My Something Wonderful

by Jill Barnett

  “Alastair!” she said, but she was laughing.

  “The horse’s ass with whom you fought side by side?” Elgin said.

  “Aye.”

  “The horse’s ass who saved my life and that of our sister’s?” Elgin grinned.

  “Aye. The horse’s ass who started this whole thing.” Alastair clapped his arm around El’s shoulders as they left together.

  And Glenna’s quiet voice carried back to them. “Remember, that horse’s ass is your brother. He should fit in well.”

  * * *

  The inn where they had put up for the night was too small for the contingent of Ramsey troops now escorting them back to Rossi. Lyall lay on a straw pallet on the floor of the taproom, surrounded by sleeping men. His stepfather was taking no chance of losing Glenna.

  Whilst still at Kinnesswood, Ramsey had called in more of his men from other nearby positions. Soon after, they left Frasyr and his keep under guard by two of Ramsey’s most trusted knights and their retainer troops, amounting to enough men to hold off a siege on a land-locked castle, much less Kinnesswood with its lake-midst position. Even Argyll would not dare try to free his cousin.

  The night felt long and Lyall folded his hands behind his head and stared up at the dark roof beams, listening to snoring men. He caught a movement from the corner of his eye and raised up slightly to look. The guards stood quietly posted at the door. One leaned against the jamb and the other shifted his weight from one foot to the other, but their eyes remained sharp.

  He lay back down. There would be more men outside. His stepfather was thorough. Others stood at watch by the kitchens, and the stairs leading up to the rooms where Glenna was safely sequestered, and where his stepfather holed up for the night, likely dreaming of vile punishments for him. The rage between them and their words haunted his thoughts.

  “Sweet Mother Mary and Joseph!” Ramsey had raged. “She is ruined! Even if we can find a way to annul this union, you have ruined her. What have you done? Where was your head, man? She is the daughter of a king!”

  “And I am the son of a traitor.”

  “I did not say that.”

  “You didn’t have to.” Lyall knew what he was.

  His stepfather’s piercing look was almost more than he could bear, knowing Ramsey, his mentor and more, was a man of honor and his word was his life, something Lyall had almost believed in, back in halcyon days of naïve youth when he thought it was possible to live down his name. “I rode ahead of you by days,” Lyall answered without emotion. “And I convinced Glenna and her brothers I was you and there on your mission. ‘Twas simple to take your weapons from the armory, one of your shields, the message and proof of the king’s demand sent you by Sutherland.”

  “I know what you did. But I would know why,” he’d paused and his spoke with less rancor. “I cannot believe it was only for Dunkeldon. Tell me, son.”

  But Lyall knew he was not Ramsey’s son. The name of Ramsey carried no shame. He could barely remain standing from the monstrous wave of bitterness that came over him, battling with the shame he carried in the black cold impregnable place where hope had once, long, long ago, lived and breathed within him. Long moments passed as his stepfather waited. “What does it matter?” Lyall said coldly. “Neither of us can change what I have done.”

  “I do not like your tone.”

  I cannot speak and still hide what I feel. So he stood before his stepfather, stonily quiet, refusing to speak again because there was nothing he could say, and speaking from his heart was not an option. He had no defense to make.

  Even now, in the middle of the night as he lay in thought amidst the Ramsey men, words and reason escaped him, even sleep alluded him. He stared overhead. The coals in the waning fire beyond turned everything red as if limned by hell. Nearby, a man sighed and shifted, and another snorted and mumbled a curse before he quieted. The fire snapped and popped…a log fell. Again something flashed in his periphery, and he looked the side window, where Glenna’s head suddenly popped into view for barely a heartbeat before it disappeared.

  What was she about? How in the name of all the saints did she get outside?

  He was on his feet and feigned stumbling drunkenly over to door. Bracing a hand on the wall, his head down, he growled, “I have to piss.”

