Bride of the Beast (40 page)

The voice came from behind him and Marmaduke spun around to see Hugh de la Hogue emerge from the billowing cloud of smoke pouring from the gatehouse's arched entrance. Ruddy-faced and full-armed, he strode forward, a handful of bedraggled, choking men stumbling out behind him.

"I'd heard the rumors, but now I see your renowned handsomeness is indeed but an ill memory," he taunted, his voice amazingly unaffected by the shroud of thick smoke he'd just pressed through. "I scarce recognize you."

"You, son of a sow," Sir Gowan rushed him, his two-handed Highland blade raised for a smiting blow.

Sir Hugh sidestepped the vicious downward swing with surprising agility. He blocked Gowan's second slashing arc with equal skill, their blades meeting with an ear-splitting
clank.

"Enough, MacKenzie!" Marmaduke stayed his friend, even as Sir Ross and Sir Alec pushed forward to strong-arm him back into the growing circle of onlookers.

"You've taken up with a wild pack, Strongbow," de la Hogue sought to provoke him. "A heathenish lot."

Ignoring the slur, Marmaduke raked the other's steel-girt form with disdain. "Heathen?" He lifted a brow. "And what do you call a man who, under siege, dallies behind to array himself in metal while leaving his men to face their challengers in naught but naked skin?"

Grumbles of terse comment arose from the ranks of Sir Hugh's soot-blackened men, some underscoring their agreement with nods and accusatory glares aimed not at Marmaduke, but at their red-faced liege.

"Do not heed him," Sir Hugh spluttered, his heavily beringed fingers clenching and unclenching on the hilt of his sword. "The fool was ever blessed with a silver tongue and high looks."

Raising his blade, he pointed its tip at Marmaduke. "A pity you've lost the latter," he drawled. "Persist in harassing me and you shall lose your life as well."

The Highlanders snorted in chorus at that and, at the sounds, Sir Hugh's face suffused purple.

He waved his sword at the teeth-chattering group of bare-bottomed men huddled some distance away. "Think you they are my only guards?" he cried. "Sniveling women! They ran at the first sign of trouble. But I have other guards ... better-skilled ones."

He threw a quick but significant glance at the smoke-clogged gatehouse. "They are yet inside, arming themselves as we speak. You are out-manned in more ways than one,

Strongbow."

"Think you?" Before the words were fully past his lips, Marmaduke arced his steel in a flashing, sideways sweep that knocked the other's blade from his hand.

The sword hit the cobbles with a resounding clatter even as Marmaduke pressed the tip of his own into de la Hogue's mail-covered paunch. "You, sir, could not out-man a lowly earthworm," he said, jerking his head toward the Highlanders and Keith men-at-arms who'd been inside the keep. "Show him your steel, men." And they did.

Not a blade was raised that didn't gleam red ... and not from the licking flames raging all around them.

Marmaduke waited for comprehension to dawn on de la Hogue's face before he continued. "Any men not yet amongst us perished in the fire ... or forfeited their life for a mistaken cause when they rose against yon men as they poured over the ramparts."

Sir Hugh wet his lips. "There are more ..." He cast a nervous glance toward the cold, windy dark of the nearby lochshore. "—on patrol. They will—"

"James," Marmaduke called over his shoulder, "do you see any of de la Hogue's guard moving about?"

"Nay, sir," James returned after a moment. "I see naught but the starry night and the flames of hell waiting for the bastard."

"We
came across a patrol," Ross's deep voice came from the sidelines. "But they are no more," the Highlander finished, the glee in his voice earning chortles of a dark sort from the other caterans gathered round him.

"Those sorry souls met their Maker when they tried to keep us from taking a bit o' thatch off the outbuildings,"

Alec explained.

"All dead?" Marmaduke kept his gaze on Sir Hugh.

"Every last one." That from young Sir Lachlan.

