Bride of the Beast (7 page)

A marriage in name only.

Marmaduke blew out a long breath. He wanted more, so much more. He wanted to love again ... and to be loved.

But a marriage in any form was better than none at all. It was a start ... a beginning.

More than he'd dared hope for a scant hour before.

Once more, his fingers strayed along his scar, moved gingerly over the ever-tender lid of his bad left eye.

A dark oath welled up inside him, but he willed it away. Now was not the time for pity. And in truth, his scars were paltry compared to the deep ones Lady Caterine carried inside.

His were on the outside for all to see, while hers were hidden within.

Unseen and grave, but by no means permanent like his.

Hers could be erased.

Banished with time, care, and the abiding love of a man willing to give her his heart.

And able to conquer hers.

Squaring his mail-clad shoulders, Marmaduke made a pact with the silent night. "I will vanquish her scars and win her love," he vowed, the distant stars and the impervious sea his only witnesses.

"And none shall stop me," he said to the darkness in his heart as much as to the blackness surrounding him.

Not even her own sweet, proud self.

in the gloom
of earliest morn, nothing stirred in Dunlaidir's cobbled bailey save thick tendrils of mist curling along the ground and drifting between the stronghold's deserted outbuildings like a phalanx of spectral sentries.

Naught disturbed the breaking day save the hiss and zing of Marmaduke's sword arcing through the silence. A furious onslaught aimed at the demons e'er lurking along the darkest edge of his soul.

Vile miscreations endlessly eager to mock him with every disappointment, failure, or loss he'd ever had to bear.

The whoosh of his slashing blade echoed and re-echoed in the empty bailey, a fierce battle cry against a fate that had been anything but kind.

His unseen tormentors besieged at last, the fire in his gut quenched for another day, Marmaduke lowered his steel and drew a deep breath of the tang-kissed air.

Chill damp air, brisk and invigorating.

Flavored with hard-won peace.

Blessed quietude marred only by the fog-muffled roar of the sea, his own heavy breathing, and the faint rustlings of someone slinking about behind him.

Swinging around, he caught a fleet movement in the shadows even as a long-bladed dagger sped toward him.

With a swift agility few could match, he hurled himself to the side just as the blade whistled past his shoulder and skittered to a halt not two feet from where he'd stood a moment
before.

His sword at the ready, he ran toward the sounds of a scuffle, chaos erupting all around him. Shouts rang out from above as young Sir Lachlan and Dunlaidir's seneschal tore down the outer stairs in hot pursuit of a third man now racing toward the farthest seaward wall.

Fast gaining on him, they chased the intruder, drawing swords as they ran. Marmaduke pursued a dark-cloaked figure using the confusion to flee along the bailey wall.

"Halt you!" he called, closing on the man. "Cast down your blade and show yourself."

The figure stopped but crouched deeper into the murk rather than come forward. "I have no blade," he rapped out, anger crackling in his voice. "I've been disarmed."

Only then did Marmaduke see the discarded broadsword, its gleaming length bright against the damp cobbles. His gaze on the cloaked figure, he kicked the sword aside. "Your name," he demanded, approaching the other. "Speak lest I

force you."

At the answering silence, Marmaduke hoisted the interloper a good foot off the ground, pinning him roughly against the wall. "Who—are—you?" he bit out, emphasizing each word with a jab of his sword tip into soft flesh beneath the man's chin. "Speak, whelp, or make ready to greet your Maker."

"Christ God, release me," the man wheezed, indignation blazing in his dark eyes. "I am James, lord of this holding."

Marmaduke loosened his hold but didn't release the other man. Much as he wanted to. The swordless knave reeked fouler than an overripe cesspit.

"For truth?" Marmaduke's brow arched heavenward. " 'Tis a rare young lord who smells so rank." Careful not to breathe too deeply, he used the tip of his blade to ease back the woolen cowl hiding the man's face.

Freed of the concealing hood, a much younger man than he'd expected shook back a thick mane of dark hair. A mere stripling, scarcely blooded to be sure, the wretch glared at Marmaduke from a face that would've been noble-looking indeed were it not so twisted in anger.

"So you are James." The bristling lad could be no other. "The elusive young master of the castle."

Easing him to the ground, Marmaduke lowered his sword. He clamped a comradely hand on James Keith's shoulder. "Saints, lad, where do you sleep or can it be you never bathe?"

" 'Tis not my stench I wear." Panting, James wrenched free of Marmaduke's grip. "The foulness clung to the miscreant who tried to kill you. I saw him and another man emerge from one of the latrines and gave chase."

"Two men?"

James nodded. "They took off in different directions. I sent Sir
John
after one and I caught up with the other, your assailant, just as he sent his blade flying."

Marmaduke jerked his head toward the discarded sword. "And how did you lose your blade?"

A dark scowl drew the young man's brows together. He blew out an agitated breath. "We struggled. He knocked my sword out of my hand. I..." Trailing off, he cast a rankled glance across the bailey to where
Lachlan
and Eoghann engaged the intruder.

With apparent ease, they were backing him into the curtain wall. Clearly, the offal-encrusted assailant posed no challenge to
Lachlan
and the surprisingly well-skilled seneschal.

Equally clear was James's shame at being bested.

Marmaduke returned his attention to the troubled-faced lordling. "Mind you, had your watchfulness not alerted the keep, who knows what damage yon blackguard may have wrought."

"I but displayed my ineptness." Jerking around, James limped away, his humiliation slinking after him, as plain to see as the exaggerated way he dragged one leg.

Marmaduke started after him but froze in place when a sharp, pain-filled cry rent the air. Dunlaidir's luckless heir forgotten, he spun around, his anger cresting at the scene unfolding atop the far seaward wall.

