Maybe This Time, page 6
She reared back and looked up at him. “Will you be with me?”
He nodded. “But you won’t know me, not at first.”
“Until I learn.” His throat muscles constricted. He couldn’t speak. He gave her shoulder a little squeeze and again nodded.
“What must I discover?”
“I can’t tell you that, Angel.”
She nuzzled his neck. “I’ll be safe. If you’re there, I’ll be safe.”
His heart lay stone-heavy in his chest. He wanted to scream his outrage that he wouldn’t be there. “You must take special care, love.”
“Love?” She cast him a quizzical look. “Was I your love? Is that the strong bond I feel between us?”
Prophet hesitated. Should he admit the truth, or not? How much would the Council consider acceptable? What penalty would she suffer if he disclosed too much? Not knowing, he held his silence.
“I was!” She pressed her cheek to his. “I was your love!”
He neither confirmed, nor denied, her suspicions. He couldn’t; not without knowing the consequences. Cupping her face in his hands, he lifted her chin and looked deeply into her eyes, letting her see his worry. “Angel, listen. Shh, listen to me. We don’t have much time. You must take special care with your safety. That’s where you must focus right now. Not on our past.”
“Why?”
Trembling, he tightened his fingers on her face. He’d give all he had ever owned to not have to tell her this. Everything he ever would own. “Because not only will you not know me in this next level, I will not know you.”
Her fingers dug into his neck. “But if you don’t know who I am, how can you guide me?”
Hearing her panic, he wanted to soothe her. But he couldn’t. Why did fear have to be her protection? Why couldn’t it have been sharing? Opening her heart to feelings? Being vulnerable? “Please, Angel,” he whispered pleadingly. “I can’t say anything more. We both just have to have faith that you’ll make your discoveries and find me.”
“Faith?” Now, her eyes too flickered worry. “I don’t know . . . This is all so strange. If I don’t know you, how will I know to find you?” She squeezed her eyes shut. “No, it can’t work. I can’t do this without you knowing—”
“You have to.” He pulled her into his arms. “You can. We must believe.”
“In what?” She reared back and stared at him, panicked. “In my instincts? My abilities?” She clung to him and a strangled cry escaped her. “If those were all I needed, I wouldn’t need this mission. I’d have made my discoveries the first time!”
“No, Angel. Not belief in you.” His cupped her face in his hands and gazed deeply into her eyes, infusing her with power and strength. “Belief in the ultimate strength of love. With it, weakness becomes strength. Trials, opportunities. Enemies, allies. No adversity, no matter its size or scope, is stronger than love. To succeed, that’s what we both have to believe.”
Crawling from the fur, she stood up. Her shoulders slumped and fear such as he’d never before seen on anyone’s face, etched into hers. “Oh, God.”
“Believe it, Angel.” She didn’t move. “Angel?”
“You don’t understand,” she said in a faint whisper. “The one thing you say I have to believe in is a mystery to me.” Her pale face bleached white. “I’ve never loved, Prophet. Never.”
A dull ache wrapped around his heart. He stood and faced her. “I know. But you have to try—really try. You must not fail.” He wrapped her in his arms and pulled her to him until nothing separated them. “Dear God, you must not fail.”
Three
Scotland, 1100
LADY ALYSSA pulled the bowstring taut, aimed, and let the arrow fly.
Duncan watched the buck fall and squinted. “You’re slipping, my lady. You’ve missed his heart.”
“Check again, Duncan. I’ve not missed.” Alyssa stroked her mare’s long, white neck and laughed. “Since I felled dinner, I’ll leave getting it to our table in your capable hands—providing you can see it.”
Alyssa turned her horse, Streak, toward Cameron holding. The old soldier bit back a smile at her teasing. He thought to protest her returning unescorted, to send a few soldiers with her for protection, but knowing he’d likely get his ears blistered for his trouble, he said not a word.
“You allow her to ride alone?”
