by Joanne Rock
“If you had seen the devastations of battle that I have, you would appreciate the humanity of a blood less takeover.” He did not want to think about how vulnerable Cristiana and her old father had been before he arrived. “Do you have any idea how easily Domhnaill could have fallen into far more malicious hands than mine? The whole of Scotland knew of your father’s infirmities since he hasn’t shown his face in Malcolm’s court for years. Your keep was ripe for taking.”
“And you had to be the man to benefit from our misfortune? It wasn’t enough for you that your family twisted a knife in our backs once before? You would not let us rest until you claimed all the same wealth you sought five years ago.”
He told himself it was just as well she thought he’d been gold hunting from the start. His pride would only suffer along with the rest of him if she knew how she’d conquered far more with a simple kiss than he’d managed in all this time.
“You are healthy and safe from harm, as is our daughter. As is your father. In a time of unrest when a laird fails in his duties as your father neglected his for too long, that is a great deal to be thankful for. And even if you are not, I am thankful that you have not known more misfortune in this shift of power, though I truly regret you feel misused.”
Unsure how else to explain himself when she was ready to believe the worst of him—still—he turned on his heel to leave.
“I am thankful for all of those things.” Her voice was so soft he feared he would see tears in her eyes if he confronted her now, and that he could not bear. Not when his grip on his own emotions was tenuous at best.
“I do not expect thanks—” He started.
“But how am I to feel when you have deceived me at every turn? You could have arrived at my keep to request a meeting with the laird. Instead you requested shelter to entreat me to open the gates, all the while planning to betray me once you were within the walls—”
Within the walls. The words unlocked a puzzle that had been rattling around his head.
“Hellfire.” At once, he understood what had been niggling at his brain ever since Edwina and Cullen had arrived. They’d come with a mix of retainers and men-at-arms not well known to one another. They’d fought a battle and lost men en route.
What if some of their attackers secretly joined the travelling party? What if traitors even now slept in his keep? Or worse, opened the gates to still more while they slept?
“What is it?” Cristiana’s face paled, perhaps reading some of the gut-wrenching fear that just twisted around his innards.
Edwina stumbled sleepily into the chamber, a blanket around her shoulders like a cape, her red-gold hair a mirror image of her sister’s.
“What is it?” she mumbled, peering from Cristiana to Duncan and back again.
“I think our defenses have been breached. Invaders could have entered with Edwina unbeknownst to her.” He hauled open the door to the corridor and sprinted down the hall, shouting as he left. “Find Leah. Lock yourselves in the keep and do not emerge from there unless I come for you.”
Cristiana tore down a winding set of steps and then up another, following the convoluted path to the children’s sleeping chamber. Was she going in the correct direction? Panic had robbed her of rational thought, her maternal heart rattling her whole body with every erratic beat.
Her chest burned as she panted for air. The way to the chamber was purposefully confusing, intended to shield the occupants from just the kind of attack Duncan was afraid had happened—enemies lurking inside the walls. But the hidden passages would present no problem to Donegal’s men, many of whom had once called this keep home before defecting to the side of the traitor.
“Cristiana?” Edwina’s voice carried through the darkness from somewhere behind her.
“Up here.” Cristiana held a hand to her heart, thinking if she could slow the frantic beat, maybe her thoughts would clear. “There is a narrow staircase that veers off to the left of the main steps.”
She could picture where her sister had grown confused. Why couldn’t she remember the way from here? The trek through the dark had taken only moments, but it felt like hours when she wasn’t sure if Leah would be safe at the other end. It was like a dream where nameless terrors chased her and she could never find her way out of a dim maze.
The remembered corridors of Domhnaill overlapped with the less-familiar floor plan of Culcanon, a sea of maps and directions blurring when she needed to find her way to her little girl.
