Chapter 7
Sandra sank to the floor, too stunned to run, too mesmerized to look away. Her wide eyes ached for a blink of moisture after the drying wind ceased, but she did not dare risk missing anything. A person or a shadow maybe, even a sign of light would be enough. She looked toward the only window in the moonlit room. It was sealed shut. Not one flame of the fire had survived the wind, but there was no soot scattered about the room either. Even the soothing warmth of the room had been swept away in a blink, as if no fire had ever been lit at all. Where had the icy blast come from, and how? She waited, wide-eyed in the dark, for her answer.
She did not know whether or not to believe any of what she had just seen. The only thing she knew had been real was the fire in the hearth. Wind or not, if there had been a fire there a moment ago, it would still hold the remnants of its embers.
Crawling on her hands and knees the short distance from her protective wall to the fire pit, Sandra reached out a shaking hand and held it close to the ashes. There was no heat at all. Not even a little.
Taking in a shaky breath, she plunged her hand all the way down into the ashes until she felt the stone base. It was cold as well. No fire had been burning there tonight. No fire had probably been burning in there for quite some time.
Letting out a half laugh at her own delusions, it quickly turned into a half cry. Her fear had abated over what she thought she saw, but she was still very shaken by the experience.
Checking and double-checking her one supporting piece of evidence, she plunged both her hands into the sooty hearth and sifted handfuls of the cold ashes through her fingers, laughing and crying at the same time. She had gone mad. She was sure of it. Here she was in MacLachlan Manor digging in a cold fire pit for coals with her bare hands. Maybe she had been drugged just like Lex had claimed he had. Maybe someone else in the clan was up to some mischief to stop this peace from happening. Nothing was making sense, but maybe her mind was the problem.
She let the last lifeless piece of charcoal fall from her gritty hands and land in a soft puff of ashes. Just as she was about to pull herself out of the stone hearth, flames shot up before her eyes and engulfed her head and arms.
With a frightened scream, she lurched back. Sharp pain stung the back of her head where it collided with the top edge of the hearth pit. Another instinctive reaction and she fell face down into the fire again. She screamed out and frantically pulled back, only to realize her gown was not burning as she thought and neither was her hair. Her eyes could see the flames of the fire, but her face had landed in the cold soot she had been sifting through, not flames. The fire's burning brightness reflected off her light-colored gown and illuminated the entire room, but no heat warmed her skin to help with the gooseflesh that ran down her spine.
She sat back on her heels and this time cautiously reached out her blackened arm toward the flames. Closer and closer she stretched it out, yet still it was as cold as if it were not there at all. Finally her hand was up to the flames themselves, then through them. The fire was not burning her or her clothing. She could not feel a thing. Maybe she was the one who had died out there in the storm tonight, and her soul had traveled to the nearest place to rest, MacLachlan Manor.
Before she could even finish fitting together all the unmatched pieces of her bizarre experience, she heard the sound of laughing voices and booted feet coming toward the room. Turning from the baffling flames, Sandra watched the door with a mix of fear and anticipation. There had to be more answers to what had just happened to her. She had to find out what was really going on here.
She jumped back startled when the door was kicked open by the owner of the booted feet. Her eyes widened and she stood up on trembling legs to greet him.
"Iain?" she called out meekly. Fully dressed in his finest plaid this time, he was smiling down at Derrdra in his arms, and Derrdra was grinning back at him with an admiring love in her eyes. Neither one of them acknowledged her. Iain just kicked the door shut behind them with a talented loop of his foot and then ran to the bed, throwing Derrdra down and jumping on top of her with a wolfish laugh.
"Derrdra? Iain? What is going on?" she pleaded with them softly, needing answers but too embarrassed to speak her words any louder.
Both were lustfully tugging and yanking at each other’s clothing like starved hounds digging for a bone. She wanted to turn her head and look away, but she could not. The things they were doing to each other and saying to each other froze her voice and her feet. She just stood there like a hitched horse, watching their love play with dumbfounded amazement.
Their clothing was torn open enough to expose Derrdra's breasts and belly, as well as Iain's hefty manness. It looked like their lips were about to touch at the same time their other parts were coming together. Sandra held her breath as she watched and waited, feeling now like the vile betrayer herself for witnessing their consummation but too frightened to tear her gaze away.
