Heart of Stone

by Quinn, Paula

  He stroked her head when she rested it on his shoulder and did his best to comfort her. Holding her and the babe, letting them feel warm and safe before they moved on. He wouldn’t fail them as he had everyone else. Lismoor’s dead pierced his stout, leathery heart. His men were not prepared for war. They had grown soft fighting nothing for years. As their commander, it was his fault.

  Not this time. He fought through over two dozen men trying to breach Lismoor’s walls and came out alive. He’d fought wars alongside the fearsome commander, Cainnech MacPherson. He was going to get them the hell out of here, and then he was coming back with the MacPhersons to kill them all.

  Where should he take them? The safest place he knew was Carlisle. To Torin MacPherson, Nicholas’ older brother. Elias would be safe there, as would Agnes. The journey would take a few days by horse, of which he needed two more, possibly longer with a babe, but what other choice was there? He would not leave them here and he would not take them to Alnwick to find Julianna. Aye, he’d take them to Carlisle and then he and Torin would return to find Nicholas and rescue Julianna from Bamburgh, DeAvoy, and both their armies if they had to.

  “Come. We will go to the village fer some food. By now, everyone who needs buryin’ should be buried. We will leave Rothbury at nightfall.”

  “Oh, Rauf,” she cried, pulling Elias closer to her. “I am afraid to leave the glade.”

  “My dear, I’m here now. I willna let anyone hurt ye or Nicholas’ son.”

  She smiled and melted his heart a little. She’d taken him quite by surprise a day after he returned. He’d seen her around the castle when Aleysia was here, and then when Mattie was lady. But not many women had ever appealed to him before. They could never look past his scarred face. They immediately saw a mean, dangerous warrior.

  But Agnes had seen more. She followed him around like a hungry kitten. He hadn’t minded. He liked looking at her with her small, pert nose and a spray of freckles across it. Her eyes were cornflower blue and her hair was dark and as glossy as his horse’s mane.

  Aye, she appealed to him very much. She had got him to thinking. Mayhap it was time to settle his roots and start a family. He was thirty years old after all. He would ask her in Carlisle, after everyone was safe.

  “Follow me. And Agnes, if any man comes near, look away. I wouldna want yer bonnie eyes to see what I am so good at.”

  She smiled at him and then tucked herself and Elias under his arm as they left the glade.

  When he suggested that they climb the sloping trees to the planks above, he thought Agnes would put up a fight.

  “I learned to climb them with Aleysia,” she told him. “I was here when all this was built, and before that, when Giles was lord here.”

  Rauf laughed. “Och, how did we not…” he found no suitable words for what he wanted to express.

  “I do not know,” she laughed softly with him. “But I am glad we did now.”

  “Aye,” he said with an understanding grin.

  He held Elias and stepped up first. He waited for Agnes, who waved his concerns away and motioned for him to proceed.

  He ascended quickly, having come up often with Nicholas to hunt. Some directions led to weaker branches, as they both discovered when Rauf and Elias stepped on one and a loud crack sounded throughout the trees. Silence answered. It was as if those trees were poised to hear what happened next.

  He looked to the left and saw a plank nailed into the wood. He counted to two and then stepped onto it.

  The branch beneath his boot cracked a bit more. Rauf held Elias and pulled himself over to the plank by the strength of his leg.

  The branch didn’t break. Rauf turned to look back but Agnes wasn’t there. His gaze scanned the thousands of trees and he was about to call out to her.

  “Enjoying the scenery?”

  He turned in front of him and saw Agnes five branches ahead. How did she…?

  “Over here!” one of England’s men called out from below.

  They were coming from the southwest. Rauf made a detour he was certain Agnes saw him take. He ran and waited high above for them to gather in the field of arrows. His knife was at the ready, his heart pounded with excitement. He smiled at Elias facing him, and cut the heavy rope holding back the trigger of the trap.

  The arrows flew, as if from the ground and with good aim, and put down at least thirty of them.

