He was, however, troubled by other things. As much as he hated to admit losing focus and being distracted by a woman, what had happened with Jo weighed on him. He tried to put it out of his mind, telling himself he’d had no choice. She had to understand the reality, and once she accepted the situation, they would continue with their lives together.
She’d given him an ultimatum, damn it. He’d done nothing more than call her bluff.
But his plan to make her see how it would be if they weren’t together wasn’t working the way he’d intended at all. She was the one who was supposed to be heartsick and tormented. She was the one who was supposed to fear the future without him.
What if she decided she could live without him? What if she decided she didn’t love him anymore? What if it hadn’t been a bluff and she actually took him at his word? And the thought that tormented him the most, and made his stomach feel as if acid were churning in his gut: What if she took it in her mind to accept one of the proposals her father had mentioned kept coming her way?
James took out his dark emotions on the English, fighting with a frenzy that raised Boyd’s eyebrows once or twice. But even as the English fell beneath his sword, James couldn’t stop seeing her face. The hurt. The disillusionment. And something else. Something that made him fear his words had struck in a way he hadn’t intended.
He had to tell her he hadn’t meant it. She loved him, and he knew she would forgive him. It was one of the things he loved most about her; he could always count on her.
But his thoughtless comment wasn’t the only problem. Jo was sweet and kind to a fault, always seeing the good in people, which they sometimes took advantage of. It wasn’t naïveté, he knew, but stubbornness. And that worried him. What if she was stubborn about marriage? What would he do then?
Damn it, he had to make her see reason. Men in his position didn’t marry for love. It was an alliance. A transaction. A contract between families to increase their wealth and prestige. But for him it was more than that. His family’s honor was at stake. He couldn’t let his father down.
But the thought of losing her drove him half crazy. Hell, more than half. He couldn’t lose her. Joanna was everything to him.
He felt like he was being torn in two different directions, with duty on one side and his heart and soul on the other. He had to find a way to put them together.
The castle had barely fallen before he was chomping at the bit to return to Douglas. But before he could go, he was ordered on another mission. This time, Bruce needed him in the Ettrick forest west of Selkirk. The English were attempting to woo the Scots in the area, and Bruce wanted James to make sure their oft fickle supporters in the Borders weren’t tempted by false promises. Bruce needed control of the forests, which would serve as their base of operations to mount their surprise attacks against the English troops when Edward renewed his campaign in the summer.
James sent word to his stepmother and sister, explaining the delays and asking Beth to tell Jo he would return as soon as possible, but it didn’t ease his anxiousness.
The mission took longer than James expected and required quite a bit of “convincing.” Randolph and Seton were clearly uncomfortable with the duties of enforcing the king’s will, whereas he and Boyd fit naturally into the role. Fear, force, and intimidation. The war would not be won without them. It might not be pretty, but to defeat the mightiest army in Christendom, ruthlessness was bloody well necessary.
Still, it started to grate every time a villager shrank from him in fear. And when a young girl, no older than seven or eight, burst into tears at the mere mention of his name, James had had enough.
“You handle it this time,” he said to Randolph, walking away from the small tower house. They’d been told the girl’s father, David Somerville, the baron of Linton, had received a communication from his cousin Roger, lord of Wichenour, in England, and they wanted to make sure Linton wasn’t inclined to join his cousin.
Randolph could do the dirty work for once. Let him get credit, James didn’t give a shite. He was tired of being cast in the role of ogre while Seton and Randolph shined their bloody armor. It had never bothered him before, but James couldn’t help wondering if the reputation he was fighting so hard to build was making him the man Jo feared.
As the weeks wore on, and his return to Douglas was delayed yet again—this time to accompany Bruce as part of his personal retinue on a march south to Galloway to put down yet another threat from John MacDougall, Lord of Lorn—James’s temper grew blacker and blacker. With what seemed like half the members of Bruce’s Highland Guard away to see their wives or attend the birth of yet another child, refusing the mission was out of the question. The king couldn’t spare him.
So here he was nearly three months after he’d last seen Jo, deep in the forests of Galloway, not far from Glen Fruin where they’d won their first key battle against the English four long years ago, wishing he were miles away. Never had he been so anxious to be somewhere else. He couldn’t relax until he apologized and set it right.
He couldn’t escape the feeling that he was missing something important, and that if he just kept looking at it, he would see it. But no matter how many times he rehashed what had happened, it escaped him.
The unease perhaps explained the unaccountable relief he felt when he walked out of the tent that had been set up as a makeshift hall and nearly ran into a man he might otherwise have wished to avoid.
He didn’t know what the hell Thom MacGowan was doing in Galloway with Edward Bruce’s men, who had just arrived at camp, but his old friend reminded him of home and for a moment James was glad to see him. He was a connection to Jo when he needed it most.
But the moment didn’t last long. MacGowan looked at him with such an expression of raw hatred on his face, it took James aback. What his old friend did next, however, surprised the hell out of him.
James had barely gotten out the words “What are you doing here?” before MacGowan’s fist landed on his jaw.
