Then the crowd surged forward, pushing into the pend behind them, each celebrant caught up in the excitement of the day, just as more of the mysterious woman’s words were caught up in the wind.
A cold, dark wind that followed her through the yawning tunnel as surely as the cheering villagers.
Love him well, Lady Caterine,the voice implored.
I bid you love him well.
* * *
Looking far tooconfident for one so blighted, Sir Marmaduke Strongbow waited for his bride beneath the arched entry porch of the village kirk, and drew the simmering wrath of a dark-cloaked figure standing but a few paces away.
Every bit as hard-bitten as the Highlanders gathered round the tall Sassunach, the silent watcher fought back a sneer at their protective stances.
Their weapon-hung brawn and steel-eyed bravura.
As if his man would strike now, with the cold she-bitch and her entourage nearly upon them. He almost gave a derisive snort, but wisely disguised it as a cough.
For some reason he couldn’t fathom, his liege still wanted the woman. Nor would he wish a melee to erupt among the villagers, who, for whatever dubious reasons, chose this day to show their loyalty to the castlefolk.
The cloaked figure glowered at the lot of them.
Simpering fools to a man, but his lord needed their backs and would take out the loss of every set of toiling hands on him.
An outrage.
His fury heating, he returned his gaze to the Sassunach.
God’s blood, but the bastard could stand proud.
Gall bubbled and roiled in his belly, but he ignored the discomfort. The Sassunach’s comeuppance would claim him soon, after the nuptial ceremony. And neither his skill with a blade nor his fierce-eyed Highland knights would save him.
Most especially not the gawking simpletons lining the road, craning their necks for a glimpse of the beast’s bride.
Drawing the hood of his mantle closer about his face, as much to shield his ears from the incessant ringing of the kirk bell as to hide his black frown, he turned his attention to the bridal party’s approach.
But in truth, his gaze moved carefully down the line of poor sods flanking the village road.
He searched the crowd for a single man.
But as if the saints had taken sides and weren’t on his, thick sea-mist rose in great clouds over the cliffs to drift inland, creeping across roofs and between the densely clustered stone cottages.
Billowing curtains of fog sent from above to cloak the jostling onlookers in a great white shroud. A near impenetrable one that hampered his ability to locate the face he sought, and that interference darkened his mood.
As did the piercing glare he knew was aimed his way from the distant hills where Sir Hugh de la Hogue and his men watched the proceedings from afar.
Ever fond of his own neck, de la Hogue had no desire to soil his hands this day.
The sorry task had been left to him.
And he’d passed it on to a graceless craven who seemed to have vanished in the crowd.
Giving up all pretense of playing the amused courtier to a wedding of two souls he abhorred, the cloaked figure indulged himself in huff of contempt he’d been holding back, and slipped away from his position near the church steps to meld with the masses.
His nose wrinkling in distaste, he suffered the indignity of rubbing elbows with the peasants, and went in search of Sir Marmaduke Strongbow’s assassin.
* * *
“Spineless bastards, hiding in the mist.”Sir Alec ranged himself closer to the edge of the church steps. “Have you seen them?”
