The Chieftain's Curse Read online

  “Ah, well, you were roaring your head off. Likely you scared her, for she left quick enough with only a wee push from me. Lassies dinnae have the gumption they had in my day. No matter. I will tend to Astrid myself and the poor wee thing an all.” She said the last in a rush, as aware as he it was a task neither of them relished.

  He thought of her clumsy fingers with their swollen knuckles, which pained her all the time. Auld Mhairi’s hands were the reason he’d been his wife’s only help after the midwife didn’t arrive. Now, God forgive him, he could not bear the thought of her misshapen hands touching Astrid’s bonnie skin.

  He wanted better for his wife. Wanted Astrid to have as much care in death as she had had in life. Wasn’t it the least he could do?

  As for his son, whether or not he had left this world as soon as he’d come into it, he was a McArthur and deserved all the dignity reserved for the son of a Chieftain. “Gather all the maids in the hall. I’ll solve this rebellion myself.”

  Mhairi rushed through the door almost blocking his way. “You’ll not be going down to the great hall in front of all the lassies, without so much as a shirt on your back.”

  “Who are you trying to protect, Mhairi, them or me? What does it matter if I’m seen without my shirt? This castle is rife with superstition. Even before I wed Astrid, not one of them would lie with me for fear of getting big with a baby and taking the same road as my first two wives.”

  He glanced over his shoulder to the big bed. “And who can blame them? We’re both witnesses that Astrid’s death was not easy.”

  On her journey from solar to kitchen, Morag wept for the woman she had seen but never met. While she searched for Rob, she discovered that news of Lady Astrid’s death had filtered through to the servants. It saddened her to recognise that though the castle’s servants grouped together, whispering, resignation rather than grief was writ large on most of their faces. Morag had always been responsive to the emotions of others, and the pessimism and, yes, fear she sensed on her way through the great hall intruded on her need to find some sort of an occupation at Cragenlaw.

  Firstly, she must look around for Rob and, afterwards, she would seek out the seneschal.

  Rob found her. Eyes alight, he told her, “I’ve been given a job in the stables.” She was well aware what that meant. Rob was intent on showing her who was the man in the family.

  If only he knew the truth.

  She cast that thought aside. How could she not when his enthusiasm made her grin, something she hadn’t felt like doing in weeks. That lad surely did love horses. Even the mucky task of cleaning out the stalls, carting away piss-soaked straw and dung, was his notion of heaven. Rob was tall for his eleven years, almost as tall as Morag. Everyone thought him older. It suited Morag’s plans not to correct that impression.

  Her secrets were her own.

  “I’ll fetch you something to eat.” He nipped off and was back within seconds. It seemed that in the short time Rob had been there, he had learned a lot. He emptied his pocket and placed cheese and bread in her hand. “Cook has a wicked reputation for twisting the ear of anyone sneaking a sliver of ham, or worse, a jam tart,” he said, slipping one of those into her other hand.

  She felt an urge to run a hand over the quiff of dark chestnut hair perched at the crown of his head—a gesture all right for a lad but not for the man he was trying to be. In keeping with that, she gave him the news. “Lady Astrid is dead. She had a hard time pushing the baby out and it—”

  “Like—” he butted in and Morag hushed him, pressing two fingers against his lips before he could mention something best not overheard by anyone in this place.

  She skimmed a narrow-eyed glance around the kitchen. Through an arch leading to the hall, she caught a glimpse of Mhairi speaking to a finely dressed, older man of corpulent build, and quickly answered Rob, “Aye, I’m afraid the baby is dead too—a bonny wee son.”

  The mood shifted, darkened. No wonder, having the worst life could toss at them was their normal condition, and it was no surprise to see the skin whiten around the lad’s nostrils and lips.

