by Starla Kaye
“’Tis good, this.” He heard the false happiness in Annabel’s tone and understood it.
“Good or not, she comes.”
He looked up and already the news of his betrothed’s arrival was spreading. He saw mixed emotions upon his people’s faces, many of them glancing woefully at Annabel. But all knew he was expected to marry a woman King Edward had chosen for him. He just hoped they would be fair to Lady Stonewall when she arrived. It wasn’t her fault that Annabel had gotten here before her and already won their hearts.
Annabel turned away without another word. Her shoulders were slumped as he watched her walk quietly back toward the paddocks. She spent a lot of time each day doing this or that with her tinker’s wagon. He imagined she would do some sulking there now. Each time he looked at the wagon he wanted to order it dismantled. All too soon she would leave Urquhart, leave him. Even though he could offer her nothing else, he hated the idea of not seeing her every day. He’d become accustomed to her presence.
Heart heavy with resignation, he carried the parchment that changed his life forever into the keep. He needed time alone. He’d go to the solar and try to come to terms with this news. It was more important than ever that he find Annabel a suitable husband. He began going over, again, in his mind the unmarried men in his clan, in his group of soldiers, and in the unmarried men from the village. None met the requirements he’d set in his mind for her. Mayhap he needed to re-think some of the requirements. But he would not consider Angus Gordon any longer.
Annabel felt a soul-deep ache as she crawled into the back of her wagon. Brodie’s betrothed will arrive in a day or so. Oh, God! While she’d known the woman was coming, the reality of her arriving so soon was truly heartbreaking. She wished she’d never met him. No! No, she didn’t wish that. She would remember him always. The first man who had won her foolish heart, who had made her experience the first hints of what a woman feels for a man she is attracted to.
Tears streamed down her face and she sniffled. How could she bear seeing another woman come here to marry her dear Lord Devil? Hadn’t she already suffered enough with the loss of her father? But Dougal Henderson hadn’t raised a weak daughter. She’d bounced back after the terrible loss of her mother. Well, maybe not “bounced.” She’d accepted the loss and gone on. Yet she’d had her father’s shoulder to cry on, him to share her misery with. Now she had no one. And, Dear God, it both hurt and terrified her to be so alone.
She tried to bury the pain of losing a man she really hadn’t had anyway, Brodie. She put her mind to once more sorting through the trinkets, ribbons, threads, and medicinals stored in various wooden boxes in the wagon bed. Each item she touched reminded her of her parents. They’d so loved traveling all over and selling their wares. She had, too, for the most part. But secretly, she longed for a place to settle in. She wanted a husband who would love her and that she could love back. She wanted children. She wanted Brodie.
Stop it! There are many good men. You will find one who has far less problems in his life than Brodie Durward. She would be prepared to leave the second Brodie would allow it. No! She didn’t have to wait for him to “allow” her to leave. She would stay—at the most—another week. If he didn’t find her a suitable husband as he was determined to search for, and she couldn’t find one on her own, she would leave anyway.
Her thoughts turned to Angus Gordon. The redheaded Scot was a handsome man, but not nearly as fine looking as Brodie. She’d never been overly drawn to red hair, though his was thick and wavy. Still, Brodie’s deep mahogany hair worn tied back made her want to pull the leather string from it, made her want to thread her fingers through it. And it was Brodie’s lips that called to her.
Annabel blew out a huff. She had to stop thinking about Brodie all the time. He hadn’t wanted her here, but he’d insisted she come with him and his men. He’d refused to let her continue on her tinker’s route by herself. He’d sworn to find her a husband to travel with. In truth, she hadn’t been ready then to go off by herself. But she was stronger now. She needed to get going soon. These last few nights when she’d longed to be with Brodie, she’d tried to force him from her dreams. She’d instead gone over and over the route her family had always taken as they wove their way around the Highlands this time of year. There were many stops she needed to make before the weather turned bad. Continuing on this late, she might have to cut out some of the stops in order to head back down toward the area around Bath in England where her family and other tinkers usually spent the winter.
