by Kris Tualla
“Might I have a moment with ye, Drew?” Grier asked when the last of the food was consumed and the last of the wine, drunk.
His grin was self-assured. “Of course, my lady.”
Logan stood and moved toward the door. “Come on, Rydar. Let’s go into the Hall, aye?”
“Aye.” Rydar straightened slowly, as though he wished to remain. He paused and considered Grier so intently that she almost hurled herself into his arms. Before she could think of what to say to him, he twisted around and followed Logan from the room, closing the door solidly after him.
Drew rounded the table. He lifted Grier to her feet and his lips met hers in a dominating kiss. She allowed it, but she was strangely distant. She found herself thinking about how Drew kissed, rather than being drawn into him.
She found herself comparing his kisses to Rydar’s.
Drew’s lips released hers and he leaned back. His changeable eyes were dark and smoky; his expression, tender and confident. “My lady, do I hope for your favor?”
“Well…” Grier faltered.
A shadow of disbelief flickered over his face. “Grier?”
Grier took a protective step back. “Drew.”
“Aye?”
“I am sae flattered by the confidence you’ve shown in me,” she began. “I truly am.”
Black brows formed rank. “But?”
She lifted her chin. “But I shall have to decline.”
“What!”
“I can no’ go with ye to Stirling. I’m sorry, Drew.”
Closing the gap between them, he stroked her cheek with the knuckles of two long fingers. “What is it, Grier? Do ye require more time?”
“Time?” she repeatedly blankly.
“I ken it’s a very big decision to leave your home sae suddenly.” His voice rumbled softly like the constant waves on her chyngell. “Ye were no’ prepared.”
“That is true, Drew. I was no’ prepared for your proposal,” she deferred. “But—”
Drew silenced her with another kiss. He tasted of wine. Grier waited patiently until he ended the kiss and said, “Your offer was quite generous—”
“Aye,” he whispered against her cheek.
“—yet it’s no’ the sort of life I desire,” she finished the sentence.
“Do ye desire me, Grier?” he breathed. His fingers moved up her back and tangled against her scalp. It gave her gooseflesh. She pulled a slight gasp.
“You’re a desirable man, Drew. There’s no argument to that.”
“Many women at court have vied for my favors.” He held her gaze. “It’s no’ a boast. ‘Tis the truth. But ye’ve captured my imagination, Grier.”
She swallowed nervously. This was harder than she expected and in so many ways. “I have?”
“Aye, like no other woman afore ye.” Drew nuzzled her neck with a warm kiss that sent tremors skating along her spine. “I desire you, Grier MacInnes.”
Grier shrugged away from him. “I—I can no’ go with you, Drew,” she repeated, her resolve under siege but still firmly in place. “I am flattered, and I’m sorry as well.”
He straightened and glared down at her, tense and intimidating. “If ye turn me down, Grier, the offer will no’ be repeated.”
She nodded slightly. “As I would expect.”
His manner eased. “Have ye any idea what ye’re about, my lady?”
In spite of everything, she was beginning to doubt her own wisdom. “I believe… I do.”
“Is that your final answer, then?”
For a heart-twisting moment, Grier wondered if she had indeed gone quite daft. Another offer from a handsome knight and wealthy courtier would not come her way again. She was tossing it off in the slim hope that a Norseman—acquainted with her for only two months—loved her and would take her with him to an unknown land and an uncertain future.
Yet she was compelled to take that chance. Rydar owned her heart completely and she must follow it. She straightened as well, refusing to cower.
“Aye, Drew. It is.”
***
When Rydar left the formal dining room, he didn’t follow Logan to the Hall. Instead, he stomped through the kitchen and out the back door of the keep. He loped across the yard and through the gate, over the bridge, and along the bluff. He stretched his stride and ran as hard as he could until his chest burned and his legs threatened to drop him to the ground. He slowed to a limping walk and threw an angry look over the bay.
“What the hell do I do now?” he shouted.
