No one moved.
Duncan stared down at MacFay in dispassionate silence; he was acutely conscious of the footsteps that had stopped outside the door, of Marsali’s pale anxious face beside him. He was agonizingly conscious of every minute detail.
He felt his own clansmen watching him in concern, tension mounting in the confined quarters. His vision blurred. His mind turned inward, spiraling back in time.
As if he were standing at the end of a tunnel, he heard Jamie’s voice, low with panic and resignation, asking, “Well, what are ye waitin’ for, MacElgin? Murder me and be done wi’ it.”
Murder.
Murderer.
He’s murdered his own mother and father.
She was stabbed twenty-seven times in the back.
Aye, slit his da’s gullet, he did. The blood was everywhere. His old auntie didna stop screamin' for days.
M
arsali watched Duncan in an agony of compassion, as did his three silent clansmen. For all his power and position of dominance, the vulnerability he exuded broke her heart. If he had not confessed to her that morning in the castle, she might not have understood the burden of guilt and horror that had tormented his soul since childhood. Everyone expected him to slit Jamie’s throat. No one realized why he wavered.
His hand shook as it held the sword.
She felt powerless. There was no magical spell to reach into the dark place where he had retreated, reliving God only knew what nightmare. Worse, part of her wished he would kill Jamie and be done with it.
The MacFay clansmen waited in wary fascination for Duncan to make his move. It was a moment that would be talked about over Highland peat fires for decades to come, exaggerated until it reached epic proportions.
“Duncan.” Marsali couldn’t suppress the apprehension that quavered in her voice. Couldn’t he hear the footsteps
outside? Had Jamie positioned more armed men around the convent? How long would the rival clansmen stand in awe of the legendary warrior before realizing the MacElgin stood paralyzed by scenes from his own past?
With his sword positioned at his rival’s throat, he held the power of life or death in his hand. But the decisive battle was being waged within himself.
The door opened slowly. Slow-moving swirls of mist and diffused light filtered over the strange tableau within the belltower. Duncan lifted his head. The movement looked forced and mechanical, like a statue coming to life against a backdrop of smoke. The look that passed between brother and sister pulsated with remembered pain.
“Judith,” he said, shaking his head in denial.
Judith’s horrified glance encompassed the unmoving man on the floor, the sword in Duncan’s hand, the unkempt clansmen who crouched like ghouls in the pale light.
“What have you done, Duncan?” she whispered, her skin as white as the linen of her coif.
“Nothing.” He stared down at Jamie, his face expressionless. “Get up, MacFay.”
Marsali darted around Jamie to come to Duncan’s side. His gaze still riveted on Jamie, he hooked his free arm around her waist and drew her against him.
“I told you to get up, MacFay,” Duncan said wearily. “I’m beginning to have second thoughts about keeping my word.”
Jamie slowly rose to his feet, his face humiliated as he met the shamed gazes of his retainers. “What the bloody hell is wrong wi’ the lot of ye?” he howled in indignation. “There are five of you! He’s the only one wi’ a weapon, and ye made no move to stop him.”
“He wasna’ hurtin’ ye, Jamie.”
Jamie rounded on the man who’d dared to speak. “Who do ye serve, a man who’s sold his soul to the Sassenachs, or Jamie?” The silence that met his demand for a show of loyalty further infuriated him. He stomped his foot. His voice rose in childish rage. “Who do ye serve, yer chieftain or the MacElgin? If ye serve me, then prove it now.”
“This is a nunnery, Jamie.”
“He didna hurt ye, lad.”
He snatched up his sword, swinging it over his head in desperation as if he could rouse some primitive bloodlust in his kinsmen. “Who do ye serve?” he shouted, his hair tangling in his empurpled face.
Duncan gave a deep warning growl and pushed Marsali back into Johnnie, who caught her in a firm protective grasp.
One by one Jamie’s men began to unbuckle their sword belts, tossing dirks, swords, and targes into a pile at Duncan’s feet. The clatter of metal faded into the harsh stridor of Jamie’s breathing.
