Chapter Five
The journey had been neither short nor pleasant. The farther they made their way north, the colder the chill became within the carriage. Diana had been grateful for the company of her wolves, who huddled close and shared their great warmth.
Evander had kept his promise to Diana and had remained with his men outside the carriage. There had been only a few exchanges with him, when he brought food and water for her and her wolves, and when he took them all out for a brief respite.
He always approached her cautiously, as if she were an animal liable to frighten away.
The land outside Diana’s window had changed with the temperature, going from the refined beauty of England to something large and wild. The skies held a gray pallor and the dots of snow gave way to larger patches with pools of muddy ice. Perhaps she ought not to like the gloomy weather so much, but it matched the mood which had settled damp and cold within her heart.
The coach came to a halt and Diana pulled back the curtain over her one window. Several heavily bundled people strode on the muddy grass alongside the path, one man’s skinny legs jutted out like twigs from beneath his kilt.
Zeus shook his head and pawed at the wooden floor. Diana ran a hand through his thick fur. “You’ll get to run soon. Have patience.”
He fixed his gaze on the door as if in understanding. She knew he was desperate to tear free of their narrow confines. Ironic that after having spent those previous six months eager to escape the tower, she had been content to remain in the box of a carriage.
But in the tower, there had been hope.
Several minutes ticked by, but the door did not open. Hera’s long, low whine needled the air and Zeus gave a grumble of impatience.
“A moment more.” Diana peered out the window to determine their delay.
Evander was bent over the semi-frozen soil with a spade in his hand.
Indignation flashed through Diana. He would have them wait while he dug a bloody hole?
With a hiss of irritation, she snapped open the door. Zeus shot out in a streak of black lightning while Hera dropped from the coach, gingerly favoring her right paw, which had begun to heal over the many days spent on the road.
Shouts erupted from the Highlanders and they tore after Zeus. A man with shoulder-length blond hair approached her, his hand out to gently motion her back. His body blocked where Evander stood. “Lady Diana, get back inside. We’ll mind yer wolves and ask that ye just wait a—”
“Mind my wolves?” Diana snorted a laugh and continued forward. “They won’t kill your people, don’t worry. They’re hardly bloodthirsty.”
The man braced himself with a wide-legged stance in her path. “It’s no’ to protect others from them, but to protect them from others.”
Diana finally looked for the first time at the man’s earnest expression. He was younger than she’d first assumed, his face lined only with crinkles at the corners of his bright blue eyes.
“Please, Lady Diana.” He motioned behind her once more. “Get back inside.”
She considered him a moment. “No.” She pushed past him in a move she knew he had not anticipated and strode to where Evander stood shin deep in a hole of torn earth.
The man called after her, but she ignored him. “What are you doing?” she demanded. “And why would you not let me out of the coach as I waited for you to…to…”
A long, thin bundle of cloth lay in the shallow hole. A small, wrapped body with a skeletal face exposed.
“I hadna wanted ye to see this,” Evander said softly.
“This.” She repeated the word on a shuddered exhale. “What is ‘this?’ Is it a…a…child?”
“She’s my wife.” A masculine voice sounded behind her.
Diana spun around and found the man with twig legs standing with a plaid-wrapped form at his side. His face was as gaunt as that of the dead woman, his eyes large and haunted in his too thin face. He blinked his luminous eyes rapidly, but tears melted from the corners regardless. “She was giving her food to the lad. I dinna know she’d been doing it. She…” He swallowed. “She was too weak to go on.” His voice caught and pulled at Diana’s heart.
A slight green color tinged his lips.
“I don’t understand,” Diana whispered. “You don’t have enough food?”
The bundled form beside the man turned and a tiny, childlike living skeleton looked up at her with a bewildered gaze. “No one in Scotland does, lady.” His small teeth were green, like his father’s lips.
Diana staggered backward to the carriage and grabbed the velvet bag containing the food Evander had provided her that morning. She hadn’t touched it. Not when she’d been too ensconced in her inner turmoil to notice her empty stomach. The food was wasted on her.
So much food had been wasted on her. Plates of it molding on the floor during her hunger strikes to prove a point to her father, bowls of it spattered the walls, thrown in tantrum, bags of it hardening and growing stale at her side in the coach. And people were dying for want of it.
God, how selfish she’d been.
She ran back to the people with the bag extended, her hands shaking. “Please. Take this.”
The man’s nostrils flared and she knew he could smell the savory beef and cheese within as surely as any hound on a hunt. His eyes became impossibly wide in his face. “My lady?” He looked around at the Mackenzie men.
He and his son were clearly starving, and yet he did not reach for the food.
“Take it.” She pushed it toward him, accidentally hitting his thin chest.
He knocked back several steps and clutched the bag as if she’d given him all the gold in the land.
“Mind ye eat it slow.” Evander appeared at her side. “Bites at a time, aye? Otherwise ye’ll get sick and lose it all.”
