Heart of Shadows (Hearts of the Highlands Book 2), page 10
“Very well, Father. You want peace. You trust Adams. Fine. But do you trust Gray with Braya? They are together all the time.” He didn’t realize he had raised his voice, or that he had swung his arms. “I just left them together yet again!”
His father stood up and rested his callused palms on the table and stared at him with smoky gray eyes that could compel an ancient Norseman to run himself through rather than face him.
“Your sister needs a man who will take her mind off fighting. You will leave her future up to me. As for Gray, I will have his apology. ’Tis the least we can give to the lads’ families. Do you understand, Galien? Do you understand!” he shouted when his son would have spoken.
Galien nodded. There was nothing to be done about Sir Torin Gray. But he was certain the man was lying.
Chapter Ten
Braya entered Carlisle keep with Millie and Lucy at her sides and her parents behind her. Galien plodded along belligerently behind them with Will Noble, angry that he’d been ordered to attend by his father.
Lively songs, played on pipes and lutes by talented musicians, filled the great hall, and Braya’s spirits. She smiled and pointed to a juggler, and then to a man garbed in colorful clothes standing on the shoulders of an identical looking man. She gasped at their acrobatics and was surprised that the warden had gone to such measures for her family.
Torin had had something to do with this. A peace offering. Torin was coming to the town hall tomorrow to apologize. He was a soldier who wanted peace. Her heart raced at the thought of seeing him.
She looked around, lifting her hand to the thick braid draping her shoulder. She wore her best kirtle and overgown. They were both fashioned in soft wool, dyed to match the color of the sea. Her kirtle fit close to her body and a bit off the shoulders and it had long, fitted sleeves that ended just over her knuckles. The top half of her sleeveless overgown fit like a bodice, tight around her waist and into full, flowing folds of wool with silver thread stitched in delicate patterns.
She loved her breeches and boots, but she didn’t mind donning more feminine attire when the occasion called for it.
Lucy hadn’t stopped talking about Sir Torin the entire way home this afternoon. She’d used words like smoldering and resigned, charming and serious. Braya agreed with all her friend’s descriptions, but she had seen more. She had seen him laugh, heard him soothe his horse. There was something about him…not the memories shrouded in darkness, but the light, the gentle, quietness of him that attracted her immensely. She’d never felt anything like it before.
She found him standing with the warden and Mr. Adams before a large tapestry on the northern wall. Golden light from the hearth and the candles danced around him, casting splashes of copper and bronze through his hair and through the hair on his face. The pommel, hilt, and guard of his sword jutted out over left shoulder. He wore his breeches and boots beneath a soldier’s tabard of red and blue—the same as all the border guards wore. But he was nothing like anyone else. He looked like a statue of some war-god that had come to life to create a whirlwind.
His eyes had already found her, stopped her from moving, her blood from flowing.
“Braya,” Lucy whispered close, tugging her along. “Come now, you’re holding everyone up.”
Braya smiled and held up her foot behind her, pretending her skirts were snagged. “Onward,” she called out merrily when she “repaired” it.
She couldn’t bear to look at him after what she had just done. How much of a fool was she for Torin Gray? She moved her feet. One after the other. Steadily.
“Ah, Hetherington!” The warden came forward and held out his arm to her father. “You have my thanks for coming.” He offered a quick, polite greeting to her mother and the others.
“Your invitation,” said her father with a practiced smile, “did not say what this celebration is for.”
“Why, ’tis for you,” the warden explained. “For the Hetheringtons. For their help in the past…”
Braya stopped listening. This was Bennett’s apology for throwing them out on their arses. Her father would accept because he was wise.
Her feet hurt, stuffed into tiny shoes. She wanted to sit down. Her belly rumbled. She wanted—
“Pardon me.”
Torin’s voice rode across her ears like drums as he closed the distance between them. Ah, he was coming to get her out of here and into a chair. She did her best not to smile too brightly at him.
“Sir Torin Gray,” her father ground out. “I expect to see you at the town hall tomorrow.”
“Aye, you will see me there, Mr. Hetherington. But right now, I think this woman,” he turned toward Millie, “should be sitting. Allow me to show her to her seat.”
“Her husband can do that,” Braya’s father said with a smile that seemed a bit more genuine than the one he’d offered the warden. “You can show the rest of us though.”
“Of course!” the warden cried out. “Sir Torin will show you all to your seats, where you will eat, drink, and enjoy the night!’
Torin nodded and pointed Will and Millie in the direction of a cushioned chair at the end of the enormous trestle table set up in the hall.
Braya tried to get his attention as he led her family to the front of the table and invited them to sit in the first ten places at the right and left of the head. He didn’t look at her for longer than a breath before he moved on.
Her father sat in the first place to the right, her mother beside him. Galien sat in the first place on the left, and Braya’s uncle sat beside him. Braya would like to sit as far away from the warden as possible, but she wanted to be close to her mother if fighting broke out, so she sat next to her. She also didn’t want to sit among the soldiers, even the ones who had wives. Lucy slipped into the seat to her right and the two smiled at each other.
She looked over Lucy’s shoulder and watched Torin make his way to the end of the table, check on Millie and Will, and then move around to the other side and take a seat in one of the few that remained on the other side.
