“You need the alliance with France,” Niall said calmly. “Should Philip discover my identity, he would stop at nothing to capture me, including joining his forces to Edward’s. You cannot risk that.” What he didn’t say was, Scotland needed the alliance; the distinction wasn’t needed, for his brother was Scotland, all her hopes and dreams personified.
Robert drew in a deep, calming breath. “Aye,” he admitted, returning to French. “It would be a crippling blow. But already I’ve lost three brothers to England’s butchery; my wife and daughter, and our sisters, have been captives for three years already and I know not if I’ll ever see them alive again. I’ll not lose you, too.”
“You scarcely know me.”
“’Tis true that we were not much in each other’s company, but I do know you,” Robert disagreed. Know him, and love him. It was that simple. None of his other brothers could have challenged him for the crown, but he and his father had known from the time Niall had been a tall, sturdy lad of ten that this illegitimate half-brother had the stuff of kings, uncommonly gifted with the boldness and intelligence that were Robert’s own characteristics. For Scotland’s sake, they could not risk an internal struggle between the brothers, and even had Niall grown up to prove loyal, such was his personality that folk would have flocked to him anyway. The circumstances of his birth had been kept secret, but secrets had a way of outing, as Niall himself had proven at that time by boldly approaching Robert and asking if ’twas true they were brothers.
It wasn’t unusual for aspirants to the throne to clear the way by killing those who might challenge them, but neither Robert nor his father, the Earl of Carrick, had been able to tolerate the thought. It would have been like extinguishing a bright flame, leaving them in darkness. Niall burned with life’s force, full of joy and deviltry, drawing people to him like a lodestone. He had always been the leader among the younger lads, fearlessly taking his followers into mischief and then just as fearlessly taking the blame onto his own shoulders whenever they were caught.
By the time he was fourteen, the lasses had begun following him, too, with their bright eyes and lissome bodies. Already his voice had deepened, his shoulders widened, his chest broadened as manhood settled easily on his tall frame. He had proven himself unusually adept at arms, and the constant practice with heavy swords had further strengthened him. Robert doubted the lad had spent many nights alone, for it wasn’t just the young lasses who had pursued him, but the older ones as well, including some who were wed.
He had changed, though. Robert wasn’t surprised, given the treachery that had befallen the Templars. His magnetism hadn’t lessened, but it was harsher now, his black eyes remaining grim even if his lips smiled. As a lad he had been restless with inexhaustible energy, but now he was a man grown, and a fearsome warrior. He had learned the art of patience, and his stillness was like that of a predator waiting for its next meal.
Now Robert said deliberately, “Scotland will not join in the persecution of the Templars.”
Again Niall’s gaze bored into him, like a black sword in its sharpness. “You have my gratitude… and more, should you care to use it.”
What Niall had left unspoken hung heavily in the shadowed room. The watchful black gaze never wavered, and Robert lifted his eyebrows. “More?” he asked, sipping again at the wine. He was curious about what “more” would entail. He scarcely dared to hope… perhaps Niall was offering gold. More than anything, Scotland needed gold to finance its battle to resist English domination.
“The Brethren are the best soldiers in the world. They must not gather here, yet I see no need for their skills to go unused.”
“Ah.” Thoughtfully, Robert stared into the fire again. Now he knew Niall’s goal, and it was tempting indeed. Not gold, but something almost as valuable: training, and experience. The arrogant, excommunicated Knights no longer wore their red crosses, but essentially they were still exactly what they had been before the Pope and the King of France had conspired to destroy them: the best military men in the world. This endless war with England was stretching Scotland’s poor resources so thin that they were, at times, literally fighting with their bare hands. As gallant as his people were, especially the wild Highlanders, Robert knew they indeed needed more: more funds, more weapons, more training.
“Blend them in with your armies,” Niall murmured. “Give them the responsibility of training your men. Consult with them in strategy. Use them. In repayment, they will become Scots. They will fight to the death for you, and for Scotland.”
