He let her go—for now. But he had no intention of letting her walk away from him forever. He loved her and damn it, he would do whatever he had to do to get her back.
“Is something wrong?” Sir David asked as he was leading her back to the bench at the dais. “Was the dance too much?”
Joanna glanced up into his concerned gaze and managed a small smile. “The dance was perfect. The reel is my favorite.”
Another song started up, and he had to raise his voice over the lively tunes of the musicians. “Then is it something else? Are your injuries hurting you, are you in pain—”
She stopped him with a touch on the arm. “I’m perfectly hale. Truly, there is nothing to worry about.”
Unconsciously, she scanned the room, relaxing only once she assured herself that he wasn’t here. Had he really gone so easily? She hoped so. Of course she did.
Sir David studied her with a pinched brow. “Do you know that’s about the tenth time since you arrived that you’ve looked around the Hall like the bogeyman is about to jump out?”
She was about to lift her thumb to her mouth, but bit her lip instead. “It is?”
He nodded, patiently waiting—not demanding—for her to continue. She heaved a deep sigh and told him. “James came to see me after you left.”
She could feel him tense at her side. Every muscle in his body seemed to flare. Apparently, in addition to the instinct to rescue, the urge to defend and protect ran just as strong in him. Knights! It must have something to do with the sword and armor.
But he bit back whatever threats had sprung to his lips and took her hand, pulling her toward a quieter corner in the Hall near the edge of the wooden screen behind the dais. “Are you all right?”
No, she wasn’t all right. The shaking inside that had started the moment she’d left James standing by the burn still threatened to shatter her carefully constructed resolve. It had taken everything she had to watch him ride away without a backward glance and not fall into a sobbing heap at her cousin’s feet. Seeing him again, hearing his words of love, and then seeing the shock and hurt when he realized she would not be swayed, had taken every ounce of her resolve. When it was over she felt spent, utterly drained, and weak.
She’d done the right thing, but never had she imagined how hard it would be to do it.
James had been everything to her for so long; seeing him again had brought it all back. The love she’d once had for him was gone, but vestiges of it remained in her memories—and in her body. Aye, her physical reaction to him was just as strong as it had been before. Her nerve endings didn’t know they shouldn’t flare, her skin didn’t know it shouldn’t tighten, her cheeks didn’t know they shouldn’t flush, and her nipples didn’t know they shouldn’t harden.
She couldn’t see that tall, strong body and not remember how solid it felt on top of her—how he felt surging inside her. The memory of his skin sliding against hers, the heat of his body, the feel of the hard muscles under her hands…
Longing rose up sharply in her chest and pinched.
Every time he’d touched her earlier had been torture. She was so used to touching him back, she’d had to grabs fistfuls of her skirts to prevent herself from doing so.
But she’d done it. She’d confronted him and weathered the storm of emotions. She was battered perhaps, but still standing.
It was for the best. She’d meant what she said: James Douglas was her past. Today she’d taken the final step in making that a reality.
Sir David’s concern and care for her feelings touched her. “I will be fine,” she said, realizing it was the truth. “It was difficult, but it had to be done at some point.” She managed another smile. “Frankly, I’m glad to have it over with.”
Something hardened in Sir David’s expression. He was looking over her shoulder at the Hall behind them. “Maybe not as over with as you’d hoped.”
She turned and her heart caught. Staring at them with the black, deadly look on his face that had earned him his epithet was James.
He strode toward them—stormed, more accurately—practically shoving people out of his way as he wound through the celebrating crowd.
Her valiant protector Sir David courageously, if not wisely, took her hand and stood beside her to face the imposing warrior, who looked more like an avenging demon.
James had not missed the possessive gesture and she could see his eyes flare with rage. Jealous rage. Knowing she had to diffuse the situation, she carefully detached her hand from Sir David’s and squared to meet James who had stopped a few feet away. He looked like he wanted to slam his fist against Sir David’s jaw, but fortunately he’d managed to exercise some semblance of control, and his gauntleted fists remained in tight balls at this side.
“Touch her again, and I’ll kill you,” he said in a low voice.
Sir David didn’t react to the threat, though they all knew it was not an idle one. “Sod off, Douglas. If the lady does not want me to touch her, she’ll tell me. You have nothing to say about it.”
Joanna groaned inwardly. Dear God, Sir David was going to make this worse. She would not be responsible for these two men coming to blows. “What are you doing here, James? I said everything I had to say. I told you I didn’t wish to see you again.”
“You didn’t mean that.”
Joanna belied that claim with a silent stare.
James’s eyes narrowed. “Perhaps I should ask you what you are doing here? I thought there was nothing between you? It sure as hell doesn’t look that way to me.”
“Not everyone is as big a fool as you, Douglas. Don’t blame me for recognizing a treasure when I see one.”
James made a sound like a low growl in his throat and took a step toward the other man, but Joanna stepped between them. “What is it that you want, James? Say what you have to say and then leave.”
He looked at her so incredulously and so full of hurt, her spine shook from the effort to keep straight.
“Come on, Jo.” His voice had taken on a soft pleading tone she’d never heard before. “Don’t be like this. It isn’t you.”
