“Don’t kill him, Circenn. He didn’t harm me.” She touched her throat with gentle fingertips. “I will be fine. A few bruises, nothing more. You found us in time.”
“He touched you,” Circenn snarled. “He planned to harm you.”
“But he didn’t succeed.” She appealed to his logic: “Question him, determine what he is after, then banish him, but please …”
She trailed off and he stared helplessly at her. Damn her, he thought. She was deliberately flooding him with mercy, forgiveness, and the cool wind of logic. All those feminine things, they tumbled like snowflakes upon his masculine heat.
Dousing it.
Loath though he was to admit it, she was right. By killing Armand swiftly, he would never know his motives. He needed to uncover the Templar’s purpose, determine with whom he was in collusion and if there were other corrupt knights in his employ. He needed information first. Then he would kill him. He lowered the sword with a low growl of unsatisfied rage.
* * *
Lisa crept down the stairs. She’d tried to wait in bed for Circenn to come up, but had been unable to stand it any longer. It had been hours since Armand’s attack, and although Circenn had promised not to kill the Templar, vowing angrily that he would turn him over to his own brothers, Lisa still felt his murderous fury. Their bond was frazzling her nerves. She had no idea why the knight had turned on her. Perhaps she shouldn’t have questioned him. Perhaps it was simply too upsetting for him to speak of the atrocities he’d endured.
The feast was still under way in the Greathall, the villagers oblivious to the bitter events of the evening. Circenn would keep the problem quiet, resolve it, and no one would suffer for it. She admired his methods. He was a laird who would not trouble his clan with dissension that he could resolve alone.
Moving stealthily, she slipped down the corridor to the study. The door was ajar and she peered in cautiously. He was there, as she’d suspected, with Duncan and Galan.
A dozen grim-faced Templars filed before him, and from the light misting of rain on their robes, she deduced that she’d missed their entrance by mere minutes.
“It is done, milord. We have finished our interrogation,” Renaud de Vichiers said wearily.
“And?” Circenn growled.
“It was worse than we feared. He was doubly a traitor, both to his own brothers and to Scotland. His plan was to abduct your lady and sell her to the English king for his weight in gold, plus titles and lands in England.” Renaud shook his head. “I do not know what to say. It grieves me. Armand was a Commander of Knights in our Order, and highly regarded. We had no idea. I swear to you upon our Order that he acted entirely alone.” Renaud directed his gaze to the floor. “We await your decision regarding the rest of us. We understand if you decide you must send us away from here.”
Circenn shook his head. “I will not hold the rest of you responsible for his actions. You have been loyal to me for years.”
The Templars rustled with murmurs of gratitude and repeated vows of loyalty. “You have been good to us, milord,” Renaud said. He took a deep breath, and when he spoke again, it was with such fervency that his words sounded stilted. “We do not wish to jeopardize your goodwill in any way. We look forward to a future in Scotland. What can we do to restore your faith in us?”
“It was never lost,” Circenn said, rubbing his jaw. “If Armand hadn’t been acting alone, you likely would have succeeded in taking her. I do not underestimate the powers of your Order, Renaud. I know what you can do when you pit multiple Templar wills against a problem. An attack from multiple brethren would have peacefully lured her where you wished her to go. You do not use violence. You use … powerful persuasion.”
Renaud looked abashed. “I hadn’t considered that, but it’s true. We could have taken her as a group. I forget you know so much about us.” He bowed, a posture of abject apology. “Milord, we would never harm your lady. We shall protect her as our own.”
Circenn inclined his head. “What of Armand?”
“As a show of our allegiance, we resolved that matter. He will trouble you no more.”
Lisa leaned a bit closer to the door. What had they done to him? Banished him? Would they drive him across the border for the English to catch?
“Explain,” Circenn ordered.
“We determined his crime and dispensed fitting punishment.”
“He is dead?” Circenn asked wearily.
“He died by receiving the price he himself had named for his corruption. We gave him his weight in gold.”
