“Come! Come! I am Pater Bancho, the cellarer. Inside with you…the weather is foul.”
Montrose dismounted with Fergus, who looked better than she felt.
"Come," Pater Bancho repeated and waved them toward the open doors as one of the oblates took Skye’s reins and looked quizzically up at her with the sweet boyish features of an angel. He frowned, then cocked his head and stared at her.
Glenna smiled weakly, bent over to dismount and water poured off the wide brim of her hat and splattered onto his robes. Her hat slipped off; it fell forward before she could catch it and hit the ground. Her long braid tumbled out and hung down past her stirrup.
Montrose spun on his heel. With the light behind him she could not see his face, but she could only imagine the scowling look he wore and the vile curses that were going through his mind. Her disguise was lost.
The boy looked at her hair, then back to her face, apparently shocked at the realization she was a not a boy, and he gasped, “Milady?”
At that very moment, she did not give a fig. She slid down from the saddle, only to hit ground with a splash and have her knees start to give way. She reached out and gripped the saddle strap, and Montrose grabbed her by a fistful of her sodden clothes and kept her from hitting the ground.
Had she done so, surely she would have shamed herself and lain there broken and wet and burst into hysterical sobbing.
He leaned over and asked quietly, “Can you walk inside?”
“You may release my clothing, my lord,” she said stiffly and pulled her shoulder away, knowing she spoke with false pride. She then ruined the entire effect of her words when she swayed and the warm golden light before her grew hazy and dark at the edges of her vision. “Oh no…” She raised her hand to her spinning head
He muttered something she couldn’t quite comprehend and swept her up into his arms as if she were made of nothing but goose feathers.
“I am able to walk,” she said, though her arms linked around his neck then her body melted into his warmth. “Iam,” she insisted weakly, unable to stop the words because some small part of her needed to resist him at every turn.
“I’m sure you are able to try to walk,” he said calmly. “And I will have to hold you up by the scruff of your clothing while you try so proudly to do so. Do you believe if you enter through that doorway in such a manner that your pride will stay unimpaired?”
Bugger! He made a good point, and she was too tired and cold to find the will or desire to argue with him over it. As Montrose carried her inside, she was vaguely aware that the old monk was rushing alongside. “Fergus!” she called out, worried about him and panicked he had been left behind. She hated that she sounded so pitiful.
“He is here. Do not fret. Come dog,” Montrose said his voice sounding strangely thick.
“What is this, my lord?” the monk asked. “Is she ill?”
“My wife is exhausted,” Montrose said. A half lie and a half truth. “We have traveled from Marram.”
“Across all of Ross-shire in a single day? “
Montrose was scowling.
“You made her ride this far? In the storm?” Pater Bancho’stone said exactly what he thought…that Montrose was mad and cruel to attempt such a distance with a woman in tow.
Glenna cared not what either of them thought. She was sorely tired and her teeth would not stop chattering, although his big body was so close and warm. She wanted to crawl inside him.
The monk seemed to recover himself. “Quickly, my lord. Follow me…to the warming room.”
With a huge effort she cracked open her eyes, because it felt almost as if Montrose was running. Images of the walls sped past her, iron candle pricks and flickering candles that seemed to cast dizzying shadows along the hall. He was running…fancy that, following the old monk who then opened a wide, creaking oak door and stepped aside, and she felt a thankful blast of warm air. She couldn’t hear the groan of relief that gave her weaknesses away.
“Here. Come in,” the old monk said. “There is the fire and more wood. In the corner are pallets for travelers. I will bring blankets and towels to dry yourselves before I go to the kitchen and fetch some food. Water is in the barrel in the corner. The kettle to warm it is near the hearth. ‘Tis late here, my lord, well past Compline, and most have retired to their dorter and cells. I am on watch tonight.”
“I had not planned to arrive this late,” Montrose said in his deep voice, which sounded leagues away from her.
She was so very tired, yet the thought hit her that if he had not planned to arrive so late, that meant he had actually wanted to travel even more swiftly? She was too tired to voluntarily shudder, and her body seemed to be ready to shudder all on its own.
Luckily for him she was also too cold to speak or to argue or create some more havoc for him. The warmth in the dry room was so wonderful that she checked Fergus, lying by the fire, then closed her eyes, feeling the powerful edges of sleep come over her. There was no saddle to fall from. There was nolonger the fear she would break her neck. There was no man riding in front of her as if his life depended upon staying on course. She needn’t have to prove she was strong and could keep up…so she stopped fighting and let sweet, deep sleep take her away.
Lyall threw morewood on the fire, which flared and sparked, and the heat from it soon increased three-fold. He crossed over to where he had laid Glenna down, his boots squelching from the rain. She was sound asleep, yet still her teeth were slightly chattering, her lips discolored and grayish. Her skin that had been so flushed with pleasure earlier that day, looked almost dead with cold, and she lay curled in a protective ball, knees drawn up, as if she were trying to seek heat from her own body.
Calling himself every vile name he could conjure up, he dragged the pallet close to the hearth and unpinned her sodden cloak, removed her wet tunic and trouse. Her clothing was so wet it made puddles on the stone floor Her skin was blue, and he had to fight her arms—she kept hugging herself. So he peeled her arms away again and again, and he could not help but notice that her breasts--right there before his eyes--lay small and tight. Even the tips of them were bluish.
It was not desire that drove him now. ‘Twas panic. He realized what he had done to her, again, he thought bitterly. All of his trespasses against her were in a single day.
