“I sent a scouting troop ahead, lass, and since they expect you to be my wife”—he grimaced—“they may have made quite a fuss. Doona mistake that for my doing. I could hardly deny my servants their … enthusiasm. They are likely beside themselves with pleasure that I am handfasted,” he muttered dryly.
Without thinking, she laid a hand on his forearm, plagued by curiosity, her animosity temporarily forgotten. “Why haven’t you wed before now?”
He glanced down at her hand on his arm. His gaze lingered overlong on her fingers. “What? Have you suddenly become interested in me?” he asked, with a mocking lift of a dark brow.
“I suppose when I saw you at Dunnottar, I saw you merely as a warrior, but here I see you—”
“As a man?” he finished for her, in a dangerous tone. “How intriguing,” he murmured. “Foolish, but intriguing.”
“Why is that foolish? You are a man. This is your home,” she said. “Your men give you their trust and loyalty, your servants are pleased to see you return. This is a spacious castle, and you must be at least thirty or thirty-five. How old are you?” Her brow furrowed as she realized that she knew very little about this man.
Circenn regarded her impassively.
Impatiently she barreled on. “Have you never been married? Surely you intend to be someday, don’t you? Don’t you want children? Do you have brothers and sisters, or are you as solitary as you make yourself out to be?”
His eyes narrowed. “Lass, I am weary from the journey. Fabricate your own answers as they may please you. For the now, let me see you to your chamber, so I might get on with my other duties. If you would like to turn your mind to a puzzle, puzzle a way out of a formal wedding in less than three moons.”
“I guess that means you can’t kill me, doesn’t it?” she said, half jesting.
He scowled. “Correct.” Then, close to her ear so no one could overhear, he said, “How could I kill a royal cousin? How could I dispose of you when the Bruce has given you to me in marriage? We’re handfasted now. We’re nearly as good as wed. Killing you now would cause more problems for me than failing to fulfill my vow ever would have.”
“So your oath—”
“Is well and truly broken,” he finished bitterly.
“Is that why you’ve been looking so angry?”
“Stop asking questions!” he thundered.
“Sorry,” Lisa said defensively.
He propelled her up the staircase by her elbow and deposited her at the entrance to her chamber, in the east wing.
“I’ll have hot water sent up so you may refresh yourself. Stay in your room for the duration of the night, lass, or I may have to kill you anyway.”
Lisa shook her head and began to turn toward the door.
“Give me your hands, lass.”
She turned back toward him. “What?”
He extended his hands. “Place your hands in mine.” It was not a request.
Lisa held out her hands warily.
Circenn closed them in his and locked his gaze with hers. He used his body, as was his way—a subtle leaning, a slight shifting, an unspoken dominance—to press her back against the stone wall beside the door, holding her gaze. Fascinated, she couldn’t tear her eyes away him.
When he stretched her hands above her head, she sucked in a worried breath.
He moved so slowly that, lulled by a false sense of security, she didn’t utter a word. Gently, he brushed his lips against hers. It was incredibly intimate, being kissed so slowly and tenderly. Had he kissed her heatedly, it wouldn’t have been nearly as devastating.
With excruciating leisure, he kissed her so slowly that she could hear a dozen of her own heartbeats between each slight alteration in the caress of his lips. She dropped her head back against the wall and closed her eyes, lost in the butterfly-light friction of his lips brushing hers as if he had all the time in the world. The castle suddenly seemed unnaturally silent, her breath uncommonly loud. If it was five minutes or fifteen that he kissed her in such a fashion, she had no way of knowing. She would have held still forever.
He captured her wrists with one hand and, with the other, he traced the contour of her cheekbone. Her heart sank as she realized how close she was to being utterly seduced by his tantalizingly slow and delicious touches.
His fingers pressed at the corner of her mouth and her lips parted on a sigh of pleasure. He continued kissing her, but did not offer his tongue, and it was driving her mad. Slowly. Gently. With intimacy so prolonged that it made her aware of every nuance of what he was doing. He drew back, his gaze dark, and ran his finger across her lower lip. Instinctively, she touched his finger with her tongue.
