Page 23
At Harald’s insistence, Brodwyn met him at the burial ground in the late afternoon. It felt strange to see him in full daylight. Strange and scary. There was a sharpness, a wariness about him, as though he walked a narrow edge. His gaze didn’t focus, shifted continuously as he looked her over, eyelids narrowed as if it hurt to be in the sun. She hadn’t noticed the dark smudges under them before, and that worried her. Aye, that, and his recent perverse indulgences.
As he came towards her, she worried that all her plans might come to naught. That everything she had put up with had been for naught. Gritting her teeth, she grated out her question, “What is so important that ye needs must meet me here where any soul can see us? Not even for you will I lift my skirts in broad daylight.”
The slow lift of his brows dragged with it a guid deal of intended offense and made the short hairs on the back of her neck rise. “Mayhap we will have to proceed quicker than we thought.”
“Why?” she snapped, in nae mood to appease him.
“I’m thinking there is too much in the wind at the moment, what with Magnus and Farquhar sniffing around about yon murders—”
“Oh, ye didnae… Tell me that ye didnae.”
“How could I? Ye ken I was away,” he said with a sneer, as if she were naught but a foolish lassie when it was she who had pulled the strings to get him allowed back into Dun Bhuird—she who made all the plans to ascertain that they could come into their own at last.
He spread his palms and held them out as if to prove he wasn’t up to anything she wouldn’t approve of. “I was merely thinking that while everybody is slightly rattled, this would be a good time to put our plans in motion.”
“So ye mean to kill Farquhar at last. It’s to be hoped ye dae a better job of it than ye did last time with McArthur afore you went scuttling off to our cousins in Caithness.” She didn’t usually chastise him, but since being with Jamie, she had come to wonder if Harald was worth all the effort he put her through.
“Nae, not yet. I have another plan in mind. Let me tell ye about it.” He put an arm around her shoulder and guided her to the far end of the burial ground. “Here’s what I have in mind. I’ve been told that they are planning some sort of celebration for tomorrow…”
Gavyn caught up with Kathryn in the great hall where she waited for Lhilidh to fetch a fresh oatcake from the kitchens. She had found that keeping a little something to eat hard by her in a pocket, helped stave off the worst of the nausea. “Why are you on your own?” He wanted to know.
Kathryn shrugged it off, “Lhilidh’s in the kitchen and will be by in a moment.”
She didn’t want to remind him of the horrible moments of sickness that troubled her, so instead she changed the subject, “Don’t you think a huge celebration is getting slightly previous? I’ve yet to feel the bairn kick.”
Kathryn’s protest fell on deaf ears. She was happy Gavyn was pleased, but slightly embarrassed that she had no bump to confirm what she knew to be true.
“Look at it this way, the whole of the Dun’s population are nervy what with these murders. They need something, an event to take their mind off the perceived dangers.” Gavyn finished with a nod of his head and folded his arms across his chest—a sign that he wanted no more arguments.
“So when will the event take place?” she asked giving into the inevitable. Both Gavyn and Lhilidh were bound to keep attempting to wear her down. “I seem to be the only one who thinks it’s tempting fate to pre-empt a celebration of the birth by almost six months.”
However, Kathryn’s biggest worry leaned towards feeling doubtful everything could be put in place for at least another senight.
“You have naught to worry your head about, sweeting. Magnus and Abelard have the arrangements well in hand. If the weather holds, and it seems likely, the gathering will take place tomorrow in the Bailey. A bonfire is being piled up in the centre, and there will be mutton and venison cooked on the spit, mayhap even one of the big hairy Highland cows, if somebody won’t mind providing us with a sizable beast. Abelard assures me the flames in the kitchens will burn hot and bright cooking all sorts of delicacies.” He grinned full at her and looked younger despite the puckering scar slashing through his eyebrow and cheek.
His hair fell forward, black like the raven whose shape flew on his shield. She wanted to push its clean silkiness back frae his brow and trace the scar that had taken everything from him—his life, his inheritance. If only she didn’t feel as if to do so would be a trespass that might take more courage than she owned to seize. The hawkish nose, dark brows and deep-set, storm-grey eyes above high, slanting cheekbones were enough to make her forget anything marred his handsome features, even on her wedding day while she strove to deny him. Aye, if they’d had anything in common when they married, it was Gavyn’s brother.
