Sue-Ellen Welfonder - [MacLean 02] Read Online Free PDF Page B

Donall, Gavin MacFie extracted himself from the window embrasure, and joined them, the bejeweled reliquary casket held reverently in his large hands.
Late-afternoon light reflected off the glittering gemstones embedded in the small casket’s silver-and-enamel casing, each one shooting off rays of dazzling, multicolored light.
Rays that streaked straight at Iain’s aching eyes.
He blinked hard, frowning as countless teensy dots of blinding color danced across his vision, but when his sight cleared, a cloud must have passed o’er the sun, for the room lay in sweet shadow.
His relief, though, proved fleeting. The pink stain on Gavin’s freckled cheeks and the abashed look in his downcast eyes could only bode ill.
The redheaded lout knew something he didn’t. Something Iain instinctively knew he did not want to be privy to.
Hot waves of wariness licking across his every nerve ending, he glanced at the reliquary casket. For centuries the MacLeans’ most prized possession, it contained a holy relic of inestimable value: a fragment of the True Cross.
At once, a horrible thought popped into Iain’s mind. Steeling himself, he eyed his brother. “Don’t tell me you’d see me martyred?”
Rather than answer him, Donall turned to a nearby table and poured himself a cup of wine, draining it in one long swallow. His face grim-set, he dragged the back of his hand over his mouth. “You would have to commit a more grievous sin than burning the chapel for me to pass such a harsh judgment on you.”
He began pacing the chamber, his long strides taking him back and forth between the blazing hearth and the now-empty window embrasure. “Nay,” he said at last, sliding a quick glance at Iain, “’Tis a pilgrim I would make of you, not a martyr.”
“A pilgrim?” Iain near choked on the word. Ne’er had he heard aught more ludicrous.
All knew he was not a devout man.
Truth be told, he believed in scarce little beyond that the sun rose each day to plague him.
He stared at Donall, his brows arching ever higher. “I did not mishear you?” His already strained voice sounded two shades higher than it should. “You mean to make a penitent of me?”
The sort that roams the land in a heavy cloak and wide-brimmed hat, a wooden staff clutched in one hand, a beggar’s bowl in the other?
The very thought froze his blood.
“A pilgrim and an emissary of goodwill,” his brother confirmed, and Iain’s stomach plummeted.
Gerbert snorted. “That laddie out and about, a-spreading goodwill across the land?” he spluttered, his cheek earning him a sharp glance from his laird. Unimpressed, the aged seneschal shook his white-tufted head. “’Tis a fool plan if e’er I heard one.”
Donall stopped his pacing to draw a long breath. “The undertaking will appease the saints for the destruction of Baldoon’s chapel and, with God’s good grace”—he wheeled around, his granitelike countenance leaving no room for rebuttal—“help Iain to master his temper. I, and every man, woman, and bairn beneath this roof have tolerated enough.”
“I—” Iain began, then swallowed the heated words, his dread temper and all his bitterness contracting to a tiny, icy ball of tightness somewhere behind his rib cage.
Some would say in the vicinity of his equally cold and tightly closed heart.
His anger and guilt locked soundly away, tied and bound by the truth of his brother’s words.
Words he couldn’t gainsay.
He had become the bane of his clan, fouling the mood and robbing the smile of anyone foolhardy enough to come within ten paces of him.
Consigned to a fate he could blame on no one but himself, he dragged a hand down over his face, carefully avoiding the still-aching lump pulsing hotly on his forehead. “Have done,” he gritted, meeting Donall’s eye. “I would hear more of my . . . penance.”
Donall held his gaze. “I told you, ’tis more a journey of goodwill than aught else.”
“Goodwill toward whom?”
“The deserving brothers of Dunkeld Cathedral.” The words came calm and measured, but