Duncan chuckled and turned his mount toward James MacMillian. The fresh-faced youth’s misuse of the Gaelic language reminded Duncan that, though he was a native Highlander, James had been born to an English mother. And what he said reminded Duncan that the young warrior was new to Cameron—and to the ways of its lady. “Allow her to ride alone?” Duncan guffawed. “Only three men allow or forbid Lady Cameron anything, James. Best you learn that right away. King Edgar; the Buchannan, her chieftain and allied-laird; and her father, Lord John. She’ll heed no other.”
“What about Innes?”
Duncan grimaced. “Not yet.”
James turned his mount and frowned. “Well, one of them should forbid her to ride alone. ‘Tis dangerous.”
Duncan shared his soldier’s concern, but for all the good it did him, he need not have bothered. Still, he’d done what he could. “She is not exactly defenseless.”
James smiled. “Nay, she’s not that.”
Curious as to what had enraptured James, Duncan followed the young man’s gaze to a clearing up ahead. Lady Alyssa had stopped to speak to some of her warriors.
She was a sight to behold. The Cameron plaid, yellow and green and red, draped her delicate shoulder. Sitting astride her white mare, she laughed, and her silver hair, tied at her neck with a length of red ribbon, caught the sunlight.
“She’s beautiful, eh, Duncan?” James leaned forward in his saddle and let out a telling sigh.
Lady Alyssa didn’t often bother with feminine frippery, but even without it, she was a bonny lass. “Aye,” Duncan replied, “she is.”
“She looks . . . soft.”
Duncan scratched his beard. “She’d plague you with curses if she heard you say that.” If she hadn’t already, his lady was well on the way to capturing another heart. The feeling that she needed protection rose in the hearts of men as natural as a Highland sunrise took to the sky. And he should know. Hadn’t he lost his own heart to her on the very day she was born?
“Still, she looks tender,” James insisted.
“She might look tender, but appearances can be deceptive. And in the case of the lady, her appearance is deceptive, indeed.”
Duncan had seen to that, spending long hours training her. Since she’d been a wee bairn, he’d pushed her hard. Just as he’d pushed her father in his training years, when Duncan had first come to Cameron from his home in the Southern Uplands.
James sounded breathless, still feasting on the lady. “Aye, deceptive. She rides like the wind, and, though it’s inferior, she handles her sword with competence.”
“Inferior? Gavin would brand your hide for saying that. He specially made the lady’s weapon to accommodate her small frame. But it’s a fine piece of work. Perfectly balanced, it is.”
“Could be.”
“Is, MacMillian,” Duncan firmly insisted. “Have you seen her surrender any advantage on the training field?”
“Nay, the lady’s lightning quick.”
“Damn right,” Duncan said, giving his head an emphatic shake. “And agile as a cat.”
“But much more beautiful than a cat, eh, Duncan? Much more beautiful.”
With another chuckle, Duncan dismounted and studied the arrow in the fallen buck.
“Did she pierce its heart?” James asked from atop his horse.
Duncan looked up at the young soldier. He had much to learn. “She said she did.”
“Aye, but—”
“Our lady has not a modest bone in her body, lad. But her word is as solid as God’s will.”
James’s expression grew thoughtful. His horse gave a good snort and James patted its neck to still him. “Duncan, doesn’t it seem sacrilege to waste the lady on the likes of Kenrick Innes?”
“‘Tis not for us to decide. Your mother being English has made you forget your place, James.”
“I know my place,” James disagreed. “If Lord Cameron had half the grit of his daughter, he’d break that marriage contract.”
Duncan agreed, even if loyalty to his lady kept him from saying so. Lord Cameron didn’t match his daughter. He had not the mind of a warrior, nor the heart. And since the death of his wife, Lady Alyssa’s fair mother, his lord’s heart had been pickled with love for only one thing. His ale.
With a sigh, Duncan pulled out the arrow, wiped it clean on the grass, then slid it between his belt and tunic. “If Lord Cameron did break the marriage contract, Lady Alyssa would abide by it anyway.”
“Why?”
“Loyalty to her clan.” Duncan mounted his horse and squinted against the strong sunlight, then looked toward the clearing. Seeing his lady ride off, he called out, instructing the men to return the game to the keep.
“I don’t see where she’d be disloyal—”
“If you’d stop talking so much, you might see more.” Duncan pressed his heels to his horse’s flanks and set out in the direction his lady had ridden. James rode at his side.
