Twenty-six
Rosalin and Sir Alex’s sudden appearance at the castle gate had caused something of an uproar—to put it mildly. She had been crushed in her sleep-roused brother’s overcome embrace, while Sir Alex had been surrounded by soldiers and very nearly tossed in the pit prison until she’d threatened to jump in there with him. Instead, he’d been taken to the guardhouse. After days of questioning, he had been ordered to London to make his case to the king in person.
Saying goodbye to him, and then watching him ride out with a small army of her brother’s men, was the hardest thing she’d done since leaving Douglas. Sir Alex was her last link to Robbie, and seeing him go felt like the final break. The sense of loss was profound, though God knew, Robbie didn’t deserve her heartbreak or her tears. She should hate him for what he’d done. Each morning she expected her brother to call for her, to give her the horrible news that would all but ensure it.
But two days passed, and then three. Plenty of time for a messenger to have arrived from Brougham, bringing news of the attack. It wasn’t until the fifth day, when the soldier her brother sent after she’d told him of the attack returned, that she was called to Cliff’s solar to hear the hideous truth.
Her brother had his back to the door and was staring into the small fireplace as she entered. He appeared to be deep in thought.
She braced herself, expecting the worst.
He turned, his hands clasped behind his back. “There has been no attack.”
He might have toppled her to the floor. She swayed, flinched, or did some odd combination of the two. “What?”
Cliff met her gaze, and she could see the worry in the green eyes that were so like her own. Since she’d returned, her brother had treated her as something akin to a delicate piece of porcelain, assiduously avoiding any mention of subjects that might cause her distress, such as her abduction, Robbie Boyd, or the letter she’d written him. He knew something was terribly wrong but was waiting for her to explain.
“Brougham has not been attacked. Boyd must have discovered what really happened at the village in time.”
Cliff had explained everything about the attack, validating her trust in him. Not that it mattered. Or did it? Why had Robbie changed his mind? What had turned him from his course? And most important, what did it mean?
She must have paled or looked as if she were going to faint, because Cliff crossed the room, took her by the elbow, and helped her sit on one of the cushioned benches before the fire.
She couldn’t seem to think. “You’re sure?”
He nodded.
“But why?”
Her brother gave her a long look. “I suspect you can answer that question better than I.”
Before bringing Sir Henry and the other prisoners back to Berwick, Cliff had sent a message to Robbie explaining what had happened in the village and agreeing to meet in one week’s time (to discuss the contents of her missive and the exchange of coin), but it would have arrived after they both left.
“I’m not sure I can. Robbie was so determined. I tried—begged him—to turn from his course, but he refused.” Tears swam before her eyes as she stared up into her brother’s grim face. “It was horrible.”
He swore and sat down beside her, tucking her under his arm while she sobbed, the way he used to when she was a child. “The bastard doesn’t deserve your tears, little one. And he sure as hell doesn’t deserve you.”
That only made her sob harder.
“Tell me what happened.”
And she did. Well, most of it at least, leaving out the more intimate details, although she suspected Cliff filled in the gaps well enough. When she was done, his mouth was pulled in a hard, angry line. “I’ll kill him.”
“No! Please. I just want to forget any of this ever happened.”
She took the folded square of linen he handed her and dabbed her nose and eyes.
Cliff’s expression was no less fierce, but his voice softened. “Are you sure about that, Rosie-lin?” He stopped. “I’ve fought against Boyd for a long time, and I’ve never known him to hesitate. But something caused him to pull back, and I suspect that something was you.”
Rosalin sniffled and took a deep breath. She shook her head. “Even if he changed his mind about the attack, it doesn’t matter. It would never work. Who I am will always be between us. I cannot be with a man who does not trust and love me.”
He squeezed her tighter and sighed, as if a great weight had been lifted off him. “I hate to see you in pain, but I won’t say I’m sorry to hear that. You can’t see it now, but this will be for the best. Anything between you would have been all but impossible.”
Rosalin blinked up at him. “But not impossible?”
He looked away, his mouth pursed as if he’d tasted something unpleasant. It was much the same look Robbie got when her brother’s name was mentioned. “I want you to be happy, but handing my sister over to that barbarian would be asking a lot. And I would never have done it if I wasn’t certain that he could make you happy. The brigand would have been hard pressed to prove it to me.” He squeezed her one more time and kissed the top of her head. “Forget about him, Rosie-lin. He doesn’t deserve you.”
“I’ll try,” she promised. “And Cliff?” He looked at her. “Thank you for not trying to make me hate him.”
His mouth lifted. “Hell, if I thought it would work, I would have. But I suspect that battle was lost years ago.”
“What do you mean?” He cocked a brow and held her stare. The blood slowly drained from her face as the truth dawned. “You knew?”
He shrugged. “Not right away. It was the guards who gave it away. I knew there had to be a reason Boyd didn’t kill them. God knew, he had every reason to, so I suspected someone had helped him. From the way your breath stopped and face paled every time he was mentioned, it didn’t take me long to realize who that might be.”
“Why did you never say anything? You must have been so angry with me for betraying you.”
“In truth, I was rather relieved.” His jaw hardened as if from something unpleasant. “It evened the score.”
Rosalin was shocked when she realized what he was saying. “Did you trick them into surrendering, Cliff? I refused to believe it of you.”
“I didn’t—at least not intentionally. The king didn’t tell me what he had planned. I gave my word the meeting would be held under truce not knowing they would be arrested. They wouldn’t have been able to hold out much longer and the result would have been the same, but I didn’t like that it had been done at the expense of my honor. I was ashamed of what had been done, but had to do my duty.” He smiled crookedly. “You saved me from having to make a decision I didn’t want to make.”
