The Virgin's Debt

by Tatiana March

  Katrina pulled a face. ‘I’m afraid I can’t. But it is crucial that I send the letters.’

  Agnes muttered something and rattled the coins in the purse at her waist. ‘I’ll give the money to Jackson when he goes. If you wait here, I’ll get you the writing tools.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Katrina exhaled a sigh of relief. Even though the housekeeper didn’t trust her enough to give her the money, the woman was willing to pay for the letters to be sent, which allowed her to put her plan in motion.

  When Agnes returned with the sheets of parchment and the ink and quill, Katrina retreated into her bedchamber, where she sat on the edge of the bed and used a cutting board balanced on her knees to compose the missives.

  One to the Chaplain at Glenstrachan Castle to let him know of her whereabouts and beg him to travel to Darklands as soon as her father had been buried.

  The other to King James V, asking his consent for Katrina McLeod, the only daughter of the Earl of Glenstrachan and the future Countess, to marry the man who used to be Baron Rothmore.

  With a kernel of hope growing in her heart, Katrina used a wax candle to seal the letters before giving them to Jackson to take to the messenger.

  * * *

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ Duncan shouted down at Jackson who sauntered up to the base of the ladder propped against the wall in a second floor bedchamber. ‘I need your help to mend the roof.’

  ‘I thought a stonemason will be employed for the work.’

  ‘I grew impatient and decided to attempt the task myself.’ Duncan climbed down the ladder. He knew that his efforts didn’t match those of a skilled craftsman, but his frustration demanded a release, and today practising with weapons hadn’t delivered it. Even the new wheel lock pistol imported from Germany failed to hold his interest. He had returned from his training ground in the early afternoon to find both maids clearing weeds in the bailey, and Katrina helping Agnes to arrange the newly provisioned larders.

  ‘I can’t tell you where I’ve been,’ Jackson declared, a crafty glint in his eyes.

  ‘You can’t tell me?’ Duncan roared. ‘I might no longer be Baron Rothmore, but as surely as the sun rises in the east every morning, I remain the master of my household.’

  Startled by the display of temper, Jackson scratched the blond thatch of coarse hair that grew like grass on his head. ‘I promised milady I wouldn’t tell.’

  ‘Milady?’ Duncan repeated softly. It had taken effort from his part to make the servants cease to call him Baron. He had told them to call him master instead. It seemed that they didn’t extend the concept of a lowered status to the woman sharing his bed. Or perhaps Katrina had told them to call her milady, anticipating the position that she aspired to.

  The thought sent another coil of anger tightening in his gut.

  ‘The mistress, I mean,’ Jackson hurried to add.

  ‘And what did you promise her that you wouldn’t tell me?’

  Jackson mulled it over. His face brightened as he found a way to reveal the facts without truly betraying a confidence. ‘I promised not to tell that she asked me to run out to the village and find a messenger to deliver two letters.’

  ‘Two letters?’ Duncan pressed. ‘To where?’

  ‘I can’t read, and neither can the messenger, so milady...err...the mistress had to give me the direction. One was to a chaplain on an estate fifty miles to the west of here, and the other was to the King’s Court.’

  ‘King’s Court?’ Duncan’s hands clenched into fists. ‘To whom?’

  ‘It was for the attention of the King himself,’ Jackson declared with pride. ‘The mistress has written to King James.’

  Duncan dismissed the servant and leaned against the ladder, his body rigid as he fought to curb his anger and disappointment.

  His suspicions had been right. Katrina was petitioning for the King to restore his barony. He could think of absolutely no other reason for her to address the sovereign. No doubt she would demand that he marry her, and then pretend surprise when a man who could at best aspire to become a landed knight turned out to be a rich nobleman.

  Duncan swore out loud.

  ...unless you are willing to accept that I come to you out of my free will...

  He’d been a fool to think that Katrina came to him from desire, even affection.

  She had sold herself, and the price she expected him to pay was his pride and dignity.

