The Ghost (Highland Guard 12) (23 page)

He was becoming the very barbarian he’d feared.

Her face went white, as if she was shocked by what she said. “Alex, wait. I didn’t mean—”

He didn’t let her finish. “No, you are right. You have made your feelings quite clear. I will not seek to change your mind again. But if you change yours, you know where to find me—for a couple of weeks at least. After that . . .” He shrugged. It didn’t really matter. Whether he came back from war or not, he knew she would not be waiting for him.

She looked stricken, as if the idea of him not returning had never occurred to her.

He didn’t wait to hear her reply. With a short, stiff bow of his head, he handed her back her bundle and left.

H
E WON
’
T DIE
, Joan told herself. Alex Seton was one of the best warriors in Christendom, handpicked for Bruce’s elite fighting force, even if he was now fighting for the enemy. It was inconceivable that he wouldn’t survive the looming battle.

But deep inside she knew it was true: there were no guarantees in war. Even the best weren’t invincible. Hadn’t William “Templar” Gordon’s death proved that? Joan hadn’t known the young member of the Guard who’d died a few years ago, but she’d heard so much of him from Lachlan she felt as if she did.

Being the “best” also hadn’t helped Alex’s brother. Sir Christopher Seton was one of the greatest knights on either side of the border and reputed to be the third best in Christendom (behind his liege lord Robert Bruce, and Giles d’Argentan, the Frenchman who fought for the English). Yet Sir Christopher had been captured by his own countryman, the chief of the MacNabs, at Loch Doon Castle and executed at the start of the war.

The cold clamminess on her forehead spread over the rest of her skin in a sickly pale. She covered her stomach with her hands as if she could somehow steady the sway. Her entire body was in revolt—in panic—at the thought of never seeing him again. But what else could she do? What other choice did she have? She couldn’t risk what she was doing, and any kind of relationship with Alex would surely do that. She’d finally done what she wanted and gotten rid of him.

Beware the Dragon
. She hadn’t forgotten the warning, but the thought of him not coming back, of him riding off into the mist to his death thinking the worst of her, had forced her to confront her feelings for him. She cared about him. Deeply. And it challenged her resolve like nothing before. For the first time, she could contemplate a future that did not involve being alone, and she was surprised how fiercely her foolish heart held on to the image.

Shouldn’t she be beyond all this?

“Is something wrong, Joan?” her cousin Margaret asked when Joan waved away another tray of sweets—this one squares of apple tart. It was the late afternoon, and they’d gathered in Alice’s sitting room to work on their needlework. “You don’t look well.”

Joan shook her head and tried to brighten but failed when her smile wobbled. “I didn’t sleep well last night.” That was the truth. “The men were up late.”

“I heard them as well,” Margaret said. “It must have been after midnight before they went to bed.”

Alice looked back and forth between them, and then, clearly bursting to tell them something, leaned forward conspiratorially. “Henry told me not to say anything yet, so you must keep it to yourselves for now, but they have caught the rebel spy who has been feeding information to the usurper for years.”

Joan hid her shock—barely—but the news caused Margaret to drop the cup of mulled wine she had been drinking. The fine pottery mug shattered on the hard wooden floor into dozens of pieces, spraying the pungent dark liquid all over their feet, although Margaret’s hem took the brunt of it.

“Whatever is the matter with you, Margaret?” Alice said impatiently, as the maidservant hurried to clean up the mess. “You have been as jumpy as a hare of late. Henry said you almost fainted when he came up behind you in town the other day.” Her small upturned nose wrinkled in a frown. “You never did say where you were going.”

By now Margaret had collected herself, but her cheeks were still a warm pink. “He scared me,” she protested. “And I am not jumpy, I am surprised. Why have we heard nothing of this? Who have they arrested?”

Margaret seemed almost as anxious to hear the details as Joan.

Alice savored her role as the keeper of the information and waited a few moments before responding. “They haven’t arrested anyone yet. But they captured a monk who was carrying one of the spy’s missives. It is only a matter of time before he is identified.”

Joan’s heart dropped. She tried to recall the exact wording of her latest message. Was there any way of identifying her? Would someone be able to trace it back to her? She was careful, but never before had one of her messages been intercepted.

Was that why she’d had this strange feeling of being watched of late? Did they suspect her? None of her fear and anxiousness showed as she tied a knot on the piece of thread she’d been working with before asking, “What did the missive say?”

Alice shrugged as if the details were unimportant. “I don’t know. But there must be something incriminating, don’t you think? Henry said your knight”—she waved her hand toward Joan—“insisted on taking it with him to examine.”

Alex? Her heart dropped even lower. Good God, did he suspect something? Had he seen something in the note to identify its writer? Is that why he’d been so attentive of late? Was it all a ploy?

Nay, she refused to believe it. But the fact that he had the note did not sit well with her. Actually, nothing about this sat well with her.

And what of the monk? She assumed the mercer’s wife had passed it on to him, but had he seen anything? She prayed the woman had been careful, and that the monk couldn’t identify her. And what would the English do to him to find out?

Joan shuddered.

Margaret must have been having similar thoughts. “What has happened to the monk?” she asked with genuine concern.

Alice frowned. “He was questioned.”

Joan winced inwardly. When her eyes caught Margaret’s a few minutes later, she could see that her cousin realized what that meant as well.

