by Jill Barnett
The cat coughed and sneezed and spat, and sneezed again, shook itself and sent water in all directions. It looked like a drowned rat as it butted up to Glenna, and sat there with a thoroughly puzzled look that said, how could you do that to me? When she ignored it, the cat squealed plaintively and batted her with its paw.
Glenna opened one eye, stared at the cat for a moment, then said, “Vengeance is mine, puss.” The cat only meowed and ran off into the bushes. "Traitor," she muttered. "I save you and you go running off for a life of your own."
Her words were never more true. She had a life of her own, the future she was born into. Lyall watched her. She did not know he was trapped by his actions, nor that his stepfather would make him face what he had done. Bits of moss clung to her long hair and her face was smudged with dirt or ash. Water dripped from her tunic, trouse and head. She was soaked from head to foot, and she had just leapt from a tower. Lyall closed his eyes. What have I done to you?
As if she had read his thoughts, she turned to glance at him, and frowned. “Don’t look so fretful, Montrose. A little water never hurt me. ”
He shook his head and said, “We just leapt from a rope that was hung from a chain in burning tower that belongs to one of your father’s enemies—a tower I was responsible for putting you in—and landed in a lake…with a cat. I am not certain what your father would have to say about all this but I expect he will say plenty.”
“Since my father--a man I have never met, mind you--is not, nor has been, on home soil for most of my lifetime, I do not believe he has any say in what has gone on with me…and you. I am alive. He should be thanking you.”
“I do not think royal gratitude is in my future,” he said dryly. “You are his daughter.”
She scrambled to her knees and leaned over him, her hair dripping on his chest. “Aye. I am his daughter and you have my gratitude.” She leaned down and kissed him, softly, tenderly. “My eternal gratitude,” she murmured against his mouth, and his hand cupped the back of her head. “Kiss me, Montrose.”
“There is where we have a problem.” He picked a strand of lake moss from her hair. “I am not Montrose.”
“Kiss me, Sir Lyall Robertson,” she said laughing. “Kiss me now! I love to kiss. Consider it a royal command.”
He looked up into her eyes, filled with humor, with challenge and that fine line, the spark in her eye that bespoke her deepest desire, along with a touch of avarice. “You look at me the same way you eyed that plump pearl.”
“Aye,” she said nonplussed. “I have a keen eye. I can gauge your worth.”
His worth? What was his worth? He no longer had his good word and felt as if he were searching for the good in himself somewhere in the depth of her eyes. He wiped the wet hair from her cheek, moving his thumb to her mouth as he drank in her face, drawn to her because of that odd thing she seemed to see in him--something worth saving.
He came close to believing it was true….close.
“You love me,” she said, in almost a whisper, but without hesitation, and as if she were telling him a secret no one else knew.
He was not a strong man. He could not fight this. With all the lies he’d told her, now he owed her the truth. “Aye, witch, I do love you. But I believe you are the only one happy about it. You forget. I am a traitor and you are the daughter of the king.”
She gave a sharp and bitter laugh. “You are no traitor.”
“You say that after what I did.” He shook his head. “You forgive me far too easily.”
“Aye, if there were anything to forgive. I know why you did what you did. How else were you to get Dunkeldon? I have spent most of my life taking what I want.” She shrugged. “You bartered me for what you wanted. Why would I not understand?”
He looked at her for a long time. “What do you see, that I cannot believe?”
She lifted her hand to cheek. “I see the man I love,” she said simply.
“Your father could hang me, Glenna.”
She grew serious and stared at him, clearly thinking. “I will not let them hang you. I am the daughter of a king.”
“You are a woman, whose power is, in truth, only that which your father allows you, your father and the man you will wed.”
“I want no other man,” she said stubbornly. “I am yours. I give myself to you, Lyall Robertson…only you.”
But her words, the gift of herself, the truth she spoke, her devotion, her troth, all of it broke his heart because he could not have her. Still…he was a weak, weak man, who had no strength to fight the bond between them—he wanted her with a fever as hot and scorching as the fires of Hell--and he could do nothing but pull her into his arms and try to find the strength to let her go.
