by Tessa Murran
‘Will is doing the opposite. Do not let him use you, for that is what he is doing.’
‘How?’
‘My cousin wants you warming his bed, and he is clever enough to get you to beg to climb into it. He has spun his web of lies so well that you cannot even see it.’
‘No,’ said Morna, shaking her head as a cold dread took hold.
‘Ask Will where Waldrick went in that ship these last days.’
‘To the mainland, to send word to my brother. The seas have calmed enough to make the crossing.’
‘Do you know how long it takes to make the crossing – half a day at the most? Do you also know that the Bains have seawater running through their veins, no storm in the world stops them from setting sail when they want to. Did you see the cargo he was unloading? Taken, from a merchant vessel. Waldrick was sent out to hunt, not to send word on your behalf. As to the storms, they have not prevented our other vessels, moored in coves all over the island, from setting sail all the time you have been here. Waldrick was no more sending word to your brother than my cousin has an ounce of sincerity in his heart. There is no gain for Will in sending you home.’
‘But he told me that…’
‘No word has been sent to your brother, Morna, nor will it be. Will is keeping you here for his own purpose. He makes you feel like a guest when, in fact, you are a prisoner. If you don’t believe me go and ask him yourself, and watch his face when he lies.’
***
Will stood on the battlements staring out at the horizon, his brow deeply furrowed. He wanted to hold thoughts of Morna in his head a little longer, take them out and turn them over and over until he made sense of them. Instead, Waldrick was bleating in his ear like a sheep.
‘This word from the mainland. How do we proceed Will?’
‘As we always have – by preserving our interests and staying out of Scotland’s quarrels.’
‘But with the English massing for another march north, Robert may look to the Isles for support.’
‘And he’ll get none from me, Waldrick. If the English send another army to re-take Berwick, then our so-called King will need us more than we need him, but I’ve no appetite for sacrificing Bain clansmen, not if he came on bended knee.’
‘And if he comes as a conquering hero? If he breaks King Edward’s army and assumes control of Scotland, what will you do then?’
‘Negotiate of course, but from a position of strength. We are not an easy target for King Robert. Let him rant and rave and denounce us as cowards. We go our own way, as do the other clans of the Isles and he has few ships to threaten us.’
‘So we are to do nothing?’ said Waldrick.
‘No. If the English are serious about re-taking Scotland then perhaps we should make plans, my friend, reach out to our allies and our enemies too, and assess the lay of the land, see if they have the stomach for war.’
‘I will send word at once to the others. The Cranstouns too, Will?’
‘Aye, all the clans must be included else they will feel slighted. But don’t trust in the Cranstouns, for they are a slippery bunch. And if we do have to meet, we need to find neutral ground to do it. I’ll not risk a slit throat, Waldrick.’
Morna burst through the door, and Waldrick took one look at her face and attempted a hasty exit, but she stopped him in his tracks.
‘Waldrick, I should thank you for risking a rough crossing to the mainland to take word to my brother. How did you find him? Was he in good health? Did he send word of when he would come to me?’
‘Soon, he said, as soon as may be,’ said Waldrick, with a glance sideways at Will.
‘I am sure he was beside himself with worry over my well-being,’ said Morna, smiling at Waldrick in a brittle kind of way.
‘Aye, he was, most aggrieved by your disappearance. He will be happy to fetch you home safe any day now, I am sure.’
‘Good. Ravenna, his wife, was she worrying about me?’
‘Aye, she was for sure.’
‘She’s very beautiful is she not, with that lovely, yellow hair?’
Will’s pulse quickened. Morna knew.
Waldrick blinked rapidly. ‘Aye, that she is, a man would have to go a long way to see any bonnier, except for you, of course, my Lady Morna.’
‘Leave us now Waldrick,’ said Will, bracing himself for the storm about to break. ‘I think the Lady Morna has something to say to me that is best done privately.’