“They did not hurt him?” Margaret said with more hope than belief.

“How would I know?” Alice said with obvious impatience. “But it is no more than he deserves for aiding the rebels. He cannot act like a traitor and then seek to avoid punishment by pointing to his holy robes.”

Margaret looked as ill as Joan felt.

Although Joan and anyone else who dared to work for Bruce knew what they risked when they started, it was different somehow when confronted with reality. Her heart went out to the monk, and she prayed the English were not treating him harshly. But she hadn’t been that naive since she’d seen her mother forced into a cage. There was nothing of which they weren’t capable.

They let the conversation drop, but the quickening of her pulse and race of her heart stayed with her throughout the long afternoon. This was not good. Not good at all. She couldn’t escape the feeling of doom hanging over her. But Joan would not overreact. No matter how desperate she was to learn what Alex knew, she wouldn’t do anything rash. She’d survived this long by being cautious and patient. There was nothing on that parchment that could give her away. Even if every instinct clamored to try to fetch the missive back to make sure, she would wait for Alex to make the first move. If he had one.

But her cousin had other ideas.

As soon as Alice had left the room to rest before the evening meal, Margaret turned to her. She looked as if she was close to tears. “I need your help.”

It was late by the time Alex returned to the small chamber near Pembroke’s that had been assigned to him while they were at Berwick. It wasn’t much bigger than an ambry and didn’t even have a small window to let in natural light, but what it lacked in size and amenities it made up for in privacy. He’d sent his squire to sleep in the barracks with the other lads, wanting—nay, needing—the solitude.

If he’d needed a reminder of why he was here, of all the horrors and injustices perpetuated in the name of war, of why he’d had to
do
something different, he had it.

After riding across the better part of the Lothian countryside with Pembroke since dawn, Alex felt all the bitterness, frustration, and anger that had driven him to try to find another way. Two years hadn’t changed a thing—if anything it had only gotten worse. The devastation wrought along the Borders, on both sides, was horrible. It was as if miles of countryside had been swathed in black ash. Homes and crops burned or ravaged to feed the armies, livestock raided, the only signs of life the people starving and living in conditions that were almost unimaginable. Something needed to be done, damn it, and that was why he was here. It had to end. Even if he had to lift his sword again to do it.

But right now he didn’t want to think about the looming battle; all he wanted to do was collapse on the narrow wooden bed and sleep. But after the hellish night before, he wasn’t taking any chances.

When the serving girl set the jug of whisky on the bedside table, however, he felt a wave of self-disgust. The drink wasn’t going to help. It wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t make him forget. He wasn’t going to let her turn him into a drunk, damn it. Overindulgence of drink was for the weak.

Don’t think about her. It’s over
.

As if it had ever begun.

He almost told the girl to take the jug away—that he’d changed his mind—but she was already halfway out of the room so he just let her go. His squire had helped him remove his mail before being dismissed, and Alex caught sight of it now, folded neatly on a bench along with his surcoat, gambeson, chausses, weapons, and sporran. He was about to pull off his shirt and toss it on the pile along with the rest, when the corner of a piece of parchment caught his eye.

He hadn’t forgotten about the missive, but after the confrontation with Joan he’d had other things on his mind. Removing it from the leather purse, he read over it again, examining every line, every letter . . .

Letter
. That’s when it hit him. He knew what had been bothering him, but what he hadn’t been able to put his finger on. The lettering was too pretty, too soft, too flourished. It didn’t look as if it had been written with the quick, harsh, masculine lines of a soldier or knight—it looked distinctly feminine . . . as if it had been written by a lady.

A woman. Christ. Alex’s mind reeled. He’d never considered that a woman might be the spy. None of them had. It wasn’t just the danger involved, it was the quality of the information. Information that could have only come from someone high up in Edward’s command—a man. At least that’s what they’d all assumed, but Alex realized that it could also have come from a trusted wife, mistress, daughter, or servant of that man.

An educated servant like a lady’s companion.

His bones turned to ice. There was no reason for his mind to go straight to Joan, but it did.

It could be anyone, he told himself. Hell, he wasn’t even certain it was a woman, but now that the possibility had been broached, he could not dismiss it.

He tried to approach it analytically, going through all the ladies at court—both wives and mistresses—of which more than a handful were Scots.

But none of the other ladies were the daughter of Bella MacDuff, and that fact more than anything made him curse. He pulled on a pair of loose breeches, and not bothering with his surcoat, tossed a plaid around his shoulders before leaving his room.

Perhaps it was his disheveled, half-dressed, undoubtedly wild-looking state that prevented the guard on duty from questioning him overmuch. The tired young soldier made a brief protest that he could not permit Alex to see the prisoner without Pembroke’s permission, but when Alex told him that he would be the one to wake the earl on a fool’s errand—Alex was one of Pembroke’s chief lieutenants and the man put in charge of finding the spy, after all—the guard quickly saw the wisdom of opening the door.

Ducking through the low stone doorway, Alex entered the small guardroom. The smell of piss and excrement—probably from the wooden bucket in the corner—struck him first. But he was relieved to see that although small, cold, and basic in the extreme, the temporary prison wasn’t too bad. It was a hell of a lot better than the pit prison. Alex should know, he’d spent a few nights there when he’d left the Guard and escorted Rosalin Clifford back to her brother Robert, who was the Governor of Berwick at the time.