by Lois Greiman
“Evil.”
For a moment, Catriona could not speak, so intense were her feelings, but finally she found her voice. “Evil? The evil? Are you certain?”
” ‘Twas directed toward the lad.”
“James?” Catriona gripped the old woman’s sleeve in fingers numb with emotion.
“Aye.”
“Who was it?” Cat asked, barely able to force out the words for the tightness of her throat.
She felt more than saw Marta shake her head. “I do not know, lass. I could not tell.”
“But—” Frustration screamed through her. “Nay! You must know. Was it someone near to the king? Was it—”
“In truth, lass, there could be many who hate the lad. ‘Tis the way of lower folk to be jealous of their betters.” The old woman’s voice sounded tired even beyond her venerable years. “I do not know for certain if it was the one for whom we search.”
“But it must be.” Cat tightened her fingers in her grandmother’s sleeve, her desperation so intense she could barely speak. “It must be. He has to be here. He said he would know if I told anyone his secret. He said he would immediately know… and that Lachlan would suffer.” She forced herself past the fear. “Thus he must be close at hand.”
“Perhaps he lied. Perhaps he would not know, but only told you that to make certain you did not give him away.”
Catriona had thought of that, of course. Indeed, she had lain awake countless nights trying to determine how to outmaneuver the one she called Blackheart. The one who had stood in the darkness like an apparition and set forth his horrid demands. She had wrestled it every which way and still had no answer. Maybe Grandmother was right. Maybe there was no need to bear this pain alone.
Sir Hawk’s sharp features flashed through her mind. “Shall I seek help?” she whispered.
“I do not know.” Grandmother’s voice, which had seemed old before, sounded ancient now. “Indeed, lass, I cannot feel that far.”
Despair burned Cat like a hot poker. “Then there is no hope.”
” ‘Tis not so,” Grandmother said, turning her gnarled hand to grip Cat’s arm. “There is every hope.”
“He is alive?”
“He is alive and he awaits your arrival,” Grandmother rasped. “That much I know.”
“Then we shall get him back?”
“Aye. We shall.”
Drawing a deep breath, Cat turned and helped her grandmother toward the bed. Once seated there, they spoke again in hushed tones.
“Tell me now,” Cat began. “Tell me all you know of the evil.”
Marta closed her eyes, though in the dimness, there seemed little need. “All day I have sat in the great hall and searched for feelings. But the feelings were overwhelming, everywhere at once. It took me some time to separate one from the other.”
“And?”
“And mostly it is passion.”
Catriona shook her head. “I do not—”
“Passion of every sort,” she said. “Lust, anger, hatred, adoration. ‘Twas disorienting and bewildering, but then you began your tale, and I felt the emotions recede a bit. Even then it took me some time to tell one man’s feelings from the rest, but finally I was able. None of the three men to your left was the one we call Blackheart. Of that I am certain.”
“The first three,” Cat mused, finding their faces in her mind. “The fellow with the spectacles. The guard called Cockerel. And the balding gentleman. ‘Twas none of them? You are certain?”
“Aye.”
“And the next two?”
“The fat fellow and the snaggle-toothed lad?”
Catriona nodded. Royal blood did not always produce a royal visage.
“The feelings were muddled there. But I do not think they held enmity for either you or the king. And after that…” She shrugged wearily. “I am old, Catty. When I was only ninety or so I would have known the culprit long days ago, but now…”
“Do not worry,” Cat said, though her own nerves were stretched taut. “Rest now in the quiet. On the morrow you can try again.” She rose.
“And you?”
“I wasted last night,” she said, guilt gnawing at her. “I meant to search once I was certain everyone was gone, but I fell asleep.”
“What do you mean when everyone was gone?” Marta asked. Even in the darkness, her gaze felt sharp.
Catriona turned rapidly away, remembering the feel of Haydan’s hands on her skin. “There was… there were noises. I knew there were people in the halls.” Turning quickly, she headed toward the door.
