The Chase (16 page)

There was no doubt in Seonaid's mind that killing Allistair must have been one of the
hardest things her brother had ever had to do. The four of them had been as close as peas
in a pod as children, running the hills together, laughing and playing. Duncan had grown
apart from the rest of them over the last few years, his time taken up with some of the
duties he had to perform as he took over more and more of the laird's role. But still it
must have been hard, and his suffering would be worse than hers and Aeldra's,

because Allistair had died at his hand.

Sighing, she turned her attention to the problem of Helen and had been considering the
matter for several minutes when a soft knock sounded at the door. Two raps, a pause, then
three more. Recognizing Aeldra's signature knock, Seonaid moved to answer it and found
both Aeldra and Helen in the hall. Stepping to the side, she gestured for them to enter,
then closed the door behind them.

The three women milled about the room in an oddly uncomfortable silence for a moment, then
Helen blurted out, “I fell asleep waiting for you to return. The maid who showed me to
your room told me what happened. I am so sorry about Allistair.”

Her gaze slid over both women as she said that, making it obvious that while Aeldra had
found Helen in Seonaid's room, they hadn't really spoken yet, but had immediately come to
find her.

“So am I. Sorry about Allistair, I mean,” Seonaid murmured in Aeldra's general direction,
too ashamed at the part she had played in his downfall to meet her eyes.

“Me too,” Aeldra muttered.

They fell back into their uncomfortable silence again, then Helen said, “Well, are we
going to slip off while the men sleep?”

“We'll have to take the secret passage,” Aeldra announced. “Blake's in the great hall.
He's sleepin' in a chair by the fire but wakes at every sound. He woke when I entered.”

“Secret passage?” Helen asked with interest. “Aye. It comes out down near the village. We
can” “We arena goin' anywhere,” Seonaid interrupted, and both women turned amazed faces
her way. “What?” Helen asked with disappointment. “You will not take me home to England?”

Seonaid shrugged away her guilt and said, “I was considerin' the matter 'ere ye got here,
and it occurred to me that if Cameron has figured out yer disguise and followed us, he may
be desperate enough that he could be waitin' outside the walls. If so, do we risk takin'
ye back out, we could ride ye right back into his arms.”

“Oh.” Helen frowned. “I had not thought of that.”

Seonaid shrugged. “Ye're safe here until yer father can come to fetch ye. We'll send a
messenger to let him know where ye are.”

Helen nodded, then glanced at Aeldra when the blonde said, “So ye'll jest stay here and
marry the Sherwell?”

Seonaid met her cousin's gaze but quickly looked away when she saw the solemn way Aeldra
was watching her. Guilt was suddenly a suffocating blanket around her. If she had stayed
put the first time and married Blake..“Nay,” Helen said firmly. "You need not stay here
with me. If your father does not mind me staying, I

shall be fine. You two should leave as you had planned.“ Seonaid shrugged and turned to
walk to her window. ”Nay. We'll stay.“ ”Why?“ Helen asked with amazement. ”I thought you
did not wish to marry Blake.“ Seonaid shrugged but remained silent, her gaze fixed on the
activity in the bailey below. ”Doyou want to marry Blake?" Helen asked.

Seonaid scowled at her persistence. “Let us say I am resigned. I have known I was to marry
him from the time I could talk.” That fact had been drummed into her from childhood on,
with confusing results. Part of her had loathed the idea of marrying him, but another
part...

Angus Dunbar had spent years cursing the senior Sherwell, but other than calling Blake
“that sneaky Sherwell bastard's whelp” had said little against the man she was to
eventually marry. But any real information she had gleaned of the man she was betrothed to
had come from other sources. There had been the occasional visitor over the years who had
stopped in at Dunbar and, when it was realized that Seonaid was to marry Blake Sherwell,
had often immediately set about telling tales of what he was up to.

By all accounts Blake had been a handsome boy, charming even as a youth. As he had grown,
his charm and good looks had apparently grown with him, and the women visitors had raved
about what a lucky girl she was. Then he had reached adulthood, earned his spurs, and she
had begun to hear other things. That he was not simply waiting around for his father to
drop dead so that he could claim his title and wealth as others in his position might do,
but that he was ambitious. He had joined with a friend of his, Amaury de Aneford, and had
collected a small band of soldiers together who could be hired out to anyone who had need
of a strong sword arm. They were successful warriors, and the size of their party had
grown until Blake and Amaury led hundreds and had earned immense wealth.

