He seized her arm and pulled her tight against him once more.
She gasped and tried to break free, but to no avail.
"Some people deserve such judgment." He yanked her across the courtyard. His people scattered as he approached, then fell in behind him, their curiosity evident.
They came to a halt in the churchyard, before several freshly turned graves. He released her for a moment and drew the sword from his back.
Rhiannon flinched back as he drove the blade not into her, but into the ground at her feet. "Is that your family's crest upon that sword?"
She swallowed roughly as she recognized her father's sword. "Aye."
"Dougall Ruthven. Who is he to you?"
"My oldest brother."
"All of these men died at the hands of your kin." Before the horrific image could sink into her soul, he grasped her arm and jerked her to the right, to stand before the freshly turned soil of another grave. Beside that grave lay a body, wrapped in sheets of linen.
He pulled her down to her knees beside the concealed body. "I have every right to judge you, and any Ruthven, by name alone when it is your family who has murdered my own." Kneeling beside her, he grasped her chin, forcing her gaze to the fresh grave. "My brother was disemboweled by your kin."
Hot tears sprang to Rhiannon's eyes.
"And this," he said, forcing her chin toward the wrapped body. With his free hand, he pulled back the white cloth to reveal the even whiter face of a female whose face was frozen as though in a mask of pain bored into her own, accusing her, damning her, as Lord Lockhart did. "This is my sister-in-law, Lady Violet's mother, who was left unprotected because of your kin's actions. In the absence of anyone to defend her, she was charged with witchcraft and hanged."
Rhiannon squeezed her eyes shut, blocking the sight of such horror from her vision, but the images would stay with her always. The pain and desperation she could hear in Lord Lockhart's words would haunt her all of her days.
And his treatment of her… A sob escaped her. Would she never be free of abuse? Her father? Her brothers? This man? "Milord, I am sorry for your loss." She brought her gaze back to his. His face hardened to a mask of freezing rage.
Beneath the chill of his scrutiny, Rhiannon continued. "That my kin had any part in either of their deaths grieves me most desperately." On limbs that trembled violently she stood, praying her legs would support her. "But I am not my family, milord." She nearly crumpled to the ground once more at the hatred mirrored in his eyes.
"Regardless of my name, I have been appointed as Lady Violet's nursemaid by Mother Agnes. Until a suitable replacement can be found, I must remain with my charge as instructed by the abbess."
His contemptuous gaze raked her.
"That girl has already lost everything. Don't take me away from her as well." With all the courage she could muster, Rhiannon straightened and met his hard gaze. "Hate me, milord. Despise my family, but don't make Lady Violet suffer for it."
His jaw clenched in anger, Camden watched the woman stride away, her head held high, toward his keep. He could force her to go. Even if the abbess had designated her as Violet's governess, he was the child's uncle. His gaze dipped to Clara's pale, delicate face frozen in death. He was Violet's guardian. And, with a final glance at James' freshly turned grave, he reminded himself that he was also the leader of the Lockhart clan.
Camden sought out Orrin in the crowd around the graves. "Get the men to dig a grave for Lady Lockhart. Call me when you are done. It will be dark soon."
"What about the woman?" Orrin asked.
A Ruthven female? He'd had no idea any daughters had been born to Malcolm Ruthven. Or he never would have given the order that sentenced her to death. "What have I done?" His words jolted him into action. "Secure the portcullis and close the gates. No one enters without my permission," he instructed the gatekeeper. "Double the guards at their posts."
The grinding of the iron chains filled the air as the heavy portcullis slipped back into place. When the heavy doors closed a moment later, relief surged though Camden. Yet even with the castle secure, unease settled in the pit of his stomach.
Camden had sentenced all the Ruthvens to death. All of them. And if the attack on the ridge told him anything, it was that the assassin he'd hired knew more about the Ruthven family than he himself did.
A woman? With a curse, Camden ran a hand through his hair. He had never considered the possibility.
