“And so I will but first I would bear away with me that, or rather those you have taken from me.”
Callum let go of Alys’s hand and leapt to his feet. Bracing his palms on the table, he leaned over like a lion poised to pounce. “There is nay thing here that belongs to you, churl. Be gone!”
But the tinker lifted his scarred chin, squared his shoulders, and held his ground. “Would the laird of the Frasers willfully steal another man’s property, even if that man was English? I come in peace. But whether in peace or war, I will have my property returned to me.”
Callum reached down and drew his dirk from its sheath. “Let us see your face, knave. I would look a man in the eye before I send him to his maker.”
“As you wish.” The tinker reached up and swept back his hood.
Even through the mask of scars, Alys knew him.
A phantom’s face.
An English face.
Her husband, Alex’s face.
A black curtain fell about her, heavy and fast. Her soft-soled slippers seemed to melt into the floor, the rest of her limbs going boneless and weak. The shocked faces and high-pitched murmurings, and finally, the very light—all were veiled from her. Weightless as a cloud, she swayed. She spun. She spiraled. She fell back, grateful to the blissful blackness bearing her far, far away.
TURNING TO LOOK out onto the company, the Outlander lifted his arms and called out, “I am Alexander Field and this lady is prior wed—to me!”
Heads swung to the front of the room. Eyes popped and mouths hung open. Above them, the musicians ceased playing. Instead of sweet music, whispered exclamations of “Sassenach,” “Outlander,” and “liar” filled the chamber.
Pitching his voice above them, Field went on, “We were wed in St. Andrew’s of Portree nigh on two years ago. The parish records will bear me out.”
Callum drew out his dirk and roared, “Silence, knave!” He might have lunged over the table and dispatched the Outlander then and there but a swift glance back at Alys showed his lady to have swooned in her seat.
Holding her upright against him, he motioned for Milread. Moving with a swiftness that belied her years and blindness, the wise woman rose from her chair and appeared at his side.
Frantic, he grabbed the urn, doused his hand, and slapped water onto Alys’s parchment-pale cheeks. Looking to Milread, he demanded, “Rouse her. Rouse her now. She must deny him. She must!”
Sad-faced, the wise woman shook her head. For the first time since Callum had known her, she neither cackled nor grinned. “Were I to awaken her, I dinna believe she could do as you ask.”
Callum whirled on Field. The Outlander grinned, a brilliant white smile splitting his fouled face, the image bringing to mind the gargoyles snarling down from the parapets of cathedrals. “Faith, I always could make her swoon.”
Callum knew the fiend goaded him and yet he was hard-pressed not to plunge his dirk into that ravaged throat.
He handed Alys off to Father Fearghas with instructions to carry her to her chamber. He and the priest had had their differences in the past and yet his former tutor was the only man beyond his brother whom he would entrust with his lady’s care.
He waited until she was borne away before turning back to Field. Patchy blond hair framed a face that was at once pathetic and grotesque. Faces ravaged by smallpox were common sights, the lifelong pitting a badge of survivorship, but Callum had never before seen a disfigurement so severe. Like a riverbed flooded and then drained dry, rivulets of shiny scarlet scars slashed across his flesh from forehead to chin. The gullies ran deepest on the right side of his face, puckering his full mouth and lifting one side in what looked to be a permanent sneer. Under other circumstances, he would have found himself moved to pity.
But Callum had no pity to spare for this man, none at all. Had he his bow with him, Field might already be dead. Watching his bride being borne away, he allowed that the Outlander might yet not survive the night.
Spearing the dirk in the air, he said, “You must know you court death by proclaiming such.”
Field shrugged his shoulders, nearly as broad as Callum’s. “I have courted death before, Scotsman, and cheated her, as well. The smallpox may have stripped the flesh from my bones but by God I willna let it strip my family from me, as well. I claim what is mine by right, my wife and my son.” His gaze darted to Alasdair, happily banging his spoon on the tabletop.
