Niall looked pointedly at Lady Leila, although he was reminding himself as much as he was informing her. “The second being my hatred for witches.”
7
The dim glow of early dawn limned the shutters and woke Niall. His body was cramped by the cold where he sat against the heavy iron bars of Lady Leila’s prison cell. He stretched out his legs with stiff knees and slowly got to his feet. His back popped in protest, even as he tried to stretch away the knots in his body.
A glance at the cell behind him confirmed Lady Leila was still sleeping. She lay in the rushes with her cloak tucked around her on both sides like a blanket. Niall used to do the same when he’d been a boy, stuffing the blanket under the weight of his body to keep any currents of cold air from seeping into the warmth of his bed.
The muted light coming into the room was enough to see her face, relaxed in slumber and beautiful. She looked fragile, innocent.
That last word tugged at his senses, pulling his gaze from her. He hated the confusion warring within him about her, how her noble birth and bonny face and bravery made him soft to a woman he would otherwise hate. A woman he should hate.
The journey for the priest to come from Edinburgh would take only a few more days. Niall was eager for his arrival, to hear the declaration from the man known for his ability to identify a witch. Then Niall would have his answer. Then there would be no confusion as to his feelings toward Lady Leila.
Niall strode away from the cell and caught the distinct sound of the keys clattering in the main prison door. He quickened his pace. No doubt it was one of his guards. But what if it was not?
The heavy iron-banded wooden door opened, and Brodie stepped in.
“I thought ye might have stayed.” Brodie grinned with his usual affability. Other clansmen and warriors thought less of him for his jovial nature, until they sparred with him. He was mayhap the only warrior faster than Alban. Mayhap the most dexterous warrior Niall had ever seen. So, he wore his smiles without care or concern for what any man thought of him. Niall had always respected him for that.
Niall lifted his shoulders. “I thought the villagers might try to get in.”
“Not on yer watch.” Brodie winked. “I came to relieve ye so ye can prepare for yer discussion with Lord Armstrong.”
Niall cast a dark look at the taller man. “Did he already request to see me?”
Brodie shook his head. “Nay, but he had that look about him. Ye know the one. The scowl like he’s had a bit of pottage gone bad.”
Niall’s mouth lifted at the corner at that. He knew exactly the look Brodie was talking about, where the lord’s whole face sagged down in a frown of extreme displeasure. Aye, there’d be a discussion later to be sure.
Niall had enough time to clean himself, don a fresh set of clothes and break his fast before Lord Armstrong summoned him. The earl was not sitting in the grandly carved chair at the dais when Niall entered the great hall, however. He was in front of the long head table, pacing with apparent agitation.
Niall squared his shoulders for a fight. He knew Lord Armstrong would be displeased but had not suspected it would be to this extent. The earl spun on Niall as he approached. “How dare ye disobey my orders?”
“I dinna disobey orders,” Niall replied casually. “Ye said for her to walk to the prison. She did.”
“Aye, with yer protection.” Lord Armstrong grasped the back of a wooden chair nearest him and hurled it to the ground, where it landed with a sharp crack. “Are ye sympathetic to witches now? Need I remind ye what a witch did to yer da?”
Niall had been prepared for the earl to throw this question, and yet it still knocked painfully at his chest. “She hasna been declared a witch by Father Gerard yet.”
“It doesna matter,” Lord Armstrong roared. The rage in his voice filled the great hall and echoed around them. “We only do that for the people, so they dinna rally like they did when we killed Lady Elliot.”
Niall didn’t even flinch. Something else was amiss with the Keeper of Liddesdale to inspire such wrath. “Ye value my judgment,” Niall said with confidence. “It’s why ye came to me—”
“I am still yer lord and will be obeyed.”
Niall folded his hands behind his back, unfazed. “Then I will offer an apology once she has been officially deemed a witch.” He was prodding the bear, but he could not allow Lady Leila to be put to death. Not without a final judgment. And even though Niall suspected Lady Leila of witchcraft, there was a part of him hoping she truly was not guilty.
