by Stone, Lyn
“What did she predict?” Honor asked.
“That the blue thread running through would be the color of my lover’s eyes.”
“Was it?”
“Ach! I was seven, pissed with females because of my mother’s leaving, and in no mood to hear such drivel from a barmy old woman.” Then he grinned down at her and raised one fiery brow. “But later on, when I was twice that age, I chased every blue-eyed lass in th’ glen, bonny or nay.”
“Did you catch them?” Honor queried with an answering grin.
“Fleet o’ foot, our highland lassies. Not every time.” He looked thoughtful. “In this last plaid she wove me, just before I left Uncle Angus to make my own way, she made me note the thread again. ’Twas not blue as before, but gray. When I asked her why, Moriag said this was the color of my true love’s eyes.”
Alan pulled on the corner of the plaid, draping it next to her cheek. “Gray as a dove’s wing,” he whispered.
“Aye. She has the sight, does old Moriag.” His hand held the cloth against her face as he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her softly.
Honor held still, Alan’s words registering in her mind even as his taste teased her lips. True love’s eyes. Gray, like mine, she thought. Her heart skipped and she firmly attributed it to quickening desire for the man who could make her body sing.
She was no green girl who needed practiced love words to make her a willing wife. Mayhaps he even meant them. Alan probably did love the woman he thought her to be. She could fix that with one conversation, one she never hoped to have.
How could she love him and still deceive him? Did that mean she did not love him after all?
Trust, that she knew she felt for him, and admiration. Appreciation for his strength, his wit, his beauty and his passion. Oh Lord, his passion! Even now she could taste it in his kiss, feel it rising like the loch in a spring flood.
Already she felt this overpowering need to confess it all to him, but therein lay disaster.
Honor could not afford love if it caused this kind of grief. And, no matter how dear Alan held it, she certainly could not afford truth.
Chapter Eleven
Alan roused Honor’s women from their sleep before dawn and demanded they heat and haul water for her morning bath. “Hurry yourselves,” he urged the maids. “Do not make your lady wait.”
He left them to their task and went out to see whether he could divine what happenings his wife’s father might have planned for the day.
Honor still lay abed, burrowed in the tangled bedcovers. He wanted her women to see her rosy, well-loved countenance before she donned robes and assumed the serenity she usually wore. There should be no question at all what had occurred in the solar last night.
He bore mixed feelings about that occurrence. Two occurrences, he corrected, fighting an uprush of renewed desire. Remarkable, how sweetly she had welcomed that second, unnecessary coupling in the predawn hour. Well, it had been necessary as far as it concerned him, but she might have said him nay on grounds that their goal already stood accomplished. Why had she not? Still fogged with sleep most likely.
Would she prove angry when she woke fully? Would she feel guilty? If so, her guilt could never equal his own. Tavish’s shade teased the fringe of his troubled thoughts. Would he haunt Honor as well?
“’Twas duty, Tav. Hers and my own. Ye wished it on us,” he muttered darkly as he crossed the bailey. But Alan knew in his heart he had wished it on himself with a single-mindedness he had never before applied with such fervor.
“Ho, Alan, lad,” his father called down from the wall walk. “Come see this!”
Alan rushed up the steps and joined Adam. “God ha’ mercy, he’s fired the whole village!”
“He has that. Looked to be empty, though. Not one villager running and screaming that I could see or hear. Nor any livestock. Your folk must have taken to their heels aforehand, God be praised.”
Adam leaned forward between the merlons and squinted. “Look, they gather for some purpose over there by that hillock.” He pointed through the lifting mist.
Alan nodded. “Aye, their machines will be taking shape there. Hume plans to move on us soon with the ram and ladders, I expect.”
“Can we withstand?” his father asked, turning to him with hands on hips.
“For a while. They outnumber us heavily and Hume has a goodly trained force. Look to be men of some experience, around forty of them. A good many of them mercenaries.”
