The Renegade's Heart (19 page)

There was a new distance between them
although Murdoch was not certain why. It bothered him, although he
knew he should be glad that she drew away from him of her own
accord. It might make it less painful for her to expect nothing
from him, and she would be less disappointed when he disappeared.
“Where is she?”

“Sicily, last I heard. Rosamunde was supposed
to come for the Yule with Padraig, but they never arrived.”

“Do you know why?”

Isabella frowned. “My aunt is not
conventional, but her word is her bond. She did not vow to be here
at the Yule, so she might have changed her plans. In truth, no one
made much of it at the time.”

“Why would your brother wish for her presence
now?” The answer was obvious to Murdoch, but he wanted Isabella to
see the connection. It made sense to Murdoch that the laird might
suspect this aunt – and he might have greater cause to request her
presence than mere suspicion.

Isabella held Murdoch’s gaze. “Perhaps he
simply seeks her counsel.”

“Perhaps he believes she knows more of this
matter than he does.”

Isabella clearly did not care for that
suggestion, though Murdoch knew it was the most obvious one. “Let
us not suspect another member of my family before we clear the
first.” She pivoted and marched toward the altar. The ghosts of the
dead eased away from her path, still watching, still accusatory,
but also helpless against the vitality of her presence.

Murdoch swallowed then followed. He had been
cornered by the dead and now would descend willingly into a
crypt.

Because Isabella asked him to do so.

* * *

There was a panel in the wooden floor behind
the altar, one that Isabella struggled to open herself. Murdoch
stepped past her and hauled the panel upward, realizing that it was
hinged like a door in the floor. He let it lean against the back
wall, swallowing at the stairs that disappeared into the darkness
below.

The ghosts rushed forward. He could not
stifle the sense that he descended into a tomb, one from which he
might not ever depart.

Isabella seized a candle from the table
behind the altar, then rummaged for the flint that must be there.
Perhaps it was not, for she could not find it. Murdoch reached into
his purse and produced his own flint, striking it and lighting the
wick of the beeswax candle. When the flame kindled and cast a
golden light into the dark chapel, he wondered that he had not
thought of lighting a candle sooner. The warm sweet scent of the
beeswax soothed his fears and the light either dispatched the
ghosts or made them harder to see.

While he was reassured by the candle’s light,
Isabella was not.

“It has grown so fast as this?” she demanded.
Before he could reply, she had put down the candle. She seized his
left wrist with both of her hands and pushed up his sleeve, her
gaze roving over the blue mark on his skin.

It had doubled in size during the night,
Murdoch knew. It covered his arm from the root of his fingers to
his elbow. Isabella turned his hand over and he saw that there were
tendrils snaking across his palm as well as the underside of his
forearm.

She looked up at him. “Do you pattern
yourself apurpose?”

“No.” Murdoch shook his head and tugged his
hand free of hers. He pulled down his sleeve and donned his gloves
again, then gestured to the stairs. “The crypt,” he reminded
her.

Isabella did not move. “It spreads. You had a
small whorl on the back of your wrist, but now it is darker and
broader. What is it?”

Murdoch swallowed. “A curse. A curse that
will claim me body and soul before the moon is new again.”

“But...”

He saw the curiosity in her eyes, but
gestured impatiently to the stairs. “There is little time,
Isabella, and no cure.”

She held his gaze. “This is why you spoke so
sternly to me yesterday,” she whispered and he should have been
dismayed that she saw his truth so readily. “You would not promise
what you cannot do.”

Murdoch could not deny it. Isabella surveyed
him, then nodded once, evidently having made a decision.

Murdoch yearned to know what it was, but she
descended four stairs before reaching back for the candle. Only
then did Murdoch realize he should have preceded her. Their fingers
brushed in the transaction, making his body heat anew.

Then Isabella continued down the stairs. As
she disappeared into the crypt, the light from the candle went with
her. As the shadows grew in the chapel once more, the dead eased
closer. Murdoch leapt after her, convinced that he felt ghosts
snatch at his cloak and his hair. They meant to claim him. No, they
meant to keep him here, in this chapel, in the ranks of the
dead.