She lay her head down and he stroked her wet hair, tangled and spilling down over his ribs. He closed his eyes.
“I hear that sound,” she said. “Your heart beats here.” She placed her hand on his chest. ‘Tis mine, this heart of yours that beats so,” she said softly. “Say the words to me. Say them and then take me. We will be wed and there will be nothing anyone can do.”
To say the words would be fatal, for her more than him. He wanted her. He would wed her without a hesitation were she anyone but the king’s daughter, his first born daughter at that.
He could promise me to anyone. Did you know the Germans bury their wives alive?
He closed his eyes, searching for the will to do what was right. Her mouth moved close to his but he stopped her, a finger to her soft lips, and he started to say nay, we cannot do this, but he whispered the words that would bond him to her, “I give myself to you, Glenna Canmore.”
She smiled slightly, and her turned-up mouth, so full and moist, found his, and he rolled over in the grass with her, covered her body with his own and gave in to the sweet, impossible fantasy that she could truly be his.
* * *
Ramsey rode into the small clearing, some of his men in his wake, and he took one look at the couple rolling in the grass, a tangle of legs, a tanned hand on a pale white breast, the long waves of shiny black Canmore hair next to a head of golden hair exactly like that of his old friend, and he bellowed Lyall’s name like the most foul, most blasphemous of curses.
The two broke apart as if touched by fire, showing flashes of skin and wet, twisted garments that were difficult to pull into place. But his stepson helped to right her clothing—had he only shown such gallantry before he ravished her on the grass--and then took to straightening what little he wore, unable to hide his erection in his wet, sodden hose. Her mouth was swollen and pink, her cheeks rubbed red from Lyall’s beard, and her face was that a woman flushed with passion, damp and loose and ready to swive.
He recovered himself quickly and ordered his men to stand away and waited until they left the clearing. He spurred his horse forward until he was close enough to see the sweat beading on his stepson’s brow. “In the name of Heaven are you daft? Rolling around on the ground like some lackwit itching to plough the milkmaid?” He lowered his voice and his hand went to his sword hilt instinctively. “She is the king’s daughter you witless fool! I swear by all that is holy and right, at this very moment I could easily beat you boneless.”
Ramsey stared hard at Lyall, then at Glenna. Neither of them appeared to be the least repentant, humiliated, even mildly contrite, and as he continued to look at them, he thought the top of his head was going to blow off. “You have nothing to say?”
Lyall placed his hands on her shoulders. “Glenna, this is Donnald Ramsey, Baron Montrose, and my stepfather.”
Her dark eyes bright and quick, Glenna Canmore assessed him with one solid, slightly familiar royal look. “My lord.”
Lyall leaned down and whispered something in her ear. When he straightened again, Ramsey saw that his hands still rested there.
She looked up at Lyall over her shoulder, her expression saying clearly that whatever he had said was asinine. “I do not care. I will not deny you your place in my life.” She looked Ramsey in
the eye, her expression the image of her father, and said without fear or any emotion other than absolute conviction, “It is done. Lyall is my husband. We have promised to each other.”
Ramsey pinned his stepson with a look he hoped struck hard. “Is this true?”
“Aye.”
“Speaking in the present tense?” Ramsey shot back pointedly, aware a handfast had two binding conditions, vows spoken in the present tense and consummation.
Lyall gave a sharp nod.
“Such a marriage is not binding unless consummated.”
Glenna immediately looked up at Lyall, and he frowned and shook his head slightly to warn her, but when she faced Ramsey, she did so without any fear and with conviction. “We became man and wife in the forest of Dunkeldon, by the River Tay.”
Lyall stared at some distant spot over Ramsey’s shoulder, his brow furrowed slightly, but said nothing.
She pulled a small purse from her trouse and spilled a large, impressive pearl into her palm. “He gave me this. A bride gift for my innocence, which I gave to him gladly, my lord.”
