Chieftain By Command Page 9

  For a moment, his head buzzed as if invaded by a swarm of bees as he came to imagining the effort of fairly dividing the spoils. Some of the mercenaries who actually had families would leave, taking their share of the plunder with them.

  That suited Gavyn.

  Others would choose to remain at Dun Bhuird. Yon were the men he would need to watch until they managed to settle any grievances with the clansfolk and, if they were fortunate, make a marriage and have children. That kind of result could take years to achieve and would ultimately depend on how many women weren’t already taken. In the main, any trouble would begin with lasses willing to abandon their partners for a man with more silver.

  Betwixt that thought and the next, his problems shifted from the far end of the great hall to the high table.

  Magnus’s elbow dug into Gavyn as they both swivelled at the sound of a curse spewing out of his nephew’s mouth. He watched as Rob leapt to his feet, barging his muscular thighs into the table while wee Nhaimeth held his arm to pull him down.

  Rob was a big lad. Some said he was the McArthur’s spit, but Gavyn recognised a streak of wildness that came from the Farquhar line when Rob gave the wolf free rein, as he did now. Few here would realise that his nephew’s great size didn’t equal wisdom, not with Rob’s blood running especially hot with the fires of impending manhood.

  Just as Gavyn made to leave his chair, Magnus gripped his forearm, firm like a warning, “Leave your nephew to me,” he said as if emphasising the relationship with Rob. “I’ll discover what is amiss with the lads and come back to ye.” So Gavyn allowed him; he was the constable after all and only doing his job.

  Rob looked sulky. Eyes narrowed and mouth stubborn, he shook his head at Magnus. Sensing disrespect, Gavyn growled, “Enough! Come here, Rob, and you as well, Nhaimeth.”

  They strode along smartly to the centre of the high board and stopped level with Gavyn. Magnus reached past the lads and pulled his chair back out of the way. The lads’ journey ended in the space left by the constable’s chair.

  Gavyn looked at Nhaimeth, at the stain on his sleeve. “I won’t have the pair of ye cursing and shouting at the high-board. Tell me of yer disagreement.”

  Nhaimeth spoke up, “There is naught amiss betwixt us, Laird.”

  “And that’s the truth, Gavyn. The recklessness of my outburst was not caused by Nhaimeth.” Rob glowered. “It’s that scoundrel sitting at the board below us. He’s the one who tried to kill the McArthur in our own Bailey. My father was given to understand he had been banished by Comlyn as part of the agreement when Alexander came to Cragenlaw and began his training with both me and Jamie Ruthven.’

  Unaware of the story, Gavyn looked to Magnus, who explained, “That is the truth, sure enough. The man Rob means is Harald Comlyn, a second cousin of Kathryn’s. But that was a few years ago now. The daft bugger took it into his head that he’d been in love with Astrid, and of course he blamed Euan McArthur for her death. To avoid trouble, the McArthur had banned the wearing of weapons inside Cragenlaw for everyone in Comlyn’s party. The Bear was the only exception. It was his daughter they were burying. Harald, however, nipped into the guardhouse and stole a sword behind their backs. That’s what he used to gang after the McArthur Chieftain. If ye want my opinion, yon is when everything turned to shite. The Bear was not a man to back down, but under the circumstances, he had nae choice. He’d always fancied a connection with the McArthurs. I ken he offered Kathryn’s hand to Euan McArthur, but he turned him down. And who could blame him?”

  He saw Rob blink and lift his brows, obviously the offering of Kathryn as a bride to his father was news to him, but the lad was more concerned about his part in preventing Euan’s death. “Aye,” he agreed, “though my father and Erik Comlyn weren’t what you’d call best friends, one of the Bear’s men sneaking up on him with a sword had them both snarling like dogs on a midden. I was in the stables when that scoundrel snuck up real sleekit-like behind the McArthur’s back as he walked back to the Keep in the dark.”

  Rob stopped mid-story to take a breath, a reminder to Gavyn of the lad’s true age. He was excited now as he continued, “When I saw what the de’il was up to, I picked up a shovel and dealt to him. It was a guid shovel and hindered his plans so to speak.”

