Come the Morning

by Heather Graham

  “Anne!”

  “I’m—meeting someone.”

  “Who?”

  Again, Anne was silent.

  “Anne, sweet Jesus, I’m in the trouble of my life! Whatever you have to say cannot be worse.”

  “Daro,” Anne said.

  “What?” Mellyora was so startled that she nearly shouted the question.

  “Sh!” Anne rushed forward, clamping her hand over Mellyora’s mouth. Mellyora wiggled her head, indicating she wasn’t about to shout again, and set Anne from her.

  “Daro! My uncle Daro?” Mellyora demanded. Perhaps she shouldn’t have been so surprised. Daro was her father’s younger brother, blond, bold, brave, and handsome. After the death of a friend, he’d taken over a rocky stronghold in the Irish Sea called Skul Isle. He was somewhat wild by nature, he was most often David’s ally, and while Mellyora’s father had lived, there had been peace between them. But Daro and the king were arguing or mediating about some point now, which is why her uncle’s troops were camped down the river. She had thought that Daro was with his men.

  “Please, Mellyora, be quiet! With David so strong now, my family wants nothing to do with Daro; they say that he will bring heartache and trouble to us all!”

  “Dear God, I would never betray either of you—the man is my kin!” Mellyora assured her friend. If she weren’t in so much trouble herself as it were, she might be amused. Anne had always seemed so steady and serene, the least likely candidate for an illicit affair with such a man as her uncle.

  She heard footsteps again and inhaled sharply, staring at Anne. Sooner or later, the guards would draw open the tapestries and drag them both out. She hesitated, then clutched Anne’s hands. “Tell Daro I need him. Tell him I’m a prisoner about to be wed to one of the king’s lackeys. I need his help, but he mustn’t be reckless, I don’t want lives lost, I … I … I don’t seek a battle, only escape!”

  “Mellyora, what—”

  “Get back!” Mellyora told her firmly. “And don’t fail me, please, don’t fail me!”

  She gave Anne a little thrust, pushing her far back into the darkness. Then, hearing that a guard was coming near, she slipped from behind the tapestry.

  “There she is! Ah, lady, but we were about to flush you out!” Sir Harry stated, striding angrily toward her.

  “I can make my own way, Sir Harry,” she said. She turned away from him only to realize that the hulking bald man was making his way toward her. “I can make my own way!” she repeated.

  She didn’t like the look of the man she didn’t know. Unnerved, she tried to run past him. He reached out and caught her.

  “Sir Harry!” she cried, trying to free herself from the huge stranger. “Sir Harry, tell this brute that I can make my own way—”

  “Sir Harry has gone on, m’lady,” the bald man told her. His voice was deep and husky with a deep Highland burr.

  “Let me go,” she said. “I don’t know you, I’ll see the king with Sir Harry—”

  The man spun her around. “Sir Harry is gone on about his business,” the man told her. “I will escort you—”

  “I can make my own way to the king.”

  “I think not.”

  “I’m not running anymore. I know that you’ve managed to hunt me down. I will go straight to the king, you may follow me if—”

  “M’lady, it is the middle of the night. The king is not to be bothered with your tantrums now.”

  “My tantrums? Fine! Well, you may follow me to my own chambers then, and I will await his summons.”

  “No.”

  His fingers were clamped around her arm. She stared at her arm, and into his eyes. There was something fierce and merciless there.

  “Come with me. Now.”

  “You just said that the king—”

  “The king is not to be bothered, ye’ll come with me now to the laird.”

  “Nay, I’ll not accompany you!” she declared, wrenching hard to free herself from the vise of his grip. She clawed at his arm, wriggled and struggled, all to no avail. He started down the corridor, and she had no choice but to follow, she was nearly lifted off of her feet. All the way she fought, clawing, pounding, kicking, trying to bite. He barely noticed. She was no more annoyance than a gnat. She’d struggled so desperately that she hadn’t even realized where they had come until they were there.

  He opened a door in the hallway, and thrust her in.

  She had come back to the point where she had begun, she realized with a sharp gasp of dismay.

