My True Love

by Karen Ranney

  The first sign that there was trouble was a shout from the guard at the rear of the column.

  But he’d barely had time to draw his sword before he was surrounded by screaming men.

  Stephen berated himself for being so lost in his thoughts that he hadn’t noted them, even as he pulled his sword free.

  It was Ian who stayed his hand. “It’s her father, you fool.”

  Stephen shouted to his own men to stand down. A command that was met with instant obedience and glances of surprise.

  At the center of the shouting Scots sat a mountain of a man. His face was immutable as granite. His beard was white, an odd match for the brown hair on his head.

  Nature, that fickle Scottish witch, banished the clouds and dried up the rain. As if she feared the presence of the man who sat staring at him impassively.

  It was quite a welcome. Very impressive.

  “You’ll be English,” Robert Sinclair said.

  Stephen nodded.

  He looked over the twelve men who’d moved into defensive positions. “A fighting force,” he said. “But a small one. Do you think yourself such great warriors, then?” He smiled.

  “I’m here to escort Anne home, not to fight.”

  Sinclair nodded, then turned to his daughter.

  He neither moved to greet her nor stayed the men who did. She seemed summoned to him by the very nature of his silence. She moved toward him slowly. Their horses were nose to nose before he spoke.

  “So, Daughter,” he said, his voice deep and booming. “You’ve finally come home.”

  Anne nodded. But she didn’t look the least cowed. In fact, her chin rose, and she stared at her father.

  “With an Englishman who calls you Anne.”

  She nodded again.

  Robert Sinclair turned and glared at him.

  Later, Stephen realized he should have listened to his instincts. They told him that Sinclair’s antipathy was not based solely on a father’s protectiveness. But even if he had known that Robert Sinclair sided with the Parliamentarians, it was too late to do anything about it. He and his men were outnumbered by Scots and in a strange country. Still, he would have chosen a different foe.

  It was a pity Sinclair didn’t feel the same way about him.

  “Is that your Dunniwerth?” Stephen asked late that afternoon.

  The huge red-brick castle squatted on the landscape like a giant in a bad temper.

  The voice that answered him was laced with humor. “I told you it was ugly.”

  “It’s large,” he said, trying to find something of merit to say. “Sturdy.”

  “It’s a fine place,” Robert Sinclair said from behind him. Ever since they’d been surrounded by the Scots, Sinclair had been no more than five feet from him. Stephen wondered if he would have mounted Faeren and sat behind him if his stallion had allowed it.

  He smiled, a not altogether humorous smile. He would have liked to have seen Sinclair try.

  People began to come out of their homes, neat little dwellings not far removed from a small English cottage. Most of the people of Dunniwerth stood open-mouthed as they passed. One woman cried, then shoved the corner of her apron in her mouth.

  It was as if they viewed a ghost.

  Their horses walked up the road, accompanied by the dawning sound of wails and cries and screams of gladness. There was no gate to Dunniwerth, encircled as if was by a mound of earth. Almost, Stephen thought, like the inverse of a moat. They passed through the earthen wall just as the double iron-studded doors were being drawn open.

  A strikingly lovely woman flew down the steps. She stumbled, then righted herself. Anne dismounted, ran to her mother. The two women embraced.

  It was a homecoming that called for tears.

  He nudged his horse close, faced her father even as his frown turned to a glower.

  “She’s tired,” Stephen said, “and any interrogation can wait.”

  “It can, can it?”

  It was like facing a burly bear, Stephen thought. He nodded.

  “And a welcome home?” Sinclair asked. “Will that wait, too?”

  The glower changed to a grin as Robert Sinclair dismounted and held open his arms, went and extended them around the two women. As they embraced, it was only then that Stephen saw the tears. Not only on Anne’s and her mother’s, but on the face of Robert Sinclair as well.

  Chapter 28

  The dungeons of Dunniwerth were as dim and dreary as the rest of the castle. A lone candle stuck in its own wax was the only illumination. The cell Stephen was in was a small square, not unlike an oubliette. But there was no trapdoor in the ceiling, only a door with a small grate over the window. Altogether, it was sufficient to allow him air but not freedom. He had an odd thought of Sebastian of Langlinais, wondered if his ancestor had been as enraged as he felt at this moment. Sebastian’s imprisonment had lasted a year, however. Not the mere hours he’d been chained to a dank cell.

  It had occurred to him, in the past hours, that he and Sebastian had a great deal in common. Both of them were men who would much rather learn than fight. Both felt a tie to Langlinais that was greater than most bonds. They had each been prepared to give up their life for a cause they held sacred, only to discover that what had glittered so promisingly was only an illusion.

  He had admired Sebastian because he was a war rior, but it was more than his battle prowess he thought of when he recalled his ancestor. It was the statue he left behind, the improvements he’d made to Langlinais.

  His courage as he prepared to go into exile, and his sacrifice because of his leprosy. His enduring love for one woman.

  The candle sputtered. It was made from drippings, the cheapest method and the most fetid. The faint light revealed cobwebs being spun by industrious and plump spiders. Stephen watched the progress of a pair of flies coming closer and closer to the web.