  Magnus filled in the rest, “Afterwards, the Bear was as good as his word and banished Harald, but Kathryn let him return while you were away in France.”

  Gavyn nodded. No point in acting prematurely—not with a great hall filled with mercenaries who loved nothing better than a good scrap and would be easily set off. “My thanks, Magnus, for telling me the circumstances surrounding the incident. As for you lads, pull yer horns in and leave the matter in my hands; otherwise it’s back to Cragenlaw for the pair of ye. I’ll soon discover the truth of this affair. However, it’s just one wee matter on a list of things I have to deal with, so be patient.”

  Brodwyn hadn’t been relegated to a seat in the hall beside all the riffraff. However, she wasn’t best pleased with the inane conversation of Jamie Ruthven. For all he was tall and well dressed, he was naïve and bland. Aye, bland was the word. Life was nothing but dull and dreary without a pinch of something to add excitement.

  He reminded her of Alexander. The colouring was different for sure, but he had that well looked after appearance, as if his mothers and sisters had coutered him most of his life. He had none of the roughness that had quickened her blood when she first saw Gavyn. Now there was a man. She almost envied Kathryn, though her cousin would have no notion how to make use of him for her own pleasure.

  Jamie was leaning forward, interested—as was she—in the new laird’s conversation with Magnus and his nephew. As for Nhaimeth, Astrid had had the right of it where he was concerned: being a Fool was all he was suited for.

  Jamie sat back on his stool, his Breacan-an-feile dipping between his spread knees, his eyes following Lhilidh, who had but that moment returned to stand behind Kathryn’s chair. Aye, the lad was well interested in Kathryn’s wee maid, another naïve nobody who probably had around about Jamie’s level of sexual experience—none.

  She pitied them.

  However, she could tell Jamie wanted the lass, see the heat rise up the back of his neck as he watched Lhilidh’s face, smell a hint of male musk. It was a wonder the worsted covering his knees hadn’t formed a wee tent.

  Brodwyn wondered what he would do if she were to slip a hand under his Breacan-an-feile and check out his cock for herself. Wondered if it matched the size of the hands that held his knife.

  Lhilidh bent o’er Kathryn’s chair to listen to her mistress, and Jamie swivelled on his stool, following her every movement.

  Young love. Brodwyn’s lip curled, they’d soon discover there was little satisfaction to be found there. She could show Jamie better. It might actually be interesting, leading him astray. Aye, there were many ways to find pleasure, and she knew them all.

  Chapter 9

  Kathryn turned immediately Lhilidh touched her shoulder and realised something was wrong the moment she saw her maid’s expression. The girl’s eyes were filled with unshed tears on the verge of spilling. “Lhilidh, lass, what is the matter?” Her thoughts immediately leapt to the dozens of strange men new to the Dun, Gavyn’s mercenaries. “Has someone hurt you, touched you?” She finished on a note of dread.

  Head bowed, Lhilidh’s body curved toward her and her hands covered her face. Kathryn could see they were shaking. “No more, Lhilidh.” She stood and pulled Lhilidh into her arms, aware that Gavyn was watching when he swivelled around in the Laird’s carved chair.

  His voice a low murmur that rode below the rising noise in the hall, he demanded, “What are the tears for?”

  “My … Maw’s dead.” A shudder went through the slim body that Kathryn held, and her tears flowed in earnest. “I … I went to take her some supper from the feast and couldn’t wake her, then I realised she was dead. What can I do? I don’t ken what to do…”

  “Hush now
, Lhilidh, hush… We both knew this would happen one day soon,” she patted her back as she spoke, comforting Lhilidh as much as she was able in a room filled with warriors to whom death was hardly worth a second glance. “There was no way we could tell that it would happen today.” Much as she loved the lass, she knew that Geala’s death was but another of the problems that had piled upon her that day.

  And mayhap it was the solution to one of them for a little while, a way to avoid the Chieftain’s bed, the Chieftain’s arms for one more night. “I’ll go with ye and see that she is washed and seen to afore she is buried.”

  “No.”

  Gavyn’s command was like a blow to her nerves. Had he realised her intent?

