The Guardian’s Favor: Border Series Book Nine

by Mecca, Cecelia

  This is where the real tale began. He’d not spoken of it aloud for two years, and if the pang in his chest were any indication, it would be difficult to do so now.

  No more difficult than carrying a child inside your belly as Gillian is. ’Tis simply a story. Tell it.

  “There was a girl . . .”

  To call her such was imprecise, of course. An angel, he’d thought her at the time. When they’d arrived at Theffield, the young Lady Clarissa had peeked out from behind her father and was rewarded for her efforts with a stern glare. Aidan had disliked him instantly.

  The little lady’s round face had stared up at him, innocent bright brown eyes framed with long brown hair. Aidan had wanted to take one of her demurely folded hands and pull her with him, leading her out into the courtyard and beyond. He’d wanted to run as fast and far away as possible from the man who stood by her side . . .

  Instead, he’d merely stood beside his father and brother, waiting for the moment when they would be away from the prying eyes of their parents.

  “I will see to the preparations for Douglas,” his brother said as Aidan realized how long he’d paused his story.

  With a final glance back, his brother abandoned him to the tale. Graeme knew well what happened next, for he had been there the entire time.

  “There was a girl?” Gillian prompted.

  “Aye, Theffield’s daughter.”

  Aidan leaned forward when Gillian moved her hand to her stomach, worrying she was about to have another bout of sickness, but she waved him away.

  “’Tis nothing. Go on.”

  Bringing himself back to that day, he thought of how quickly he’d developed a dislike for the earl, whom his father had called “the worst sort of man.”

  “Before our fathers left us to meet, alone, Theffield reprimanded her for coming out to see us and sent her away with a maidservant. Drawn to her, I followed, intending to speak to her, when the girl ran. Away from the maid and directly to the door. It didn’t take long to catch her or determine that she intended to run away.”

  “Poor girl.”

  “Indeed. She’d not have gotten very far, of course. And I was surprised she opened to me, told me she could no longer endure her father’s cruelty. Which, had I not intervened, would have been on display that day.”

  Aidan recounted how he’d convinced Lady Clarissa of the dangers she would face at such an age were she successful. He told Gillian of the large amount of coin it took to persuade the maid and others who had witnessed the incident to agree to keep it silent.

  “I thought often about the desperation that Lady Clarissa must have felt to consider herself safer outside Theffield’s walls, alone, than within them.”

  “Meeting her affected you,” Gillian correctly surmised.

  “Aye, and Graeme too. She was such a pretty girl, her wide eyes telling us even before we spoke of the difficult life she’d endured. Theffield’s daughter was quite sheltered. Meeting us was a novelty for her.”

  Gillian frowned. He’d not meant to sadden her.

  Brought back to the present, Aidan attempted a smile. He did not want to appear a sentimental fool by asking aloud how they’d managed without her for so many years. Lady Gillian’s mere presence brightened Highgate End.

  Shifting in his seat under Gillian’s gaze, he resumed his story.

  “Graeme teased me the entire day about the incident. As we were given a tour of the manor, my thoughts were indeed elsewhere.”

  “On the girl?”

  “Aye. Her eyes haunted me that day and for years later until—”

  A soft knock at the door interrupted them. Gillian’s maid, a young woman nearly as protective of Gillian as he was, entered the room.

  “Is there aught you need, my lady?”

  “Nay,” she said. “As you’ve likely heard, we are expecting guests. See to them, if you please.”

  “Aye, my lady. I believe they’ve already arrived.” She bobbed a curtsy and left.

  “Until?”

  Aidan stood. “Until many years later. It appears Douglas was much closer to Highgate than his messenger anticipated.”

  He held out his arm. The lady of Highgate End would want to greet their guests.

  Gillian took it but did not allow him to pass over the rest of the story so easily. As they walked from the chamber, she prodded him to finish the tale.

  “Did you see her again?”