Racing like Greek fire through Ramsey’s head were the eventual reactions to this news from Sutherland and Douglas and worse, the king, Himself. Completely disarmed, Ramsey understood he had failed his duty in an insurmountable way. Not only had he allowed Glenna to be captured, handed over to the enemy, locked in a tower, but wed by custom, rather than ceremony to his own stepson, certainly not the king’s choice of husband for his eldest daughter.
Perhaps with enough silver the validity of the marriage could be put to test, particularly with no witnesses. “We will see what can be done with this union after the king’s councils hear of it. Witnesses,” he said pointedly, “are of great importance at a royal ceremony.”
“’Tis binding law of the land, how we are wed” Glenna argued stubbornly.
“And I am still bound by my word to keep you safe.” He held out his hand. “Come Glenna, you will ride with me.”
She looked to Lyall, which annoyed Ramsey, having his orders questioned.
“Go,” his stepson said to her.
“You, also, Lyall,” Ramsey said coldly. “Pick one of the men with which to ride. Once I have secured Frasyr and disbursed his men, we will make for Rossi, where your mother is most likely pacing the solar floors bare.” Ramsey paused, noting the uncomfortable look on Lyall’s face, then he added pointedly, “Aye, lad. And Mairi is there. Your sister longs to speak with you.”
27
Inside the hall at Kinnesswood, Alastair Gordon grabbed a couple of ale tankards from a passing server and sat down next to Glenna at a table away from the others. She was petting a scrawny-looking gray cat that had followed her inside. He shoved one tankard at Elgin and took a long swig of the other. “For someone who has just been rescued from a locked tower you look fairly glum.”
“What?” Glenna asked distractedly, then smiled up at him. She touched his hand and El’s. “I’m glad you are here.”
“I, too,” Alastair said. “Now what is wrong?”
“Is that blood on your tunic?” she asked.
He looked down at his leather tunic. It was ripped and slashed, covered with soot and dirt, splattered and stained with blood and mud. He smiled.
“Aye,” Elgin said before he could answer. “Alastair, Lyall, and I used a ruse to pass through the gates. Here to sell mounts to Frasyr’s sergeant. But once inside, we overpowered the gate guards and the sergeant. Al fought like the greatest of knights. He managed the guards on the east and south walls by himself.” He paused. “Father would have been proud.”
Those words were invaluable to Alastair, as he remembered the scrawny lad he’d been when he father spent mornings teaching him to wield a sword or mace until his shoulders ached, his arms were numb, and his ears rang with the sound of metal clanging against metal. At El’s words, Alastair tried to not wear his pride too obviously and give himself away, but Glenna was never one to miss much.
He’d once had a dream, too, to be as his father had been, a knight, a man of substance and pledged to a king, with duties of a grand scale, to earn his spurs on the battlefield as had his father before him. But his promise to his father on his deathbed to care for Glenna and El made those dreams impossible. His fate had been decided and his duty was to his sister and brother. He shifted the tankard in his hand and looked at Glenna. “You have changed the subject, sister. Twice.”
She sighed heavily, so he slipped a comforting arm around her. Time had not passed well, and the days without her had not gone by easily or without guilt. To have her lean on his shoulder like she had for years made him feel whole again. For so long he’d had a purpose—seeing Glenna raised and safe—and when it was done and she had gone with Robertson, his life felt hollow, and each day echoed her absence. “Tell me, goose, what is bothering you.”
“Oh, Al….” She shook her head, staring into a full goblet of watered wine. “Everything …nothing…I don’t know.” Her voice trailed off. She glanced across the hall looking distant.
He exchanged a worried look with El, who was watching her and frowning.
“Yes, I do know!” Suddenly Glenna slammed her fist on the table top and the cat shrieked and leapt down, then moved to curl in and out of a server's legs, causing him to drop a platter before it scurried safely into the kitchens beyond.
Alastair turned back just as Glenna faced them both. “Lyall needs me. I trust him, and I believe in him. No one else does. Look!” She gestured angrily over in a corner of the hall where Baron Montrose looked to be verbally hammering Robertson with words.