Lord Armstrong sputtered and went a subtle shade of purple. “If ye believe her to be innocent, then I hold ye personally responsible for her and her well-being. That includes meeting with the Earl of Werrick.”
Niall drew up short. Suddenly Lord Armstrong’s displeasure made sense. “The Earl of Werrick is here?”
“Aye,” Lord Armstrong said sourly. “He’s demanding the release of his daughter.”
Niall ran a hand through his hair. This complicated matters. If nothing else, he assumed Lord Werrick would have sent a missive to demand a meeting with Lord Armstrong. But to come in person? Such an audience was not easily put off.
“He’s outside the castle gates.” Lord Armstrong nodded toward the door to the great hall in apparent dismissal.
Niall said nothing more and made his way from the great hall, through the bailey and to the castle gates. Lord Werrick sat on horseback with several of his guards surrounding him. Certainly not enough to attempt to sack the castle. The man had arrived to talk.
Niall ordered the portcullis raised and went out to meet the English earl. Lord Werrick dismounted from his steed and met Niall halfway. The older man’s face was lined with worry, his bright eyes sharp and assessing. “My daughter…?”
“She is safe at present,” Niall assured him.
“I want her released,” Lord Werrick said with the boom of authority. “I demand it.”
“Ye’ve no authority here.”
Pain shone in the older earl’s eyes. He knew well the limits of his power in Scotland.
“What is it you want?” Lord Werrick’s brows furrowed. “Ransom? If it’s prisoners released, know that we have none.”
Niall shook his head. “Nay. She’s being tried for witchcraft, for causing the spread of this pestilence.”
“That is the most fool logic I’ve ever heard.” Even as Lord Werrick said it, he did not appear surprised by the accusation. “Let me speak with Lord Armstrong.”
“Ye’re better off speaking to me.” Niall folded his arms over his chest.
“He won’t see me, will he?” Lord Werrick turned his bright blue eyes to the castle behind the curtain wall. “The coward.”
Niall did not reply to the slight against his lord. Especially because he agreed with Lord Werrick. The Keeper of Liddesdale was indeed a coward for not going to meet the English earl.
“We will stop at nothing to ensure her safety,” Lord Werrick vowed.
“I have been doing all I can to see to her comfort.” Niall spoke the words gently in an effort to put the older man at ease.
The Earl of Werrick studied Niall for a long moment, as though seeing him for the first time. “Who are you?”
“I am Deputy to the Keeper of Liddesdale,” Niall replied. “Niall Douglas, oft referred to as the Lion.”
“The Lion,” the earl whispered through lips that did not move and crossed himself. “Where is my daughter?”
Niall considered the man warily. “What is it ye’ve heard of me?”
“Where is my daughter?” the earl repeated.
While he had only a handful of guards with him, it would still be enough to overwhelm Brodie and the few clansmen at the prison. Niall crossed his arms over his chest. “I canna tell ye where she’s being held.”
“Please,” Lord Werrick said, a powerful man with a newly frail voice. “Do you have a child?”
Niall gave a subtle shake of his head.
“Then you do not know of th
e power of parental love.” The earl took a step toward him, his back straight, his lean body tall, his brows furrowed with the agony of his words. “I beg of you, let me see her. To know that she…” He swallowed. “To see for myself that she is safe.”
Niall thought of Lady Leila, of how delicate she seemed. If she had roused such a protective instinct in him—who had fought her, who knew firsthand how deceptive her appearance—how must her father feel?
It was far too easy to recall the depth of his own affection for his father, as well as the sharp regret of how it felt to have never said goodbye. Niall sensed in his gut how Lady Leila’s trial would go and was well aware this might be a father’s last chance to see his daughter. And how he hated the twinge in his stomach for his role in her demise.
