Until the Knight Comes (25 page)

Only the beating of his own heart. The deep hush where night sounds should have flourished.

She
lay motionless, lost in the soundness of sleep, her soft warm curves still cushioning him, her sweet feminine heat a temptation against his thigh.

The taste of her yet lingered on his tongue, conjuring images of last night, heated memories that stirred him. But they stunned him, too, because the contentment he’d found just holding her as she’d slept had satisfied him almost as much as when they’d lain together in hottest passion.

Perhaps even more so.

He glanced at her, his gaze skimming over her full, round breasts. They gleamed in the dim light of the moon, teasing and tempting him in their nakedness, the lush swells begging attention. Even now in this strange moment and after a full night of vigorous lovemaking.

Nay, not quite a full night, the darkness minded.

As did the unnatural calm.

Nothing stirred at all—as a quick glance at the open shutters confirmed.

Indeed, it looked a clear and windless night. Not anywhere near the morn, and with a few stars yet winking in the frosty sky. And with each long-stretching moment, Kenneth came more awake.

More sharply aware of the silence—the prickling at his nape.

There could be only one reason for the quiet, the chills slithering up and down his spine.

He’d guessed wrong.

They hadn’t till sunrise.

The Bastard of Drumodyn’s men were upon them now. This very hour when the Devil looked after his own and the night was at its darkest.

“God’s holy knuckles!” he roared, leaping from the bed. He bounded to the nearest window, for one crazy moment wishing he could blow fireballs against the churls.

Such magic, however ludicrous, would serve him better than the knightly sword belt he was struggling to fasten about his hips.

Naked hips,
he realized with sudden dismay.

His brow blackening, he tossed aside the impressively tooled belt and its magnificent brand and began yanking on his clothes.

Dressed at last, he relatched his sword belt, glared out the arched windows. But except for the eerie silence, all appeared as it should.

Not that he was wont to stare out windows at such ungodly hours to make sure.

This night he made an exception.

Took a deep breath and stared into the cold dark with an intensity that made his eyes burn. He let his most piercing gaze take in every fold of this remote upland glen he so loved. Scrutinized the great hills rimming the horizon until his vision blurred.

And when nothing menacing caught his eye, he kept looking. Curled his hands to fists, and scanned the darkness, watching for movement.

Anything unusual.

But nothing more sinister than a few wispy bits of mist drifted across the wooded slopes beyond the gatehouse, and only a dim wash of moonlight spilled into the cobbled bailey.

No pack of wild Hielandmen came tearing from behind the trees, wrapped in plaids and tartan, armed to the teeth and bristling with steel.

Kenneth stood still, frowning. Whether he saw them or no, he could feel them.

Ruffianly characters.

Full of stares and anger . . . bitten by greed.

So he turned his attention on the outbuildings clustered along the inner curtain walls. Each wood-built byre or shed seemed to hunch in the shadows. Blessedly, he could not detect anything else crouching there, sharing the murky gloom.

Only the scent of rain, wet shrubbery, and peat smoke hung in the air, familiar as the dark mass of the Bastard Stone looming up from the still waters of Loch Hourn.

An ordinary night.

But one like no other.

Something
hovered unseen, watching and waiting.

And not one of Glenelg’s much-feared
urisgean
.

“Och, aye, I’d wager my soul on it,” he muttered, rolling his shoulders beneath the unaccustomed weight of mail.

A splendidly crafted hauberk he thanked the saints his uncle had pressed upon him.

As for the battle-ax, its silvery blade glinting so wickedly across the room, he’d wield the thing against anyone who’d dare raise a hand against his lady.

And without mercy.

He only wished he’d spent more time practicing its swing in recent weeks than pulling up weeds and lugging endless barrels of wine into dust-filled storerooms!

“Wager your soul on what, my lord?” The words came from just behind him, his lady’s voice husky with sleep and yet laced with all the steel of a warrior laird’s daughter.

Whirling from the window, Kenneth’s heart seized at her loveliness.

“My soul?” He blinked, her tousle-haired beauty and the fullness of her kiss-swollen lips momentarily blinding him.

Sakes, even though she’d pulled on her undergown, the flimsy material clung to her, molding her shapeliness rather than concealing her charms. And her unbound hair still tumbled to her hips, a glistening swirl of sunfire, richly a-gleam even in the room’s deep shadow.

A wanton display to weaken and seduce the boldest of men.

“Aye, your soul,” she said, the slight emphasis on the last word making him wonder if she’d somehow read his thoughts as they’d slept.

Knew better than he how much he lusted for her.

Loved and wanted her.

Needed her.

Watching him closely, she pushed her hair over her shoulder and crossed her arms. The gesture lifted her breasts, plumping them, making his breath catch.

She tilted her head, her gaze unblinking. “I would know what is so grave you’d offer up your soul on its surety?”

“You, my lady, would heat a man so fiercely the hottest flames of hell would seem a reprieve.” Kenneth looked at her through the shadowy dark, well aware he hadn’t answered her, but his manhood was stirring, the scent of her woman’s musk playing havoc with his senses.

He shoved a hand through his hair, his fury of earlier making room for an even greater dread should he fail to keep her safe.

Should Cuidrach’s gap-ridden walls prove as disastrous a hazard as he feared.

“Wishing to tempt you is not what brought me from bed.” She searched his face, her expression calm as she stepped closer. “You have anger all over you—look more tense than a drawn bowstring. I would know why.”

“Why?”

Kenneth near choked. He’d just told her why, had she had ears to listen!

“Saints, lass.” He blew out a hot breath, shoving a hand through his hair. “God be good, lady, I will not lie—I
am
tense,” he admitted, pinning her with his gaze. “And angry. I did not spend years at sea and not develop the ability to sense a change in the wind’s direction . . . very often before the shift happens.”

