The Firebrand (32 page)

“And I thought that I explained myself clearly, as well,” he said, capturing her hands and arresting her retreat. “You, Nichola, are the only woman that I seek.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but he sealed her lips with a kiss that scorched her with a lightning-like heat. When he finally drew back, her knees were weak, her body so limp that he had to support her weight in his arms. She struggled—with shocking difficulty—to regain her composure.

“I want you, Nichola. My affection…nay, my love has for years been yours alone.”

“I do not understand…” She shook her head. “Consider my age…my…“

“At this moment I am, I believe, five years older than you. But if you were five years my senior…ten years…twenty…none of that would matter. For all the flaws you think you embody, you…my dearest Nichola…represent perfection in my eyes. You are the dream, the prize, I never thought I would ever be able to attain in real life.”

His large hands framed her face, and she gazed up into eyes that she was suddenly sure were the deepest blue this side of heaven.

“Marry me, Nichola. Grant me this chance at happiness.” He paused a long moment. “Give yourself the chance, at least, of one day growing fond of me.”

One day, she repeated to herself. One day. How could she tell him what she already knew in her heart, but could hardly even admit to herself? One day. Drawing a deep breath, she forced herself to shake her head.

“No matter what I might want for myself, two of my three daughters out there…their lives and safety, as far as I know, are far from settled. Henry, I cannot…nay, I will not think of my own future until I can be satisfied about theirs.”

He frowned deeply, his gaze wandering to the blue veil hanging on the wall. Watching him, Nichola could see the internal battle playing itself out on his face. It was crystal clear to her that there were things about her daughters that Henry Exton was not revealing—could not reveal—bound as he was by his vows to the Brotherhood of the Veil.

“Then marry me for their sake,” he said finally, fixing his gaze on her face. She could read the determination in his eyes.

“I do not know what you mean!”

“I have already kept you here far longer than I should have. Very soon, unless you accept me, I will have no say as to your future. And when you go--” his knuckles gently caressed her cheek. “I will not be able to remain in contact with you. You will be lost to me. Be that as it may, I now ask you to think of your daughters.”

“What of them?” she asked with alarm.

“I am sure you must have already guessed that word of your capture has been taken to them.”

“Of course,” she lied, panic suddenly rising like bile into her throat.

“Then you also know that they will be coming after you.”

“They will
not
come!” Nichola tried to sound confident, but she knew that they would come, stubborn and loving children that they were.

But Henry knew them just as well, and she understood his knowing nod. “No, of course not,” he said, his tone wry and gentle. “But think, Nichola. Rather than having them search the English countryside, exposing themselves to the worst kinds of danger, would it not be better for them to find you here in the Borders, where they would most likely stop first, seeking my assistance?”

So that was where she was—in the Borders area between England and Scotland, in the small castle that Sir Henry kept in the Cheviot Hills, not far from the great dark forest of Kielder and its roving bands of brigands!

Her mind raced ahead. “And are you setting a trap for them? Is this what the Brotherhood plans? To bring them harm? And you--” She looked at him, aghast-- “you are conspiring with them?”

“And would I be speaking to you as I am if I were a party to that?” His gaze was steady as he shook his head. “Nay, Nichola. My castle and my name will never be used to bring any harm to you or to your daughters. But if you agree to be my wife, do you not see that my protection of you extends to them, as well? I would value them as my own children.”

He paused for a moment before lifting her chin until she was looking into his eyes. “So that is all the more reason for you to marry me. Do it for them. Marry me to protect them.”

The conflicting messages battered at her mind. And so much of what Henry said, she knew to be true. Time
was
running short. And she
had
stayed here longer than any of the other places of her forced confinement.

Nichola took a deep breath and decided. “Very well, Henry. How long will it take? How long for you to arrange for this marriage to take place?”

Henry Exton’s eyes shone with something beyond satisfaction. She wondered, with an almost desperate hope, if the feeling she was reading in his face could possibly be happiness.

“Wait here, my love, and I shall fetch the priest. We shall be wed immediately.”