The waves scolded in unrelenting rhythm: go back. Go back. Go back!
Rydar spun and marched angrily in the direction from which he’d come. I suppose I shall have to go this way at some point anyway, he reasoned.
What was going on between Grier and the knight? The man was obviously courting her. Perhaps he had already made her an offer. Perhaps he had already spoken with Logan. Perhaps she was considering accepting him. After all, she had no other offers, had she?
Was he too late to proclaim his love?
Rydar panted his way back through the kitchen door, drawing puzzled looks from Moira and her mother. They paused in the washing of the evening’s dishes and stared at him.
“Are ye well, Sir Hansen?” Moira ventured.
“Aye. Grier?”
“She’s in the dining room with Lord Andrew.”
Skitt. “Logan?”
Moira glanced at her mother, eyes wide. “I dinna ken.”
Rydar snorted his frustration and went in search. He found Logan still in the Great Hall, staring into the fireplace. He held a goblet and swallowed a long drink.
“Logan?” Rydar approached the younger man.
“There ye are. Were ye at the privy?” Logan gestured with the goblet. “Wine?”
Rydar shook his head. The door to the dining room slammed open and the deep clack of boot heels approached. Lord Andrew paused in the doorway and shot Logan with an angry glare.
“I’ll leave on the morrow!” he grumbled. Then he threw open the front door to the keep and exited without closing it.
Rydar stared after the man, exceedingly relieved at the sudden declamation, but puzzled as to what precipitated it. Logan walked past him to close the keep’s door. The look on his face was odd.
“What is amiss?” Rydar asked. Before Logan could answer, Grier ran to the staircase. Rydar leapt after her.
“Grier! Wait!” he shouted.
She was halfway up the stairs. She stopped and looked over her shoulder. “No’ now, Rydar. I can no’ talk to you just now. I’m sorry…”
Her voice tripped over a loud sob. She slapped a hand over her mouth and her blue eyes spilled, wetting her flushed cheeks. She spun and rushed up the steps. The door to her chamber slammed shut.
Rydar turned to Logan, immediately deciding that if the younger man didn’t tell him what had transpired, he would beat him until he did. “Logan! What is amiss!”
Logan’s shoulders sagged. “Come have a glass of wine. I’ll tell you all I ken.” He walked back into the Hall.
Rydar followed, his heart bashing with dread. Over two gulped glasses of wine, that dread took ominous shape as Logan explained that Lord Andrew offered Grier a position at King David’s court. A marriage between the two of them was to follow shortly. Rydar fought to appear calm knowing that either his worst nightmare or his greatest hope would be revealed with Logan’s response to his next query.
“What she say?”
Logan pulled a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Grier declined the offer.”
“Declined?” Rydar demanded. “What means ‘declined’?”
Logan paused, surprised. “It means she turned him down.” When Rydar frowned and shook his head, he added, “She said no.”
Rydar’s knees gave way and he sank onto the closest chair. “No? She say ‘no’ to Lord Andrew?”
“Aye.” One corner of Logan’s mouth quirked. “It appears he was none too pleased!”
“Why?”
Rydar barked. “She say you why?”
“Aye.” Then Logan’s expression clouded over like the sky above the North Sea.
“Why?”
Logan refilled his goblet and held the jug toward Rydar. He wagged his head and waited. One obstacle was removed: Grier had refused Lord Andrew. But he had to know why. Dare he hope her reason had anything to do with him? Please let it be so.
“Logan! Why?” Rydar pressed, hard.
Logan’s voice was soft and the words he delivered were a quiet irrevocable death. “She said she was no’ willing to leave Durness.”
The room flattened, gone colorless like a woodcut print. Rydar knew his heart still beat. He knew his lungs filled with air and expelled it only to repeat the process. His eyes still saw and his ears still heard. But he couldn’t feel anything.
