Until the Knight Comes (9 page)

She stiffened. “You cannot—unless you can undo the past.”

“No one can work such a wonder, my lady.” He quirked a brow at her, attempted a smile. “But if it is impossible to forget the past, mayhap I can help you to look forward?”

She glanced aside, said nothing.

He frowned.

And grew increasingly alarmed by the depth of his concern for her.

Alarmed enough to resort to his alternative plan.

He cleared his throat and ran a hand through his hair. “If you do not wish to be returned to your father,” he began, rushing the words before his tongue refused to form them, “I can perhaps find a suitable husband for you. A man of good standing who’d welcome a widowed gentlewom—”

“I do not wish a husband, either. Indeed, that is the
last
thing I desire.” She bristled, pinning him with a piercing stare, the gold flecks in her irises glinting in the firelight.

Glinting, and changing color, the startling illusion giving the impression that her eyes were of purest, liquid amber and not the disturbingly familiar jewel-green of another woman’s eyes.

Lying eyes.

Narrowing on him from his own past and chilling him, their treacherous depths prickling his nape and sending shudders down his spine. Icy shivers to mind him of old mistakes and follies and warn him to be wary.

To guard his heart and ignore the hunger
this
green-eyed minx roused in him.

The fierce urge to touch, taste, and have her.

And most disturbing of all, the absurd notion that she among all women might be different.

Chapter Six

N
ot quite a sennight later, Kenneth accepted defeat.

The futility of fighting his attraction to Lady Mariota, the foolhardiness of thinking he could guard his heart.

Truth was, his store of inventive reasons for avoiding her was near depleted. Not that a single one had worked well in the first place. Indeed, no matter what task he’d sought or what corner of the castle he’d made his own, she’d found him.

Or, far more galling, he’d found himself looking for her.

And then suffered heart pangs and other unmentionable
ailments
so soon as he caught sight of her.

Even now, this gathering of his men, arranged a full ungodly hour before cockcrow, only proved the severity of his predicament. And an earnest meeting it was—called to discuss procuring cattle.

Yet rather than focus on the matter at hand, he’d barely downed his first cup of morning ale before he began scanning the shadows and peering about the torch-lit great hall, hoping to spot a flash of bright, coppery hair.

Or unexpectedly breathe in her perfume, an intoxicatingly fresh scent that always seemed to float on the air, heralding her arrival a split second before she came into view.

But this morning he only smelled ale, somewhat stale bannocks, and . . . the sharp edge of young Jamie’s nervousness.

Saints, but the lad was crowding him!

“To be sure, sir,” the youth was saying just now, his eyes bright with eagerness, “such is a well-trusted remedy. The reason my da has the finest cattle in the land.”

Kenneth frowned and reached for his ale cup, taking a moment to thrust aside any wayward thought that might make his heart hammer and his blood . . . thicken.

Young James of the Heather, tenth son of a lesser Macpherson chieftain, but most times called Jamie the Small, sat beside him at the high table, scratching Cuillin’s shaggy head, and hoping his liege laird’s darkening brow didn’t mean he’d taken offense.

Jamie’s throat went a bit dry at the possibility. He hadn’t meant to press his suit quite so urgently.

But certain aches rode him hard and encouraging the new Keeper to purchase Macpherson cattle would go a long way in raising Jamie’s worth in the eyes of a father who scarce recalled his existence.

Kenneth MacKenzie, at least, noted his presence and kept an open ear.

“Ha—what you do not say, Jamie lad,” he finally spoke, his brow clearing. “’Tis true enough I wouldn’t mind avoiding the journey to the great cattle tryst at Crieff come the spring, and I’d be even less eager to travel so far south as Falkirk if the beasts at Crieff proved lacking. But cattle kept hale through the winter? And by fairy magic?”

Jamie shifted on the trestle bench. “Begging pardon, sir, but I said my father uses an ancient Highland remedy to safeguard our cattle in the lean months. ’Tis no witchy magic, nay.”

