“I’ll take shelter if I must, but I would rather ride on while I can.”
“Well, then, be off with you now and don’t forget to bring your pretty wife back with you!”
Roland nodded and swung into his saddle.
* * *
“Roland! Stop, ye bloody bastard!”
Roland pulled Hephaestus to a halt and twisted in the saddle to look behind him.
God’s blood, it was Duncan—and the man was covered with so much blood, it looked as if he’d been in a battle.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded when the man reached him and reined in his exhausted, foam-flecked mount. “Has something happened to Audrey?”
Duncan slipped from his saddle and drew his claymore, the hilt likewise bloody, from the sheath on his back. His horse snorted and limped away, while Hephaestus shook his head like a bare-knuckle fighter about to meet an opponent.
“Get down from your horse, man,” Duncan ordered with a feverish gleam in his eyes.
Roland’s hand went to the hilt of his sword, but show his distress he would not. “Who do you think you are to order me?” he demanded.
“If ye willna dismount, I’ll make ye,” the Scot answered, moving as if to grab Hephaestus’s bridle.
Roland jumped down from his horse, but before he could draw his sword, the Scot had the blade of his claymore against Roland’s chest.
“Leave it!” the Scot commanded.
Roland held his arms wide, as if in surrender. Rain began to fall, the droplets wetting their hair, their clothes and Duncan’s sword. Hephaestus whinnied and moved beneath the nearest tree.
“What do you want, Duncan?” Roland asked, keeping his voice calm and steady because he recognized that look in the Scot’s eyes. He’d seen it before, in the eyes of men he was about to punish, or as the hangman slipped the noose around a neck.
“I’m going to kill ye.”
That much Roland had guessed, although he didn’t know why. It was also obvious, in a terrible way, that the man had already attacked someone. “Where’s Audrey?”
“Ye don’t give a tinker’s damn about her! Neither ye, nor your damn brother. You’re de’ils, the pair o’ ye, from a family of de’ils. I’m goin’ to rid the world o’ ye!”
“What’s happened? Is she hurt?”
“Hurt, aye—hurt by ye and that whore you brought home! You used her and then you cast her aside to marry another woman not worthy to touch the hem of her gown.”
“I never took what Audrey offered. I didn’t cast her aside.”
The Scot’s eyes glowed with hatred and his blade pressed a little harder on Roland’s chest. “Liar! You shared her bed!”
“I’ve never been in Audrey’s bed, nor she in mine,” Roland truthfully replied, willing the man to believe him. “If she says otherwise—”
“She dinna. She didnae have to. I know! I see things! She wanted ye. It’s ye she’s wanted for years. Couldn’t see naught but ye for years.”
“You’re wrong. It was my older brother she wanted. She rarely even spoke to me.”
“Liar! She was always wantin’ to be in your hall but she hardly noticed me, the man who loved and protected her like he was her husband. I lived just to hear her say my name but she wouldnae give me the time o’ day.”
The pain that had come to the man’s eyes changed back to hate and again he pushed his blade into Roland’s chest. This time Roland felt the point bite into his flesh and a trickle of blood begin to flow.
“And then ye return wi’ a wife and break her heart. And now the poor dim sweetheart thinks that brother o’ yours is going to give her what she wants. He ne’er will. He’ll use her and cast her aside just like you. I should cut out both your hearts for tha’!”
Should. That meant he hadn’t gone after Gerrard. Not yet. And Mavis, thank God, was safe in DeLac. But Audrey... “What have you done?”
The man’s shoulders slumped and he bowed his head. “I should ha’e seen it was hopeless,” he muttered, more than the rain wetting his cheeks. “I should ha’e known she’d ne’er want me. But I hoped...and then she said... I’m a proud man wi’ a right t’ be, yet she said...”
Roland was about to draw his sword when Duncan abruptly raised his head, that hostile, unreasoning glare back in his eyes. He twisted the blade, tearing the leather of Roland’s tunic. “What happened was her fault. She shouldna ha’e said what she did. And now she’s back there.” He gestured with his sword, moving it away from Roland’s chest to point back along the road toward Dunborough.
