Cambria sucked in great gulps of air through her open mouth and tried to center her mind. She could feel her body drifting toward unconsciousness, toward a place where nothing could harm her. But she resisted its lure, clinging desperately to reality by reminding herself over and over that she was the Gavin. She clenched her nails into the palms of her hands to keep from fainting and focused intently on the rider at the fore, who was nudging his mount closer.
The knight set his huge warhorse into motion using only the slightest pressure of one of his armor-plated knees. The steed tossed its head proudly and ambled forward. Man and beast no doubt made a formidable foe in battle, their carriage that of champions.
With bullying arrogance, the rider let the steed come to within a foot of the golden knight till it huffed its breath into the man’s eyes.
Cambria scowled up at the helmed rider. This must be the monster who’d ordered the laird’s murder. She swayed momentarily with nausea, recalling too clearly her father’s bloody surcoat and his dead, glassy eyes. She swallowed to control her rising gorge.
She prayed for the strength to hold out until help came. De Ware’s knights were due to arrive today, and the English lord was bound by his word to protect Blackhaugh from all enemies. He’d be obliged to capture and punish these murderers. She hoped the Wolf would tear them limb from limb.
The knight removed his helm, tossing it to his squire. He eased the mail coif from his head and ran a hand through his dark curls.
Her heart stilled. She watched him, unable to move, unable to speak. A heavy weight seemed to press on her chest, making it impossible to breathe as she looked at his face.
He wasn’t at all the villain she’d expected. In fact, he was the most striking man she’d ever seen. His face was evenly chiseled, so perfect it might have been pretty were it not for his furrowed brow and the scars that told of many seasons of battle. His hair, damp with sweat, reminded her of the rich shade of roasted walnuts, and it fell recklessly about his corded neck. His jaw was firm, resolute, but something about the generous curve of his lips marked him as far from heartless.
Most startling, however, were his eyes. They were the color of the pines in a Highland forest, deep and slightly sad, eyes that had seen violence and suffering, and had endured. Those eyes caused her heart to beat unsteadily, and she wasn’t entirely certain why.
He angled his mount with another nudge of his knee and cocked a brow at the golden knight. “Have you finished here, Roger?” His voice was low, powerful, and laced with irony.
The golden knight regarded him with ill-concealed hostility. “Aye, my lord. They resisted, as you see, but…” He shrugged.
The knight shifted in his saddle and blew out a long breath. The carnage before him was inexcusable. As he’d suspected when he set out this morning to intercept Roger’s advance, something here was amiss. He should never have trusted Roger Fitzroi. The man obviously didn’t understand the proper use of violence. Judging by the faded shields of the conquered lining the great hall and the frayed edges of the Gavin knights’ garments, this poor clan could hardly have posed a threat. Hell, there weren’t even that many of them, he thought as his gaze roamed over the broken bodies.
And then he saw her, kneeling at his knights’ feet in the midst of all the slaughter, and his breath caught.
She was an angel. Nay, he corrected as he continued to stare at the eyes that were too fierce, the jaw too square, the hair too dark. Not an angel. Something more fey—a sprite. Accustomed to the fleshy, languorous women at court, he found this lass’s exotic looks as refreshing as a dip in a cool loch.
He couldn’t take his eyes off of her. She looked the way he’d made women look many a time in his bed—hair spilled carelessly, lips a-quiver, cheeks flushed—and he longed to caress that fine-boned cheek, run his fingers through those too dark, tangled tresses, kiss that spot on her neck where her pulse visibly raced.
The wench was glaring at him with those cut-crystal eyes, and he was amazed to see her defiance falter only infinitesimally beneath his regard, a thorough scrutiny that usually made his foes tremble.
She reminded him of a wildcat he’d seen once on his travels through the moors, one caught in an abandoned snare. Before he’d cut the animal free, it had looked at him just this way—frightened, hateful, suspicious. He suddenly had an absurd longing to remove the pain from the liquid pools of her eyes as he’d done for the wildcat.