Alastair watched them for a moment. Robertson stood stoically, his profile immobile as stone and letting the baron’s angry words sluice off of him, while he acted as if he cared not a whit for what he had done. He showed no emotion, no reaction. But Alastair suspected he cared deeply, and all was an act for his stepfather, a way to shield the rage coming at him and what turmoil he felt inside. ‘Twas a man’s way to hide his shame and anger, a technique he’d used when faced with his own father’s wrath.
“He’s a good man,” she said.
“Aye. He saved my life,” Elgin said, then told her how close he’d come to death and how Lyall’s quick skill with the bow meant El was there with her again and not buried in the ground somewhere.
“He’s brave,” Glenna said knowingly. “And he doesn’t realize it.”
“He surely realizes what he’d done and how he feels about you. But I’m not certain that is a good thing,” he pointed out to her.
“How can loving someone be a bad thing?”
“I somehow doubt this love is good, Glenna, and none of that matters much because you have others to answer to.”
“My father?” she said. “Bah! A pox on him.”
“Glenna!” Elgin hissed. “He is the king. To speak such is treason!”
“What is he going to do, hang me? Believe me when I say he will wish to hang me the moment we meet face to face, so what I say and how often I curse him does not matter one whit to me.”
“You cannot change your circumstances, or your birthright,” Alastair told her.
She dropped her chin into her hand and stared sourly at the tabletop, then said quietly. “I know.” She glanced up and looked off at Lyall again. “Baron Montrose believes our marriage is questionable. Another reason to not be the daughter of a king,” she muttered. “It seems a handfast could be declared unbinding. Royal marriages need to be witnessed.”
“So you did wed him?” Elgin asked. “At Beauly, Ruari and one of the monks both claimed you were wed. I did not believe it. We thought he had forced you or was lying, but—“
She stood up suddenly. “The abbey!” She grabbed Alastair’s tunic and half pulled him up off the bench. “The prior has a document. I had forgotten! They witnessed our claim as man and wife, though it was not true then, but that does not matter,” she said with a wave of her hand. “What matters is there is witnessed proof.” She laughed. “Writ, sig
ned, and sealed. Oh, who now shall win this battle!” She looked up at him, a plea in her desperate expression. “You have to go. You have to get the proof, Al. I need proof so they cannot dissolve the marriage. I beg you.”
The determined and anxious look in his sister’s eyes was one he knew well. She would have Robertson no matter what obstacles were in her way. She was not one to give up. “You are certain this is want you want?”
“I want no other than Lyall,” she said firmly, and her attention went across the hall to him again, still standing with Montrose. “I love him,” she said with quiet sincerity.
“We can fetch the proof,” Elgin said firmly and rose to quickly come around the table. “We must go there to check with the healer to see if---
Alastair kicked his brother in the shin before he spilled the truth.
El flinched but stopped talking. Al had already warned him not to tell Glenna they had found Fergus and taken him to the abbey, even though Glenna had told them when they reunited about losing him, about the arrow, and her heartache, and her anger at Lyall’s refusal to search for him.
Would she have felt better knowing they had found him, only to be told he had later died?
Alastair had spent his life protecting his sister, and his instinct to protect her had not waned. He would not take the chance of telling her, only to make her mourn the loss of Fergus all over again. Until he knew if the dog lived or died, he did not want to tell her they had found him, particularly when the monk doubted Fergus would make it.
“Swear you will help me,” she said.
He nodded. “We will ride to the abbey.”
“And you will bring back the proof to the baron’s keep?” Glenna said, more of an order than a question.
“Aye. We will bring you your proof.”
She threw her arms about him as she used to, covering his bearded cheeks with silly kisses. “Bless you, Alastair, my dear brother. I know you will not fail me. You never have.”
He kissed the top of her head and stepped back, feeling as if he were suddenly taller, and still her brother. “Come El, we must help prove our sister is wed to that horse’s ass.”