Nineteen

Maggie straightened her plaid and ran her palm lightly over her hair to make sure it wasn’t sticking out all over the place. She’d barred the door as soon as Glynis had left and then slowly lowered herself back into the tub for a proper wash. She’d hardly been able to wait to dip her head and cleanse her hair of dirt and sweat—although it had been awkward to do with only one hand.

Afterward, she’d been exhausted but had forced herself to sit on the chair in front of the fire and brush through the tangles, working through the curling strands in sections. God’s truth, it had taken her at least an hour, if not more, to finish the job with just one hand. She’d been tempted to crawl back into bed, hoping Callum might come to find her. But ever since Glynis had left, Maggie had felt an urgency to explore the castle. More than ever, she needed to know how she could escape, if need be. To plant some weapons in the castle and begin her own search and investigation for the traitor.

Just a continuation of what she’d done at her own keep, really. And she’d proven very good at that.

After making sure her two remaining daggers, plus one more Callum had given her, were properly sheathed under her arisaid along her forearm, she unbarred the door. She smiled when she met the beaming faces of her guards—Artair and Finn.

Then she scowled. “Which one of you let that awful woman into my chamber? God’s truth, she tried my patience. I had to practically threaten her with my daggers to get her out.” Maggie didn’t want the men to know of her suspicions, but she also didn’t want Glynis in her room. The news of Maggie’s displeasure would spread through the guards like wildfire.

“’Twas not us, Lady MacLean. We just came on duty,” Artair said, following in step behind her as Maggie swept past. “’Tis good to hear you sounding like your old self though.”

“Aye,” Finnian added. “We missed your sweet voice. Such a gentle sound, like a wee bairn cooing for his mother.”

Maggie barked out a laugh as she glanced avidly around the passageway, counting doors and noting every nook and cranny.

“In truth, we were all so worried about you, lass,” Artair said, his light tone filling with concern, “but Laird MacLean assured us you were recovering well.”

“I am feeling much better, thank you.” She stopped at the top of the stairs that headed to the great hall below and turned to face the men. Beside her, another staircase continued upward to the third floor, making her wonder how many floors there were in all. “I’m sorry I slowed us down on the way here. I fear I put you all in grave danger. If we’d been attacked…”

“Och, lass, doona e’er think such a—”

Artair’s reply was interrupted by the sound of a woman’s voice singing horribly out of tune, coming from somewhere upstairs. The song was punctuated by the sound of running feet crashing down the staircase from the upper level.

Seconds later, a lass, no more than perhaps seventeen, came barreling around the corner, her gaze fixed on a sheaf of parchments in her ink-stained hands and a lute strapped across her back. Not watching where she was headed, she was going to plow straight into Maggie.

Finnian moved to intercept her, but she caught sight of him at the last minute, squawked in alarm, and darted past, knocking him into the tapestry on the opposite wall and colliding with Maggie anyway.

The tapestry came off its moorings and fell onto Finn as Maggie groaned and stumbled backward. Luckily, Artair caught her just in time before she fell down the stairs and broke her other hand.

The lass—tall, with sandy-blond hair and intense green eyes—tumbled to the passageway floor. Her sheaf of parchments scattered into the air and fell around her.

“Lady MacLean!” Artair yelled. “Are you well, lass?”

“I will be when you stop squeezing my shoulders,” she gasped.

Artair quickly released her with a mumbled apology and squeezed his hands around her middle instead.

Maggie grimaced. “Lord have mercy, that hurts too. I’m all right. Please, let go.”

He did, hovering in front of her, looking stricken as she tried to breathe through the pain. Maggie peered around him, which was hard to do, considering he took up most of the passageway, and saw Finn struggling to push the wall hanging off his head. He finally untangled himself and jumped up.

“Did you kill it, Finn?” she asked, trying to keep the laughter out of her voice. “Those tapestries are deadly.”

He turned bright red and glared at the poor winded lass who still lay askew on the stone floor.

“Nay, Finn,” Maggie said. “’Twas an accident. Make sure she’s not hurt.”

Finn’s face fell, and he hurried over to the lass. She jumped up, almost knocking Finn down a second time. She looked panicked, her eyes taking in the men and Maggie, then down to her parchments on the floor, then back to Maggie.

“I’m sorry,” she blurted out, looking like she was about to cry. “This always happens to me. If someone is going to make a mess of things, it’ll be me.” She gazed at Maggie, and her lip trembled. There was a scar there, her pretty face marred slightly by the signs of a cleft lip that had been repaired when she was a bairn. “You’re her, aren’t you? Lady MacLean. They said you were bonny and fierce and you’d saved Laird MacLean, putting your own life in danger. And then here I go almost killing you again.”

