Lady With the Devil's Scar

by Sophia James

  ‘Did your husband ever mention Marc to you?’

  ‘No, not to me. He was not the sort who enjoyed the art of conversation, you understand. I was married to him for five years and every one of those days seemed like for ever. You have no idea of the horror of a marriage that demeans you, Lady Dalceann, for by all accounts here your husband was ineffective but kind. I was twenty-two when my father sent me to Stirling and almost thirty when he finally died. It is not revenge I now seek, but justice. A child of the Huntworths has been lost to the whims of history and the estate is wealthy. I look at Marc de Courtenay and I think he should have the chance to know his bloodlines.’

  For the first time since meeting Catriona

  McQuarry, Isobel saw fear behind bravado.

  ‘Why do you think he could be related if no proof exists?’

  ‘I did not say that there was none. Sometimes when the old Earl didn’t think others watched him he would drag out a box full of mementos. De Courtenay’s name was on every single one of them.’

  ‘Where is the box now?

  ‘At the Huntworth estate of Torwood, I should imagine. I am not welcome there any more and Stuart

  McQuarry is hardly going to locate it for me.’

  ‘But you think that Marc might be able to prove he is a McQuarry should he find it.’

  The other woman nodded quite forcibly. ‘I know you like him, Isobel, and as the lost child of such a family he might be able to stand up and be counted as a suitor. You remind me of myself many years ago, you see, and I think if only there had been someone around who could have helped me I would be a different person now. A happier one.’

  She turned the ring on her finger, and it glinted in the candlelight. ‘My stepson Stuart McQuarry is a dangerous adversary, however, and you will have to be careful in your search for answers.’ She stopped, her voice tapering off for a second as she took breath. ‘I cannot come alone and meet you again because if Huntworth should see me, then he may make certain I can no longer talk to anyone.’

  ‘He would kill you?’

  Her eyes filled with fire. ‘When Marc de Courtenay ran his sword through Archibald McQuarry at the keep of Ceann Gronna, half of my problems were solved. It is another thing that I owe him for.’

  ‘If I can be of any assistance—’

  Catriona did not let her finish. ‘You have already helped me, Lady Dalceann, because in you I see a woman who will not be subjected to the flagrant will of men. It is my sanctuary.’

  * * *

  There was another gathering in the castle the following afternoon and Marc de Courtenay sat at the top table in the seat next to hers.

  Isobel could not mask her surprise as she was shown to her place, as he was dressed in clothes she had not seen him wear before, his rich russet-velvet tunic belted by a leather strap that was encrusted in jewels. The wolf motif was embroidered in the material at his neckline.

  In the company of others Isobel felt less certain about their relationship, the intimacy of their nighttime trysts relegated here to formality and manners. There was no memory of any confidence or closeness as he raised his eyes to hers.

  ‘I hope you are faring well in the castle, Lady Dalceann,’ he said, to all intents and purposes a stranger asking after her well-being.

  ‘Indeed, Sir Marc. I have been welcomed most warmly.’ Further afield on the long benches people watched, the eyes of the court upon them. It was a role they played out here she understood, a woman who had been brought to the court by a commander of men. Only politics and war, no love in it.

  Love.

  She blushed at the very word because all she wanted to do was to lay her fingers across his hard brown hand and hold on for ever.

  When he picked up his bread she saw that he wore a ring engraved with two lions and many fleur-de-lis. The Valois insignia. She had seen a drawing of it in a manuscript in the chapel at the keep. Why would he wear it, then, in the company of another king if the claims within it were false?

  Another thought occurred. Perhaps they were not false. A further thought occurred on top of that one. Yesterday he had said he did not recognise the badge of the Huntworths, but could that have been a lie, too?

  She longed to tell him of her suspicions and

  Catriona McQuarry’s confession, but here and now was neither the time nor the place. Here they were David’s guests in a castle where one wrong word could have consequences.

  ‘Your exploits in France are legendary, Sir Marc. Have you taken place in the tournaments of Burgundy at all?’