  Her resolve to avoid him for another night?

  “Someone else can take care of her mother, send some of the maids to help.”

  Kathryn turned to her husband, eyes ablaze. “It is my duty. Geala has been ill and I have tended her every day. It’s only fitting I see her made ready.”

  “Abelard can arrange it. As seneschal, he is in charge of the household.” Gavyn looked into her eyes, his gaze as fierce as the fire in her own, and she knew that no matter how much she protested it was her duty as lady of the hall, he would not be gainsaid.

  “Abelard is an old man. His eyes aren’t as good as they once were, but he can order the maids to go with Lhilidh. I know someone who will accompany her and make sure all Geala’s needs are taken care of.”

  Gavyn frowned, his black brows meeting in an arch above his eyes and his scar pulling in one corner. “It’s either bit late or a bit early for a priest.”

  “Geala believed in the auld gods, so she wouldn’t thank you for a priest early or late.”

  Abelard had already risen to stand beside her and Lhilidh, so she passed the lass over to him to give support then looked down to the end of the high board. “Nhaimeth,” she called with a wave of her hand, “come see to your sister.”

  The irony wasn’t lost on Nhaimeth. Lhilidh wasn’t his sister, and Kathryn was ignorant of the truth. However, he’d known the young lass since she’d been born, so obeyed Kathryn’s summons and asked, “What’s wrong with her?”

  “Geala’s dead, and someone with a bit of sense has to supervise the maids. Make sure they treat her kindly. Tomorrow we’ll find a dry, shady place to bury her. Until then, look after Lhilidh. She is grieving.”

  The news came as a shock, and for once he didn’t ken how to feel. It wasn’t grief that curled in his innards, but an absence. Geala had been the only living person knowing the full and true circumstances of his birth. Not that it should matter, he was safer if folk had nae notion he was the eldest living Comlyn. Geala’s death still came as a shock, as if his existence was diminished by it. He had meant to visit the woman who had looked after him as a child. She had never loved him, but she had seen that he was clothed and fed, and Erik had supported her and the rest of her family because of that.

  He took Lhilidh’s hand and led her toward the big doors, though because of the difference in their size it probably looked as though Lhilidh was leading him. “Where is she?”

  “She’s still in her wee house, naught much has changed since you left. I found her on the floor, but I’m not strong enough to lift her,” she said, finishing on a sob.

  The strength of her sorrow made him feel guilty. The only person he had ever mourned for was Astrid, but through her death, he had found Morag Farquhar and Rob—the first folk who treated him as if they didn’t notice his short legs and bent back, as if he was as normal as anyone else.

  “I’ll lift her for ye. I’m stronger than I look since I gave up playing the Fool.”

  “I had noticed that ye walk differently, as if ye were as much a warrior as yer friends.”

  “We train together. The McArthur has taught me how to defend ma’self. I may be small but I’m wily.”

  “I’m happy for ye, Nhaimeth, glad you went to Cragenlaw. It’s been the making of ye.”

  “Ach, the truth of that is hard to deny, yet ye stayed here and have still done well—maid to the Lady of the Hall. It’s not a position to be sneezed at. Is she kind to ye?”

  “Very. And to Maw as well. Only this morning we went down to take Maw something for the awfu’ pain she was in. Once it worked, she was quite chatty, telling ma lady Kathryn and me secrets. Did ye ken that Murdoch and Kathryn were half-brother and -sister.”

  “No. That is a surprise, for Murdoch was big and bulky and Kathryn is but a strip of a lass.” His mind buzzed, what if he wasn’t as safe as he had thought. “Did she say anything about me?”

  “Nae, she got too tired to finish her stories.” Lhilidh hiccupped. “We were going back in the morn and mayhap she would have told us about ye then. All she said was that you and me weren’t related.”

  It would seem that the gods were on his side and his secret was safe with the few friends who knew the truth. Mayhap the Green Lady who had helped Morag Farquhar and been happy when they buried the afterbirth for Astrid’s bairn under a tree inside the Bailey at Cragenlaw. Aye, for once it would seem fate had been on his side, he thought, as he entered the wee stone building, just one dark room where Nhaimeth had been brought up while his sire lorded over the High Hall.

