The Age of Knights and Highlanders: A Series Starter Collection

by Kathryn Le Veque

  So Toby sat with him, speaking to him quietly to keep his mind off his pain. As she sat with him, thoughts of Ailsa began to creep back into her mind but she fought them, knowing that she still had a job to do before she could tend to her sister’s burial. In truth, she had been so swept up in the battle that she’d not given any thought to her baby sister, now dead for more than a day. She knew that if she gave over to those thoughts that she would be useless, so she tried to bank them. These men were alive and needed her help. She wanted to do what she could.

  The boy with the chest wound seemed to be increasingly uncomfortable. Toby found herself trying to distract him with tales of the cats that used to hang around their stables.

  “There was a white one, an orange one and a black one,” she said as she held his hand. “The black cat ran from everyone while the orange one was always begging for food. And the white one would attack your feet as you walked by. We had several dogs, too, that were our protectors. Not one of them had a name; we simply called the lot of them ‘the dogs’.”

  The boy grinned weakly, trying to focus on something other than his increasing inability to breathe. “I had a dog when I was small,” he said. “It would eat at the table with us. My father would become angry but my mother would feed it.”

  Toby smiled, patting him on the hand. “Are your parents still alive?”

  “Still. My father is a farmer.”

  “So was mine.”

  Before the boy could reply, Stephen suddenly appeared and kneeled beside him. Toby looked up at the man; he was unshaven and clearly exhausted, but the cornflower blue eyes were still bright. When he saw that Toby was looking at him, he smiled faintly.

  “I came to check on your patient,” he said quietly. “He seems to be the only one not sleeping.”

  “He is having difficulty breathing,” Toby explained. “I am telling him stories about my cats.”

  Stephen’s smile grew. “Cats, is it? I see I have come in the nick of time to save him from boredom.”

  The youth laughed silently as Toby scowled. With a lingering glance at Toby, Stephen proceeded to unwrap the bandages on the boy’s chest and look underneath. All Toby could see was blood and ooze and she turned her head, not wanting to study that particular gore. She’d seen enough of it lately. After a moment, Stephen replaced the dressing.

  “I will need to place fresh bandages on this,” he told Toby. “I will return.”

  She nodded, watching him as he stood up. As she looked at him, walking through the darkness, she suddenly had visions of him taking Ailsa from her arms and whisking her little sister off into the darkness. It was an odd transition from comforting a wounded man to thinking of her sister, but as she watched Stephen walk away, the urge to find out about her sister’s whereabouts suddenly became very strong. She had been fighting off thoughts of Ailsa for some time but found she could no longer do it. For her own peace of mind, she had to know. Now that the battle was diminished and the wounded seemed to be settled, she could no longer fight her sisterly instinct.

  She reassured the boy that she would return before following Stephen’s path across the floor. He had his medicaments set up on the large eating table, an entire corner confiscated. Everything was in ordered arrangement. Toby walked up behind him as he organized new wrappings.

  “Is the boy going to die?” she asked softly.

  Stephen turned to look at her, his gaze moving out of the darkened hall to the lad on the other side. “If poison does not claim him, the wound should heal,” he replied.

  Toby continued to watch as he drew forth phials of white powder. “Sir Stephen, I was wondering…,” she swallowed, collecting her thoughts. “I mean to ask where you have taken my sister.”

  Stephen looked at her; she seemed calm and rational enough. Frankly, he had been expecting the question and was prepared. “She is in the store room,” he said quietly. “I put her there because it is cool and I was not certain when we would be able to bury her.”

  As much as she was trying to be strong, tears sprang to Toby’s eyes and she wiped at them furiously. “So she has been beneath me all the while,” she murmured.

  Stephen nodded, not unsympathetic. “Wallace built her a nice, sturdy coffin and Tate has found a place in the chapel to bury her.”