It was the moment Roland had been waiting for. He leaped away and drew his sword, ready to fight a man well trained and in his prime.
Duncan attacked like a man possessed, and he was—possessed of unrequited love and unfulfilled desire, driven by frustration and hate.
Their blades met in a clash of metal on metal. Roland twisted away, seeking better footing on the wet and muddy road. Duncan was after him in an instant, preparing to bring his heavy weapon down on Roland’s neck or shoulder. Roland caught the blow with his sword blade, then used all his might and weight to shove the Scot away.
Duncan lost his balance and staggered backward, and Roland moved in to strike. The Scot recovered quickly, turning and slashing out with his claymore, catching Roland’s calf, slicing through the leather of his boot into the flesh beneath.
Feeling a sharp bite of pain, Roland parried another blow and paid no heed to the blood running down his leg. He disengaged his sword and struck again, swinging his blade beneath Duncan’s raised sword to slice through his tunic, opening a gash of clothing and flesh.
That didn’t seem to weaken Duncan. Instead, it only served to make him fiercer and more determined, so that he attacked with near-maniacal rage. As Roland moved back to avoid another blow, his wounded calf gave way and with a cry of pain, he fell to one knee.
Shouting with triumph, Duncan rushed in to strike the mortal blow but he was too blinded by his rage to see Roland raise his sword at the critical moment, the end of the hilt resting on the ground like the spikes of a palisade. He ran right up upon the sword, impaling himself. The Scot dropped his claymore and staggered backward, staring in dumbfounded horror at the gaping wound beneath his right arm. His ankle throbbing, Roland started to rise, prepared to strike again.
Gasping, Duncan clutched at his side as the blood poured forth. His mouth worked, but no sound came out before he fell to his knees, and then slumped forward.
Exhausted and in pain, dragging his sword, Roland made his way to Hephaestus. Only then did he feel the blood in his boot and realize how much he was losing.
Duncan groaned and pulled himself onto his hands and knees.
He wasn’t dead?
The Scot heaved himself to his feet and lurched toward his claymore. “I’ll kill ye, bastard, and your brother, too,” he gasped.
Roland sheathed his sword and climbed onto his horse. “Not today,” he said.
Just as he would not fight Duncan anymore. He was losing too much blood. Better to leave the field and get to DeLac and send men from there to capture the Scot. Duncan might not be dead, but he was too seriously injured to get far, even on horseback.
Just as he would surely die if he didn’t get help soon.
He lifted the reins and, after one backward glance at his attacker still making his way to his sword, Roland clicked his tongue and set off for DeLac.
* * *
Roland woke with a gasp, roused by the sharp pain in his leg. Miraculously, he was still in the saddle. Rain was pouring down, and he was cold and soaking. Worse, his leg felt as if it were on fire, even as he began to shiver and couldn’t stop.
He remembered Duncan’s attack, the blow. And he’d been bleeding.
It was dark, too. Not night yet, but dusk.
Nor were they on the road. Hephaestus had wandered from the muddy way into the bordering woods and was pulling up grass, chewing slowly.
Roland wiped at the water falling into his eyes and gratefully licked the rain on his lips, for he was very thirsty.
Where was he? Close to DeLac or with miles to go? He looked around, but couldn’t see the road.
His teeth chattering uncontrollably, he wiped his face again. His mind was cloudy, fogged with cold and discomfort and pain.
If he kept going, he might be going farther from the road and getting more lost. The best thing—the only thing—to do was stay where he was until morning. Find some shelter. Try to keep warm. Maybe take his boot off, if his calf wasn’t too swollen.
He dismounted carefully, yet let out a cry of pain when he put his injured leg on the ground. He couldn’t walk far, not like this.
He had to find shelter, at least for the night.
