Always Mine (29 page)

Reaching for a plate of bread and cheese on the table beside her, she broke the cheese into small portions and dunked the bread in water to feed him. He opened his mouth when she bade him, and she patiently fed and talked to him. After he had eaten enough, she folded a blanket and coaxed him onto it. The wolf closed his weary eyes and surrendered to her comforting presence.

Damron strode into the room and halted when he saw Bri-

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anna sitting on the floor beside Guardian. He pushed his windblown hair out of his eyes and watched her face.

“Damron, I heard someone cry out. I ran to help, but the door stuck.” She frowned, went over to it and found an extra latch. Through narrowed eyes, she stared at it, then at him. “Is there a reason you locked me in this room?”

“I had the latch added to keep ye safe if ye sleepwalk, and I am not here. It will ensure ye dinna go out into the storms that come so oft this time of year.”

“Oh? And what of a fire? Who will release it then?”

“I will post a guard for yer safety. Now enough yammerin’.

We have but a short time afore the sun’s rise. I wish to sleep.”

Brianna glared at him and pressed her lips together. He nodded to Bleddyn and shut the door after the Welshman left.

After Brianna slept, Damron rose and pulled the bed curtains tight. He slipped on his robe, and lit a candle to examine the ceiling above their bed.

Satan’s fetid breath! He may as well have told Brianna he had gone to Asceline for her ministrations. He had not. What had awakened his wife? Directly overhead was a gap wide enough to allow sounds to travel from the room above. Where Asceline slept.

He quit his chamber and made his way to the corner stairwell, and up to the floor above. He thrust open the Frenchwoman’s door. She jumped up with a shriek, but seeing Damron, sprawled back against the pillows.

“Clothe yerself, and be quick about it.” He seized her arm and pulled her to her feet while evading her groping fingers.

He had no doubt she was swiving another, nor did he care.

Seeing a braided rug beside the bed, he shoved it away with his foot. He spied what he looked for. Kneeling, he peered through an opening that had been recently enlarged, for fresh

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knife cuts were visible between the boards. Below was the canopy of his own bed.

Disgust roiled through him knowing Asceline had likely tried to spy on Brianna and him in bed. Thanks be to the saints, the canopy had foiled that attempt.

He did not care who Asceline took to her bed, but what did stoke his anger was her vocal attempts with her lover to convince Brianna he was still swiving her. His leman’s voluptuous beauty no longer drew him, for he was a helpless slave to his building desire for Brianna. Each day, it became harder for him to keep his vow not to take her and make her fully his. The thought of her sweet body beneath him was in his thoughts when he awoke each morn, and even plagued his dreams by night.

Dawn’s soft rays peeped through the hall’s window openings the next morn, casting a gentle streak of light over the room. Brianna and Meghan hurried with eating their porridge and scones, for Damron had told her when she woke that he had arranged an outing for her and Meghan’s pleasure.

Simon, the head falconer, waited in the bailey with Meghan’s sparrowhawk, Simple. The sleek raptor transferred to her wrist with eager little hops, while Meghan calmed her with soft cooing sounds and light caresses down her wee head and back.

Damron smiled at them and motioned toward the drawbridge.

“Get along with ye now, for ’tis likely to rain this day. Malcolm, dinna let them stray from yer sight.” Before they were through the barbican, he was bounding up the steps to the keep.

Brianna closed her eyes and took a deep breath of the pine-scented air, savoring it. The sun filtering through the canopy of leaves looked like streaks of golden air. She turned to Meghan, curious. “What possessed you to call your hawk by such a lowly name as Simple?”

“Because she be right glaikit, of course,” Meghan chuck-

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led and brushed falling leaves from her dark hair. “I am not like Damron, naming my beasties the opposite of how they act. As bonny as she is, she is not so canny in catchin’ her prey. She forgets to watch where she goes and slams into trees or anythin’ else in her way.” Her eyes danced with humor.

“Mayhap I should have called her Stupid. One day whilst chasing a white sea bird twice her size, she dunked onto Angel’s rump. She dropped to the sand, out like a wet candle.

