Clean hands.
Clean arms.
A body freed of every last speck of foul matter, his manhood so thoroughly chilled even the tempting image of his lady unclothed and willing wasn’t potent enough to stir him.
For the moment.
The corners of his mouth lifted in a wry smile. It was time to face another challenge. One requiring a greater act of faith than diving into the sea.
He was about to discover if James Keith was man enough to help him scale the cliff.
And to rule as Dunlaidir’s master once he and his lady were gone.
Chapter 15
Abrace of candles, tall ones of purest beeswax, and a bronze oil lamp suspended from the ceiling on a chain, illuminated the late Laird Niall Keith’s private solar. Caterine sat on a stool next to the chamber’s curtained bed, scarcely breathing, and trying hard to quell the disquieting sensation that someone,something, watched her from the shadows.
Shifting pools of blue-black filled the corners, well beyond reach of the wavering candle glow and the cresset lamp’s low-burning flame.
Dark and eerie, of a certainty, but not a trysting place for spirits.
That she knew.
So she sat up straighter and drew a deep, backbone-steeling breath. She also unclenched her hands, aware that her edginess was as foolhardy as Rhona believing in stones that cried.
The room held nothing more daunting than dust and stale air.
Originally intended as a true solar, her late husband had preferred to sleep within its mural-painted walls, leaving her to her own quarters, a much more welcoming room, if colder with its windows opening directly onto the sea.
The haven of her bedchamber called to her now, but she tamped down the urge to return there and, instead, reached down to stroke Leo’s back. The little dog lay curled atop her feet, his warm weight a comfort in the oppressive silence.
A heavy quiet broken only by the patter of rain on the windows and Sir Lachlan’s occasional snores. The injured Highlander slept in the freshly dressed bed, lulled to a deep slumber by the potency of Caterine’s specially prepared painkilling elixir.
Once, he’d opened bleary eyes and looked at her, mumbling a few unintelligible words before falling swiftly back to sleep. If the saints smiled on her, he’d awaken again. His company would be a glad respite from the uneasy memories welling inside her since crossing the solar’s threshold.
Reaching out, she smoothed the bedcovers for the wounded knight. His steady breathing and lack of fever promised a good recovery, and little else mattered.
Least of all Niall’s ghost peering at her from the shadow-cast corners.
His unblinking stare reminding her that she’d never been able to rouse him.
Caterine’s brow knitted.
Niall hadn’t been an ogre. He’d not even sought her affections after the first year of their marriage. And not once had he chided her for her inability to properly stir him.
He’d understood how her initiation into womanhood had robbed her of all desire to explore her femininity.
Patient even in those first twelve months, her late husband often let her withdraw to the sanctum of her own quarters, tactfully claiming her next visit to his bed would prove fruitful.
But they never had and he’d eventually stopped sending for her.
And now, with a new marriage looming on the horizon, the very walls of Niall’s old solar seemed steeped with his presence.
As if he knew.
Caterine shivered, rubbed her arms against the cold. An iciness that didn’t seem to bother Sir Lachlan at all.
Disquieted, she shifted on the tapestry-covered stool. She’d brought it from her own chamber, not wishing to sit in the cumbersome chair of richly carved oak Niall had reclined in to watch her disrobe during those early attempts at what he referred to as conjugal pleasure.
