“I remember you, you know.”
Elizabeth startled at the sound of their hostess’s voice. Lady Mary had woken, and if her thoughtful expression was any indication, she’d been watching her.
“I’m sorry?” Elizabeth said, perplexed. “Have we met before?”
Lady Mary smiled. She was very pretty, which perhaps explained some of Joanna’s irrational jealousy, and had been nothing but kind and gracious to them. Although perhaps to Joanna it was more politeness than graciousness. The subtle difference in how Lady Mary addressed Joanna would not have been noticeable had Elizabeth not been looking for it. But it was there. As it was with most ladies of noble birth. It was a level of reserve. An invisible raising of the hand to keep a distance between them. Joanna wasn’t one of them, and she never would be—no matter whom she married.
“We have, though I’m not surprised you don’t remember. We were both children. I was visiting my aunt and uncle, the Earl of Angus, when your stepmother sought refuge with him after your father’s death.”
Elizabeth paled, but Lady Mary appeared not to notice.
“I was only a couple of years older than you at the time, but you made a big impression on me. You were such a beautiful child, and I remember thinking that if someone who looked like you could find yourself in such dire circumstances, I could as well.” She laughed. “Isn’t that silly? Children are so superficial and inclined to see the world only as it relates to them, aren’t they? But I remember feeling so sorry for you. It was such a scary time, and everyone feared doing anything to offend King Edward. I overheard my uncle and aunt arguing about it. My aunt wanted to help your stepmother, but my uncle was terrified Edward would come after him. Did she want to be in the same position? he asked her.” Lady Mary shook her head. “I know they both deeply regretted turning you and your brothers away—James was being fostered, wasn’t he?”
Elizabeth nodded. With William Lamberton, but she was afraid to speak, lest the mortification she was feeling be made obvious.
Lady Mary smiled. “I thought so. A blessing, I suppose, for him. At ten or eleven he wouldn’t have been much help. Anyway, I’m sure they would apologize if they could. I hope you do not blame them.”
“Of course not,” Elizabeth said honestly. They had not been alone, and their reaction had been understandable. King Edward might well have sought retribution against anyone who helped them.
“I’m sorry.” Elizabeth could hear the Earl of Angus’s voice as he spoke to her stepmother in the laird’s solar while she and her baby brothers waited on a bench before the fire in the Great Hall. “But you have to understand . . . we can’t risk it.”
Why would no one help them? Tears filled her eyes, though she’d heard the words before. It was the same thing the others had said. This was their third castle. Their third friend “who couldn’t refuse them.” But they had. She was only eight but she knew they were running out of places to go—and money to get there. She was tired and hungry, and didn’t want to sleep in another church.
The memories came back. The fear. The helplessness. The darkness and hunger. Feeling like they were lepers. God, she hated thinking about it. Hated talking about it even more. She wasn’t an eight-year-old little girl anymore who’d been one bag of coins away from an almshouse. Were it not for the generous abbess who’d taken pity on them and given them a bag of silver that was meant for the convent, that’s where they would have ended up. The thought of being in a position like that again . . .
She repressed a shiver.
Unconsciously, her hand went to the purse of coins at her waist. It was almost full, and when it was, she would start again. “It was a long time ago,” she said to Lady Mary. “I barely remember it.”
“And you’ve come a long way from that time, haven’t you? I hear a rumor that you are to marry the new Earl of Moray? I’d venture to say there isn’t a more highly prized unmarried man in all of Scotland.”
Elizabeth smiled tightly. Good gracious, she made it sound like Elizabeth had won a contest, landed the biggest fish, or brought down the most pheasants. It wasn’t a game!
Or was it? Wasn’t the game of marriage all about “winning” the best alliance?
Lady Mary didn’t seem to mind Elizabeth’s lack of response. She continued on, adding in a low voice, “At least one Douglas will make a good match.”
