Page 1 of The Rogue's Bride
Chapter One
The Missive
Duntulm Castle, Isle of Skye, Scotland
Winter, 1347 AD
“NOT POTTAGE … AGAIN?”
Duntulm’s cook, an elderly woman with white hair pulled back into a bun and a face as wrinkled as walnut, frowned. “It’s a good, wholesome meal, milady.”
Caitrin shook her head. “We’ve had pottage and dumplings thrice over the past week. The men are starting to complain. They want some meat.”
Cook’s mouth thinned. “We need to watch our stores, milady. Spring is still some way off.”
Caitrin suppressed a sigh. “We had the best harvest in years … and the men brought back many deer and boar from their hunting trips in the autumn. Ye don’t need to worry about us running out of food.”
Cook wrung her hands, clearly unconvinced. The two women stood in Duntulm’s kitchen, a warm space dominated by a long scrubbed oaken table. The sulfurous odor of over-cooked onion, cabbage, and turnip surrounded them.
A huge cauldron of vegetable pottage simmered over the hearth at one end of the kitchen.
Caitrin did sigh then, irritation rising within her. Despite that she and cook planned Duntulm’s meals together every week, the woman often took it upon herself to change things. Today was one such occasion.
Caitrin was just about to speak once more when the door to the kitchen opened and a small dark-haired woman entered. Her hand-maid, Sorcha’s, cheeks were flushed, as if she’d just come in from the cold.
“Lady Caitrin, a message has arrived for ye.” The young woman’s eyes were bright; they rarely received missives at Duntulm. The fortress sat upon Skye’s isolated northern tip. They had no news of the outside world for weeks on end here. The maid clutched a scroll in her hand, holding it out to Caitrin. “It bears the MacDonald seal,” she said, her voice edged in excitement.
Caitrin’s belly contracted.
Schooling her features into an expressionless mask, she took the scroll. “Thank ye, Sorcha.”
Her hand-maid hovered, her gaze curious. “Do ye need anything, milady.”
“Aye, please check on Eoghan. I’ll be up to feed him later.”
Sorcha nodded before bobbing into a curtsy. “Aye, milady.”
The girl bustled over to the door. Small and curvaceous, Sorcha MacQueen was the bastard daughter of a neighboring chieftain. Unable to keep her under his own roof, MacQueen had given her to the MacDonalds as a hand-maid to the chieftain’s wife. Caitrin had expected the young woman to be bitter over it, for her father had essentially washed his hands of her, yet Sorcha seemed resolutely cheerful.
Maybe it was a front. Perhaps, underneath it all, Sorcha harbored sadness and resentment. Caitrin should know—forshewas adept at holding up a shield to keep others at bay.
She did so even now as she stood with cook, the roll of parchment in her hand. She dared not let her true feelings show.
Instead, she turned to cook.
The elderly woman was watching her intently, a shrewd look in her dark eyes.
“No more pottage for the next week, Briana,” Caitrin said, using a sharp tone she knew cook would heed. “And put out salted pork and cheese with the noon meal today.”
Not giving cook an opportunity to argue, Caitrin left the kitchen, her ring of iron chatelaine keys rattling at her waist.
Outside, she crossed the snow-covered bailey, her boots sinking into the pristine crust. Then Caitrin navigated the slippery steps and entered the keep. Drawing her fur mantle close, she made her way up to her solar. Even indoors it was freezing today. Her breathing steamed before her. The snow had lain for days now. However, Caitrin’s thoughts were not on the weather, but upon the rolled parchment she carried.
She held it gingerly, as if it were a venomous adder, coiled, ready to sink its fangs into her. And when she entered the solar, she had to quash the instinct to throw the missive directly on the fire without reading it.
Sinking down onto a high-backed chair before the hearth, she turned the parchment over, her gaze alighting upon the MacDonald crest. It showed an armored hand clutching a cross.
“Per Mare Per Terras,” she whispered the MacDonald clan motto.By sea and land. The clan was one of Scotland’s largest, stretching its influence down most of the kingdom’s western coast.
