by Lynsay Sands
Averill knew her brother and husband were just trying not to burden her with worry, but really, it was insulting that they thought of her as a weak, swooning female who needed to be cosseted and protected from harsh reality. Had they even considered that she might be able to help in this situation? She doubted it...and fully intended to show them the error of their ways once they got there.
"Come, Bess, I shall see you back to camp," Will said, moving to take the woman's arm as Kade headed directly for Averill.
The maid cast a glance her way, but Averill could not seem to take her eyes off her husband. Something about the way he approached made her feel like a rabbit being stalked by a fox. Aware that Bess had allowed Will to lead her out of the clearing, she forced a smile for her husband but also took a nervous step back, coming up against a tree trunk.
The action made Kade frown and pause a step away. "Are ye afraid o' me, wife?"
"N-no," she said, then grimaced as her stammer gave lie to the word. Realizing how silly she was being, Averill forced herself to take a step forward, placing her a hairbreadth away from her husband so that did she breathe in too deeply, her breasts would surely brush his chest.
For some reason, that made Kade smile, and he asked, "How are ye feelin'?"
Averill blinked in confusion at the question, unsure why he would ask it. Did she look pale or peaked? Frowning at the possibility, she said politely, "Fine, husband. And you?"
Kade chuckled, but explained, "I mean did the journey today trouble ye? Yer no' still tender from the beddin'?"
"Oh! Nay," she said, flushing brightly.
"Good," he said, then bent his head and kissed her.
Despite her surprise, Averill responded at once, her arms slipping up around his head, her lips drifting open in invitation, and her body melting into his as his own arms gathered her close. Truly, it felt like forever since he'd last kissed her, though it had only been moments ago. Well, the last one had been. He'd actually kissed her several times today: on waking that morning, as he'd headed out the door after dressing, before he'd lifted her into the saddle at Mortagne, and again each time they'd stopped that day, sometimes several times. In fact, he'd kissed her most passionately before leaving her here with Bess to bathe. That being the case, it was only natural that she would expect this time to be more of the same, a deep, passionate kiss, after which he'd lead her back to camp. However, rather than end the kiss and take her arm to lead her back to camp, Kade began to touch her as well, his hands roaming over her back, then dropping to cup her bottom, before moving to her upper arms to urge her back until she came up against the tree behind her. The moment she rested there, his hands moved to her breasts, squeezing them through the cloth of her chemise and gown. Averill moaned at the caress, her back arching to thrust her eager breasts most wantonly into his palms.
Kade's response to that was to thrust his hips forward, grinding his hardness against her as he began to tug at the top of her gown and chemise. She felt cool air brush over her nipples, then his head ducked down to draw one into his mouth, and she heard a hiss thunk over her head.
Frowning, Averill tilted her head back to glance up, wincing as several strands of hair were torn from her scalp. She then gasped at the sight of the arrow protruding from the tree, still quivering in the air. Averill was vaguely aware of Kade also lifting his head, but was still completely unprepared when he suddenly dragged her to the ground, shouting out as he did.
At first, Averill feared he'd been injured by a second arrow or even grazed by the first, but then a sudden clamor of sound drew her head around as several Mortagne soldiers burst out of the bushes on every side.
"Where did it come from, my lord?" one of them asked.
Kade pointed silently across the river directly opposite, and several men immediately began to wade into the water, but he called them back.
"'Tis no use harin' across the river. The archer will be long gone ere ye get to the other side," he pointed out.
The men hesitated, but reluctantly moved back toward them as Kade stood and helped Averill to her feet.
"Are ye all right?" he asked, shifting to block the men's view of her as he quickly helped her tuck herself back into her gown.
"A-aye, my l-lord, husband," Averill whispered, aware she was blushing.
Kade frowned and gave her a quick, but thorough, kiss. When he lifted his head, he said, "Do ye wish me to have one o' the men see ye back, or will ye wait a minute while I speak to them and allow me to accompany ye?"
