Amanda Scott (17 page)

“I have known my share,” he said with a smile.

He had a nice smile, a contagious one. She almost smiled back, but something else occurred to her. “Did we perhaps meet at Orkney? You seem slightly familiar, but I do not recall that we met. I hope you are not offended.”

“Nay, not at all,” he said. “No one was kind enough to present me to you. I own, though, I’d have given anything to have seen you toss that basinful of holy water at Hugo’s head.”

“So you know Sir Hugo,” she said, feeling fire in her cheeks at the thought of the scene he had described. That had
not
been her finest moment. She so rarely did such things, only when people pushed her too far.

“Aye, I know Hugo,” he said. “And Michael Sinclair, too. We took our training together at Dunclathy.”

“Training?”

“Aye,” he said. “As with most lads of our rank and heritage, we hungered to become proper knights and protect Scotland from the English, or indeed, invaders from any source. Hugo’s father is an excellent teacher, albeit a gey stern one.”

“I have met Sir Edward,” Adela said. “He has always been kind to me.”

“Aye, but just wait until he sees you with a sword in hand, or a lance. As he teaches you to wield either weapon properly, he will surely turn into an ogre.”

Astonished at the image he’d introduced to her mind, she laughed aloud. “You are the most absurd man!”

“Am I? My comment seems to have been successful nonetheless.”

“Successful?”

“Aye, for I wanted to see if I could make you laugh.”

Feeling heat again, not just in her cheeks but through-out her body, she stared at him. “But why?”

“Because in all the time you have been at Roslin, lass, I don’t believe you’ve laughed once. At all events, I have not seen you do so.”

“But you never saw me,” she protested. “We met only in the dark.”

“One hesitates to contradict a lady, but I have seen you numerous times at Roslin. Moreover, when I saw you at Henry’s installation, I distinctly recall your smiling more than once. And as you have a singularly entrancing—” Breaking off with an exaggerated clap to his forehead, he said, “Forgive me! Compliments again! They just spill out, but I do beg your pardon.”

“Please, sir,” she begged, struggling not to laugh again but failing. “You will be the one to draw attention to us this time, and truly, I should not be laughing with you like this. Recall that it has not yet been a fortnight since …”

“Since your husband died?” he said when she hesitated. “Laughing or not laughing won’t change that, lass, any more than I can change anything in the case of my own father and brother.”

Adela’s breath caught in her throat.

“You!” she exclaimed more loudly than she had intended. Lowering her voice as much as she could, she said accusingly, “Mercy, I did not put it all together when I first heard your name, but two men dying … It was
you
with Sir Hugo—the conversation I overheard, the very one I told you about in the chapel.”

“Aye, it was,” he admitted. “But—”

“How
could
you?”

“I know I should have owned up to it at once, but at the time—”

“I don’t mean that,” she said, striving to control her growing fury. “I mean, how could you have decided so cold-bloodedly to put an end to poor Einar Logan? What did you do with him? After what I heard, and now this, I
don’t
believe for an instant that he just went off some-where on an errand for Hugo.”

“You may murder me later if you still want to, my lady, but I beg you, hold your sword for the moment. Lady Clendenen is coming this way.”

Adela followed his gaze and wanted to scream. Both Lady Clendenen and the chevalier were walking toward them.

Chapter 9

R
ob did not know whether to curse Lady Clendenen, now beaming at them, or kiss her. What he did know was that he should kick himself for his stupidity in imagining that the lass would not recognize his voice straightaway.

His intention had been for Henry to present him to her in full view of an audience so fascinated by his entrance that everyone would think they had just met. And a fine entrance it had been, too, he told himself.

Having contrived his outfit with Henry’s generous assistance and the aid of Henry’s tailor, he had been very pleased with it. But perhaps because of that confidence, he had not given enough thought or credit to Lady Adela’s intelligence. He had likewise underestimated her ability—even in the tumult of the royal court—to recognize a voice she had heard only in the darkness.

But to have made the comment about his father and Will without counting the cost had been a worse mistake. He knew he might well tell her everything in time, but he had hoped to choose that time. It had been foolish to assume he would have that luxury and truly dimwitted to think he could fool her for long.

