Captured by a Laird (30 page)

“I’m going up on the wall with ye.” Alison gathered her skirts in one hand and started up the ladder. “I need to watch for Will and the others myself.”

***

David did not want to believe the rider streaking across the distant field was who he thought it was.

“Will’s gone mad!” Brian shouted. “That’s him, chasing after D’Orsey.”

David’s heart nearly stopped beating.
Mary, Mother of God. Please, no. Not Will.
He would rather die a thousand deaths than see Will harmed.

David spurred his horse until they were flying over the ground. Fear clutched at his gut.

Another rider appeared ahead, racing across the field a quarter-mile behind Will. David cursed. It was Robbie. Positioned where he was, he would have seen Will first.

David gritted his teeth in frustration as Will curved his horse’s path and fell in beside D’Orsey’s in a mad race. What in the hell did he think he was doing?

By the saints!
He could not believe his eyes as he watched his foolish brother slash at D’Orsey with a sword while riding at breakneck speed. He prayed that D’Orsey would not knock Will off his horse or pull his own sword and slice his brother in half.

They were still too far ahead. David grasped hold of his horse’s mane and leaned low over its neck. There was a bog ahead that the locals knew to avoid. His only hope was that D’Orsey would become mired in it so that he could catch up before his brother got killed.

At the last minute, Will found the solid path through the bog. But D’Orsey, being unfamiliar with the terrain, forced his horse to ride straight into it. The Frenchman fell off as his horse struggled valiantly in the sinking ground, and David thought luck had finally gone his way.

Though he riding at a full gallop, time seemed to slow to a crawl as he watched D’Orsey reach the path and pull Will off his horse.

With all his attention on Will, David did not notice until now that Robbie had reached the edge of the bog. Robbie dismounted and ran to Will’s aid.

With all his heart, David regretted provoking D’Orsey and risking his brothers. D’Orsey was a famed knight, skilled in battle, said to be unmatched with a sword. Robbie and Will would not last long against him.

David was finally nearing the bog when he saw D’Orsey raising his sword over Will’s head.

“D’Orsey!” David shouted as he urged his horse over the uneven ground.

Robbie charged into the Frenchman. D’Orsey sent Robbie flying into the muck, and Will fell backward onto the ground. Looking straight at David, D’Orsey raised his sword high over his head again to strike the deathblow to Will.

David’s horse found a patch of firm ground and sprang ahead as D’Orsey’s blade began to fall.

Leaning to the side, David swung his sword with all his might and sliced through D’Arcy’s neck as his horse thundered past them.

Over his shoulder, David watched as D’Arcy’s blade continued to fall, its sharp point on a path to Will’s heart. Will rolled to the side just before the blade struck the ground where he had lain.

David slowed his horse to a trot and turned around. Robbie reached Will first and was helping him up when David pulled his horse up beside them.

He dismounted and fell to his knees. Now that it was over, David could not breathe, and his hands shook.
Thanks be to God for saving Will, for he is the best of us Humes.

He watched his brothers embrace for the first time in years.

“No one will make jests about him now,” Robbie said as he squeezed Will’s shoulders. “If not for you, Will, D’Orsey would have gotten away.”

David was drenched in a cold sweat. He had nearly lost both his brothers. The image of D’Orsey’s blade over Will would haunt him for a long, long time.

He looked down at the severed head. He had no hostage now to exchange for his father’s widow, and he’d killed the Crown’s warden, a treasonous offence. Somehow, he must turn this to his advantage.

He must ensure the safety of his family, and he knew only one way to do that. His very name must strike terror in the hearts of his enemies. Even the Crown’s forces must fear him.

“What are ye doing?” Will asked, turning wide eyes on him.

“Legends are made by acts such as this,” David said. “And I must be a legend.”

CHAPTER 41

“Praise God, they’ve returned!” Alison pressed her hand to her chest as she watched the riders approaching the castle.

David was at the front, with his brothers on either side. Somehow, he had found Will. The worry that had weighed down her chest, making it hard to breath, suddenly lifted, and she feel light as she raced down from the wall.