Callum felt fresh fury wash over him. The Outlander was broadly and blatantly playing to the crowd. Judging from the looks on their faces, he’d already won considerable sympathy. When it came to manipulating human emotions, apparently ugliness could be as useful as fairness. He stabbed his dirk into the table, splitting the board.
Glaring at Field over the quivering hilt, he said, “Until I can unravel this coil, you, Englishman, will remain here.”
“You would toss me in your dungeon, then, so that you may make my wife your whore?” Again that aggrieved tone and carrying voice proclaiming himself as both the hero and the victim.
Callum had never before faced such a fight. They stood in his great hall, Alys was his wife, and yet the Outlander had maneuvered events so that he was the one on the defensive.
And so Callum retaliated the only way he knew, with threats he would not hesitate to prove. “Dinna try me, knave. I am laird here, and you are far removed from the protection of your English king. I can do with you as I will. I shall do with you as I will. Make no mistake, Outlander. Whilst you remain within these castle walls, you are subject to one man’s will and one man’s only—mine.”
THEY SAT on opposing sides of the trestle table in Callum’s solar, taking one another’s measure. Callum was the first to speak. “What is it you want?”
Field plucked an apple from the bowl between them. So far in private he’d shown himself to be soft-spoken, almost relaxed.
He bit into the fruit. Callum saw that his teeth were white and strong and perfect, yet another contrast. “I would have thought I’d made myself plain. I want my wife and my son back with me in London where they belong.”
Callum couldn’t hold back. “London!” Ere now he’d been so caught up in combating Field’s claim he hadn’t considered that the man might mean to take Alys and Alasdair so very far away. But of course England was his home. Once they crossed the border, his lady and her son would be beyond Callum’s protection. “I will not allow it.”
Field shook his head. “You cannot stop it. Alys is my wife and the boy, my son.”
“I could make you disappear?”
Field bit into the apple again, sending juice spurting. Chewing, he said, “I’ve just ruined your wedding feast and claimed your bride. Were I to go missing, you’d be a murderer in the eyes of every man and woman in your clan. From what little I know of tanistry, lairds lead by the will of their people, not strictly speaking, by birthright. Would your fellow Frasers consent to be led by a chief who was a cold-blooded murderer and a bigamist in the bargain? I think not.”
Watching him, Callum allowed he’d never wanted anyone dead more. “I could have you tortured. A few turns on the rack would have you singing a different song.”
He was bluffing or at least he started out that way. His dungeon was a series of holding cells. To his knowledge, he didn’t possess so much as a thumb screw. But if the threat of torture or even torture itself caused Alexander Field to renounce his claim on Alys, by God he’d have a fleet of racks carted in.
The knave seemed more amused than cowed. “Whatever you’ve in mind, I hope it won’t spoil my looks.”
“What is it you want? Money, then? Land? Cattle? It can’t be easy earning your bread now.” Callum would gladly relinquish all his earthly wealth if it meant keeping Alys and her son with him.
Field paused in palming the fruit. The snarl on his face suggested Callum had found a weak spot.
“The smallpox may have made my face ugly as sin, but I can wield a sword as ably as ever I could.”
“Prov
e it.” Pressing his advantage, Callum surged to his feet. He reached for his dirk. “An English broad sword against a Scottish claymore, what say you?”
From the doorway, Alys cried out, “Callum, nay!”
If anyone could render him weak, it was his lady. Callum couldn’t trust himself to look at her. He needed to stay strong and from the first day he’d set eyes upon her, he’d been nothing but weak where she was concerned. “Alys, leave me to handle this.”
Field rose, as well. He tossed the apple core into the rushes and turned toward her. “Sweetheart, I’ve come for you at last.” He opened his arms.
She hesitated, looking from one man to the other. After a moment, she rushed to Callum’s side, laying a staying hand upon his arm. “You cannot challenge him. I will not be the cause of spilled blood.”
Aware of Field watching, Callum took her into his arms and smoothed a soothing hand along her spine. I don’t care what his game is. You’re mine. Mine!
“Dinna fret, dearling. This is a matter to be settled among men.”