At the same instant that she knew it would happen, the door flew open again with a bang. Another booted foot had kicked it this time and its owner was not at all as happy to open it as Iain had been.
The man at the door held a huge claymore sword in his hand and it was already dripping with blood. The dark sneer on his face was only accentuated by his white teeth bared in a snarl.
"Get yurr rottin' carcass off my daughter, MacLachlan," the man shouted from the doorway, his deadly stare never leaving the couple on the bed.
Sandra pulled back a step from her place in front of the fire. She was too scared for them now to even think about her own safety any further than that.
"What the devil is goin' on here?" Iain asked as he stood up from the bed and grabbed his own sword that had fallen to the floor in their haste. His chest was still bare and his trews hung down around his hips. The sight of him like that only seemed to infuriate Derrdra's father more.
"I have changed my mind. The MacLachlan name ain't good enough for my daughter. You and your flea-bitten clan will take the MacEwen name or die. What is left of 'em, anyway."
The man's wicked smile sent Iain into a rage. "What have you done to my kin, ya murderer?"
Iain lunged forward with his sword but Derrdra jumped on his back to stop him. "No, Iain, stop! Let me just talk to him. Papa, please. I love him!" Her pleading was a waste of precious breath. Neither man was listening to her cries; they were doing their talking with steel.
Her father's lethal sword came up from his side with a mighty force that actually made a sweeping sound in its wake. Iain made a move to bring his own sword up to block it, but his arm was held back by Derrdra's pulling and clawing hands from behind.
Sandra watched in horror as the MacEwen claymore she had worshipped since she was a child finished its deadly course and penetrated the exposed flesh of Iain's stomach. The scream that came from Derrdra was not one of horror, but pain. The couple fell back on the bed, both pinned together by the same piercing blade.
Her father's ashen face told of his regret all too well. He pulled out his sword and rolled a groaning Iain off his daughter. "Derrdra, this cannot be," he said, cradling her gasping head in his bloodstained hands. "Do not leave me, lassie. You are all I have got left."
Sandra's tears were falling down her face as fast as his. Her sobs were for the couple who had just lost their lives before her eyes, but also for the pain their murderer was going through now. She saw her own father in the MacEwen before her. She saw how much he was hurting and how sorry he was for his foolish mistake.
Taking two small steps toward him, she offered out her sooty hand in comfort. Derrdra's body fell limply in his arms and he turned from the bed with a guttural growl. He was looking right at her but it was as if he wanted none of her comfort. He raised his sword and charged at her like a wounded Viking, ready to take as many with him to the grave as possible.
Knowing he had just killed his daughter and her husband, Sandra doubted he would consider overmuch who the hell she was if she tried to talk. Instead, she turned and ran for the door. Her escape route was suddenly blocked by the appearance of another man with another dripping claymore in his hand. From his tall stature and square features, she knew he was a MacLachlan come for revenge.
"You will die for this, you murderin' MacEwen scum!" The man charged forward before he even finished his oath. Derrdra's bull of a father charged with all his might into a head on-collision with him, and Sandra was right in the middle of the two warriors, about to get stabbed by both of their gleaming swords at once.
"No!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. Her hopeless cry left her dry throat just as the two men collided through her.
She waited for the smashing blow of their weight upon her, the pain of the steel penetrating her flesh, but it never came. When she looked down to her stomach there was no blood on her nightdress, only the black soot from the fire pit.
Derrdra's father was still standing. The other man was on the ground, the MacEwen claymore buried to its hilt once again in the stomach of a MacLachlan.
"That is what you thievin' swine get furr killin' my daughter," he roared out for all the men gathered in the hall to hear.
Sickened to her very core by the senseless slaughter she had just witnessed, Sandra stumbled back numbly from the raging MacEwen toward the door. None of the blood-hungry men tried to stop her. None of them even got in her way as she passed them. It was as if she was not there. Was it her they could not see, or were they the ones who were not real?
Blood. Rage. Ferocious battling. All were flowing freely through that room, as if someone had unleashed the fury of both clans and she had just opened the last door blocking it all from her world. She had to get away. Fast.