As soon as he had gone, Morna rushed up to him. Her face was red and the fire in her eyes was scorching.
‘That fool hasn’t gone to Beharra, has he, for Ravenna has hair as dark as night?’
‘Poor Waldrick has all the cunning of a sheep, and you tricked him into giving himself away.’
‘So it’s true. You did not send word to Cormac to come and get me. You never intended to.’
‘At first, I did, but then things changed.’
‘What things?’ she snarled through gritted teeth.
‘You know what things – us, those kisses we shared.’
‘So you kept me here in ignorance, to become your whore.’
‘No, I kept you here so that you would be safe and yes, I want you, and I have said as much. Why lie about it?’
‘You lie about everything,’ spat Morna.
‘I find I care for you, that is a strange thing for me. I want to follow that path to see where it leads and, if your brother fetches you away, I may never find out.’
‘My family will be worried about me. They will think I am dead.’
‘Aye, maybe, but what is that to me? I owe them no loyalty. ‘T’was you who spoke up for me and saved my life at Bannockburn. You who showed me the only kindness I had felt in years, the first person in a long time to care if I lived or died. Now I’ve saved your life and, for that reason, yours belongs to me.’
‘Why you selfish, miserable, grub of a man.’
‘Is that the best you can do, Morna? Surely you have sharper insults to hurl at me?’
Morna just fumed silently.
‘I was going to tell you my intentions, but I did not quite know how to put it, and this is exactly why I didn’t tell you. I knew you would go on in that tiresome way women do.’
‘Go on! You are keeping me prisoner, here.’
‘No, it is not like that.’
‘Can I leave then?’
‘No.’
‘Then I am a prisoner, and you are awful. You belong down in the bilge on your ship, sloshing around with the rats and other foul things.’
‘For someone who is completely at my mercy, you are not very polite Morna,’ he said smirking.
‘To think I started to like you, to trust in you. What a fool! You are nothing but a small ignorant, resentful man and the world is full of those.’
‘Look, Morna, you and I started on the wrong foot all those years ago. I have held thoughts of you in my head since then. I would wonder where you were and then when I happened upon your brother Lyall, and he told me you were wed, it hurt to hear it. So, since you turned up on that ship, I found I wanted to know you better.’
‘You are a bad man, a really bad man.’ She shook her head. ‘Why did you even bother to help Ravenna and I, Will? Did you profit from it, for you seem to act only to do that.’
‘I let you go that night because you were a sweet, bonnie little thing and I overheard what those men were going to do to you. And then you spoke up for me when you did not have to, when I had not been especially kind. For that reason, I have a softness towards you and, since you came here to Fitheach, it has deepened. I need to understand my regard for you, and if you go back to your brother, I won’t ever do that.’
‘I need to go home, Will.’
‘To what, a clan war with the Gowans? An English army marches north even as we speak. You think I will let you go back to face that.’
‘What?’
‘Aye, the English are coming to re-take Berwick so your brothers will be going to war and there will b
e no one at Beharra to protect you.’
‘All the more reason to go home, to be with them, with Ravenna and her bairns.’
‘Ravenna can fend for herself, she is as strong as you are, and Cormac will get her somewhere safe.’
‘So you won’t let me go, and you won’t send word, even if I beg.’
‘I will not. Reconcile yourself to staying here for the foreseeable future.’
‘Then I hate you, William Bain and I wish I had let you die on that field at Bannockburn.’
Bitterness took Will. ‘If you had, you would have continued your journey in that crate and would now be spreading your legs for Wymon Cranstoun,’ he spat.
Morna’s hand came out of nowhere and connected with his jaw with a sickening crack. It was no wild slap, it was a punch, with all the rage of the furies and she really hurt him, including his pride.
Will staggered back. ‘By all that’s holy,’ he said spitting blood out onto the floor, ‘you have a good fist on you, Morna Buchanan. You almost broke my jaw, woman.’
