Only For A Knight (19 page)

“And that, my lords,” she finished, beaming, “is why we are certain she is daft—all ken Tir-nan-Og is but a myth . . . yet she was prattling on about sending men there.”

 

Ignoring his father’s snort, Robbie raised arching brows at his sister, looked deep into her outraged eyes. “Can it be she was drink-taken?”

 

“Mayhap.” Gelis shrugged. “All ken her father is e’er deep in his cups and she is delivered an ample supply of heather ale each morn—more than enough to last her through the day.”

 

“Walking around her privy chamber unclothed does not make her addled,” Sir Marmaduke said, rubbing his chin. “Nor do I believe she partakes of more ale than she ought—so slight as she is, like as not, she’d fall asleep if she did.”

 

He began pacing the length of the dais, his hands clasped behind his back. “It could be, though, that she takes after her sire in other ways,” he said, dropping his voice so it would not carry to where the MacLeod men-at-arms sat at a long table some ways into the hall.

 

Moving closer to the high table, he explained, “Hugh MacLeod had some very strange things to say during my visits to Castle Uisdean to arrange his daughter’s journey here. If the lady Euphemia is prone to nonsensical blether mayhap she learned the habit from her father?”

 

“Hah!” Duncan snorted again. “Old Hugh cannot help but speak foolery—his wits are e’er pickled by ale or befuddled by women. The man is a notable wencher,” he said, reclaiming his seat. “You cannot trust what’er babble slides off his tongue—and I’d think you would ken as much!”

 

“Still. . . .” Sir Marmaduke lowered himself onto the trestle bench, shot a glance at Gelis and Arabella before adding in a near-inaudible whisper, “The Hugh
I
saw and spoke with did not appear capable of undressing a woman, much less bedding one. The man is sore ill, I’d swear it. And he either speaks twaddle—or he lies.”

 

Robbie turned to his uncle. “And what makes you think he might lie? That Hugh is a man not much esteemed, a great skirt-chaser, is well known in these hills, but that he speaks untruths?”

 

Shaking his head, Robbie puzzled. “He ne’er denied having a different lass in his bed nigh every e’en, even when his wife yet lived. Indeed, as I remember the man, he enjoyed boasting of his . . . er . . . accomplishments.”

 

Sir Marmaduke hesitated, shrugged his wide-set shoulders.

 

“For truth, lad, he may well have been in his cups or perhaps dazed from a too-deep slumber, but when I mentioned the most crucial part of your marriage treaty—that he no longer lower his treacherous Girt of Strength, that foul chain the MacLeods have e’er been so fond of stretching across the narrows, the man swore the chain hadn’t been used in years.”

 

His piece spoken, Sir Marmaduke fortified himself with a gulp of ale. “And such blather, my friends, can only be a lie or an indication his wits have flown, for we all know how often the wretched chain has been put to use—including in very recent times.”

 

Robbie glanced at his father, not trusting himself to speak.

 

His uncle looked at the Black Stag, too.

 

As did all present.

 

But Duncan only shrugged his own great shoulders and, like his friend, snatched up his ale cup and downed the contents in one long swallow.

 

“You are the wise one,” he spoke at last, jerking a nod at Sir Marmaduke. “What say you we ought do? Faced as we are with a maid who coughs but supposedly doesn’t, and who hides herself in her room—yet is seen darting about in darkness, talking to herself whilst walking naked circles in her bedchamber?”

 

“What do
you
say?” Sir Marmaduke gave back, for once offering no sage gems of wisdom.

 

“I say none of it makes a whit of sense and my head aches too sorely this morn for me to attempt to find reason behind any of it—should suchlike prove grounded,” Duncan said, half turning away to stare at the wet, gray murk visible through the tall, arched windows lining the back of the dais.

 

“And you, lad?” Sir Marmaduke turned to Robbie.

 

Robbie drew a long breath. “I would know the truth howe’er it may fall,” he said, slowly sipping his own ale.

 

Sir Marmaduke lifted steepled fingers, tapped them against his chin.

 

“Mayhap we should take whiche’er of the laundresses spoke poorly of the lady Euphemia to Trumpan on Skye? To Clach Deuchainn, the Trial Stone that is kept there?” he suggested, arching his good brow. “Mayhap we should take the lady Euphemia along as well? ’Tis said the stone does not lie.”

