Highland Avenger (22 page)
“Jesu!” Harcourt dragged a hand through his long black hair. “We should have brought more men with us. None of these Frenchmen can leave here alive. What they ken about Arianna and those wee lads has to die with them.”
“Agreed,” said Brian, “although I would like to ken who else might have learned the truth about the lads. I suspicion the king and his first cousin ken the truth, but who else? DeVeau would have that answer. S’truth, I doubt he has told Lucette for that mon was still speaking of killing the laddies.”
“We can decide on that when they come to the gates—and they looked verra ready to do that as we slipped round them to get here. That is, if they dinnae all die in battle.”
For almost two hours they drank ale and talked on Arianna’s troubles. There was some talk about the battle to come but they all knew no final plans could be made until there were Camerons and more MacFingals involved. Brian was just beginning to believe he would escape any questions concerning him and Arianna when the men decided to go and wash before joining everyone in the great hall, only to watch Callum shut the door on the other three. The younger man then turned around, crossed his arms over his chest, and gave Brian a look that was both surprisingly mature and a bit threatening.
“I dinnae believe there is anything more that I can tell ye,” Brian said.
“Nay?” Callum smiled but it was not a particularly friendly expression. “Ye have spent many a night alone with my wee cousin.”
“We were fleeing her enemies and hoping to draw at least some away from those boys.”
“All day and all night?”
“Fleeing an enemy is an exhausting business and your cousin is a fine, weel-bred lady unused to such things.”
“Yet she found the time and strength to tell ye all about Claud and his unkindnesses, her sad life with the Lucettes, and, I think, her fears. Or did ye just discover them bit by bit as ye drew closer?”
“I am nay certain what ye are implying.”
“Och, aye, ye are. A mon who does naught but help a lass run and hide or turn a kind ear to her woes doesnae look ready to gut some mon just because he is holding that lady in his arms.”
Brian hid a wince, heartily cursing the man’s keen eye. “Lady Arianna is a grown woman and a widow. If ye have any questions about what did or didnae occur between us mayhap ye should talk to her.”
“I will and she will eventually tell me everything. The lass cannae lie to save her life. What I wish to ken is what ye mean to do about what did or didnae occur between the two of ye.”
“Lady Arianna returned to Scotland to rejoin her family. She is a bonnie, weel-bred, highborn young woman who will undoubtedly make a verra good marriage with a mon of equal standing.”
“Ah.”
“What do ye mean by
ah
?”
ah
?”
“Just that ye are an idiot.” Callum opened the door and then looked over his shoulder at Brian. “Ye may wish to ponder on the fact that the lass already walked the path of making a good marriage with a mon of equal standing and it led her straight to misery, didnae it?”
Brian glared at the door after Callum shut it behind him and resisted the urge to throw something at it. He had thought a lot on how Arianna had once done as society and her family had expected and how he could give her so much more than that thrice-cursed Claud. It did not matter. If he convinced her to stay with him, marry him, everyone would think he had done the very thing he had sworn he would never do—marry for land and money.
He winced. That concern carried the strong taint of wounded pride. Brian did not like to think that he was so deeply concerned with how others would see him. If Arianna ever thought he had wed her for whatever dowry she would have, for what he could gain, bitterness would settle into her heart. He had seen it happen, watched what everyone had thought such a perfect match turn sour, man and wife no more than cold, bitter strangers. Brian was certain it would hurt less if he let Arianna walk into the arms of another man rather than marry her and watch the warmth they shared fade away.
Shaking his head, he refilled his tankard. There was very little time left for him and Arianna to be together. Tonight would be his last chance to savor the passion they shared for the battle would come tomorrow and, when it was done, she would leave. He sat down, put his feet up on Ewan’s worktable, and began to plot a way to spend at least part of the night with her without risking a long, painful death at the hands of her cousins.
The door to Arianna’s bedchamber began to ease open and she tensed. She could not believe any of the men in Scarglas would attempt to force their way into her bed. In fact, she had looked around the great hall earlier and thought there was probably not another keep in the entire world so fully packed with big, strong, handsome men. Not one of those men would need to try and steal a woman’s favors.
“Arianna?”
“Brian! Ye frightened me,” she complained as she sat up and watched his shadowy form approach the bed. “What are ye doing here?” She thought that low chuckle he made one of the most seductive sounds she had ever heard.
“Why do ye think I am here, love?”
“But what if my kinsmen catch ye in here?”
“They are all abed and I will be out of here ere they open their eyes in the morning.”
“And ye dinnae fear that one of the men ye are sharing quarters with will say something?”