  The guard let him pass, and a few steps away he found her waving him over as she huddled behind some barrels beneath the window. He squatted down. “What are you doing?” he hissed. “How did you get out of that room.”

  “Quiet! Not here.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him down at the sound of voices from beyond and behind the inn.

  She was mad as he was.

  They huddled together behind the large barrels, bodies close and still, her breast resting softly against his wrist, their breathing so shallow it was like holding a breath. Some of Ramsey’s trusted guards crossed the path near the inn’s back kitchen, their boots crunching on the rock, their voices muted, until one of them laughed quietly.

  Glenna was still as a rock. His heart pounded in his ears. The men circled past the barrels to the front of the inn, and stopped at the corner to talk. He knew there were men sleeping outside, and others in the stables. How foolish was this!

  In time, a hundred heartbeats, a thousand? The men disappeared.

  “Quickly,” she whispered and stood, forcing him to follow her to the east side of the kitchen shed, where she shoved him through a door and down into a cold room dug into the ground. The scent of brined meat, dairy and onions filled his nose, and the temperature dropped to that of a mid-winter day. She closed the door behind him and threw her arms around his neck. “Kiss me,” she said.

  He grabbed her wrists firmly and pulled her arms from around his neck, setting her back from him. “We are surrounded by guards.”

  She grinned and bit her lower lip, then admitted with a wicked gleam in her eye, “I know. Makes the idea of what we are about to do all the more keen, does it not?”

  His head filled with the image of them swivving against the wall whilst guards walked by, stood at doors unknowingly, and slept soundly overhead.

  Lyall groaned her name.

  “Do not make the grand risk I have taken all for naught. Kiss me, Lyall. I want you to kiss me.”

  He came back to reality, took a long breath and said evenly, “First I will have an answer from you. How did you get out?”

  “Maggie,” she paused. When his mouth had barely formed the word who, she added, “The maid. I told her the horrid, long and trying tale of how we were being kept apart by our cruel, cruel fathers. She was terribly sympathetic.”

  He shook his head and could only imagine her vivid words of their great and troubled romantic history. “I imagine with your glib tongue she was sympathetic.” Most likely whipped up into a state of tears, he thought.

  “She showed me a hidden staircase from my room down to just above here.” She pointed to the dirt ceiling. “Now I would kiss you with this glib tongue.”

  “Glenna….”

  She slid her hands flat against his chest and rubbed him, murmuring his name.

  Looking down at her was his perdition, for she looked up at him dreamily, still innocent yet seductress. Her heart was clearly his and she understood her power—he had taught her well. She was all dark eyes that sparkled and beckoned as did the stars over the River Tay, lashes long, with black tips like marten fur, lips moist and dark and sweet as the flesh of a ripe plum at summer’s end. There was nothing in the world he wanted more…and he wondered at the God whose hand ruled the fates of men.

  A strong and honorable man would have had a hard time turning away from her when she begged for exactly what he wanted…and more, when she offered herself to him so readily, so easily. Could something he desired in his treacherous and stormy life truly be his so simply?

  Her body was against him, all softness and woman, so different from his, the fullness of her breasts in his hands, the tightness of the small tips when he ran his thumbs ove
r her, her palms flat on his chest, and so hot was her touch he had the insane thought he could feel Eve’s temptation in the outline of her fingers.

  He slid his hands down to press flatly against the softness of her bottom, to bring her against him. His mouth and tongue ravaged hers and he walked her back, pinned her to the wall and held her up with his thigh between her legs. Their hands moved over each other. Sweat began beading on his brow and down his back despite the temperature in the cold room. He was on fire for her, burning hotly from the inside out.

  “Take me, Lyall, take me and we will truly be wed. My oath before, sworn to the baron that we had been lovers at Dunkeldon will no longer be a lie.”