"I will wait," she decided.
For some reason, her response brought a tiny smile to his lips, but it was gone quickly. He gave a nod and moved off to consult briefly with the soldiers. He was back after just a moment, taking her arm to lead her along the path into and through the woods to the larger clearing where they'd stopped to make camp. Averill glanced around as they walked, noting that while two of the men were following, the rest were spreading out and moving into the woods.
"Husband?" she asked. "Who do you think shot the arrow?"
He frowned, but then shrugged. "'Twas probably a bandit."
"A bandit?" she asked doubtfully. "That makes little sense. What would a bandit gain from shooting us with his arrow from across the river?
Kade smiled faintly, and said, "I didna say 'twas a smart bandit."
"But--"
"I ken it makes little sense, wife," he interrupted. "But I've been away for three years and have no enemies I know of who would wish me dead. And since no one would have reason to kill you either"--he shrugged--"it was most like a bandit...or an arrow gone astray."
That seemed like perfectly sound reasoning to her, so Averill nodded and fell silent, but she couldn't help thinking there might be some other explanation. It had been a close call, and only luck and his ducking his head to suckle at her breast had saved him from an arrow in the back of the neck.
Actually, she realized, glancing at Kade, he was tall enough that it would have struck him between the shoulder blades. Aye, they had been very lucky.
Averill drew her horse in beside Kade's and peered up the hill toward the castle ahead. Her gaze slid over the solid stone outer curtain and the keep beyond. At this distance it looked a strong, well-built castle, a good place to call home. When the sun chose that moment to come out from behind the clouds it had been veiling itself in most of the day and shone a bright shaft of light on the edifice, Averill could only think it was a good omen.
She glanced to her husband, her eyebrows drawing together as she took in his expression. When he remained still and silent, she asked, "Stewart castle?"
Averill thought it must be, but there was just something about Kade's expression that made her uncertain. He looked stern and forbidding, a sharp contrast to the smiling, teasing Kade who had been in evidence since the wedding. He did not look like a man glad to be arriving home.
"Aye," Kade said grimly. "'Tis Stewart."
"It does not appear to be falling down yet," Will commented, drawing her gaze his way as he drew up on her other side.
"Wife."
Averill turned attentively to her husband at that growl. The man had taken to calling her Avy since the wedding, so she knew whatever he wished to say was important. "Aye, husband?"
"Ye'll stay close to me or yer brother at all times until I say otherwise, and do as I order without question, ye ken?"
Though it was couched as a question, Averill didn't mistake it for anything but the order it was. She nodded solemnly in response, wondering for the first time just how much trouble he was expecting.
Satisfied by her nod, Kade grunted and urged his horse forward. Averill immediately followed suit, staying close as promised. Will stuck to her side like glue as well, so that they rode three abreast as they started up the slight hill. A glance over her shoulder showed that the soldiers who had accompanied them were also riding three abreast, their number trailing away into the woods, too many to count.
Averill grimaced and turned back in
the saddle, thinking that the men on the wall could be forgiven for thinking them an invading army. But then, from what she understood, that was pretty much what they were, Averill acknowledged with a sigh. If Kade's father would not willingly step down and allow him to run the castle properly, Kade intended to force the issue, and her brother and father had supplied the army to do so.
Kade wasn't terribly surprised to find the gates closed and the drawbridge rising when they reached it. He was only surprised the drawbridge wasn't already fully up. The men on the wall had surely had the time to get it all the way up between spotting the approach of the English army riding with him and their arrival at the castle. However, judging by the drunken shouting on the parapet, and the calmer and much grimmer replies of someone who was not drunk, it seemed obvious his father had not wished the drawbridge lifted at all, but one of the soldiers had ignored his wishes and done the right thing. It sounded as if the soldier was now getting a drunken bollocking for doing so.
"Hail!" Kade shouted, drawing his mount as close to the edge of the moat as he could.