Such was his terror that he reached back and
hauled the door closed behind them, sealing himself into the crypt
with Isabella. Only once it was done did he marvel at his own
choice.

He could smell earth and damp stone. Murdoch
swallowed and turned, spying Isabella in a pool of light at the far
end of the cellar. He noted that the crypt was slightly smaller
than the church above but of the same shape. The ceiling was so low
that he would have to duck beneath the beams to follow Isabella to
the other end. The floor was uneven, simply pounded dirt, and
Murdoch refused to think of what might have been buried in this
place.

It was so very cold.

He made to follow Isabella, and that was when
he saw the skeletons. In the long walls of the crypt, there were
niches carved out of the earth. In each was a skeleton, as if he
looked into the sides of coffins long interred. Murdoch could see
that the spaces were buttressed with stones above the head and
below the feet of each skeleton. The face of the one on his right
was turned to him, the vacant eyes of the skull and the bared teeth
making him feel as if the dead man laughed at him.

Murdoch shivered.

“Those who die in the defense of Kinfairlie
are entombed here in honor to their service,” Isabella said, noting
his surprise. She cast him a smile. “We come to venerate them on
certain holy days. Otherwise, they sleep untroubled.” Murdoch could
not match her light mood, although he endeavored to do so. “It has
been long since Kinfairlie was attacked and I understand their
ghosts are long dispatched.”

She made a jest but she was right. Murdoch
forced himself to take a deep breath and reclaim his senses. The
dead in this cellar, to his relief, were merely bones.

Silent.

He had found sanctuary from all that haunted
him, and in the last place he might have sought it.

* * *

What was the mark on Murdoch’s arm? Isabella
had never seen the like of it. It covered his skin, almost like a
rash, but it looked to be drawn. It was blue and consisting of a
design of circles and swirls. She was reminded of the way that
ferns unfurled in the spring, of the way water spun around the
rocks in the river, of the way frost could draw a white path across
the surface of a still water.

She had only caught a glimpse of it the day
before, but she knew that it had been much smaller. He said he was
cursed and she guessed that the mark on the skin was a
representation of progress made.

Was he a condemned man as the smith
implied?

Isabella had known at first glimpse of
Murdoch this morning that something was amiss. She had thought him
a man turned to ice, for he had been so pale and cold. He had
appeared to be lost, as well, like one awakened abruptly from a bad
dream. This was the mark of the malady, as sure a sign as the blue
marks on his flesh.

After their kiss, though, Murdoch seemed to
have recovered his usual manner. He was cavalier and daring,
restored to the knight she had first encountered. Now, he strode
across the floor to her side and Isabella glanced up at him. She
was relieved to see the familiar glint of recklessness and humor in
his eyes.

’Twas then she wondered whether she might be
able to heal him. He thought the malady incurable, and he would not
make promises to her for fear of being unable to keep them.

What if Isabella could turn the tide? The
notion made her heart skip. She was attempting to fit the key into
the lock upon the trunk that held the treasures of the chapel, and
having no success with the deed.

“It will not turn,” she complained, peering
at the lock.

“Another stolen key?” Murdoch teased, taking
the brass key from her hand. “A man must be careful of his
treasures in your company.”

“Borrowed,” she corrected and they shared a
smile that heated her to her toes. “I always return them.”

“After you have satisfied your curiosity.”
There was no censure in his tone, merely affection. “The keys may
be safe enough but the secrets have no chance.”

Isabella liked that he cast her an irreverent
grin and liked even better that he crouched down beside her so that
his shoulder bumped against her own. He lifted the key from her
fingers and she thought he ensured that his hand lingered against
her own.

Murdoch inserted the key again, jiggled it
and the tumblers rolled.

“Sorcerer!” she charged, then realized she
shouldn’t have done so. He seemed alarmed by her teasing
accusation, which surprised her. What would a knight care about
sorcery and superstition? That was the provenance of old women –
like Moira.

