by Stone, Lyn
“Nay,” he moaned. “I need to lie flat. My head spins so.”
She guided him toward the solar, taking great care to go slowly. Alan dragged one foot in front of the other. Off to one side, he saw his father scowl with concern. Alan turned and winked broadly at him just before Honor closed the door. There, mayhaps his father would insure their privacy, Alan thought.
Honor guided him to the bed and helped him to sit down. Then she lifted his legs to the mattress and pulled off his boots. Alan groaned again, just for good measure.
“Just rest you there. I’ll gather my things.” She worried her bottom lip and wrung her hands together. “I should get you wine first to dull the pain.”
“Nay,” Alan said, restlessly moving his head from side to side. “I’ll endure. Just get it over. Do what you must.”
He watched her from beneath his lashes as she dutifully cleaned and sewed up the small gash on top of his wrist. At each prick of the needle, he issued a pained grunt. No feigning there, he thought. It hurt like hell.
When she tied the last knot, he turned to his side facing her. “Now, my leg,” he gasped. “Could you help me with my hose?”
“You are hurt elsewhere? Oh, let me see!” She untied the points fastened to his waistband and hurriedly tugged off his hose, examining his limbs as she did so. “I see nothing that—”
He sat up so abruptly she gasped.
“Behold!” he said with a huge grin. “I am healed! Ah, lady, I am blessed among men!”
“And cursed among women!” she cried, hands on hips now. Furious with him for his trickery. “You are not hurt at all, you deceitful—”
“Knave. I know.” Alan laughed and grabbed her by the waist, lifting her to the bed. “But I love it when ye coddle me. I love it when ye care. I love ye!”
Honor rolled her eyes and shook her head. “What am I to do with you?”
“What a question!” he said with an exaggerated leer. “Believe me or not, I do have an answer!”
A giggle escaped her, right through the frown she was wearing. “I would wager you do!”
After a long and mind-rending kiss, she drew away from him and looked deeply into his eyes. “Alan, I do thank you for all you did today. I know what it has cost you and I am so sorry for that.”
He leaned back on one elbow and played his fingers over her serious little face. “The lies, you mean,” he said, not even pretending to misunderstand.
“Yes,” she affirmed, catching his hand in hers and kissing his palm. “Alan, I wish I could undo many things I have done. Some I would not change, for they were necessary evils. But I cannot bear that you deserted your most strongly held belief because of me. It was to no good, after all.”
“Oh, but it told the comte that I loved ye more than anything. Yer own bold truth that followed convinced him ye cared for me as well. ’Twas why he gave us a fighting chance, I’m thinking. He knew then he could never win yer heart for himself.”
Honor smiled sadly. “Win my heart? He would have killed me.”
“Nay,” Alan answered with a chuckle. “The mon’s merely bluster under all that polish of his.” He rolled his right shoulder to ease the ache. “Got a damned good sword arm, though.”
“He was right on one thing,” Honor said with a weary sigh. “You’ll never be known as Alan the True again. I do regret that for you.”
He sighed and shook his head. “Dinna fash yerself over it.” Could he possibly tell her all he had realized in those few moments when her life hung in the balance? He ought to try, he decided. Otherwise, she would probably always hold herself responsible for the sudden collapse of his integrity.
“All these years,” he began, speaking in a low and earnest voice, “I spoke only truth. But I did so for the wrong reason, Honor. Ye see, ’twas not for the right or the wrong of it all, but for sheer vainglory. I did it only for the pride I took in what others said about me.”
“Then this has destroyed that pride,” she said, still forlorn.
He laughed softly. “Well, I do hold pride in other things,” he said. “Honesty is a good thing, a very important thing.” Alan searched for the words to make her understand. “But hearing myself lauded as Alan the True by everyone in the known world would have meant nothing at all to me had I lost ye, Honor.”
“Still, I rue that loss for your sake,” she said, casting down her liquid gaze.
Alan feared she might weep and would have done anything to prevent that. He tapped her lower lip with his finger. “Why don’t we think me up a new sobriquet, eh? Something highly deserved and ever constant.”
He pretended to think on it as he trailed his hand over her arm and shoulder. “Well then, what d’ye think of Alan the Eager?” Grinning wickedly, he slid one finger into the front of her gown and tugged her closer. “Or Alan the Ready?”
Honor placed a hand over his heart and started to smile. Lifting her shiny gray gaze to his, she mimicked his lilt, “Weel, highlandman, what d’ye think of Alan the Beloved? For ye are that, like it or no.”
“Oh, lass,” he whispered, his eyes near as full as his heart. “That has a bonny sound to it. A verra bonny sound, indeed.”
