Knights of de Ware 02 - My Warrior (34 page)

“Cambria.”

Fine hairs rose on the back of Cambria’s neck, like the brush of a spider’s web. She thought for a moment she’d heard…but nay—it was only the wind soughing through the trees. The sun had shifted the lacy shadows of the forest canopy to the far side of the clearing now, and the kind knight who’d accompanied her here was gone. She shivered once and withdrew again into her silent vigil.

“Cambria.”

She froze. It wasn’t the wind. The air around her felt charged, and the skin of her back tingled as if she were about to be struck by lightning. She ventured a glance toward the heavens, but the visible patches of sky were unblemished by cloud.

She must be losing her mind, hearing things. The horrible thing she’d done was making her hear his voice, making her flesh crawl with electric fear.

“Cambria.”

Nay! She must numb herself to what had happened, lock it all away into the darkest alcove of her mind. If she could only stop her ears against the echo of his voice…

“Cam.” The voice was right behind her now.

With the wariness of a cat, she straightened slowly, repulsed and yet compelled to seek out the unearthly source of her torment. She rose on quaking limbs and turned to face whatever specter called her name.

Holden held his breath. How suddenly small Cambria looked, her despair clear in the forlorn slope of her shoulders. He’d been watching her in silence for a long time, trying to piece together the right words to say.

He couldn’t expect her trust. He’d given her little reason to trust him. He’d called her whore and cast her aside like offal. He’d even deceived her into believing she’d slain him. Now he wouldn’t blame her if she
did
slay him.

But no matter how fruitless, he had to try to regain her trust.

She turned slowly to face him, and when he saw what damage had been done to her, rage rose in him, a rage so black he had to force his eyes away lest he frighten her with his fury.

He wanted to kill Owen all over again. Her face was riddled with dark bruises, her cheek was cut, and one eye was blackened and swollen. He ground his teeth together, silently cursing fate for cheating him of the pleasure of murdering Owen by slow torture.

“Holden?” Cambria whispered in disbelief.

It was impossible. She’d killed him. She’d felt her blade pierce his flesh, seen him fall, watched his lifeblood flow out onto the ground.

Yet he stood before her, speaking to her, his chest swathed in bandages, looking as alive as flesh and blood could be.

The breath stilled in her breast. A thankful sob welled up inside her. Her nose stung as she fought to control a sea of emotions. God had had mercy upon her after all. Holden wasn’t dead. She reached out tremulously for him, stretching her fingers out to touch the warm tips of his.

With a soft cry, she lunged forward, dissolving into his embrace. Nothing had ever felt more solid, more real than his fierce arms about her, his warm chest against her cheek, his love wrapped around her heart.

“Your wounds…how can you ever forgive…” she began before tears choked her.

Her words caught Holden like a boot in the stomach. Forgive her? He prayed she’d forgive
him
. He’d vowed to protect her, yet she bore the marks of his failure to do that—one eye swollen almost shut, bruises coloring her cheeks, red abrasions at the sides of… His fingers touched the corner of her mouth. She’d been gagged, he realized, and it all became instantly clear—why she’d gone willingly to battle, why she’d remained silent. A muscle in his cheek began to twitch with anger, and his jaw tightened to rock hardness.

“I
am
sorry,” Cambria breathed, misunderstanding his dark looks.

Holden shook his head and, despite the rage surging in his blood, forced his teeth apart in a reassuring grin.

“For these nicks? I’ve lost more blood shaving. Lady, if the day ever comes that I’m defeated, I assure you it won’t be at the hands of a runty Scots sprite.”

She let the insult go, but his boast gave her pause, and she remembered Stephen’s words:
He must love you well. A man would
have
to love a woman to let her wound him like that.
“Are you saying you
let
me wound you?”

He shrugged.

She searched his eyes as if she wondered at his sanity. “Why?”

“To distract Owen. While he was drooling over the sight of his wee Scots champion quelling the undefeated Wolf, my men were able to steal into the castle.”

“Blackhaugh?”

He grinned. “Is secure.”

Cambria gasped. Could it possibly be true? She’d thought never to walk the parapet of Blackhaugh again, and now… Her eyes softened in gratitude. The Wolf had said he would hold the castle for her clan. He’d already made good on his promise.

