Teresa Medeiros (14 page)

An elderly woman puffing on a crude pipe nodded sagely, her chin whiskers bobbing. “Magwyn’s right. Chauncey saw Lord Colin taken with his own eyes.
Brisbane wouldn’t have been fool enough to let him live.”

A rabbit-eyed young woman with white-blond hair wrung her pale hands. “But why has he returned? Perhaps he is an angel sent to warn us of some dire misfortune about to befall us.”

Magwyn’s laughter was bitter enough to make Tabitha flinch. “If so, his warnin’ comes a wee bit late. You would think one of God’s own would be more vigilant in his duties.”

“Cease your blasphemin’, child,” chided the elderly woman. “We should pray and seek God’s counsel in determinin’ the purpose o’ this heavenly visitation.”

As the old woman knelt, her companions dropped obediently to their knees. The woman they called Magwyn finally followed suit, although her shoulders remained rigid and her head was the last to bow.

But it was Magwyn Colin reached toward, Magwyn’s chin he cupped gently in his hand, urging her to lift her head and meet his eyes. She gazed up at him in stunned bewilderment, covering his hand with her own as if to assure herself it was real.

“You’re no ghost,” she blurted out.

Magwyn’s exclamation caused her companions to jerk up their own heads and gape at their laird.

“No, I’m not,” he assured them. “Despite Brisbane’s earnest strivings to make one of me.”

Tears tumbled down the woman’s cheeks as she bowed her head and brought Colin’s hand to her lips. “He’s alive! Praise God, our laird is alive!”

“Arise, Magwyn.” He drew her to her feet with the hand she continued to clutch. His voice was gentle, but his face was as hard as Tabitha had ever seen it. “You may kneel to God whenever you like, but as long as I’m
laird of Ravenshaw, you’ll never again bend your knee to any man.”

The women, children, and old men enveloped him in a flurry of embraces, their excited chatter punctuated by cries of “Lord Colin is alive!” and “He’s no angel!”

“I
could have told you that,” Arjon called out, sending his gelding prancing into their midst.

“Sir Arjon! Why, look, ’tis Sir Arjon!” they exclaimed to one another, welcoming him into their celebration with eager hands and open arms.

“Hide your hearts,” Magwyn warned, tossing him a laughing kiss. “Or this Norman rascal will make off with them.”

The rabbit-eyed blonde shot Tabitha a sullen glance. “Looks like he’s already made off with hers.”

Tabitha was brimming with joy on their behalf, but as every villager in the courtyard craned their necks to gape at her, she could feel her features stiffening into an expressionless mask. She felt like she was back in high school, where her painful shyness had so frequently been mistaken for disdain.

“Who’s your woman, Sir Arjon?” Magwyn asked, her smile curious, but not unkind.

“I’m n-not—” Tabitha began, blushing furiously.

Before she could stammer to a finish, Colin seized her hand, dragging her off the horse and into his arms.

He slanted her a glance, his eyes sparkling with an enigmatic blend of amusement and warning. “She’s not Sir Arjon’s woman. She’s mine.”

Tabitha was still fuming over Colin’s claim that night as she feasted beneath a Tiffany showcase of glittering stars. The glare of city lights had blinded her for so long that she’d forgotten how dazzling a summer night could
be. The stars dangled above the valley like plump teardrop diamonds, inviting the most daring of dreamers to pluck one from its black velvet cradle. But Tabitha knew that if she was foolish enough to stretch out her hand, they would twinkle their way right out of her reach.

“Partridge, my lady?”

Before Tabitha could decline, the server plopped a roasted bird on the hunk of brown bread that rested in front of her. She gave the thing a tentative poke. She was starving, but prior to tonight, her only acquaintance with partridges had been watching
The Partridge Family
on Nick at Nite.

She glanced around, looking for her fork. The withered gnome of a man to her left had picked up his entire bird and was tearing off gouts of juicy flesh with his rotting teeth. Grease trickled down his chin.