“Duncan?”
Duncan rolled his eyes back in his head. “What is it now?”
“Don’t get sour. I have to ask questions to learn.”
The young soldier was right. Annoying, but right. “What’s your question, then?”
“How long will you have men to protect her with? To protect Cameron’s holding?”
Duncan glared at the brash boy. Even if he was Lord MacMillian’s second son and he’d been fostered to Cameron for Duncan’s training, the boy was too outspoken by half. That Duncan had worried over the same fears himself just added to his upset.
James shrugged. “With the English raiders growing so bold, war can’t be far off. The Buchannan will learn of John Cameron’s ineptitude then for sure. And my guess is he won’t take kindly to a lady heading one of his allied-vassals.”
That learning was Duncan’s second greatest fear in life. Being John Cameron’s second-in-command, it was Duncan’s duty to report his lord’s failings to the Buchannan. He hadn’t. And that infraction could well cost him his head. But to report the father would be to betray Lady Alyssa, and his head wasn’t as valuable to him as her trust.
James swatted at a fly on his cheek. “It’s amazing that he hasn’t found out before now.”
“Aye, it is. It’s been five years since her mother’s death. Seven since her brother, Paul, passed on. Lady Alyssa’s done a fine job, though, woman or no.”
“In men’s work,” James countered. “Now, Lady Megan. She’s a fine specimen of womanhood. Mayhap I should marry her.”
Picturing Paul’s pretty widow with young James had Duncan snorting louder than his horse. “Bah, she’s too soft. No gumption.”
“Lady Alyssa, then. Mayhap I should marry her.”
Duncan laughed from deep in his belly. “Ain’t but one man I know could handle my lady, MacMillian. The Buchannan.”
“Mmm, didn’t he visit here once?”
“Aye.”
“How was it he didn’t learn the truth then?”
Had James not pledged his loyalty to Cameron, Duncan would have boxed the young soldier’s ears. But since he had, MacMillian deserved his answers. His head, too, was on the Buchannan’s chopping block. “When the Buchannan came, Lord Cameron and Lady Alyssa weren’t at the holding.”
“And none betrayed her?” James slid Duncan an astonished look. “Not even Kenrick Innes?”
Hearing that man’s name had Duncan’s temper heating. “Nay, though that braggart can’t claim honor as the reason. With him, it was greed.”
“Greed?”
“Aye. When he weds the lady, her power becomes his.”
James gave his head a weary shake. “The Buchannan approves the union, then?”
“He does.” So far as Duncan knew, it was the only bad decision the Buchannan had ever made. “When Edgar made Buchannan chieftain, he gave his blessing to Lord Cameron. I heard it myself, though bless me for saying that I wish I hadn’t.”
James MacMillian grew quiet, thinking on all he’d learned. The Buchannan was pleased with Cameron’s defense. The stories were legend. The chieftain’s praise about the wall enclosing the lower bailey being protected with heated sand instead of boiling water, as was custom, was what had prompted James’s father to give him to Cameron in foster care.
Duncan turned south at a copse of pines and headed toward the keep. James followed and let his horse have its head. Would the Buchannan have been as pleased, if he had known that Lady Alyssa had made the change from water to sand? James himself had been stunned by that news. But Kevan Buchannan was a hard man to figure, which James reckoned was why no one had told the laird. It was said that he cherished loyalty mightily.
Drawing his horse to a halt outside the wooden gate, Duncan shouted a greeting to the posted guard, then asked, “Has Lady Cameron returned?”
“Aye, a short time ago. The smith’s been injured. She’s gone to him.”
“I’ll tell the cook dinner is on its way,” James said.
Duncan nodded and turned his mount toward the cottages inside the lower bailey.
He found her quickly enough, stitching up a nasty slash in the blacksmith’s arm.
“Loosen your muscle, Gavin,” the lady directed. “Your hide’s bending my bloody needle.”
Duncan hid a smile. Even in reprimand her voice was soft and husky, pleasant on a man’s ears.
“It is loose.” Gavin frowned. “Sorry, my lady.”
