“But how, Owen? I thought ye said the Scots bitch wiggled out of the hangman’s noose.”
The hair stood up on the back of Cambria’s neck.
“Shh,” Owen soothed. “Never worry. I’ve got a plan.”
”What kind of plan?”
“Holden de Ware isn’t going to survive the battle.”
Aggie gasped, and then giggled conspiratorially, snuggling up against Owen.
“Without him,” Owen continued, “she’ll be powerless.”
“Then ye’ll kill her?” Aggie asked with sickening zeal.
“There won’t be any need. I’m sure King Edward will see everything my way. My brother was to take possession of Blackhaugh. I took care of that obstruction myself. But they all believe the Scotswoman killed him. She’ll be hanged for it, and I, my dear, will inherit the castle.”
Aggie crowed with glee. Cambria felt ill.
Owen’s voice grew bitter. “All those years of submission—‘aye, Roger,’ ‘of course, Roger,’ ‘as you like, Roger,’ listening to my brother boast of his noble blood, taking the rod upon my back for his sins, gobbling up the meager scraps of affection our dear mother threw me—well, they’re all finished now.” He wheezed a contented sigh. “Soon I’ll be the lord of Blackhaugh.”
“Say the part about me again, Owen, say it,” Aggie begged.
“You, my love, will become Lady Agnes, and you shall wear emeralds about your neck and dine on swan at the high table. You can even take a noblewoman to maid if you like, for your own amusement.”
Aggie sighed in contentment. “Oh, Owen, I’ll count the hours till ye return.”
Owen leered at her in what was supposed to be a smile. He set down his sword and pulled Aggie to him, squeezing her affectionately before he began to shove his hand down the bodice of her kirtle with a vulgarity that finally persuaded Cambria to leave, no matter the risk.
She had to find Holden. She had to warn him.
Despite the souvenir bruise that colored his cheekbone, reminding him of his wife’s earlier unpleasantness, Holden didn’t mean to be short with Cambria. He just had a hundred things on his mind.
Tomorrow they would set out to meet with Edward’s forces, and it seemed there wasn’t enough time to prepare. His own fletcher would have to make arrows all night long to have enough good ones, one of his knights’ horses had twisted a leg, and two of the carts needed their wheels mended. Next to these critical concerns, Cambria’s worries seemed insignificant.
“I’m always cautious in battle,” he told her, checking each longbow he packed onto the arms wagon.
The bustle of activity here in the courtyard—knights sparring, servants packing, animals milling about—masked the sound of their conversation, but Cambria still looked nervous.
“You must watch your back,” she insisted.
“John!” he called out, tossing a bow to the man. “This one is useless. The recurve is split.”
Cambria whispered, “I just heard Owen confess he was responsible for Roger’s murder. And now he intends to slay you to inherit Blackhaugh.”
“Owen?” He sighed. Why did she protest her innocence now? “Cambria, you needn’t worry about your part in Roger’s death. It’s in the past. I deem it an unfortunate accident. Thomas! Careful with that!”
Cambria grabbed his arm. “Listen! He has already killed one man, his own brother, and gotten away with it. He could do the same to you.”
He rolled his eyes. “Cambria, I know what happened at the inn, why you killed Roger—“
“You don’t know anything!” she burst out. “I didn’t kill Roger! I tell you, Owen did it, and he’ll kill again.”
“Cambria, I’ve been fighting and killing men since you were a little girl. You’ll just have to trust my instincts.” He noted the stubborn clench of her jaw. “Did you see to the packing of the kegs of ale?”
Cambria offered no reply. She’d reached the limits of her patience. She spun on her heel and stalked off, a curse on her lips. The devil take Holden for all his blind stupidity. Maybe she should just let fate take its course. The damned fool, he was going to die by his own man’s hand, and he was too pigheaded to do anything about it.
Somehow she had to convince him. But not now, not while he was distracted by split recurves and battle provisions. Nay, she’d wait till nightfall, when duty no longer claimed his attentions. She’d wait till they were alone.