  Toby was quickly dissolving into tears. She put her hand on Stephen’s arm. “Thank you,” she whispered. “For showing my sister such concern, I thank you. I am sorry that I was so unreasonable yesterday when you came to take her.”

  She moved to pull her hand away but Stephen covered it with his own hand and Toby realized that he was gripping her fingers. “I am truly sorry for your loss, mistress,” he said quietly. “If it had been in my power to save her, please know that I would have done so. I would have done anything to spare you such grief.”

  Toby felt there was more to his declaration than simple words and it made her uncomfortable. In the midst of her tears, she could only nod her head and gently, but firmly, remove her hand from his grasp. But Stephen wouldn’t be so easily put aside.

  “You really should rest,” he grasped her by the upper arm as she tried to walk away. “Wallace and I can handle the wounded. There is no need for you to remain.”

  “I am not tired.”

  “A noble lie. I will give you something to help you sleep.”

  “Stephen, truly,” she pulled herself from his grasp almost irritably. “I do not wish to sleep. I want to help.”

  He smiled faintly at her. “There is nothing more to do for now. You will be needed more when the sun rises and these men awaken.”

  She hadn’t thought on it that way. She looked around the room uncertainly, wiping what was left of the tears on her face. “Are you sure?”

  “I am sure. If anything arises, I will send for you. But for now, you must rest.”

  As she sighed indecisively and fidgeted around, Stephen took one of the powders from his bag and put it in a cup. Taking some of the wine that was still left on the table from their earlier meal, he poured it into the cup and swirled it around. He tapped her on the shoulder and extended the cup.

  “Here,” he said when she turned to him.

  She eyed the cup. “What is that?”

  “Nothing that will harm you; it will help you. Just drink it.”

  She stared at the cup before taking it out of his hand. Drinking the contents without stopping, she made a face as she handed the cup back to him.

  “Whatever that was, it tastes awful,” she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

  He just smiled. “Go up to bed now.”

  She shook her head at him. “I want to bathe first. I am covered with dirt and gore.”

  “Then I shall have water sent up to you.”

  The situation was decided. Toby couldn’t think of another argument so she nodded her head as she turned for the distant stairs. “Thank you for your kindness,” she said as she passed him. “I shall not forget it.”

  Stephen watched her walk away, not saying what he was thinking. The more time he spent around her, the more enamored he became with her. He was not oblivious to the fact that Tate felt the same way. Turning back to his medicaments, he realized that he was going to have to do something about it if he was going to stake his claim before Tate did.

  Stephen didn’t simply send up water; he sent up a giant copper pot and two male servants, including Althel, to fill it with hot water. Stephen himself carried the pot into the room because it was beyond the strength of the servants. Stephen was an enormous man, taller than Tate by a head, with bulging arms to match his size. He set the pot down near the hearth as the servants went to work filling it.

  He noticed that Toby had stripped the bed of the dusty coverlet and cast it into the corner along with the dust pile that Ailsa had created two days ago. Toby’s trunks were open and linens that had covered the beds at the garçonnaire now covered the bed in the master’s chamber. It was much cleaner than what had been there previously but the room
was still grossly dusty. Still, Stephen suspected that would be remedied shortly. If he had learned one thing about Toby, it was that she wouldn’t lie around when there was work to be done.

  The fire in the hearth was burning brightly, radiating a good deal of heat into the room as Toby bustled back and forth between her open trunks, rummaging through what Tate and her sister had managed to pack. She managed to find several things that she was grateful for, including a luxurious sleeping shift that she had purchased on a trip to Leeds. It had been wadded up in a ball and she knew Ailsa had packed it that way. When she unrolled the ball, she hugged the shift to her, feeling her sister’s touch. The tears came again, this time silently, but she forced herself to work through them.