Tabitha shuddered and leaned over to peer beneath the table, thinking her fork might have fallen in all the confusion. Lucy, however, had no patience for such niceties. While her attention was diverted, the kitten pounced on the partridge and dragged it into the grass. Tabitha’s stomach growled in protest as she watched the cat devour her supper.

Sighing, she tore off a chunk of the stale bread and popped it into her mouth. It seemed she wasn’t the only one fascinated by Lucy’s insatiable appetite. What Tabitha had mistaken for a bundle of rags turned out to be a child huddled beneath a nearby table, her wary eyes nearly eclipsed by strands of lank blond hair. Eager for company, Tabitha offered the little girl an encouraging smile. She ducked back into the shadows as if Tabitha had snarled at her.

A chipped mug appeared at her elbow. “Mead, my lady?”

Tabitha turned to say “Thank you” but her invisible benefactor was already gone.

Colin’s arrogant boast seemed to have conferred upon her a status no less than royalty. She’d been seated at the head table and was now being offered the choicest morsels of wild game with a deference that both amused and alarmed her. The acerbic Magwyn had even provided her with a gown and a ribbon to bind back her shaggy hair.

Although Tabitha had been happy to shed her ragged pajamas, she’d always preferred trousers to dresses. She ran a hand over her naked calf, regretting that she hadn’t had the foresight to wish for a disposable razor before surrendering the amulet to Colin. The gown’s flowing skirts made her feel almost absurdly feminine. And vulnerable. Especially since she’d discarded her cotton panties before realizing she wouldn’t be offered a fresh pair.

She had at least remembered to slip her glasses out of her pajamas before Magwyn had made off with them. She patted her skirt pocket, comforted by their familiar contours. Until she could coax Colin into returning the amulet, they were all she had left of home.

She took a sip of the mead, grimacing at its cloying sweetness. The exalted Laird of Ravenshaw had yet to make an appearance.

A freckled boy thin enough to be an understudy from the cast of
Oliver!
loomed over her. “Hotchpotch, my lady?”

“Yes, please, thank you very much.” Tabitha feared it might be unwise to turn down any offer of food, however ridiculous. Besides, the meaty aroma wafting from the iron pot tucked beneath his arm made her mouth water.

The boy hesitated, steaming ladle in hand, and stared
at the table in dismay. “Why have you eaten your trencher?”

She glanced down to discover a pile of crumbs where her bread had been. “Because I was hungry.”

“But where am I to put your stew?”

She blushed, realizing she had just committed the unpardonable faux pas of eating her plate. “Never mind. I’m not hungry anymore.”

The boy went off, shaking his head and muttering under his breath. Tabitha rested her chin on her hand, thinking this wasn’t much different from those intolerable banquets her father hosted for his board of directors every Christmas. She always managed to say the wrong thing, offend the wealthiest stockholder, or use the incorrect fork. At least she didn’t have to worry about
that
here.

Two strapping boys armed with sticks raced around the table. Their mock swordplay earned them approving cheers from the other boys and laughter from their mothers. A herd of toddlers tumbled and cavorted around a crackling bonfire. Earthenware pitchers of ale and mead flowed freely along the lengths of all seven tables, passed from hand to hand with affectionate nudges and ribald jokes. The food was plain, but plentiful, and shared by all.

Their unrestrained merriment baffled Tabitha. She’d been known to brood for weeks because a computer virus wiped out a day’s worth of programming. These women had lost everything—their homes, their husbands, their daughters’ innocence, yet they celebrated their laird’s return without a hint of self-pity.

A boy with a thatch of dark hair began to pluck out a melody on a delicate handheld harp. Urged on by her beaming mother, a little girl pressed a carved pipe to her rosebud lips. The mingled voices of string and reed rose
into the night with piercing sweetness. In the twenty-first century, the song would have been classified as New Age, but its melody was as timeless as the stars themselves. To Tabitha, it echoed like a druid’s hymn or the seductive whisper of a fairy king coaxing a mortal woman into his bed.

Shaking off the whimsical thought, she pushed aside the mead. The honeyed brew must be going to her head.

