by Sophia James
‘Will remain here until the fate of the keep is properly resolved.’
‘Properly.’ She echoed the word and her bosom strained against dove-grey material. He made his eyes come away from the roundness, almost embarrassed when she saw where it was he looked. The cross on a pin at her waist caught the new day, like a warning from a deity who understood the more shameful wants of men.
Would he ever be able to see her and not want her? Would he ever forget what she had looked like under the candlelight, writhing in ecstasy as his fingers lay deep within her?
He turned away.
‘King David will kill me.’
He turned back. ‘No. He will give you pardon and allow you safe harbour amongst his court.’
Because I shall insist on it as the boon I was promised before setting out into Fife. Such a thought overrode all others. He would not see one hair on her head harmed, he swore it.
‘The gold will help with such a sanctuary.’
‘You forget, my lord, the treasure is no longer in my care.’
‘For this time mayhap not, but when you have the need of it, it will be returned.’
‘I see.’
He thought her chin wobbled for a second, but there was no certainty in such a deduction because a knock on the door brought them both into action.
She darted behind him, the dirk he had wondered about in her hand and full drawn whilst he remained still, the bulk of his body shielding her from any threat that might materialise.
‘Who knocks?’
‘Mariner. There is an emissary from the king who has just arrived at the gate. Glencoe thought you might wish to meet him together.’
‘I shall come immediately.’
When he looked back at her the knife was gone, the pious version of the beautiful Lady Dalceann again in place. He was pleased to see a serving woman bring in a plate of bread and meats and a jug of mead as he went.
* * *
She listened to him go, his steps disappearing one by one and taking him from her into the company of a messenger who might have brought her death warrant.
The pardon was a ruse, an empty promise of nothingness. So many of those in her life. Her father. Alisdair. The king. Her mother. And now him.
After her shame of the previous night there would be no more honesty between them. She was sure of it. No woman of birth would have ever lain as she did with his hands between her thighs held tight by the muscles of her lust or his staff full in her mouth in the way of a baby suckling at the breast of its mother.
He thought her a whore every bit as unchaste as those who sold themselves in numerous market towns up and down the coast for a penny or a crust of bread. Desperate women with bairns to feed and the swelling presence of another inside them.
Such was the fate of women. In that she should be glad that he had not entered her and left his seed to take before throwing her to the mercy of an ungodly king.
She wrung her hands as the shouts of the newcomer’s welcome could be heard in the lower bailey, the pale skin that had once lain beneath her wedding ring catching her notice.
Gone.
Alisdair would not recognise the woman that she had become and so she had removed it. She was glad that Ian or Angus or Andrew were not here in the room to see her, either, for her desire for Marc de Courtenay was only thinly disguised by anger. It would not take much to make her beg him again for what she had enjoyed last night.
Even the thought had her pacing, a woman lost from sense. He would sacrifice her to the king and still she would want him?
Shaking her head hard, she picked up a crust of bread. Lord, she had barely eaten in days and the warm dough was fresh and tasty. Adding the meat to it, she finished the morsel quickly before starting on another.
She was alive and she was well fed. She had experienced the joy of lovemaking with a man who was both gentle and adept at pleasuring a woman. Her men were secure for the moment in the basement dungeons and Ceann Gronna keep still stood, proudly as it had done for a hundred years, and Marc had promised the remaining women would be safe from rape.
Not all was lost, then. Now it was up to her to turn the situation in which she found herself into one that was tenable. An idea began to form, crystallising beneath thought.
Men were slaves to sensation and Marc de Courtenay would be no different. Perhaps if she played her cards with dexterity, protection might follow. He had, after all, already offered a show of it; dressed in these woman’s clothes, it would be far easier for her to act out the part required. If she promised him the use of her body when and where he should want it, would he be amenable to allowing her last soldiers the chance to slip away unnoticed?
Perhaps he might say they had perished or were ransomed, the gold he held ample for such a pledge.
Her fingers ran across the line of her bodice and she smiled, feeling the old power running back into her. Nay, the war was not lost at all and with a full stomach and a new resolution she walked to the window to stare down on to the ramparts of the baileys, now being patrolled by the king’s men.
Desperate situations required desperate measures, she told herself, even as anticipation mounted. She was neither young nor a virgin; if men could meet in battle and sacrifice their bodies, then so could women.
But when to start?
Tonight. The answer came quickly. He would not be expecting it and his guard would be down. This time, however, it would not be merely her pleasure that would be attended to because, if this whole idea was going to work, she needed Marc de Courtenay to want her as he had never craved another.
The very thought brought heat into her cheeks and she fanned away the warmth. Could she do it? Could she play the siren with such conviction that he might not question her motives?
Yes. Running her thumb down a sheet of polished horn sitting against the mantel, she felt the innate and surging capability of womanhood and was fortified again when her reflection gave no sign at all of the disfiguring scar.
* * *
Marc resisted going back up the stairs to the chamber of Isobel Dalceann until the light of the day began to fade and he knew that to do any different might incite questions.
