by Darci Hannah
“Brazen lads indeed,” Sir George replied mildly, seeming to know what the other knight was thinking and looking fabulously unconcerned. “But let me assure you, there’s no need for alarm. ’Tis true we were set upon this night by a group of masked ruffians while we were pleasantly about our business in Jedburgh, but by all means they’re well into England by now, or should be if they know what’s good for them.”
“Masked ruffians?” Hendrick asked, looking askance at Sir Matthew. “Forgive me for doubting ye, Kilwylie, but if they were masked, how did ye ken they were English?”
“Because a Scot would never be so cowardly as to hide his face,” our dashing visitor proclaimed, complimenting every man in the room. “Cattle lifting is a matter of pride, Hendrick, as any of the reiving families of these parts will tell you. The English, however, have very little pride in anything, and can only hope to further their cause by igniting the blood feuds already rampant in these parts. I’ve no idea who else was attacked, but I believe there’ll be merry hell to pay tomorrow. A clever, cowardly plan it is, to be sure,” Sir George concluded gravely.
At this mention of English reivers Hendrick’s eyes lit up. “Tell me, Kilwylie, did ye happen to see any sheep with them? I only ask because one thousand head of ours were lifted four nights ago.”
A thoughtful expression appeared on Kilwylie’s handsome face as he regarded the steward. “I’m sorry to hear it, Hendrick,” he said, and there was little doubt that he was. “We didn’t see any livestock with them, but they could have very easily been hidden in a nearby vale. It was dark, and these lads knew very well what they were about—a prettily planned attack by a roving band of thieves out for a swift profit. However, once they realized who it was they set upon, they were most anxious to get away. Perhaps tomorrow, after we’ve rested a bit, we’ll hunt them down for you and return your sheep. Leave to a Douglas what others fail to do,” he said with a brazen smile as his eyes, piercing and spectacular under the disheveled dark brown curls, settled once again on me. This time he did not look away.
It was then, looking into those familiar eyes, that I understood the real reason he had come. Somehow, as always, Sir George knew where to find me.
“Truthfully,” he continued slowly, his smile turning softly reflective as he walked toward the dais of the head table, “championing the house of Blythe on such a cause would be a great honor. However, should I do so, I’d like to ask a wee favor in return.”
The word favor, combined with the intense look in his eyes, confirmed my suspicion: Sir George, the renowned Lord Kilwylie, was once again on the hunt, and his prey of choice, as it had been for some time now, was me. I was sorry to admit that it caused me to doubt if there had been a skirmish at all. The thought was mildly flattering, but recalling my resolve and my duty to Blythe Hall, I pushed it aside. “That list, Marion …,” I whispered surreptitiously to the amused face next to me, all the while staring at Sir George, “the one in the king’s possession listing applicants to be the next Lord Blythe? Sir George’s name wouldn’t happen to be on that list, would it?”
“At the very top, my dear,” she whispered, her lips poised in a grin of irony.
“Oh, dear Lord,” I uttered, and slowly stood to face my newly arrived guest. Behind a placid smile I took a deep breath in an attempt to muster my strength and sharpen my wits, for I would have need of both if I was to survive under the compelling gaze of Sir George Douglas. This I had learned from experience, for not long ago, in a dimly lit corridor of Linlithgow Palace, I had let myself be pinned against a wall and kissed most unchastely by this very man. He had been, I believed, rather drunk at the time. I had been very tired, or at least I had told myself that I was. It was the first time I had ever been kissed and, to my horror, I grew hot at the memory. Sir George, seeing me blush and no doubt guessing the cause, smiled broadly.
The man had a beautiful smile, and I faltered in spite of my resolve. I had to remind myself that this was my hall, my tiltyard, and not some darkened corridor in a lavish and rowdy royal palace. I cleared my throat, steadied my nerves, and addressed my visitor, aiming to wipe the grin from his shapely lips. “My dear Sir George, what a surprise it is to see you here. And, to honor the wee favor you’re no doubt about to ask: of course. I wholeheartedly agree. Feel free to help yourself to as many of our sheep as you like, for it is a truth that we here at Blythe Hall take a real pleasure in rewarding those who serve us well. And unless I’m mistaken, I believe you have offered to serve us.”