  From somewhere far away he caught her words, and their meaning. His stepfather’s accusation came charging back to him clearly and as if he were there shouting into Lyall’s ear. You have ruined her! The thought was like being doused with a bucket of melted snow. He pulled away, trying to gain some sense of control. The air he needed had disappeared and he panted, searching for the breath he needed to cool him down, another dousing. His body throbbed from his cock to his head.

  “Lyall?”

  He held up a hand to warn her, the other clutched into a tight fist and the urge to pound the wall hit him hard. The ability to speak escaped him. He did not move. He couldn’t look at her. Somehow he would do this. “Leave.”

  “Nay. I will not.”

  “I said leave!” he hissed in barely controlled anger, facing her.

  She did not back away, but she was shaken.

  “Go,” he said in a low rasp and pushed her toward the door. “Go! Get out! I swear on all that is holy in this world, Glenna, I will call out to the guards if you do not leave now.”

  She shook her head.

  He picked her up and she fought him, silently, but kicking and pounding him with her fists. She connected with his eye as he shoved her out and closed the door, leaning against it as he felt her hit it with her fist. Through the door she spat his name as if it were a vile curse, then wished him an eternity in hell.

  He was already there. His back blocking the door, he stayed that way, breathing hard, head thrown back, eyes tightly closed, his teeth clenched and his hands shaking. He fought her; he fought himself; he struggled, while the last flicker of hope—that his life was not lost--died inside of him.

  28

  The shadows were lengthening as they rode over the crest topping another hill, and past the lush forests to a point where Baron Ramsey reined in. Glenna had not seen Lyall since that morning at the inn, when he chose his position at the rear of troop. Their eyes met once, enough for her to see what she knew—that he was far from through with her, and she was even farther from through with him. The baron had been kind to her, and she knew he had not missed nor was unhappy about the distance Lyall had put between them.

  As they stopped, one of the knight’s palfreys nipped Skye and reared, almost throwing the man from its back, and loud curses flew through the air. The men closed ranks about her as Skye sidestepped uneasily, forcing Glenna to quickly control her or be thrown. But she knew horses well, having been in the saddle since she was three, and she knew Skye more so. When the elegantly bred mare calmed down with little trouble, some of the men murmured appreciatively. Glenna settled into the saddle with the sound of creaking leather, and the baron leaned over and nodded to the valley below. “There is our destination.”

  She followed his gaze and experienced her first sight of Castle Rossi. Her breath caught at the immense impression it made, and the reality of it frightened her to death.

  Built in an opulent and fertile valley and spreading out in the wingspan of a great walled city, the seat of power for the barony of Montrose was a massive stone structure with towers at each corner, and thick outer walls which were turning pink from the setting sun. The nearby river was wide and turbulent in places; it snaked along the castle’s southernmost edge, gleaming eel-like and silver, winding its way through rich farms dotting the eastern plains and out into the deep, blue waters of the great firth beyond.

  As the contingent rode down into the glen, the walls of Rossi loomed closer, and Glenna’s fears grew. She sat rigidly stiff, her eyes straight ahead while mad thoughts and images flew through her head. Lyall’s mother and sister were inside the keep. They would be the first women of the new life she would be forced to face.

  You have sisters.

  There was the true curse: more women she would have to face. She closed her eyes and white-knuckled the reins. She could not bear to think of her unknown sisters, women of the same blood who never existed in her world before, and to imagine who they were and how they would view her was enough to make her run away with her hair on fire. She had been raised with men. Sisters were as foreign to her as was a father who was king.

  But now, ahead of her, she must confront the two most important women in Lyall’s life. And they would judge her. That’s what strangers did. They would have expectations, and would take one look at her and form their opinions.

  The sunlight was waning fast and night descending, but not quickly enough or dark enough to hide who she was.

  The women inside that keep would stand there in their beautiful gowns, their hair coiffed and hands soft and uncallused, pale, with their practiced ways and natural status, and look down their noble noses at the sight of her and her tangled hair, worker’s hands, and peasant clothing.