The Templars! The very idea was dizzying. Robert’s fighting blood sang through his veins at the idea of having such soldiers under his command. Still, how much could a handful of men do, no matter how well trained? “How many are there?” he asked doubtfully. “Five?”
“Five here,” Niall said. “But hundreds in need of refuge.”
Hundreds. Niall was proposing to make Scotland a place of sanctuary for the Knights who had escaped and gone into hiding all over Europe. If they were caught, they had the choice of betraying their Brethren, or enduring torture before being burned at the stake. Some had cooperated and lost their lives anyway.
“You can bring them here?”
“I can.” Niall rose from the bench and stood with his broad back to the fire, his massive shoulders throwing a huge shadow across the floor. His thick black hair flowed over his shoulders, and in the Celtic fashion he had plaited a small braid to hang on each side of his face. In his hunting-plaid kilt and white shirt, with a knife thrust in his wide belt, he looked every inch the wild Highlander. His expression was grim. “What I cannot do is join them.”
“I know,” Robert said softly. “Nor would I ask it of you. I seek no details, yet I know that you are in greater danger than those you wish to aid, and not just because you are my brother. Whatever mission the Temple has charged you with is one no lesser man could accomplish. If ever you need my aid, or that of the Knights you wish to put at my service, you have only to send word.”
Niall inclined his head with a motion that conveyed acceptance, and yet Robert knew that day would never come. Niall had forged a stronghold here in the wildest, most remote part of the Highlands, the rugged northwest mountains, and he would defend it against all threats. He had gathered about him a strong force of disciplined knights and men-at-arms, and turned Creag Dhu into an impregnable fortress.
Already the country folk whispered about him, even as they gathered closer to Creag Dhu for his protection. They called him Black Niall. The Scots tended to name as black anyone with dark coloring, but the whispers about Niall said that it was his heart so described, not just his mane of hair and midnight eyes.
Robert, who knew Niall’s ancestry, could see the resemblance between his half-brother and his own best friend, Jamie Douglas, the infamous Black Douglas, and the coincidence of coloring and name made him uneasy. Niall’s mother had been a Douglas; he and Jamie were first cousins. Jamie was tall and broad-shouldered, though not as tall or strongly built as Niall. Should anyone see them together, would the resemblance be noted? Would it then also be noticed that Niall had the great physical strength of the Bruces, as well as the almost unholy handsomeness for which Nigel, another of Niall’s half-brothers, had been so famous? Bruce and Douglas blood had combined in Niall to form a man of unusual looks and force, the type of man who strode the earth only once every hundred years or so. He did not go unnoticed. For his own safety, and for the sake of the mission charged to him by the ravaged Order, no one must ever know that the infamous Black Niall was the beloved half-brother of the King of Scotland, and the bastard son of the lovely Catriona Douglas, for Catriona’s husband still lived and would stop at nothing to kill the result of his wife’s infidelity.
Niall was also a Templar, excommunicated, and by order of the Pope under a penalty of death should he ever be captured. On the surface, his existence was precarious indeed.
On the other hand, it would take a fool to try to breach Creag Dhu’s defenses. T
he Order had chosen its champion well.
Robert sighed. There was naught he could do for his brother except respect his secrecy, and offer his kingdom as sanctuary to the scattered, persecuted Knights. Little enough, given what Scotland would gain in return.
“’Tis time I take my leave,” he said, draining his goblet and setting it aside. “The hour grows late, and the lovely wench waiting for you below may become impatient, and seek another’s bed.” Niall had completely discarded his Templar’s vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, but most particularly chastity. Robert wondered now how his brother had ever endured eight years without a woman, for even though he was a man himself, he could still see the burning, intense sexuality of Niall’s nature. If there had ever been a man less suited to monkhood, Robert couldn’t imagine it.
Niall’s mouth quirked. “Perhaps,” he said placidly, without a shred of either jealousy or doubt, for there was no likelihood Meg would do so; she was thoroughly enjoying her current status as his favorite, though by no means only, bedmate.