Only one black shadow yet hung to mar the glorious triumph.

“What of…Owen?” She whispered the question, fearing that uttering his name might summon him.

“Dead.” Holden’s voice was flat, ominous, final. He left no room for questions, and Cambria wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answers anyway. She nodded, wrapping her arms around herself as if to ward off Owen’s chill shade.

When she looked up at Holden again, his eyes had grown very serious, their gray-green depths as foreboding as the North Sea. He struggled for words.

“Did Owen…” he asked. “Did he touch…” Holden shut his eyes for a moment, and then searched her face, unable to finish the question. Her expression closed before his eyes. He wanted to curse, but didn’t. She’d obviously read his meaning, but she didn’t want to answer him. “Tell me,” he coaxed.

“Do you suspect I am ‘spoiled goods’?” she asked carefully. “Is that what you want to know?”

“Cambria,” he said in a hushed voice, “it was never my intent to hurt you.” He clenched his jaw, and his voice cracked. “But when I saw you up there in the claws of that beast, I would have sold my soul to have you returned safely to me. All those things I said, I said only to protect you.”

“Aye,” she admitted, lowering her eyes. “I know.”

“I wouldn’t hurt you for the world.”

She turned aside and gazed thoughtfully off into the dense nest of trees. “What if I told you,” she murmured, “that Owen had forced himself upon me, that I may now carry his babe?”

Holden swallowed the acid rising in his gorge. The picture of Owen pawing his precious Cambria was too awful to bear, but he’d already considered that possibility.

He answered raggedly. “The child would be half yours. I would care for it as my own.”

“And me? Would you still share my bed?”

He nodded solemnly and whispered, “I’d want to take you back so completely it would wash away any memory of that bastard.”

He’d spoken more vehemently than he’d intended, yet Cambria’s eyes gentled as she cocked them up at him.

“What if I told you instead,” she said evenly, “that I fought him at every turn, bit and scratched and scorned him until he beat me and called me witch and couldn’t even think of bedding me?”

He looked sharply at her, searching her battered face for the truth. It was there, in the stubborn tilt of her chin, the flashing defiance of her eyes, the set of her jaw.

“
That
I would sooner believe,” he admitted, letting out a grateful rush of air. “You’re wont to be a thistle under a man’s saddle.” His relief soured, however, as he saw again how that thistle had been trod underfoot. “Ah, Cam.”

Words couldn’t serve to tell her how he felt. He moved forward, wrapping one arm about her neck, placing his hand gingerly upon her face, removing all doubt from her with a kiss.

Cambria gave a small moan. He was crushing her bruised lips, and his hand upon her jaw pained her, but she welcomed his embrace. The stubble of his chin was rough on her face, his skin warm and alive against hers. She had no strength to answer his ardor, but neither did she resist his arms, and it was a long while before she could speak around the lump in her throat.

“When I thought I’d slain you…” she began.

“Shh,” he soothed, stroking her cheek with the back of his finger. “Hell, Cambria, when I discovered that devil’s spawn had sent you for his champion, that he wanted me to…kill…” The words stuck in his throat.

She closed her eyes for a moment, as if to blot out the memory. Then a glimmer of irony crept into her voice. “I do believe he was glad of an excuse to be rid of me.”

“He was a fool,” Holden told her passionately, gathering a handful of her hair between his fingers and thinking it was more precious than spun gold.

Then he kissed her again, a tender kiss this time, like the flicker of a moth on the evening wind. Cambria closed her eyes and shivered against him, lifting her lips for more. But Holden knew he couldn’t give more and keep from succumbing to that beast of desire that already tugged at its leash. Besides, she’d been through hell in the last few days. She needed rest.

So he let her recline in the cradle of his arms, and before long, she was drawing in the deep air of sleep. He listened to her soft breathing as if it were a consort playing for his benefit. All around them in the filtered light of the forest, the peaceful sounds of airborne insects and fat squirrels spiraling up oak trees made a lulling music in the Gavin wood.

This was happiness, he decided, snuggling closer—a beautiful woman in his embrace, a magnificent castle to command, loyal vassals at his side. There was nothing more a man could ask. And he owed it all to her.

