Knight's Legacy (6 page)

“Edna tells me ye are not mad, but were knocked senseless in the water. Your speech be strange, but Kenneth favors ye. That boy … he has a gift of love in his heart. If ye be trustworthy to him, there be good in ye. I knew that by ye sparin' Angus just to save Edna's grief. I seen it in your eyes. Ye dinnae want to cause her pain.”

“I don't wish to cause trouble. Edna was good to me, and even Angus didn't deserve to die for taking my sword.”

“Sir Montwain be quite smitten with ye. Could it be ye fancy him just a bit?”

Cat was astounded by the transformation, for when Mary smiled with a beaming sparkle in her eyes, she was pretty. No doubt the many hardships she had suffered induced the pinched, hard expression of fear which was so often present. Cat's attraction to Roderic had not gone unnoticed by Mary, yet she found no humor in her plight. Cat put her head in her hands, leaned on the table, and sighed.

“May I speak freely with you, Mary? You will keep my confidence?”

“Aye, milady.”

“I don't know what to do. Edna said she would help me get away, yet …”

“Get away?” Mary was shocked. “And how did she think to do this with hundreds of Montwain's soldiers about? Think ye the man willnae see his wife is not in his chamber?”

Cat was suddenly running her hand through her hair in apprehension.

“That's just it. The marriage bed. I can't do this. How am I going to tell him I've never …”

“If ye think tellin' your husband ye be innocent will cool his blood, ye be wrong! Men love bein' the first to lay with a lass. I saw the way he kissed ye. The mon willnae wait to bed ye. Is it the lies wearin' on your heart?”

“In part,” Cat admitted. She shook her head. “I had no choice but to marry him. Yet, I should try to make him understand that I'm not Brianna. Mary, someday I'll have to go back where I came from.”

“But not now?”

Cat had searched the castle when she was alone after Roderic left with the others. She had found no clue, no hint of where the portal could be.

“No, not now. I can't.”

“Ye never did answer me. Ye do fancy him?” Mary asked.

“I'm confused. I can't describe it. My friends back home would call it ‘falling in lust.' But, it's more than that. It's frightening, Mary. The first time I looked into his eyes, I felt he owned me. Even Samuel never made me feel this way, and I thought I loved him.”

“Samuel?” Mary said.

Cat nodded. “He's someone I knew long ago.”

“Will he try to come for ye?”

“No, that isn't possible,” Cat said.

“Understanding ye, lass, be like walkin' through a fog. Did the mon have your father's promise for your hand?”

“No, he didn't want me. I'm sorry, Mary, I know this is confusing. I won't speak of my home. There's no point, because I don't know if I can ever go back there.”

“Thereupon ye best be Brianna, until the day ye leave us. If Sir Montwain has his way, ye will be a wife to him. If ye fight him, it will change nothing. Men live to fight. I don't think he would be cruel to ye as many a mon would be. Yet, if ye leave, he will come after ye.”

Cat said nothing in response. It was not as if she could explain the portal was an escape that would leave no trace and no trail to follow. Her thoughts raced to what she had left behind, her own century, her own life.

Samuel was twenty years older than Cat, and she had been fascinated with him from the very first class he taught her at UCLA. She had been determined to complete the hours needed for her degree. He had a brilliant mind, and she was attracted to him from the very beginning. Cat had met him the first week she had arrived in LA, incredibly naïve. His brutal honesty had saved her innocence. Samuel used intellectualism as a weapon, making sure she understood their relationship was temporary. The experience had devastated her, and she went back to the ranch in Texas. It was one of the many times in her life she needed her mother. Her father knew she was in pain, but never asked why.

Howard Terril was a fair man, and she knew he loved her deeply, but there was a part of him that was extremely distant emotionally. His was a world of exhausting work and rough men, a third generation cowman from Texas, and he had worked diligently all his life to care for his family. Cat was determined to give the same effort on the ranch as those who worked for her father, and it was her talent with horses that was instrumental in securing her fist job as a stuntwoman. She studied choreography, then found it easy to combine the two careers. After the disastrous episode with Samuel, Cat had a fear of depending on a man too much. She was intelligent and self-sufficient, but when she fell in love there was a longing to immerse herself in the relationship, having done so with Samuel. Once he made it clear he felt smothered, Cat made every effort to bury that part of her as if it didn't exist, and she rarely dated. Taking extensive classes in sword fighting and fencing, she worked single-mindedly on her career. Finding an antique cutlasss at a flea market, she began to collect them, and took classes in medieval history to learn more about the weapons.

Her first job as a stuntwoman was on a television series, and it was there she met David. He offered her a job since his company contracted work from film to film, and she got to travel on location. She would miss her job, and although the movie work took her away from home, she seldom saw Howard when she was at the ranch. He was much too busy, and she was strangely bereft at the realization that she rarely had a conversation of any length with her father. The closeness, the connection, the feeling that she belonged, did not exist, neither with Howard, nor Samuel.

