by Stone, Lyn
For all his seeming straightforwardness and honorable promises, Sir Alan of Strode would bear watching. And her subtle direction, as well, in order to keep the upper hand in this alliance. This new husband of hers seemed entirely too good to be true. And if she had not learned anything else in her twenty-one years, Honor knew that what seemed too good to be true, was. Always.
Alan feigned sleep until he heard the slow, steady breathing that marked Honor’s slumber. Poor angel, he thought with a frustrated sigh. Her defense of him against his uncle told a clear enough tale of her own poor treatment. How long had that rogue father of hers tormented her?
Alan’s blood boiled with an eagerness to kill the man. Slowly. Painfully. Muscles tensed and trembled with the need of it. Red bursts of fury clouded his reason. He fought the tremendous urge to leap from the bed and head for France. Sorely tempting, but impossible, of course. Alan sucked in a steadying breath.
Hatred proved an unfamiliar and unsettling emotion for Alan. Even the opposing forces at Bannockburn had not engendered this feeling. That had been war, an impersonal conflict in which he understood the enemy’s motives. Greed and lust for power, he could fathom well enough in a man. He could not hate his uncle Angus just for being what he was, or his parents for their neglect. They were his blood and he loved them despite what they had done. But for a parent to attack a defenseless girl-child? Hatred might be new to Alan, but it had a name now. Lord Dairmid Hume.
Tavish had told him of the man, wondering why Hume laughed in his face and threw him out that summer in Paris when he had asked for Honor’s hand. Then, before the snows came, Honor had arrived in Scotland with the marriage contract in hand and her priest in tow. Perhaps Hume ran mad on occasion. Still, that did not excuse cruelty to one’s own get. The man sorely needed to die. God help the wretch if he ever set foot on Scots soil again and Alan heard tell of it.
He turned his head and examined Honor’s sleeping profile. A draft in the candlelight sent shadows dancing across her perfect features. God’s own jest, this faultless lady was his wife.
She had been right about one thing. Tav must have been caught up in the devil’s own fever to have wished her such a fate. Alan knew if he lived to be one hundred, performed all manner of charity, gave up all his sinful ways and prayed every hour on the hour, he would never deserve her. Not that he was likely to do all that. He was what he was. But even Tavish had not been good enough for Honor and had been quick to admit it.
Sadly, Alan closed his eyes and denied himself the pleasure of regarding her tranquil beauty. He would not impose himself on her, he decided firmly. Not ever. Such a gentle one as she must not be sullied by his rough touch.
He would husband her in his own way, then. With his life would he protect her. With all the wits he possessed he would try to amuse her and keep her content. He could guide her through life’s trials and train up her son to be an honorable man. All this he would do and gladly, he vowed fervently to himself. “But I will not touch her wi’ lust,” he whispered vehemently. “I will not!”
Next he knew, it was morning. Alan woke without the usual need to assess where he was. Long months of lying on a different spot each night engendered that in a man. This day he opened his eyes to a place that must be home. Alan had felt a peace creep through his very bones the moment he set foot inside Byelough Keep. So Tavish must have felt, he thought with a twinge of the guilt that had made itself a part of him the moment he set eyes on the lady Honor.
His heart had opened and enfolded the woman and this place immediately, before he ever heard the words Tavish had written to Honor. Even had his friend not bequeathed him the right to claim both, Alan knew he would have stayed on in some capacity. Mayhaps steward, guard, or crofter. Anything. He seriously doubted he could have made himself leave had the lady ordered it so.
For a long moment, he lay there, eyes closed, savoring the warmth of the small body curled next to his. Behind his lids, pictures of her teased him, Honor angry, Honor surprised, Honor smiling as she laid his hand against her middle, so generously offering to share her joy in the child.
Her sweet scent clung to the pillows, comforting his weary soul even as the down-stuffed linen cradled his head. The cadence of her soft breathing barely broke the silence of the dawn. A man should not ask for more than this, he thought. This perfect golden moment would he keep and hold forever.