“Well, nay,” Maggie said. “I doona think I could have been killed twice.”

The lass laughed—more a wet, strangled sound—even though a tear had fallen down her cheek. “If anyone could have done it, it would have been me.”

“Then I should know your name, aye? Best to know the names of those who are most likely to kill you. Twice.”

The lass wiped her face and gave a slow, ungainly curtsy. “I am Aileen, Lady MacLean.” She sounded like a child practicing how to be a lady, her voice formal and stiff. “Cousin to your husband, Laird MacLean.”

“Thank you for the clarification. I would hate to confuse Laird MacLean with my other husband.”

Aileen popped up from her curtsy and gawked at her, those bright green eyes, so similar to Callum’s, going wide in her face. “Two husbands? How can you have two husbands? You jest, aye?”

“Aye.” She said it gravely, trying not to laugh at the younger woman. She was a bonnie relief to meet after Glynis.

Aileen’s face cleared, and she burst into laughter, interspersed with wee snorts that made Maggie laugh too. “I canna wait to tell Callum you said that.”

“I’m sure he willna be surprised,” Artair said.

Stepping forward, Maggie very carefully leaned over to pick up the pieces of parchment from the floor—which quickly had the others bending over to help as well. She looked at the page in her hand and tried to read the words scrawled on top. A poem, perhaps? A work in progress, with words and lines scratched out and then written over.

Aileen snatched the poem from Maggie’s hands, her cheeks burning. Then she bobbed a quick curtsy and mumbled an apology. “’Tis not finished, my lady. And no one but Keith has ever read my work.”

“Keith?” she asked.

“My…my…your husband’s other cousin on his mother’s side.”

“The one married to Glynis?” she asked.

Aileen’s face darkened, and her mouth grew pinched. She obviously did not care for Glynis. Discerning lass.

“Aye, she is married to Keith.”

Maggie knew from the tone of her voice there was a story there, and she couldn’t wait to dig it out of Aileen. She might be just the source Maggie needed to ferret out the traitor in their midst.

Maggie looped their arms together on her good side, feeling a kinship to her new cousin-by-marriage that had her grinning from ear to ear. Aye, it was always best to be friends with someone who laughed at your jests and disliked the same people you did. Especially when there was a chance those people might be traitors who intended to kill you.

“Will you show me to the kitchens, Aileen, before I expire from hunger?” she asked, stepping toward the stairs that led to the main level.

“Of course, but you doona want to go that way, or you’ll ne’er get out of the great hall. Everyone will want to meet you, and then when you starve to death, I will be accused of killing you a third time.”

* * *

Maggie walked beside Aileen through the keep’s halls and passageways, munching on her fourth honey oat square that she’d nicked from the kitchen and trying to memorize the layout of the castle.

The cook and several helpers had been overjoyed to meet their new lady, and Maggie soon had a trencher full of food in front of her. And an earful of gossip as she heard all about the MacLean families and especially about Callum. Everyone seemed to want to convince her how devastated he was when their old laird had died and how tragic an accident it had been—emphasis on accident—that had left the entire clan reeling…with Callum to pick up the pieces.

What they were really saying was “your husband didn’t come for you sooner because of terrible circumstances in our clan, and please forgive him.”

She sighed. Had she forgiven him? Aye, it felt like it, if the way her body wanted his touch was any indication. It would be good if she had forgiven him, as other than Glynis, she liked everyone from Clan MacLean she’d met so far. Even the brooding Drustan with his sad, strange reserve.

“Over here,” Aileen said as she tugged on Maggie’s sleeve.

They ducked into a stone alcove on the second floor that opened up to the most beautiful inner courtyard Maggie had ever seen.

She gasped in wonder, amazed at the craftsmanship of the stone carvings that surrounded the arches on every level. Part of the wall on the opposite side was covered in scaffolding. In front of the wooden platforms, where men were working, a net on a pulley held up several tons of stone, which were being used to repair the walls.

Maggie eyed both the net and the pulley with interest. She wondered where she could get one of those. Nay, if Callum ever found out she had a pulley, he might go a bit mad.

She stared up at the bright summer sky that shone down on the courtyard. “Can all the MacLeans come here or just the castle folk?”

“Everyone. ’Twould be a shame if the clan wasn’t able to enjoy it too.”

“Aye.”