With a husky groan, he cradled her head in his hands, closed his mouth over hers, and slipped a long velvety stroke of his tongue against hers. The moment she melted against him, he drew back sharply, spun on his heel, and stalked away.
Her lips tingled, and she touched the tips of her fingers to her mouth as he walked down the corridor. At the end of the hallway, he glanced back over his shoulder, and when he saw her standing there with her fingers pressed to her mouth, he flashed her a smile of masculine satisfaction. He knew the effect he had on her.
She stepped into her chamber and slammed the door shut.
* * *
Something had changed between them, she realized, during the ride from Dunnottar to Brodie. Or perhaps shortly after they’d arrived, when he’d left her side looking so angry and come back looking sad. He seemed more … human, less the ruthless savage. Or was she beginning to trust him, driven by the dawning realization that she had no one else to turn to?
Yawning and eager to stretch out on something besides the hard ground, she looked around the chamber. It was beautiful, the walls hung with palls of silk and tapestries that looked as if they’d been stolen from England. The thought amused her greatly, that Circenn decorated his castle with stolen English goods. Her bed, canopied with curtains of sheer ivory and covered with dozens of pillows, was so wide she could lie across it without her legs sticking off the edge. The headboard was a wonder of drawers and cubbyholes, and the maids had sprinkled the nooks and crannies with herbs and dried flowers.
Of course, they’d gone to such pains to make her chamber welcoming and bright because they thought she was going to be mistress of this castle, but she knew better. There was no way she would still be in the fourteenth century three months from now. It was simply not an option. Come tomorrow, she resolved sleepily, lulled by the wine she’d drunk and the gently burning fire, she would track down the flask and get back to her own time. She drifted off to sleep.
* * *
Lisa was running as fast as she could, chasing her mother through the halls of the hospital. She’d be able to catch up with her if the doctors would just quit pushing her bed so fast! Didn’t they understand that Catherine needed her?
But if they did, they didn’t care. They wound down one hallway and up the next, turned right and circled around, almost as if they were purposefully trying to elude her. The entire time she chased them, her mother was struggling to sit up, holding her hand out, reaching imploringly for her. Several times Lisa came within inches of grasping that fragile hand, only to lose it when the doctors picked up a sudden burst of speed.
Finally she closed in on them near the reception desk. The desk was situated in a corner, with an aisle all around it, but there was only one hallway open to the left. There was no way they could escape her. She would cut them off, by circling around to the left, and gather Catherine up—she weighed so little now!—and take her home, where she wanted to be.
But as she raced around and blocked the hallway, an elevator appeared in the previously solid wall, and the doctors rushed her mother in, glancing at Lisa reprovingly.
“Lisa!” Catherine cried, as the doors began to close.
Lisa pushed forward, straining against the suddenly thickened air that prevented her from moving. She watched in horror as the elevator door closed and her
mother was lost to her forever.
ARMAND RODE SWIFTLY THROUGH THE FOREST AS DAWN broke over the high country, glancing frequently over his shoulder to ascertain that he wasn’t being followed. Renaud had been far too curious about his urge to go for a solitary ride beyond the walls, but Armand had told him he needed to meditate, that his faith was often renewed by the breaking day and he found his prayers more easily recited in God’s natural splendor.
Armand had rolled his eyes and cursed. God’s natural temple was not, nor would ever be, enough for him. Certainly not now, living in the abject poverty and humiliation he’d endured since the overthrow of their Order. He longed for a fine roof over his head, luxurious surroundings, wealth, and respect. He’d lost all of those things when they’d been driven out of France, ousted by King Philippe the Fair, who had desired the Templars’ wealth.
