Heart of Ashes (Hearts of the Highlands Book 1)

by Paula Quinn

  This was a whole new battle. Aleysia wasn’t sure she was prepared for it. “He loves you,” she argued hollowly.

  A wistful shadow passed over his gaze. “As much as he is able, I imagine.”

  Her heart thundered in her chest. What if he could never love, or if he continued to deny it? Why was she wasting her time? No, she couldn’t give up on him. It was too late for that. She cared for him. Besides, she’d never fled from a challenge before. She wouldn’t begin now. “Do you truly think I can break through all those defenses, Father?”

  “Ye are the only lass I know with the courage to try.”

  Aye. He was correct. He—

  “Priest!” Cainnech stood at the other end of the corridor, blocking the torchlight. “Did I ask ye to fetch Aleysia or delay her?”

  Aleysia widened her eyes on him and tightened her lips. How dare he bark at Father Timothy and treat her like a favored pet?

  She straightened her circlet, pinched her silk skirts above her ankles, and strode toward him. “Just exactly who do you think you are?” He didn’t look like he was going to answer quickly enough, so she continued. “The next time you want me, come to me yourself. Or better yet,” she said, reaching him and tilting her head to look into his eyes, “learn to wait. I will not be rushed to please you.”

  “Fergive me. What?” He blinked his gaze away from her snug gown and then seemed to catch his breath when he looked into her eyes.

  He was utterly serious. He hadn’t heard a word she’d said. She wasn’t back to hating him for it just yet though. She had wanted to entice him, after all. He certainly looked enticed.

  “Apologize to Father Timothy!” she demanded and waited for him to step aside and let her pass.

  He moved out of her way and she proceeded toward the great hall. “Truthfully, Cainnech,” she said over her shoulder as she came to the small stairway, “just when I think you are not so irritating, you go and shout at a man of God.”

  She felt his eyes on her like a wolf that had just spotted its mate. And then he was there, behind her, bending his nose to the hair at the nape of her neck.

  “Ye look ravishin’.” His voice was a deep-throated growl that made her knees nearly give out.

  “What about your clear head?”

  “I have already lost it.”

  He stepped around her like liquid smoke. His eyes danced over her features in facets of blue and gray. “Ye are goin’ to gain much attention when ye go in there.”

  “Oh?” she asked lightly, hoping it drove him mad. “Will it make you uncomfortable?”

  He laughed, startling Farther Timothy behind them. “Why would it?”

  “Why would you mention it?”

  “To prepare ye.”

  She walked up the steps and turned to stop him with a smile. “I’m already prepared. If any unwanted hands come near me tonight, I shall cut them off.”

  He slanted his sensual mouth into a challenging half-smile. “With what, lass? Yer sharp tongue?”

  She leaned down so he could hear her when she whispered, “A dagger. I found a few that your men missed in their search.”

  His smile widened, his gaze roved over her boldly. “Where d’ye have it hidden, Aleysia? I see no imperfection.”

  She didn’t answer but led the way into the great hall, letting him take his fill behind her. As she walked to her table, she paused to look around the crowded hall. She liked the ribaldry of the men, the sounds of their laughter and swearing, the clanking of their cups. There was wine, thanks to Rauf who purchased six jugs on the way home from Newton on the Moor.

  He stood with William by the table. When they saw her they stared and smiled, along with the others, but all the men remained respectful as she sat on the bench.

  She looked for Richard but didn’t see him.

  Cainnech slid in beside her, and Father Timothy took his place to the right. Soon, the rest of the men joined them at the tables and shouted for the food to be served. They all came to a spluttering halt for the second time that night when Mattie stepped into the hall on the arm of Sir Richard. Why, even William, sitting at Aleysia’s left, turned to have an appreciative look.

  Aleysia’s gown fit her dear friend perfectly. She looked breathtaking in a yellow kirtle beneath a lovely saffron overgown embroidered with a thin vine of small golden leaves around the scooping neckline and elbow-length sleeves. Tiny yellow flowers were entwined into her thick, flaxen braid draping one shoulder.