Several people milled in the area below, including Callum and Gavin, who talked to a man who appeared to be the mason. A few maids enjoyed the summer sun, a man sat on a bench strumming a lute similar to the one Aileen carried, and several warriors and other workers stood about in easy conversation or simply went about their days. She saw Drustan enter, and the man playing the lute stopped.

She wanted to call out to Callum, unable to take her eyes off him, but she suddenly felt shy. What if he wasn’t happy to see her? She gazed down at him, remembering how he’d touched her that morning, then left her wanting, feeling like she might melt, her body flushing, her skin tingling in soft, secret places.

God’s truth, he was a handsome man, so strong and well made, his body lean and defined, his short, dark hair just long enough to wave over his forehead and frame his angular face. He raised his arm and pointed to the wall as he talked to the mason, and the muscles in his shoulders bulged.

If he were to look up at her now, she just might collapse into a heap. Her bones had turned to mush along with her mind. She truly was daft.

She glanced at Aileen, expecting to see her wearing an indulgent smile at Maggie’s entrancement with her new husband, but instead, Aileen stared down into the courtyard. She had the same besotted look on her face that Maggie knew she must have been wearing moments before. Following Aileen’s gaze, her eyes landed on the man holding the lute on his lap.

“Who’s that?” she asked with a conspiratorial smile. “The man with the lute?”

A guilty look crossed Aileen’s face. “’Tis Keith, Callum’s other cousin.”

Maggie’s stomach sank for her new friend. “The one married to Glynis?”

“Aye.”

It was a curt response, but Maggie could sympathize and took no offense. “Do you play together?” she asked.

“Well, I doona play verra well—I’m still learning—but Keith plays like an angel. Mostly I strum some chords while he plays the notes, and I hum a wee bit when he’s singing. But I write some of the songs. I’m good at that.” She looked shy suddenly, her gaze falling from Maggie’s. “I’m writing one for you, about how you saved Callum and almost died in the process.”

“I didn’t almost die,” Maggie protested, feeling herself flush.

“According to Gill you did. And I’m starting another one about how you shot the flaming arrows into the pyre.”

Maggie huffed out a surprised breath. She didn’t know whether to say thank you or draw her dagger on her new friend. “And will you also write about how I just shoveled four oat squares into my mouth?”

Aileen laughed, and it suddenly seemed absurd to Maggie, and she joined in. When she returned her gaze to the courtyard, it was to find Callum staring up at her, and just like that, she was lost in the memory of their early morning kiss. She wondered if he was thinking the same thing. Unfortunately, she would never know, as Gavin smacked the back of his head to get him to pay attention. When he finally turned away, Gavin looked up at her and waved. She waved back, then waved at Drustan, who was also looking up at her. He nodded and turned away.

Such a strange man.

She turned to ask Aileen about him, but her friend was staring at Keith once more. And when Maggie looked down, Keith was also staring at Aileen.

She was just thinking what a terrible triangle had been formed when Glynis came into the courtyard. She couldn’t see her husband from the direction she entered, and she headed straight for Drustan. The stiff set of Drustan’s shoulders and the way Glynis swung her arm a little too closely to him when she arrived gave it away. Maggie groaned. It wasn’t a triangle at all.

Four people were involved here.

“Glynis,” Aileen hissed beside her.

“Aye, lass,” she said. “Keith’s wife.”

“You should tell her that.”

“What do you mean?”

“’Tis not for me to say.” Aileen crossed her arms in front of her body. “Stay away from her, Maggie. She’s a horrible person. Lower than a snake.”

Maggie squeezed her hand. “But she’s still married to Keith. ’Tis not something you can change, no matter how hard you may want to.”

“I know.” The younger woman quickly dashed a tear from the corner of her eye. “But even before she married Keith, I hated her. She’s said some terrible things to me in the past. Cruel and hateful things. I was still just a child.”

Maggie gasped, her blood rising with fury that someone would hurt this sweet, funny lass. “What about?” But she’d already guessed. People like Glynis always chose the easy way to damage someone.

“About my face.” She cast her gaze away.

Maggie gently pulled her chin around and ran her finger over the slightly raised scar on Aileen’s lip. “’Tis naught to be ashamed of, Aileen. And truly, it’s not that noticeable. Many people have scars. Whoever repaired the cleft did a good job.”

“Thank you. I was still teased about it as a child. And other things. But none were as cruel to me as Glynis, once she came to the castle.”

“How old were you?”

“Twelve. I’d been living here since my mother died two years earlier.”

“And no one stopped her mocking you?”

“Callum did once he knew. I’d never seen him so angry. But Glynis is good at hiding who she truly is. I tried to warn Keith about her, but he was too young to know any better, and she’d wormed her way into his heart. She’s older than him and…had been married before.”