The darkly alluring knight, taking obvious pleasure in my taunt, stopped ten feet short of the dais and laughed heartily along with the other men. Damn him, but he had a rich, resounding laugh, and it echoed through the hall like a peal from an enchanted horn. Try as I might to resist, the sound elicited a slight, hesitant smile from me. “My dear Isabeau, as I’ve told you numerous times, I am your humble servant, yours and yours alone. Indeed, I have come to serve you,” he said, his laughter subsiding as the unsettling green eyes held my own. “But as for sheep … I believe you know very well that I have not come here for sheep. Unlike your uncouth neighbors, I have no need of sheep.” This he proclaimed while raising an eyebrow to the room in what might have been a lewd gesture. Given how the king’s men laughed, it likely was, but Sir George Douglas did not dwell on being lewd. He was driven by another purpose altogether. “What I do have need of,” he said, his singular attention focused on me, “is to speak with the king’s own angel, far away from the doting eye of her very protective royal guardian. Because you see, I heard a rumor that this angel was finally given leave to return home.”
“How … how did you hear this rumor?” I asked, shaken further by the fact that he had even cared to know about my movements. Although the hall was warm, a slight shiver ran through me.
“Rumor?” he said with a hint of disapproval in his voice. “A part of me hoped it was rumor. And to answer your question, I’m a gentleman after all.” His eyes, touched with mischief, settled upon my companion. “I shall not reveal my source.”
“Marion!” I uttered, and noted that my companion was grinning at the man. At the sound of her name her smile drooped to a frown of displeasure as her eyes shot to mine.
“Well, it’s not true,” she defended in a testy whisper. “And it’s not polite to assume things of your friends.”
“Why were you grinning?”
“I’m grinning, Isa dear, because you have the incorrigible Sir George on a leash.” Her voice was soft, belying the excitement in her flashing eyes. “ ’Tis as I’ve said before, the man’s daft with the want of you. How can ye not see it? Why, you’re the envy of every red-blooded woman in the kingdom. Go on, give him a tug. He’s primed to topple like a felled oak before ye, and a man on his knees is a splendid sight to behold.” Marion, a self-proclaimed temptress, and one who was always offering such suggestions for my benefit, waved encouragingly at Sir George. This caused an irritatingly broad grin to appear on his face, just before he made a courtly bow in her direction. Sir George Douglas, after all, was another of Marion’s well-connected cousins.
Ignoring them both, I continued. “Very well, you found out through mysterious means that I was returning home. Tell me, Sir George, have you come all this way just to speak with me? Or were you indeed set upon by masked men and now in need of a place to rest?”
“Truthfully, my dear, it is both these things. My men and I were attacked as I was on my way, ironically, to offer you my protection on the off chance that this rumor I heard was true. And I see that it is true. Isabeau Blythe,” he said, and his beautiful voice this time was intended solely for me, for his strong, pleasing face had softened and his mesmerizing eyes were glued to mine. “I have come here on this night driven by an overwhelming desire to protect you. I barely understand it myself—how overwhelmed I become at the thought of you. I could hardly tell you at court, but I would be remiss indeed if I didn’t tell you now—here in your own home, surrounded by your own friends—just how much
I—”
I cut him off before he embarrassed us both. “I’m honored!” I blurted, entirely given over to nerves and some sort of primal fear. “Truly, I’m honored. But I assure you, we are very well provided for here already.”
With a widened stance and hands firmly planted on his compact hips, he uttered a rather dramatic “Oh my.” The magnificent head then tilted, and he beheld me as if I were some bewildering and pitifully misguided creature.
