The Rogue: A Highland Guard Novella (The Highland Guard) (6 page)

Someone needed to knock the arrogant prig down a peg or two. Why shouldn’t she have the pleasure? “Enough times to know the difference between meaningful and meaningless—or to not confuse sentiment with lust.” The hand holding her arm tightened and his expression turned so fierce she almost reconsidered. But he needed to hear this. “I know this might come as a shock to you, my lord, but not every woman whom you kiss is going to fall in love with you—especially me. When I fall in love, it will be with someone who knows how to laugh at himself, who doesn’t mind making a few mistakes, who doesn’t think the world is his personal stage, and who has something meaningful to say beyond what he thinks I want to hear. I want someone who values loyalty”—he seemed to flinch, but it didn’t stop her—“and fidelity, not someone who thinks his manhood lies beneath his belt. But most of all I want someone who is capable of feeling—true feeling—and that, my lord, is not you.”

His face had gone white with anger, which, it turned out, was actually more intimidating than dark. He looked as though he couldn’t decide whether to shake her or pull her into his arms and kiss her.

She blanched. Knowing she couldn’t let that happen—the kiss, not the shake, not if she wanted her words to mean anything—she jerked away. “I think we’ve both said more than enough on the subject. If you will excuse me, I will bid you good night.”

She didn’t give him a chance to respond. She turned and fled into the safety of the darkness, where he wouldn’t be able to see the glistening of tears that she couldn’t explain—even to herself.

CHAPTER FOUR

Dawn came too quickly. It seemed as if Izzie had just fallen asleep when the first piercing rays of sunlight poked through the cracks of the shutters in the small third-floor chamber that she shared with her cousin.

She rolled onto her back and heaved a heavy sigh. She hadn’t had enough sleep to make everything that had happened the evening before seem inconsequential on reflection. She was still embarrassed by her outburst and by her reaction. Despite the fact that she’d meant every word she’d said, somehow Randolph with his assumptions and arrogance had slipped under her defenses. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, he’d hurt her. It was one thing to know they would never suit and another to have it pointed out—by assuming it was obvious.

At least neither of them would be suffering under any illusions now. After what she’d said, he would probably be just as eager to avoid her as she was him.

Careful not to wake her cousin and the maidservant who slept in the mural chamber, Izzie donned her oldest, plainest gown—one of the Cistercian nuns at the hospital would have an old apron she could borrow to put over it—ran a comb through her hair before weaving it in a plait, washed her face, rubbed her teeth with a cloth before rinsing her mouth with her favorite mint and wine mixture, and tiptoed out of the room.

With what she’d offered to help the nuns with at the hospital today, she hardly needed to look her best. She smiled, thinking that the day’s hard labor in the garden would be a good way to keep her mind off of… everything.

Although it was a short walk from the abbey up the high street to the hospital, she found one of her cousin Jamie’s men to escort her. When she’d first gone to stay with her Douglas kin at Blackhouse Tower, she wouldn’t have dreamed of leaving without a handful of men to protect her. But with the passing three months, having heard nothing from Sir Stephen, she’d gradually relaxed her guard and come to the realization that she had overreacted.

The threat she’d sensed that had caused her to flee halfway across Scotland to seek refuge with her powerful cousin—what man in his right mind would challenge the Black Douglas?—had never materialized. Sir Stephen Dunbar hadn’t been waiting behind the next tree or shadowy corridor to what…? Capture her? It seemed so silly now. As if she’d heard too many tales of abducted brides.

But it hadn’t seemed so silly then. Then she’d been terrified of the dashing young knight who at first had swept her off her feet—literally, she recalled, thinking of how he’d insisted on carrying her over every muddy patch of grass on that day they’d walked to the coast—but who had turned into an ogre when she’d learned the truth and refused his offer of marriage.

When Sir Stephen, who’d fostered with her eldest brother, Alexander, arrived at Bonkyll Castle under the pretense of needing to speak to him, she’d been surprised. He should know that Alexander had been away for months fighting for Bruce under their kinsman and her guardian, Walter Stewart, and wasn’t expected home for a few weeks. She’d believed Sir Stephen when he said he must have misunderstood her brother’s intentions.