  “Who gives yer friend wings?” Cainnech leaned in to ask her.

  “William,” she answered on a wilting whisper.

  “And that troubles ye because he’s a Scot?”

  She shook her head and eyed him, wondering if he truly thought her so double-minded that she would begrudge her friend the same thing she wanted. But, according to Father Timothy, Cainnech didn’t know she cared for him. Should she tell him? No, she thought, let him discover it on his own.

  “It troubles me because his heart is lost to Julianna,” she corrected him on a hushed voice, and then watched the men stand when Mattie reached their table.

  “I think,” he said, raising his cup to her and then to Mattie, “the two most bonny lasses in the three kingdoms reside at Lismoor.”

  The men agreed, but William had already gone back to his cup.

  “You see?” Aleysia asked, turning to Cainnech. “There is beauty in no one else when your heart loves another.”

  “Pah! What drivel!” He laughed, bringing his cup to his lips. “Love doesna last. Sadly, he, too, was taught its cruel lesson.”

  His battle was with love. He hated it, rejected it, and was afraid of it. How in blazes was she to fight this? She was confident in many things, but not this.

  She crooked her finger at him and when he came close, she whispered, “The cruelty was not love, Cainnech. ’Twas a heart tainted by prejudice. True love lasts. You cannot hide from it forever. You know that.”

  He put down his cup and stared at her. She had no idea what he was about to say but he didn’t look pleased.

  “Commander.” Amish hurried into the hall with a folded parchment held high in his hand. “A messenger arrives from the king!”

  Cainnech stood up and waited while a tall man dressed in dark clothes and mantle entered behind his second.

  Aleysia thought she could hear his heart pounding, but realized soon that it was her own.

  Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good news for her if it was from the Scottish king.

  The messenger reached Cainnech and greeted him with a familiar smile. Cainnech did not smile back.

  Unfazed by the commander’s aloof regard, the messenger reached under his cloak and produced a folded missive stamped with a royal seal. “From the hand of the king of the Scots, Robert the Bruce to ye, Commander MacPherson.”

  Cainnech took the letter and offered the man a place at one of the other tables. The messenger declined with good reason. His wife was at home ready to have his second child.

  After he left, Cainnech broke the seal and opened the parchment. He read silently for a moment, and then glanced at her with a scowl that made her want to demand to know what it said.

  “Is it about Lismoor?” She couldn’t wait another moment.

  “Let us go somewhere else to—”

  “No.” She shook her head. “You will tell me now, please.”

  He looked as if he might refuse or tear off someone’s head. Finally, he said in a lowered voice. “The king advises that ye are to be wed.”

  “To whom?” she heard herself say, her blood beginning to sizzle in her veins.

  “To one of the English noblemen who have already sworn loyalty to him. He has taken it upon himself to invite them here to…court ye. Once ye are wed, yer husband will be rewarded with Lismoor.”

  Wed? Her home was to be a reward to an English traitor? “Do you think I will abide by your king’s rule?” she asked acidly.

  Cainnech didn’t answer but crumpled the parchment into a
ball and flung it into the hearth. He rose from his chair and stormed out of the great hall.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Where is he?” Aleysia hurried through the halls after not finding Cainnech in his room. She wasn’t about to let him run from this. He’d promised her she would stay and without marriage if she swore fealty to Robert. What was he going to do about it now? Was he going to abandon her to a stranger? An Englishman?

  “Father!” she called out, stopping the priest on the way to his room. “Where is he?”

  “I was asked to tell ye that Cainnech will speak with ye in the mornin’.”

  She crunched her hands into fists at her sides. “Thank you for telling me. Now where is he?”

  He turned his doe-eyed gaze upward.

  Aleysia looked up and then shrugged her shoulders, frustrated by his silence. “What does that mean, Father? Are you trying to tell me you hope he goes to Heaven when I kill him?”