My cousin was not well-pleased. He had the devil’s time of it tryin’ to calm the fright she gave the great steed.”

They spent most of the morning laughing and watching Simple’s antics. The wind picked up, and mindful of Damron’s warning, they headed back to the keep.

Brianna hurried to her chamber to change her damp clothes.

She tugged a clean smock over her head, and though it muffled the sounds, she heard Damron’s footsteps enter the chamber. Her head cleared the smock’s neckline, and she glimpsed him leaning against the wall, watching her. She was still puzzled over why the sparrowhawk was so agile while pursuing its prey at high speeds, but after the catch, collided with anything in its way.

Damron’s deep voice rumbled something about “the time has come,” while she continued to dress.

“Yes, my lord,” she said when she finally settled a heavy blue tunic over her shoulders.

“I am pleased ye agree, lady wife.” His soft voice became a purr. “I thought to hear a long list of new reasons against it, but ye have settled my mind.”

Brianna looked up at him, confused. Maybe she should ask him to repeat what she had missed hearing while her head was smothered with clothing? Before she could, the daft man winked at her without cracking so much as a smile. Damn.

What had he meant by “ye have settled my mind”?

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Meghan burst into the room, distracting her.

“Our outing wasna a treat but a ruse to be rid of us whilst servants moved Asceline’s belongings to another room,”

Meghan said in such a hurry the words near blended together.

Brianna lost the warm glow of pleasure she’d felt during her outing from the castle. Determined to find out what was happening with Damron’s leman, she and Meghan bribed Johanna, the blacksmith’s burly wife, now Asceline’s maid, to talk Asceline into going to the village to look for ribbons. Asceline no sooner was over the drawbridge than Brianna and Meghan ran up to the Frenchwoman’s room. The room had been freshly scrubbed, and bright, colorful tapestries hung on the walls to keep out the chill.

“Hm. Do you have your knife with you?” Brianna asked.

Meghan unstrapped a blade from around her thigh, and they grabbed the pallet and pulled it onto the floor. Brianna studied the exposed rope structure to see where it had to be the strongest to support the greatest weight and strain. After she finished, they hastily put the bed back to rights.

The hours passed swiftly to afternoon. A lathered horseman arrived to advise Damron that raiders had attacked a nearby village. Damron and Mereck examined each warrior’s equipment to see that every knife and sword would slice though a blade of grass. They hefted maces and battle hammers to assure their shafts were sturdy, and ordered the men to cover their shields and helmets with a dark paste, which would keep them from reflecting light.

Damron found Brianna in the great hall and led her to stand with the family members close to the hearth. He motioned to Father Matthew.

The priest stepped forward and held up his hands. “By

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your leave, may we have quiet in the hall? Lord Damron wishes to make an announcement.” Conversation stilled, and he stepped back.

Damron put his arm around Brianna’s shoulder. “As ye know, my lady and I married by proxy. She has felt the lack of a proper weddin’, so I have sent notice to the clans. Within a sennight, visitors will arrive. When all are gathered here, we will wed the way she wishes.”

Brianna startled and looked up at him in surprise. No wonder he had winked at her. The blasted man knew she hadn’t heard him in their bedchamber. Damron folded his arms around her to bring her tight against his hot, muscular flesh to kiss her sense-less. His loins stirred against her belly, and she pictured him as he had stood in his bath, naked with water droplets winding their fascinating way down his glistening skin. Her body melted against his, while heat pooled at the joining of her legs. She gasped and pushed back from him.

After the shouting and thumping faded away, the hall quickly emptied as everyone made their way out to the bailey.

Spencer carried Damron’s broadsword and shield. Brianna felt an uneasy flutter of fear.

“Will you be back soon, Damron?”

“Dinna worry, Brianna. Ye willna be without protection.

Someone will always be close by should ye need aid.”

“Huh, I don’t need protection or aid. ’Tis your own men’s protection I question. Do you take enough warriors in case there’re more raiders than you expected?”

“Think ye I need instructions from a Saxon lass?” He arched a brow at her, and the corners of his lips twitched.

