Barbara Leigh

by For Love of Rory

  Guthrie looked from one pair of defiant eyes to the other. The boy learned quickly and there were many things that he had absorbed during his short tenure on their shores. He also knew that Hendrick was superior to most of the children they had taken in their raid. Superior both in looks and intelligence. The child’s quickness of wit had made him a favorite with thane and thrall alike.

  From what the children had been able to tell of their life in England, this was the woman who had birthed Hendrick and raised and molded him into what he was today. She would be a force to reckon with, but more than that, she was a woman worthy of his brother, Rory. Somehow Guthrie must give Rory the chance to win her, or for Serine to win Rory. The child was but a pawn when it came to the ultimate choice between the fate of the heir of a small estate in England and the survival of a dynasty in Ireland.

  Guthrie lowered his eyes so that she could not read the intent therein. “It shall be as you wish, my lady,” he agreed easily. “The child shall be returned to you as you request, and so shall remain for as long as you reside in Corvus Croft. My brother will see to your comfort, and that of your woman. I am sure he wishes to have his house in order as quickly as possible.”

  Without looking back, he took his wife’s arm and moved from the hall, leaving his brother and his seer to deal with the outraged woman.

  * * *

  “Is the man daft?” Serine ranted as Rory hauled her bodily from the hall. “Surely he realizes that I did not come here as your leman. He must know that I wish to take my child and return to England.”

  “You asked that your son be returned to you, and returned to you he is,” Old Ethyl said as she kept pace with the hurrying men and the infuriated woman.

  Serine turned her anger on Rory. “You gave me no chance to explain my position or present my plea. I demand you make your brother hear my case. He has no right to keep either myself or my son in his godforsaken country.”

  Rory managed to move Serine from the great hall of the castle to a suite of rooms a short distance away.

  “Is this where you live?” Serine gave a disdainful look at the furnishings. “Have you no estate of your own? How is it that you seem so determined to have a son when you have nothing to give?”

  Rory sighed. He was weary and his lung did not allow him to take a deep breath. The trip had taken its toll, not to mention the exuberant welcome he had received. Rory had not told his brother of the seriousness of his wound, nor had he said that he had left Sheffield under duress and long before he would normally have deigned to travel. Now he was faced with an enraged woman who ranted with all the self-righteous indignation of a harpy.

  Allowing himself a breath that reminded him once again of the discomfort of his wound, Rory stemmed the venom that flowed from her lips. “Silence!” His voice echoed through the room, leaving both Serine and her son staring at him in wide-eyed wonder. “You will have the chance to plead your case before my brother,” he promised. “Right now you are reunited with your son. You have seen that the boy has not been mistreated, nor have the other children taken from your village. You yourself will be our honored guest until such time as you return to your home. Now cease your clacking. I need to rest, for there will be feasting in our honor before the week is done.”

  He turned away and Serine saw the lines of fatigue on his face. Despite her initial anger, she realized that her fate and that of her son still depended on Rory’s welfare. It would do her little good to have nursed him back to life if he fell dead from exhaustion upon his return.

  She swallowed her angry words and amended her thoughts. “Where do you want me to stay?”

  For days and nights she had been constantly at his side. It would seem strange to awaken and not hear the sound of his breathing, yet she could not ask, and knew that now that he was again in his own element, she would not offer to stay near him.

  “There are several rooms here. The boy will take the small one there.” He gestured toward a narrow door. “You may choose from any of the other rooms, but you will not share a room with your son. I will not take the chance of having you steal him away during the night.” Rory all but staggered from the room with Drojan at his side.

  “He said nothing about my sleeping quarters,” Old Ethyl observed. “I will stay with the boy. The room is small, but snug. We will be comfortable together there.”

  Serine realized the wisdom of the woman’s words. Should they be forced to escape, it was well that Ethyl would be with Hendrick and able to whisk him away at a moment’s notice.

