The Frost Maiden's Kiss (26 page)

“Well done, lady mine,” he murmured and Catriona felt a surge of delight. He urged her back to her side and wrapped his warmth around her, that arm still around her waist. “I believe we are well matched indeed,” he whispered, the way his breath tangled in her hair sending a thrill through her.

Catriona eased back against his heat, then froze when her buttocks collided with the evidence of his arousal.

Malcolm caught his breath, then pressed a kiss to her shoulder. “Sleep, Catriona. You are safe in my hall, even from me.” His words were husky and she heard the strain of his control. “I swear it to you.”

Catriona closed her eyes, recalling her own pledge to be the best wife she could be. She found herself drifting to sleep, at ease in a man’s embrace as she had never imagined she could be. But then, she felt safe, as well, a state she had never expected to feel again.

Truly, the Laird of Ravensmuir gave her much.

* * *

Malcolm heard the tune first, just as he had before.

It was a merry jig, a lively tune coaxed from a fiddle and one destined to set every foot to tapping. It was beguiling, that melody, one that seemed familiar for all its marvel. Once it rolled into a man’s ears, it was nigh impossible to deny the temptation to dance.

And therein lay the danger.

Malcolm was in the stable, though he knew himself to be in Ravensmuir’s new hall. It was cursed cold and there was snow on his boots, the tips of his gloved fingers still chilled. He knew himself to be in the solar, abed with Catriona, but the sight before his eyes did not change despite his conviction. The golden light that surrounded him was even more incomprehensible, for he knew that he had boarded over the hole in the wall of the last stall of the stable.

Yet still he stood, Rafael one step behind him, and looked into the caverns that still riddled the cliff where Ravensmuir had perched.

He glanced back to Rafael, only to find that man wearing the garments from their journey northward. He heard the winter wind whistling through the crannies and realized that he was dreaming of that night again, in that moment before they passed through the portal.

Then Rafael pushed past him, just as he had that night, enticed by the merry tune.

Even knowing he should not, Malcolm found himself doing as he had done that night, following Rafael into the passageway that extended down into the earth. Even as it had done before, the light extinguished itself when they had taken a dozen steps. The music continued, as it had then, but it seemed more haunting to Malcolm.

More treacherous.

Just as he had done that night, Rafael leapt onward.

Malcolm cried out, but his friend ignored him. He lunged after his companion, fearing the worst, but did not catch up with him before the flickering light of his lantern was lost to sight.

And Malcolm was lost in darkness, only the tune from the fiddle leading him on.

It seemed less of a temptation in the darkness, and more of a warning. Still he pursued Rafael and the music, knowing he owed a debt to his old comrade.

Malcolm had not gone far before he tripped over something, and then something else. Whatever lay across his path was heavy and soft, though not as tall as his knees. The smell gave him some hint as to what he walked through, for he smelled blood and excrement, dirt and decay.

How had he returned to a battlefield? How could the corpses from the Continent be found beneath Ravensmuir. It made no sense, but just as he had in December, Malcolm knew it to be so. He had to seek his footing with care, even knowing that Rafael was leaving him far behind. A torch flickered far below, casting a vivid orange light. Though Malcolm did not know whether it was lure or salvation, he made his way toward it.

From its light, he saw the dead. They were fallen on every side, the floor of the cavern sticky with their shed blood. He claimed the torch from the brace on the wall and lifted it high, not wanting to consider who had lit it for him. That music would drive him mad with its incessant invitation.

There were carcasses piled with abandon on every side and the air was thick with the smell of rot. Some men were bound and others shackled. Some had their eyes put out or their ears cut off. Some had slit throats and others were missing hands or feet. Several had been disemboweled, the smell enough to make Malcolm wretch. All were bloodied and beaten, and all were dead.

Many of them he recognized as men he had cut down himself. That they would have taken his life if he had not ended theirs first was no consolation. The music taunted him with all the killing he had done.

