Chapter Twelve
Braya Hetherington wasnot his woman.
Torin didn’t want her to be, he thought as he led Avalon and another horse out of the stable and looked up at the morning sky. He didn’t want a woman. He’d managed fine enough on his own his whole life. Besides, Braya was going to hate him when she discovered who he was and why he was truly here.
He searched the inner ward. Where the hell was Adams? They were due in Rowley Hetherington’s town hall within the hour. Torin hated not being someplace when he was supposed to be. He’d even saddled Adams’ horse to save time.
As they had a nasty habit of doing of late, his thoughts returned to Braya. He couldn’t stay away from her. He’d even insisted on escorting her and her family home last eve after the attack. He hadn’t wanted to leave her. He missed her now. It made him feel ill that he was allowing himself to feel a bond with someone. A lass. An English lass. An English lass who hated Scots. There didn’t seem to be anything he could do to stop it. He hadn’t been sure he wanted to stop it—until he thought he might be too late to the battlements last eve. He’d tried to get to her quickly, but the Armstrongs had tried to stop him. He’d had to hack and slice and stab his way through them. And he had, leaving dozens of dead behind.
When he’d reached her and found her struggling in the arms of a bloody bastard, Torin thought he might go mad with rage.
If he thought denying himself her attention all night because of Bennett had been hard, then resisting her because her family was watching had been the most difficult thing he’d ever accomplished.
He was glad he had though. He needed to keep a clear head. He was to meet the king’s messenger tonight. He had both good news and bad. The good news was that, as of last eve, there were twenty-two less English soldiers in Carlisle. The bad news was that Carlisle was thick with reivers. The king’s army should be prepared for possible heavy fighting.
He was bringing war.
What else would he tell the king? That something terrible was happening to his heart and he was seemingly, achingly helpless to stop it? And what was so terrible, the king might ask. Torin would like to be able to tell him that because of an English lass, he was having some second thoughts about things he’d never had second thoughts about before. Things like war.
Her family needed Bennett. What good would a Scottish defender do them after Bennett was replaced? Mayhap he should reconsider killing the warden and, instead, compel him to swear fealty to Robert. They could avoid much killing, especially if reivers joined the fight.
He’d gone mad. He’d showed no mercy in the past. He’d never let the lord of a stronghold live whether the lord wanted to swear fealty or not. Perhaps other commanders did it differently, and that was why there were so many seized lands still occupied by English converters. Torin didn’t believe a man ever changed the way he saw his captor. Submission came from fear, and the instant that man had a chance to fight against his lord, he would. If the lord served Edward with his sword once, Torin killed him.
He had many demons. He had never believed he would be free of them. He still didn’t. But as of late, he found himself doing things for peace—like asking for forgiveness, of all things! Or convincing Bennett to invite Braya’s kin to the castle for a night of feasting and celebration…and a chance for Torin to see her again. Or killing his enemy’s enemy for her.
He usually traveled alone. He was used to keeping his thoughts to himself. Never once in all his years since he was let out of the pit in Till Castle had he let anyone through the walls he’d erected around his heart.
He’d never felt lonely before, and if he had, he found a willing wench’s bed to occupy and nothing more. If he ever needed an ear, he had God’s and Avalon’s. Whether either of them listened, he didn’t know.
But now that he found himself at such odds and on unfamiliar ground, he wished there was someone who could speak back to him.
“Ah, you are ready,” Rob Adams greeted when he entered the inner ward and found Torin leaning against Avalon’s left shoulder, and his own horse, saddled and ready to go.
“And waiting,” Torin replied with the flash of a wooden smile before pushing off his horse.
“I know I’m a bit late, but are you not sore?” Adams rubbed his shoulder. “My arms ache.”
“I practice every day,” Torin advised him and leaped onto his saddle.
“As do I,” Adams defended, then shook his head and fit his boot into his stirrup. “I’m getting old.”
Torin almost cast him a genuine smile. Hell no. Torin couldn’t…wouldn’t speak to Adams. Aye, he’d saved Torin’s arse last eve but that didn’t mean they were friends—not truly. But there was something Torin wanted to finish talking over with him.
“Have you given any thought to what we spoke about last eve, after the fight? You know the men better than I. Who would have gone over to the Armstrongs and informed them that Carlisle was ripe for raiding?”
“Why does it have to be someone in the castle?” Adams asked as they rode toward the outer gate.
Torin turned to Adams. “You think it was a Hetherington?”
Adams shrugged beneath his tabard while his horse matched Avalon’s slow trot. “Could be. None of their own died.”
“But Braya and her mother…” No. The men trying to get to the battlements had deadly intentions. None of the Hetheringtons would have risked such a danger to their women. But, then again, what better way to get revenge without being blamed for the deaths of Carlisle’s men? “Would Rowley Hetherington put his wife and daughter at such risk?”
Adams shook his head without needing time to think on it. “No, he would not.”
“You can say this for certain?”
“Aye, for certain.”
