“’Tis no fault of yers, my lady.” He nearly called her ‘lass’.
“The king suggested ye bed me, to see if it may help.”
Tearloch was taken aback. She had stated it so evenly, as if she wouldn’t mind following the king’s advice. He was just as shocked that the king would have suggested itto his own sister!
“Mayhap if ye kiss me, even, ye can see I willna be a cold fish in our marriage bed.” She rose and turned to Tearloch. Her hands fidgeted in front of her, but she showed no other signs of fear.
Either she was no virgin, or she had not found him lacking when she looked him over at table the night before.
“As you will, Milady. I shall try a kiss, but it willnae do us any good.” He started toward her and she met him halfway. He meant to bend to her slowly, to give her a chance to reconsider, but she grabbed his head and pulled him to her for a feverish kiss.
Was he so irresistible? With the fresh memory of a defiant lover in his arms, he had forgotten how women had flirted outright with him here at court. He was a well-made man, after all. His features were by no means repellant. And his betrothed did seem enthusiastic. Perhaps too enthusiastic.
He pulled her arms from his neck and held her away from him to take a close look. She was pretty, but she looked older than her twenty-six years. Then he realized the way she was breathing and licking her lips at him, this was no untried lass he was ordered to marry.
“Call for the guard, my lady. We have our answer.”
With a not so pretty pout, she went to the door and called the guard. Tearloch wondered if his king had seen her in a foul humor as yet.
After Malcolm was informedthat his experiment was unsuccessful, he begrudgingly allowed Tearloch to join him for dinner.
Tearloch waved the servants away and kept his voice low, since the brooding princess was seated at the far end of their long table. “Have ye never seen yer sister’s foul humor?”
“Nay, no’ until today. I will concede it wasnae pleasant. She acted quite the spoiled child. Not at all as I remember her.” Malcolm sent a smile the woman’s way, but she didn’t notice. Her attention was bent to her plate.
Tearloch relished his meal as well, relieved that Malcolm was beginning to see the futility of his attempts to marry the woman off to him. Tearloch also knew how disappointed the king would be if he met Fia and decided to make her his bride. His disappointment would come when Tearloch put a dagger in his heart.
The king’s appetite showed he was thinking just that—about the woman and the dagger it might earn him.
A movement at the other end of the table caught Tearloch’s eye. A small blonde maid hovered near the princess, and what was more, she looked quite familiar. He happened to see the woman squeezing the girl’s hand painfully as she questioned her. The maid looked sharply up at Tearloch, and when their eyes met, the girl went pale and swooned.
Tearloch knew her now. The first time he’d seen her, she had swooned as well.
While servants bustled around the table to cart away the unconscious maid, Tearloch sent a man to bring Jamie to him. Within moments Jamie was nodding his understanding of Tearloch’s orders and hastening away in the direction in which the maid had been carried.
The first nightof Kenna’s escape, she slept in a barn. The hour was such that no one noticed her bedding down against a sturdy wall whilst rain patted lightly on the other side. The animals sensed no danger from her for they made no protests. Her own horse she hobbled in a copse nearby, and she was gone again before dawn.
The next night she slept in a field with nothing but her horse for shelter. In the morning, she skirted around Gowry Keep on the north, making her way through the moors and eliminating leagues in the process. She rode hard through the more populated areas to avoid being accosted and stayed in the saddle until she couldn’t possibly see the road ahead. She slept in the bed of a wagon for a few hours, pleased to be off the ground, then wearily returned to the road for the last leg of the journey.
Just before dawn of the third day, she neared her former home. Eschewing the gate, she turned her horse toward the small loch and the Clark’s cottage. Sleep was her only intelligible thought.
When she entered the small home, she immediately wondered if she were in the wrong cottage. There was nothing homey about it, but she did recognize enough of Mrs. Clark’s scattered belongings to verify she had come to the right place. It had been stripped of all the Clarks had held dear, and the scattered, forgotten remnants gave Kenna the impression that the couple had packed quickly and fled.
Her disappointment and weariness overwhelmed her. She led her horse inside, barred the door, and after she removed the saddle and quenched both their thirsts, she crawled onto what was left of the bed and swiftly fell asleep.
It was late in the afternoon when the horse’s impatient stamping woke her. Kenna rose quite refreshed and prepared to face whatever fate had in store for her. Through the windows she marveled at the lack of activity about the keep at the top of the rise. A handful of men rode in and out of the gate, but no wagons of supplies. And even stranger was the lack of servants or tenants making the usual hum of daily activity between Carlisle Folly and the village.
Something was terribly wrong. People were missing. Agatha would be outraged, if she were still in a position of power, if she hadn’t been taken away. Even with the old woman’s unpleasantness, the Clarks would never have left their home. Whoever had driven them out must have been quite terrible indeed.
It had been difficult enough to come back knowing her aunt might still be here. She couldn’t imagine facing someone more fearsome.
Perhaps someone at the firth would know where her friends had gone, but she decided to wait for the cover of darkness. Until then, she was able to satisfy her horse with the dried flowers hanging from the rafters. There were enough foodstuffs to keep her belly from complaining, and just enough water to wash it down.
There was little else. Her friends had been fast but thorough. She considered tidying up, but reconsidered. She wanted no evidence that she had passed this way. If Tearloch sent someone looking for her, they would find a cold trail.
Duncan came rumblingdown the road from the west and reigned in when he came in sight of the Carlisle keep. He foundit hard to believe that Kenna had rested less than he, or ridden as hard in order to have arrived here ahead of him. He’d heard no word of a woman traveling alone, and worried he had guessed her destination wrong, when a movement caught his eye.
The passage of a wagon out of the gate was not unique, but that it was the only sign of life in or around the place made it noticeable. Duncan searched the rise and strained to hear normal sounds of activity, then felt ill when the silence reminded him of a battlefield after the fight was over.
