by Starla Kaye
Adding to the problematic situation, Mary stepped up from somewhere behind them. “Lord Middleham is her husband for now. But when she hangs….”
Before the foolish woman could finish her sentence, Maggie moved between Mary and her brother. She’d heard his growl, seen his muscled body tense ready to spring at the woman. Maggie said firmly, “Ye will control yerself, Brother. If ye strangle the stupid wench as I see in yer eyes ye want to do, ye will only hang beside me.”
He still looked ready to reach for Mary, who now had the good sense to scramble backward. “Ye will no’ hang!”
“Then ye will have to prove my innocence.” Maggie looked slowly around the hall, letting the soldiers and servants of Middleham now watching see her disdain for them all. “Because I have not a soul here who believes me.”
Again he growled and narrowed his eyes. “I will. Then ye’ll come back home to Urquhart where ye belong. Where people would no’ turn on ye so easily.” He spit at Richard’s foot. “’Tis what I think of the people here.”
When Richard would have spoken or done something in retaliation, Maggie shifted between the two big men. “Enough! Take me to the tower.” She looked directly at Brodie, “Control yer men. Control yerself. Talk to Nicholas, he was once yer friend.”
“Even if that were once true, he isna any more.”
She blew out a breath of frustration. “Speak to him. Calmly. This must be settled soon.” She swallowed hard. “When I’m proven innocent, I will gladly leave here with ye. I would no’ ever stay here after this.”
He gave a curt nod and she forced her feet to take her across the tension-filled hall. None of the people of Middleham could meet her eyes. She held her head proudly and walked with Richard toward the door. She hoped that somehow her brother could hold his temper and find a way to make peace with Nicholas, find a way to save her life. She truly didn’t want to die.
* * *
Nicholas stood in the shadows near the bottom of the stairs. He had felt certain that he had to come down here to prevent a war breaking out in his great hall. He had known Brodie could be volatile and deadly when on the defensive. With Brodie’s confused state of mind, he had feared the worst. Hearing his friend’s continued lack of knowing who he was…hearing him declare Nicholas no longer a friend either way, had cut him deeply. Yet he understood. The man, even not knowing his sister at the moment, would wreck havoc to defend her. In the same circumstance, Nicholas would do the same.
He sucked in a breath against the pain throbbing through his body. Pulling on his braies had been a nearly impossible chore, but he’d managed it. He had not even attempted to don the tunic. Then coming down the stairs had almost done him in, but, again, he’d done it. Now he had to face Brodie.
He heard the grumblings begin among his men. Heard a man rage out, “We know who attacked our lord. She dares to walk among us. She should hang. Now.”
Nicholas didn’t recognize the voice, but then he was still getting to know his new soldiers. But as others began picking up on what the man had said and Brodie roared in fury, he knew it was time to stop this before it got out of hand.
He forced himself to climb down the final six steps. The second he did, a gasp from some of the nearby servants startled the other people nearby into silence. Hundreds of eyes turned in his direction. The only pair he sought was Maggie’s. His heart pounded in fear when he saw a pair of burly soldiers shoving Richard aside and grabbing her arms, one on either side of her.
Immediately the Scots began raising weapons, as did the men of Middleham.
“Release her!” Nicholas bellowed at the same time Brodie did.
When the men merely froze and still held her, Nicholas somehow found the strength to grab a knife from the man nearest him and strode toward his wife. “I will cut your hands off if you don’t release her immediately.”
Brodie was at his side with his own wicked-looking knife. “And I will gut you before you can take another breath.”
The soldiers scowled and glared across the room at someone, and then let her go.
Nicholas dropped his knife and pulled Maggie into his embrace, grimacing, but unconcerned with the pain. He didn’t feel like he had even breathed the few minutes the men had held his wife prisoner. He felt Brodie bristling close by, but didn’t care. He needed to hold her.
Silence filled the room as all watched him with his wife. Some of the tension seemed to fade away, but not all of it. There were still those who didn’t approve, wanted her to face a quick judgment and consequent sentencing. He didn’t understand why they were so determined to accuse her, condemn her. Except for the fact that she’d been found holding the dagger he’d been attacked with. All right, that was a serious piece of evidence of her guilt.