“Aye,” Marta said with her gaze steady on the back of Cat’s head. “There were people, and one raptor.”
For a moment Cat thought of arguing, or at least of pretending ignorance, but there would be little point. Grandmother might have little use for honesty, but she was always astute. Slipping to the door, Catriona listened for noises on the far side, but none caught her attention. She opened the door quietly.
“My lady.”
Cat all but shrieked as she jerked back into her room. “What are you doing here?”
“My apologies.” Galloway’s face reddened. “I had no intention of frightening you.”
“Then why are you lurking here?”
The lad’s color deepened. “Sir Hawk sent me. He told me to guard your door until dawn.”
“Why?”
“You are most…” His words stuttered off into silence. “That is to say, perhaps Sir Hawk feels that men might…”
She glared at him as frustration burned through her.
“He worries for your safety,” he finished.
Dear God, this couldn’t be. She had things to do. Dozens of rooms to search. There was no time to waste. But she drew a deep breath and did her best to calm her wild worries. “We have met before, have we not?” she asked. In truth, she remembered him well from the time outside Blackburn’s walls.
“Aye, lady.” She had not thought his complexion could redden any more, but he countered his blush by deepening his scowl. “I am called Galloway. I was the one who delayed you before you reached the castle.”
“Ah, yes.”
He straightened his back and tucked in his chin to stare straight ahead. “I did not know you were a friend of Sir Hawk’s. I should have made certain you had safe passage to Blackburn.”
“Regardless of what you think of me?”
His lips moved as if he tried to find a response, but she spoke before he did.
“You are not the first to dislike my kind,” she said. “Nor will you be the last.”
“I will guard you well and faithfully,” he vowed, earnestness clefting his brows and bunching his fists.
” ‘Tis not that I do not believe you,” she said. “Indeed, I appreciate your efforts. But the truth is this: I have no need for a guard. Hence, you are relieved of this tedious—”
“Sir Hawk said I am to stay beside your door, lady: last night, tonight, and every night so long as you are—”
“You were here last night?”
“Aye. I was here, though I was not called to this post until sometime after midnight.” Shifting his gaze uncomfortably to hers, he drew a careful breath. “Sir Hawk seemed… distraught.” He said the words as though it were a phenomenon never before imagined. “Was there some trouble?”
“Nay,” she said, remembering de la Faire’s sloppy advances, contrasted dramatically with Sir Hawk’s disturbing warmth. “Nay. All was well,” she said, and stepping quickly back, shut the door in his face.
She shifted her attention rapidly to the window. ‘Twould be a much more difficult task now, but she had little choice.
Morning dawned earlier every damned day.
Haydan sat up in his pallet and rolled his right shoulder in an effort to soothe the ache there. It did little good, so he rose to his feet and let the pain in his knee battle for supremacy. If one had enough wounds, it was too difficult to tell which to pity oneself for.
There was his medical phi
losophy in a nutshell. Perhaps it was good he hadn’t endeavored to become a physician.
It was his own fault that he ached, of course. He’d spent the entire previous day sitting a saddle in the rain, when there was no reason he couldn’t have sent a younger man to check the outlying garrisons.
No reason except for her.
He winced at the thought. Damnit all. His knee didn’t hurt nearly enough. Not enough to make him forget the sight of her—naked, in another man’s arms. But through no will of her own. He had wanted to kill the cocky Frenchman. Indeed, ‘twas only the tightest control that had kept him at bay.
And why? There was no reason for his overprotective instincts. Indeed, his second glance had assured him that she had no need of a hero, for she had held a dirk to the poor bastard’s balls. One quick movement and Lord de la Faire would have become… well… he would have become less troublesome.
Still, ‘twas not enough for Haydan to escort the drunken fool out of the maid’s bedchamber. No indeed. He had felt a need to knock him senseless then proceed to prove that he was no wiser than the fellow he had just tromped into unconsciousness.
Surely he was too old to be thinking with his wick. Hadn’t he realized by now that he had neither the strength nor the discipline to resist her?