The shouting above stopped at once, and the sober voice called, "Who goes there?"
"Kade Stewart, son of Eachann," he shouted back. "And who are you?"
"Aidan Stewart, cousin and first to Laird Eachann Stewart," came the grim answer even as a drunken voice crowed, "See I told ye we werena bein' invaded, Aidan. 'Tis me brother. Lower the damned drawbridge, ye silly fool."
The drunk speaker wasn't his father then, but either Gawain or Brodie, Kade surmised. Both of his brothers were younger and had not enjoyed the opportunity to be trained away from Stewart. Unfortunately, that meant that all they'd been trained in was raising a mug of ale to their mouths. Not for the first time, Kade sent up a silent prayer of thanks to his mother for insisting he be sent to his uncle Simon the moment he was walking.
A head appeared at the top of the wall. "Yer wearin' English clothes and riding under an English flag."
Kade nodded. It was the man named Aidan who he knew was actually a second or third cousin to his father. The man had been a loyal soldier and Eachann Stewart's first for as long as he could remember. Noting that he sounded grim and calm despite the drunken slurs still being cast at him from above, Kade explained, "Aye. I've no clothes of me own at the moment. These are borrowed from Mortagne, as are the soldiers. He offered to accompany us to see his sister, my bride," Kade added, gesturing to Averill beside him, "safely to her new home."
Aidan considered that, then asked, "Where are Domnall, Angus, and Ian?"
"That's what I'd like to ken. They made it here then?"
"Aye, and left more than a week past."
"Only a week?" he asked with disbelief. "I sent them here more than three weeks ago."
Apparently convinced, Aidan shouted to the men to drop the drawbridge, then explained, "They arrived here in good time then, but had to await yer father's pleasure to speak to 'im. He was ...indisposed," the man finished dryly, then gave up talking as the drawbridge began to lower with a loud rumble.
'"Indisposed,'" Kade muttered with disgust, knowing it was a euphemism for drunk to the gills. He gave a start and glanced to the side when Averill's hand suddenly covered his own where it rested on his reins.
"'Twill be all right, husband," Averill said quietly, offering him a reassuring smile.
Kade forced a smile in return and watched the drawbridge lower, his thoughts on the confrontation ahead. As it dropped the last few feet, he turned back to Averill. "Remember, stay close."
"I am your wife, my lord. My place is at your side," she said simply.
Kade nodded, but as he faced forward, it struck him that there was an air of determination about her that was rather disconcerting. It gave him the sneaking suspicion that she might be up to something. He turned back to eye her narrowly, but she merely smiled sweetly back, the same dear woman who had tended him through his illness and married him at Mortagne.
The deep thump of the drawbridge slamming to the earth distracted him. Shaking off this worry for now, Kade caught up his reins and started across the bridge to his childhood home. Some would think poorly of him for what he intended to do, but this had been his mother's intention from the moment she began to natter at his father to send him to Simon for training. Maighread Stewart had loved her husband, but she had not been blind to his faults. She had known he was in the grip of drink and that it would one day have him so firmly in its clutches that all at Stewart would suffer. Every time she had visited with Kade, she had drummed it into him that the day would come when he would have to take over the running of Stewart from his father--by force if necessary--for the good of their people.
Today is the day, Kade thought grimly, as they rode across the bailey and straight up to the keep stairs.
As he stopped and dismounted, Kade could hear the drunken calls of whichever brother had been on the wall. The man was crossing the bailey to greet them, but Kade had no interest in stopping to talk to someone in the shape his brother was. Ignoring his calls, Kade lifted Averill down from her mount and immediately urged her up the stairs into the keep, aware that Will was directly behind them with his sergeant at arms at his side.
He moved so quickly in his effort to avoid his brother that Kade didn't take note of the shape of the bailey. It was impossible not to note the state of the keep itself, however. He entered the great hall and stopped abruptly, mouth tightening and nose twitching at the scent that filled the air.