  Left to her own devices, Serine opened the door closest to the one through which her son had disappeared. The room was sparsely furnished, but comfortable. The bed looked inviting and she wandered toward it thinking to ask Rory’s permission to make it her own, but the bed beckoned and she climbed onto the soft fur covering. She had hardly lain back when her eyes closed and she drifted into a sound, dreamless sleep.

  It was but a few minutes later when Rory himself came through a door on the far side of the room. He rolled onto the bed in exhaustion. It hardly registered in his mind that Serine had claimed this room as her own. It had belonged to Rory from the time he was a lad and had remained in Rory’s possession when Guthrie assumed the responsibilities of Corvus Croft after their parents had died of the plague. Rory seldom slept elsewhere when in residence and did not intend to do so now. He closed his eyes, unaware of the woman lying beside him. But sometime during their slumbers the two bodies came together, seeking the forbidden comfort of the other’s arms.

  Serine slept deeply, unconsciously lulled by the deep breathing and strong, steady heartbeat of the man beside her. Over the weeks she had cared for Rory she had become attuned to his comfort. Only when she was certain he was sleeping peacefully had she been able to find rest herself. And now, without conscious thought, she snuggled against his warmth and fell into dreamless slumber.

  Chapter Seven

  It was long past daybreak when Guthrie burst through his brother’s door. “Come, lie-a-bed! We must make ready to celebrate your safe return. Awake and meet the...day!” The last word died on his lips as he saw two figures spring apart upon his unannounced entry.

  There was no mistaking the woman, and Guthrie smiled to himself as he mumbled his apologies and backed quickly out of the room. So Damask had been correct in her assumption that there was something going on between Rory and the woman whose child he had taken.

  Since the plague had demolished the village Rory had been a changed man. Those who knew him knew that he had not been able to bury his grief and had, until very recently, still sorrowed over the loss of his wife and child. And even though many of Rory’s friends had counseled him to put his memories behind him, until now Guthrie had seen no sign that his brother had heeded their advice.

  Perhaps all would work for the best, for the woman did not seem to have been an unwilling occupant of the shared bed.

  Guthrie rubbed his hands together in satisfaction as he hurried back to his own quarters to tell his wife what he had discovered.

  * * *

  The headman’s mood would have been altered had he been aware of the scene taking place on the other side of the heavy door.

  Serine leapt to her feet and stood, hands on hips, in the middle of the floor. “How dare you?” She shot the words at Rory, ignoring the confusion on his face.

  “This is my room. What are you doing here?” he countered.

  Guthrie had undoubtedly seen them together and would, just as undoubtedly, come to the wrong conclusion. It would be doubly difficult to convince Guthrie to let Serine and her son leave when the man thought there was the possibility of a marriage in the future. His brother had been very outspoken about the future, about wanting Rory to remarry. For, according to Celtic law, Rory was heir to the leadership of the village until there was issue of Guthrie and Damask. Only if Rory died without issue would the leadership pass on to any child Guthrie might adopt as his own.

  The law was as old as time and
the cause of many a fratricide. Rory wished he could forget all about the situation, and hoped that Guthrie would do the same.

  However, at the moment, Rory’s problem was the outraged woman before him.

  “You did not say this room was yours,” she sputtered.

  “Well, it is mine, and I did not know you were in here.” He remembered the sweet, scented, warm body that had snuggled so gently against him in his dreams—dreams he now knew were reality. For even in the chill of the morning, he could feel the warmth of her beauty next to him. And he knew he would never be happy until he experienced that feeling again and again. “Who did you tell of your choice? I will have them punished for not apprising me of your whereabouts.”

  Serine frowned. “I told no one,” she managed to say. “I thought to lie down but a moment, and awakened only when the door burst open and I found you wrapped about me.”

  “I thought it was the other way around.” He laughed as he climbed from the bed and drew his cloak about him. “There was no harm done, Serine. I will tell my brother and we will all have a good laugh.”

