Kathleen Harrington (30 page)

Lifting her up in the lavolta, Kinrath met her eyes. He seemed to read her thoughts, to know her most secret desires. There was no need for words. ’Twas as though they could commune in silence.

Did Kinrath realize she knew he was a sorcerer? That she’d suspected it from the very beginning?

L
ater, when Diana and Colin returned to the Great Hall hand in hand, Francine took the opportunity to dance a stately pavane with him.

Attired as Mars, the god of war, Colin wore a short military tunic, which made his lanky, six-foot, two-inch frame seem even taller. As he grew older, Colin would likely add muscular bulk, rivaling his older cousin in strength and sculptured physique.

“You’ve been with Laird Kinrath for some time,” she said with measured diffidence as they moved across the floor.

“Aye, milady,” he replied, pride ringing in his voice. “For the last ten years now. I started as Lachlan’s gillie when I was only fifteen.”

She tilted her head and looked up at him, continuing in an ingratiating manner. “And did you fight many skirmishes on the sea?”

Colin nodded, wondering, no doubt, where their conversation was going.

“And on land as well?”

“A few.”

“Would you know if your cousin took part in the battle of Cheviot Hills?” she inquired, keeping her tone calm and disinterested.

“Aye, milady, he did,” Colin replied. “We’d just delivered four canons to Roxburgh. Lachlan decided to ride along with King James and a band of his knights on an incursion into England to retrieve stolen cattle.”

As the impact of his words struck her, Francine stumbled. Colin immediately slipped his hand under her elbow and held her upright. Suddenly short of breath, she pressed her hand against her racing heart.

Elliot had been telling the truth, for once in his selfish, self-centered life. Kinrath had been on the same battlefield where Will Jeffries had died.

“Are you well, milady?” Colin asked, sincere concern on his ruddy features.

Francine put her hand to her forehead. “I suddenly have a terrible headache,” she answered truthfully. She felt liked she’d been whacked on the back of her head with a board.

Colin guided Francine toward a row of chairs along one wall, where elderly ladies sat watching the dancers. “I’ll get Lachlan,” he said, his blue eyes filled with concern.

She clutched his arm to hold him beside her. “No, no. There’s no need to take him away from the festivities. If you’ll be so kind as to escort me to my apartment now, you can come right back and rejoin Lady Pembroke. Please explain to Kinrath that there’s no reason for him to follow me upstairs. I’ll be perfectly safe with Walter and Cuthbert to guard me.”

“W
here the hell is Lady Walsingham?” Lachlan demanded the moment Colin re-entered the castle’s Great Hall. “Dammit, I told her in no uncertain terms to remain in view the entire evening. I’ve been searching for a glimpse of her in this crowded room for the last fifteen minutes.”

“She’s safe,” Colin reassured him. “She didna want me to fetch you. She felt ill, so I agreed to take her upstairs where she could lie down. I just came to get you now.”

Lachlan hurried out of the Great Hall and raced up the castle’s stone steps. Cuthbert stood guard at the suite’s outer door.

With a curt nod, Lachlan entered the apartment. He strode across the large sitting area and turned the latch on Francine’s bedchamber. It was locked.

“Francine,” he thundered. “Open the door.”

“Go away,” she called, her voice sounding muffled and wretched.

“Unlock the door,” he insisted, rattling the latch. “I need to see that you’re well or I’ll send for a court physician immediately.”

She slowly opened the door and peered around its edge with a haunted look. “I’m well enough,” she insisted. “I don’t need a healer. Lucia can tend to my needs.”

Stunned at the change in her demeanor, Lachlan softened his tone. Clearly something had happened. “How can I help you?”

Her face white as sheeting, she leaned listlessly against the door jam. Her words came stilted and void of emotion. “You can’t. I’ll feel better in the morning. I need to get some sleep. I’m merely overtired.”

Lachlan moved to comfort her, and she jerked away. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?” he asked softly. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” she murmured, quickly moving across the rug to widen the distance between them. She stopped at the foot of the bed and glanced over her shoulder at him. “Please go back to the dancing.”

“The hell I will.”

Christ! What had become of the intimacy between them?

She scowled at him, wariness in her eyes. “Then be kind enough to wait in the other chamber.”

