Chapter 5 #2
“I’m sorry about your liaison with Eleanora; I’m fond of that saucy English lass myself.
But I know that you’re no fool, and you’ve known that I’ve been waiting for many years now for the right situation to give you the titles and position you deserve as my champion.
You are a warrior, lad, who has learned the ways of harlots and whores along the line of battle, and you’re a knight who has too often lured the romantic notions of impressionable young women.
I will see to it that Eleanora isn’t too sorely disappointed with your marriage.
By God, my man! You have known since you came to serve me upon your father’s death that yours was a political destiny—that I would make it a great destiny, that you would not die a common man.
You know your duty is to me—and to Scotland. ”
Waryk stood still, feeling the cold of the river water that dripped from him. It was one thing to argue with the king. It was another to have his loyalty to Scotland questioned.
David was right; he should have known this, expected this. Nothing came without a price.
Yet still, the concept of being handed a woman because she came with a rich property was not a pleasant one.
The feelings of warmth and laughter—and admittedly, lust—that had so intrigued him when he had been with Eleanora could be forgotten for Scotland.
But despite his loyalty to the king, there was one thing he had desired above all else since the horrible day when his father and so many others had perished.
He wanted children. A family.
And if his rich property came with a gnarled, bent old witch of a woman, he would be denied the one thing that he had fought for all these years.
“I would simply like to hear a bit more about this land—and the heiress. David, you cannot doubt my loyalty to you or my country,” Waryk said.
He wanted to ask more specific questions, but he was interrupted as the doors to the great hall burst open and a woman rushed in, frantically seeking the king’s attention.
“Sire!”
The woman was slim with an abundance of flying silver hair.
She rushed to the king. “Sire!” she repeated.
Trembling, she bowed deeply before David, about to continue.
Then she noted Waryk in the room. She was too distressed to note that Waryk was dripping river water on the floor, but she was evidently dismayed that she found the king in conference with one of his knights.
She spoke awkwardly then, staring uneasily at Waryk, and stuttering out her explanation.
“Sire, I—I … My apologies, I did not wish to interrupt, I—”
“You may speak, Jillian. What has happened?”
“But, sire—”
“Come now, speak up, Jillian!” David said impatiently.
Jillian tore her eyes from Waryk and looked at the king at last. “She’s gone.”
“What?”
“Mellyora, sire. She’s gone.”
“Gone?” the king exploded.
The silver-haired woman cringed and nodded again, glancing uneasily back at Waryk. She moistened her lips to speak, forcing herself to look back at the king again. “She’s—gone.”
“She can’t be.”
“But she is.”
“How? I had two men on guard at the door—”
“She left by the window, sire, I believe.”
“But there was a great drop to the courtyard below—”
“Scaffolding, sire. If she left through the window, she might have jumped from the parapets to the scaffolding. She is fleet, graceful, and quick. And …”
“And what?” the king said, his voice something like a growl.
“Desperate,” Jillian told him.
“My God!” The king roared with an explosion of anger.
He slammed a fist down upon the long table in the center of the great hall with such a vengeance the wood groaned.
“Damn her, but … my God!” he repeated. “The traitorous wench. I didn’t believe that she would really defy me, blatantly disobey my will.
I will find her. I will stop whatever treason she plots!
She will regret her stubborn determination to defy me.
She will pay the price for treason, and I will be entirely justified in whatever way I choose to mete punishment upon her—”
“Your pardon, sire, please, but you’ll have apoplexy!” Waryk warned. But he was suddenly feeling a chill himself, an awareness. He should have known, though he still didn’t want to admit …
“She will be found, and certainly, but if you’ll excuse me, just who in God’s name is this ‘she’ who is gone?” he asked carefully.
The king had been distracted, but he stared at Waryk. His eyes were still blazing with a fire of fury and disbelief. But he paused in his tirade, his brow arching slowly as seconds passed. Then he spoke, more calmly than at first.
“The ‘she,’ Laird Lion, is Mellyora. Mellyora MacAdin. She has managed her escape. Sweet Jesu, but I underestimated her! I never thought the wench would risk her own life to defy me!”
The king had yet to really answer him, but did he need the truth spelled out. Aye!
“Who, sire, is Mellyora MacAdin? What is her treachery? Is she your prisoner? Is she guilty of some misdeed?”
“She had been my guest. The child of an old and noble friend. Nay, she isn’t guilty of a crime—I correct myself! She wasn’t guilty of any crime. But now, she is very close to committing treason. Indeed, if I weren’t such a merciful man, I would call her a traitor this minute!”
Still, the king hadn’t spoken what Waryk already knew, and Waryk insisted he do so. “Why is she so anxious to escape? Is she an errant wife, a—”
“Oh, errant. You might think so, since she defies my command. To marry you. She’s your heiress, Laird Lion.”
“Mine?”
“Aye!”
And he knew, of course, with certainty. What a fool he had been not to realize the situation instantly.
The lady on the river was his intended wife.
He might have reasoned it then; he might even have realized it when he spoke with Sir Harry, and realized that he had been summoned back just when the heiress had been coming to the king …
He was the man from whom she was running. He was the wretched, horrid, despicable “Norman” she had been told she was to wed. And rather than do so, she was running to her Viking kin.
He swallowed hard, fighting to keep a hold on his temper.
She had tried to use him not just to escape the king—but to escape her marriage—to him—as well. He remembered all the things she had said. By God, but she was arrogant.
She didn’t know him; he didn’t know her, he rationalized with himself. But logic didn’t help the sudden searing of his temper. The hint of emotion and understanding he had felt for her plight dissipated like fog beneath a burning sun. She was the woman the king intended for him.
Wonderful. He had wanted a wife and a family.
He had taken a loving, passionate woman as his mistress, and just when he had realized that she would be a loving, passionate wife as well, he was being told he was to receive a headstrong lass.
A girl who was stubborn, reckless, determined, far too young to begin to understand the shaping of a nation.
She was careless, foolhardy, irritating …
He paused in his thought, remembering his encounter.
Young.
Yes. If nothing else, she was young. Gentle, definitely not. Loving? Never. Warm? As ice. Passionate? Only in her determination to be free from him.
But then again, his greatest fear in being given an heiress had been that she would be a wizened old woman, incapable of giving him the sons he craved.
She wasn’t exactly an old witch.
She was in possession of all her teeth, something he must acknowledge, since it seemed life was all a bargaining game. Good skin, good bone structure, fine lines. She was sound. Aye, definitely healthy. Strong, capable, fleet and graceful—as her woman had said.
But she was much more, and he had seen that already. She was not just young and healthy. She was formed. In body—and mind. She was cold as ice in her will to fight, hard as nails in her determination. She was beautiful as well. What was the word he had thought in connection with her earlier?