  “Beware, my friend,” he said softly. “Trust not in women flies. They’ll buzz around you with their diaphanous wings and lure you into danger. Before you know it, you’ll find yourself trapped in a shiny web, wondering how you got there.”

  “I wonder if it’s a fate you perceive for yourself?”

  An eye peered at him from the grate.

  Stephen lay on the stone bench carved from the rock wall, one arm draped over a raised knee. He didn’t bother to change his posture when a clang of keys announced that the door was soon to be opened.

  “I wonder, too, what my daughter would say to hear herself likened to a fly.”

  “I doubt it would concern her, sir,” he said to Robert Sinclair. “If you have not noticed, your daughter has a temperament suited ideally to herself. She does what she wishes when she wishes, and the devil take the hindmost.”

  Sinclair’s laughter was surprising. So, too, the look of amusement he sent him.

  “I see you know her well. Her mother would say that she takes after me.”

  “Not a charming legacy for a daughter.” It was baiting a bear, but he wasn’t feeling particularly agreeable at this moment. The irritation he felt after being thrown into the dungeon a few moments after their arrival at Dunniwerth had deepened into rage after a few hours.

  Sinclair stood watching him with equanimity. Why shouldn’t he? He was not imprisoned in a dungeon.

  “My daughter says you are an earl and a man of much property.”

  Stephen smiled. “My house has burned to the ground, and if the king loses this war, my title will no doubt be passed to one of the victors. Or abolished entirely.”

  “Did she tell you, this daughter of mine, that my title equals yours?”

  “No,” he said, not unduly surprised.

  “But my house is not so fragile that it will burn,” Sinclair said.

  “I doubt anyone would want to set fire to it,” Stephen said. More like tear it down brick by brick and begin again.

  He had the distinct impression that Robert Sinclair circled him as a fox might a nest of eggs, interested in devouring him whole
.

  “Have you any wealth remaining?”

  Stephen fingered the ribbon in his pocket. A length of scarlet, to keep her close to him.

  “Is there a reason you wish to know?”

  “Only to gauge your worth in ransom.”

  “It does not matter,” Robert Sinclair said when he remained silent. “I’m to turn you over to the Covenanters in a day or so.”

  There was a look in his eyes, one that gave Stephen the feeling that Robert Sinclair was secretly laughing at him.

  “My daughter didn’t tell you that either, did she?”

  “That you sided with the Parliamentarians? No,” he said wryly, “she neglected to mention that little detail.”

  “She’s a brave lass, is my Anne,” he said. “But too silent at times.”

  “I can only agree,” Stephen said dryly.

  Sinclair glanced at the corner where the spider’s web sat like a drape of silver. One of the flies had become ensnared in it. The other flew blissfully away.

  Sinclair’s laughter could be heard for long minutes, then the echo of it vied with the sound of the sputtering candle.

  More than a little irony in this moment. He had taken such effort to escape Penroth and the Parliamentarians only to be imprisoned by their allies, Scottish Covenanters. He didn’t delude himself that they would be any more sympathetic to his plight than Penroth.

  For the whole earth is the sepulcher of famous men, and their story is not graven only on stone over their native earth, but lives on far away without visible symbol. Woven in to the stuff of other men’s lives. For you now it remains to rival what they have done, knowing the secret of happiness to be freedom and the secret of freedom a brave heart. The words of Thucydides echoed in his mind. Where had they come from? A boy’s mind. A dreamer’s thoughts. A young man in love with ideals and principles. The greatness of Athens had fascinated him. The ideals espoused by the historian had appealed to him. But he’d learned in the years between youth and age that words such as freedom and bravery and even happiness were generic ones. They meant different things to each man.

  He wondered if duty, honor, and loyalty might be as generally interpreted.

  Duty. He’d congratulated himself on the fact that he’d saved the lives of the villagers and the inhabitants of Harrington Court. He should have returned to Oxford that day, instead of deserting the king once more. Yet, he’d been curiously unwilling to pick up his sword and fight again. It had not been cowardice, but a distaste for the very cause that the king espoused.

  He could not even claim that he had been dutiful or honorable in the matter of bringing Anne safely back to Scotland. Another emotion had been at the core of that impulse, one less open to scrutiny than most. He wanted her safe and protected. Protected by him.

  But he’d also wanted to spend more time with her. In his mind, he’d thought they might be enchanted days. But she had not smiled at him with great charm, nor wished to talk to him of weighty topics. Nor had she said the one thing he’d wished to hear. Stay with me.

  Honor? A nobility of mind? His reputation? How was honor to be measured? By the manner of his death? By the grace he accepted it? Not an altogether pleasant thought.

  Loyalty. To what?

  There was no longer any principle associated with this war. Men might argue that the right of kings took precedence over the common man. Or it might be said that freedom to worship God as a man chose was greater than any loyalty to a monarch. Either way, it no longer mattered. War was, simply put, a test of courage. Humanity versus cruelty. The winner was not always the man in the right. It very often was, he thought, the one who could be more brutal than his foe.

  He realized that unlike that boy he’d been, he didn’t particularly want to die. He didn’t want his bones to inspire the dreams of other young men.

