by Paula Quinn
“What does all this mean, Lady—Aleysia?” Ronald asked, slipping his gaze to the six foot four inch Highland warlord when he made the correction.
“It means keep yer—” The commander shot a disparaging look to Father Timothy and then returned his attention to Ronald, correcting himself. “It means that, fer now, as far as my men are concerned, Aleysia is a peasant, innocent of any wrongdoin’ besides hatin’ Scots.”
“You protect her from your own men?” Old John, who’d crafted all her bows and arrows, pointed out boldly when Cain turned for the door to end the meeting. “’Tis unexpected.”
The commander looked slightly ruffled for the first time and let his eyes roam around the chapel at the others waiting for his reply.
It was Aleysia who spoke up first. “The king of the Scots does not want to spill the blood of a d’Argentan. The commander is waiting to hear what is to be done with me. He is doing his duty.”
If the commander heard the anger in her voice, he made no indication. “I am protectin’ ye all,” he warned instead. “My men died by her hand and with yer aid, so if ye want to see another sunrise, dinna speak of it and remember what ye were told here today. Go back to yer homes. Prepare fer work tomorrow. Nothin’ will change. No one will put ye oot.”
Aleysia stiffened when he placed his palm on her lower back. Heat and power, like lightning running through her, made her legs weak and her heart stall. He turned and, without another word, ushered her toward the door.
She moved away from his touch. “You did not have to threaten them.”
He reached out and took hold of her elbow. “I told them the truth,” he said blandly and pushed open the door.
Amish and William were still there waiting. “The villagers will be comin’ oot and returnin’ to their homes,” he told them. “Make certain they arrive there safely. They are not to be harmed in any way. If they are, the guilty will be dealt with severely.”
“Aye, Commander,” Amish replied as the commander continued on his way down the hall tugging Aleysia behind him.
“Do you threaten everyone in order to get what you want?” she asked, pulling on her arm to be free of him.
He stopped to hover over her and stare into her eyes. “Instead of bein’ grateful fer my protection, however I may offer it, ye stand here flappin’ yer tongue aboot me thr—”
She swung at him. She tried to hold her temper but he infuriated her. She knew where there were more daggers, at least two that his men could not have discovered.
“Enough!” he thundered, holding her back without letting her go.
She swung at him again. This time, she hit him in the chest.
In response, he yanked her hard against him, halting her breath and trapping her arms between them in his tight embrace. “I’m beginnin’ to think ye enjoy bein’ a threat to me, Miss d’Argentan.”
She struggled to break free of him, but only for moment. “What?”
“It means I must keep ye close,” he said on a soft breath that stole across the edge of her jaw.
Was he going to kiss her? What should she do if he did? She fought to keep her wits about her. If he kissed her, she might find herself lost in a place she knew nothing about, with a man she had vowed to kill.
“Are you mad?” She choked out a forced laugh. “I’m trying to get away from you!”
“Ye want to see me dead.”
She didn’t deny it, though she was tempted to. “Do you think I can kill you with my bare hands? Fool.”
He raised an eyebrow and one end of his mouth. “I dinna know all that yer hands are capable of, lass.”
She had no idea why her face felt as if it had gone up in flames, or why her head was suddenly filled with images of her fingertips tracing the hard angles of his body, or touching his lips. Up close, his mouth looked enticing, irresistible. Had he kissed other women before?
Oh, how could she be having these traitorous thoughts about him? Thoughts of his mouth covering hers, dipping to her neck. She didn’t think he would stop, as had the other young man in her past who’d kissed her so intimately.
“You know I am no match for you, Commander,” she countered, trying to control her wayward thoughts, but barely. “You accuse me of wanting to stay close to you, when ’tis you who has dragged me into your arms as if you have every right to do so.”
His smile faded and Aleysia realized once it was gone that it hadn’t reached his eyes.
“I wish to continue livin’, lady,” he said impassively. “Nothin’ more.”
Nothing more. How could there ever be anything more? They were enemies. One of them likely wouldn’t survive this.
She almost trembled in his arms when he loosened his hold on her.
She pulled back the moment she could and swatted his hand away when he reached for her elbow to take it again.
“Crook your arm,” she insisted. “I will not be dragged about by my elbow.”
Thankfully, he didn’t argue. When he bent his arm, she looped hers through it and let him lead her toward the great hall. She ignored the voice in her head telling her how pleasant it was to walk on his arm, to stand so close to him as his equal and not his captive.
She didn’t care for his cold, brash manner, but he hadn’t actually hurt anyone in front of her and he had sworn not to harm her people. If he wasn’t a wild Scot and if he hadn’t claimed her home, she might look at him differently.
“Now,” he said, “ye will tell me why ye were so angry earlier that ye almost attacked me in front of my men.”
She thought about it for a moment and then remembered her conversation with Father Timothy before she drank the poison that set her abed for the whole day. Robert the Bruce was going to name one of his minions to hold Rothbury and her castle in his name.
The truth she’d known but had forgotten for a moment hit her again like a cold, wet cloth across her face. She was his captive.
