Chapter 1 #2
“Ach, Lianae. Be fair. His father was our king for a time.”
“Ach, yoursel’!” Lianae said, looking at her brother incredulously.
“Dinna ye see, Lulach? King Duncan was murdered by his own brother, and if the rumors be true, William would collude with David even despite this fact! That should tell ye all ye need to know about the mon’s character.
He would sell himself so easily to his father’s murderers.
At any rate, he’s but a bastard and his mother is an outlier as well.
They are all Henry’s minions—every one!”
Lulach frowned. “’Tis long past time to make our peace, sister. óengus is dead—”
Lianae gave a raw little laugh. “No one knows this better than Elspeth!” Tears pooled in her eyes at the images that accosted her anew.
Her sister’s rent dress, her eyes open and bulging.
Fitz Duncan not even had the decency to close her lovely amber eyes.
The memory threatened to undermine Lianae’s composure in a way that not even the last hour’s discussion had managed to do so.
Her brother ignored her tears. “Our brothers, dead…”
“Nay!”
She and Lulach shared a heated look, and Lianae tried to gauge what he knew. Neither Ewen nor Graeme had been spied for many, many months, but Lianae knew they must be out there, biding their time, waiting for the right opportunity. óengus had taught them well.
“Dinna ye ken, Lianae? We canna fight any longer—not if we are meant to survive.”
And there it is.
Her brother’s expression was full of fear, and Lianae’s heart wrenched for the man he could have been.
She knew this was not entirely his wish, to see her wed to a monster.
But Lulach wasn’t strong enough to stand against despicable men.
She wanted to forgive him, she truly did, but she couldn’t.
He would sell her all too easily. Her sister—their sister—was already dead.
Lianae might see the same fate—and for what?
For Lulach’s self-assurances? To line his coffers? Why?
There was only one way to avoid this fate. It was to allow her brother to assume she would relent. His mind was already made up. “When?” she asked, swallowing her grief. “When would you have me commit this atrocity?”
“Tonight.”
“Tonight!”
Tears welled again in her eyes.
“Lianae,” her brother pleaded. Despite his youth, there were all-new wrinkles etched in his brow, frown lines that hadn’t previously existed.
His wife also seemed older than her years, but Lianae couldn’t help any of them; but she most certainly intended to help herself.
She was not prepared to become a sacrifice.
Her body longed to spring up from her seat and run screaming out the door, but she sat.
Peering into the balcony, she caught sight of a figure at the rails, peeping down.
William fitz Duncan was not a man who took his chances.
No man in the line of succession could rest at ease.
Not since the day Kenneth MacAilpín up and murdered the sons of seven Pecht nations had Scotia known lasting peace.
Cousins murdered cousins. Brothers murdered brothers.
Sisters were naught but chattel to be bartered away.
Her mind grappled for a plan.
The bathhouse was a filthy puddle of sweat, an immodest structure left standing after the retreat of the Roman legions. It was the last place anyone would get themselves clean. But that’s where Lianae must find herself tonight… somehow.
Beneath the bathhouse was a tangle of pipes, fed by sweet Highland streams. The pipes were all sealed now, and the bath itself was refilled once a week by a procession of unhappy servants.
But Lianae knew how to access those pipes.
From there, she could escape into the woods, although she mustn’t give rise to suspicion.
She must go with the clothes on her back.
And once she assented here now, they would return her to her room only long enough to fetch her wedding attire—Elspeth’s wedding attire.
She cringed, for the thought of taking that odious dress and putting it on her person left her with a pang in her belly that gnawed at her from the inside out.
A knot formed in her throat, but she forced words past it, “Very well, but please… at least allow me the courtesy of taking my vows after a bath. As you can see I am filthy.”
Lulach lifted a brow.
Does he remember?
She and Elspeth used to enter the pipes from the woodlands, and peek within the bathhouse, giggling with delight over the education they’d received in there—some not so titillating. Forsooth, she’d had little idea how much men liked to pass wind when you put more than two together into a tub.
