“Aye, lass. I promise.”
She smiled and offered him her gratitude. “Now, what should we do?”
“My lady, I do not—”
“Sir Richard, ’tis decided,” she said, stopping him. “We are staying. Lismoor in the Bruce’s name is better than no Lismoor at all.”
She left both of them and went to stand over the commander. Would he be lenient this time? He’d looked so angry just before…she rubbed her eyes and then let them move over the length of him, from his bare knees to his strong thighs—one of which was exposed by his plaid riding up from his fall. Her face grew warm and she looked at Richard speaking with the priest where she’d left them.
She knew it wasn’t a good idea, but she sat on the floor with the commander. What was there to do but wait for him to wake up? While she waited, she thought about what Father Timothy had told her. Was the commander fond of her? What did it mean? What did she want it to mean? She looked down at his sleeping face, his dark hair falling over his cheekbone and the wound she’d inflicted on him with her arrow. She could have killed him. She never missed. Giles had made her practice archery from an early age.
She’d let the commander’s stark, deadly beauty distract her. She felt something for him she didn’t understand. It wasn’t love. It felt more feral, more like she wanted to tear off his clothes and climb all over him.
“You look at him as if you feel something soft for him,” Richard said, coming to stand over her.
She closed her eyes to gather patience. Her friend had put their lives in danger by tainting the wine. Would Cainnech still help her keep Lismoor? She wanted to weep. She loved Richard and knew he’d done this for her. She would not let him die for it.
“I feel nothing toward him but hatred,” she told him. “But I am not a fool. The King of Scots has ordered these things. If I kill this one, another takes his place.”
“You need not kill anyone else,” he tried arguing and sat on the bench. “No one will look for you in Normandy.”
“And what about Mattie and Elizabeth? The villagers? Do I leave them all to whoever comes here next?”
“No, no,” he admitted, shaking his head. “Of course not.”
“How long do ye think they will sleep?” Father Timothy asked, coming near them and checking on William and then on the commander again. “His pulse is stronger. He is well.”
“As I said, I would not kill him,” Richard answered. “He will likely sleep until morning.”
“He is goin’ to be angry.”
Aleysia looked up at the priest, glad to see that he had forgiven her as well. She hoped the commander was so generous. She had no idea what he would be like when he woke. What would she tell him?
Father Timothy sat beside her and touched his hand to her arm. “Dinna be afraid, my dear. All will be well.”
She exhaled a low sigh. Would it? “How do you know?” she asked him softly. It didn’t matter if he was fond of her, this wasn’t the first time she had tried to kill him.
He drank the mead. Even if it was an arrogant answer to her unspoken challenge, he still had to trust her to drink it.
“I canna say how I know,” Father Timothy said after she might have groaned. “But I was reminded of somethin’ tonight.” He paused and turned his tender smile on her.
“What was it?” she asked him.
“Alas, I canna say.”
She frowned and blew out her next breath through her nostrils. Why did he say anything in the first place? “Are you trying to be mysterious, Father?”
His smile grew into a chuckle. “No, nothin’ like that. I know all will be well because I have seen a slight change in Cainnech for the first time in sixteen years.”
What? What was he saying? He’d known Cainnech—the commander for that long? And in sixteen years, the man hadn’t changed? And what was the “slight change” he mentioned? She had questions. Lots of them.
She slid her eyes to Richard and then to the priest. “Father, I’d like to confess.”
He stared at her, looking unsure and a bit stunned. “Of course.”
She looked at Richard and smiled. “You will excuse us, will you not, dear friend?”
Her knight moved his gaze between them. Finally, he nodded and stepped away.
When they were alone, but for the slumbering bodies around them, she turned to look into the priest’s large, brown, blinking eyes. “Let us get this out of the way then. I lied.”
He sat, waiting for more. When nothing else came, he cleared his throat. “How many times?”
“I do not know how many times, but add to it the one I just told.”
A hint of his warm smile returned to his face and emboldened her to continue. “I wanted to speak to you without Richard.”
“Ye are fergiven, and aboot what?”
“About the commander,” she told him quickly and in a whispered voice.
He inclined his ear and she leaned in to him so that he could hear, poor old man.
“What kind of man is he when he is not killing his enemies?”
Father Timothy drew in a deep sigh and sat straight again. He paused for a moment and then said, “I dinna know. When he is not killin’ his enemies, he is thinkin’ aboot killin’ them.”
She sat there staring at him. Did he not understand the question? “But you have known him for sixteen years. What was he like before he became a soldier?”
“My dear,” He tried to pat her hand. “Cainnech should tell ye these things, not I.”
She shook her head and pulled her arm away. “You tell me. I wish to know.”
“Why?” he asked.
She sat back, unsure how to reply.
“I willna tell him,” the priest coaxed in his soothing tone. “Ye are still confessin’, are ye not?” He continued before she had a chance to reply. “I am not permitted to repeat what I hear durin’ one’s confession.”
She knew that. But could she trust him? And what did she want to confess?
She turned to gaze down at the commander. She hated herself for what she was feeling. “I find him infuriating and arrogant. Part of my heart hates him, but…” Oh, how could she speak it out loud? She was betraying her brother, her friends, her purpose. She closed her eyes when the priest remained silent and patient. “He is not altogether terrible.”