Many had coveted that wealth, and feared the Templars’ growing power, but only Philippe had been clever and avaricious enough—and had been owed enough political favors—to bring the mighty Order crashing to its knees. Being forced to his knees was not a position Armand could accept. His life had been precisely as he’d wanted it, and each day he’d come closer to the true secrets of the Order, becoming more trusted and taken into greater confidences. As Commander of Knights, he’d nearly been able to taste the privilege and power of the enticing inner circle he’d been laboring to penetrate. Then the false arrests had been made and the knights had been driven from their homeland. Only a barbaric, excommunicated king had been willing to grant them clemency. When the Order of Templars had been dissolved by papal decree in 1307, no order of suppression was issued in Scotland; and under Robert the Bruce, the Templars had sought haven and become the Militi Templi Scotia.
Ha, he thought morosely, more like the Minutiae Puppets Scotia, for they danced to a new king’s tune now, a king who, while he did not seek to take from them, had no wealth to confer upon them, no respect and no lands. They were fugitives, hunted and reviled.
But Armand Berard would not be so for long. The recent years of running and hiding, of pretending to keep the faith when the Order was so utterly destroyed, had firmed his resolve. His brother knights might cling to the absurd hope that they would be able to rebuild their Order in Scotland and eventually regain their prominence, but Armand knew better. The shining hour of the Knights Templar had passed.
He pitied his pious brothers, who believed that power was never to be used for personal gain. For what other reason would one ever use it?
He cursed and spat furiously. He’d been so close—so near the forbidden knowledge of the Templars’ true power.
Armand reined in his mount, ducking under a low-hanging limb and slowing to a trot as he entered the clearing. He nodded a greeting to the cloaked rider awaiting him there.
“What have you for us, Berard?”
Armand smiled. It had been impossible to get word to his co-conspirator, James Comyn, while stationed at Dunnottar, but he hadn’t had anything to tell him at the time. In the past week, however, he had come upon powerful information and knew it was a portent of good things to come. Armand Berard would sell his services for wealth and titles in England, and set about making up for lost time with wine, women, and weaving his way into the inner circles of Edward’s court, by whatever means were necessary. He was a muscular, attractive man, and word was that Edward had a special fondness for personal services from well-favored men. Armand smiled, pondering how he would bend the English king to his will.
“Have you been able to find out any more about Brodie?” the Comyn pressed impatiently.
Armand regarded the thin, sadistic face of his companion. Grizzled white brows arched over pale blue eyes that were far colder than the iciest loch. “Little. He is a private man and those closest to him do not speak of him freely.” Armand tightened his hold on the reins, soothing his mount to a standstill.
“Edward is advocating laying siege to his castle. He wants the hallows, Berard, and he grows impatient. Have you been able to confirm they are there?”
“As yet it is still rumor. But now that I am finally in his keep, I will be able to search thoroughly. That’s what Edward wanted, wasn’t it—a spy within his walls? Bid him be content that someone has finally managed to penetrate Brodie, and grant me time to search. It would be better that I find the spear and the sword than you storm his walls and try to take them,” Armand warned.
Find them he would, and then sell them to the highest bidder. The four hallows had been under the protection of the Templars until the Order fell. If he could now lay his hands on the Spear that Roars for Blood—the lance that had allegedly wounded Christ’s side—there would be no limit to the wealth and power he might obtain. If he also found the Sword of Light, rumored to blaze with holy fire when wielded, his future would be assured. Allegedly, the cauldron and the Stone of Destiny were also somewhere in Brodie’s keep. Now that he was being housed in the middle of that keep, Armand would not fail to exploit the opportunity.
To dissuade Edward’s men from attacking Castle Brodie before he located the hallows, he warned, “Brodie has fifty Templars in residence, in addition to his troops, and if he indeed possesses the sacred objects, he possesses the ability to crush you before you so much as breach his gate.”
The Comyn shifted irritably. “We know that. It has thus far restrained Edward’s hand.”
“Besides,” Armand added thoughtfully, “I wonder if he truly has them. If he did, one would think he would have turned them to Scotland’s aid long ago.”