“You said I did not have to leave Lismoor,” she said quietly as they entered the great hall.
“Aye,” he grunted. “I remember sayin’ that.”
They reached a table in the middle of the hall, with one man sitting at it. He obeyed without a word when the commander told him to go sit somewhere else.
Was he brooding because he wanted to avoid having to tell her the rest?
“I do not wish to be wed to a stranger,” she told him while she sat. “A Scottish stranger, no less.”
Perhaps she should not have added the last bit. His scowl deepened and he shouted for someone named Rauf to bring them something to drink.
The ribaldry around them quieted down as the men took their drinks and slowly left the hall.
A man with a long scar running down his face, whom Aleysia assumed was Rauf, brought them two cups of water and stepped away from the table.
“What is this?” the commander demanded after a quick look into the cup.
“We are all oot of whisky, Commander,” Rauf regretfully informed him.
“Rauf,” she said, causing both men to turn to look at her, each with very different expressions on their faces. “There is an unopened cask of wine in the cellar beneath the kitchen.”
Rauf blinked his bloodshot eyes at her and then nodded. “Thank ye, Miss.”
Aleysia knew in that moment how easily the commander could frighten the wits out of someone with just his scowl, for he aimed his darkest one on her now. She was tempted to look away, perhaps wipe her own brow.
“How d’ye know where there’s untainted wine?” Cain asked in a mild, thoroughly controlled voice. “Did ye serve Lord de Bar?”
Lord de Bar? Aleysia nodded because she had a feeling she should. It took her a moment to remember William mentioning the name and another to realize what the commander was doing. “Aye, I was the…bottler. That is why I know about the wine in the cellar.”
The commander seemed satisfied and dismissed Rauf to the task. “Have Richard taste it first,” he called out.
To which Rauf ca
lled back, “Aye, Commander.”
He demanded unquestioned obedience from his men. She understood the importance of it on a battlefield, thanks to Giles’ stories. It was up to him to win with as few casualties as possible. She recalled how the commander had ordered his men to travel in a single line, one that had kept them from dying in the field of arrows. He had also gone hunting alone rather than risk his men to her traps. He kept them safe by keeping her close. He was good at his duty.
But they weren’t on a battlefield now.
Or were they?
She’d done nothing but try to kill him—or at least, escape him. To no avail. Of course, she had good reasons for wanting to kill him.
She cursed her traitorous heart but, perhaps, there was nothing more she could do.
“I will taste it,” she said softly.
His scowl softened. Perhaps fighting with him was the wrong approach. She wanted to escape the future that strangers would make for her and make one of her own. If she lost her home to the Scots, she would leave and live in a village somewhere.
“Where were we?” she asked, not caring if he didn’t want to speak of it. “I was telling you I would not wed a stranger.”
“A Scot, no less,” he reminded her. Surprisingly, his scowl faded.
“Am I so terrible? Would you want to be forced to wed an English woman?”
He shook his head and offered no other comment. He looked into his cup of water.
Never in her life had silence been so deafening. She heard a distant drumbeat and realized it was her heart. Everything he promised, everything he did was all temporary. He didn’t want to stay. Would the next Scot honor the promise he’d made to the villagers?
“I will speak with the king aboot lettin’ ye stay on yer own.”
Her hope rose to the surface and became evident in her smile. “Will he grant what you ask?”
He said nothing for an eternal moment, and then he nodded and smiled as if it were the only thing to do to keep something else from falling from his lips.
Chapter Thirteen
“Ye should have told her, Cainnech.”
Cain moved away from where he stood with Father Timothy in a corner of the now well-lit great hall. His eyes found the reason for his unruly thoughts.
Miss d’Argentan sat at a table with Richard and William, and a few of the other men. He didn’t worry about her running. What could she do? More men would come. He’d given her hope of staying at Lismoor without marriage. He knew he should have told her the condition, but he had taken everything else from her.
Most of the time, he was able to remind himself that taking land for the king was his duty. He had done it before without thought of consequence. But no one else had fought so hard for their home, taking on an army alone.
He told himself he didn’t care, because caring scared the hell out of him. But when he saw her smile or heard her laugh at something William said, he knew something of cataclysmic importance was about to happen in his life.
He watched her now, leaning in to hear something her knight was saying. He liked looking at her, and he wasn’t the only one who did. He raked his gaze over anyone leering at her. Three men dipped their gazes to their trenchers.
Supper was venison from the deer he’d killed earlier. The wine, thanks to the cask they’d found, flowed freely, and the men, for the most part, behaved themselves.
It was almost…peaceful. He was unaccustomed to it but he couldn’t say he hated it.
He found himself moving toward her as if his mind had a will of its own.
He had thought her bonny the first time he saw her face by the light of a single candle in the dungeon, her green eyes sparked with fury. But seeing her tilt her head just enough for the firelight from the hearth to dance across her features while she laughed, made him forget everything else—every dark day of his past.
“When will ye tell her?”
Cain looked Heavenward with a sigh, then at the priest who had trotted up to his side. “D’ye not have a confession to hear, Father?”