A small boy knelt to drum on a calfskin stretched taut across an iron cauldron. But as a stranger garbed all in black came sauntering down the hill from the village, Tabitha could no longer distinguish the primitive drumbeat from the pounding of her heart.

CHAPTER
12

T
abitha understood for the first time just how betrayed poor Beauty must have felt when her rumpled Beast turned into a prince.

Colin still looked nothing like Prince Charming, but with a pair of dark hose clinging to his muscular calves and his broad shoulders draped in an ebony tunic emblazoned with a silver raven, he could have easily passed as a distant cousin of the Prince of Darkness. He’d even shaved his scruffy beard.

The Scot-Killer’s dagger was tucked in his belt like a badge of honor. He’d braided the hair around his face into two plaits, then drawn the plaits back in a leather thong, using them to harness the rest of the unruly mass. Tabitha felt a ridiculous urge to rush over and tug loose a few strands. To rumple his tunic and dab a smudge of dirt on his nose.

As she watched him weave among his people to greet old friends and settle petty disputes, offering a clap on the shoulder here and an encouraging smile there, she drained the mug of mead without realizing it. She was beginning to understand why he exuded such raw confidence, even in the face of Brisbane’s treachery. In this isolated kingdom of Castle Raven, he was both lord and
law. Although it had taken his father’s untimely death to bring him to the throne, he sat it with the assurance of a man who’d been born to the privilege. Would she possess half as much grace, she wondered, if forced to step into her father’s shoes at Lennox Enterprises?

He paused to bestow a kiss on the gnarled hand of a blushing crone. As he straightened, their eyes met over the old woman’s fuzzy head. A mocking hint of a dimple touched one cheek. She sensed that he presented far more danger to her in this place, especially if he decided to make good his claim on her.

Her own words came back to haunt her—
Or you’ll what? Carry me off to your castle and ravish me?
The taunt didn’t seem quite as witty as it had when she’d mistaken him for George Ruggles from Accounting. Or when she was still wearing underwear.

Colin’s path veered in her direction. If he hadn’t taken the amulet from her, she would have wished herself invisible.

“My lady,” he murmured, sliding onto the bench opposite her.

“Mr. Ravenshaw,” she replied stiffly, refusing to give him the satisfaction of addressing him as “My lord.”

“Have you been enjoying the festivities?”

She couldn’t have said why his bemused smile put her on the defensive. “I haven’t been stealing the silver, if that’s what you’re asking. Especially since there doesn’t seem to be any to steal.”

“Is that why you’re in such a prickly temper?”

“I am not …!” Her indignant protest sputtered to a halt as she realized that in fact she was. “Well, you’d be in a prickly temper, too, if the cat gobbled up your partridge, you ate your own plate, and you had to wear this ridiculous dress.”

His gaze dropped briefly to the embroidered bodice.
“Magwyn was married in that gown. Iselda told me she risked her life to drag it from the flames when Roger’s men torched her cottage.”

Colin spoke without a hint of reproach, but Tabitha felt shame coil deep within her. She had a walk-in closet full of designer clothes at home, but none stitched with such care or offered with such generosity of spirit.

Before she could apologize for being an ungrateful brat, Arjon and his blond admirer stumbled over to join them, reeking of ale and breathless with laughter. The woman had sheathed her claws since deciding Tabitha was no rival for Arjon’s fickle affections. She draped herself over the knight’s lap and twined one possessive arm around his neck to toy with the curls at his nape.

“Have you been reviewing the troops?” Arjon asked, bypassing a mug to gulp directly from a pitcher of mead.

Colin nodded ruefully. “It seems the lads of Ravenshaw have organized themselves into a fighting force to be reckoned with. If I hadn’t returned, they planned to march on Brisbane’s castle and avenge their laird’s honor.”

Arjon hefted the flagon. “To the lads! The future of Ravenshaw!”

As one of the long-haired, wild-eyed boys hurtled himself over a table to tackle another, Colin made a sound that was half laugh, half groan. “I’d as soon arm the women with pitchforks and rocks than lead that band of ruffians into battle. I’ve little choice but to appeal to the MacDuff for men and supplies.”