The moon gleamed high overhead and the fire burned low by the time Holden came to their chamber. Cambria had trod the rushes to pieces and bitten her nails down to nubs. She’d practiced all the arguments she intended to use on him, honed every weapon in her verbal arsenal. But when he dragged in, wearily running a hand through his hair, his bruise visible evidence of her earlier diplomacy, her practiced speech deserted her.
He looked up suddenly, as if astonished to find her still awake, and in that instant, all the uncertainty he harbored about the battle to come stood in relief upon his face as clearly as the etched swirls of the moon. For that one brief moment, she longed to comfort him, to smooth the wrinkles from his brow. But as swiftly as they’d appeared, the lines in his face vanished, and he greeted her with the mask of self-assurance he wore for his knights.
“Still awake?” He unbuckled his swordbelt and dropped it beside the bed. “One of us should get some sleep.”
“I couldn’t.”
He nodded. In the waxy moonlight, his bruise, the bruise she had given him, looked like a shadow. She lowered her eyes in guilt.
“I’m sorry I struck you,” she blurted. The words sounded strange to her ears. She didn’t believe she’d ever apologized to anyone before.
He waited for her to look at him, and then nodded with that lopsided smile. “When I return from battle, I suppose we’ll have to review the code of chivalry.”
If you return, she thought, her heart lurching. She twisted her fingers in her gown as he began undressing. She’d promised herself that she wouldn’t lose her temper, that she’d reason with him calmly. But the last thing she felt as he removed his clothing, piece by piece, was calm.
“I need to speak with you.” Her voice came out whispery, like the wind through dry leaves.
He’d removed his hauberk, and the moon painted the contours of his bare chest with silver. His was a fighter’s body, strong and firm, and yet the recent scar just below his ribs reminded her that he was forged of flesh and blood, as vulnerable as any man.
“Is this about Owen again?”
“You must believe me,” she said, rushing forward to take the hauberk from his hands. “He intends to kill you.”
He hooked his thumbs inside his chausses. “As do hundreds of Highlanders. Cambria, you have to understand—“
“I don’t!” She took a deep breath. Already her temper threatened to escape its flimsy cage. “I don’t understand. If you die, my clan is defenseless. Why don’t you just…leave Owen behind?”
His gaze moved from her to the narrow window, where he stared out at the night. He clenched and unclenched his fists once, and when he spoke, his voice was as somber as the gallows. “I owe you the truth. The Scots forces are vast. If we’re to win this battle, we need all the men we can take.”
He looked back to her then, and the spark of uncertainty she glimpsed in his eyes frightened her. Was there doubt that the English would win?
“Besides,” he said with a rueful smile, cupping her chin, “if I left behind every knight who’d ever threatened me, I’d have no army.”
Frustrated, she dropped his hauberk to the bed and spoke rashly. “Take me with you.”
“What?” He chuckled and frowned all at once.
She placed her palms flat on his chest. “Take me with you. I’ll watch your back.”
He cradled her head in both his hands. “I can’t take you to battle, Cambria. It’s no place for a woman.”
“I’ll stay behind the lines. I’m a keen shot with the bow. If Owen tries anything—“
&nbs
p; “Cambria.” He kissed her forehead. His mouth felt soft, warm, not at all the mouth of a warrior. “It’s enough to risk my men. I won’t risk my wife as well.”
“But—“
“I swear to you I’ll take care,” he vowed. “I protect my own. I’ll do nothing to endanger your clan.”
But when she felt his heart beating beneath her palm, that heart whose pulse could be ceased by the single lightning slash of a blade, she thought less about her clan than she did about the husband she’d begun reluctantly to admire.
The sound of Holden’s soft, soothing snores lulled Cambria to sleep, but at the far end of the night, dark images invaded her dreams, curdling her slumber into a roiling sea of despair.
Bodies were everywhere. Bloody, broken, twisted. Writhing bodies like a vast churning ocean stretching to the far hills. Malcolm. Robbie. Graham. Her clan. She waded through them, and they grabbed for her, pleading, screaming, damning her until she clapped her hands to her ears in horror.