From what he'd been told, it had only been seven months or so since his sister, Merry, had married and moved to England. It seemed obvious that little, if anything, had been done in the great hall in that time, and it wasn't hard to figure out why when overloud laughter drew his gaze to the trestle tables, and he saw his father and another man seated there. Obviously, the brother on the wall had been Brodie, for Gawain was the second man at the table, or rather, under it, Kade thought grimacing as he watched the younger man laugh his way right off his seat and onto the rushes.
His gaze swept the rest of the hall, taking in the smoke-stained walls that were in need of a good whitewashing, as well as the dirty tapestries that hung there. Some of them were attached by only one hook and hung like sad, windless flags. He turned his attention to the room itself, taking in the lack of furniture except for a couple of trestle tables, then he glanced at the floor, noting the beyond-filthy rushes littered with food and other things he didn't care to identify. There were also broken bits of wood about that he suspected at one time had been furniture.
What seemed worse to him was the complete lack of bodies in the room. The great hall was the heart of the castle, and at both his uncle Simon's home as well as Mortagne, it had always been full of people--soldiers coming and going, maids bustling about, and people just sitting to speak or eat. But here there was no one but his father and brother. The heart of this castle was broken, and no one wished to enter.
"Bess, I will need my bag from the cart."
Averill's whispered words drew his attention to the fact that the cart had apparently reached the bailey, and his wife's maid had entered in search of her. Kade turned to see that the maid had not entered alone. There were several Mortagne soldiers behind her, holding up his now apparently unconscious brother, Brodie, with his arms drawn over their shoulders.
"He took a tumble on the stairs," one of the men explained in hushed tones, avoiding his eyes as he spoke. All the men were avoiding his gaze, Kade noted, and felt shame rise up within him for the showing his kin were making.
"Take him to his room, and I shall tend to him there," Averill ordered quietly.
"Aye, my lady," the man who had explained their presence said. Then he cleared his throat, and asked, "How do we sort out where that is exactly?"
Kade saw Averill blink twice, then she turned to him to whisper, "Do you know where his room is?"
When he shook his head, she glanced toward the two men at the table and bit her lip. Gawain was flat out on the floor, snoring, and h
is father wasn't far behind. The laird's eyes were closed, his head hanging down on his chest, and he was sliding from his seat to join his son in the filthy rushes.
Kade was grinding his teeth together at the shameful sight when Averill suddenly called out, "You there! Boy!"
It was only then he saw the small head poking through the door to the kitchens. It was a lad of no more than six or seven, with huge eyes presently locked on the duo now napping under the table.
"Hello!" Averill called again, moving forward.
Apparently satisfied that his laird and the laird's son were unconscious and, therefore, no threat, the boy turned his attention to her. His eyes grew even wider, though Kade wouldn't have thought it possible, then he stuck a thumb at his own chest, eyebrows rising in question.
"Aye, you," Averill said with a touch of exasperation. "Come here."
He hesitated briefly but then slid through the door and moved reluctantly forward.
Kade couldn't help noticing he gave the table and its two snoring men a wide berth and suspected that was due to the violence he'd heard accompanied the drink his kin enjoyed so much. Noting a couple of fading bruises on the lad, Kade deduced that he didn't always move cautiously enough.
"What is your name?" his wife asked gently, once the boy paused before her.
"L-Laddie," he stammered anxiously.
Averill stiffened, but simply said, "Good day to you, Laddie."
"G-good d-day to you, me l-lady," Laddie murmured back.
His wife's face softened at his stuttering. She dropped to her haunches before the boy so that their faces were at the same level, then leaned forward to whisper to him. Kade was very curious and wanted to move closer to hear what she said, but restrained himself and merely waited.
As Averill whispered, the boy nodded and nodded, acknowledging every word she said, and when she finished, he beamed a wide smile and nodded once more. Apparently satisfied, Averill straightened and led the boy back to him.