Camden found her in the great hall next to the hearth. Rhiannon stood off to the side, staring into the flames while the others went about their evening duties. She twisted in her hands the lace cap she'd worn earlier. Thick, luxurious waves of gold cascaded across her shoulders — shoulders that dipped with the weight of her burdens. She looked as vulnerable as a child. All of her previous bravado had vanished.
In the moments since he'd discovered who she was, his temper had cooled. An inexplicable irritation took its place. He was partly to blame for how discomfited she appeared now. He shouldn't have thrust James's and Clara's deaths in her face. Simply being a Ruthven didn't mean that she'd killed them.
Even so, it was difficult to accept that his enemy's spawn stood before his hearth. He balled his fists, fighting his own revulsion.
She cast a glance sideways and he could see by the redness surrounding her eyes that she'd been crying.
She looked away. "I must apologize. I had no right to talk to you that way. You are lord and master here, and regardless of what Mother Agnes has said, you are in charge of your niece. I shall leave immediately."
She faced him. Backlit by the fire, her blond hair turned to burnished gold, and a delicate pink tinted the pale ivory of her cheeks. Something inside him stirred. Irritated at his response, he bristled.
She paled and swallowed thickly, no doubt fearing what he would do to her now. "Before I go I must deliver something." She reached into the folds of her gray gown and produced a small packet, wrapped with linen. "Mother Agnes asked me to deliver this parcel safely into your hands." She pressed the packet against his fingers. "I am so very sorry to have troubled you."
She took two steps from the fire when Violet raced across the room and wrapped herself around Rhiannon's legs. "No, Rhiannon, you can't leave me," she wailed.
Rhiannon's amber eyes widened with surprise. She stared down at Violet and drew a shaky breath. "That decision is not up to you or me." With trembling fingers, she patted his niece's head. "I am sorry, Violet."
Violet's blue eyes, eyes so like his own, brimmed with tears. "Uncle Camden, you can't make her leave. Please. I want her here."
"You are with me now, Violet. Nothing will hurt you as long as I am here."
"That's what father said…" Tears spilled onto her cheeks in twin ribbons of sorrow. Camden clutched the parcel in his hand, battling his own grief.
"You will be safe, I swear it with all my heart," Camden vowed with a catch in his voice. Violet continued to sob softly against Rhiannon's body.
Two women. One melted his heart, the other fired his anger.
He would like nothing better than to toss Rhiannon Ruthven out of his castle and out of his life. But how could he when he knew an assassin lay in wait? An assassin he had unleashed. "She can stay for now," he said more harshly than he had intended. Both Violet and Rhiannon startled at his response, fear in their eyes. "Show her to the room next to yours, Violet."
The girl nodded, her face still wreathed in grief. She grasped Rhiannon's hand and tugged her toward the stairway that led to the castle's private sleeping chambers.
What had the world come to? In the past two days his life had been turned upside down. He had gone from a warrior who protected his country to a warrior who now protected his enemy.
Camden balled his fists, suddenly remembering the packet in his right hand. He unwound the linen wrapping to reveal a silver coin held by a chain. Set into the center of the groat, the legendary Charm Stone glistened brilliantly, catching the light from the fire.
The reason Clara was dead. Camden tensed at the thought. His sister-in-law had accepted her role as healer to the Lockhart clan or anyone who came in search of her talents.
It was those very same skills and this stone that had brought Clara to the hangman's noose. A witch? Not Clara. She was merely a caring and loving woman who'd often put the needs of others above her own.
Clara had died, yet the Charm Stone remained — the very stone Bishop Berwick had demanded at Lockhart Castle. Camden frowned as he smoothed his thumb over the bloodred stone. It warmed beneath his touch. How had the healing stone gone from Clara's possession into the hands of Rhiannon Ruthven? What was her connection to all of this? What events had transpired that placed her in charge of his niece's care?
He tightened his fist around the stone. He would have answers and determine what to do with the Ruthven girl before his niece grew any more attached to her.