  Morag kept her voice low, “Don’t worry. Whatever happens, whatever it takes, I’ll find a way for us to remain here at Cragenlaw.” From the furtive glances cast her way, it was obvious that news of her visit to the McArthur’s apartments had spread like flames through dry grass. Thankfully, the rest of the staff were more concerned with avoiding her. Probably they were frightened that the curse had sneaked through a gap in the tapestry curtain and infected her. Superstition had invaded the castle long before she and Rob arrived. It was an unseen enemy, haunting the castles halls and floating in the kitchen air like the haze from sizzling hot fat—invisible, but effective none the less.

  Rob’s stifled question merely served as a reminder of the danger they faced should anyone discover the truth hiding behind their worn clothes and scuffed boots. Unbeknownst to Rob, she’d been forced to keep him in the dark about certain aspects of her life for his own safety.

  “Everything will be all right,” she reassured. “We will be all right,” she said, adding a quick warning lift of her brows. “This place was in turmoil and strife long before we arrived. Lady Astrid is the McArthur’s third wife and, for some reason, few of those here appear to be mourning her loss, which doesn’t seem fair. From the little I’ve heard of the McArthur’s wife, she was a fine woman,” she said in an attempt to distract his thoughts. Rob’s sixth sense sometimes worked better than was good for him.

  “Why would anyone marry an awful one?”

  Rob was too young to understand the politics and financial manoeuvring that could lead to marriage. To her mind, Euan was more interested in a family dynasty. From the hangings and chests she had seen around the castle, there didn’t appear to be any lack of money, but that was none of her business. Rob already had more worries on his shoulders than a young lad should be asked to bear. “Just remember,” she told him, “it’s our lives at stake if the truth of the matter comes out. Even now, Doughall’s men could be scouring the countryside in search of us. Though we’ve done our best to leave a false trail, it may not have been enough.”

  Her anger flared, a living thing in her chest as she whispered in Rob’s ear her voice harsh with frustration, “I have no doubt that black-eyed devil sitting by his elbow will have convinced Doughall that he acted like a dunderhead by not keeping a better eye on us. He will have realised that while you’re alive, the danger he thought to avoid by keeping us sequestered at Wolfsdale could still be used against him.”

  She huffed down her nose, a pause to add emphasis. “That’s why everyone must believe there is no more to us than a brother and sister whose parents died and left them homeless.”

  She was interrupted by the man she had seen talking with Mhairi. He was shooing all the women, maidservants, kitchen and house alike, into the great hall—a very strange turn of affairs.

  “I’ll have to go with them or appear obvious. You stay here, and don’t worry. This can have nothing to do with our arrival.”

  In an attempt not to stand out, she did as she was bid, following on the heels of the other women into the great hall. It didn’t take her long to become aware of a whisper that rustled under the breaths of those around her, a murmur that spoke of their fear at being summoned. Two of the loudest, from their shapes obviously with child, protested they wanted nothing to do with poor Astrid in case the same happened to them and they became cursed.

  Ignorant women. Didn’t they know that curses were personal, meant to punish a transgressor, but couldn’t be caught like a dose of the pox. Aye and some curses had nothing to do with magic. Her own came in very human form, her brother and the Moor who was his constant companion. Both of them closer than two men had a right to be.

  Chapter 3

  Euan surveyed the hall. Mhairi moved around the wall in his direction and he had little need to wonder if it was the disapproving expression on her face that had all maids clustered together as if fo
r protection.

  He shook his head in disgust. One glance and even a stranger could tell they were not hard done by. They didn’t wear rags, and the older women wore veils instead of plaids, Astrid had made sure of that, yet even they kept their heads dipped as if to hide their faces. He was also surprised to note there were more of them than he had been aware. Surely one or two would…

  Two of his shaggy deerhounds scampered up to him and snuffled at his hands and the folds of his kilted plaid. At least someone was pleased to see him. Even so, he dismissed them with a flick of his fingers. They at least knew better than to ignore a command.

  In preference to his usual place on the dais that supported the high board, he stood on the stairs, five steps up from the great hall with an uninterrupted view of the women. Duncan, his seneschal, stood by his shoulder.

