Son of the Morning

by Linda Howard

  Harmony’s lashes shielded her eyes as she studied the photo. When she finally looked up at Grace, her green gaze was hard and clear. “That man’s evil,” she said flatly. “You gotta get out of here.”

  The next two days were a flurry of activity. Grace worked furiously on translating as much of the Gaelic as possible, because she wouldn’t have time to work while she was traveling. Harmony made the rounds of yard sales, and came up with some jeans that actually fit Grace, as well as some tight knit tops and a pair of sturdy hiking boots. When they were together, Harmony talked. Grace felt like Luke Sky walker listening to Yoda, but instead of imparting pearls of mystical wisdom Harmony discussed ways of losing a tail, how to travel without leaving tracks, how to get a fake driver’s license and even a fake passport if she didn’t have time or it was too dangerous to acquire the real thing. Harmony knew a lot about how to survive on the streets, and on the run, and that was her gift to Grace.

  Her final gift was borrowing a car and driving Grace to Michigan City, Indiana, where she planned to catch a bus. Grace didn’t tell Harmony her intended destination, and Harmony didn’t ask; it was safer for both of them.

  “Watch your back,” Harmony said gruffly, hugging Grace to her. “And remember everything Matty and I showed you.”

  “I will,” Grace said. “I do.” She hugged Harmony in return, then gathered her bags and trudged into the bus station. Harmony watched the slight figure disappear inside, and blinked twice to dispel the blur from her eyes.

  “God, you watch over her,” she whispered, giving her orders to the Almighty, then Harmony Johnson got back into the borrowed Pontiac and drove away.

  Grace watched from the window, her eyes dry despite the tight ache in her chest. She didn’t know how many more good-byes she could say; maybe it would be best to stay on the go, not staying in any one place long enough to get attached to people.

  But she still had a lot of work to do on the papers, and she needed a safe place in which to do it. She studied a map of the bus routes, then bought a ticket to Indianapolis. Once there, she would decide her next destination, but it had to be something totally unexpected. Parrish hadn’t been in Chicago by accident, she was certain. Somehow, he’d known she was there. His men had been searching for her. She must have been utterly predictable, and soon they would have found her.

  That wouldn’t happen again, she promised herself. She was going to ground, in a place where they would never expect to find her, and suddenly she knew exactly where she was going. It was the one place they wouldn’t think to look, the one place where she could keep tabs on Parrish and his movements: Minneapolis.

  Chapter 11

  THE NAME GRACE TOOK FROM THE CEMETERY IN MINNEAPOLIS was Louisa Patricia Croley. This time she didn’t get a birth certificate. Instead, armed with Harmony’s pearls of illegal wisdom, by that afternoon she had a social security number, an address, and a driver’s license. The last two were fake. The social security number was real, because it had belonged to the real Louisa Patricia Croley. Getting the number had been a snap, and she didn’t need an actual card, just the number.

  The next morning she was the owner of a pickup truck, a beige, rusted-out Dodge that nevertheless shifted gears smoothly and did not emit either any strange noises or telltale puffs of smoke. By paying cash, she got the owner to knock four hundred off his asking price. With the title and bill of sale in her possession, she then stood in line to get the title switched to her name—or rather, to Louisa Croley’s name.

  Grace was grimly satisfied as she walked back out to the truck. She had wheels now. She could leave any time she wished, and she didn’t have to buy a ticket to do so, or worry about disguising herself in case the ticket agent remembered her if anyone came around asking questions. The truck meant liberation.

  She rented a cheap room close to downtown, and after a little research applied for a job with the cleaning service that cleaned some of the lavish homes in Wayzata. There was no better pipeline of information than a cleaning service, because no one paid any attention to the cleaners. She knew that Parrish employed a full-time housekeeper, as did some of the other home owners on the lake, but enough of them used an outside service to make the business very lucrative. Not enough of the lucre made it down to the hands of those who did the cleaning, however, so the turnover was fairly high. She was hired immediately.