But before any questions could be answered, he had to try to stop what he had begun. One task remained yet undone. Before he could leave, he had to hide the stone.
Alone in the chapel, Camden unfurled his fist, exposing the Charm Stone. The small coin in his hand glistened beneath the silvery moonlight that shown through all four tall and narrow windows near the altar. The stone in the center winked, bloodred.
Camden closed his hand around the stone. Forty-six years ago Camden's father had taken ownership of the Stone from an emir's mother in the Holy Land, a drop of their blood had sealed the transfer of power. And since then, the Lockhart blood spilled for the Stone seemed never to end. James and Clara were proof of that.
They had needed him to protect them. Instead, Camden had been gone fighting for a king he had been a subject to for only three years—the three years he'd been back in Scotland. Memory sparked as he stared at the Stone.
Nothing but black surrounded him. How long had he been pitched in darkness with nothing to eat and only sips of water offered twice throughout the days — days that melded one into the next as he sat on the dusty floor of his prison cell.
Camden lifted his hand to wipe the trickles of sweat from his forehead only to find his arms were shackled to the stone wall at his back. Drawing a deep breath of the heavy humid air, he turned his head slowly to the side. Orrin lay there. So still. Yet, in the silence he could hear the soft rumble of Orrin's breathing. Only sleeping. At least Orrin had found respite from the horrors they'd had to endure.
Why weren't they killed? Both he and Orrin would have preferred death to the humiliation they'd suffered. They'd been stripped bare by their captors, forced to march down the center of the marketplace where their ears were nailed to the gallows, then they'd been pelted with rotten fruit.
It was not a warrior's end.
The more their captors tried to humiliate the "pale young Christians" the more defiant both he and Orrin had become. They had nothing to lose.
The unthinkable had happened. A Saracen holy man had purchased them from the gallows. The moment their ears were freed from the tortuous prison, they attempted escape, challenging the holy man's guards for their swords. Their revolt had nearly succeeded. A bold act that landed them both here in the darkness of hell, waiting for respite, or if they were lucky, death.
Camden leaned his head back against the wall and tried to think of home, of the sweet, rolling meadows of heather, of the soft morning mist, of the family he had not bidden good-bye.
Would he spend the rest of his days in this inferno of dust and sand? His head lolled to the side once more. At least he had Orrin. Perhaps he could bear the loss of everything else — Scotland, freedom, his family — as long as he had Orrin by his side. They'd been friends forever. And it looked as though they would die together as well.
No sooner had he finished the thought when the door of their prison cell creaked open. Camden shielded his eyes against the sharp sting of light. A moment later he turned his gaze back to the intruder to see a billow of white robes that stopped at his feet.
"My pale ones. Have you had enough of these dark days?"
Camden tried to tell the intruder to go to hell, but the dryness in his throat prevented him from releasing more than a soft choke.
The man bent down in front of Camden, just out of reach. "You are both determined fighters." He stroked his long black beard. "I have had a vision from Allah about you both. He showed me that through you I can attain untold riches — wealth I can use to drive foreigners from our lands forever. Because of that vision I have decided to make you a bargain."
Camden nudged Orrin, who startled and bolted upright, swinging his arms, only to feel the bite of the irons against his wrists. "Argh!" A moment later, he froze. "What do you want?" he asked the man.
"You are both so young, yet strong in body and mind. I would regret killing you this day. But know that I will if you refuse the offer I am about to make."
Camden's gaze met Orrin's. He cleared his throat. "We are listening," he croaked.
"I am known as Shaykh Haashim." He bowed his turbaned head in greeting. "I am a holy man to my people — a people who are often at war with our neighbors and with those seeking to possess the Holy Land."
"What does that have to do with us?" Orrin asked.
The man smiled a terrible smile that did not quite reach his eyes. "Since you both have proven to me your skills as fighters, I am offering you a chance to put those skills to use."
"Why would we fight for you?" Camden did not hide the anger in his voice.
