“Well!” Bronwyn said. “What was the message? Does she need me?”
“Yes, she does,” Roger smiled. And I need you even more, he thought.
Chapter Seventeen
BRONWYN LAY IN BED, STARING AT THE UNDERSIDE OF THEcanopy. Her entire body was tense with excitement. For the first time in weeks she felt like she was alive. Her sleepiness was gone, her nausea had passed, and now she was pleased that something was about to happen.
When she’d come home and Tam had told her of the MacGregor’s message, she’d ignored it. She’d been too wrapped up in her own problems, her own misery, to even consider anyone but herself. Stephen said she was selfish, that she never listened to him or learned from him. Now she had a chance to do something that would please him. He’d always wanted her to settle her differences with the MacGregor, and now Kirsty had opened the way.
When Tam had first told her of the MacGregor’s message, she’d half-heartedly talked of meeting him. The protest from her men shook the walls. Bronwyn had easily dismissed the matter and settled back into her mood of feeling sorry for herself.
Now that was all over. She saw a way to win Stephen back. She must prove to him that she had learned something from him, that she wasn’t a selfish person.
Roger Chatworth had told her an incredible story about meeting Kirsty and Kirsty asking him to tell Bronwyn that a meeting had been arranged. The MacGregor and the MacArran were to meet alone, just the two of them, tomorrow night. Kirsty said the MacGregors were very much against the meeting, just as she was sure the MacArrans were. Therefore she’d made every effort to arrange a private meeting. She sent Bronwyn and Stephen her love and begged her to do this for the sake of peace for them all.
Bronwyn threw back the covers and went to the window. The moon hadn’t set yet so there was still plenty of time. She was to meet Roger Chatworth outside Larenston Hall, by the mews, and she would lead him off the peninsula. There were horses waiting for them, and together they’d ride to meet Kirsty and Donald.
It wasn’t easy to wait. She was dressed long before it was time. For a moment she stood over the bed, caressed the pillow where Stephen usually slept. “Soon, my love, soon,” she whispered. Once there was peace between the clans, she could hold her head up before Stephen again. Maybe then he’d think her love was worthy of having.
It was easy to slip out of her room. She and David had often, as children, sneaked out to the stables, sometimes to meet Tam or one of Tam’s sons. Rab followed her down the worn stone steps, sensing from his mistress the need for quiet.
Roger Chatworth stepped from the shadows as quietly as a Scotsman.
Bronwyn nodded to him curtly, then gestured Rab to be quiet. The dog had never liked Roger and made no secret of it. Roger followed her along the steep, dark path. She could feel the tension in his body, and more than once he grabbed her hand to steady himself. He clung to her and stood still until he got his breath.
Bronwyn tried to conceal her disgust. She was glad she now knew that not all Englishmen were like this one. Now she knew there were brave, courageous men like her husband and his brothers. They were men a woman could cling to and not the other way around.
Roger began to breathe easily once they reached the mainland and the horses. But they couldn’t speak until they were out of the valley of MacArrans. Bronwyn led them around the valley by the sea wall. She went slowly so Roger could steady his horse. The night was black, and she led by instinct and memory rather than sight.
It was close to morning when they halted on the ridge that overlooked her land. She stopped in order to allow Roger to rest a moment.
“Are you tired, Lady Bronwyn?” he asked, his voice shaky. He had just been through what, to him, was obviously an ordeal. He dismounted his horse.
“Shouldn’t we go on?” she urged. “We aren’t very far from Larenston. When my men—”
She stopped because she didn’t believe what she saw. Roger Chatworth, in one swift, fluid motion, took a heavy war axe from his saddle and struck Rab with it. The dog was looking at its mistress, concerned more with her than Roger, and so reacted too slowly to miss the lethal blow.
Instantly Bronwyn was out of her saddle. She fell to her knees at Rab’s side. Even in the dark she could see a great gaping hole open in Rab’s side. “Rab?” she managed to gasp through a thickened throat. The dog moved its head only slightly.
“It’s dead,” Roger said flatly. “Now get up!”
Bronwyn turned on him. “You!” She wasted no more energy on words. One instant she was on the ground, and the next she was flying through the air, her knife drawn and aimed for Roger’s throat.
He was unprepared for her action and staggered backward under the weight of her. Her knife blade cut into his shoulder, barely missing his neck. He grabbed her hair and pulled her head backward just as she brought her knee up between his legs. Roger staggered again, but he held on to her, and when he fell to the ground, he took her with him. She jerked her head to one side and bit him until he released her hair. When she was free, she charged him again with her knife.
But the knife never made contact because four pairs of hands grabbed her and pulled her away.
“You took long enough!” Roger snapped at the men holding Bronwyn. “Another minute and it might have been too late.”
Bronwyn looked at Rab, silent on the ground, then back at Roger. “There was no message from Kirsty, was there?”
Roger ran his hand across the cut she’d made in his shoulder. “What do I care about some damned Scot? Do you think I’d deliver messages like some serf? Have you forgotten that I am an earl?”
“I had forgotten,” Bronwyn said slowly, “what you are. I had forgotten the way you attack a person from behind.”
They were the last words she spoke for quite some time, for Roger’s fist came flying toward her jaw. She was able to move to one side quickly enough that he clipped her cheek instead of smashing her nose as was his aim. She crumpled forward in an unconscious heap.
When Bronwyn woke, she had trouble knowing where she was. Her head pounded with a black fury that she’d never experienced before, and her thoughts were disorganized. Her body ached and her mouth was immobile. She gave no more than a few attempts at thought and went back to sleep.