  That night, in her drab little room, she lay in the lumpy bed and thought drowsily of the papers she had just finished translating. In 1321, a man named Morvan of Hay had tried to kill Black Niall, but lost his own head. His father, a clan chieftain whose lands lay to the east, had then launched the entire clan into open warfare with the renegades of Creag Dhu. Niall had been captured during one battle and locked in the Hays’ dungeon, but escaped by unknown means that same night.

  Niall. Grace kept her thoughts focused on him, afraid to let them wander. Being in Minneapolis was more difficult than she’d thought—not because of the danger, but because this was the city where she had lived with Ford, the city where her husband and brother were buried. She wanted desperately to go to their graves, but knew she didn’t dare. Not only would it be an extremely risky move on her part, but she didn’t think she could bear it. Seeing their graves would destroy her, shred the paper-thin wall she had built around her emotions. How long had it been now? Two months? Yes, two months and three days, almost to the hour. Not long enough. Not nearly long enough.

  She would think of Niall instead. Concentrating on him was what kept her sane.

  * * *

  He was loving her.

  On the periphery of her consciousness, Grace knew she was dreaming, but that awareness wasn’t enough to stop the images. Always before when she had dreamed of Niall she had been an observer, but that night she was a participant.

  The dream was vague, shifting, but she knew she was in bed with him. The bed was huge, piled high with furs; she would have felt lost and insignificant in such a bed, but with him there she was only vaguely aware of the vast expanse on which they lay. He mounted her, and the intense heat of his body startled her. Surprised, she realized they were both naked, his bare skin scorching hers. He was heavy, and the pressure of his weight almost crushed her, but it felt so wonderful to have a man on top of her again that she held him close. She had missed that so much, the weight of a man on her, the strength of a man’s arms around her, his smell in her nostrils, his taste on her mouth.

  She ran her hands over his back, feeling the layers of hard muscle under his taut skin. His mane of black hair was damp with sweat, his body was sheened with it. His scent was raw and hot and wild, that of a man aroused beyond control. She had caused this wildness in him and she loved it, she reveled in it, she wanted everything he could give her.

  Then he entered her, and in her dream she cried out from the unbearable pleasure of it. He was so big she felt stretched, so hot she felt seared. Her body gathered and focused and tightened, and she began climaxing.

  The spasms awoke her and at first she lay there awash in voluptuous sensation, breathing deeply and feeling the tremors subside. Niall must have just left her, she thought sleepily, because she could still feel in her loins the lingering throb caused by his thrusts. She wanted to curl in his arms, and she reached out her hand and touched—

  Nothing.

  Grace came sharply awake, her breath suddenly harsh in her lungs. She sat up, staring wildly around the dark, empty room. Horror filled her at what she had done, and she clenched her teeth against a howl of rage, of despair, of violent rejection.

  No.

  She hated herself, hated her stupid hungry body for letting a figment of her imagination tempt it to pleasure. How dare she dream of Niall, how dare she let the dream Niall invade her body, give her pleasure? He wasn’t Ford. Only Ford had ever touched her, made love to her, explored with her the intense sexuality of her nature. She had lain naked only with Ford, loved only Ford, yet only two months after his death she dreamed of another man, a dea
d man, and found sexual pleasure in the dream.

  She huddled on the bed, keening softly to herself. She had betrayed Ford. It didn’t matter that she had done so only in imagination, in her subconscious. Betrayal was betrayal. It should have been Ford she’d been dreaming about, Ford who had died protecting her.

  But if her dreams were of Ford… she would have gone insane by now. His death, Bryant’s death, was a great internal wound she didn’t dare touch because it was still bleeding, still too painful to bear. She had focused on studying the documents about Black Niall because that was the only way she could function, and her subconscious had thrown her a curve ball by continuing to focus on him during her sleep.

  Damn her body, damn her own nature. When she was awake it was as if her sensuality had died with Ford; she felt no desire, no frustration, no attraction. But when she slept, her body remembered, and yearned. She had loved making love, loved everything about it—the smells, the sounds, the delicious rub of his body against hers, the way he had stroked her while she arched and purred, the sweet, startling moment of entry when their bodies linked. When Ford was off on a dig and she hadn’t been able to join him, she had been tormented by sexual frustration until he returned. He had always walked into the house grinning, because he knew that within five minutes they would be locked in their bedroom.

