Page 11 of Fallen
The threat fell heavily in the silence. Everyone in the hall had stopped eating now and was watching their clan-chief.
Broderick stared back at him, and although his expression was still inscrutable, Duncan saw his gaze narrow slightly. The hardening of his jaw also betrayed him; like Ross Campbell before him, Carr Broderick was a proud man. He didn’t like being threatened.
MacKinnon didn’t care—he was done with being thwarted.
Raising a hand, he dismissed the Captain of the Dunan Guard before clicking his fingers, holding his goblet aloft to be refilled.
A young woman appeared at his elbow. She was a shy, dark-haired lass—one of his cousins—of plain face and with a figure so slender that MacKinnon found her sexless. A pity really, for he was in the mood for some bed sport.
The lass filled his goblet and scurried away, gaze averted. Duncan ignored her. Leaning back in his chair, he took a large gulp of sloe wine and retreated into his own thoughts.
And as often when he withdrew from others, his mind went to Lady Leanna MacDonald.
The pounding in his ears increased. How he’d wanted the woman—ever since he’d first set eyes upon her at a gathering between the MacKinnon and MacDonald clans. Her father had thwarted him, but after his sudden death in a hunting accident, Duncan had wasted no time in tearing Leanna from Kilbride Abbey, where she’d been living as a novice nun.
Things should have gone his way then. Campbell and Broderick delivered her to Dunan, but fate had turned against him. MacKinnon couldn’t believe she’d managed to escape, or that Ross Campbell had betrayed him. Where had Campbell taken her? He’d even dispatched men to the mainland to look for her, when his search upon Skye was fruitless. He’d sent word to all the clan-chiefs and chieftains upon the isle, along with thinly veiled threats of what he’d do to any who dared harbor her, but none had responded to him.
Over a month on, Leanna still dominated his thoughts, as did fantasies of what he’d do if he ever caught her.
Duncan took another gulp of wine, welcoming its heat as the rich liquid slid down his throat. He was drinking too much these days, yet he found that it was the only thing that took the edge off his rage. He hadn’t lain with a woman since that disastrous attempt with Leanna. It was time to break the curse she’d cast upon him.
Setting down his goblet, the clan-chief shoved back his chair and rose to his feet. Next to him, Drew stopped eating, her gaze swiveling to his untouched platter and then to his face.
“Does the food displease ye?” she asked.
“I’m not hungry.”
“I thought blood sausage was yer favorite?” Drew continued, her dark brows drawing together. “Ye hardly eat at all these days … ye will be nothing but skin and bone soon if ye don’t take care.”
Heat flushed across Duncan’s face as irritation surged. “Stop nagging, sister,” he snarled. However, as he stepped off the dais and strode across the floor of the hall, past long tables where his retainers still ate and drank, he reflected that, indeed, his clothing was starting to hang on him these days. His need for vengeance had become an obsession; it had narrowed his world. He’d lost his taste for food.
He was having trouble accepting that Leanna was lost to him, but he wouldn’t give up on seeing his brother swing from a gibbet. Once Craeg was caught, the world would return to normal.
Bran, his faithful wolfhound, leaped down from where he’d been sitting under the table upon the dais and fell in behind Duncan. The dog loped at his heel as the clan-chief strode across the broch’s wide entrance hall and descended the steep steps to the bailey below.
The wolfhound was the only occupant of the broch who didn’t irritate Duncan on a daily basis. But of late he hadn’t paid the dog the attention he usually did. Bran didn’t appear to care though—he merely trotted after his master, his ever-present shadow.
MacKinnon left the bailey through a high stone arch and made his way into the streets below. Without even thinking about his direction, his feet carried him toward ‘The Warren’, a squalid tangle of alleyways in the lower village.
Duncan hadn’t walked this way in a while. Of late, what with the threat of pestilence, and everything else, he’d been preoccupied. After Leanna’s brutal attack, his cods had taken a while to heal. Yet the ache in his bollocks now had to be satisfied. It would also relieve the tension within him, distract him from his own thoughts for a short while.
The Goat and Goosewas a high, narrow building made of pitted grey stone that loomed over a shadowy lane. The air outside the brothel reeked of stale piss, but Duncan paid it no mind.The Goat and Goosehad the best whores on the isle, and Old Maude always did her best to ensure the clan-chief left satisfied.
Stepping inside the common room, Duncan left behind the squalor of ‘The Warren’ and entered a softly lit space. Pine and herbs scented the air, from the soft mattress of sawdust underfoot, and flickering cressets of oil perfumed with rosemary and lavender lined the walls. Yet underneath it all the faint odor of stale sweat pervaded—it always did here. There weren’t many customers present at this hour, and as such, the whores who lolled on chairs near the glowing hearth all snapped to attention at the clan-chief’s arrival.
“MacKinnon!” Maude, blowsy and busty with a mane of greying blonde hair pinned up into an elaborate tangle upon her head, swept in from nowhere. The woman brought with her a wake of rose perfume—a scent MacKinnon would always associate with this brothel. “We have missed ye.”
“I’ve been busy,” he replied, his tone deliberately cold. Duncan wasn’t here to indulge in idle chatter.
Maude favored him with a sly smile. The woman was sharper than most, and she’d sensed his mood. “Would ye like the usual?”
“Aye.” Duncan lowered himself down into a chair one of the whores had just vacated and took the goblet of wine the serving lass passed him. “But give me a different girl this time … the last one didn’t please me.”
A shadow passed over Maude’s face. This was ill news indeed, for she lived to please the clan-chief. “Of course,” she replied hastily. “If ye would give me a few moments to organize things for ye?”
Duncan nodded curtly. He didn’t mind waiting, just as long as he got the whore he wanted. Indeed, the last time he’d visitedThe Goat and Goose, he’d ended up with a lusty, over-eager whore who’d tried to wrench his braies off him and suck his rod. He preferred women who let him take control—and if he glimpsed fear in their eyes all the better.
That last thought brought another woman to mind—one he’d thought of often over the years.