She stirred and stretched, uttering a small groan. Alan lay still, watching her beneath his lashes. In the weak light from the window, he could see little more than the outline of her form. Still he did not move when she carefully rolled to her edge of the bed and stood with some effort. Without her usual grace, one hand pressed against her back, she moved behind the screen that partially blocked his view of the bathing tub.
He counted the sounds, most of which he identified. Intimate sounds he felt no right to as yet. Sounds a husband would hear as his wife readied herself for her day. There now, the soft splash of water poured from pitcher to bowl. The squeezing of a soaked cloth into it. A louder breath, just short of a sigh. Rustling fabric as she dressed herself. Alan smiled. Here was home.
Patiently he waited, feigning sleep so as not to betray his fascination, until she emerged to locate her comb. It lay on the table near the bed. Only when she took it up and began to draw it through her long, dark tresses, did he pretend to wake.
“Good morn,” he muttered. She only jumped a little. “You rise early,” he commented as he sat up and ran his hand over his face, stopping at his mouth to stifle a yawn.
“There’s much to be done,” she said a little breathlessly. When she began to fight a stubborn snarl in her hair, he reached out and stilled her hand.
“Allow me,” he said, taking the comb from her. “Come closer, then,” he ordered. When she did, he took over the grooming of the silky mass, loving the way it slid through his fingers and trailed over his wrists. “Bonny hair.”
“My thanks,” she murmured, and drew away. She twisted the length into a coil and secured it with combs. To his disappointment, she then covered most of it with a simple linen headrail and secured that with a silver circlet.
“Will you take me to Tavish’s grave now?” she asked, all formal. Her lady of the keep voice, he supposed.
“When there’s light enough,” he agreed. “’Tis not far.”
She avoided his gaze. “I shall await you below. We will break our fast first, of course. By the time we finish, the day will be on us.”
“Of course,” he agreed, smiling at her. “Have someone hitch a cart.”
“I shall ride,” she said as she started for the door.
“Is that wise, my lady?” he asked, concerned that she seemed to move more awkwardly than she had done the eve before.
She nodded. “If we are set upon along the way, I would rather be on a mount than dragged behind one in a chase.”
“No one would dare,” Alan assured her. “I will go well armed.”
“All the same, sir, I shall ride!” she declared firmly and did not stay to argue the matter.
For all her soft sweetness, Alan suspected the woman he had wed possessed a strong will of her own and was not above exercising it.
Her behavior on learning of Tavish’s death proved she was no weakling. He could still feel the slap on his cheek and envision her railing about angrily. But wasn’t that all to the good? She had spirit, his Honor. His. Well, she was, he argued with his conscience. By law, she was his now, even if Tavish did still hold her heart.
Even that spoke well of her, that loyalty, that ability to love even past the grave. Alan longed for someone to love him that way. He even dared hope that Honor might do so, should he somehow become worthy of her. She was a treasure, that woman.
Most women faced with news of a husband’s death would have taken to their beds and become inconsolable. If not for loss of their beloved, then for loss of a strong arm to protect them. That reaction might yet happen once Honor realized the full impact of Tavish’s
death. Mayhaps this very day.
But thank God, she had borne her grief with such strength thus far. At least her courageous forbearance, however temporary, had allowed them to get on with what must be, the business of their necessary marriage and the change of command at Byelough.
When shock wore away and Honor finally allowed the mourning to take hold of her, Alan would be in a position to give solace. No longer would he be the stranger bearing wretched tidings of her true love’s death. He would be her friend, and foster father to her child.
That assuaged his guilt over wanting her heart for himself. At least a little.
Chapter Five
“Fitting weather for this,” Honor murmured as Alan lifted her to the rain-wet saddle. She centered her weight as best she could and suppressed a tired sigh. Sharing her bed with this stranger last night had done nothing to aid her ability to sleep. Now she must ride the short way to the gravesite and say her prayers over the husband who had left her. The husband who had loved her. Honor shifted forward, her back aching like a sore tooth.
