Once Upon a Knight (24 page)

“I meant…once we have him
in
the wagon. Can he travel then?”

“That will depend.”

“On the weather?” It was Sinclair asking it.

Sybil turned her head from a berth against Vincent to look at him. “Nae. It depends on your need to keep the lad quiet and his wound unscarred. Movement shifts the skin, creating both.”

Sinclair was looking over her head at Vincent. His expression was unreadable in the rain-blurred torchlight. “She’ll be in there with him.”

“Na’ yet,” Vincent replied in a tight voice that she was going to remember in her dreams. He truly might be jealous. That was such an odd thing, she stopped a breath to mentally store all of it away: how it felt at that particular moment to be held in his arms against his chest and belly, where the contact was warm and tingling yet being pelted with raindrops everywhere else. That was when she knew why men and women acted like they did. Love really was worth every sacrifice. It was worth everything.

They arrived at Castle Danze well into the night. There wouldn’t have been any difficulty spotting it even if the rain hadn’t subsided into a drizzle of wetness and darkness that cloaked everything. Vincent’s home appeared to be the only large structure in leagues. Set on a bleak landscape of little more than grass and rock, the castle looked to be a series of black rock towers connected by more black rock. Even with a light showing from nearly every window, it felt lonely, bereft, cold…heartless.

Sybil wrapped her cloak more securely about her and tipped her head slightly to the man riding beside her on the wagon bench and taking up most of it with his bulk. Vincent hadn’t let her far from him once he’d taken her to the burn to wash. One look at the young Carrick reclining on what had been her wagon bed, and the plan had changed.

Vincent’s jaw had gotten that tight-clenched look again. Even with the rainfall muting it, he’d looked dangerous and deadly. He’d put her on the bench, wrapped her cloak about her, and gone for his horse.

She’d wondered why he’d left her to cope with getting the reins by herself but hadn’t made a move to go retrieve them before he was back, leading his saddled horse, Gleason, in order to tie it to the wagon as well. That was almost as interesting as the way he wasn’t meeting her eye.

“It’ll be drier inside the wagon,” she’d pointed out.

“True.” He’d said it as he joined her, rocking the wagon with his size before it settled.

“And warmer.”

“’Tis also…crowded.” That was when he’d tilted his head slightly, met her gaze for long enough to steal every breath and thought, and then turned aside.

There was no other explanation. He really
was
jealous. Of other men being with her. Sybil had never been around a jealous male before. She was thrilled and a bit annoyed at the same time. That was another odd experience.

The air had a bite to it the closer they got to his castle. Even without the mass of blackness behind his keep and the scent of ocean now filling every breath, she knew how near the North Sea they had to be. The series of towers was probably perched atop cliff rock and overlooking every wave below.

The gate was opened, pouring light onto the bleak landscape. She could see as they passed through it and beneath a portcullis that there were two massive doors fronting his keep and both were wide open, spilling light, warmth, and cheer into the courtyard. And then it was spilling people, to fill every available bit of space, surrounding the wagon and greeting the clansmen who’d been escorting them. Sybil didn’t give them much thought. She couldn’t. The most lovely woman imaginable stood at the top of what looked to be ten wide stone-carved steps, a torch held above her as if to make certain all eyes found it impossible to look elsewhere. Sybil didn’t even need to ask. The family resemblance to her husband was too strong. He had scars. He had sisters. He had a home. He had a past. And there was a secret or two about all of it.

Sybil glanced sidelong at him. Vincent’s features were cast in stone, and his eyes were glittering more than the rain mist could cause. Then he was looping the reins about his hand preparatory to jumping down. There were men crawling about the wagon bed, lifting and conveying Carrick the Younger up the stairs, where the sea of humanity parted to let them through.

“What happened to him?” Sybil heard Vincent’s sister ask.

“He got a good look at the laird’s new wife.”

It was Sinclair answering, and the words made Vincent go even stiffer. Sybil sighed and gathered the sodden drape of her cloak about her. The rain had made the cloak heavy, but it was a warm damp, while the elements continued misting the air about them with chill and wet. That, combined with the amount of light, imbued everything with a foglike dream quality. The cloak was much warmer, and it was concealing. Both of which she needed at the moment.

The woman at the top of the steps trilled with laughter. “I’d heard that.”

“You’d heard his new wife was winsome enough to wound a man?” Sinclair asked.