“Nay, as I am sharing quarters with three of my brothers,” he replied as he shed his clothes.
He was pleased that, despite her questions and concerns, she readily curled into his arms when he slipped beneath the bedcovers and reached for her. Brian quickly removed her shift and tossed it aside, his whole body growing taut with need as her warm, soft flesh touched his. He had found his empty bed unbearable. It galled him to have to creep into her bed as if they were doing something shameful, but, as he kissed her, he knew he would do it again. He would do almost anything to hold her in his arms.
“Ye go into battle soon, dinnae ye?” she said.
“Aye,” he replied with reluctance as he pushed her onto her back, for he wished to keep all talk of the battle to come out of the bedchamber tonight. “The enemy has been slipping inside the berm since the sun set. At sunrise they will be outside the gates.”
“They are already attacking?”
“Nay, just gathering for the attack on the morrow and nay too wisely. They are putting themselves between a berm with only one pass through it and a keep with high, weel-monned walls. Nay a good strategy.” He kissed the hollow at the base of her throat. “But I am nay here because I face a battle on the morrow.”
“Nay?” Arianna sighed with pleasure when he kissed her between her breasts and she ran her feet up and down his calves, enjoying the hair-roughened strength beneath her soles.
“Nay. I would be here nay matter what I was facing on the morrow, e’en if it was just mucking out the stables.” He grinned against her skin when she laughed.
“Good. And it will be e’en better if ye make verra certain that ye dinnae fall asleep and sleep beyond the sun’s rising.” She sighed and stroked his arms with her hands. “’Twould be e’en better if we didnae have to worry about that at all.”
“Aye, but I dinnae think ye want me and your kinsmen to be at odds with each other.”
“Nay, I dinnae.” She wrapped her arms and legs around him. “So best ye get right to work, my fine knight.”
“Your wish is my command, m’lady.”
How she wished that were true. If it was, her one and only command would be for him to love her as she loved him, for him to keep her close by his side forever. Arianna pushed away such thoughts, for they brought only sadness, and kissed Brian. Knowing it would be the last time she held him added an urgency to her lovemaking, but she did not care. She could be facing a lifetime aching for what only Brian could make her feel and she intended to fully indulge her greed until she was glutted with it.
“That was some verra poorly done sneaking about for a MacFingal,” said Sigimor as he shut the door he had been peeking out of and looked at the four other men in the room. “Going to drag him out of there?”
“Nay,” said Brett as he sprawled on the narrow bed he had been given. “She is a widow of three and twenty, nay some innocent maid.”
“True, but I am surprised that ye are being so reasonable. Nay sure I believe that is the only reason ye are nay all trying to rush out and beat my poor cousin into the floor. Unless, ’tis a wise fear that I will attempt to protect the fool with my deadly fists and lethal skill with a sword.” He grinned when all four men glared at him.
“He makes her happy,” said Callum. “I think she hasnae been happy for a verra long time and I willnae take that from her. ’Tis just a shame he is such an idiot. Ye would think such a weel-bred, highborn lass would have chosen more wisely.”
Sigimor shook his head. “Aye, he is an idiot.”
“Weel, we will allow him to remain one unless it begins to cause our wee cousin pain.”
“And then what will ye do?”
“Drag him outside and pound him into the mud until that idiocy is pummeled right out of his thick skull.”
“Fair enough.”
Chapter 18
“Send out the boys and the woman and we will ride away!”
“What boys and woman are ye talking about? We have a lot of them!”
Despite the thick walls and how high up the MacFingals stood on those walls, Arianna could hear everything from where she sat on the wide stone steps leading into the keep, and she winced at the mockery in Sir Fingal’s voice. That was not going to calm the belligerence of the men gathered before the gates of Scarglas. The laughter of the men on the walls was undoubtedly salt in the wound to the overweening pride of Lord Ignace and Amiel.
“I dinnae understand why they didnae just attack them by that berm,” muttered Fiona as she paced back and forth before the steps of the keep.
“They have a plan,” Arianna said.
Fiona snorted, stopped pacing, and placed her hands on her hips. “I ken it. I just wanted this done with quickly. They obviously wanted to play with the Frenchmen first. Men. They are all idiots.”
“It does appear so at times.” She and Fiona both grinned briefly, and then Arianna sighed. “I still have nay thought of a real good reason for all of this. Weel, aside from the fact that Amiel has obviously lost his mind.”
“Didnae Brian tell ye what the laddies said?” Fiona asked as she sat on the steps beside Arianna. “The lads told us something the night ye and Brian arrived that might explain it all.”
“Nay, he didnae tell me that he may have finally discovered the why for all of this. He had to know I would have liked the answers to all the questions I have had ever since this began.”
