Chapter 8

Darkness crept in after that. Maxwell watched its slow progress in silence as if mesmerized by it. He had emptied his mind, and even the trouble from which he was running away seemed to fade as long as he was watching Kenna.

She began to have difficulty seeing her needlework and lit the candles while he watched her, trying not to be too obvious about doing it. Everything about her fascinated him.

"I have to go and give the horses their treats," she announced suddenly, putting down her work.

"Does nobody mind that you give them fruit that should be used for the people in the castle?" Maxwell asked, frowning.

"Well, as you may have noticed, the apple I gave you the first time was past its best," Kenna told him. "And I give them cores and skins too. They also get vegetable peels and whatever else I can find. You were lucky to get a whole apple the night I met you."

"It was the best apple I ever tasted!" he said, laughing.

Even now he could feel his mouth watering. "Your horses are very well looked after. I have never seen so many glossy coats!"

"I love horses," she replied, with a soft smile on her face. "They are all my friends."

"Have you ever ridden one? Alone, I mean?"

He was curious, but immediately her expression became animated.

"I was very lucky," Kenna replied. "The two men who rescued me looked after me and taught me to ride, and that is not a skill that servant girls usually learn. But there are certain advantages to being one of the working class."

"Now I am interested." Maxwell was curious. "Tell me what they are."

She smiled. "I can marry whomever I like," she answered. "I have seen how miserable highborn lords and ladies are when they are forced to marry those they don't like or even completely despise."

She looked at him pointedly, her eyes asking a question.

What are you running away from? they were asking. Is someone trying to make you marry someone you hate?

When he did not answer, she turned away and put on her cloak.

"I will not be long," she told him, smiling, then left.

For a long time, Maxwell sat looking at the closed door. If only he was simply running away from a woman he did not like! That would almost be a pleasure. He could only think of one woman he loathed and from whom he would run away if anyone even suggested that he should marry her.

Her name was Donalda McKay, and she was the daughter of his father's best friend, Malcolm McKay. Malcolm was an affable, likable person, and so were his wife, his three sons, and two of his three daughters. However, his eldest daughter Donalda was selfish, vain, and spiteful, but very beautiful, with long, wavy red hair, bright blue eyes, and a curvy, shapely figure. The trouble was that she knew how lovely she was and used her beauty to manipulate others.

Donalda had had her sights set on Maxwell since they were both twelve years old, and he had been running away from her ever since, but the harder he ran, the more she pursued him, until one day he had simply had enough.

At a ceilidh hosted by his father, he, his best friend Lachlan, and Lachlan's twin brother Douglas had all become as drunk as lords and had begun to sing a bawdy song with such scandalous lyrics that Laird McDonald had thrown them out of the main hall to recover in the courtyard.

From there they had staggered their way up to the turrets, still singing the song with the obscene words in it, roaring with laughter, and generally behaving like complete and utter lunatics.

When they arrived there, several of the guards drew close to them, eyeing them warily. They had seen many inebriated young men almost coming to a bad end here. Consequently, they made sure that they were standing near enough to intervene if anyone should attempt anything dangerously foolish.

There was a story about the current laird's grandfather, Angus McDonald, who had climbed up to the topmost turret with a group of drunken friends in order to jump off and be the first man ever to fly. Luckily, an alert guard had spotted him and saved his life, but from that time on, during celebrations, the guards on the turrets were doubled.

By this time, the three young inebriates were not only singing but dancing while the watchmen kept wary eyes on them.

"Careful, young masters!" one of them warned. "We dinnae want tae be pickin' ye off the grass in the mornin'!" He grinned, and the young men roared with laughter.

"Donnie, do you not know that young men our age are immortal?" Douglas asked.

"Aye, until ye're not!" Donnie countered. "Maybe ye should go downstairs again, lads. A' the bonny lasses are doon there."

"No, they are not." Donalda McKay had crept upstairs behind them and was watching as the young men emptied their cups of ale and became more and more boisterous. "I am here, Max. Would you like to come downstairs with me?" She was smiling coquettishly at him. "I need a dancing partner."

Douglas and Lachlan, who knew how Maxwell felt about her, exchanged glances and took an arm each to try to lead him downstairs, but he shrugged them off. He stepped forward until he was no more than six inches away from Donalda and growled, "Leave. Me. Alone. Don't follow me, don't try to kiss me. Don't pretend we are a couple. I am done with being polite to you, and I will put up with you no longer. You may think your beauty makes up for your bad character, but it does not. Try to see yourself as others see you. I promise you, Donalda, it is not a pretty sight!" His voice was throbbing with pent-up anger. "Do you understand me?" he asked.

She stared at him for a few moments, dumbstruck, and nodded, then turned away and fled downstairs as fast as her legs would carry her.

Maxwell felt as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Later, he wondered if the fact that he had been drunk had set his tongue loose to let out all the loathing and enmity for Donalda he had been feeling.

Douglas and Lachlan put their arms around his shoulders, laughing.