James didn’t know whether it was the shock of being struck or the force of the blow, which felt akin to being hit by a sledgehammer, but he didn’t react right away or attempt to defend himself. He was too stunned, and his head felt like a bell was clanging against his skull. Christ, the blacksmith’s son could give Boyd a contest in raw power.
MacGowan hit him again, this time in the gut. As James wasn’t wearing armor, only a surcoat, he took the full force of the blow, and it brought him to his knees. The two men had been in more than a few fights in their youth, but they were no longer youths. MacGowan might not have been trained as a warrior, but he had the instincts of a brawler and the raw strength of a man who wielded a blacksmith’s hammer for a living.
Still, James should have easily been able to defend himself, but his former friend managed to get in four or five solid blows before someone pulled him off.
Or tried to pull him off. It took two men to pin MacGowan’s arms back, and he was still spewing fire. “You fucking bastard! I should kill you for what you’ve done!”
John of Carrick, one of Edward Bruce’s captains, had rushed over when he saw what was happening. “What the hell do you think you are doing, MacGowan? You just attacked one of the king’s chief lieutenants and a member of his personal guard. You’ll be in irons for this.” He turned to Douglas. “I apologize, my lord. He is a new recruit. I will see that he is punished.”
James dragged himself to his feet. He eyed MacGowan, who was staring at him with venom in his eyes, and shook the other man off. “That won’t be necessary. It was a misunderstanding. I know this man.”
John didn’t look happy about it. He gave MacGowan a look that told him he wouldn’t get off that easily and nodded to James.
Quite a few curious stares were thrown in their direction, but the crowd that had gathered at the commotion gradually dissipated.
The two men squared off in silence. Finally, when they were alone, James spoke. “What the hell was that for?”
He detected the shock in the other man’s eyes, but it was quickly replaced by a fresh burst of rage. “God, you still don’t know? What kind of selfish bastard are you not to contact her for months? She loved you. God knows why, you never did anything to deserve it. She gave and all you did was take as if it were your bloody due. The high and mighty Lord of Douglas and another loyal minion. That’s all she ever was to you. Someone to admire you and tell you how wonderful you were. And what did you do? You took her innocence and then left her with your bastard.”
James felt as if he’d been leveled by a battering ram. If MacGowan had just swung a blade and sliced him in two he would have been less stunned. His heart, his breath, everything inside him seemed to stop working. Except his mind, which was working too quickly, scrambling to fit the pieces all together in a picture that he could finally see. A babe. That’s what she’d been trying to tell him. Post the banns sooner than you realized… If it was just me… Our babe will be a bastard.
“Jo is with child?” he managed. His voice didn’t sound like his own. It was strangled and choked with emotion. They were going to have a baby. A bubble of happiness swelled inside him.
MacGowan’s hard-eyed gaze held no pity for the blow he was about to impart. “Was with child. She lost the baby in the accident.”
Lost…? Accident…? It took James a moment to process the cruel words, and the moment of joy became a plunge into the cold depths of despair. Oh God, no. Their child was dead. And Joanna? Fear and panic unlike any he’d ever imagined rose up inside him.
The fact that an accident had taken the life of their unborn child was horrible enough, but it couldn’t have taken more. He grabbed MacGowan’s arm and would have lifted him to his face, if the bastard weren’t built like a rock. “What accident? Is Jo all right? Tell me what happened.”
MacGowan shrugged out of his hold. “As if you care. It’s too late to pretend. It doesn’t matter anymore. You left her there to die alone. You abandoned her when she most needed you.”
James’s mind was blaring. His heart was racing wildly. Jo was fine. She had to be fine. Christ, no! He couldn’t even contemplate it. “Damn it, Thommy, stop torturing me and tell me what the hell happened.”
“You deserve to be tortured. You nearly destroyed her. She gave you her heart and you treated it as if it were nothing. Aye, she’s alive. By some kind of miracle she survived a fall that should have killed her after running from your damned castle after you left.” He clenched his fists, looking as if he were thinking about using them again. “I hope you are suffering, but I assure you it’s not half of the suffering that poor lass went through in the weeks after you rode out without a backward glance.”
“I sent word—”
“Aye, well it wasn’t enough. Damn it, Jamie, she deserved better from you.” James barely even registered the old nickname. No one but Beth called him Jamie now. “She believed in you. If I had someone with that much faith in me, I would do anything to hold on to it.”
Something passed in the other man’s eyes, and James’s eyes narrowed. “You mean like making yourself a soldier?”
Their eyes met, the woman—James’s sister—who had torn apart an old friendship still between them. “Go to hell, Douglas. My reasons are my own. They have nothing to do with your sister. Any illusions I might have had in that regard are long gone. Like brother like sister, I suppose.”
James gritted his teeth, but knew the jab was warranted. More than warranted. Nothing MacGowan could say was worse than the guilt and shame he was feeling right now.
He should have been there with her. She shouldn’t have gone through this alone. He had to see her. Only once he set eyes on her himself could he be assured that she was all right. Only then would the panic racing through him abate.
James stared at his sister in frustrated anger. “What do you mean she isn’t here?”