“There is nothing to settle.” She pulled back and turned her face up to his, her blue eyes beseeching. “He speaks true. I am his wife. Alasdair is his son. He has every right to claim us.”
Callum hadn’t expected that. Ere now he’d convinced himself the tinker, Field, must be a skilled actor, a fraud. “Alys, nay!”
She looked over his shoulder to Field. “I will go with you on the morrow.”
He nodded. “Of course you will. You are a good and dutiful wife.” He caught Callum’s gaze and added, “My wife.”
Callum felt the muscle ticking in his jaw. It was the same sensation he’d had just before he’d taken deadly aim and shot his arrow into Brianna’s treacherous advisor, Duncan. That act had been in the service of saving three lives, his brother’s, Brianna’s and Alys’s. Killing Alexander Field would be pure pleasure.
Callum released Alys and put her behind him. He pulled his dirk from its sheath and advanced on Field. Field, too, unsheathed the sword from his side. The Outlander was a goodly sized man but Callum was the taller and broader-shouldered of them.
Closing in on his enemy, Callum relished how Field had to look up to him. “Let us settle this once and for all, Outlander.” Dirk in hand, he lunged.
Alys darted forward. “My lord, nay!” She threw herself between them, blocking his thrust.
Callum drew back. Muscles trembling, he forced his weapon arm back down to his side. Thinking how close he’d come to cutting Alys, sweat broke out upon his brow. Such loss of control in a trained warrior was all but unforgivable. He’d attacked many times before, killed even, but never in the heat of the moment. The blood lust upon him was more potent than whiskey—and far more deadly.
He caught a sideways look at Alys’s frightened face and sheathed his knife. “I should kill you and be done with the deed,” he said to Field.
Alexander shrugged. “Murder is murder even if I am English. You’d not only lose the support of your clansmen but also place Alys in direst peril.”
Callum scraped a hand through his sweat-dampened hair. “Alys, how so?” The murderous rage was abating, leaving him muzzy-headed and physically weak.
Gentling his voice, Field answered, “The penalty for adultery is stoning. That is so not only in England but in Scotland, as well, I think.”
His gaze shifted to Alys, standing with her back flattened against the wall. Callum didn’t miss how those light-lashed eyes followed the line and curve of her body. Even pale and frightened, she was so incredibly, irresistibly beautiful.
The Outlander’s gaze wended its way back to him. “I saw the body of a stoning victim once, a whore who’d run afoul of the parish priest. Her face and form were all but unrecognizable for all she’d been a beauty in life.” Dividing his gaze between them, he pulled what passed for a pitying face. “I shall retire to my—our—chamber and leave you in privacy to say your goodbyes.”
THE DOOR FELL CLOSED behind Alexander. Left alone, Alys turned to Callum across what was to have been their bridal bower. Upon the trestle table a simple matrimonial supper had been laid out for later—dates and figs, walnuts and pistachios, sundry cheeses, a bowl of fruit, and a flagon of wine to quench their thirst and abet conception—all the ingredients of a joyous and fruitful first night together.
Callum came toward her. “Deny him, Alys. Deny him for the madman he must be to come here. One word from you, and I will have him escorted to the English border in irons. Deny him and all will yet be well, as it was before between us, as if he never set foot here.”
She shook her head, which felt weighted as with lead. “I canna, for he speaks true. He is Alexander Field, my husband. Much changed though he is, still I know him. Beyond any doubt, he is my lawful husband.”
He drew back his arm and crashed his fist upon the table, causing the bowls to jump. “I dinna care who he is, deny him. You can. You must! For both our sakes, you must. It is the only way.”
Alys swallowed hard. How she wished she might faint again and thereby have some reprieve from the pain. “He has made his claim public before your clansmen. Even were he to rescind it and go away, the damage is done. Your counselors, the Old Gentlemen, would never countenance a bigamous marriage. And not even a laird can command a priest to shrive so blasphemous an act. It is too late, my lord. We love but too late.”
For the first time since they’d met, he touched her with less than gentleness. He seized her by the shoulders and dealt her a shake, the force knocking her veil askew. “It is not too late. I willna let it be too late.”
