He was not a man prone to whim.
But two things happened to him concurrently as his gaze fell first on the hand that held so tightly to his and then the rings—on her finger and thewishingring on his. His tactile senses hummed.
And he had the most incongruous thought that no matter what happened hours from now, he would remain unharmed. He could jump off a cliff and would not die this day.
Then he laughed, because despite what the morning might hold, his brother would be coming home and Rose would be at Stonehaven when they returned there late tonight.
Aye, what more could a man want in one day?
“Another kiss to send me into battle, love?”
He held her hand fast as she tried to pull away. “This is my fight, too.”
“Nay, Rose. In this you have no say.”
He nodded to Anaya, who stood behind Rose. “Colum will be expecting you outside in a half hour. See that she is ready.”
He released his wife. Gripping the blanket tighter, she stared at him with eyes widened by fury. “And while you might think it highly improbable that I should care what happens to you ... what happens tomeif you are killed out there today? At least I should be with you.”
The men standing behind him in the corridor chuckled, but she silenced them with a glare. “You are outnumbered. I do not trust him.”
“Considering the warden’s nature, aye, in that we agree. But trying to kill me and doing so are not the same. Nowyoulisten to me. If you have a care for my safety, you be in that carriage and gone before I meet Hereford.”
Halfway down the corridor, Ruark slipped the sword baldric over his shoulder. A half dozen of his clansmen walked beside and behind him, rapidly relating details of their preparations. The men were mustering, the horses being saddled now. Their spurs and weapons clanged in the stone corridor.
“Think Hereford’s men are nervous yet?” another said, a tall, bearded clansman as stocky as a rough-hewn log.
“Some of us saw Rufus,” a man in the back said, and Ruark recognized Angus’s voice. “Takin’ a piss at the latrine. Turned and waved to us on the hill afore the Anglish bastard what was guardin’ him pulled him back inside the tent.”
A ripple of laughter followed. All were in rousing fighting spirits.
Ruark adjusted the dirk at his waist. “Any word from Duncan?”
The men walking with him grew silent. He could feel the air chill, like the draft that twined around his calves as he stopped and faced them. Angus spoke first. “He’ll be here with the others,” he said, a slight edge to his voice. “Duncan would no’ miss this fight.”
“How many men have we?”
“Gavin’s family came in last night with fifty men. Ninety men now,” Angus said. “We’ve seen worse.”
Ruark looked at each man’s bearded countenance, knowing they awaited some signal to his mood. He gave Angus a hearty slap on the arm. “ ’Tis better than forty standing against three hundred, eh?”
They all laughed as Ruark turned on his heel, pushed through the doors, and walked out into the pungent dawn mist.
Smoke and morning fog layered the air like ghostly tentacles stretching out from the fields surrounding the old medieval abbey, an eerie contrast to the serenity of the morning. This was Scotland’s graveyard. A dozen major battles had been waged over these grounds across the centuries.
Ruark didn’t anticipate starting a war today. Nor did he expect Hereford would want to take a chance on losing any monetary gain he hoped to make in this trade, especially if he wanted theBlack Dragon. But tension remained high on both sides, and today was as much about show of strength as it was about national pride and a little blowing off steam. He would not want one of Hereford’s men thinking that just because the Scots were outnumbered ontheir own green earth that it meant a single one of them was easily defeated.
Ruark also knew that his own men looked to him for leadership. Allegiance in the Borders was earned, as much by resolve and action as by birthright and sometimes a great deal of gold.
The three men who had served as witnesses to the consummation of his marriage last night stood uneasily in the open awaiting him. Two were robed clerics, the third, their resident English sympathizer, a dandy this dull morn if Ruark had ever seen one. He wore a lacy jabot and breeches, and brown periwig slightly skewed as if he’d been dragged from sleep. Next to them, McBain carried a sheaf of folded papers wrapped prettily in red ribbon.
Ruark thumbed through the contracts and marriage papers. Copies of everything had been made. More formal papers would be delivered by his solicitor later. “Has someone read these over?”
“Colum did, m’lord,” McBain said.
Ruark held out his hand. McBain presented a quill as Angus held a small jar of ink. “Which one of you is serving as emissary?” he asked the three men without looking up as he scrawled his signature across the bottom of each paper.
Acute silence answered Ruark. No doubt the three would rather be subjected to a tooth extraction than go down that hill and across that bridge into Hereford’s camp. White flag or nay, no one wanted the task and didn’t consider the job part of their original agreement. Unfortunately, for them, Ruark did.