After racing across the countryside for nearly twenty-four hours to get back to Jo as soon as possible, it never occurred to him that she wouldn’t be here. Joanna belonged in Douglas with him. This was her home—their home.
Elizabeth’s gaze narrowed at his tone. “Don’t you dare bellow at me, Jamie. If you are looking for someone to be mad at, look in the looking glass!” She pursed her mouth, reluctantly deciding to answer his question. “Jo left Douglas about a month ago.”
He couldn’t believe Jo had gone. His chest twisted uneasily. For the first time, James had an inkling that things were far worse than he’d imagined. “What do you mean she left? Where did she go? And why in the hell did you not tell me about the accident when I wrote you?”
“She did not tell me where she was going, and I did not ask. She doesn’t want you to find her, and probably feared you would bully me into telling you. As for why I didn’t tell you about the accident, it was because she asked me not to. Begged me not to, in fact. It was the first thing she said to me when she came to after the fall. There she was, lying in a pile of leaves at the bottom of the hill, bruised and broken, with blood pooling all around her, and her only thought was that you not be told what had happened. She knew that you would rush back and make promises, and she didn’t want you like that. She wanted you to come for her on your own. Too bad it is nearly three months too late.”
Christ. Did no one see reason? They were in the middle of a damned war! He swore, dragging his fingers through his hair. “Damn it, Beth, I couldn’t leave. Bruce needed me.”
She lifted a delicately arched brow. “Yet here you are.”
“Aye, well I didn’t give the king a chance to deny my request.”
That surprised her. Her eyes widened. “You just left?”
He shrugged. He’d been so out of his mind with grief and panic, all he could think about was getting out of there as quickly as possible. He’d run into Boyd as he was leaving and claimed that there was a “family emergency.” But Bruce wouldn’t be happy, and James knew he’d have some explaining to do.
Beth stared at him, shaking her head as if he were a recalcitrant schoolboy. At the moment, he felt like it. “What did you expect, Jamie, that she’d sit around here wallowing in her grief and wait for you to come rushing in on your white steed to make it all better? There is nothing you can do to make it better.” Although they were alone in the laird’s solar of Park Castle, she lowered her voice. “Losing the baby nearly killed her.”
Nothing you can do to make it better? His sister’s certainty gave him a moment’s doubt, but he pushed it aside. Joanna was hurting, grieving the loss of their child, but she loved him. She would understand that he hadn’t abandoned her. If he’d known, he would have found a way to be there. “She told you about the babe?”
Beth shook her head. “She was brought here after the accident by Sir David Lindsay. Thommy and I overheard the healer telling our stepmother.”
Bloody hell.
Seeing his expression, Beth shook her head. “You need not worry on our stepmother’s account, your secret is safe. She has no more interest in seeing you wed Jo than you do. She informed the healer that if anyone else heard of this child, she would see her thrown in the nearest pit prison and condemned as a heretic.”
James repressed a shiver. He didn’t doubt it. Eleanor de Lovaine had a spine of steel. Her interest in seeing James rise in the king’s estimation—and thus raising the status of her two sons, James and Elizabeth’s half brothers Archie and Hugh—was equal only to his own.
His eyes narrowed. “What did Lindsay have to do with this?”
Sir David Lindsay had recently succeeded to his father Alexander’s barony of Crawford, which wasn’t far from Douglas. Alexander had been a close adherent of Bruce’s, as was his son. With his father’s death, Lindsay had been at Tower Lindsay seeing to the estates for the past few months.
“He was riding with some of his men to find you and ran into her, causing the fall.” James tensed with fury, but before he could say anything, she pulled him back. “It was an accident. Jo tore out of here like the devil was ch
asing her. I ran after her and saw the whole thing. She practically ran right into Sir David’s horse. There was nothing he could have done to avoid her. He was distraught and refused to leave until she recovered.”
James felt some of the tension subside. Some but not all. He made Elizabeth tell him everything. Every injury, every long hour of Jo’s recovery, every week she’d spent in bed, the weeks after when she’d returned to her parents’ house, and then the short conversation where she’d told Elizabeth she was leaving. What Elizabeth didn’t tell him, but what he heard anyway, was of Jo’s deep sorrow and grief. Every word dug the knife of guilt deeper and deeper into his heart.
“How could you, Jamie? How could you dishonor her like that, knowing you would not marry her?”
It was one thing to hear it from Thom, and another to hear it from the young sister who’d always looked up to him as if he were the greatest knight in Christendom.
“I thought…” He dragged his fingers through his hair again. Christ, there was no excuse. He’d just thought she understood.
But he would make it up to her—as soon as he found her. He turned and started out of the room.
“Where are you going?” Elizabeth said.
“To Hazelside to speak to her father. He’ll know where she has gone.”
“And you think he will tell you?” Elizabeth laughed, though it was without humor. “Her parents might not know all the details, but they know something terrible happened and that you are to blame. They will not tell you anything. Nor should they. She left Douglas so she wouldn’t be reminded of you and what she lost. If you go after her, you will only bring it all back.”