by Lizzy Ford
Yet touching her had quieted the restless unseillie sorcery that called to him whenever he was in danger. Whatever she was, why ever she had entered his forest, he was unable to deny there was something special about her, English or not.
If not for the whisper of his magic beseeching him to show mercy, he would not have been convinced to humor the English when his own clan’s circumstances were of so much concern.
“Have you forgotten a woman’s duty to be humble and obedient, Isabel?” Lord Richard slapped the beautiful flower of a woman. It was not a hard strike, but the effect was immediate. She dropped her gaze and her shoulders hunched, as if she were expecting more blows to follow. “You will forgive her, Laird Cade. She does not yet understand her place but will be taught it.”
The moment he recalled the shadows in her eyes, Cade caved to the instinct crying out for him to protect her. The noblewoman was in some danger to seek him out and the English lord a little too quick to want to leave him.
Niall and Brian broke through the forest from the direction of a path known to those who grew up in the Highlands. Both reached for their weapons at the sight of the English party, but Cade motioned for them to stay calm.
“It would … please me to have you as my guest.” His words were forced.
Lord Richard stiffened. He looked Cade over with unhidden contempt.
Cade waited, sensing the noble had not been sincere about his desire to sit and regale one another with war tales. “Storms are coming. Ye willna want t’be in the forest when they do.”
Lord Richard gazed at the dark clouds above them and frowned. A crack of nearby thunder helped him decide. “It would be my honor,” the nobleman replied finally.
“Verra well. Niall, lead our guests home.” Cade strode to his horse and motioned for Brian to join him. He made a show of checking the horse’s trappings while waiting for his kinsman. “I doona trust this man,” he said when Brian drew near.
Brian nodded, blue eyes on the nobleman. “He has yer wife.” The only sign of his amusement was in his eyes. His features were stone.
“I doona know what scheme the wench is planning.” Cade finished with the saddle and opened his saddlebags to find his midday meal of bread and jerked meat soaked through. He tossed them, checked his water bladder for leaks then pulled out the oiled cloak he had neatly folded to take up less room. It was a tangled mess, too bulky to ride comfortably.
He shook it out and paused. A small satchel fell from the depths of the cloak. It was dry – and not his.
“The English lass wore one like that,” Brian said.
Cade crouched to retrieve it. After she stole his horse, he had no qualms about searching her belongings and opened it. Inside were several tightly rolled scrolls, a purse that no longer jingled, pungent herbs and a dagger.
Her claim about the royal decree returned to him, along with her determination to kill him despite never having met him before. Cade catalogued the contents mentally and rose. “Take this to Father Adam. ‘Ave him read the writs and tell us what they say.”
Brian accepted the satchel and hid it beneath his tartan.
“Go.” Cade pushed his cousin away and glanced towards the Englishmen.
Lord Richard had his hand wrapped in Isabel’s hair and her head yanked back at an angle Cade knew to be painful. Even when pale and scared, her beauty was unparalleled, her combination of quiet spirit and grace enchanting him. Lord Richard released her and hit her, this time harder, as if not caring who saw. She staggered into his horse, and he shoved her to the ground, speaking too quietly for Cade to hear the words.
Lady Isabel said nothing. She stared at the dirt between her hands, drenched and shaking, her features blank for fear of worsening her fate.
Unseillie magic trickled through Cade as he watched, and thunder rumbled in the distance. He clenched the reins of his destrier in one hand, not yet able to determine what it was about her that drew him to welcome dreaded Englishmen to his keep this day.
Aware he was staring, he mounted his horse and wheeled it away, trotting past the English without a look and joining Niall on the road.
“Yer mad, cousin,” Niall whispered. His glare was on the knights forming a line on the road. “Ye invite ‘em to our home?”
“Yea.” As the chieftain, Cade was under no obligation to explain his decisions. He usually did to his cousins, who were closer to him than brothers. But this time … he did not know what to say.
Niall’s green gaze sharpened. “Ye b’lieve the wench’s tale,” he said, surprise entering his voice.
“I doona ken,” Cade said with agitated restlessness.
“She is enchanting, but what ‘ave ye in yer mind t’do? Yer betrothed, or will be soon. Noble or no, she has no gold that I can see nor land in her purse. We doona wish the English to interfere with our clan!”
“I will ne’er allow harm to befall our kind or clan, Niall.”
Niall scoured his features. “I trust ye with my life, Cade. I want what’s good for us and our kin.”
“As do I. But I ken this is wrong, to let her leave now.”
Cade resisted the urge to turn and make sure Lady Isabel still lived. The Englishman had not thought twice about laying his hands on her, and Cade suspected she would not live long past their wedding night.
The fate of one English noblewoman should not concern him, but he was unable to dismiss her.
“’Tis odd, but so do I,” Niall said, though he sounded unhappy. “Can she be one of us?”
“Nay. ‘Tis not possible,” Cade replied. “She is no seillie.” As the leader of the seillie, a duty he inherited upon the death of his mother – the seillie queen – he alone was able to determine such.
“Then what?”
Cade had no answer.
