“I think,” he said, knowing what Clarissa would say, “I have another idea.”
* * *
“No.”
Clarissa sat on the edge of the bed, staring at him in shock. Surely he couldn’t think such a thing possible. “You’ve risked everything for me, and I cannot allow you to continue doing so. Hiding me here . . . that is dangerous enough. But what you’re proposing would start a war.”
“Nay.” He stood and began to pace. “I aim to avoid one. Once your father and Douglas negotiate the terms of—”
“He will not agree.”
Aidan sighed, presumably in frustration.
Well, it was nothing less than she’d been feeling all day. After he left the night before, Clarissa had hardly slept. And though she’d had a lovely conversation with Lady Gillian and spent an enjoyable day in the bakehouse with Lewis, her every thought had been focused on the man who now stood in front of her.
“What do you mean ‘he will not agree’?”
What could she possibly say? That she loved a man her father would never accept? Which was precisely why Aidan’s idea was such a poor one.
“Aidan, I doubt he will even treat with Douglas. He’s likely just toying with him. He desires prestige, aye, but my father cares for power above all else. The king—”
“Is ill and will likely die.”
Clarissa winced. He was her king, not his, and therefore it was not treasonous for Aidan to comment on his likely fate so bluntly. Even so, she knew he was right. She’d heard the whispers.
“I should say, then, the king’s advisors would be cross with my father if he were to oust one of the king’s favorites, even if he has the authority to do so. I know what he’s said but—” She shrugged, less and less sure of her convictions. Perhaps she was wrong. “My father has spent his life garnering favor with the king. ’Tis the only thing he cares about more than expanding the holdings that will one day go to the babe I am not carrying. Which is why he will never, ever allow me to marry a Scot. With no other heirs, Theffield will pass to me. A woman. And he will not allow that either.”
Aidan’s eyes widened. “What if you relinquished your claim?”
“I would do so, gladly. But don’t you understand? If that happens, Theffield will revert back to the crown upon his death, and that will mean my father has lost.”
And Father never, ever loses.
“Look at me, Clarissa.”
He moved too close for her not to do so. Her heart hammered in her chest, ignoring her attempts to calm it. “I cannot stay.”
“But neither can you leave.”
“My father—”
“Can be dealt with. Before his meeting with Douglas. After. I care not. Surely you realize that this—” he gestured to both of them, “—happens just once in a lifetime.”
She wanted to agree. Clarissa had never wanted anything more than to throw herself into Aidan’s arms and forget that her father could be coming for her even now.
“You are wrong,” she said, her voice small but her heart filled with love. “It has happened once before,” she rushed to clarify, needing to smooth the furrow in his brow, “at the Tournament of the North when a very handsome Scotsman looked at me as if I were the most beautiful woman in the stands.”
“In all of England, and all of Scotland too. And that was before I knew you as I do now.”
“And then I let you go.”
“Nay.” He grabbed her hands. “You did not let me go. Your father forced you to leave.”
“As he will do again.”
Aidan’s shoulders sagged. “We will find a way.”
Clarissa wished she shared his conviction. She got to her feet. “And what of Highgate End? And Lady Gillian and Allie? Your niece or neph—”
“What of you, Clarissa? Do you not matter as much as they do?”
In truth, she was not sure that she did.
“Aidan—”
He kissed her before she could finish. This kiss was unlike the others they’d shared. It was less frantic, his lips opening hers like a flower’s petals in spring. Soft and slow, until his tongue took over her mouth. It circled her upper lip and then the lower, reverently, and then finally found her own. Like before, a fluttering ran from her chest to her stomach and then lower. When his hands moved up to her head, holding it in place as he continued his gentle assault, Clarissa wrapped her arms around him lest she fall to the ground.
He’d certainly mastered helping her forget their troubles.
“Open wide for me, my love.”
Clarissa thought she had already, but when she did as he instructed, his mouth slanted over hers and took even more. So this was what it meant to be consumed by someone. She met each thrust of his tongue as his hands moved swiftly from her head to her bottom. As he pulled her toward him, Clarissa clung to him. She could clearly feel him against her, and she knew unequivocally what he tried to tell her.
Throbbing with need and aware of Aidan in a way she could not explain, Clarissa felt her shoulders heave with an exertion that was hardly warranted. She had done nothing but stand there, and yet she may as well have run up the very hill they’d raced on last eve.
“And this,” she said, somehow knowing, “this happens but once in a lifetime.”
Aidan smiled, a slow sensuous smile that promised so much.
“Twice, I’ve been told.”
She laughed then, so hard she was sure the guards outside could hear her. And she did forget everything, save the sweet sound of Aidan’s laughter as the faintest of lines appeared around the corners of his eyes.
A laugh that was abruptly cut off by a sudden and incessant knock at the door.
Chapter 17
“I would rather sink my dirk into his black heart than cower before him.”
Aidan paced in Graeme’s solar, back and forth, as he’d been doing since his brother had come to fetch him from Clarissa’s chamber.
“I can go in your stead—”
“No.”