Elizabeth stiffened; her spine felt as if a steel rod had been stuck down it. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”
Lady Mary gave her a chastising frown. “Come now, Lady Elizabeth, your loyalty to your sister-in-law is admirable, but surely you realize that a daughter of an obscure local knight is not a fitting wife for one of the most powerful lords in Scotland?”
Of course she did in theory, but it sounded so horrible when put like that. Though Lady Mary wasn’t saying anything that wasn’t accepted belief and something that nearly every person of their acquaintance had probably thought, it made Elizabeth want to cringe and rage at the unfairness. Joanna was perfect for James, why couldn’t everyone else see it? Why did society have to put barriers of rank between them? It was so silly. But it was the way it was. It was the way people thought. And nothing could change it.
Jamie had known what would be said of his marriage, and he’d gone through with it anyway. Because he loved Joanna. But the world had not changed with him. Nor would it during their lifetime.
“The Dicsons have been very important retainers for the Douglases for years. Joanna’s grandfather gave his life for my brother’s cause. My sister-in-law is eminently suitable. Indeed, I can’t think of anyone more suitable for my brother.”
Lady Mary put up her hand. With a wry smile, she said, “I see I have offended you. It was not my intent. It is obvious you are very loyal to your sister-in-law. She is fortunate to have you.”
Elizabeth shook her head. That was where she was very wrong. “We are fortunate to have her.”
After the awkward conversation with Lady Mary, Elizabeth was relieved a short while later to be freed from the confining walls of the carriage—although she did wish her freedom hadn’t come at the expense of Joanna’s stomach.
“Are you sure you are all right?” she asked her sister-in-law, who was riding beside her looking considerably less pale than she had when she’d rushed from the carriage looking as if she might lose the contents of her midday meal.
“I’m fine,” Joanna assured her. “The fresh air is doing wonders.” She looked over her shoulder to make sure Jamie wasn’t listening—he wasn’t—and lowered her voice. “Truth be told, it wasn’t my stomach. But I needed to think of something that James wouldn’t object to so that I might get out of the carriage.”
Elizabeth’s mouth twisted. “I wish I’d thought of it earlier.” Then more earnestly, she added, “But you have nothing to worry about, Jo. I don’t think my brother has even looked at another woman since he was nine.”
Joanna chuckled softly, but then shook her head. “There’s just something about that woman that gets under my skin. Maybe it’s that I know James might have married her, and she would have been the perfect wife for him.”
“You are the only perfect wife for him. Anyone who sees you together knows that.”
He would have been miserable with a woman like Lady Mary.
Joanna smiled. “Thank you for saying that. No matter how many unpleasant carriage rides I must endure, there has never been a day—an hour of a day—that I’ve regretted marrying your brother. Never,” she repeated adamantly as if for Elizabeth’s benefit.
The reason why became immediately apparent. Joanna paused, her gaze flitting momentarily to Thom, who was riding near the front of the group with a few of the Phantoms. Elizabeth had to force herself not to follow her sister-in-law’s gaze. Hers had strayed to the front too many times already. She was doing her best to avoid looking at him, since it caused so many problems. But she was discovering that she didn’t need to look at him. Just knowing he was there made her feel funny.
Joanna looked back at her. “I just want the same happiness for you.”
“I shall have it,” Elizabeth said determinedly. “Sir Thomas will make me very happy. Just because we did not start out desperately in love as you and James does not mean it won’t grow that way.”
Joanna held her gaze, clearly wanting to believe her. “I hope so. I just don’t want you to regret—”
“I won’t.”
It wasn’t the same. Elizabeth didn’t love Thom. Well, maybe she loved him, but not in the way Jo loved Jamie. It was the other part that troubled her. The lusting part.
Clearly realizing that she’d said enough on the matter, Joanna let the matter rest.
Elizabeth was more relieved than she wanted to admit. She didn’t want to talk about Thommy with Joanna. She didn’t want to talk about Thommy with anyone. All she wanted to do was reach Edinburgh, where she was sure everything would fall back into place.