 

Gelis and Arabella exchanged glances again. “The
Trial Stone?
”

 

“You have not heard of it?” Robbie looked at them. “’Tis a truth stone,” he told them before his father could hoot with derision. “A pillar stone at Kilconan Church on the far side of Skye, on the Waternish Peninsula. It stands about four feet high and has a finger-sized hole near its top. ’Tis said the stone unmasks liars and unveils the truth by—”

 

“ . . . declaring anyone a liar who, blindfolded, has the misfortune of not being able to thrust their finger into the hole,” Duncan said, lowering himself back into his elaborately-carved laird’s chair.

 

He looked round, his dark gaze lighting in turn on everyone lining the high table or standing close by.

 

“I see no need to take hapless young women clear to the far side of Skye only to expect them to perform such silliness,” he declared, his voice ringing with finality. “Finding out liars by poking fingers into holes is as great a folly as believing the tongue-wagging twaddle of kitchen lads and laundry maids.”

 

“Yet you do not doubt your own good wife’s
taibhsearachd,
her gift of second sight?” Sir Marmaduke slid a pointed glance at Robbie, then looked back at Duncan. “You have seen the proof of such wonders as we cannot explain.”

 

Duncan huffed.

 

“That is different—and you know it.”

 

“As you say,” Sir Marmaduke agreed with a carefree-seeming lift of his broad shoulders. “Yet you believe in the blessings bestowed by your own clan’s famed Marriage Stone,” he persisted, now examining his fingernails. “Surely a journey to Skye’s Clach Deuchainn cannot do harm and if—”

 

“Euphemia MacLeod is not lying,” Duncan insisted, his voice underlaid with steel. “Not about her ailments nor concerning whate’er mysterious matters my two flap-eared daughters think they heard someone say.” He paused to give the girls a stern look. “The blether of servitors cannot be trusted.”

 

“But we can be trusted, aye, Papa?” Gelis tilted her bright head, flashed Duncan her most disarming smile.

 

“Aye, and to be sure I believe you—with all my heart,” the Black Stag capitulated, his voice not near so gruff, but his eyes still full of wariness.

 

“Then you believe us when we tell you she is a liar? That we saw her . . . acting strangely?”

 

“I believe you
think
she speaks untruths,” Duncan said, speaking to his daughter but slanting a glance at Robbie. “As for the rest—there are many who would not condemn a maid for enjoying herself within her own chamber walls, lass.”

 

“Naked . . . alone?”
Gelis sniffed.

 

The Black Stag looked . . . thoughtful.

 

Robbie reached for the ale jug, replenishing his cup and downing the contents. A fool would know where his father was heading and he, for one, wanted none of it.

 

Especially after he’d had a taste of his beauty’s undoubted charms.

 

Sure enough, he’d no sooner set down the ale cup then the Black Stag leaned forward in his chair, the hear-me-well look spreading across his face boding imminent trouble.

 

“If the lass favors walking round her chamber bare-skinned as the day she was born—you ought consider yourself fortunate, son,” he said, pinning Robbie with a stare. “Many are the men whose wives are not so . . . generous.”

 

“I am not interested in Lady Euphemia’s generosity.” Robbie kept his own stare as fixed and level as his father’s. “I would rather see her . . . er . . .
wealth,
preserved for expenditure elsewhere, where it’d be more appreciated.”

 

“I wager!” The Black Stag leaned back in his chair again. “Even so, you might surprise yourself by finding her pleasing.”

 

Robbie shrugged, his mind set.

 

“I will not make cause with you on this,” he said, his voice calm, but his heart already pounding a fast beat. “I wish to take my pleasure elsewhere . . . and I shall.”

 

Standing, Robbie sketched a quick bow to his wide-eyed sisters, then strode from the dais before steam could shoot out his father’s ears.

 

He felt good.

 

In fact, if he weren’t certain someone might see and deem it outrageously inappropriate after the heated discourse on the dais, he’d give in to the grin trying to spread across his face.

 

The notion of Lady Euphemia’s naked pacing
did
please him.

 

But not for reasons his father would approve of.

 

Truth be told, the maid’s strange behavior might just prove to be the best thing that had happened to him in days.