Joanna turned to Sir David. “Will you give us a moment please?”
The younger knight looked back and forth between them. Though his expression said it was the last thing he wanted to do, he nodded. Joanna breathed a sigh of relief when he walked away.
But the tension remained.
James watched him disappear into the crowd with a narrowed gaze, and then turned to her. Before she could protest, he took her by the arm and dragged her behind the partition.
It was dark. The small space served as a storage area for the trestle tables when they were put away as they were now. There wasn’t much space, but he didn’t need any.
No sooner had they disappeared from view of the Hall than he spun her around, pushed her up against the stone wall behind her, and slammed his mouth on hers.
Her gasp of shock was swallowed in the initial onslaught of sensation. Hot, drenching, needy sensation. Surely, it was surprise that explained how her mouth instinctively opened and how her body melted into the strokes of his tongue. Of course it was. His big, hard body pressed against hers, hot and heavy, enveloping her in heat and virile male, leaving her nowhere to go.
Her senses were drowning in him. The warm, spicy taste of clove, the soapy scent of his always freshly bathed skin, the scent of heather that lingered on his surcoat. Passion rose up like a maelstrom inside her, threatening to drag her under. But she tamped it down before the urge—the need—to respond took over.
“No!” she murmured against his pillaging mouth. Putting two hands on his shoulders, she gave him a hard shove. “No!”
This time the word was formed enough to be heard. He released her, stepping back to give her a few inches of space, but still looming over her.
“How dare you!” she seethed, her chest heaving as she fought to take in air.
He met her anger full on, returning it with a fierce glare. “You are mine, Jo. Mine.”
&nbs
p; “So that’s what that was? Some primitive show of possession? Why don’t you just grab a fist full of dirt, toss it at my feet, and claim seisin.”
“If I thought it would work, I would.”
Her mouth fell in a hard line. “I do not belong to you, James. You have no right to touch me like that.”
“I have every right. Your body doesn’t lie, Jo. You want me, just as badly as you did before.”
She wouldn’t argue, not when she was still shaking from the effort to pull away from him. “Lust isn’t love, James, and without the latter, I will not succumb to the former. You can corner me in dimly lit alcoves all you want, but it won’t change anything. I have learned the cost of unfettered passion, and no matter how good you make my body feel, I will not forget it. You will not win me by passion.”
“How can I win you?”
The soft plea in his voice nearly broke her. Don’t look at him. Don’t waver. She turned her head, refusing to meet the gaze that she knew would pierce her defenses and her heart. “You can’t.”
He took her arm and turned her back to him, his face a mask of anger, jealousy, and something else. Something that if she didn’t know better she would think was fear. “What are you doing with Lindsay? You can’t marry him!”
She knew that, but he had no right to say it. “Why not? Am I not good enough for him? He has never made me feel that way, James. He doesn’t care that I am ‘only the marshal’s daughter.’”
Shame swept over his darkly handsome features. “I’m sorry, Jo. I didn’t mean it that way. I was angry. I wasn’t thinking. You have always been everything to me.”
“But not everything enough to honor with your name or even warrant an introduction to your friends.” Emotion strangled her, closing her throat and piercing her eyes. Damn him for doing this to her. She’d sworn not to talk about this, not to think about this. It was over. Done. But that kiss had brought it all back to the surface, the pain as raw and clawing as if it had been yesterday. “I deserve better, do not blame me for trying to find it. Now let me go. I do not hate you, James, but keep forcing yourself on me like this and I will.”
Knowing she was seconds away from bursting into tears and ruining everything, she took advantage of his shock and shot past him.
But she wasn’t quick enough. She’d barely slid around the partition wall back into the Hall when he caught her arm.
“Let go of me!”
Oblivious to anyone around her, she struggled to detach herself from his hold before her tears betrayed her. She flailed wildly like some kind of madwoman, but he held her firm.
“Stop it, Joanna! Damn it, stop it!” His grip tightened on her arm, as he drew her up to face him. His expression was just as wild and furious as she suspected hers must be. “Fine. If you are going to be stubborn about this, I’ll put it all aside. I’ll ignore my duty, my father’s wishes, and give up the chance to advance my clan and marry you.” He shook her again. “I’ll marry you, damn it. Is that what you want?”
CHAPTER NINE
James wasn’t thinking. He didn’t hear that the music had stopped; he didn’t feel the curious gazes upon them, or notice that they’d become the center of attention; he was oblivious to everything but the woman who was trying to walk out of his life.
She meant it. Every word, and he knew if he didn’t do something to hold on to her, Joanna would be lost to him forever. So he’d blurted out the hastily—awkwardly—constructed proposal without realizing what he was saying. Or rather, how badly he was saying it.
But the look of horror, followed quickly by anger so piercing it could skewer as deeply as any knife, alerted him that he’d made a mistake. An egregious one.
She lifted her chin, stood straight and proud as any princess, and threw him a look of such scorn, he felt about as big as a bug under her tiny slipper. “That isn’t what I want. Actually it’s the last thing I want. You were wrong, James Douglas. It is you who are not good enough for me. I would sooner marry the lad who cleans the garderobe than I would you.”
