The song,its familiar words a poignant memorial to a long-past time, sliced into him with all the vengeance off a foe’s arcing sword.
He spun around, his gaze searching the farthest end of the hall whence the haunting verse seemed to come. He spotted her at once, despite the darkness of the deep window embrasure where she sat, softly strumming her lute and singing – as she’d done so many nights during their too-brief marriage.
Arabella.
Her slim body wrapped in the furred bed-robe he’d gifted her with a mere sennight before her death, her glossy raven hair hanging free, his long-buried wife sang for him…
Can you forget the day,
The day that we-? But I am a fool,
Alas, my love, that day is faded and gone.
Blood pumping wildlythrough his veins, Marmaduke made straight for her, uncomfortably disturbed by the way his heart exchanged Arabella’s free-flowing black tresses for a satiny skein of gleaming gold.
Even his ears betrayed him for they strained to catch softer, more honeyed notes than the throaty, smoky-sounding tones drifting from the shadowy corner.
Telling, too, his burning desire to see her look up and gaze at him from sapphire eyes. But the first eyes to meet his when he reached the little alcove were dark.
Dark and masculine.
“Have you nothing better to do than peer in at us?” James gave him a sour look, then scooted around on the window embrasure’s cushioned seat, turning his back on Marmaduke to stare out on the great sweep of the iron-gray sea.
On the facing windowseat, Lady Rhona set aside her lute. “Sir,” she greeted Marmaduke, her smile as warm as James’ rigid back was cold. “Did you come to ask of your injured knight? Sir Lachlan?”
“I did indeed, my lady.” Marmaduke inclined his head, glad for a reason. The saints knew he was still too flummoxed by what could only have been a cruel trick of the light to come up with his own. “How is he? I haven’t been able to find him in the hall.”
“He’s abovestairs,” Lady Caterine’s companion said, adjusting the thick plaid blanket tucked around her hips and thighs. “He rests comfortably in the late Lord Keith’s solar. We squeezed a bit of sea lettuce juice into his wine to help him sleep. I will redress his wounds later.”
“I thank you.” Marmaduke nodded again, grateful indeed. “The rest will do him good.”
“Have a care lest you coddle him.” James twisted round to frown at Rhona. “He has but a flesh wound.”
“Even so, there are times all men have need of extra attention.” She leveled a look at him. “As there are times such pampering is misplaced, wouldn’t you say?”
James held her gaze, tight-lipped. He didn’t so much as glance at Marmaduke, not that he cared. His nape still prickled too coldly for him to pay heed to the charged undercurrents between Lady Rhona and Dunlaidir’s heir.
More disturbing by far was the strange glimpse he’d had of long-ago days best forgotten.
Swallowing the bitterness rising in his throat, he studied Rhona, trying to discover what beyond Arabella’s favorite love sonnet had summoned such painful echoes of another time.
An odd occurrence, for nothing about his new lady’s friend resembled his late wife save the same dark coloring.
“’Tis good you’ve come to us, my lord,” she said then, her high color and James’ scowl hinting they’d been engaging in more than lute playing and songs before he’d disrupted them.
“My lady has long had need of a champion,” she added, casting a quick glance at James. “I knew her sister’s husband would send a daring man in mail and sword-belt. A warrior unafraid-”
“By all the rogue saints!” James leapt to his feet. “Would you push a man to the edge of his patience? Bold, strapping man of steel!” he railed, snatching up the lute as if he meant to break it in two. “Must a man be hung with metal to win your favor?”
He shook the lute at her. “Fool that I am, I thought you meant to please me with your singing, your kis- … damnation!” Tossing the lute onto the windowseat, he whirled away from her.
Lady Rhona stood, too, one hand snatching up the lute, the other extended to James, but he stormed off before she could touch him, his stride purposeful and strong.
Beautifully smooth.
And wholly without a limp.
Marmaduke glanced sharply at Rhona and the joyous smile spreading across her face warmed his heart.