“David!” Ignoring decorum, she shouted and waved to him as he rode into the yard through the open gate.

He looked magnificent astride his horse and dressed for battle in his chain mail shirt. She picked up her skirts and ran to meet him.

When he reined in, his horse turned to the side, and Alison came to an abrupt halt.

A grizzly head was tied to David’s saddle by its long hair. Her hands flew to her face, and she heard herself scream, as if it the sound were coming from someone else.

“I know who this is,” she said, pointing at the bloody head. “’Tis Lord D’Orsey.”

She tore her gaze away from the horrible sight and looked up at her husband. David’s expression was hard and distant.

“Nay, ye couldn’t have done this,” she said, backing away and shaking her head.

His eyes were as cold as death. Who was he? She thought she knew him. How could the man she loved be capable of such gruesome brutality?

He looked past her and proceeded to ride his horse in a circle around the courtyard while the entire household watched.

“This is what any man, no matter how powerful, can expect if he crosses the Humes!” David shouted.

Everyone except Alison raised their fists and cheered.

“I go now to place my enemy’s head on the market cross at Duns as a warning to others,” he said in a voice that filled the courtyard. “Who will ride with me?”

Again, shouts filled the courtyard.

Then, as suddenly as the courtyard had filled, it emptied, except for a few serving women and guards.

Alison was so stunned that she was unaware that Will and Robbie had remained in the courtyard until Will ran to her and threw his arms around her waist.

“I won’t let him turn ye into an animal like him,” she said. Tears ran down her face as she held Will and ran her hand over his hair.

Over the top of his head, she met Robbie’s gaze, and the hardness in his it reminded her too much of David’s.

“You’ve no right to judge him,” Robbie said. Before he could say more, her daughters’ arrival stopped him.

“You’re back!” Margaret called out as she ran up, then her face fell. “What’s wrong? Why is Will crying?”

“He’s not,” Robbie snapped, then he put his arm around his brother and stomped off with him.

***

David wished he could have avoided returning to the castle before riding to the market cross in the town of Duns. He had no choice. After Will’s ordeal, he needed to see his brother safe inside the castle walls. Besides that, it was important that the entire household bear witness and spread the word of his ruthlessness toward his enemies.

But he had paid a high price for it. Alison had looked at him as if he were one of the damned from hell. Until that moment, he had, despite her betrayal and all good sense, retained the foolish hope that he might in time earn her forgiveness for capturing her and her lands and gain her true affection.

When he saw the sheer horror on Alison’s face, that hope froze and died inside him.

But he’d be damned if he’d make excuses for what he’d done. Alison could not love him for what he was, but only a ruthless man could keep her safe.

***

Alison listened to the male voices drifting up from the hall as she paced the bedchamber, waiting for her husband. Apparently, David was in no hurry to see her. She had seen him ride in an hour ago, after she sent the children to bed. Will was not himself, so she told him he could sleep on a pallet in the girls’ chamber tonight and left Flora to put them to bed. No doubt seeing the severed head had upset the poor lad.

That was nothing to how upset he’d be when the Crown forces came to take David away. She was frightened out of her mind for him. And how could he do it? She had persuaded herself to dismiss half of what people said about him, but she wondered now if every sordid tale was true. Had she been blinded by love?

She had meant to choose her words carefully, but by the time David deigned to come upstairs, she had worn out the floorboards with her pacing and worked herself into a state.

He closed the door and stood in front of it with his hands on hips, but he said nothing.

“How could ye commit such a vile act?” she asked.

“It was necessary.”

“Cutting off his head and tying it to your saddle by his hair was
necessary
?” she said, her voice rising. “Do ye not fear God will punish you for murdering and desecrating the body of a man like D’Orsey? Ach, there was no man in all of Scotland so esteemed for his chivalrous conduct.”

“Men who live by the sword die by it,” he said in a belligerent tone.

“What good could your act of barbarism possibly bring?” she asked, raising her hands in the air. “Except to bring the Crown’s wrath down on you?”