Epilogue
Midsummer 1318
Honor watched contentedly from a small distance as Alan spoke to Christiana.
“Pick it up,” he said to her, pointing to a small stone nearby. Chubby fingers closed around the rock. The fouryear-old marked Alan’s every move as he located another for himself.
“Place it just so, sweeting,” he instructed as he laid his offering on the pile covering Tavish’s grave. “Now, close yer eyes and give yer father a wee prayer on his name day.”
“Pray for you?” his Kit asked earnestly.
Alan squatted down to her level, his arm surrounding the small shoulders. “Not for me, hinny. Ye know verra well that I’m yer da. But yer father lies here, under the cairn.” He sighed, and Honor could see him gathering up his patience. “Say yer prayer for him.”
Christiana folded her hands, closed her eyes and muttered the hasty grace she always said at table.
Then she looked up at Alan, her forefinger resting on the crude wolf’s head device Alan had once carved on the boulder. “Father cannot, so I said thanks for him. For this apple,” she explained and scampered away to play.
Honor approached, laughing. “Tavish would have loved her, would he not?”
“Aye, he would.” Alan agreed. “Will she never understand?”
Honor linked her arm with his as they strolled beside the bubbling stream. “Of course she will. When she grows older.”
“We have so much to teach her, Honor. Where will we find all the words?”
Though he could read and write well now, Alan continued his studies. Honor knew he still felt sorely his lack of proper education.
“Most things she will learn by our own doing of them. Thank heavens you have taught me to look for the good in people. I would she learned that first of all. And to seek the truth in her heart, of course.”
Alan chuckled wryly. “Should I also teach her the use of a judicious untruth?”
“I expect she will learn that as well. You set a fine example there this mom when you complimented me. Lovely, indeed! Dark moons beneath my eyes from lack of sleep, a belly the size of a feast day haggis.” Honor fondly rubbed the small mound.
Alan’s hand joined hers. “Ye’re always beautiful to me. Never more so than today.”
“Well done, o ye of the silver tongue,” Honor quipped. “See what you say four months from now when I grow large as a cow. Then your pretty words may leap from judicious untruths to outright lies!” She sneaked a sidewise, flirting glance. “But do not leave off telling them on my account.”
He laughed aloud and tweaked her nose. “Tonight I’ll be showing ye how lovely I think ye are. We’ll plead fatigue and sup in the solar, what say?”
“It is Friday. I fear we’ll have a guest.”
Alan groaned dramatically. “Not
Gray again! The rogue’s here once a fortnight, I swear. Takes his godfathering task too seriously, if ye ask me. Bringing Kit so many gifts will spoil her, mark my word.”
“Are you jealous, Alan? You must know she loves you more than anything in the world.”
“Exceptin’ her cat,” he grumbled with increasing good humor.
“Well, yes, there is the cat,” Honor agreed with a smile.
For a while, quiet reigned on the sunlit bank, the stillness broken only by the sound of childish laughter and the rushing water of the nearby burn. Honor wanted to freeze the moment and keep it forever.
“Yer parents should arrive come Michaelmas. Will they make it for the birth, ye reckon?” Alan asked softly. He drew her back against him and surrounded her with his arms.
“I hope so,” Honor replied. “I wish our whole family could be with us then. We must send Da Adam and Janet word of the new child when a chance arrives.” At Alan’s nod against her hair, she continued, “Forgiving your father was a very wise thing to do ere he left for England. Given the state of things between our countries, there may be no further visits.”
“Aye, and I shall miss little Dickon most of all.” Alan admitted. “I did once promise him that, unlike Nigel and myself, we would know one another in the years to come.”
Honor lay her head back and looked up at him. “Your brother has two who love him dearly and will find another when he’s grown, just as you have done. And there are always letters. Richard will know you.”
Alan released her and sat down, drawing her with him. He stretched out on the grass, head turned to one side so he could watch Christiana chase a butterfly. When he spoke, his voice was thick with feeling. “I owe so much to Tavish for his trust in me.”
Honor leaned over to kiss his sun-warmed cheek. Together they welcomed their daughter as she skipped over and wriggled out a cozy place between them. “I love him dearly for sending you to me. I wish I could tell him so, Alan. I wish he could see Christiana and know what a very fine legacy he left to her. And to us.”
A sudden breeze ruffled the graceful leaves of the rowan tree under which they lay.
“He knows,” Alan whispered. “He knows.”
ISBN : 978-1-4592-5061-1
THE KNIGHT’S BRIDE
Copyright © 1999 by Lynda Stone
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