This place, this strange and horrific place, was even worse than the world Malcolm had wanted to leave behind forever. He stumbled onward after Rafael, cursing that man’s quick steps. Rafael was lured ever downward by the music.

Malcolm was not surprised when a brighter light illuminated the way ahead. It was golden as that first glow had been in the stables, but seemed to pulse in time with the music. He heard laughter and clapping hands, signs of the living that he welcomed after journeying through this passage full of the dead. He hurried, leaping over the corpses in his way, slipping on the bloody stone, and ultimately stepping into a large cavern.

He remembered this place. It was the largest cavern in the tunnels in the hill beneath Ravensmuir. He understood it to be collapsed, yet he stood within it. Malcolm had never come to it from the stables, though he had known it was possible. He had always descended from the hall itself to this cavern, though he had not visited it often. As children, they had been forbidden to come into the caverns alone, and he had learned much later that this hall had been where the great treasury of relics had been stored.

There was a crevasse in the floor where the stone was cracked, and a mist rose from it, indicating that there was water within it. This cavern opened to the sea, where Rosamunde and her father Gawain before her had once docked the ship that had carried relics near and far. The cavern was smaller and lower than once it had been, the great pile of rubble that obscured at least half of it showing the reason for Ravensmuir’s collapse. Malcolm could see that no passage to the old keep remained.

Beyond that, the cavern was utterly alien to him. It was filled not only with golden light and the sound of that jig, but thousands of Fae. They fluttered and danced, they ate and drank, they flirted and flitted.

There was a throne at one end of the cavern, and a man with a long dark beard sat upon it, the rings on his fingers glittering as he kept the tune. A circle of Fae of all sizes and shapes swirled around the lone fiddler, some in flight and others dancing so quickly that they might as well have flown. The fiddler was almost obscured by the sparkle of wings and shoes and gems, the music nigh obscured by the laughter of the Fae in the hall.

In their midst was Rafael, dancing as if he had lost his wits. He spun and kicked and laughed and clapped, more merry than Malcolm had ever seen him, though there was a wildness in his eyes.

He was trapped.

When a lady stepped out from behind the throne, her dark gaze fixed on Rafael, Malcolm feared the worst. She descended to the circle, this lady with hair as dark as midnight. The lady’s skin was as pale as the moon but traced with dark whorls and cobwebs, her lips were as red as blood, and her smile was as hungry as that of a wolf. She stepped through the circle of dancing Fae and reached for Rafael, but Malcolm could not remain silent.

“Leave him be!” he shouted. “He knows naught of your ways.”

The music stopped.

The lady turned her hungry gaze upon him, her lips tight with disapproval.

The king, for surely that was what he was, rose from his throne, his brow like thunder.

When the lady raised her hand, as though to smite him, Malcolm awakened with a start.

His heart was pounding and the memory of his promise burning in his mind. He
was
in the great hall at Ravensmuir, in the keep that had not existed when he and Rafael had descended into the caverns. The fire on the hearth had burned down to glowing embers. By the door, Rafael slept fully garbed, and Malcolm knew there was a blade in his companion’s hand as well.

From this angle, he could see the holes in the soles of Rafael’s boots and the sight was chilling. Boots so sturdy, wrought of good Spanish leather, should have endured a lifetime, but Rafael had danced through the soles in that one night, then slept a week afterward. Malcolm forced himself to take a steadying breath with the realization that his new bride, Catriona, slept in the solar at the top of the stairs, his ring upon her finger. He had not known her at Midwinter, but already he could not help but think that if he had, he might have made a different choice.

It was in that moment that Malcolm heard the cursed music again. The Fae music wound into his ears, entangled his heart and he feared it would drive him mad.

Perhaps that was the Fae’s intent.

He remembered Catriona’s song then, the one he had heard only just that day.

“It was a dark dark night, with no light;

they waded through red blood to the knee:

For all the blood that’s shed on earth;

Runs through the rivers of Fairie.”

Malcolm could not sit and endure the torment of the music, not given the memories it awakened for him. Though he had no intention of leaving Catriona alone on the night of their nuptials, once again, he chose from a poor array of options.

