Knights of de Ware 02 - My Warrior (40 page)

The haft was slippery with blood and sweat. It kept sliding out of Cambria’s fingers as she awkwardly sawed at the ropes binding her wrists behind her. She dropped it. Cursing under her breath, she groped blindly for it. She pierced her finger on the point. Then her left hand closed about it. Carefully she tried to transfer the dagger to her right hand. But it dropped again. Frantic now, she scrabbled her fingertips along the splinter floor, shoving a sliver under one of her nails.

A small moan sounded behind her. Aggie was rousing. Cambria had to get the knife. A sob of panic built in her throat. Her fingers grazed metal, drove it away, caught it again. She had the dagger in her hand.

Then Aggie collided with her, pushing her forward, hard. The cornerstone of the hearth rose up to pound against her forehead. The floor slammed into her, shoving her firm womb against her soft organs with the force of a huge iron ball shot from a thunder tube. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. But she still clenched the dagger tightly in her bound fists, holding on to it for dear life.

A strange squeal came from behind her. Aggie. Stretched out gracelessly atop Cambria’s back, her bony frame trembling. Her fingers clawed at Cambria’s shoulders, digging in a hopeless struggle. Her voice sounded parchment-thin as she gasped against Cambria’s ear.

“Nay…nay.”

Cambria shuddered. A thin stream of pink saliva hung from Aggie’s lips and then dropped to the floor. She closed her eyes against the sight. It was too late. Cambria’s dagger had found anchor. She loosened her fingers around the weapon. Aggie rolled weakly from her, sobbing once in bewilderment when she saw the blade buried deep in her breast and the spreading scarlet staining her kirtle.

Then, with pathetic determination, scraping and clawing her way, Aggie crawled forward, as if she could escape death’s reach. It was a painful eternity before the last raping breath of life wheezed out from between her lips. When Cambria found the nerve to look, Aggie lay collapsed at her feet.

Holden plunged forward, fording streams, whipping away branches, searching for the signs of the
H
, backtracking when they became too sparse. At last the marks led him to an overgrown hovel, a squalid, deserted place made nearly invisible with heavy vines.

Slowly he crept forward. Strange sounds came from the cottage, pathetic sounds that turned his brave soul to custard, sounds like an animal in heat—groaning, tortured noises. His heart pulsed in his throat as he slipped his sword from its sheath and neared the open door.

In the dim light, it was difficult to see inside. There was a shifting lump near the stone hearth that looked like a moving pile of laundry. It was from there that the noises came. Cautiously, he inched through the doorway. He could hear panting, like the rough breathing of a wounded creature.

It was Cambria’s familiar moan that pulled at his very soul, that human sound that rent his heart and made him drop his sword and his guard to go to her. Fear slammed into his chest. There was blood everywhere. Her whimpers were piteous, gut-wrenching.
Dear God
, he prayed,
let her be unhurt. Let her live.

“Cambria,” he called hoarsely, kneeling beside her.

The moaning ceased.

“Cambria!” he cried, reaching his hands out, yet afraid to make contact.

Her head whipped around, and he could see the shine of her wide eyes.

“Holden?” her voice was weak.

Tears filled his eyes. He let them fall. “I’m here now. You’ll be safe. I swear it.”

She groaned again.

He touched her cheek tentatively. “Oh, God, Cambria, what’s been done to you?”

A sound eerily like a chuckle escaped Cambria, but it was immediately wrenched from her mouth as another wave of pain overpowered her. When she could speak again, she said rapidly, “Fetch a clean blanket or something, Holden, hurry.”

She was dying, he thought. But he didn’t question her command. He would have brought her the moon. The best he could offer was his cloak.

“Now cut me loose,” she gasped before pain rendered her speechless once more.

He swiped at his tear-blinded eyes and carefully severed the cords about her wrists and ankles. It was all his fault. If only he’d stayed with her…

Cambria huffed heavily, and Holden closed his eyes. Tears squeezed between his lashes and left burning trails down his cheeks.
Please, God,
he prayed,
don’t let her die.
He was afraid to touch her, afraid of what mortal wound he would find. He cast his gaze away in despair, and it was then that he divined what the lump beside him was. He nearly fell back on his haunches as he recognized the ashen face of Sir Owen’s slut, Agnes.