  He walked toward her, the last remnants of sleep still on his face, causing him to look even more boyish and innocent of indiscretion. Indeed, how could Serine chastise him properly when in truth she had relished the warmth and security she had known in his arms. In her dreams she had felt the texture of his skin. The masculine scent had permeated her senses and she had been lulled more deeply into slumber by the steady beat of his heart and the reassuring sound of his breathing.

  She could rail at him all she wanted, but she could not hide the truth from herself. She had crept into his arms because, more than anything in life, that was where she had wanted to be.

  “I will choose another room,” she said with all the dignity she could muster.

  “There is no need,” Rory assured her. “This room is close to that of your son. I will sleep elsewhere.”

  He might have said more, and she would have questioned him as to his meaning, but again the door opened and this time Hendrick peered into the room.

  “Oh, there you are, Mother.” He beamed at her, and cast a cautious glance at the man standing nearby. “I wanted you to come to breakfast. They have a gruel called porridge. I want you to try some. Perhaps we could have it at Sheffield. It is very good.”

  Hendrick sensed the tension, but, child that he was, found himself unable to analyze it correctly. He only knew he wanted to leave the room and take his mother with him. He tugged at her hand, and with one last look in Rory’s direction Serine followed Hendrick from the room.

  * * *

  Hendrick talked nonstop as his mother completed her toilette in the little room he shared with Old Ethyl.

  “I knew you would find a way to come after me,” Hendrick was saying. “They said you’d never find their village, but I knew you would. I was surprised when I saw Old Ethyl with you rather than Dame Margot. I thought Dame Margot would want to come with you.”

  “I’m afraid Dame Margot has her hands full, as Lord Baneford’s men are searching for Rory and it was all we could manage to escape.”

  “Margot is a wise one,” Ethyl interjected from her place near the door. “I’ll vow she’s kept them wondering.” As Ethyl herself was wondering about the conversation she had had with Drojan the day before. She sensed the man was keeping something from her, but could not put her finger on what it might be. She pulled her mind from problems that she could not solve and turned the conversation back to Dame Margot. “Margot will not let Lord Baneford’s men get the better of her. She’ll lead them a merry chase.”

  Serine nodded in agreement, never guessing the gist of the chase or the seriousness of the circumstances that Margot found herself facing.

  * * *

  The circumstances were so grave that Margot had been forced to go into the village, where she sought out Hildegard, the alewife.

  The woman bobbed what had to be taken as a curtsy as the dowager entered her little shop. “An honor it is to have you here, m’lady.” Hildegard rushed over to sweep away the crumbs on the least-wobbly bench.

  “It is not to honor you that I come,” Margot said somewhat stiffly. “It is to glean some gossip.”

  “Aye!” Hildegard chortled. “If it’s gossip you want, you’ve come to the right place.”

  “You are aware that Lord Baneford’s men have come with news of the death of the Lord of Sheffield?”

  The woman shrugged her shoulders. “As is every other creature in the vicinity.” Why was Dame Margot asking such a silly question? Anyone with an ear in their head had heard the bell toll for the better part of the day, knelling out the number of years of their lord’s life before pausing and beginning again.

  “The heir must lay claim to his property. Somehow we must get word to Serine to bring Hendrick back in all haste, else they will lose all.”

  Hildegard wrinkled her brow. “M’lady, I doubt that the Celts will willingly part with the lad, for all that they owe the mother a debt of gratitude for saving the worthless life of one of their own. For all her diplomacy, and Ethyl’s skill with the bow, it may be a while before we see our little lordling again.”

  “You may well be correct,” Margot agreed, “but Serine and Ethyl will find some way to return if they are aware of the urgency of the situation.”

  Dare she trust the alewife? The woman was a known gossip and openly admitted her inability to keep a secret longer than it took to hear it and find someone who had not.