“And what might that be?” Sir Lachlan put in, his voice level and reassuring.

Even so, Jamie found himself at a loss for words and dug his fingers deeper into Cuillin’s ratty coat, holding tight to his boyhood companion, his sole connection to home.

“Well, laddie?” Another clansman peered across the table, mirth wreathing his bearded face. “What sort of charm keeps your da’s shaggy black beasts the envy of every other cattle-rich laird this side o’ the Highland Line?”

“Naught that has to do with witchery,” Jamie blurted, feeling conspicuous with so many stares turned his way. “’Tis only a remedy—but an ages-old one. The original was given to my father’s father’s father by Devorgilla of Doon, Clan MacLean’s
cailleach.
”

At once, all babble ceased and as Jamie looked round, his spirits lifted to see that the inimitable crone’s name had taken the smirk off the other men’s faces.

He pulled in a breath, couldn’t quite help the slight puffing of his chest. “A Macpherson once gave Devorgilla refuge back when she was young and folk didn’t yet appreciate her healing art. In gratitude, she gave my forebear a small clutch of rowan branches tied with red thread. It’s still affixed above the byre door, though the clan women hang a fresh cluster beside it each autumn, before the cattle are brought down from the summer pasturings.”

Someone harrumphed.

Others exchanged sidelong glances.

“O-ho! And no witchy magic, you say?” A barrel-chested clansman leaned forward, his meaty hands clamped on the table edge. “Och, laddie, I ken some fine braw men who wouldn’t cross paths with Devorgilla even if you promised them a roll in the heather with three bonnie, big-breasted lassies.
Naked lassies!
”

Jamie swallowed, some of the swell leaving his chest.

Naked, big-breasted lassies, indeed.

And uttered in the same breath as the venerable Devorgilla.

“Jest as you will,” he said, “but so long as we follow the practice, Clan Macpherson enjoys fat cows the whole winter through.”

“Havers!” The meaty-handed clansman snorted. “Nigh all cattle beasts are slaughtered and salted on Michaelmas—save a few kept to replenish the next year’s stock. Even on Macpherson lands, I’ll wager.”

“I do not lie,” Jamie said, coloring. “And neither does my father, though he surely enjoys . . . bargaining. And, of that I would warn you.”

“Aye,” someone called from another table, “Munro Macpherson is crafty. But he’ll no see you wrong so far as the quality of his beasts.”

The man pushed to his feet, glancing round. “Indeed, if you pour enough coin into his coffers and smile through his jabber, he’ll look after your cattle till spring and then hand deliver you the finest creatures a Highland heart could desire!”

And mayhap look with more favor on his youngest son.

A fine lad who deserved better and ought not suffer for having been sired by an indifferent father, chiefly or otherwise.

As well Kenneth knew.

He looked over at him, his mind set. “Jamie—is it true your father will care for the beasts through the winter? Deliver them hale and hearty after the first thaws?”

“That is so,” Jamie confirmed. “But he’d demand payment now, like as not claiming he’ll require the coin to lay in winter fodder or perhaps build an extra byre to house the beasts.”

“The coin would be well spent,”
she
declared, stepping up to the table and looking far too fetching for such an early hour.

Her lush beauty almost hurting his eyes, Kenneth cocked his head at her, feeling a sharp need to touch and taste her.

“And what do you know of Jamie’s father’s cattle?” he asked, sending up a silent thanks to the saints that his plaid and the table edge hid the sudden rise in his braies.

“What do I know of Munro Macpherson’s cattle?” She slid a glance at Jamie. “Bulls,” she said, the challenge in her eyes at strange odds with the delicate pink staining her cheeks. “My father swore by the . . .
craft
of Macpherson bulls; he even secured a few as gifts for his allies.”