Then there were the tales of his male prowess. He was handsome and good with words and
used both to his advantage to woo countless women to his bed. The wife of one visitor had
even caught her alone so that she could brag to Seonaid about how she herself had been
bedded by him, and that it was a treat she would not soon forget. Not ignorant to the ways
of menor women, Seonaid had taken the lady's catty comments in stride and merely said, “He
is a man and like all men shall bed all the whores he can, but he shall marry me.” Leaving
the woman gasping, she'd walked away. And that had been her attitude at first.

Young men were expected to sow their wild oats 'ere settling down to marriage. Many
continued sowing them long after they were wed. But whatever the case, Seonaid could not
take his activities with other women as a personal slight. She had taken them in stride
and patiently waited for the time when he would come to marry her, and they would start a
home and family together. After reaching puberty and becoming a woman, she had even had
the occasional daydream about the future, about a handsome blond Adonis riding into
Dunbar. He was on a white charger, of course. He rode in as proud as a Greek god, surveyed
those here at Dunbar andof coursehis heart recognized her at once as his bride.

In her daydreams Seonaid was always practicing at swords with one of the men when Blake
arrived. Her dream Blake was mightily impressed by her skill and talent. He leapt from his
horse, took the place of her vanquished loser, and began to battle with her, giving no
quarter because he respected her skill too much to hold back. In the end the battle was
always a draw, neither beating the other. And Blake bowed to her, professing his undying
admiration for her abilities and his pride in having her as his wife, and sometimes he
even kissed her. Other timesif she was alone in her room and Aeldra was not snoring

away beside herher daydreams went further than a kiss. He might dare to touch her breast
through her gown, and then they would begin to wrestle and roll around on the ground.
Seonaid usually fell asleep with a satisfied little sigh at that point.

She'd had these fantasies with incredible regularity starting just before her sixteenth
birthday, when everyone had begun to comment that the Sherwell would no doubt be coming to
claim her soon. They had continued after her sixteenth birthday, and her seventeenth
birthday. They, along with the predictions that he would soon come, had begun to slow a
bit after her eighteenth birthday passed without his arrival, and slowed even more after
the nineteenth. By her twentieth birthday, Seonaid's daydreams had changed somewhat. He
still rode in, still recognized her, but their battle ended in her beating him, then his
groveling for her forgiveness in tarrying so long and her eventually relenting and
deigning to marry him.

By her twenty-second birthday, all predictions that he would soon be coming for her had
stopped and people had avoided her eyes altogether when his name was brought up. They were
embarrassed for her because he obviously wasn't coming. It was around that same time that
Seonaid's daydreams had taken another turn. In a new one, he still recognized her and
there was a battle, but she beat him to a bloody pulp, then spat in his face and said she
wouldn't marry him if he were the last person on earth. No amount of groveling on his part
made her relent.

When she had been informed that Duncan had agreed to marry Iliana only if Sherwell was
forced to finally fulfill the marriage contract that had been drawn up between their
families so many years ago, Seonaid had been a roiling mass of humiliation and fury. The
man was being forced to come and collect her as if she were some poxy whore that no man
would want for bride, and only a king's order could move him to do his duty. She had fled.
With disastrous results.

“I think ye should make him suffer a bit more,” Aeldra said grimly. “Mayhap he should, but
I'll no have anyone else suffer more with him; they have all suffered enough.” “I knew
it!” Aeldra stomped over to her and caught her by the arm to turn her around. “Knew what?”
Helen asked in confusion. “What are you two talking about? Who else has suffered?” Aeldra
ignored the question and glared at Seonaid. “Yer blamin' yerself fer Allistair.” “Why
would Seonaid blame herself for Allistair's death?” Helen asked with bewilderment. “O'
course I am,” Seonaid snapped, also ignoring Helen. “And who else should I blame?” “Me,”
Aeldra said firmly. “You?” Seonaid gawked at the petite woman. “He was my brother.” “Aye,
but that makes ye no more responsible for his behavior than I am for Duncan's.”