His fingers dug into her forearms and Alys welcomed the pain. How she hoped there would be bruising on the morrow, something of him to take away with her for a little while at least.
“You must let me go, my lord. You must let me go to my husband.”
Blue eyes slammed into hers, a battering ram to her heart. “You would go to his bed, then? You would render such honor to the man who deserted you? Who left you to starve and then stayed away for these two years. Mind I ken your history, lady. Were it not for the burgher’s widow stealing Alasdair away, and you coming to the MacLeod’s court to plead your case before Brianna, you would still be lifting your skirts to secure your son’s bread.”
Never before had he spoken to her so harshly but then, never before had he had such abundant cause. “He didn’t know of my troubles. You’ve only to look at his scars to see how sick he has been.”
Callum released her, staring as though she’d grown a second head. “Do you defend him, then?”
“Nay, I mean, aye.” At her wit’s end, she threw her hands up in the air. “He is my husband and the father of my son. What choice have I?”
“You could choose to stay with me.”
It was Alys’s turn to anger. How simple he made it all seem. “And make myself not only a whore again but also an adulteress? Damn the immortal soul of the man I love to Hellfire through my selfishness and lust? Lose my son?”
“You will not lose your son. I will not allow it.”
“Will you not? Look me in the eye, my lord, and swear to me upon our love that you can stop Alex from taking away my son.”
He couldn’t and they both knew it. The fierce determination that had marked his features descended to defeat. He scraped a hand through his hair, pushing back that rebellious raven forelock she so loved. “Promise you’ll come to me tomorrow morn before you set out.”
To speak of farewells on what was to have been their wedding night! Close to crying, she shook her head. “My lord—”
His gaze locked on hers. “Promise me. This canna be our goodbye, it canna.”
She glimpsed the sheen in his eyes and knew he was holding back tears, too. Her proud, bold Callum was on the verge of weeping—for her, for them, for the future of beautiful, everlasting Christmases that now would never be.
Overcome, she nodded. “Verra well, I will come.”
Callum ran his hands along her upper arms, raisin
g gooseflesh. Bringing his face close to hers, he held her gaze and whispered, “Stay with me tonight.”
“I canna, you know I canna.”
His warm breath brushed her lips. “Stay with me. If we must part on the morrow, then let us do so as lovers.”
She shook her head, tears welling. “To lie together would damn both our souls.”
“Stay with me,” he begged, his evergreen scent flooding her senses and clouding her mind. “Stay with me and let us burn together, for I’d writhe in Satan’s flames with you before I’d occupy Paradise with any other.” His hand found her nape, his thumb stroking a suddenly sensitive spot. “Stay with me.”
Liquid warmth rushed between her legs, her body lustfully alive for all that her heart was breaking. Callum must have sensed she was on the verge of surrender.
Cradling her head, he deepened the kiss, running his tongue along the seam of her lips, urging her to open. “Kisses, only kisses…”
This time he was lying, and they both knew it. If she stayed with him, they would share a great deal more than kisses. She was no widow now, but a married woman. If they made love, she would be damning not only her immortal soul but Callum’s, as well. As much as she wanted him, she loved him even more. Reaching for what willpower she had left, she planted both palms against his chest and pushed. He was solid, implacable as a mountain. She couldn’t begin to move him and yet he fell back of his own accord, expression shocked and so very wounded.
Seeing the hurt in his eyes, knowing she’d put it there, proved to be her undoing. “Oh, Callum…” Before she might yet do more harm, she turned and ran from the room.
4
AFTER LEAVING Alys with Callum, Alex had sought out a servant who’d grudgingly pointed him the way to her chamber. He walked about the room, examining the sundry finery, touching all her fragile, pretty things. Stroking a finger over the ivory-backed brush, he caught his reflection in the mirror and stared. By now he should be used to the face staring back at him but he wasn’t. That visage still seemed to belong to a fair-day freak, a stranger.
Blaze Historicals Bundle II Page 23