Had she? No. She wasn’t wrong about him. But still, it was one thing to watch a man from a window and admire him and another to have him right next to you. “If I help you, you have to promise to leave without hurting anyone.”
“I will not leave my friends behind to die.”
She’d anticipated that. It was one of the reasons she was here—a noble leader would not leave his men. “But you will give me your word you will not hurt any of the guards?”
He made a sharp sound that might have been a laugh. “My word is good enough for you?”
“It is.”
He paused as if her answer surprised him. “Very well, you have my word that I will do my best to see that no one is killed.”
He spoke the words with the solemnity of a vow. She had no reason to trust him, and yet she did. Enough to drop the rope.
She moved back, and in a shockingly few moments he was standing in front of her. Looming in front of her, actually. His large, muscular frame seemed to fill the entire room. Jesu, he was even taller and more formidably built than she’d realized! Instinctively, she shrank back, every one of her brother’s warnings suddenly running through her mind.
Cut your throat…Vile barbarian…Vicious brute…
He stilled. “You’ve nothing to fear, lass. I will not harm you. I owe you my life.”
Some of her fear dissipated. He might be built like a brute, but the man inside was noble of heart. She just wished it weren’t so dark. She wanted to see his face up close, but she couldn’t make out much more than shadows. Her other senses worked perfectly, however, and mingled with the dank air of the pit, she caught the musky edge of a well-worked body that was not as unpleasant as she would have expected.
“Who are you?” he asked.
She shook her head. “It’s not important.”
“Why are you doing this?”
She wasn’t sure she knew herself, but standing here with him, she knew it was right. “It was my fault. I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt—I was only trying to help.”
“You brought the food.” He said it as if the last piece of a puzzle had just been fit into place, and it still didn’t make sense.
She nodded.
“How old are you, lass?”
Something in his voice caused her to throw up her chin and straighten her spine. “Eighteen,” she lied.
She could almost hear him smile. He couldn’t be more than a handful of years older than she, but he made her feel so young. Even in the darkness it seemed as if he could see right through her. As if he knew her reason for helping him. He was probably used to women admiring him. Used to young, starry-eyed “lasses” who made themselves silly over him.
But it wasn’t like that. She was righting a wrong. Mostly.
“No matter what your age, what you are doing is a kindness, and I thank you for it. What happened is not your fault, though I won’t say I regret your thinking so, since otherwise I would still be in that pit.”
He stopped, hearing something.
Oh God, the guard! She’d been so distracted by him that she’d forgotten about the guard. The soldier must have heard something and was coming to investigate. Before she realized what was happening, the Scot grabbed her, pulled her against him, and put his hand over her mouth.
She gasped soundlessly, first with shock and then with ice-cold fear. She felt as if she’d been enveloped in steel. Every inch of him was hard and unyielding, from the chest plastered against her back to the rock-hard arm tucked under her breasts. She tried to squirm free, but he tightened his clamplike hold, stopping her. When he enfolded her hand in his big, callused one, a strange warmth engulfed her. Not realizing what he was trying to do, she startled—at least she thought the shudder running through her was a startle. Capturing her fingers, he gently folded back four fingers and then three.
Suddenly, she understood. She pointed one finger. One guard. He nodded and slowly released his hand from around her mouth. She realized that he’d grabbed her only to prevent her from making any startled sound.
Her mind might know that, but her heart was still slamming against her chest with the aftereffects. Yet she knew that was not the only reason. She was suddenly aware of him. Aware of him in “a woman who’s being held by a man for the first time” kind of way. He might be made of steel, but he was warm. Very warm. And no man had ever held her so intimately. She had the sensation of being tucked in against him, every part of their bodies fitted in snug and tight. She was sure it was highly improper, and she would be shocked later, but right now all she could think was how incredible it felt. Like she was warm and safe and nothing would ever hurt her.
He inched them against the wall, turning her toward it to protect her with his body. She could feel the muscles in his body tense as torchlight flooded the main chamber of the keep. The light drew nearer and nearer. The guard was coming this way!
She couldn’t breathe. Both from fear and from being pressed up against a stone wall with a steel one behind her.
“What the hell?”
The soldier had noticed the open pit. He walked into the room and held the torch over the pit. The Scot sprang into action. He moved so fast, the soldier never had a chance. A sharp blow to the soldier’s throat and a jab to the stomach pushed him back. He managed a cry of surprise before he fell into the hole. The torch went black and a moment later, the door was slammed shut.
The Scot spun her around to face him. “I have to go. They’ll come looking for him.”
She nodded wordlessly, still stunned by how fast it had happened.
“You will be all right?” he asked. “I will do what I can to make it seem as if we had no help.”
“I will be fine.” She paused, wanting to say something but not knowing what. “Please, you had best go quickly.”
But she didn’t want him to go. She wished…she wished she had a chance to know this man who’d captured her heart.
Perhaps he’d heard her hesitation—and guessed the reason for it. He turned to do as she bid, but then he, too, hesitated. Before she realized what he was going to do, he cupped her chin in his big hand, tipped her head back, and touched his lips to hers. She had the fleeting sense of warmth and surprising softness before it was gone.
