At The Laird's Command Part 10

That, too, was a tragedy. Because I believed him. And it meant that I would never feel the way with Ian Macrae that I felt with the laird. "I was happy to have him do it. It gave me pleasure. I am suffering for its lack. I can't explain it, but I wanted to make him take pride in me. Wanted to do anything for him-and I can never explain to you how miserable it feels not to be able to serve him."

"I think I know exactly how it feels," Ian said, and at first I thought he interrupted me because he didn't want to hear of it. But then he added, "I know how it is with him. To feel as if he will let you inside, only to be shut out at the end. Feels like being put outside the castle walls, alone and in the cold."

That Ian could know my feelings so precisely shook me. "You were once that close to him?"

"We were the best of friends when we were lads. I was an only son, but John had older brothers before him. He was never meant to be the laird and neither was I. Neither of us ever thought we might be put in contention or compet.i.tion. And so we were thick as thieves."

"But then?"

Ian cleared his throat. "But then the old laird died, and his oldest sons, too. John's mother was a second wife; the clan had never approved of her. The men of Clan Macrae thought perhaps young John had too much Donald blood in his line. My mother got it into her head that I should be chieftain. I s'pose there are still those who think so."

"But not you?" I asked, because I couldn't imagine that he had no ambition.

He clenched his jaw. "I've sworn fealty to John Macrae. Not that he ever took me at my word. He has looked askance at me ever since. He takes my advice on matters of the clan, and keeps me close in war. But he cast my friends.h.i.+p away and froze me out just as he's done to you."

Not the same, I thought. Not the same at all. If only because Ian could at least still speak to our chieftain if he wanted. But the pain I heard in Ian's voice was such an echo of my own that it touched me somehow.

Ian held me a breath away, my hand upon his chest as I steadied myself. And that's when my fingers felt the scar of the wound he'd once taken defending me. He was right, that it was evidence. He'd put his body-his very life-between me and the enemy. He would always bear a scar for it. For my sake. And for the laird. That knowledge made me suddenly and strangely glad that if the laird needed to be rid of me, that he had given me to Ian in reward for his loyalty.

It seemed somehow just and right.

That, in turn, made me want Ian again when I hadn't thought it possible. I had, until that moment, considered desire in too narrow a definition. It could be found in grat.i.tude and kins.h.i.+p, too, perhaps. I felt grat.i.tude and kins.h.i.+p now. I felt it strongly. So strongly that I dared to lean forward and kiss the scar.

My lips upon it gave Ian a jolt. His hand tightened in my hair, and when he looked at me, his eyes were filled with confusion. "What are you doing, la.s.s?"

That's what I need from you. To bed down with him. To make him love you as you made me love you. To find love with him, if you can. That is my command.

"I-I want...to make love to you."

"No you don't," Ian said, taking my fingers in his.

"I do," I insisted, even over the protest of my own heart. Perhaps we could turn to one another to soothe the pain of the wounds the laird had dealt us both.

As if he read my heart, though, Ian said, "If you do want to make love to me, it is only because the laird is still somehow here in this room between us."

That was true. The laird's voice was still in my head. Perhaps some of my desire for Ian was to reach through him, back to that night, when the three of us had been together. "If he's in this room with us, I don't think you mind nearly so much..."

"No," Ian admitted, still unable to meet my eyes.

"Then touch me, and let me touch you. Let me, because..." a little sob escaped me. "Because this is the last thing he asked of me, and it's the only thing I can do to serve him now!"

I hadn't meant to say it. But once the words escaped, Ian stiffened, caught me by the chin, and tilted my head up. "What the devil do you mean, the last thing he asked of you?"

Chapter Ten.

THE LAIRD.

"You b.l.o.o.d.y b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Ian said, slamming the door behind him.

John had been in the tower-watching for reinforcements that were never going to come. Davy hadn't made it or he'd have returned by now. Davy was a.s.suredly dead, a thing John would have to tell the girl he'd left behind.

John had some treasure and holdings that he would sign over to Arabella for her upkeep, if his wishes could be honored after he died. That's what he'd been working out in his head when Ian burst in.

"I wish you wouldn't shout," he told Ian. "I have a splitting ache in the head."