The priest shrugged his robed shoulders. “Not unless ye have somethin’ ye want to tell me.”
Cain flashed him an impatient look and then veered away from her table. Should he tell his oldest friend the things that plagued him? How his enemy haunted his thoughts?
“Ye are particularly sour this evenin’,” the priest pointed out. “Is it because ye havena told her the condition to her stayin’?”
“She will never swear fealty to him,” Cain said. He sounded defeated to his own ears. It disgusted him. He rubbed his belly.
“Are ye unwell, Son?” the priest asked, concern filling his eyes.
Aye, he was unwell. The one who had attacked and killed his men was sitting with them, drinking, eating fresh venison, and laughing! And worse—so much worse—he found himself attracted to her as if she were a light in the pale gray gloom of death and destruction.
He didn’t want to get close to the light. He did everything he could to stay away from it. He was comfortable in the familiar. He knew things here in the gray, like how to remain unseen and untouched.
“I am sorry we came here,” he admitted in a quiet, gruff voice.
“Commander,” a silken, female voice called out, sending heat through his blood. “Come and try this mead.” Aleysia held up a cup and offered him a radiant smile. “I made it myself.”
Was she playing with him? Had she poisoned the mead? She tempted him to deliver her over for the punishment she deserved. Or march over to her, pull her up by her arms, and kiss that furtive smile from her lips.
He moved forward, reaching her in three long strides. He took the cup from her hand and kept his gaze on her while he lifted it to his mouth.
From the corner of his eye he saw Father Timothy reach out his hand, as if to stop him. But Cain didn’t believe she would poison him. She’d had plenty of opportunities to kill him.
She stared at him while he put the rim to his lips, the challenge unmistakable in her eyes.
He drank, tilting his head to take the entire contents in one long guzzle. When he was done, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and offered the cup back to her. “Needs more cloves.”
He threw his leg over the bench she was sitting on. He guessed he should be sitting at the higher table in the front of the hall, meant for the lord. But he wasn’t one for indoor etiquette. Besides, he wanted to be near her—and she was sitting with the men. He faced her and looked into her fiery eyes. “Ye dinna want to do it, lady.”
“Do what, Commander?” she challenged with a quirk of her full, honey-dipped lips.
He couldn’t answer with the truth, not with the men listening. They would suspect something if they thought she wanted to kill him.
“Ye dinna want to slap me,” he supplied.
She raised a questionable eyebrow.
“Och, dinna slap him, lass,” cried Rauf from the other side of the table, clearly concerned for her well-being.
Cain gave him a stern look, though he was not surprised she’d won the poor fool over so easily. Had she won the rest of them, as well?
“’Twould not be the first time I’ve slapped him, or tried to,” she offered boldly.
Everyone at the table, including Sir Richard, grew wide-eyed. The men murmured among themselves about her bravery. They had seen their commander slaughter men for lifting their swords to him. It shocked them to think of her striking him—and him letting her live to smile about it.
Cain saw the admiration for her in their eyes. He let her have her victory. He felt her eyes on him but didn’t turn back to her. He took the cup of wine set before him and drank.
Sir Richard’s laughter seemed to pull the rest of the men out of their wonderment, for they joined in and then slowly went back to their cups and bowls.
Cain took some bread and meat from the large bowl in the center of the table and began to eat with the rest in silence.
“How long has Lismoor been your home?
” William finally broke the uncomfortable silence.
“I came here with my…grandfather twelve years ago,” she told him, softening her tone. “I was eight.”
Cain knew she was speaking of her brother, not Richard. “What aboot yer father?” he asked, tearing into his bread.
She offered him a curious look, as if she knew joining in on the informal conversation was unusual and uncomfortable for him and was surprised he did it anyway. “Before we came here,” she replied more gently, “my parents suffered a fever and died.”
“What is Lord de Bar like?” Rauf asked.
“It doesna matter,” Amish said, raising his cup. “We’ll soon find him and scatter his parts over Rothbury, aye, Commander?”
Cain held up his cup, “Aye, from the trees.”
He flicked his gaze to the lass while the men agreed with loud cheers and clanking cups. He hoped she understood the danger of them finding out the truth. Presently, the danger came from her friends.
“How many more people d’ye expect to return?” he asked her.
“Twenty-seven,” she said without thinking about it. “And I would like to hunt a nice stag for them since they have been away and will not have much food left.”
Cain liked that she knew exactly how many among her people were missing and that she was concerned with their bellies. It was a sign of leadership. If she weren’t fighting for the other side, she would make a good commander.
“Then there is the staff, which lives here,” she continued, popping a small piece of bread into her mouth and smiling as she thought of the people she named. “There is Matilda my hand—” She stopped and corrected herself. She was the granddaughter of the steward, not the lady of the castle. “And the other maids, Agnes and Sarah, Harry the carpenter, Philip the cook, the seamstress, the laundress, the spinner, the other knights, and Elizabeth.” She moved closer to him until he could smell the honey on her breath when she tilted her lips to his ear, “Elizabeth is my brother’s betrothed.”