The message had just arrived for a representative from Clan Scott to appear at Theffield Castle at once. Presumably Douglas was already on his way, and whether it was the warden or the earl who had requested their presence, it hardly mattered.
They could not deny Douglas.
If it were the earl . . . it meant he knew.
“Gillian is not as far along as—”
“No,” Aidan said again, this time as firmly as if his brother were not his chief. “I met with him before and will do so again. Gillian needs you here.”
Graeme watched him as he continued to pace back and forth. “If Theffield suspects . . . you will not admit to having her.”
“Nay, I will not. Clarissa is convinced he will never accept me. But if Douglas hears the merest suggestion of it, he’ll ask questions.”
“We will not lie to the warden.”
“Neither will I give her back.”
He stopped, waiting for his brother’s reaction. But Graeme simply frowned. “Of course you will not. Your stance is mine, though do not expect Douglas to acquiesce if it comes to that.”
“Thank you, brother.”
The words hardly seemed adequate, but he could think of no others. Graeme had no allegiance to her, but his support had been unwavering.
“Do not thank me until the meeting ends in success. If all goes well and Theffield delivers on his promise to remove Caxton, we will devise a plan then.”
“A few more days . . .”
“A few more days, and the fate of the borderlands will be decided.”
He should let her go—and well he knew it. If he simply let her go, she would be safe. Their clan would be safe. But as he walked from Graeme’s chamber, he remembered the empty feeling of sitting outside the gates of Dunburg Abbey, thinking Clarissa had but moments left with him.
He could never do it.
He could not let her go.
Aidan found Malcolm in the hall playing dice. Graeme had insisted he take an escort
from Highgate End to Bowden Castle, even though the ride was short. He smiled in anticipation of how Lawrence would react to being awoken for yet another journey across the border, his presence having been specifically requested by Douglas.
“We leave for Theffield Castle,” he said to Malcolm as he and his dice partners stood to greet him.
“Theffield?” Malcolm nodded toward the others in parting and followed him out of the hall. “At this hour?”
“Aye,” he said, making his way toward the kitchens. “Douglas himself requested my presence.”
Malcolm stopped and it took Aidan a moment to realize his man was no longer following him.
“Is it wise to go there, given the circumstances?” Malcolm asked when Aidan turned back to him.
“The circumstances?”
The hair on his arms stood straight as he waited for Malcolm’s explanation. He knew, of course, what he meant, but there was no way he could—
“His daughter,” he confirmed with a glance toward the Prison Tower. “Does the earl know Lady Clarissa—”
Aidan advanced on Malcolm so quickly that he actually took a step back.
“How,” he ground out, “do you know about that?”
Malcom had not known why he’d been sent to fetch Father Simon.
Fear, the kind he’d only experienced a few times in his life, crept up his back and laid claim to every bone in his body. They’d told no one of her presence save Gillian, Fiona, Morgan, and Lewis. Not one of them would have uttered a word of Clarissa’s presence here. And if someone had chanced to see them the night they’d gone to the river, none would have known her identity.
“Malcolm?”
“A rumor, ’tis all. One Donnon heard from a servant he met on the road who’d come from Sutworth. But none would dare—”
“Goddammit.”
Theffield knew.
Cursing, he looked toward the tower where Clarissa waited for him to return as he’d promised to do after speaking to Graeme.
She couldn’t stay here. Theffield likely planned to send men here to search for her after he lured Aidan across the border. He could ask Allie and Reid to hide her, but there was no time to go to Brockburg, the opposite direction of Theffield Castle.
He didn’t need to think on it any longer. There was one place she would be safe. One family that would take her in, without question, and luckily, he’d been heading there already, though he was unsure why Douglas specifically requested Lawrence’s presence.
* * *
The poor steward had appeared confused, but he’d gone to fetch Lawrence nonetheless. Aidan had known the steward since he was old enough to ride to Bowden Castle, and he and Lawrence had gotten themselves into plenty of questionable situations before.
This would certainly qualify as the most questionable of them all.
“Let me guess,” Lawrence said as he stepped out into the night, stretching his mouth wide in a yawn. “My good friend Aidan de Sowlis and his lovely Lady Clarissa.”
With her hood pulled down over her brow, it was impossible to see her face. Even when she looked up at Lawrence, only her chin and cheeks were visible.
And her lips.
Aidan should be thinking of many things, but he certainly should not be thinking of Clarissa’s lips.
“’Tis good to see you again,” she said to his friend, her words barely loud enough for them to hear.
“And you, my lady.” Lawrence lifted his brows, waiting.
“Not here,” Aidan whispered, pulling them into an alcove not far from where they stood.
“We need your help,” he said.
“Then it is yours.”
Aidan looked down at his thumb before even realizing he’d done so. Lawrence must have seen him, because he lifted his own thumb.
Lawrence laughed and glanced at Clarissa. “How old were we, ten and one?”
“Ten and two.”
“And convinced our older brothers both thought us children.”
“Aye, because we were children,” Aidan said.
