Devil in a Kilt by Sue-Ellen Welfonder
Chapter 18
Duncan headed down the shadowy passage outside his old bedchamber, making for the stair tower. The Sassunach could bedevil him like a pebble in his shoe, and he hadn’t wanted to hear whatever the lout had meant to say. He especially hadn’t cared to discuss love.
Not love of the saints or angels, the old gods and ancients who’d once ruled this land, not love any kind, truth be told. Most definitely not love of a man for his wife.
Nor of a man for his son.
A muscle in his jaw twitched at that thought, and he quickened his pace. He felt a pressing need to put a great distance between himself and his too-wise friend.
The one-eyed Englishman had the uncanny knack of making him feel as if he could see into his very soul at times. Gods, he should have married Marmaduke to discover Robbie’s true parentage. His new wife’s failure to satisfy him in that regard deepened the scowl he already wore.
At the end of the corridor, just before the stairwell that led down to the great hall, he stopped to lean against the cold stone wall. His jaw still twitched and frustration made him grind his teeth until he wouldn’t have been surprised if he chipped one of them.
He shivered, too, for just before he’d found Marmaduke in his bed, he’d doused himself with chilled water in an attempt to wash the blood and grime from his aching body.
He also smelled, for the unsettling discovery had put a swift end to his much-needed ablutions.
Above all, he was miserable. Even more than he’d been when he’d left the battlements and headed for his quarters, wanting nothing more than to rest his weary bones.
Uttering a dark oath, he pushed himself away from the wall. With heavy steps, and a heavily spirit, he began the winding descent to the hall. He’d spend the remainder of the night sleeping on a bench or make do with the rushes as did most of men. But halfway down the stairs, he halted.
His predicament would have made him laugh in younger years – back when he’d still possessed a hearty sense of humor.
After all, he’d sought the hand of Linnet MacDonnell. He’d brought her to Kintail in the hopes she’d rid him of his doubts and prove herself a useful, if not cherished, wife.
Instead, she’d turned his world upside down, and chaos had ruled his household from the moment she first passed through the castle gates. He was laird, yet he alone crept through the night-darkened keep, chilled to the bone and reeking to the heavens, without a bed to claim his own.
Sheslept in one of the castle’s finest chambers, the one that had belonged to his parents, and their parents before them. She was likely lost in a dream world of valiant knights, gracious ladies, and bouncing bairns, while he skulked about like an outcast in his own home.
The injustice of it made his hands clench, while his lips formed a thin, tight line.
From below, the faint sounds of his men’s snores carried up the circular stairwell, along with the scurrying sounds of his hounds searching for scraps of food in the floor rushes. Fainter still, the crackling of the fires in the hall’s three great hearths and the ever-present sound of Loch Duich’s waves, gentled by the late hour, lapping against the castle walls.
An ordinary night for all who called Eilean Creag home.
All save its liege laird and master.
Duncan flexed his fingers a few times, then balled them into tight fists once more. He needed the slight pain of his nails digging into his palms, welcomed it, lest he pound his hands to pulp against the wall.
Everyone but himself had peace this night. Marmaduke rested in Duncan’s former chamber. His men slumbered as always belowstairs, sprawled on the rushes or benches, wrapped in their plaids. Old Fergus no doubt enjoyed the luxury of finally having a bed to call his own in Marmaduke’s relinquished quarters.
He didn’t know where his wife’s protective lady servant slept, but she, too, had assuredly found more calm than he.
Feeling much the fool, and angrier still, he took two steps downward, then stopped. He’d be a bigger dolt if he spent the night in the hall. Come the morn, his men would make jests, speculate among themselves his reasons for abandoning the warmth of his bride’s bed.
Duncan winced at the ramifications. Giving his men fodder for gossip would only increase his misery. Without taking time to consider the consequences, he turned and headed back up the stairs.
For sure, his lady wife’s chamber was on the opposite side of the keep, attainable only by crossing the great hall and climbing yet another set of spiral stairs, but he was laird of this island stronghold and as such he knew its every stone, and secret.
Such as the narrow passage cut within the castle walls.
An escape route connecting a few of the rooms before winding downward toward a hidden cave on the island’s rocky shore.
A slight tugging pulled at the corners of his mouth in what could’ve been the beginnings of a smile – if he were wont to smile, which he wasn’t. But it pleased him greatly to have decided to take matters into his own hands.
He was, after all, laird.
It was beneath his dignity to scramble about in the middle of the night, seeking a place to lay his head.
Nae, he’d exercise his rights as the present MacKenzie of Kintail and reclaim the chamber his father and all the clan chiefs before him had used as their own.
Including the bed.