Because Grier was not willing to leave Durness. Not even for marriage to a handsome, wealthy and powerful knight. Not even to be a member in King-David-of-Scotland’s royal court. Not even for the chance to live in a true castle with other lords and ladies with titles and wealth and position.
So what chance did he have?
Because Grier was not willing to leave Durness. Especially to sail the North Sea in a small fishing boat. With three young men and one penniless thirty-year-old who—probably disinherited—had nothing of substance to offer her. To leave the safety of the only home she had ever known, and the only family she had remaining, for an uncertain future in a strange land with an unfamiliar language.
All Rydar could offer her were possible poverty, no assured position and a guaranteed struggle. What capable woman with a fine, quick mind would even consider such a bargain? Not one who turned her back on a desirable and powerful knight, that much was certain.
Grier was not willing to leave Durness.
Rydar set his wine goblet on the closest flat surface, stood on numbed legs, and stumbled from the keep without uttering another word.
July 17, 1354
“One. Two. Three!”
The sixteen men roped to Rydar’s boat strained forward, dragging the heavy craft across the sand. They paused to rest, then readied again.
“One. Two. Three!”
Rydar’s deep voice was loud enough to reach Grier, who watched from a distance. Faces reddened and muscled bulged. Feet sunk into sand.
“One. Two. Three!”
They reached the waves’ closest edge.
“One. Two. Three!”
The bow was in the surf. Men dropped their towropes, then splashed and stumbled to either side of the rudder to push.
“One. Two. Three!”
Surging breakers grabbed the hull and lured it into their grasp.
“One. Two. Three!”
The boat began to dance. Rydar, Gavin and Kristofer scrambled up the ropes and heaved themselves onto the deck. They twirled the sail to catch the wind and the craft slammed deeper into the waves, diving through foamy peaks and reaching for the open sea. A guttural shout of joy burst from the men on board. They waved frantically at the crowd on the chyngell, who waved back, grinning.
Rydar took the rudder and Gavin the sail. Kristofer ducked into one of the tiny cabins before reappearing and dropping below the deck.
That must be where Lars is, Grier thought. She rubbed her eyes, scratchy and dry from a night spent sleepless and crying. She didn’t think Rydar had noticed she was there. That was just as well. Her red, swollen eyes were underscored with dark smudges. She looked a mess.
Grier hoped to ask him what it was he wanted to talk to her about last night on the stairs, but she found him far too busy for her to interrupt. And now that the boat was launched for testing, he would be gone for hours. No need for the basket of food now.
She turned Raven back toward the castle.
Lord Andrew was much more distraught by yester eve’s refusal than she would have expected. Recalling it now prompted another round of stinging tears. She wiped them on her sleeve.
Drew had wiped a tear, too, though she pretended not to notice. Grier wasn’t sure whether it was his heart or his pride that was more wounded, but truly wounded he was. When she tried to leave the dining room, he nearly begged her to reconsider, offering to remain in Durness to give her the chance. When she declined him yet again, he shot her a look of such desperation that she nearly relented just to give him ease. She had never in her life hurt anyone in such a manner.
Then he pushed past her, chucked the dining room door open and strode away from her, irrevocably severing her opportunity. She heard the pain in his voice when he told Logan he would leave in the morning. She imagined how he might spend his last night here, trying to forget the impudent elderly maid who dared to refuse him, a powerful courtier knight of their King.
When Grier left the dining room to seek refuge in her chamber, she didn’t expect Rydar to be waiting for her. She couldn’t speak to him. Her composure was unraveling like yarn and tangling her emotions. It was all she could manage to see beyond her tears and not trip on the stairs.
All through the pale night hours, logic tortured Grier. The offer from Drew was truly astonishing. She never heard of anyone who was handed such an enviable prospect. And the man himself was handsome and his behavior above reproach. Marriage to him would most certainly be an adventure. She might even grow to love him, in time. The knight was everything a maid dreamt of and pretended over through her adolescence.
Had she been a fool?
