Exile’s Bane

by Nicole Margot Spencer

  I screeched, found strong legs to kick with the solid heels of my wooden mules. A small groan came from my attacker. His grasp loosened slightly, which allowed me to twist around to face him. A broad chest presented itself, and I pummeled it with all my strength. When that appeared to do no good, I scratched at his face. I had reached high for his eyes, when his hands rose to my shoulders. His thumbs pressed hard into the joints. He pushed me away, and shook me brutally.

  “Stop it. It’s me. Elena, it’s me, Duncan.”

  I gasped and threw my arms around him. First frightened and then shaken out of my wits, I shivered now uncontrollably. He enfolded me in his arms and held me until I stilled and my frantic breathing slowed. He smelled of wood smoke and ale. His arm around me, he led me back down the corridor and turned into the east corridor toward the private tower. I jerked us both to a stop.

  “No,” I whispered. “I dare not go that way again.”

  At that moment the light from the corner sconce must have illuminated my torn dress, for he gently grasped me by the shoulders again. He looked me up and down. His eyes widened at sight of my partially exposed breasts and gaping bodice.

  “What’s happened to you? Are you hurt?” He shrugged off his doublet, slipped it over my arms, and pulled it around me. Carefully, he pulled the buttons through the button loops.

  “No, I am not hurt, just rattled.” I relaxed into the close masculine smell and cozy warmth of the doublet.

  “Who did this?” he asked in a tight voice.

  “Who else? That monster, Gorgon.”

  “I’ll kill him,” he growled through clenched teeth. He spun around and took a step toward the private tower. A cold rasp sounded, that of his sword pulled from its sheath.

  “No,” I cried. I stepped after him and threw my arms around his sword arm. “Don’t make it any worse. Gorgon already has his eye on you.”

  “He does, does he?” he said. He turned back to me. In the low light, the taut plane of his face sharpened. Within his grim smile, white teeth gleamed.

  “Please, Duncan,” I pleaded. I clenched his arm tighter. “Just take me where we can talk and be together for a few moments. Please.”

  “The prince does not appear to be disturbed,” he whispered after a long moment.

  His sword flashed in the low light as he sheathed it. The outline of his extraordinary shoulders moved closer, his hair a nimbus of orange-tinged light, and he led me away from the private tower entrance down the long east corridor toward the back of the house.

  At the far corner of the house, close to my rooms, we came to a dim hallway that I was familiar with. He took me in and stopped just short of running into the stone and mortar wall that closed off the entry.

  “I thought there was an entrance here, to an empty tower,” he said, amazed. He ran his hand over the rough wall. “I was sure of it.”

  “There is only one door to uh . . . to Amilie’s tower,” I said, not so sure I really wanted to do this. “Actually, it is the safest place for us to go. If you wish.”

  He nodded.

  “Come with me,” I whispered.

  We moved carefully down the south corridor to the stair and out the small servant’s door at the back of the house. Comfortable as the oversized satin doublet was, I had quickly overheated in it. I sighed in relief at the cool, earth-scented air.

  The stable yard stood out in peculiar relief in the moonlight. The old storage tower, where Peg and I had been confined, stood in gloomy silhouette along the house’s back side. I led Duncan past the stable area to the tall, dark tower at the opposite, northeast corner of the house. We approached the unimposing door, and I turned to face him.

  “There is a kind of ghost here,” I said quickly, my own pulse stepping up at our proximity to the tower. “Will you stay with me?”

  His eyebrows, dark in the ethereal light, went up.

  “She will allow us through to the roof,” I added hastily.

  “Uh, are you sure about this?”

  “All the great houses have a ghost. Ours is a gentle spirit. I have used this shelter many times in my life.” A cold fingertip slid down my backbone. “Just not lately.”

  “She, you say. What if she does not care for me?” He stared at me and took my arm in an iron hold.

  “She will love you, because I do,” I said, only realizing what I had said after the words were irretrievably gone. With a cringe, I put a hand to my faithless mouth.