She then astonished him again, for when Lady Clendenen and de Gredin reached them, she greeted them both warmly, as if she had not been ready to shred his face with her fingernails only ten seconds before.

“I hope we don’t intrude, dear ones, and that you’ll not be offended, my lord, if I treat you as one of my family,” Lady Clendenen said. Without waiting for a reply, she went on, “I wanted to tell you that Isabella is talking with Donald of the Isles now. But she will soon be ready to depart. I thought you might like me to present you to her before then, my lord, to refresh her memory of you.”

“I thank you for your kindness, madam,” Rob said, affecting the flat, higher-pitched tone again, albeit softening the assumed accent and taking good care not to look at Adela. He felt instinctively that she would maintain her composure more easily if he did not catch her eye. He wondered, though, if either Lady Clendenen or the irritating de Gredin had noticed the increased color in her cheeks.

Glancing at the latter, he saw only that the insolent dog was gazing at her.

“Sakes, but I’m remiss in my duty, my lord,” Lady Clendenen said. “I ought to have presented my cousin, Chevalier de Gredin, to you at once. Pray, forgive me.”

Rob nodded when de Gredin looked at him, deciding to take an aloof tone with the slink rather than a friendly one.
See how he likes that
, he thought.

He did not trust the chevalier, but if he had had to explain his distrust, he knew he would be hardpressed to provide a good reason. His instincts had served him excellently over the years, though. He would not ignore them now.

No sooner had de Gredin murmured a polite greeting than her ladyship said, “I warrant Etienne must be a cousin of sorts to you, too, sir, since you are both kin to me. In troth, I think every Scottish nobleman must be kin to every other one.”

“Do you think so?” Rob asked. “I imagine not every-one would be so delighted to hear that as one might think.”

Her eyes twinkled. “Indeed, you have the right of it, for I can promise you, I never mention to anyone that our poor Lady Ardelve’s abductor was another cousin of mine. And only think how repugnant to have to admit kinship with the upstart—”

“Take care, madam,” Rob interjected hastily as her ladyship’s gaze drifted toward the royal dais. He grinned as if they shared a joke but said earnestly, “Say naught here that you do not want to hear repeated in every household in town.”

“I fear that is most unfortunately so, cousin,” de Gredin said, also smiling.

Her expression now rueful, Lady Clendenen turned to Adela and said, “They are right, my dear. I should not have said a word, but sometimes my tongue rattles like a clapdish. It does not do to offend folks with the powers of pit and gallows, though. And in this room, that includes half the men and more women than one might think.”

“Mercy, madam,” Adela said, flicking a glance at Rob. “You terrify me.”

De Gredin said, “A royal court can be a dangerous place for one who lacks experience with powerful men, my lady. However, my own experience with such people is great, and I am ever at your service. Do not hesitate to command me.”

“Thank you, sir,” she said, shooting another glance at Rob.

His usually glib tongue failed him. He would have liked to make a brilliant remark to impress her and disarm de Gredin. But before he could think of one, the latter said ruefully, “I fear my cousin exaggerates our relationship, Sir Robert. I am but distant kin to her, so I doubt I’d claim any connection to your family.”

“Don’t expect me to tell you,” Rob said, recovering. “My father said I had no family pride. I do, of course. Who would not, given my ancestors’ heroism at Bannockburn and afterward? Even so, one hesitates to boast of one’s ancestors lest others expect one to act as they did. Don’t you agree?”

De Gredin grinned. “I do see your point, sir. But to have won your spurs as young as I’m told you did, you must have proven yourself with a sword.”

“The merest slicer,” Rob said modestly with silent apologies to Sir Edward as he wondered who de Gredin’s informant had been. “I’m told one must practice daily to remain skilled, and I’ve been away for years. Fell out of the habit, I’m afraid.”

The smile this information elicited from de Gredin was a superior one, and seeing it, Rob congratulated himself. It would do no harm for de Gredin to believe himself the more skilled of the two with a weapon in hand—not, in any event, when the time came to test that skill, as Rob rather hoped it would.

Donald of the Isles took formal leave of his grandfather, the King, a short time later amidst great fanfare.

