Bride of the Beast (12 page)

"By all the rogue saints!" James leapt to his feet. "Would you try a man to the limits of his patience? Bold, strapping man of steel!" he railed, snatching up the lute as if he meant to break it in two. "Must a man be hung with metal to win your favor?"

He shook the lute at her. "Fool that I am, I thought you meant to bethrall me with your singing, your kis—" Tossing the instrument onto the windowseat, he broke off his tirade to whirl away from her.

The lady Rhona stood, too, one hand clutching the lute, the other extended to James, but he stormed off before she could touch him, his stride purposeful and strong.

Beautifully smooth.

And wholly without a limp.

Marmaduke glanced sharply at Rhona and the joyous smile spreading across her face warmed his heart.

His lady's friend was astute indeed.

If her machinations to summon him hadn't proved it, her ploy just now had. Her boldness also proved where her heart lay, and Marmaduke's own sentimental heart smiled at the revelation.

James Keith would need a wench with backbone at his side when Marmaduke and his men returned to Balkenzie.

With a breathy little sigh, Rhona sank back onto the windowseat. She looked out at the sea, but she hadn't turned away swiftly enough for him to miss the glimmer of moisture swimming in her eyes.

He watched her for a long moment, some of the darkness inside him ebbing. For the first time since his arrival at Dun-laidir, a true shimmer of hope burgeoned in his heart.

If he could convince Caterine her stepson, and Dunlaidir, would be in sound hands after their departure, his chances of persuading her to accompany him should vastly improve.

"Lady, you possess greater insight than many men I know," he said, meaning every word. "Were you not a woman, I would knight you here and now in admiration for your wisdom. James is fortunate to have your devotion."

"He is not lame," she said, glancing at him. "His right leg was sorely hurt when a horse kicked him, but I suspect he scarce remembers which leg took the blow. The injury is long healed."

She paused to smooth the furred skins across her knees. "Regrettably, he is convinced otherwise. Perhaps you can persuade him to believe differently?"

"Such is my intent," he promised, a plan already forming in his mind.

"You will succeed, my lord," Rhona predicted, glad-eyed. "Both with James and my lady."

Marmaduke raised her hand and kissed it. "Fair lady, I shall hold you to your word."

"Then go and see you to it." She smiled at him, then turned back to the window, giving him leave to do just that.

Moving away, Marmaduke scanned the dimly lit hall. He spotted James bearing down on the great iron-studded door to the outer stairs.

And, once again, he walked with an exaggerated limp.

Marmaduke caught up to him just as he reached to open the door. "Have you a smithy?" he asked, closing his hand around the younger man's arm.

His brows shooting upward, James stared at him as if he'd sprouted horns. "A smithy?"

"A blacksmith. A master ironworker."

James tossed back his hair with a jerk of his head. "I am not a dullwit," he seethed, struggling to free his arm. "I ken what a smithy is, and, nay, we do not have one. Not any longer."

Marmaduke released him, but blocked the door by leaning his back against its heavy oak panels. "Then we shall make do on our own," he said, crossing his ankles, his tone deliberately jovial. "We can reward our exertions with a refreshing plunge in the cold waters of the sea."

'The sea?"

Marmaduke nodded. "After we visit the forge."

"We?" James's brows arched a notch higher. "I am not an underling to be ordered about."

Full aware all eyes in the hall watched their exchange, Marmaduke flicked an invisible speck of lint off his steel-clad arm. His tone as casual as he could make it, he said, "I said we, my friend. Ne'er would I breach the laws of hospitality by issuing orders to my host."

Satisfied when a bit of the fire went out of the younger man's eyes, Marmaduke pushed away from the door. "A well-meant suggestion, mayhap, but never a command."

Visible tension still thrumming through him, James glanced toward the shadowy window embrasure where Lady Rhona still sat. "There is no point in visiting the forge. It holds naught but rusting iron and dust-covered bellows. Our smith abandoned us months ago. As for bathing in the sea, I-I... do not swim."

True alarm had glimmered in James's eyes when he said he didn't swim, so Marmaduke focused on the task at hand.

Securing the latrine chutes and bolstering James's confidence.

"Four strong arms should compensate for one disloyal smithy," he said.

James shoved a hand through his hair. "I will take you to the forge, but do not expect assistance from me. As you saw this morn, I am not much good to anyone."

"You will only be of no avail if you persist in dallying about with your lady rather than coming with me." Marmaduke reached out and gave James's upper arm a fan-squeeze. "You have brawn enough for what we must do."

From the high table, Caterine watched their exchange with increasing amazement. Rather than protest when the Sassunach tested his muscle, a faint flush crept onto her stepson's cheeks and he stood a wee bit straighter.

And, for once, he did so without losing his balance.

The two men walked toward the hall's entrance vestibule together and Caterine would've sworn she'd caught the hint of a smile on James's face as he snatched his cloak off a bench near the door.

He
waited while James adjusted the fall of his mantle before he fetched and donned his own. Then, in a gesture that smacked of comradely ease, he slung an arm around the younger man's shoulders as they exited the hall, her champion's stride powerful and self-assured, her stepson's less confident but nowise as hesitant as his usual limping gait.

Caterine's heart warmed.

Ne'er had she thought to see James walk with a spring in his step again.

Slowly sipping her wine, she stared into the shadows of the entrance vestibule long after they'd closed the great oaken door behind them.

More and more, her sister's chosen champion was proving himself a man truly worthy of the title.

But even as her heart softened toward him, her mind wrestled with other concerns.

Grave ones of a most serious import.

