by Tamara Leigh
There being only concern on his face, Marguerite hurt over the other things she had seen there since his attempt to save a villager from ravishment made mince of his life.
It was too much for this guilt-ridden woman already shaken by her visit to the graveyard, the Norman’s pursuit that immersed her in memories of when she fled her grandfather, and the aches of her flight.
“Marguerite?” Theriot prompted.
His awareness of her emotions making her shudder, she thrust to her feet and felt a tug on her skirt as she whirled away. When her forward motion caused him to lose hold of her, she rasped, “Pray, leave me.” Then her knees gave, and she cried out as bruised flesh and jolted bone hit the ground.
Hearing Dubh whine and Theriot rise and move with more speed than was safe, she tried to crawl away. “I need a moment! Just a moment!”
A hand landed on the small of her back, and she jerked to the side and dropped onto her rear. “You are safe,” he said, his hand that had been upon her now splayed as if entreating a frightened child to calm. “It is over.”
“Over for me.” Through tears, she peered up at him. “But what of you?”
“Me?”
“I cannot undo you—what I did to you! Had I recognized you that night, all would be different. Stephen would not have died, Hendrie would not have been injured, and you would have no cause to hate me.”
Further he stiffened. “What do you mean had you recognized me?”
Now came the mess of her. Rather than spilled and swept up out of sight, it sought to be spilled and swept up in his presence. Dropping her chin, she drew up her knees and tucked into herself.
Theriot stared at Marguerite with eyes that could see only the smudge of her against the ground, then reluctantly relinquished curiosity over what she had spoken. He wanted to remain angry with her, but it was cruel, especially after compassion shown for the injured animal for whom he felt far less than this hurting woman.
Lowering beside her, he slid an arm around her back.
She jerked, and he thought she would resist, but she gripped his tunic and pressed her face to his chest. “I am sorry, Theriot. What I did was to save what I thought a child.”
He knew how to hold a woman, many the kisses and caresses bestowed and received since reaching the age when relations with the fairer sex became nearly as desirable as the wielding of weapons, but this was different. Because he could not look upon her?
“All for naught—less than naught,” she bemoaned.
He would not argue that, less than nothing gained in exchange for his eyesight. And it would be worse than nothing if what had befallen him was permanent. However, this day he had been gifted with evidence that once more he was in God’s favor—not only the sharpening of his unnatural sense that aided in preserving his life but color.
Astride with Malcolm spurring toward the chapel, he had seen green when they emerged from the trees. The long grass trampled by hooves had been a blur but of a color beyond white and grey, and when he raised eyes heavenward, there was blue. Thus, greater hope for full restoration of his sight that would allow him to once more look upon even the smallest of stars.
He was tempted to reveal that hope to this woman to ease her pain, but he thought ahead. To ensure the loosening watch over him did not tighten, better he remain a blind man with little chance of escape than a warrior capable of making a way out of here.
When Marguerite’s convulsions eased, she said, “Forgive my weakness. Even ere once more I became prey in a wood, the day was difficult.”
He understood that last, Malcolm having revealed she visited the graveyard, but not the first since he did not believe she referred to the bait made of her in the burning village.
“You say once before you were prey in a wood, Marguerite?”
“Oui, and I wonder if…”
“What?”
“If it is the same predator.”
“What predator?” When she did not answer, he prompted, “Malcolm and I were attacked while walking to the chapel.”
She gasped. “I heard the meeting of blades.”
“There were five men, likely all Normans. What of your pursuer?”
“Norman.”
He nodded. “Two remained distant while two set themselves at your king and one at me. Malcolm did not believe they wished him dead, but my death was sought. Now who do you believe the predator?”
She drew back. “My kin. They…”
Theriot waited.
“It would not satisfy to quickly slay Malcolm and me. First, much suffering.”
He frowned. “Malcolm told me your family over the border are dead.”
She shuddered. “He saw to that and afterward set their home afire, but I am thinking not all died, that the one who made prey of me last year—”
Dubh whimpered.
“Ere she loses more blood, I must go for help,” Marguerite said.
The voices of Malcolm’s men revealing their search was in the direction of the chapel, Theriot released her. “I will carry her.”
“But you—”
“I know I am sightless,” he snapped, then breathed deep. “You have only to stay my side and give guidance when necessary. Can you do that?”
“I can.”
It was difficult to get Dubh aloft, not because she was heavy, because each shift of her body made her yelp. If not for Marguerite’s assuring words, those sharp teeth might have pierced Theriot’s flesh.
Once the dog settled against his chest, the next challenge was to traverse the hillside around to the glen. Hopefully, they would be intercepted before a misstep further injured Dubh.
When Marguerite took hold of Theriot’s forearm, he said, “Watch for what is below as well as ahead.”
“I shall.”
It struck him then her voice was changed from when he regained consciousness at Dunfermline. That which had been somewhere between hoarse and husky from what she told was a malady of the throat was now soft and melodious.
“Be my guide, Lady,” he said tautly.
