Chapter 15 #2
By the expression on Lady Linet’s face as she’d stared at the tapestries, she loved Lord Grey. How had an English noble met and fallen for a high-ranking Scottish rebel?
She recalled Patrik’s explanation of how the noblewoman Sir Alexander had abducted for ransom had become his wife. Did Lord Grey’s relationship have a similar beginning? No, none would send a powerful lord upon a knight’s mission. Still, something odd had occurred to allow such a union.
The love she felt for Patrik could never have such a chance.
Somberness settled over her, smothering her questions of how the powerful earl had met his wife. In silence, she followed the regal woman up the steps.
At the second floor, Lady Linet started down the hallway.
Emma paused, glancing to where the stairs wound up to another floor. Naught but an extension of the turret, yet an odd warmth beckoned her. Had they taken Patrik there? Did she somehow sense that was where he lay?
“Mistress Cristina?”
Heat streaked her cheeks. “Forgive me.” Unsettled to have been caught staring, she followed the countess down the hall. En route, they passed a servant carrying water and lads bearing handfuls of wood.
Lady Linet halted a passing lad, gave him instructions to bring a tub and water, and then entered a nearby room. “This will be your chamber.”
A bed was centered against the back chamber wall, a carved stand to one side with an unlit taper, and the wood in the hearth ablaze.
Fatigue washed over Emma. However simply adorned, the chamber looked like a piece of heaven. “Thank you, my lady.”
“Once you have had your bath and have eaten, you will be left undisturbed.” The countess paused. “This eve, if you have awoken, you are welcome to join our sup.”
She doubted that the MacGruders would truly wish her in their presence. “My thanks,” Emma replied, “but I will most likely sleep through the night.”
“The rest will do you good.”
Rest? However much she wished to sleep, using the shield of night, she would make her escape. The food brought for her supper would come in handy as she traveled.
“Before I go to sleep, I would like to see Sir Patrik.” To tell him good-bye.
Lady Linet hesitated. “He is with a healer. Once she leaves, ’tis best if he rests as well.”
So that was what Lord Grey had whispered to his wife, to keep Emma away from Patrik. Fine then, she would not ask again, but she would see him one last time before she left.
Hands grasping the sturdy woolen coverlet upon his bed, Patrik clenched the aged wood between his teeth as the healer prodded. Yellow candlelight exposed several angry gashes across his shoulder and arm, wounds that had almost cost him his life.
“Bite harder,” the old woman said, her eyes focused on the deepest gash across his left arm.
Patrik complied, trying to focus on anything but the pain as her hands quickly cleaned, then bound the severed flesh.
Her expression held grim satisfaction as she tied the last knot. She held up a ripe concoction. “Swallow this.”
The pungent taste of herbs stung his tongue, and he gulped the water she handed him. “Tastes like mud.”
“Aye,” the healer agreed, “but ’twill lessen the worst of the pain.
Rest now. You are not to be about for a sennight.
” The healer scowled. “A fortnight it should be, but I have known you too many years to believe you would ever be following that, if you even remain abed for a day.” Though gently spoken, anger coated her words, caused by his attempt on Nichola’s life.
Wood creaked as the chamber door opened. Seathan strode inside, followed by Duncan, then Alexander. The grim expressions upon their faces were far from welcoming.
The healer nodded at Seathan. “He should recover, my lord. With time. As yet, there is no sign of infection.”
“Thank God,” Seathan said.
In silence, the elderly woman secured the pouches of herbs, stowed them within her basket, and then closed the lid. “If he starts a fever, send for me.”
“Aye,” Seathan replied.
Soft footsteps echoed as the healer departed.
As the door closed in her wake, his brothers surrounded his bed. Tension throbbed in the chamber.
Patrik exhaled, taking in his brothers, the scowls on their faces. Nichola’s outburst replayed in his mind. “No matter how many times I beg forgiveness for trying to kill Nichola, it will never be enough.” He ached at the words, needing to say them.
Alexander crossed his arms. “She refuses to see you. A denial I will honor.”
Patrik’s throat tightened. “It is her right.” While he’d lain healing within the crofter’s bed, he’d had time, months to recount his actions, time in which he had found shame and self-recrimination in his attempt upon Nichola’s life.
Foolishly, he’d held hope that time could repair the severed ties with his family.
But in his musings, Nichola had agreed to see him. Now, he didn’t even have that hope.