All was not well in the healer’s cottage, and Adrianne’s brow furrowed with concern as she looked around her. All was tidy enough, she thought. The same gifts crowded the sills and the table. The same fragrant herbs and flowers hung drying above her head. But something was lacking. A vitality, a glow, a warmth.

Adrianne ladled out a cupful of broth from a pot simmering over the fire and brought it to Jean. The old healer struggled to sit up in the cot and took the drink gratefully from the young woman’s hands.

“I should be up and about.”

“None of that, Jean,” Adrianne said, rinsing a pair of wooden bowls in large kettle of water and putting them up on a shelf. “You’ll be staying right there and giving your legs a rest as long as it takes you to start feeling better.”

“I will not have you fretting over me, young woman.”

Adrianne tied up a loose bunch of herbs on the table, using one of the more flexible stalks to bind it. “I am doing no such thing.”

“By the Virgin, you are a stubborn lass.” Jean eyed her with an affection that belied her gruff tone. “But, to tell the truth, I wouldn’t have you any other way. You have more goodness in you than the whole lot of them.”

Adrianne didn’t ask whom the healer meant, though she knew the older woman was not lumping her husband John in with ‘the lot of them.’ Coming here every morning this past week, she’d seen the aging sailor heading reluctantly toward the quay beneath the castle.

Inside the cottage, though, Adrianne had found an old woman who was declining rapidly.

And just yesterday she had realized what the healer’s problem was. Perhaps it had been something in Jean’s face as she’d gazed up at an intricately carved spoon on the shelf above her bed. Or perhaps it had been in the way she had said a particular word. Adrianne could not say exactly what had brought about her sudden understanding, but something had happened, for now she was fairly certain she knew what lay at the root of her friend’s troubles.

Loneliness.

Her legs had been bothering her for some time. Suddenly faced with thoughts of her own mortality, Jean had—for the first time in her life, Adrianne guessed—stopped to look upon her life and her future.

She and John had never been blessed with children, so now she had no child of her own to come and visit. She had no grandchildren to play in the garden. Now there was no one to come to the cottage, unless there was a problem of their own they needed her assistance with.

This winter, with the cold and her age crippling her movements, Jean’s spirit had been brought low.

As she hung the bunch of herbs, Adrianne glanced over at the woman lying back in her bed and wished she could think of a solution. Jean looked up and caught her gaze.

“Stop working at my hearth and come keep my company.”

Adrianne quickly wiped the worktable and went and sat obediently beside the woman. Jean’s wrinkled fingers took the young woman’s in their own. “Tell me, did you give the lad the briony as I told you?”

“I mixed the root as you said, and even as early as yesterday Gillie was saying that his face is not itching as bad as ‘twas before.”

“But he is still wearing the wool hat against the skin.”

“Aye, his clothes are all wool, like everyone else. And you were right, I did look at his elbows and the backs of his knees. He has scars and open sores there, as well.”

“Well, there is nothing you can be doing about any of this now, lass. With this winter wind, no linen shirt will keep out the chill. So just keep putting the oils I give you on the lad’s face. Come spring, see if you cannot get Wyntoun to allow the lad to wear leather.”

Adrianne and Jean had had ample time to talk about Gillie during their days together. After seeing the boy’s face that first night, the midwife had judged that the lad must have been born with only the pulled skin beneath his eye. The rest of it had developed later. Jean had seen it once before with another bairn whose mother had died in childbirth. The infant had been given cow’s milk and terrible rashes had started immediately on the face. The bairn had started scratching it and wailing like a banshee. And there was a poor nun at the convent by the monastery overlooking the Firth of Lorn; she had broken out with similar scabs and sores anytime she wore wool against her skin. The pitiful creature had nearly lost her mind from the itching.

Knowing that Wyntoun had found Gillie abandoned, Jean wondered if the lad had a combination of the afflictions those two had endured—cow’s milk and now wool. With that wool cap forever sitting against the boy’s face, Gillie would never be free of the itching torment. For as long as Adrianne had known him, she remembered him scratching at his face, at his neck, at his leg—wherever the wool must had been touching the skin.

“And you are certain there are no other tanners on the island?”