Ian stomped the few paces it took to bring them face to face. "No doubt your head aches with all the scheming that goes on in that skull! Do you think your people are little p.a.w.ns to be moved about on the squares of your chessboard? Is that what you think? Perhaps I've always known that of you, John Macrae, but I thought you'd know better than to treat me the same."

"I don't know what you're on about," the laird replied, wanting wine. Unwatered. But he couldn't waste it on himself, no matter how badly he needed a drink. He was thirsty, but so was everyone else in the castle.

Yet Ian's rage had nothing to do with that.

"You sent her to seduce me!" he roared.

John winced. Both because Ian's shout exploded more pain behind his eyelids and also because it he'd been sure Heather would've been wise enough not to tell Ian the command she'd been given.

It had destroyed John every night since he parted with her. He thought it might actually kill him when he heard her call to him outside his door, only to be turned away. A necessity, he knew. But an agony of the spirit unlike any he'd ever known. "I sent her to you for safekeeping and as a gift for you, Ian. Don't tell me she's not to your liking. I sent her to find happiness with you. And you with her. You ought to thank me."

"Aye, right," Ian said with a snort. "She's the least happy woman I have ever seen since you sent her away. She's in love with you, you shallow-hearted lout. Or didn't you know it?"

John hadn't known it. Hadn't been sure. She'd said that she loved him, but then he had broken her heart. She couldn't still love him, could she? Not after more than a month in another man's bed...

"I am not shallow-hearted," the laird said, not liking the quaver in his voice.

"Entirely empty-hearted then, is it?"

It was too much to bear that Ian could say such a thing to him. "It'll never be enough for you, Ian, will it? You want my clan. You want my woman. Well, when I'm dead, you'll have them both-"

"Don't play the martyr with me. Just marry the b.l.o.o.d.y Donald girl! For the love of G.o.d, John. Agree to their terms, surrender the castle, and save your neck, d.a.m.n you."

John had made an oath to the Mackenzies. He'd made an oath to Heather, too. He couldn't see the point in breaking either, just to save his neck. "Is that what you'll do, when you're chieftain, Ian? Break your oaths?"

"I'm not saying your choice is easy. But you have a choice. You can negotiate or you can fight, and we'll be beside you either way. We'll die with you to the last man. But not if you give up. Not if you sit up here in your tower, trying to control matters after your death, babbling about how I'm going to be chieftain."

"You are," John said. "Once you let the enemy into the castle."

Ian went red, and his fists clenched at his side. "You-you think I'm the traitor?"

John let his eyes lock on his kinsman's. "I think you're a wise man and you know there's a deal to be made. You aren't the one with an oath of alliance to the Mackenzies, after all. I am. When it is all said and done, and my head is on a pike, you can deny letting them in the walls. You can let them take you prisoner for show, if you must, until the clan is appeased. I'm sure overtures of this sort have been made to you already...either through your mother or directly to you when I sent you out to speak with the enemy."

Now Ian went from red to purple. "What if such overtures had been made? You actually think I'd entertain them. After all the years I called you not only my kinsman, but my friend. After all we've shared. You think I'll betray you?"

"I know you will," John said, feeling the tightness in his chest as he said it. "Because I'm commanding you to do it."

Ian was a big, brawny warrior. A man who could stand at his post for hours without tiring. He had an endurance about him and a singleminded purpose that John had often envied. But at these words, his kinsman's knees went a bit wobbly, and he seemed to lose all place of himself in the world. "What?"

"It's the only way for me to both keep my honor and protect Clan Macrae," John explained, as calmly as a man could explain his own demise. "Accept whatever offer has already been made to you. And if one hasn't been made, then I'll send you out for another parley and you can offer to betray me. Barter for the lives of the villagers. For whichever holdings of mine they'll let you keep. They might even make you constable of this castle, to hold it in allegiance to them, though that might be too much to ask. What I ask is that you watch after Heather. Do that, and my clan and my woman are both yours."

The laird never saw the blow coming.

One moment, he was giving the painful order and the next Ian's fist was connecting with his face. The crack was shattering-knuckles against jaw. The pain of it nearly blinded him. And he could taste the iron tang of blood in his mouth. A moment later they were grappling, grabbing one another by the collars of the s.h.i.+rt, shoving and straining.