Rosalin was stunned. “I can’t believe you knew all these years and never said anything.”
“I suspected why you did it and hoped you’d forget.” He smiled ruefully. “I guess that didn’t work very well, did it?”
She shook her head, emotion balling up in her throat again. “What am I going to do, Cliff?”
“I don’t know, little one, but we’ll figure something out. It will get better.”
If only she could believe him.
When the two thousand pounds arrived from Clifford a week after Rosalin and Seton left, Robbie wondered if his desperate plan might actually have a chance of working. Clifford could have reneged on the truce, but he hadn’t. That and the letter agreeing to meet that had arrived a day too late had to mean something.
Robbie rode north to Dundee with Fraser and a handful of other men to bring Bruce the much needed coin, but also to speak with MacLeod. If his plan was going to work, he was going to need the help of his brethren.
He didn’t inform the king of his intentions, suspecting Bruce wouldn’t agree. But unsanctioned missions involving wives (or God willing, future wives) were hardly unusual for the Guardsmen. MacLeod himself had ordered one to rescue his wife at the beginning of the war, so Robbie expected a sympathetic ear.
Still, it had taken him a few days to persuade the leader of the Highland Guard to agree. But a week after he’d arrived in Dundee, Robbie and the nine other Guardsmen were standing in the forest near Berwick Castle going over the final details of his plan. Actually, he was going over the details, and they were doing their damndest to talk him out of it.
“It’s bloody suicide, Raider,” Lachlan MacRuairi said. “Just because we’ve managed to get out of there before doesn’t mean we’ll be able to do so again. It took me over two years to free my wife from that hellhole—with a failure that nearly got us captured. If you are imprisoned there is no guarantee of a rescue. I’ve been in that pit prison, and believe me, you don’t want to spend much time there.”
Robbie remembered, and if there was anyone in the Guard who knew about getting in and out of dangerous places it was MacRuairi.
“It won’t come to that.”
I hope.
Eoin MacLean, the tactician of the group, stared him down. “So this is your plan: walk into Berwick Castle, ask to see Clifford, tell him you want to marry his sister, and hope he doesn’t toss you in the pit prison or hang you with the nearest rope?”
“Sounds about right.”
“You must be bloody crazed,” MacLean said with disgust.
“So you’ve said before,” Robbie said. “All of you. But I know what I’m doing.”
He was doing the only thing he could think of to try to get Rosalin back. He was going to prove to her that he trusted her. My brother loves me and will do anything to see to my happiness. Robbie hoped to hell she hadn’t been exaggerating, because he suspected this was going to put that “anything” to the test. For the second time, his life was going to be in Clifford’s hands. Although this time he was putting it there himself.
Hell, maybe he was crazed.
Erik MacSorley, who’d been prodding him for the better part of the week, grinned. “I didn’t take you for the grand gesture type, Raider. But if this doesn’t work out, I’ll sail you down to London. I hear King Edward has a couple of sisters, and with your penchant for Englishwomen…”
Robbie told him what he could do with his ship, and the big West Island chieftain—who looked more Viking than Scot—laughed. But for once, Robbie didn’t mind being the butt of his jokes. MacSorley’s lighthearted jesting relieved some of the heaviness weighing over them all at Seton’s betrayal.
Unlike Robbie, the other Guardsmen had been stunned. Hell, he’d been stunned, too, but just hadn’t wanted to admit it. They all knew Seton struggled at times with the secret warfare and the less knightly aspects of this war. They also knew that he and Robbie had never gotten along, but no one had realized how bad it had become.
They’d all taken the blow personally. The loss of William Gordon was still an open wound. Though the circumstances were vastly different (Gordon had died in an explosion while on a mission), the sense of loss was the same. Circumstances had made them as close as brothers—closer—and they were all feeling the absence of one of their own.
No one had said anything, but Robbie sensed that some of the others—Sutherland, MacKay, MacLean, and Lamont, who were closest to Seton—put some of the blame on him. Probably rightly so. But it didn’t change the fact that Seton had betrayed them.
“What if she’s not there?” Sutherland asked.
Robbie didn’t want to think about that. It was one (of many) of the weak points of his plan. There was every likelihood Clifford had put her on the first ship bound for London.
“She will be,” Robbie said with more certainty than he felt. “And if she’s not, I hope you have plenty of powder.”
Though not as experienced as Gordon had been with black powder, Sutherland had become proficient enough to provide distractions when the Guard needed them.
The newest member of the Highland Guard gave him a sharp glance. “Aye, though I’d rather not have to use it.”
“Me, too,” Robbie said dryly.
It was time to go.
“We’ll give you twenty-four hours, Raider,” MacLeod said. “If you aren’t out by vespers tomorrow night, we’re coming for you.”
Robbie nodded. He’d tried to talk them out of a rescue, but it was the condition upon which MacLeod had agreed.
MacRuairi, who’d had nearly as many problems with Seton as Robbie, gave him a hard look. “If you see Seton tell him to go to hell, before you stick one of his damned daggers in his back like he did to us.”
Robbie didn’t know what he would do if he came face-to-face with his former partner, but it wouldn’t be pretty. “I’ll pass on the message.”
He left the forest on foot and without his armor and weapons, hoping he would need them to fight his way out of here later.
Thirty minutes later, after he gave his name to the guard at the gate, Robbie’s trust in Rosalin was put to the test.