  Grace locked her arms around her knees and stared at nothing. Perhaps, now that she had calmed down, she could understand how she had come to dream about Niall, but she didn’t want it to happen again. She wouldn’t think about the papers when she was in bed. Instead she would think about Parrish. That would be safe, because she didn’t find him remotely attractive; she could see the evil beneath the beauty of his form. She would try to devise some means of revenge. She didn’t just want him dead, she wanted justice, she wanted the world to know the truth about him. She wanted it known he had killed two wonderful men, and why. But if justice eluded her, she would settle for vengeance.

  Finally she lay back down, half afraid to sleep again but knowing she had to try; she started work at seven in the morning, and cleaning houses was hard work. She needed to sleep, she needed to remember to eat, she needed… oh, God, she needed Ford, and Bryant, she needed everything to be the way it was before.

  Instead she lay alone in a narrow, lumpy bed, and watched the night pass while she tried to think of some way to use the papers against Parrish.

  Niall jerked himself out of sleep, cursing as he carefully rolled onto his back and pushed the bedcovers away from his straining, jutting penis, unable to tolerate even the slightest touch lest he spill his seed in the bed. He hadn’t done such a thing since he was an untried lad of thirteen, not even during his eight years of sexual deprivation as a Knight.

  He had dreamed of a woman, dreamed he was plowing deep into her belly. He couldn’t fathom why he should be dreaming of such, when only a few hours earlier he had enjoyed a lusty encounter with Jean, a widow who had sought the safety of living within castle walls and traded her skills in the kitchen for a pallet in Creag Dhu.

  He hadn’t dreamed of Jean, or of any other woman he knew. But the woman in his dreams had been familiar, somehow, though in his dream they had coupled in darkness and he hadn’t been able to see her face. She was small in his arms, as most women were, but there had also been a certain frailty, a slightness that made him want to take care with her. She hadn’t wanted careful tenderness, however; she had been hot and wanton, clinging to him, her hunger as fierce as his. Her hips had lifted to meet him and as soon as he had entered her, groaning at the perfect, silky tightness that gloved him, her spasms of pleasure had begun. The intensity of her response to him had made him burn hotter and faster than he ever had before, and he’d been on the verge of joining her in climax when he abruptly woke to an empty bed, empty arms, and furious frustration.

  He judged the hour to be near dawn, too near to seek sleep again. Scowling, he groped for flint and lit a candle, then strode to the fireplace to stir the banked embers and add a few small sticks to catch fire. The chill air washed around his naked body, but he didn’t feel cold; he was hot, almost steaming from the force of his arousal. His penis was still thick and erect, aching from the loss of that tight internal clasp. He could feel her on his flesh as vividly as if he had indeed just left her body.

  She had smelled… sweet. The memory was elusive, fleeting, but his thin nostrils flared as he instinctively tried to catch it again. Clean and sweet, not the overpowering sweetness of a flowery perfume but something light, tantalizing, and underlying it had been the exciting muskiness that signaled her arousal.

  Ah, it had been a great dream, despite the frustrating aftermath. He seldom laughed, for life did not much amuse him, but his lips curved upward as he stared down at his rebellious manly parts. The dream woman had aroused him more than any real woman ever had, and he had greatly enjoyed many women. If he should ever truly lay his hands on one such as his dream woman, he would no doubt kill himself rutting on her. Even now, when he remembered how it had felt to enter her, the heat and wetness and tight, perfect fit—

  The throb in his loins intensified, and his smile grew to a grin, one that none of his people had ever seen, for it was free and lighthearted, and he hadn’t been that since the age of sixteen. He grinned at his own foolishness, and at remembered pleasure, real or not. He tormented himself by letting his thoughts linger on the dream, yet it was too arousing to forget.

