The Saint
Page 14
Dread settled in Hew’s empty stomach, twisting painfully. Surely Edmund hadn’t followed her all the way across the border. But why would the tower house seem abandoned?
He whirled, seeking the man who had dropped him at the gate, suddenly uncertain he wished to be here after all. But the cart dropped out of sight over a ridge, and Hew’s old legs had no hope of catching up with the conveyance.
With trepidation, he trudged along the far side of the wall until he reached a small wooden gate set at an unobtrusive angle in the stone. He picked up a nearby stick and rapped on the square postern gate. With a squeak of rusty hinges, the narrow door swung open.
Hew shivered, both from the cold and from anxious expectation. What lay beyond the gate? Friend or foe? Mayhap a ghost?
Watery sunlight fell across Hew’s shoulders and landed a few inches inside the partially open door. Beyond was dark as the maw of hell. Hew swallowed nervously.
“Hullo?” His voice squeaked upward, changing the challenge to a question. Silence answered. Hew took a hesitant step backward, gathering himself to flee.
“Dinnae trip over yer feet.” A feminine voice drifted through the opening.
Hew froze.
“Iseabal?” He strained to hear a response, half afraid of what he’d find if he opened the door farther.
A face appeared out of the gloom and Hew staggered back. The lass sighed. “Come in, and dinnae act as if ye’ve seen a ghost. The only one here is tucked away in his shroud and not likely to harm anyone ever again.”
Iseabal’s eyes teared up at the sight of her sister’s man-servant. The strain of the past weeks had taken its toll, and she felt as if one kind word, even a kind look or a compassionate tilt of the head, would shatter her carefully constructed wall of indifference.
No one had dared answer the summons at the gate, but she’d heard the knock as she crossed the empty bailey on her return from the chapel set against the wall surrounding the tower house.
Had Marsaili answered her missive? Though she’d begged her sister to travel with all haste, even with the hounds of hell behind her, she could not have arrived this quickly. And, truth be told, Iseabal hadn’t been certain her sister would read her letter, much less ride here and provide aid.
She peered past auld Hew but saw naught but a blanket of fresh fallen snow arranged like fluffy sheep atop rocks and boulders and across low-hanging branches.
Her breath hitched. “Are ye alone? Is Marsaili not with ye? Or Flore?” Surely Hew’s sweet wife, who’d been the girls’ nurse almost since their birth twenty-three years ago, would have come to help. But Iseabal had heard from neither Hew nor Flore, or Marsaili for that matter, in the years since her sister’s marriage to the English baron.
“Aye,” Hew said. His eyes cut away, as if reluctant to fully answer her question.
“Did ye get my letter?” she asked.
“Nae.” He shook his head. “We’ve nae heard from ye these past years.”
His hands gripped his elbows, hugging them to his skinny frame, reminding Iseabal of the cold.
“Come inside,” she bade, motioning him through the gate. She closed and locked the door, pocketing the heavy metal key. Closing a hand over Hew’s forearm, she halted his steps.
“I must warn ye,” she said, capturing his attention. “Ye have noted the lack of soldiers on the wall.” She waited for Hew’s nod.
“I thought the keep was deserted,” he admitted.
Weariness drew Iseabal’s shoulders down as she remembered those who had escaped the keep no more than three days prior.
“It nearly is,” she confessed. “Da went out reiving a month back and returned with the hounds of de Wolfe on his heels.”
Hew’s aged, parchment skin blanched.
“The keep held for a sennight or so, but the English tunneled beneath the wall to the north.” She glanced over her shoulder as if she could see the damage from the postern gate. Thankfully she couldn’t, but the thundering crash of the huge stones and the screams of women and dying men still rang in her ears.
“Da was struck by a portion of the wall, and, when he regained consciousness a few hours later, the English had already burned us out.”
Iseabal wrung her hands. “There are only a few of us left. The men were either killed or taken away. They wanted to hang Da, but I begged them not to. Seeing him so close to death, their leader agreed.” Tears stung the backs of her eyes, startling her when she thought she’d shoved her emotions deep inside.
“After stripping us of food and water and anything else they could manage, they left.”
“Left ye alone?” Hew asked, indignant lines drawing his body up sharply. “With yer da dying? How many are left?”
“Six, counting me,” Iseabal replied. “Though the others are likely to bolt as soon as Da draws his last breath. I sent Marsaili a letter as soon as I could, hoping she would make the journey and find peace before Da passes.” She peered past the auld man. “Why is she not with ye?”
Hew shook his head. “I lost her,” he mourned.
Iseabal flinched. “Lost her?” she countered.
“Her husband died a little more than a month past. Her brother by marriage, a brute of a man who doesnae deserve to draw breath, kept her locked away, threatening to accuse her of Lord Andrew’s death and petition the king for her arrest if she dinnae marry him.”
“That’s against the law!” Iseabal exclaimed.
Hew shrugged. “I dinnae ken the way of the English nobles, but if she’d agreed, attention wouldnae have been drawn to the marriage, legal or no’.”
Iseabal gripped Hew’s sleeve. “Where is she?”
“She escaped a sennight ago—me with her. Her horse went lame outside of a wee village called Appleton. She agreed we should wait out the storm at the inn, but when I went back outside after securing rooms, she was gone.”
Iseabal’s hand flew to her throat. “She went on alone? Or do ye suspect foul play?”
“I dinnae ken,” Hew mourned. “’Twas another conveyance in the yard when she left. I pray she dinnae fall afoul of those men.”
“Who were they, Hew?” She tugged urgently on his arm. “Tell me!”
“The verra worst, milady,” Hew said, his face twisted in fear and grief. “’Twas the rogue known as The Saint.”
The End
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Kathryn le Veque for inviting me to be a part of this wonderful opportunity to write in her World of de Wolfe series. It was my first foray into England as a writer, and the process was immense fun! I am thrilled to be among such wonderful authors!
Thanks go to my fantastic critique group, Cate Parke, Dawn Marie Hamilton, and Derek Dodson, who helped keep me on the right path as Marsaili sassed her way through the English countryside and Lord de Wylde lost his distinctly stuffy attitude and became a man worth loving.
From the Author
Thank you so much for your interest in The World of de Wolfe! I hope you are enjoying the series and that it will encourage you to read more books by the authors in this group. Please consider leaving a review for the books you enjoy. It helps more than you know!
I love hearing from readers! You can ‘follow’ me on Amazon, or Facebook, Instagram with #cathymacrae_author, or Pinterest. Spend a bit of time wandering through my website. You can read about books, authors and the writing process on my Bits ’n Bobs blog, or find out a bit more about me, my dogs and gardening on my Wonderful Wednesday blog. Connect with me via my address cathymacrae@cathymacraeauthor.com. And if you’d like to keep up via a newsletter and discover new books, promotions, and other fun, you can sign up on my website at www.cathymacraeauthor.com.
More Books by Cathy MacRae
The Highlander’s Bride Series:
The Highlander’s Accidental Bride (Book 1)
The Highlander’s Reluctant Bride (Book 2)
The Highlander’s Tempestuous Bride (Book 3)
The Highlander’s Outlaw Bride (Book 4)
With DD MacRae
The Hardy Heroines series
Highland Escape (book 1)
The Highlander’s Viking Bride (book 2)
The Highlander’s Crusader Bride (book 3)
The Highlander’s Norse Bride, a Novella (book 4)
The Ghosts of Culloden Moor series
with other authors
Adam (book 11)
Malcolm (book 16)
MacLeod (book 21)
Patrick (book 26)