She stiffened in his arms and tried to squirm free. “Even ye doubted me, husband. Mayhap still do.” Her tone was quiet, echoing grave disappointment. “Talk to me brother now. I have nay more to say to ye.” Then she jerked away and he saw the tears in her eyes. “No’ that ye’ve listened to me at all. Nor has anyone else.”
Suddenly Fia and the cook followed by a half dozen kitchen helpers came running and shoving through the crowd of uneasy men. Fia skidded to a stop in front of Brodie, her eyes widening. “Ye did come! I ken ye would.”
Brodie looked in confusion at her. “I left no’ long after Douglas fer here. Something in me gut warned me of danger.”
“If ye hadna come here, I fear they’d have hung me friend before much longer.” Fia leveled a disgusted look on every Middleham soldier within her sight. Her expression turned even harder when she focused on Gerald. “We only want to return to Scotland. Maggie and me. We canna stomach these English people any longer.”
Then when the cook and the other servants moved next to her, she softened. “Well, there are a few English people who arena so bad.”
Nicholas met Gerald’s gaze and said coldly, “See that these men are off Middleham’s ground within the hour.” He shifted his gaze to Richard. “Take Lady Middleham to the tower.”
He tried not to see the hostility in Brodie’s eyes and concentrated on Fia and the cook. “See to it that my wife gets a bath and clean clothes. And, for God’s sake, tend to her wounds.”
Finally he took in the rest of the people still watching, still on guard. “I will not have you men fighting in my hall. Any of you. Middleham soldiers or Scots. Take your quarrels outside.”
Brodie looked to his clansmen and added on a growl, “There will be nay fighting. No’ yet. I will talk with Lord Middleham aboot this situation.”
* * *
“I don’t believe Maggie attacked me,” Nicholas stated bluntly. It had taken much of the energy he had left to climb the stairs and start down the hallway toward the solar.
As he had ordered, Gerald had assigned his second to remove the men who had dared to grab Maggie and insisted on going upstairs with Brodie and Nicholas. Gerald had wanted to bring two guards as well, but Nicholas had refused that. Nicholas was breathing hard, struggling to keep moving
Gerald finally said, “You need to be in bed, My Lord. You can talk to Lord Urquhart on the morrow.”
“I agree to ye taking to yer bed, Lord Middleham,” Brodie said, from behind the two men. “But we need to talk now. Then I wish to talk in private with … my sister.”
Nicholas nodded and turned into his bedchamber. He had heard the pain of not knowing his sister in Brodie’s tone. The situation between them was difficult enough without adding this complicated mess to it. “Aye, we’ll talk now. Then you will be taken to Maggie.”
All were quiet until Nicholas sat with a grimace on the side of his bed. He refused to lie down until this difficult conversation was finished. He looked unflinchingly at Brodie. “I wish I could tell you that I knew who attacked me, but, in truth, I cannot. I was attacked from behind.” He hesitated. “What I do recall is having heard soft footsteps just before someone slammed my head down onto the desk.”
Gerald’s thick eye
brows lowered in anger. His hands fisted at his sides. “A woman.”
Nicholas couldn’t deny that, since that was what he had, too, suspected. “Still, my gut tells me it wasn’t Maggie. We had been arguing.” He focused again on Brodie. “About you. Ever since Douglas came here and announced you were alive and back at Urquhart, she wanted to go to you. But after Douglas told us about…well, about your lack of memory, we—Douglas and I—thought it best to give you some time. I had told her we would go, but not yet.”
Brodie held himself rigidly. He breathed heavily and Nicholas sensed his frustration, knew that anger simmered within his friend.
“That doesna seem enough fer her to attack ye.” Brodie shook his head and pursed his lips for a second. “I wish I remembered the lass, wish I ken her temperament. But I dinna believe she tried to kill ye.”
“It was her dagger. In her hands,” Gerald stated flatly.
Something about the men in the hall nagged at Nicholas. Something just felt wrong about all of this. He rubbed his forehead, winced. “I’ve learned over the years that not everything is as it seems. I am thinking that is the situation here. We are missing something.”
