Devil in a Kilt by Sue-Ellen Welfonder
Chapter 17
Anaked man slept in his bed!
Duncan squeezed his eyes shut and ground his fists against his eyelids, certain the unclothed ox sprawled across his bed was a figment of his imagination, brought on by his extreme weariness. Or the shock of the icy water he’d just sluiced over his head.
But when he looked again, the lout was still there.
Appearing more comfortable than a man had a right to be, Sir Marmaduke lolled on his back atop the covers, limbs akimbo, his mouth slack and emitting loud snores.
“Damnation!” Duncan thundered. “Awaken and explain yourself, lest I haul your arse onto the floor!”
Just as he reached the bed, Marmaduke pushed himself up on his elbows and yawned. Duncan leaned forward, his anger barely contained. “Are you too drunken to know where you’ve laid yourself to rest, or do you seek to deliberately rile me?”
Marmaduke yawned once more and peered groggily at Duncan with his good eye. “Rile you? I’m not the one bursting into another man’s bedchamber and stealing his sleep.”
“Have a care, Englishman, for I tire of the riddles you speak of late,” Duncan fumed. “’Tis my chamber and my bed in which you find yourself.”
“Indeed?” Marmaduke looked at him, no longer drowsy, but alert, his one intact brow arching upward. “Perhaps you are the one who drank too much wine?”
“Dinnae speak to me of spirits, you bold whoreson. I’ve not forgotten how you persisted in replenishing my hippocras at the wedding feast.” Duncan planted his hands on his hips. “I’ve no’ had a drop of ale or wine this eve though I now regret it. A befuddled state would have eased the offending sight of your nakedness stretched across my bed.”
“Think you I find your appearance any more pleasing? Here I sought nothing but a well-deserved night’s rest and awaken to find a wild-eyed, raving hulk, clothed in a bloodied plaid and torn braies, charging my bedside.” Marmaduke drew himself into a sitting position and slung the covers over his lower body. “No, it wasn’t a pleasant sight, my friend.”
“Has the world gone mad?” Duncan raked his fingers through his hair. “I came to my chamber desiring scarce more than to wash the grime from my body, then sleep in my own bed. Yet I find it occupied by you.” He paused to glare at the Sassunach. “And you dare to spout nonsense rather than hie yourself out of here.”
“I beg you to stop bellowing. When you have, I shall gladly remind you of that which today’s turmoil has apparently caused you to forget.”
Duncan folded his arms. “Speak.”
“The explanation is simple.” Marmaduke spoke as if placating the village idiot. “During the feast, you generously granted me use of your chamber now that you are gainfully and blissfully rewed. Do you not remember?”
“Nae, I do not!” Duncan stormed. “Further, I do not feel wed – gainfully, blissfully, or otherwise.”
“Then perhaps you should seek your lady wife’s bed and attempt to address that … er … failing?”
“By the Rood!” Duncan grabbed Marmaduke’s arm and yanked him to his feet. “The only failing I have is suffering the madness that’s overtaken this household since the MacDonnell lass set foot in it.”
“Tsk, tsk,” Marmaduke chided, shaking his head. “You should have taken better heed of the way Robert Bruce charms the womenfolk. You’ll never win your lady’s favor if you think of her thusly, my friend.”
“Plague take her favor, I do not want it,” Duncan raged, his temper close to boiling. “I want my bed. Take yourself to your own good chamber. Now, before I toss you over my shoulder and carry you there.”
“You know I’ve not slept there since Arabella’s death. From that day forth, the chamber only houses my arms and, on occasion, serves as a training room for your so- … er … the lad, Robbie’s, instruction in handling a sword. Otherwise, I avoid setting foot there.” He paused, a look of feigned perplexity on his face. “Have you forgotten that as well?”
“I’ve forgotten naught except why I call you my most trusted friend,” Duncan exploded, his throat hoarse from hollering. “If you are wise, you’ll join the men sleeping on the floor rushes below, as we both know you’re usually wont to do, because you are not staying here.” His patience at an end, Duncan propelled Marmaduke toward the door. “Better still, steel your backbone against the ghosts that haunt you and reclaim your old quarters. It’s a fine chamber and shouldn’t be empty.”