"This calls for a drink!" Lachlan yelled joyously, but for once Maxwell refused.

Humiliated at being rejected, Donalda had tried to lash out at him by spreading salacious rumors about him until her father had put a stop to it and married her to someone else, much to her chagrin. However, Maxwell had never fully trusted a woman after that.

Until now.

When Kenna finished with the horses, she went to the kitchen with the basket and found the big room empty. She looked around to see if there were any leftovers lying around she could steal, but there was nothing, so she tiptoed back upstairs to her chamber again and found that Maxwell was lying on the floor, fast asleep.

How she wished she could have given him a bed to sleep on, but even if she had sacrificed her own, it would have been too small for him. Kenna sat down to study him for a few moments. Without his beard, he looked completely different and less like the vagrant she had seen in the stable.

In sleep, he looked much younger, and there was a vulnerability about him that was not apparent when he was awake. She could see now that his lips were sculpted and full, and his Adam's apple, which she had been unable to see because of his beard, was prominent, giving him his deep, sonorous voice. Feeling very daring, she put out her forefinger and touched it. He swallowed, and she jerked her hand back with a little gasp.

"You could do with a haircut too," she murmured aloud, then laughed softly at herself.

What she would give to take her sewing shears to his untidy mop! Then she changed her mind. There was something wild, yet innocent, about Ewan Montgomery. She decided that she liked his shaggy hair just the way it was. For one more moment she stared at him, then, moved by some impulse she did not know she possessed, she bent and kissed his hair.

Surprised at herself, she stood up and climbed into bed, and for the first time in her life she wished that there was a man in there with her, but only if that man was Ewan.

She blew out the candle beside her bed and climbed into it, closed her eyes, and was instantly asleep.

It was a strange day, unseasonably hot and dry, and the oats in the field had turned a beautiful shade of gold under a sky of unbroken blue. She should have been feeling very happy, but Kenna was very frightened. She had a bad feeling about something, as if something terrible was going to happen, but when she told Mammy, her mother only smiled at her and said, "Dinnae worry, hen. We a' get those feelins now an' again, lass. Go an' pull up some carrots for me, there's a good girl."

Kenna went to do her mother's bidding, then sat down to play with Jennie, her rag doll. Jennie was her most precious possession, the only toy she had ever owned, and she loved her fiercely. Now she looked down at the little face with a frown.

"Somethin' is goin' tae happen today, Jennie, somethin' bad. I know it."

And something did. At midday three horsemen came riding through the field of oats, ruining the crop. They were all wearing black masks and were armed with swords. They swept into the house and?—

"Kenna! Kenna! Wake up!" a voice was hissing in her ear, and someone was shaking her so hard that she screamed.

She was so terrified that she was trembling all over, but in a few moments she had come back to reality and out of the nightmare. Gradually she emerged from her fear-filled stupor and into candlelight and the warm pressure of another human body next to hers. When she realized she was in no danger, she gave a deep sigh of relief and relaxed into the strong arms which were holding her.

She felt secure and safe suddenly with a steady, thudding heartbeat next to her ear and the smell of another living person in her nostrils. Kenna looked up into a pair of silver-grey eyes that gazed into hers.

"You are safe now," Ewan said. "You were having a very bad dream. Do you remember it?"

Kenna took a deep breath and shook her head.

"No. I never do," she replied sadly. "I only remember feeling frightened—very frightened—then I wake up screaming. I think something very bad happens, but I have no idea what it is."

"I have heard of something like this before," he replied. "Your mind keeps it from you because you are too afraid to face it, so it will not let you remember it. It happens all the time to soldiers in battle."

Kenna nodded against him, then said, "These have been happening since I was four years old. I cannot remember a time without them. Sometimes I can go on for a long time without having one, and I think perhaps they have stopped, but they always come back. Then they are close together, and during those times I am scared to sleep."

She began to pull out of his arms, but to her surprise, Ewan held on, tightening the embrace. She was about to ask him what he was doing, but the sight of his lips so close to hers triggered something inside her, and suddenly they were kissing.

Kenna froze at first, then tentatively moved her lips over his, touching, feeling, exploring. She was a complete novice at this, but she was enjoying her lesson immensely and was an enthusiastic pupil.

Kenna felt something happening to her body that she had felt only once before when she was altering Ewan's trousers. There was heat and moisture between her legs and a pleasant fluttering that was becoming more and more insistent. She wanted something, but she did not know what it was. Yet she knew that only Ewan could give it to her.

Kenna jumped when he gently prised her mouth open with his tongue, but after a moment she began to imitate him, and the kiss became a passionate duel of lips and tongues. She had never felt anything like it. Was it always like this between a man and a woman? She moaned with pleasure and pressed her mouth to his even harder.

He was poised awkwardly with his knees on the floor and his body twisted around her on the bed, so Kenna reluctantly let him go and put her fingertips on her lips, which were still tingling.

He looks as stunned as I feel,she thought.