Amanda Scott (24 page)

“Why do you want Henry?” she asked quietly.

“We are vulnerable in Edinburgh and greatly outnumbered,” he said. “I’ll feel safer if we can put some ground between this town and ourselves.”

“Robbie, there you are!”

A grimace creased his face, but he collected himself to say with a smile, “Lady Ellen, you must forgive us. We are—”

Cutting in without apology, she said, “I
shan’t
forgive you. The ring is forming and I want to dance with you. Lady Adela will not mind.” Without affording Adela time to respond, she added, “Indeed, you must both come. It will be fun!”

“Nay, then, my lady, we cannot. His grace has sent for us, but here— De Gredin, how fortunate!”

“Good evening, Lestalric,” the chevalier said, beaming. “You will not think it fortunate at all, I know, because I have come to beg Lady Adela to let me escort her into the ring dance.”

“Then you are just the man we want,” Lestalric said with an answering beam. “First, I must make you known to Lady Logan, the Douglas’s youngest daughter and recent widow of my brother. She desires to join the dancers, but his grace has summoned us to the high table. So I would count it a great favor if you would lend her your escort in my stead.”

“An honor, to be sure, but prithee, my lady,” de Gredin added, bowing to Adela, “do not be so cruel as to refuse to dance with me later. We’ll make a fine pair, garbed in tawny silk as we are,” he added, smoothing his embroidered doublet.

Adela smiled politely but left it to Lestalric to promise faithfully that they would join the dancing as soon as his grace excused them.

As they extricated themselves from the other two, Adela said rather tartly, “You are the most accomplished liar, sir. I hope you do not make a habit of it.”

“Behold me all integrity where you are concerned, lass,” he said with one of his warmest smiles. “I warrant you would see through any lie I tried to tell you in a blink. At all events, I have no wish to tell you lies. Now come, for the only sure way to win this skirmish is to do so before Fife realizes we know we’re in a battle.”

To her further astonishment, he took her straight to the high table, where the King, looking more bleary than usual, sat beside the Earl of Carrick. Both men looked as if they wanted only to retire to their beds.

“Your grace,” Lestalric said, “I’ve brought Lady Ardelve, as you requested.”

If it came as a surprise to the King of Scots that he wanted to extend his acquaintance with Adela, she saw no sign of it.

He peered myopically at her as she swept him a curtsy, then said, “I know you, madam.” Motioning for her to rise, he tilted his head in a thoughtful way and added, “I thought so last evening, and now I am sure of it. We have met before.”

“One does not like to contradict your grace,” Adela said. “But—”

Beside him, the Earl of Carrick—lean-faced, fair, and scholarly looking—interjected gently, “Lady Ardelve is one of the famous Macleod beauties, sire. You met her sister Cristina at Ardtornish soon after she married Hector Reaganach.”

“Aye, that’s it,” the King said. “You look just like her, lass.”

Lestalric said, “Forgive me, your grace, but we would ask your leave to retire. Isabella, Countess of Strathearn and Caithness, who is with us tonight, is feeling unwell. With your permission, we would take her home.”

“Aye, sure,” the King said, nodding. “’Tis good to see you here, Robbie lad.”

“Thank you, your grace. Come, madam.”

Moments later, they were but two amongst many in the noisy throng, for the lower tables had vanished and the dancing had begun in earnest.

“Quickly now,” Lestalric said. “Fife won’t expect us to try to leave until his grace retires, but I’d not give his grace more than ten minutes now before he does. I want to be outside the gates before then.”

She did not argue, especially as she could see that he was in greater pain than before and knew there would be more jostling as they made their way to the nearest door-way. Soon she had no idea where they were in the vast interior maze of David’s tower, but Lestalric had either been there before and knew his way or possessed an unerring sense of direction, for in minutes they came to a heavy, narrow door that opened onto the inner bailey. Walking swiftly and silently downhill and through an archway, they found Henry and the others waiting with the vehicles.

Henry said, “I can protect her if we can get her to Sinclair House. They’ll look for her, though, either there or at Ealga’s. Sakes, they may be waiting already.”

