Mary Reed McCall (24 page)

Rutherford’s face paled, and he took a step forward, fury making the vein at his temple stand out. “That is well and good, de Brice, and I will take great pleasure ensuring that your wishes are fulfilled. But keep in mind that you are not the only one whose comfort is at stake here. I have the king’s authority to interrogate
anyone
at Dunston, as I see fit—to do whatever it takes to get to the truth.”

The duke looked to Diana, who was still in the consoling arms of Old Alana, then around at the occupants of the hall. “’Twill not be a tasteful task, putting your sister or your servants to the test, de Brice. But I will do it, let me assure you, if your continued silence in this matter forces me to the action.”

Silence descended over the hall; even Diana’s sobs broke off in shock at Lord Rutherford’s threat. Aidan felt disbelief spill over him, a cold wash of sensation that shook him to the bone. He closed his eyes, feeling as if all of the air was being sucked from his lungs. God, he’d never considered that possibility, that Rutherford would use his loved ones against him: his vibrant sister or Old Alana, imprisoned, even for one night, in some dank hellhole of a cell—any number of his other faithful servants tortured by who knew what horrible means into uttering
confessions…his jaw tightened until he thought his teeth would break from the pressure.

“Damn you, Rutherford,” Aidan said at last, very softly, opening his eyes to stare at him. “My sister and the servants have no part in this. Leave them alone.”

“Admit your guilt, de Brice, and I will.”

Aidan breathed in deep, looking from Diana and Alana, to Kevyn, his men, and all around the great hall. Everyone was staring at him, some in fear, some in dismay, while others, like Kevyn, showed in their expression their support of him, regardless of Rutherford’s intimidation against them.

But no matter. He could never subject any of them to harm because of him. And as he looked around the chamber, the thought occurred to him that perhaps he’d misjudged his father all those years ago, when the soldiers had come to this very hall to arrest him and take him away to face charges of treason—to face the sentence of execution.

That perhaps, when all was said and done, he was much more like his sire than he’d ever known…

He turned back to the duke, a dark smile flirting over his lips. “Aye, well, it seems you’ve got me. If ’tis what you need to ensure the safety of my sister and the rest of my people, then aye, I admit to the deed. I harbored the Dark Legend here, at Dunston, for a period of nearly three months—a space of time which ended this morning when he departed again for the mountains, shortly before your arrival.”

The chamber erupted into chaos at Aidan’s admission; the duke’s men scrambled to maintain control, clashing with Aidan’s soldiers. Diana cried out, Kevyn and many of the other men, once they were subdued, cursing their denial of the charges against him. Helene raised her hand to her mouth to stifle her cries, her eyes welling with tears
as she rushed forward; she threw herself at Aidan, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt and shaking him, then beating her fists against his chest.

“Nay!” she cried, “Tell him it isn’t true, Aidan! Deny the charges! Tell him, tell him, tell him…”

She broke into sobs as the duke’s men came forward, pushing her aside in order to clamp irons on Aidan’s wrists; Kevyn reached out to her, and she collapsed in his arms, sobbing against his chest as Lord Rutherford shouted the command to depart. His men began to lead Aidan from the hall, but he yanked back on his chains, stalling their progress long enough to call hoarsely to Kevyn, “Watch over Diana for me…please. Do everything you can to find someone to take care of her, and—”

His friend shouted his pledge, still holding Helene in his comforting embrace, and straining to see over the heads of the soldiers surrounding Aidan as they pulled him roughly away. Suddenly Diana shoved through the crowd of men, flinging herself at him and wrapping her arms around his neck. Her face was wet with tears, and some of the guards holding him stopped for a moment, in pure shock, stunned as men usually were at the sight of her voluptuous beauty.

“Don’t go—oh, Aidan don’t go and leave me all alone,” Diana sobbed, clinging to him and pressing her face against his neck.

Aidan swallowed convulsively, his throat feeling like it was closing again as he did everything in his power to keep from showing his weakness. “I’m sorry, Diana,” he said huskily, holding her gaze for one precious moment. “I never wanted you to have to endure this again.”

“Nay, Aidan, don’t talk like that—please, it’s going to be all right! It won’t be like Father again—it won’t, I won’t let it! I won’t let them hurt you—” she murmured
over and over, crying and clinging to him, kissing his cheek, as the guards finally overcame their initial shock and pulled her off him.

He shouted at them to be careful in their handling of her, wrenching his neck as they pulled him through the door to call back to her one last time. “No matter what happens, know that I love you—look to Kevyn—he will help you in my stead—”

Diana stifled another cry, covering her mouth with her hand as she watched her brother being hauled away; the rest of what he said was cut off by the surging of the guards, pulling him out into the yard to lead him off through the gate toward some unknown fate.