  They wound their way through darkened corridors and to a set of circular stairs that led down to the great hall. He deftly avoided answering her question by moving in front of her, a habit he’d gotten into whenever they descended such a tight stairwell. He did not need to be told a fall in her condition would be detrimental to his wee niece or nephew.

  “You did. You saw her. When?”

  Taking her arm again as they reached the landing, Aidan delayed for as long as he could without appearing rude. Just as they arrived at the entrance to the hall, he said, “Years later. We ought to greet our guests.”

  Gillian gave him a look that told him his escape was only a temporary one, and well he knew it.

  Escorting her into the hall, Aidan watched his brother, who was speaking to one of the most powerful men in Scotland. A large, fearsome-looking one who would not be waylaid, no matter his request. And when both men looked his way—Douglas with a nod of greeting and Graeme with a look of worry—Aidan already knew the outcome.

  They would be traveling south, to Theffield.

  Bloody hell.

  * * *

  “My lady?”

  Eda entered the chamber hesitantly, as if she were a stranger who had not been there when Clarissa burst into the world, killing her mother in the process. As if she had not been present for the one and only time Clarissa had ever stood up to her father—the argument that had left him red in the face, spitting mad and denouncing her as a daughter.

  “Come in, Eda.” Clarissa rushed to the doorway and ushered the maid into the chamber.

  Pulling a stool away from the whitewashed walls of the bedchamber she had hoped to never see again, Clarissa gestured for Eda to sit, but the maid waved it away.

  “My lord would not take kindly to ol’ Eda sittin’.”

  She hated to think it, but the years they’d been apart had not been kind to Eda. More lines ran from the corners of her mouth downward. Eda’s features seemed to her more prominent, her wide nose flaring in anger. The fire in her eyes was still there though, the one that had ensured she would never be allowed to follow Clarissa to her new life with Lord Stanley.

  “I do not know why you stay.”

  “And I do not know why you’ve returned.”

  Two years apart, and they’d already fallen back into the same argument they’d spent a lifetime debating. It was the first opportunity they’d had to be alone together since Clarissa’s arrival the previous afternoon. She’d remained in her chamber until Eda could come to her, knowing the maid would do so as soon as she was able. Cowardly, perhaps, but she had no wish to see her father.

  “I thought to tell you last eve—”

  “Your father forbade me to come to you.”

  Clarissa clenched her hands into fists, squeezing with all of her might. The small mutiny did not improve her mood, but she relished the thought of how unseemly her father would think the gesture. “He is a monster.”

  “Why?” Eda repeated, looking down at Clarissa’s hands.

  She allowed them to relax and spoke quickly. “Lord Stanley appealed to the ecclesiastical court for a dissolution of our marriage and bade me leave.”

  Eda looked as if she’d just choked on a fig. “Dissolution? I’ve never—”

  “Nay,” she said. “I never did either. Until he broached the topic more than a year ago.”

  Clarissa thought back to that first conversation. ‘“Broached’ may not be the correct term. More like demanded,” she clarified. “Eda,” she grabbed the maid’s hand, “’twas awful. The physician poked and prodded
me—”

  When Eda squeezed her hand, Clarissa felt her throat swell with emotion. She did not wish to go into detail about that particular incident. It still haunted her sleep. “But it matters not. When word arrived a sennight past that the dissolution would be allowed, the annulment proceedings could be begun . . .” She shrugged. “Lord Stanley said, ‘’Tis over. Go home.’ And so I did.”

  There was, of course, much more to tell, but no time to do so. “I will tell you more when we can find another time to speak. Go. And, if you please, send word to Albert that I will be needing his services.”

  Albert. Her only chance at reaching Sutworth safely. “I do not plan to remain here until Father discovers what has truly happened. And he will, eventually. If I could have convinced Stanley’s men to escort me to Sutworth, I’d have done so. But they refused. And so here I—”

  She stopped talking, finally seeing the sorrow in Eda’s deep brown eyes. The maid’s eyes were dark, almost black, and always expressive.

  “What is it?”

  “I am so sorry, my love.”

  Nay, not Albert! Please God, no.

