How furious Hanoch had been when the English demanded her return. He had not planned to release her, not until after she was wed to his son. And by then, of course, she would be bound to both of them forever.
“Your father must be gratified to have you home,” Avalon said into the silence of the forest, wondering what it would be like to see him again.
“I have no idea,” Marcus replied after a while. “He died eleven months ago.”
“Eleven months?” No one had told her. She couldn’t believe no one would have told her.
“Aye.” He let the thought settle between them before adding, “I’m told his last words were of you.”
She let out a caustic laugh. “Something to the effect of, ‘Don’t forget to abduct the heiress,’ I suppose.”
“Something like that,” he said.
It had been nothing at all like that, from what Marcus had heard. Hanoch had taken to bed and died quickly, a fever or the ague or who knew what. There had been no time for a doctor. One of Hanoch’s elderly cronies had sent Marcus a letter stating that his father had died, and bade him to come home from the holy wars, to abandon the pilgrimage he had been on and come back to lead the clan.
And when Marcus had, the same old man told him the rest over a late night of whiskey and haggis. Told him that right before he died Hanoch had spoken of Lady Avalon and called her his lass as if she had been in the room with him, had told her that she was going to be fine, that she had learned well what she needed to know. Hanoch hadn’t quite said he was sorry for all that had happened to her, the man reported. But he thought that the old laird might have been, anyway.
“I think he was quite fond of you,” Marcus said to his future wife, and felt her stiffen against him.
“A strange fondness,” she said, scathing. “To hit and demean and mock that which you like.”
If Hanoch had not been sorry, then Marcus was, sharply so. He could not imagine anyone striking this lovely girl, even though he knew for a fact she could hit back. It left him mute, this image of her abuse, mute and filled with a pointless anger at his father. But it was too late to despise Hanoch. The old man would have laughed in his face, anyway. He had been forged of some material Marcus could never fully grasp, sword and steel and not an ounce of tenderness. As a boy he had feared him, as a man he had tried to forget him. But this girl had not been given such a choice.
He remembered the first—and until now, the last—time he had seen the Lady Avalon. He had been twelve and she had been two. Just two, a chubby toddler with an angel’s face already, a crop of white-blonde hair and a happy smile. His father had taken him down to Trayleigh to see the bride. Hanoch had wanted to confirm her appearance personally, not trusting the stories he was hearing.
But she had been all that he expected, Marcus supposed, and the agreement that had already tentatively existed between the old allies and kinsmen, Hanoch and Geoffrey, was retoasted that night and irrevocably sealed.
They had sat her on Marcus’s knee for a while, that baby girl, and the awkward youth he had been didn’t know what to do with her, her incoherent burbles, her constant squirming. After a brief, uncomfortable moment he had given her back to her nurse and everyone went on toasting.
That was all he remembered of Avalon, the girl who was to be the bride. Just another baby, albeit a cheerful one.
“He would knock me down and yell until I got back up.” The woman she was now kept her voice low. Marcus had to bend his head to catch the words, spoken down to the hands clenched in her lap. “He would go at me until I could not fight anymore, and then he would tell me I was unworthy of the clan.”
“Interesting,” Marcus said. “He would do the same to me.”
“He was a monster,” she said.
Marcus couldn’t deny it. When he turned thirteen it had been the greatest day of his life, because that was the day he was to be sent off to the household of Sir Trygve to become a squire. He had escaped his father. But Avalon, younger and far less skilled than Marcus at dealing with him, had taken his place.
Lost in Trygve’s crusade, Marcus had had no real idea of what happened at Trayleigh. There had been only one short mention of Lady Avalon in a letter from home, and her name had never actually been written. It had been his father’s code, something about how the sire had perished in a raid but the girl was well taken care of. In time he forgot about even this; Marcus had plenty of other things to think about in Jerusalem, and later Damascus.
In all the years he was away he received only five letters from Scotland, the fifth one just that simple note telling him to come back. And that had been the second greatest day of his life, when he read that letter and knew at last he could go home.
“I’m not going to marry you,” Avalon said tersely, interrupting his thoughts. “I will not deceive you. You may try to beat me or starve me, but I will not do it.”
“I would not beat you,” he said quickly, appalled.
Her silence was skeptical.
“Nor will I starve you, my lady. I would not treat a woman such.”
Still she said nothing.
“I would not,” he repeated. “I will not.”
He took the hand he’d kept around her waist and brought it up to her face, hesitant, giving in to the ache of wanting to touch her. He stroked her cheek, rubbed his thumb over the smoothness of it. She sat perfectly still as he did it, and he couldn’t gauge her reaction. His own was a mix of things, mostly wonder and bewilderment at himself. It was imperative that she believe him incapable of his father’s barbarism. He had to convince her, but that urgency was becoming intertwined with something else, the desire for her welling up once more, filling him.
“I would not,” he said again, breathing it into her hair.