“She’s dead,” Cambria whispered. Then she moaned loud.

Her cries were driving him mad. He had to do something. He wiped at his trembling mouth with the back of his hand.

“Cambria, we have to get you home, to Blackhaugh, to the physician.”

“Not…now. Too…late.”

“I’ll carry you,” he pleaded, reaching beneath her. God, her garments were drenched. “Cambria, if you lose any more blood—“

She barked out a little laugh. “It isn’t blood.”

She must be delirious. He tried to move her.

“Nay!” she cried. “It comes! It comes!”

She clenched her fists and lifted her head from the floor. For an awful moment, he thought she’d seen the specter of death coming for her, that she was about to breathe her last. Her features contorted in a grimace that seemed part anguish and part ecstasy. Then his eyes adjusted to the low light of the room. He could make out Cambria’s profile. She was as round as an overstuffed goose.

“You’re not having… Holy Mother of God,” he breathed, and for an irrational instant wondered how it could have happened. “You’re not…”

“Not…for…long,” she panted.

Reality hit him like a mallet. Cambria wasn’t wounded. She was in the throes of labor.

Any other man would have been relieved. But dread ran icy fingers along Holden’s spine. Nightmares of his own mother, screaming and writhing in agony as she succumbed to a bloody death, racked his mind. Cambria bore down, her body heaving with effort, and an overwhelming urge to flee consumed him. But he was immobilized by panic.

“You must…help…” she gasped.

Holden turned his head away in terror. He’d done this to her. He’d gotten her with child. He was fated to kill another kinswoman.

Suddenly Cambria’s fists tangled in his tabard, and she yanked him down to her. “Listen, Englishman!” she hissed like an angry cat between gulps of air. “If you don’t help me…I’ll tell your son…his father is an English coward.”

Her threat brought him around faster than a hard slap. It wasn’t what she said. It was the determination with which she said it. She had faith, even if he didn’t. Together they would get through this. Had he been gone so long he’d forgotten Cambria’s stubbornness, her will, her tenacity? She was nothing like his pale, delicate mother. Cambria was a Scotswoman, by God, a laird, a warrior. She would battle heaven and hell to survive, if only to scoff at the weakness an Englishman had shown her. She would live, if only to boast about how she’d birthed her firstborn by herself in a humble cottage. And she’d gloat about the fact that he’d sat helplessly by while she did it.

Holden swallowed hard and pushed back the sleeves of his hauberk. He murmured a prayer and moved between Cambria’s knees. If she could fight the battle, so could he.

He looked into her pain-glazed eyes and saw no fear, no hesitation, only challenge and determination. “God, I love you.” His voice broke, and his hands trembled as he placed them upon her bloody thighs. But he told her.

“And I love you,” she said between ragged gasps, giving him a brilliant smile.

The heir of de Ware and the next laird of Gavin was about to enter the world. He’d be damned if he’d desert his wife on the battlefield. And he’d be damned if he’d be excluded from this legendary birth.

“Mama!”

Cambria could hear the wailing of her four-year-old nephew all the way across Blackhaugh’s rise. She looked up from her sketches of armor designs and raised an inquisitive brow.

Linet clucked her tongue and tossed her long golden braid over her shoulder. She set aside the swatches of wool she’d been showing to Cambria and waited for her son to come crying into her skirts.

“Mama!” he called, his hand clenched to his eye and his chubby legs pumping through the grass. “Skye did it again!”

Cambria brought her hand up to her mouth, half in horror and half to cover her amusement. It was good to have Holden’s kin at Blackhaugh again. But they’d been in Scotland a mere two days, and already Cambria’s daughter had bested her cousin in a brawl for the third time. She looked to Linet in apology and set off to seek out her wayward child.

Skye was a handful, that was sure, as wild and unbiddable as…well, as
she
had once been. At least, so Malcolm the Steward oft complained. Still, Cambria frequently discovered the grumbling steward and his ubiquitous companion, Sir Guy, arguing the nuances of a certain maneuver of the sword while Skye aped them brilliantly.

