An Outlaw's Honor

by TERRI BRISBIN

  For the first hours here, all she accomplished was bathing and eating at her leisure and dressing only when Margaret arrived, having been summoned to the keep with instructions on what to bring. Then, while waiting for the challenge to the death of the tournament to conclude, God rest the loser’s soul, she had time to think about what was to come. Well, she wondered about what was to come.

  The fear that had lived within her, coiled deep and waiting to explode, had eased. Knowing more about what Thomas would expect of her after their time together, Annora knew it would be pleasurable and not the life of terror that the other outcome would have meant. She would go with him, live with him, share his bed and spend her life in his arms until...

  She pushed that away again, as she had each time it reared up in her thoughts. She must speak with him, plainly and forthrightly, to find out how this would work between them. Did he have a place to live? A manor home or keep on the lands he would regain from the king? Or did he plan to build one? Would he allow her to bring Margaret with her, so the young woman did not face her father’s wrath at his failure? Would she function as chatelaine as she’d been raised to do, or only occupy his bed and those other places he’d mentioned to her? So many things to discuss and sort through.

  Margaret urged her to rest, for the feast would go long into the night, so Annora took advantage of the plush, feather-filled mattress and well-strung bed and fell deeply asleep. When her maid woke her, it was time to go below and celebrate the day’s winners and commiserate with the losers, though in her situation, she suspected she would not do so.

  Though Thomas was seated at the baron’s table and many cups were raised in honor of his victory on the field, she was unable to speak to him for any longer than a moment or two. The baron took his self-appointed role as her protector seriously and made certain no one got too close to her for very long. Her own father was escorted to and from the table by guards who stood by awaiting any orders from their lord.

  Then, before she knew it, she found herself back in the chamber and tended to by Margaret. In usual circumstances, she would feel aggrieved over the heavy-handed custody, but when she thought about what her fate could have been this day, she was grateful for such attention.

  But she wanted Thomas. She wanted to see him and to talk to him about the fight. And to examine him for new injuries and to observe the condition of the older ones. She wanted...to touch him and to hold his flesh in her hands unimpeded by her garments or his. She wanted to find satisfaction in his embrace and be possessed by him.

  She wanted. She wanted so much. And now, there was a possibility that she might get much of what, and who, she wanted. When, in the dark of night, the knock came at her door, her heart leapt with joy as she slid from the bed and made her way to open it.

  There he stood in the shadowed corridor outside the chamber.

  The man she loved.

  And the baron.

  Thomas had nearly come to blows with his host over seeing Annora. He almost regretted asking Lord Yves to protect her, not realizing it meant that he would be prevented from seeing her, too. Now, the only way to get to Annora was with the baron. Here they stood, outside the chamber, high in the baron’s private tower, waiting for Annora to answer the door. When she did, he began to enter until the baron eased his way in first and blocked Thomas from crossing the threshold.

  “I would speak with the lady first,” the baron said before shutting the door in his face.

  Thomas kept repeating in his thoughts that he should be grateful to the enigmatic lord for his help. It worked to distract him for several minutes, and then Thomas started pacing. How long could he speak with her? What did he need to ask her? Or tell her? Was she frightened? Did she have questions? Would she laugh for him again? What would she think when he spoke of...

  The door opened, and Thomas rushed to it. The baron came out and closed the door behind him, motioning for him to wait. They walked a few paces down the hallway and stopped.

  Keeping his voice lowered due to the lateness of the hour, Lord Yves explained, “The lady has told me that you two have an understanding, though she has not explained that or given me details,” he said. Thomas opened his mouth to say something when the baron shook his head. “Truly, though curious, ’tis not my place to become involved any further in this matter. The important thing is the lady has given me assurances that you are not a danger to her and may visit her now.” Lord Yves crossed his arms over his chest and tilted his head. “If you truly wish to visit her?”

  Thomas heard the question being asked of him and wondered at it. As he turned to go to her chamber, Lord Yves stopped him again. And before he spoke, his demeanor changed—from a welcoming host to some kind of predatory being.

  “I have heard elsewhere what your arrangement with the lady is and wonder at it.”

  “My lord?”

  “I have heard rumors that you do not offer marriage to her. That you have already taken her virtue. And now you offer her a place as your leman and not your wife?”

  He met the baron’s gaze and felt as if some creature were judging him, able to discern the truth and apply the punishment if he were found wanting. How had the baron discovered those truths? Who knew and would have warned him so? Well, the man ran an efficient household and no doubt had spies everywhere to report back to him. None of that mattered for his intentions had changed and changed drastically.

  “I will offer her marriage before we return to speak to King William.” There. Would that satisfy him?

  “Ah, so now you come to your senses?”

  “I would like to think I am somewhat intelligent, my lord. Even if some of my behavior these last years speaks otherwise.” Thomas rubbed his hands up through his very short hair and then shrugged. “How could I not see the value of the woman in that chamber? How could I want for anyone else after knowing her?”

  “So, you will formalize your betrothal before leaving here? I can offer my clerk’s services in drawing up the documents.”