Hearing the commotion, Signora Grazioli came out of Angelica’s bedchamber and into the sitting room, flanked by Walter. Roddy hurried out of another room, ready to wait on Lachlan, should he require it. Together, the trio cautiously approached Francine’s open door and the source of the disturbance.

“Shh,” the feisty nursemaid hissed. “Your squabbling will wake the child.”

Exasperated by the intrusion, Lachlan met Walter’s concerned gaze and shook his head. His uncle reached across the nursemaid and quietly closed the door.

“What happened, Francie?” Lachlan repeated, forcing himself to speak in a low, nonthreatening manner. Lucia was right. He didn’t want to upset the lassie. Hell, he didn’t want to upset Francine either.

But he was plenty upset himself.

This was not the way he’d planned to spend the night.

Francine shrugged, avoiding his gaze. “Nothing happened,” she replied in a noncommittal tone, but it was evident she was lying.

“Did Lychester approach you? I told that bastard to stay away.”

“No!” she cried softly. “Elliot never came near me this evening. Now please, just leave me be.”

Lachlan folded his arms and stood in front of the closed door. “Not until you tell me what’s wrong.”

Two teardrops rolled down her cheeks. “I’m asking you to please leave, Laird Kinrath. We can talk in the morning.”

Lachlan recognized the determination in her stance. Her brown eyes glittered with tears, drops clinging to her thick lashes.

Damn. He wasn’t going to get an answer tonight. She was too miserable and angry. And that anger was directed toward him.

Who had come between them, if not Lychester?

“Very well,” he acceded. He schooled himself to speak in a calm tone. “I’m going downstairs to talk to Colin. Bertie will remain on watch in the hallway. I’ll return shortly, but I willna disturb you again tonight. Sweet dreams, darling. I’ll be sleeping right outside your door.”

At his caring words, she burst into tears and turned away. ’Twas as though her heart was breaking.

A lump the size of a cannonball sat on Lachlan’s chest as he closed Francine’s door. Perhaps Diana could throw some light on the mystery. He’d ask Colin to quiz her.

They were to leave at the break of dawn for Tadcaster, where they’d spend one night at an inn. There’d be no major festivities in the tiny village, although the inhabitants would line the streets to welcome the arrival of the future queen of Scotland.

First though, Princess Margaret would stay another day in the sumptuous comfort of Pontefract Castle before continuing on. That would give Francine a needed day of rest.

C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN

L
ady Walsingham’s party left the small hamlet of Tadcaster before Margaret Tudor’s entourage arrived. Francine looked forward to a period of quiet reflection in York.

The duke and duchess of Northumberland were planning a hunting party and bear baiting at York Castle, one of the most important fortifications in northern England. All responsibility for the banquets and pageants would be on their shoulders. At last Francine would have time to think and sort out her feelings.

She rode her spirited bay mare alongside Kinrath’s big chestnut Arab. As always, the Scottish earl set a brisk pace, pausing for short rests only. Angelica rode her Welsh pony, with Walter on one side and Lucia on the other. When the child grew tired, either Kinrath, Colin, or Walter would take her up before them.

Angelica adored the Highlanders, who taught her riddles and nursery rhymes to while away the time. It’d become clear the child considered herself part of the MacRath family. She’d even started speaking a few of their strange words. She would be devastated when they parted company after the royal wedding and she and her mother returned to England.

“We’ll stop for the midday meal on the road,” Kinrath said. “I want to clear this thicket of yews before we halt. I plan to reach the safety of York’s walls before sundown.”

Francine nodded. Sick at heart, she could barely meet his gaze. “I understand,” she said.

Although Kinrath had attempted to discuss the source of her unhappiness that morning, she’d refused to talk about it. They’d left for York shortly after daybreak with nothing resolved.

“Laird!” Cuthbert called from the back of their small train. With several other kinsmen, he always followed behind the baggage wagons and the string of extra horses, guarding their rear.

Lachlan drew on the reins and turned in his saddle. He scanned the forest on both sides of the roadway. “What is it?”

“There’s something you need to see back here,” Cuthbert shouted.

Lachlan glanced at Walter. “Stay with the ladies,” he ordered. “Colin, move to the front. Take Roddy with you.”

