Chapter 1
Chapter
One
The men of Moray were warriors, the women lovely and fearless, the heart and soul of Moray’s men. With eyes the color of honey and hair as radiant as a winter’s flame, ’twas said that even the gods above were enamored by their grace and beauty.
But grace was not Lianae’s forte, and neither was she the beauty her mother and sister had been.
Her hair was more blond than red, and her eyes were the color of dirty uisge, not bright and shining like her sister Elspeth’s.
Nevertheless, she was the youngest of two living females in a long line of Moray queens—the other being her toothless aunt Gruaidh.
Lianae had not been the Earl’s first choice, but on the other hand, he was no choice at all.
So long as she girded her loins there was still a chance the blood of óengus might rise again.
This was the prayer of the Mormaerdom. For all that King David hailed himself a benevolent King, he surrounded himself with blackguards like William fitz Duncan and turned a blind eye to all their evildoings.
So this was how he meant to rule—putting others to do his dirty work whilst he donned the cloak of a saint.
Saint David—pah!
Parcel by parcel, the land of Moray was being granted to England’s odious barons, and the man seated before her was the most treacherous fiend of all, he who styled himself de Moray.
De Moray, not of Moray, because despite that he was the son of a Scots king, he was no better than a Norman usurper himself.
Like his father before him—and King David as well—fitz Duncan had been raised by the English to serve the whims of an English king.
Already, through his mother Uhtreda, he was the patriarch of Northumbria, making him one of the richest barons in Northern England, and King David would name him the Earl of Moray as well.
Dressed in pale blue brocade, with a hat and a pair of foppish red shoes that were as pointy as his nose, King David’s nephew and son of a murdered king—her sister’s murderer as well—ignored Lianae, speaking directly to her brother.
“Her insolence will not be brooked,” he said, enunciating the words in the Norman accent as he peered down his skinny, beak-like nose.
Much to her dismay, her brother Lulach matched the Earl’s diction, eschewing his lilting Moray brogue. “Never fear, my lord… once Lianae realizes her good fortune, she will come to heel.”
My lord? My lord! She despised the Norman articulation of her brother’s words. The pain in her jaw flaring, Lianae stood abruptly. “I am not a dog! I will not come to heel! Ha’e we no’ already witnessed what this man would do? Ha’e ye no affection for our sister?”
Never mind her own rising misfortunes! Even as they spoke, Elspeth’s body lay above stairs, growing cold, her neck stained with bruises that were put there by the Earl himself.
If Lianae had not gone in to see her this morning after the night’s celebration, he might have easily concealed his sins—but then neither would she be in this untenable situation.
Reaching out, fitz Duncan’s guard shoved Lianae back down into her chair, constraining her by her shoulder, squeezing painfully in warning.
Fitz Duncan cast her an embittered glance.
No doubt, half his rancor this morning was due in part to his displeasure in ending with the wrong Moray sister.
Well, he should have kept his hands to himself!
Although now, if he should manage to convince Lulach to accept a new union, Lianae realized he would make her rue the day she came to be his wife.
“Cil-onaidh,” she hissed beneath her breath.
The man was an idiot and a fool.
So was her brother Lulach.
“Lianae, please,” Lulach begged. After a long pleading silence, he turned to re-address the Earl. “Forgive her, my lord. She is merely frightened. But of course, we did not expect…”
Lianae waited for her brother to finish. What, Lulach? They did not expect Elspeth’s new husband would strangle her in her marriage bed. Say it, Lulach, she begged silently. Say it. Accept the truth of what has been done. Confess what you would do to me—to your own flesh and blood!
Forsooth, but if there was any remorse at all for the events leading to their sister’s death, there was little evidence of it in the Earl’s expression.
Cruelty was manifested in his voice, a barely suppressed violence that presented itself as boredom, although Lianae recognized it.
It tightened her nerves like the overdrawn strings of a bow.
“Frightened, or nay, the girl will learn her place.”
The girl?
Lianae was not a girl. She was a princess of Moray!
Learn her place?
And what place was that? To step up and be his wife, now that he’d managed to murder the other?
“I will not,” Lianae bit out again, but she might as well have never spoken. Neither of the men seated at the long table even bothered to look at her. They continued their discourse, as though Lianae were no longer present.