  The man who had become the nightmare of her life stood before the fire, his back to her. He’d donned a clean shirt under his wool, and his still-damp dark hair had been brushed back.

  “She’s here, m’laird,” the bald man said.

  “Fine, Angus, thank you,” he said casually. He didn’t even turn around.

  The door slammed as Angus departed.

  Mellyora stared incredulously at the back of the man standing before the fire. Her fury rose along with the sick sensation that filled her as she knew she had lost.

  “You cheat! You liar, you bastard!” she accused him, shaking, her voice tremulous with the depths of her anger. “You let me go just because you knew you had men in these corridors who would drag me back. You let me escape just to humiliate me—”

  “I let you escape to see the futility of what you’re trying to do,” he interrupted with weary impatience. “You’ve taken a knife to me twice, you attempted to beat me to death with an oar, and still, here you are. I’m tired of your games, and that’s the end of it.”

  There was no sense in her action, but she couldn’t control herself. Her very world seemed lost and all because of this wretched king’s man. She flew across the room, slamming her fists against his back with a thunderous vengeance as she stuttered out her fury, not able to find words to describe just how despicable she found him. “You vile oaf, you bloody bastard, you’re a lying, conniving, sneaking, wretched excuse of a man and I’ll never forgive you—”

  He spun around, and she backed a foot away from him. His eyes were narrowed as he told her, “Whether you do or do not forgive me for your own acts of foolishness and treachery mean nothing to me.”

  “Nothing!” she cried. “It is all nothing to you!” In a frenzy she flew against him again, her fists now thudding against the wall of his chest, which seemed to mean nothing to him either. “I don’t know who you think you are,” she warned him passionately, “but I will not forgive or forget ever, and I will hurt you, I swear it, for all that you have done to me!”

  With a sudden, lightning-quick movement, he’d had enough. He captured her wrists tightly. She struggled, still in a frenzy of anger, but he shook her and she was forced to go still, staring up into his eyes. For a moment she was afraid that he would strike her down in return, his eyes promised such violence, but he did not retaliate. “I don’t give a damn if you forgive me, forget anything, or spend your life seeking revenge, but you’d best be warned. I gave you a chance, you made a promise. And when you make a promise to me, you will keep your word!” He assured her with controlled anger.

  Promise, what promise? Oh, God, yes, to meet him at the king’s cottage in the forest!

  “Never! Never!” she assured him, outraged. “You lie, you cheat, you tease—”

  “Tease? M’lady, you put the goods right on the table! You’re treacherous and disloyal, but the cards are played, and you’re in my power. Like it or not. I even tried to warn you not to bargain, that the odds were against you. I told you how things would be, I gave you every chance—”

  “I haven’t had a fair chance all evening!”

  “That’s what happens when you set out to betray the king.”

  “You’re not the king!”

  “But you are in my power, and that’s the way it is,” he told her, thrusting her from him.

  “What can any of this mean to you?” she cried in exasperation, warning herself that she must keep her distance from him. “The king
sleeps, he cannot be bothered with me, so what can any of this matter—”

  “It matters. And the king may be sleeping, but he is still waiting to see me. Regarding you. So, if you’ll excuse me …”

  He moved past her toward the door. She stared after him, tears stinging her eyes. She wanted to race after him and pummel him again, but she clenched her fists at her sides, afraid she had already dangerously tested his temper; and she didn’t want him touching her in return. “Damn you!” she cried out with passionate loathing. “Damn you a thousand times over!”

  He ignored her, and despite all her instinctive warnings and simple logic, she ran after him, clenched fists raised. She landed no blows, for he caught her wrists again, and held them tightly, generous lips tightly clenched into a grim line as he stared down at her.

  She looked up at him searchingly. “Why are you doing this to me? Who are you?”

