“There!” she said and Padraig grunted assent.
* * *
“It appears that we will have a guest shortly,” Ruari said and Erik looked back over his shoulder in surprise. But his companion spoke aright: Padraig rowed toward the shore once more, a smaller familiar figure in the boat with him.
The glint of the dawn on that tangle of auburn hair only confirmed the identity of the woman who drew ever nearer. Vivienne must have been watching him, for she waved gaily as soon as Erik’s gaze landed upon her.
As if he should be gladdened to see her.
As if it had been but an oversight that he had left her behind.
Erik swore with rare vigor.
Ruari laughed, which was little consolation indeed. “There is no trouble so fearsome as that of a beauteous woman,” that man said. “Unless, of course, it is a beauteous and stubborn woman.”
Erik had no reply for that. He was too vexed with Vivienne for her pursuit. He climbed back down to the water, determined to ensure that Padraig took Vivienne back to Rosamunde’s ship, back to her family and comparative safety.
Vivienne must have anticipated his intent, however, for she climbed out of the boat before he could reach her. She stood in water past her knees and pushed Padraig and his boat back into deeper water with surprising strength.
“Halt!” Erik cried.
Vivienne cast him a defiant glance, then stepped into deeper water to give Padraig and the boat a harder shove.
Erik leapt down the last scree of rock and lunged into the shallows. “You shall not leave her here!” he roared at the cursed seaman.
“Row, Padraig, row!” Vivienne cried, evidently fully prepared to push the small boat further if necessary.
Padraig grinned as he dipped the oars into the water. The golden hoop in his ear glinted and he looked a disreputable rogue indeed. “I wish you well, for this lady has no shortage of determination,” he shouted to Erik, then began to row.
“I wish you well, Padraig, in your quest at Ravensmuir!” Vivienne shouted and waved. Padraig said naught, merely labored against the waves with determination.
“Nay!” Erik bellowed. “Come back for the lady, you wretch!”
“He will not,” Vivienne declared with fearsome certainty.
Erik knew that she was right. What was he to do? He could not abandon her alone on the shore. He could not swim to Rosamunde’s ship with Vivienne on his back, particularly if she did not wish to go there.
There was a dangerous glint in Vivienne’s eyes as she lifted her skirts and strode toward him, a glint that told Erik that the lady would accept only one solution to this dilemma. His mother’s silver pin shone where she had pinned it upon her cloak, shone as it never had while he had worn it.
“We have a handfast,” she began hotly, “and not a month of it is fulfilled as yet. You can return me to Kinfairlie in a year if we choose then to part.”
“If we survive that long,” Erik retorted. “I thought you a woman of good sense! What folly compelled you to follow me?”
“You have need of me,” Vivienne said simply, then halted several steps away from him. Her skirts swirled around her, ebbing and flowing with the waves, the embroidery on the hems shining beneath the water. Tendrils of her hair blew around her shoulders and across her face and it seemed that her freckles had become more numerous these past days. Her bright gaze was steady, her back as straight as a well-honed blade, and there was determination in every line of her being.
She was valiant and breathtaking, a Valkyrie come for his soul and one whose conquest Erik felt little urge to contest.
“I have need of no woman at my side when I walk into such peril as this,” he said, feeling he should protest her presence.
Vivienne propped her hands upon her hips and glared at him. “Perhaps you might recount for me again your reasons for seeking my hand? There must be a thousand maidens between here and Kinfairlie, yet you undertook such a journey for me alone. It seems only good sense that you would have had a reason why.”
Erik felt the back of his neck heat, for he guessed the path of this argument. “You know the answer well enough.”
“Remind me of it,” she demanded.
“Because you were the sole other person who had not been deceived by Nicholas,” he admitted, fully aware that his cause was already lost. “But you should have remained with your kin. Despite your perceptiveness, still I would not see you endangered.”
Vivienne’s sudden smile was so radiant that Erik blinked and his heart skipped a beat. “Because you are gallant in truth.”
“Not so much that...” Erik began before the lady interrupted him again.
