Until the Knight Comes (29 page)

Kenneth pressed his lips together, heat flashing all through him. “God’s bones, Lachlan,” he seethed, “you ken—there’s naught I wouldn’t give to know my lady safe. I want her secure and happy. Mayhap even more than I care for my own life. Certainly, my pride. But . . .” He paused, blowing out a breath.

What was pride, or even Cuidrach, when she had but to cross a room and all else ceased to exist?

Truth was, he’d fallen irrevocably in love with her. She was his treasure and reason. His life. And any price, no matter how dear or galling, was worth saving her from the men gathered around his walls.

“That ruffian speaks true words, my friend.” Lachlan squeezed Kenneth’s elbow, manly commiseration in his dark eyes. “We all know Cuidrach won’t hold against them. Let that reality sweeten what you must do.”

“Damnation,” Kenneth swore, his gut tightening all the same. “I say you, I’ve supped with the Devil before, and more times than I would have liked. But ne’er with such a short spoon!”

But he turned back to the window, raised his voice. “So, Ewan of Drumodyn. You vow to leave us in peace if we surrender the lady. How say you if I offer you something of greater value than her worth?”

He paused, the words hot daggers in his heart, making him feel dirty inside.

Ewan the Witty spat and dragged his arm over his bearded face. “What could be of more worth than that one’s murderous neck? Seeing my lord’s death avenged at last?”

But a spark of interest flickered across the man’s upturned face. Indeed, the rat’s eyes glittered like a serpent’s.

Bile heavy on his tongue, Kenneth again lifted his voice. “What is of more worth? I say you—a fortune to line your coffers and your men’s for the rest of your days?”

Silence followed, but not before the wretch flashed Kenneth a triumphant smile.

“A blood deed requires payment in kind—and the lady is also marked as a sacrifice to Assynt’s Each Uisge. Her value is high. Mayhap too high for the likes of you!” He stared up at Kenneth, made a show of scratching his beard. “But your offer is worth . . . considering!”

Before Kenneth could reply, the big man swung round to confer with his men. When he wheeled back again, the unmistakable gleam of greed lit the whole of his coarse features.

“How great a fortune do you have in mind, Keeper of Cuidrach?” he demanded, and Kenneth’s pulse leapt at the excitement in the man’s eyes.

Smelling victory, Kenneth leaned through the window arch, hoped his own expression wasn’t quite so revealing. “For you—enough bags of good Scots siller to purchase ten of your Drumodyn Castle. And for myself—your word that you will leave Kintail and ne’er set foot here again.”

“Hech! You cast tall promises, Bastard MacKenzie.” Ewan the Witty cocked his head, his eyes narrowing. “See you, I am an honest man, true to my friends and firm to my word. But why should I trust yours?”

“Because . . .” Kenneth drew a long breath, wished he weren’t so aware of the dampness of his palms. “. . . My coin is not kept here,” he lied, certain the untruth stood emblazoned across his forehead.

“My wealth is . . . otherwhere, and I shall lead you there. If you are not satisfied by the number of coin pouches and how well-filled they are, I’ll forfeit myself as hostage—for the continued safekeeping of my lady.”

He paused, taking another deep breath “And you may do with me what you will. Ransom me to my uncle, Duncan MacKenzie, the Black Stag of Kintail. Or truss and toss me to your foul water horse. I care not. So long as my lady is left unmolested and in peace.”

“Oh ho! Lord save us!” Ewan the Witty burst into laughter again, threw a look of feigned astonishment at his men. “I
knew
the man was besotted! And that raises the lady’s value, I say!”

He tilted back his head, fixed Kenneth with a calculating stare. “Your coin and the golden lute—and we shall leave you be. Both of you!”

The golden lute?

Kenneth’s heart plummeted. He spun toward Sir Lachlan. “What’s the raving loon mean by that?”

