When Winter awoke after sleeping most of the next day, she found that Martin was not in bed. “Martin?” she asked, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. The shutter was open a crack and a cold breeze blew into the room. Jumping out of bed, she ran and closed the shutter, then walked over to warm her body at the fire in the hearth.
“I’m in here,” she heard his muffled voice call out from inside his secret room. Seeing a cloak hanging from a hook, she hurried over and wrapped it around her naked body, making her way to her husband.
When she walked into the secret room, she saw Martin, fully dressed, leaning over the clock. His hands fumbled with the gears inside. A candle lit up the room, throwing shadows against the wall.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m just trying to figure out how to make this work.” He pulled out a metal plate and held it up in the air. “I think this is just too small. And the wheel needs a few of the teeth ground down. Then, mayhap it’ll work as planned.”
“Let me see that.” Winter held out her hand, surveying the piece he’d given her. “How much larger does it need to be?”
“Not much. See. It should fit right here.”
She leaned over and looked inside the clock and then back to the piece in her hand. “I can heat this in the forge and hammer it out to make it larger in a matter of minutes. I can also grind down a few of the teeth on the wheel. Do you think that will fix the problem?”
“Yes, I think so,” he told her. “That would be wonderful if you could do that.”
“After forging your sword, this will seem easy.” She sat down on a stool next to him. “Will you tell me what happened with your father now?”
“What do you mean?” He kept his attention on the clock, making her feel that he didn’t want to talk about this.
“I know this is hard for you, but I’m your wife now and need to know.”
He sighed and put down his tools. “I suppose I owe you that. What exactly do you want to know?”
“Tell me what happened between your mother and father.”
“It was a few years ago,” said Martin, looking down at the table, fidgeting with some pieces of the clock as he spoke. “My father was in the practice yard with my youngest brother, Albert.” He stopped, his eyes tearing up as he reminisced about that day.
“Go on,” she coaxed him, putting her hand over his. “I’m here for you. Please, tell me.”
He nodded and continued. “It had rained, and the field was wet and slippery. My mother told my father to wait until the practice yard was dry but he didn’t listen. He was anxious to show Albert a new move with the sword.” He looked up and met her eyes. “My father was once very skilled with the sword. He is the one who taught me to fight.”
“Yes, I’m sure he was,” she said, trying to coax him to tell her more of the story.
“However, Albert wasn’t good with a sword at all. He didn’t like fighting and had told my father just the day before that he wanted to be a monk.”
“I don’t suppose your father liked that,” she said, understanding.
“Nay. Not at all. That made my father even more adamant to teach him how to fight. He wanted strong sons – strong warriors. I’m the eldest and have always had an interest in weapons and fighting. I learned fast and Father was very proud of me.”
“You have another brother, too, don’t you?” she asked.
“Aye.” He dragged a hand through his hair and a shadow darkened his face. “Jamesson was captured during a skirmish and taken prisoner a few months ago. I have two sisters, also. But getting back to the story, my father’s foot slipped in the mud that day, causing him to fall into my brother. His sword went right through Albert’s heart, killing him instantly. Albert wasn’t skilled enough to protect himself. It was all an accident, but my mother blamed my father and said she wanted nothing to do with him ever again.”
“Oh, how sad,” she said, her heart going out to his family. “Where did she go?”
“After my mother and father fought, she decided to leave with my sisters, Juliana and Susanna. She wanted to take her sons as well, but my father wouldn’t hear of it. I am his heir to the castle and Jamesson will inherit should I die as well as my father. It wasn’t feasible for us to go, so we stayed with our father.”
“Then what happened?”
“I don’t know for sure, but we got word from a messenger that she had the marriage annulled, saying my father was mad. She married a French baron who always had his eye on her, but my father keeps insisting she is going to return.”
“Do you think she will return to your father and Castle Heaton?” asked Winter.
“Nay. She’s already had the marriage annulled and is married to someone else. She’s not coming back and neither are my sisters.”
“Have you tried to contact her at all over the years?”
“We were told in another missive that if any of us tried to contact her or my sisters, there would be war between the French and us. As much as I wanted to talk to my mother and sisters again, I respected my mother’s wishes and never contacted her. My father, on the other hand, went mad, just like my mother accused him of being. Sometimes he seems no different than the father I once knew, but other times he seems so addled that I don’t even know him.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, rubbing her hand over his in comfort. “I know how hard this must be for you.”