A fact they both wisely chose to forget.
“Very well.” She gave in and turned as if to walk with him. “What would you have me to do towards this celebration?”
Before she could finish he had pulled her into his arms fitted his mouth over hers. It was moments like these when his lips, his tongue, tugged at her soul. She didn’t understand how it happened that the removal of his lips frae her mouth made her feel bereft, even though he pecked tiny kisses along her cheek and jaw line until he reached her ear, whispering, “You’ve already played your part, sweeting. Without you and the bairn …” His hand slipped down the front of her kirtle where her leather girdle rested below the waist. Gavyn smoothed his palm across her belly. “…none of this would be possible.”
For an instance it was laughter that bubbled up inside her instead of the dreaded sickness. “I can assure you, it wasn’t an immaculate conception.”
He beamed down at her—a smile that combined eyes and mouth and made her heart race. “No need for that. I didn’t want you immaculate. I wanted you hot and wet and waiting to pleasure me and you.”
When Gavyn spoke like that her heart thundered in her ears and heat bloomed all over her skin, while moisture flowed from the deepest part of her womanhood and she wished they were anywhere but here. She wanted to be in that big bed, with him, alone with Gavyn.
By the time Lhilidh came up behind them, Gavyn hands rested on his narrow hips, but the sweat from his pores that sprinkled his top lip told the truth of his feelings. Guid to know she wasn’t locked into this thrall on her own.
“I’ve brought them.” Lhilidh looked at Gavyn, but her hands put the oatcakes in the pocket hanging frae her girdle. “Nhaimeth says we should gang out the Bailey if we want a laugh.”
Kathryn looked up at Gavyn. “What’s happening?”
Her husband smiled, something he had begun to do more often. “Why don’t the pair of you go down to the Bailey and find out for yourselves? It should be interesting.”
Nhaimeth felt nae guilt over letting on to Lhilidh that Rob and Jamie would be in the Bailey practising for the celebration and that he would be acting as their tutor. Och, they had both watched and fooled around with the dance, but what they wanted to do was more than a fling. They’d both been there—youngsters still—watching Euan and Graeme dance a duel over crossed swords.
Nae blood had been shed, yet it had made a huge impression on the lads—on everyone who had watched them leap o’er the swords, hands held high and triumphant shouts spilling frae their lips in time to the skirl of the pipes.
He had nae true notion what was at the heart of the edginess that had crept into the lads’ friendship. Yet he had his suspicions that it was over Lhilidh.
Rob was caught up in first love and expected Jamie to feel the same, but the competition that had sprung forth when they arrived at Dun Bhuird had faded away. Jamie’s attentions were to all intents and purpose focused on his horse, and Nhaimeth had a feeling Rob saw that as an insult to Lhilidh.
Rob would eventually learn that first love was ephemeral and doesn’t require a rival to keep the fires lit. With his few extra years of observing human nature, Nhaimeth knew well it couldnae last—wouldnae be allowed, what with Rob being the heir to Cragenlaw and the future chieftain of the McArthurs and Lhilidh being Geala’s daughter and her father one of Geala’s lovers, a man who might have kicked Nhaimeth out of his way as he rolled frae Geala’s bed.
If Nhaimeth had learned anything in his observations, it was that a chieftain’s life didnae belong to himself, it belonged to the clan.
The piper was tuning up again and the lads took a wee break to rearrange the swords and make sure they were still laid in a cross on the ground afore them. Nhaimeth looked back up over his shoulder and smirked as he saw Lhilidh and Kathryn looking down on both lads frae the lip of the ridge.
And why shouldn’t he smile?
Why shouldn’t Lhilidh have her moment?
She deserved to have a small, secret belief that that the lads were duelling over her. It was little enough to ask for a lass who had come frae naught. And life being what it was, Lhilidh would more than likely end up back where she had begun.