  * * *

  Duncan kept to himself for the rest of the day. He had supper sent up to his bedchamber, where he ate in brooding solitude. When Agnes arrived to collect the empty dishes, he grunted an order for Katrina to be summoned.

  While he waited, he stared into the blazing fire and listened to the draught howling in the chimney. Heat numbered among the few luxuries Duncan allowed himself, since it eased the ache in his deformed foot.

  Tonight the flames gave him no comfort.

  They merely served as a reminder of how he had saved Katrina from death.

  A knock sounded on the door, and Duncan steeled his mind against the treacherous, soft emotions that had flared to life inside him last night. Only a fool longed for something he could never have. Tenderness bred weakness in a man. The yearnings that had unsettled his mental balance needed to be quashed—pulled out like the weeds that sprouted in the waterless moat.

  But first he would make her confess to her lies.

  ‘What did you do today?’ he asked as soon as Katrina stepped into the room.

  ‘Oh, nothing in particular.’ Her tone was light, evasive.

  She stood in a nervous stance, her hands clasped in front of her. Her forlorn expression spoke of confusion at how last night’s intimacy between them had been replaced by his cool indifference.

  Duncan brushed away the jolt of guilt.

  As he fought his inner turmoil, he cursed himself for not having provided Katrina with new clothing. Every time he saw her in the white linen robe, it reminded him of the witch trial. Blood pooled in his groin, and he grudgingly accepted that no amount of willpower would stop his physical reaction to her.

  ‘What do you want from me?’ he asked, the harsh words echoing like an accusation around the room.

  ‘What do I want from you?’ Katrina took a hesitant step toward him. ‘I would like us to wed, and then give each other happiness for the rest of our days.’

  ‘Happiness.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘You mean, like you gave me last night?’

  Her chin rose with the dignified hauteur he remembered from when she had faced the prospect of dying on the stake.

  ‘Yes, but that is only one kind of happiness,’ she replied.

  He frowned at her with scorn. ‘There is more?’

  ‘Yes.’ Her voice fell to a whisper as she met his hostile glare.

  Duncan clenched his jaws in an effort to stand firm, to resist the temptation to accept what she was offering.

  ‘There is travelling the journey of life as one,’ Katrina told him softly. ‘Bearing your children. Growing old together. Being buried side by side.’

  ‘Don’t,’ he shouted, and turned away. His hands fisted so tight the muscles on his arms corded all the way to his shoulders. ‘I will not marry you.’ He whirled back to her. ‘And I won’t request the barony to be restored to me.’

  ‘My desire to marry you has nothing to do with your barony.’

  ‘You’d marry me as a knight without lands or wealth?’

  ‘You have a home.’ Katrina swept her hand in a gesture that took in their surroundings.

  ‘A home.’ Duncan shook his head, his anger ebbing. ‘Complete with rats and a leaking roof.’

  ‘If you could live in a fine castle, with well-trained servants and two hundred knights to command, would you want to?’ Katrina asked.

  ‘Cease tormenting me!’ He stalked across the room to her, fury propelling his steps. ‘You are here for one purpose alone.’ He leaned to gather the folds of her linen robe and pulled the fabric over her head, tugging the sl
eeves free and tossing the garment aside.

  Firelight glinted on her nakedness, making it appear as if every inch of her skin called to him with a warm glow of welcome. Duncan tangled his hands in the golden tresses that tumbled to her shoulders, and pulled her head back. ‘One purpose alone,’ he growled, and brought his mouth down to hers, his kiss angry and unyielding.

  Her soft sound of acquiescence and the way she pressed closer to him should have gentled him, but instead they stoked his bitter rage. ‘Undress me,’ he ordered, releasing Katrina and shoving her back a short step.

  Not protesting, Katrina reached for the waist of his breeches. With trembling hands, she unfastened the front and pulled out the tails of his shirt. Her fingers brushed against his skin as she worked the fabric loose. Her eyes flickered up to his face, and he raised his arms, holding her gaze until the folds of the shirt blocked his view of her.