Her throaty chuckle filled the air. “Aye, so it is. Perhaps you need to forge me a needle from your metal, eh? Like you did my sword, only a wee bit smaller.”
Gavin looked mortified. “A wee bit?”
“Well,” his lady conceded, mischief twinkling in her eyes. “A wee bit more than a wee bit, I suppose.”
“Mmm, mayhap I will, my lady.” Gavin laughed and looked up at his wife. “Cease your worried frown, Katherine. ‘Tis a mere scratch.”
“A mere scratch doesn’t require threads, Gavin.” Katherine’s cheeks flushed a bright crimson.
“You think I jest about the needles, Gavin,” Alyssa said. “But I am most serious. A metal needle could be heated.”
Gavin’s brows shot up. “‘Tis torture you’re suggesting.”
Duncan watched Lady Alyssa tie the end of the thread, sprinkle a brown powder from one of her medicine jars into her palm, and splash a few drops of water in it until it made a paste. Then she dabbed the paste on Gavin’s cut, chatting the entire time about the smith’s work.
Her interest was genuine, Duncan thought. And she was a fine healer. Her mother, too, had possessed the touch.
“That should do it, Gavin.” Alyssa gathered her goods and put them in her medicine satchel. “Have a care to keep it clean. ‘Tis very important.”
“Yes, my lady.”
“See to it, Katherine,” she told the smith’s wife.
Katherine had stood back, so silent Duncan had forgotten her there. Now she smiled. “Yes, my lady.”
At the door, Lady Alyssa turned back. “And no ale, Gavin. Not until the threads come out.”
The old smith had shown no discord until then. When Lady Cameron pierced him with the needle, he hadn’t uttered so much as a grunt. But at the order of no ale, the man was aghast—protesting at the top of his lungs.
“See to it, Katherine!” His lady fairly shouted to be heard above Gavin’s complaints, then made quick her exit.
Duncan stifled a chuckle and followed her outside. “Your reminder to Gavin was most timely, my lady.”
“Humph! I could sever his arm from his body with less outrage than I can refuse the man his ale.” She swung her satchel as she walked, her step lively. “Has Gavin had tragedy, too, Duncan?”
Before he could answer, they’d reached the upper bailey courtyard and a messenger from the guard intercepted them.
“Hello, Sewn.”
“Lady Cameron.” The messenger paused, trying to steady his frisky mount. “Lord Innes is come. He brings a message from the Buchannan.”
“Well, let the man in, for pity’s sake.” Alyssa stroked the horse’s strong neck until he calmed. “Duncan, will you receive him? I’m more dust and horse than woman. It would not please Kenrick to see his betrothed thus.”
“Aye, my lady.” Duncan tried to bury a frown by stroking his beard. “I’ll greet him.”
Alyssa smiled her thanks then hurried inside.
In the main hall, Megan was instructing the servants to place new rushes on the floor. Alyssa headed for the wooden stairs. “We have a guest, Meg—Kenrick. See to his comfort, if you please.”
Megan took one look at her and burst out of her good humor. “Good heavens, you’re a sight!”
Tall and willowy with her pale blond looks, Meg never looked less than perfect. Alyssa gritted her teeth. “I’ve been on a hunt, for pity’s sake. One cannot hunt and not become a sight.”
“Up the stairs with you, then. Quickly, before you shame yourself and your clan at being caught in such a ruin.”
Alyssa took the stairs in a dead run and didn’t slow down until she reached her chamber.
She washed and dressed in the cumbersome chemise and emerald green bliaut that was considered appropriate for a lady, and, wiggling, tugged a roped belt down low on her hips. Lord, she preferred breeches and her plaid. But Innes had gifted her with the god-awful garb. She supposed she should humor him by wearing it. Still, her plaid was more practical, and—she shrugged her shoulders to gain comfort—less restraining.
When she returned to the hall, Kenrick stood near the mantel talking to Duncan. She studied the man she’d been pledged to since birth. Tall as most Scots and as strong-featured, he was far from repulsive, even if his hair was the color of carrots left in the garden overly long. So why didn’t her heart quicken at the sight of him? She felt not so much as a flicker.