  He paused, arching a brow to her, a deep frown burrowed into his brow. Then he suddenly smiled, released her wrists, and bowed to her deeply in a complete mockery of the courteous gesture. “Of course, how forgetful of me, we’ve not formally met. Strange, isn’t it? I mean, we are beginning to know one another, aren’t we? But as to your question, well, I am he, my lady. That awful man to whom you are to be given, my lady. That wretched, decaying, decrepit, old Norman, Waryk de Graham. However, my father was not a Norman, though there might have been some Norman blood—even Viking—in his veins. My mother was from one of the oldest families in the Lowlands. So you see, I’m not a wretched decaying old Norman at all, but a wretched decaying not-terribly-old Scotsman. Now, if you’ll excuse me …? I really must see the king. He has been deeply concerned regarding your whereabouts.”

  Oh, God. She’d never even suspected …

  She was so stunned and dismayed that for once that evening she couldn’t move or speak.

  He turned and opened the door to exit the room, and still she couldn’t move. She stood staring after him, shocked and shivering, her mouth formed into an O.

  Then she found life. “Wait!” she breathed.

  No. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t. After all that had passed between them. She should have known. She should have sensed, but it couldn’t be, how horrible, please God, he was lying, it was a jest, a cruel jest …

  “Wait!” she cried again, flying after him this time.

  “What?” he asked sharply, pausing and turning back.

  She stopped just inches before him, heart pounding, her breath coming in gasps. “You’re not—you can’t be. Please, don’t do this to me. Tell me … the truth. You’re taunting me again in revenge—”

  He stepped back to her, capturing her chin before she could move away, his hold so strong she couldn’t possibly wrench free from him. “There may be many things I would do for revenge, m’lady. But this is not one of them. I am Waryk, Laird de Graham, known as the lion, or Laird Lion. And you are about to be my wife. You’re not fond of the situation—so you’ve advised me, and I must admit, I believe you, you’ve made your feelings incredibly clear. But I must tell you, you were certainly not my choice either, lady. And now that we’ve met, I can assure you that I find you to be headstrong, wayward, immature—and amazingly foolish! But the die is cast, and you will be my wife, and if you want war, I’ve spent my life in battle. Few men are better fighters. Do you understand?”

  She wrenched her jaw free from the bite of his fingers at last, frightened and dismayed to the depths of her soul. “I’ll see you in hell!” she whispered.

  He smiled. “So you shall. If that’s as you would have it, I can promise you that our marriage will be hell.”

  He turned again to leave her. She was still shaking. She shouldn’t have spoken as she had. Perhaps there was still hope of ending it all if he wanted the marriage no more than she did.

  “Laird Lion, wait—”

  The door slammed in her face.

  “Wait!” she pleaded again.

  The only answer she received was the sound of a heavy bolt sliding into place with a thud.

  “Please!” she whispered, leaning her head and hands against the door. But her plea had come far too late.

  He was gone.

  And she was damned.

  CHAPTER 8

  Daro Thorsson was a proud man, a brilliant strategist, and a warrior brave enough to lead any advance. He was also, he thought sometimes, the last of a dying breed. For hundreds of years, his father’s people had been the scourge of the seas. They had raided the British Isles, Finland, Russia, the Mediterranean, and gone down the Seine to threaten Paris itself. They’d made strongholds everywhere, and few places where they had roamed and raided were now left without Viking names, customs, manners, dress, and crafts. But the world was changing.

  England, not so long ago, had been split into kingdoms; Alfred had risen to unite Wessex against the sea invaders, but even after he had first forced his nobles to fight against a common enemy, Vikings had ruled. The Danes had become kings in the north until mixed blood, as much as treaty or might, had stepped in to unite the country under Edward the Confessor. Scotland, too, had been a wild, divided place, with the heirs of one great man battling another for precedence. Northern outposts had islands that had been ripe for the taking. The invaders sometimes came in, plundered, raped, robbed, and committed mayhem, and then left Sometimes they stayed, and in time, the people there forgot they had been the invaders, and the place was then left stronger for the presence of the new warriors breeding with the older stock. Many of the islands dotting the coast of Scotland, especially the north, were still ruled by Viking kings or jarls, and at the highest and lowest levels, intermarriages were frequent. It seemed strange to him sometimes that most men were so quick to call the Vikings barbaric since he’d yet to see much civil behavior between the English and Scots when they battled, and since all of the British Isles were peopled by different tribes—Angles, Picts, Gauls, Scotia, Jutes, and more—and all the different tribes had waged war to make the land their home. No matter. The raids of long ago were ending, and it was becoming a more set if not a more civilized world. And the legends about the glory of going a-Viking were often stories that entertained and hid the fact that men went a-Viking because there was so little left for them at home. There was too little land for the food to sustain them, too few fish when winter set in, too few resources. Not that that mattered. The world was, he believed, a better place because of the Vikings, and he did have his little spit of land in the Irish Sea—nothing so grand as Adin’s great isle, but a place to call home, a place to rule, a place to bring a bride—Skul Isle.