  “Are you a marriage broker, my lord? Guaranteed a fee in negotiating this for the lady?” Thomas studied the man’s face, for he’d paid little attention to his host before. “What is your interest here? Do you play some larger game with my liege lord and your own?” Rumors had flown all week about Lord Yves’s loyalties and the presence of a large number of allies of the wayward prince at the tournament. Gatherings in the shadows. Alliances forming. Conspiracies abounding.

  “Nay, none of that, Sir Thomas. In fact, I simply do not wish to find myself in the role of procurer when the one being bought is a young innocent without someone to advocate for her.” A shadow flickered across the man’s eyes then, as though a memory of someone moved within his thoughts.

  “Just so, my lord.” He was actually grateful for the man’s intervention on Annora’s behalf. If Thomas had not already changed his mind about marriage, mayhap the man’s words and warnings would have steered him in that direction?

  “Then I bid you a good night,” the baron said with a nod. “Oh, just one more word,” he added. “Have a care not to be seen here and worsen the gossip that swirls already.” He turned away from Thomas and then back. The baron’s gaze narrowed as he stared and then he spoke. “Do not think to cross me in this.”

  “Cross you?” Thomas frowned at the man. “How and why would I do such a thing?”

  “If you do not offer marriage, I have decided you will answer to me. And if we meet on a field of honor, you will find me a worthier opponent than your last one.”

  With that, the mysterious baron of Rose Citadel walked away, leaving Thomas to ponder the words, and threats, he’d just heard. Once the sound of the man’s footsteps was no longer echoing down the corridor, Thomas walked to Annora’s door and eased it open.

  She lay curled up on the large bed, looking very small in the middle of it. Only her soft, even breaths broke the silence. He smiled as he realized she’d fallen asleep while the baron had taken the
time to chastise him outside.

  He knew he should leave her be, but he just wanted to hold her in his arms and make sure this was real. That she would be his. Taking care not to disturb her, Thomas climbed slowly up on the bed, listening as the ropes creaked under his weight until he reached her. Sliding down onto his side, he eased her back into his arms.

  “Thomas?” she whispered, her eyelashes fluttering as she tried to wake. “You are here.”

  “Hush now, sweetling. Go back to sleep,” he said, kissing her hair and laying his arm over her to hold her close.

  “Do not leave me,” she murmured, already asleep.

  So, he did not.

  But the first rays of the dawn’s sun woke him a few hours later, and he knew he must not be seen in her chambers. Thomas managed somehow to get out of the bed and the chamber without making noise enough to rouse her.

  Only as he released the latch on the door and turned around did he realize his failure to leave unseen, for there stood Lord Yves with Annora’s father. The baron blocked Lord de Umfraville from going farther in the hallway, but that did not stop the man from calling out his accusations. And demands. And naming his own daughter a harlot in this affair.

  By the time the melee had begun, word had spread wide and far afield about Annora’s shame and his own part in it. Though everyone involved in this had never confirmed that a marriage would result, everyone who heard that she was part of the prize assumed it would be the result. His plan at the beginning was that saying nothing about it would let everyone unimportant in this scheme to live in their false assumptions long enough for him to return to the king and sort things out.

  She’d asked him not to humiliate her and before she was even aware of it, he had. Though many couples anticipated their vows, in an affair such as theirs that involved the matters of kings, he would have expected to marry first then bed his wife. Now, the marriage he’d decided to offer would look like a hasty decision to her, one forced on him rather than the choice he’d made, and she would leave here never certain of his words or promises.

  Thomas felt bad about that. But come the feast, his public proposal would go far in alleviating any embarrassment. And once they left here, they need never see any of these people again. Believing all would soon be well, Thomas skirted the field where the melee was in progress and made his way to his tent, where he found Martel and Geoffrey organizing his belongings to begin packing.

  When Martel held out a packet to him bearing the royal seal of Scotland, Thomas’s stomach began to churn. After breaking the seal and reading the contents, Thomas called for his horse and rode up into the hills, away from everyone, away from the crowds and the gawkers and those complicit in this swirling drama that unfolded around him and pulled him to its center.

  By the time Thomas returned to the encampment, he could tell from Martel’s irritating smirk that the man knew what the message had directed him to do.

  “Speak a word, and you will be digging your teeth out of the back of your throat. I swear it, Martel.”

  Wisely, the man bowed and sought out his own tent. It would not have helped anything, but Thomas really wished the man had spoken. He needed to punch something or someone right now. To strike out and release his anger. He remained inside until the dark of night began to fall, and then he made his way to the castle and inside to the keep. He knew what he must do.

  To reclaim all his family had lost—the lands in Kelso, the keep and the farms, their centuries’ old title of nobility and the wealth from those lands—all he had to do was give Annora up.

  Nay, not give her up. Turn her away.

  Expose her fall from honor, blame it her on actions and publicly repudiate her for it.

  Shame her and, by doing that before all those attending the tournament, shame her father.

  Part of the king’s long-awaited, long-planned revenge for some personal insult offered years ago during the siege of Prudhoe by Annora’s father, now coming back to be paid by her.