He spotted what looked like a loose pile of timber. Wiping his eyes again, he peered at it more intently. Yes, there was some kind of roof. Or part of one. It was the ruin of a hut or cottage.
“Come on, Heffy,” he murmured.
He went to grab his horse’s bridle, but he slipped, snapping a branch as he tried to stop himself from falling. The branch slapped Hephaestus on his neck, startling the poor tired beast and sending him off through the trees at a run while Roland fell heavily to the ground.
* * *
“There’s something in the water over here!” one of the soldiers from Dunborough cried two days after Audrey’s body had been discovered. Gerrard and his men had come miles on horseback, dismounting and searching the verge and underbrush for any sign of a horse or man leaving the road. The eagle-eyed Hedley had recently spotted some broken branches, as if a man or horse had pushed through. They’d found the horse not too far from the road, and then moved toward the river.
Gerrard ran toward Hedley, who was trying to pull something to the bank with his sword.
“It’s a body, caught on a log,” he said as Gerrard skittered to a halt beside him.
Gerrard recognized the cloth swirling about the lower limbs, and the man’s hair. “It’s Duncan.”
He spoke coldly, without pity, for he would never forgive or forget what this man had done to Audrey.
After some of the other men helped pull the body from the water, Hedley crouched and pulled the Scot’s tunic up to reveal a deep wound. “That’s what killed him, I’ll wager, not drowning.”
“Then how did he wind up in the water?” Gerrard asked aloud.
A few yards farther along the bank, another soldier was examining the drier ground beneath a willow tree. “There are footprints here!” he called out.
Gerrard jogged closer and examined the footprints and the riverbank. “Looks like only one man,” he noted. “Hedley, bring me one of Duncan’s boots!”
It took a few moments to work the boot off the dead man’s foot. Once it was done, Gerrard took the sodden boot and fitted it into the footprints that had been protected from the rain by the thickly intertwined, leafless willow branches.
The boot fit.
“He might have been trying to get a drink,” Hedley suggested.
“Maybe,” Gerrard replied. He looked again at the ground, closer to the water. There were no indentations from a man’s knees and there would have been if he’d knelt to take a drink.
Perhaps, severely wounded, Duncan had fallen in before he’d gotten to his knees.
“A horse! Sir Roland’s horse!” another soldier shouted.
Only his horse?
His heart thudding with dread, Gerrard raced toward the soldier who’d caught hold of Hephaestus’s reins. The beast was clearly tired, and he still wore a saddle.
Roland’s saddle.
There was blood on it, and on Hephaestus, too.
Chapter Fourteen
Five days after her father died, Mavis awoke from her uneasy slumber to find Tamsin seated on a stool beside the bed, a smile on her lips and worry in her eyes.
“What’s happened?” Mavis demanded, sitting up.
“I only wanted to see how you were this morning, before you get too busy with your household duties. I miss the chats we used to have.” Tamsin’s frown deepened. “Perhaps you should stay in bed awhile longer. No one will blame you if you do.”
“I can’t. I have too much to do,” Mavis said, rising and fighting the little wave of nausea of the sort she’d been experiencing the past few days. Trying to make light of her cousin’s concern, she smiled and said, “You were never one to rest when you were in charge of the household.”
“I wasn’t with child then,” Tamsin replied.
Mavis wanted to deny that she was expecting, to wait until she was more certain, but looking at Tamsin’s loving, sympathetic face, she couldn’t. Not outright. “It’s too early to be completely sure.”
“Yet you suspect?”
Mavis nodded.
“And still Roland didn’t travel with you?”
“We didn’t know how ill my father was, and he has much to do at Dunborough,” Mavis replied, heading toward the washstand.
Her cousin followed her. “That is no excuse. There must be others he could leave in charge—the steward and one of his senior soldiers.”
Mavis didn’t want to confess all her troubles to her cousin, as if she was still a child. “I’ve been happy with Roland. Very happy. He’s quiet, of course, and stern with his men, but my first impression was right. There is a good, kind man behind that cold, grave visage. And when we were alone...” She flushed. “It’s been wonderful.”