Sir Alan handed up the reins, pinning her with a worried look. “We needna do this today,” he reminded her. “Riding cannot be comfortable for ye even should the day be fair. Ye even excused yer priest from this.”
She forced a smile. “Father Dennis is on his knees this very moment.”
“Well, at least he offers prayers. That’s something.”
Honor shook her head. “He’s shoeing his mule. He will say a mass for Tavish later today. This is a thing I must do and I thank you for coming with me. You are kind to bear with my groans. Truth told, embroidery wrings the same sounds as riding in a deluge would do. No comfort to be found anywhere, I fear. I want to go.”
“’Twill soon end,” he remarked as he swung up on his mount.
“This drizzling wet? It rarely stops, as you of all souls should know.”
“Nay, not that. I meant your...uh...” He gestured vaguely toward her lower body.
“Condition,” she finished for him. “Yes, I suppose it will end, though some days I do wonder.”
They sauntered out the gates and along the road through the village. Sir Alan’s huge roan frisked and tugged at the bit when they reached the open expanse of the valley. Honor could see mount and master quiver with eagerness for a wild run across the moor. Their barely suppressed energy roused her envy, irritated her. The long silence wore on her nerves. She wished she could gallop away some of the dreadful unease that stifled her breathing. Her backbone felt rigid, imprisoned by muscles drawn tight as fitted bowstrings.
This knight of hers, so at home in his saddle, appeared no knight at all this morning. He had forgone his silk and mail and donned the garment she had ordered her woman to dry for him last evening. Honor wondered how he had managed to pleat the long woven fabric so deftly with no stitches to hold it. A wide leathern belt with a tarnished buckle kept it in place over his well-worn saffron shirt. Several ells of the wool, secured with a huge round silver pin, draped his left shoulder and covered most of his back. Her gaze wandered down to muscular thighs, half-bared as he straddled his mount. Boots of brown hide encased his feet and legs to the knee. He had cross-gartered them with strips of thick sinew. So strange he looked. Almost savage.
Honor marveled at his donning of a purse. Attached to the wide belt by copper chains, the pouch hung to one side now, but had rested directly over his netherparts when he stood. Altogether, he presented a primitive picture. A highland savage, Father would have called him, a terrifying animal feared by all and sundry.
She hoped to God Sir Alan could live up to that image. They both might have need of that fearsome wildness one day. The broadsword slung from his saddle offered reassurance.
Honor rode on, enduring the discomfort, impatient to be done with this necessary farewell yet determined to carry it out. They traversed an almost nonexistent path betwixt the barren hills leading out of her valley and into the next.
“Ye’re angry,” Alan finally stated in a flat voice.
Stunned, Honor issued a short huff of denial.
“Aye, ye are. I know why. Tav left ye, didn’t he? Left ye alone when ye’ve need of him. ’Tis natural to feel so. I felt it myself right after he died.”
When she did not answer, he turned to rake her with those knowing green eyes. “’Twill pass.” He returned his gaze toward their destination and nodded toward the burn. “He lies just there.”
Honor watched Alan dismount when they neared the stream and allowed him to assist her off the palfrey. She stumbled once and felt the strength of his arm grasp her shoulders to right her. Neither said another word until they stood staring down at the poorly etched stone marking Tav’s grave.
Then Alan moved away several strides, bent down and gathered two stones. He walked back and handed one of them to her. She watched him close his eyes and kneel to place the rock next to the large one with the device chipped into it.
The crude rendering of the wolf’s head touched her somehow. Sir Alan could not make the letters to identify his friend. Neither could he make the design, but he had tried. “Tavish would laugh,” she whispered, voicing the thought. “He...he would have laughed.... Damn him! Damn!” She choked on sudden tears and threw the stone at the grave. At Tavish.
“I know,” Alan breathed against her ear. “Ah, Honor, I grieve for ye. I grieve for him. And for th’ child never knowin’ his da. I tried to make Tav live. I tried!”