 

Having gained the end of the hall, Robbie smiled openly now. And his smile broadened even more when he started mounting the turnpike stair that would take him to a particularly fine tower chamber presently occupied by a certain comely lass.

 

One that well pleased him.

 

And if the lady Euphemia truly were weaving some sinister web of duplicity as his sisters believed, or if she was indeed possessed of addled wits—all the better.

 

He would then have fullest grounds to break their betrothal and none could look askance at him, or his house.

 

To knowingly bind himself to such a lass would have him laughed to the winds.

 

A fate even the Black Stag would not condone.

 

And, saints above, but that was an uplifting prospect.

 

 

 

 

Chapter Eight

 

 

 

H
E SHOULD HAVE KNOWN
she’d not be there.

 

Hope and expectation frozen on his face, Robbie stood on the threshold of his beauty’s bedchamber, the fast pounding of his heart dwindling to a slow, disappointed beat as the room’s silence confirmed what he ought to have realized when his knocking received no response.

 

She’d slipped away again, sight unseen, and the sharp bite of his disgruntlement shocked him.

 

Stepping into the room, his gaze still searched, hoped.

 

But she was well and truly gone.

 

As was the wee pricking of guilt he’d experienced upon opening the door without invitation—that quibble soundly wiped away by the stronger lure of her presence.

 

An irresistible
pulling
that drew him ever deeper into the empty bedchamber. A vivid, almost tangible potency claiming bold sovereignty over any knightly codes of honor that might frown on such an intrusion into an innocent maid’s privy quarters.

 

Saints, but the chamber reeked with the essence of her! It was sheerest possession, the truth of her claim reflecting back to him from the furnishings and even the walls.

 

“Possession, indeed,” Robbie chided himself, the two words overloud in the empty room.

 

He frowned.

 

Nonsensical or nay, the chamber
did
look like her.

 

He doubted he’d e’er own to having courted such a fool notion, but he did feel surrounded by her . . . caressed and welcomed by every inch and corner of the room, each sensuously wavering flicker of light and shadow.

 

Even the air vibrated with her presence, wrapping round him and filling him with such a shock of unfettered
need
he could no sooner take his leave of her quarters than he could fly to the moon.

 

Too many enticements lay scattered about, and Sir Robert MacKenzie, proud knight of the Scottish realm and heir to the vast and majestic lands of Kintail, suddenly found himself more long-nosed than the most intrepid prattle-mongers of the glens.

 

His heart thumping, he drew slow, deep breaths of the room’s chill, peat-tanged air, his senses smiling at the subtle hints of lavender and warm, vital
femininity
accompanying each indrawn breath.

 

He moved to the great four-poster bed, noting the carefully drawn-back bed curtains and how neatly the bedclothes were arranged: the linens and coverlet smooth and tidy, the sea of lavishly-embroidered cushions arranged just so against the oaken headboard, the plaiding meticulously folded at the bed’s foot.

 

A smile touched the corners of his mouth, something deep inside him warming as he slid his hands down the cool, richly-worked folds of the brocaded bed curtains, dark and heated images flashing through his mind with each glide of his fingers.

 

But more than recalling his beauty’s warm, voluptuous nakedness or her splendorous, hard-tipped breasts gleaming in the fire glow, the bed’s very neatness spoke of her unbending Highland pride.

 

Her refusal to be compromised in circumstances not to her liking.

 

A stubborn, chin-held-high dignity Robbie found both admirable and refreshing, for unlike any of the gentle-born ladies he’d known, including his own well-loved sisters, castle tongue-waggers claimed his beauty repeatedly shooed away any and all servitors who came to straighten her chamber.

 

Rumor was, she’d steadfastly insist that so long as she possessed two good arms, she would not allow others to do for her what she herself could easily manage.

 

Another glimpse of her stared back at him from near the little red-glowing brazier hissing away not far from the window. There, within the brazier’s circle of warmth, she’d gathered a lovingly-plumped mound of soft plaiding and furs, a luxurious resting place that could only be wee Mungo’s bed. A wooden bowl of fresh water stood close by, as did a juicy marrow bone, lying in wait upon the rushes.

 

And only a pace or two away from the mite’s water bowl loomed the greatest temptation Robbie’d encountered since ripping open the bed curtains to find his beauty kneeling full naked before him, all sunfire hair, welling breasts, and smelling of lavender and woman.