In truth, I had always found Sir George a disarming man—albeit a man seldom without a witty barb on his tongue or a fawning woman on his arm. He had a presence that drew the eye whenever he entered a room or appeared on a field of contest. Certainly his great height and dark, Celtic features were hard to overlook, but it was more the heady mixture of conceit, bravado, and palpable sexuality that made him so compelling. Sir George Douglas was a knight of great renown, and his reputation was one of a brash and loose-living man. I had always considered him dangerous company for one such as me. And I certainly didn’t need Marion Boyd telling me what it was that drove him here on this night. It was plain as day in his expressive eyes.
I swallowed and forced what I hoped to be a placating smile onto my lips, because I knew that for my own good, as well as the good of my people, it was not wise to have a man such as Sir George within the walls of my ancestral home any longer than proper hospitality dictated. For I had not come all this way—had not endured all that I had—to step back into the shadows of a powerful man and relinquish my dreams of making Blythe Hall great once again. Sir George was a capable man, but I feared, as well I might, that he would devour me whole. “Of course,” I began, “you and your men are welcome to spend the night. And if you truly wish to join our men on the Trodd, I won’t stop you. In fact, I welcome the offer. But after the animals are returned, I’m afraid you must go.”
“Go? And leave you out here all alone? Never!” he averred with eyes glinting like polished emeralds. “The notion’s ridiculous. I know your ilk seem to believe they are protected by angels, but can an angel as pure and kindhearted as yourself possibly be prepared for this wild and violent existence—even if you are protected?”
Damn him again, but Sir George had a gift for unnerving me. In the space of a breath he had exploited my one true weakness by playing on the daft notion that the Blythes were divinely protected. He knew the story, as most of Scotland did, but his choice to remind me of it now when I wished to forget it was no coincidence. I fought to control my rising anger, for I now realized that Lord Kilwylie was not accustomed to losing. But neither was I.
“Dear Sir George,” I began, mustering my composure. “I truly appreciate your concern, but you forget. Are you not yourself a paradigm of this wild and violent existence? And I’m not referring to your behavior here in the Borders, which is notorious at best, but to your actions at court.”
My barb was not lost on our captive spectators, and the hall erupted with laughter. Marion, sitting beside me, offered a sincere “Well played.” And dear Sir Matthew beamed with appreciation from across the table. Sir George Douglas, however, was not put off in the least and grinned salaciously.
“Indeed!” he declared, much to the delight of the fighting men. Clearly, Sir George had no humility.
“And I’m not playing!” I said at Marion in response to her comment, my eyes still glued to the incorrigible knight.
“Oh, but my dear,” she replied delicately, excitedly, “I think that you finally are.”
I should have been rankled by Sir George’s cool demeanor, his sardonic grin, but I was more disquieted to find that I could hardly pull my eyes from him, and so I just stared in helpless wonder, absorbing every handsome, windblown, rain-soaked, unnerving inch of him as he moved closer. Try as I might, I could not deny his allure.
“It is a truth,” he began, standing before the head table, his face utterly serious, “that in the past I have been careless in my conquests. Like a ship without a rudder I have tossed about, wandering aimlessly through the wild seas of my youth with a willing sword and willing body. But I am done with all that now. I need a rudder, Isabeau,” he said earnestly, his mesmerizing eyes holding mine with frightening intensity, “and a pure and heavenly light to help guide me the rest of the way.”
I heard a sigh, high and breathy, just before a hard, pinching pressure seized my leg. The dumbfounding spell that had come over me whilst listening to Sir George was broken. My face, under his intimate gaze, felt flushed, and I feared my heart would escape my very body. I glanced at Marion, the source of the sigh, and she squeezed my leg again. Damn her! She held me with her narrowed eyes as her full lips pursed into a little O. Unfortunately it was a common expression for her. She was demanding that I encourage him, demanding that I play his game. I slapped her hand away and replied in as sweet and polite a voice as I could muster, “You honor me with your sentiments, sir, however, this is hardly the time or place to discuss such personal matters.”