“Why does he go to such trouble? This is no light undertaking, dragging a retinue of this size across the channel just to claim one errant daughter. They had to bring all of their victuals, mounts, everything. Very costly. Most men would simply take the loss and damn their luck.” “She pricked his pride, most like,” Alan said.
“Could be that. Or he believes he can still barter her for more wealth than he is spending on this enterprise.”
“Hume will make no further bargains for my wife. That I vow.”
Adam chuckled, fingered his beard thoughtfully, then looked back out across the field. “Speaking of vows and such, how went the night?”
“First defense in place,” Alan answered evenly, refusing to allow the old man to ruffle his feathers this morning. His father seemed to delight in causing him embarrassment. Two could play.
“How went yours?” Alan countered. “Find comfort, did you? Or do you but content yourself by urging others to the deed these days?”
To Alan’s chagrin, the old fellow threw back his head and laughed uproariously. When he caught his breath, he landed a hard slap on Alan’s shoulder and crowed, “Ha, you have grown sharp as a dagger, boy! I knew you would! Your mother early warned me I’d suffer my own barbs out of your mouth one day. By God, she knew you well!”
“Not near well enough,” Alan remarked, “else she would ha’ known I’d earn her brother’s wrath by yer trainin’ me up to such outspokenness.” He could not help dishing up a bit of guilt over his parents’ abandonment.
With satisfaction, he watched his father’s face darken with poorly contained rage. “Angus strapped you often?”
“Regular as he ate oat parrich.”
Adam cleared his throat and swallowed hard before speaking again. When he did, his voice sounded gruff, forced. “It was the making of you, I expect. Good thing, too. I’d not have had the heart to do it myself.”
“Ye failed to answer my question,” Alan said, leaning a shoulder against the battlement. “Do ye comfort yourself on this... woman?”
His sire cocked his grizzled head and regarded him with a narrowed gaze. “Aye, I do. Sadly lacking as your education under Angus must be, you surely know we did not find your little brother under a bracken bush.”
Alan straightened and crossed his arms over his chest. “She may well have found him there for all I know.”
His head snapped to the side with Adam’s sudden blow.
The ringing in his ears almost obliterated the low ominous growl of his father’s words. “I do not defame your wife, sir. Do not insult mine!”
Alan looked long into the flashing green of eyes that mirrored his own. He saw no guilt and no apology. His gut roiled with rage and shame. Rage, for his mother’s sake and at his father’s defense of another woman. Shame at his own pettish strike at a female he did not even know. The shame won. “I do beg your pardon, my lord. And...hers, as well.”
“Well then. Best forgot.” The large hand that had once guided his first steps and just now scrambled his brains, extended toward him. Hesitantly, Alan grasped it.
“Angus has no patch on ye for strength in a backhand, Da. Seems ye do have the heart for it after all.” Alan rubbed the side of his face, which felt numb.
Still clutching his hand, Adam pinned him with a steady gaze. “I will not defend my actions to you, Alan. I loved your mother well whilst she lived, and love her still. But I am now wed to Janet. Love for the one takes nothing from the other. If you do not understand this, at the very least, r
espect it.”
“Aye, tha’ I’ll do,” Alan promised.
His father released his hand and turned aside, rolling his eyes. “For God’s sweet sake, boy, why do you insist on sounding like a bloody sheep-thieving highlandman?”
“That’s what ye wanted me ta be,” Alan said with an evil grin, intensifying his brogue. “That’s what I am. Have ye got somethin’ agin sheep, Da? I ken ye keep harpin’ on the wee buggers.”
“You do that apurpose, sounding just like that bloody Angus,” Adam accused. “And you can speak civilly when you choose! I’ve heard you do it!”
Alan turned away from his father and braced his hands against the closest embrasure, looking out. “Leave off, Da. We have bigger problems to ponder than my manner of speech.”
“We do that! Such as why you never answered our letters. Not once did you. Not a word, and it broke your mother’s heart!”
“You sent none to me,” Alan said in a flat voice. He continued looking at the smoke filled sky.