One small step. It felt like a plow was strapped to her body. Another step. It was getting easier. She was getting away and no one was stopping her. Three, four, and five. Her feet had found their way. She was running as if a beastie had one paw on her skirts. Her hands were too busy trying to keep her gown from tripping her to wipe the tears from her eyes. She knew where she was going, though. It was only a few doors further, and the only place she knew she would find safety.
***
He heard the screams coming down the hall, but Lex had little time to gather his sleep-scattered thoughts before his door burst open.
"Lex! Lex! Please help me. They’re killing everyone!"
The woman hysterically throwing herself on his bed and begging for his help vaguely resembled Sandra MacEwen in height and hair color, but past that, he could not recognize much else in the low light of the fire. Her face was black with soot, as wee her sleeping dress and hands. The only parts of her that were not black were the ivory white tear streaks that ran down her anguished face.
Grabbing hold of her by her shoulders and giving her a slight jolt, he tried to make sense of her babblings. "What has happened to you and who has done this?" he said, sitting up in his bed.
She just sagged against his chest as if surrendering, and cried. Her words were barely audible through her sobs and gasps. "He killed them both. I saw it. Her father killed her and Iain, then he killed another MacLachlan and blamed the murders on him."
"A MacLachlan was killed?" he asked, giving her another shake as if it would get the information out of her faster. "Who killed him?"
"He was a MacEwen, but I have never seen him before. They said they were our kin, but I do not know them," she continued to sob out her words and sink into his body for comfort, a body he realized was fully undressed for bed.
"Just lead the way," he said, whipping the covers back and grabbing his sword from its sheath by the bed. He knew the MacEwen had given his daughter up to him too easily. Now it looked like he was about to find out why.
"You will need more than that," she said frantically, looking first at his short sword, then noting his naked form with her eyes, she swiveled her head away faster than a startled owl. “On dear God, why are you completely…”
“Ready for bed?” he finished for her when she seemed not able to even say the word naked in front of him.
“You should never be sleeping…in that state…in the middle of winter in the Highlands.”
“It is how I sleep,” he said plainly as he grabbed a pair of fitted leggings. With two swift tugs he pulled them on and tucked himself in the best he could, then returned to the issue at hand with a clearer mind. "Where are they now?" he asked.
"Down in the women's quarters," she said. She stole a small peek at him to ensure it was safe to look. "I went there to find you and I found them instead. Now they are dead and it was all a MacEwen's fault." Her senseless babblings were useless to him. He pushed past her and headed down the hall to investigate for himself.
Only one torch lit the corridor near the swollen door he had tried to open earlier. Hearing no noises at all, he wondered if the MacEwens she had diligently reported to him were hiding and waiting for him as well, using little sweet Sandra to lure him to his death with her sad story. Now that he thought of it, there was no way she could have opened that door and gotten into that room. He had tried more than once tonight to work it open, but with no luck. Something was definitely wrong about this, especially since a MacEwen was accusing another MacEwen of murder instead of pointing their arrogant finger at a MacLachlan.
He looked back and saw her standing behind him about three strides away as if she were afraid to go any farther. Tear-smudged black face, frightened eyes, shaking hands. He added another attribute to her capable tiny frame, deceiver. She had played him to the hilt on this one. He had believed those tears were real and that she needed his help. He wondered if all her reactions had been a farce. There was one way he would know for sure. He would play along.
"Is this the room they are in?" he asked, pointing to the door with the tip of his sword. He was calm again on the outside, no longer believing her frantic tale, but inside he was prepared for battle. Her golden curls bobbed in time with her head. Her eyes were still wide with false fear.
Bare-chested and barefoot, he squared up with the swollen door and kicked it with the flat of his foot. He heard her little scream right before the door burst wide open. It opened so easily, it was as if it had never been swollen at all. He looked back at her once again and saw that she was coming forward. "Stay where you are. You are not a part of this." His words did not stop her. She just walked past him into the cold empty room as if she were in a trance.
"They were all here a moment ago. Iain and Derrdra were here on the bed," she said, running her hands over the dusty wool blanket that looked like it had only been used by moths in the past years, "...and the MacLachlan man was down there on the floor." He watched her as her eyes scanned over the dark room and came to rest on the hearth pit. Before he could stop her she was down on her knees digging in the ashes with both of her hands, searching for something and crying out, "Where are you? Where did you go?"