She pummeled his chest with her fists as she had done before. Great sobs shook her body as he drew her closer and held her. Soft Gaelic phrases soothed her, as comforting to her as they were meaningless.
If this man only knew her heart, she thought with a deep shudder. He would shove her from him in disgust. Guilt racked her anew for the way she had used poor Tavish. The man had loved her, truly loved her, and she had encouraged that so shamelessly. She had tricked him into marriage, a marriage that probably was not even legal if anyone troubled to examine it. And her father would trouble to do just that if he ever found her. Tavish’s child might bear the shame of bastardy because of her foolishness. Because of her cursed fear.
Honor pushed away and dropped to her knees beside the cairn. “Forgive me,” she whispered repeatedly, a litany as futile as prayers for her soul. Her womb squeezed painfully as though the child sought retribution for the father. She gasped and leaned against the large stone, grasping it, feeling the cold, rough wetness against her cheek.
Strong hands tried to lift her but she moaned a plea for solitude. She deserved it, the soul-wringing misery. The grip on her shoulders lessened, but the warmth of his palms seeped right through her woolen cloak. She wept the tears of the damned and welcomed the keen knifing that twisted through her midsection. Her due. Her lot.
Something warm and liquid gushed from her, jerking her out of her self-absorbed guilt. “Nooo,” she moaned. Honor curled forward and surrounded the unborn babe with her hands. Another hand joined hers, exploring the tightness of her belly.
“Nay! ’Tis too soon!” he declared.
“Too late,” she groaned through her teeth, fresh grief already immobilizing her. “Oh God help me, too late.” She felt all the reason she had left slip away as she embraced the agony.
Alan hefted her into his arms, wincing at the pain in his damaged shoulder as he carried her to the waiting mounts. He lifted her up and swung up behind her before she could slide from the saddle. Lord, what was he to do now? Could she make it back to the keep? A good hour’s ride if he kept a pace that wouldn’t bounce her about.
He recalled passing a scorched bothy a half league back, but it would offer scant protection. A rough-made shepherd’s dwelling was certainly no place to pass a gentlewoman’s first confinement.
Jesu, his hands were shaking. He knew precious little of babes to begin with. He had taken lambs from the ewes, a troubling colt from its dam once, seen pups aborning. Was it the same? “Nay, nothing like that,” he mumbled to himself. He knew it was not the
same at all. Human females needed more help, a great deal more than he knew how to give.
She stiffened in his arms and moaned again. The sound wrenched his heart. He dared not tell her how inept he was or he would scare her to death. With a deep breath to shore up his courage, he tried to foster hers. “Dinna fash, Honor. I may know naught of ‘em inside th’ womb or after they come inta th’ world, but I can bring a babe. Dinna fear, sweeting, for that I can do.” Please, God.
Alan set the beast to a slow walk toward the heap of scorched stone and wattle. He asked more of heaven during that half league’s ride than he had done in all his twenty-six years.
Vines surrounded the crude hut, making it all but invisible. Alan blessed his keen eyes and thanked God he had noticed the place, such as it was. The low walls were scorched, but someone had piled leafy branches over the burned out section of the roof to ward out rain.
He slid off the mount and reached up for Honor. She had bent nearly double and maintained the position for the whole of the trip. Aside from an occasional catching of her breath, she had hardly voiced her misery. Braw in the face of her pain, he thought proudly. A woman of courage, his Honor. Her body felt rigid in his arms as he carried her to the humble bothy.
He bent his head and shoulders to fit through the low doorway. The rasp of metal jerked his attention to the far corner of the one-room hovel as he straightened. His eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness. A thin form reclined on the packed earth floor in one corner, its scrawny arms holding aloft what appeared to be a short sword.
“Put that blade down and help me here,” Alan ordered, “else I’ll take the damned thing and spit you where you lie.”
The ragged apparition did not move.
Alan spoke in Gaelic. “My lady’s time has come on us unaware. Get you to Byelough Keep and bring a woman to help.”