“Nae,” she replied, and there wasn’t much amusement in her voice anymore. “I’d heard he’d taken a wife.”

“Your hearing is correct, but I’ll leave him to it. I’ve a massive hunger and a sup to shove in my mouth afore I banter words.”

“We prepared a banquet. Earlier, of course. When we first expected you.”

They’d prepared a banquet for Vincent’s arrival? That sounded welcoming, even if nothing in the blond woman’s voice carried welcome. Sybil scooted across the width of the bench, following Vincent’s path. He forestalled any such move by plucking her up and holding her to him before swinging her legs up into a berth in his arms. That was when he bent his neck, moving her upward at the same time in order to match his nose against hers, breathing in the air she exhaled, while her heartbeat grew to cover over all of it.

“Forgive this welcome, love,” he whispered finally and then lifted his head and started walking toward the entry.

Sybil couldn’t think for a moment. The import of what he’d just called her stopped absolutely everything. She felt faint as colors swirled, temperatures muted, the torchlight fought with the dimness, and then her body went all-over heated as she realized what he’d just admitted. There wasn’t any way to absorb it all. She might as well be floating.

“Well. Let me see your lady.” It was the blond woman talking again, the snide quality of her voice jarring with the first impression of her beauty.

“Mary Elizabeth,” Vincent replied without inflection to his voice.

“Is that a nae?” she asked.

“Have you moved from the chieftain rooms?” he asked.

“The moment we heard,” she replied.

“Good.”

He shouldered his way through more humanity as he walked. Sybil could feel the brush of them as he passed. It didn’t seem too difficult, either due to his size or his status in the clan. Here she’d thought the Danzel clan was a ragtag bit of humanity with the way their laird had ignored them, claiming only Donal membership. She’d been mistaken. Danzel clan certainly didn’t feel poor or small.

“That’s all you have to say to me?”

Mary Elizabeth’s words stopped Vincent. He turned to face her. That was when Sybil realized the clansmen that had come for him were following him, filling the great room they stood in. Vincent was going a bit darker-toned along his jaw. Sybil knew of a few things that would cause such a reaction, all of which required privacy. She felt herself blushing at the thought. Vincent’s lips twisted in a slight sneer before he replied.

“Aye,” was all he said, and then turned again.

His sister probably gasped, but it was covered over by Sybil’s own. She knew Vincent heard it since his arms tightened, bringing her even closer to where the beat of his heart warred with the sound of his breathing. And then it was being added to by the sound of boots climbing rock-hewn steps. Lots of boots and lots of steps.

He’d asked her forgiveness over the homecoming, but he hadn’t explained why, all of which was intriguing and interesting and promising to give her more than enough entertainment as she puzzled through it. That’s what Sybil enjoyed most. A puzzle, and people that hid the answers.

He carried her through a set of blackened wood double doors, held open for their passage, and then another set, and then a third. Sybil watched the shadows of the torchlight on the rafters above them as they passed wooden beams that were black with something more than age. The beams supporting the roof high above them also had a charred look to them, as if they’d seasoned them in a fireplace prior to using them.

That should have been puzzling, but it wasn’t. It was starting to make perfect sense. Then the last set of doors shut behind them, echoing slightly as they came together.

Vincent came to a stop, bent down, and put her on her feet. Then he stood, opened his arms wide, and waited for her to absorb her surroundings. She knew that’s what he was doing.

The rooms where he’d brought them were hewn of more dark rock, making it a place of blackness that nothing penetrated, although a large fire was roaring from an immense fireplace as if trying to dent the impression. There was a massive four-poster, wooden-canopied bed against one wall, the new, untouched cast of the wood telling her the same tale, a scattering of chairs that were from a different maker or era, for they didn’t match, a massive table that looked to support its own banquet if needed, and everywhere she looked there were blue-cast tapestries, some depicting battles, most depicting forest scenes, and all featuring what the castle must look like in the daylight.

“The fire dinna’ destroy all, I see,” she said finally.

His intake of breath was audible in the silence of its aftermath. It was followed by heart-pounding moments of time when nothing was said or even breathed. And then Vincent spoke.

“What fire?” he asked in the same nondescript voice he’d used with his sister earlier.

Sybil walked from the semiembrace of his arms, feeling the chill of her rain-sodden cloak now that it wasn’t being tempered by his body warmth. She was pulling the hood off as she went and spreading her fingers through the charcoal-colored tendrils of her hair, showing that it looked black with the wetness. Then she pulled the cloak completely from her and hung it from a peg beside the fireplace.