Lulach stared at her, and Lianae threw up her hands.
“Would you have him plug his nose over the stench of me? Look at me,” she begged, and prayed he would see the bruises as well.
“I have come straight from tending your children. ’Tis little wonder he has stared at me all morn as though ye’d put a turd beneath his nose! ”
Lulach sighed, relenting at once. “No tricks, Lianae,” he warned. “If ye canna find it in your heart to do this for yourself, or for me, then ye must consider your nephews. Alan may yet find a way to make our father proud.”
Dressed as a Sassenach? Nay. Never! óengus would turn in his grave.
Lianae narrowed her eyes. “It is for love of them I did not leave when I had the chance,” she reminded him.
She loved her brother’s children as though they were her own.
But Lulach had already pledged his fealty to the new Earl and she doubted fitz Duncan would harm them, not when he needed the people’s support.
As a rightful born son of óengus, Lulach was very well regarded.
Even to the grave, the people of Moray loved her father dearly.
“Very well, I will arrange the bath.”
Lianae’s heart leapt with glee. “I thank you. The Earl will thank you,” she amended quietly, trying not to squeal as her brother clapped his hands.
The hall doors flew wide and in marched not one, but two burly men to escort Lianae out of the great hall. They plucked her up and dragged her away.
“Remember yourself,” Lulach warned. “And dinna tarry.”
“Dinna fash yourself, brother. I will do my duty,” she promised with little compunction.
It was her duty to find a way to escape.
Almost at once, the details of her plan began to form in her head.
Lianae but needed a few moments alone in the bathhouse—long enough to open and enter the passageway.
The entrance should be easy enough to locate, even after all these years.
The new Earl and his party could scarce be expected to know the history of these lands, or the structures erected therein.
Fitz Duncan had spent his entire life in England and their ignorance would serve Lianae well today.
Out in the corridor, the Earl stepped into Lianae’s path. Smiling thinly, he seized her by the arm before she could chance to pass. “Come this evening your brother will no longer have a say over what I do with you, Lianae. Best you find a better use for that soft, velvet tongue of yours.”
Lianae shuddered.
Satisfied with her response, he grinned and released her.
Heat suffused Lianae’s cheeks. But for once, she held her tongue, her heart hammering fiercely against her ribs as she peered back into the hall at her brother.
Lulach was watching, unmoved by the plea in her eyes, and she knew in that instant that he was lost to her.
And yet she was smart enough to ken that anger wouldn’t serve her now.
But seduction might. Her mother had been a siren, weaving a spell with every word she spoke, and so she sidled up to fitz Duncan and brushed her tongue across her lower lip.
With more bravado than she felt, she said, “Dinna fash yourself, laird—” she swallowed over the deference.
“—I ken what to do with my saft, velvet tongue. After all, I am a maid of Moray.”
Fitz Duncan’s pupils dilated, his eyes turning the deepest black.
Something bright shone in the depths of his gaze and he smiled a bit as he bent to whisper in Lianae’s ear.
“Your sister was weak. She had not the fortitude of a queen. But I have always wanted to flay a Moraywoman to her bones… to see what she is truly made of… simply give me cause,” he warned, and moved away, stepping out of Lianae’s way.
He left her standing in the corridor, a cold sweat seeping into her bones.
Fear and doubt paralyzed her limbs. Of course, this man would be unmoved by seduction.
He was immune to a siren’s charms. He would have his way with her, and she would never have a say.
Like Elspeth, who was far more beautiful than she, her life would end by fitz Duncan’s hands.
Chuckling deep in his throat, amused by the fear in her eyes, the Earl made his way back into the hall to finalize the wedding plans, and Lianae stood so long that the Earl’s man pushed her rudely at the small of her back.
God help me.
She would have but one chance to escape.
And if she failed…
She would not fail.
Lianae didn’t look back to see if her sister’s murderer and her brother were still watching. Without another word, Lianae of Moray, the last remaining daughter of óengus the Mormaer, allowed the usurper’s men to lead her away.