  Small tongues of flame were licking at the sticks now, so he added a larger log, and pulled his shirt on over his head. After wrapping his plaid about his hips and belting it, then draping the excess around his shoulders, he put on his thick wool stockings and shoved his feet into the soft leather boots that he preferred over the short, rough brogaich worn by his men. He never went unarmed, even in his own castle, so next he slipped a slender dagger into his boot, a larger one into his belt, then buckled on his sword. He had just finished when a hard knock sounded on his door.

  His dark brows snapped together. It wasn’t yet dawn; a knock at this hour could mean only trouble. “Come,” he barked.

  The door opened and Eilig Wishart, captain of the night guards, poked his ugly head inside the chamber. He looked relieved at seeing Niall already dressed.

  “Raiders,” he said briefly, in Scots. He was a broken man from Clan Keith, a man separated from his clan by will or by expulsion, and the Lowlanders more normally spoke Scots than Gaelic. Eilig always did so when he was excited.

  “Where?”

  “T’ the east. ’Twill like be the Hays.”

  Niall grunted as he strode from the chamber. “Rouse the men,” he ordered. He agreed with Eilig; over the years Huwe of Hay had come to bitterly hate the renegades of Creag Dhu, for they controlled a large area he had previously regarded as his to plunder. He had made bleating protests to the Bruce, for such a large gathering of broken men from all over Scotland could only mean trouble. Robert, during one of his midnight visits, had warned Niall to be wary of his neighbor to the east. The warning had been unnecessary. Niall was wary of everyone.

  He himself saw to having the horses readied, and invaded the kitchens to have provisions gathered for himself and the men. Big loaves of coarse bread were already baking in the ovens for the evening meal, and a huge pot of porridge was beginning to bubble over the fire.

  He tore off a hunk of stale bread from yesterday’s loaf, and washed it down with ale. Between bites, he gave orders. Jean and the others scurried around, gathering bags of oats and wrapping bread, cheese, and smoked fish in cloth. The women’s eyes were large and frightened, but they regarded him with confidence, trusting him to see to the matter as he’d done for the past fourteen years.

  When he went down into the inner bailey he found it teeming with terrified crofters who had been allowed into the castle for protection. Torches burned brightly on the turmoil, as the horses were brought around and his men descended to take their bags of food and make the many small preparations for going to war. T
he wounded lay where they had fallen, and others scurried around them, sometimes stepping over them. One sturdy old woman was making an effort to gather the wounded into one area so they could be cared for. Men cursed and snarled, and some women wept inconsolably for loved ones they had lost, husbands and children, and perhaps for what they had endured at the hands of the raiders. Some women were silent, closed in on themselves, their torn clothing telling the tale that their closed lips refused to speak. Children huddled close to their mothers, or stood alone and wailed.

  It was war. Niall had seen its image many times, been hardened to it. That did not mean he would ignore such an attack on what was his. He strode over to the old woman who was trying to bring order to chaos, recognizing in her the hallmarks of a leader. He put his hand on her plump arm and pulled her aside. “How many hours have passed?” he asked curtly. “How many were they?”

  She gaped up at the big man who towered over her, his black mane swirling about his broad shoulders, his eyes as cold and black as the gates of hell. She knew immediately who he was. “It canna ha’ been more than an hour or twa. ’Twas a fair party, thirty or more.”

  Thirty. That was a large raiding party, for raiding was something best accomplished by stealth. In fourteen years he had never left Creag Dhu guarded by fewer than half his men-at-arms, but if he pursued and engaged that many men he would need more than his usual force.

  Such a large raiding party was a challenge, an affront, that couldn’t be ignored. Huwe of Hay must know that Niall would retaliate immediately, so it followed that he would have prepared for such an event. Perhaps he had even planned it deliberately, to draw Niall and most of his men away from the castle.

  Niall beckoned to Artair, who left his horse with a lad and obeyed the summons immediately. The two men walked a little away from the noise and chaos. Artair was the only other former Templar left at Creag Dhu, a solitary and devout man who had never lost faith even when the Grand Master had gone to his fiery death seven years before. Artair was forty-eight and gray-haired, but his shoulders were still straight and, like Niall, he trained every day with the men. He’d forgotten none of the battle strategies they had learned in the Order.