“But something has gone wrong,” Tamsin persisted. “You told me of the servant you dismissed. Are there others who are lazy or disrespectful?”
“No.”
“I’m glad to hear it!” Tamsin hesitated a moment, then said, “You mentioned the steward.”
“Dalfrid. I don’t like or trust him. Neither does Roland, and he’ll be dismissed as soon as Roland’s learned what he needs to know about the estate finances. So you see, Roland wouldn’t want to leave him in charge.”
Tamsin took her cousin’s hands in hers and her worried gaze searched Mavis’s face. “I fear something more is wrong between you, Mavis. Something serious. Please, won’t you tell me? Won’t you share your troubles with me, as you used to do? It’s no weakness to share your burdens with someone who loves you.”
Mavis had been strong for days, but as Tamsin looked at her with such loving concern, the walls of her defenses began to crumble. “There’s a woman in the village, Audrey D’Orleau, the heiress of a wealthy merchant. Apparently everyone in Dunborough thought Roland would marry her, including Audrey.”
“And Roland?”
“He denies that was ever in his mind. He says all Audrey wants is a title, not him.”
“Do you believe him?”
Mavis looked away and searched her heart, seeking the answer to that question, one that had been troubling her for days and no matter how she tried to ignore it. He was so handsome, so powerful, so confident, how could it be that no other woman had sought him?
Yet as she thought of his firm denials and the look in his dark eyes, as she remembered how he’d made love to her, and all the things he’d said, she realized what the answer was. What it should have been all along, and she wished he was here to tell him so. “Yes, I do.”
Tamsin’s frown deepened. “Yet there is something more?”
While her pride told her to say she could deal with her husband’s brother, her heart demanded honesty, so she answered with all of the frustration that she felt. “His brother.”
“Gerrard? Rheged calls him a charming wastrel and he told me that Roland and his brother often argue. They may be twins, but I gather they couldn’t b
e more different. That cannot be easy for you.”
“Argue? That’s far too tame a word. Gerrard seems to live to enrage Roland and Roland always rises to the bait. Rheged is right—they couldn’t be more different. Roland is honorable, respectable, dutiful and generous. Gerrard is a selfish, insolent rogue, and bitter because he didn’t inherit Dunborough, although he’s not fit to rule anything. He even claimed that Roland married me just to somehow beat him, or make him jealous.”
Tamsin’s eyes widened. “Do you think that’s—”
“I don’t want to believe it. I don’t want to believe anything Gerrard says. And then the last time that they argued, they came to blows like two wild animals. I made them stop and pleaded with Roland to give Gerrard money so he would leave. Unfortunately, there isn’t as much in the coffers as we thought. But even if there was, if Gerrard doesn’t choose to go, Roland won’t make him, although I told Roland I might be with child and how much I craved a peaceful household. And then we got the letter from my father and Roland refused to let me come back.”
“He...what?”
Mavis had gone this far. She would tell Tamsin everything. “As you can see, I came regardless and he didn’t actually try to stop me. In spite of what he said, there was an escort waiting to go with me.” Mavis sat on the stool in front of the dressing table and regarded her cousin with dismay. “Oh, Tamsin, I’m not sure what to do, what to think. I fear I’ll never understand my husband, or know how he really feels. I’m afraid Gerrard spoke truly, and I’ll never mean as much to Roland as I believed I would. I’m worried that he’ll overlook and ignore me, just like my father did. When I thought—hoped—it would be different with Roland.”
She went further still, to a place deep in her heart, and confessed the truth that she had not admitted even to herself. “Most of all, Tamsin, I’m afraid he’ll never love me, not as I love him.”
Tamsin’s expression became even more sympathetic. “You love him?”
Mavis nodded. “I think I’ve loved him from the first time I saw him in the stable here. I was going to run away and got to the stable, but he was there. He’d just arrived, and he was talking to his horse.”
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