He’d chosen to sit far from her when he knew there were two extra places for her family members since he’d given Millie a special seat. Did he ignore her for her father’s sake? She didn’t care for it at all and decided to do the same to him.
“What is this?” the warden pouted as he approached his chair at the head of the table and saw Galien sitting at his left. “Old friend, I was hoping I might enjoy the company of your daughter at my left. I’m certain young Galien would not mind exchanging seats.”
He didn’t give a damn about insulting and mortifying her brother.
“I will stay where I’m sitting, my lord,” Braya said, unable to keep her anger from sharpening her tone.
He cast an innocent look at her father and then at her. “Have I done something to offend you?”
He hadn’t, but she knew he wanted to. Still, she couldn’t say how she truly felt without risking the fragile pact her family had with him.
She shook her head.
He smiled and she looked down at the table. It was decorated in fresh, white linens. There were bouquets of flowers, jugs of ale and wine, and enough food to feed everyone in her village for a pair of weeks. Shame she would enjoy none of it.
“Then I invite you to sit with me,” she heard him say on a sickly sweet voice.
She couldn’t help her gaze flicking to Torin when she stood up. He looked like he was about to spring to his feet and stop her, but he didn’t. She was glad. She didn’t want any fighting.
Would Torin fight for her?
She passed Galien on his way to her seat. He said nothing. She glared at the warden for embarrassing him and ruining the night.
“Warden?” her father sat forward in his seat and eyed his host. “Now, you will do me the same courtesy, I hope.”
“Of course,” Bennett agreed, dragging his satisfied gaze from Braya to her father.
“Tonight,” the leader of the Hetheringtons said, “I would like to know the man who is to kneel before me tomorrow. I would know the measure of his sincerity. Bring Sir Torin up and seat him beside my daughter that I might ask him some questions. And put Mr. Adams beside him. We have things to discuss, also.”
Braya stared at her father slack-jawed. Sit Torin beside her? What was this? Did she dare smile at her father? Peer down the long bench and see if Torin was coming?
“Of course,” the warden said with a stiff smile and called for Torin. “Come share some words with Rowley Hetherington.”
Oh! Braya wanted to kiss her father! She almost couldn’t conceal her smile when she turned to see him coming. She knew that what she was beginning to feel for him was more than simple attraction. It was hard to take her eyes off him and the sway of his hips beneath his belted tabard. She fought to keep from looking at the beauty of his profile haloed in sun-bleached curls, his furrowed brows above steely eyes when he turned to look at her. She almost couldn’t swallow.
“So, tell me, Miss Hetherington,” the voice to her right raked across her ears. She clenched her jaw and listened to the rest of what the warden had to say, realizing he wasn’t going to leave her alone for a moment to talk to Torin. “What do you think of the man who killed four of your cousins?”
She turned away from Torin and set her icy gaze on her host. So, he was going to be more than a pest then. He was going straight for the jugular, was he?
“Does it matter what I think of him when ’tis my father who will decide what is to be done? And if it matters, then I would like to know to whom?” She tilted her head at him. “You?”
He opened his mouth to reply.
“Surely,” she continued, cutting him off, “you do not trouble yourself with what I think.” She arched a golden brow at him and finished woodenly. “And if you do, then let me be blunt. You have no reason to trouble yourself over me.”
She turned and greeted the man who’d slipped into his seat beside her. “Good eve, Sir Torin. ’Tis nice to see you again.” She looked over his shoulder at Mr. Adams and greeted him as well. She was fond of Mr. Adams. He’d always been kind to her and her family.
“Miss Hetherington.” Torin smiled, and she wanted to breathe a sigh of relief. He was here. And it made the night better. He greeted her parents and her brother and even smiled at poor Lucy stuck with sitting with Galien.
After her parents greeted Mr. Adams and thanked him for coming to the town hall tomorrow, they shared their smiles with him, which boded well.
“Sir Torin.” Her father turned to him next. “I hear the food here is quite good.”
Braya held her hand to her mouth to conceal her smile. Her father was referring to the food Torin had given her to take back to the village. She’d told her father that she didn’t think the warden knew about it. She didn’t think Lord Bennett would be pleased to know one of his newest guards was giving away his food.
“The apples are especially good,” Torin replied and gave her leg beneath the table a soft bump.
He touched her many more times while they ate, brushing his pinkie over hers on the table, his thigh against hers, beneath it. He didn’t need to touch her. She could feel him near her, like a charge of heat, setting her nerve endings up in flames.
“Now that you are all together,” said the warden, bringing their attention to him, “why do you not tell us what happened at the tavern.”
Mr. Adams started talking first. His story matched with what Torin had told her.
“I had no idea they were Hetheringtons,” Mr. Adams told her father. “You know I would have done anything in my power not to kill anyone had I known.”
Braya’s father nodded and drew out a long sigh from deep within his chest. “There is not much else I would ask you, Sir Torin. I trust Rob Adams is telling me the truth. In that case, you must be telling the truth as well.”
Galien balled up his fists and looked about to speak but, thankfully, he held his tongue.
