Bride of the Beast (17 page)

"Who Arabella was?"

"Was?"

"Aye, was, for she lives no more." Stepping closer, he cradled her face between his hands, a wealth of loss and empty years mirrored in the depths of his good eye. "Arabella MacKenzie was my liege laird's sister, and she was my wife."

Caterine gulped back the cold shame swelling in her throat. Guilt because his answer both sorrowed and relieved her. "Will you tell me of her?" she asked, wincing inwardly when a shade of discomfort crossed his face.

Ill-ease swept over her, too, for the intimacy of the laird's lug and the warmth of his large hands on her face stirred disturbing emotions deep inside her, and left her more open, more vulnerable, than she'd ever been.

He slid his hands behind her neck and began caressing the sensitive skin of her nape. Caterine sighed, her shame tailing away, washed free by the bliss of his touch, banished by the tingling warmth his gently massaging fingers sent spilling through her.

"She was a proud and passionate woman," he began, the words overlaid with a dark, hollow tone as if wrenched from the very depths of his soul. "She died because she overheard a plot to murder her brother. The perpetrators were my liege's own lady wife and his half-brother, the harlot's lover. They poisoned Arabella to still her tongue."

Caterine gasped. "Were they punished?" she asked in a tight little voice, her conscience smiting her for encouraging him. The pain on his face shattered the casing of her heart with more effectiveness than any silvered words.

"They are both dead," he said after a long moment, "and I have no doubt they've had to account for their wickedness before a greater judge than man."

Staring past her, he heaved a great sigh. "The strife they caused has long been laid to rest and is best forgotten, my lady. Life goes on and it is the privilege of the living to make the best we can of each new day."

"You speak like a holy man."

"I am no monk, that I assure you," he said, a definite trace of amusement in his voice.

"Nor am I a fool." He let his fingers light briefly on the scar slashing across his cheek. "As you see, I was left with a living reminder of the dark deeds done that day, but I learned well from the errors I made—"

"That is when you were scarred?"

He nodded. "My own foolhardiness bested me as much as my opponent's mastery with a sword," he said, and blew out a breath of clear frustration. "So outraged was I, that I ignored the most elemental rule of swordplay and let my emotions make me careless. The mistake cost me dear."

"I am sorry."

Caterine stared at him in the muted light, seeing not the Englishman, but simply
a man.

One who'd lost much.

"What has gone before cannot be undone, " he said, his tone indicating he meant more than his own ill-starred past. "Nor are all hurtful experiences entirely bad if we learn and grow from them. The burdens I've carried have made me a wiser, more cautious man."

He paused, waiting as a particularly boisterous clamor from the hall below swelled into the laird's lug, then slowly ebbed away. "I will not allow you to fall prey to the same underhanded machinations that cost Arabella her life."

"That is why you wished to speak to me here? To caution me that you fear a turncoat moves amongst us?"

"I do not fear it, I am certain of it," he said. "James was indeed fallen upon by two intruders, though I would bid you to keep the knowledge to yourself. Someone in your household aided the second interloper in his escape."

He stepped back from her, and the sudden withdrawal of his warmth, his strength, left her almost shivering.

Clasping his hands behind his back, he began pacing the spy chamber's scant length. "I've sealed the cliff-side latrine chute, thus rendering that access useless, but such precautions are of little avail if someone within your walls would throw wide the gate for your enemies."

"Then what precautions would you suggest?"

"Your priest will proclaim the third banns for our nuptials in a few days and he tells me we can be wed in a sennight." Hesitating, he peered hard at her. "Until the day, and as of this night, I shall bed down in your ante-room."

"But—"

"We have both been married before. No one will raise a brow if they believe we wish to become better acquainted before you wear my ring."

Caterine's gaze dropped to his ruby signet ring. Just looking at it, and knowing its significance, sent a slow-pulsing
^w
armth curling through the lowest part of her belly.

"I do not wish to wear your ring. The marriage is to be in name only," she said. "A pretense."

"A pretense only works if it is believed."

"You cannot sleep in my ante-room."

He folded his arms. "Only until we speak our vows."

Relief, and a wee tinge of regret, sluiced through Caterine.

But not for long.

Her eyes flew wide. "What do you mean
only until?
"

"Exactly that," he allowed, feigning a look of mock innocence some secret part of her found... endearing.

"Once we are wed, I shall sleep where all good husbands are wont to sleep," he informed her. "In my lady wife's bed."

**

In a different tower chamber, one located at the very end of yet another of Dunlaidir's winding passageways, James Keith sprawled in a chair before his hearth fire nursing his aching leg and his fouler mood.

Across the room, his great four-poster bed loomed empty and cold, a silent sentinel to his dark musings and his inability to fill its splendor with aught but his own fool self and his more foolish dreams.

Expelling a sigh, he pushed to his feet and limped to the windows. The most magnificent in all of Dunlaidir, the bank of tall, traceried windows followed the curvature of the chamber wall, offering sweeping views not only of the endless expanse of the sea, but also of the rugged cliffs on which the stronghold stood.

Night-blackened now, their shutters flung wide to embrace the wet chill and racing wind, the opened windows looked out on an impenetrable curtain of darkness.

A perfect reflection of James's own self.

