The Ghost (Highland Guard 12) (39 page)

“You did the right thing. I want you to stay here. I will take care of everything.”

“But—”

He stopped her. “Let me handle this, Joan. I need to handle it.”

“Please, Alex. No one can find out. I don’t want anyone to know!”

He could see her rising panic and understood, but if that bastard was still alive, Alex was going to see him pay. “He needs to be punished, sweetheart,” he said gently, trying to calm her down. “The king will have his ball—” He stopped. “The king will see justice served.”

“Will he?” she demanded frantically. “Or will there just be more questions? Even if he is alive . . .” It was clear she didn’t think that the case. She turned to him earnestly. “Please, Alex, I can’t talk about it. Don’t make me talk about it. I’m begging you.”

Alex’s mouth fell in a flat line. He couldn’t deny her anything when she was like this, but he wasn’t happy about it. He nodded. “I will do as you ask, but in return you are going to tell me everything that you just left out.”

If possible, her face paled even more. Their eyes held. She didn’t try to feign ignorance—they both knew she’d been holding something back in her retelling.

After a long pause, she nodded.

“I will be back as soon as I am able. Lock the door and wait for me here.” He noticed her glance at the tub of water. “You can use it if you wish. You’ll find soap and a drying cloth and whatever else you might need in the trunk.”

She nodded, her lip trembling again. “You are being so sweet . . . thank you.”

He shook his head, drew her into his arms, and dropped a soft kiss on her mouth. “I love you, sweetheart. Never forget it.”

She gave him the first smile—if a bit tremulous—since she’d entered the room. “I won’t.”

He left her—reluctantly—and paused to hear the door lock behind him before heading down the tower stairwell and out into the yard. He had just entered the corridor outside the Great Hall when he saw a door open and Sir Phillip Gifford straggling out, holding his hand over his hip.

Not dead, then.

At least not yet.

Rage unlike any Alex had ever experienced flashed through him like a lightning bolt. It didn’t build or grow, it didn’t give him time to think or rationalize, it was just there. Dominating. Permeating. Clouding his vision in a red haze.

Gifford barely made it out of the room before Alex’s fist to his jaw sent him soaring back into it. Foolishly, he tried to get up. Alex hit him again. And again. Gifford tried to say something, but Alex wasn’t hearing it. All he could see was the man who’d tried to rape the woman he loved.

He struck blow after blow, pummeling him to the ground until he didn’t get up. And still it wasn’t enough.

Alex drew out his dagger, lifted the “knight” up by his surcoat, and held the blade to his throat. For the first time in Alex’s life he knew the kind of raw hatred and murderous rage that could make a man forget honor, chivalry, and whatever other tethers of humanity kept him fit for a society.
Brigand
. The old accusations he’d hurled at Boyd came back to him. Maybe he had more of it in him than he realized.

Gifford must have read the murder in his gaze through his swollen, half-lidded, and bloody gaze. “P-please . . .”

“Mercy?” Alex seethed. “Shall I give you as much mercy as you were going to show my betrothed? How does it feel, Gifford, to be at the mercy of someone stronger and more powerful than you?”

“I didn’t do anyth—”

A fresh wave of rage surged through him. “Don’t,” Alex warned. “Deny it or say one word against her, and it will be the last lie you ever speak.”

If Gifford’s eyes could have widened, they would have. They flashed with fear. “S-sorr-ry.”

Alex tossed him back with disgust. The man was nothing but a coward. He stood over him. “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t kill you right now.”

For once Gifford showed a spark of intelligence and didn’t respond.

Alex looked down at him in disgust. He wasn’t worth it.

Aside from the damage done by Alex’s fists, he could see the stain of blood from where Joan’s knife had penetrated near his hip. The same knife that was now at Gifford’s waist. Reaching down, Alex pulled it from the belt and slid it in his.