  “Not that far up, my dear,” he said with a furtive smile and then left her alone in the hall.

  She looked up again. The battlements.

  She hiked her skirts over her knees and hurried for the stairs. He wouldn’t escape this time. She wanted answers. Not about standing by while she was wed. She’d kill any bastard put beside her in her bed. She wanted to know how long he was staying now that he’d heard from his king. She wanted to know if she meant anything to him.

  What if she did? Would he run from it?

  She stopped before the last few steps to the battlements and put her fingers to her lips. She couldn’t tell him how she felt, that she was falling in love with him. He would run. He’d leave Lismoor and her to whatever future she had left.

  She almost turned back but a desire to be near him pulled her forward like an unseen tether.

  She stepped through the doorway and into the night. This was one of her favorite places to come when she needed to think clearly. Was he here for the same reason? What did he need to think about? She walked to the edge and then around it until she found him looking out over the north, toward the distant mountains of Scotland.

  She observed him in the moonlight, his hair dancing around his deeply pensive face and his shoulders from the roiling wind. He looked like a man with the weight of the three kingdoms on his shoulders.

  He heard her approach and turned just for a moment to look at her.

  “Do you want to go back?” she asked, coming to stand beside him.

  “I wish I was there now,” he answered in a voice as cold as the gale blowing in from his land.

  Her heart sank. “Then you will be returning soon?”

  He inhaled a deep breath and took his time releasing it. “I dinna know when I will see my home again.”

  “Why?” she asked so softly that she was sure her question was lost on the wind. But he turned his head to look at her.

  “I must stay and hand ye—” He caught himself and grinded his jaw. “—Lismoor over to—”

  “Commander,” she cut him off. Her heart broke. He was going to hand her over. She meant nothing to him. “As I have told you from the beginning, I have no intention of taking a husband. I will lie to your king to keep my home, but I will not take a husband.”

  “Ye will lose Lismoor.”

  She hated him for speaking those words. He’d lied to her, given her false hope. She would not weep over it now. She squared her shoulders and tilted her chin. “I will prepare myself for that.”

  And perhaps he could visit the villagers and tell them one of the Bruce’s dogs would soon be ruling here without her.

  “If I must leave, I will forever hold you responsible for this,” she told him and left the battlements.

  She was a fool! A fool to fall for the man who raided her land and took her home! He’d kissed her and made her feel things…things he knew he would not feel in return.

  It no longer mattered. He wasn’t going to help.

  It was up to her to make certain none of her suitors wanted her.

  She smiled as she tore her golden circlet from her head and tossed it aside, and then she wiped her eyes and headed for her room.

  Cain had never been so miserable in his life. The last two days had been hell. Aleysia avoided him at every turn and when he had seen her, he couldn’t help but notice her unhappiness. All the men had remarked to him on it. They’d also shared their confusion as to why the king would trouble himself in the affairs of a steward’s granddaughter.

  Finally, this evening, he knew it was time to tell them the truth, who she was, and what she had done. It was long overdue. They trusted him and deserved to know why he had lied to them.

  He went to the tower to speak to them alone, without Richard or the castle staff hovering about.

  He sat with them in the gathering hall, watching their familiar faces in the light of the large hearth fire. He knew what to expect from them on the battlefield, and which of his men fought best. And during the many nights when they all slept beneath the stars, he knew which of them cried out in their sleep.

  “At first,” he concluded, “I protected her fer the sake of peace, and because I understood that she had been tryin’ to keep her home, as any of us would have done, and then finally…” He paused. What he was about to say was even more difficult than the previous truths to which he’d admitted to them. “…because, as ye likely already suspect, I have come to care fer her.”

  Father Timothy, William, and Rauf grinned at him, tempting him to smile back. But he continued soberly, “I understand that I broke yer trust, but I couldna turn her over to ye. If any of ye wishes to fight under a different commander, I shall make the request on yer behalf to the king.”