Robert laughed and clapped his hand to the broad shoulder. “As I ride through the cold night, I will envy you your ride between warm thighs. God be with you.”
Niall’s expression didn’t change, but Robert was instantly aware of a sudden coldness, and intuitively he knew his last remark was what had elicited that reaction. Troubled, he tightened his hand on his brother’s shoulder. Sometimes faith was all folk, be they common or king, had to sustain them, and Niall had turned his back on that bulwark as the Church had turned her back on him.
But there was nothing to be said, no comfort to be offered except the promise he had already made. “Bring them here,” he said softly. “I will make them welcome.” Then Robert the Bruce, King of the Scots, pressed on a certain stone to the left of the great hearth, and a whole section opened inward. He took up the torch he had left just inside the hidden way, and held it into the fire until it was once more flaring brightly. He left Creag Dhu as he had entered it, in secret.
Niall watched as the door closed, immediately becoming invisible within the stonework. His face was impassive as he took the goblet his brother had used and wiped the rim clean, then filled it again with the fine wine. His own goblet was still nearly full; he set both of them beside the bed, then unbarred his door and went in search of Meg. His mood had darkened, despite the sanctuary Robert had offered to the fugitive Templars. The rage was always there, controlled after two years but never weakening. Damn Clement, damn Philip, and most of all, damn the God whom the Knights had served so faithfully, but who had abandoned them when they needed Him most. If he went to hell for such blasphemy, so be it, but Niall no longer believed in hell; he didn’t believe in anything.
He would work out his black mood on Meg’s lush, willing body, wrapped tight by her arms and legs. The rougher the love play, the more she liked it.
Finding Meg was no effort; she was lurking near the bottom of the huge, curving stone stairway, and came forward with a smile when he appeared at the top. Niall halted, merely standing there, waiting. Meg lifted her skirts and hurried up the stairs, the flickering torchlight intensifying the flush in her cheeks. Niall turned before she reached him, striding back to his chamber. Her quick, light footsteps followed, and he could hear her breathing as it too quickened, both from her exertion and from anticipation.
She was already shrugging out of her shawl, tugging at the laces to her bodice, as she followed him through the door to his chamber. He shut it and watched as she feverishly shed her clothes, revealing the lushness of her body to him. His shaft rose hard and pulsing, tenting the front of his kilt.
She spied the two wine goblets and a pleased smile curved her lips. He’d known she would take it as an expression of his besottedness with her, but let her think what she liked, rather than suspect he’d had a secret visitor, or that it was none other than the King himself. Though he was willing to soothe her ego with small gestures, and more than willing to return twofold the physical ease she gave him, his only interest in her was for the pleasure he found in her soft, bountiful body.
Naked, she took up one of the goblets and sipped the wine, doubly gratified to find it contained a fine vintage rather than the sour, watery ones to which she was more accustomed. The firelight played over the full curves of her bosom, turning her dark nipples to the color of fine wine themselves, deepening the shadows of her navel and the full nest of curls between her thighs.
He didn’t want to wait. He approached and took the goblet from her hand, setting it down with a thud that sloshed some of the red liquid over the rim. She gave a little squeal of surprise as he lifted her and tossed her onto the big bed, but the squeal turned into laughter as he landed on top of her.
He kneed her thighs apart. “Are ye no going to remove yer boots, at least?” she asked, giggling. She reached up to tug at the laces of his shirt.
The smell of her was dark and rich, female. His thin nostrils flared, drinking in the scent. “Why?” he asked in a reasonable tone. “They’re on my feet, not my cock.” The giggles turned into full-scale laughter. Niall reached beneath his kilt and grasped his erect rod, guiding it to her wet cleft. He surged forward, sheathing himself, shuddering with relief, and Meg’s laughter died a quick, strangled death as her body absorbed the force of the thrust.
The darkness within him receded, pushed back by sheer delight. So long as he had a woman in his arms, he could forget the betrayal, and the crushing burden of responsibility that weighed on his shoulders.