  “He’d begun to cough—”

  Clarissa did not hear the rest. She crumpled onto the stool, head in her hands, and allowed the swelling in her chest to burst. Clarissa had not cried when her father slapped her across the face so hard it had left a red mark for her wedding day. She had not cried after being married to a man nearly as old—and as cruel—as her father.

  At least Lord Stanley did not remind her regularly that she killed her own mother. Indeed, the man had hardly spoken to her at all. He’d bought her like cattle and treated her as such. The possibility of an heir was the only reason he’d parted with the land her father had coveted his whole life. She’d been naught but a transaction to them both, and Clarissa had done her duty and married the old man, with nary a tear.

  She had not even cried when the king’s physician had stuck his fingers inside the most private part of her, verifying she was, indeed, still a virgin. But now, to learn she had lost the one man who had treated her like a daughter, who had risked her father’s ire to visit her at Lord Stanley’s, and who would have delivered her safely to Sutworth Manor, whence she could flee to Dunburg Abbey . . .

  “Nay,” she said as Eda gently lowered a hand to her shoulder. Her cheeks and fingers tingled with sorrow as tears continued to flow, the steady stream becoming an aching throb in her chest. “Not Albert, please . . .”

  The man had never married, never begat any children. She’d often imagined what life would be like if she were his daughter in truth.

  “We will find someone to help,” Eda said.

  Clarissa wanted to deny those words, but she could not speak. In this moment, she did not care about Sutworth, or Dunburg, or what became of her. Albert was gone, and she didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. The only man who’d ever loved her . . . well, not the only man. But Clarissa had ruined that as well. Aidan de Sowlis hated her now, and she did not blame him.

  “I do not wish to leave you—”

  “Go,” she said, looking up, realizing the danger this visit posed for Eda. Wiping her eyes and attempting to smile—a miserable attempt, she was sure—Clarissa pushed the maid away. “I will be fine,” she said, not meaning it at all. “Hurry . . .”

  “I will be back.”

  Clarissa returned the smile, wondering how a woman who had served her father her whole life could still manage one. Eda was truly a blessing, a gift from God. She bolted up and tossed her arms around the older woman, squeezing her as Eda chuckled.

  “I am sorry.” The loss was not only hers, after all.

  Clarissa could feel Eda shudder beneath her. Pulling away, she took a deep breath.

  “Go,” she repeated. Eda did not need a reminder of what her father would do if she were caught disobeying a direct order. Bobbing a quick curtsy, she left as quietly as she had come.

  Clarissa sank back down onto the stool and, for the first time in memory, allowed sorrow to seep into her bones. She would allow herself only a moment of self-pity, just one.

  And then it would be time to form a new plan.

  Chapter 3

  Aidan shifted on his mount, adjusting the leather sheath of the dirk that never left his side. Graeme would have enjoyed this challenge. Frowning at the sight before him, he averted his gaze from the looming castle and concentrated instead on the steady pounding of hoofbeats behind him.

  As they rode closer, Aidan held up a fist. The men fell into line around him as Theffield Castle came fully into view. Once a motte and bailey castle, it had seen so many additions and renovations that the stronghold was now fully positioned to house an English earl. Unlike the man, Theffield was an impressive holding.

  “I’d hoped to never see this place again,” Aidan said to no one in particular.

  “And I can understand why,” Lawrence said beside him.

  Lawrence was one of Aidan’s closest friends. The son of a chief, he and his clan were more than simply neighbors to Clan Scott. His family, and clan, had been at war with Theffield’s neighbors for many years. Lawrence took any opportunity to travel south in hopes of meeting his enemies. In all other dealings, Clan Karyn sought peace, not war. But the Morley family was one glaring exception.

  He and Aidan looked remarkably similar, and had been mistaken for brothers before—a misconception it amused them to indulge. Both had brown hair, though Aidan’s was a touch darker, hazel eyes and a hulking build. But the resemblance they bore to each other was nothing compared to that between Aidan and Graeme. He and his brother could pass for twins.