Holden didn’t seem to mind. Her abduction had convinced him of the merits of arming his women. Indeed, he’d taken it upon himself to teach them the finer points of defense.

He also had great plans for their two-year-old son, Angus, who was farther up the hill at present, sleeping off a meal of porridge in his father’s arms. Holden had already begun the little lad’s training, giving him a wooden sword and carrying him proudly upon Ariel as he pointed out the best warriors in his company.

Ah, there was one of his best now, Cambria thought with a smile as she spied Skye leaping over a boulder to battle an oak stump. The wee brawler was certainly good for one thing, she had to admit—Skye tested Cambria’s armor designs before they were forged for the knights. No warrior could have put chain mail and plate through a more thorough trial.

“Mama!” Skye cried as she spotted her mother. “I defeated that varlet, Sir Roland de Ware! I am the champion!”

Cambria forced her features into a frown, which was no easy feat. “And why were you battling your cousin?”

Skye pouted. “He said his papa could best my papa.” She screwed up her forehead. “It isn’t true, is it?”

Cambria let a grin slip onto her face. “Well, that will be determined tomorrow in the great tournament, Skye. But it’s nothing for you and Roland to battle over. You know, not all disagreements need to be settled with fists and sword.” She sat upon the boulder and wrapped an arm around her mail-clad daughter. “Have I ever told you the story of how your papa convinced me to marry him?”

Holden shifted his sleepy son in his arms and examined more closely the monk’s missive.

“I’ll be damned,” he whispered.

The monk flinched visibly at the oath.

“Well, well,” his brother Duncan chimed in over his shoulder, his blue eyes sparkling as he perused the note. “It’s high time, isn’t it?”

Then Duncan peered past him, and Holden followed his gaze. Linet was waddling up the hill toward them, her flaxen-haired son clinging to her swollen belly.

“Ah, Linet, my love, there you are,” Duncan beamed, holding his hand out to assist her. “I fear, my lady, I may have to delay besting this brother of mine in the lists. It seems we’re needed back in England.”

Linet absently stroked her belly, her soft green eyes dimming sadly. Holden knew she wanted Cambria by her side for the birth.

“I see no reason Cambria and I can’t come as well,” Holden assured her.

“Roland!” Duncan shouted suddenly at the sight of his son, whose eye appeared to be turning an ugly shade of purple. “How did you get that black eye?”

“Skye did it!” the little boy cried in barely discernible words. “Skye said she was a knight, and we were having a battle!”

Holden rolled his eyes and clenched his jaw. He’d been hearing tales like this one for some six months now. More than half the castle children had injuries somehow related to Skye. It was beginning to be an embarrassment.

Duncan, however, only laughed and tapped at the document in his hand. “Well, it seems our little brother is in for a bit of fatherly woes himself!”

“Garth?” Linet asked.

“He’s taking a wife. A matter of honor, it says here,” Duncan said with a grin, gesturing to the missive.

“He is to be a father himself shortly,” Holden explained. “And it appears he doesn’t mean a
holy
father. He’s summoned us to come in all haste to his wedding.”

“Garth?” Linet asked. “Married?”

She swatted little Roland on the bottom and sent him racing off into the arms of his favorite new friend, Sir Guy, who had appeared on the field.

“But Garth has been living in a monastery,” she argued.

Holden and Duncan exchanged knowing grins.

“He
is
a de Ware,” Duncan explained.

Holden chuckled, disturbing his slumbering son, and then jiggled the boy back to sleep. He was delighted that Garth was going to have a family. There was nothing quite so rewarding as a cherished wife and nothing as balancing as fatherhood. No glorious campaign, no accumulation of wealth, no victory in the tournament could please him so well as the piece of heaven he’d found in his family’s embrace.

A silver flash across the field caught his eye. There were his precious jewels now—Cambria and Skye—bounding across the grass in twin coats of sparkling mail. His heart swelled at the sight of them. They were his beloved ladies, both as beautiful as Highland lochs, as bewitching as woodland sprites, as abandoned and carefree as Scotland herself.

He took a deep breath of fresh Gavin air and strode toward them to share the good news.