Since Donald habitually wore no hat when he came to court—a ploy learned from his father to avoid having to remove it in the King’s presence—no part of that leave-taking ceremony suggested aught but that the two men were of equal stature. The elder was King of Scots, the younger King of the Isles.

That, as Adela knew, was how all Islesmen and Highlanders viewed Donald, whom they called MacDonald. There could be only one MacDonald at a time, but there were Stewarts aplenty, as many illegitimate as legitimate. Moreover, the King apparently took no notice of which was which.

All of his many offspring considered themselves of royal blood, entitled to royal privileges. However, not only were the Stewarts a younger clan than most in the Isles and elsewhere, but their surname derived from their hereditary position as royal stewards. The present King’s father had served Robert the Bruce so, and the King himself had served the grandson who succeeded Bruce. When the latter died without issue, Robert the Steward inherited by Bruce’s own order, his claim sustained by the Scottish Parliament if not by most Scottish nobility. He had reigned now for nine years and had consistently proven himself a better Steward than King.

What Adela had seen of his court so far did not speak well of the vast family. Nonetheless, she reserved her opinion, knowing her elder sister, Cristina, was well acquainted with the King’s daughter, Princess Margaret Stewart, widow of the first Lord of the Isles and mother of the present one. And Cristina liked the princess.

Adela watched MacDonald’s entourage gather around him and parade from the room, but if her opinion of the Stewarts sank more when the princes at the high table went back to their dicing and drinking before MacDonald had left the hall, every other part of her remained intensely aware of Sir Robert of Lestalric.

He stood silently not two paces away with the equally silent Lady Clendenen and de Gredin flanking him.

Although Adela dared not look at him, she sensed that he was as powerfully aware of her as she was of him. Energy flowed between them and had done so from the moment Lady Clendenen and de Gredin had interrupted their conversation at so illchosen a moment. Adela found the strain of having to greet them politely and continue to behave in a civil manner nearly unbearable when what she wanted to do was to drag Sir Robert of Lestalric outside by an ear and have it out with him.

That thought, flitting through her mind, nearly made her smile, but she wondered at herself, too, because the thought was alien, the sort of thing that might occur to someone else but never to the woman she had become in the past weeks. It reminded her of angry moments in the past with Sorcha, a past that seemed eons before her abduction. At least, it had seemed so during recent weeks.

She had been in control of a large household and of herself in that long ago time, easily able to control her younger sister Sidony, nearly always able to manage their father, and even to guide if not always control the headstrong Sorcha. But of late, she had felt as if she controlled no portion of her life or of herself.

How the change had occurred she could not have said, but her reaction to Sir Robert’s deceit—indeed, to the man himself—had been more like the old Adela. As for the energy surging through her, urging her to take him to task and hinting that she would thoroughly enjoy doing so, that was energy she had not felt under any circumstance for years, if ever. So strong was it that she had scarcely noticed Lady Clendenen’s mention of Waldron. Her ladyship might have spoken of anyone at all.

“Doubtless this gathering will grow rowdier now that Donald has gone,” Isabella said, rejoining them as the last man in the parade of Islesmen left the hall. “I mean to leave, as well, but Henry has offered to arrange an escort for me if you want to remain, Ealga, so—”

“Mercy, no,” Lady Clendenen said with a laugh. “The only folks who should linger are those who want to drink and carouse with Fife and his cronies. Those women yonder amongst the players are already behaving in a manner that I find unnerving.” Turning to Sir Robert, she said, “As much as I wish we need not say goodnight so soon after making your acquaintance, sir, I believe we must do so before Lady Ardelve encounters any of the worst offenders.”

“I, too, mean to depart, madam,” Sir Robert said. “Henry has offered me a bed at Sinclair House tonight, and his people know me, so if he does not mean—”

“He will go, too,” Isabella said. “He said he hopes to converse with you before you retire, since you mean to go early in the morning.”

“Oh, no,” Lady Clendenen protested. “You must not leave Edinburgh before we come to know you better, sir. I’d hoped you would do me the honor to dine with Lady Ardelve and me tomorrow before we return here for the evening festivities.”