“Have ye enemies here, Lord Middleham?” Brodie asked with a frown. “Someone who dinna want ye taking over as laird here?”
Did he? “Of course I have enemies, just as you do. You can’t have fought as many battles as we have and not angered someone. But I have always tried to be a good leader, a fair man.”
He thought about those two burly soldiers again and looked at Gerald. “Who were those men who grabbed my wife? I have been trying to remember them. Yes, I don’t know each of Middleham’s soldiers well yet, but I thought I had at least met all of them by now. But I don’t remember them.”
Gerald appeared thoughtful, then scowled. “I think I recall seeing them a time or two lately. But, truthfully, I don’t know for sure.” He glanced toward the door. “I’m thinking I should go bring them back here. Question them.” He scowled even more. “We are always getting a man or two riding in here wanting to serve here, pledge their allegiance to Middleham. I thought maybe Richard had allowed them to stay.”
“Take some soldiers and bring the pair back here. Something bothers me about them, more than just their attitude.” Nicholas shifted, trying to get comfortable, hurting. “And ask Richard about them.”
Brodie nodded agreement. “They had a look aboot them. Like a mercenary, more than as soldiers loyal to a holding.”
He narrowed his eyes at Nicholas. “I’m thinking ye’ve got an enemy here who wishes ye dead. And ‘tis no’ yer wife.”
“There is another woman here who has been unhappy with me for some time,” Nicholas said, glancing steadily at Gerald. “Lady Stanhope.”
Brodie shot him a scorching look. “The woman who accused my sister? The woman who wants Maggie to hang?”
“She came running into the hall to find me, crying, frantic,” Gerald stated defensively. “Why would I doubt her word?” He puffed out his chest. “And I saw the dagger in Lady Middleham’s hand.”
Nicholas pinned his first with a grim look. “How did Maggie look? Angry? Determined to finish me off? Ready to stab me again?” He didn’t think any of that. It was hard to believe that Lady Stanhope would want him dead, but there was something odd about her. He should have insisted Edward find a husband for her himself. He should have gotten her away from here.
Gerald pinched his brow in thought, slowly shaking his head. “Now that I think about it, she appeared shocked. Stood there pale as a linen with her eyes wide in horror. She held the bloody knife down at her side, her hand trembling.”
“She found him,” Brodie bit out, gnashing his teeth. “She probably pulled the knife out fer some foolish reason, probably no’ wanting to see it plunged there into her husband. She reacted and got caught in a bad position.”
Nicholas closed his eyes and felt certain that was the truth of it. He blew out a breath and studied the two men. “I’m sure that’s what she would have said, if anyone would have given her a chance. I know it is! Now we have to prove it. Prove she didn’t stab me.”
* * *
“Stop this! Stop this now!” Maggie raged, kicking and squirming for all she was worth. Her bottom was on fire, even with the layer of chemise between her tender flesh and Brodie’s hard hand. She didn’t quite know how she’d come to be face-down over his lap. He’d come to see her in the tower. They had talked about what had happened, talked about her marriage to Nicholas, and somehow she had started berating her husband for allowing this mistreatment of her and not believing her. Her temper and frustration had gotten the best of her. She’d said things about Nicholas she didn’t really mean, cursed him in the most vivid terms she had learned from her brothers. Brodie, although not particularly happy with her husband, had taken offense on Nicholas’s behalf. He had decided she was out of control and dragged her over his knee.
“Owwww! Stop!” She punched a fist into her brother’s muscled leg.
He spanked her even harder. “Lie still or I’ll bare yer bottom and do this right.”
“Ye would no’ dare.”
He started to lift her chemise and she pleaded, “Nay, Brodie.” This was embarrassing enough, being spanked by her brother, although this was not the first time one of her brothers had warmed her bottom.
The chemise dropped down again, but he held her tightly in place. “A wife shouldna say such things aboot her husband.” Brodie’s large hand landed solidly another half-dozen times. “If me wife e’er said such things, I’d take the strop to her bare butt.”
She had no doubt that he would. “I was angry.”