Chapter Seven
The ride to the keep was short. The forest gave way to the Highland mores – vast, rolling plains of emerald grasses, sweet heather and shrubs broken up by tall hills and patches of woods – beneath a sky that foretold rain.
Isabel shivered in the cool breeze sweeping unhindered across the plains. No longer drenched, her clothing remained damp and her head throbbed from pain. Richard rarely struck her in front of others, and his reaction this day was a warning of what she might expect when they were in private.
He had her reins, or she would have fled him once more. Swiping at angry tears, she settled her breathing, not for the first time since leaving the stream, and looked towards the man she had traveled so far to find.
Black Cade. He was as large as they said but nowhere near as violent. He had shown her mercy upon their first encounter, with the intention of granting her a quick death after she stole his horse, a second display of mercy she would never receive from Richard. She had envisioned the man she came to confront as being more like Richard – with the powerful build of a warrior in addition to a cruel nature.
If anything, she had seen warmth from the man who robbed her of her family and experienced such desire for him that she became almost giddy. The memory of his arms wrapped around her, and his hard frame pressed against her, made her shiver for a different reason.
Richard had never once touched her with affection or spoken to her with tenderness since she met him at court. It was not lost on her that he had already claimed the title of her father, the Baron of Saxony. An ambitious man favored by the king, their marriage had been arranged shortly before her brother died in a dungeon in the Holy Lands. It was unheard of for a woman to inherit her father’s estates, and Richard had been a suitable husband, the younger son of a duke, unable to inherit but bearing a title already. When her father fell ill, however, the contract was never signed, but this seemed lost to Richard.
I, too, am favored, she reminded herself. The secret that had to remain her last resort was too dangerous to reveal. At moments such as these, it was easy for her to forget how she came to be in the state she was, hunted across the country by the man determined to wed her. She had been given a cho
ice of husband, as a favor to the king’s favorite courtier, her mother, a woman who had been one of his many mistresses for years before she married the Baron of Saxony.
She had thought the granting of that favor a godsend. It had fast become a curse, for Lord Richard’s determination to own her father’s lands became clear. There were no lengths he would not go to, nowhere he would not go to force her to wed him. Her first choice of a husband had turned up dead, stabbed through the heart, soon after it was announced she was to wed him. She mourned – and then planned to run.
The pounding of hoof beats drew her from melancholy. Isabel watched one of the painted warriors gallop past them towards the wooden walls rising out of the mores. In the south, great lords such as her father and uncle had begun to use stone to build their fortresses rather than wood, and she viewed the structure before them with interest. Men lined the walls and manned the gates, while farmland and ranchland stretched in every direction outward from the keep.
It was no larger than a minor baronet’s holdings in England, and far less grand than the home she knew.
The raiding party was greeted with the same cheer as knights returning from the Crusades: with cheers, flowers and a stream of children and wolfhounds that ran from the gates to greet the men on horseback.
The laird and his men dismounted to meet the children. Richard and his knights followed their lead, while Isabel remained on her horse, afraid to tax her injured leg. She watched Black Cade, wanting to find reasons to hate him. The children of his clan squealed and surrounded him, their displays of affection making her rethink what she had heard of him. They bestowed hand woven garlands upon him and those with him. From the depths of the bailey, upbeat music sounded, and women in long dresses with flowers weaved into their hair swayed and sang greetings.
The warrior Cade, and the two big men with him, beamed smiles at their greeters. She had never seen her own vassals greet her with smiles and flowers or dance out of happiness for any reason, and she was the most generous noble she knew. The warm welcome extended to the English as well. Children draped garlands over the heads of the uncertain English knights. Even Richard was unusually gracious, as if he, too, did not know what to think of the happy people spilling out of the gates. Isabel stilled her horse as two youths brought a garland for the destrier and draped it over its neck before they ran away giggling.
Cade lifted as many children as he could carry to cart them back into their home, smiling and laughing with them.
The beast she knew from stories would not be welcomed by children or greeted with smiles from the men and women awaiting him at the gate. In a short time, he had managed to overturn most of what she had learned at court, but it was impossible for him to escape the blame for what he had done to her family.
Black Cade entered his home proudly, pausing to greet his kinsmen and return the children clinging to him to their mothers. He even joined the dancers briefly with unexpected agility and danced a complete circle before ducking out to lead the newcomers towards the stables.
She entered the gates behind Richard. The hamlet tucked inside the walls was charming, crowded and boisterous with music. Beyond the wooden homes and structures, past the stables and sheep pens, was a stone keep, two stories tall with dozens of windows. It was half the size of the area beyond the walls, a good size for a baronet. She found herself approving of all she saw. Having managed her father’s household for years before his death, she was able to appreciate the care and detail that went into maintaining the keep.
Richard led her to the stables, and she dismounted.
Whispering drew her gaze to the children hovering at the edge of the paddocks, watching the English guests with open curiosity. Self-conscious of her state, Isabel drew the cloak Richard had provided her closed to hide the ill-fitting clothing she wore. Her hair was in a braid slung over one shoulder.