She sighed and glanced out the back of the wagon. She was going to miss Urquhart and its people. So many of them had befriended her in the short amount of time she’d been here. And the beautiful Loch Ness… She would miss watching the mist rise from it in the early morns and dance across it at night.
Angus Gordon. They were to walk this night around the bailey. Her heart wasn’t really in that, but she would make an effort. Mayhap if they got to know each other better, something could develop between them. Well, she had already noted that he lusted after her. When he’d lifted her down from the wagon earlier, she had seen the heat in his eyes as she’d faced him. It had made her feel uneasy. It was a different kind of uneasiness than when she noticed Brodie’s awareness of her. Something seemed off about Angus’s interest in her. But it was probably just that she was so inexperienced being around men. Her father had guarded her like a hawk, especially this last year.
Her hand moved up to smooth across her short, chin-length hair. She hadn’t really minded when her father had wanted her to cut off her waist-length hair since it had been so hot and such a bother to take care of anyway. But then he’d started suggesting she wear braies and a boy’s shirt instead of dresses when they arrived at a village or at a castle. Again, she hadn’t minded, except that she’d started feeling more like a young man than a young woman. When she mentioned her feelings about the matter, he’d always smiled gently at her, saying he only wanted to protect her, but he’d never said why he wanted to do so.
She swiped at sweat beading on her forehead and decided she’d been here as long as she could stand it. Just as she started to turn back toward the rear of the wagon, she noticed the leather pouch her father had never let her look inside. It was tucked in the corner behind a couple of boxes holding fabrics. He’d always said it was just held some notes he made about the items they sold, nothing of importance for her to worry about. Since she was the one in charge of everything now, she decided it was time for her to see what kind of notes they were. Decide if she should start making notes of the saleable items as well. Not for the first time in her life she was glad her father had insisted on teaching both her and her mother to read and write.
Pulling the pouch out, she untied the leather string around it and reached inside. Paper crinkled at her touch. After a second she withdrew several yellowed pieces of parchment. Curious, she smoothed them out, looking quickly over the first two items. The ink scratches were indeed about the various notions they sold, but the pages were nearly unreadable.
Her back aching from being bent over for so long, she sat on one of the bigger boxes with the last piece of parchment. Again, the ink writing was difficult to read. She strained to make out the words, tried to understand what she read. All she saw were a few odd ramblings. Katherine worries that we should take our precious Anna to… Braden would have forgotten… Ala…vow to kill Anna…
Annabel held the parchment with trembling hands, felt lightheaded from what she had read. Not that she understood any of it. But… Secrets. Who was Braden? Was this “Ala…” the man her father had tried to warn her about as he lay dying before her? Someone wanted to kill her? Kill her!
Fear of the unknown curled through her. Breathing was nearly impossible with her heart racing. She needed to know more, but there wasn’t anyone to ask. Her parents had spent the winters around other tinkers, yet they’d kept mainly to themselves. What should she do? What could she do?
“Annabel?” Brodie’s deep voic
e rumbled from somewhere outside the wagon, surprising her. “Annabel, are ye in here? I wish to speak with ye. I’ve found another man fer ye to meet.”
“Nay!” she protested. “I have other matters on my mind now. Go away.”
Of course, he didn’t. He stuck his head into the back of the wagon and frowned in displeasure. “What matters?”
Without thinking it through, she handed him the wrinkled parchment she’d been reading. As he took it, she tried to grab it back. “Nay! ‘Tis private. I was not thinking straight.”
But, stubborn man that he was, he held it out of her reach and looked it over. His brow furrowed when he glanced up. “Who is this Braden?” His expression hardened to the fierce warrior she knew many feared to face on the battlefield. “What means this ‘vow to kill Anna’?”
