Devil in a Kilt by Sue-Ellen Welfonder

Chapter 12

Some bold whoreson sought to put out his eyes with red-hot needles! Duncan shot to his feet, ready to fend off the fiend who’d dare attempt such a foul deed, only to slump back into the chair he’d spent half the night in. The quick motion nigh caused his head to burst asunder.

Leaning back, he let out an agonized groan. The pain was great, but at least he’d not been set upon by a needle-wielding assailant.

Nae, it was merely the bright morning light slanting through the cracks in the shutters that made his eyes burn as though they’d been set afire.

Sakes, what had befallen him? He hadn’t partaken of that much spiced wine yestereve.

Or had he?

For sure, he’d never felt more wretched.

And why had he awakened in a chair and not his bed?

With a ragged moan, he lowered the arm he’d flung across his aching eyes. Squinting against the sun’s infernal glare, he peered around the chamber, looking for his first squire, Lachlan.

The lad usually slept on a pallet before the fire, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Nor was his pallet.

And the hearth was not Duncan’s own!

Guidsakes, he’d awakened in a strange bedchamber.

Nae, not quite, for, with dawning comprehension, he recognized his surroundings.

His gaze flew to the bed and the lustrous flame-bright tresses spilling over the edge of the coverlets. Duncan pressed his lips together. There could be no doubt as to whose quarters he’d awakened in.

Thanks be to the powers above - and perhaps the old gods, as well - his new wife yet slumbered.

He wasn’t in any mood to bid her a good morn.

Not naked as he was, clad only in the belt fastened about his hips.

A further glance about the chamber showed his plaid lying in a heap beside the bed, while his sword and dagger rested atop a table next to the door.

A door that stood ajar.

Slowly, realization filtered through the throbbing pain clouding his senses. Little by little, the events of the day before – his wedding day – came back to him.

He’d wanted nothing but to have done with the feasting, perhaps address his bride about Robbie again, then escape to the peace of his solar.

But it wasn’t meant to be.

Instead of the docility he would’ve preferred, his new wife had flaunted her position by bringing the child to his table even though someone in his household had surely warned her he’d given strict orders the boy was to be kept from his sight.

Aye, she had to have been told.

Yet she’d defied him.

And so had his men.

The faithless bastards had blatantly disregarded his wishes. They’d prodded him into performing the marriage stone ceremony, then later, boldly carted both him and his bride to bed in the hopes of tricking him into performing an act they knew he’d vowed would not take place.

Not yestereve and not in the future. Not with this woman.

Duncan squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his fingers against his throbbing temples. He should never have brought the lass here, ne’er done such a fool thing as wed her.

She hadn’t been under his roof but a scant few hours and already she’d wrought havoc and caused him grief.

A muscle twitched in his jaw, its jerking making him uncomfortably aware of the tension coursing through him. The woman had gone too far, overstepped her bounds, on her first day as lady of Eilean Creag.

Of her first night, he remembered precious little beyond being lugged up the stairs and stripped.

And that which he did recall, he wished to forget. The fleeting images flashing through his mind were unsettling.

Disturbing in a manner he didn’t care to examine.

Even now, with his head feeling as if it’d been split in two, his traitorous loins quickened at the memory of her standing before him in all her naked glory, her red-gold hair swirling about her like a sea siren straight out of a lovestruck bard’s silly tale of unquenched love and desire.

Recollections of barred doors and screams in the night came back to him, too, chasing away the unwanted lust his too-fetching bride aroused within him.

He didn’t want to desire her.

Didn’t want to need her.

It was far easier – safer – to slake his need for a woman’s velvety warmth and softness with a village bawd.

For a few pieces of coin, they’d barter their wares, let him partake of their well-worn charms. But even such whores couldn’t keep the revulsion, the fear, from their eyes as he mounted them.

Their expressions spoke the words they’d never dare voice to his face. They, too, believed he’d pushed Cassandra to her death.

Thought him a murderer.

Duncan swore. In death as in life, his beautiful first wife had the power to make him miserable. In truth, she’d killed him with her treachery.

Not that he’d cared about her infidelity.

At least not after the first few years of their marriage. The saints knew, he’d stopped loving her long before he’d discovered her indiscretions. It was only when she’d taunted him about Robbie’s true parentage that she’d ripped out his heart, his very soul.

That, and her part in the death of his sister, Arabella.

Duncan dragged a hand over his face, then pinched the bridge of his nose. Might God forgive him if his suspicions were unfounded, but not few were those under his roof who, like him, wondered if the witch-woman had also had a hand in the mysterious death of his lady mother as well.

Proven or nae, the deeds were done, irreversible. His beloved sister, cold in the ground, his sweet mother resting not far from her daughter’s side.

As for Robbie being Kenneth’s son, deep inside Duncan knew the truth of the spiteful words Cassandra had flung at him on the last day of her life. What pained him was the tiny shimmer of hope he’d never been able to extinguish.

A desperate wish to discover she’d lied – a notion only a fool would cling to.

Duncan clenched his hands to fists and drew a ragged breath. Cassandra had taken his life as surely as she’d lost her own by tripping on the hem of her gown and plunging from the battlements as he’d looked on, unable to stop her fall.

In her grave, she’d found peace, freedom from whatever madness had made her so wicked. But he could not run from his own demons.

His torture was a living death.

Ne’er would another woman cause him such pain again.

Not in a thousand lives.

Even if protecting himself caused his new bride anguish. It couldn’t be helped. He wanted only peace. She would have to seek other ways to fill her heart and days.

Her nights mattered less. They were no concern of his.

Duncan glanced across the room at her. She slept soundly, blessedly unaware of the turmoil her presence had wrought upon him. A tiny twinge of guilt made a slight chink in the wall around his heart, but that only made him all the more determined to keep away from her.

Using great care lest he jar his aching head, or make a noise and awaken his bride, he pushed himself to his feet. It was time he sought answers, but not yet from his wife.

It would take a stronger man than he to face her down and question her while she still had the vulnerable look of a sleeping angel about her.

He’d press her about Robbie later.

When he had his wits full about him, and his manhood safely hidden beneath his plaid.

Although not in his best form, he wasn’t befuddled enough not to know his bride wasn’t the only one who owed him explanations.

She hadn’t barred the bedchamber door from the outside last night. Nor could she have opened it from the inside come the morn.

He didn’t need a sage to know a certain one-eyed, ugly-faced Sassunach was the culprit. It would be just like Strongbow to have concocted such a scheme. Duncan bit back an oath. What a fine bit of trickery it’d been – locking him naked in a chamber with an equally bare-bottomed wife!

The English lout had undoubtedly thought they’d give in to their baser instincts and spend the night in wedded bliss, locked in a fevered embrace.

Against his better judgment, Duncan shot another glance at his new lady. Faith and hypocrisy, it didn’t help his mood any to know how close he’d come to doing just that.

How much he’d wanted to.

On his life, only his iron resolve had kept him from making Linnet truly his.

He shook his head, heedless of the pain the slight motion caused him. Sir Marmaduke’s uncanny knack for knowing his innermost thoughts was frightening at times.

Annoying in the extreme.

He must have words with him.

Stern words.

Eager to challenge the Sassunach he loved like a brother, truth be told, Duncan cautiously retrieved, then donned his plaid. As quietly as he could, he snatched up his weapons and hastened from the chamber.

It wasn’t till he’d bounded halfway down the stairs that he realized he’d used his bride’s given name.

Bluidy hell.