“And younger brothers both.” Lawrence smiled at Clarissa. “And so we decided to become blood brothers, and promised never to treat each other as mere ‘youngins,’ the word my own brother used to describe us. I despised the word and all of the trappings that came along with being second—”
“Blood brothers?” Clarissa interrupted. But then she seemed to notice Lawrence’s thumb still hovering in the air. “Do not tell me you—”
“We did,” Aidan assured her. “Which is why I ask now,” his voice turned serious, “for your family to take her in. We have reason to believe—”
“’Tis done.”
When Lawrence held out his hand to Clarissa, Aidan’s chest swelled with pride. He could not have chosen a better brother, with the exception of the one he’d been born with.
“I will explain on the way to Theffield.”
About to lead Clarissa into the keep, Lawrence laughed aloud. Luckily, none but the three of them were there to hear it.
“It seems my friend does not want me to get much sleep,” he said. “His nighttime jaunts have become more and more common of late.”
Aidan found himself grinning as he followed the pair back toward the keep’s entrance.
“I fear it is my fault,” she said.
“If I faulted you for anything,” Lawrence said, “it would be for choosing him”—he nodded his head back toward Aidan—“rather than a real chief’s second son. A man worthy of such a woman—”
“That’s enough,” Aidan said, knowing his friend did indeed have a reputation with women to uphold. Or at least, Lawrence thought he did.
Though he couldn’t see Clarissa’s face, Aidan could imagine her sad smile when she said, “A woman whose very presence has become more of a burden than she would like.”
He was about to respond when his friend did so for him. “Your father is a burden on you—and so are his cruel interventions to a matter that should have been put to rest long ago.”
Lawrence turned back toward him, his sly smile making Aidan groan in anticipation of the words he was about to utter.
“I knew you would not let her go,” he said. “And now we will show Lord Theffield exactly what it means to be the second son of a Scots chief.”
Despite the dire situation they’d found themselves in this night, Aidan could not help but smile at his friend’s words. He’d always said a second son was the fiercest of them all, for he was freed of the expectations that weighed down the firstborn. And though he did not quite believe it to be true, the knowledge that Clarissa was safe, for a time, and that Lawrence would be by his side, come what may, Aidan breathed a bit easier.
If they walked into a trap of Theffield’s making, then it would be up to them to find a way out.
Chapter 18
“Where is she?”
Aidan ignored Douglas, who glared at him from the corner of the room. Theffield had deliberately kept them from speaking alone, so the warden knew only what the earl had told him—that unless Clan Scott confessed to hiding his daughter from him and revealed her whereabouts, they were at an impasse.
Knowing he risked raising the earl’s ire, Aidan nonetheless refused to give him what he desired.
“The same day you left Theffield Castle, after calling upon my good graces to assist you—”
“You were willing to do nothing more than stall our progress.”
Though he said the words, Aidan did not share Clarissa’s confidence that her father had never intended to help them. But it was the only move they had left, and so he would make it.
“How dare you question my honor,” the earl snarled.
Aidan did not back down. “How dare you accuse me of kidnapping your daughter.”
“Enough!”
Douglas had not become Lord Warden of the Scottish Marches by keeping quiet. Men feared him, but unlike Theffield, most respected him too.
“You’ve accused de Sowlis of hiding your daughter,
and refuse to treat with us until he relents. I believe it’s time for you to explain yourself.”
Even the earl was not immune to Douglas’s powers of persuasion. Though the man clearly did not appreciate being given an order, he answered Douglas despite it.
“As you may have heard,” Theffield said, his eyes never leaving Aidan, “my daughter’s marriage to Lord Stanley was recently annulled.”
Though Aidan had known about the annulment, of course, hearing it said aloud gave Aidan nearly as much pleasure as reaching across the wooden table and punching the earl in the face would have. He’d thought of that punch, and the pleasure it would give him, from the moment he entered the keep. Only his memory of his father’s lecture on what it meant to be a guest in another’s home, even an enemy’s home, had given him the strength to restrain himself.
And, of course, Douglas. Aidan did value his own life, after all.
“She returned to Theffield but has since—” he cleared his throat, “—gone missing.”
Aidan could feel Douglas looking at him, but he did not meet the man’s gaze. Instead, he watched the earl as closely as if Clarissa’s life depended on it.
Because it very well might.
“And you believe de Sowlis to be involved?”
“I know he is,” Theffield insisted, but he blinked just before he made the bold accusation.
He was lying.
Theffield may think he was involved in Clarissa’s disappearance, but he did not know for certain.
“De Sowlis?”
He would rectify his sin later. But for now, lying to Douglas may very well be the difference between keeping, or losing, Theffield’s support.
“I had nothing to do with his daughter’s disappearance,” he said, his voice firm. Turning to the earl, he said, “Putting our tenuous alliance in jeopardy would not be in the best interest of my clan.”
Theffield’s eyes narrowed. The earl did not believe him.
“We shall see.”
And then the brute smiled.
Aidan thanked whichever saint had led Malcolm to reveal what he knew of Clarissa’s stay at Highgate End. For if he’d not admitted as much, she would still be there when Theffield’s men arrived to search the castle. Graeme could refuse them, of course, but doing so would not relieve the earl’s suspicion.
The Guardian’s Favor: Border Series Book Nine Page 13