His father gasped. “We did! Many!” Then he groaned. “Angus. I will kill him.” A silence fell between them and lasted too long. “I cannot believe you’d not even question the lack, Alan. When you grew older, why did you not write to us to ask why?”
“I could not,” Alan whispered, his voice almost lost in the wind. “I simply could not.” Then he turned to his father and smiled. “Let it go, Da. ’Tis done and done.”
“By God, no! It is not done!” Again a tense silence fell. “But you are right, we must lay this issue aside for now. You have enough on your mind.” He laid his hand on Alan’s forearm and squeezed. “Let me keep watch, son,” he offered in a brusque, but conciliatory tone. “You go below.”
“Verra well.” Alan left him there. He had more pressing things to do than hurl accusations at his father. And besides, it was not half as satisfying as he had thought it would be. Whether there had been letters or not mattered little now. His father could have come to him or brought him home if he really cared. The damage had been done. Nothing had changed between them this day, nor would it.
He entered the hall still scowling. First thing, he saw the woman called Janet breaking her fast. Curious in spite of himself, he approached the fire hole where she sat toasting her stockinged feet and munching on a scone.
Her untidy hair trailed over one shoulder, the other half tucked haphazardly under a wrinkled kerchief. Alan had to admit the old man had an eye for women. His mother had been a beauty. Everyone had said so. Though he could no longer see her face in his mind, he knew it to be true.
This Janet boasted an earthy, tumbled up kind of loveliness herself. Her features were right saucy, her body fullfigured in all the right places. Here was a woman he might have chosen himself before he met Honor. At least to while away an hour or so. God knew she was around the right age. Too young by half for an old stoat like his father.
The little lad they called Richard stood between her legs, dimpled elbows on her knees, head lifted and mouth open. Alan watched as she pinched a good-size crumb of the scone and popped it into the boy’s mouth. The child had green eyes and dark red curls. No bracken bush by-blow, this little fellow. He definitely was a Strode.
His stepmother looked up then and grinned wickedly at Alan. “Good morn! You have a merry look about you. All went well, then?”
Alan pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed, shaking his head. “God’s truth, does no one think on else? Aye, ‘twas done and done. Are ye content wi’ that?”
Her laugh belonged in the alehouse where his da probably found her. “Question is, son, is she content with that?”
“Do not call me son, woman! You presume too much!”
“Save all that bluster for someone who fears it, laddie,” the woman advised, her voice strident. She plucked off another bite of bread for her babe. “You’re but an older cut of this’n here. All three—you, Rich and the old man—alike as three beans in a pod. Holler and stomp, rail and fuss. Gives a body hives, it does. Sit you down and pour a cup.” She nodded toward an empty stool.
Alan sat. Why, he couldn’t say. He wanted nothing to do with this trull. ’Twas the boy who held him there, he decided. His brother. “How old is he?”
“Nearin’ two,” she answered in more congenial tones. “Spiteful little beast!” she accused the child when he nipped her finger and giggled. She rose and set the boy in front of Alan. “Mind him whilst I find the jakes, would you?”
Before Alan could summon an answer, she swept away and left him alone with the babe. “Richard, eh?”
One fat little hand tugged Alan’s sleeve as the chubby body launched itself against him. A string of loud babble as unintelligible as gutter French poured forth from the little imp and ended with a resounding, “Da!”
“Nay, I’m not yer da.” Alan lifted the boy and held him so they were face-to-face. “I’m yer brother, lad. Alan.” He repeated his name several times while the wide green eyes searched his.
“Awan!” preceded another spate of curious sounds. This time culminating with mik.
“That much, I understand,” Alan said and stood, intending to carry the child to the kitchens where they had goat’s milk aplenty. He rather liked his brother’s directness.
For a moment, he recalled an early happening in his own life, tugging on a much larger hand, demanding a drink or some such. Had it been Nigel’s hand?