  It was well into the wee hours of the night when he moved carefully along the hallway at Stirling. Despite his tall, muscled structure, he moved silently and with ease—life, though changing, had not been without its pitfalls and battles, and he could fight like a berserker or stalk an enemy with a tread as quiet as the flight of a falcon. He’d left Norway at the age of ten with his older brother Adin, and he’d learned from Adin, and learned well. Sometimes, there was as much power in silence and stealth as there was in any force of arms. Not that he was afraid of being accosted; he had a right to be in the hall that night. He and his men were camped just north of the city because he was here to negotiate with David. More land for more service to the king. His presence here would not be questioned; he was an invited guest this evening.

  But he had waited until this time—just hours after the last of the merchants and tradespeople had closed down their shops and carts in the courtyard, and just a few brief hours before the farmers would come in with their produce and the fishwives would begin hawking their husbands’ catches—because it was perhaps the only time when he might arrange a tryst within the confines of the fortress itself.

  He strode the corridor with swift, silent confidence, but still, when he reached the alcove, he entered it carefully, searching the corridor for any other sign of life before slipping inside the break in the hanging tapestries. Once there, he barely mouthed h
er name.

  “Anne?”

  “Daro!” She breathed a reply and slipped instantly into his arms. He knew they were alone and he allowed himself the pleasure of simply feeling her warmth, of touching his lips to hers and reveling in the passion that instantly stirred to life. The emotion he felt still awed and amazed him. He’d known many women, some decent, some not. He’d learned the tricks of the whores of a dozen different countries. Sex was cheap enough in the cost of life, and to make their way in the world, prostitutes were easy as well. He’d never known that he could feel this simple thrill of warmth, that holding a woman could mean more than the final act, that he could, in fact, lie awake, thinking of a woman’s scent, the flash of her eyes, the sound of her laughter, the very way she looked at him.

  Of course, his love was not without lust. He mused that the architect of the fortress here must have had an illicit love for some damsel inside, for the alcoves were so perfect for such meetings as this, if only for this brief time of privacy long after the witching hour. There was seclusion, there was excitement, for there was danger here as well.

  It felt that his blood pumped hot; she came to him so quickly, so eagerly. There were no words between them at first, other than the whispers of one another’s names. The taste of her lips, the fire of their kisses led them to a swift and desperate fumbling with their clothing. He hiked her up: she wrapped herself around him. The very lack of time for tender play between them increased the rise of his urgency and her desire. That which was forbidden was often more exhilarating, and she delighted him with a sheer, bold, wanton hunger that matched his own. In seconds he had her back against the far wall, and her long legs were tight around his hips. She bit into his shoulder to keep from crying out as he thrust into her, and she locked herself to him with a trembling but steel-like strength as he spent himself in a swift thunder. The dig of her teeth sharpened against his shoulder as he drove into her hard, spilling his hot seed into her and precipitating the sudden shudder that swept her as she climaxed as well. She went limp against him, and the night, the darkness and the shadows, enveloped them for precious seconds as they both reveled in the wonder of each other. He was more aware of the passage of time than she, quicker to passion, and quicker to step back. He set her down, straightening her clothing and his own, yet before he had fully adjusted his breeches, she was back into his arms, her whisper now plaintive and agitated. “Oh, God, Daro, I don’t know what we shall do, I won’t be able to bear it, I won’t, there has to be a way out—”