  Euan didn’t speak, but his gaze was steady and his jaw set. Every few seconds, he caught one or another of the maids eyeing the door to the bailey and the housecarls flanking it, as if they had escape in mind, while others gazed down as if the stone flags held some dread fascination, but not one glanced at him. As he watched, the huddle ebbed and flowed like kelp on the tide. A seemingly unconscious action designed to prevent any one of their number standing out from the rest.

  At least that’s what he believed until one woman, head held high, fell in behind them from the kitchen regions. Her worn plaid summoned her to the eye as an individual in this place where few wanted for much. Euan’s instincts told him the woman didn’t willingly become part of the fidgeting groups. His eyes followed her through the flickering torchlight. She should have been just another shadow against the wall yet, for some reason, his gaze was constantly pulled in her direction—like a haunted whisper of unwilling pleasure.

  His eyelids eased shut, giving him a hiding place where his thoughts were his own until the moment was over and his eyes snapped open. The shadow remained in place, a woman, not a ghost. That didn’t mean he wasn’t haunted, but the ghosts from his past were inside his head, not sidling along the wall.

  Euan lifted his chin and shook his head to clear an image of Astrid as he last saw her. His hair brushed the skin on his shoulders that his plaid left bare. He remembered how Astrid used to love to run her fingers through it, to braid it in long narrow strands in the way of her mother’s people.

  And Euan remembered that, between them, he and Astrid’s father had killed her. Her father for the power that the alliance brought, and Euan because he needed an heir and had no other choice, needed to live long enough to see his heir grow tall and strong, to teach him how to protect his clan, the McArthurs of Cragenlaw.

  It irked him that this entire quandary was on the head of a wee auld witch. All this tragedy over a mere scrap of skin and bone with hunched shoulders and beaked nose, a creature of the night that a soft wind could bowl over. For all that, she’d killed three women and their babies on a whim.

  It had started when a defensive fire, lit to hinder the enemy on their heels had turned her foul willow cabin to ashes.

  An accident.

  Hell, the bluidy Normans would have taken more than her home; they would have taken her worthless life, the way he should have done before she’d had a chance to lay her heathen curse upon him.

  But enough of the past, he had a wife and son to bury and to make sure it was done decently.

  The urgency, the sudden need to be rid of the strands of guilt that tied his gut in knots, sharpened his voice, and anger erupted as he roared at the women, “Old Mhairi tells me that out of an imaginary fear, you lassies have refused to give my wife her due respect. If that be true, then leave my hall now. Walk out into the storm and discover what fear is, and don’t think to look for shelter from any clan member, for I forbid it.”

  What breath had been held in the lungs of the huddled women, quivered, as if they released a collective sigh, which built in volume, became a ripple of murmurs that ran around the hall.

  A small disturbance that he assumed to be a nudging of elbows segued into pushing and shoving with the promise of someone about to be sacrificed. The youngest perhaps, but was that what he wanted? A young lass, inexperienced, who wouldn’t know how to treat Astrid with care, despite having old Mhairi there to supervise?

  Heartsick, Euan rubbed his hand across the width of his brow and shaded his eyes. “Let me,” Duncan, the seneschal he had inherited from his father along with Cragenlaw, pled, as if apologising for not doing more to quell this revolt. “You know what lassies are.”

  “No,” he silenced Duncan. “It’s up to me. Astrid was my wife.” He ground out the words, mangled them with the fury he clenched his jaw down on. What kind of pass had he come to when a mere lassie refused to do his bidding?

  Before Euan could give into a driving urge to castigate them once more, a voice, clear, true and without fear, lifted above the murmurs. “I’ll do it,” she said, “I’ll make sure the woman up in the Keep gets the respect due to the wife of a Chieftain, the wife of the McArthur.”

  Euan had no need to see to know who had spoken, but he stared nonetheless, watching the shadow push away from the wall, and held his breath as she walked into the light.

  In a moment of blind madness, Morag found herself stepping forward, one foot and then another, each toe pointing toward the McArthur, stirring the scent of herbs from the rushes on the floor—madness because, from the moment she arrived at the castle, she had intended to stay in the background. To make a place for herself within its walls without drawing attention to either herself or Rob, until the time was right—and this wasn’t the way she had imagined her meeting with Euan McArthur.