“No, he is not.”
She opened her eyes and set her gaze on him. “How has he changed? Surely, you can tell me that.”
He nodded, his comforting smile returned. “He is sorry he came here.”
Six words that set her heart to pounding and insinuated so much she hardly knew where to begin or what to feel. He was sorry he’d taken Lismoor from her. She was glad to hear it. It softened the blow. She had seen fleeting glimpses of regret in his eyes, but she was unsure if she’d conjured it in her own mind. Could she forgive him?
“Why is he sorry?” she asked, settling her eyes on the sleeping commander.
“I dinna know. Truly,” he added when she gave him a doubtful look. “But I believe it has to do with ye. If ye and Richard had been anyone else, ye would both be dead, despite King Robert’s desired peace. Cainnech is not known fer his mercy.”
Her blood chilled. How could one so beautiful be so frightful at the same time? “How many did he kill at Berwick?”
“None. We saw what was happenin’, and with no way to stop it, we left. Cainnech doesna raid villages.”
The commander had told her the truth then. They had nothing to do with Berwick. Her stomach calmed a bit. He wasn’t a complete barbarian. What did it matter? He was going to wake up thinking she tried to poison him and his men again. She couldn’t put her trust in the assurances Father Timothy gave her when he wasn’t sure of half of them.
“Perhaps I am a fool to stay when I can run.”
“Or perhaps ye have more courage than a regiment of men. Not many would be willin’ to face his wrath, and fer someone else.”
Aleysia smiled. She liked Father Timo
thy. Did this make her a traitor to God as well? “I imagine the commander’s wrath is quite frightening.”
The priest chuckled and lifted his eyes to Heaven. “Thank goodness he saves it fer his enemies.”
She subdued the urge to tremble. She was his enemy, wasn’t she? Especially now. She wasn’t courageous at all. She was simply determined not to lose her home or her freedom by running off to Normandy.
Facing this beast of a man at his worst was another matter entirely. There were many more things she wanted to ask the priest but Richard was returning.
“You have known him for sixteen years,” she said, “since he was a child then.”
Father Timothy nodded.
“How did you meet him?”
“I was travelin’ with an unholy regiment of Englishmen,” he began and waited for Richard to return to his seat. “They attacked a sleepy village in Invergarry and killed many people, includin’ Cainnech’s parents. They brought him back to camp and kept him as their servant. They kept him tied him to a tree and struck him often. He was seven.” He paused, his smile gone now, his voice lowered to a weighted whisper. “I did my best to keep him safe from their flyin’ fists, but I didna always succeed.”
Aleysia listened, unsure if her heart was beating or not. They killed his parents and…kept him as a servant? Now it was no surprise why he seemed fond of William. They had servitude in common. She gazed down at him, imagining a beaten, afraid, little boy.
“Where did they take him?”
“They brought him with us,” the priest replied. “Fer eight years, he served the English on the battlefield.” He paused and looked away to clear his throat. Aleysia knew the memory was painful for him. “They took no pity on the boy.”
“You stayed with him?” she asked, blinking away a tear and the urge to touch her fingers to the commander’s face.
“I did.”
“Thank God he had you.”
“I do,” he said, back to smiling. “But he needs more than just me.”
She looked startled at first and then she laughed. “You certainly do not think that I—?”
“No!” he laughed with her. “Not at all. I have tried to find his two brothers, but to no avail—”
“His brothers?” she asked as a shiver went through her. The English army had left three boys orphans.
“Aye. I was back at the camp when they burned his homestead. He told me of them. Two younger lads, Torin, who was five, and wee Nicholas, who was just two when last Cainnech saw them. I have tried to find them but as ye can imagine, ’tis difficult. I have only been able to learn that Nicholas was sold fer a stone soon after, but I dinna know to whom.”
“How tragic to know your brothers might still be out there, alive somewhere and you do not know where.”
The priest yawned and shrugged his shoulders. “He doesna seem to think on it often, but I’m sure it weighs on him.”
They spoke a little longer, mainly about her relatives in Normandy and why she would not run to them.
When the birds began chirping, signaling the breaking dawn, and the first of the men began to stir, Father Timothy sent Richard to the keep with a vow that he and God would keep Aleysia safe.
“Go to yer room and wait there,” he told her. “I will speak to him when he wakes.”
“Why did you not drink the wine?” she asked before she left.
“’Twas sour and I prefer whisky.”
She smiled and then she left because she didn’t want to be the first one the commander saw when he opened his eyes and realized what had happened. It wasn’t so much that she was afraid of him, though she was. But her blood rushed through her like waves on a tumultuous sea because he’d drunk the mead. She had somehow gained his trust. If he didn’t kill her, he would never let her out of his sight again. She would be forced to be near him day…and night.
But even more than that, her heart ached because if he felt something for her, as Father Timothy had claimed, she’d surely lost it now.
She couldn’t believe that her own heart could betray her. How could losing something she didn’t want…and likely didn’t have anyway, make her so miserable?