When she heard Drew return to his room, many hours into the night, Grier silently opened her door and approached the master chamber. Her trembling hand reached out to knock, but retreated. She stood outside his door on the wood floor, her bare toes curled, her arms wrapped around the waist of the cloak she threw over her shift. The knight was indeed, everything.
Everything but Rydar.
Grier tiptoed quickly to Rydar’s chamber, suddenly afraid Drew might open the portal and discover her standing there. Rydar’s door gaped. He had apparently returned to sleep on his boat yet again. Dim light from the summer sky snuck through the open window. It was more than enough to see by.
The room was neat. Though he had scant few items to call his own, what he had was folded and orderly arranged. She saw the copper tub and realized he had smelled of soap at supper. She was so distracted by her pending conversation with Drew, she hadn’t noticed. Why had he bathed tonight? Did it have anything to do with what he wanted to tell her? Or perhaps ask her?
Grier melted onto Rydar’s bed. A certainty descended over her, draping her in serenity. She had been right to decline Lord Andrew’s proposal. The way she felt about Rydar precluded her feelings for any other man.
She rolled onto her side and let her gaze inhale the details that reflected the man. In them she saw quiet, unfailing and undeniable courage. Rydar faced even more adversity than she had, and yet he remained unbowed. Throughout the challenges of loss, language, and living on charity he acted with unwavering dignity. He rose triumphant. His goal was within his reach.
And that was more impressive to her than all the jeweled weaponry and velvet trappings of the royal knight.
Climbing from Rydar’s bed, Grier straightened his covers. She padded back into her own chamber and latched her door. The sky was changing from pale lavender to pink. When the sky was golden orange, Lord Andrew’s door latch opened. His footfalls clunked down the stairs. Grier listened until he was gone. She had not slept at all.
Now she was so exhausted, she was in danger of falling as Raven plodded home through the hazy, humid summer day. Without their royal guest, her daily life would return to its previous simplicity. For three days.
“Then Malise will be the lady,” she muttered. Her head pounded with her pulse and all she could think of was her bed. She couldn’t think of what would happen on the fourth day when Rydar set sail for Norway. Another unwelcome wash of tears flowed down her cheeks.
Grier told Moira she wasn’t feeling at all well and instructed the maid not to wake her, not for any re
ason. She stripped and climbed under her cool sheets. Lying on her back, she covered her eyes with her pillow to block the watery afternoon sun outside her window. Grier felt for her crucifix.
Please, God, let him ask me to go with him.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Rydar returned to the keep in a foul mood. First off, Grier came to the chyngell today for the first time in nine days and Rydar had managed not to think about her at all for almost a full hour before he saw her there. Her ginger hair blew around her shoulders like russet angel’s wings as she sat astride Raven. The vision made his ravaged heart beat hopefully again.
She didn’t approach him, but he couldn’t blame her. He was in the midst of sixteen men who were tugging his boat into the sea. He was shouting directions and orders, and once the vessel began to slide forward he daren’t stop them so he could quickly declare his love to the maid, and then run back to the boat.
And then the water took his boat and tickled her, and Rydar had to tame her. He leapt to the rudder and Gavin to the sail, and their maiden voyage around the bay commenced. The craft responded well as Rydar learned the feel of her. He was very pleased. Until Kristofer shouted to him from the compartment below.
She was leaking.
Not badly; she wouldn’t sink overnight. But three years of sitting dry had allowed a batch of tiny fissures in the hull. And that flaw was enough to multiply Rydar’s frustrations by tenfold. Now the boat waited, leashed like a disobedient mutt to the small pier that tethered Durness’ fishing boats, until Rydar could begin to repair the cracks.
Tonight, however, he was determined to talk to Grier, no matter what—or who—was tossed in his path. He washed himself and put on a clean shirt, then went looking for her. He only found Moira.
“Where Lady Grier is?” he asked politely.
“Sleeping.” That answer wasn’t satisfactory, so Rydar followed the maid into the kitchen.