  Chapter 10

  Turning her back on her husband, Kathryn hesitated to disrobe, still awkward after her uncompromising encounter with Gavyn as she washed his back. Any woman married two years should have some notion what type of man she had wed. Not Kathryn. She felt ignorant, nervous.

  All because she had misplaced something—a part of her that had become essential to her wellbeing. Aye, she had lost the protective barrier that she had built betwixt the world and her heart. It had begun the day she decided that her only choice if she was to have the life she wanted, meant making Gavyn fall in love her, which would be fine if only she knew how.

  The day they had wed, she had barricaded her mind and body behind a wall of anger that was almost physical, fuelled it with her resentment o’er the deaths of her family. Then every day that he remained in France she had helped the days pass by playing a game of self-deception, a game named hope. Now that obscuring blindfold she had worn around both eyes and heart had been ripped away and its loss left her staggered.

  The difficult measure would be keeping up the pretence that naught had changed, that she was still of a mind to dislike him.

  Ach, the difficult decision to make him love her had been easy when compared to what it would cost her to win his heart. A sudden turnabout in her fiesty mood was more than likely to make him suspicious. It wasn’t as if he would be filled with vanity, the kind that expected all the lasses to fall at his feet.

  No, his scar precluded that happening.

  Deep in thought, Kathryn slowly raised her hands above her head and began removing the ivory pins that held her long braid close to her scalp. With Lhilidh off tending to Geala’s body, accompanied by Nhaimeth, she hoped that by the time they reached the wee house crouched outside the palisade in the dark, the maids Abelard had sent there ahead of them would have taken care of the worst of it.

  With nae other choice, she began performing without thought the ritual of undressing, fingers working to the slow rhythm of her heart, her mind set on a problem that could not be solved.

  Why did the longest day of her life suddenly feel far too short?

  Farquhar padded up behind her, his footsteps almost silent, but not enough that she couldn’t sense his approach. Her heart ceased its banging against her breastbone in slow heavy thuds and began to race.

  “Let me help ye with that,” he murmured, his breath warming the back of her neck, stirring the loose strands of hair that constantly escaped her braid. His hand lightly caressed her shoulder, and her skin quivered. Could he tell? She couldn’t bear him to know his touch affected her, not so soon.

  Careful, she told herself.

  “No need,” she said, her voice thready, strained. “I can manage myself. Being the youngest sis
ter meant I didn’t always have a maid to tend me.”

  “But I want to. Please let me..”

  Kathryn nodded and dipped her head, revealing the curve of her neck to his view. What else could she do when he insisted so nicely? She felt strange, confused, had done so ever since she touched his spine, felt how his skin fitted tightly over hard muscles. No matter what Brodwyn had told her, the sensations she felt as Gavyn touched her were like a portion of a different story. Her cousin hadn’t mentioned drowning in a heady, breathless feeling, or that her limbs would feel as soft as loch weed swept away on the current.

  Worst of all, she didn’t want these feelings to invade her body, her mind—to lose control. Her plan had been that she would steal his heart, not that he would simply steal hers away as easily as he stole her breath.

  This man, this husband had been her enemy—had been at her father’s death—how could she forget that? She felt bewitched, bespelled, unable to help herself. She liked to be in control … needed to be in control. Open-mouthed, seeking to breathe, she wanted to scream, to protest against her bodily needs and wants. Instead, she dragged in air and shivered, though she felt over-warm. Her breath came swift and shallow, then her skin grew hotter still as Gavyn swept her hair o’er her left shoulder to fall across her breast.

  His hands moved swiftly, and the laces holding her kirtle on her shoulders melted away like ice in spring—undone, as was her resistance. The fine weave of her kirtle felt rough against her sensitive skin, something that had never troubled her when Lhilidh helped her disrobe.

  Standing in a shift that had replaced the one he soaked with hot water from the tub, the one she’d peeled off and left in a sodden heap for Lhilidh to clear away, she no longer worried what the lass had thought. In truth, any worries she felt then had been replaced with something new, something inexplicable. Desire.