Lisa made a strangled sound that was fortunately masked by Circenn’s own. Her eyes flew to his, but he hadn’t yet noticed her. He looked shocked.
“Do not fear we acted wastefully,” Renaud hastened to assure him. “We know we will require the gold to rebuild both our Order and Scotland once the warring is over. We will reclaim it when we quarter Armand.”
Lisa retched instinctively, unable to contain it. A dozen eyes flew to the door, where she stood clutching her stomach.
“Lisa,” Circenn exclaimed, half rising. His eyes were wide and apologetic. “I asked you to wait in your room.”
“You know I never do,” she said irritably. “Why would you expect me to this time?” She looked directly into Renaud’s eyes. “What do you mean you gave him his weight in gold and will retrieve it?” She knew she shouldn’t ask, but her suspicions were so awful that she couldn’t help herself. If they didn’t tell her, she would just imagine atrocities. She’d long ago found it was easier to deal with reality than imagined fears.
Renaud did not respond, clearly reluctant to discuss the matter with a woman.
“Tell me,” she repeated, through clenched teeth. She glanced at Circenn, who was watching her with sorrow and understanding. She appreciated that he did not try to shield her; he understood that she needed her own answers in things.
Renaud cleared his throat uneasily. “Molten. Poured down his throat. It will cool and be removed without difficulty.”
“Lisa!” Circenn rose from the desk, but it was too late.
She was already running down the hall.
IT WAS SEVERAL DAYS BEFORE LISA RETURNED TO HER normal self. Circenn spent the time busying himself on the estate, waiting patiently as she worked through her feelings. He was never alone, always accompanied by the pressure of her heart. One day, he’d almost sworn that he’d heard her voice right next to his ear, muttering pig-headed, bloodthirsty primates, but the phrase had not made any sense to him. Whatever it meant, she must have been feeling it very strongly for him to pick it up. He wondered if their bond would continue to grow stronger over time, affording them deeper communication.
He respected her mild retreat, accepting that it was a necessary part of her adjustment to their way of life. His time must seem strange to her, and the ways of the Templars would likely seem extreme in any century. He was deeply grieved that she had found out about Armand, but if he had learned nothing else about Lisa Stone, he had learned how great her curiosity was. She wished to be shielded from nothing; she wished to be accorded respect and given all the knowledge available so she could make her own choices from a well-informed position.
He would not have wished Armand’s gruesome death upon any man, yet the Templars had their own justice and dispensed it with the same unyielding discipline with which they performed all their duties. In his heart he acknowledged that he was not sorry the man was dead. Armand had nearly killed his woman, nearly snuffed her fragile, tiny, delicate life.
And that terrified him.
Armand’s brutality had elevated Lisa’s mortality to an obsession with him. He loathed it, resented it—her mortality had become his archenemy.
Was he becoming like Adam? Was it in this fashion that such a monster had been fabricated? Did one broken rule permit the next and the next, until finally he would be able to justify taking anything he wanted? Where was the line that he must not traverse before it was too late?
You could make h
er immortal. You know you want to. You wouldn’t even have to tell her.
Aye, he wanted to. And it confounded him. He’d been married twice and never once considered trying to make his wife immortal.
But no other woman was Lisa.
Besides, up until now, he’d viewed what Adam had done to him as a curse, a vile corruption of the natural order of things. But now that he’d found Lisa, things were no longer so clear. Since she’d arrived in his life, he’d been reevaluating his beliefs, his objections, and his prejudices. He longed to storm into his castle, unearth the flask from its compartment in the stone, and force it between her lips, but he could never justify taking her choice away from her. Somehow, he had to bring himself to tell her.
Argh! he thought, closing his eyes. How?