She entered her solar and shut the door, then leaned her head against it.
There could never be anything between them. They were enemies. He was the one she and her friends had prepared for so diligently, for so long. She moaned with the pain of it and pushed off the door. It was all for nothing. And worse, she, their leader and friend, had weakened with a hint of warmth in the otherwise cool indifference of a Highland warrior.
She threw herself onto her bed and buried her face in her pillow. What would she tell him when he found her? She’d been prepared to take the blame for Richard. She thought she could convince the commander of her guilt, but she had let her heart go soft after hearing about his past…the past he couldn’t move beyond.
Oh, how could people be so cruel to bring a child into war? To kill a child’s parents and sell his brothers—it was too much. How could she forget it and pretend to hate him?
She didn’t have long to think about it when her door came crashing open and an angry warlord stood at the entrance.
Chapter Fifteen
Aleysia sat up in her bed, startled by his entrance, even more terrified by his murderous glare. He appeared larger, more daunting than before. His dark hair fell around his shoulders, adding shadows to his rigid jaw. He didn’t move, save to slam the door in Father Timothy’s face.
He said nothing for an eternal moment but stared at her with an expression as hard as sleet.
“I—” she began, not sure of what was going to come out next.
“Ye poisoned us,” he accused. Beneath the silken words was an unmistakable threat.
“No,” she corrected carefully, not really trusting her voice. “You slept. If I had poisoned you, you would be dead.”
“Get up.”
She blinked. The little boy on the battlefield disappeared and in his place stood a dangerous man with eyes as cold as steel.
She looked away rather than mourn the loss of something she never wanted. His trust. Why did it make her eyes burn and her heart break? “Where are you taking me?”
“Ye dinna get to ask any questions,” he said woodenly. “Now get up or I will get ye oot of bed myself.”
“Ah,” she said, casting him a smirk and getting out of the bed, “so now I get to meet the merciless commander.”
“Ye deserve no mercy.”
Her legs felt weak. Her mouth felt dry. She didn’t want to be afraid of him. He wasn’t the ruthless beast she’d feared for four years. “For giving you a sleep enhancer?”
“Fer tryin’ to make me suspect the mead when ’twas the wine ye tainted. Ye’re clever, and dangerous,” he said, taking hold of her arm.
She tried to pull away but he held fast. “You do not have to manhandle me. I’ve already proven that I will not run.”
He ignored her protests and pulled her toward the door without a word.
They entered the empty hall. Father Timothy was nowhere to be found. When he pulled her past the great hall and then toward the outside stairs, she feared he might fling her down them. He believed she’d poisoned them. His patience with her had ended.
“Where are you taking me?” Her heart drummed in her ears when they stepped outside. The crisp morning air felt like a cold slap. There were ravens flying about the gloomy charcoal sky. Was this her last day?
“Cainnech!” she shouted at him, refusing to go quietly. “Where?”
He stopped and turned his storm-filled eyes on her. “Why did ye stay?”
What should she tell him? Her throat felt as if it were closing while she stared up at him. She was afraid he might see the truth in her eyes, so she lowered her gaze and shielded it beneath her lashes. “I was going to run away to Normandy. I only needed a few hours to keep you and the men asleep while I reached the port and boarded a ship for my homeland.”
“What stopped
ye?” he asked, though it sounded more like a low growl.
“My cousin, Geoffrey d’Argentan. I remembered that he will marry me off a sennight after I arrive. I do not want to leave my home and my friends and live in Normandy with a husband I do not love.” It was the truth. Part of it. “So I remained, ready to give you an account of what I did and why. I also remembered that I am a d’Argentan and I will not run.”
The commander roamed his eyes over her, peeling away her defenses and seeing her deepest secrets. He curled one corner of his mouth up. “And did ye also remember me tellin’ ye that I would speak to the king aboot lettin’ ye stay on yer own?”
She had the feeling she shouldn’t answer.
He didn’t give her the chance to do so. “Ye had no reason to run away…to poison us.”
“I did not poison you, Commander. I—”
“Ye are correct. I no longer believe ’twas ye who tried to kill us last eve.”
Her heart faltered. What? Had her ears just deceived her? If not her, then the only other person he had any reason to suspect was Richard! “’Twas I, Commander,” she insisted. “’Twas I who tainted the wine.”
His piercing gaze broke through her defenses. He was furious and…something else. Disappointed? “Ye poisoned William and ye would have poisoned Father Timothy if he had drunk the wine.”
“No,” she told him shaking her head. He made it sound so malicious. “They were not harmed. Nor were you. ’Twas a simple sleeping draught.”
Should she have run when she had the chance? Even if it was just to save Richard? No! “I had simply wanted to ensure that you would not give chase to me. I was rash and foolish and I ask your forgiveness.”
He stared at her. Did she see a flash of emotion in his gaze? She watched him while she waited for him to say something.
Finally, he made a deep, short sound from the back of his throat, and then continued walking.
What was that supposed to mean? Was Richard safe or not? She dug her heels into the ground. What more could she say? “I also wanted to prove to you that I could kill you if I chose to,” she bit out. There. Perhaps that sounded more believable to his warrior ears!
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