  “Had we known where to find the Celt’s village our lady would never have had the need to keep the Celt alive,” Hildegard reminded her mistress. “I doubt that we’ll know the Celt’s lair until Lady Serine returns.”

  Margot drew a deep breath. “By then it will be too late. We should have kept that seer, Drojan, as hostage. That would have brought someone back quickly enough.”

  “Aye,” Hildegard agreed, “but it probably would have been an army to wipe out the village.” She mopped the bar, and then her forehead and neck with the same cloth, and looked questioningly at Margot. “What can be so important that it cannot wait?”

  “If Hendrick does not return to claim his estate, Sheffield may be claimed by one of Baneford’s knights.”

  The face of the man who had come to the alehouse some weeks ago flashed through Hildegard’s mind. Yes, a man like that would undoubtedly go to any lengths to obtain a lush, ripe estate like Sheffield. Eager and greedy he was. And the alewife was certain he would stop at nothing to gain his desires. And Hildegard herself had been one of his desires, if she recalled correctly. Of course, as lord of the manor he would undoubtedly set his sights higher than the village alewife, but that did not mean he would not use his position to have his way with her, and Hildegard’s husband, who had recently returned from the Crusade along with the body of his lord, would not like that at all.

  Hildegard took a deep breath. “It is just possible I may be able to help you,” she whispered. “There was a man came in here the other night who claimed to know the seer, Drojan. Perhaps he can tell us where the man resides.”

  “He will become suspicious and demand money for his information,” Margot fussed.

  “I will tell him you wish to know your future and trust no one else to tell it.”

  “Perhaps it will work. If the man knows where Drojan lives we will be able to send a message to Serine.”

  “I’ll send word as soon as I learn something,” the alewife promised, and she bobbed once more as Dame Margot left the shop.

  It took two days and a keg of ale, but in the end Hildegard had the information she wanted, as well as the pledge that the man would take a messenger to Drojan’s village. Her only sorrow was that the messenger was to be her own husband, and in truth, that sorrow was blended with relief, for if there was to be trouble with a new lord of the manor, Hildegard did not relish the thought of having her beloved husband executed should he believe she had been insulted.

  Both Hildegard and Margot b
reathed a sigh of relief as they watched the men set forth. They had done all that could be done, and their fate was in the hands of the gods.

  * * *

  The day of celebration for the return of Rory McLir lasted the better part of a week. During the day the men participated in games of skill and daring, the wine flowed and the food filled the tables in delightful abundance.

  To the relief of both Rory and Serine, nothing was mentioned regarding Guthrie’s discovery, although Serine was certain she had seen sly glances pass between Guthrie and his wife when Rory was solicitous, or even mildly polite.

  The games in which the men partook were rough-and-tumble to the point that Serine actually placed her hand on Rory’s arm to caution him against participating. She was rewarded by his smile as he pressed her hand with his and sank back onto the bench from which they observed the activities. Serine also noted the look that passed between Damask and Guthrie and wanted to shout out that it was only the fear that Rory would reopen his wound and undo all her hours of nursing that prompted her warning. But even as she opened her lips to speak the words, she knew them to be only partially true.

  She cared deeply about Rory. She awoke a hundred times a night listening for his breathing, as she had listened during those long days and nights in Sheffield. A hundred times again, she told herself that he was fine and she was foolish. She willed herself to sleep, only to wake again longing for the sound of his breathing and the warmth of his body near hers.

  She prayed that these improper thoughts would cease to haunt her. She prayed that she might remember her position at Sheffield and not think or behave like a fallen woman, but her mind gave her no peace. The moment she was taken by slumber she saw Rory’s strong, beautiful body. She relived the touch of his lips inducing new and wondrous sensations throughout her body, and his hands... And again she would come awake, trembling with desire and quaking with fear that he would somehow sense her most secret longings and fulfill them, leaving her lost between his world, where she could not stay, and her land, where he would not go.