She heard Edwina approach, but did not look up, her mind on the verge of remembering a route she’d travelled several times but forgot in a haze of fear. All at once, her cloudy thoughts crystallized, growing sharp once again. The halls and passages of Culcanon and Domhnaill became distinct, her thoughts focused. Oddly, she only remembered where Leah slept during her brain’s fitful seizure.
While she struggled to unlink the overlapping keeps in her mind, she also suddenly realized where the treasure must have been hidden from the Norsemen back at Domhnaill.
“This way.” She grabbed Edwina’s hand and pulled her up the rest of the steps, desperate to see Leah. She had never known such helpless fear.
“I will never forgive myself if I endangered Leah by coming here.” Edwina’s strangled sob echoed all the fear Cristiana felt inside. “I was so intent on revenge when I should have been grateful my daughter—your daughter—was safe.”
Turning a sharp corner and finding a door to yet another staircase, Cristiana led her sister up it.
“A mother’s heart always finds a way to feel guilt.” Cristiana knew this all too well. “We blame ourselves if a child sneezes or speaks inappropriately at the table or tumbles down a hill. If Leah is not there, I will say it is my fault for ever allowing Duncan to keep us here. Or for not bringing her in my chamber every night—”
“Mother?”
The small, sweet voice of her daughter bounced through the halls to Cristina’s ears. She nearly sank to the cold stone floor with relief.
“Leah!” She hadn’t realized she could run even faster, yet somehow she did. “My angel.” Spotting the girl’s face peeking out from the large chamber door, Cristiana raced to close the distance between them. “You are well.”
She wrapped the girl in her arms, squeezing, kissing, hugging. Edwina did the same, squeezing, kissing and hugging both of them. Edwina had introduced herself to the child as her “aunt,” and Leah had taken to her immediately. It was wrong of Cristiana to feel any envy of her sister after what Edwina had gone through, but she could not help the occasional twinges, knowing Edwina’s bond with Leah was an unbreakable blood tie. For now, Cristiana was merely grateful they were all safe.
“I heard your voices in the hall,” Leah told them, brushing her hair from her eyes. “The sounds echo and make it hard to sleep. There have been so many footsteps.”
Slowly, the child’s words filtered through her relief. She’d heard the sound of someone walking outside the corridors? Enough to wake her from her bed to see what happened outside her chamber?
Unease closed a cold fist about her gut.
“Footsteps?” She released Leah at the same time as Edwina, puzzling over that comment. Some of the footfall sounds would have been hers and Edwina’s. But their slippers were far quieter than the echo of a man’s heavy boot.
“Do not move.” A deep, masculine voice filled the corridor just as Leah let out a scream.
Cristiana reached for her, but the child was yanked back forcefully out of her reach. A man-at-arms thick as a pillar held a blade to Leah’s delicate neck, the silver glinting dully in the inky darkness broken only by the glow of the hearth from inside the children’s sleeping chamber.
Edwina clutched Cristiana’s arm, her fingers like talons in her skin. The sister, who had once been afraid of nothing, was more terrified than Cristiana had ever seen her. Yet she could not possibly feel half the fear Cristiana did.
Do not let him hurt her, she prayed.
“She is only a child
,” Cristiana warned, wondering if the man possessed a soul to touch such a helpless creature. “There are more lucrative hostages—”
“There’s only one that will do for my lord.” The man kept Leah pressed tightly to his side, his splayed palm the size of her small back. “As the first heir to Culcanon, she will help us claim what is rightfully his.”
They knew. Somehow, Donegal and his men had learned of Leah’s existence. The truth she’d kept hidden so carefully was a secret no more.
“Donegal will skewer you if you harm this child.” Edwina’s threat sounded vicious despite the tearful gasp that escaped at the end of it.
“That is why I hope you will be smart enough to stand back and let me take her.” The brigard brandished the blade toward them, making them jump back a step.
Leah yelped, a small, helpless sound that tugged at Cristiana’s heart. Then, quicker than a blink, the invader disappeared down another passage—a corridor Cristiana did not recognize.
