Ashblane's Lady

‘She struggled, Laird, and I had to—’

The man who had taken her from the cell got no further. A backhanded jab from Alexander Ullyot knocked him flat.

‘Replace him, Marcus.’

One of the men beside him nodded and Maddy felt heartened by the exchange, though Ullyot’s next words were not at all comforting.

‘You are a prisoner here, Lady Randwick. A hostage to make your brother see sense.’

‘He will not—’

‘Silence.’ The quiet order was more disconcerting than an outright shout. She noticed simultaneously the corded veins in his neck and the chips of dark silver in his eyes. She also saw the intricate crest that topped the gold ring on his little finger. The lion of Scotland! Danger spiralled into dizzying fear and she stumbled and would have fallen had he not come forward to steady her. His hand was cold and the hard shape of a dagger strapped in the fold of his sleeve unnerved her further. He felt the need to carry hidden weaponry even in the company of his own men and allies? What laws did he live by?

The answer came easily.

None.

Paling as the implications of her deduction hit her, she dug her nails into her arms to distract panic with pain, ceasing only when she caught him looking at the red crescents left on her skin.

Distaste crept into slate-cold eyes. ‘Why were ye there? In the dying fields?’

She blanched. Could he think her part of the battle? ‘I am a healer,’ she said, defiantly.

‘A healer, is it? Rumour says differently,’ Ullyot said with distaste. ‘Quinlan, take her back to the dungeon.’

‘No.’

‘No?’ A light of warmth had finally entered his eyes, though the effect in a face etched with none was unsettling. ‘You would question me?’ He stood so close now she could see the blond tips on his lashes. Long eyelashes and sooty at the base.

‘There are rats.’ The laughter of those around her made her jump and she fought to hide fear. The ill-tied plaid she was dressed in dropped below the line of the torn kirtle and she noticed keen eyes upon her breasts. Just another humiliation—she sighed and edged the warmer wool up with shaking arms.

‘Take her back.’

‘Please. If it’s money you are after I can pay you. Handsomely.’ Every man she had ever known had his price, although this one’s frown was not promising.

‘It’s flesh and blood I’m wanting from your brother, Lady Randwick. Gold canna’bring back those men that I have lost.’

‘So you mean to kill us?’

Before she could say more he placed one hand around the column of her throat and squeezed gently. ‘Unlike your brother, I do not kill women and children.’

She felt the breath leave her body in a sharp punch of relief, though a new worry threatened. She had seen what Noel did to the captives at Heathwater and rape could be as brutal as murder.

A living death.

And such harm could come from any number of these men present. Indeed, when she looked around the room she saw many eyes brush across her body as the Ullyot soldiers contemplated their share of the easy spoils of battle.

Summoning courage, she stood her ground as Alexander Ullyot’s eyes darkened, fathomless for ever, eyes drenched in the colder undertones of sorrow. Grief juxtaposed with fury. Grief for the man he had cradled and wept over. Madeleine was lost in what she saw.

‘I can help you.’ Her words came from nowhere and she felt him start as she laid her fingers across the heated skin of his hand. Grief was as much of an ailment as the ague or an aching stomach, and the healer in her sought a remedy.

‘I do not need your help.’ He snatched away his arm, angrier now than when she had first been brought into the room. ‘Take her away.’

The irritable bark of instruction was quickly obeyed as two men stepped forward, though as she looked back she saw that he still watched her. Framed against the light, the Ullyot laird looked like a man from legend: huge, ruthless and unyielding. But something else played in the very depths of his pale eyes. Something she had seen before many times on the faces of many men.

Interest. Lust. Desire.

She smiled as he was lost from sight and bent her thoughts to wondering as to how she could best use this to her own advantage.

‘What do ye think of her, Alex?’

Quinlan’s voice penetrated Alexander’s thoughts as he upended his glass. ‘Madeleine Randwick looks rather more like a dirty angel than the conniving heartless witch it is said that she is.’

‘She’s taller than I thought she would be.’

‘And a thousand times more beautiful, aye?’

Anger levelled him. ‘A pretty face can be as deceiving as a plain one, Quinlan.’

‘She was scared of the rats.’

‘Then get rid of them.’

‘The rats?’

‘Tomorrow we leave for Ashblane and we’ve not the time to waste transporting a sick woman. Put her in another room and post a guard at the door.’

He made himself stop. His left shoulder throbbed, the paste the physician had applied to the wound searing into the flesh. As he tried to lift his arm the breath caught in his throat, his heart pounding with the effort it had taken.

Ian. Dead.

Everything was changed. Diminished.

‘Damn Noel Falstone to hell,’ he whispered fiercely and walked to the window, trying to search out the dark shape of the Cheviots to the east and tensing as Adam Armstrong came to stand beside him.

‘I am sorry. I ken how close you and Ian were and—’

Alex held up his hand. Anger was far easier to deal with than sympathy and much more satisfying. ‘I should have ridden into Heathwater with the men I had left and flushed the bastard out. Ian would have done that for me were I to have been lying on the cold slab of your chapel with the salt upon my belly.’

‘And you’d have died doing it.’ Adam, as always, sought the calm logic of reason. ‘Nay, far better to wait and continue the fight on another day when the element of surprise is on your side and you are not so battle-wearied. Besides, you are wounded. At least let me see to your arm.’

‘No. Hale has already done so.’ Moving back, Alex brought his left arm into his body. He wanted no one close. No one to see what he could feel. The wound was not small and he was far from home. Tomorrow when they reached Ashblane there would be time enough. For the moment, here in the keep of the Armstrongs, he wanted control. Or at least the illusion of it, he amended, as a wave of dizziness sent him down to the chair beside the table.

‘Ian should’na have come with so few men.’

‘Why did he, then?’ Interest was plain in Adam’s voice and, pouring himself another draught of ale, Alex was pleased for the distraction. It gave him a moment to swallow and settle the nausea. When he felt steadier he began to speak, though the beat of his heart was constant in his ears, the normal tones of his speech masked by rushing blood.

‘Noel Falstone had burnt down cottages and taken womenfolk from a village west of Ashblane, and Ian left in fury before I had a chance to join him. If he had waited, we could have hit the bastard together.’