“Seonaid is right,” Helen agreed quickly. “Neither of you is responsible for Allistair's
behavior.” She hesitated, then added, “I am afraid that Janna did not explain his behavior
to me; she told me only that he is dead. What did he do?”

“Betrayed our people, snuck around helping Greenweld, planned to see my brother and father
dead, then to marry me and claim himself laird of the Dunbars,” Seonaid answered flatly,
moving away from the window to sit on the bed.

“Oh, dear,” Helen murmured, following and sitting on the far end of the bare mattress.
“Well...” She shook her head. “That is awful, but 'tis his own doing. Neither of you is
responsible for it.”

“He was me brother,” Aeldra said flatly, dropping onto the hard surface between them.

“If I'd stayed here and married Blake when he arrived rather than running off to St.
Simmian's, none of this might have happened,” Seonaid said at the same moment.

“But that isYou two areOh, this is just nonsense,” Helen said with exasperation.

“Aye, 'tis,” Aeldra agreed and frowned at Seonaid. “ 'Tis no yer fault.”

“I knew his caring fer me was more than that o' cousin, and it flattered me. My pride was
so beaten down by Blake's neglect that I even encouraged it.”

Aeldra snorted. “Not much ye didn't. Had ye given him any real encouragement, ye'd have
been bedded and breeding by seventeen, Allistair was that crazy about ye.”

“Ewww,” Seonaid said as an image flashed through her mind of herself and her male cousin
together.

“Aye.” Aeldra grimaced, probably at a similar vision.

Seonaid sighed, then fell back to lay across the bed. She stared up at the ceiling as she
said, “Still, had I stayed and married Blake rather than allow me pinched pride to send me
harin' off to St. Simmian's”

“Blake would probably be dead along with everyone else,” Aeldra interrupted grimly.
“Seonaid, had ye stayed and dutifully married Blake, Allistair would have seen him dead
'ere the wedding night. He wouldna have allowed it to be consummated. And who kens what
might have happened next? He still would have had to see Duncan and Uncle Angus out o' the
way to gain the title o' laird, and whatever way he tried might have actually worked,” she
pointed out, then shook her head. “Nay, ye canna take the blame. But I can.”

Seonaid turned her head to cast a scowl her way. “Just because he was yer brother”

“Nay, no jest because he was me brother.” She sighed. “I kenned he was weak, Seonaid. And
I kenned Giorsal's anger and the way she whispered it in his ear. I knew she was bitter,
like fruit left to rot on the branch, and I just ignored her, but Allistair had no the
character to do so. Ye ken he had no opinion o' his own. He would voice a belief, then
someone would voice a different one and his would suddenly change. He was easily led and I
kenned that. I should have realized that Giorsal's constant harping would affect him. I
should have seen this coming and done something about it.”

“Nay.” Seonaid sat up and shook her head. “As ye say, I kenned he was weak o' mind too and
easily led, yet I did not see this coming. Neither could ye be expected to.” She kicked
her foot in the rushes on the floor, then asked, "Did it anger ye that Father never gave
ye a room in the keep? It truly never occurred to me, Aeldra, else I would have suggested

Her cousin interrupted her with another snort. "Seonaid, I practically do live up here in
the keep. Ye and

I have been inseparable since Allistair and I arrived here. I am up here at the keep from
the moment I get up in the morning until the moment I go to bed at night, unless we are at
an abbey or hunting with the men or practicing in the bailey,“ she added dryly. ”Guid God,
they called us 'the twins,' and that wasna because we look so much alike."

Seonaid laughed slightly at the old nickname, and her cousin continued. “And Uncle Angus
treated Allistair and me as much like his children as a man could. He fed us, clothed us,
and even supplied our horses and weapons at no small cost to hisself. Yer no the only one
with the sword made specially fer yer size and strength, are ye? Nay, I have no bitterness
with any o' ye. I've not, but gratitude and love.”

Seonaid scowled. Her throat felt tight with the tears she was fighting back. “I'll take
the love, but ye can keep the gratitude,” she growled, then added, “And we love ye too.”