She stopped suddenly, as if she realized what she’d just said. Her eyes widened with horror—and perhaps even silent apology.
But it was too late. He heard the gasps. The uncomfortable twittering. The snickers that were not quite muffled behind the coughs.
Blood roared in his head. Heat crawled over his skin. The humiliation as sharp and cutting as the one that had come six years before.
Lord of the Garderobe. His ears blared. His eyes saw only red.
Releasing her, he took a harsh step back. His back was as rigid as a poleaxe.
“James, I’m sorry. That’s not what I—”
“I believe I’ve had your answer, my lady. I will not trouble you again.”
Jaw locked, he strode past her without another glance. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself not to show the humiliation he was feeling, forced the heat from his face by sheer strength of will. He even managed to bow to his host as he left. Lindsay’s expression was grim but otherwise unreadable. If the other man was pleased by the turn of events, he did not show it.
Not even when the sunlight hit James’s face as he exited the tower and called for his mount did he release the tight mask of control that held his emotions in check. He kept that mask in place until it hardened into stone and he couldn’t feel anything.
By the time he rode back into camp in the forest of Galloway the next evening, the dead feeling inside him had turned to anger. To hell with her. She’d made her choice. He wouldn’t beg. Joanna Dicson had embarrassed him enough.
But strangely, as he lay in bed later than night, staring up at the thick coated wool walls of the tent, it wasn’t his hurt pride that kept him awake. It was the feeling of loss so painful that it felt as if it were tearing open a big, gaping wound across his chest.
The next morning he was ordered to the king’s tent to explain his actions. As James had anticipated, the king wasn’t pleased by his sudden disappearance.
Robert the Bruce sat behind the table that served as his desk while on campaign, studying him with far more scrutiny than was comfortable. “Aye, well next time you have an emergency, I would prefer that you advise me before leaving.” One corner of his mouth lifted. “Unless you intend to challenge me for this chair, I’m still king.”
James usually enjoyed the jests about his ambition as much as the king did, but today he had to force a smile to his lips. Was he that bad? Had his quest to achieve his family’s greatness become too focused?
James or Douglas? Joanna’s words echoed in his head. Was she right? Was his ambition for himself or for his family? How high did he have to climb before he would be satisfied?
“I have no wish to sit in that particular chair, my lord.” He meant it. God knew, he had no wish to be king. Practically every member of Bruce’s family and every person he’d ever loved had been killed or imprisoned. He met the king’s gaze, all signs of jesting gone. “I will be proud to sit by your side, at your feet, or anywhere else you have need of me for as long as we both live. Hell, I’ll follow you into the grave if you ask it of me.”
Bruce smiled wryly. “I do not think it will come to that, at least not—I hope—for many years to come. But I am glad to hear it, especially with what I’m about to offer you.”
James frowned. “Sire?”
“You are almost five and twenty.” He was right; James’s Saint’s Day was next month. “High time, do you not think, that you took a wife?”
James stilled. His heart seemed to stop beating. This was it, what he’d been waiting for. But now that it was here, he felt the unmistakable weight of dread sinking in his gut. “I have had some thoughts on the matter recently, sire.”
As recently as yesterday, though God, what a disaster that had turned out to be.
“I’m glad to hear it. If you do not have a bride in mind, I should like to propose one. My youngest sister Margery is just three and ten, but old enough to wed. How would you like to call a king brother?”
“I…”
A cold sweat gathered on his brow. James stared at the king and felt the tent walls start to spin around him, as if he were being sucked into a vortex of darkness.
He didn’t understand his reaction. It was everything he wanted. He should be ecstatic. He should be falling on his knees and thanking the king for the honor he was giving him. He should be shouting his joy from the parapets. He’d achieved what his father had asked, raising the name Douglas to the highest levels. James’s children would have royal blood and be the nieces and nephews of a king.
But those were not the children—the child—he thought of. His stomach turned. For the first time, the extent of just what he’d lost hit him.
It was only at the moment when he’d achieved everything he’d thought he wanted that James realized what he wanted most of all.
Not one week after the horrible confrontation with James at the May Day celebration, Joanna was back at Hazelside with her family.
Her cousin no longer needed her, and there was no longer a reason for Joanna to hide. There was nothing she could have done that would better guarantee a definitive end to her relationship with James than to humiliate him like that, although God knew that hadn’t been her intention. The word had slipped out before she’d realized what she’d said.
Garderobe. She cringed, her stomach still turning with horror and guilt. She could still see the look of betrayal in his eyes, still see the shock and the hideous flush of shame on the cheeks of his proud, handsome face like the handprints of a slap. Her slap. It had taken everything she had to not go after him and try to apologize. To let him walk out of that Hall hating her. But she told herself it was for the best.
It was over—really over. It was hard to believe let alone accept. For as long as she could remember, James Douglas had been the most important thing in her life. Now that he was gone, she felt a vast emptiness inside her, as if something vital was missing. One of her father’s men had lost a leg in the war, and when he was recovering, he said he would often feel pain in the place his leg used to be. She’d never understood it until now.
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