  Such a vapid question but all she could think of with the man next to her listening in on their conversation.

  ‘Once or twice I have, though a good many years ago now.’

  The blonde-haired Anne of Kinburn further down the table laughed in the way women here often did, all artifice and no humour.

  ‘You could take my favour with you into any arena any time you want, Sir Marc.’ The tone in her voice was honey sweet. ‘How long will you be staying here in Edinburgh?’

  Alabaster-smooth skin and the full promise of cleavage were easily seen in the low-cut bodice that she favoured—a beautiful woman who knew exactly how to use her attributes. For the first time in her entire life Isobel wished that she knew such feminine tricks as she watched the exchange.

  ‘I shall be returning to France before the winter begins, Lady Anne.’

  ‘To other battles?’

  He nodded. ‘Philip has his enemies.’

  ‘But you have at least slain one of David’s, my lord, for the Ceann Gronna keep is finally loyal. It must be a relief, Lady Dalceann, to be welcomed back into the fold?’

  Could Anne of Kinburn possibly be asking that question in innocence? Her keep lost and many of her men with it, their blood on flagstones running red with death.

  ‘Relief is not the word I would use, Lady Anne.’

  ‘Gratitude, then, perhaps, Lady Dalceann?’

  Isobel remained quiet, catching the flat green of Marc’s eyes, warning away anger.

  ‘Let me go.’ A voice above all the others in the room suddenly took her attention and she saw

  Catriona McQuarry trying to extricate her hand from a tall and well-built man.

  The fellow seemed to have no mind to listen as he all but dragged her up from her seat at the table and towards the door. Everyone else around them ignored her obvious panic, watching with the look of people who did not want to get involved in a fuss.

  ‘Catriona McQuarry is always creating a scene,’ Anne of Kinburn observed, picking up a crust of bread and dipping it in the sauce still left on her plate. ‘I think a strong man would do her the world of good. Perhaps this one is him.’

  Others laughed, those closer to the action egging on the unexpected show. Isobel noticed that his fingers left marks on the pale skin of her forearm. Even the minstrel playing his harp at the other end of the room stopped his tune in interest.

  Catriona was a woman who had not cultivated her own physical strength and who did not understand the tricks even a small adversary might use to free themselves. Nae, she did not attack at all as she should have done.

  Without a moment’s thought Isobel stood and marched across to the door that they were making for. ‘Lady Catriona is telling you that she wishes to be set free.’

  When the man failed to take any notice at all she simply leant across and twisted his other arm in the way Ian had shown her so many times in the bailey at Ceann Gronna. Yelping with pain, the man spun back, his feet getting tangled up with those of a bench behind him and landing hard on his backside.

  Catriona was shaking now, her fingers clamped across Isobel’s arm as if the whole world depended on it.

  ‘Nobody shall make you go where you do not wish to, Lady Catriona.’

  As the silence lengthened Isobel simply took her hand and led her from the room.

  * * *

  ‘God.’ Marc swore beneath his breath, watching the scene play out before him, for Isobel h
ad just given Huntworth all the reasons in the world to hate her. He knew the man to be one of the McQuarry minions, even if Isobel so plainly did not, and the silence in the chamber was beginning to be punctuated by small whispered conjecture as the court tried to make sense of it all.

  ‘Does Lady Dalceann not fear retribution?’ Anne of Kinburn’s voice came through the growing chatter, a sense of regard plain in the tone.

  ‘I think she could handle it if it did come,’ the man beside him returned.

  ‘Catriona McQuarry has never been the same since her marriage. What did Isobel Dalceann do to MacDougal’s arm?’

  ‘It’s the witchcraft, mayhap, for I have never seen such a reaction from so small a touch.’

  All over the room people looked towards the door, hoping Isobel might reappear, the fear of a throng mesmerised by the unexpected. Marc leant back, the anger in him kept under restraint by sheer will. Did Isobel Dalceann never take her own safety into consideration and was it for ever up to him to do so?

