Ashblane's Lady

Alex cut him off. ‘They’re not. Leave it at that, aye?’

‘I would, save Geordie is on guard duty tonight.’

Swearing, Alexander reached for his dagger on the chair, tucking it into the belt at his waist with difficulty. ‘And his son is laid out on a slab in the chapel. Ye dinna think it wise to change the watch, then?’

Quinlan shrugged in resignation. ‘He’s as close to the edge as I’ve seen him. To insult him further…’

He didn’t finish as Alex Ullyot led the way out of the Great Hall, his shadow lying uneasily against stone as they made their passage to the dungeons below.

The cell was quiet save for the night-time wind that howled around the corners of the draughty passageways. Madeleine Randwick had hooked herself around the scrawny body of the boy she had been brought in with. An uncomfortable position, Alexander reflected, given the space between them. He noticed how her hands were taut white with the effort of stretching so far left.

‘Get up.’ He strode in as soon as the locks were freed and pulled her to her feet, ripping the plaid off her in one quick movement and turning her around to the light to find the scar of which Quinlan had spoken. A dainty cross of gold surprised him and he fingered it briefly before turning his mind back to the scar. ‘Who marked you so?’

Maddy was stiff with shock. ‘Liam Williamson, the Earl of Harrington.’

‘You are his?’

‘Yes.’ Her heart beat fast in her chest and her mouth was dry. She saw the knife in his hand before she felt it and looking down, saw that her breast ran with the blood of a shallow cut. The red of her blood stained his hands as he drew away.

‘Under the spoils of battle I relinquish his claim. Untie her, Quinlan, and bring her to the chamber off the solar.’

‘You mean to—?’

‘Now.’ He said the word through his teeth and the soldiers in the cell all hurried to obey him. She felt their rough hands take liberties and knew that the Laird had seen it, too. This time he offered no retribution.

A large bed dominated the room they repaired to and it was on this the soldiers placed her. She noticed them fan out across the room as if they meant to stay through the deed, though the one named Quinlan was clearly agitated.

‘She is a Lady, Alex.’

‘She is Harrington’s whore.’

‘No, I’m not—’ A hand clamped across her mouth.

‘Speak again and I will kill you.’ He released her only as she nodded. The blood at her breast made her faint, made her shake, made her sick to her stomach and she retched across the floor the contents of a frugal meal from the morning.

Now she would die. Looking up, she blotted the spittle with the borrowed arisaid and waited for retribution. Kill her or ravish her. It was all the same—if this Laird did not do the deed, then Liam Williamson surely would before too much time had passed.

She was sick of caring, sick of worrying, sick of the effort it took to live into another day and the absolute absence of any viable alternative. ‘End it here,’ she thought and stood, challenging him, before the rush of unbalance took her and she crumpled on to the floor of the raised dais.

Alex swore as the redness of her hair spilled across his boots, the white sheen of her body dappled now with blood and bruises. She was young and thin and strangely vulnerable, this Madeleine Randwick. Bending, he touched the fiery tumble of her silken curls. In unconsciousness her fear had been wiped away and moulded into something else entirely, the gentle line of her throat running up to a face that was unexpected.

He turned, his stomach no longer in this public ravishment. ‘Settle her into a bedchamber upstairs and bring the young page to her,’ he ordered, his eyes flicking to the wound he had inflicted on her breast. He suddenly wanted to cover it, but knew that to do so would invite comment. Stripping a flare from the wall, he made for the door, dismissing the sentries with a sharp order and glad that he could trust Quinlan’s honour to make certain that the Lady of Heathwater stayed safe.

Madeleine woke in a bed, the feather-tick covers pulled up over her, and Jemmie beside her in a makeshift cot on the floor. Reaching her hand across the space, she was relieved when the blankets stirred. Jemmie was alive and unhurt. That was all that mattered. Outside it was dark; she could see a quarter moon through the clouds between the ill-fitting shutters.

‘Are you hurt badly, Maddy?’

‘Only a little.’ Sitting up, she pulled at her plaid to reveal the cut Ullyot had marked her with. It still oozed slightly, though a skin had formed across the edges of the wound. Spitting into the palm of her hand, she rubbed the mark briskly and swallowed back tears.

‘It feels better already, and, if Ullyot has not killed us by now, I doubt that he means to.’

‘But the mark. He will take you—’

She cut off the worry. ‘He will take me as a mistress, mark or no mark, Jemmie. It’s the least of our problems.’ Rising from the bed, she went to the window, pulling back the shutter and opening it carefully. Three storeys from the ground and no foothole to allow leverage. The Laird was taking no chances. She knew the door would have a guard standing watch.

‘We have a knife and a gold crown.’ She pulled both objects from a hidden pocket sewn deep inside her petticoats, putting her herbal powders that were also hidden there aside. ‘It may be enough.’

‘To escape?’

‘Nay, to send a message.’

‘To whom?’

‘To Goult. If we could get away from here and ride west towards Annan—’

Jemmie interrupted her. ‘No, nothing is safe.’ As the words stopped, Madeleine noticed the thin band of sweat across her sister’s brow. Could she be sickening from the cold night on the floor already, or was this a sign of being as frightened by the Laird of Ullyot as she herself was?

Her heart raced in fear. The Laird of Ullyot was not at all as other men—she had seen the auras that surrounded him the moment he had turned towards her. Silver and black. Eleanor had always warned her of such a mix; years ago she had come across her mother in the stables with her gowns around her thighs and entwined in the arms of a stranger who had breathed silver.

Silver and black. And something else, too. Something unspoken and forbidden. Something primal and reckless.

Shaking her head, she pocketed the dagger and the coin and began to think how she could turn this adversity to her own advantage.

‘We will watch for our chance to escape; when it does come, we will make for France.’ Covering her hands with the folds of her skirt, she was glad Jemmie could not see the whitened knuckles of her clenched fist. Glad she could not know the other thoughts that rushed around inside her head and had her rigid with panic.

‘And we will be together, Maddy?’

The voice was shaky and years of her own fears allowed Madeleine to easily see fright in others.

‘We will always be together, Jemmie, I promise. But now you must sleep, for it will be a long march on the morrow.’

She watched as the blankets shifted and then stilled before turning her eyes to the light beneath the door and sitting up. If they came, she would be ready, and the knife in her hand was honed sharp.

The Laird of Ullyot came to her room just as the pinkness of dawn blushed the eastern sky, his surprise at finding her awake masked quickly.

‘I would speak with you, Lady Randwick, and without your page. My men will take him.’

Jemmie stood uncertainly, movements clumsy with sleep, and Maddy felt her stomach lurch in fright. ‘Where will you take him?’ She tried to temper her desperation.

‘To the room next door. We will return him to you later.’

Her eyes went to the two guards. How dependable did they look? She was thankful to notice one was an old man with kindness stamped in his eyes.

‘I will be safe, Jemmie. Go with the men.’

‘But I think—’

Maddy shook her head as Jemmie began to speak, but the gesture did not seem to sway any intent as a bony chin went up and thinly covered shoulders straightened. ‘Will you give me your word, Laird Ullyot, that you will not hurt her?’