Bride of the Beast (42 page)

And steal the freedom she'd thought she'd seized at last. Lying perfectly still, Caterine tried to close her ears to long-faded slurs, the brutal visitations of memories best forgotten. She closed her eyes, hoping to cling to the bliss of being wrapped so protectively, so lovingly, in her champion's arms, but the images followed her.

Cold and relentless, inescapable as the incoming tide, her darkest hour rose to claim her, sneaking into her very bedchamber, stealing round her curtained bed, and even pulling back the bed hangings to leer at her.

An assemblage of jeering apparitions gathered in the predawn gloom to gleefully declare their hold on her. To superimpose their lust-crazed faces over her husband's beloved one, and remind her that the arms now holding her, were
English
arms.

Would always remind her of
their
English arms. And to assure her they would never leave her. Never allow her to fully love him. Not as he deserved to be loved.

And Sir Marmaduke Strongbow deserved to be loved with a full and glad heart. Not one he'd have to share with the shadows and shame of a past she couldn't flee.

As carefully as she could, Caterine pushed up on her elbow to peer down at him, willed herself to see only
his
face and, blessedly, she did.

His face was relaxed and beautiful in sleep, his scar not marring, but highlighting his handsomeness—the shining glory of a truly noble heart. A champion's heart.

She smoothed her fingers over his hair, her heart welling as her fingertips skimmed over the singed parts ... another badge of honor, another reason he needed a woman who could love him fully, with all of her heart and not just her passion.

Her own heart wrenching, Caterine slipped from the bed. Deep in an exhausted sleep, he didn't notice her leave. Or mayhap he did, for he rolled onto his side and thrust out an arm, moving his hand over the bed sheets as if he sought her warmth.

And have you decided, my lady?

She started, hearing the words as surely as if he stood before her, hands on her shoulders and looking down at her with his special smile.

The rare one that brought out his dimples.

"Have I decided what, my lord?" she whispered into the quiet, her voice soft and tremulous, so tight was the burning constriction in her throat.

"Have I decided what?" she asked again, reaching for him, almost touching her hand to his pitifully singed hair.

If I am a charmer of women?

A spell-caster?

Her heart heard his query ... and answered him as well.

Aye, you are, my dearest.

And he was ... in the most wondrous of ways.

For a long moment, she stood gazing at him before she gave him a wistful smile and eased the covers over his shoulders. Fine, wide-set shoulders, powerful and braw, but not quite sturdy enough to carry the weight of the ghosts

plaguing her.

Her very worst dragons.

And it was those beasts she had to flee, not him, for their presence in her bedchamber, even in the inky shadows of the corners, proved more than she could bear.

As quickly and quietly as she could, Caterine dressed, eager to escape before the stinging heat at the backs of her eyes could turn to tears.

At the door, she cast one last glance toward her sleeping husband, then wished she hadn't, for the accursed shadows in the corners had shifted... their darkness stretching across the room to encompass the bulk of her bed.

Lifting her chin, she turned her back on them and raised the drawbar. "You will not besiege me," she whispered as she opened the door. "Nor will you make me cry."

Squaring her shoulders, she waited for Leo to join her, then, together, they slipped from the room. And all the way down the dimly lit passage, she struggled against her tears. But she needn't have, for someone else shed them for her. A darker, more solid shadow than her dragons. And not nearly as ominous. Only ... sad.

Standing vigil in the corner, her cowled robes drawn tight against a cold more chilling than any icy wind to ever lash at Dunlaidir's stout walls, the woman waited patiently until the other shadows faded.

Until their menace moved away from
him.
And when at last they did, she gave a little sigh he would have credited to the wind, and, wiping the dampness from her cheeks, she, too, faded away.

**

She was gone.
                                                           

Sir Marmaduke knew it even before he came fully awake.

Blessed-or ill-wished, depending-with an uncanny knack for simply knowing things at times, this proved an occasion when his gut instinct sent his heart plummeting.

His blood pumping in his veins, not hot and thick as only hours before, but icy cold and thin with dread, he snaked the flat of his palm across the bed sheets... and knew true alarm at the cold that met his fingers.

Nary a hand-span of lingering warmth remained of where she'd lain so sweetly beside him.

Of where they'd loved.

And she hadn't simply slipped away to tend certain early morning necessities. His fair lady wife,
his heart,
had vanished in the small hours of the night.

All his doubts and regrets massed together and sat on his heart. A cold and heavy weight even one as hard-muscled as he couldn't shoulder away. So he frowned.

Scowled up at the heavily carved ceiling of her great four-poster bed and wondered if he
had
dreamed the glories of the night they'd shared.

Had she truly writhed and moaned beneath him?
Invited
him to take her?

Aye, she had, for the scent of their loving, their spent passion, still clung heavily to the bed sheets, even permeating the very air within the silken confines of the curtained bed. Aye, they'd loved and with the greatest of passion. And in the darkest hour of the night, when all the world slept and shadows hid what one didn't want to see.

Like the ravaged face of a man who'd once, in a long-ago life, been amongst the most dashing of men.

Heaving a weary sigh, Marmaduke shoved back the bed coverings and pushed to his feet, prepared, if not eager to face the cold-cast new day.

The saints knew he'd had ample practice in rising above himself in trying times.

Thus steeled, he ignored the frantic thudding of a heart undone, and strode straight into the little ante-room to dress. And the moment he had, he dropped to his knees beside his leather satchel and rummaged for two things: his finely-wrought bronze mirror and Linnet MacKenzie's ragwort
beauty salve.