The man curled his arms around the bag, glanced at his wife’s dead form, made the sign of a cross, and scuttled off with his son in tow. Neither one of them cried again for the woman who had died sacrificing for her own child.
Diana watched them leave, her heart throbbing with a new ache. Dazed, she turned her stare to Evander. A smear of dirt lined his brow, as if he’d wiped at sweat and replaced it with the filth of his labor. “What is happening in Scotland?” she asked in a trembling voice.
“Dinna ye know?” His green eyes met hers, as sorrowful as they’d been when he regarded her after she realized her father had abandoned her. “The winters are too long. The crops canna grow. The lad was right – no one in Scotland has enough food. Everyone is starving.”
“That’s why you need my dowry,” she surmised. “That’s why you went to such lengths to capture me.”
He nodded. “Please get in the carriage. The men will return soon with Hera and Zeus, and we will continue.” He glanced to the distance over her shoulder where the path lay ahead. “It willna be more than two days before we finally arrive. We’re almost home.”
He smiled at her, but it did not reach his eyes. What smile could after what they’d witnessed? When the grisly task of burying a mother still awaited him?
Home.
The word chilled her as sure as the merciless wind. Scotland would never be her home.
She had no home.
There had been several more stops along the way to the castle. On those occasions, Evander noticed Diana did not emerge from the carriage again. Apparently one such viewing was all she needed.
It was terrible work burying the dead – all the corpses so slight of weight they might as well be small animals rather than humans. But it was God’s work. Sending the spirits into Heaven before the fairies could claim them.
It was on the bleakest day after having to stop three times, when the wind blew harder than it had in the weeks they’d traveled and the sky was black with storms, it was then he caught the outline of Castle Leod rising in the distance. A beacon of everything warm and comforting and right in his life.
But his life was not right, and he was more keenly aware of it than any one person could be. When his father had been alive, the clan had been safe, well-fed. In this time of great need, the Mackenzies had stuck by Evander’s side, relying on him to see them cared for. Despite his own meager meals and his own sacrifices, he had lost twenty-three souls to the ravages of hunger. Twenty-three souls that would forever score his soul, including that of his own dear Emilia.
He climbed the final hill toward his home and hoped the number had not grown in his absence.
The servants awaited him in the courtyard, their cheeks red and shining with the same quiet pride with which they’d held for his father. Evander did not deserve such appreciation.
The traveling party of warriors slowly drew to a stop. Immediately the kitchen staff saw to the cart drawn behind the carriage, removing the stacks of furniture placed upon the bounty within to give the impression of being nothing worth stealing, to hide the stores of grain hidden within.
Evander approached Diana’s coach and opened the door. His people’s stares crept over his back, but he blocked their view of his intended bride and addressed the woman inside.
“I know ye dinna want to be here,” he said. “And I wouldna even try to attempt to command it of ye, but I ask that ye keep in mind that these are good people. Despite the many hardships they’ve faced, they only want to see ye have a good life.”
Diana watched him silently with her unusual blue eyes for so long, he worried she’d not understood him somehow. Finally, a smirk lifted her lips. “At least you know better than to try to order me.”
With that, he pulled open the door to the carriage and waited for his betrothed to exit. She did not disappoint. She made her appearance like a queen stepping from a gilded vessel, her wolves at her side, beasts tamed by the ethereal beauty of the woman they loved. Hera’s limp was almost imperceptible, and Zeus slowed his pace to match that of Diana’s, his golden gaze almost amenable.
The Mackenzies erupted into cheers and parted to allow Evander and Diana entry into Castle Leod. The sweet scent of clean rushes and herbs hit him with the solid brace of familiarity and home. They had been an extravagance, a worthy one, to impress their new mistress. Even though she was English, their marriage meant food, and that made her welcome.
An excited yapping caught his attention and a puff of brown fur bounded in his direction.
He grinned wide and bent to retrieve the wriggling mass of warmth. Immediately, a small pink tongue darted at his face in eager delight to welcome him home. He turned his head in an attempt to keep his mouth from the dog’s frantic affection. “I missed ye too, Kitzi.”
He maneuvered his chin over the dog’s head and planted a kiss to the top of her silky head. Kitzi’s tail wagged with such exuberance, she almost knocked her body from his grasp. He laughed and looked up at Diana to find her watching him with a bewildered expression on her face. Zeus and Hera stared at wee Kitzi in equal confusion.
“What is that?” Diana asked, eyeing Kitzi.
“Kitzi.” Evander set the dog on the ground, where she immediately squirmed away and raced over to the wolves.
Zeus lowered his head and glowered at the dog, who flicked an excited lick on his nose before prancing over to Hera. The large black wolf yanked his head back and stared at Kitzi as if he didn’t know what to make of her.
“Is she a cat?” Diana asked, continuing to watch as Kitzi spun around Hera with interest before darting off to yip her way into another room.