"You dare to strike your laird?" John shouted, true rage coursing through his veins that he hadn't let himself feel before now. The laird returned the punch, delivering a solid blow that snapped Ian's head back, and spouted a fountain of blood from his nose. "I could have you killed for it!"

"Do it if you can," Ian cried, tears in his eyes as he readied his fist for another swing. "Because you're right. I want your clan. I want your woman too. But I would never have taken either from you. And I'll be d.a.m.ned if I let you give them to me. You can find someone else to be your Judas."

HEATHER.

Not long after I watched Ian storm off in a rage to confront the laird, Brenna hovered in the doorway. "Will you need help dressing?" Brenna asked, her skin still pale from the poisoned well-water, and her lower lip a bit quivery, lending her speech a bit of a slur.

"You shouldn't be up and about!" I cried, rus.h.i.+ng to usher her into a chair.

"There's no point in laying about feeling poorly if you can be useful while feeling poorly," she said, adjusting her cap with exactly the sentiment I'd come to expect from her.

"You're lucky to be alive," I said, mournfully, for the shepherd's boy didn't make it and several others emerged with such weak thumps of the heart, it was as if they'd never recover. "In any case, you need not worry about dressing me anymore. I'm not the laird's lady any longer, and as you can see, I've managed to dress myself."

Brenna's eyes darted to the unmade bed, then to me, then away as if she couldn't bear to think of how low I'd fallen. "I've been saving something for you. Now is as good a time to give it to you as any." With that, she drew from a pocket in her ap.r.o.n two biscuits and a little pot of heather-laced honey. "The biscuits are hard enough to chip your teeth, but I remembered how much you liked the honey. And it's the last we have in the castle."

"Oh," I said, my mouth watering for it, even as my stomach tossed. "But tell me you didn't steal it from the larder..."

If she'd gotten past Malcolm to do that, we'd both be hanged!

"Of course not. The cook doled it out to me in compensation for giving up my salt-beef to the warriors. I thought I'd share it with you, since you once shared yours with me, when you first came here, and the laird wished to spoil you so..."

My heart swelled a bit that she remembered me kindly. I felt very selfish for it. "I'm so grateful, but I really couldn't eat a bite. You have it. Enjoy it for me."

She dipped the biscuit into the honey, as if to entice me. "Oh, I should think you need it more than I do. You've been through so much. I cannot imagine how it's been for you, Heather. To nearly be killed by a.s.sa.s.sins then abandoned by the laird."

Abandoned by the laird.

Those words still thudded into my chest and stole my breath away. That was exactly the way of it. And I wondered if it would ever stop hurting.

"Take the honey," Brenna said. "Keep your strength up. I imagine Ian Macrae is a demanding man."

There was something in the way she said his name that held a note of reverence, but also a touch of possession. Another glance at the rumpled bed told me how resentful she was of my sleeping arrangements.

That was the my only warning. The only thing that sent the hairs up on my nape. The only reason I pulled back just as she raised the biscuit to my lips. "I said I'm not hungry, Brenna."

"Of course you are," she replied, her eyes hardening to mean little slits. "Voracious as any harlot. So why not open your mouth wide for a little honey the way I'm sure you open it wide for the men you seduce."

The beckoning glitter of the honey in the light was as sharp as a dagger tip. I grasped her by the wrist to stop her from pus.h.i.+ng it into my face. "What's in the honey, Brenna?"

"Don't you know? You took it from me and then I took it back."

There was a certain madness in her expression, and the squeak gone from her voice. She'd always seemed a timid thing to me, in everything except for her love for Ian Macrae. Was that what she meant? "I didn't take anything or anyone from you."

But her eyes darted to the windowsill and when I looked, I realized something was missing. The jar with the rune symbols. I hadn't returned it to my sister because I hadn't quite figured out the mystery of it, but it was gone from my windowsill where I'd left it. How long had it been gone? I'd been too busy helping the castle with its dwindling supply of water to notice it's disappearance. And now a terrible suspicion welled up in me that Brenna had taken it, and that she knew exactly what was in it. "T'was the jar you took, was it? And it was poison."