Ariel nickered softly beneath him and stamped an impatient hoof, jarring him back to reality. Damn, he thought, shaking off his insipid dreaming with a toss of his head. This new life of lordly leisure was making him soft.
He frowned into the girl’s face. Then his gaze dropped lower. Her body strained against the thin linen of her gown, and he could clearly see a perverse crimson streak across her fair breast.
Desire fled, replaced by outrage. He snarled at Roger, “Have you taken to attacking innocents?”
Roger answered belligerently. “It’s not her blood, my lord. It’s that of her traitor father, Laird Angus. But this ‘innocent’ wounded two of my men!”
Holden snorted in disbelief. A wee Border lass was hardly capable of intimidating the formidable de Ware knights. He looked dubiously down at her again to see if he’d overlooked something. He was sorry it was the sprite’s father who had died, but if the laird was a traitor, it would only have been a matter of time before he was executed for his treachery. Perhaps it was better he’d died nobly, with a sword in his hand.
“Who is your father’s successor, lass?” he asked her quietly.
The girl lifted her chin bravely and replied, “I am.”
He should have guessed. “And your husband?”
“I have no husband.”
“Your betrothed?”
“I have no betrothed. I am…the Gavin.” Her voice broke as she said it. He could see she was fighting back tears.
Several of his men smirked at the notion of a young woman claiming a castle. But he knew there was nothing odd about that for the Scots. He stared at the girl with a mixture of pity and disgust at the laird’s foolishness in leaving his daughter unmarried and, therefore, unprotected. He swore he’d never understand the Scots’ ways.
“I’ll spare your life,” he told her, “if you swear fealty to me.”
To his amazement, the girl fixed him with a jewel-hard stare and shook her head firmly once. “Even now the castle is being surrounded by the king’s army,” she proclaimed. “You won’t escape alive.”
“Lass,” a burly old Gavin man called from the corner, but his captor jerked his chain, ordering him to silence.
He scowled down at the girl and held up a hand to quiet his men’s snickering. “The king…Edward’s army?”
“Aye!” she hissed, her eyes sparking like sapphires. “Lord Holden de Ware will slay you for the murder you’ve committed! He is a powerful warrior, known to all as the Wolf for his savagery, and he has sworn to protect this keep!”
He stared at her, stunned. Her eyes gleamed with victory, and the thrust of her chin was confident and proud. He almost hated to dash her hopes.
But he had to.
He held her gaze with his own and explained softly, “I am the Wolf. I am Lord Holden de Ware.”
CHAPTER 3
The girl’s gaze dropped to the figure of the wolf emblazoned on his tabard, and she turned as white as her linen shift. Bloody hell, Holden thought in alarm, the wench was going to faint.
Her eyes rolled in her head. Holden reached his hand forward futilely as if he could cushion her fall. But she collapsed in a heap on the rushes.
He turned his scowl upon Roger. “You said Gavin refused the alliance.”
Roger sneered. “At the last moment, aye. Never trust a Scot.” He spat on the ground. “The devil slew our brother before our eyes.” His glance slid over to Owen.
“My sympathies,” Holden said, although the two brothers didn’t seem particularly grief-ridden. “Hard to believe they preferr
ed to fight,” he added pointedly, “with so small a force.”
“You know these Scots and their stubborn loyalty. Even the wench attacked us,” Roger smirked, nodding at the bundle on the floor.
Holden glanced at the girl again. She certainly couldn’t have posed much of a threat. She was, after all, only a young woman, one apparently prone to fainting.
He looked around the hall at the cowering servants, the whimpering hounds, the Gavin men chained together in the corner. What had really happened here? Perhaps the daughter knew.
He would have liked to question her, to question all of them, but the unfortunate truth was that he had other urgent matters to attend to. He was a lord in his own right now, and much obligation came with the position.
Besides, he couldn’t bring the laird back to life. Whatever brutal mistakes Roger had made, he was the king’s kin, and the deed was done. Blackhaugh was secure, and the bloodshed was over. Their work here was finished.
