She glanced back to him. The sun had gone down, passing behind the Hall and casting his features in angular shadows. He looked hard and unyielding, every inch the formidable Enforcer. “What else did the messenger say? Did my brother agree to the truce?”
Boyd’s mouth tightened. “Yes and no. He will agree, but only if I parley with him in person.”
Rosalin paled. For the second time in that short afternoon, her heartbeat took an anxious leap. “No! You can’t do that. It’s too dangerous.”
“I thought you trusted your brother. Surely such a renowned knight would not do something as treacherous as setting a trap for me?”
Her cheeks flushed angrily at his taunting challenge. “It’s not my brother I worry about. There will be other men around. They could capture you when you leave. Or follow you.”
He lifted a brow. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were worried about me.”
She felt the strangest urge to tap her finger against that steely chest and maybe give it a good shove. “Of course I’m worried about you, although right now I’m wondering why. You make it difficult for someone to—” She stopped suddenly.
He tipped her chin back to look into her eyes. “To what, Rosalin?” His voice held an odd huskiness.
She scanned the depths of his gaze, looking for something. “To care about you.”
She felt him stiffen. He stared at her so intently for a moment that she thought she was drowning in him, spinning in a whirlpool of emotions.
She thought he would pull her into his arms.
Instead, he dropped his hand from her face. “You would be foolish to do so.”
Disappointment cut through her like a sliver of jagged glass. What had she expected? A return declaration? Some kind of indication that she was not alone in her feelings?
All he cared about was the war and defeating the English. There wasn’t a place for anything—or anyone—else in his life. He was consumed by one thing and one thing only: seeing the English pay for what they’d taken from him.
And she’d listened to him—at first. But something had changed. Something had made her think that there might be room for something else in his heart. Room for her. Now she wasn’t so sure.
“When will you leave?” she asked, her throat squeezing.
“Immediately. I want this over as soon as possible.”
She flinched, the words sinking between her ribs like a dagger. It took everything she had not to let him see how much pain he’d caused. A healthy dose of that Clifford pride held her upright. “God’s speed, then. I will anxiously await your return.”
“Rosalin, hell, that’s not what I meant.”
He tried to reach for her, but she turned away from him, holding her spine stiffly to hide the trembling in her shoulders, and walked away as regally as the princess he’d once accused her of being.
Seventeen
Robbie had been waiting for this moment for six years. But the long aisle of Melrose Abbey was not the battlefield he’d had in mind in which to face his enemy.
Clifford was waiting with three of his men near the carved wooden screen and altar, beyond which only monks were permitted. Robbie started down the south aisle with three of his own men flanking him. He’d brought a dozen men, but only Fraser, Barclay, and Keith had accompanied him inside the abbey. A few more waited outside, while the rest were spread out around the village keeping an eye out for any sign of a trap, and readying for their escape should it be necessary.
Robbie didn’t expect anything, but with the English he’d learned to be cautious.
By agreement, both parties had left their weapons at the door. Though drawing swords in the holy place would be sacrilege, Clifford had insisted, with a not-so-subtle reference to Bruce’s killing of the Red Comyn six years before in a church. The “barbarous” act had begun Bruce’s bid for the throne and had also served to get him excommunicated.
Robbie didn’t object. He wasn’t the one who would need a weapon if their parley took a bad turn.
Besides, as long as Robbie held Rosalin, he had everything he needed to win this particular battle.
The tables had been turned. Robbie was no longer a prisoner under the yoke of his jailor’s bidding or a rebel supporting a king on the run. This time Robbie held all the power, and they both knew it.
He had dreamed of the day he would have the pompous bastard under his heel. The English and their bloody superiority! For too many years they’d treated the Scots like serfs in their own kingdom, like recalcitrant subjects and scurrilous rebels. Seeing a little humility on any English lord’s face—especially Clifford’s—was something Robbie had been looking forward to for a long time.
One day soon the English king would be forced to recognize Scotland as an independent nation, but for now Clifford’s acquiescence would satisfy.