“True enough.” Her gaze seemed suddenly more intent, so perceptive that Erik feared she could discern his every thought. “You fret for my welfare because you love me.”
Erik stared at her. He knew he should protest her claim, knew he should pretend otherwise until he could confess his desire with an honorable pledge to wed her, but the words would not rise to his lips.
Undaunted, Vivienne smiled and laid her hand over the pin he had surrendered to her. “A man’s deeds oft say more than his words,’ she said softly. “You love me as I love you, and thus our destiny is entwined forevermore. You might not have come from the realm of fairies, but you climbed through Kinfairlie’s enchanted window to win my heart all the same.”
Erik was struck dumb that she should understand him so readily. Her bold declaration should have troubled him more than it did, save that he knew she spoke the truth. He said naught, for he was glad to not be parted from her, even for the weeks it might take to reclaim Blackleith. Her presence would complicate matters but at the same time, the very sparkle of it gave him encouragement.
“You will remain out of all battles,” he decreed, ignoring her triumphant laugh. Doubtless she had guessed why he had changed the subject. “And you will not argue with my every choice, but do what you are bidden to do.”
Vivienne’s smile only broadened. “I will do whatsoever needs to be done,” she said with conviction, then spared a mischievous glance to Ruari and did a fair imitation of that man’s manner. “Upon that you can rely.”
Erik smiled despite himself. She took a step closer to him, majestic and fully persuaded of the merit of her argument. “Tell me what your eyes tell me,” she coaxed. “Tell me that you are gladdened by my presence, that you could not imagine days and nights without me at your side.” She laid her hand upon his arm and tipped her face up to his, her eyes shining and her ripe lips curved into a bold smile. “Tell me that you would have missed me in truth.”
Erik was spared the need to reply. Vivienne made to ease closer but must have slipped on something under the water. She shrieked as her feet suddenly flew out from under her.
Erik caught her just before she landed in the sea. He held her fast against his chest and turned to make for the shore. “Aye, it does a man good to rescue damsels from their own folly,” he muttered.
Vivienne laughed and kicked her feet, apparently untroubled by his gruff manner. “You lie, sir,” she teased and Erik felt himself smile.
“Perhaps your presence is not so unwelcome as that,” he acknowledged. Unable to resist temptation, he bent and kissed the smile from her lips.
He intended only a brief embrace, one that would ensure her silence, but as always, Vivienne’s passion was beguiling indeed. She kissed him back with rare fervor, with the same hunger that he felt for her, and he was keenly aware of how long he had been without her wondrous caress. That familiar heat unfolded within him and his grip tightened upon her, his treacherous body more that prepared to return the lady’s caress despite his inability to offer for her with honor.
Holding her fast in his arms made Erik realize how finely wrought his lady was, how vulnerable she could be. He recalled Beatrice’s fate, feared for his daughters and feared yet more for Vivienne. He deepened his kiss, knowing she would taste his concern and not caring in the least.
“Aye, and that is why we have journeyed so far,” Ruari shouted. “The better that you might stand in the sea, lad, and catch some ailment for which there is no cure. It would serve your brother well if you died of the ague afore you even reached his gates. Indeed, why else have we traveled all the length of Scotland, save for you two to rut in the sea?”
With some reluctance, Erik ended his embrace and strode to the shore. He set Vivienne on her feet, then discussed the best course onward with Ruari. Vivienne wrung out the length of her skirts, and appeared intent upon not slowing their pace to Blackleith.
They climbed the rocks once more just as the sun crested the horizon and began their journey inland. Erik was the only one to glance back at the sea. The sails were unfurling on Rosamunde’s ship and billowing in the wind, the vessel already moving to the south.
There was no turning back, no further source for aid. It was between himself and Nicholas, and whoever Nicholas might have summoned to his side in Erik’s absence.
* * *
It grew darker that afternoon, as slate-bellied clouds rolled across the sky and gathered ominously there. The wind came in fits and gusts and was colder than it had been earlier this day. Erik felt that he returned willingly to a nightmare. His scar seemed to burn upon his face, his flesh seemingly recalled the place where it had been so carved, and his limp felt more pronounced.
