Come the Morning

by Heather Graham

  “David, she’s a widow with the English king’s permission to choose her second husband—”

  “English!” David said, irritated.

  “Sire, you married an Englishwoman. The woman I would wed is the Lady Eleanora.”

  “Ahh …” David murmured softly, shrewd eyes on Waryk. Then he shrugged. “Indeed, she’s a beautiful woman.”

  Waryk lowered his head. On the one hand, he felt a strange excitement, a sense of beginning. The king had never bed to him. If he said that the property was vast and rich, then it was so. He’d known poverty, and he’d lived off the land. He’d lived at the king’s court as well, and yet, though he’d slept in many a soft bed after many a rich meal, he’d not had a sense of a home. Not since his kin had all perished. He was hungry not for riches, but for a place to call home. Yet he had meant to marry Eleanora. He’d known whores as well as ladies, courtesans, and dairymaids. She had captured his mind, and his desires. It would be a good match. He didn’t know if he was arguing with the king, or himself. “Sire, I’ve served you in many things—”

  “Aye! So continue to serve me when I am trying to reward you with a great treasure. My dear lad, are you turning down a chance at tremendous wealth and power?” David demanded indignantly.

  David had been born to be king. He had watched the English kings, he had watched his parents, and then his brothers, rule before him. He was capable of laughter, amusement, mercy—and fury, determination, and now, a quiet but very regal outrage.

  “Nay, never. I am grateful. But—”

  “I’m sorry about your liaison with Eleanora; I’m fond of that saucy English lass myself. But I know that you’re no fool, and you’ve known that I’ve been waiting for many years now for the right situation to give you the titles and position you deserve as my champion. You are a warrior, lad, who has learned the ways of harlots and whores along the line of battle, and you’re a knight who has too often lured the romantic notions of impressionable young women. I will see to it that Eleanora isn’t too sorely disappointed with your marriage. By God, my man! You have known since you came to serve me upon your father’s death that yours was a political destiny—that I would make it a great destiny, that you would not die a common man. You know your duty is to me—and to Scotland.”

  Waryk stood still, feeling the cold of the river water that dripped from him. It was one thing to argue with the king. It was another to have his loyalty to Scotland questioned.

  David was right; he should have known this, expected this. Nothing came without a price.

  Yet still, the concept of being handed a woman because she came with a rich property was not a pleasant one. The feelings of warmth and laughter—and admittedly, lust—that had so intrigued him when he had been with Eleanora could be forgotten for Scotland. But despite his loyalty to the king, there was one thing he had desired above all else since the horrible day when his father and so many others had perished.

  He wanted children. A family.

  And if his rich property came with a gnarled, bent old witch of a woman, he would be denied the one thing that he had fought for all these years.

  “I would simply like to hear a bit more about this land—and the heiress. David, you cannot doubt my loyalty to you or my country,” Waryk said. He wanted to ask more specific questions, but he was interrupted as the doors to the great hall burst open and a woman rushed in, frantically seeking the king’s attention.

  “Sire!”

  The woman was slim with an abundance of flying silver hair. She rushed to the king. “Sire!” she repeated. Trembling, she bowed deeply before David, about to continue. Then she noted Waryk in the room. She was too distressed to note that Waryk was dripping river water on the floor, but she was evidently dismayed that she found the king in conference with one of his knights. She spoke awkwardly then, staring uneasily at Waryk, and stuttering out her explanation. “Sire, I—I … My apologies, I did not wish to interrupt, I—”

  “You may speak, Jillian. What has happened?”

  “But, sire—”

  “Come now, speak up, Jillian!” David said impatiently.

  Jillian tore her eyes from Waryk and looked at the king at last. “She’s gone.”

  “What?”

  “Mellyora, sire. She’s gone.”

  “Gone?” the king exploded.

  The silver-haired woman cringed and nodded again, glancing uneasily back at Waryk. She moistened her lips to speak, forcing herself to look back at the king again. “She’s—gone.”

  “She can’t be.”

  “But she is.”