Though he grudgingly accepted his immortality, after five hundred years there was much about himself he still despised. By Dagda, he’d been born in the ninth century! There was a part of him that was hopelessly old-fashioned. Although time’s passage had carried him out of the ninth century, nothing could remove the ninth-century sensibilities from his heart. Part of him was a simple warrior and superstitious man who believed that magic sprang from evil; hence, he was an abomination teetering on the brink of corruption.
He suspected that holding on to his birth-century’s mores made him a bit of a barbarian, but that was preferable to what he might have become.
Still, he had to reach a decision, and soon. He needed to tell Lisa what he was and offer her the same, before her mortality completely undid him.
Helplessly, he’d begun to obsess about her environment. She suddenly seemed incredibly vulnerable. He’d begun to blow out rushlights compulsively, afraid they might spark and catch the tapestries and she would die in something as senseless as a castle fire. He’d begun to study every man he encountered, seeking hints of any possible threat to her existence. Armand’s attempt to abduct her had escalated his fears. She was delicate, and one slip of a knife could steal her from him forever. Once, he’d thought forever was bitter indeed, but now, having loved her, if he lost her, forever would be a cold, bleak hell.
Perhaps, via their special bond, she would understand and accept. Perhaps the thought of living forever would appeal to her. He would never know until he tried. The worst that could happen was that she would be horrified, reject him, and try to escape. If that occurred, he worried, he might truly revert to his ninth-century self, and lock her up until she agreed to drink from the flask. Or worse—do to her what Adam had done to him.
* * *
Lisa was curled in a chair before the fire when he entered the study. She smiled warmly at him. They shared a wordless greeting with their eyes, then she patted the chair beside her. He moved to her side and rested a portion of his weight on the arm of the chair, and bent to kiss her thoroughly. God, he couldn’t bear the thought of ever losing her.
When he finally forced himself to break the kiss—it was either that or tup her right there in the chair with the study door open—she glanced at him curiously and said, “You were frustrated today. Many times. What is worrying you, Circenn?”
He sighed. Sometimes their bond was a troublesome thing; there wasn’t much he could hide from her, and the effort of withholding his emotions was exhausting. “You were stricken by ennui,” he countered, not yet ready to broach the difficult conversation. Better to savor a few moments of peace and intimacy. “But then you seem to be that way often when you are not in my bed,” he teased. In bed was precisely where he wanted her now. Perhaps lulled by sensual satisfaction she would be more receptive. A mercenary tactic, but deployed with love. He caressed her hair, savoring the silky feel between his fingers.
Lisa laughed, a low, inviting sound. “Circenn, I need something to do with myself. I need to feel … involved.”
He’d been thinking that very thing, as her frustration had attended him for quite some time now, ever since their bond had blossomed into existence. He knew that in her century Lisa had worked constantly, and she was a woman who needed to feel she had accomplished something worthwhile at the end of the day.
“I will have Duncan bring you the list of the pending disputes to be heard in the manor court in Ballyhock. Would you like that? Galan has been hearing the cases for the past few years and would be pleased to get quit of the position.”
“Really?” Lisa was delighted. She would love to immerse herself in the villagers’ lives, perhaps make friends among the young women. Someday, she would have children with Circenn, and she missed having a girlfriend. She would want her children to have playmates. She didn’t understand why Circenn had kept himself so distant from his people in the past, but she planned to bring him close again. Hearing the cases and mingling with the clansmen would be the perfect way to set her plans in motion.
“Certainly. They will be most pleased.”
“Are you certain they will accept a mere lass deciding disputes?” she asked worriedly.
“You are not a mere lass. And they adored you when they met you at the feast. Besides, I am Brude, Lisa.”
“I must have missed that part of history in school. Who were the Brude?”
“Ah, merely the most valiant warriors who ever lived,” he said, arching an arrogant brow. “We are the original Picts; many of our kings were named Brude, until we assumed that as our name. Brodie is merely another form.” Is now the time to tell her more of my history? That my half-brother Drust the Fourth was slain by Kenneth McAlpin in 838? “Being Brude, the descent of royalty in my line was matrilineal for centuries, handed down through the queens, not our kings. The crown transferred to brothers or nephews or cousins as traced by a complicated series of intermarriages by seven royal houses. My people will readily accept the decisions of the Lady of Brodie.”