Kill Anna. Hearing him say it aloud only made it more horrible. “I…I understand none of it,” she answered, her voice trembling. She looked at him and reached with a nervous hand for the parchment. “Da tried to warn me about an Ala… as he spoke his last words. He did not tell me his full name. I do not even know if that was part of the man’s first name, his last, or even if it referred to a man at all.”
Instead of giving her the paper, Brodie took hold of her arm and pulled her to him. He lifted her from the wagon as if she weighed no more than the piece of parchment. His mighty arms swept around her and he held her tight. Oddly, she wasn’t sure if it was for her comfort or for his. It didn’t matter; she welcomed the warmth and strength of him.
“No one will harm ye,” he said in a fierce growl. “No one.”
“Except you,” she whispered, trying to get free.
Suddenly he released her and stepped back, moaning, putting his hands to the sides of his head. His face darkened with pain. “God’s teeth!”
“Brodie, what’s wrong?” Annabel flew at him and put her small hands to his cheeks. Her heart raced in worry. All thoughts of him hurting her, or of needing to get as far from him as possible, fled. “What can I do?”
The color had bleached from his tanned face and his eyes were glazed over when he looked at her. “’Twas something about the name Braden,” he gasped out.
She gently held his cheeks, wishing she could do something, anything, for him. “A memory, you mean?” While he continued to grimace and hold his head, she pressed, “Are memories starting to come back to you? Has this happened before?”
“Aye.” He nodded and seemed to feel better. The grimace of pain faded. “In the long months I’ve tried to bring back memories, I couldna. Until I met ye.”
Annabel blinked in confusion. “How can I have anything to do with your memories? We’ve never met before.”
She picked up the parchment he had dropped and jammed it next to some boxes. Then she reached for his hand, determined to take him back to the keep. The cook acted as the castle’s healer. She hoped the kind older woman could help him in some way. But he shook off her touch.
Miffed, she said, “I was only going to…” She stopped speaking when she caught the heat in his eyes. Curious, she glanced down and saw his kilt pushing out again. “’Twas a simple touch. You picked me up, held me, yet I cannot even hold your hand? Have you no control at all, my lord?”
Her scowling Scottish laird was back. “I was frightened fer ye at first. When I calmed down… Nay, apparently I have no control. We canna touch. ‘Tis too dangerous.”
Now she was irritated. “Dangerous? As in you would physically hurt me? I do not believe that for a second.”
He stood nearly toe-to-toe with her and lowered his tone so no one around would hear, although she hadn’t seen anyone. “Nay hurt ye, Anna. I fear it wouldna take much fer me to take ye to the ground where’er we were and rut upon ye like a beast.”
Annabel felt her face flame at the image in her mind. Tingles fluttered low in her body. “Mayhap having you rut upon me like a beast would not be so bad…if you did so in private.”
He groaned and ground his teeth. “Do no’ speak in such a crude manner!”
“You spoke the words first. I was merely—”
“Stop now! We shouldna even be talking of such.” Anger flashed in his eyes, distress as well. “I have a betrothed due to arrive any day. Ye will soon have a husband. This is wrong.”
“Aye, ‘tis wrong. Yet I ache for things I do not understand. I desire to be touched by you, kissed by you,” she admitted sadly. It was so unfair to find a man she was so drawn to and could never have.
His jaw tensed and he glowered down at her. “Ye canna say such words to me. ‘Tis wrong. Go to yer bedchamber. Stay there.”
“Because I told the truth of what I feel? “ Annabel blinked at him and thrust her chin out. “Of course, I won’t do that.”
He puffed up in frustration. “I am laird here. My word demands instant obedience. Ye will obey me, lass, or risk the consequences. Go now. I need ye out of my sight.”
“Instant obedience? Risk the consequences? You go too far.” What had she ever seen in this impossible man? She turned back toward her wagon.
Brodie caught her wrist and spun her back to him. A vein pulsed in his neck. “Do no’ press me on this. I am in a foul mood already.”
“You’re always in a foul mood, Brodie Durward!” She glared right back at him. “I’m tired of it. Weary of you ordering me about. I am not one of your people.”