Father Matthew pointedly cleared his throat, raised his arms in supplication, and called blessings on all their heads, bidding God to bring them safely home. Brianna handed Damron a stirrup cup, and in a quivering voice, spoke the same wish being offered to Connor and Mereck.

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“Godspeed and bring you home in good health.”

Her heart lurched in fear. Damron could be badly injured.

She tried to swallow the lump in her throat.

He drained his cup, handed it to a squire and grasped her to him. “Have no fear I willna return, wife. I leave much un-finished between us.” Holding her steady, he kissed her, his tongue gently exploring her mouth, then withdrawing so he could nibble at her lips. His arms hesitated, then tightened in a fierce hug before he released her and gracefully swung up onto Angel’s saddle.

Bleddyn, his clothing as midnight black as his great destrier, Thunder, came over to them. “Hold, Lord Damron. I go with you.”

He had again divided his face with blue dye. The right side, where the great scar stretched from scalp to chin, was even more evident painted a vivid red. He had drawn purple symbols over that half of his forehead and cheek. His strong jaw and neck were outlined with black to match his hair. Some of the younger men sidled nervous glances at him.

But Brianna did not fear him. His was a face glorious in all its starkness, outlined by the shaggy black hair hanging wild and straight about it. She kissed his painted cheek.

“Godspeed, Nathaniel. Come safely home.” Before she could blink, he vaulted astride Thunder’s back and shouted the chilling, high-pitched, warbling cry Brianna had told him the American Indians had used.

When Brianna echoed the sound, Damron’s startled gaze jerked down to study her. She knew his people had their own battle cries, but when he and Bleddyn galloped down the line of men to take the lead, Bleddyn warbled the cry again.

Damron’s warriors mimicked it, and the sheer volume of their voices made up for their lack of practice.

Brianna and Meghan watched until the last man disappeared, then hurried back inside the quiet castle.

“Aunt Phillipa will ready the hall to care for the wounded. Ye

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must have a proper blade to help strip them of clothin’,” Meghan said, her head deep inside her large wooden chest. She brought out a narrow dagger etched with holy symbols, and its sheath, and held them up for Brianna’s inspection. “This fine blade is a misericord. All knights and squires carry them. If a fellow warrior’s wounds be mortal and they canna stay till his passin’, they deliver him from misery and degradation. ’Tis like the one I carry.”

“I’m glad for the weapon, Meghan,” Brianna said. “Ever since that lout grabbed me at the waterfall, I’ve wanted some means to protect myself, should the need ever arise again.”

Though the early Brianna had died by falling or being pushed from the parapets, she knew her being brought to this time could change the past. That early Brianna would have been too timid, too used to being chattel, to have fought overmuch when things went wrong.

Her confidence grew as Meghan helped her tie the sheath to Brianna’s inner right thigh.

Sun crept through the windows of Bleddyn’s medicinal hut the next morning, giving enough light for Brianna to study all the la-beled earthenware jars, the vials of powders and the herbs hanging in small clusters from the ceiling. In the years she had studied to become a geneticist, she had also taken courses in pharmacol-ogy. She selected a goodly amount of every herb and powder she knew would be needed when the men returned.

Picking and choosing amongst them, she and Meghan prepared powders for potions and ingredients in healing wounds.

Brianna ordered large barrels of water be brought to the hall, and for the kitchen staff to keep a steady supply of hot water. She no sooner finished her preparations than trumpets blared, and rasping chains signaled the raising of the portcullis.

Returning warriors who were not able to ride their mounts were supported by others. All were splattered with so much mud and

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bright blotches of blood that Brianna had to study their faces to recognize them. Her heart pounded in her ears until she finally spotted Damron at the end of the long line of men.

Many of the warriors made their way or were carried to the hall, which now reminded Brianna of an emergency ward.

Calling them by name, Laird Douglas spoke words of praise and comfort to each man.

“Place the badly wounded on the trestle tables close to the fireplace,” Brianna instructed the men as they entered.

The supplies she and Meghan had prepared stood ready for use. Bleddyn insisted everyone scrub their hands before touching the wounded men, and several young boys scrambled to bring fresh buckets of water from the barrels.