Just like Father
, a panicked voice inside her screamed.
They’re taking him away to be executed, just like Father!

“Nay!” she cried out, swinging away from the door to gaze frantically all around. Confusion reigned in the hall, with servants and soldiers scuffling and moving about; some of the women and children huddled in groups, crying, but in the turmoil of it all, she spotted Kevyn. He’d brought Helene to sit near the hearth, and he leaned over her, wiping the tears from her cheek as he talked to her.

Diana couldn’t hear what he was saying, but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to be of any help at the moment, and someone needed to take action to save Aidan, right now, before it was too late. Diana looked for anyone who might be able to help her—but there was no one she could entrust with such an important task. She gritted her teeth and stiffened her back. So that was it, then; she’d have to do what needed to be done herself.

Turning on her heel, she headed for the door, going in the direction of the stables. Old Alana stepped from the midst of the thronging people, trying to grasp her arm as she went by, but Diana shrugged off her touch, intent on pursuing the plan she’d settled upon.

“Where are you going, child?” the old woman called after her, her wrinkled face gray with the worry and strain of the afternoon’s events.

“I’m going to save Aidan,” Diana called over her shoulder, defiant, not caring that Alana would probably run off to tell Kevyn, or some other man who believed himself in charge of her, about the dangerous thing she planned to do.

She kept going, stalking into the sunshine and stifling heat of afternoon, straight through the now-deserted yard to the stables. She smiled grimly with her good fortune when she found one of the mares already saddled, left so, unattended, when Aidan had issued his sudden command for everyone to take refuge inside the keep.

Swinging astride the horse, Diana offered up a silent prayer of thanks that her brother had taught her to ride years ago, indulging her whim to practice as often as she liked. It would serve her well with what she intended to do now to save him.

Wheeling the mare around, she kicked her heels into its sides and galloped at breakneck speed from the castle gates, rehearsing her plan in her mind—practicing what exactly she would say to make those whom she was riding off to find, agree to help her save Aidan. Because there was only one person she knew who might have any chance at all of rescuing her brother.

And Diana planned to ride, hell-bent, into the Welsh mountains to find her.

G
wynne slowed her pace, deciding that her stallion needed to rest for a bit, even if she was loath to stop until they’d reached the clan’s holding. ’Twould be another several hours’ ride, at least, before they’d be forced to make camp for the night, and an hour or two beyond that once they started off again in the morning; ’twould serve no purpose to get their mounts too winded, and her stallion’s sides already heaved from the steady uphill climb they’d been taking for the past hour.

Calling to her men, she reined in near a trickling stream, swinging down and leading her stallion to the water. Owin and Dafydd did the same, and an awkward silence settled over the two men and Gwynne again, as it had ever since they had been reunited in the clearing earlier that morn.

“If you wish to eat something, now would be the time,” she said gruffly, nodding to the packs of provisions that were lashed to their saddles. “We’ll ride farther once the
horses are rested, then bed down for the night near Wickston crossing.”

Neither man answered; both looked miserable. Dafydd moved first, trying hard, Gwynne thought, to act as if nothing was wrong. He reached for his pack, unlacing the leather flap and lifting out a chunk of bread and cheese. Offering her some with a nod, he met her gaze directly for the first time since the incident in the clearing, and a rush of shame filled her at the concerned expression—at the loyalty he still felt toward her—brimming in his eyes.

“Nay—I’m not hungry,” she managed to murmur through the tightness in her throat, as she turned away. She walked over to her steed again, pretending to examine for slackness the perfectly cinched girth strap. ’Twas so difficult to face Dafydd—to face Owin as well, after what had happened—and she couldn’t stop herself from wondering how in hell she was going to handle the accusing eyes and stares of scores of villagers and her other warriors, who were bound to be less forgiving than these two men, who had become her most trustworthy allies.

They moved off a little from her position now and sat congenially with each other on some rocks, chewing their bread and cheese and speaking in low tones. And for the first time in all the weeks since she’d come to Dunston Castle, Gwynne was reminded again of how alone she truly was. Of the anomaly of her nature that would make the kind of easy communion that Owin and Dafydd shared a thing of impossibility for her.

Hunkering down next to the stream, she laced her hands loosely together between her knees and blinked away the gentle sting in her eyes. Worsening the feeling was the knowledge that she’d actually felt like she belonged for a short time while she was at Dunston. As much as she’d like to deny it right now, she couldn’t; ’twas the truth. Those moments in Aidan’s arms, loving him and
feeling as if he loved her in return, had been the sweetest she’d ever known.