  But he seemed not to have heard my slip of the tongue, for he looked back toward the stable, then turned to me, and nodded. “We must go on. Something stirs behind us.”

  We stepped through the entry. The door swung closed behind us, leaving us in unrelieved darkness. The air was dry and pleasant with the smell of rose-scented rushes, though my feet trod a bare stone floor. I took Duncan’s large, moist hand. With my other hand, I felt my way along the walls, and led him up the stone steps that I remembered from my childhood. It was a stairway, like all those in the towers, that clung to the circular walls.

  We ascended to the second level. Moonlight poured down the upper turn of the roof stairway on the other side of the landing. I stopped, tightened my hold on Duncan’s hand, and searched the dark room to our right. Though indistinct, the outlines of a bed, perhaps a table, and a bulky hearth ledge stood out.

  “Amilie. It is me, Elena,” I said softly, not wanting to alarm the ghost. I took an additional anxious breath, suddenly sorry I had led Duncan here to my childhood haven. It had been years since I had faced this empty room. “May we use your roof for shelter this night?”

  The hearth sighed with a sudden flush of air. Duncan stiffened beside me. A further sigh came forth, a pleasant human sound. A questing current of rose-tinted air came to us from the far side of the large, circular room.

  Air brushed my right cheek and rested there, like a gentle palm. The feeling moved away, and my hair swung to the languid push of an invisible hand.

  Duncan squeezed my hand tightly. I turned my head slowly and looked at him, his face white in the dimness. Amilie must have caressed his face as she had mine, for he put his hand to his cheek and wiggled his shoulders uncomfortably. His hair rose in concurrent clumps as though a hand ran through his bright locks.

  The ghostly draft whistled lightly around us. Silence followed. Duncan dared a wide-eyed look at me.

  “Wait,” I mouthed at him.

  Anxious moments later, a great whoosh of air encompassed us and pushed us toward the roof stair. We clattered up to the roof. A peaceful night sky arched above us, dominated by a bright round moon.

  “Is she still here?” Duncan looked uncomfortably back at the stairway we had climbed and then around at the rooftop we had achieved.

  “No. She never leaves the tower.”

  “How do you know her name?”

  “It is scraped into the stone beside the roof stair. Amilie 1425.”

  “My God. Was she imprisoned here?”

  “I think so. Some call this the Tower of Madness. No one will follow us in.”

  “No one told me that name.” He looked mildly insulted, his brows drawn together, but the insult fell away, and concern tightened his mouth. “If she was . . . or is . . . mad, can we trust her?”

  “My father brought me here when I was young. He knew of her and claimed she had never hurt him, though he did say she could be quite nasty if offended.”

  “How do you offend a ghost?”

  “Maybe by not asking permission to enter? A noisy entry? I do not know. She has granted me shelter many a time in my younger life . . . and now at a time when we desperately need it.”

  “Why the piles of litter up against the parapet?” He tucked my hand under his arm and into the fold of his elbow, and we strolled around the roof’s perimeter.

  “It has always been like that.”

  “But roof litter generally moves all over the place in the wind. Look, a stone bench.”

  The wide, ornate bench faced south with a view of
the stable, the postern gate, and the indistinct hills in the moonlit distance. We sat side by side where I last sat as a child, my feet dangling, nowhere near the roof floor. Self-conscious, I looked up at Duncan and admired the curve of his full lips. His impressive size set off a flutter deep in my stomach.

  At that moment, the postern gate below swung open with a squawk. The outer gate opened almost immediately with a similar screech. A loud creak of leather and the ting of metal issued from the stable below.

  I rushed to the parapet, Duncan behind me, in time to see horses bolt out of the stable. They appeared to be Gorgon’s Manx followers. The last rider through the stable entrance was Gorgon himself, his vivid blue surcoat visible in the moonlight. He spurred his horse into a gallop, shot past his assembled men and out the gates. His riders followed in a jumble of bounding horses.