She would be back in a city again, with all the entertainment and excitement that had to offer. Even in the midst of a siege, the city would be a buzzing beehive of activity. There would be markets, shops, music, noise, and so much to keep her busy with planning for the wedding she wouldn’t have time to think of anything or anyone else.
The incessant awareness—lust, whatever it was—that she felt every time she thought of Thom would disappear.
It would be perfect.
And as the lights of the city came into view on the horizon ahead of them, it seemed to be true. Her heartbeat quickened with excitement. It was so beautiful. The imposing castle perched high on the rock above the twinkling lights of Scotland’s biggest and most important city (at least since the English had taken Berwick-upon-Tweed). It looked magical—like some enchanted kingdom from a child’s faerie tale.
By the time they reached the famous abbey built by King David I after a cross miraculously appeared from the sky and saved him from being gored to death by a hart, Elizabeth could barely sit straight in her saddle she was so excited. Or at least mostly excited. A small twinge of trepidation was to be expected, wasn’t it?
If the stench of the city had perhaps taken some of the enchantment out of the moment, it was soon replaced when not a minute after the king came out of the abbey to greet them, a man came galloping through the gate as if riding straight out of that same faerie tale. He shimmered from head to toe in a magnificent suit of mail that must have cost a king’s ransom. The rich velvet surcoat of gold and yellow bearing the arms of Moray also adorned the most impressive-looking warhorse Elizabeth had ever seen. It was a big, ferocious beast that looked as if it should be pulling Satan’s chariot rather than Apollo’s. But somehow the juxtaposition of dark against all that blazing light worked.
When the man dismounted and tore off his helm, revealing tousled dark waves of thick hair and a face so finely featured and classically handsome, by all rights Elizabeth should have gasped.
Her cousin did. “Good gracious,” Izzie whispered. “Is he for real?”
There was a slight edge of wry amusement to her cousin’s voice that made Elizabeth smile. He was almost too faerie-tale perfect to believe. Lancelot to Bruce’s Arthur without the complication of Guinevere.
The king must have been standing closer than they realized. “My nephew certainly does know how to make an entrance,” he added dryly. “He will never be accused of modesty or meekness.”
Elizabeth smiled at the man who’d defied the odds and wrested the throne of Scotland from the iron grip of the most powerful king in Christendom, Edward of England. “Perhaps not, sire, although perhaps he has no cause for either.”
The king laughed. “I suspect you are right.” James had gone forward to greet him. They’d exchanged a cross grip of the forearm, and Randolph said something that sounded like “Where is she?”
James pointed in her direction, and through the crowd Randolph’s gaze found hers. Their eyes met and held. It was a significant moment—and undeniably a romantic one—and she forced herself to feel something. But her heart didn’t stop, her breath didn’t catch, and her chest didn’t squeeze. The most she could manage was a tentative smile.
He broke out into a broad grin in return and crossed the distance between them, the men falling back out of his way to create a path like the sea parting before Moses.
All except one. He had his back to her, but she didn’t need to see his face. It was etched on every inch of her memory.
Now all those things happened: her heart stopped, her breath caught, and her chest squeezed; she feared that he would not move at all. That he would stand there like a dark sentinel and block Randolph’s path to her. That he would confront or challenge the man she meant to marry. One of the most powerful men in the country.
Oh God, Thom, don’t . . .
At the last minute, he moved out of the way, taking a deliberate step back.
Elizabeth exhaled, finally releasing the breath she’d been unconsciously holding. She hoped no one else had noticed, but from the look of worry on Joanna’s face, she knew she’d seen it as well.
The smile fell from Randolph’s face long enough to frown in Thom’s direction, but it quickly returned to hers with a smile.
What he did next was the kind of thing that wee lasses dreamed of—the kind of thing that when she had been married for years she would tell her grandchildren. Instead of taking her hand or bowing, he stopped before her and dropped to his knee.