Roderic returned late in the evening, and Edna visited Cat to tell her he would soon come to her.

“Please forgive me, child. There is no way to sneak you away. There be too many of his soldiers about. I wanted to save your life. The Mackay is a viper! Montwain will care for ye as his wife. He has mercy in his soul. He let Angus go, though he could have done as he pleased. He called me ‘old woman' as if I were honored, not scorned. He willnae mistreat ye. Does your heart belong to another? Is that why ye be so troubled?”

There was guilt and compassion in the old woman's expression.

“No. There is no one else,” she replied, and let the memory of Samuel go. “Don't fret, Edna. I will find my own way out of this tangle.”

Roderic had just finished his bath and was donning his boots when there was a knock at the door. He stomped his foot down into his boot and opened the door to see Mary with a tray of food.

“Ah, Mary, enter,” he said. She walked swiftly into the room and set the tray down on a small table by the window. She moved back and watched him warily as he sat down to eat.

Roderic took a drink of ale as she stood silent, wringing her hands. “Fear me not, lady. May ye have peace.”

“Aye, Sir Roderic,” she said, raising her gaze to his hesitantly.

“Your child continues to fair well?”

“Aye, she is no longer hungry, and I thank ye for your forbearance with Kenneth.”

“How long has it been since the death of his mother?”

“Kenneth is four and ten summers. Edna decreed that he would stay at the keep when Judith died. Edna runs the keep and saw to Mackay's comforts, so he dinnae deem the child worthy of courting her displeasure. How I wish she could have stopped his interest in wee Judith ‘afore it became a danger to her.”

“May your sorrow for her pain abate in time,” Roderic said.

“Ah, Sir Roderic, ye know not what it is for a woman to be defiled in such a way.” There was a pensive shimmer in the shadow of her eyes.

“Think you I am intent on rape this night?”

She raised a brow. “ 'Tis little to stop ye.”

“I willnae harm her, Mary. Brianna has been given to me by the King, yet I shall not force her to come to my bed. Rape is an act of war. I am bent on seduction. If I am not to win the lady this night, there are many nights in the future to make it so.”

She heaved a heavy sigh.

“Thereupon, sir, may ye fair well in your quest.”

She turned and left the chamber, and Roderic paced for several minutes, his face tight and grim. He turned as Cameron, one of the King's loyal men, entered.

The man was one of the first to pledge loyalty to Duncan's plan for the Mackay lands, in spite of the command being given to Roderic. Cameron was a distant relative of the King, and a fierce warrior with superior skill. Roderic trained his men well, and Gavin had boasted that Cameron had joined them because he longed to fight beside the strongest armed force in the Highlands. Roderic respected the man's loyalty to Duncan, and Cameron had backed him in battle often. They were more than comrades, for Roderic trusted him, and valued his counsel.

“What has ye so vexed? A mon just wed should ponder the comely lass he is to bed this night. Were she mine, I would make haste to be with her.”

“Ye find her tempting?” Roderic's expression clouded even more. Cameron had merely favored his bride with a compliment. Was he already experiencing jealousy?

Cameron shrugged. “With respect, I do, Sir Roderic. Yet, I forget ye dinnae want to wed.”

Roderic shook his head. “Aye, I did not. Still, in time, I had hoped to marry. Every man holds dear the thought of his own sons. I had hoped to have a bride that would deem me her lover, not her owner. I had judged this marriage a yoke I must bear. I had not believed that I would be looking forward to bedding the lady with such joy that I seek to revel in it.”

Cameron's eyes danced when he laughed. “So, ye be flesh and blood now, not merely a leader who must please the King? Ye need a wench. A mon gets too muddled about with duty when he doesnae gift himself with a woman's touch. Ye seek to be more Scot than the Scots ye lead, and a commander full of charity to the Mackay clan. Ye are as cautious as an altar boy hoping to please a priest, when there be no need of it. Were she Gavin's, the lass would be screaming her pleasure at this moment.”

“Mary thinks I will make her scream, not in pleasure, but when I rape her. They all distrust and fear me. I know it will take time to win this clan's loyalty, yet I am sickened by the assumption. I sought to remove her from her father's dominion, not to torture her with my own.”

“Aye, and they will see it in time. Ye think as an Englishmon. We Scots be stubborn. We must be shown proof, with coin in our hand, ‘afore we shear the sheep.”

Roderic smiled, considering the apt declaration. He leaned forward with quiet assurance. “Thereupon, I will give the clan and my bride their proof. Rather than ravage her as they hope to see, I shall treat her as a cherished gift and break down the wall of their lies.”

Cameron shrugged. “Ye fancy the wench. Go to her.”

Roderic's brown eyes contained a sensuous flame. He turned and left the chamber, resolving to do just that.

Gavin walked briskly through the keep. He had seen the new bride steal out of the tower room and down the corridor, and he had an arrogant grin on his face when he found Roderic making his way to the tower.