  Stephen and the servants were busy filling her bath, although she wasn’t exactly sure why Stephen was still there. He had brought up the pot but lingered. Toby didn’t give him too much thought as she continued to inventory the contents of both trunks, thankfully coming across some soap, a comb and other vanity items that Ailsa had apparently haphazardly thrown into the trunk. She inhaled deeply of the soap that smelled of lavender and lemon rind, thankful to have something to wash with. She was positive that the whole of Harbottle Castle had nothing even remotely useful for cleaning.

  Stephen was loitering near the door as Althel picked up the last of the buckets and quit the chamber. He watched Toby stand over the pot and swirl her hand around in the water.

  “Is it too hot?” he asked her.

  She shook her head. “Not at all,” she shook out her wet hand and looked at him. “Thank you for bringing this up to the room. I am very grateful.”

  Stephen took a step into the room, his cornflower eyes intense. “Will there be anything else, mistress?”

  Toby was unnerved by the look in his eye; there was something strong and suggestive there. “Nay,” she said. “I think I can do for myself.”

  “I shall be outside if you require anything.”

  “No need.”

  It wasn’t Toby who had answered him; it was Tate, entering the room and gazing at his knight with an unreadable expression. Stephen turned to his liege and the two of them exchanged equally stony expressions. But there was no mistaking the tension that suddenly filled the room.

  “You are needed in the hall,” he said to Stephen. “I will take care of Mistress Toby.”

  Stephen almost opened his mouth to refute him but thought better of it. Tate was, in fact, his commander. And Stephen never disobeyed an order. Still, with a woman involved, there was something of an instinct to stand his ground. Casting a lingering glance at Toby, he quit the room in silence.

  It had been an odd exit. Toby wasn’t ignorant to the strain between Tate and Stephen and she was uncomfortable with it. She wasn’t quite sure why things were so strained but she had a suspicion. When Stephen was gone, Toby smiled timidly at Tate.

  “I did not want to bother you,” she said, perhaps to explain the other knight’s presence. “Stephen brought up a bath so that I could wash this dirt and blood away.”

  Tate gazed at her a moment; dirty and disheveled after the hellish past few days, she was still the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

  “I am glad to see you have decided to retire,” he said. “I will therefore leave you to your bath and sleep. But I wanted to make sure you did not require anything further.”

  She shook her head at him, her eyes never leaving his. “All I require is to see you before I go to sleep,” she said, lowering her eyes coyly as she did so. “Since you have shown yourself, I require nothing further.”

  It was a charming thing to say. Tate smiled as he moved towards her. “You just wanted to see me?”

  She nodded sharply, averting her eyes. “Aye.”

  He stopped right in front of her, dipping his head down to look at her lowered face. “Nothing else?”

  Her cheeks were turning a deep shade of pink as she avoided his probing gaze. “Nothing.”

  “Not even a kiss?”

  She looked up at him, preparing to reply, when he suddenly pulled her into his arms and, with a wicked grin, kissed her deeply. Toby ended up weak and boneless as he sucked the strength right out of her. When his lips finally released her own, the storm cloud eyes gazed at her half-lidded.

  “I was right.”

  “About what?” she asked breathlessly.

  “It was as good as I remembered.”

  As she grinned, he kissed her again, so passionately that it made her head swim. He seemed to take great delight in suckling her tender lips before moving to her face, kissing her cheeks, nose and eyes gently. All the while, Toby simply held on to him and struggled not to fall. She had no sense of time or balance; she was lost in the man’s embrace.

  “As much as I would like to do this all night, it is important that you rest,” he finally said, his voice husky. “I will therefore leave you to your bath and to sleep. I will leave a soldier out in the hall should you require anything.”

  Toby simply nodded her head, sighing raggedly when he kissed her soft lips again and released her. Taking both of her hands, he kissed them, too.

  “Good sleep, sweetheart,” he murmured.