Before her was the one she sought, the wolf. His gray fur, tipped by silver, lay matted now with caked blood, and his black lips peeled back in a grimace of pain, exposing long, sharp teeth. His sides heaved as he struggled to draw his dying breath. When she knelt beside him, his nostrils quivered, and he turned to look at her. And then they were his eyes, Holden’s eyes, green with flecks of gray, gazing at her in one brief flicker of hope, and then glazing over with the pale cast of death.
Anguish wrenched her heart. He was gone. The Wolf was gone. She’d failed him, failed the Gavins, and now she was utterly alone.
Whether she woke from the trauma of the dream or the sound of Holden rising, she wasn’t sure. She feigned sleep, though her heart pounded madly in her breast, and watched him through slit eyes as he dressed by the gold of the lightening sky. He winced once from his wound as he slipped the hauberk over his head, reminding her again of his mortality. He mustn’t die, she thought. She wouldn’t let him.
A moment later, Holden, with a whispered farewell and a gentle kiss to her forehead, left the chamber.
No sooner did Cambria hear the wood of the door meet the wall than she sprang from the bed, fully alert, her heart racing with purpose. She pulled a faded linen kirtle and a rough brown woolen cloak from her chest of clothes. These she quickly donned, pushing her hair back beneath the generous hood of the cloak. She tugged on her oldest leather shoes and tucked her dagger into her belt. Her longbow and arrows she’d have to cache amongst the store of weapons taken along on the journey. She slung them over her shoulder, concealing them beneath a large blanket.
Lord Holden intended to leave his brother Garth and Malcolm behind as stewards for Blackhaugh. Cambria took an extra moment to pen a missive to Malcolm, assuring him she was safe with her husband and that she was acting for the good of the clan. She knew the poor steward would not truly rest easy until she returned home, but she left the note atop her pallet nonetheless.
As she laid her hand across the pillow, she realized she still wore her wedding ring. Peasants didn’t own such things. She should slip it off and tuck it into her chest of valuables. But somehow it seemed a sacrilege, so she twisted the wolf’s head inward and pulled her sleeve low over her hand.
Cautiously, she eased through her chamber door and down the steps. She ambled through the great hall, milling about easily in her rustic garb within the maze of activity.
Knights in full armor strode regally past the scurrying servants, barking out orders for the packing of the wagons outside. Children chased after yelping hounds and were cuffed soundly for their efforts. Hastened along by jostling elbows, Cambria made her way through the courtyard to one of the supply wagons and covertly pushed her bow and quiver into it. Then she stopped by the stables long enough to smudge mud here and there over her arms, legs, and face.
“You!” someone called, and she turned with a start, remembering just in time to lower her head.
It was young Sir Myles.
“Fetch me bread and wine,” he said. Evidently he hadn’t recognized her. She was merely an idle body available to do his bidding. “Bring them to me in the armory.”
The young whelp made it sound like an honor, and Cambria had to bite her tongue to restrain a hot retort. Instead, she meekly nodded. Myles rubbed his hands together and smugly strode off.
She shuffled into the kitchen, ducking her head out of sight as Katie brushed past with an armload of cheat bread and oatcakes. She swiped a roll fresh from the table and poured a cup of wine to take to Sir Myles.
As she swung the door to the knights’ quarters open with her foot, she almost froze in panic. She could hear the deep tones of her husband addressing a dozen or so knights. Sir Myles was among them, and when he noticed his breakfast, he motioned her over impatiently.
Holden stopped in midsentence. Cambria held her breath. But her husband’s eyes held no recognition as he glanced at her cursorily. He resumed speaking when she brought Myles his bread and wine. She briskly excused herself and scurried out the door.
After that, she busied herself loading the wagons with food, cooking vessels, blankets, herbs, and linen for bandages. Within the hour, the knights, well-armed and eager for travel, lined up five abreast before the provision wagons and awaited the command of their lord.
Holden made no speech, but cast a look of longing toward his bedchamber window that tugged at Cambria’s heart. Then he turned his mount and took his place at the head of the company.
“Forward,” he commanded. The journey had begun.
