Chapter 12
Eyes bloodshot from a long night in the tower, his mind settled in a fragile semblance of peace, though his body ached all over, Gordon splashed cold water on his face to wake himself up. He had only managed to get a couple of hours of sleep, and it showed.
That lass is goin’ to kill me if I cannae get her out of me head.
He paused and frowned at his reflection in the small mirror above the basin.
“Hidin’ a weak jaw, eh?” He snorted a laugh, running his fingers through his beard.
But that was no good reason to shave it off. He knew what he looked like underneath, and it didn’t bother him if Agnes thought otherwise. What did bother him, though he could not explain why, was the idea that Lizzy would turn away because of it.
I scratched her when I just wanted to comfort her. I made her cry instead of smile.
Was that why? He couldn’t say for sure.
Still, something compelled him to reach for the straight razor that he hadn’t touched in years. In truth, it would be quite the adjustment to see his own face without the beard once more.
He took one last look at himself in the mirror and began to shave.
“Did ye get too close to a candle or somethin’? Did ye singe yerself, and that’s why ye’ve done this?” Keith asked, gawping at him.
Gordon rolled his eyes, tempted not to answer as he walked with his man-at-arms around the perimeter of the castle, beyond the walls, searching for weak spots. The guards on top of the walls had been instructed to shout if they couldn’t see him and Keith anymore.
“Can ye concentrate on what ye’re meant to be doin’?” he chided.
Keith shook his head. “Walkin’ beside a stranger, I daenae think I can.”
“Ye’ve seen me with me face shaven before. It’s nae so peculiar.”
“Aye, but the last time must have been… I cannae even remember when,” Keith insisted.
Gordon expelled a frustrated sigh. “Well, stop starin’ at me and start starin’ upward. If someone who wishes us harm scales these walls because ye were too busy gapin’ at me face, ye willnae care for the consequences.”
Of course, he had known that there would be some surprise when he emerged from his chambers that morning with a face shaven down to stubble, but this was ridiculous. Keith had known him for at least fifteen of his thirty years, and he had not always had a beard in that time.
“I just want to make sure ye’re nae ill, me Laird,” Keith said, a teasing note in his voice. “Ye see, I noticed all the curtains are open, too.”
“And?”
“And ye’ve kept them closed for as long as ye’ve had yer beard.” Keith shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “I suppose I was just wonderin’ if it had somethin’ to do with a pretty English lass who walked right through our defenses.”
Gordon shot him a dark look. He had not spent all night trying to pluck her out of his thoughts just for Keith to ruin it with foolish accusations.
“Nay, it doesnae,” he replied sharply. “Now concentrate, or I’ll call someone else down here to take yer place.”
Keith put his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Apologies, me Laird. I promise, I’ll behave.” He paused. “I’m just gettin’ reacquainted with yer jaw, that’s all. Forgot ye had one.”
Truly, Gordon had no idea what all the fuss was about. Most of the lairds he knew flitted between bearded and not, and most of his soldiers were the same, shaving when their beards became annoying or inconvenient. Why was it suddenly so remarkable for him to decide to shave off his beard?
“I cannae see ye!” a voice called down from the battlements.
Gordon stopped and daubed a stripe of red paint onto the wall in front of them. “Marked it,” he shouted back up.
The two men continued on, the conversation shifting away from Gordon’s lack of facial hair at last.
“Why does it feel like we’re preparin’ for war?” Keith asked. “Is it nae just a handful, if that, of Englishmen?”
Gordon shook his head. “I daenae ken how many we can expect or what force they might arrive with. Those villagers wouldnae speak to me, which is exactly why ye are goin’ to ride there later today and ask them what the Englishmen looked like, what they said, and where they said they might be headed.
I want to ken what they ken, so we can be ready for anythin’. ”
“I was worried they might nae talk to ye,” Keith sighed. “Very well, I’ll see what I can coax out of ‘em. Although, I’d wager that if ye rode there again today, they’d speak to ye.”
Gordon groaned. “Why? Because they wouldnae recognize me?”
He got to the joke before Keith could and watched the closest thing he had to a friend pout at the loss of his entertainment.
For a while, though not nearly long enough, they walked in silence, listening out for the shouts of the guards so they could add more marks to the walls. Anywhere that Englishmen could creep up unnoticed, particularly at the side of the castle that stood nearest to the forest.