“Do not worry, Leah,” Cristiana called out blindly, counting on the echoing stone to carry the message to her daughter. “Your papa will come for you.”
And he would. While Edwina alerted the maids and other children still in the chamber behind them, Cristiana hastened down the stairwell to find Duncan. He would save Leah.
Hadn’t he risked his life before to save her? He would do so again. This much she knew. In fact, as she ran past the timber reinforcements and doorways toward the main keep, Cristiana was overwhelmed by her own certainty, a faith in Duncan in at least this much.
And wasn’t that what mattered most? That he kept her daughter safe? Of all the times to realize nothing else mattered…
But if she thought about it, she would have to admit that every way he’d deceived her had been his way of keeping her safe—and later, Leah, as well. He’d warned Cristiana that a takeover could be bloody, and that his manipulation had been better because no lives had been lost. But she could not see past her pride to the truth of that until someone invaded her home and dragged her child from her bed to help a scum-sucking wretch in his grasp for power.
She’d been a fool to question Duncan’s bid for Domhnaill, when he had harmed no one. When she had let years lapse without urging her father to find a replacement to rule.
She only hoped it wasn’t too late to tell him she had been blind. Prideful and stubborn. But first, she had to let him know that Leah was in terrible, terrible danger.
Chapter Fifteen
D uncan was halfway to his horse when he stopped himself.
And thought.
He’d planned to leave Culcanon’s walls to engage this brigand army of rebels that plagued his people—to call out his rogue brother and meet him with his sword. But with the still, cold air of winter blowing around him, his passions cooled and reason reined again.
He’d planned to leave Cullen behind in charge of the women and ferreting out anyone who’d sneaked into the keep with his party. For his part, Duncan would lead a charge to flush the outlaws from the forest and rid his lands of his brother’s dangerous ambition.
But why resort to the sword now when he’d accomplished so much through shrewdness and diplomacy? Hadn’t he travelled the continent for the king all those years to learn skills that spared lives and left towns in tact?
“We have unfinished business here,” he called to his second in command—a younger knight, since he’d left Rory in charge of Domhnaill. “Spread out and man the walls on the ground. A traitor seeks to breach our defenses tonight and we must be ready to stop the scourge where it flows.”
Confusion followed his announcement. There was muttering among the men as the horses stomped impatiently in the cold. But his second in command barked out orders on top of the questions and grumbles, orchestrating a mass movement of their limited resources.
He was almost back to the keep when Cristiana ran out the main doors, Cullen close behind her. By the deathly pallor of her skin, he feared he already knew what she would say.
“They’ve taken Leah.” Her voice shook, but not half as much as her hand as she latched on to his arm and squeezed. “A man I did not recognize held her at the point of his blade and said he would take her to his overlord. I can only assume he means Donegal.”
Rage rumbled up out of his gut and spewed through his blood like a poison. The need to lift his own sword to avenge anyone threatening that precious girl—his girl—was so potent he almost forgot his cursed plan to wield words before steel.
“Duncan, please.” Cristiana’s urgent voice called him back from the darkness. “He disappeared down a side hall near the children’s chamber. I did not dare to follow them for fear he would hurt her—”
“Of course.” He had not thought of it before, but then he did not consider anyone who remained in the village would be loyal to Donegal after the way his half brother had run the lands into the ground and robbed the keep of any wealth he could move. “There is a passage to the outskirts of the town, but still within the walls.”
His fury still simmered to think of a man with a sword standing so close to Cristiana and daring to touch his daughter. The light, falling snow did not begin to soothe the hot anger churning within, but it did remind him that Leah faced another danger in her captor’s hands. A child could freeze in no time at all being dragged around through this kind of weather.
He turned to Cullen. “Ask one of the servers to show you the staircase near the children’s chamber that leads to the village. It must be barred up and guarded immediately.”
The man nodded and left, his unquestioning haste to do Duncan’s bidding chasing any remaining doubts he might have had about the Blackstone knight from his mind.