  “How? I had two men on guard at the door—”

  “She left by the window, sire, I believe.”

  “But there was a great drop to the courtyard below—”

  “Scaffolding, sire. If she left through the window, she might have jumped from the parapets to the scaffolding. She is fleet, graceful, and quick. And …”

  “And what?” the king said, his voice something like a growl.

  “Desperate,” Jillian told him.

  “My God!” The king roared with an explosion of anger. He slammed a fist down upon the long table in the center of the great hall with such a vengeance the wood groaned. “Damn her, but … my God!” he repeated. “The traitorous wench. I didn’t believe that she would really defy me, blatantly disobey my will. I will find her. I will stop whatever treason she plots! She will regret her stubborn determination to defy me. She will pay the price for treason, and I will be entirely justified in whatever way I choose to mete punishment upon her—”

  “Your pardon, sire, please, but you’ll have apoplexy!” Waryk warned. But he was suddenly feeling a chill himself, an awareness. He should have known, though he still didn’t want to admit …

  “She will be found, and certainly, but if you’ll excuse me, just who in God’s name is this ‘she’ who is gone?” he asked carefully.

  The king had been distracted, but he stared at Waryk. His eyes were still blazing with a fire of fury and disbelief. But he paused in his tirade, his brow arching slowly as seconds passed. Then he spoke, more calmly than at first.

  “The ‘she,’ Laird Lion, is Mellyora. Mellyora MacAdin. She has managed her escape. Sweet Jesu, but I underestimated her! I never thought the wench would risk her own life to defy me!”

  The king had yet to really answer him, but did he need the truth spelled out. Aye!

  “Who, sire, is Mellyora MacAdin? What is her treachery? Is she your prisoner? Is she guilty of some misdeed?”

  “She had been my guest. The child of an old and noble friend. Nay, she isn’t guilty of a crime—I correct myself! She wasn’t guilty of any crime. But now, she is very close to committing treason. Indeed, if I weren’t such a merciful man, I would call her a traitor this minute!”

  Still, the king hadn’t spoken what Waryk already knew, and Waryk insisted he do so. “Why is she so anxious to escape? Is she an errant wife, a—”

  “Oh, errant. You might think so, since she defies my command. To marry you. She’s your heiress, Laird Lion.”

  “Mine?”

  “Aye!”

  And he knew, of course, with certainty. What a fool he had been not to realize the situation instantly. The lady on the river was his intended wife. He might have reasoned it then; he might even have realized it when he spoke with Sir Harry, and realized that he had been summoned back just when the heiress had been coming to the king …

  He was the man from whom she was running. He was the wretched, horrid, despicable “Norman” she had been told she was to wed. And rather than do so, she was running to her Viking kin.

  He swallowed hard, fighting to keep a hold on his temper.

  She had tried to use him not just to escape the king—but to escape her marriage—to him—as well. He remembered all the things she had said. By God, but she was arrogant.

  She didn’t know him; he didn’t know her, he rationalized with himself. But logic didn’t help the sudden searing of his
temper. The hint of emotion and understanding he had felt for her plight dissipated like fog beneath a burning sun. She was the woman the king intended for him.

  Wonderful. He had wanted a wife and a family. He had taken a loving, passionate woman as his mistress, and just when he had realized that she would be a loving, passionate wife as well, he was being told he was to receive a headstrong lass. A girl who was stubborn, reckless, determined, far too young to begin to understand the shaping of a nation. She was careless, foolhardy, irritating …

  He paused in his thought, remembering his encounter.

  Young.

  Yes. If nothing else, she was young. Gentle, definitely not. Loving? Never. Warm? As ice. Passionate? Only in her determination to be free from him.

  But then again, his greatest fear in being given an heiress had been that she would be a wizened old woman, incapable of giving him the sons he craved.

  She wasn’t exactly an old witch.

  She was in possession of all her teeth, something he must acknowledge, since it seemed life was all a bargaining game. Good skin, good bone structure, fine lines. She was sound. Aye, definitely healthy. Strong, capable, fleet and graceful—as her woman had said.