For the first time in all his life he felt...uncertain. Even then realisation of such an emotion astonished him.
The emissary from the king had been most definite. He was to bring the Lady of Ceann Gronna immediately back to Edinburgh to face the consequences of revolt and he was experienced enough to know that a monarch under pressure would not treat a rebellious citizen lightly.
Not even one with the face of an angel.
Isobel might have been right, after all, when she had said that to go to Edinburgh could only result in her death. The options closed in on him. To protect her he would have to expose himself and, although he had allies in the royal court of Scotland, he doubted that it would be enough. In France it would have been different.
Glencoe had been present at today’s discussions, David’s man through and through, and it seemed that they would start out for Edinburgh from Ceann Gronna on the morrow. The king had sent more of his own soldiers as well, a further bolster to make certain that royal orders were followed to the letter, and they watched the castle carefully.
Aye, the price of war and dissension could be paid for dearly in blood by the daughter of a man who had not possessed the wisdom to see where such intemperance might lead.
Standing outside their room he breathed in, knowing that Isobel Dalceann would be waiting to find out about today’s visitors and weighing up the exact amount of truth he might give her.
* * *
He came in quietly, his sword left in the shelves beside the doorway, the hilt of it positioned in a way that he could retrieve it at the first sign of danger. She liked the sound of the key turning in the door behind him and the movement of feet outside as if they had been dismissed for the night to a place further off.
Privacy would serve her well.
Her bare feet felt
the softer edge of a rug as she moved forwards. The green in his eyes sharpened the moment he registered how her clothing had changed from the morning. The grey in her bodice was opened to the warmth of a fire stoked in the hearth. She had made certain that the hint of soft linen beneath where the edge of breasts pushed against it could be seen. The barbet and veil had gone, too, her hair released around her shoulders and falling long down her back.
‘I hope it went well today, my lord.’
A slight caution beneath careful control told her that it had not, even as he assured her it had.
‘Are you hungry?’
When he nodded she gestured for him to sit and brought forwards a generous plate of chicken and pork accompanied by trenchers of freshly baked bread. She smiled when he looked up, just as a woman of good nature and easy disposition would have. She knew he could smell the attar of violets that she had applied liberally on all the bare parts of her skin because his nostrils flared when she leaned across him, her loosened hair falling forwards as she hoped it would. She had noticed other maids do that when they sought to attract a suitor—a quick flick of their hands through their tresses, inviting observation. Isobel only wished she could have washed it properly in the lavender water that the housekeeper at Ceann Gronna favoured, but only a small bowl of plain water had been delivered to her room.
Still, her awkward ministrations seemed to be doing something because Marc de Courtenay was watching her in exactly the same way he had yesterday, the interest on his face stamped with the unmistakable essence of masculine lust.
‘I have been lonely in here all day by myself.’
Lord, was this overdoing it? A crease in his brow told her that perhaps it was, so she tempered her next sentence. ‘Though I expect that you have been very busy?’
Sometimes she had heard the maids talking in the kitchens of lovers when they had forgotten that she was there and they always stressed the importance of asking a man about his day and listening intently.
Again she flicked her fingers through her loosened braid, though this time he stopped her simply by raising his hand against her own and stilling it.
‘I should not wish for falseness from you, Isobel.’
‘Falseness?’ She hated the way her voice rose of its own accord in a shrill intonation of a question.
‘You seem a different woman tonight from the one I left this morning.’
‘I have had the whole day to ponder the fate of Ceann Gronna and if the trials and tribulations of the king should come to rest on Dalceann shoulders, I doubt the outcome will be good.’ Lord, she suddenly thought, talking politics was the very wrong way to go about seduction.
Trying to regroup, she sat on the stool opposite him and lifted the hem of her gown so that her ankles might be on full show.
‘We leave for Edinburgh tomorrow.’
She hitched her skirt up further, pleased when his eyes took in the full line of her lower legs as she stretched them out under the pretence of a cramp. He stopped eating, the candlelight between them throwing a soft sheen across the room.
Tomorrow! So very little time!
‘How long were you married for?’ His question was asked with an edge of wariness.
‘Two years and three months. Alisdair was killed just before the second campaign.’
The day she tried not to remember surrounded her, bitter-cold and noisy, the cry from the lips of her husband as he had died in her arms and the screams of her father as he paid the price of such betrayal.
A traitor came in many forms, after all. It was her fault that Alisdair had even been there in the first place as he had wanted to pray for guidance in the Ceann Gronna chapel, but she had insisted that he accompany her to confront her father down
by the caves at Kincraig Point.
These were the things that she had told no one, these sins of hers, lost in the death of a husband whom she should have protected and had not.
Standing, she moved to the window, feeling the cold of the early summer in her bones.
The loosened bodice and the potent perfume seemed suddenly foolish and, rubbing her wrist against her skirt, she tried to erase some of the scent before bringing the lacings about her neck tighter. She was Isobel Dalceann, the chief of the clan of Dalceann, and the prime defender of her keep. There was no other choice but to act.
