike your sister's.”

It was often remarked upon that she and Arabel looked nothing alike, but that wasn't true. Their features were very similar. It was only that her hair was red, while her sister's was brown. Red hair was common enough, but she had been told more than once by one sister or another that her particular shade—

The earl's voice grew husky. “Hair like that puts wicked thoughts into a man's mind.”

The sisters had expressed similarly mortifying opinions.

Tara's cheeks flamed, and she wanted nothing more than to tear her veil from his hands and return it to her head. Instead, she held still, chin raised as the earl's gaze raked over her with more interest than she felt proper, given that he was her guardian, and last she knew, a married man.

His gaze shifted over her shoulder, to Sister Agnes. “Could you … leave us alone, please? So that we might speak privately?”

Tara rarely prayed outside of morning, midday and evening prayers, but she prayed now, and fervently.

Sister Agnes responded, “Forgive me, but I cannot. It is not convent practice to leave a young lady alone with any man who is not her father or her husband.”

Tara held in her sigh of relief.

A sour expression flickered across the earl's face.

“I am her guardian,” he answered in an imperious tone.

“
Not
 … her father or her husband,” said the nun, with all composure.

He squinted his eyes, and scowled. “Must I remind you of the generous support I provide to the sisters of this abbey?”

The hair along the back of Tara's neck rose in alarm that he continued to insist. She did not know why, precisely, but she knew she did not wish to be left alone with him and his wolfish sons. Had her sister felt the same instinctive caution?

“No, my lord,” Sister Agnes replied, her expression unchanged. “You need not.”

The earl smirked. “Then—“

Sister Agnes stood straight, her slender hands clasped at the waist of her nun's habit. Her eyes gleamed with challenge. “As I said, it is
not
 … convent practice … to leave a young lady alone … with any man who is not her father or her husband.”

Buchan rolled his eyes and let out a condescending
huff
. Duncan chuckled, amused, and strode to the table, where he poured himself a goblet of ale, and lowered himself, sprawling, into a chair. Robert joined him, sliding a goblet for his brother to fill. Behind them, the window shutters rattled, harried by a strong gust of autumn wind.

Releasing Tara, the earl brusquely returned her veil, dismissively thrusting the crumpled mass into her hands. In the next moment he pronounced, “I have come to see you because it is time that you are wed.”

“Wed,” she repeated softly.

The ground shifted beneath her feet—or very well seemed to. Did he speak generally or had an agreement already been made? She had hoped to be presented at court and to enjoy life away from the abbey and its restrictions for a time, not be married straightaway—

But she realized that she could not make demands of the earl. Her father, for whatever reason, had left her and her sister's futures in this man's hands. To question him, or argue against his decisions would show disrespect to her father's memory. At least that was what Arabel had written to her when Tara had complained of being left at the abbey overly long.