  But she was much more, and he had seen that already. She was not just young and healthy. She was formed. In body—and mind. She was cold as ice in her will to fight, hard as nails in her determination. She was beautiful as well. What was the word he had thought in connection with her earlier?

  Ripe! he reminded herself. What she didn’t see in her reckless desire to be free was that she was young and vulnerable, and risking herself in a way she might possibly not understand. Or else, she understood her peril completely, and just didn’t care. What could be worse to her than being given to a man she had determined to be one of David’s Norman knights? She was hotheaded and wild, and certain that her will alone was enough to change her destiny.

  Enough to defy a king.

  Yet, even before he had seen her features, he had heard her voice, seen her before the fire, and she had haunted his dreams …

  His temper continued to surge despite the fact that he was a stranger to her. He was dismayed to realize that he felt a greater sense of fury against Mellyora MacAdin than he did loss for Eleanora. His pride, he thought ruefully, took precedence over his heart. Minutes ago, he had felt a measure of sympathy for the lady on the river. But he’d envisioned a different future then for himself. His life had been changed here, in this room, in less than a quarter of an hour. This was the way of the world. He couldn’t have Eleanora, and Mellyora MacAdin could not have her freedom. The lady on the river now deserved no sympathy. She was no longer an amusing young woman in a sad situation, but an obstinate, disobedient, and disloyal subject of the king.

  Which made him remember that she was still sitting out on the river, where she plotted and planned to join with her Viking kin.

  “I shall find the lady,” he told David.

  “What?” the king asked, distracted. He shook his head. “You’ve been on a battle campaign, and just come to court. I’ll send other knights to find her, I’ll send out an army, I’ll—”

  “Trust me, sire. I’m not tired. I shall find the lady,” Waryk swore. He didn’t explain to the king that he had more at stake than other men, nor that he knew exactly where to find his errant heiress. The king, he knew, had made his decision. He would brook no arguments. The lady was Waryk’s. So he would find her. She would remain cold as ice, he was certain. He couldn’t force her to accept him, to want him, or to care for him in any way, and he wouldn’t insult either of them with such an effort. But he could force obedience, to the king, and to himself, and he would do so.

  He inclined his head to the woman Jillian, bowed to the king, and started from the great hall, his shoes still squishing.

  Indeed, he would find her.

  Outside the king’s hall, he paused, plotting. There were a few things he needed to do, some orders he needed to give, before retrieving his reluctant soon-to-be bride.

  Because once he found the lady, he intended to keep her.

  “Angus!” he called, bursting in on the man who kept quarters adjacent to his own.

  It was early; Angus hadn’t slept long, but at Waryk’s summons, he was instantly up, reaching reflexively for his scabbard and sword.

  “There’s no need to seize arms—yet,” Waryk said dryly. “I’ve been to see the king—”

  “Aye, then, you’ve heard,” Angus said, studying Waryk.

  “Aye, I’ve heard,” Waryk said. Apparently, everyone else at Stirling had known his fate while he had idled his time under the stars and in the river.

  “Ah, well,” Angus said. “Lady Eleanora will understand. I know of the inheritance. It’s a place beyond imagination, the wildest beauty known to man. You love the sea, Waryk, there’s no place finer. And the lass, well, you’ll be pleased, she’s young. I saw her once, as a babe, and she was the prettiest little creature ever. She was the heiress we camped near last night, Sir Harry’s charge. If I’d but known, I’d have insisted on seeing her. Aye, now, I know, women change, but it’s said she’s grown into one of the most beautiful women in our country and beyond. I’m sure you’ll be pleased when you’ve met—”

  “Angus, we have met, so it seems—”

  “Where, when?” Angus asked, puzzled; then he suddenly noted, “Waryk, you’re wet. Soaked.”

  “Aye, that I am. We met quite by accident. I didn’t know the lady, nor does she yet know me.”

  Angus lifted a brow slowly. “And she is why you’re soaking wet.”