“You will say nothing about what happened here to anyone. If someone asks, you were set upon by thieves on the way back to the castle from the village. Consider yourself fortunate that I do not take you to the king right now and have you thrown in the pit prison. But my betrothed wants to forget this ever happened, and I am very reluctantly honoring her wishes.” Alex leaned down and lifted the other man up from his slump against the wall to meet his gaze. “If I hear you have even mentioned Lady Joan’s name, I will kill you.”

His tone left no doubt that he would like nothing more.

Alex let him go and stood back up. He looked down at the beaten man like the excrement that he was. Gifford had started to recover and, realizing Alex wasn’t going to kill him, his fear had been replaced by a look of burning hatred as he struggled to his feet. Some of his pride had returned as well. “You could try.”

Alex just looked at him and smiled, knowing it wouldn’t even be a contest. Gifford hadn’t had half the training Alex had had—nor had he fought alongside the best warriors in Christendom for seven years.

Gifford seemed to read his thoughts—or the substance of them anyway—and his battered face flushed with anger.

But Alex had wasted enough time on him already. Joan needed him.

When he turned to leave, Sir Phillip Gifford made his last—fatal—mistake. He pulled a dagger from its sheath at his waist and was halfway to throwing it at Alex’s back when Alex’s blade struck him in the throat.

Alex was out of practice, but his aim was still true—and just as deadly. He was still the best.

I
T WAS A
testament to her deep distress and shock that Joan didn’t even hesitate to take Alex up on his offer to let her use his bath. She didn’t care about the propriety of taking her clothes off in the room of a man who was not yet her husband—or anything else for that matter. All she wanted to do was sink into that clean, warm water and wash the feel of Sir Phillip’s touch off her skin and the blood from her hands.

She scrubbed and scrubbed until her skin was pink and not a trace of blood remained. If only the memories were so easily washed away.

She couldn’t bear to put back on her ruined gown, so after drying herself with one of the linen cloths in Alex’s trunk, she donned her chemise and borrowed a plaid she’d found in the same trunk to wrap around her shoulders. Then she sat and waited.

What was taking him so long? She grew increasingly worried as the minutes passed. What if Phillip wasn’t dead? What if he and Alex had gotten into a fight and Alex had been hurt? Or what if Alex had been caught trying to clean up her mess, and someone thought it was he who had killed Phillip? She shouldn’t have asked him to cover for her. She couldn’t let him take the blame even if she had to tell everyone the truth.

The door opened, and she jumped from the seat she’d taken on the edge of the bed. One look at Alex’s face was enough to ease her panic. He looked grim, but he wasn’t hurt.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Your blade did not kill him.” She didn’t have time to figure out whether she was disappointed or not, before he added, “But mine did.”

In short, concise, soldierly fashion, he explained how he’d found Phillip leaving the room—her blade had struck him in the hip, not the deadly groin area—and they’d fought. How Alex had beaten him to within an inch of his foul life, but had given him a chance to leave while still breathing. Phillip, however, hadn’t taken the gift. He’d attempted to throw his dagger into Alex’s back. He wasn’t quick enough, however, and instead Alex’s blade found him.

It was Phillip’s misfortune that his cowardly act had come against the most skilled man with a dagger on either side of the border. Although Phillip wouldn’t have known that—and she wasn’t supposed to either, for that matter.

“I debated tossing him down the garderobe where he belongs,” Alex finished. “But decided there would be fewer questions about his disappearance if I informed Pembroke, Sir Hugh, and King Edward of the truth.” Anticipating her reaction, he said quickly, “Most of it anyway. I left out your part, telling them merely that Gifford and I had a disagreement, that it had led to a fight, and that he’d attempted to end it with a dagger in my back.”

Joan would not falsely mourn the death of Phillip, and she was relieved that Alex had not killed him on her behalf, but she was horrified at the mess in which she’d embroiled him. It was a risk going to the king and Pembroke. It was Alex’s word against a dead man’s. That he’d taken the risk, however, didn’t surprise her. Hiding, lies, and covering things up weren’t his way. He would do the right thing no matter the personal risk or sacrifice.

She felt a flicker of disquiet that she forced away. He would never betray her—even in the name of “right.”

