Chapter 4 #2
He opened the door for her. “Only myself, milady. I am a landless knight.”
“Friend to Lord Sin?”
He hedged a bit as she walked past him. “I suppose I’m as close as he gets to a friend.”
“Meaning?”
“He only has enemies and those who would curry his favor to reach the king’s ear.” He shut the door behind her and Jamie and led her through the bright hallway that was splashed with color from the stained-glass windows, toward the stairs.
“Can I play with your sword?” Jamie asked.
Simon’s eyes were gentle and kind as he ruffled her brother’s red curls. “When you’re bigger.”
Jamie stuck his tongue out and Simon laughed at the imp. “You know, they say every time a boy sticks his tongue out, it sends a message to the night ogres where the boy sleeps.”
“It does not.” Jamie looked quickly to her. “Does it?”
She shrugged. “I know nothing of these night ogres.”
Jamie ran up ahead of them, but kept his tongue in his mouth.
“Into which category do you fall?” she asked Simon, returning to their conversation. “Do you curry his favor or are you an enemy?”
“I fit into a third category that seems exclusive to myself, my brother, and the king.” He paused and pierced her with a sincere stare.
“I owe Sin my life and quite probably my sanity as well. He did things for me no child should ever have to do. I thank God every night for that man’s loyalty to me at a time when any other boy would have been protecting himself and cowering in a corner somewhere. ”
“For that you would travel to Scotland to die with him?”
The sincerity in his eyes was scorching. “You have no idea.”
A chill went up her spine at his words. Whatever had happened to them, it must have been horrible indeed.
Simon glanced to where Jamie was waiting for them at the top of the stairs, near her door.
He lowered his voice to keep Jamie from overhearing him.
“I was scarce your brother’s age when Sin laid his body over mine to keep me safe.
He almost lost his own life that day because of it.
The night my mother was killed, it was Sin who hid me from her murderer’s wrath.
From the wall where I was hidden, I could hear the beating he took rather than reveal my location.
There are times at night when I can still hear and see the blows he received defending my brother not just that night, but for all the years Sin lived at Ravenswood.
“Sin kept me safe until my own father could come for me. And the last image I have of him as a child is with a hand wrapped around his throat by a man who swore Sin would be sorry for helping me. I shudder to think what was done to him over it. But knowing Harold as I do, I am quite certain he made good on that promise.”
She shivered at what he was describing. But it went a long way in explaining the man she knew Sin to be in the little time she had known him.
Once they reached the top of the stairs, Callie gathered Jamie to her and opened the door to her room. Lord Sin was a fascination for her, but that was all he would ever be. She couldn’t give him anything more than that.
Not while she had an escape to plan.
Sin spent hours trying to dissuade Henry from his madness. The man would not be ceded.
Damn.
A wife. The mere thought made his stomach queasy. What would he do with a wife?
He wasn’t the kind of man who needed, let alone wanted, comfort. Hearth. Home. And God forbid, wife.
All he wanted was to be left alone.
Unbidden, an image of his brother Braden and sister-in-law Maggie drifted through his mind. Whenever his sister-in-law looked at his brother, a light so bright came into her eyes that it was blinding.
No one had ever given him such a look.
Fewer than a handful of people had ever looked at him with anything other than scorn or hatred. Not that he needed any tenderness in his life. He’d lived quite well without it. Why would he want it to change now?
Still...
Sin shook his head. No more thoughts on the matter. He would do as Henry wished, but there were ways yet to thwart him. An unconsummated marriage was easy enough to dissolve. He would go to Scotland, find this Raider who had been harassing Henry’s people, put a stop to him, then regain his freedom.
Henry would be happy and he was quite sure Caledonia would as well...
Caledonia.
He snarled at the irony of her name. I hate everything to do with Scotland and its people, and would sooner rot with pestilence than ever put one piece of my body in Scotland. Sin’s vow echoed in his mind.
There had to be some way to stop this marriage.
Disgusted, Sin made his way up the stairs, toward his room.
When he first reached the landing, he thought nothing odd about the hallway outside of his and Caledonia’s room being empty. Not until he heard a rhythmic thumping that echoed from the other side of her door.
With one hand on the hilt of his sword, he paused with a frown to listen.
Thump, thump...thump, thump...thump, thump... He cocked his head and moved closer to the dark oak door and splayed his hand over the wood.
It sounded much like a bed hammering against the wall while two people...