“If I concede to allow ye to see her, I bring only ye,” Niall answered in a low voice. “And it will be done with the knowledge that she will be moved afterward. Ye willna find her in the same place again, aye?” Regardless of if the earl was taken to see Leila or not, she would need to be relocated into the castle. The prison was not sufficient to hold Lord Werrick’s army if he stormed Liddesdale for Leila, something Niall would not put past a father who clearly loved his daughter.
The earl nodded.
“If yer men follow us, or if ye try to attack, we’ll kill her and we’ll kill ye, aye?” Niall knew he could easily take down the older man. Doubtless, Lord Werrick knew as well.
“I understand,” he replied solemnly. “You have my word that I will not attack. Please. My daughter.”
Niall didn’t trust Englishmen, but he did put weight on reputation and the Earl of Werrick’s was pristine; a man who did right. With the seal of an honest man’s word, Niall led Lord Werrick to the prison to see his daughter. Most likely for the last time.
Leila had woken to the extreme cold, her body stiff and her mind confused at the surrounding whitewashed walls and iron bars. It took only a moment for her to realize where she was and what had happened. Understanding what would soon come to be, however, was the hardest to come to terms with. Especially when she’d spent a lifetime knowing.
There was nothing to do now behind the iron-barred door but wait for her destiny.
She leaned her back to the cold wall, tucked her knees to her chest and let her mind drift from one painful thought to another. About her sisters, about her father, about the Lion. She wished he would not show her kindness, that he would be as cruel as Alban.
She rested her forehead on her bent knees. Her visions had always been so frustrating. Showing who but not how—or how but not when—or any other combination of the three. She always had pieces that never fit into anything whole, especially when it came to her own future. To where she was now.
“Ye’re awake.” A masculine voice sounded from the barred door.
Not the Lion. Leila made the assessment before she even lifted her head. This man’s voice was not as deep and lacked the authoritative edge. She looked up to find a reiver with wavy dark hair standing outside her cell. He crouched and slid a plate through the gap in the bars near the floor. The space was not large enough to climb through, but wide enough to properly deliver food and a bit of ale.
A spear of light streaking through the shutters cast its light over the plate, revealing a heel of brown bread and a knob of cheese. Her stomach knotted at the idea of eating, but still she thanked the man who had brought it to her. He continued to watch her through the bars.
“Are ye a witch?” he asked.
“I’m not,” Leila replied honestly.
“But ye are a healer?”
“I’ve been trained in the art of healing and know much about herbs.” Leila got to her feet to better look at the man who stood several feet away.
“My sister’s been sick more than a sennight.” He glanced behind him, as though he feared someone catching him speaking to her. “No one will see to her. All the healers are dead and anyone who could help willna for fear she’s ill with the pestilence. ‘Tis no’ the pestilence, but I canna get anyone to listen.”
“Does she have swelling at her armpits, neck or groin?” Leila asked.
The reiver shook his head.
“Is she coughing up bloody sputum or vomiting blood?” Leila tensed. Heaven help them if that illness descended up on them.
He shook his head again and her body relaxed.
“Can ye help her?” The reiver asked. “Even if ye are a witch, if ye can cast a spell—”
“I’m no witch, but I have herbs that can help. In the basket I dropped, there are several small linen bags with herbs in them. They are to cool a fever and ease body aches. If it is simply a fever, it will aid her. If it is something more than a fever, I would need to see her to offer better guidance.”
He lowered his head in gratitude and opened his mouth to say something more. A clattering came from the front of the prison and sent him jumping back from her cell as though the bars had burned him. Someone was coming.
Leila’s heart slammed hard in her chest. She straightened from her position against the wall to peer into the hall, to glimpse who had arrived.
Mayhap it was the villagers come to break her bones. Mayhap it was the Lion with his kindness and gentle hands.
“Leila.” The voice echoing down the long hall was all too familiar and filled with desperation.
Leila’s heart crumpled with recognition.
He was perhaps the one person who could destroy her control. Already, the stoic reserve around her had started to crack.
“Papa.” Leila whispered his name from lips that did not move.