"Belladonna," she confirmed, with a malicious snarl.

I cursed myself for a fool. Belladonna. Beautiful woman. It was there for me to see all along if I had been clever enough to see it. I didn't have knowledge of herbs and poisons-that was my sister's realm. But I knew enough to deduce that if Brenna had taken it and laced my honey with it, she wanted me dead.

I might have told her that what pa.s.sed between Ian and I at night was entirely innocent, or at least mostly so. I might have tried to defend my conduct. But the thought that I might be with child brought forth in me nothing but a fury of indignation. "Get out, you jealous little viper. And find some hole to hide in before I tell the laird and his men that you tried to murder me with food you probably did steal from the larder after all."

"You won't tell anyone anything when you're dead," she said, breaking free of my grasp. The biscuit and the poisoned honey fell to the floor, but from her ap.r.o.n she drew out a knife. "Now I must gut you, when you could have done it easier. Poison isn't so painful. A flush, a rash, a bit of stumbling and hallucination before you fade away..."

My hands flew up and away at the sight of the butcher knife, my heart thumping wildly. Even though I could scarcely think of anything but the sharpness of it, her words slowly penetrated through the haze of fear. The symptoms she was describing were the same as she'd suffered...

"Come to your senses, Brenna. The poison has destroyed your mind!"

She didn't reply, but swiped with the knife. I shrieked and jumped back from the slash of her blade, throwing a chair down between us to stop her. And in spite of my fear, another realization struck me.

a.s.sa.s.sins, she had said. Not a.s.sa.s.sin.

The laird had told everyone it was a lone a.s.sa.s.sin. Only me, Malcolm, and Ian knew differently. And I gasped, "By the blood of Christ, Brenna. You're the traitor, aren't you? You let those a.s.sa.s.sins into the castle to kill the laird. But why?"

"I did it for Ian," she said, thrusting again with the knife, the tip catching the lace of my sleeve and tearing it open. "So he would become laird. He would never take it himself. He's too honorable. Someone had to do it for him. I'm going to make him the laird of Clan Macrae, which he should have been from the start. When I do, he'll see that your love is tawdry and cheap and for sale. But my love is true."

"Your love is true?" I asked, in outrage, scrambling with my hands along the dressing table for something to use to defend myself. "You nearly killed him that night, did you know that? He was wounded fighting the a.s.sa.s.sins you let into the castle. That's what comes of your love."

"He shouldn't have been anywhere near the laird's chamber! I think it's your fault he was. I don't know how, but I have my suspicions. I know that the laird shares women, and I've heard you moaning like the wh.o.r.e you are in his rooms. I won't let you corrupt an upright warrior like Ian Macrae."

With that, she thrust her knife again and this time she struck true. I didn't feel the blade go into my side-at least, it felt more like someone had punched me rather than stabbed me. But the warm gush of my own blood told me what had happened.

Another woman would have fallen to her knees with the pain, I suppose. But the dark games I played with the laird conditioned me to take pain and turn it to something else. Sometimes l.u.s.t. In this case, fury.

And in my fury I struck Brenna so hard that stumbled. Her foot caught in the sticky honey on the floor. She fell, hard, the knife skittering out of her hand. I grabbed it up before she could rise. "Guards!" I screamed, wondering why I hadn't thought to do it before. Perhaps it was the shock of it.

But Brenna was nothing if not wily. Apprehending her danger, she too began to scream for the guards. In fact, she staggered to her feet, then made for the door, shouting, "Help! I've found the traitor!"

Then she ran.

It was a castle under siege. There was no where for her to escape, was there? But perhaps she meant to give some sort of signal to our enemies.

"Guards!" I cried again, giving chase.

Flying down the staircase, her fair hair flying free of its bonnet, Brenna called back to me, "Who do you think they'll believe? A good girl like me or a scheming strumpet whose witch of a sister keeps poisons in the physiker's laboratory?"

"They're going to believe me," I said, entirely sure of it. And finding strength in myself because I was sure of it. Leaving a trail of blood behind me, I staggered after her as she ran out-not into the castle courtyard, but towards the sea wall, where a cold wind blew fiercely underneath clear winter skies.