  A buzz of something akin to alarm swept the room, the sort of feeling, he imagined, that would vibrate in a cornfield amongst the mice when a hungry hawk hovered above them searching for dinner.

  Isobel Dalceann was as magnificent as she was

  lethal and the hold she had placed on the man waylaying Lady Catriona was one he had never seen before. The fellow still shook his hand even now, a brace of moments later, his fingers red rigid with the numbed shock of touch.

  He wanted to laugh and rise to follow, but he knew to do that would incite the questions he so very dearly wished to avoid. People must perceive his indifference, if he was to be of any help to her at all here in Edinburgh.

  Hence he raised his glass and turned to the table.

  ‘To bravery,’ he toasted, hoping that the words might change agitation into respect, even as he began to eat the meat from the plate placed before him.

  * * *

  ‘Stuart knows I gave you the ring.’ Catriona sat on the bed, doing her best to collect herself. ‘I must be right and there is some connection between the McQuarrys and de Courtenay that they do not wish to be made known.’ The sun had fallen down at least an hour’s worth of minutes and yet still she shook.

  ‘No one will hurt you, Catriona, for I will not allow it.’

  Renewed anguish filled the room. ‘That is the difference between us, don’t you see? I used to be like you once and now...’ The breath was forced from her body, leaving her face a violent red as she gasped for air.

  ‘But you are brave. Few others would have risked the wrath of the McQuarrys by showing me the ring.’

  Hope surged in the older woman’s eyes, making her beautiful. ‘I had forgotten what hope was until you came to Edinburgh, Isobel, but for now I will repair to my father’s home in the north of Scotland. I can no longer be certain of my own safety in Edinburgh, you see, though if you have need of a place of sanctuary, you would be warmly welcomed there.’

  ‘At this moment I am under the will of the king, but perhaps in time...’

  Isobel liked the way Catriona squeezed her hand in friendship as the king’s servant came into the room to bid the older woman follow him into the company of David. A monarch ruled well by knowing all the factions of his court, she supposed, and hoped

  Catriona’s father’s influence would be enough to give her safety.

  * * *

  Marc waited outside, leaning against the wall, two of the king’s men hovering a little way off, watching him with interest. He pushed himself away from the smoothed stone when he saw her.

  ‘Would a stroll suit you, Lady Dalceann?’

  The look on his face confused her. The man inside with detachment and indifference in his eyes was long gone. A barely contained fury stood there now, the muscles in his jaw moving under the pressure of what he held within.

  She was pleased the garden was deserted when they reached it, a cool wind whipping up her skirts. Her hands bunched the material to keep it stable as she waited for him to speak.

  ‘There are certain rules in a place like the royal court which are wise to observe. Not angering those who hold the power to hurt you is one such canon.’ Every word was enunciated with care, his accent barely noticeable.

  ‘You speak of Catriona McQuarry, no doubt. The man was dragging her off against her will and—’

  He did not let her finish.

  ‘The man was one of Stuart McQuarry’s henchmen and safety here in Edinburgh lies in appearing to be exactly the person you are not.’

  With the sun on his hair, gilded in the light, he looked nothing like the warlord everyone here tiptoed around, the very embodiment of his skewered theory. Suddenly Isobel had had all she could take of trying to understand him.

  ‘And how well you do that! You are not a Huntworth, yet the old Earl held a box of mementos with your name on every one. You are not of royal blood, yet the ring you wear holds the crest of the Valois family of Burgundy. A cloth seller. A man of the sword. A betrayer. A lover. An enforcer of the king’s will only for coin whilst still believing in the innate justice of law.’ She laughed, but the sound was hard and brittle. ‘You are so many things, Marc de Courtenay, that you have forgotten just who it is you

  really are.’

  The green in his eyes was the colour of the Scots pine at Ceann Gronna, trees that hung dark and ragged on the northern ridge.