“Then so be it,” Kenneth decided, too aware of how the top swells of her breasts shimmered in the torchlight to wonder overlong why she hadn’t mentioned a connection to Jamie’s clan before now—and excusing the coming dent in his coffers with the smile on young Jamie’s face.

Much pleased himself, Kenneth stood. “The matter is settled,” he declared, lifting his voice. “Macpherson cattle it shall be. This very afternoon, I shall secure sufficient coin to please Munro Macpherson, no matter his demands.”

And, he promised himself as the hall broke into a great stir, he’d use the opportunity of retrieving the siller to seek a much needed
remedy
of his own!

One that wouldn’t endanger his heart.

And hopefully skilled enough to cure the itch plaguing him!

He turned to frown at that
itch,
but found her gone, vanished as swiftly as she’d appeared.

Only her scent remained, its faint echo teasing and beguiling him, making him want more.

Enough to lose and drown himself in—and propel him from the hall before his men noted his discomfiture and guessed the reason.

A
reason
that slipped from the shadows so soon as he rounded the screens passage and stepped into the curving passage beyond.

He stopped short. One brow arched and his entire body tightened. So much so he risked giving her a slow, deliberate smile.

But she disregarded the warning signs and came right at him, stepping so close that her breasts brushed his chest. So near that her scent swirled around him, inflaming his senses and blotting all thought . . . save dark ones!

“Lass—you dare much,” he said, so hard he could scarce breathe.

“I know,” she admitted, surprising him. “That is why I waited for you—to tell you the truth away from your men. Especially Jamie.”

Kenneth blinked.

This wasn’t what he’d expected.

His heart thundering, he gripped the back of her neck, tipping her head so she couldn’t look away. “What does Jamie have to do with . . .
this
?”

This time she blinked. “W-with what?”

In answer, he dropped his gaze to where her breasts pressed against his plaid.

“Oh!” She blinked again, moistened her lips. “I lied about Jamie’s father’s cattle,” she said in a rush. “He looked so . . .
besieged
when the others were baiting him and I . . . I wanted to help him.”

“And you did—most cleverly,” Kenneth owned, snaking an arm around her when she made to pull away. “But I wonder if the lie was worth the risk?”

“The risk?”

“Oh, aye—a great risk.” Kenneth nodded. “The one you took in coming so close to me,” he said, tightening his hold on her, drawing her closer still. “See you, lass, I am going to kiss you now,” he added, already lowering his head.

“Kiss me?” she murmured, even as his mouth slanted over hers. “Knowing you mean to marry me off to someone else?”

“Even then,” Kenneth asserted—just before his tongue glided hotly against hers.

Later that day, in the soft light of the gloaming, Kenneth drew rein at the thick, circular base of Dun Telve, one of several hollow-walled brochs nestled deep in the woods of his beloved Glenelg.

Russet-colored bracken and great clusters of wet, late-blooming heather pressed against the broch’s ruined walls, the wild tangle of undergrowth nearly blocking the low, stone-linteled entry passage, a sight that reassured him.

Dun Telve looked . . . undisturbed.

Relief sliding through him, he released the breath he’d been holding.

Truth tell, save the differences wrought by the turning seasons, little had changed since he’d last visited this silent remnant of Scotland’s distant past. A night he’d sought shelter, a place to secure his coin.

A fortune earned during his toil as a merchant seaman, his years spent as a successful if reluctant gatherer of seabird oil, one of the most highly prized commodities in all Christendom.

His chest tightening, he touched the three vertical scars seaming his left cheek, a forever reminder of days he didn’t care to speak of, but would never forget.

Dark days that ended on a cold, rainy night last spring when he’d slept in Dun Telve’s inner courtyard, his heart aching at the unexpected loss of his mother, his good Scots siller stashed within the broch’s walls, guilt flooding him for having trespassed on such a sacred place.

Then, as now, the strange stone tower loomed dark against the lowering sky, its strength, even in ruin, filling him with awe.