  “Aye.”

  “Well, dry off, change man!”

  “Not yet. I’m off to find my lady again, you see. And she has a penchant for water as well. I’m learning these things about her, you see.”

  “Oh? Shall I come with you to find her?”

  “No. I’ll find her myself.”

  “And tell her just who you are, I imagine!”

  “No. Not yet, Angus. But once I’ve brought her here … well, once I’ve done so, we’ll want to keep her. I’m not sure when I’ll return with her. When I do, inform the king. And alert Sir Harry, and Tristan, I think. I’ll count on you to keep close guard on these halls.”

  “You think she’ll try to escape you?”

  Waryk smiled grimly. “I know she’ll try to escape me. But she won’t. No matter what she thinks. I am curious to discover, though, just how far she is willing to go.”

  CHAPTER 6

  By the time she came to the embankment in the night, Mellyora was freezing and exhausted. She had lost direction in the darkness, and it had seemed to take forever to reach the opposite embankment.

  There, she had found a fisherman’s lean-to, a hut of stone and mud like the one on the opposite bank, and it had seemed compellingly welcoming, a break against the chill wind of the night. Even with the Viking camp so close, she had paused there just to rest for a few minutes. Shivering, weak, and weary, she had longed to start out quickly again. But the swim had exhausted her more than she had thought possible, and she realized she had slept very little in weeks now, hardly doing so since Adin had died. In the small hut she’d closed her eyes, she’d dozed, and when she opened her eyes again, there was light, and there were fishermen on the water, and she could see the little boat she had borrowed the night before. It was just a few feet from shore, as if it waited for her. It had drifted close to the embankment. Amazingly, in the light of day, she could see the oars. They had surfaced, and they floated close to the drifting boat. The day was nearly as chill as the night, and her clothing and cloak were in the boat. It wasn’t far at all. She could reach it with just a few minutes’ swim, and take it the rest of the way downriver to the Viking camp. If she were found walking along the embankment, she might be in for some grave difficulties. She decided she needed the boat.

  Without a fool young oaf to lose the oars for her again! She wondered vaguely what had happened to her boatman of the night gone by.
He hadn’t returned for her. Or had he? He wouldn’t have seen her in the hut. He would have to think that she had either found her uncle or perished in the darkness. His fault. With luck, he’d feel guilty for being such an idiot and for assaulting her in the first place.

  The river was deep and wide and very cold. Mellyora’s teeth chattered, her bones ached, she could barely force herself into the water, and then to keep moving. But she knew the harder she swam, the greater force she would exert, the more warmth she would generate within herself. She really had no choice, not anymore. Perhaps it had been foolish to plow back into the water—it seemed more so every second—but she had done it, and therefore, she had to keep going. Everything she had done since her audience with the king might be conceived as foolish, she admitted to herself. If she didn’t freeze to death or drown now, she might have broken her neck earlier. But she didn’t have many weapons with which to fight, and it was one thing for kings to believe they had the right to command the future, but since that future was hers, she had to wage war with the king in whatever way she could. She wouldn’t allow any of it to be foolish. Achieving her goals would be vindication. She would keep herself from freezing, and she would reach the boat, secure the oars, and find her uncle. She was a good swimmer, a strong swimmer, and she would make it.

  Finally, raising her head to draw a breath, she saw the boat. Relief filled her. In the not so far distance, she could even see the Viking camp, men up and about now, women working at their cooking fires.

  Before long, she’d reach her destination. Which she needed to do. The king would have men out any minute, searching for her. Maybe it would take until midday, when Jillian realized she didn’t sleep, and alerted the king that she was gone.

  Yet just when she thought another hard kick would bring her to the boat, she felt a startling new force against her. She gasped, gulping in water as she was suddenly jerked back. She wasn’t alone in the water. Someone had seized her and was pulling her back, trying to drown her.

  A hand was upon her waist. She twisted, kicking and clawing with fear and desperation, her nails digging into flesh. She was released; she started to sink. She kicked hard and shot to the surface, desperate for breath.