Jean shook her head. “Dylan is the only one, and as long as he’s been here, the MacLean has been sending him to the mainland to gather hides during the winter months.”

Disappointed, Adrianne began to rise to her feet to busy herself with more work, but the healer’s touch on her arm stopped her.

“Has anyone told you anything about Canny going off to Oban this coming week?”

“Aye, Wyntoun told me this morning.” Adrianne took the cup from Jean’s lap. “She must be blaming me, though, for tearing her away from her people…”

“She has no people here, lass,” Jean interrupted. “This same Dylan, the tanner, is her own father, and the man spends more months in Oban than here at Duart Castle. Why, she knows more folks there than she does here. If it weren’t for her…” She shook her head. “Never mind that now. You just believe me when I tell you ‘twill be better for the lass to be where her da can keep an eye on her. She doesn’t need to be here and getting into mischief the way she’s been doing.”

Adrianne put the cup on the table, in a way relieved that she wouldn’t have to be worrying about the constant threat of the persistent young woman. A great deal had happened between herself and Wyntoun this past week. A great deal that she wanted to preserve.

“I can see from your face that the seas between you and your husband are smoothing out.” Jean’s words drew the young woman’s mind to the present. “Just put Canny out of your mind, lass. ‘Twill be no more than a fortnight before the wench is barely an unpleasant memory for you.”

Adrianne nodded, but her mind was already racing beyond Canny. She was now thinking of the young woman’s father. A tanner, Jean had said. A craftsman to provide leather to make new clothes for Gillie. This Dylan was the key to finding out if getting the lad out of his ragged woolen clothes could make a difference with the sores on his skin. Making Gillie whole again would be worth all the trouble she might be stirring up by talking with the woman.

Aye, indeed. She had to talk to Canny.

****

Double-cross. Treachery. Lies and lechery.

As the monk had stared morosely into the fire in the Great Hall earlier, the thought had come to him as clearly as if the angels had spoken.

Even now, standing before the door of the earl of Athol’s study for the fifth time in the last hour, Benedict could hear the words. Aye, every sign pointed to double-dealing. And who—more than he himself—knew more about such matters.

The monk scowled and cursed inwardly once again, thinking of Wyntoun MacLean. Benedict already deeply regretted having told the Blade of Barra anything of his plans regarding Tiberius. And now the infernal spawn of Satan had certainly betrayed him. But he must somehow be sure. Benedict’s gaze burned into the door. If only the muffled voices from inside the earl’s study were just a little clearer!

When the Blade had met Benedict in the crypt of Ironcross Castle, a half-day’s journey to the south, the pirate had sworn to help him take one of the Percy sisters. True, the monk had left Ironcross soon after Sir Wyntoun had traveled on to the Ross lands, where Laura Percy was hiding. Nonetheless, if any message had arrived, he would have heard immediately. And what had he heard? Nothing!

And then, only because of his own success in convincing Catherine Percy Stewart to confide in him, Benedict had learned about the trust that had been bestowed upon the Blade of Barra. Without a word, the faithless rogue had left for the Western Isles to find the youngest daughter and return with the last piece of the map to the Treasure of Tiberius. Without a word!

The voices in his head told Benedict that he had been betrayed by the villain. The Blade of Barra had already partaken of the fountain of knowledge.

Treachery, thy name is MacLean!

Benedict forced down the fury boiling just beneath the surface of his skin. How long were these bloody fools to remain in there?

It was still only mid-morning when he’d seen the weary strangers ride in. All the way from the west coast, a kitchen helper had told him as the men were quickly ushered toward the earl’s study. Nay, he did not know from where exactly.

Within minutes, Catherine and Laura and her insolent husband William had joined them in the study. And there they had remained for the past two hours.

“Is there something you want here, monk?”

Benedict turned and looked up sharply at Adam, the bastard brother of the earl. Today, as always, the fierce Highlander’s face did little to hide his disdain for Benedict. Looking at him now, the monk wondered vaguely if the man’s hostility was rooted in the years he had spent in English dungeons. He shook off the thought with a frown. What did he care about one filthy Highlander’s feelings toward him?