The latter seemed to have gone missing so he upended his traveling pouch, letting its contents spill onto the piddle stained pallet he'd called his own in the nights before his lady had allowed him entry to her bed.

Marmaduke at last spied the round earthen jar—his
won-

der
treatment. The last of his supply until his return to Kin-tail, for he'd used the salve with a heavy hand of late, all in the hopes of making himself more appealing.

Not handsome again, for, though a romantic, Marmaduke Strongbow was anything but a fool.

Nay, simply more appealing, though now, this foul and black morn, even
acceptable
would suffice.

Then, before he lost his courage, he pulled the handsome, loop-handled mirror from beneath a mound of recently washed chainsil braies, snatched up the jar of false hope and shattered dreams, and went long-strided to the window embrasure in his lady's bedchamber.

Still scowling, he dropped both items onto one of the windowseats, then yanked open the shutters. A cold, white world greeted him... chill and icy, its stinging bite as numbing as the ache settling round his heart.

He stared out at the pewter sea, at the white haze hovering low above its gray swells, and at whirling curtains of snow undulating clear to the horizon. The brooding early morning sky, heavy with pale, dense clouds foretold more of

the same.

Time of the essence now, he picked up the mirror and peered hard at his likeness. T
hank
s to his black frown and his singed hair, a more frightful beast than he'd ever glimpsed in the mirror's depths looked back at him.

A visage so grim, so fierce, he could not blame his lady for slipping from his side.

His mind made up, Marmaduke set down the mirror and retrieved the jar of
beauty treatment.
Closing his fingers around its familiar shape, he clung to his hopes and dreams for just a moment, then sent the little jar sailing through the opened window and into the sea.

Taking grim satisfaction at having freed himself of all illusions, he turned away from the windows.

It was time to find his wife.

later that morning,
in Dunlaidir's great hall, Rhona plunked a large wooden bowl onto the scarred surface of the high table and, with a flourish, whipped away the bowl's cloth covering.

The Laird's Stone wept.

Utter astonishment washed over Caterine as she watched the impossible.

Rhona could scarce contain her glee. "See you, my lady, I told you the stone cries."

Her amazement too great for her to confront her friend about having lifted the stone from its strongbox, Caterine looked on in awe as crystal-clear beads of moisture appeared on the quartz-speckled Laird's Stone.

The glistening droplets leaked from the stone's very heart to trickle down its rounded sides, swiftly filling its smooth wooden bowl.

The stone wept copiously ... just as the legend claimed.

A sniffle beside her proved Rhona was on the verge of weeping, too. "James!" she cried, turning to him. "The Laird's Stone is recognizing you."

"Or we're about to see his death," someone in the crowded hall declared. "Last time the stone wept, the old Master passed on."

The jostling and low-voiced murmurs 'around the high table stilled at once. James, lacking in elation from the onset of the miracle, blanched.

"From what I have heard of the legend, the stone cannot herald his passing before he has been accepted as Master of Dunlaidir," a deep voice said behind Caterine, and her heart tilted.

Sir Marmaduke drew up beside her, something raw-edged and indefinable simmering beneath his calm. "The tears we see are celebratory tears for the valor he's shown of late." He touched his hand to her shoulder, glanced down at her. "Is that not so?"

Caterine nodded, too unsettled by his proximity to give him a more eloquent reply.

Eoghann suffered no such difficulty. A broad smile spreading across his weather-lined face, he snatched an empty drinking mug off the table, filled it with frothy heather ale, then thrust the brimming cup into James's hand. "Lighten your heart, my lord, for the stone is saluting you."

"Come, then, and let me commend you as well," Sir Marmaduke said to James. Stepping away from Caterine, he slid out his sword.

"Oh!" Rhona's hands flew to her cheeks. "He is going to knight you." Joy lit her pretty face and was quickly taken up by the onlookers thronging the dais.

Only Caterine forced her smile, for her skin prickled with an eerie foreboding of the announcement her husband would next make. Clasping cold hands before her, she watched him place a hand on James's shoulder. "Kneel, my friend, and accept the stroke of honor."

Hot color flooded James's cheeks, but he dropped to his knees and bowed his head. A solemn quiet descended over the hall as Sir Marmaduke raised his silver-gleaming blade.

"Be valiant, James of Dunlaidir. Honor your fellow knights. Love God and keep your soul stainless at all times."

His commanding voice rang out as he struck the flat of his steel first to one of James's shoulders, then the other.

"I, Marmaduke Strongbow of Balkenzie, dub thee knight," he finished the brief adubbement. "Now rise, Sir James, and be ever proud."

"I shall, good sir, and I t
hank
you," James gave the proper response, and stood.

Marmaduke sheathed his blade. "Be worthy and always stand tall," he advised, giving James a comradely
thwack
on the arm. "I know you shall."

"Hail Sir James!" a shout rose from the crowd. Similar cries and comment issued from others, respectful if not exuberant.

Leo seemed most pleased of all, dashing away from Caterine to streak circles about the hall, his excited barks leaving no doubt that he, at least, believed something extraordinary had happened.

"I crave your ear, my lady," her champion said the instant he returned to her side, the summons she'd expected, cushioned by a gallant offering of his mailed arm.

Their gazes met and held for a long moment before she slipped her hand through his proffered arm. "You wish to inform me you are leaving?"

He nodded, as she'd known he would, and led her to a fairly quiet corner of the hall. "It is time. I wish to celebrate the Yule at my own hearthside." He placed his hands on her shoulders as he so often did, but a new chill coated his words and his expression, though calm, held no warmth. "I do not care to winter here, my lady."