He wrapped an arm about Cristiana, a plan forming. As much as he wanted to wreak unholy vengeance on anyone who would wield a weapon at a child, he was more certain than ever he needed to trap the treacherous within the walls before he could stomp out the brigands outside.
“You think we can surprise them at the other end?” She hastened her step. “I can take Leah and you can throw that pig of a man into the dungeon until he rots.”
Here was the woman who had spent her youth hunting alongside her father. She was strong. Ready to fight. What would their marriage have been like if she’d been willing to fight for him?
“No.” Reaching the outer wall of the keep, he steered her toward the stairs leading up to the ramparts. “We will put our people to work and help them reclaim their homes and their safety.”
“What about Leah?” She maintained his fast pace, even though he suspected she’d far rather run to the end of the keep’s escape route in hopes of saving the girl herself.
“This will bring her back,” he assured her, finally seeing the way to unseat Donegal for good.
As they reached the top and broke out into the sunlight again, Duncan called to the herald and asked for all the townspeople to be brought together in the courtyard. His men would remain on watch around the perimeter of the town’s walls, but everyone else began to assemble as soon as the herald brought his horn to his lips. From all around Culcanon, maids and churls, tradesmen and farmers who worked his land departed their homes and gathered in the courtyard.
No doubt they responded all the more quickly, since the whole town knew of the recent unrest. The riding party Duncan had called and then dismissed earlier had roused much interest.
“You will speak to them?” Cristiana worried her lip with her teeth, peering over the ramparts as if she expected the villagers to begin launching arrows their way any moment.
“You already know I will protect Leah with my sword and my life.” He tugged her back from the wall, placing her by his side, where he would address the throng. “Trust me when I tell you this is a more potent strength.”
She looked disbelieving, and he supposed he should be flattered her faith in his knightly skill was so great. Mostly, he feared she would never bring herself to trust him again.
Steeling himself to accomplish t
he task before him and bring Leah home, he turned back to the ramparts and lifted his voice.
“People of Culcanon, it’s been too many years since I lived among you.” He knew time was of the essence today, but he could not rush his plea. Not when the reward could be so great. “In my work for our king and my efforts to obtain a worthy lady for our lands, I have been away more than I’ve been here. I tell myself this is why some of you have chosen to support the only leader you’ve known since my father died, a leader who fouled the lands with his greed, selling off crops to outsiders that could have fed you.”
Duncan took stock of the utter quiet in the court yard. Never had a thousand people been so silent. He could hear his family banner snap in the breeze beside him as he looked out to study the upturned faces below. He scoured the far reaches of the lands with his gaze, hoping to see Leah and her captor hidden among the rest.
“But I tell you now that my half brother has for saken us. You, me and even the fortress my ancestors built two hundred years ago. Donegal has stripped the keep of every ornament and bauble he could sell to support a rebellion that will never take place. And do you know why that rebellion will not take place?”
He paused, folding his arms upon the battlements for a moment while his people considered the question. Then, leaning back again to stand tall, he continued.
“Because I will not suffer a traitor in my home any more than you will suffer traitors among you.”
There was a roll of mutterings and murmurs at this proclamation. Duncan listened to it, satisfied with the ebbs and flows of the crowd’s reactions, which he could not have scripted any better. Now all he had to do was incite them to action.
If only he was as skilled at influencing Cristiana.
“We know they are there,” he called out over the villagers. “Donegal receives supplies and man power from somewhere each moonrise. The odds that those supplies come from supporters within Culcanon’s walls are overwhelming. So I tell you this today. Anyone supporting my brother has my blessing to pack and leave the gates by nightfall. For families with children, I will even be sure you have enough food for a sennight. But anyone who chooses to remain will renounce all ties to an outlaw and a thief—” he hardened his voice, allowing the fierce ness of his anger to come through “—for my half brother has stolen my daughter and sole heir.”