As Colin kicked his horse and hurried forward, with the gillie close behind, Lachlan rode in a gallop to the back of their column.

Off the side of the roadway, several Highlanders stood in a ditch, staring at something on the ground. Lachlan dismounted and joined them.

The young bagpiper from the Isle of Skye lay face-up in the trampled weeds.

Lachlan reached down and pressed his fingers against the lad’s thin neck. Ned Fraser’s open eyes stared up, unseeing, at the canopy of leaves overhead. A torn piece of plaid had been thrown over his body. A dagger had been stabbed straight through the tartan to his heart.

The corpse was merely the bait in the trap.

As Lachlan rose from his crouch, shouts rang out. Armed men on horseback erupted from the forest. Up and down the road, MacRath kinsmen readied their shields and swords to meet the intruders head on.

Lachlan’s only thought was for Francine’s safety. He leapt back into the saddle, grabbing the shield that hung from its horn. He urged his horse into a gallop as he drew his broadsword.

A hired soldier in mail armor swung his Lochaber axe, aiming at Lachlan’s head. Dodging the lethal blow, Lachlan severed his foe’s hand with his broadsword, then buried his blade straight through the chain mail and into the bastard’s heart.

Ahead, Lachlan could see men fighting on all sides. The intruders were trained men-at-arms, not the common felons he’d met in the arena at Doncaster.

He raised his shield to counter a savage strike from a lance, only to be knocked from the saddle by its force. Lachlan hit the ground, rolling away from the charging hooves, and leapt to his feet. He’d lost his shield and sword on the way down.

He reached up and yanked his claymore from its sheath on his back. Raising the two-handed sword, he hacked at his mounted assailant’s thigh as though chopping down a tree, cutting through muscle and flesh and straight into the bone. An artery spurted blood like a spigot. The man screamed in pain and toppled headfirst to the ground.

Lachlan raced on foot through the carnage toward the women at the front of the column. They’d ridden their horses off the road and were frantically trying to keep them from bolting. Walter, still mounted on his sturdy cob, stood between them and the intruders. He was fighting off three assailants intent on reaching Angelica.

Not far from Francine, Colin and Roddy had been cut off from the females by five assailants.

A short distance from Lachlan, Cuthbert braced his foot on a fallen man’s chest and yanked out his great sword with both hands.

“Bertie!” Lachlan shouted, still racing toward Francine. “Behind you!”

Cuthbert turned, swinging his claymore in a wide arc like a scythe at harvest time, and sliced his attacker nearly in two. Grinning in grisly satisfaction, he moved toward his laird.

“No,” Lachlan called, pointing toward the front of the train, “go help Colin.”

Another mounted opponent appeared from Lachlan’s right. Without a second’s pause, Lachlan reached down and snatched up an abandoned halberd. Twisting sideways, he hurled the long-handled weapon with all his might. Its pointed tip pierced the man’s armor and buried itself deep into the man’s entrails.

Lachlan turned, searching for Francine. A mounted soldier charged up to her, snatched her reins from her hands and raced away. She bravely crouched over the mare’s neck, holding onto the flying mane. Two more attackers turned their mounts and chased after them.

Lachlan grabbed the bridle of a horse running past and swung up into the saddle. Urging the animal into a gallop, he followed behind them.

One of the mercenaries dropped back to meet Lachlan, his visor lowered, his sword raised, ready for combat. Lachlan never slowed his borrowed horse. With a single swipe of the claymore, he lopped off the man’s head and kept on riding.

The second soldier had witnessed his accomplice’s execution. The fool drew his horse to a dead stop and waited. As Lachlan’s steed thundered toward him, the bloody coward lost his nerve. Deciding to live to fight another day, he turned his mount and raced into the forest.

Lachlan kicked his horse and charged after Francine and her captor.

The hired killer holding the reins of her barb pulled off the road, taking Francine with him. He dismounted and ran around the mare’s head to grab her rider. Before he could reach Francine, she leapt off and started to run. The man reached out and caught her wrist.

Use the dirk, Francie. Use the dirk, love.

As the soldier swung her around to face him, Francine’s weapon flashed in the sunlight. She buried the blade up to the hilt in his paunch and jerked it free. Her attacker clutched his wound, bending over and howling in agony.