And his prospects as master of this massive pile of stone perched on the very edge of the sea.

The Laird's Stone hadn't yet wept for him,
Rhona had told
him earlier... as she'd reminded him every night since his father's passing.

But it would,
she'd hasten to assure him.

As if the mere assertion would make it so.

James raked a hand through his hair and filled his lungs with the cold salt air. If only he could fill his heart with the valor that should have been bred in the bones of one such as he, then mayhap the stone would indeed acknowledge him.

But daring and skill couldn't be absorbed as easily as chill briny air, nor could iron-fisted fathers be pleased by less than the ablest of sons.

And the Laird's Stone wouldn't cry for a failure.

Bracing one hand against the molded edge of the nearest window, James tried to ignore the throbbing in his leg. But he could no sooner vanquish the knifing pain than he could block out the roar of the sea crashing against the rocks below.

Or stop his ears from straining to catch a lighter sound, one he waited for each night: Rhona's footfalls as she neared his door with a ewer of wine.

A nightly ritual.

An innocent game he suspected she concocted to make him feel like the lord he wasn't.

The laird's due,
she called it. Something she claimed he needed before retiring ... his wine cup replenished!

Scowling, he almost hurled the empty chalice out the opened window. Instead, his fingers clenched around its cold stem until his temper receded. He didn't need spirits to aid his slumber.

He needed ... Rhona.

Her open arms and willing kisses.

Not the libations she dispensed so sweetly each night.

Nay, not
sweetly.

Provocatively.

F
or, of late, she often appeared at his door with the neck line of her gown dipping so low, he'd swear she purposely altered them ... or, at the very least, loosened their ties.

And all so he'd be sure to catch a glimpse of her dusky nipples!

A glimpse and nothing more.

A bounty offered but not served.

A sweetmeat presented solely to bedevil him.

Frowning darker than the night, James turned away from the windows and returned to his chair. He settled onto its cold oaken seat with a
harrumph
angry and bold enough to suit the most jaded laird-watchers.

Then he cradled his empty wine cup in the palm of one hand and waited for the light footfalls and quick tap-tapping on his door that would herald another torturously sweet glimpse of the lush wares of the maid he hoped to make his own.

And for the coming dawn and his first lesson in lordly sword wielding.

Instruction in the fine art of being a brave Scottish laird.

A lesson offered and taught by an English knight!

The irony of it stung his pride but also gave him hope.

Hope enough to chisel a bit of the scowl off his face and inspire him to t
hank
the saints for his sweet-nippled lady and her meddling ways.

“i will make
you a bargain, my lady." Sir Marmaduke examined the red-gleaming facets of his signet ring's sizable ruby, feigning greater interest in the gemstone than in the look on Lady Caterine's upturned face.

She wore an expression unflattering enough to thoroughly negate the dubious measure of advantage he'd hoped to gain from the spy chamber's muted lighting.

Indeed, she peered at him as if kissing a round score of lepers held more appeal than him sleeping in her bedchamber's ante-room.

Stiffening his spine, he braved her unblinking stare on his firm conviction that the slight narrowing of her sapphire eyes had more to do with her own stubborn pride than any true aversion to his announced intentions.

"I do not like to bargain," she said at last.

"Then a promise."

"What manner of a promise?" Her wary gaze latched into his ring.

A perfect focus for what he meant to say.

"Lady, I am not a callow youth," he began, squaring his shoulders. "I am a man, and fully equipped with all the usual accoutrements, I assure you. I will not promise you a chaste marriage bed for that would be a falsehood before the words left my tongue."

He raised her hand to his lips. "But I swear I shall never touch you intimately lest you will that I do so."

Her eyes flew wide. "Meaning you shall touch me in non-intimate ways? At will? As it suits you?"

"Nay, my lady, my desire is to suit
your
will."

"Mayhap I do not wish to be ... suited?"

'Then, once you are mine, I shall be the more hard-pressed to convince you otherwise." He released her hand. "And to please you."

Something—temper, disbelief, or perhaps even a spark of interest—flared in her eyes. "And you believe you can?"

"Convince you or please you?"

She moistened her lips, her cheeks turning scarlet.

"Both."

"Of a certainty, I shall endeavor to accomplish both." He made the words a frank statement. "Especially the pleasing
part."

Touching his ring to the tip of her nose, he added, "As
you shall please me."

Faugh! She would sooner diddle the devil,
his demons roared with malicious levity.

Fortunately, their insolence only sharpened his determination, and spurred him to defy the niggling doubts they'd flung at him by pursuing a bolder avenue to his objective.

Such as having her massage the healing ointment onto his flesh.

Now.

He glanced about the shadowy laird's lug for the little bowl, remembering too late that she'd left the sharp-smelling unguent in the ante-room.

For an interminable moment, silence yawned between them, its heavy pall coating the air. The night must have lengthened, for thick quiet rose from the great hall as well.

Dunlaidir's occupants, their hunger sated and their thirst
quenched, had either sought out their guard posts or laid themselves to rest.

Save two.

And one of the two peered at him with as much doubt peeking out from the blue pools of her luminous eyes as he himself kept stashed under lock and key in the deepest pit of

his soul.

"You think I shall please you?" The hushed words came so soft Marmaduke scarce believed he'd heard them.