It took longer than expected to reach the side of the hill across from the palace, her instructions so precise it nearly annoyed. But more bothersome was his awareness of her. Thus, he was grateful when above the sound of coursing water men called to them from higher up the hill where two assailants had fallen to Theriot and Malcolm—doubtless, soldiers who kept watch while others searched the area.
“Two come,” Marguerite said, then in Saxon called, “I am entrusted to the care of Sir Theriot so the king may give chase to the others. As my dog is injured, she must be tended.”
They responded in Gaelic, which she translated, “One must remain here, but the other will carry Dubh across the glen.”
Though Theriot would have no difficulty taking the dog the remainder of the way, he preferred to stay here to await the return of Malcolm and his men. But when one of the Scotsmen stepped near, Dubh snarled and snapped.
“Methinks you have made an ally of my dog,” Marguerite said. “If you set her down—”
“Non, continue guiding me. I shall deliver her myself.” Theriot turned his face to where the Scotsmen stood and asked in the Saxon language, “How fares the injured mount of the man I slew?”
Neither answered, and he guessed they struggled with being questioned by their king’s prisoner.
Finally, one said, “Well enough one of our men uses it to search for the knaves who ran.”
Theriot inclined his head. “Let us continue, Lady.”
She adjusted her hold on him, but they did not venture forth alone. One of the Scots followed, and Theriot did not begrudge him the precaution. Regardless this prisoner had been entrusted to remain with the lady, regardless his arms were filled with a dog, it was wise to ensure ill that had not befallen Marguerite did not belatedly befall her.
As before, her efforts to direct him were without fault, but though the way forward was more certain once they crossed the bridge, he began to feel the strain of ca
rrying Dubh uphill and knew his garments would need to be laundered to remove blood as well as perspiration.
Once they were through the iron door, the man who accompanied them exchanged words with its guard and turned back.
“What did they say?” Theriot asked as Marguerite guided him across a bailey rife with the tension of being on high alert.
“When the man who escorted us ordered the physician summoned to tend Dubh, he was informed Colban has departed for the monastery at Loch Leven where several suffer from fever. Thus, we shall have to care for Dubh ourselves.”
Theriot inclined his head. “It is no longer necessary for you to hold to me. I am acquainted with this ground. You need only warn if something appears in my path.”
Marguerite hated she felt a sense of loss when she dropped her hand from him, but was not surprised that more of the little bit of ground gained in distancing her heart from Theriot this past month was lost. Now she would have to begin again.
“All is clear?” he asked.
She nodded. “Other than those working the bailey, everything is in its place.”
Beneath the gaze of those patrolling the walls and the castle folk, they continued to the hut and reached it without mishap. As Theriot entered sideways with Dubh, Marguerite said, “I will go for supplies,” and hastened to the palace.
Though she was waylaid by many eager to learn of the attack on the king—among them Princess Cristina and Hendrie—she was not long in returning to Theriot. When she entered, he was beside the bed on which he had settled Dubh, a basin of water on the floor, a pink-stained cloth in hand.
“The shoulder may require stitches, but not her haunch,” he said.
Marguerite swept her gaze around the room in search of a walking stick that was nowhere to be seen, then knelt beside him and opened the sack filled with clean cloths and medicines taken from the physician’s room after a brief visit with her Saxon escort whose healing progressed slowly. Hopefully, he and his companions would return to Derbyshire before summer set in—and more safely now the harrying was over and most surviving Northumbrians had fled south.
“Salve,” Theriot said, and she passed a pot whose unstoppering released an unpleasant odor.
Blessedly, among Colban’s medicines she had found one that rendered a patient senseless. Had she not been quick to wipe fingers dipped in it over that lolling tongue, Dubh would have fought her. Now, lips drawn back, repeatedly the dog scraped her tongue over her palate.
As Marguerite cleaned her fingers on a cloth, Theriot said, “What have you done?”
Looking into clouded eyes that appeared to look into hers, she said, “Given her medicine that will allow me to stitch her without her suffering. She will sleep soon.”
And so Dubh did.
It required many weavings of thread to close up the wound, then while Marguerite cleaned the mess they made, Theriot salved and bandaged the hound.
When he joined her at the cool fire pit, she said, “You like Dubh, and she likes you.”
“I have an affinity with animals.” He searched a hand behind and closed fingers over the chair’s back.
Further proof of his sightlessness causing her throat to tighten, she watched him lower to the seat.
“There is more you have to tell me—more I would learn about you,” he said. “Will you sit while we await your king?”
“I should go,” she whispered, fearing she would weep again.
He nodded at the chair opposite. “Pray, sit.”
“I—”
“I do not hate you, Marguerite.”
She caught her breath.
“When I learned you were the one who set the trap, then of your deception, I thought it possible, but I do not feel that. I feel…” He shrugged. “To know that, I must understand you better. You told of how your father and mother found each other and her family’s resistance to their union. Bad blood there, but so great your Norman kin wish you harm? So much harm that Malcolm slew them—though it seems not all?”
She did not swallow. She gulped.