“And they believed you?” she asked.

He gave her a wry smile, the first break in the grim exterior since he’d entered the room. “Aye. I suspect they knew our disagreement had something to do with you, but it seems my reputation comes in handy on occasion. They both knew I would not kill a man in cold blood—I imagine they would have been rather shocked to know how close I’d come to doing just that. But I did have some unexpected help from your former guardian.”

“Sir Hugh?”

He nodded. “Apparently this isn’t the first time Gifford has been accused of putting a knife in someone’s back. He was seen fighting with a Welsh soldier, and when the man later showed up dead—with a knife wound to the back—Gifford was widely thought responsible but no one could prove it.” He paused. “The Welshman reputedly had a very beautiful wife.”

Joan’s mouth pursed with disgust, although she was not surprised. She was glad, however,
very
glad that Alex was not in trouble because of her.

And Sir Phillip was out of her life forever. She would never again have to see the mocking eyes of the man who’d raped her. Was it so horrible to be relieved?

“Then it’s over?” she asked, not daring to believe it.

He nodded and opened his arms. She rushed into them as she’d been wanting to do since he walked in the door. “Aye, my love, it’s over.”

She allowed herself to be swallowed in his embrace and take all the comfort he offered. His chest was a rock, his arms an anchor, and all that strength and solidity seemed to flow through her. She’d never had to or wanted to rely on anyone like this before, but it was . . . nice. She felt her pulse slow, felt the chill leave her bones, and felt her frayed nerves begin to unwind.

Taking a deep breath, she pulled away and took a step back. If he was holding her while she did this, she might cry. After all Alex had done for her, he deserved to know the truth about the man he’d killed.

Taking his lead from earlier, Joan spoke as matter-of-factly and dispassionately as she could about what had happened. But it wasn’t easy; she’d never spoken of it before to anyone. It was her secret. Her shame. And she wanted to keep it that way. But Alex had a right to know.

“You were right. I was leaving something out. It happened a long time ago, and I’ve forgotten about it.” She stopped. She would not lie to him. Not about this, at least. “Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that I’ve tried not to dwell on it. But there was more to my history with Phillip than I alluded to.”

She dropped her gaze, but telling herself not to be embarrassed, she forced it to meet his again and drew a deep breath. “When I was fifteen, I fancied myself in love with him. I was young and naive and prone to daydreams of handsome golden-haired young knights.” She paused to give him a wry look. “I’d seen one at Roxburgh not that long before who’d made quite an impression on me, and I convinced myself that Phillip—a new squire to my guardian—was the embodiment of every young girl’s fantasy I’d ever had. He played the part well. He was charming, gallant, and doted on me as if I were a princess. I think he was genuinely wooing me for marriage.” She shuddered at the idea. “For a time, that is.”

She thought back to those seemingly happy days and frowned. “There were small signs he was not the man I thought.” She recalled the time she’d walked in on him alone in the stables with a serving girl, whom he’d claimed to not know, and the time he’d come back from the village drunk with a mark on his neck that now she recognized as a love bite. “But I chose not to see them. Just as I chose not to see the subtle changes in his behavior toward me after I was declared a bastard and disinherited.”

She could see the tension growing in Alex, and realized he’d probably guessed the direction this story was heading. But he seemed determined to let her finish. It was one of the things she loved about him; he respected her not just with his words but with his actions. She hoped what she was about to tell him wouldn’t change his opinion of her.

“Go on,” he said encouragingly, but with a definite edge in his voice.

She drew a deep breath. This was the hard part. This was the part where her fantasy had been crushed, stomped on, and shattered—she’d thought forever. “We’d gone off a few times together before. Phillip had snuck a few chaste kisses, but never attempted anything more. He had always been so respectful, I never dreamed . . .” Knowing she was beginning to sound defensive, she stopped and tried again. “I
wanted
to spend time with him. Alone time. Perhaps it was wrong, but when he asked me to meet him for a private meal down by the loch, I agreed.”