“You know the tale,” Sir Lachlan minded him. “He means the bejeweled lute some traveling bardess gave my Nessa. She told us about it one night not long after we arrived here. She used the lute to help the Lady Mariota escape Drumodyn’s dungeon.”

Kenneth’s brows snapped together. Now he remembered. “But Nessa said she’d left the thing behind when they fled Assynt. This fool thinks we have it.”

“Then let him think we do.” Sir Lachlan slanted a glance out the window. “Anything to bide time. Tell him the lute is too precious and you must think before answering. Give him two hours. By then we will have finished all siege preparations and our other men will be in place at Dun Telve. With God’s good mercy, we’ll rout these fools.”

“Well, MacKenzie?” Ewan the Witty’s booming voice echoed around the tower room. “What is the lady worth to you?”

Kenneth blew out a hot breath. What was his lady’s worth, the cateran dared ask.

More than a thousand golden lutes—and even the last breath in his body
, Kenneth’s heart roared.

He swallowed hard and steeled himself. “Sirrah, that lute is beyond price! All else, I will forfeit to you—but the lute . . .”

Letting his words tail off, he shook his head. “Nay, my friend, I must think on it. Two hours, if you are willing? Then, I will answer you.”

“Hah!” Ewan the Witty hooted a laugh. “A man after my heart, after all. Good, so be it. Two hours it is. But I warn you—not a moment longer.”

Kenneth nodded, lifted his hand in token agreement. “Two hours.”

Ewan the Witty raised his fist in return, then spurred back to his men. And so soon as the last one vanished into the trees, Kenneth slumped against the window arch and released the breath he’d been holding.

Two hours.

They seemed like a lifetime.

And if he used them well, they
would
be.

For himself and his heart’s treasure, the woman he intended to make his wife.

Mariota tucked a plaid around her slumbering friend’s knees and draped another across her shoulders. Such was the best she could do—the only succor she could offer without risking Nessa’s sleep.

A blessedly deep-seeming sleep and one that filled Mariota with uneasy shame.

Especially with Nessa’s snores tingeing the air with the fumes of potent Gascon wine.

The scatter of butter-less bannock crumbs littering the small table also jabbed at her, as did the half-eaten twist of dried venison and the remains of a large portion of salt herring. Anything but a shriveled stick of a woman, Nessa always overate when nervous.

But this time she’d indulged more than Mariota would have wished.

Even so, better to know her sprawled across the table, sleeping peaceably, her head cushioned on her arms, than to have Nessa full by her wits and insisting on accompanying her.

Or worse, attempting to prevent her from going.

Still, Mariota regretted the sore head that would surely plague her upon waking.

She suffered such an affliction already.

But
her
temple-throbbing malaise vanished with lightning speed when she caught his voice at the door!

Heart pounding, she swiped the remains of Nessa’s feast into the food basket, covering it with a plaid in the same moment the door opened and her Keeper strode inside.

“Kenneth!” she cried, her knees watering at the sight of him. “I-I thought you were on the walls?”

“And so I was, but now I am here. If briefly.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her, a fiercely heated kiss that stunned and exhilarated her.

She flung her arms around his neck and kissed him back, her pulse leaping when he crushed her even tighter against him. The little storeroom vanished in a brilliant splintering of light, the very world around her seeming to spin wildly each time his tongue swept against hers.

She clung to him, almost dizzy, giddy with relief . . . until she remembered two little words.

If briefly.

At once, the world stopped spinning and she forced herself to break the kiss, pull away to stare at him. “What did you mean ‘if briefly’? I thought the confrontation with Hugh’s men was over?” she gasped, her heart thundering. “I heard the shouting and then it stopped. I thou—”

“A thinking time, lass. That is what this is—no more.” He cupped her face in his hands, smoothed his thumbs over her cheeks. “I can stay but a moment—I must return to my men—but I wanted you to have this . . .”