In other words, Glynis had seduced him. It brought to mind how she’d tried several ways to manipulate Maggie earlier. A year ago, that would have shocked her, but after hearing all the things her cousin Irvin had said about people when she’d been spying on him, Maggie had not been surprised.

She looked down at the snake, who had moved closer to Drustan. Drustan had remained in place, but his arms were crossed over his chest. Maggie didn’t know what exactly was going on there, but something was between them. And apparently, Keith knew about it. He moved up beside his wife, who now was the one to stiffen. Aye, now she’d been caught unawares.

She heard Aileen catch her breath and found herself doing the same. After just a minute, Glynis turned and fled through the archway directly beneath where Maggie and Aileen stood.

Aileen let her breath go with a loud exhale.

Maggie patted her arm. “Doona give her another thought, Aileen. People like Glynis live to inflict pain on others. Believe me, she’ll get her own back.”

Tears returned to Aileen’s eyes, and she crushed Maggie in a tight hug. “I’m so glad you’re here. Callum told me I would love you. He was so excited, we all were, that you were to be married. But then my…uncle…died. The old laird. ’Twas a terrible time for all of us, especially for Callum. People started whispering that Ivor hadn’t fallen, he’d jumped. Callum had to fight the priest to have his father buried on consecrated ground.”

“Who would start such a rumor, and why would the priest believe it? ’Tis not easy to have someone declared undeserving of consecrated ground. Was there any proof?”

“None that I know of. I heard tell that he wasn’t a good laird, but Ivor was always kind to me. He took me in when he didn’t have to and gave me a home. I’ll always be grateful to him for that.”

“Aye, lass. And you should be.”

A creaking noise drew Maggie’s attention, and she looked across the way to the scaffold and the net of rocks hanging at the top. The net shook as if someone was moving it, then it lurched and plunged toward the courtyard and all the people below. Callum yelled “Get back!” as people screamed and tried to dash out of the way. The rope above whined as it ran unhindered through the pulley, the long line going up on one side as the rocks fell down the other.

Without thought, she pulled her daggers from her sleeve and hurled one after another at the rope, piercing the hemp and nailing it to the wooden scaffold. The net halted about fifteen feet above the heads of the people scrambling to escape. It swung in place, hitting the scaffold and threatening to knock more debris down, groaning against the weight and momentum.

She held her breath, watching her daggers, praying they held until everyone was out of danger. Within seconds, the courtyard was clear, and her new clan was safe. Except for Drustan, who stood exactly where she’d seen him last, staring up at the net full of rocks that surely would have crushed him.

People began shouting orders and running to secure the net while others sobbed. Some looked at the rope and her daggers holding it to the wooden scaffold with wonder. Callum darted forward, and Maggie gasped in terror. He grabbed Drustan’s arm and pulled him to safety.

“Keith!” Aileen yelled, terror in her voice.

Callum whipped his head up to them, having heard his cousin, his face a stern mask. “Stay there,” he ordered, pointing his finger directly at them. “Maggie MacLean, you doona move a muscle.” Then he was gone from the courtyard, Drustan at his heels.

Maggie half expected him to come to her even though she knew he would help the others secure the net first. She wanted him there so she could see he was safe. Her muscles began to tremble—shock and stress, she supposed—and she leaned heavily against the wall.

Finn and Artair stood guard, and when she heard running footsteps outside their alcove, both she and Aileen looked toward the door. But it wasn’t Callum’s voice Maggie heard demanding to be let inside.

“Aileen!” a man yelled.

“Keith!” Aileen ran to him. Maggie saw them embrace on the other side of the archway. Then Keith pulled her away, and they disappeared down the passageway.

Maggie leaned against the wall again, closing her eyes and wishing she had a chair. Hearing Callum’s voice from across the courtyard roused her. She hurried to the edge of the balcony to see him at the top on the opposite side, investigating the “accident.” It made her nervous to see him standing so close to the edge.

As if he sensed her watching him, he looked up. Even from where she stood, she could see he looked worried. He whistled, loud and sharp, and made a hand motion in her direction. She leaned farther over the edge, trying to understand what he meant.

He cupped his hand around his mouth and yelled, “Get back!”

Seconds later, Artair appeared at her elbow. “Maggie, lass, come away from the edge. ’Tis not safe.”

She frowned at him and considered resisting, but Callum had enough on his mind right now. Best not to gesture rudely to him in public.

It was hard being a wife and a lady. But Artair knew her well, and he barely batted a lash when she let loose a string of disgruntled curses for his ears only.