His hand slapped against her sit spot. “Understandably. Yet calling the mon names such as ye did canna be allowed.”
“He has me locked away. He thinks I tried to kill him.” She hurt, but it was heart hurt more than the pain on her poor bottom.
His hand rested on her bottom. “Yer husband doesna think that ye tried to kill him. He’s locked ye up here fer yer protection.”
She snorted.
Brodie swatted her once more and set her on her feet.
Sniffing back tears she refused to let fall, Maggie rubbed her backside and glowered at her brother. She wasn’t happy about getting spanked, but she concentrated on what he’d said instead of her irritation at what he’d done. “Nicholas believes me?”
Brodie climbed off the small bed he’d sat on to spank her. He frowned down at her. “Are ye going to behave now? Quit spitting out words of anger, quit talking against yer husband?”
“I’ve a right to be upset.” At his continued scowl, she pressed, “So he believes me now?”
“Aye. There’s another here at Middleham who wants him dead.”
His face tightened in thought. “Maybe not dead. Maybe he was only meant to be injured enough that he couldna ken what happened. Maybe it is you who is wanted dead. Hanged.” His face pinched in fury.
Maggie’s hands stilled on her bottom. She blinked, mulling over what he said. “Mary.”
He gave a curt nod. “If that be Lady Stanhope’s name, then we’re thinking aye. At least yer husband is wondering if she attacked him instead of ye. But we dinna talk aboot ye being the real victim. That jist came to me now.”
Maggie started to sit on the side of the bed to consider the matter, but stood back up and glared in disgust at Brodie. She would never admit to him that the spanking had actually calmed her down. Instead she paced, rubbing her bottom. “She wanted him to marry her since his betrothed—her sister—died. She wants to be the wife of a powerful man. He dinna want her. Fool man shoulda sent her away long ago.” She automatically rattled off several colorful names again in her irritation.
Her brother raised an eyebrow. “Watch yer tongue, lass. He’s yer husband, and my hand can still find yer bottom.”
She stopped and raised her chin. “Ye arena spanking me agin, Brodie.” Although they both knew that if he wanted her over his knee again, he’
d put her there.
After a second of challenging looks at one another, he shook his head. “Nay, I’ll be leaving further spankings up to yer husband.”
Would there be other spankings from Nicholas? Or would he let her leave with Brodie like she wished? Would she go to Urquhart and never return to Middleham? Right now that was what she wanted. She didn’t want to be here with all of these people who doubted her.
“I’ll nay be staying here after I’m freed.” Her voice choked, but she meant it.
Brodie cocked an eyebrow. “Are ye certain of that, Maggie? Do ye have nay feelings fer yer husband?”
She looked away, refusing to let him see the hurt in her eyes. Yes, she had feelings for Nicholas, strong ones. She loved him. But she couldn’t live with him after this. She couldn’t.
Before anymore could be said, the key turned in the door’s lock and Gerald stepped into the doorway. He spotted her hands still rubbing her bottom and glanced curiously at Brodie. She dropped her hands, felt her face heat, knowing he realized her brother had spanked her.
“What now?” she snapped. “What other humiliations am I too experience?”
“A messenger has arrived from King Edward.” Gerald couldn’t meet her eyes. “You are to be escorted to him on the morrow.”
“Nay!” Brodie bit out, drawing his foot-long, sharp knife.
Gerald scowled. “Don’t make this any worse than it already is. She’ll get a chance to—”
“Nay, I will have nay more chance there to defend myself than I have had here.” Maggie felt frozen, felt hopeless. Everything had gotten so far out of hand. She had no proof of her innocence, only her word, which nobody seemed to believe. “I will be taken there to hang.”
She wasn’t even sure she’d get off the castle’s grounds alive. It was all too much. Her father was dead. Her older brother as well. Brodie didn’t know her, even though he was determined to protect her, possibly even die because of her. And Nicholas…because of her, he’d been attacked and nearly died. Because Mary had found a way to make Maggie look the guilty party, because Mary wanted her out of the way so she could wed Nicholas. It was all suddenly just far more than she could deal with.