“Perhaps he is as self-serving as you and keeps them for the power they give him. Or perhaps he is devout, and believes they may only be used for God’s will.”
“It scarce matters, for I now have the means to lure him forth,” Armand replied.
The Comyn straightened abruptly and snapped his fingers. “Information. Now.”
“It will cost you,” Armand said coldly. “Dearly.”
“Edward will pay dearly if you deliver Castle Brodie and its notorious master to us. I assume you have a price in mind?”
“No less than my weight in purest gold.”
“And what do you offer us for such an extravagance?”
“Circenn recently became betrothed, to one Lisa MacRobertson, who happens to be Robert the Bruce’s cousin by blood,” Armand said. “I will deliver her into your hands. How you destroy Brodie from there is your doing.”
James Comyn’s excitement was palpable, and it translated to his mount, who nickered and paced in skittish circles. Calming him with a thin white hand, Comyn kneed the horse close to Armand’s. “Is she fair?” he demanded, his eyes glittering.
“Extraordinarily,” Armand assured him, knowing the woman would beg for death at this man’s hands, long before it was granted. “She is well curved and lush. A fiery woman, too proud for her own good.”
The Comyn rubbed his hands. “Once we have her, Brodie will follow. Edward will delight in caging and quartering another of the Bruce’s kin.”
“I will bring her to you for the gold and a title and lands in England.”
“Greedy, are we not?” James mocked.
“If I bring the sword and spear, I may ask for the crown,” Armand said, with a chilly smile.
“For the sword and the spear, I might try to help you get it,” his companion purred.
Armand raised his hand in a mock salute. “To England.”
The Comyn smiled. “To England.”
Armand rode back to Castle Brodie well pleased. He need only entice the woman outside the walls of the castle, and his new life would begin.
* * *
Lisa sighed as she rummaged through the chest. Four days had passed since they’d arrived at Castle Brodie, and her quest to find the flask had not been successful. She was beginning to despair. The man could have a thousand hiding places in a castle so large. For all she knew, he might have buried it in the dungeon—which was one place she wasn’t in a hurry to see. She now understood th
e expression “looking for a needle in a haystack.” Castle Brodie had two floors, with dozens of other floors in the turrets and towers that popped up at unexpected intervals, and the wings circled around not one but four enclosed courtyards. Quite simply, the castle was so large it could take her a year to search every room thoroughly. She’d tried to think like Circenn, to put herself inside his mind, but that had proved impossible; the man was an enigma to her.
He’d carefully avoided her since their arrival and had meals sent up to her room. She had seen him stomping about the outer bailey with his men. Once, he’d glanced up as she’d watched him through a window, as if he’d felt her gaze. The smile he’d given her had bared teeth and not much more. His eyes had been distant, troubled. Defiantly, she’d blown him a kiss to agitate him. It had worked. He’d pivoted in a whirl of cloak and stalked away.
Lisa rubbed her temples and returned her attention to the chest she’d been digging through. She was better off not thinking about him.
“Here ye be, lassie. I was wondering where ye’d gotten off to in this drafty old castle.”
Lisa abruptly stopped poking through the chest and turned around. Her eyes felt gritty and heavy; she’d woken to a pillow wet from tears again this morning. She dimly recalled her dream—she’d been having horrible ones for days now, and she felt bruised from them. But her nightmares had galvanized her into action. She had to find the flask.
Her hands fell to her sides. Eirren stood a few paces away, leaning against a chair and watching her, his eyes bright with amusement.
“Have ye found what yer searching for?” he asked.
“I wasn’t searching for anything,” Lisa lied hastily. “I was merely admiring the room and wondering what treasures this chest might hold. I can’t help myself, I’m a curious girl,” she added breezily.
“Me mam used to tell me curiosity was one of the eight deadly sins.”
“There are only seven sins,” Lisa said defensively, “and curiosity can be a good thing. It encourages one to learn.”
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