Chapter Twelve
Aleysia opened her eyes and grasped her head. Oh, why had she guzzled down that devil’s brew? “Am I in hell?”
“I hope not, else that means I am there, too.”
William’s voice startled her nearly out of her skin. It made her head pound all the more. She wanted to scowl at him but it hurt too much to move…or to think.
“Here, drink some water.”
She let him feed her from a wooden cup and swept her gaze around the room. No one else was here. “Where is…everyone?”
“Father Timothy stepped out to have a pi—to use the garderobe.” He tossed her a sly, knowing look and set the cup down on a small table by the bed, proving he wasn’t as innocent as he appeared. “Or is it the commander you are looking for?”
She stared at him for a moment and thought about pretending not to be affected by his boldness. But she gave up quickly and rubbed her aching head. “’Tis the commander. But ’tis not what you think.”
It was much worse. She had dreamed of him in her deep slumber, dark, sensual dreams of him atop her, gazing into her eyes, lowering his head, kissing her. He had kept the truth from her. She was going to have to marry someone of the Scottish king’s choosing if she wanted to remain at Lismoor.
“I do not trust him,” she said as William gave her another sip of water.
William blinked his striking gray eyes at her then set the cup down again. “The commander has never given me a reason not to trust him.”
“You are a Scot and on his side.”
“He did not know I was a Scot or on his side when he found me.”
She remembered the commander telling her about finding him and asked William about it now. “What were you doing on the road?”
He shifted in his seat and remained quiet for so long Aleysia thought he wasn’t going to answer. But then, he began in a quiet voice. “Julianna had finally agreed to let me kiss her.” He smiled softly, remembering. “We were caught. Her father had me beaten and tossed onto the side of the road outside Berwick. He had beaten me many times before for minor offenses, but he never threw me out. I awoke to find the Scots had taken the village.
“The commander’s regiment was leaving Berwick and found me. Father Timothy told me there was nothing to go back to and I would not make it far before I was killed. They had seen the carnage and they would not let me return. But I do not believe Julianna is dead.”
Aleysia forgot about her headache and patted his arm. “Then we will find her,” she promised. “Do not lose hope. I have already spoken to the commander about it and he has agreed to help.”
His eyes looked almost blue in the light as the whites turned red and they misted with tears. He looked away and then back at her. “I am in your debt already.”
She shook her head and offered him a tender smile. “As your commander said, there is no debt.”
She had many more things to ask him about himself…and others, but the chamber door opened and she looked up instead to see the commander entering the room.
She was completely taken aback by the way her heartbeat accelerated in his presence. She fought to keep from lifting her hand to her messy braid.
“Good. Ye are awake,” he said, barely looking at her. “Come with me.”
Brute. He didn’t ask her how she felt after practically being poisoned by his priest. Did he think her a pet to come at his beck and call? Let William jump to his feet, she would not!
“Lady,” he said on a low growl when she didn’t move. “Some of the villagers have returned. Father Timothy has taken them to the chapel.”
Aleysia didn’t consider her aching head or her thrashing heart, but scrambled out of bed. “Why did you not say so?” She smoothed some wrinkles out of her léine and bodice and quickly rebraided her hair. “Take me to them. I am ready.”
His hand on her arm stopped her as she moved toward the door. “William,” he said. “Amish stands guard at the chapel doors. Go to him and tell him I will be there in a few moments.”
When they were alone, he shut the door and finally gave her his full attention. It made her just a tiny bit breathless. “The men knew to expect the villagers’ return, but remember, they dinna know who ye are or what ye have done.” He clenched his jaw as if he didn’t want to continue. “I must tell them, and I will when the time is right. They must not hear it from the villagers.”
His eyes held her still, entranced by a single flicker of light somewhere in the deepest shadows. What was it? It drew her in. It made her curious about his past and why, according to Father Timothy, he was a prisoner to it.
She looked away. What good would it do her to know anything more about him? He protected her for his Scottish king’s sake.
She stiffened her shoulders and moved toward the door. “I will make certain they understand that, for the sake of our safety, Richard is my grandfather.”
“Be brief aboot it,” he said, leading her out.
Whatever she thought she saw in his gaze was gone. Good. She wouldn’t have her thoughts on what he was thinking or why he was thinking it. She liked the cold, detached commander. It made hating him easier.
She followed him to the small chapel, where Amish stood guard at the door with William at his side.
“From now on,” the commander told his second. “Anyone returnin’ to Lismoor is to be brought directly to me.”
“Aye, Commander.”
“Ye and William wait oot here,” he told them and let her pass when she pulled open the door, tired of waiting.
She entered the candlelit chapel and spotted Father Timothy chatting with Ronald the blacksmith. She smiled seeing Molly and her husband Walter, the reeve.
There were others, twelve in all, gathered together in small groups until they saw her.
“Miss d’Argentan!” Molly cried out. The rest followed.
Aleysia looked behind her for the commander and found him staying back in the shadows. She was pleased with his decision to let her see to them first.