She’d believed him because she wanted to believe him. Because he was handsome and charming and looked at her with a dazed look in his eyes as if he’d been struck by cupid’s arrow the moment he’d seen her. He’d spent two weeks wooing her, making her laugh, and making her feel as if she was the most special woman in the world.

She was half in love with him by the time he asked her to marry him. She would have accepted, and probably would have run off with him to be married without her cousin Walter’s permission—he held her marriage rights—if her brother hadn’t arrived home early and told her the truth. Sir Stephen had borrowed a great deal of money from him and was having trouble repaying the debt. She—and her tocher—were to be the answer to his troubles.

If he seems too good to be true, he probably is.
Too late, she recalled her mother’s warning.

She shivered, remembering Sir Stephen’s cold rage when she’d informed him of her decision. There was something hard and calculating in his eyes that had made her think he wasn’t going to accept her refusal. Her brother, too, had been worried enough by what had happened to send her to Jamie and Elizabeth “until things settled down.”

In other words, until he and Walter could find her a husband. Only marriage would truly protect her from a man of Sir Stephen’s ilk. It was time. As much as she liked her independence, she could not put it off any longer.

Izzie knew she had been luckier than most to have remained unwed for this long. Women in her position were often promised at a very young age, and certainly betrothed before the “advanced” age of two and twenty. If her father had lived, no doubt she would have been. There had been a few discussions since her mother’s death, but Walter—young himself—had never pressed her.

But after he’d learned about Sir Stephen’s treachery, the frequency of the topic between them had increased. It seemed to be the first thing he said to her after greeting her. “Hullo, cousin. Any contenders yet?”

She might have been picking a prized bull at market.

The thought made her smile as she entered the hospital. The prioress wasn’t ready for her yet, so Izzie decided to look in on Annie, the very sick young girl who’d been so charmed by Randolph the other day.

Upon entering the second-floor chamber where the most seriously ill patients were housed, Izzie glanced down the line of pallets that seemed to cover every inch of floor space to the one by the window. Her heart stopped. Seeing the empty pallet, she feared the worst. It was Annie’s pallet. She liked to watch the birds who’d made a nest under the roof, and the other occupants—all much older—had insisted the young girl take the prime location.

The older woman on the pallet beside Annie’s must have guessed her thoughts. “The wee one is fine,” she said. “She has a visitor who took her outside in the garden.”

Relief turned quickly to alarm—it was a cool morning. “In her condition? She’ll catch a chill.”

“I don’t think so,” the old woman chortled.

But Izzie wasn’t listening. She was already halfway down the stairs. What visitor? To her knowledge Annie was an orphan who had been left at the hospital by relatives who could no longer care for her. Izzie hastened across the hall, through the kitchens, and then outside into the—

Garden.
She stopped in her tracks and blinked, her brain refusing to believe the sight beheld by her eyes.

My God.
The rush of emotion at the scene before her was surprisingly strong, bringing an odd tightness to her chest and heat to her throat. It was a little hard to breathe, and her heart was beating funny.

A man knelt beside a stone bench that had been stacked high with pillows—probably most of the feather pillows in the hospital—and cradled in the middle of that fluffy makeshift bed, bundled from head to toe in blankets, was a tiny figure. Annie. The man was pointing to something in the small pond, which the girl had obviously been positioned to enjoy.

Although the man had his back to Izzie, and he was dressed in simple soldier’s garb of black leather breaches and a matching
cotun,
she recognized him instantly. Randolph. Here. Alone. Without his retinue or crowd of admiring spectators, to visit a little girl whom most noblemen wouldn’t notice, let alone take time to see. She couldn’t believe it.

I’ve misjudged him.
The truth hit her hard. It wasn’t all an act; not everything was about appearances and image. He wasn’t without feelings at all. For the first time she felt like she was seeing the real man. A man who was being kind for kindness’s sake, not because of how it would look. There was no one here to see him, and by the looks of his understated attire—not a glint of shining mail or colorful, emblazoned with arms tabard in sight—he was trying not to attract attention. But to her, he’d never looked more heroic. Maybe he wasn’t too good to be true. Maybe he was just… good.