A shiver rolled over him when the crossed the boundary of Blackleith’s lands, though Erik hoped the others did not notice his response.
It was not long before the high dark thicket rose high on either side of the road, blocking out the sight of even the roiling sky. Its shadows were dark and deep; Erik’s memories of this place no less dark.
He paused at one end of the hedges that swallowed this increment of road, of this veritable tunnel wrought of vines and thorns, and swallowed.
“It was here then?” Ruari said quietly from beside him, no real question in his query.
Erik took a deep breath, fearful for a moment that he would not be able to pass this place. He recalled Vivienne upon the threshold of the labyrinth, determination gleaming in her eye. He spared her a glance to find her watching him as keenly as a sparrow watches a crumb.
She came to his side, though her touch upon his arm was fleeting. “It is a loathsome stretch of road,” she mused, peering ahead into the shadows. “As if the place itself has a recollection of an injustice served here.”
Erik knew that she had guessed the history of this place and the reason it troubled him so. He looked down the road again, trying to see it with her eyes, without his memories, and its shadows shrank somewhat. “It is but a stretch of road,” he told her tersely, not truly believing as much himself. “It can possess no memory of treachery.”
She tilted her head to regard him and he felt a surge of admiration at her resolve. He was convinced that her spirit could never be quailed, that she would stride with confidence into any situation, no matter how dire it appeared.
He fiercely wanted her to give his daughters such confidence.
“Then let us pass through it,” she said, as mildly as if they discussed the crossing of a meadow. “For there is nothing to fear upon a stretch of mere road, even if the bushes shade the way.”
She was right. Erik stepped into the darkness that consumed this length of road, Ruari upon one side and Vivienne on the other. The older man drew his blade and Erik did the same. The shadows swallowed them in a trio of steps, the shadows pressed against them, the vines seemed to whisper innuendo.
The passage seemed longer than Erik knew it to be, each step recalling some blow he had sustained. Indeed, he was besieged by vivid recollections, for he had not passed this way since his assault.
Here his horse had fallen, here the knife had touched his cheek, here he had crawled to the safety of the forest’s embrace. Here he had lain bleeding for what had seemed an eternity.
Here he had lost all awareness, certain that he would never wake again.
He relived his worst nightmare upon that stretch of road, though through it all he was keenly aware of Vivienne’s presence. She smelled of flowers and sunshine, she was a beacon of light in that treacherous passage so redolent of his past. Her step did not falter and she did not fall back to walk behind him.
There was a patina of sweat over Erik’s flesh when they reached the other side of the passage, and the sudden brightness of the sunlight made him blink. He looked back, shuddered to his very toes, and saw only a shadowed course of road behind him.
“A mere stretch of road,” Vivienne said, her gaze revealing that she knew it to be otherwise.
On impulse, Erik lifted Vivienne’s hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles, knowing that her fortitude had seen him through that darkness.
He could only hope that he could win the chance to have her fortitude beside him for all time.
* * *
It was late afternoon of the second day when Vivienne had her first glimpse of Blackleith. They stood a good dozen paces short of the lip of the forest, underbrush as high as their waists, the trees forming a canopy overhead as glorious as that of any cathedral. Ominous clouds crowded the sun, which had already begun its descent, but its rays touched the leaves overhead, gilding them to a glorious hue.
Blackleith’s hall itself was an uncommon combination of Norman construction, local traditions and a measure of ingenuity. It certainly was not so glorious as the fortresses of the south, neither so massive as Ravensmuir nor as artfully designed as Kinfairlie, but it was doughty and of considerable size.
It had been constructed with a square base, the lower part of the walls were wrought of cut stones fitted so tightly together that the wind probably could not whistle through them. The walls were thick, the better to keep heat within the building. There was only one portal near the ground and no windows below the second story.
The stones continued to the height of two men. The walls above were made of smaller, rounder stones, stacked according to their shape and size, then sealed in place with wattle and daub.