He produced a wicked-looking dirk from beneath his plaid and slapped it onto the table. “I meant to give it to you earlier. That is why I went to the kitchens, but—”

“I do not want your dagger. I want you to tell me you aren’t going to ride out and lead these men into a trap!” Mariota grabbed his arm, held tight. “I’ve told you—”

He touched his fingers to her mouth, silencing her. “The first part of ridding you of these blackguards was our victory, my lady. Do not diminish it by doubting we’ll succeed at the next round.”

“But—”

“I must return to the gatehouse,” he said with a glance at Nessa. “When your friend wakens, mayhap the two of you can pass the time making plans for our wedding feast? I’d like it to be in the spring.”

He tweaked her chin, smiled at her. “A big celebration with all of my family there and . . . yours.”

“Oh, Kenneth!”
Mariota reached for him, but a sudden rush of scalding tears blinded her and she grasped only air.

The Keeper of Cuidrach had gone, closing the door soundly behind him.

Dashing the tears from her cheeks, she glanced at the dirk, deciding to leave it for Nessa, then went straight to the far wall. She ran her fingers along the crack until the wall shifted and gave way, the secret door swiveling open with a shuddering groan and a cloud of stone dust.

Fine, gritty dust that made her nose twitch and her eyes burn, but so long as Nessa slept on and Cuillin didn’t bestir himself too much, all would be well.

But the aging beast was already pushing to his feet. He lumbered across the room, leaned into her with all his bony weight.

“Ah, laddie.” Mariota dropped to her knees and gathered him close, clinging to his neck. “Watch o’er yourself and my friend, you hear?” She pulled back with reluctance, a wrench she hadn’t counted on. “I’ll reward you with the best morsels of meat when I return.”

If she returned,
the dog’s unexpected whimpers seemed to say, his liquid gaze going past her to the dark gap in the wall.

“I’ll be back,” she assured him, gave him another quick hug.

A fierce one borne of doubts and fears she refused to acknowledge.

But she had to go.

Now, before his whines wakened Nessa.

A thinking time, her Keeper had said.

A brief respite before a true assault began. A hopelessly one-sided attack she meant to prevent.

Just as she couldn’t allow him to make good his doomed-to-failure plan of ambushing men who could instruct others in the art!

Whimpering old dogs or no.

And regardless of whether she suddenly felt as useful as a leaf in the wind. She’d simply make certain that leaf landed in the right place.

Determined to do just that, she lifted one of the rushlights from its iron holder and stepped right through the opening in the wall. The door swung shut with surprising ease, but the cold dark of the passage hit her like a fist to the gut, its musty dankness rushing her, cloying as a shroud.

Debris cluttered the stone steps. Fetid bits of straw, centuries of decayed leaves, blown in through small openings and cracks in the downward-sloping wall. Refuse that squished and slid beneath her feet, giving her shudders.

But she clutched the rushlight and edged forward, one careful step at time until she reached the stair foot and the passage broadened into low-ceilinged circular room.

Several vaulted corridors stretched away into impenetrable darkness, their sloping floors slicked with damp, the rough-hewn walls streaked with glistening, black-green slime, the ceilings dripping thick swaths of cobwebs.

Three passageways. Each one unappealing as a naked blade pressed to her throat.

Mariota closed her eyes, willing her pulse to slow, her breath to steady. Then she listened, caught the drip of water, the distant lapping of waves, in the passage to her left.

Loch Hourn and the shore.

Not the way she needed to go.

Tilting her head, she listened deeper, hearing the absolute stillness in the middle passage. A thick, unmoving quiet, weighed down with centuries of disuse.

Emotion tightening her chest, she turned to the passage to her right, imagined faint rustlings from somewhere within its depths . . . the kind of stirrings made by the slight currents of air.

Air she could almost feel against her cheek. A delicate, almost imperceptible breeze laced with the minutest trace of gorse, rich Highland earth and Caledonian pine.

The kind of pines that grew in a dark cluster not far from the great outcropping of rocks she’d glimpsed from her bedchamber window.