A stab of rage went through him. Especially when he heard the muffled grunts. He curled his hand into a fist.
Nay! Surely Simon knew better than that.
Sin pressed his ear to the door.
There was no mistaking the sound. It was definitely a bed striking the stone wall with a tremendous amount of force. And the rhythm could be nothing else than a man thrusting.
“Simon,” he hissed under his breath, “you’re a dead man.”
Unsheathing his sword, Sin narrowed his eyes and flung open the door to see two lumps beneath the covers, writhing in unison on the bed.
Sin couldn’t remember the last time anything had made him this angry. But for some reason, the thought of Simon deflowering Caledonia made him want blood. Simon’s blood.
Every last tiny drop of it.
His wrath barely leashed, he approached the bed silently, then angled his sword to the small of the largest lump’s back.
Both lumps froze.
“This best not be what I think it is.” Sin tore the blanket from the bed.
Shock rooted him to the floor as he took in the full sight before him.
Simon lay on his side, fully clothed, tied to both the bed and to a lump of pillows with a rope. A gag of linen was stuffed into his mouth. Simon’s hair was tousled all about his head. His surcoat was soaking wet and his eyes were swollen and red, and they burned with a rage that was tangible.
Sin sheathed his sword, then pulled out his dagger to cut away the gag.
“It isn’t what you were thinking,” Simon said, “but now it is.”
“What the devil happened?” Sin set about cutting him free of the lump and bed.
Simon’s face flushed with anger. “She told me she had woman troubles, then when I came to check on her to see if I needed to fetch a physician, she blew some witch’s brew into my eyes.”
“Why are you wet?”
“After they tied me down, the wench tried to drown me.”
Sin would have laughed had he not been trying to decide who to strangle first, Caledonia or Simon.
“I should leave you tied up here.”
“If it’ll keep me safe from that she-witch, then please do so.”
Sin cut the last rope. “Any idea where she was bound for?”
“None whatsoever.”
“How long since she fled?”
“At least an hour.”
Sin cursed. With that amount of time, she could be anywhere in London.
Caledonia paused as she glanced around the city streets. The afternoon crowd that bustled in between the large buildings was fairly thick. None of them should recognize her or Jamie.
With her brother’s hand held tightly in hers, she wended her way north toward an inn where she remembered stopping on her way into London.
The keeper had owned a stable with horses to be bought.
If she could get to those horses, she intended buy one for each of them with the little bit of coin she had managed to hide from Henry.
He’d had no idea when he’d taken her that she’d possessed a small fortune in her bodice.
Once they were safely away from the inn, they would don the robes of a leper and no one, not even thieves, would dare stop them then.
They would be home in no time.
“Are we to walk all the way to Scotland?” Jamie asked.
Callie smiled. “Just a little farther, sweeting.”
“But my legs are so tired, Callie. Can we not stop for a rest? Just a little one? A minute or two before my legs fall off and then I’ll never be able to run again.”
She didn’t dare stop. Not when they were so close to finally leaving this place behind.
Lifting Jamie up in her arms, she held him to her side and continued on. “Och, lad, you’ve gotten heavy.” She skirted women carrying baskets of market goods. “Why I remember when you scarce weighed as much as a loaf of bread.”
“Did Da sing to me then?”
Callie’s heart clenched at his question. Poor Jamie barely remembered their father, who had died almost three years ago. “Aye,” she said, squeezing him. “He sang to you every night when your mother would put you to bed.”
“Was he a big man like Dermot?”
Callie smiled at the mention of their brother. At ten-and-six, Dermot stood a good three inches taller than she. “Bigger than Dermot.” Indeed, her father was closer to Lord Sin’s height.
“Do you think he’ll be happy to see my mother while he’s in heaven with yours?”
Callie arched a brow at the odd question. “Mercy, imp, wherever do you think up these questions?”
“Well, I was just wondering. One of the king’s knights told me that poor servants can’t go to heaven, only noble people can. I was thinking then that God wouldn’t want my mother there with yours.”
Callie took a deep breath at the nonsense. Her mother may have been of royal blood and Jamie’s mother a simple shepherdess, but only a fool would spout off such rampant stupidity. And to a wee bairn no less.
“He was being mean to you, Jamie. God loves all people equally. Your mother is a good soul who loves us and the Lord in His mercy will see her in heaven with the rest of us.”
“Well, what-”