“Sounds like the Picts were more civilized than the Scots,” Lisa said dryly.
“‘This legion which curbs the savage Scots’ is how Emperor Claudius referred to my people, and for a time we did. Until Kenneth McAlpin murdered most of the members of our royal house in an attempt to erase us from Scotland forever.”
“But you still live, so apparently he wasn’t too successful.”
Ah, yes. I do still live.
“So why were you frustrated today?” she asked, circling back to her initial observation. “I can feel you all the time, you know. I could feel impatience and anger.”
Circenn stood and scooped her from the chair. He dropped into it and reseated her across his lap. “That’s better. I like being beneath you.”
“I like you being beneath me. But don’t try to distract me. Why?”
Circenn sighed, gathering her close. He was afraid. He, the fearless warrior, feared her reaction to what he was about to tell her.
As he drew a breath to begin, he heard the door to the Greathall crash open, as guards all over the castle sent up a resounding cry.
They both tensed instantly.
“Is someone attacking?” Lisa worried.
Circenn rose swiftly, depositing her on the floor with a kiss. “I doona know,” he said, taking off for the Greathall at a run. Lisa raced after him, as the noise outside grew to an immense roar.
As she entered the Greathall, she saw dozens of knights clamoring excitedly, gathered around a lone stranger.
Duncan glanced up as they entered, and his smile was blinding. “To Stirling, Circenn! The Bruce’s messenger has arrived. We finally go to war!”
“WHAT SAY YOU?” CIRCENN DEMANDED, HIS EYES GLITTERING with anticipation.
The messenger spoke quickly. “The Bruce’s brother has made a wager, and we must prevent the English from reaching Stirling Castle by Midsummer’s Day. The Bruce has ordered you to present your troops with all weapons at St. Ninian’s by the Roman road—”
Circenn cut him off with a deafening bellow of joy that was echoed by all the men in the hall. Lisa moved closer to his side and he caught her in his arms, swinging her high in the air. “We go to war!” he shouted, elated.
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Men, she thought, amazed. I will never understand them. Then a worse thought followed: What if I lose him?
“But you must hurry,” the messenger yelled into the din. “If we ride without pause we will scarce arrive in time. Every moment is critical.”
Circenn hugged her close. “I will not die. I promise,” he said fervently. He kissed her deeply, then slipped from her arms. There was no time to tell her more. He would go to war, and upon his return they would have their long-overdue talk. In the meantime, he would send constant reassurance to her via their bond.
War! It’s about damned time! he thought, elated.
“I must gather my weapons,” he muttered, racing from the hall.
* * *
Drawn to spend every possible moment with him before he left, Lisa left the hall shortly after he had. The estate was a riot of activity as the men prepared to ride out immediately. She should have remembered that Circenn would have to leave soon. She’d known that the battle at Bannockburn occurred on June 24; history records had placed the thane of Brodie and his Templars in the midst of the legendary battle. But in the pleasure of their newfound love, and then in the fright of Armand’s abduction attempt, she’d given little thought to the date or the impending war.
She headed for Circenn’s chambers and slipped quietly into his room, wondering if there was enough time to steal a moment of passion. She doubted it; she sensed that his mind was already far away. He was all masculine warrior right now, consumed with the looming battle. As she moved deeper into his room, she was shocked to see a great gaping maw in the wall where the hearth normally was.
A hidden room. How fantastic, she thought, and how appropriate for a medieval castle. Curious to see what he kept in there, she slipped past the hearth and entered. The fabric of her gown caught on the rough stones of the rotated hearth and ripped audibly. Busy trying to disengage the fabric from the sharp edge of the stone, she didn’t see Circenn look up. Nor did she see his expression.
“Get out, lass,” he thundered, leaping to his feet.