  His torso bare, and his breeches undone, Duncan moved to sit on the edge of the bed. His body felt taut enough to snap, and the fierce throbbing in his groin had grown more painful than the ache in his foot. The distance from the fire stirred cooler air around him, but it didn’t dampen the flames that raged inside him.

  ‘My boots,’ he ordered, extending one leg.

  Katrina knelt before him. She lifted his foot in her lap, tugging at the leather until the boot slid off.

  ‘The other one.’ He gave Katrina his left leg and studied her expression as she exposed his deformity. When neither pity not recoil showed on her face, his tension eased. Following her movements with his eyes, Duncan turned and twisted in silence to aid her while she removed the rest of his clothing.

  Her task completed, she took a step back and waited for his next command.

  ‘Come here,’ he told her, and curled his hands around her waist to guide her to straddle him on the edge of the bed. As soon as he cradled her naked body securely across his lap, the anger inside him fell away.

  With a low growl of defeat, he buried his face in the curve of her neck and breathed in her inviting fragrance. His hands swept up her back. So soft. So smooth. How could something so fragile conquer his strength so easily?

  Katrina whimpered with pleasure and tipped her head back. Her arms rose to twine around his neck. She strained against him to get closer, pressing her breasts against the ridged contours of his chest.

  The evidence of her willingness snapped the thin thread of his control. Duncan reached down between their bodies. When he found her moist, he barely paused to murmur out his intention, gaining her consent before he lifted her in place and thrust deep into her.

  The heat inside her enveloped him, shooting all the way from his groin to his heart. He damned her, damned his own life as he braced his hands beneath her arms, rocking her up and down over his straining shaft. She arched her back and clung to his shoulders. The whiteness of her throat drew his lips in for thirsty kisses. He drank from her skin like a man dying from thirst would drink from a spring in the middle of a parched land. Katrina’s fingers tangled in his hair, the nails scraping his scalp, but he barely noticed as new and untried emotions swept through him, searing him with their force.

  When the pressure inside him reached its peak, Duncan swung Katrina down on the bed and rolled on top of her. He gripped the bedstead, so he could gather every last shred of force into his pounding thrusts. Finally the seed of life from inside him began to spurt into her. He felt an answering clenching in the tight passage that surrounded him, and heard Katrina cry out as she surrendered to the pleasure that he’d given her.

  Shadows danced before his eyes, but Duncan looked down at Katrina. In her delicate face, he saw a light that pierced through the darkness of his existence and offered him solace, if only he could find a way to capture it.

  Find a way to capture that light and hold on to it.

  Chapter Six

  Katrina knelt between an armoire and a bedstead in the chapel Rothmore put into use to store furniture from the rooms where the roof leaked. She prayed to God for forgiveness over the sin of fornication, but added a request that her impurity would be judged in the context of her growing affection for the man she was sinning with.

  ‘He claims not to believe in you, but I know it’s not true,’ she whispered to God. ‘He is bitter because of his deformity. He doesn’t understand that you gave him a small imperfection, so he wouldn’t marry anyone else until I found him.’

  Katrina lowered her head, intending to pray for her father, who would shortly be ascending to Heaven, but a scraping sound at the entrance distracted her.

  ‘Milady!’ Margaret’s clear voice rang from outside the chapel, and Katrina surged to her feet. The gown she had, with the help of Joan’s elderly mother, fashioned from a pair of old velvet curtains might be lacking in style and elegance, but it shielded her from the November chills. In the past three weeks, since Rothmore rescued her from being burned on the stake, she had been ordered into his bed every night. During the day he kept aloof and refused to discuss their future. It had become a point of pride for Katrina not to accept anything from him other than the daily necessities.

  ‘What is it?’ Katrina asked as soon as she had rounded the armoire and caught sight of the redheaded and freckled Margaret standing in the doorway, signalling furiously with her hands.

  ‘A priest arrived and is asking for you. I told him to wait in the great hall. You’ve got to make him leave before the master returns. He doesn’t abide with priests because of the way the Church tries to rule the country.’