“We’re servin’ the MacElgin,” announced the short muscular MacFay lieutenant-at-arms known simply as Tore, which meant “boar” in Gaelic.
“Aye, the MacElgin!”
Jamie made a lunge at Duncan, only to be snagged like a spider in a web as four of his own kinsmen caught him by the arms. “What do you want us to do wi’ him, my lord?” Tore asked.
Duncan hesitated. Part of him fiercely wished he had been allowed to fight Jamie and settle this thing between them man to man. There was, after all, a great measure of peace to be had knowing your enemy was dead. And now he had to face the consequences of following his damned conscience. Now he had to absorb a half-dozen MacFays into his own ragged clan.
He threw down the broadsword, raking Jamie with a coldly disgusted glance. “Your first act of fealty to me will be to take this man to the British fort and have him incarcerated for his crimes. Get him the hell out of my sight.”
Jamie struggled against the arms confining him. “Ye are a black demon. And she’s a witch!”
“Hush your stupid mouth, MacFay,” Marsali burst out angrily. “Another word and I’ll be killing you myself.”
For a moment Jamie fell utterly still, like a puppet whose strings had been severed. Then he stared past Duncan to Marsali with a loud wail of immature desire underlaid with desperation. Compelled by curiosity, Duncan turned to
gauge Marsali’s reaction and felt an unwanted stab of jealous resentment at the flicker of compassion commingled with disdain in her eyes before she glanced away.
Jamie’s men dragged him outside, darting apologetic looks at the two nuns who flanked the doorway in speechless bewilderment. Duncan felt suddenly drained, uncertain what his sudden reluctance to kill in self-defense meant in terms of his future. A man who had built his fame on fighting. Uncertain anymore of who or what he was.
Then Marsali broke away from Johnnie and burrowed up against him, her small warm body a promise of love and acceptance no matter how the rest of the world would view him. He caught her chin in his hand, tipping back her face, and kissed her in full view of the two nuns and his scruffy clansmen.
“Duncan,” Marsali whispered, her eyes alight with mischief and joy, “the Reverend Mother is watching.”
He sent Judith an amused glance. “So she is, but then I only promised her I wouldn’t do any killing. I never mentioned anything about kissing.”
Her mouth was warm and sweet, his kiss both rough and gentle. Ignoring his enrapt audience, he ran his han
ds down the delicate arch of her
back and pulled her against him until she gasped for breath, breaking away with a dazed grin. He was afraid he would hurt her in his desperate anxiety to reassure himself they would never be apart again. This little brat meant the world to him.
Her soft laughter penetrated the moment of intense emotion.
He held her away at arm’s distance, smiling despite himself. “You still find it amusing to kiss me, Marsali?”
“
I
can’t help it, my lord. I keep thinking about the look on everyone’s face when you were prancing about on the bench playing God.”
Sister Bridget spoke from the doorway for the first time, “It was a little overplayed, all that thrusting about, although
I
have to admit he did manage to convey a certain sense of omnipotence.”
“Thank you,” Duncan said with a droll smile. His gaze moved to Judith, studying her face, searching for the key to
self-forgiveness that had eluded him all these years. “I’m sorry for the disruption, but at least no blood was spilled.”
“Except yours,” Marsali said in soft concern, lifting her fingers to the dark red streak that would heal to scar his beloved face.
He caught her hand, gripping it in gratitude. “We’ll be leaving your cloister now. Reverend Mother,” he said quietly. “After we return the clothing we borrowed, of course.”
“Of course,” Judith said calmly, her gaze lowering from his fierce warrior’s face to the fragile ethereal features of the woman he held like a lifeline. “But you, Marsali, you are supposed to take over for me in the infirmary tonight after chapel.”
“No.” The determination in Duncan’s voice challenged her quiet authority. “We’re leaving together.”