  The cold meat and bread she had eaten earlier now roiled in her belly, making her want to retch into the bushes, but she pressed a hand beneath her ribs and sought some kind of courage. Her pride was her only asset, and her shield against the expectations she was certain she would face…and would surely fail to meet.

  Surrounded by more than two hundred men and the Baron Montrose, she rode up to the perimeter of the castle feeling completely alone. A call came from the guard above the gatehouse and the heavy portcullis rose like an iron smile to the sounds of chains and cranks, and the hollow clatter of horses’ hooves on the drawbridge. They rode into the outer bailey, past Rossi’s villeins who watched or stood poised at the edge of a garden with hoe in hand and eyes on her, while others rushed out from their huts to wave at the baron on his great horse, riding with pennants flying at his side, and the strange woman with him. She sat even more stiffly, trying not to show her fears and weakness to all and sundry.

  Inside the walls was like a village, complete with smithies working the bellows and hammering out red-hot iron, and outbuildings sheltering workers, animal pens with sheep and pigs, a dovecote, and huge stone wells where water was drawn or cooked and stirred in giant vats of laundry, the linens hanging from ropes that crisscrossed from heavy posts in the ground.

  Glenna could still feel the curious gazes of the baron’s people watch her as they rode past and through another thick wall to the inner ward, where many of the knights were greeted happily by their women and children. Behind the families, there were household quarters along the walls and an enviable stable large enough to house all the men’s horses and more, filled with working farriers and grooms, and the troop reined in before the massive keep. There was a flurry of squires who came rushing out from the yard and milled around the chaos of dismounting men, taking reins and orders from the Montrose knights.

  Her breathing froze in her chest and her hands gripped the reins in the busyness and blur of their arrival. As if he had appeared out of thin air, Lyall was at her side, and that surprised her, since it had been the one place he had avoided all day. He seemed to fill the space, so tall and golden, the last glow of the setting sun behind him and casting his face in shadows and angles. She blinked and looked at him, his face unreadable as he stood next to Skye, his arms reaching up to help her down from the saddle.

  The words ‘why now?’ were on the tip of the tongue, but a sound pulled her attention away to the enormous doors of the keep, which opened slowly. Oh, lud! She closed her eyes. The women….

  A strange roar sounded in her ears, like nothing
she had ever heard, and her blood seemed to grow warm, too warm. Her vision changed suddenly and grew foggy. As if her bones had melted, she slipped from the saddle and felt Lyall’s strong arms catch her, then heard the worried tone of his voice when he said her name, but it sounded as if it came echoing out from a cave, then the whole world went black.

  * * *

  To the sound of his stepfather’s shouts, Lyall ran through the open doors of the great hall with Glenna unconscious in his arms, and almost trampled over his sister. “Mairi!”

  “This is the king’s daughter?” Mairi whispered in a rush of worried words. “My Lord in Heaven, Lyall, what have you done to her?”

  A hundred answers came to his lips, none of them good. “Everything,” he said quietly.

  But his sister must not have heard him because she pulled on his arm and said, “Come quickly.”

  He followed her up the stairs and into her chamber as she called for her maid.

  “Lay her down…gently. Aida! There you are. Send someone to fetch some watered wine and my herb bag is over there in the chest. The lemons, aye, bring some of the lemons my lord just received from Amalfi.” She stood in the center of the room, frowning. “Let me think…. “

  Lyall straightened, staring blankly at Glenna’s pale skin, feeling uncomfortable and unable to think clearly. He heard his sisters words but he cared not what she was saying. He sank to his knees by the bed and touched Glenna’s face with his hand. Her skin was clammy and cool.

  A water-filler laver cradled in her arm, Mairi edged him aside, but he took the damp towel from her hand and stepped in front of her. “I will do it.”

  “You should leave.”

  “Perhaps I should, but I will not. Glenna? Sweetheart?” He used the towel to wipe her brow and face.

  “What happened? Lord, Lyall, what else have you done to her?”