  Lawrence looked up into the cloudless sky as a flock of rooks passed overhead. “It seems so long ago when you first met her—”

  “I would prefer not to discuss her.” He’d known the topic would arise eventually, and had little patience for it at the moment. “Thankfully, she will not be in residence,” he added, prodding his horse forward.

  Unbidden, a memory of Lady Clarissa assaulted him as they rode toward the outer gatehouse of the fortress in front of them. Unlike the young girl he’d described to Gillian, this memory was of a woman, one with the same oval-shaped face and long, straight brown hair. But rather than peeking out from behind her father, this Clarissa leaned over the high wooden stands surrounding the tourney field to offer him a favor. He could still see the creamy skin of the top of her breasts as she strained to tie the simple white ribbon around the tip of his lance.

  Another vision assaulted him, the same woman, the same dress. This time, she stood before a glistening Lake Litmere. When he thought of her, he always remembered the beauty of that lake, only outdone by the beauty of the woman. She looked at it, at everything, with such wonder in her eyes.

  It was as if she had never seen anything as glorious as that lake before.

  Because she hadn’t.

  With the exception of the infrequent visits she and her father had made to Sutworth Manor, Clarissa had been all but imprisoned within the walls of Theffield Castle. Even so, it had almost defied his belief that she’d never seen a lake before. How was such a thing possible for a woman born and bred in the borderlands? But there was no denying the sheer pleasure of her expression as she dipped her fingers into the frigid water.

  “Damn Douglas,” he murmured to himself.

  “For forcing you to meet with the father or for giving you a reason to remember the daughter?”

  They’d slowed their pace as they approached the castle, and apparently Lawrence had heard him.

  “Both.”

  He called up to the guard, then he and his men waited for the drawbridge to be lowered. Theffield’s moat had dried out long ago, but that did not prevent use of the ancient drawbridge. It came creaking down, and continued to creak as they made their way across it to the inner bailey.

  “You should have sent Graeme,” Lawrence said, not for the first time that day.

  Though Gillian’s babe was not nearly ready to make its en
trance into the world, he would never have allowed his brother to travel without him. The chief was needed at home.

  “Alec would allow your father to ride alone?” he asked Lawrence.

  Lawrence’s older brother Alec was their father’s second, just as Aidan was Graeme’s second, and he would never consider such a thing. They both knew it.

  “Alec was never forced to treat with the man responsible for ruining his life.”

  As guards approached them, Aidan gave his friend a look he hoped would make him stop talking.

  “Alec has not spent two years brooding.”

  “I have not—”

  “Greetings, my lords.”

  Thankful for the interruption, Aidan allowed the reins to be taken from him by a stablehand. Setting aside his irritation, he prepared for the meeting, which promised to be unpleasant at best, deadly at worst.

  Theffield was their last hope to bring back the Day of Truce, and with it, peace. If he could not convince the earl to help them, and he doubted very much the man was inclined to do so, the recent skirmishes along the border might escalate to full-scale battles. A discomforting thought indeed.

  “My lord is expecting you,” another servant said as he led them through the courtyard. “Your men are welcome in the main keep.”

  He and Lawrence exchanged a glance. It was an odd statement to make, one that implied there had been some discussion about what to do with his men. And obviously a consideration to not allow them in. Though it was the kind of reception he’d expect from the earl, it did not bode well for their meeting.

  Theffield was no ordinary keep. Its door, nearly three times the size of most and constructed of old, heavy wood, took two men to open. One pulled the iron handle, and the other pushed from the inside. An elderly man, straining with his efforts, appeared as the door slowly swung open. Like each of the servants that greeted them, his face was dour. Theffield was much as he remembered it . . . without joy. Without light and certainly without love.

  Aidan hated it. Hated being here and hated the man who was now walking toward them. His only consolation was knowing the earl had no knowledge of his rendezvous with Clarissa at the Tournament of the North two years earlier. If she had told her father, Aidan would certainly have known about it long ago.