  Rauf and Agnes kept running until the planks stopped. They were close to the village. They climbed down and approached with caution. It seemed abandoned and reminded Rauf of the first time he came here with Cain, a small, deadly regiment of men fighting a ghost.

  “’Tis Agnes with the lord’s son and the commander of his forces.” Her voice was loud echoing through the village.

  Slowly, doors began to open. People stepped out of their homes, most dressed in mourning clothes.

  “’Tis me, Agnes, Mattie and Aleysia’s maid.”

  They suddenly came alive and hurried to her and then to Rauf. They had many questions. Some he could answer and some he could not. He begged for their mercy in failing to protect them and their loved ones and they freely forgave him. They invited them into their homes for some refreshment, but they had little. Rauf assured them that he would return with the brothers and take back Lismoor. There was not a doubt in his mind that they could. They filled their bags and borrowed another horse for Agnes. He retrieved his horse that he had tied off to a tree behind the village and they were off.

  It wasn’t until they were a day into traveling that Rauf realized who Torin was to Julianna. He had penetrated Berwick’s forces and had gained the trust of Berwick’s army of men. He managed to get most of them drunk the night the Scots attacked. Everyone in Berwick was massacred.

  Everyone but Julianna, whom Torin had delivered to St. Peter’s Abbey.

  Hell, they were bound to meet again. What would Julianna do when she found out who Nicholas’ brother was? He shrugged his beefy shoulders. That was Nicky’s trouble. There were plenty more to see to first.

  Phillip DeAvoy shoved open the doors to his castle and bellowed for the Viscount of Bamburgh. He didn’t expect an answer. The groom had already told him that no one had come to the castle in weeks.

  The bastard either stole her or she killed him. Phillip wouldn’t be surprised if the latter were the case. She was a wicked murderess and she would hang for her crimes—after he bedded her good and hard, the way she deserved.

  He would find her somewhere between here and Lismoor. He’d whip her for making him chase her. He ordered six of his men to go with him and set off again. He remembered a small keep that belonged to Pratt in…hell, where did he say it was? Alburic? Lorbottle? No. That was too far north.

  Edlingham.

  He’d leave in an hour. First he wanted to check in on someone who was here with him. He looked toward the stairs that led below, to the large prison cell he’d had built for her. Would she speak to him today? He used to listen to her screaming from the deep pit. He was a child. He thought it might have driven him a little mad. He knew what it had done to her—and he didn’t care. She deserved it.

  He lit a torch and descended, calling her as he went. “Leigh! Leigh, I have returned!” He laughed when he heard her anxious pacing. “Your savior, the Viscount of Bamburgh may have cut ties with me and stolen my damned wife. If he has, I no longer need you up here and you can return to the pit where you belong.” He looked for a reaction from her but she didn’t seem to care. “You bore me. We will see how quiet you are when I return with my prize!”

  He thought of his wife on the way to Edlingham, hoping he wasn’t wasting time going there. Julianna. She was a defiant hellcat who had more scars on her back than many men he knew. He laughed softly to himself. She was seemingly unafraid of the whip and was caught breaking his rules often.

  He had never been all too fond of her. He had known about her keeping company with servants. He thought it was deplorable. What did the poor and deprived have in common
with the fortunate? Nothing. Julianna’s father should have used a firmer hand.

  Phillip had often wanted to tame her. He’d even fought his brothers for her once. He’d won, of course. He thought marriage would tame her, tie her down. But she fought back with every means at her disposal, her teeth, her fingernails, her sharp tongue, and finally with poison in his ale. She had run away, escaped him, but he’d found her. Just as he would find her now.

  The next day he did just that.

  He expected more of a fight from Bamburgh’s men, but he knew that when he was angry, his strength and stamina increased. He killed many of Edlingham’s men on his own, plowing a bloody path to his wife.

  “Julianna?” he called out, entering the castle. “Come out, Jezebel. Come to your husband.”

  He kicked his way into every room, calling her.