  The men were quiet. Most appeared stunned. A few were angry.

  “She waged war on us,” someone muttered.

  “She fought alone from the trees,” Amish pointed out, shaking his head in astonishment. His eyes opened wider and he stared at Cain when he remembered. “She almost killed ye.”

  “Aye,” Cain agreed with a slow smile aimed at the man who’d fought by his side since the Battle of Loudoun Hill. “Who else can say such a thing, eh, Amish?”

  “No one, Commander,” his second replied. “I admire her fer her bravery.”

  “As do I,” William said boldly, “She shouldna be scorned because we lost men in the fight or because we were bested by a lass.”

  The men all finally agreed. She had won them over with her many rare, if not odd, qualities, her loyalty now that she knew them, and her radiant smile.

  What was Cain to do? Was he willing to defy the king and send her suitors away? Was it too late to stop this madness in his head? He didn’t want to love her. If he did and she was taken from him, he would lose his soul this time.

  “Stay and have a drink with us, Commander,” Amish said and offered him a cup. “’Tis whisky Rauf and Duncan brewed in the kitchen.”

  Cain accepted. He didn’t do too much talking, but he laughed with the men, and he listened and learned more intimate things about them.

  For instance, William found no interest in the bonny Matilda when her name was brought up. The lad was miserable. His heart was lost to Julianna Feathers.

  Love made men weak and Cain had made certain his whole life that he would never be weak again.

  “What will ye do aboot her, Son?” Father Timothy asked quietly, sitting beside him. “The suitors will be arrivin’ soon.”

  What could he do? Prepare for the day when she would be out of his life for good? Or prepare for war? One scared the hell out of him. One did not.

  The suitors began arriving early on the third day. Dressed in their fine wool tunics, fur-lined mantles, and brightly colored hose, they paraded through the front doors like a plague set loose on Lismoor. Bearing gifts of silks and spices and other nonsense, they waited patiently with Richard and Father Timothy in the great hall while Aleysia prepared herself to meet them. Cain’s men guarded the entrances.

  Two cushioned chairs, one a b
it larger than the other, had been dragged from the other rooms and placed at the head table in the center of the hall. Cain sat in the larger chair.

  He didn’t know what to expect when she arrived. Hell, she could have done anything if she had put her mind to it. He looked into the cup he was holding and put it down without taking a drink. She could have one or more of her handy little daggers hidden wherever the hell she’d hidden them. He would stop her if he had to. If anyone was going to kill any of her suitors, it was going to be him.

  Cain eyed them, hating them all, hating being this close to them. The more they looked at him, sniveling little peacocks that they were, the more he thought about killing them.

  When the guests stood, Cain knew she had finally entered. He didn’t have to turn around. He knew she was breathtaking.

  When those closest to the entrance stepped back and whispered, Cain finally turned to see what they were seeing.

  She wore a plain brown tunic, belted at the waist, and black breeches. Her beautiful raven hair was pulled back in an unkempt tail trailing down her back. Her face, including her lips, was pale, ashen white, and around her eyes were dark circles.

  She looked deathly ill. She even coughed into her hand.

  Cain hurried toward her. “What ails ye, lass?”

  She stepped around him without acknowledging him and sat in his slightly larger chair. “Let us get this over with,” she barked out and then yawned.

  “Lady,” one of the peacocks addressed her, looking a bit confused. Cain kept his eye on him while he sat in her chair. “Are you ill? Is it something that should concern us?”

  She opened her eyes and glared at him. “What kind of men does the King of Scots send to court me that they fear a harmless…” She paused and looked off to the left. “…at least I think ’tis harmless, condition?”

  Cain realized what she was doing and couldn’t help but smile. She wasn’t ill, or even pale. She was wearing some kind of powder on her face and her lips. ’Twas clever.

  “Ye didna cough up blood again this morn, did ye?” he asked, wanting to help her.

  She swung her head around to squint her eyes at him and held her thumb and index finger a bit apart.