Such as when exactly she'd ceased referring to him as the Sassunach champion and started thinking of him as simply
her
champion.

**

Other eyes watched their departure as well.

Brooding, hate-filled eyes hiding in the shadows near the bottom of the outer stairs.

The observer's brow arched with disdain when they passed.

Soon the English interloper would ride a swift and cold wind straight to the bowels of hell, hastened there by a well-aimed English arrow.

That irony curling the watcher's lips, the dark-cloaked figure slipped deeper into the dank chill of the white mist still blanketing much of the bailey.

<_/”"´
tis as
I told you," James said, a short while later. He peered into the dank interior of the long-deserted forge. "There is naught of use here."

Ignoring him, Marmaduke retrieved a wobbly three-legged stool from the shadows and used it to prop open the door. The once bustling workshop needed airing.

Dunlaidir's forge wasn't merely neglected, it smelled.

Of damp charcoal and rusting iron, of sea brine and mold.

And worse things he didn't care to identify.

A gust of brisk salt-laden air swept past him, blasting through the opened door to lift choking clouds of dust and ash off the hard-packed earthen floor.

"Let us be out of here." James wrinkled his nose in distaste, the flare of purpose he'd displayed in the hall rapidly fading. He crossed his arms. "I will not go in there."

Marmaduke quirked a grim smile at him. "Would you concede defeat before the battle is fought?"

"Only those battles too pointless to pursue," James said, scarce loud enough to be heard. "Like walking straight or
me
challenging two swords—"

"Two swordsmen?" Marmaduke voiced what he'd already guessed. "And why did you change your story? Why claim there was but one?"

James compressed his tips and turned away.

Beneath the other's silence, Marmaduke heard James's roiling frustration, louder and more penetrating than the screeching seabirds wheeling overhead.

Going to him, Marmaduke clamped a hand on his shoulder. "Together, we can bring the curs to heel," he said. "But only if you will trust me."

The younger man's brow creased, but when he gazed heavenward and blew out a long breath, Marmaduke knew he'd won this round. "Well?" he tried again, taking his hand from James's shoulder. "Why did you lie?"

"Because when I spoke the truth, the others laughed and declared I'd embellished the incident by insisting there were two when in truth I couldn't bear admitting I'd been bested by a single swordsman."

"So you let them believe what they wanted so they'd leave you be?"

James nodded.

"Mayhap that is as well, and we shall allow them to think that folly is the truth a while longer," Marmaduke said, glancing at the screaming gulls riding the air currents high above the forge.

"You believe me?" The incredulity in James's eyes spoke worlds.

"That I do," Marmaduke said, resting his hand almost casually on his sword-hilt "But the saints know I wish I didn't," he added, his deep voice suddenly threaded with steel.

The amazement vanished from James's face. "Pardon my confusion, sir, but how can you profess to believe me yet council silence about the second intruder?"

"If indeed he was an intruder. The man may have been invited, or assisted on his way out," Marmaduke said, carefully picking his words. "Mayhap both."

"That's madness." James shook his head. "I cannot believe it."

Marmaduke shrugged his mail-clad shoulders. "Several thorough searches were made, yet no trace of this elusive interloper could be found. Flesh and blood men do not vanish into thin air, my friend."

"And you believe someone in my household aided his escape?"

"I would give you my oath on it," Marmaduke returned. "Therefore it is prudent not to let anyone save, perhaps, the lady Caterine, know we are aware of any possible in-house treachery."

James stared at him, slack-jawed, but Marmaduke turned away before the younger man could further question him.

He knew much of in-house scheming and its dangers.

He carried the mark of such perfidiousness on his face and tasted the bile of its memory in the cold bitterness rising to choke him.

With a broad sweep of his arm, he cast aside a swaying curtain of cobwebs and stepped into the chill damp of the forge. "We can speak of this later," he said, glancing over his shoulder at James. "For now, we need a few sound pieces of grating to seal the garderobe chute."

"You speak as if such a task were simple." James hovered on the threshold.

"Naught in life is simple," Marmaduke said, halting beside a dirt-encrusted stone trough, once filled with cooling water, now demoted to a receptacle for all manner of refuse. "But each mastered challenge makes the living more worthwhile."

James took several hesitant steps into the forge, once more favoring his leg. "Think you?"

"Nay, I know so."

Bending, Marmaduke retrieved a grimy leather pouch off the floor near the long-cold smelting furnace. He upended the satchel and shook it hard. When nothing but dust emerged, he leveled a hard look at his companion.

James Keith reminded him more of himself at a younger age than he cared to admit.

"Come here," he said, something fiercely elemental twisting inside him at the anger and doubt he knew plagued the Dunlaidir heir.

Potent enemies, both.

And capable of laming the young man in a far worse way than some long-ago horse kick.

Fending off his own demons, Marmaduke held out the leather pouch. " 'Tis fair dark in here," he said. "You have two good eyes. I have but one. Our purpose is better served if you search the corners, while I gather what I can from the area near the door where the light is stronger."

"I—" James started, then snapped shut his mouth and came forward to snatch the satchel from Marmaduke's outstretched hand.

Mumbling to himself, he began stuffing odd lengths of wire, once used to craft links for mail, and rust-caked tools, into the leather sack.

Near the entrance, Marmaduke held up a good-sized drawplate and pretended to examine its many holes of varying sizes. The large sheet of metal was ideal to seal off the cliffside latrine chute. In truth, though, he paid little heed to the absent smith's prized tool for making wire, preferring to study James out of the corner of his good eye.