His own heart quickening in response, he pulled his cloak closer about his little friend and leaned back in the chair to await the coming dawn.
And revel in the knowledge that Caterine wanted more than just his prowess - she wanted his love.
And perhaps, if he was very, very lucky, she’d want it enough to give him her own as well.
She already has, my dear heart, the keening wind whispered somewhere out across the night-blackened waters.
She already has.
Chapter 44
Asennight later, in the small hours of a silent, moonless night, Sir Marmaduke, James, Black Dugie, and a few carefully selected garrison men reined up on a low, tree-dotted knoll at the head of a shallow glen. Cloaks as black as the cold heavens hid the gleam of their armor as they stared across the winter-brown gorse and heather to where Kinraven’s towers rose dark against the night sky.
Faint light shone in but a few of the stronghold’s narrow slit windows and the blustery wind carried only deep quiet and the gentle lapping of water on the nearby lochshore.
One of the garrison men edged his horse forward. “Should we launch a sham attack on one of the towers before we move in?” he asked, his low-spoken words overloud in the stillness.
Marmaduke shook his head. “If my men scale those walls as swiftly as they’ve climbed others, and those with them spread enough tinder in the right places, Kinraven will be a blackened waste by first light whether we draw our swords or leave them sheathed.”
He glanced round at the others. “Nay, we have no need of such a ruse. Dark of night, surprise, and our own good sword arms will suffice.”
Murmurs of agreement rose from the gathered men.
“James.” Marmaduke turned to the younger man. “You have the best vision. Can you tell if our men have breached the parapets?”
James narrowed his eyes to stare toward the distant keep. “The ladders are in place and the two men I can see are nearing the topmost rungs.”
“Any sentries?” A Keith man-at-arms wanted to know.
James shook his head just as one of the garrison men emerged from the thicket. The man kneed his horse closer. “All is in readiness,” he said, shoving back his mailed coif.
“Our men are in place,” he added, drawing up before Marmaduke. “Every last twig of dried gorse and broom we’ve collected over the last days has been put about. We even plundered the stables of straw.”
“The horses?” Marmaduke asked.
“Scattered, but safe,” the rider told him. “We can retrieve ‘em easy enough when we’re done here.”
“Good, so.” Satisfied, Marmaduke looked toward Kinraven, could just make out the stream of men moving up the rope scaling ladders. They appeared to be slipping easily over the castle walls. He turned back to the man-at-arms. “Those entering the keep have enough tinder to set the inside ablaze?”
The other nodded. “We pulled the thatch from a few outbuildings.”
“What of our cattle?” James snapped his gaze from the stronghold. “Are they out of harm’s way?”
“Herdsmen are gathering them now,” the man-at-arms answered, rubbing his spume-flecked horse behind the ears. “They’ll have them past the loch-head and on the way back to Dunlaidir before the first flames-”
“By God, they’ve started!” Black Dugie thrust out an arm, pointing to where flames, orange and bright, leapt high into the inky darkness. Already, pluming clouds of smoke rose above Kinraven’s walls.
The wind carried the noise of distant shouting, shrill cries and curses, and an eerie reddish glow began spreading across the night sky. The stronghold and its surrounds, no longer dark and sleeping, erupted in hellish chaos.
Wheeling his horse around, Marmaduke raised his mailed arm. “Come, men, it is time to show yon blackguards the road to England,” he called out. “God’s mercy on those who choose not to take it.”
Then, digging gold spurs into his horse’s flanks, he sent the beast plunging down the scrub-covered slope, the others spurring after him. Together, they thundered toward the flaming pyre that had once been Kinraven Castle.
* * *
Within the shelteringwalls of Dunlaidir Castle, in a tower chamber high above the tossing sea, Caterine passed the night pacing the magnificent arch-topped windows curving the length of her stepson’s lairdly quarters, chased there by the emptiness of her own bedchamber.
A void she’d hoped to fill with Rhona’s chatty presence. But this night even Rhona was subdued. She reclined on James’ bed, comforting herself by petting Leo.