Lex let his sword go lax in his hand. He no longer thought she was leading him into a death trap. The poor girl was suffering some kind of delusion. He had seen it before in many who lived on the streets of London begging for even the crumbs off a tunic. Her fall over the wall must have been more damaging than he thought. Or it was the stress of her situation that had finally made her snap.
He walked over to the hearth and gently lifted her to her feet by one arm. "Come, Sandra. You need to get some rest," he said in the softest voice he could, but his words seemed harsher and louder in the cold, still emptiness of the deserted room.
"They were here." She looked up at him with her blackened face and welling eyes. "I swear I saw them here. I saw them. They were all here." She continued to repeat her claim but willingly let him escort her out of the room.
"I will take you back to your bed so you can rest."
She pulled away from him in a wild attempt to escape even though he was not restraining her, just guiding her. Her eyes were wide with fear again. Their soft blue and green depths seemed to darken. "I do not want to go back to that room. They can see me in there."
"Well, we can find you another room then where they cannot see you." He tried to calmly walk toward her and reassure her it was all right. With every step he took forward she took one back. He would have thought her fears were of him from the way her eyes kept darting from his face to his half-exposed body. "You have nothing to fear, Sandra. I will not hurt you." Slowly he crouched down and put his sword on the floor. What else could he do to appear less threatening? He really did not know what to expect from her. Her face was so dark with grime it was hard to read her expressions.
For a moment she looked like she was calming down when suddenly she bolted straight at him. His hands came up in reflex to stop her attack. Hard met soft. Flexed muscles met pliant limbs. He realized it was safety she sought when she embraced him tightly around the waist, pressing her soft face against his bare chest. "I do not want to be alone in this place." Her cry was like that of an orphaned child in the aftermath of a battle. Never before had he felt the urge to protect or defend as he did right now, not even when he had been amongst his own family.
"I will put you in Corkie's room for the night--"
"No!" she sobbed, clutching his waist even tighter as if she never meant to let go. "She cannot fight them with a sword. I will make no noise at all and sleep at the foot of your bed." Her glistening eyes looked up at him and begged along with her words.
"I do not think you should be sleeping in my chamber until I have had a chance to speak to your father about reversing our arrangement."
She suddenly pulled away from him and looked at him with pouting lips that were threatening an outburst of some kind. Tears overflowed her eyes again, and he could clearly tell who had hurt her this time. "I never asked to be married to you," she said after getting control of her quivering lip. "And you have nothing at all to do with why I want to sleep with you." She must have realized how awkward her words sounded. He watched her eyes search the floor as if looking down there for the right words to hurl at him. "I just want to sleep with a man, any man, that is all."
This time Lex could not help but let a grin curve his lips up on one side. "As your husband at the moment I think I should be offended by that."
She drew her hands into fists and came at him again. This time it was definitely an attack he read in her stance. He caught her striking arms with ease and brought her squirming body firmly up against his to stop her movements completely. His smile was still holding and her anger was still raging.
"You know what I meant," she said with exasperation. "I doubt you could defend anyone with that little sword of yours anyway."
"It is always served me well," he said, holding her gaze with his. He realized her nearness was unnerving him even more and that he was holding her tighter than he needed to since she was no longer trying to attack him.
Her blackened face hid none of her beauty at such a close distance. He could still see the ripe pink color of her lips and smell the clean crisp scent of pine from his bath soap. He was nearly undone when her eyes fell to his own lips and her head moved ever so slightly toward them unbidden as if she wanted to taste them.
"No," he said, releasing her completely and taking a step away. He jerked hard on the ties of his leggings and tied them in another knot. The discomfort only aided in chasing away his unwanted thoughts below those ties.
She tilted her head up at him with a confused look. Her lip quivered again. Her chin started in as well. "I will find my own place to sleep. I was wrong to think you could offer me protection. You are a stranger to me." She turned and headed for the stairs with both of her tiny fists lifting up the voluminously flowing nightgown. "I know Rory's sword is truly Scottish and is big enough for me, and I know he is not unwilling to share his pallet with a friend in need."