’Twas what made the need for her leaving all the more painful. It had wrenched something deep inside her—something that she feared could never be repaired again. When he’d told her that, regardless of what they’d shared, he would still marry Helene, she’d known she had to go. She’d had no other choice.

It was devastating and cruel—a feeling similar, she imagined, to what a man, crawling through a scorching desert and dying of thirst, would experience, were he offered a few sips of water, only to have the remaining elixir spilled before his eyes into the greedy maw of the sand.

Pushing off her knees to stand up again, Gwynne tried to stem the waves of grief that seemed never to cease threatening to overtake her. She’d been doing her best to put Aidan and all that he’d meant to her out of her mind, but thoughts of him kept creeping up on her unawares, catching her with a poignant memory, a remembered laugh or caress, when she least expected it.

She took a deep breath, deciding that perhaps it was time to remount and continue on—that perhaps action would accomplish more than sheer will, at this point, to drive thoughts of Aidan from her mind—when a cracking in the bushes made her stiffen. Dafydd and Owin heard it, too, she knew, by the way they went still, pausing in both their eating and conversation.

“Owin! Oh, Gwynne or Dafydd—any of you!” a woman’s voice suddenly rang out from the woodland, plaintive, and near tears. “Please, you must be near—you must answer me!”

The pleas ended on a hitched intake of breath, followed by a faint sobbing sound that became louder in proportion to the nearer crashing in the brush.

“What the devil—?” Owin murmured, pushing himself
slowly to his feet, his bread dropping from his hand as he fixed his scowling gaze on the area of forest from which the noise was coming. In the next moment, he muttered a curse that was echoed by Dafydd and Gwynne, as they all charged toward the figure that stumbled from the woods into the small clearing near them.

“Diana?” Owin growled, holding her stiffly as she fell into his arms with a grateful cry; she seemed on the edge of hysterics as she sobbed into his chest, her gown ripped in several places, and her usually glossy tresses tangled and knotted with burdocks.

“By the blood of saints, woman—what the devil are you doing out here?” Gwynne asked her harshly, helping Owin to lead her to sit on the flat rock where he and Dafydd had been supping.

“Ai-Ai-Aidan,” she sobbed, giving Gwynne an almost accusing stare as she swiped the back of her hand across her nose; dirt smeared her cheek in the process, but for once, she didn’t seem to care about ruining her impeccably feminine appearance. “They’ve taken Aidan. You’ve got to help him!” she cried, swinging her teary gaze to the men. “Please—I know I made things difficult for you all when you were at Dunston, but I’m begging you now—you
must
help him. You’ve got to stop them from killing him—you’re his only hope!”

“Hush, now, lass,” Owin murmured, patting Diana’s back, which earned him a biting gaze from Gwynne.

“We’ll get more from her if she’s calmer,” he explained, shifting to look from her back to Diana again, continuing to stroke with a gentle caress. “There now lass,” he said soothingly again, until her sobs had quieted to uneven breaths and a few stray hiccoughs.

“How did you get up here, lady?” Dafydd asked, when she seemed calmer, though the usual gruffness of his tone startled her into trembling again. She ducked her head
into Owin’s chest, peering up from beneath her lashes to murmur, “I rode a mare from the stables. A ways back, something spooked her and she threw me.”

She frowned, the expression looking more endearing, if that were possible, because of her reddened nose and tear-spiked lashes. If she hadn’t been so concerned about her frantic news, Gwynne might have rolled her eyes.

“The mare headed back down the mountain, for home, I think,” Diana continued, swinging her pleading gaze up to Owin again as she grasped handfuls of his shirt, clinging pitifully. “But I had to keep going to try to find you. You must understand—Aidan’s life is at stake! They’re going to kill him if no one stops them!”

“Who is going to kill Aidan?” Gwynne asked, finally, her voice quiet. ’Twas against her better judgment even to ask the question. She shouldn’t care, she told herself. She had no business caring about what happened to him anymore; he’d made that very clear. But she knew that she couldn’t control how she felt about him any more than she could order the stars to stop glowing in the midnight sky.

“Lord Rutherford wants him dead,” Diana answered, spitting out the duke’s name like something vile. “He’s wanted to destroy Aidan for a long time, but now he’s had him arrested and carted off by his brutish soldiers, to face trial and torture and—”

“
Helene’s
father?” Gwynne broke in. “Why would he do that?”

“Because he found out about you,” Diana said, fixing Gwynne with that half-accusing stare again. “Someone sent a message to him, divulging that you were under Aidan’s protection at Dunston—and sent your shield along with the message as proof. My brother was forced to confess the truth in order to save us all from the interrogation Lord Rutherford threatened if he didn’t.”