  “Come back, you blackguard,” a familiar voice shouted far below us. A dark figure strode into the stable yard and raised a fist. Moonlight flashed on multiple golden threads clothing the shape below. “You owe me,” my uncle cried out in an infuriated scream, his fist raised high.

  “At least he didn’t kill him,” I whispered to Duncan as we retreated to the safety of the stone bench.

  “Who?”

  “The earl actually saved me from Gorgon.” I patted my torn bodice under Duncan’s doublet. “But then Gorgon attacked the earl. That’s how I slipped away.”

  Astonishment lifted his eyebrows and widened his eyes. “That gets Gorgon out of your life, aye?”

  A door slammed shut below. I nodded my head and took a relieved breath. Yet I could not help but question why my uncle had saved me from something that would have gotten me out of Tor House more quickly. Since when had my honor made any difference to him? The lack of logic in his actions rankled in my mind. But Duncan and I moved closer together on the cold stone seat, and my uncle’s unreasonable nature was the last thing I wished to consider.

  “Why did you not tell me you were betrothed?” He surveyed me with a bitter, turned down mouth. “Were you simply enjoying yourself, gaining supporters?”

  “I would not do that to anyone,” I said, then closed my mouth and studied my shaky hands. “I owe you an apology, Duncan.” My gaze rose to his dim, clean-shaven face. “I cannot abide Gorgon. I tried to refute the betrothal, but it was useless.”

  “Yes, I heard.”

  “No, long before tonight’s banquet. Before Gorgon even arrived. The earl wants me gone, and Gorgon is his method.” I reached out for his hand, which he gave me after a short hesitation. “What has happened between us has been genuine, for my part. I have just . . . been terrified I would lose your attentions if you knew of my betrothal.”

  “You need not have feared.” He touched my chin with querulous fingertips. “No betrothal would keep me from you, unless you chose it to be so.” He leaned close, his dark gaze intent on me. “My promise to assist you remains. With Gorgon gone it will be considerably easier.”

  I smiled and nodded in agreement. Something I had thought of earlier crossed my mind. “Did you ask for the Tor House appointment?”

  “I did, and the prince was in complete agreement, but I will have to go with him to York when he returns.”

  I bent my head to avoid looking at him, to evade his words and their crippling meaning. “And that woman?” I asked, in a voice that trembled. I pulled away from the arm he had snaked around my shoulders. “What is she to you?”

  The dimple in his chin deepened. A gentle look crinkled the skin around his dark eyes and lifted the edges of his mouth, as though I were a favored child who failed to understand.

  With a huff of irritation, I shifted away from him on the bench and straightened my back, stubbornly awaiting his explanation.

  “Do you remember my telling you of Ben Nevis and the events that occurred there? Where I nearly died as a boy?”

  I nodded, unable to figure what this had to do with a loose woman hanging off his arm.

  “Annie was found there also, a mere babe. We are the last of our family, perhaps even of our clan.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

  “When our grandmother died, just before the war, Annie had nowhere to go. She was naïve, attractive, and very much aware of her effect on men.”

  “Yes, I saw that,” I said with asperity.

  “She thinks she loves me,” he said with a little laugh. “I am devoted to her, but I do not love her that way.”

  “So you drag her along in the prince’s baggage train?”

  “Where else would she go? After the war, it is my hope to find a noble family that will take her in and teach her manners enough that she can attract a respectable husband.”

  “Oh.” So, I had been wrong. The girl was simply a problem, not competition. I lifted my chin and gave him my most severe look. “And your name is not Comrie, is it?”

  “No,” he said. He lowered his head and his locks, dark russet in the moonlight, tumbled over his shoulders. “If I used my rightful name, I could be slaughtered with impunity, no repercussions, just as my family was slain.”

  “You are outlawed?”

  “My clan, yes.”

  “How did this come to be?”

  “Clan Campbell wanted our lands and had the Scottish king’s ear. And so our proscription was decreed. Years ago.”

  “Then I suppose I owe you another apology.” He had not offered to tell me his true name, but his fallen face indicated profound unease.