"Because we will make an agreement. Fight for me for the next seven years, take one-fourth of any spoils that have been gained to divide between you, and when your terms of service are through, I will set you free."
Camden's gaze flew to Orrin's. Hope leapt into his friend's tired gaze. "Seven years?" Camden repeated. At the age of nineteen, they could return to their own country, their families. Unless they died here first.
Hope collided with reality. And in that moment, Camden knew they could not refuse. To refuse meant death. Acceptance would at least give them hope. "We will fight for you. Become Saracens for seven years." And in that time, they would have to become the best warriors this part of the world had ever seen if they were to survive.
They had survived. They had returned wealthy men. Camden clutched the family relic in his hand. It had too survived the Holy Land.
Since his father's time, the Stone had become a Lockhart legacy. Only Lockharts through birth or marriage could use it to heal. As much as he respected what the Stone could do, a part of him hated the reminder of where he had spent so much of his life.
His memory of times past faded, and Camden became chillingly aware of the filtered darkness surrounding him, the smell of incense that lingered from past ceremonies. They would light the incense again, for James and for Clara, sending them both on their journey to the beyond.
He tightened his jaw. Damn his king for keeping him from his family when they had needed him. And damn the Ruthvens for James's and Clara's demise. In a few short days, he had lost everything of importance in his life. Frustration — acid hot, bile bitter — tore through him.
No more. What remained of his family and the residents of his castle would come first from this moment on. He would protect Violet and the others with his dying breath if need be. If there was one thing he had learned in the seven years he'd spent away from Scotland, it was how to fight. But whom would he defend them from? Who posed the biggest threat? Was it the English invaders? Demands from his own king? The remaining Ruthvens? Or Bishop Berwick?
The bishop had demanded the Stone from him at Lockhart Castle. How had the man learned that James and Clara were its keepers? Had someone betrayed them, or had word of the healing miracles Clara performed with the use of the Stone reached beyond the local village? As word spread, so did the dangers of using the Stone. The bishop was proof of that. How far would the man go to obtain the relic? There was no doubt it could prove quite valuable. "Miraculous" cures would bri
ng pilgrims to his church and money to his coffers.
Camden unfurled his fist, revealing the Charm Stone once more. He had to keep it safe. And he knew just where to conceal something so precious.
Upstairs, Rhiannon entered her room with more fear than she'd experienced when she'd gone to Taturn Abbey seeking shelter, begging for entrance even though she had no dowry to support her. The abbess had accepted her, reluctantly. Just as Lord Lockhart had now allowed to her stay here with his niece.
Even though he'd agreed, she'd seen the resistance in the way he'd held his body. But it was his eyes that revealed his true emotion. He despised her. He would have kicked her out of the castle without hesitation if Violet had not interceded.
Should she stay regardless of his feelings? She had nowhere to go, and wasn't certain the abbess would take her back if she abandoned her charge.
Nothing felt natural to Rhiannon about caring for the little girl. She'd had no experience with children. And her own upbringing certainly was not a good example of how to treat a child. But Violet expected something from her — a soft word, a kind gesture. Even now, the little girl clung to her fingers. Rhiannon had to force herself to relax, to accept a physical connection that she'd seldom experienced before.
What did a nursemaid do exactly? She's never had one growing up. She'd learned how to act, speak, behave by mimicking the few women she'd come into contact with during her youth. She'd taught herself most of what she knew through sheer determination. She was hardly nursemaid material.
You can do this, she said to herself as she took up the burden of her new role. Her first task: to settle herself and Violet into their rooms.
Rhiannon closed her eyes and drew a steadying breath, preparing herself to gaze upon the most humble room in the castle. A Ruthven deserved no better than a lice-ridden mattress in a dark and dank room.
She opened her eyes and gasped.
"This is my favorite room in the castle. Uncle Camden brought all of these things back with him after he—" Violet's cheeks turned a deep shade of red. "He probably wouldn't like me talking about it. Do you like it?" Violet asked.
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