“The lass isnae some secret princess, is she?” Keith asked suddenly, a flicker of concern crossing his face. “Like, we’re nae about to fight the English army, are we? Ye ken I’m nae one to turn down a scrap, me Laird, but we mightnae have enough men if it comes to that.”
Gordon shot him a withering look. “She’s an earl’s daughter.
So far as I ken, the earls down there daenae have armies of their own.
” He hesitated, thinking. “They can probably petition the Crown to borrow some soldiers, but I doubt anyone would agree to send a battalion after an illegitimate child, just so a toad of a duke can pretend she doesnae exist.”
“Is he married or somethin’, and his wife his ragin’ mad?”
“Nay,” Gordon replied. “The bastard hopes to be wed to some wealthy lass who willnae take kindly to him havin’ sired a bairn already. At least, that’s me understanding of the situation.”
Keith clicked his tongue. “I daenae understand the English.”
“Nor do I.”
“And ye say we’re nae allowed to kill the wretch if he comes here?” Mischief glinted in Keith’s eyes.
“The lass doesnae want him dead.”
Keith grinned. “What if it looked like an accident? Somethin’ nay one in England would question. Maybe he was tryin’ to climb these very walls and… och, nay! He slipped. Or what if he sought to bathe in the loch, didnae realize how cold it was, and tragically drowned?”
“He stays alive,” Gordon urged. “No accidents.”
Curling his lip, Keith shrugged. “As ye wish, me Laird.”
“It’s nae as I wish, it’s—”
A sharp, panicked cry cut him off, a chill spearing through his veins as it echoed through the forest. “No! Stop! Please, no!”
Considering there were only two women residing in the castle at that moment, and just one had that crisp, English accent, Gordon didn’t hesitate. Dropping the little pot of red paint onto the ground, he took off into the trees, with Keith running right behind him.
Surefooted, he leaped over fallen trees and rotting logs, crashing through the undergrowth with all the speed he could muster. When brambles and briars sought to snag at his legs, he didn’t even notice the pain of their scratching thorns, tearing onward to reach the source of that frightened cry.
If those English bastards have got her, I daenae ken if I can keep me promise.
The thought throbbed in his mind like a heartbeat as he swerved around thick oak trunks and ducked below low-hanging boughs, his ears pricked for another shout.
“No! Don’t!” the cry came, spurring him onward.
It was coming from the loch.
He was almost at the tree line that surrounded the glittering body of water when he heard a loud splash. Running as fast as his legs would allow, he breached the edge of the forest and hurtled down the slope leading to the pebbled shore.
There.
Ripples pointed to where someone had gone under.
Gordon rushed to the shallows, just as Agnes’s head popped up, breaking the surface.
A frown lowered his eyebrows. He had expected to find her in distress, captured by the duke she feared, perhaps fighting for her life in the frigid waters of the loch. Instead, she looked… triumphant, swimming slowly back to the shore.
She had not seen him yet, and as she emerged slowly, wading out of the water, his eyes widened.
In her arms, she held what appeared to be a ball of brownish seaweed or some kind of algae…
and her shift had turned almost completely transparent.
What she was doing out here in so little clothing barely registered in his faltering mind as he noticed her dramatic curves, that hourglass that he had only seen in silhouette before.
Her pink, pert nipples tempted his gaze, allowing him to admire the full swell of her breasts. Meanwhile, the golden hair that had been pinned into a bun since her arrival now revealed itself in long, damp tendrils that fell almost to her hips.
He drew in a sharp breath.
All this time, he had been trying not to pay her any attention, insisting that he needed to keep away from her, only to stand frozen on the shore while temptation itself sauntered toward him, still oblivious to his presence.
He crossed his arms over his chest and waited for her to notice, though she seemed rather more interested in the dark, wet lump cradled in her arm.
It was only as she reached the pebbles and stumbled a little on the uneven surface that her attention snapped up, her eyes meeting his.
Her soft, startled gasp set an inferno burning within him, one that could not easily be put out, not now that he had seen the majesty of her figure. It was seared in his memory, where it could only haunt and torment him, stoking a desire that could never be satisfied.
Damn ye. Och, damn ye, lass.