She had not called him that in years. Not since she was old enough to realize the ugly truth of her birth, that her true father had been a marauder, a murderer, a thief and a rapist. She could not say Papa after that, not when she was so undeserving. Yet, neither could she bring herself to so formally refer to him as Lord Werrick.
She pressed herself to the icy bars of her cell. They stank of old iron, a dirty, metallic odor that she tried to ignore. “Father?” Her voice broke and echoed back at her from those cold whitewashed walls.
The clipped footsteps coming toward her fell faster and suddenly, he was there. Lord Werrick, the man who had always loved her as a father, stood before her cell in his regal doublet and mantle. He sucked in a pained breath as he regarded her, his eyes filled with such hurt that another crack splintered through Leila’s composure.
“Leila.” He said her name in a thick voice. Exhaustion lined his face and created shadowed hollows beneath his eyes.
“Father.” The word quavered in the thin air and she had to swallow before speaking again. “You should not have come. The pestilence—it’s too dangerous—”
“God himself would not be able to keep me from coming for you.” He rushed to the iron barred door and grasped her fingers in his warm, warm hand.
She wanted to curl her entire being against him to revel in that heat, the way she’d done as a girl when she sat on his lap, his chest rumbling at her back as he spoke, telling tales of wandering knights and defeated dragons. She was no little girl now though, and this was no story. He could not stay. It was far too dangerous.
“You’re freezing.” Her father cast a hard look over his shoulder to the Lion. “She is a noblewoman and should be treated thus. Your treatment of my daughter is reprehensible.”
“She’s been arrested on the crime of witchcraft.” The Lion’s face revealed no emotion. “She will be tried by Father Gerard, who is coming in from Edinburgh to judge her for her sins. I will personally ensure she remains safe until then.”
“And then what?” Father growled. “You let her die if some self-important man deems her a witch?”
The Lion did not flinch. “Ye’ve seen yer daughter.”
Lord Werrick’s warm hand tightened on Leila’s as though he could keep from letting go. “What can I do to free her?”
“There isna anything ye can do.” The Lion pushed himself off the wall he’d been l
eaning against. “She’ll be tried and judged in due time.”
“Nay.” Father shook his head. “I can pay you. Exorbitant sums. I can give you land. A castle upon it, even.” He was pleading, his voice trembling.
It cut through Leila’s composure and heat prickled in her eyes with the threat of tears. “Please, Papa. You cannot stay here. It is too dangerous.”
He turned to her abruptly, his own eyes brimming with tears. “Papa?” He blinked. “You haven’t called me that in so many years, my sweet daughter.”
A sob choked from Leila. “I know…” She tried to force back her tears. “I also know you are not my father.”
He shook his head as though he meant to stop her, but she rushed on. “You are not my father. I know the man who sired me nearly killed my mother and I finished what he started with my birth. You and my sisters have given me a love I have never deserved. I cannot repay that kindness now by putting you at risk. I already killed my mother; I will not now be the cause of your death as well.”
“Leila,” Lord Werrick said sharply. “Nay.” He reached through the bars and touched her cheek tenderly, the way he’d always done when she was a child. “You are one of us: a Barrington. You may not be my daughter by blood, but you are a daughter of my heart.” He frowned hard and his chin trembled in an obvious attempt to hold back his tears. “You are my daughter and I love you.” He gave a sharp sob. “I will always love you and I will never stop fighting for you.” He met her eyes, fierce with determination. “Never,” he vowed.
“It is time.” The Lion appeared beside the cell. “Please, Lord Werrick.”
Father leaned into the bars as though he could go through them to be in the cell with Leila, to protect her the way he always had.
Tears streamed hot down Leila’s face. “I love you too, Papa. I always will.” She kissed the warm hand holding hers with all the reverence of a daughter who truly did love her father. But it was the next act that was more wrought by love than any other, for she stepped back and pulled her hand from the warm comfort of his. To allow him to leave, to get him from this place of death and chaos, so he could return to the safety of Werrick Castle where the contagion could not touch him.
Leila’s Legacy Page 7