He looked into the face of this brother and felt tears sting his eyes. “You and I will know each other, Dickon. That, I do vow. You won’t need to ask yourself the question, was it my brother’s hand I held?”
He supposed, in order to effect that promise, he must try and get on with the so-called lady wife of his father. But he did not have to like her.
All in all, the morning had not shaped up as he would have wanted, yet was not far removed from what he had expected.
“Husband?” came the quiet query. “Father Dennis wishes to speak with you before you gather the archers.”
Alan suddenly recalled the daily practice he had instituted and should be supervising even now. He handed Richard over to Honor with a warning. “Have a care. He bites.”
She laughed merrily as she hefted the child onto one hip. Alan didn’t think she looked at all upset by the night’s events. Wouldn’t do to begin discussing that here and now. Maybe never. Why not just go on as they were? Women tended to talk a thing to death anyway.
Guilt notwithstanding, he fully intended to employ his husbandly rights unless she strongly objected. He could not help but stand in awe of her composure. She made no demands this morning, no accusations. And she exhibited no regret whatsoever for what they had done, either by word or expression.
“Honor,” he said without thinking, “aptly called. You are all an honorable lady should be, and I hold you in higher esteem than any person I know.”
Embarrassed by his unexpected declaration, fearing the tears that quickly welled in her eyes, Alan fled like a boy caught red-handed stealing sweets.
Whatever had possessed him to say such? he wondered, as he stalked back out into the bailey to look for the priest. He had meant it, of course. He never lied. But it must have hurt her somehow to hear him say it.
Doubtless Tavish had offered like praise at one time or another. It would have been like him to do so. That was what had brought her tears. Memories.
He cringed inwardly to think how inept he must sound, spouting his rough compliments, when Tavish had accustomed her to the smooth, practiced words of an educated nobleman. Alan felt his heart nigh break then, knowing he could never hope to compete with Honor’s cherished recollections of Tavish.
And who had he to blame for that lack in himself? None but the parents, who relegated him to the care of a rogue uncle whose idea of courtly words consisted of, “Bend over, lass, and I’ve a copper for ye.”
Damn them all.
Father Dennis approached with less than his usual grace. Melior followed him like a curious shadow.
“Sir Alan, we are woefully short of arrows, I think. The archers wonder if there will be even enough for a second volley.”
Alan considered for a moment and laid a hand on the good father’s shoulder. “We must tell them to make every one count.”
Melior edged his way between them. His soft, musical voice intruded. “I could sneak out, perhaps gather materials to make more. Or go somewhere else for help?”
“Nay,” Alan said, appreciating the offer. “We know not where Hume has men stationed. If one discovered the tunnel’s opening, they would be on us from the inside.”
The songster grimaced and struck his small fist in his palm. “Is there nothing that we can do, then? Must we simply wait until they overrun us?”
Alan laid an arm about the thin shoulders. “You can keep up our spirits with your tales and songs. And I can teach these knaves to aim straight. I’ll not let Hume take our lady. We’ll fight him to the last man standing.”
“As you say, sir,” Melior agreed quietly. “Have I leave to attend your father on the wall-walk?”
Alan nodded and slapped him on the back. “Aye. Keep him company if you like. Only mind he doesna teach ye any English lays to sing over my supper, eh?”
“What if we concoct a tune wholly Scot, sir, with a touch of French guile?” Melior asked cryptically, “Something to swell the heart with hope of victory. How would that be?”
“I say, go to,” Alan replied.
So, the men—even to the bard and the priest—rankled with inactivity. Alan accompanied Father Dennis to the area where straw-filled targets awaited the chance arrow. He noted the twenty-odd villeins gathered with their roughly hewn bows.
Remember Bannockburn, he told himself with a determined nod of his head. Outnumbered, half-trained, well-led and victorious. Then he turned to Father Dennis. “Got a prayer for us, Father?”
Later that evening, Honor presided over the table, nodding the maids in and out with the sparse three courses she had ordered up for dinner. Meager fare for guests, but with a siege imminent, prudence won out over the need to impress.