Until she forgave him, though his brothers would allow him to remain at Lochshire Castle, their family bond would remain fractured, and this would never again be his home.
“By God’s eyes, how do you live?” Alexander asked. “I saw you die, saw the light fade from your eyes.”
“I . . .” Warmth pulsed within the stone at Patrik’s neck. He frowned and touched the halved malachite, caught the exchange of curious glances between his brothers. “I remember pain, blackness, and then coming awake.” He dropped his hand to his side. “I should have been dead.”
The silence stretched.
Seathan cleared his throat. “There is a pressing issue that cannot wait.”
At the seriousness of his tone, Patrik tensed. Then he knew. “The writ.”
“Aye,” Seathan replied. “Alexander gave it to me. I will send a runner to bring it to Wallace.”
“My thanks,” Patrik replied, still struggling to accept that the bishop had surrendered to the English. “Without the bishop’s guidance, what will Wallace do?”
Seathan grimaced. “When Wallace learned of the bishop’s surrender, he sent a missive to Andrew de Moray to bring his troops south. He was unaware John de Warenne was preparing to join forces with Cressingham, but it seems as though God guided his decision.”
“Aye,” Patrik agreed, his mind spinning with the news. The addition of de Moray’s forces would allow the rebels to deal a major blow.
At the continued silence, tension filled the room.
A muscle worked in Seathan’s jaw. “Except, as Alexander told you, we were sent to intercept Dubh Duer.”
Weariness settled over him. Aye, he had much to explain.
In detail, Patrik revealed how after he’d recovered from near death, he had traveled to Bishop Wishart, begged for forgiveness of his sins, and pleaded to be allowed to continue to help the rebels.
Then he spoke of the bishop’s agreement as well as the new name he’d taken: Dubh Duer.
“So you hid behind an alias?” The rawness of Duncan’s words echoed as if a slap.
“I could do no other,” Patrik replied.
Alexander grunted. “You could have. Though I am proud of you for aiding the rebels, instead of daring to face us, tell us the truth, you shielded yourself behind a false name.”
Anger erupted. Patrik shoved himself up; wove.
“Bedamned!” he said as Seathan reached out, caught his good shoulder, steadied him.
He faced Alexander, fought for consciousness, emotions slamming through him.
“Tell me, Alexander, had you known that I lived, would you have found forgiveness after I had drawn blood from your wife, from you? Blast it, I tried to kill you both!” He glared at him. “I think not.”
A flush stained Alexander’s cheeks. “I—”
“What?” Patrik demanded, tired of the deceit, the lies that smothered him like a rag shoved over his mouth.
“What would you have done? Do you not think while I lay within the crofter’s bed, the days rolling into months, I had not the time to think out every possibility, time to wish to go back, time to erase the dishonor I took upon myself? ”
The scar along Alexander’s left cheek tightened. “And your suffering, reliving how you tried to kill my wife, is that supposed to rectify your actions?”
Sadness washed through Patrik. His legs shaking, he sank on the bed and steadied his hands upon his legs. “Nay. I have no ex-excuse but my loyalty to you.”
“Loyalty?” Alexander grunted. “If trying to kill Nichola is an example of your loyalty—”
“Enough.” Seathan glared from one man to the other. “Arguing will but deepen wounds already made.”
The door opened.
Surprised someone dared interrupt their lord, Patrik glanced over.
A tall man entered, his stride confident, his build that of a warrior.
Brown hair, secured by a leather thong, enhanced the hard angles of his face, his cloak of the finest wool, fitting his title—Baron of Monceaux, an affluent English lord, Advisor to the English king on Scottish affairs, and Nichola’s brother Griffin.
The baron’s eyes cut to Patrik, and he paled. Then anger brought crimson slashes to his cheeks. “You live?”
“Aye.” How had they informed Nichola’s brother so fast? Last Patrik knew, as King Edward’s advisor to the Scots, Griffin was in England in discussion with John de Warenne on a pressing issue. He must have traveled north on business for the English crown, or, for the Rebels as Wulfe.
Seathan frowned. “Griffin, I thought you were meeting with Wallace?”
“I was, but our talk was interrupted by a missive from Wishart with his intent to surrender to the English.” The baron stepped before Patrik, halted, his legs braced, his face carved with a fierce expression.
“Needless to say, with that news our plans changed, and Wallace bade me here. Except,” he drawled, fury slicing through his voice, “I had not expected to find the man who tried to kill my sister.”