“Let her be,” he instructed, more reluctant than he cared to admit about leaving the intriguing Border lass behind. “Roger, Owen, you’ll come with me to Bowden.” Then he turned to his brother Garth. The lad had learned much in their weeks together, and Holden felt it was time to test that knowledge. “Garth, you’ll serve as steward here, and your men will hold Blackhaugh.” He nodded to the Gavin survivors. “Obtain their fealty, and they may be released.”
Garth visibly paled. It was a great responsibility. But he drew himself up proudly and accepted the command.
Holden ignored Roger Fitzroi’s scowl of outrage at the obvious slight. As half-uncle to the king, he no doubt expected to be handed the castle on a platter. But Garth was the better man for the task. Despite Roger’s fostering at Castle de Ware, Roger had never quite learned the true meaning of chivalry, and Holden trusted the man about as much as he did his mistresses. Garth, on the other hand, possessed an innate sense of decency, justice, and loyalty that would serve him well as steward.
At Holden’s order, Garth immediately dismounted and came forward. Holden knew his little brother would do well in inspiring trust in the remaining castle folk, trust that Roger had probably damaged with his vicious tactics.
“The rest of us will go,” Holden commanded. “We came to borrow provisions from Blackhaugh.” If any remain, he thought. Looking about the hall at the shabby tapestries and threadbare surcoats, he wondered if all the Border holdings were similarly impoverished. “Bowden’s larder was nearly empty. That’s doubtless why the castle surrendered so readily.”
There was a stirring in the rushes as he spoke. The girl was rousing from her faint, lifting herself on shaky arms and blinking the cobwebs from her bewildered eyes.
He should have been moved to pity. The poor lass had in one blow lost her father and her title. But pity was not at all what he felt as she met and matched his stare, her teeth clenched, her sapphire gaze smoldering. As if she transmitted it to him with those eyes, he felt her power, power he’d never sensed from a woman before, and with it came a wave of lust, pure and strong and immediate. Every fiber of his being felt drawn to her, like iron to a lodestone.
He swallowed hard. It was absurd. He was on a mission, and she was the enemy. He would leave her behind, just as he always had the victims of war. Such were the sacrifices of his profession. He’d earned his considerable fortune with his sword and his allegiance. He couldn’t afford to let a comely face distract him from his duties.
Quickly, before he could lose his resolve, he turned his steed briskly to gallop out of the hall.
Cambria watched Lord Holden de Ware go, hate burning white-hot in her heart. She swore she’d kill the Englishman, destroy the bastard who had betrayed her father.
While she made that silent oath, a rat of a man with dark, stringy hair clutched his bleeding chest with one hand and hobbled close. He swept up her father’s broadsword, turning it over in his grip.
“A fine blade,” he whispered, leering at her with evil ocher eyes. “A pity your father didn’t know how to use it. When I am lord of Blackhaugh, I shall do better.”
Before she could spit in his face, he set the point of the blade at her throat, chuckling at her instant silence. Then he slid the sword into his own scabbard and marched from the hall after the others.
Squires removed the horses from the great hall, but when the last of the departing hooves had soiled Blackhaugh’s rushes, there were still a score of English knights left. They murmured among themselves in the sudden silence like shy cousins awaiting introduction.
Finally, the new steward cautiously crept near. He was a young man, tall, brown-haired, and fair of face, with a strong jaw and gray-green eyes that marked him plainly as Lord Holden’s brother, even if the Wolf’s ruthlessness was missing from his countenance.
“My lady,” he said in a low, gentle voice, “I am training for a position in the church. If you have no priest available, I’d be happy to bless the bodies and—“
“Do not dare to touch them! Do not dare to utter a single word over them, English pig, or it will be your last!”
The youth looked stricken by her remarks, but there was no room in Cambria’s grieving heart for remorse. She wanted English hands on as little as possible of Blackhaugh, including its dead.
The wind rose in a mood that warned of a spring squall, tangling Cambria’s hair and whipping her shift around her ankles like sea foam. She paused in her labors, shoving the spade hard into the soil and leaning upon it. By the look of the gray gathering clouds, the storm would start before the veiled sun sank below the hills. But she’d be finished by nightfall. She’d rather dig the grave herself than let those English dogs desecrate her father’s burial with their presence.