The first step on her bad leg robbed her of breath. Fire shot through her. Isabel bit her tongue and swallowed a cry. She gritted her teeth and readied herself for another step.
“M’lady, the laird wishes me t’show ye t’yer chamber,” said a young girl with copper hair, blue eyes and freckles. She, too, wore flowers in her hair.
“Thank you,” Isabel murmured.
“Yer hurt.” The girl leaned into Isabel to peer at the bruises forming on her face.
Isabel did not put her in her place as she might an English handmaiden. After traveling with Ailsa, she understood better that the normal bounds of privity did not exist with the barbarians.
“I can ‘elp ye,” the girl said. “Come, m’lady.” She started away at a trot.
Isabel moved more slowly. She cast a look towards Richard. He was speaking to his knights. Every day she was not wed to him was another day he resented her. She dreaded the day she wed him, or any man, most of all. She hastened her pace the best she could, not letting her hunched shoulders relax until she was out of his sight in the keep.
The girl led her through the stone dwelling to the second floor and down a hallway littered with fragrant rushes and sprinkled with flowers, tiny pops of color that brightened the dreary interior of the stone hold. Isabel was impressed by the cleanliness and order of all she saw, and the bedchamber was no exception.
He has given me the best in the keep. The massive room was appointed with paintings, tapestries, weapons and baubles he had to have brought back from the Crusades. Their colors and shapes were too exotic for it to be otherwise. A hearth was lit, the drapes open and the large pallet befitting a laird.
“This is beautiful,” she breathed. It was cozy and quaint compared to her bedchamber in Saxony, but after a fortnight of sleeping on a horse or on the ground, the room before her was exquisite.
The girl beamed with pride.
Black Cade’s scent was in the air, a combination of man, leather and dew. It confused her once more to feel the fever return and the fluttering in her stomach. How did she lust after the man she came to kill, who slayed her brother and drove her father into madness?
Isabel centered herself. She was here for vengeance and death, whether it was his or hers. “Thank you,” she said to the smiling girl. “You may go.”
The girl left whistling and closed the door behind her.
Isabel sagged against a chair, too exhausted to think about whether she should have turned down the chamber, and any other luxury offered by Black Cade, out of a sense of loyalty to her dead brother. She did not care about what Lord Richard might say if he were to discover she had been provided the laird’s chamber. The tinge of guilt was for her brother’s sake.
Fist closed around her medallion, her last link to her brother, she went to the bed and sat down heavily. Her boots came off with effort and she observed her bloodied, blistered feet with a grimace.
She examined her hurt leg next and saw the black bruise forming beneath the lump on her shin. The skin on her cheeks was tender from Richard, the bruising on her neck painful from where he had started to choke her, after the laird left them by the river. Distraught by her injuries and appearance, she unwound her hair from the braid to let it dry. With a jolt of awareness, she reached for the satchel that had been with her for a fortnight at least.
It was gone, and with it, every chance she had at any future.
The mettle binding her emotions cracked. She began to cry, fatigued and bereft.
Isabel rested across the bed with its thick coverlets. Unable to quell her desperation, she rolled onto her stomach and sobbed away the pain and sorrow of knowing she had come so close, only to fail at the feet of the laird she intended to slay.
Chapter Eight
“I doona like this man,” Niall whispered for the third time.
“I ken,” Cade replied.
They strode through the halls of his keep towards the bedchamber of Father Adam. The day had been spent with Lord Richard, and every word the arrogant man uttered made Cade despise him a little more. Finally, he and his knights had retired for the night.
&nbs
p; At his limit with the noble, Cade was also less clear about what was going on around him than he had been before. Lord Richard spoke as if he and Lady Isabel were already wed and had been for many years. He avoided answering direct questions about why his betrothed had fled and claimed ownership of her father’s lands.
Of her.
It doesna matter. She is nothing to me. He had uttered the chant to keep from leaping across the table to slash the haughty lord’s head off. He had been able to control his unseillie streak well now for a year or two, but first Isabel, then Richard, made all his work containing the dark, violent streak seem for naught.
The downpour outside left his cousins no doubt what he felt, even if he managed to remain civilized with Lord Richard.
“She is wealthy, if he’s t’be believed,” Niall said, his bemusement shared by Cade.
“If,” Cade echoed. He stopped outside the door of the priest and pounded on it. “Father Adam!”
The muffled sound of something heavy hitting the floor – probably the priest’s bible – reached Cade, an indication the elderly man had dozed off while in the middle of his duty.
“Enter, Cade,” the priest called.
He did so. The priest’s bedchamber was the largest in the hold, save for Cade’s. Father Adam kept a trove full of books, scrolls and parchment with which to write letters on Cade’s behalf. Brian was leaning over the priest’s shoulder to peer at the writs.
“What’ve ye found?” Cade asked, too irritated by his night to render the proper greeting.
“A delightful scheme!” was the unusually enthusiastic reply.
Cade exchanged a look with Niall. They approached the priest’s desk. It was littered with scrolls, and his thick bible lay on the floor. Cade picked it up and then kissed the cover out of respect for the book and his priest.