“I cannot do that.”
“Why not?”
“I offered the room to Fergus.”
“What?”Duncan let go of Marmaduke’s arm in his surprise. “You and Fergus are ever at each other’s throats.”
Marmaduke shrugged. “For all his bluster, the old goat is getting on in years. He shouldn’t sleep on a bench in the hall in each night.” Rubbing his arm where Duncan had gripped it, and avoiding Duncan’s eyes as if suddenly self-conscious, Marmaduke went on, “I thought perhaps giving him the chamber would smooth the waters between us.”
“Noble of you, then, but I still cannae let you have this chamber, for it is mine. Nor will I share it with you.” Duncan crossed his arms. “Even if I wanted to, I do not see how you can desire to sleep here, with her gazing down at you.”
Marmaduke’s one-eyed gaze latched onto the image of a beautiful raven-haired woman smiling serenely at them from above the hearth. Stunning beyond words, blessed with an ethereal loveliness even the angels would envy, Duncan’s first wife Cassandra’s elegant grace was captured forever on the smooth panels of painted wood.
It was an exquisite piece of art, its rendering wrought by a famed Irish illuminator who had come years before to paint saints upon the chapel walls. But rather than holy figures, he’d immortalized a she-devil.
Bile rose in Duncan’s throat at the memory of the way she’d thrown herself upon the artist. None within miles of Eilean Creag had doubted the methods she’d used to persuade the man to paint her likeness.
“Your brain is addled,” Duncan said, convinced he spoke the truth. “The sight of her will rob your sleep.”
“No, my friend, you err,” Marmaduke’s tone was colder than the deep waters of Loch Duich, black and silent beyond the chamber’s arch-topped windows. “’Tis because of her, I welcomed your generosity in granting me these quarters.”
“How so?” Duncan asked, fearing he’d just lost the battle whether he recalled giving away his bedchamber or not.
“Similar to your own reasons for keeping the likeness, her presence shall keep me steadfast in my quest for vengeance.” Marmaduke ran the tip of his middle finger down the puckered scar marring his once-handsome face. “But unlike you, I have not sworn to forsake all women because of the wickedness of one.”
Marmaduke drew back his shoulders, then went to the hearth and stared up at the painted beauty. “With your new marriage, ‘tis forgetfulness you must master. Put the pains of the past behind you and look forward. But I have yet to avenge Arabella’s death. If the face of her murderer is the last thing I see at night and the first I see upon awakening, I shall never slacken in my quest to see justice done – to send Kenneth to join his lewd ladyship in the pits of hell.”
Duncan stared at Marmaduke’s broad back, saw the well-developed muscles bunch with tension. When his friend’s shoulders sagged, Duncan knew he’d lost the battle.
And his bed.
“You are a master of words, Strongbow. How can I deny you the chamber after such a silver-tongued speech?”
“I but spoke my heart,” Marmaduke said, turning around. “It would be wise if you would do the same.”
“I dinnae have one, or hasn’t the the news reached your English ears?” Duncan couldn’t stop the bitter reply. “’Tis the devil himself they call me.”
“And you’ve a very fine angel sleeping in a cold bed on the other side of this castle. I vow she’d gladly banish your demons if you’d but let her,” Marmaduke said. “Or would you be called a fool as well as the devil?”
His aim perfect as always, Marmaduke’s sagely spoken words slipped through the chinks in Duncan’s armor to skewer the heart he wasn’t supposed to have.
“Tongue-waggers prattle matters nothing to me,” Duncan groused, knowing his friend knew better.
“Then gain her favor for yourself. I vow were such a treasure mine, she would not sleep alone.”
At the Sassunach’s admonishment, a parade of his lady’s enticements marched through Duncan’s mind. Her lips, warm and pliant beneath his when he’d kissed her during the marriage stone ceremony. Candleglow casting a gleam upon the smooth gloss of her hair, and not just the glorious tresses springing from her fair head! Nae, the fiery red curls at the tops of her thighs also caught the light well.
Too well.
