Aye, she had, for the scent of their loving, their spent passion, still clung to the bed sheets, even lacing the air within the confines of the curtained bed.
No mistake, they’d loved and with the greatest of passion.
And they’d done so in the darkest hour of the night, when all the world slept and shadows hid what one didn’t want to see.
Like the ravaged face of a man who’d once, in a long-ago life, been amongst the most dashing of men.
Heaving a weary sigh, Marmaduke shoved back the bed covering and pushed to his feet, prepared, if not eager to face the cold-cast new day.
The saints knew, he’d had ample practice in rising above himself in trying times.
Thus steeled, he ignored the frantic thudding of a heart undone, and strode straight into the little ante-room to dress. And the moment he had, he dropped to his knees beside his leather satchel and rummaged for two things: his finely-wrought bronze mirror and Linnet MacKenzie’s ragwortbeauty salve.
The latter seemed to have gone missing so he upended his traveling pouch, letting its contents spill onto the piddle-stained pallet he’d called his own in the nights before his lady had welcomed his entry to her bed.
Then, at last, he spied the round earthen jar he sought – hiswondertreatment. The last of his supply until his return to Kintail, for he’d used the salve with a heavy hand of late, all in the hopes of making himself more appealing.
Not handsome again, for, though a romantic, Marmaduke Strongbow was anything but a fool.
Nay, simply more palatable was all he’d hoped to achieve. Though now, this foul and black morn, even halfway acceptable would suffice.
Then, before he lost his courage, he pulled the handsome, loop-handled mirror from beneath a mound of recently washed braies, snatched up the jar of false hope and shattered dreams, and went long-strided to the window embrasure in his lady’s bedchamber.
Still scowling, he dropped both items onto one of the windowseats, then yanked open the shutters. A cold, white world greeted him…chill and icy, its stinging bite as numbing as the ache settling round his heart.
He stared out at the pewter sea, at the white haze hovering low above the gray swells, and at the whirling curtains of snow stretching clear to the horizon. The brooding early morning sky, heavy with pale, dense clouds foretold more of the same.
Time of the essence now, he picked up the mirror and peered hard at his likeness. Thanks to his black frown and his singed hair, a more frightful beast than he’d ever glimpsed in the mirror’s depths looked back at him.
A face so grim, so fierce, he could not blame his lady wife for slipping from his side.
His mind made up, he set down the mirror and retrieved the jar ofbeauty treatment. Closing his fingers around its familiar shape, he clung to his hopes and dreams for just a moment, then sent the little jar sailing through the opened window and into the sea.
Taking satisfaction at having freed himself of all illusions, he turned away from the windows.
It was time to find his wife.
* * *
Later that morning,in Dunlaidir’s great hall, Rhona plunked a large wooden bowl onto the scarred surface of the high table and, with a flourish, whipped away the bowl’s cloth covering.
The Laird’s Stone wept.
Astonishment washed over Caterine as she watched the impossible.
Rhona could scarce contain her excitement. “See you, my lady, I told you the stone cries.”
“So you did.” Her amazement too great for her to fuss at her friend about having lifted the stone from its strongbox, Caterine looked on in awe as crystal-clear beads of moisture appeared on the quartz-speckled Laird’s Stone.
The glistening droplets leaked from the stone’s heart to trickle down its rounded sides, swiftly filling the smooth wooden bowl.
The stone wept copiously, just as the legend claimed.
A sniffle beside her proved Rhona was on the verge of weeping, too. “James!” she cried, turning to him. “The Laird’s Stone is recognizing you.”
“Or we’re about to see a death,” someone in the crowded hall declared. “Last time the stone wept, the old Master passed on.”
The jostling and low-voiced murmurs around the high table stilled at once. James, lacking in elation from the onset of the miracle, blanched.