The warrior laird’s daughter lifted a brow. “And I could not reach womanhood beneath my father’s roof and with a slew of quick-tempered, sword-swinging brothers and not guess what troubles you.”

She turned to the window, looking down at the deserted bailey. “You’re expecting Hugh the Bastard’s men—and soon.”

Fury-bitten brigands who will charge through your tumbly-stoned gatehouse and into Cuidrach’s great open courtyard before any within these walls can stop them.

That truth, she left unsaid.

It was enough that the notion chilled her to the marrow, struck such dread into her heart she could almost feel a cloud of cold darkness moving in on her, surrounding her.

But when she turned back to face him, determination to avert disaster already thrummed all through her.

“There is no other reason you’d be wearing this.” She touched his chest, easing aside his plaid to rest her fingers against the silvery-smooth mail beneath. “Or carrying around an ax that would have put a gleam in the eyes of our most fearsome Viking ancestors.”

“I see you
are
your father’s daughter,” he said, stepping beside her at the window. “And I respect that blood highly enough to tell you true, lass—our situation here is grim.”

He paused to glance down at the bailey, over to the gatehouse. “You won’t be under any illusions about the dangers if these men lay siege to Cuidrach,” he went on, the words a statement. “Would that I had a horde of wild-eyed Norsemen to join my men on the walls. As is—”

“As is, I am enough Macnicol to ken how to make myself useful.” Careful to stay within the shadow of the window arch, Mariota surveyed the hills rolling away beyond the curtain walls, her gaze studying every crack, hollow, and spur of the steep, rock-strewn slopes. “Hugh’s men are as crafty as they are fearless. They will not show themselves until they’ve assessed our vulnerabilities, are certain—”

“Fair lady,
all
of Cuidrach is a susceptibility,” he minded her, his gaze, too, on the nearer hill faces.

In particular, a dark line of Caledonian pines near a great outcropping of rock a good distance from the farthest curve of the curtain walls. Something moved there, and Mariota knew he’d seen it, too, for his mail-clad arm tightened beneath her fingers.

“There!” She jerked his arm, gestured at the heap of jagged, broken stones. “At the edge of those rocks, a shadow—”

“A fox,” the Keeper of Cuidrach announced, leaning forward. “A fine red fox, naught else.”

And on second glance, she had to agree.

The stealthily moving creature slipped along the base of the outcropping, the brilliance of his coat attracting the moonlight just before he vanished into a gap between the stones.

But he reappeared as quickly, his eye-catching fur looking almost aflame as he scrambled about the boulders as lightly as if he had the feet of a goat.

Or some other kind of fey magic.

“Would that I could secret you away as easily,” the Keeper said as the little fox slipped from view. “But the storeroom will have to do. It is the farthest from the keep’s outer walls and can be held to the last. I will place Jamie and his old dog on the door. The dog wouldn’t be much use to you if it came to it, but I’d not want him to take a stray bow shot—”

“Dinna worry—I will look after Cuillin.” Mariota’s heart clenched at the thought of anything happening to the aged dog. “Jamie will serve you better if he uses his brawn to carry kettles of boiling water up to the battlements. That, and anything else that can be hurled from the walls. ’Tis fairly clear they’ll breach the gatehouse without difficulty.”

Eager to make herself useful, she moved away from the window, dressing as she spoke. “We’ll want water to drench the main keep door. It seems sturdy enough, but they may try to fire it if they cannot break through. Nessa and I can—”

“Ho—you weren’t listening again.” He strode after her. “You and Nessa shall wait out whatever comes in the storeroom off the great hall,” he informed her, snatching up his battle ax and tucking it beneath his belt.

“I appreciate your will to help and I’m sure you’ve seen more than your share of sieges. Or heard the tales. But my men and I will do what must be done.” He touched her cheek. “Without endangering you or Nessa.”

“But—”

“’Tis settled, lass.” He took her arm, guiding her from the bedchamber. “I have enough of my uncle’s blood to defend Cuidrach as befits a MacKenzie and enough of my father in me to outwit scourges as these in ways they’d ne’er dreamed.”

“They will not be put off like a pack of whipped curs. They—”

“And,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken, “I have too much honor of my own to lose a keep I have sworn to hold.”

He glanced at her, releasing her just long enough to open the door. “Nor shall I allow any harm to come to you. Above all, I shall keep you safe.”

“But these walls cannot withstand a direct assault,” Mariota argued, sure of it. “They are still half in ruin. You ken—”

“There will not be an assault,” he said, propelling her down the dimly-lit passage. “I expect they will be at our gates by first light—with demands. Conditions they’ll wish met by a certain time, or else. I intend to use that time to lay a trap for them.”

Mariota dug in her heels, gaping at him. “A trap?”

He nodded. “A lure, if you will. A surefire means to draw them from Cuidrach to Dun Telve where I and what men I can spare will have done with them one black-hearted miscreant at a time.”

“Dun Telve?” Mariota’s brow arched. “The broch where you’d stashed your coin?”

“Just so.” He smiled, his eyes glinting in the darkness. “They will not ken the coin pouches are no longer there and that an ambush awaits them. Greed will compel them to bargain. Your life in exchange for mine and the siller.”

“Nay, ’tis madness,” Mariota objected, her heart plummeting. “These men are hard-bitten, stiff-necked dastards well accustomed to waylaying and ill-doings. You will ne’er be able to lead them into a trap. They’ll smell an ambush two glens away.”

He looked at her, saying nothing for a time. “Mayhap you have the rights of it, but such is a risk I must take.”

Mariota flinched, but he only shook his head and glanced at a narrow window cut high in the wall. Already the sky was beginning to pale, the night’s dark giving way to a soft, luminous pearl.