  And Thomas was the instrument of that revenge, empowered to destroyed Annora’s life in order to regain his.

  The king expected him to carry out the orders.

  Thomas had orchestrated this without ever realizing that he was the king’s puppet, and he was being manipulated into setting this all in motion. Now, the puppet master twisted the strings for his own purposes, for his own needs, and the hell with everyone used and discarded.

  He’d sworn to do anything the king asked of him when he had nothing to lose from it. He would have agreed to most anything that day when given a taste of the light after months of darkness. He’d put his needs above anyone else’s when the king beckoned him from the dungeon.

  He was more than willing to pay a price for his freedom, but did it have to be her?

  Chapter Nineteen

  Annora grew more nervous by the moment.

  Something had happened this morn, and she did not know the whole of it yet. Now sitting in the baron’s solar awaiting his arrival, she could not enjoy the delicacies offered to her nor the special wines he provided to his honored guests. Her stomach ached, and her head throbbed.

  Though she was not alone, very few approached or addressed her, leaving her sitting in a large chair in one corner of the large chamber. Her reputation now lay in shreds as word of her shame in giving herself to Thomas before he’d earned the right to claim spread through the keep and town and people. So, it did not surprise her that others stood aside from her. The chill in the summer evening’s air was warmed by the large hearth near her, but it did not ease the growing cold within her.

  And still, they waited. Just when she’d reached the end of her patience, the door opened, and four men entered. None of them were happy. None of them wanted to be near the others, for once inside the chamber, they separated and walked as far from each other as they could.

  Thomas came towards her. His servant stopped and stood by the door. Her father walked to the table where the wine was and poured himself a full cup. And their host strode to the other end of the room and spoke with his steward, who left quickly. Annora watched the movements and was struck by how they each shifted as though on some game board of chance. When Thomas crouched down before her and took hold of her hand, she shivered in fear.

  “I am sorry, Annora,” he whispered. “Sorrier than I can say, sweetling.”

  Before she could ask for an explanation, he released her hand and stood, glaring at his servant by the door. He changed then, from the warm, generous lover back to the rogue who she’d met first. One who sought only his own pleasure.

  “Do you wish to begin, Sir Thomas?” Lord Yves asked.

  “Damn him!” her father called out before swallowing several mouthfuls of the wine in his cup. She’d seen her father angry, but this was different. He was unnerved. “You have broken our agreement. You have shamed my honor by taking my daughter’s virtue when it was not yours to take and without an offer of marriage!”

  “You and others may have expected marriage to result from all of this, Lord de Umfraville, but the agreement you signed did not specify that,” Thomas said in a voice so cold she expected to feel its chill on her skin. “I came here to seduce your daughter, and that I did,” he paused then but did not bother to look at her. The gasps echoed through the large chamber as she felt shame burn her cheeks. “But my intention was never marriage...to her.”

  Whispered gasps filled the chamber as all their gazes turned on her. She slid her hands down onto the arms of the chair and clenched them to keep from screaming. Lord Yves straightened up and took two paces towards Thomas before one of the other men stopped him.

  “You do admit taking her to your bed? To dishonoring her? Insulting me?” her father asked.

  “I admit to taking her to my bed, and you deserved to be insulted, but I did not dishonor her. I came here seeking the king’s favor and the return of all I’d lost. I paid the price he asked but today, I discovered that the final cost would b
e her shame. For my sins and for yours, Lord de Umfraville. She was expected to pay her all.”

  Thomas walked to her and crouched down once again. She tried to look everywhere and nowhere but especially not at him until he took her chin and gently turned her head so had to see him. The tears filled her eyes, then overflowed down her cheeks.

  “I did not dishonor her because she offered to me that most precious part of herself,” he said. “She was in the worst situation a woman could face and she faced it with grace and intelligence and a sense of honor that shamed me into realizing the truth of my life.”

  “Thomas.” His name was uttered by his servant like the warning growl of a wild animal. “Do not do this.”

  Her chest felt ready to burst from holding her breath for so long. When Thomas stood quickly and strode to her father, she let it all out in a gasp. Reaching out, he grabbed her father by his garments and pulled him closer.

  “I know not what sin you committed against the king, but she will not bear it for you.”

  “What?” her father asked as he tried to loosen Thomas’s grasp.

  “You go to the king, who now holds claim to Prudhoe Castle, and sort this mess out. You have committed some grievance against him, my lord. You should bear the cost of your own sins.” He shook her father before dropping him to the floor.

  The servant walked over to Thomas then. “Are you certain this is what you wish to do? You know what you will lose.”

  “This,” Thomas said, motioning with his hand to indicate the group of them, “was not my arrangement with the king, Martel. And you know it because you drew it up yourself.” Thomas looked at her then. “The king wanted me to win Prudhoe for him by challenging your father in a way he could not refuse. I did that, but without knowing the larger scheme around us, or that he would change the parameters and force a price that I am not willing to pay.” He came to her and lifted one of her hands to his mouth and kissed it. Warmth returned to the place where his mouth touched.