  He heard a sound and looked down the hall. There was Bamburgh standing at the end of the corridor. His long limbs at the ready for a fight. Legs braced. Arms up, sword pointed.

  “You have my wife,” Phillip accused while he turned to him.

  “I protect her from you,” the viscount dared to say.

  Phillip wanted to kill him slowly. He thought to come between a man and his wife! “Who will protect her when you are dead, Pratt?”

  “You have ten breaths to leave my castle or I will kill you.”

  Phillip grinned at him. He had ballocks. Pity. While holding his hilt in one hand, he reached his other hand into a pocket of his coat and produced a much smaller blade. He tossed it quickly at Bamburgh and watched it sink into his opponent’s belly. He watched Bamburgh go down and went to him. When he reached Bamburgh, he pulled out his blade and then stabbed him three more times.

  Without waiting to see what damage he’d caused, he climbed over Bamburgh’s body and stepped into a large room.

  “Julianna?” he called out, looking toward the tall window. “If you make me wait another moment, I will…” he paused and hurried back into the hall. Pratt had been protecting her. Who knows what she’d told him. It didn’t matter now. He had her. And he knew how to lure her out.

  He grabbed Pratt’s collar and dragged him back into the room. There, he yanked his knife free of Pratt’s belly and held it up to his throat. “Come out or he dies.”

  He didn’t have to wait long. He heard her boots clicking across the wooden floors and he turned to look at her.

  Damn him, but she was beautiful. He’d always thought she was, with her fiery red tresses defying her clips and moving around her face like a flame. She stole his breath—as, he suspected, she did to every man who came upon her. He didn’t blame William Stone for his forbidden love. The Governor of Berwick should have sent his servant away when he was a child—before he became as vital to his daughter as the air she breathed. And, it seemed, no amount of beating could rid her of her need of him.

  “Phillip, what do you want?” she asked him, sounding brave. He knew better.

  “I want you,” he told her. “My wife, bound to me until death. I will teach you who you belong to.”

  “I belong to no one, Phillip! Especially not you! Careful or ’twill be me teaching the lessons.”

  Oh, but she was fiery. She didn’t know but when she fought with him it made him even hungrier for her. “Was your Reverend Mother trying to break our bond?”

  “Bond?” she laughed. “There is no bond between us, Phillip. I have always loved him. Never you.”

  “Perhaps that was the first dent in our marriage.”

  “That is not a dent,” she said. “’Tis a break. ’Twas doomed before it ever began. And then when you proved to be a monster—”

  “Stop it, Jules,” he warned.

  She straightened her spine and squared her shoulders and stared him in the eyes. “You never had a chance!”

  His gaze grew harder on her but he made no move to strike her. After a moment, he laughed at her. “Look at you. Puny thing. What man would want cold bones in his bed?”

  She smiled, looking as if she were remembering something. “Strong enough to bury you, Phillip.”

  He stared at her, stunned to hear her confess such a thing.

  “I could not heap the dirt upon you fast enough.”

  “You will hang for it.”

  “’Twill be worth it to know you woke up eating dirt, just like the worm you are!”

  Phillip wanted to kick the door closed and show her, but she and her abbess had ways of killing men with just a touch. DeAvoy was careful not to touch her. “Remove your clothes, your adornments, everything. Do what I tell you and he lives. Disobey me, which I know you love doing, and he dies. You see what is happening here, love? I am taking control.”

  “Aye, Phillip,” she agreed and did what he commanded.

  He smiled. This wouldn’t be so difficult after all.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Nicholas sat up against a rock and looked toward Alnwick Moor. He didn’t go to Lismoor because he didn’t believe Julianna was still there. He prayed that Elias was with her but the longer he journeyed, the more he changed his prayer, the more his heart broke within him, stone by stone.

  He’d regained some of his strength but traveling was taxing and took much out of him. At least his arm felt somewhat better. He could swing his sword or axe, though thankfully he hadn’t had to.