Enough to make him burn to drop to his knees before her and press a thousand kisses against their lush softness and the fragrant sweetmeat hidden beneath.
Hellfire and damnation! Duncan roared the silent curse, letting it swell and expand in his mind until every last vestige of beckoning bronze nether curls was vanquished.
‘Listen to his heart’ Marmaduke had advised. Ha! Only one malediction plagued him at present and it had nothing to do with his heart. Hoping Marmaduke’s all-seeing eye for once didn’t see everything, Duncan adjusted a fold of his plaid to hang a bit more conveniently.
His lustful cravings thus disguised, another image flashed across his mind, and this one was even more alarming because it had the power to stir more than his physical arousal.
It was the fleeting look of adoration and desire he’d glimpsed in her gold-flecked eyes earlier on, when her expression had gone all soft and she’d looked as if she ached for him to kiss her.
By the hounds, if he heeded Marmaduke’s advice, he wouldn’t care if an entire garrison of men-at-arms claimed his bedchamber. They could have it, and all his holdings, if only he could inspire his lady wife to gaze upon him thusly – and mean it.
Alas, it had merely been a woman’s weakness for a battle-weary warrior that had made her forget her dislike of him.
His own masculine pride had made him believe, for a brief moment, that she might shower him with such attention, would welcome his devotion and love in turn.
Thankfully, he’d caught himself in time, remembered loving a woman was a dangerous endeavor fraught with more peril than a lusty dip between their thighs was worth.
Nae, he’d let Sir Marmaduke woo the women if he was wont to do so. He wouldn’t be persuaded – or seduced – into forgetting himself again.
Scowling again, Duncan snatched one of the bedcovers and tossed it over his arm. “Dinnae attempt to advise me on matters of the heart, English. A wise man doesn’t wear his feelings on his sleeve. I’m thinking you’ve buried your nose in too many French romances and spent too many nights listening to lovesick bards croon their silly ballads to all who’ll toss them a coin.”
Duncan jerked his head toward his squire who, amazingly, slept soundly on his pallet before the fire. “Save your romanticism for young lads like Lachlan, but spare me such nonsense. I’m a grown man, and I know from experience what comes on the heels of losing one’s heart.”
“You know naught, my friend,” Marmaduke said, sadly shaking his head. “A man gives his heart, and gladly. Never does he lose it, for in the giving, he gains a wealth of love in return. But, you are right. You are a grown man, and one too weary, and accustomed to his comfort, to stalk into the night with naught but a thin length of wool to warm your bones. If you will not seek Lady Linnet’s bed, take your own. I can join Lachlan on the floor.”
Duncan hesitated, tempted to accept Marmaduke’s offer. But the memory of his friend’s shoulders sagging as he’d gazed at the painted image above the hearth soured his small victory.
He shot a glance at the perfection of his dead wife’s face, and his gut twisted with revulsion. Perhaps the likeness had met its purpose as far as he was concerned and would now better serve Marmaduke. He didn’t need to stare at the infernal painting to be reminded of Cassandra’s vile deeds.
Indeed, had Marmaduke not expressed a desire to keep the she-wolf’s accursed likeness, he’d wrest it from the wall this moment and toss it out the window, letting it sink into the cold, dark waters of the loch.
Nothing would please him more than to know Cassandra’s image rested in the muck at the bottom of Loch Duich. Preferably facedown so her loveliness would be forever ground into the mud.
Suchlike would be a fitting revenge for her wickedness.
Even so, Duncan didn’t speak until he reached the door. Turning, he gave his friend a tired smile. “Nae, you keep the bed and the chamber – though I still deny granting them to you.”
An expression very much like guilt washed over Marmaduke’s face, but it was hard to tell given the sad extent of his scarring. He opened his mouth to speak, but Duncan stayed him by raising his hand.
“Dinnae say it. The saints alone know what you and the others hope to achieve by meddling in my affairs, but I do not believe your motives are mean-spirited.” He paused to open the door. “I think your intentions are well-meant and good, albeit misguided.”
“Hold a moment, wait,” Marmaduke protested, coming forward. “For the love-”
For the love.The three words propelled Duncan through the door and made him shut it tight behind him.