CHAPTER 10
Cambria paused in the sheltering shade of an old sycamore and wiped the sweat from her brow with her dirty wool sleeve for the hundredth time. The weather had turned uncannily warm over the last few days, but the necessity for secrecy required that she keep the miserably stifling cloak about her. Her feet were blistered from the ill-fitting shoes and the pace Holden insisted on maintaining, and she could hardly stand her own camouflaging odor of stable filth and wet wool. But the worst of it was that it seemed she’d made the trip in vain.
Sir Owen was behaving so damnably nonchalant that she almost believed she’d imagined or misunderstood that whole exchange in the knights’ quarters. It looked as if she’d gone to a great deal of trouble for nothing. But it was too late to turn back. She was committed now to the journey—every sweating, dusty, wretched mile of it.
The de Ware men made the travel particularly nauseating, filling the balmy air with boasts of their feats of prowess in battle and in bed. To her disgust, even her own Gavin knights joined in the melee. According to all accounts, of course, none could hold a candle to the de Ware brothers. When their prattle became too coarse for her blushing ears, she dropped back to join the servants. There, at least, it amused her to hear the women’s versions of the same stories, which were unquestionably more authentic and less heroic.
They stopped to set up camp as the sun sank low in the cloudless sky. A nearby stream flowed into a deep pool shaded by elms where Cambria stole away for a brief, refreshing dip. Afterward, she had no choice but to put on the same dusty surcoat, and her wet hair clung to her neck beneath her hood. But at least she’d managed to scrub away the stink of the road.
Upon her return to camp, she set to work digging wild leeks for the evening pottage. A chatty young English girl with ragged blond hair and sly eyes accompanied her. Cambria paid little heed to the girl’s patter until she mentioned the name of Holden de Ware.
“What’s that?” Cambria asked, feigning indifference.
“I said, I wonder how long it’ll be ‘fore the lord picks one of us to warm his bed.”
“One of us?”
“Aye,” she said with a naughty wink. “Annie thinks it’ll be her, and Margaret’s been struttin’ under his nose like a lone hen in a coop o’ roosters, but I’m thinkin’…”
“Isn’t the lord newly wed?” Cambria asked evenly, clenching a pair of leeks in her fist.
“Oh, aye,” the girl divulged in a whisper, “to
an ice queen, they say, who won’t even let him betwixt her legs.” She giggled. “Can you imagine, not sharin’ the bed of a de Ware?”
Cambria blinked. Her back stiffened. Ice queen—was that what they called her? Worse still, was everyone privy to the sleeping arrangements between Lord Holden and herself?
“Oh, la, if he were mine,” the girl continued dreamily, stroking the long leaves of her leeks, “I’d let him flip me on my backside any time o’ the day, to feel those strong legs o’ his wrapped ‘round—“
“Enough!” Cambria commanded sharply.
The girl started at the authority in Cambria’s voice.
“Enough…leeks, I should think,” Cambria continued lamely, astonished by her own ferocity.
“Oh, aye,” the girl replied uneasily, scratching her head. “I s’pose so.” She shook the dirt from the last few leeks and tucked the lot of them into the front fold of her kirtle.
The servant’s words haunted Cambria all afternoon, and by supper, she could only nibble at her food while she watched Holden across the fire.
It was easy to see why all the maids were agog over him. Golden flame glowed upon his face, accentuating the fine bones of his cheeks and the strong set of his jaw, while the full moon’s light fell across his hair in gentle silver waves. One powerful hand rested across his bent knee, while the other curved around his flagon of wine, and as he drank, his sleeve slipped up to display the flexed muscle of his forearm. His eyes, deep and pensive, revealed none of his thoughts, as he stared into the fire. His lips parted to drink his wine, and Cambria was reminded of his kiss and the way his lips parted to drink her passion.
An astonishing wave of desire coursed through her.
She turned her back on him abruptly to gather her wits, twisting in agitation at her wedding ring. She cursed under her breath. How soon, she wondered, would he choose someone to “warm his bed”? The women already buzzed about like flies on meat. They could hardly keep their hands and eyes off of him. The serving wenches sidled up to him as closely as they could to refill his cup or offer him another trencher, giggling like halfwits and speaking coy words of flattery. All this he accepted with diplomacy, neither showing particular favor to any one nor discouraging their attentions. Still, it rankled her to watch the vulgar display.
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