‘If you can rescue Ceann Gronna’s people from the wrath of King David, I swear I will sleep with you whenever and wherever you might want to, Marc de Courtenay.’
There. It was said. She looked at him directly, no artifice left under the truth as she had stated it. The anger in her made the very beat of her heart thrum in her ears. It was useless playing the flirt when every part of her rebelled at the thought.
* * *
When would this woman ever stop surprising him? The pulse in her throat was racing even as she caught his glance, challenging him to answer. The old Isobel was back in full force, her eyes flinting away the incredulity that he felt rising within.
She was magnificent in her nun-grey attire and her promise of easy favours, her hands at her side balled into tight fists should he refuse her offer.
Every single part of him rose to say yes and take her here in the high turreted room of the lime-washed Ceann Gronna Castle, but such forthright honesty needed care.
‘I am a knight, Isobel, and David has sent me here to Fife under oath to serve him.’
‘A king’s man, then, without question?’ There was anger in her voice, and also disappointment.
‘Nay, more of a pragmatic one. If you do not come before the Edinburgh Court you will never be safe. Neither here in Scotland nor in the wider world, for the enemies of dissension are everywhere and well rewarded should they bag their quarry. Besides, if you fail to accompany us to stand before the king, I doubt your men would thank you for it.’
‘The king would have them killed?’
He shrugged his shoulders, trying to imbue in the action some sense of his own bewilderment. ‘He has the legal right to any action he might consider appropriate in the safeguarding of his throne and your keep is not the only one refusing to acknowledge the new feudal law. It is my guess that the wealthy barons from the north would also unseat him, given any stirring of weakness.’
Seeing her rising anger, he changed tack. ‘Your father’s poor judgement need not be reflected in yours, however, and it is wise in such adversity to at least tender a semblance of contrition. I am of the opinion that David will accept an earnest apology.’
‘You see this as a game?’ she returned. ‘You offer me advice on the finer points of pretence on the one hand and swear undying allegiance to your monarch on the other? Where is the honour in that, I ask?’
‘Here.’ He gestured, swiping his fingers over the skin at his neck. ‘My head still stands on my shoulders and I still breathe into another day.’
‘With truth and justice sacrificed?’
His laughter filled the room. ‘You think Ceann Gronna’s defiance might change the way history is written if all within it lie dead? What of the fact that the Crown is anointed by God in its ownership of land?’
She shook her head, highlights of darkness caught in the candle above the mantel. ‘A truth written in which Bible?’
‘A royal one, I should imagine, and penned in the blood of those who might insist it otherwise.’
Her smile was fierce and momentary. ‘A man who stands unhindered by law and in the shoes of Our Lord on earth is dangerous even to those who would support him.’
‘God, Isobel.’ For the first time Marc understood some of the things that were said of her in Edinburgh and the knowledge curdled his very blood. ‘One word of this outside our room and you will be tried for treason. Even I could not save you.’
The sentiment echoed in a growing silence as they watched each other, the realisation of all they had said falling into a place that was new and changed. Marc had never spoken with one other person in the way that he had spoken with her—the tr
uth of sedition versus the integrity of faith, faith to believe in dreams and to follow them. Mon Dieu, how many times had he lain there at night on yet another battlefield littered with the bodies of young and zealous men and ruminated on the fickleness of monarchs and their unwarranted omnipotence? Him, a king’s man, and no choice in any of it save death.
Until now, here, with Isobel.
The heat he always felt between them flared, her skin soft beneath the material of her bliaud and the lace on her chemise finely crafted.
‘The Dalceann name comes with its own costs. I grant you that.’ He could not quite disguise his admiration.
‘Then let me not be one of them.’
Lord, but she was good; the brown in her eyes melted into gold. He could hardly breathe with the memory of last night everywhere in the room.
Reaching out, he took her left hand into his and touched the skin at the base of her fourth finger. ‘I cannot promise your freedom, Isobel, but I can promise you pleasure tonight.’ Leaning down to run his tongue across the line of paleness on her marriage finger, he smiled when she did not pull away.
Chapter Twelve
Again.
She almost said it, her body rising to the promise.
Again and again and again.
Disquieting for your heart to wish for that which your head knew you should deny, but there it was, unstoppable and absolute. Her father’s daughter, after all, with no reason behind actions that could only humiliate her given his stance on not violating the trust of his monarch.
‘I should like that.’
She enjoyed his shocked stillness, this knight of kings and wars, with the signs of battle written on him in opaque-scarred tissue and a controlled distance that seldom showed any sort of emotion. She had seen him fight and knew that his skills in the art of warfare must be lauded from one edge of this world to the other, his swordplay unlike any she had ever had the pleasure to witness. The king’s man he professed to be, but his own man, too. When he spoke of politics and court life, there was no mindless allegiance promised, but questions posed.
How had he been able to hide such intemperance in Burgundy and here?