“I thought that was the trade of the
Lammergeier,” he said with care.

“So it is rumored,” Isabella acknowledged,
tipping back the lid of the trunk. “Though I have yet to see any
such powers at work.”

“Truly?” He was watching her with that
intensity once again.

Isabella thought for a moment. “My sister,
Elizabeth, claims to be able to see a spriggan, a troublesome fairy
called Darg.” She rolled her eyes. “Darg apparently is concerned
primarily with stealing ale and making dire pronouncements about
our marital prospects.”

Murdoch seemed to be fighting a smile.
“Indeed? What does Darg say about you?”

Isabella glanced at him and saw that he was
fixed upon her answer. Her heart leapt at this sign of his
interest. “Evidently my future is bound to a man lost in darkness.
It seems most fanciful to me.”

To Isabella’s surprise, Murdoch paled.

Before she could ask, he reached for the lid
of the trunk. “What is in the trunk that should not be there?” he
demanded, his tone both terse and officious.

Isabella was startled by yet another change
in his manner. Was he like Elizabeth and Moira to put faith in such
tales? Isabella would not have believed it.

Unless Darg’s pronouncement mirrored
Murdoch’s truth.

Aware of the passing time, Isabella worked
through the trunk’s contents. “These are the adornments of our
fallen comrades,” she said, removing the chalices and daggers and
swords. Beneath them were a pair of helms and an assortment of
tabards, the fabric in poor condition. “They are dressed for their
great holy days,” she told Murdoch. “And at the bottom should be
the silver for the Mass, the chalice for the wine and the platter
for the bread.” She frowned as she felt the dark corners at the
bottom of the trunk.

“What is it?” Murdoch demanded.

“The chalice is not here,” Isabella said, her
concern rising as she checked the trunk again. “Kinfairlie
possesses a chalice and plate of sterling silver, used for the mass
only on high holy days.”

“It has not been seen for a while, then.”

“Not since Christmas morning,” Isabella sat
back on her heels and stared at Murdoch. “It should be here, but it
is gone.”

His blue gaze locked with hers. “Because the
thief disguises his crime by stealing also from his own
treasury?”

Isabella shook her head, unwilling to believe
it. “Or because Kinfairlie too falls victim to the thief.”

“Ross,” Murdoch whispered but Isabella shook
her head. It was impossible that Ross would do such a deed. She
would have defended him hotly but had no chance.

For the door to the chapel creaked
overhead.

They were no longer alone.

* * *

Murdoch froze at the sound of the portal
opening, almost directly over their heads.

He had a glimpse of Isabella’s face as she
gazed upwards, then she snuffed the candle and plunged them into
darkness. The smell of the extinguished wick seemed too powerful to
him, a sure sign that their presence would be revealed.

Indeed, he could see a tiny measure of
morning’s light through the cracks between the boards that formed
the floor of the chapel and the ceiling of the crypt. There was no
way out of the space, save up the stairs to the door behind the
altar – and from there, out the main portal of the chapel.

A shadow passed overhead, the boards creaking
beneath a person’s weight.

It seemed to Murdoch that the person paused,
as if aware that all was not right.

Perhaps smelling that snuffed candle.

A cold sweat broke on his brow. He was not
only hunted and within the laird’s territory, but cornered. Would
this be the end of it? Murdoch could not accept as much, though he
did not have a plan to escape.

“Count to one hundred,” Isabella whispered
against his ear, her voice so low that he could barely discern her
words. She pressed a kiss against his neck, a hot kiss that sent a
simmering heat through his body.

His knees weakened with the realization that
once again, his Isabella came to his aid.

Then she was gone, leaving him in the
darkness. He heard her footsteps as she crossed the crypt, then on
the stairs. He saw her silhouette as she pushed open the door in
the floor, remaining motionless himself all the while. She didn’t
open it all the way, and he suspected that she meant to hide her
location. Murdoch was not certain how she managed to squeeze
through so narrow a gap, but she did. No sooner had her feet
disappeared and the door been silently shut, then he heard her
voice.