  “No.” He looked up and pushed his hair back. “Your reaction was entirely understandable.” He put his arm around my shoulders again and pulled me close. “I am only glad I’ve had a chance to explain the situation to you.”

  He nuzzled my cheek, and I leaned in toward him, ignoring the inbred admonition to pull away. He settled his lips on mine, and I jumped back.

  “Ow,” I cried, hand to my mouth. “I must have cut my lip.”

  “Let me kiss it.” He did so, then licked it tenderly.

  “Why do you not wear a mustache?” I ran a hand over his strong cheekbone and the clean-shaven cheek below.

  A soft whistle of disparagement came from him. “I have enough problems with the color of my hair. Men assume, as did you when we first met, that red hair denotes a marauding Scot.”

  “But I learned better,” I whispered. I rubbed my hands over his broad shoulders, so warm and close under his satin shirt, living the reality of the daydreams I had so often squelched.

  He nibbled at my ear, creating a tickle that made me giggle. I twisted my head away and gently brushed my fingers across lush chest hair that lay within the open collar of his shirt. It glinted copper in the moonlight. He took me onto his lap and embraced me, his head on my shoulder. His hands roamed softly over my breasts. Though they resided beneath the thick doublet, I drew back, the memory of Gorgon’s brutal hands still close in my mind.

  “I would never hurt you,” he crooned in my ear. He took my face in his hands, rubbed his thumbs across my cheeks, and kissed me deeply. His mouth tasted of tart apple.

  I pulled away and smiled at him, wanting more, and so I kissed him, a fire ablaze within me. We crumpled down onto the wide bench.

  “I thought you had a cut lip,” he said sometime later.

  “Oh, I do.” I put fingertips to my throbbing mouth. “But I wanted to kiss you. I’ve dreamed of it so often.”

  “And was it as good as your dreams?”

  “Far, far better.”

  “For me, too.” He cupped my lower lip with his index finger.

  About to roll off the bench, we sat up. I ran my palm over his muscular chest, unable to keep from touching him. He placed a warm hand over mine, held it at his sternum, and gave a small laugh.

  “You know, in Bolton, a pike would have gone through here.” He patted my hand. “Right where our hands are, but for an odd happening.”

  “Tell me,” I said, stunned. I pulled my hand away, moved to the front edge of the bench, and studie
d him with anxious intensity.

  “It was eerie, as though I had been there before. Have you ever had that feeling? What’s wrong?”

  “Go on, please.” I pulled at his sleeve and sucked in a breath. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

  He frowned, but continued, involved in his story. “A couple of Roundheads had taken shelter in an old stable.” He shrugged. “But when I got in there, they had fled. I returned to the open door, sword drawn, but something, some inkling in my mind, told me to wait.”

  My head shook slowly, unbelieving, back and forth, my fingers pressed to my mouth.

  “I stood there a moment.” With a compassionate smile, he pulled me onto the seat and hugged me close. “Then stepped out into the yard, where a pike came down directly in front of me.” He pointed down to his fancy shoes, tied with ribbons. “It was so close the pike notched the tip of my boot. I shall show you later, when I have them on.” With his thumb and forefinger, he demonstrated how desperately close it had come, no more than the width of a small thimble, though I was numb with shock at his continuing words. “If I hadn’t stopped, it would have gone through me, right at the chest. Instead, once I forced him off the adjoining roof, I gave the pike man a sword thrust for his trouble.”

  “Oh, Holy Mother,” I cried. The truth thundered within me. I jumped up before him and gasped in disbelief.

  “What is it? Your face is scarlet. I did not mean to upset you.”

  “Thank God.” I seized his wide shoulders and fell into his lap. “Oh, Duncan, I love you so much.”

  My head on his chest, I put my arms around him, squeezed tightly, and took unrestrained pleasure in his strong, steady heartbeat.

  “Wait,” he said, a frown, and then all at once, a smile on his face. He dislodged my clinging arms and pushed me back onto his knees so that he could see my face. “I love you too, but why are you so . . . What is it?”