Shaking her head, Saidh walked to the chest, opened it and pulled out the sword and the leather sheath and belt the blacksmith had also made for her. She would do her best to hide it in the folds of her skirt until she was out of sight of the castle.
The great hall was full of sleeping men when Saidh made her way below. Most of them were Danvries soldiers, she noted as she crept through their midst, headed for the keep doors. The sun was just beginning to peek up over the horizon when she stepped outside. Saidh was up early. She hadn’t slept well last night. Actually most of yesterday after arriving here had not gone well. Laird MacDonnell had got up and marched out before she’d even reached the trestle tables, and while Murine had talked to her in the subdued tones she’d been using since learning of her father’s death, Lady MacDonnell had been noticeably silent, and Montrose had alternated between smug and leering smiles. As for Fenella, after begging Saidh to stay, the woman had not even made an appearance.
Saidh had been relieved when the meal was over and she could escape above stairs to check on her cousin. That was when she’d learned that Fenella and Lady MacDonnell had had words shortly before Saidh and the Danvries party had arrived. Apparently, insults had been exchanged and then Lady MacDonnell had outright accused Fenella of being to blame for her son’s death. Fenella now refused to come below and intended to remain in her room for the indefinite future.
Saidh had thought rather irritably that her cousin could have told her that before she’d agreed to stay. Why was she staying if Fenella was going to remain locked up in her room? Before she could work up a good head of steam over that, though, Fenella had started to sob on her shoulder again about the loss of her dear Allen and how God was punishing her for the sin of murdering her first husband.
While she had a very sympathetic soul, Saidh was not given to the vapors and weeping all over everyone. She was more the stiff-upper-lip-and-get-on-with-it type, so had no idea how to handle Fenella. Aside from which, the woman had only been married to Allen for a matter of weeks. Surely that was not long enough to have grown so attached that his death should cause this much distress? Saidh suspected that rather than weeping out of any real caring for Allen, Fenella was reacting more to how this would affect her life. Burying four husbands would make any man think twice—or ten times—about risking marriage to her. She may never be married again. Which meant she would be here at MacDonnell, dependent on the MacDonnell family for the rest of her days, unless she went home, which she had morosely told Saidh last night was impossible. Her father had told her on leaving with Allen that she was not welcome back should he die, so she’d best see he lived a long while.
Saidh wasn’t sure if her uncle had meant what he said, or if he’d begun to suspect something was amiss with her husbands’ deaths, but Fenella was sure he meant it. And since Allen’s mother detested her and suspected her of having something to do with her son’s death, and since the new laird appeared to be—and according to Fenella was—absent most of the time, staying here would surely not be a pleasant life for her.
Knowing that, Saidh hadn’t a clue what to say to soothe the girl and had been relieved when she’d finally been allowed to remove herself from her cousin and find her own bed in the chamber Lady MacDonnell had given her for her stay. She hadn’t known whether to be grateful to the woman for giving her the large, luxuriously furnished room she had slept in last night, or whether she should be offended on Fenella’s behalf that her room was not nearly as pleasant. So Saidh had tossed and turned most of the night, her cousin’s words playing through her head.
While the castle was asleep, the stable master was up and preparing Danvries’s horses for the day’s journey. Saidh shooed him back to his work when he moved toward her to see what she needed. She then saddled her own mare and led her out of the stables before mounting.
A quick word with one of the men at the gate pointed her in the right direction, and Saidh soon found her way to the loch where Allen had drowned. Finding a clearing, she reined in and simply sat staring out over the water, soaking in the beauty of the spot. She could certainly understand why Allen had liked to swim here on most mornings. It was serene and beautiful.
It was also the perfect place for a lover’s tryst, Saidh thought idly as she watched the rising sun begin to dapple the water with light. She’d barely had the thought when a dark circle appeared on the surface of the loch. It then rose slowly, revealing the furry black head and shoulders of some unholy beast she’d never heard existed in Scotland. Heart stuttering in her chest and eyes wide, Saidh reached for her sword.
Chapter 3
Saidh released a little sigh, and allowed her sword to slip back into its sheath as the beast continued toward shore and the water dropped, revealing the most beautiful chest she’d ever seen.
Not fur but hair, she realized as the man lifted his hands out of the water to push the hair back off his face. Finding that less than satisfactory in freeing him from the clingy wet strands, he dipped his head back and let the water do the work for him so that when he straightened again, his hair was slicked back and running down his back rather than over his face and shoulders.
Laird MacDonnell. Saidh recognized him at once now that his face was no longer cloaked in wet hair. She eyed him as he continued forward, the water dropping inch by delicious inch to reveal more of his chest, then his stomach and then—
“Are ye just going to sit there gawking at me?”