She was halfway down the stairs before he realized what she had said and where she was headed. His one image of her soft body pressed up tightly against Rory's was enough to surge his unwilling feet forward after her, even though everything inside him was screaming “let her go.”
"You will not be sleeping with Rory or any other man in this manor but me." His one arm snaked out and caught her by the waist. Tucking her small kicking form into the curve of his arm, he headed back up the stairs to his chamber.
"Things alL right up there?" he heard a male voice ask from down in the main hall. The dim light of the hearth fire illuminated Rory's trim but muscular form at the bottom of the stairs, his sword already drawn and ready to fight.
"May I sleep with you down there--" Lex's hand stuffed the rest of Sandra's words back into her mouth before she could embarrass him further.
Lex gave Rory a shake of his head, then backed into his chamber with his wiggling burden. "I am sure there will be no need for your sword tonight, Rory. I will take care of everything up here. Good night," his deep voice carried through the crack of his door.
Lex made sure the door was shut completely before he propped her feet on the floor and held her by the arms to face him. Her furious pout quickly faded to a fearful one when she saw his change in countenance.
"I will sleep here by the fire," she said, flopping down on the hard wooden floorboards and tucking her legs up under her soiled night shift.
"You will sleep there," he said, pointing to the bed, his voice holding all the authority it needed to stop her first thought of protest.
"I could not ask you to sleep on the floor for me," she answered in a prim little voice he had never heard from her before. Her gold-tipped lashes swept down to shyly shield her eyes from his scrutiny. This was the first time she had even thought of propriety since he had met her. Now she expected him to believe she was a shy maiden after the way she first seduced him, waiting naked in his tub?
"And I would not sleep on the floor," he said casually as he put a third knot in the ties of his leggings. "I am sleeping in my own bed as well." He lifted a questioning brow at her to see if she had a rebuttal, but nothing came from her soft...tempting lips. No. This arrangement had to be annulled. Turning away from any further temptation, he grabbed the basin of water on the table and brought it over to her by the fire. "Clean off what you can." He saw her fingers shaking as she reached out to dip her hands in the water. He dropped down on one knee, ready to soothe her fears, but stopped his hand before it could touch her. He had to keep a tighter control over his emotions around her. It would be far too easy to fall into the trap her father had so neatly set for him. The MacEwen might know well the attributes of his beautiful daughter, but he did not know the iron will Lex had inside him, fueled all the more by the fact that she was a MacEwen. "You will need to change that dress as well," he finally said, standing and going to his wardrobe with stiff strides. "This should sufficiently cover all...of you." His words seemed to fall from his mouth on their own as he dropped his white linen shirt on the floor next to her. She had already washed the soot from her face and hands, and the water soaked the front of her nightdress, making it cling to her rounded breasts. Their eyes locked again and her sad lost look made his hands ball into fists.
He had to fight her. He had to make it through this night without making her his wife in deed.
In an instinctive move, his hands went to his waist again and tied two more knots in his laces. His leggings would have to be ripped from his body before he could get out of them again. Turning to his bed with slow, heavy feet, he wondered just how much give his tailor had sewn into the front-seam of his leggings and if they could indeed hold out a whole night under this kind of pressure. The slight sound of her wet dress hitting the floor stretched the fabric even tighter. He made it to the bed without letting his head turn as it desperately wanted to, but the sanctuary of his covers was soon invaded as well.
The fan of cool air hit his back as she lifted the velvet quilt and climbed into the bed next to him. Her slight weight barely made any difference at all on the firmly packed matting, but her presence made all the difference in the world to his sanity.
Scooting to the farthest edge of his side of the bed, he briskly fluffed his downy pillow and huffed out a sigh. She was either very skilled at her game or more naive about men and women than he thought any woman could be. The bottom of her cold little foot found the heat of his calves and nudged up against them for warmth, an action that imitated his own desires precisely.
His eyes were wide open and counting the stones that made up the wall across from him. Anything to take his mind off that delicate foot and the tender body it was connected to.
"Thank you. I feel much safer now," she said in a sleepy voice and snuggled her back a little deeper into his.
With her backside touching his, he wondered if she knew just how unsafe she really was right now, and how close his hands were to ripping the laces from his leggings and throwing his crisp white shirt to the floor with them.