  ‘A priest?’ Katrina’s heart sank. ‘A tall man, around thirty, with dark hair and a cleft in his chin?’

  ‘That’s the one.’ Margaret pursed her lips. ‘The master will hate this one even more, considering that in addition to being a clergyman he is as handsome as sin.’

  Paying scant attention to the girl, Katrina hurried out of the chapel and down the narrow stairwell. Grief sapped her strength, but fear restored it. Her father was dead, and she could no longer hide. She would have to marry the cruellest man in Scotland, a man who coveted her lands, or she would have to openly defy the King’s command.

  ‘Father William,’ she cried as she saw the chaplain of Glenstrachan Castle sitting on a bench at the long table. ‘My father? Is he...’

  ‘He died peacefully six days ago.’

  ‘I should have been there.’ Her words came on a broken whisper, and Katrina could no longer hold back the tears. Her legs buckled beneath her, and she collapsed on the stone floor, the layer of clean rushes softening her fall. She burst into racking sobs that shook her shoulders.

  ‘He never awoke from his stupor. He had no knowledge that you weren’t there,’ Father William consoled her. Then his brow wrinkled with worry. ‘What is this you said in your letter about not wishing to marry the man the King has chosen for you?’

  Katrina drew harsh puffing breaths, attempting to control her anguish so she could speak. ‘I have petitioned to the King not to be used as a means of awarding lands to a man who kills women and children without a flinch. They can take my title and my lands, as long as they let me marry whom I wish.’

  ‘That is not possible. The King has given his command.’

  ‘I may be with child,’ Katrina revealed, her voice barely audible.

  Father William gasped. ‘Has Rothmore offered to marry you?’

  ‘No.’ She lowered her head. ‘He doesn’t know who I am, and every time I try to find out what he wants from life, he refuses to express any opinion on the matter. If he has rejected life as the King’s vassal, I will renounce my title and lands and live here with him. All he needs is to tell me that he wants my company and affection.’

  ‘Come.’ The chaplain stood and indicated that she should also rise. ‘Let us go into the chapel and pray that your God and King will both have mercy on you.’

  Katrina eased to her feet. Relief made her light-headed. At least one of the four men she needed to convince had accepted her plan. That only left the King and t
he man she had been betrothed to against her will...and Duncan Rothmore.

  She led the way up the stairwell. ‘About the state of the chapel, Father William, there are some repairs under way...’

  * * *

  Duncan rode back from his training ground, his mind and body aching from the efforts of the day. For the past three weeks, he had waged more battles in his head than on the field. Was it so wrong if Katrina wished to marry him and have him restored to his barony? Everyone had the right to strive to improve their circumstances, and for a woman it meant marrying a man of high position.

  He wanted her. Every night she proved with her responsive body and her gentle manner that she came to him with genuine affection and acceptance. That was all he could ask from a woman. Someone who saw a balanced bargain between the material comforts he could provide and his physical shortcomings.

  Why would it be wrong to ask the King to restore his title and lands? Hadn’t his actions in the past three weeks proved that he knew no other life but that of a King’s vassal who supplied the sovereign with his military might? Duncan dug his heels into the flanks of his horse and surged through the windswept moor up the hill towards the crumbling Darklands.

  He would tell Katrina tonight that she could have her wish.

  * * *

  ‘You won’t find the mistress in her bedchamber,’ Agnes announced as Duncan flung open the front door and hurried through the great hall. On the table, dishes with cold meats clustered between a pair of newly polished brass candlesticks.

  Duncan concealed his smile. Agnes didn’t know the meaning of subtlety. The elderly housekeeper had left him in no doubt that she disapproved of his unwillingness to formalise his alliance with Katrina.

  ‘What is the occasion to celebrate?’ he asked.

  ‘We have a visitor.’ Agnes threw the news at him as if baiting a bear.

  ‘A visitor?’ Unease knotted in Duncan’s stomach. He had sent for no one, and those who knew him wouldn’t dare to appear without an invitation.

  ‘A visitor for the mistress?’ he sought to clarify.