His nostrils flared and she knew she had pushed him nearly past the point of his patience. He was a man used to being in charge. This whole loss of memories issue kept him frustrated, strained his patience until he was often on the edge. But she was exasperated now, too. She was near to loving him, but couldn’t have him. The woman who had the right to him was due to arrive in the next day or so. He would have someone to talk with, to share with, and to love. She had no one. The depth of her hurting caused her to speak harshly.
“I will leave Urquhart this day. I will hitch my team to my wagon and be out of your sight and out of your life.” They were brave words when it scared her clear to her toes about leaving here. Especially now that she worried someone might be out to kill her for some reason.
“Ye are no’ leaving until I say so!” His eyes glinted with warning. “I act as yer guardian until I find a proper husband fer ye.”
“No one named you my guardian other than you.” She was almost shaking in her anger with him, in her worry of the unknown she faced, and in her knowing how very alone she was now.
“The day after we arrived here, I sent word to yer English king that I will act as yer guardian. Yer da would have wanted someone to watch out fer ye.” He stood looking big and formidable, expecting her to back down now.
Annabel gaped at him in shock for a second. Then she fought back tears of sadness, knowing her father would indeed be worried about her being alone. She was so very tired of trying to be strong, trying to find a way to help this brooding man, trying not to have feelings for him. She drew on her pride and on her determination.
“Legal guardian or not, I will leave today. You will soon have another woman to bend to your will.”
“Nay, ye will no’!”
To her amazement, he grabbed her arm and dragged her with him to the back of the furthest paddocks. He shoved her to the wall. “Ye shouldna have pushed me, lass. I’m going to give ye a sound leathering. And then ye will go to yer bedchamber and stay there til the morrow.”
Her heart raced at his grim words. He’d spanked her before, but this would be far different. As her guardian—which apparently he was now, he had the right to discipline her as he saw fit. He could even choose to lock her in one of the four towers the rest of her life if he chose to do so. He was a proud and feared warrior, not a man to rebel against. She’d acted foolishly, spoken foolishly. And now she would pay dearly for her actions.
She turned to him ready to protest, attempt to reason with him. But she found him standing stiffly, his jaw clenched in resolve. Yet his eyes revealed a man who’d been forced to deal with more than he
could at the moment. She remembered the fear for her that had shuddered through him as he’d held her. She knew the nearly uncontrollable arousal he seemed to have whenever they were too close to one another. She knew how much he wanted her and fiercely fought against it. And, angry or not with him, she still wanted him, although she couldn’t have him. Maybe accepting this punishment would give some kind of ease to both of them. He needed to relieve some of the strain she’d brought into his life. She needed to stop yearning for him. Surely enduring this chastisement and the suffering after would keep her from making a fool of herself over him again.
“All right, my lord. I will take your punishment.” The words were hard to say, turning toward the wall even harder.
“Lower your braies.”
“My lord?” He’d bared her bottom before, but this was so different, so difficult to do. “Can you not do it with them up?”
She watched him remove his thick black belt and trembled. His expression softened a bit. “Braies to yer ankles, Annabel. Then face the wall, arms raised.” His tone was a mixture of command and an odd kindness.
Drawing in a nervous breath, she turned away and then pushed her braies down. They were well away from anyone who might happen by. Yet she felt so vulnerable standing here half-dressed, her bare bottom exposed to a man ready to welt it.
He stepped next to her and offered her the leather sheath for his small boot knife. “Put it between yer lips. ‘Twill keep ye from crying out too loudly.”
She glanced back as he raised the belt. “Please, not too harshly.”
Their gazes met and he nodded. “Enough that ye will think twice aboot disobeying me agin.”
“Like going to my bedchamber to give ye some peace?” She was about to pay a high price for rebelling.
“Aye. I am leathering ye, too, fer constantly threatening to leave. Ye ken the reasons ‘tis unsafe to go off by yerself. Yet ye threaten to do so every time ye are angry with me.”