He slipped from the hall and stepped into the still fog of the night. He made his way to the ruins and heaved a sigh as he sat down inside.

He felt close to his uncle only here.

He felt truly sane, only here.

Malcolm shoved a hand through his hair and wished with all his heart that he did not have to die three nights hence. He knew, though, that it was only in tales that the Fae surrendered their claim to mortals. Though he wished otherwise, there would be no escape for him on Midsummer’s Eve.

* * *

Catriona awakened with a start. For a moment, she was uncertain where she was, then Avery cried and her milk began to leak from her breasts. She was in the solar at Ravensmuir in the middle of the night, although the pallet was cold beside her. Malcolm had left her after his token kiss, so his departure had not been what awakened her.

Following instinct, Catriona rose and looked out the window. Her heart sank to see the silhouette of her lord husband approaching the ruins on the cliff. When he disappeared into the yawning cavern yet again, she heard Vera bustling in the next room. Catriona struck a tinder, lighting a lantern, even as she thought.

Why did he go there? What did he seek?

Vera came into the solar in that moment, rocking the babe as he wailed. Catriona turned to take her son, well aware of how the older woman’s gaze flitted around the chamber.

“Gone!” Vera whispered. “And on his nuptial night!” She turned to face Catriona with suspicion and disapproval. “What have you done, girl?”

“Naught…” Catriona began, but Vera did not let her finish.

“Aye,
naught
! There is the truth of it.” She clucked her tongue and shook her head. Catriona settled on a stool to nurse her son, even as Vera poked at the coals in the brazier.

“Naught,” the older woman muttered again. “All the world granted to you and you do naught to secure it.”

“Vera, I bore a child yesterday. I cannot give pleasure to my lord husband just yet.”

“There are other ways to see to a man’s pleasure,” the older woman countered. “It is your nuptial night. He gives you
all
, girl, and might expect some deed in return.”

Catriona knew that Vera did not mean that one heady kiss, but her own lack of experience gave her no ideas what else she might have done. “My lord was most kind…”

“And he is gone.” Vera stood at the opposite window, her hands braced upon her hips as she stared down at the emptied bailey. Her eyes narrowed. “Were there whores in that camp of men? Did they take them with them?”

“I would not know.” Catriona would not confess Malcolm’s whereabouts to Vera, not before she asked him first.

Vera snorted. “They would hardly talk to you of it.” She pulled up a stool and sat close beside Catriona. “Lass, I do not know the fullness of your tale and I do not wish to hear it. But you have a chance in this moment to secure a future for yourself and for your son.”

“I know it well and that I am fortunate in this…”

“Then ensure that it cannot be taken away!”

Catriona nodded at good sense. “I do wish to give my lord husband a blood son with all haste.”

The older woman smiled and patted Catriona’s knee. “This is a good plan. But there are days if not weeks in which all could be lost.” She leaned closer and whispered. “A man cannot wait a month to celebrate his nuptials.”

This woman had given her good advice, so Catriona dared to ask for more. “I know little of such matters, Vera.”

“You have a child!”

“He was got upon me in one night, and I had little joy in it. That night is the sum of my experience abed.”

Vera sat back to consider her, understanding in her eyes. “And my laird Malcolm knows this, does he not?”

Catriona nodded, choosing not to confess that Malcolm had guessed only part of the truth. “I would see him pleased and his patience rewarded, but I know not how to begin.”

The maid looked left and right, then leaned close to Catriona. “You have hands, lass. Ask him what he would like best for you to do with them.”

Catriona could not imagine what Vera meant any more than she could imagine having such a discussion with her spouse. “Ask him?”

“With your hands, girl.” Vera sat back and put her hand upon her own chest, her palm flat and fingers splayed. “Begin here and slowly move your hand down.” She winked, looking suddenly mischievous and much younger. “Before you reach what we both know to be there, he will
tell
you his desire.” Vera nodded sagely. “Trust me in this.”

Touch him boldly and let him guide her course.