‘Good, I hope you swallow a few of your teeth, you deserve it and much worse for what you are doing.’
Will moved his jaw back and forth gingerly. ‘I am doing it out of my regard for you, believe it or not, as you wish.’
‘I do not. You are keeping me here to amuse yourself,’ she said, and, with that, Morna left him alone with a throbbing jaw and a heart twisted with shame. He almost hated her for making him feel that way.
Chapter Twelve
Morna watched from the shadow of the castle walls as the guards crossed back and forth between the gates. A rider was due in at any moment now. Will sent out a patrol every morning to ensure his lands were safe, to ride the cliff edge and look out for ships coming around the headland. That rider always returned just as the dawn mists lifted.
Her bundle of blankets and food was tied securely and tucked out of sight beneath her skirts, and she was chewing nonchalantly on a piece of hay, to all intents and purposes a bored, young woman watching the world go by.
The clatter of hooves had her alert and watchful.
The rider sped in to shouts from the watchmen and, as he dismounted and tethered his horse, they gave greeting and then they all moved over to a brazier together to warm their hands. They had their backs to her. Now was her chance, after five long days of watching and planning her escape. Five long days of hating the sight of Will and hating herself for trusting in him.
With a pounding heart, she slung the bundle over her back, slipped out of her cover and snuck up to the horse. It was the work of a moment to untether it and hurl herself up onto its back. A hard kick in the ribs sent it clattering through the open gates, and she was out, and free.
Behind her, she heard the shouts of the watchmen and someone ringing a bell, but she did not look back. She headed for the top of the ridge leading away from Fitheach and the cover of the small patch of woodland she had seen when out riding with Will. She would hide there, perhaps she could hail a passing ship and bribe them to take her across with the silver she had begged from Drostan. He was more than happy to confound his cousin by helping her escape.
As Morna sped further and further from Fitheach, her exhilaration grew. It was good to act, to move, to do anything but feel helpless.
A pounding of hooves, getting louder!
Morna turned to see a horse gaining on her and, on its back, Will, his face a snarl of anger. She kicked her horse to go faster, but it was tired from its morning ride, and, when she glanced back, Will’s horse had eaten up the distance between them, its powerful legs driving the huge animal uphill with ease, while hers struggled. To the left were sheer cliffs and the sea below, and to the right, the land rose steeply, which would only serve to slow her steed. There wasn’t any cover or anywhere to hide.
Morna leaned forward in the saddle as the pounding got louder. She had to get away. She could not let him catch her.
The dark bulk of his horse came alongside, neck stretching, and suddenly veered into her own mount, making it toss its head in alarm. Morna tried to kick it away, but Will took hold of the bridle and wrenched her horse’s head sideways, slowing it down and steering it uphill. Try as she might, she could not get free and, eventually, they came to a standstill.
Will’s face was white with rage, a vein pulsing in his temple and Morna was suddenly fearful of him.
‘We are going back to Fitheach,’ he spat as he turned them around and headed back the way they had come. After that, there was only a bitter silence until they were back inside her prison.
Once in the yard, Will flung himself off his horse and dragged Morna down from hers. Her legs gave way, and she landed on her bottom in the mud. Onlookers gathered to stare, but no one said anything, instead, they drew back, for Will’s rage was palpable. He wrenched her to her feet with a painful grip on her arm and dragged her back to her chamber, threw her inside and slammed the door shut behind them. He paced up and down, taking deep breaths.
‘Try that again, and I will thrash you to within an inch of your life.’
‘You may try,’ spat Morna.
‘Don’t goad me, girl, for I am in a towering rage. If you know what is good for you, then you will be silent.’
‘I won’t ever stop trying to escape you.’
‘You will do as you are told and stay put.’
His words, bellowed like an enraged bull, echoed off the walls, and Morna flinched, but she was in no mood to be cowed. ‘I will not stay, and I will not be your whore, William Bain. That’s why you keep me here, isn’t it, to have me? I can see it all over your face every time you look at me. You want me, you want to make me your whore.’