  He was exhausted and they were cold and hungry, but they continued on. Margaret and Simon were still with him, though he had tried to leave them in three different inns. He’d tried to convince them that it wasn’t safe for them to travel with him but they wouldn’t hear of leaving him.

  He was glad for the company. Margaret told him all about her life while he practiced fighting in whatever field they came across. Margaret wasn’t as close to Mattie as Agnes and Sarah had been, but she believed Mattie would have liked Julianna.

  “I like her, too,” Margaret told him, trying to conceal the deep emotion she felt for Julianna. “She treats me kindly and with thoughtfulness. She made me a lady for a night.”

  “Aye, I like her, too,” Simon chimed in.

  Aye, Nicholas smiled with them. Julianna was easy to like.

  “You will get her back,” Margaret assured him. And his son, as well.

  They gave him hope. He was thankful they lived through the attack. He would make sure they lived through this journey, as well.

  “Just a few more miles. They must be in Alnwick by now.” He used his last ounce of strength to get back on his horse. He sat up in the saddle, clutched his side, and then he didn’t see anything else.

  Someone was touching him, fussing with him. His or her hands were gentle and busy on him. Even…shaving his face. He wanted to push them away. His hands didn’t move.

  He opened his eyes the next day. He tried to sit up and found that his ribs felt better. He was in a bed, a small, straw bed to be exact, in what looked like a large prison cell. Margaret worked at a pot of something on a trivet in the center of the cell. Simon sat close by while another, older woman worked near her.

  He lifted his hand to his face. He was clean-shaven. Where was he? Why did the place look as if it had been lived in? Who had taken care of him? He felt better and more rested than he had in days.

  “Simon?” he called.

  He turned, and so did the older woman. When Nicholas saw her he sat up, oblivious to pain. His eyes filled with tears instantly but he didn’t allow any of them to fall. Had he died? Was he dreaming?

  “Mother,” he whispered, afraid to break whatever hold had come over him.

  The woman looked at him—straight into his eyes. And then she smiled crookedly and went back to her work, leaving him shaken.

  Defying how he felt, Nicholas swung his legs off the bed and stood up. It was her. His mother. Berengaria. Her hair was gray where it had once been dark brown. She wore it in a long braid coiled around the back of her head. Her skin was more weathered and her teeth were darker than they had once been. Her eyes were different, as well. Still gentle
, kind sea-foam blue eyes that had once seemed to look into him now looked through him as if he weren’t there. How…? “What are you doing here?”

  He should be angry. She deserved his anger for leaving them. For leaving them alone at twelve and nine years, to fight a world that stood against them. But he didn’t feel angry with her. He wasn’t sure what he felt.

  “My lord.” Margaret touched her fingers to his arm. “This is your mother?”

  “Aye. What is the matter with her? Does she not know me?” He reached out and touched his mother’s elbow. She turned at the feel of his fingers and looked up into his eyes. “Mother. ’tis Nic—William. Do you not know me?”

  For a moment, her vision seemed to clear. Just for an instant, she drank in the sight of him, touched her hand to his face. “William, my love.”

  “Where have you been?”

  She looked around the cell and tears filled her eyes. And then the fog returned and she stepped away from him.

  “I do not understand this!” Nicholas shouted, taking her hand and not letting her go. “What has happened to you? Where have you been?” His voice shook with emotion. “Why did you leave us?”

  She pulled and tried to free herself from him. He let her go. She was here! How long had she been here?

  He heard the sounds of men running toward them. He let go of Berengaria and reached for his sword. It was gone. He looked at Margaret.

  “The men who found us and brought us here took your weapons,” she told him.

  When the two men reached the cell, Nicholas stepped up to the iron door. “Where are we?”

  “Alnwick,” one of them answered. “What is all the screaming about?”

  “Where is the governor?” Nicholas demanded. “Has he returned?”

  The man cast a suspicious smirk at him. “Who is asking?’

  “The Earl of Rothbury,” Nicholas informed them, squaring his shoulders. “His close friend. Why were we put in this cell?”