He might be as old as black pepper and have battled a thousand wars, but that experience seemed to do him little good where she was concerned. She was like a nettle under his skin—forever niggling, forever worrying him. And why? She was only a woman. Little more than a girl, really.
True, her eyes were as mercurial as the weather and seemed to hold a thousand mysteries. And yes, her lips were the veiy definition of sensuality—full and lush and berry red. Her rich velvet skin had felt as smooth and cool as marble beneath his hand, and when she kissed him—
Enough!
Haydan swung irritably away from the window. What the hell was wrong with him? He was mooning over her like a lovestruck hound. He was too old to be a hound. He was the Hawk now—captain of the king’s royal guard, bold, disciplined and unflappable. But for a moment she had seemed so vulnerable. Soft and strangely sad, like a lost fairy princess…
He was doing it again!
Lowering his head, Haydan wearily scrubbed his face with dry hands. Even with all his years behind him he was not strong enough to resist her. Thus he had little choice but to avoid her.
King James deserved not only Haydan’s loyalty, but his absolute attention. He had no time to worry over a Gypsy lass who already had every young buck in the palace panting after her like a roe in rut. Even young James was not immune to her charms, so Haydan could assume the lad would wish to spend some time with her.
He exhaled softly. His duty was clear. If the boy wished to be with Catriona, Haydan would simply send another to guard them, just as he had ordered Galloway to watch her door at night.
‘Twas his best plan, for while he would still be fulfilling James’s order to keep her guarded, he was also keeping himself safely out of her range. And Galloway was the perfect candidate. Not only was he still young enough to be awed both by a post at Blackburn Castle and by Sir Hawk’s daunting and much embellished reputation, he also felt guilty for failing to guard Catriona at their first meeting.
Haydan was more than willing to use that guilt if it meant keeping her safe.
Scrubbing his face again, Haydan sighed. He might be neither as disciplined nor as unflappable as either his reputation or his age deemed appropriate, but at least he was wise enough to know his limitations.
Thus, he would avoid her, he decided as he belted on his plaid. ‘Twas surely not such a difficult task.
“Sir Hawk!” young James called out, his plumed cap askew as he bounded across the hall.
Haydan turned toward the boy. Though dressed in a red velvet doublet and soft deerskin hose, somehow he always managed to look rather unkempt, like a waif who had stolen the garb of a wealthy man’s son.
“Lord Tremayne would insist that you show more decorum,” Haydan said, but the bright flush of excitement on the lad’s face made him smile. Too often the young king of the Scots was treated either as a trophy or as a pawn, when in truth he was nothing more or less than a high-spirited boy with the bad luck of being birthed by the queen.
“Lord Tremayne is not here,” James puffed happily, “and since ‘tis so close to my birthday, Ferrand has agreed to forgo my French lessons for the day.”
“Indeed? Then I imagine you’ll want to practice your Latin.”
James had a gift for showing annoyance without saying a word. “Today we hunt,” he said as if surely the whole world knew.
“Hunting is it?”
“Aye. We go to the meadows to fly the birds.”
“We?”
“Lady Cat has agreed to accompany us.”
Haydan stiffened. Lady Cat! Just the sound of her name conjured up lush, erotic emotions. But he had made a resolution to avoid her. And he would keep it—as much for James as for himself.
“My apologies,” Haydan said, bowing slightly. “But I fear duty calls me elsewhere.” Where, he didn’t know. But he’d better think of somewhere quick.
“Nay,” James argued, his bright face scrunched in disappointment. “Send another to do the task.”
So the boy wished to spend time with him. A sharp pang of emotion smote Haydan’s heart, but he stifled it. There was no place for emotion between a guard and his royal ward.
Perhaps he should have remarried after Marcele’s death. Perhaps if he had sired children of his own…
“I am sorry,” Haydan said. “But I will send Galloway and Cockerel with you. And Russell, of course.”
“But none handle the birds like you.”