It was a travesty. The laird deserved a tomb in the chapel and an effigy with the hawk of the Gavin carved at its feet. He deserved a month of mourning and visits from the lairds of the neighboring clans. He had died a warrior’s death, and he deserved at least to be buried with his sword.
As if her bitterness was heard in the heavens, the sky flashed and cracked with current, and all around the grass-swept knoll, the clouds darkened like a flock of ravens come to feed. A gale lifted her hair and fluttered the woolen plaid covering the laird’s body. Then fine drops of rain began to fall, slowly at first, staining the sod like tears.
She wiped her brow on a muddy sleeve, and then resumed digging. She ignored the blisters on her hands, the wind flaying her legs, the rain soaking her shift. The storm rose around her, but she continued gouging away at the soil until the hole was deep enough that no animal would disturb it. Then she gently dragged her father to the edge, tipping his body into the grave.
She gave him all the benedictions she knew, falling to her knees and calling on saints and ancient gods alike, pleading with the angry heavens to take and keep the laird of Gavin well. Then she stood, with the storm raging all about her, while the lightning wounded the purple clouds and thunder shook the earth, and she raised her hands to the sky.
“Father,” she whispered fervently, though the sound was lost in the maelstrom, “I swear upon the clan of Gavin, I will avenge your death.”
The wind roared through the trees, carrying her oath of vengeance across the land that was no longer Gavin’s.
By April, the Border hills burst forth torrents of water like tears from the earth. But the spring bulbs paid no heed to their sorrow, blossoming joyfully with their heady perfume. The land was new and green once again, its old wounds forgotten and life reborn.
Sir Garth de Ware had tamed the denizens of Blackhaugh to his rule like a falconer gentling a tiercel, with patience and persistence. The ladies had begun to gaze longingly at the tall, comely knight. The young lads followed at his heels. Even old Malcolm seemed to have attached himself to the young Englishman, conferring with him on matters of the castle’s defense and provisions.
Only Cambria remained steadfast in her hatred of the invaders, a hatred that consumed every moment of every day. It seemed only s
he remembered the treachery the enemy had dealt. She had cuts that had mended badly and scarred, and until her vengeance was fulfilled, she’d carry the volatile seeds of abhorrence with her.
The naïve Sir Garth hadn’t an inkling of the dark purpose in her heart, of course. He presumed that she was like most of the other women of his acquaintance, docile and sweet, and so he’d given her completely free run of the castle and its lands. He assumed she was collecting herbs and gossip.
In fact, she spent every waking moment orchestrating revenge.
As she watched from the haven of her bedchamber, the sun bid a lingering farewell over the hills, turning the sky the colors of a ripening peach.
She pounded her fist on the embrasure in frustration. Another day gone, and still she’d found no champion to do battle with Lord Holden de Ware. It seemed everyone had heard of the Wolf’s legendary swordsmanship.
She hung her head. She’d tried pleading, cajoling, flattering, and shaming them. But thus far none of the seasoned knights of her own or neighboring castles would undertake her mission of retribution. They believed her father had indeed succumbed to the hotheaded pride for which he was famed, that he had turned on the enemy at the last moment and made a rash mistake in underestimating the power of the English.
But Cambria couldn’t accept that. She’d glimpsed the dream of peace in her father’s eyes. He’d had no fight left in him.
What was she to do? She’d promised her father revenge, sworn it upon his grave. Now it seemed a Herculean feat. Was there no one to take up her cause? No champion for her vengeance? No man of courage and honor and chivalry in all of Scotland?
Lord Holden de Ware casually sipped at his mead as the sun peeked through the elms and between the merlons of the wall walk at Bowden. He sighed heavily and watched with indifference as two sparrows made chase in the air. It should prove a glorious day, he tried to persuade himself, breathing in a deep lungful of crisp air. The Border forces had been defused weeks ago. Rested now from that ordeal, he knew he should be happily enjoying the comforts due the lord of the manor. But he was unaccustomed to peace. His spirit was restless.
Knights of de Ware 02 - My Warrior Page 4