She was wearing a dress made of coarsely woven cloth that was plastered to her frame from the damp. She busied herself with pulling out the ribbon that was wound about her waist and upper body, pulling it from each loop with fingers that she didn’t watch. She was looking at the fire.

“Dinna’ you hear me? I asked what fire?”

“The one…that changed everything,” she whispered to the flames.

There was the sound of boots falling, then footsteps, and then he was standing beside her, hanging his own cloak from a peg beside hers.

“You wish another battle of wits?” he asked.

Sybil couldn’t prevent the smile. She was afraid to let him see it. “You dinna’ fare well with the last one,” she turned to him to say.

“So?” he asked.

“Yet you wish to try again?”

“I’m more prepared this time,” he said.

Sybil’s eyebrows rose. As did her interest. She’d never been as intrigued. “How so?”

He didn’t reply at first. Instead he was reaching for and unfastening the clasp of embossed silver that was at his shoulder holding his
plaide
in place. Then he was peeling the kilt band away while his shirt was clinging and delineating every ripple of muscle as he did so. His belt halted his disrobing as the weight of wet wool folded over it. And then he was pulling the tie fastening of his shirt packet open, each time pulling it wider until it gaped open almost to his belly.

“Your body craves mine,” he said finally, moving his lips fully into a pout at the end of that statement.

The reaction was immediate and easily seen, especially as he dropped his eyes to watch for it. Sybil nearly clasped her arms about herself to stop him from observing how the shiver flew her entire body and centered right in her nipples, making them taut and tight against where the chill of damp cloth angered the heat of her own flesh into darts of response.

Sybil opened her mouth twice before anything came out, and then it was a breathless whisper of sound, since he’d lifted his arms over his head and taken the shirt with it. He pulled the shirt back right-side in with the motion of yanking his arms out of the sleeves, the movement forcing striations of sinew to pulling and defining and molding into the vista of masculine beauty he was. Fire from the fireplace highlighted and sculpted him as if for the eye to follow. Sybil didn’t even fight the urge and defied the act of blinking in order to caress his flesh with her gaze.

Then he turned and walked in front of the hearth to hang his shirt from a peg on the opposite side. Light glanced off the drape of his blue-black plaid with the stripe of green and put into shadowed prominence the striped scarring on his back. It was especially visual as he lifted his arms over his head and stretched, looking lithe, strong, beautiful…and flawed. He turned sideways to her and stared into the fire, letting it highlight the dark, damp, honey-blond locks of hair he wore pulled back in a queue, the perfect features of his face, and staying in a pose designed to mold the chest and abdomen he was putting on display for her.

“They used their reins,” Sybil said softly, just loud enough to be heard over the fire sounds.

He turned his head and pulled in a breath so severely it delineated the ropelike tendons of his belly. And he held it to the point she could see his heartbeat in the flesh near his belt line. And then he was turning fully toward her, putting his hands on his hips and pushing the strip of muscled flesh about his waist into prominence. And just standing there, watching her, blinking once while the firelight flashed on the dark lashes that looked so incongruous with his coloring.

Sybil blushed. She knew she was, too, as heat flowed all about her, making the coarsely woven cloth feel restrictive, thick, and cumbersome, while droplets formed at the apex of her forehead. She reached up to wipe at them and saw the flash of satisfaction that crossed his cheekbones before it disappeared, leaving him looking carved and statuelike again.

And then he was moving his hands, sliding them beneath the drape of kilt to fumble with the belt. Sybil’s eyes were wide, her breath was coming in whiffs of air as she panted. He loosened the belt slightly, so he could shove the mass of clothing to his lower pelvis, taunting her.

Sybil gulped, looked away from him for a moment, caught sight of his great canopied bed, and moved quickly before the blush happened. She knew she wasn’t fast enough. The space in front of her changed, shifting with the tension of his nearness. She wasn’t surprised when she moved her head and looked back at him to find him standing right in front of her, breathing air all over her nose and cheeks.

“’Twas all they had handy.”

“What?” he asked.

“Reins. That’s…what they used.”

“Really?” he asked.

“’Twas all they had.”

“Nae. This is all you have,” he replied, breathing the words all over her. And then he was reaching out with one hand to touch a finger to her cheek. Then he was sliding it along her lower jaw and lifting her chin, bringing her to her tiptoes as he lowered his head at the same time.