Chapter 1
April 27, 1996
A LOW, COUGHING RUMBLE ANNOUNCED TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD that Kristian Sieber was home from school. He drove a 1966 Chevelle, lovingly restored to all its original gas-guzzling, eight-cylinder power. The body was a patchwork of different colors, as the parts had been taken from the corpses of other Chevelles, but whenever someone commented on the multicolored car, Kristian would grumpily say that he was “working on it.” The truth was, the exterior didn’t bother him. He cared only that the car ran the way it had when it was new, when some lucky, macho guy had thrilled every girl around with its growling power. In the instinctive, primal, murky way of males, he was certain all that horsepower would overcome his image as a nerd, and all the girls would flock to his side, wanting to ride in his supercar.
So far it hadn’t happened, but Kristian hadn’t given up hope.
As the rumbling car passed her house and turned at the corner, Grace St. John nastily took one last bite of the stew she had prepared for supper. “Kristian’s home,” she said, jumping up from the table.
“No kidding,” Ford teased. He winked at her as she grabbed up the case that contained her laptop computer and the multitude of papers she had been translating. The sides of the supple leather case bulged outward, so crammed was it with notes and disks. She had unplugged her modem earlier, wrapped the cords around it, and placed it on top of the case. She cradled case and modem in her arms as she leaned over to reach Ford’s mouth. Their kiss was brief, but warm.
“It’ll probably take a couple of hours, at least,” she said. “After he finds out what the problem is, he wants to show me a few new programs he has.”
“It used to be etchings,” her brother Bryant murmured. “Now it’s programs.” The three of them took most of their meals together, a convenience they all liked. When Bryant and Grace had inherited the house from their parents, they turned it into a duplex; Grace and Ford lived in one side, and Bryant in the other. The three of them not only worked for the same archaeological foundation, but Ford and Bryant had been best friends since college. Bryant had introduced Ford and Grace, and still patted himself on the back for the outcome of that introduction.
“You’re just jealous because you can’t hack it,” Grace said, poker-faced, and Bryant groaned at the pun.
Her hands were full, so Ford got up to open the kitchen door for her. He leaned down to kiss her again. “Don’t get lost in Kristian’s programs and lose track of time,” he caution
ed, his hazel eyes sending her a very private message that, after almost eight years of marriage, still thrilled her to her toes.
“I won’t,” she promised, and started out the door, only to halt on the top step. “I forgot my purse.”
Ford picked it up from the cabinet and looped the strap over her head. “Why do you need your purse?”
“The checkbook’s in it,” she said, blowing a strand of hair out of her eyes. She always paid Kristian for his repair services, though he would gladly have done it for free just for the joy of fooling around with someone else’s computer. His equipment was expensive, and his skill better than any she had seen at computer or software companies. He deserved to be paid. “Plus I’ll probably buy him a pizza.”
“As much as that kid eats, he should weigh four hundred pounds,” Bryant observed.
“He’s nineteen. Of course he eats a lot.”
“I don’t think I ever ate that much. What do you think, Ford? When we were in college, did we eat as much as Kristian?”
Ford gave him a disbelieving look. “You actually asking me, when you’re the guy who once ate thirteen pancakes and a pound of sausage for breakfast?”
“I did?” Bryant frowned. “I don’t remember that. And what about you? I’ve seen you down four Big Macs and four large fries at one sitting.”
“Both of you ate as if you had tapeworms,” Grace said, settling the discussion as she went down the steps. Ford closed the door behind her, his chuckle rich in her ears.
Thick, resilient grass cushioned her steps as she walked across their backyard, then angled her steps in a shortcut through the Murchisons’ overgrown lawn. They had taken a month’s vacation in South Carolina, and weren’t due to return until the end of the week. It was a shame; in seeking warm weather, and spring, they had missed it at home.
It had been an unusually warm April, and spring had exploded in Minneapolis. The grass was green and lush, the trees leafed out, flowers were in bloom. Even though the sun had set and only the last bits of twilight remained, the evening air was warm and fragrant. Grace inhaled with deep delight. She loved spring. Actually, she loved every season, for they all had their joys.