“Ah, Cambria, Lady de Ware, laird of Gavin,” he murmured against her hair, “how I love you.” The words came easily to his lips now. Later, when she was awake, he’d say them again, say them a thousand times. “I swear to protect you and your clan with my life. Never again will you have to fight your battles alone. I am henceforth your knight, my lady. It is I who will wield the Gavin blade and vanquish your enemies. Now and forevermore.”

A sweet smile graced Cambria’s face, and he pressed a kiss upon her brow. Soon, he vowed, he intended to see that his dear wife would have no greater troubles than deciding whether to have capon or quail for supper. Nothing should worry her pretty little head. She had put the clan first for most of her life. It was time someone put her first.

Holden beamed with pride as he scanned Blackhaugh’s courtyard. Over the past several weeks, he’d demanded a great deal from the castle denizens, yet there wasn’t a shiftless or unwilling soul among them. A man couldn’t wish for more loyal vassals than these Scots, and he was proud he’d won them with honor rather than force of will.

The work on the castle proceeded with even great efficiency than he’d thought possible. Brawny workers sweated over the stones and mortar they hauled up the stairs for the new tower. Woodworkers kept up a steady rhythm of pounding as they skillfully selected and dovetailed long planks together for the flooring. Sir Guy repaired the quintain, replacing it with a figure of uncanny likeness to Duncan de Ware, gleefully informing Holden that it might be the only way he could hope to defeat his older brother.

Thanks to capable Katie, young maids ran to and fro most of the day, sweeping out the musty rushes from the great hall and replacing them with fragrant grasses, heather, and thyme gathered from the fields, laundering bed linens till they snapped white as sails in the summer breeze, mending plaids and wattle fences and scraped knees.

This morn, two little boys with sun-freckled faces crossed the courtyard with a platter of cheese and salted meats for the workers, and the scent of fresh bread wafted from the bakehouse. A pair of waddling old women chased a fugitive pig back into its newly swept pen.

Holden felt as content as a hound with a full belly.

Summer found love blossoming everywhere. Blackhaugh had never seen so many weddings in a single season. Young Gwen snared a reformed Robbie for her own. Jamie found a pale milkmaid from Bowden to warm his heart and his bed. Even Sir Guy was pestered by a bonnie bit of a Scots temptress from the Campbell clan, eliciting wagers as to how long the siege would last. And shining down over everyone was the glow of affection between the Wolf and his mate.

Only Holden’s brother Garth seemed immune to the fever. Deciding he’d had quite enough adventure for one lifetime, he left to return home to his ecclesiastical studies. Holden agreed to let him go, on the condition that Garth be the one to break the news of his wedding to the rest of the de Ware household.

Holden intended to bring his Scots bride to England one day, but he couldn’t leave just now, not while there was so much work to be done. He belonged to Blackhaugh as much as it belonged to him. To gain the full respect of the Gavins and to firmly establish the alliance, he had to earn it, and part of the price was hard work. The other part was compromise. Though it was essential to impose some kind of English order upon the Scots’ wild mode of warfare, he had to concede there were some things he could learn from their rough-hewn ways. He had no wish to conquer this proud people. He desired to join them.

To that end, he labored harder than he’d ever labored in his life. Yet it was good work, honest work. And all his efforts, all the long hours, the back-breaking toil—everything—he did to impress the woman he’d come to cherish, that little Scots elf who yet slumbered above-stairs like a naughty layabed.

He grinned, then winced at what a lovesick pup he’d become. There had been a time when he believed a wife of little import, less import than a good steward or a trusty squire. But not even for the king had he toiled so tirelessly as he did for his precious lady laird. He’d pushed himself so arduously, laboring ceaselessly from dawn to well after dusk, that, night after night, he’d fallen into bed and instant sleep, exhausted.

Damn, he suddenly realized, had it truly been a week since he’d lain with his wife? He glanced up toward the window where Cambria still dozed, remembering the tantalizing way her breast had slipped out from beneath the linens this morn as she lay sleeping, the enticing pout of her dream-kissed lips, the sweet fragrance of her womanly body. His blood warmed like mulled wine.