“Were those who first made prey of you the reason you were in the village the night I was blinded? And what of your regret for not recognizing me sooner?”
“That is a long tale.”
“Then begin. If we are interrupted, great the likelihood I will be here on the morrow.”
Though she told herself it was not as if she was distant from those memories, it was hard to speak of them for how much she longed for her pallet and to pull a blanket over her head.
“Sit, Malcolm’s sparrow,” Theriot said. “Tell me your tale.”
First her sire’s sparrow, then that of the man who had done his best to fill his departed friend’s place, but how she wished to be that to Theriot—albeit in no way fatherly.
That longing, which made her purse her lips in remembrance of when she had much over which to whistle, should have hastened her departure, but she lowered into the chair facing him.
“You are right. It is time you knew the rest—and therein how I recognized you that night.”
Chapter Seventeen
Your uncle saved you.”
“Though I do not know he would have were he not dying…” Marguerite’s breath caught. “…he made escape possible.”
Giving her space to calm emotions that several times nearly moved her to tears, Theriot considered what thus far she had revealed of the attempt to retrieve the mother she had not known had died. Here the reason Malcolm had put that family to the sword, though not all were she correct in believing one or more were among this day’s assailants.
“That was the first time they made prey of me for being sired by Diarmad the Mad,” Marguerite continued. “Knowing I would head for the border, they nearly overtook me, and I was forced to go opposite. Night fell. Albeit their numbers were fewer for dividing their efforts between north and south, still they came, carrying torches that burned away the dark I needed to…”
“Continue.”
“They…” She muffled a sob.
Theriot cursed his impatience. Just as he had known the emotion to which she had earlier succumbed in the wood was not given its due, he knew some of this had much to do with him.
Stay, he told himself, then stood and reached for her shoulder. But it was her lowered head he set a hand upon, the silk of her hair beneath his fingers. “Do not cry, Marguerite,” he entreated, as much for his sake as hers. She was too vulnerable and too great this longing to comfort her.
“Do not,” he repeated, but when she quaked, lowered before her.
“I was so frightened,” she gasped.
He should not have put his arms around her, but when she dropped to her knees before him, he did.
He should not have drawn her closer, but when she slid her hands around his neck, he did.
He should not have set his mouth on hers, but when she whispered, “And you… Truly, I am sorry, Theriot,” he did.
He should not have made much of that kiss, but he did.
That was how the King of Scots found them. “He is a dead man!” Malcolm pronounced.
So I am, Theriot silently rued as the door tossed open bathed Marguerite and him in light.
Since what was seen could not be unseen, he held to the woman gone rigid in his arms, moved his mouth off hers, and set his gaze on the figure passing through the doorway.
The king broke stride. “What is this?” he barked.
Though it seemed his declaration of mortal fate had been for the Norman he pursued, that did not mean another declaration would not be forthcoming. And all because Theriot had been unaware someone approached as he would have been did he yet possess the breadth of the unnatural sense that aided him in the glen.
When Marguerite drew her hands from around his neck, he took her arm and raised her with him. “That was a kiss, Your Grace, nothing more,” he said.
She drew a sharp breath. “It was I who—”
“Once more you defend a man who does not wish it, Mar
guerite. Now come to my side.”
Theriot released her. “Go.”
“But—”
“Go!”
She took a single step forward, then said in Theriot’s language, “I am not a child to be ordered here and there, especially after all I have overcome without being told where to stand.”
“Marguerite,” Malcolm warned.
“I care not neither of you wish me to defend Sir Theriot. This is Marguerite, daughter of Diarmad the Mad, who is not a victim. Marguerite who once more kept wolves from her throat. Marguerite who cried though, had she a sword, she might have swung it as men do when they are overwhelmed. Marguerite who is not ashamed that Sir Theriot’s offer of comfort led to a kiss.” She drew breath. “I do not wish to wed Colban. If I want anything, it is nothing less than what my parents had.”
Her next step forward likely startled Malcolm as much as Theriot who was only less her captive audience for having no sight with which to view her.
“Nothing less than what I believe you shall have with the princess,” she said, then quieted as if to provide Malcolm space to respond, though how he could give answer to what merely sounded hysterics, Theriot did not know. Not only had she cause to be angry, but he had given her cause to justify her feelings.
“You braved much this past year, Sparrow, and now again,” the king acceded. “It is natural to ease your suffering by searching out happiness, but you look the wrong direction in setting yerself at this chevalier. Though you are half Norman, you are of Scotland, whereas he is of Normandy and England and shall return to one or the other. If you do not want Colban, I will find a more agreeable husband.”
She was silent so long, Theriot wondered if she heard. And felt a surge of resentment at being unable to search her face.
“Do you not agree the lady wastes emotion on one who said it was nothing more than a kiss, Sir Theriot?” Malcolm asked.
Why did he hesitate even when she turned to him? Not to cruelly give hope before snatching it away though that was a better reason than the truth he was greatly moved by this woman he did not believe he had ever looked close upon though she recognized him at the village.