“My name is Corisande,” she said, sounding breathless. “I did not mean to sound rude, your grace, but these circumstances… I am understandably distressed.”
“Lady Corisande,” William said, motioning for MacDuff to bring over another chair. “And who is the lass stuck tae ye?”
“My sister, Gaia, your grace.”
MacDuff brought the chair and William motioned to it. “Please,” he said. “Sit down. Ye must be weary. I’ll have food and drink brought tae ye.”
Corisande sat down, but she shook her head to the rest of it. “You do not need to bring us anything to eat or drink, your grace,” she said. “I want to know why we are here. We have done nothing to warrant this. Please let us leave.”
William looked at the pair. Corisande sat down and Gaia knelt next to her, still pressed against her sister’s torso. “Ye were with the provisions wagons?” he clarified.
“The surgeon’s wagon,” she said. “I am a healer.”
“I see,” William said, nodding. “What is yer family name, m’lady?”
Corisande wasn’t sure she should tell him. She remembered what Cole had told her when they’d first met about William the Lion sending missives to her father through Alpin Canmore. She wasn’t sure she wanted to tell the King of Scotland that her father was the one who refused to join him.
She wasn’t entirely certain how he would react.
“I… I am not certain that is relevant, your grace,” she said evasively. “There are many English houses that are fighting your men right now, but I was not among those fighting. I heal– that is what I do. That is the only reason I am here.”
“Papa says she is the best healer in England,” Gaia suddenly piped up. “She learned from Mama, but I have not learned. I was only here because Papa forced me to come and I want to go home.”
William focused on the very young woman with the quivering voice. “Who is yer papa?”
Corisande wanted to stop her from answering, but short of slapping a hand over her mouth, she wasn’t sure what more she could do. In a panic, she ended up pinching Gaia to shut her up just as the girl answered.
“Alastor de Bourne,” she said, wincing as she looked at her sister. “Ouch!”
Corisande looked at her sister with a great deal of disappointment and sorrow, but Gaia had no idea why. With a heavy sigh, Corisande returned her attention to William only to see that the man was looking at her most strangely.
Surprised, even.
“De Bourne,” he repeated quietly. “The descendants of Eric Bloodaxe.”
Corisande met his gaze without displaying the fear she was feeling inwardly. Her silly little sister had just put the nail in the coffin that was going to drag them both into the abyss now that William knew who their father was. What she didn’t know, or realize, was that MacDuff had heard the same thing.
The man who had come to The Keld those weeks ago to force her father to join the rebellion.
“We cannot choose our family or our siblings,” she said, releasing her sister and shoving her onto her bottom. “Believe me, I would have chosen more wisely had that been the case.”
William grinned, looking at Gaia, who was whimpering and grabbing at her sister. “Dunna be too hard on her,” he said. “It was the polite thing tae answer my question, since I asked. I dunna know yer father personally but, of course, I know of him. Yer family has a long and distinguished family history.”
Corisande wasn’t sure where he was going with that line of conversation, but she didn’t want to say anything more than was absolutely necessary, afraid she might say too much.
“It is not like being in the Scottish royal family,” she said. “You have great expectations and obligations. Our family lineage has no such expectations. Kingdoms do not depend on us.”
“But they did, once,” William said. “Yer family were the Kings of Northumbria.”
“Hundreds of years ago, your grace,” Corisande reminded him. “It has no bearing on our lives today. We are simply Englishmen.”
William’s gaze lingered on her for a moment, suspecting why Alastor de Bourne hadn’t agreed to an alliance. If that was the daughter’s view of their family, then she must have gotten it from someone. It must have been Alastor’s view, too. He didn’t see himself as a man who had a kingdom taken away from him.
He simply saw himself as English.
But there was one way to find out for sure.
“Did ye know I asked yer father tae join me?” he asked. “In this push intae England, I mean. I asked yer father tae join me and my allies. Did he tell ye that?”
