whose sudden interest in raiding Edin Valley had cost Laurel’s kin so dearly, must be made to pay. No matter how unsuited she was for the task, Laurel vowed to hold them at bay until Duncan was well enough to take command.
If he ever was.
Nay. She mustn’t think like that. Suddenly the memory of this morn’s vision flooded back. Was the knight in her dream one of those who’d attacked her grandfather? Springing out of bed, she snatched the gown from the startled Annie and began pulling it on over her night shift.
“Here, here. Have a care or ye’ll rip it,” Annie chided. “Not that ye don’t have gowns aplenty, what with all the lovely things Laird Duncan had made when ye wed Aulay Kerr last year,” she added as she stripped Laurel bare.
It wasn’t the chill draft seeping in through the shuttered window that raised the gooseflesh on Laurel’s body as she donned a fresh shift. ‘Twas the reminder of her short-lived marriage and Aulay’s betrayal. ’Twas what came of trusting an outsider.
“New clothes are the only good thing that came of that sorry mess,” Annie murmured as she drew the blue wool gown over Laurel’s head. “I know ’tis a sin to think ill of the dead...”
“I’m certain the Almighty will make an exception in Aulay’s case,” Laurel said. Her late, unlamented husband had been far more the devil’s servant than God’s.
“Who’d have thought such a pleasant, mild-speaking man’d turn out to be rotten at the core. Too bad, too, for we could have used a strong man like him to defend us now.”
Aye. He’d been a strong man. Laurel’s throat burned with the memory of how Aulay’s hands had felt closing around it and squeezing like a vise. A strong, greedy man.
“He thinks ye should wed again.”
“What?” Horrified, Laurel spun to face her friend. “Who?”
Annie blinked. “Himself. He was telling the Lady Nesta so last eve when I brought him his broth.”
“Why would Grandda want me to wed when my first marriage turned out so ill?”
“’Tis yerself and young Malcolm he’s thinking of,” Annie said, laying a hand on Laurel’s arm to soften the blow. “So as ye’d have someone to protect ye when...if...” Her voice trailed off, but Laurel understood only too well what she meant.
If Duncan died, there’d be only herself to lead the MacLellans until her brother was old enough. Poor Collie, just seven this month, gangly and clumsy as a fawn, yet anxious to defend their clan. “I must see Grandda.” She tried to duck away.
“Hold still: ” Keeping a secure grip on Laurel’s hip-length red hair, the maid began working the tangles from it. ”There is no rush. Himself was just waking up when I came above stairs.”
“How did he seem?”
“Grouchy as ever. Mam says ’tis a sure sign he’s healing,” Annie said gently, for she knew Laurel’s eagerness to be away was born of fear, not lack of concern for her appearance.
Laurel turned as Annie finished tying a bit of gold cord around the end of her braid. It would have to be replaced with leather when she rode out, but Annie had the right of it. ’Twould please Grandda to see her properly gowned and coiffed.
The corridor was cold after the warmth of her chamber, and Laurel quickened her pace, lifting her skirts lest she trip in the narrow stone staircase that circled down to the first floor. A flood of torchlight and the muted sound of voices reached out to her from the great hall, where a score of men partook of ale and brown bread before riding out to stand watch. Pausing in the doorway, Laurel scanned their faces, old and young alike lined with worry and fatigue. Secure as it was, guarded by a narrow pass, Edin Valley wasn’t impregnable. Should the reivers decide to attack in force, Laurel wasn’t certain the MacLellans could hold out.
Sighing, she turned way from the hall and continued down the dimly lit passageway to the room that had been her grandmother’s solar in the days before the new tower housing the laird’s chamber had been added. ’Twas to the solar the men had carried their wounded laird two weeks past. Laurel’s hand tightened on the door as she recalled the many desperate hours that had followed while she and her aunt battled to stitch Duncan’s wounds before he bled to death. They’d managed to save him, but they still could lose him to blood-fever or infection.
Laurel was relieved to see him awake, propped up on several pillows to ease his breathing, for a sword had cut perilously close to his lungs. Duncan’s gray hair had been pulled back from his face and tied at the nape, revealing the sharp angles of the high cheekbones he’d bequeathed to Laurel and the hooked nose he mercifully had not. In the harsh glow of the candle set in a pike beside the bed, his skin looked chalky. The hooded eyes that used to sparkle with mischief focused dully on the hearth.
Following his gaze, she saw that despite the early hour, Aunt Nesta was already here. Dressed in her customary flowing black robe, she crouched by the fire, head bent over a bowl resting on a three-legged stool. Her auburn hair, hip length, unbound as a lass’s and free of gray despite her thirty years, obscured her profile as she leaned over the bowl.
“What do ye see, Nessie?” Duncan’s voice lacked the deep bass rumble of vigor and command it usually held.
“Naught.” Her aunt rocked back on her heels. “I’m that distracted I can scarce summon a proper conjuring.”
The word mocked Laurel’s shortcomings as a witch. Try as she might, she couldn’t summon an image in that ancient gold bowl.
“Try again,” Duncan commanded. “I must know where Kieran is before I worsen.”
Kieran? Who is this Kieran? Laurel wanted to ask, but she was reluctant to intrude on a conjuring in which she could take no part. Silence filled the chamber, broken only by the crackle of the fire and the rasp of Duncan’s uneven breathing.
“Ah!” Nesta exclaimed.
“Ye’ve seen him?” The rope-bound bed creaked as Duncan levered himself up for a peek.
“Aye.” Firelight glinted in Nesta’s red hair as she turned her head toward the bed. “I’ve found him, Da.”
“How far from Edin?”
“He’s on the far side of the pass, for I see the river and foothills beyond him. Ellis has met him, and they are talking.”
Laurel frowned. Why had the captain of Edin’s guard made no mention to her of meeting this Kieran, she wondered.
“And not a moment too soon,” Duncan muttered. “Well, don’t just sit there gaping, lass, tell me how he looks.”
Nesta turned back to the bowl, studied it for so long Laurel thought she’d go mad with the waiting. “Hard.”
“Hard? He’s no more than three and twenty,” Duncan said.
“Oh, his face is young, but his eyes are cold and har—”
“Mayhap ye’ve got the wrong man. Describe him to me.”
“Black haired he is, with strong features, a cleft in his square jaw and...and violet eyes.”