Izzie drew a little closer, curious to hear what they were talking about.

“I wish that I could see it,” Annie said. “I’m sure there will be a great celebration when you take the castle from the English, my lord.”

Izzie realized Randolph hadn’t been pointing to the pond but to the castle poised on the giant black rock that hovered over the city of Edinburgh like a sentinel. The church was higher on the hill that separated the abbey from the castle, and the view from this prospect was even more dramatic.

“And you shall,” Randolph said, something catching in his voice. Izzie felt the same thing happening in her chest, suspiciously near her heart. They both knew how unlikely it would be for the girl to outlive the siege. “I will see to it myself.”

Annie gazed up at him; a soulful, too-wise expression on the face of one so young. “Thank you for sending your healer, my lord. But I know Lady Helen told you there was nothing that could be done.”

Randolph didn’t say anything, but the sadness and pity in his expression said it all.

He’d brought Lady Helen to see the girl? Izzie had traveled with the vaunted healer and her husband Magnus MacKay from Roxburgh to Edinburgh. Why hadn’t she thought of it herself? She felt as though she was seeing him through different eyes. She was still attracted to him, but that attraction went far deeper than his too-handsome face.

“You are very kind,” Annie said. “But you do not need to worry. I am going to a better place.”

Izzie felt her heart tug again, hearing what the young girl hadn’t said. The life of an impoverished orphan was a difficult one. Most of what she’d known must have been misery and hardship. Heaven would seem an escape from hunger, squalor, and illness that had dominated her earthly life.

Randolph seemed to understand as well. He squeezed Annie’s hand. “You are indeed.”

“There was another girl about my age here not long ago. She said that in heaven she would be a princess.” She looked up at Randolph with hope shimmering in her eyes. “Do you think that is true, my lord?”

Randolph’s voice was perilously low and thick as if he were fighting the same feelings burning Izzie’s throat and eyes. It was emotion, she realized.
Genuine
emotion. He wasn’t incapable after all. “I’m certain of it.”

“What do you think, my lady?” Annie asked, glancing over her shoulder at Izzie with a wan smile, the effort alone an exertion.

Both Izzie and Randolph started—Izzie for not realizing she’d been seen, and Randolph for not realizing she was there. Randolph immediately jumped to his feet.

Izzie walked toward them. “I am certain of it as well. Besides, Sir Thomas would know. He’s an earl, and the nephew of the king, which is almost like a prince.”

Laughter lit Annie’s face and for a moment Isabel could see the girl she might have been had life not treated her so cruelly. “Does that mean you shall be a princess when you and Sir Thomas wed, my lady?” Annie mistook the sudden shocked silence that had suddenly filled the garden and explained, “I overheard some of the nuns after you left last time. They said Sir Thomas was to marry one of the ladies, and I knew it had to be you.”

Izzie hoped her expression didn’t show her horror and embarrassment. How could Annie think she and Randolph…? No one who saw them would put them together, especially with her gorgeous cousin around. So why then was she suddenly eager to ask her why she’d thought that?

She glanced at Randolph who seemed to have recovered faster than she. He gave a slight shake of his head, which Izzie understood: don’t make her feel badly.

Izzie forced a smile to her face. “Aye, I suppose I shall—or as close to one as anyone could ever dream to be.” Anyone such as her cousin. Eager to switch the subject, Izzie added, “How long have you been out here?”

“Not very long,” Annie answered quickly.

Randolph gave the young girl a pointed look with an arched brow. “About a quarter of an hour longer than you talked me into. I said a half hour. You shouldn’t be out here much longer than that.”

Annie started to protest. “But I’m plenty warm—”

Randolph stopped her by sweeping her up in his arms. “No arguing, little one. You don’t want to see the lady become angry with me, do you?” He leaned down to say in a low voice that Izzie could still hear. “She’s quite fierce when she’s angry, you know.”

Annie glanced over his shoulder to Izzie, looking skeptical. “I can’t imagine the lady would ever be angry with you, Sir Thomas. You are the most wonderful knight in the kingdom.”

Randolph grinned and looked right at Izzie, daring her to argue. “Did you hear that, Lady Isabel?”