"Lies!" de la Hogue denied, hostility flashing across his face. "They were too many to be felled by a handful."

Marmaduke only arched a brow. "That would depend on the handful, I'd say. It would seem, good sir, that
you
are out-manned and in more ways than the obvious."

Withdrawing his sword-point from de la Hogue's belly, he used it to gesture to the other's fallen blade. "You'd be wise to commend yourself to God's care, for very shortly you shall face Him," he advised. "Now retrieve your blade and fight nobly so you may leave this world with more honor than you peopled it."

Sir Hugh slid another uneasy glance at the cluster of pathetic, freezing souls who'd made up his guard. It'd begun to snow, and their bared heads were dusted with white, making them appear more like a band of dottering graybeards than an assembly of
England
's best.

His jaw working in anger, Sir Hugh snatched up his sword... and tossed one, last desperate look at his men. "Think you they will stand by and—"

"They will do what is wise and return to their homes," Marmaduke finished for him, his tone deceptively mild. "They'd no doubt fetch a fine ransom, but I believe this land is better served if they take themselves from it this very hour... on their knightly honor never to return."

"Have a care," de la Hogue sneered, lifting his blade, "each time you've harped on honor in the past, you've paid a high price."

Controlling his anger as expertly as he wielded steel, Marmaduke advanced on Sir Hugh. He circled him with measured steps, as keenly aware of the snow-and-soot-slicked cobbles beneath his feet as he was of de la Hogue's every move.

Driven by rage, Sir Hugh lunged and stabbed, swinging furiously, his every hacking thrust falling short or blocked until he began shouting his fury with each clumsy, slashing arc.

An eerie silence fell over the watching throng, the baited hush emphasizing the roaring crackle of burning timber.

And always, Marmaduke advanced, pushing his opponent ever farther toward the burning gatehouse.

Sir Hugh shrieked when a shower of sparks and falling, burning debris rained down on him. Cursing, he dragged his free arm over his eyes and raised his blade for a wild, downward strike.

A blind strike, the fury of which would've lopped off the arm of a less-skilled sworder, but Marmaduke avoided the blow with ease and dealt one of his own.

A wide sideways slash, lightning quick, and slicing across the exposed area beneath Sir Hugh's arm, the earl's shrill cry and the shooting spray of bright red blood giving unmistakable voice to the depth of the cut.

"You bastard!" he screeched, grabbing beneath his arm, his sword clattering to the cobbles. His face purple with rage, he flung himself at Marmaduke, his feet slip-sliding on the slick cobbles.

His arms wheeling, he almost righted himself just as a large section of the gatehouse door behind them burst into an inferno of leaping flames, then crashed down in a great plume of sparks ... directly on top of him.

"'Fore God!" One of Marmaduke's men cried, running forward, the others quick on his heels.

de la Hogue's death screams ringing in his ears, Marmaduke stood frozen as his men beat their hands on his head and shoulders, knocking off the burning bits of wood and sparks before they could catch flame.

"Saints a-mercy!" James dashed the sparks from Marmaduke's eyebrows with the pads of his thumbs.

And when at last they stepped back from him, he did t
hank
the saints.

Once more they'd stood by him.

"It's over," he said, squeezing shut his good eye for a moment.

His breath still burning his lungs, he looked to where de la Hogue lay buried beneath the burning rubble. Only his boots could be seen. Already smoking, they poked out from a mound of splintered and smoldering wood.

"A fitting end for the dastard." Gowan scratched his bearded chin. "A foretaste o' where he's at now."

"And the others?" One of the Keith garrison men nodded to de la Hogue's men, still huddled in a tight knot some distance away. "What do we do with them?"

Marmaduke followed the man's gaze, then heaved a great sigh. Glancing heavenward, he remembered his own zeal and pride when he, too, at their young age had made the mistake of following the wrong man.

After a long moment, he ran a hand through his singed hair and sighed again. "See them home, my friend, see them home," he said, once more, as so often in his life, following his heart rather than prudence.