He wanted to bury his head in her neck and kiss her there, he wanted to hold her to him not as a prisoner but as a man would hold a woman, he wanted to taste her again so badly.…
Her lips had parted slightly as these sensations raced through him. He thought maybe her heartbeat had quickened, coming closer to the pace of his own. He moved his fingers slightly lower and traced the outline of her lips, mesmerized as he looked down at her, following the rose color, the lush lines. Her eyelids drifted closed, displaying the sweeping curves of sable lashes against pearly skin.
“You will wed me,” he said, husky, and then knew immediately that he had blundered.
Avalon pulled his hand away, turned her head from him.
“Nay, I will not.”
Marcus let her have her denial, focusing now on calming himself. She was as wine to him, making him think of things that hindered his focus, delightful as they were. But it would be as he said. No matter what she thought now, she would be his bride. He had a legend on his side.
Two days later they reached Kincardine lands. One day more and they were at Sauveur Castle itself.
It had been a difficult end to the trip, with the early autumn rain promised before now finally beginning to lash at them, and winds so strong they could tear a man from his mount were he not careful. But Marcus would not stop for shelter, nor did any of his men want him to. Everyone was eager to return home and be done with this task.
Avalon’s mood grew to match the weather. He sheltered her as best he could but she was as rain-soaked as the rest of them. The tip of her nose turned pink with cold, her hair clung in long tangles to them both.
In the early dawn hours before they reached the castle they had to wallow through a ferocious storm, much worse than even the rain before. After a meeting with his men Marcus decided to press on in spite of the tempest, because to camp this close to Sauveur seemed bitter to them all.
Avalon had not quite felt the same way.
“You are a fool,” she cursed at him, disbelieving when he ordered them to mount up in the midst of the squall. The wind was taking her hair and making it dance behind her in drenched tendrils. Rain dripped off her chin. “It is madness to travel tonight! They will not be chasing you t
his far into Scotland. You know it. I know it. Yet you push us on.”
His only response was a shrug, knowing it would infuriate her but unable to help himself.
He did know d’Farouche would not dare follow this far. They had already passed through the territories of four other clans, all of them on mostly friendly terms with his own. But they would not be so generous with trespassing Englishmen. Not unless they brought an army with them.
And neither the baron nor his brother would be able to muster an army so quickly. That would come later. By then it would be too late to take her back.
Moving on in the face of the storm was not about avoiding d’Farouche. It was about returning to Sauveur.
Avalon wrapped her arms around herself, shivering as everyone got ready. Even the tartan was not much help in this weather. Marcus wanted to go to her and hold her. He wanted to spark a heat between them that would burn away the rain and the wind, burn away her rancor.
But he had noticed whenever these thoughts took him that she retreated further into herself, brooding, no longer responding to anything he said. So instead he put her atop his stallion as before and then climbed up behind her.
The storm grew fiercer; he only vaguely remembered weather like this from his boyhood. Men and beasts alike kept their heads down, water sheeting off them all, the wind bruising them.
Thunder began to rumble over the howling, making the horses toss their heads nervously. Now and again lightning arced across the sky, distant at first, but slowly growing closer.
Avalon didn’t want to but she kept her head behind the wall of tartan Marcus held over her. Any pride she had felt at shunning his aid had disappeared hours ago. Now she was just sore and wet and completely wretched. The tartan over her face was as drenched as everything else, but at least it kept the stinging lash of the storm off her head. She imagined it was not easy for him to keep his arm up like that to shield her, and she wanted to be glad that he was taking the brunt of the weather, in retaliation for his foolhardy order to make them go on. But it wasn’t true. She was too tired to entertain spite right now. All she wanted was for this insufferable journey to be finished.
Then the world split apart in front of her. Like the arm of God, a bolt of lightning exploded the mighty oak next to them, an encompassing wave of violence and sound and light that seemed to Avalon to be the end of everything.
She felt herself flung through the air, weightless, and then landed on her side in the mud. There were no sounds left in the world. Everything was black and silent.
It was a relief.
But it turned out she couldn’t breathe in the mud, and her body made her rise to her elbows, gulping in the singed air around her. Still she couldn’t hear, but she could see, and what she saw was terrifying.
It was a dim glow to her at first, but her vision cleared until she could see a series of pictures, flashes of blue light against the darkness, intermittent lightning crackling though the thunderheads. Chaos everywhere, men mounted and on foot running together, horses rearing and circling. The glow was the fragmented remains of the oak, laid open and on fire despite the rain.
Right in front of it Marcus lay in the mud, motionless. A horse screamed over him, bounding up on two legs, boxing the air with his forelegs in a panic. The reins were caught on a smoldering log that would not let him run. The stallion went up and down again and again over the fallen body of her captor, missing the man by inches each time he landed.
She was up before she knew she was moving, still stranded in her silence and slipping through the mire with no thought except getting to that horse.
It was Marcus’s stallion, the one they had both ridden, and the whites of his eyes made a visible circle around his pupils. His lips were pulled back as he screamed, and though she could not hear the sound, she felt his overwhelming terror.