“Oh, but you are wrong, my dear. This is exactly the time and place. King James has finally let you return to the home of your father, and you have arrived here not as a child but as a beautiful young woman. Dear James knows as well as I do that you need a suitable husband beside you if you are ever to manage out here. It is unthinkable, Isabeau, you in this border fortress all alone … without companionship … without a husband and master. You need protection—something a little more substantial than a whimsical motto, just as I need a virtuous woman beside me … to keep me on my new and worthy course. And, forgive me, but the good Lord could hardly have created a more enchanting or virtuous creature. But I hardly need to tell you my feelings. I believe I’ve expressed them once before, in Linlithgow. Unless I’m terribly mistaken, your desires are the same as my own.”
The men in the hall, glossy-eyed and beaming, were clearly entertained by this public declaration of what appeared to be a marriage proposal; but I was not. That kiss in Linlithgow, searing, intimate, and utterly unexpected, still haunted me. Sir George knew it too, but I had not come home after four long years away to be humiliated before my own hearth.
“Your sentiments are poetic if not a little misguided.” I smiled purely for the sake of our audience. “But, again, I must reiterate that this is not a matter to be discussed here, nor,” I continued, looking boldly into his forthright gaze, “do I believe I’m in need of a master.”
Like a sudden shift of the wind, all caprice left his face, and he said, “While that may be true, Isabeau, have a care for me, won’t you? I’ve never been in doubt of your ability to master your own affairs. But I’ve had masters aplenty. Did you ever consider that perhaps what I need is a mistress?”
“You’ve had plenty of mistresses.”
He grimaced, as if wounded. “You know what I mean! Do you think it easy for me to come here and lay my heart bare before you? Toy with me if you must. Deny me if your pride absolutely demands it, but let us look at the facts here. All your sheep have been lifted. And your band of merry followers, unless they find them soon, will undoubtedly retaliate. You say you have no need of a husband as your lord and master, then what will you do when you have a blood feud on your hands? Are you prepared to lead your men into battle? Are you prepared to bury the husbands, fathers, and sons of Blythemuir who will die defending your land and livelihood? I ask you again, why would the king allow you to come here alone and so unprepared? You have scores of retainers yet no actual kinsmen left but for your merchant cousin, his sniveling son, and your cowardly, outlawed brother. How will you manage without a proper husband, a man who can bring the support of his clan to answer for all your affronts—to even, perhaps as in your case now, go on the Trodd?
“By the way,” he added, staring across the table that separated us and, with irksome sangfroid, plucking a hunk of cheese from a platter, “speaking of the devil, how is Julius?” He took a bite and while still chewing, continued, “ ’Tis been an age since we last met. I believe the last time I saw him he was fresh from England, d
ressed in finery and spangles after sitting with King Henry’s counselors bargaining for more lands in exchange for the young heir to the throne of Scotland.” He swallowed. “My, what a brazen lad he was. He could have done great things. What a pity such brilliance was squandered in drink, deceit, and debauchery.”
And there it was; he had struck my final weakness and with such force and artfulness I could barely think, let alone breathe. He had come here this night catching me fresh from the splendor of King James’s orbit and expertly begun his campaign for my affections. He professed his desires, and once he realized that I would not admit publicly my desire for him, he began illustrating to me, and every guest in my hall, how unsuited I was for the role I had so stubbornly chosen to play. But I had remained unmoved. And then, because he was a man and quite unaccustomed to losing, he had cleverly struck at the heart of the matter—the very source of my stubborn pride. He had reduced me to teary-eyed vulnerability by bringing to light the maligned character of the man who should have been lord of this castle. Speechless, heartbroken, and filling with unutterable shame, I stared at the great knight before me as he chewed thoughtfully on his cheese. His eyes were tender and apologetic, but the set of his jaw was firm. I wanted to speak, to refute his wild claims, but I couldn’t. Because we both knew they were all true.
The entire hall fell silent awaiting my reply, but for once I had none. It seemed an age waiting in this oppressive stalemate where the sound of the soft rain hitting the roof was nearly deafening, and the crackle of the low fire seemed hungry enough to devour me. The young Lord Kilwylie stood prosaically before me, his penetrating gaze softening, as if willing me to accept the generous offer so publicly placed at my feet. It was tempting: anything to avert the disaster that must follow. And then, thankfully, another voice rang out, shattering the stifling silence.
