“I do not understand. Where are you taking me?”
Torchlight and swift moving shadows came out from the trees, and suddenly a troop of armed men surrounded them. A deep voice came from the midst of them. “He is taking you to me.”
23
Luck was with Lyall because de Hay had no clue he had changed his mind. The man had only heard the end of his conversation with Glenna. She stood before them in the dank hall at Kinnesswood Castle--the holding of one of de Hay’s men, Coll Frasyr, who was cousin to the king of Argyll and who Lyall had known through the tourneys and had, after Frasyr was awarded his own lands, once sought betrothal to Lyall's sister Mairi.
The thick candles guttered and smoked from mutton fat, and the wax spilled in long yellowish trails down the blackened walls to pool and congeal in the corners. Light from the torches and candle pricks flickered over high walls covered in sooty tapestries, and glinted off Glenna’s dark hair, shiny at the crown and falling into one long thick braid down her back. Her bedraggled peasant clothing was speckled with leaves and grass and her shoes were stained and crusted with dried mud. A mangy grey cat with half a tail threaded itself in and out of her legs, rubbing against her calves before it sat abruptly, scratching vigorously at its fleas and nits. Behind her, a couple of hunting hounds were busy gnawing on venison bones near a hearth that was stained with smoke and the rushes on the floor were old, infested, andsmelled of grease and neglect. From the condition of his household, one truth was clear: Frasyr still had not found himself a wife.
Lyall looked back to Glenna. He was acutely aware they were standing a short distance apart from each other and yet acting as if they were in different worlds: she was her father’s daughter to the bone and stood before a room filled with armed strangers looking misplaced in their midst; while he stood shoulder to shoulder with her father’s enemies, caught in the teeth of his own misdeeds.
De Hay studied Glenna for a long time before he said, “Interesting.” He moved closer and tilted her chin up so she had to look up at him.
To stand passively by and watch was not easy; he wanted to pull de Hay away from her.
“She has his look…without the fire. But one could expect little substance from a woman, even one with royal blood.” De Hay turned and stepped away, half-laughing. “Not that she looks like one.”
Glenna did not show any emotion, nor did her eyes appear to make contact with anyone in the room. After de Hay stepped away, she stared down at her clasped hands. Lyall could only admire her ability to not give an inch and to hide her feelings, something she never did with him.
What was she thinking now?
Did she long to stick a knife in his ribs?
Whatever was going on inside her head would only be inflamed as his father by marriage explained, rather cheerfully, her use as a pawn in the plot to overthrow her father.
“Woman!” de Hay barked. “I am speaking to you!”
She raised her face and looked past them all.
“Your father’s men sought to protect you, hiding you away for all these years. You are the eldest, I’m told,” de Hay said, casually.
Lyall caught Glenna’s blink, the only sign that she’d justreceived the news she was not the only child of the king. His own decision to not tell her the truth had more to do with ease of his mission than protecting her. And there was little that was true in what he had done. Why, he thought bitterly, muck up all the lies with one truth?
For days the feeling haunted him that his life had changed forever. Once again he tried to summon up some kind of protection from what he felt for her, a wall to erect between them—like he had done before--but something warm like pride washed over him as he watched her unflinching strength.
To deny what was between the two of them was no longer possible, a bond the seeds of which had been there from the moment he held a knife at her throat in that stable, a bond he would have never thought possible with anyone who was not his blood. Only his mother and Mairi touched him in the same intimate way. But unlike Glenna, they were safe from his treacheries.
The deed was done. His fate was set. Her fate was truly no longer his concern.
Then he watched her knuckles slowly turn white and felt a deep and abiding regret and worse…shame.
“Sutherland, Douglas, and Ramsey foolishly bet on the secrecy of your existence to remain a secret. Fortunately for us,” de Hay put his hand on Lyall’s shoulder. “ Roberston here wants Dunkeldon enough to give you over to us.” De Hay laughed with an ugliness that proved him to be an arrogant, manipulative bastard. “Some persuasion on my part, the bribe of the lands, and here you are.”
Glenna did not look at him, but stayed stoic.
“At one time there were rumors the queen was with child, but they were put to rest after her death,” de Hay continued. “Until a few months ago, no one knew of your existence, Glenna Canmore…or that of your sisters.”
For a mere heartbeat Lyall dropped his head back and silently cursed, but Glenna appeared calm as a rock when she looked at de Hay blankly. He could only imagine what it took forher to remain passive, given the Glenna he knew and what she’d just been told.
“I am no fool and have heard you speak, girl.” de Hay goaded. “You are not an idiot. Do not pretend to be one. Have you nothing to say?”
“Aye. I have something to say.”
Lyall almost winced, expecting her to fling de Hay’s words back in his face.
“I do not know my father anymore than I know you, sir.” She lowered her eyes. “I am but a woman raised simply to be nothing close to what I was born into.”
Lyall choked on his spittle and began to cough so long and hard that Frasyr thumped him on the back a few times.