  ‘Oh, I know exactly who I am. I am a bastard. My mother was wooed briefly by a stranger who then quit France, leaving her to die from the shame of it all. Her name was Beatrice and she was a second cousin of the king, too innocent to understand that the words and actions of a travelling Scottish nobleman were so very false. That is the sort of men you deal with here, Isobel, all alone in a roomful of strangers; men who strike out for their own chance and be damned to whom they ruin in the process. They will see your isolation and be pleased by it—such an easy target with your father a crazed dissenter and your keep the subject of many a jester’s tale.’

  Only myth and hearsay! She was disappointed by his arguments. ‘Then I will die fighting with justice and righteousness at my side.’

  He shook his head, his voice lower now and threaded with a flat certainty. ‘Nae. You will die in little pieces like Catriona McQuarry has or like my mother did, because men such as Huntworth do not deal in small deaths or quick payments.’

  ‘The king will already know of how Stuart

  McQuarry’s man hurt Catriona. Her father is powerful, too.’

  ‘And for a while he might listen, until the heavy clink of coinage saying otherwise deafens his ears.’

  ‘McQuarry would bribe him for my hand in marriage?’ Her voice rose with the horror of it.

  ‘Without a doubt he will. And the court will remember you as that untutored Dalceann woman who needed a strict lesson from a powerful lord in the obligations of a wife.’

  ‘I do not believe you.’

  ‘Ask Lady Catriona, then, for such a truth.’

  Isobel turned from him, trying to sort out just what it was he said. Lord, the intrigue in her keep in Fife was nothing as compared to here and everything he said was beginning to settle.

  She was a novice in the games that Marc had played for years on the stage of kings and the theatres of war and she understood in that second just exactly what she had done.

  She had implicated him in all of this as surely as she was involved. No wonder he was so angry.

  ‘I release you then from any duty you feel towards my welfare, Sir Marcus.’

  He caught her arm and held it, not softly, either. ‘Such acquittance, Lady Dalceann, and such a lie. There can be no such easy release from what burns between us and you damn well know it.’

  Further afield a group of people wandered down a pathway into their view and above them on the parapet the guards would no doubt be watching. Edinburgh had eyes and ears at every turn. This was no place at all for saying more.

  ‘Keep your knife in hand and do not walk into the
dark spaces of the castle.’

  With that he was gone, through the gateway that led to the outer courtyard, his back broad and straight. She watched the sunlight play on his figure, tall and graceful as he threaded his way through a group of well-dressed lords and ladies.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The lack of sleep was starting to tell on him as the headache Marc had felt building all day pounded in his brow. Three nights of sentry duty watching the gateway into the chambers of Lady Isobel Dalceann was turning into a fourth and the crook of the tree he sat in amidst the gardens was no longer as comfortable as it had been on the first night. But Isobel was in the most danger in the small morning hours when the castle slept and those with ill intent had more leeway to creep hidden under shadow.

  Swiping his hair back from his forehead, he massaged his temple with swift strokes. Another few hours and it would be safer. Another few hours and he could sleep.

  The shape of someone in the half-light had him up and out of the garden, his knife drawn in readiness, although sheer and utter amazement confounded him when he saw it to be Isobel Dalceann herself beckoning.

  He reached her in under three breath-falls.

  ‘What the hell are you doing out of your room?’

  ‘Finding you,’ she replied, her hair tousled and her cheeks flushed. ‘You have been missing from the court and today I saw Mariner and asked him why.’

  ‘He should have damn well said nothing.’ He looked around, but not a thing moved, the moonlight full and exposing. Taking a breath, he calmed himself even as she spoke.

  ‘Can we talk?’

  ‘Not here.’

  ‘In my room, then?’

  His body stiffened at such a request. God, he wanted her so much he barely trusted himself to be alone with her, but a meeting inside would be so much more secure.

  ‘Please?’

  It was the entreaty that did it and he followed her up the stairs and into her chamber, making certain the door behind them was well locked. Linking his hands behind his back, he stood there, waiting.

  ‘You were right. The court is more dangerous when they are uncertain of you.’ Her voice was soft and tired. ‘They think I am a witch again. Even David watches me now.’