And Arianna was furious about that. Did Brian think her too weak to hear the truth? That thought infuriated her. It was a moment before she calmed down enough to look at Brian’s apparent secrecy with some clarity. Whatever the boys had told him, they had done so only two nights ago. Neither she nor Brian had talked that night, falling asleep the moment they were in bed. The next morning her kin had arrived and the keep had begun readying itself for an attack. He could have said something when he slipped into her bedchamber last night but she could not complain about how they had spent the time together before he had had to creep away. Looking at it all very carefully and calmly, she could see no true crime or affront, just a little negligence.
“What did Michel and Adelar tell him?” she finally asked Fiona.
“All done being angry?”
“Aye. I dinnae think he planned to keep any secrets from me and it was the thought that he had that made me angry.”
“Nay, he was just being a mon.” She grinned when Arianna laughed. “It seems your wee laddies may be kin to the king of France.”
“Why would Michel and Adelar think that?”
“Their mother told them. She said their father was the first cousin to the king.”
A chill of fear for her boys turned Arianna’s insides to ice. “Nay. Marie Anne always boasted that she was sired by a high noble but she ne’er once claimed kinship with the king himself. She could ne’er have kept such a thing a secret. She was the sort of woman who would have heralded that from the highest hill if she had kenned that it was true.”
“Nay if it would cost her in some way, as I suspect it would. Mayhap her mother was given money or this Marie Anne was. Enough coin a year, as a living, to be worth the keeping of such a secret. A good hard threat would be enough to silence her as weel. And we both ken that few nobles support their bastards, let alone one born of some poor village lass.”
“True, curse them.” Arianna thought it over for a moment. “I dinnae think Amiel kens it. Marie Anne must have told Claud, though.”
“If she told him, he would understand the need to keep it secret as weel.”
“I have to wonder now if Amiel does ken it.”
“If he does ken it, he would also ken that the power that noble could wield could prove enough to stop the Lucettes from annulling Claud’s marriage to Marie Anne and making his grandchildren bastards. S’truth, the noble might see all manner of advantages to ensuring that his grandchildren profit weel from it.”
“Jesu, ye are right. I can see it now. Aye, Amiel does ken it. There were a lot of small wounds upon Claud’s body and I thought whoever had killed him had tried to gain more coin than Claud had with him. But it seems Amiel had his own brother tortured, whether for the pleasure of it or to find out something, who can say. But once he kenned that there could be strong opposition to the annulment, he became set upon killing the boys. If Lord Ignace also kens who sired Marie Anne, though, he will nay want the boys dead. He will have some plan to make use of them.”
“In other words, there is a verra good chance that DeVeau has planned to betray Lucette from the verra beginning.”
“I wouldnae be surprised. DeVeau doesnae need the lads dead; he can just force their guardian to sell his family back the land they want for a pittance.”
“That guardian being you.”
“Aye, and trying to capture me to get that makes far more sense than them trying to get me to extract some vengeance upon my family for what happened long ago.”
“DeVeau gets his hands on ye and he could achieve both those things. But, that is nay longer a concern. He will nay leave Scarglas.”
“Killing Lord Ignace could make the DeVeaux seek vengeance against ye and yours.”
Fiona shrugged. “If they do, we will deal with them.”
“They can be a vicious, tenacious enemy.”
“Who live in France. And, e’en if they send someone to take revenge, we can deal with them. I am certain Brian told ye some of his clan’s history, if only to explain this place.” Arianna nodded and Fiona continued, “Weel, my clan the MacEnroys didnae have any better a life. It was one of three clans that fought until little was left but ruins and graves, and all the remnants of the clans who were struggling to rebuild were nearly destroyed by treachery. My own uncle tried to stir up the killing again and had actually had a part in what had nearly killed us all before. So, treachery, enemies determined to kill us, plots, and lies?” Fiona shrugged. “Naught a thing that we have nay faced before and survived.”
“I had heard that my cousin Gillyanne had wed a mon with a dark past. But ...”
“Nay. The men out there wish to drag three innocents into their plots, think naught of killing two wee lads just to gain more coin, more land, or more power. Any right-thinking mon would fight against that.”
There was no arguing that. Arianna had clung to the hope that there would be no battle, that at some point her pursuers would decide they were simply wasting their time and retreat. She knew that, from the beginning, she had ignored that little voice in her head warning her that it was all so much more complicated than just Amiel wanting to be the heir. She looked up at the men lining the walls of Scarglas who still taunted Amiel and Lord Ignace.
“I just wish they didnae act as if they enjoyed the thought of battle so much,” Arianna murmured.