  Toby stood in the middle of the room where he had released her, watching him walk to the door. He smiled at her as he opened it, issuing another soft good night before closing it quietly. Still, she stood there like an idiot, hardly able to think much less move. But the smell of the soap reminded her that her bath waited and she began to remove her surcoat with unsteady hands. Without someone to help her unlace the stays, it took longer than usual but eventually she managed to get it off. The shift followed, as did the pantalets, hose and shoes. She untied the scarf around her head, allowing her dirty golden-brown hair to go free. Climbing into the pot, it was a tight fit but suited her wonderfully.

  Picking up the lavender-lemon soap, she went to work.

  Chapter Ten

  The following day, they buried Ailsa.

  Stephen made the recommendation to Tate at dawn; having just come from the coffin of the young girl, her body was rapidly deteriorating and it was important they get her it in the ground before she putrefy further. Stephen made the suggestion purely based on how Toby would react to her sister’s decaying corpse and Tate was forced to agree.

  The air between the two knights was strained but professional. Tate hadn’t told Stephen that he and Toby were betrothed, mostly because it wasn’t any of the man’s business. Although he was certain of Stephen’s interest in Toby, the man had yet to make any inappropriate moves. When, and if, it came to that, Tate was prepared to act. It was a bizarre situation that Tate could never have imagined they would face. Kenneth just tried to stay out of it.

  Tate extricated a couple of men from the army of soldiers digging a mass grave for the victims of yesterday’s battle and put them to digging a grave in the floor of Harbottle’s small chapel. As the sun began to rise, he was reluctant to wake Toby with news that they had to bury her sister right away but he knew that he had little choice. Stephen and a few men were bringing the coffin up from the store room and the day was already busy. Shortly after sunrise, Tate went up to her chamber.

  Knocking on the door softly, he was surprised when she immediately responded. The door was unlocked, too. Opening the door, he should not have been surprised to already find her awake and dressed. Clad in a muted red surcoat and off-white linen shift, she was clean and washed and looked positively radiant. She also had the room in complete disarray. She smiled at Tate as he entered the room.

  “Good morn to you,” she said. “I hope you slept well last night.”

  He couldn’t help but smile in return; every time he saw the woman, he felt his heart soften just a little more.

  “I was going to ask you the same question,” he made his way towards her. “But my next question would be why you seem to be tearing the room apart.”

  Her smile broadened as she looked about. “Well,” she began, “it seems to me tha
t I will be spending some time in this chamber. It needs to be cleaned and I need to see what, exactly, you brought from Forestburn so I can begin to calculate what was saved against what was lost. There seems to be a good deal to do and I am at a loss as to where to start, so I thought I would begin here.”

  He was standing next to her, watching the way her mouth curved when she spoke. “This can wait, sweetheart. You do not have to do everything in one day.”

  “But I must see what I have lost so I will know what I must purchase to replace it.”

  He put his hands on her upper arms and pulled her head to his lips for a sweet kiss. “I will buy you whatever you need to replace what has been lost,” he said. “You need not worry about money.”

  She closed her eyes as he kissed her temple again, relishing the feel of him and thrilled that everything that had transpired between them yesterday had not been a dream. When she had awoken this morning, she almost wasn’t sure what was real.

  “I am not worried about money,” she said with a furrowed brow. “But I will be honest when I say that I am worried over many things.”

  “Like what?”

  “The people of Cartingdon, for example. I really must return to Forestburn as soon as possible to ease their minds.” She fidgeted with the edge of the bed. “And then there are my parents… and Ailsa….”

  She hung her head, biting her lip to keep from bursting into tears. Tate could see the mood darkening and he collected her in his arms, taking her over to the bed and pulling her onto his enormous thighs as he sat. It was a tender moment, full of the warmth of discovery. She was soft and sweet upon him. He held her tightly, his face against the side of her head.

  “We must speak of your sister,” he murmured. “I realize how difficult this is for you, but we must bury Ailsa this morning. Stephen has already moved her coffin to the chapel in preparation for doing so.”

  The tears came then and she wiped at them, missing a few that fell silently to her lap. Tate gave her a squeeze, kissing her on the side of the head and wishing he could give her more comfort.