The warden tried to make conversation with Braya, but she answered everything with as few words as possible until finally he turned his attention to others at the table.
Torin barely spoke to her directly, but he shared slight, intimate smiles with her when others were too caught up in their own conversations to pay them any notice.
He made her heartbeat quicken and her belly flip. A dozen times, she wanted to turn and look at him without hiding it from her family or the warden. But she kept her eyes mostly on her plate and on her mother.
When supper was over, the musicians picked up their instruments and played, and many left the table to either dance or stretch their legs and mingle.
Braya left the table with Lucy and the two of them went to check on Millie at the other end.
Braya felt Torin’s eyes on her while she laughed and danced with Will Noble and Rob Adams. He remained close to her but he did not ask her to dance. When she had finally had enough of being ignored, she strode up to him. “What is wrong with you? Do I displease you now?”
His eyes pored over her, but he offered no other reaction, save to say, “Nothing about you displeases me, Braya. But the warden is jealous.”
“So? Let him be. He is nothing to me!”
“He can station me at any of the borders,” he explained quietly, quickly, and left the conclusion to her. “The less he knows, the better.”
“Aye,” she agreed, understanding now why he had barely spoken to her all night. “But I miss speaking freely with you.”
She was close enough for him to brush his hand against hers, to let his thumb linger and then trace her knuckles. “Aye,” he said, moving a bit closer, as if he could not stay away. “I find I miss speaking with you as well.”
She wanted him to kiss her, to take her in his arms and tell her…what? That he cared for her? That he would do anything to keep peace with her father?
“Meet me in the inner ward,” he said in a deep, hushed voice that went straight to her head, “near the northern stairs—”
“My lord!” someone shouted. Sir John Linnington pushed his bloodied way toward the warden. “’Tis the Armstrongs, my lord. They are outside. They are raiding Carlisle!”
Chapter Eleven
Torin ripped his sword from its sheath and turned to look at the men’s wives, Millie, the musicians, everyone who didn’t know how to fight. Torin and the men were going to have to protect them all.
Hell. The castle was under attack.
The first thing he had to do was make certain it was, in fact, the Armstrongs and not the Scots.
“Braya,” he said, turning to her and handing her the hilt of his sword. “Protect your mother. Your brother has already left the great hall and I do not see your father.”
“Where are you going?” she said, grasping his arms. “You have no weapon.” She wasn’t about to let him go outside without a sword.
“I will get one. I must go have a look and see what we are up against. Stay here. I will come back for you.”
He wanted to kiss her but the bastard Bennett was still here, barking out orders.
“Go, Braya,” he urged. “Keep Millie with you as well. Aye?”
She nodded and he broke away, then ran out of the great hall. Had they breached the outer wall? How many were there? He hoped they weren’t Scots. Not yet. He wasn’t ready. Ready for what? To face her with the truth? To leave her? To die or…he saw Rob Adams on the way out of the keep. “What do you know?”
“Same as you,” Adams called out. Then, “You need a sword.” He pulled one away from where several were leaning against the wall by the door and tossed it to him.
Torin thanked him and pushed open the heavy wooden door. The first thing to hit him was the refreshingly cool air. The second was the sound of the guards shouting questions and commands. Too many voices, not enough direction. He didn’t concern himself with it. Not yet. Not if it was his men out there.
Sheathing his borrowed blade, he began running for the battlement stairs.
When he reached them, he took them two and three at a time and pulled a bow and a quiver full of arrows from where they hung on the wall. He knelt along the crenelated wall and realized there were six guards behind him, following him. He motioned them forward and to get ready to shoot. If the Scots were here early, he would kill the six and go on to kill as many more guards as he could. If they were Armstrongs, he would let them fight for a bit and take out some guards. Less for him to worry about later. He nocked his arrow and looked over the side. Armstrongs, dressed in breeches, jacks, and steel bonnets lined the hill just outside the outer wall.
He fired his arrow and hit an Armstrong on the other side. He fired two more and brought down two more men before he heard Bennett shouting in a clear voice below.
“To the walls! To the walls! They surround the castle!”
Torin’s heart sank. The east wall! No one ever watched it! He didn’t want to fight them yet, but if they were allowed to breach the wall, they could get to the keep…and Braya was in the keep. He raced down the stairs and almost ran Bennett down in an effort to get to Avalon. “Get your horse!” he told him. “Gather some of the men and meet me at the east wall!”
He didn’t wait for a reply or for the warden to catch up but ran to the stable. Avalon rose up on her hind legs and pawed the air when she saw him. He released her and without bothering with a saddle, leaped upon her back and thundered out of the stable, clutching her snowy mane.
When he reached the east outer wall, he found Rob Adams alone and holding off at least fifteen men. Four were dead or close to it on the ground around him. Torin didn’t dismount since some of the reivers were mounted, arriving inside the curtain wall by way of the unguarded gate.
It was as if the reivers knew about the east wall and the gate. Torin hadn’t been here long enough to know if the Armstrongs were aware of the unmanned wall. But he was certain they could know nothing about the celebration tonight that would surely see almost all the castle guards in the keep and not on the walls. There was a traitor somewhere in the castle.