“Ach, weel, they actually do at the start. They are men and men are a strange lot.”
“True. Verra true.” She laughed along with Fiona.
“Why havenae Fiona and Arianna gone inside?” Brian asked Ewan.
“They are safe enough where they are,” replied Ewan, his gaze fixed upon the men confronting them.
“Nay if someone begins to shoot arrows o’er the wall.”
“I see no archers, Brian.”
“They had a couple at Dubheidland.”
“Ye and Sigimor must have killed them.”
“They would still be safer inside instead of right down there where they can hear and smell the battle.”
Ewan looked at his brother, leaving the verbal harassment of the enemy to his father and other brothers. “I believe my wife is weel acquainted with the sight and sound of battle. Now, Arianna may nay carry knives all o’er as my loving wife does, but I suspicion she is also acquainted with the scent and sound of battle.”
“They may be acquainted with it but that doesnae mean they have to face it when they could go inside the keep.”
“Dinnae worry. Fiona will go in soon and take your lass with her. She will be safe.” He looked down at the men gathered before the walls of Scarglas. “They are so busy making demands they havenae noticed our men at all.”
Deciding he would get no help in making Arianna go inside, Brian also turned his attention to Lucette, DeVeau, and their hirelings. He could see at least two score men who were undoubtedly well-trained men-at-arms. The rest were just men with swords who thought joining this fight was worth the few coins they got. Even the trained men did not notice that they were now surrounded, but then the MacFingals and their cousins were also well trained.
“I would think it time to start this rout,” Brian said.
“A few more minutes. Our fither is having fun.”
“My lord,” said DeVeau.
“Och, I am nay the laird,” said Sir Fingal. “He is.” He pointed at Ewan.
The look on DeVeau’s face told Brian that the man would probably give his soul to be able to get his hands on old Fingal. It was an expression all Fingal’s sons, and many another who met their father, had worn at some time or another. The man’s skill at keeping someone intent on winning an argument with him was just the skill they had needed, however. While Lucette and DeVeau had tried to talk reason to Fingal, Scarglas men and their allies had slipped out, using the berm as shelter as they had slowly encircled DeVeau and his men.
DeVeau turned his attention to Ewan. “You should have spoken up.”
“Why? Ye were nay saying anything I was interested in.”
“Enough of this!” Lucette yelled. “Those boys are my nephews. They are French and we intend to take them back to their home. You have no right to them.”
“Nor do ye. They are where they belong. With their guardian.”
“My brother was mad. No one appoints a woman to be a guardian. The courts will end that insane arrangement.”
“Then bring me the court’s demand and I might think on it.” Ewan glanced at Brian and said quietly, “Time to go down to the gates. Sigimor is waiting for my signal. I will give it as soon as ye and the others are in place. Wish I could join ye in killing these arrogant fools, but if I leave they may pause to finally look around.”
Brian hurried down to the bailey. Once Ewan gave the signal everything would happen fast for Sigimor would give that fierce battle cry of his and all the men hiding behind the berm would be over it. It was Brian’s intention to be the first one to get to Lucette. The man needed to pay for what he had done to Arianna.
The thought of Arianna had him looking toward the steps to the keep. He was pleased to see that she and Fiona had gone back inside. Once the gates were opened to let him and his men out, it would no longer be safe for the women to be outside the keep.
Brian mounted one of the waiting horses and looked at Callum as the man moved up beside him. “Thought ye would be with Sigimor and the others,” he said.
“Changed my mind.” Callum smiled but there was a coldness to it that told Brian this man would be a real threat to anyone who got in his way. “Much prefer being mounted to start the fight.” He patted his horse’s neck.
“Lucette is mine.”
Callum just smiled again but before Brian could demand the man give his word not to go after Lucette, Sigimor’s battle cry rent the air. The gates were swung open and Brian had a brief glimpse of the horrified looks on the faces of the Frenchmen before he fixed his gaze on Lucette and charged.
It did not surprise Brian when Lucette attempted to turn and flee. Any man who beat a woman usually proved himself a coward when faced with a man. He rode in front of the man, cutting off his retreat. Lucette quickly proved himself a poor rider as well, yanking on his mount’s reins until the horse reared and tumbled Lucette into the dirt. Brian was down and facing him by the time Lucette scrambled to his feet.
“I surrender!” cried Lucette, and fumbled to pull his sword out of its sheath.
Brian was briefly tempted to just kill the fool and turn away to help the others. He watched Lucette carefully, however, for the man could be acting inept in order to lull him into a dangerous sense of ease. Although it was hard to believe anyone could act that well.
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