Will rushed at her and took hold of her around the throat, but his grip was restrained. ‘Whore, is it? Well, why don’t I take my pleasure of you and give you no coin, then you’ll be no whore, will you?’ His eyes burned with rage.
‘Go on then, do it, get it over with so that I can really hate you.’
‘You don’t hate me.’
‘Yes I do, and if its rape you are after do your worst and then let me go home.’
‘I don’t hold with rape, and I’ve never had any reason for it. Women always like me, I can get them to do what I want with very little trouble.’
‘Then you have no honour, Will.’
‘Never had a need for it,’ he spat.
‘You are a conniving, mean-spirited monster is what you are.’
‘What I am is a man with fire in his loins, put there by you, and if you do not curb your tongue I may yet douse the flames by throwing you down on that bed and taking what you so obviously long to give me, Morna.’
He took a step forward, his chest pressed against hers and she tried to retreat from him, but her legs banged up against the edge of the bed. If he tipped her backwards, she would be lost, trapped under the sheer bulk of this man.
‘Don’t play with fire lass, unless you want to scorch your pretty little fingers,’ he said, his lips a breath away from her own. ‘And burn you will if you name yourself whore in my presence again.’
‘Let me go, and I won’t have to.’
‘No, Morna, I am enjoying this game too much to stop playing it. And besides, I already know the outcome. We both do.’
He loosened his fingers and turned to the door.
‘William,’ she shouted at his back, ‘where is Drostan? What have you done to him? I have not seen him for days.’
Will turned and glowered at her. ‘Did I give him a whipping for telling you no word had been sent, you mean? It was him who told you, wasn’t it? No doubt, he sought to get in your good graces by doing so. Well, no, I did not punish him.’
‘Why not? I don’t believe for one minute you would show mercy.’
Will rushed back at her and loomed over her.
‘Did you kill him, Will?’ she asked, dreading the answer.
‘Do you think me capable of that?’
‘Yes.’
‘How disappointin
g. Well, let me tell you this, and you may believe it or not, I did not whip Drostan, nor did I kill him, for I could not find him. He has disappeared.’
Chapter Thirteen
Night was closing in, turning the ocean to a black, churning beast outside Will’s chamber window, just like his anger, which had not abated. Morna wanted to run from him. The girl he admired and yearned for thought him a vile lecher and nothing more. She saw him as a jailor and not a friend.
Shame, relentless and cruel, clawed at his breast. Any kindness he showed now would not make a dent in Morna’s armour and, if she despised him, he no doubt deserved it. He had played his game badly and lost, and now she would never want him. But here he was, still burning for that hard, Buchanan lass.
Will smiled bitterly. It had been that way since he first laid eyes on her, when she was on the cusp of womanhood, ripe for the taking and he only just a man, pulsing with life and lust, yet still churning inside with anger over his lost birthright. All had seemed possible then, and his foolish heart had dreamt of getting a woman like her to like him, to want him, even to love him. Bitter experience had ground down that hope until it was but a stump of a thing. When would he learn that women were a weakness, bringers of misery and confusion?
A hesitant tap on the door had him turning with a curse. Whoever it was disturbing his black thoughts had better have a good reason. He opened the door and there stood the object of his obsession, a flagon swinging in her hand. For a moment Will thought Morna might have come to bash his head in with it.
‘May I enter,’ she said, raising her chin proudly.
‘You may,’ he said, with a smile. What was she about now? He did not trust in her contrite expression.
Will caught a whiff of something sweet as she swept in past him and stalked about the room for a moment, taking in its austerity - the bare walls and small fire, the simple furnishings, a bench, a table. Her eyes lingered on the wide bed.
‘There’s not much comfort here,’ she said bluntly.
Will shrugged.
‘You were right, Will,’ she said quickly.