“What about your family, Winter? I feel as if I don’t know much about you at all.”
“There isn’t much to tell.”
“You said your parents were separated and now they are back together.”
“Yes. It happened when I was a child. It was during Burnt Candlemas. It was also the night my brothers, Rowen, Rook, and Reed found out their birth mother was a mistress to King Edward and that she died birthing them. You see, they thought my mother, Annalyse, was their mother. She was the twin to their mother, Gabrielle.”
“And they thought your father was their father. I see.”
“Yes. They had no idea Ross Douglas only married my mother to help raise the boys after Gabrielle’s death.”
“Ross Douglas?” His head snapped upward.
“Yes, that is my father’s name.”
“Then you really are a – a Scot.”
“Half Scottish,” she said with a nod, feeling something was upsetting him. “My father told my brothers the truth about who they were the night of Burnt Candlemas. My brothers vowed vengeance against Edward and left. My mother was so upset that my father didn’t go after them, that she gathered up my sisters, Summer, Autumn and me and took us back to England to live. My sister, Spring, was stolen as a baby and raised by the Gunn Clan. We just recently found her.”
“Really.” His eyes opened wide. “That is some story.”
“It wasn’t until recently that my father came to England and made amends with my mother. Now they are back together and very happy living in the Lowlands of Scotland.”
“God’s eyes, I didn’t know you had family in the Lowlands. I thought you were English – or at least I wanted to believe that you were.” He stood up, seeming very antsy.
“What’s the matter, Martin?”
He shook his head as if he were shaking away an ill thought. “I’m just anxious to save my brother, Jamesson. I should never have waited this long.”
They were interrupted by loud knocking on the door before Winter had the chance to ask him who captured his brother.
“My lord, come quickly,” came Rock’s voice from the other side of the locked door.
Martin ran from the room, ripping open the door. “What is it? Has something happened?”
Winter held her cloak closed, following him to the door.
“Aye,” said Rock, sounding out of breath. “The prisoner has escaped.”
“Escaped?” Martin yelled, pacing the floor now. “How the hell did that happen?”
“I set him free,” said Victoria, appearing in the corridor next to Rock.
“I ought to kill you where you stand!” said Martin, his face turning bright red. Winter could tell he fought hard to hold back his anger. His hands balled up into fists at his sides.
“I sneaked to the dungeon when the guard wasn’t at his post and let the poor man free,” she answered snidely. “I figured no one needed to be a prisoner, not even him.”
“You fool!” spat Martin. “You have no idea what you’ve done. You’ve just sentenced my brother to death.”
“I did nothing of the sort,” Victoria answered, not at all seeming upset by her action.
“Get out of my castle and out of my sight, Victoria, or I will kill you with my bare hands, I swear I will.”
Victoria’s eyes opened wide in fear. She turned and ran down the corridor without looking back.
“Rock, get my chain mail and armor and meet me in the courtyard,” commanded Martin. “We have no choice now but to fight.” He hurried over and strapped on his weapon belt, then lifted his new sword in the air. “Thank goodness you finished this, Lady Winter, because it is what I’m going to use to kill every last one of Clan Dunbar if I have to, in order to bring my brother home safely.”
His words shocked Winter. “The Scots are the ones holding your brother?” she asked, never having suspected this.
“Aye,” he snarled, his upper lip curling in the process. “I hate the bloody Scots.”
“I’m a Scot!” she shouted, horrified to see this side of Martin rising to the surface. “You can’t attack them, Martin. Please. Clan Dunbar has been friends and an alliance of my father’s clan for many years.”
“Well, they are no friends of mine. I have no choice, Winter. Now that I’ve lost my leverage, Laird Dunbar has nothing to stop him from killing my brother. My only chance to bring Jamesson home safely is to get to Laird Dunbar first and kill him before he can kill my brother.”
“I can’t believe you are talking like this!” Appalled by what she was hearing, she felt like she didn’t know her new husband after all. “Can’t you make peace instead of war with Clan Dunbar? Do something to make an alliance.”
“I don’t want an alliance with Clan Dunbar,” he said, his jaw clenching as he spoke. “I don’t want anything to do with the bloody Scots at all.”
“It’s too late,” she told him, feeling her anger rising to the surface. “You married me, so you already have something to do with the Scots. Had I known you wanted that sword to kill a Scot, I never would have made it for you at all!”