Chapter 14

McDunnagh Castle, standing squat on the loch on a low outcrop of rock, seagulls screeching about it like banshees, was not what Kara expected. Not that it was terribly important that in one word the place was terrible. Lower than her lowest expectations.

After all, she wasn't here to clean, or live, in it, which was as well, since it would have taken her weeks to make even the merest alcove her startled gaze edged sideways into on the way inside, habitable. Cobwebs, dust, clutter, dead rats, even dead bats, everywhere and such a smell of damp, it all but knocked her sideways.

She was less sure about its master. Yesterday she'd wondered why he'd not come to meet her. But there, the maidservant had kept him. And still did. Her breasts were obviously preferable, what was under her skirt too—anything was to meeting his bride to be. Yesterday she'd also sworn to go down to hell and marry the devil himself.

That might be preferable.

God Almighty, all the years, even before she disgraced herself, she'd always believed Kertyn wasn't just the apple of their father's eye, she was the orchard.How the hell could he hold her sister in such little regard he was prepared to marry her to a toad with one set of sausage fingers halfway down the maidservant's blouse, the other set up her skirt, as she tried serving him a jug of ale, though? Even if that same toad was to have been a dead toad after the completion of the ceremony? Firstly, he might have lived. Then what? Kara would have been stuck with this lump of pudding.

No. It wasn't just for herself Kara was tempted to turn on her heel.She was tempted on Kertyn's behalf, when she didn't even like Kertyn.Had never liked her.The girl was a tell-tale to her bones. Mainly about Kara. And everything she did. Things that had earned her too many clips on the ear to count.

There was only one thing she would be if she did sweep out of here in disgust though. That was dead before she could explain to her father that any possible, accompanying McDunnaghs were an escort on account of her refusal to marry Ewen, when he had been most specific about that. That was of course providing the Wolf let her leave the castle alive. She wasn't holding her breath about that either.

Swallowing the temptation, she stood stone-still in the middle of the stone-flagged floor of the great hall. She even tried—a task on a par with eating a bag of rusty nails—to smile faintly.

When only a few feet separated her and the Wolf she'd sooner not add to his probable enjoyment of the situation though, not given everything the McGurkies had done to Morven.

Besides, perhaps Ma was right? Kara had always been too smart for her own good. So, her betrothed could barely stand upright and his boots scraped against the floor as he tried to?

Was that necessarily a cause for complaint? A man as repulsive as this? She should be grateful she could just put him to bed. Pretend. The way Ma often had with her father. The fact was that neither Kertyn nor Ardene would have been able to stand here as she did.

As for the cavernous room itself? Yes, it was filthy. Cups, bowls, half eaten lumps of bread and meat and stone bottles of whiskey strewn about the floor and table, ragged hangings on the wall. Even the fog of smoking peat. She had thought the McDunnaghs a cut above the McGurkies. Certainly they'd always behaved like it. Plainly down to the half starved dogs scrapping over a bone, the hound licking spilt whiskey off the rushes, licking the rushes too, they were bigger tinks.

This was a place where her lack of Edinburgh polishing would be of such little consequence, it would not even be noticed. She would not even be noticed. Given the damned stupid errors she'd already made? The fact that often she had been noticed in the past? The fates were smiling kindly. Where mannerisms went, all she need do was the same. Just think about the fact she knew the way here now--it was more than any other McGurkie did--and set her face in the biggest, most gracious, grin going. A grin befitting a woman meeting her beloved for the first time.

The Wolf flicked his gaze over his brother.

"Do you remember that bit of paper you signed, Ewen?"

It was a pertinent question. Her bridegroom was so busy fondling the serving girl's thighs, while she stood there sighing—with exasperation, it had to be said--he did indeed appear to have forgotten such a piece of paper existed, let alone he had put his name to it; could write for that matter. Obviously he could and had, or Kara would not be standing here, offering her best smile.

"About a month ago now I think it was?" the Wolf added.

Seconds stretched. A month might be the length of time it was going to take Ewen McDunnagh to reply.

"Whit? Can ye no see Ah'm busy?"

"Is that what you call it these days?"

Ewen McDunnagh glanced round, sniffed hard, then seeing the Wolf, attempted to get back to his feet. That he did not succeed in no way detracted from his efforts. "Paper? Aye. Whit o' it?"

"Well, Ewen, it happens this is her." The Wolf ambled a step towards him, his face a mask of shadows, his hand resting on his sword hilt. "All the way from Edinburgh. Your bride. Lady Kara McGurkie."

Kara bent her knees and sank to the dismal flagstones in a formal curtsey, keeping her face a study in charm. Finally Ma would be proud.

"My lord," she said in her deepest, richest, most obedient voice. Anyone seeing this would think she really had been in Edinburgh.

"Mah bride?"