Calm. Avalon sent the thought with all her might, struggling to get closer. Calm, peace, calm …
The stallion turned his head to her, still kicking. Marcus was a blurred outline beneath him in the rain.
Peace!
The corners of her vision held diversions she could not afford to think about, men coming toward her. Someone tried to take her arm. She blocked the move without pausing, but then he grabbed her shoulder. Avalon twisted to the side and kicked her foot out, tripping whoever it was.
The stallion suffered during her momentary distraction. She felt him scream again, coming down to the ground, barely missing Marcus before rearing again. Mud splashed up in angry spurts beneath the sharp hooves.
No harm, no harm, peace, she thought, capturing his attention again. Almost there.
Two more men were to her left. She felt their intent to restrain her and it infuriated her, that they would dare to stop her now when their laird was about to be trampled to death. She began to run, risking a fall in the slick mud.
The men came close but then fell back. The wizard had materialized from the rain, and he had stopped them. The wizard was allowing her to go on.
Ho, called Avalon with her mind to the horse. Here, here, over here!
The stallion threw her his terrified look but did as she commanded, turning his body to her before landing on his forelegs again. Marcus was now exactly between the powerful legs. Before the horse could rise once more she was there. Only one of her hands seemed to work but it was enough; she used her fingers to pinch the flesh of his upper lip and deaden the pain in him until the whites around his eyes receded to normal.
Thank you, she thought, and didn’t know if she was addressing the horse or God or both.
The wizard and some of the other men were pulling Marcus away from where he had fallen, taking him to the side of the path. Someone came up to her and the beast where they stood eye to eye. It was all right now. The stallion was quieted.
She didn’t know the man talking to her, red haired and bearded, freeing the reins from the log. He was insistent about something, talking to her, and at last she let go of the horse and shook her head at him, tapping one of her ears to indicate she couldn’t hear.
The man paused, comprehending. He turned away from her and addressed the others. The wizard approached Avalon, gave her a look more subtle than a smile. She followed him back to the side of the road, beneath the shelter of a pine.
Marcus was awake, sitting up. He tried to stand as she drew near, and she threw him a disgusted look.
Her ribs were in agony. She had just now noticed it. The shoulder she had landed on felt as if it had been torn from its socket, and that arm was useless. She was covered from head to toe in leaves and filth; the tartan was a cold, slopping mess on her; and all of this was his fault. If he had not ordered them out in this storm, she might be warm and dry and free of pain now.
For that matter, if he had not stolen her at all, she might have been living the fulfillment of her dreams, tucked away in an obscure little nun’s cell right now, clean and happy and counting her blessings and making her plans for the future. In fact, if he had not come home from his crusade—
Everything, everything was his fault. She had no idea why she had bothered to save him.
Marcus winced as he hobbled over to her, both of them slightly hunched over beneath the branches. He tried to take her hand and she jerked away from him, but she must have made a sound from the pain that shot through her. Marcus scowled and Balthazar was at her shoulder, exploring it with light fingers.
She let him, but then he said something to Marcus and the other men who had trickled in and clustered tightly near. She heard his words from very far away, as if he were at one end of an enormous tunnel and she at the other.
“… dislocated. It should be set.”
Something shifted in the crowd, pity and intent and determination. They thought she was going to fight this, and they were correct. The wizard touched her again but she shook him off, biting back the wave of nausea that rose at the movement. She took a step away but they were behind her, too, and she had only one good arm.
&
nbsp; Marcus put himself directly in front of her, shaping his words very clearly so that she could read them. “It must be done. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t touch me,” she said, and heard her own words in that tunnel.
His glance moved to someone behind her, and she felt herself taken firmly on both sides. The pain shrieked from her shoulder to her ribs, making her weak.
Marcus had one hand around her injured shoulder, the other on her arm, and—after one quick, cold look at her face—began to pull.
Black dots exploded in her vision, her knees gave out, and still he didn’t stop, keeping up the pressure, harder now. Avalon bit her lip to stop from screaming until she felt the blood running from her mouth, and then there was a sickening pop and she didn’t know what happened next.
She was on her knees in the pine needles and mud. They were supporting her and pressing something to her lips, something that burned. Whiskey.
It inflamed the cut she had given herself on her lower lip, and she spat the mix of alcohol and blood on the ground.
“I hate you,” she said, knowing it was Marcus in front of her.
He stood up and walked away from her, taking most of the men out into the chilly rain again, gathering the horses. She was left with Balthazar.
When Marcus came to fetch her she had nothing more to say to him. The wizard had produced a long sash of fine, diaphanous material from somewhere within his robes, bright orange with a yellow sun embroidered on it, and he had fashioned it into a support for her injured arm. Marcus noted the sash, but all he did was gesture for her to walk with him to his stallion. Two men helped her up into the saddle.
The worst of the storm had passed; by the time they rode up to Sauveur Castle three hours later, the rain had lightened to a drizzle and the sky had turned dull gray. The road was nothing but thick slime, the horses skidding and fighting the muck with each step. Avalon held on to the mane of the stallion with her good hand to keep her balance. She would not look up at the castle.
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