“I am flattered, Your Majesty.” Far too flattered. “But I am certain the royal falconer can manage without me.”
His words did nothing to soften James’s scowl. “You were gone all of yesterday and I…” He halted, and in that instant it seemed Haydan could see the boy James wrestle with the man he would someday become. “Lady Cat missed you.”
A double attack on his emotions. How clever of the lad. Haydan’s stomach twisted into a tight knot. But he soothed the foolishness with a reminder of his astounding age, and refused to ask if she had truly spoken of him or if the boy was covering his own sentiments, and if she had said anything else, and where they had been when she’d mentioned his name, and how her face had looked, and—
A movement caught his eye. He glanced up, and she was there.
She wore a gown of russet hue that seemed to have turned her eyes to bronze and her skin to apple butter. The garment was laced up the front, showing a bit of pecan-smooth cleavage and a waist little wider than his forearm. But perhaps it was her grace that mesmerized him, for it seemed that she did not walk at all, but floated, like a wood fairy or an angel or a—
Nay! Haydan tightened his hands to fists and swore in silence. She was no angel. She was no fairy. She was a mere mortal like every other woman, and he would not weaken. He had determined to avoid her and avoid her he would.
But his muscles were cranked as tight as an ancient crossbow, and his mouth felt brownstone dry. Still, he would not weaken. He was disciplined, bold, and unflappable.
“So will you accompany us when we go hawking?” she asked, her eyes entrancing, her voice like a siren’s song. It turned his will to oatmeal, his muscle to mud.
He tried to resist, but there was no hope. After all, if he were so tempted, so would every other man be. She was not safe alone.
“Aye,” he said, and desperately wished that a modicum of wisdom had accompanied his astounding years.
Chapter 11
The day was cool and lovely in the full throes of spring. Calum and Caleb accompanied Cat for a ways as she rode from the castle, but they soon returned to flit about the bedroom window. Pipits sang from the trees, and beside the road, the grass was a green so fresh it all but begged children to run barefoot across its springy turf. The
sky was a rain-washed blue that dazzled the senses. Birds soared through the heavens like errant spring breezes.
Catriona turned to glance behind her. Dozens of raptors were tied about the wooden bases that perched on the backs of even-spirited palfreys.
“It seems a pity that they cannot fly free on such a bonny day,” she said. “Must they always be tethered?”
“Russell of the Mews says they must be confined and hooded so that they do not become overwrought,” James said, then leaned closer and lowered his voice. “But Sir Hawk disagrees.”
“Why the secrecy?” Cat asked.
“Russell is as flighty as a sparrow, so we must be careful not to wound his feelings, but I know that sometimes Sir Hawk allows his peregrine to fly unencumbered. He believes birds need to be set loose now and again, though he seems to have no such feelings about monarchs,” he said, and glanced good-naturedly at the huge guard on his other side.
Calendine tossed her flaxen mane and did a little dance to impress any stallions that might be watching. Haydan’s dappled gray cocked his head and rumbled encouragement, but Hawk gave a slight tug on the reins that quieted any further displays of emotion. Apparently neither horse nor rider was wildly ostentatious about his feelings. Hawk had been particularly quiet during their trip. Behind them a small mob of nobles and servants followed, jostling and talking and laughing. But Haydan the Hawk had barely said a word to her.
Indeed, he acted as if he had not even noticed her. It shamed her now that she could not forget how his arms had felt around her, or how her skin had burned beneath his fingertips.
Strange, how after all the men who had pursued her, she would become enthralled with the one man who avoided her.
She turned her gaze away, but she could still see him clearly in her mind’s eye. He rode very straight in the saddle, his cloak thrown back over his massive shoulders and his knees bare between his black doeskin boots and his plaid. Higher up, his powerful thighs gripped his stallion with easy command. With no trouble at all, she could remember how those thighs had felt beneath her, how the muscles had tightened and bunched when he’d kissed her. Or rather—when she had kissed him.