“Thank you, lass. One day I hope we shall meet again, so I can repay you in full.”
She watched with her heart in her throat as he disappeared into the darkness. She brought her hand to her mouth as if she could keep the moment there forever.
It had been a kiss of gratitude. The barest brushing of mouths, with no intent of passion. Even brotherly—on his part, at least. But in that one instant, she felt a spark of something big and powerful and magical. Something extraordinary. Something wonderful.
She might have stood like that until morning, but a sound from the pit prison below roused her from her dreamlike state.
Rosalin raced out of the keep and back up the stairs to her chamber, knowing that she might live with the repercussions of this night forever, but she would never regret it.
One
Hannibal ad portas (Hannibal is at the gates)
Cranshaws, Scottish Marches, February 1312
The English would pay.
Robbie Boyd, King Robert the Bruce’s authority in the Borders, stared at the blackened shell of the barn and vowed retribution.
His mouth fell in a grim line, the bitter taste of memory as acrid as the smoke burning his throat. He would never be able to see a razed barn without thinking of the one that had served as his father’s funeral pyre. It had been the then seventeen-year-old Robbie’s first lesson in English treachery and injustice. In the fifteen years since, he’d had many more.
But it would end. By all that was holy, he would make sure of it. No matter what it took, he would see Scotland freed of its English “overlords.” No more sons would see their father’s burned body hanging from the rafters, no more brothers would see their sister raped and brother executed, and no more farmers would se
e their farm razed and cattle stolen.
He didn’t care if he had to fight for another godforsaken fifteen years, he wouldn’t rest until every last English occupier fled from Scotland and the Lion—the symbol of Scotland’s kingship—roared free.
Freedom was the only thing he cared about. Nothing else had mattered from the first day he’d lifted his sword to fight alongside his boyhood friend, William Wallace.
Recalling the manner of his friend’s death, Robbie’s jaw hardened with the steely determination born of hatred. He turned from the smoldering timbers—the latest example of English “justice”—to face the villagers who’d cautiously begun to approach the manor house.
“Who did this?” he asked, the evenness of his tone not completely masking the ominous warning underneath.
But he already knew the answer. Only one man would be bold enough to defy him. Only one man had refused to renew the truce. Only one man had sent Robbie’s missive requesting a parley back in embers.
A few of the villagers looked around before the village reeve, a farmer by the name of Murdock, cautiously stepped forward. The trepidation among the villagers wasn’t unusual. As one of the most feared men in the Borders—hell, in all of Christendom—Robbie was used to it. Though his notoriety served its purpose in striking fear in the enemy, it wasn’t without complications. It had sure as hell made keeping his identity secret as one of the members of Bruce’s Highland Guard a challenge. Eventually he knew someone was going to recognize him, even with his features hidden. He’d become too well known.
“Clifford’s men, my lord,” Murdock explained. “They took everything. The cattle, the grain—even the seed—before setting the barn afire.”
Clifford. God’s bones, I knew it! Robbie’s gauntleted fists clenched at his side, rage surging through him in a powerful rush.
It wasn’t often that he lost his temper. As his size and reputation alone caused hardened warriors to shake in their boots, it served no purpose.
But there were two things guaranteed to test his control: one was the English knight who stood behind him, Alex “Dragon” Seton, his unlikely partner in the Highland Guard, and the other was the English knight who’d imprisoned him six years ago and seemed to be thwarting him ever since, Sir Robert Clifford, King Edward’s new Keeper of Scotland—in other words, Scotland’s latest bloody overlord.
Devil take the English whoreson, Clifford would pay—for this and for old scores as yet unsettled. It was a reckoning long overdue. For six years, the bastard had eluded him, and now Clifford’s defiance—his refusal to know when he’d been beaten—was threatening to ruin everything.
“Take care of it, Raider,” the king had said.
Robbie had a job to do, damn it. Bruce had put him in charge of enforcing the peace in the lawless, war-torn Borders. His war name of “Raider” attested to his experience in the area. The king was counting on him to bring the English barons to heel, and no one was going to stand in his way.
When King Edward left Berwick Castle last summer, forced to abandon his war against the Scots to attend to brewing trouble with his barons, Bruce had gone on the offensive, leading a series of well-executed raids into Northern England. For the first time, the English had gotten a taste of the devastating war the Scots had been experiencing for years. The raids had not only shifted the war from the burdened Scottish countryside to England, but also served to replenish the drained royal coffers by exacting payment from the Northern English barons in exchange for a truce.
The other barons had renewed their truces, but Clifford, the new governor of Berwick Castle, refused their “offer,” and was continuing to resist. His resistance could encourage others to do the same, and Robbie sure as hell wasn’t going to let that happen.
Bruce would have his truce and Clifford’s cooperation; Robbie would bloody well see to it.
James Douglas, one of the three other warriors who’d accompanied Robbie and Seton on this “simple, straightforward” mission (as if such a thing existed) to collect the feudal dues owed the king, muttered an expletive, echoing his thoughts a bit more crudely.