“Aye, she will,” her brother promised, and it was all Lianae could do to hold her tongue. Their land was defiled, her brother seduced by—what? Peace at any cost?
Five years ago, in his quest to control the Highlands, David mac Mhaoil Chaluim finally kept his threat to bring down the Mormaerdom, killing her father during the great slaughter at Stracathro in Forfarshire.
Only two of her brothers survived the massacre, and now Lulach, named after their maternal grandfather, was proving himself to be as wretched as his namesake.
He was a fool to believe David of Scotia would allow him any boons for this union.
It was a contract made in vain, for once Lianae took her vows, she would be trapped, not only in wedlock to a lying, murderous fiend, but in collusion with their mortal enemy.
The Mormaerdom would be lost forever—for not only was William Elspeth’s murderer, he was also the commander in charge of the very army that had wrested Moray from its rightful heir—her father.
“You must realize, Lulach... there are others I might choose—women who are comelier, and whose gratitude is far more easily won.”
Lianae opened her mouth to tell him to shove the pointy end of his shoe up his ironclad arse, but her brother cast her a pleading glance. The Earl's man kept a firm hand upon her shoulder, pinching painfully.
“Aye, my lord,” Lulach said, “but Lianae is the last of óengus’s daughters. As such, she may help dissuade a new rebellion.”
“Gruaidh is more than willing.”
Lianae rolled her eyes at the mention of her aunt.
“Aye, though Gruaidh may not be able to bear your children, nor is she quite so… pleasing.”
The Earl flicked a glance toward Lianae. “Neither is your sister once she opens her mouth.”
Gritting her teeth, a memento of her own brief time alone with the Earl moments before, Lianae lifted a hand to the bruise on her cheek, urging Lulach to acknowledge it, but her brother refused to look her way again.
Lianae's heart wrenched. Oh, Lulach, she wanted to ask, where has your courage gone? Where now your scruples and foresight?
“I will make certain she understands her duty.”
The Earl flicked Lianae another, more embittered glance. “See that you do.”
“Aye, my lord… and if you would but give us a moment alone?”
His face a mask of boredom, the Earl sighed, but he raked his chair back from the table.
He stood, acknowledging Lianae with another ill-tempered glance, and there in his gaze she spied something cold and foreboding.
He was warning her without words, and she already knew what dangers that entailed.
Had her sister angered him somehow? They might never know what happened in that room.
Pressing a hand against her cheek, Lianae shuddered over the images that accosted her.
Her sister’s lips and skin had been as blue as the sapphire gown she’d worn to take her vows.
And still Lulach would sell her for—what?
Despair choked away her breath, along with any remaining protests.
Her brother stood, and Lianae made to do so as well—not out of deference, but to leave.
Once again, the Earl’s guard pushed her down into the chair, biting his strong fingers into the hollow beneath her shoulder, until her mouth parted for a cry of pain she refused to voice—at least not in front of these monsters.
Outliers! Murderers!
The Earl of Moray turned from the table, and only then did his bootlicker release Lianae’s shoulder and move away, falling in step behind his master like the dog he appeared to be.
Make no mistake, Lianae would not marry the Earl, but she recognized the stubborn set of her brother’s jaw and she knew he would not relent.
It would serve no one to voice another protest. Nay, she must find another way…
Lulach waited until the Earl and his men were gone from the hall before turning to address her. “Lianae,” he said quietly. “Ye must learn to hold your tongue. If ye would but mind yourself, ye could inherit much, my sister.”
Lianae’s fingers balled so tightly that her nails dug into her palms.
Once upon a time, she had adored Lulach for his gentle nature.
This moment, his gentility seemed more a weakness, and the slender, slightly downturned chin, a tell.
The hall doors closed, one by one, and the heavy raucous sound ricocheted off the hallhouse ceiling.
To her mind, it had the sound of a cell door.
“I dinna wish to marry that usurper,” Lianae said quietly.
Her brother sighed. “Lianae, he won his place the same way the men of Moray all once did, by the grace of his sword.”
“Nay,” Lianae argued. “He was appointed by King David, who is nae better than an outlier himself. He was raised under Henry’s tutelage. All these men were groomed to take our place, and ye give them time and they will quash every last Morayman and woman from this land.”
“He is Duncan’s heir and bears the blood of kings,” Lulach reminded her.
“On his hands!” Lianae said in outrage.