"Gather what raiments the lot of you can spare them, then escort them to the border," he added, capping his own men's welling disapproval with a stern, warning glance.

Then, before prudence could seize him after all, he gave the guardsman a light shove toward the waiting captives. "Go now," he said. "Off with you, off with them."

"And I say, off with us!" Sir Alec declared as he vaulted into his saddle.

The other Highlanders chorused hearty agreement. As one, they mounted their steeds and reined round, putting the burning pyre of Kinraven swiftly behind them.

Only Marmaduke hesitated.

With a heavy heart and a disturbing tightness in his throat, he watched the young English knights swallow their pride and don whatever articles of clothing the Keith men tossed to them.

Then, before the Keith guardsmen could begin herding them south, Marmaduke turned his back on the ragtag group, on his own long-ago past, and swung up onto his saddle.

"Aye, Alec," he agreed, the moment he caught up with the Highlanders. 'The good Lord willing, it is time to go home."

And not a man who heard him had to guess which home he meant.

**

Caterine came awake the instant Leo hopped from her lap and streaked to the door. His mistress forgotten, he plopped onto his rump, his golden-brown head cocked to the side, his floppy ears lifted in rapt attention.

Even from behind, from the cushioned confines of the window embrasure where she sat, Caterine knew his round eyes stared unblinking at the door's heavy oaken panels.

Knew they brimmed with abject adoration.

Expectancy.

As did hers, no doubt, for Leo's behavior could only indicate one thing:
he
had returned at last and would soon stride through her door.

Blinking the gritty weariness from her eyes, she strained her ears but heard only the deafening crush of silence. Even the ceaseless pounding of the sea against the rocks below seemed hushed.

Her heart hammering nonetheless, she pushed to her feet and scanned the dimly lit bedchamber. Blue-violet shadows stretched across the rushes, darkening the corners and proving she'd slept long and deep.

Even the wall torches and the hanging cresset lamp had extinguished themselves, leaving only the orange-glowing hearth embers to illuminate the silent chamber.

The interminable night and the endless hours of the day had slipped irrevocably behind her. Vanishing without her notice, whisked away as if by some enchantment during her exhausted slumber.

And something, some great and mysterious secret that had hovered so near as she'd dozed, escaped her as well. A slight frown knitted her forehead as she grasped for whatever it was, and failed.

Conceding defeat, she pressed her hands to the small of her back and stretched. Sleeping in the relatively small area of the narrow window seat, had taken its toll.

Just as the palpable quiet unraveled her calm.

Tilting her head to the side, she listened hard, but again, heard only silence. No familiar footfalls, confident and proud, approached her door. No muffled stirrings sounded from the great hall below.

A sidelong glance at the unshuttered windows as well as the bite of the icy air pouring through them, revealed the reason for the eerie stillness: sometime during her fitful rest, it'd begun to snow.

Whirling curtains of fast-falling snow slanted past the arch-topped windows, and a fair dusting of the white-glistening crystals already mounded along the outer stone ledge.

Then a noise
did
intrude on the silence.

Just the creak of a floorboard, and a distant one from the sound of it, but loud enough to set her pulse racing and persuade Leo to give up his patient vigil.

With a shrill yap of joy, he launched himself at the closed door, his tail wagging, his button nose sniffing at its seam ... as high up as the limitations of his size allowed.

Trembling, her fingers shaking nearly as furiously as Leo's wagging tail, she looked about for something to do. Anything to occupy herself so, if the approaching footfalls
were
his, he wouldn't immediately see she'd fretted through every minute of his absence.

How fervently she'd prayed for his safe return,
dreamed
of him as she'd dozed.

Vivid dreams of passion and ... love.

Love?

At once she remembered. Everything. And with the realization, she almost burned her fingers on the candle flame she'd been holding to the wicks of the extinguished cresset lamp.