Evander chuckled after the dog and shook his head. “A dog. She was the runt of a litter of pups we found in a glen, such a wee thing we dinna think she’d live. Obviously she recovered well enough.” He nodded in the direction of the hall. “Come. I’ll show ye to yer room.”
Diana glanced around them in a not-so-discreet manner, taking in the rich furnishings and the staff who were not-so-discreetly studying her as well. She nodded mutely and allowed Evander to lead her upstairs.
He took his time walking through his home, letting her take it all in. After having been in a tower for several months and then locked in a coach for the last two weeks, and now in a new place, no matter how much bravado she put forth, he knew it must be disconcerting.
He opened the door to the large room where she would stay, the one adjoining his. She slid him a wary look from the corner of her eye and entered. The wolves followed her, their tails lowered, and together the three of them stood awkwardly at the center.
Evander tried to see his home from her perspective: the large bed with plaid and furs laid atop it, the wooden wardrobe and tables, the leather chairs set before the large hearth. It was not as fine as the home Lord Cornwall kept, but it was clean and well-maintained.
“Is this where I’m to be kept?” Diana asked with a defiant lift to her chin.
“Kept?” Evander shook his head. “Ye’re no’ to be kept anywhere. This is where ye sleep. Ye can go anywhere in the castle.”
She narrowed her eyes at him with apparent skepticism. “But I’m to stay inside?”
“Ye can go out if ye wish.” Evander strode across the room to a large window overlooking the snow-dotted green beauty of his land. An image flashed in his mind of Emilia on the ground, the white of her dress soaked red with blood. She’d been so small in his arms, her green eyes, the same as their father’s, staring up at the sky as if seeing herself rise into heaven.
Evander’s throat tightened, but he swallowed down the welling of emotion. “Take the guards if ye go out. It’s no’ safe in Scotland for a lass to be out alone.”
“I can handle myself.”
Evander balled his hands into a fist and pushed them into the hard stone windowsill. Emilia had imagined herself being strong enough to fend off attacks. She’d been a lass of only nine, but she’d fought like a warrior.
Evander turned back to Diana, wishing he could so easily turn from his memories. “Aye, I know ye can defend yerself against most. But the people are desperate for food, and desperate people are dangerous. They’d be willing to get their throat torn out for a chance to eat one of yer wolves.”
Diana’s hands immediately went to the head of each of her pets. “That’s ridiculous.”
Emilia had been as protective. If the blade hadn’t sunk into her heart, she would have kept fighting. “It isna ridiculous, I assure ye.” Evander’s tone came out gruff. The knot had returned to his throat. He wanted to be done with this conversation, to move away from the gaping hurt Emilia’s loss had left behind. “Take a guard with ye if ye go out.”
Her gaze lowered in thought. “Why were their mouths green?”
“Whose?”
Two men entered the room, easily carrying the chest of clothing and personal items the earl had sent for his daughter.
Diana paid them no attention. “The boy and his dad we saw on the road. The ones I gave my food to.” She circled her own lush lips with her finger. “Their mouths were green.”
Evander lowered his head at the mention of the two. Even if the food had been spread over several days as he’d suggested, the two would most likely not survive until summer. Not with the cold spring they’d been having. Again.
“Grass,” Evander said somberly, lifting his head.
“They were eating grass?” Diana asked in an incredulous tone. “Does that fill them?”
Evander shook his head. “It makes them sick and eventually kills them. They’re just hungry enough to try.” He nodded to her wolves. “Please take the guards if ye leave the castle.”
“And how do you know I won’t just leave and not come back, that I won’t run away?” She walked confidently to another window, her wolves in tow. “Aren’t you going to lock me up before the wedding?”
He strode over to her, keeping his eyes locked on her. She held her ground and met his stare. Light streamed in from outside and fell over her flawless skin and wild golden waves. Her lips were set in a defiant smirk, pink and tempting. God, but she was beautiful.
“Because we’ll be wed tonight,” he said.
She was taller than most women, but still a head shorter than him. Perfect for pulling into his arms. His gaze flicked to her lips. Perfect for kissing.
Her pupils shrank in her light blue eyes. “Tonight?” She drew away from him. “You intend for us to be wed tonight?” She shook her head. “No.”
“We need to do this immediately.”
She frowned. “So you can get your money, for stealing me from my home and liberating my father of me.”
“Because the sooner I get the money, the sooner we can help feed over six hundred people and keep any more from dying.” Unable to help himself, he reached for her. “I canna force ye. I dinna want to. But please think on this. My clan is starving, and all that stands in the way of their food is a vow between us.”
She looked down at where his hand gently brushed hers. “You can be very convincing with how you word things.” She glanced up coyly. “But you knew that, didn’t you?”
Evander kept his expression blank.
Diana sighed and pulled her hand away from his. His skin still burned from her touch. “Very well,” she said. “For the sake of six hundred souls, I will agree to marry you tonight.”