Izzie muttered something that sounded distinctly like “Good grief.”
Elizabeth could almost hear her eye roll. She would have shot her a glance, but Randolph did it for her. Her cousin simply met his frown with an innocent smile. Frowning harder, he turned back to Elizabeth and held out his hand.
Realizing she’d forgotten her part, Elizabeth placed her hand in his. He bowed over it and said, “My lady. I’d hoped to be here when you arrived.” Standing, he did not release her hand right away as he looked into her eyes. “I hope your journey was uneventful?”
Elizabeth thought of the ravine and her eyes unconsciously sought Thom’s. Their gazes held for only a fraction of an instant; she felt seared by the contact, the flash of heat was so intense.
All of a sudden, he turned and left without saying a word. He didn’t need to. The look of pain on his face said everything. He’d lied. Thom did still care about her, and unintentionally she’d hurt him again.
“My lady?” Randolph inquired.
Elizabeth jolted, brought sharply back to reality. Uneventful. “Aye, my lord, perfectly uneventful. Although we did get stuck in the carriage, and I managed to fall down a ravine.”
His brows lifted for a moment in surprise before he laughed and shook his head. “I’d hate to think about what warrants eventful. But come, we shall hear all about it.”
With that the king led them all into the Hall. But Elizabeth was painfully aware of the man who was absent. The man whose tortured expression would haunt her sleep for too many nights to come.
15
WHAT DO YOU THINK?”
It took Thom a moment to respond. It wasn’t only the “did I just fall down a faerie hole?” daze brought on by the identity of the man posing the question (the king of Scotland was asking his opinion?), or that he was surrounded by five of the most powerful men in the country (the king’s oldest and most trusted advisor, Neil Campbell, Randolph, Douglas, MacLeod, and MacRuairi), it was also that he was trying to figure out whether the king was jesting. But from the serious expressions of the men watching him, he realized the king was very serious.
Jesus.
“Can it be done?” the king added, obviously impatient for his response.
Thom was glad he hadn’t laughed or blurted out “by a dead man” as had been his initial reaction. Instead, he gave the question the respect due the questioner.
Bloody hell.
Nudging his mount forward, and then back and forth to the left and right, he looked over the infamous “Castle Rock” of Edinburgh Castle from ev
ery possible angle from where they were positioned at the base of the steep rock face. He pushed aside the knowledge that climbing the Rock had never been done, pushed aside the words “impossible” and “suicide,” and tried to look at it objectively. But almost three hundred feet of nearly-sheer basalt cliffs didn’t give quarter.
Thom had never contemplated climbing anything of the like. It made the cliffs at Bamburgh look like child’s play. He followed cracks and crevices in the rock up the face, but they all disappeared into dead ends of solid, unyielding, impenetrable rock. There were handholds and footholds, but they were few and far between. Short distances could be managed, perhaps, but almost three hundred feet?
He shook his head. It would likely be suicide. But could it be done?
He turned back to the king. “I don’t know.”
The Bruce’s dark eyes gleamed. “Does that mean it’s possible someone could climb it?”
“No one ever has before, but at this point, I’m not saying it’s impossible. I’d need a closer look to scout it from different vantages to see whether there is a way up.”
Something that he wasn’t seeing right now.
“You shall have whatever you need,” the king said quickly. “My nephew will see to it.”
Thom stiffened reflexively. Maybe the only thing worse than being under Douglas’s command would be being under Randolph’s. The sting of last night’s arrival at Holyrood was still too fresh. He’d felt like he was watching some kind of damned farce. A play torn from the pages of Arthur and his knights, featuring the perfect shining knight and the beautiful princess for all to admire.
Except that it hadn’t been a play; it had been too damned real. And the beautiful princess was his, damn it.
For Thom, standing aside in silence as Elizabeth greeted the man she planned to marry was like a slap in the face and all too reminiscent of his youth. Remember your place. Don’t reach too high. Keep your mouth shut.