“I told the crowd that gathered around the market cross that so long as my father’s widow remains a prisoner, any man who ventures from Dunbar Castle can expect the same.”

“Ye believe such threats will achieve anything?”

“I don’t make idle threats,” he said, with ice in his eyes. “They’ll free her soon. This sort of news travels faster than horses.”

“My God,” she said, shaking her head, “you’re a cold, bloodthirsty barbarian.”

David moved with the swift grace of the lions in the royal menagerie. He stood over her, his body vibrating with emotion.

“Just remember, this cold, bloodthirsty barbarian,” he said through clenched teeth, “is all that stands between you and those who would use you and your daughters for their own ends.”

“And you’re different from the Blackadders and my family, are ye?” she said. “You haven’t used us?”

“If you’d rather put your daughters into their hands, then do it,” he snapped. “Ye know they’re safer with me. Ye should be grateful that men fear me.”

“What I fear is that you’ll bring the Crown’s forces down on us,” she said. “By the saints, David, could ye not have shown some restraint?”

“D’Orsey led the forces that took my family’s home and my father’s widow,” he said, his chest rising and falling with labored breaths. “After losing her husband of fifteen years, his head displayed on a pike for ridicule, the woman is ill with grief, and yet D’Orsey still refused to release her.”

“I understand that—”

“Ye understand nothing! A price had to be paid, a lesson given,” he said in a low, menacing voice. “Justice demands blood for blood.”

Despite herself, she took a step back. He was showing her his wounds, but he reminded her of a wild beast whose wounds enraged him and made him more dangerous.

“They cut off my father’s head and displayed it on a pike on the Tolbooth for all of Edinburgh to see.
My father’s head!
And you suggest my response should have been measured?” He stepped closer, his eyes burning fire. “Nay, Alison, restraint was not possible.”

He left the room without a backward glance. Alison sank to the floor, shaking.

CHAPTER 42

For the first time since their wedding night, David slept in the former laird’s bed-less chamber—and he slept just as poorly as he had that night. When he was not imagining his wife naked in their bed in the chamber above him, he was plagued by images of her face horrified by the sight of him.

Something had snapped inside him when Alison accused him of using her and her daughters and being no better than her family and the Blackadders. Perhaps it was the element of truth to her accusation that made him lose control of his temper and frighten her.

In the morning, the tension was so thick between them at breakfast that even Beatrix was quiet. It pained him to see the shadows beneath Alison’s eyes and how pale her face was against her dark hair.

He got up and left the table to spare her his presence.

A short time later a message arrived from Dunbar Castle. Evidently, word of D’Orsey’s death had traveled quickly indeed. The captain of the garrison advised him that Lady Isabella “was ill” and invited him in the most stiffly cordial terms to fetch her as soon as he may. Though he knew the illness was a pretense that her release was an act of mercy, it worried David.

He would set out at once with Will and a large guard. Robbie was out riding patrol with some of the men, so he would have to wait to see his mother when they returned.

David did not bother bidding his wife goodbye. She would be glad to see him gone. As he took one last look at her across the length of the room, he felt as if a fist squeezed his heart.

***

An unexpected swell of emotion filled David’s chest when the drawbridge at Dunbar Castle was lowered and Isabella walked across it, followed by her maid and two servants carrying a trunk. At long last, he had fulfilled his father’s dying command to free her.

He stood back while Will embraced his mother.

“Forgive me for taking so long to obtain your release,” David said, going down on one knee before her. “Robbie will be at the castle when we return.”

“I’m grateful,” Isabella said, touching her fingertips to his cheek. “I feared my sons would be grown before I saw them again.”

“We need to be gone from here,” he said, looking up at the row of guards on the castle’s gatehouse, “lest they change their minds.”

He helped Isabella mount, and none of them spoke again until Dunbar Castle was a good distance behind them.

“Are ye well?” David asked Isabella. She looked thin and drawn, but her health had always been delicate.

“I’m going home,” she said, smiling, “so I feel grand.”