After she reassured them all that she hadn’t been harmed, she asked them to listen to what she had to say. She explained quickly and quietly that she had failed and was not able to defeat the Scots, but that Commander MacPherson was treating her and Sir Richard with mercy.
“He has also sworn on Father Timothy’s Holy Book not to cause any of you harm.”
“He is a Scot!” Walter the reeve shouted. “Why should we trust him? Our land and our homes now belong to Robert the Bruce! We should have all stayed and helped you fight! Now we have lost everything!”
Aleysia prayed the ground would open and take her down. This was her fault. She’d caused this terror in her friends’ eyes and their voices. She had sworn to protect them from this and she failed. Perhaps they were all correct and she had taken on too much alone. What could she say to them now? Nothing.
She remained quiet and dipped her chin to her chest.
She felt the commander come close, demanding silence with nothing more than his presence when he stepped into the light.
Molly and the miller’s wife, Beatrice, gasped and stepped back, closer to their husbands.
“Ye could have stayed and fought,” he said in his resonate voice. “And ye all would have died. Yer lady fought a valiant fight and her bravery should be commended, not condemned.”
Aleysia was tempted to look at him. He was the last person she expected to praise or defend her. She must remember that he was the one who’d set this all in motion. He was the reason she had failed. She could have beaten a less skilled warrior.
“I am Commander MacPherson,” he continued to the quiet crowd. “What yer lady says is the truth. Ye willna be harmed. Ye have my word. But my men dinna know ’twas Miss d’Argentan who waged war on us. They believe her to be the granddaughter of Sir Richard, whom they also dinna know is a knight. If they discover the truth, there may be trouble.” He glanced down at her and scowled as if he didn’t understand why he’d kept so much from them. “So from now until I say, ye will address her as Aleysia.”
“What does all this mean, Lady—Aleysia?” Ronald asked, slipping his gaze to the six foot four inch Highland warlord when he made the correction.
“It means keep yer—” The commander shot a disparaging look to Father Timothy and then returned his attention to Ronald, correcting himself. “It means that, fer now, as far as my men are concerned, Aleysia is a peasant, innocent of any wrongdoin’ besides hatin’ Scots.”
“You protect her from your own men?” Old John, who’d crafted all her bows and arrows, pointed out boldly when Cain turned for the door to end the meeting. “’Tis unexpected.”
The commander looked slightly ruffled for the first time and let his eyes roam around the chapel at the others waiting for his reply.
It was Aleysia who spoke up first. “The king of the Scots does not want to spill the blood of a d’Argentan. The commander is waiting to hear what is to be done with me. He is doing his duty.”
If the commander heard the anger in her voice, he made no indication. “I am protectin’ ye all,” he warned instead. “My men died by her hand and with yer aid, so if ye want to see another sunrise, dinna speak of it and remember what ye were told here today. Go back to yer homes. Prepare fer work tomorrow. Nothin’ will change. No one will put ye oot.”
Aleysia stiffened when he placed his palm on her lower back. Heat and power, like lightning running through her, made her legs weak and her heart stall. He turned and, without another word, ushered her toward the door.
She moved away from his touch. “You did not have to threaten them.”
He reached out and took hold of her elbow. “I told them the truth,” he said blandly and pushed open the door.
Amish and William were still there waiting. “The villagers will be comin’ oot and returnin’ to their homes,” he told them. “Make certain they arrive there safely. They are not to be harmed in any way. If they are, the guilty will be dealt with severely.”
“Aye, Commander,” Amish replied as the commander continued on his way down the hall tugging Aleysia behind him.
“Do you threaten everyone in order to get what you want?” she asked, pulling on her arm to be free of him.
He stopped to hover over her and stare into her eyes. “Instead of bein’ grateful fer my protection, however I may offer it, ye stand here flappin’ yer tongue aboot me thr—”
She swung at him. She tried to hold her temper but he infuriated her. She knew where there were more daggers, at least two that his men could not have discovered.
“Enough!” he thundered, holding her back without letting her go.
She swung at him again. This time, she hit him in the chest.
In response, he yanked her hard against him, halting her breath and trapping her arms between them in his tight embrace. “I’m beginnin’ to think ye enjoy bein’ a threat to me, Miss d’Argentan.”
She struggled to break free of him, but only for moment. “What?”
“It means I must keep ye close,” he said on a soft breath that stole across the edge of her jaw.
Was he going to kiss her? What should she do if he did? She fought to keep her wits about her. If he kissed her, she might find herself lost in a place she knew nothing about, with a man she had vowed to kill.
“Are you mad?” She choked out a forced laugh. “I’m trying to get away from you!”
“Ye want to see me dead.”
She didn’t deny it, though she was tempted to. “Do you think I can kill you with my bare hands? Fool.”
He raised an eyebrow and one end of his mouth. “I dinna know all that yer hands are capable of, lass.”
She had no idea why her face felt as if it had gone up in flames, or why her head was suddenly filled with images of her fingertips tracing the hard angles of his body, or touching his lips. Up close, his mouth looked enticing, irresistible. Had he kissed other women before?