If anyone hated King Edward’s new “Keeper” more than Robbie, it was Douglas. Clifford had made his name and fortune by the war in Scotland in part by laying claim to Douglas’s lands.
“There is nothing left?” Douglas asked the farmer, his face growing dark with anger.
The Black Douglas hadn’t earned his epitaph only for the color of his hair but also for his fearsome reputation. Mistaking the source of his rage, Murdock’s hands shook as he tried to explain. “Nay, my lord. They took everything. Claimed it was the cost of dealing with ‘the rebels.’ They would have burned the entire village if we refused. We had no choice but to give it to them. It’s the same everywhere. Clifford’s men raided the entire Eastern March from here to Berwick. The reeve at Duns sent a warning this morning, but it came too late.”
Robbie swore. Damn the bastard to hell!
“Was anyone hurt?” Seton asked.
The farmer shook his head. “Nay, praise God. It’s only the barn they destroyed—this time. But the fire was a warning. It’s because they know we were dealing with Bruce that they came.”
“The Bruce is your king,” Robbie reminded him pointedly. In this part of Scotland, so near the English border, the people often needed it. Though Bruce had established his kingship north of the Tay, there were many in the south who reluctantly called Bruce king and whose sympathies still lay with the English.
Speaking of Scots who acted like Englishmen, Seton, whose lands in Scotland lay near here, jumped to the farmer’s defense. “I’m sure Murdock meant no offense to the king. He was only pointing out the difficulty for those who live surrounded by English garrisons with no one to defend them.”
Boyd looked at him sharply, not missing the implied criticism. Seton often bemoaned the “damned-if-they-do, damned-if-they-don’t” situation of the people who lived so near England. But everyone had to make a choice: for England or for Scotland; there was no straddling both sides of the line. Seton still didn’t understand that he couldn’t live in both worlds.
“Damnation.” Douglas swore in frustration. “The king is counting on that grain and cattle. What the hell is he supposed to feed his men?”
The Bruce and a good portion of his army (and the Highland Guard when they weren’t on other missions) had been laying siege to Dundee Castle for the past three months. With Edward in London and the threat of war abated, Bruce’s focus had shifted to clearing the entrenched English garrisons from Scotland’s castles.
It was the only way the war could truly be won. All the victories and momentum of the past few years wouldn’t mean shite if the English continued to occupy their castles.
And they were making progress. Linlithgow had fallen after the raids last year, and Dundee was close. But all of it would soon come to a quick end if Robbie didn’t do his job. The king was without funds, and with the required hundred days of free feudal service of many of the soldiers nearly up, if the siege were to continue, they had to find coin to pay the men and food to feed them.
It wasn’t much of an overstatement to say that the future of the war rested on Robbie’s shoulders. And if the path to victory depended on securing protective truces from the English barons who’d raided Scotland for years, he was damned glad to do it.
“The king will have his food,” Robbie said flatly. And his damned truce with Clifford.
Douglas guessed what he meant, a slow smile spreading over his dark visage. Seton did as well, but his reaction was to clench his jaw as if he wanted to argue but knew it would do no good. Maybe he’d learned something the past seven years after all.
Clifford had thrown down the gauntlet, and Robbie sure as hell wasn’t going to let it go unanswered.
Murdock, however, didn’t understand. “But how? There is nothing left and they will only come again. You have to do something.”
Robbie leveled his gaze on the farmer. “I intend to.??
?
“What?” the farmer asked.
He would fight fire with fire, and strike in a place his enemy could not ignore. Something rare appeared on his face when the corners of his mouth lifted in a smile. “Take it back.”
Berwick Castle, English Marches, One Week Later
“It isn’t fair, Aunt Rosie-lin.”
Rosalin looked down at the small, upturned face, at the cherubic features twisted with hurt, disappointment, and disbelief, and felt her insides melt.
Cliff’s seven-year-old daughter, Margaret, had come bursting into Rosalin’s solar almost in tears a few moments ago. Rosalin tried not to show her shock at her niece’s attire. The poor thing was fighting so hard not to cry, she didn’t want to push her over the edge.
Sitting down on the edge of the bed, she patted the space beside her. “Come sit, Margaret, and tell me what has happened.”
Sensing that she’d found a pair of sympathetic ears, Margaret did as she bid, hopping up and settling in on the fluffy feather mattress next to her.
“It’s Meg,” she corrected, wrinkling her nose with distaste. “No one but Father calls me Margaret.”
Rosalin’s mouth twisted, trying not to smile. Instead, she nodded solemnly. “Forgive me, Meg.”
The little girl rewarded her with a tremulous smile, and Rosalin melted a little more.
“That’s all right,” Meg assured her, patting her hand as if their ages were reversed. “You only just got here, and you haven’t seen me since I was little.”
Rosalin pretended to cough.
Meg’s tiny, delicately arched brows drew together over an equally tiny nose. “Are you sickly?”
Rosalin couldn’t hide that smile. “Nay, Meg. I’m perfectly hale.”
The little girl studied her. “Good. Andrew is always coughing, and he isn’t allowed to play outside. He’s no fun.”