“Poor lass,” Owin said, patting her back again.

“You’ve got to help my brother, Gwynne. Please,” Diana murmured, beseeching. “He’s protected you all of these weeks, putting himself and the rest of us at risk in order to fulfill his damned honor—to repay his life-debt to you.”

Diana swallowed, releasing her grip on Owin’s shirt to turn and face Gwynne fully. “I am begging you—I will get on my knees before you, if I have to—but you must help. My brother is in terrible danger. They are leading him off right now to be tried for treason, just as they did to our father.” She met Gwynne’s gaze, her emerald one echoing, for the first time that Gwynne had ever seen it, with a level of sincerity and grief that couldn’t be feigned.

“God help him, but they will kill him, if they can. And ’twill be for the crime of harboring you at Dunston. Don’t let Aidan die for your sake. Please.”

Pushing up from the position she’d taken on one knee near Diana, Gwynne turned away and took a few steps, cursing under her breath. A myriad of emotions filled her, an undeniable urge to help Aidan mingling with the anger she still felt toward him at the way he’d deceived her. At the way he’d hurt her.

“What will you do?” Dafydd asked in a low voice, moving away from where Owin still sat, comforting Helene, to take a position at Gwynne’s side.

“
Lugh’s
blood, I don’t know,” Gwynne cursed again under her breath, lifting her hand to rub her temples.

“Much has happened since this morning,
Chwedl
. ’Twould be difficult for anyone to make sense of it all so quickly.”

“Aye,” she said, her voice tight, “but it appears that I don’t have the luxury of time. I will either help Aidan or not. ’Tis as simple as that.”

“And yet there is nothing simple about the way the two of you seem to feel for each other.”

Gwynne snapped her gaze to him, familiar shame curling inside of her; she wondered if her bodyguard was finally going to chide her for the weakness she’d shown with the man who was considered one of the foremost enemies to her people. “Dafydd, I—”

“There is no need to explain,
Chwedl
,” he broke in gently. “I am a warrior, but I am a man too. For many years, I have watched as you trained like someone driven by demons—watched as you were made to deny much of who you are.” He met her gaze, his brown eyes kind with understanding. “You’ve said that you have regained your memories from the time before you came to the clan, and that what the Englishman claimed about your past, happened just as he said.” He nodded once. “If that is true, then there is much more going on here than I or anyone else has the right to judge. ’Tis your decision alone, whether or not you wish to ride back and attempt a rescue of de Brice. You should do what you feel is right, knowing that I will back you, no matter what.”

“And Owin?” Gwynne asked hoarsely, nearly overcome by this gentle giant’s show of support for her.

Dafydd gave a wry smile—one of the few times that Gwynne could ever remember seeing that expression on his face—and jerked his head in the younger guard’s general direction.

“Look at the lad,” Dafydd growled, still smiling at the way Owin held Diana cradled against him. “He’s besotted, and has been from the first time he laid eyes on the woman. Never fear—he’d charge into battle to help her brother, if he could, without blinking an eye, even if his loyalty to you didn’t direct him to the same action.” Dafydd nodded once again. “Worry no longer,
Chwedl
; both Owin and I will ride with you back to English soil. We’ll fight by your side to try to free de Brice, if that is what you wish.”

Gwynne reached out, clasping Dafydd’s forearm against her own, her jaw clenching. “Thank you, Dafydd,” she said, adding in a husky murmur and gripping his arm more tightly, “you are a faithful friend.”

“I will defend you to the end,
Chwedl
, and follow you anywhere,” he asserted, his voice rough with emotion as well, as he loosed her grip and stepped back a pace. “Only issue your command in this, and it is done.”

“We ride back to England, then,” she answered.

Dafydd returned to Owin and Diana, to tell them of the plans, and in a few moments, they were all mounted again; Diana sat astride Owin’s horse in front of him, though they would be leaving her on the edge of Dunston property before they continued in search of Aidan and Lord Rutherford.

As they headed back down the path toward England, Gwynne couldn’t stop the surge of bittersweet feeling that throbbed inside her, an awareness that increased with every hoofbeat of her steed on the rocky terrain.

She was going back to help Aidan.

For whether or not he’d hurt her with all that he had done—with the deception over their betrothal and his decision to follow his duty rather than his heart—he had loved her too; he’d shown her how to feel again, how to be a woman and not just a warrior. He’d given her back her past, brought to life her present, and assured, with the awesome gift of his heart, that her future would be of her own making, undertaken in the full knowledge of who she was. A future of her own choosing.

And she’d be damned if she was going to stand by and let him die for it.