  Trepidation rippled across her skin, lifting the hairs on her arms and neck. Would he remember her?

  Morag doubted he would. She was only half the woman she’d been as a girl, worn down and bone weary from a journey she’d never thought to make.

  A flicker of unwanted anticipation darted around her consciousness like a midge she was reluctant to crush. She flicked it aside with her mind. Better that way. Should the truth be revealed, Rob might be no safer at Cragenlaw than he had been in the Northumbrian home they had escaped from, running to Euan. In her mind’s eye, she measured Doughall against the Scot and found her brother wanting.

  Folklore had it that McArthur Chieftains were descended from the Arthur of the myths—a hero lauded by minstrels and poets alike until his exploits became legendary. Tonight, she could believe it to be true after seeing him blast the heavens with his wrath. In her memories, she had not pictured him so tall, so broad of shoulder, but then many years had passed. Now the blood was washed away, the man had a glow about his skin that appeared to mould the shape of the muscles underneath, as if he wore a suit of golden armour, expertly beaten into shape and formed to fit his magnificent physique.

  It was an image that made it difficult to remember he was just a man, a boy who, in the darkness of the cave, had whispered, “I love you” as he took her body. But he’d never said, “I’ll come back for you,” and he never had.

  So long ago … she had been as different then as he was now.

  As Morag grew closer to the stairs, her attention was drawn to Mhairi hurrying to Euan’s side. Was she intent on pushing her away as she had upstairs? Was it because she felt Morag could injure Euan, which wouldn’t be far wrong? Or, was she simply a jealous old crone, intent on keeping Euan to herself, away from past lovers, away from young wives. On the first step, she heard the crone say, “She’s the lass who wanted to help. Of course, she arrived too late to be of any use,” she told him, lips twisted with scorn. Was this how the crone cowed all the lasses in the castle? If so, it hadn’t made any of them volunteer a helping hand. Foot on the first step, Morag spoke up in her own defence. “I’m not a midwife, but I knew she wouldn’t be arriving anytime soon. A tree was blown down across the causeway while we waited for Callum to open the gate. My brother and I were only seeking work, or at the very least shelter from the storm.” She gathered her c
ourage and for the first time looked Euan in the face. She saw not a skerrick of recognition in it. “Callum told me about Lady Astrid.”

  Euan’s head lifted as though he shied at the mention of his wife. Although she had no memory of taking the next few steps in his direction, soon she was close enough to catch the male scent on his skin, which was no help whatsoever when it came to untangling her troubled thoughts.

  No one in the castle had thought to mention that Euan was now the stuff a lassie’s dreams were made of. Their personal concerns were all about the curse.

  Her own memories, after she had found him on the battlefield, were all set against the darkness of the cave where she had hidden him from her father and his guards.

  Euan looked leaner, more dangerous than she remembered, yet still handsome. He looked at her down a nose as long and straight as the edge of the skean dhu strapped to his calf. Heavy, dark brows shadowed his eyes. She knew their colour was a deep brown and, unless her memory played tricks, they could look right through to a lass’s soul.

  At least that’s how it had seemed all those years ago.

  Until now, she had never pictured his features, but time had changed that. He had been a lad; now he was a man grown into his features the way she hoped to see Rob do, as long as Doughall Farquhar never laid hands on him.

  Standing on the sweep of stone steps, she found it difficult to drag her gaze from his full, well shaped lips—a small measure of softness breaking up the harshly drawn planes of his face between cheek and chin, both shaded by short bristles.

  She could never mistake him for anything less than a leader—one who expected to be obeyed, and who looked quite capable of tossing the huddle of superstitious women out into the storm. For their part, the maids were ready to freeze rather than tempt the wrath of the curse. She couldn’t find it in her heart to blame them.

  Few men would take to wife a woman unable to give him sons.

  Morag stood witness to the truth of that.