  Loyalty? To what? A king who did not tolerate the advice of others? A monarch who wished to govern in absolutes?

  Duty, honor, loyalty—a set of principles that had ruled his life.

  Sebastian had been dedicated to the knightly virtues. Generosity, compassion, a free and frank spirit, courtliness. Generosity, a lesson Stephen had learned from his father’s example. He would continue to aid the inhabitants of Lange on Terne. Compassion. He believed himself capable of it. A free and frank spirit? He had not felt free in years, even though honesty was a trait he prized. Courtliness? Too much experience in it, if the word was taken in its broader meaning. He was tired to the bones of simpering, fawning people who were adept at intrigue and cunning. Even Sinclair was a better opponent. Stephen would always know how he felt.

  A knight, however, might think the word to mean the protection of a damsel, a fair lady. Did it matter if the lady fair in question had a will to match his own? Or that there were occasional flashes of anger in her eyes? More a woman of fire than a delicate flower of womanhood.

  He really should be angry at her. But that emotion had strangely been stripped from him by another, more powerful realization. One that would change his life and most certainly his future.

  Stephen smiled.

  Chapter 29

  “You haven’t said why you left Dunniwerth, Anne.”

  The words were uttered as both a greeting and a warning. She turned and watched as her father closed the door behind him, walked into the room.

  There had been numerous times she’d been summoned to this chamber as a child. For minor infractions and other sins less minor. She’d been lectured and chastised and punished here. As a young woman, her father had called her here to speak to her of marriage, of unions and lands and clan loyalties. But through it all, through discipline and discourse, she’d felt loved.

  “There was something I had to do,” she said.

  “You’re daft if you think that’s all the explanation I’ll accept, Daughter.”

  She smiled. “I’m sorry, Father, but it’s the only one I’m going to make.” She’d never spoken of her visions to her parents. She did not regret the decision now. It had been a wise choice, even though it had been made instinctively. The child had recognized what the woman had come to know. There were people who could accept what she saw and people who could not. Nor did it seem worthwhile to mention them now that the visions had ceased.

  He squinted his eyes at her. “You’ve changed,” he said. “Why?”

  She shook her head. The answers were too numerous. The reasons too varied.

  “Ian says Hannah returned to England.”

  There was a look between them. One they’d never shared before. She saw him as he was, neither godlike nor venal, but someone fixed in between. There was greatness to Robert Sinclair, but he had also sinned. And erred in his dealings.

  A proud man who’d wished for an heir. Who regretted, perhaps, his indiscretion with Hannah. Had he acted in the best interests of all? Probably not. Who was she to judge him? Her own actions had been foolish and fueled by emotion as strong. Is that the greatest trait they shared? Not their coloring but a fierceness of temperament. She felt a surge of fondness for him. And understanding.

  He had protected her and sheltered her and provided a life for her. And during all these years, he’d loved her.

  Her voice was kind when she answered him.

  “She’s going to marry a man she met in England, Father. She deserves a life of her own after all these years.”

  There was a look in his glance, one that made her wonder if he would speak of it. Finally he nodded, looked away, and then back at her.

  “So you know, then?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your mother has been making herself sick with worry, Anne. I’ll have you be kind to her.” In his eyes was a look of entreaty.

  “Of course I’ll be kind to her. She’s my mother.”

  It was the truth. Simply because Maggie Sinclair had not given birth to her did not strip her of the title. Or the love that Anne had always felt for her. She’d been granted the greatest gift of all. The love of two mothers.


  “Ian says you have a fondness for this Englishman.”

  “Ian should not involve himself in things he doesn’t understand,” she said curtly.

  “He thinks he understands you. He would marry you if you gave him any encouragement, Daughter.”

  “Do you approve of him, then?”

  He nodded. “I always have,” he said, looking not the least bit ashamed.

  “Is that why you left him in charge of my safety when you left Dunniwerth?”

  He looked offended by her laughter. “You had ignored him for years.”

  “He has made my life miserable for years.”

  “You were a child then.”

  “With a long memory,” she said dryly. “Did you expect me to simply forget how he’s tormented me all my life? To awake one day and notice his shapely legs?”

  “It’s a sight better than noticing an Englishman’s.”

  Her amusement vanished as quickly as it had come. She walked to the window that overlooked the loch. She could see Hannah’s island in the distance. Had her father stood here and watched as she did now? Or did he simply bow to fate, and turn away from the woman he’d loved so passionately if for so short a time? An irony of the purest sort, that Stephen would do the same.

  “There is something between you and this Englishman, Daughter. I see it myself.”

  She glanced over at her father. There was a look on his face she’d seen before, but only when she’d done something wrong as a child. It was regret mixed with anger, as if he both disliked the necessity of punishing her and was irritated that she had pushed him to it. The look was effective, even if she was grown and there was no further threat of punishment.

  “There is nothing between us,” she said softly. The words were a death-knell, uttered in a voice barely more than a whisper. Saying them did not ease the burden in her heart. She might repeat them for a hundred years and at the end of that time it would still be untrue.

  Remember me. How could she not help it?