Judith’s expression did not change. “You’ve found her a suitable husband then. That’s the only condition under which I will allow her to leave.”
“I think so.” Duncan did not speak for a moment, willing away the memory of the long-ago morning when Judith had left the castle for the convent. His father, the marquess, had offered to adopt the pale withdrawn girl as his own, but Judith had pleaded to be sent away, craving peace and solitude after a life of her father’s abuse.
Duncan had been too drunk to even say goodbye. Until now he’d never even admitted to himself how he had missed her, depended on her.
“The man I’ve chosen loves Marsali very much,” he said at last, “and although he is by no means a perfect choice, I’m afraid he’ll have to do. Her friends have frightened everyone else away. At least he will protect her with his life.”
“Does he love her?” Judith asked, amusement flickering across her stern features.
Duncan frowned. “Isn’t that obvious?”
Owen nudged Lachlan in the ribs. “Who the devil is he talkin’ about then?”
“I dinna ken,” Lachlan answered in a baffled whisper. “Perhaps it’s Johnnie.”
“
’Tisna me, ye half-wits,” Johnnie said in annoyance. “It’s himself, the chieftain.”
“Ye dinna say,” Owen said, sincerely astonished. “The chieftain and Marsali? I’d never have believed it. When did this happen?”
Lachlan shook his head. “I wondered why he was kissin’ her.”
Judith looked at Marsali. “And this match pleases you as well?”
Marsali grinned mischievously at Duncan, pretending to give the question serious thought.
He tightened his grip around her shoulders. “It had better please her because she doesn’t have any choice in the matter. From now on she’s doing what I tell her.”
“I doubt it,” Marsali said.
“So do I,” Judith murmured.
“He could have saved everyone a load of trouble if he’d decided this a month ago,” Marsali added. “Anyway, we’ll all be leaving now.”
“Deo gratias,”
Judith said under her breath. “Thanks be to God.”
There was a deep awkward silence. Duncan was dying to take off his habit and change back into his own shirt and trews. He couldn’t even think about sharing his feelings with Marsali while wearing a dress. He couldn’t keep his hands off her either. He couldn’t resist touching and kissing her as a prelude to all the physical pleasure they would enjoy as man and wife. And he wished to ask his sister’s forgiveness for everything he had done, and to reassure her that he had changed.
But these weren’t the kinds of things a man could do or say in a convent belltower. So he had to content himself with a few well-chosen words and hope that they would convey the emotions he might never be allowed to express again.
“Judith,” he began, “I want you to know—”
The tower erupted into an ear-deafening din as an unseen bell-ringer from above began to peal out the call for evening prayers. Duncan covered his ears reflexively; Marsali buried her head in his chest. Owen, Lachlan, and Johnnie gave vent to a few salty oaths, which, fortunately, due to the ungodly
clanging, could not be heard by the Mother Superior and the convent headmistress.
Finally, just as the noise drove everyone to the door, and Duncan shouted, “Who is that numbskull in the belfry?”— the pealing came to an end.
Judith’s voice rose with caustic emphasis in the throbbing silence. “That was your daughter, Duncan. And I am relieved to place the responsibility for her into your hands. Neither she nor your future wife show any sign of a religious vocation whatsoever.”
Duncan looked as if the bell itself had hit him on the head. “My
daughter?
What daughter?”
Judith drew herself up. “We have named her Hannah Elizabeth. The doctor’s wife gave her up when she was a bairn, and we have raised the girl the best we could. Unfortunately, she has your rather dominant nature, Duncan. She certainly does not have the makings of a nun.”
Hannah came bounding down the stairs and hurled herself into Duncan’s arms. As big as he was, the impact sent him staggering back into the courtyard. “Papa, I always knew you’d come!”
Stunned, Duncan put his arm out automatically to embrace her. His dazed expression was an amusing contrast to Hannah’s exuberance. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked Judith sharply. “Didn’t you think I had a right to know?” Judith lowered her gaze, unable to answer.