Oh, how could she be having these traitorous thoughts about him? Thoughts of his mouth covering hers, dipping to her neck. She didn’t think he would stop, as had the other young man in her past who’d kissed her so intimately.
“You know I am no match for you, Commander,” she countered, trying to control her wayward thoughts, but barely. “You accuse me of wanting to stay close to you, when ’tis you who has dragged me into your arms as if you have every right to do so.”
His smile faded and Aleysia realized once it was gone that it hadn’t reached his eyes.
“I wish to continue livin’, lady,” he said impassively. “Nothin’ more.”
Nothing more. How could there ever be anything more? They were enemies. One of them likely wouldn’t survive this.
She almost trembled in his arms when he loosened his hold on her.
She pulled back the moment she could and swatted his hand away when he reached for her elbow to take it again.
“Crook your arm,” she insisted. “I will not be dragged about by my elbow.”
Thankfully, he didn’t argue. When he bent his arm, she looped hers through it and let him lead her toward the great hall. She ignored the voice in her head telling her how pleasant it was to walk on his arm, to stand so close to him as his equal and not his captive.
She didn’t care for his cold, brash manner, but he hadn’t actually hurt anyone in front of her and he had sworn not to harm her people. If he wasn’t a wild Scot and if he hadn’t claimed her home, she might look at him differently.
“Now,” he said, “ye will tell me why ye were so angry earlier that ye almost attacked me in front of my men.”
She thought about it for a moment and then remembered her conversation with Father Timothy before she drank the poison that set her abed for the whole day. Robert the Bruce was going to name one of his minions to hold Rothbury and her castle in his name.
The truth she’d known but had forgotten for a moment hit her again like a cold, wet cloth across her face. She was his captive.
“You said I did not have to leave Lismoor,” she said quietly as they entered the great hall.
“Aye,” he grunted. “I remember sayin’ that.”
They reached a table in the middle of the hall, with one man sitting at it. He obeyed without a word when the commander told him to go sit somewhere else.
Was he brooding because he wanted to avoid having to tell her the rest?
“I do not wish to be wed to a stranger,” she told him while she sat. “A Scottish stranger, no less.”
Perhaps she should not have added the last bit. His scowl deepened and he shouted for someone named Rauf to bring them something to drink.
The ribaldry around them quieted down as the men took their drinks and slowly left the hall.
A man with a long scar running down his face, whom Aleysia assumed was Rauf, brought them two cups of water and stepped away from the table.
“What is this?” the commander demanded after a quick look into the cup.
“We are all oot of whisky, Commander,” Rauf regretfully informed him.
“Rauf,” she said, causing both men to turn to look at her, each with very different expressions on their faces. “There is an unopened cask of wine in the cellar beneath the kitchen.”
Rauf blinked his bloodshot eyes at her and then nodded. “Thank ye, Miss.”
Aleysia knew in that moment how easily the commander could frighten the wits out of someone with just his scowl, for he aimed his darkest one on her now. She was tempted to look away, perhaps wipe her own brow.
“How d’ye know where there’s untainted wine?” Cain asked in a mild, thoroughly controlled voice. “Did ye serve Lord de Bar?”
Lord de Bar? Aleysia nodded because she had a feeling she should. It took her a moment to remember William mentioning the name and another to realize what the commander was doing. “Aye, I was the…bottler. That is why I know about the wine in the cellar.”
The commander seemed satisfied and dismissed Rauf to the task. “Have Richard taste it first,” he called out.
To which Rauf called back, “Aye, Commander.”
He demanded unquestioned obedience from his men. She understood the importance of it on a battlefield, thanks to Giles’ stories. It was up to him to win with as few casualties as possible. She recalled how the commander had ordered his men to travel in a single line, one that had kept them from dying in the field of arrows. He had also gone hunting alone rather than risk his men to her traps. He kept them safe by keeping her close. He was good at his duty.
But they weren’t on a battlefield now.
Or were they?
She’d done nothing but try to kill him—or at least, escape him. To no avail. Of course, she had good reasons for wanting to kill him.
She cursed her traitorous heart but, perhaps, there was nothing more she could do.
“I will taste it,” she said softly.
His scowl softened. Perhaps fighting with him was the wrong approach. She wanted to escape the future that strangers would make for her and make one of her own. If she lost her home to the Scots, she would leave and live in a village somewhere.
“Where were we?” she asked, not caring if he didn’t want to speak of it. “I was telling you I would not wed a stranger.”
“A Scot, no less,” he reminded her. Surprisingly, his scowl faded.
“Am I so terrible? Would you want to be forced to wed an English woman?”
He shook his head and offered no other comment. He looked into his cup of water.
Never in her life had silence been so deafening. She heard a distant drumbeat and realized it was her heart. Everything he promised, everything he did was all temporary. He didn’t want to stay. Would the next Scot honor the promise he’d made to the villagers?
“I will speak with the king aboot lettin’ ye stay on yer own.”
Her hope rose to the surface and became evident in her smile. “Will he grant what you ask?”
He said nothing for an eternal moment, and then he nodded and smiled as if it were the only thing to do to keep something else from falling from his lips.