Eoghann grappled with the intruder, the furious clang of clashing steel giving bold voice to the ferocity of their struggle.
Lachlan
lay sagged against the base of the wall, a dark stain spreading across the left side of his tunic, his sword still clutched in his hand.

With an enraged roar, Marmaduke pounded across the bailey. In one fluid movement, he vaulted up behind his would-be assassin, eager to give the varlet a fine taste of his metal. The whoreson whirled on him, swinging his blade in a vicious arc meant to kill.

Marmaduke countered the blow with ease, deflecting his attacker's sword with such sheer force the man lurched wildly to the side. His eyes wide in stunned disbelief, he toppled through the unprotected notch between two of the wall's merlons.

A keening scream, silenced almost before it'd begun, bore a blood-curdling testament to his fate.

Breathing hard, Marmaduke cast down his steel and peered over the wall. The man's body sprawled spread-eagled across the jagged rocks far below, already slipping into the hungry sea.

His boat, a hide-covered coracle little bigger than a cockleshell, bobbed on the waves.

Marmaduke dragged his arm over his brow. "He must've scaled the cliff, then climbed up a latrine chute to gain entry."

"Black-hearted son of a sow!" Eoghann raged beside him, his breathing labored. "'Tis a well-deserved end he met, smeared with dung. I never trusted that one, a queer-some fellow he was."

Marmaduke glanced at the seneschal. "You knew him?"

"Aye. Cadoc was his name and he hailed from
Wales
." Eoghann's eyes glittered with contempt. "A knight errant he called himself. A misbegotten cur, I say."

"Of a certainty," Marmaduke agreed, frowning on the dark expanse of the sea. "Did he offer his services here?"

"That was the way of it." Eoghann spat over the wall. "Swore homage to old Lord Keith, but no sooner did my master fall ill, did the scoundrel up and vanish. Like the rest of them, to a man."

Eoghann's fury poured out in a passionate flood. "Forsworn bastards. Selling their souls for a few obols and a promise of land. Keith land. Or so that devil Sir Hugh planned, thinking to wrest Dunlaidir into his own foul clutches."

Marmaduke's jaw hardened. "The man is a disgrace to his gentle blood. I swear to you he will not lay claim to a single stone of this holding."

"His villainy in these parts is beyond telling," Eoghann said, sheathing his sword. "He is worse than a ravening wolf."

"He will soon have cause to regret his misdeeds." Hot anger coursing through him, Marmaduke leapt from the wall. He dropped to one knee beside
Lachlan
. "So, my friend, let us see what's been done to you."

As carefully as he could, Marmaduke eased
Lachlan
's blood-soaked jerkin away from the still-bleeding wound, relief washing over him, swift and sweet, upon glimpsing the cleanness of the cut.

"God's mercy, it is only a flesh wound," he said, forcing a twinkle to his good eye. He tousled the younger man's hair. "I'm afraid you will live to survive many more such skirmishes."

Lachlan
pushed up on his elbows. "It pains me but a little," he said, the tint of white around his lips giving lie to his brave words.

"Hurting or no, you will spend a few days resting until you've fully recovered," Marmaduke said, his voice a shade more gruff than usual.

"Aye, laddie, and it shouldn't prove a hardship to stay abed with our fair ladies seeing to your comfort," Eoghann prophesied, dropping down beside them. "Our good Lady Caterine has the touch of an angel."

She looked like an angel, too.

An earthbound one, sent down to tempt him past all restraint.

Smothering a curse at the way his pulse leapt at the mere sight of her, Marmaduke watched her approach, his smitten heart thundering as she crossed the bailey with Alec, the oldest and most battle-torn of his men.

Alec's long-strided gait had her hurrying to keep pace and her haste sent the voluminous folds of her mantle billowing out behind her. The cloak's soft dove color blended so well with the gray of the morn, she appeared to be walking on air.

Indeed, with curtains of mist swirling about her and her unbound hair flowing to her hips in a shimmering cascade of palest gold, she could pass for a mythical Celtic goddess.

An ethereal being too beautiful for this world.

Too lovely by far for him.

Marmaduke bit back an oath, acutely conscious of the fearsome sight he must make with his hair wild and his clothes sweat-soaked and stained with
Lachlan
's blood.

Not to mention his face.

Always his face.

**

"I cannot see their faces through the fog, can you tell who is hurt?" Caterine glanced at the grim-cast man striding be side her. "Is it him? The Sassunach?" The words escaped her before she realized she'd even formed them.

"Strongbow?" The Highlander's voice held unmistakable pride. "Nay, it will not be him. He never takes a scratch. The saints look out for him because he's already taken his share of battle scars." He winked at her. "And he's that good."

Aye, good. The knowledge came from nowhere and everywhere, lighting on her conscience only long enough to send a tremor rippling through her.

An odd tingling, not at all unpleasant and very much like the delicate shivers that had so surprised her when she'd touched his face on the ramparts.

"Is aught amiss, my lady?" The big man gave her a questioning look. "Shall I escort you back inside?"

"Nay." Caterine shook her head. They'd almost reached the seaward wall. "I would see who's been injured."

Inexplicable relief surged through her when the Sassunach proved as unscathed as the Highlander predicted he'd be. Linnet's champion knelt beside the youngest of his men, his face turned away from her, the ghost of a breeze ruffling his dark hair.

"Lady," he said, without looking at her.

"Good sir," she returned, near choking on the two words, for the tingling sensation had given way to an unaccustomed tightness in her throat and chest.

He shot a glance at her rough-hewn escort. "Any word of A
    
the second varlet?"