“If they are, we’ll go to the abbey,” Lestalric said. “Even at Sinclair House, you can protect her only as long as she stays inside and they stay out.”

“You have a plan,” Henry said, eyeing him shrewdly.

“Half a plan,” Lestalric said, glancing at Adela. “We’ll take your tilt-cart, Henry, for it is not well known yet. Tell your man to drive past your house if I signal him or if he sees any sign of Fife’s people. In either event, he is to drive straight into the sanctuary part of the abbey kirkyard.”

Adela was surprised when neither Isabella nor Lady Clendenen objected to her riding with Lestalric in Henry’s cart. The intimacy of its close interior made her unusually aware of him. She could smell the light, pleasant scent of rosemary or something akin to it either wafting from his clothing or his skin. As they passed beneath the heavy iron portcullis, she asked how his shoulder felt, expecting him to say, as most men of her acquaintance would, that he was fine.

Instead, he said, “It hurts like the devil. But Isabella smoothed one of her potions on it earlier and gave me something to drink that eased the pain until people began crashing into me. I’ll do, though, and I’ve something important to say to you, so listen carefully, lass.”

“What is it?” she asked, astonished again at how easy it was to be with him and talk with him, as if they had grown up together and had always talked so. To be sure, he had deceived her and she loathed deceit, but even with what little she knew about him, she had already acquitted him of any malice in what he had done.

He was silent for a long moment, clearly gathering his thoughts. Then, with a glance at the driver, he said quietly, “I’ve been thinking there must be more to this business than we know, that somehow you have become part of it. I can imagine no other reason for the accusations made against you tonight or for the rumors about you that pervade the court.”

“His grace did not mention them.”

“I doubt he knows. ’Tis Fife who controls the King rather than the King who controls Scotland. Fife holds no office that allows it, but that does not stop him, and his grace seems weaker each time we see him. Naught will change when Carrick takes the throne, either, because Fife will rule him as easily. Do you know Fife will be the coroner—the man who crowns Carrick—when his grace dies?”

“How can that be?”

“Because it has long been the right of the MacDuff of Fife to set the crown on the King of Scots’ head. And whilst Fife is not a MacDuff, he claims the right of coroner through his marriage to the last MacDuff’s wife. We’re nearing St. Giles now,” he added. “Sinclair House lies just beyond, so try not to let anyone near us see your face. I doubt that Fife’s men will look twice at this cart, since it would be unlikely to carry any man and woman who are not married.”

“Why are we going to the abbey?”

He took a deep breath, his gaze still fixed on the passing scenery outside the coach. “If Fife means to make trouble for you, I can think of only one reason for it. He hopes to get to someone or something else through you.”

“To you?”

“To me or to the Sinclairs,” he said. “As Lady Clendenen said, I have shown an interest in you. Anyone can tell that we have a bond between us greater than that of a man and woman who apparently met so recently. Even if that were not so, everyone seems to know about your recent ordeals.”

“My abduction and Ardelve’s death, you mean. But what of it?”

“It makes you more vulnerable, lass,” he said gently. “A man like Fife would see that vulnerability and know that those who care about you would exert themselves to protect you. They might even reveal all they know to do so.”

“I … I see.”

She didn’t, though, not until he said, “Waldron of Edgelaw may have shared his thoughts with others of his ilk, or with someone whose power he hoped might aid him. If he did not, his successor or successors may have done so.”

The pieces fell into place. “So they may be after the treasure,” she said.

Rob had not been sure that she had ever heard about the treasure or that, if she had, she had remembered it after recovering from her ordeal. But he dared not discuss it now, with the driver so near.

As he had half expected, men awaited them outside Sinclair House, but it was as much to give himself time to think as for any other reason that he leaned forward and said firmly, “Drive on, man.”

The horses picked up the pace as he told her glibly about the waiting men.

“Are we truly going to seek sanctuary at the abbey?” she asked.

“We’ll see what transpires,” he said. “I do have another idea, though.”

“What?”

“It is no longer safe here for you,” he said. “So you must make another choice for yourself. The same possibilities exist. You can go home to your father’s house, seek asylum with your good-son at Loch Alsh, or you may choose to remain at Roslin with the countess, Michael, and Isobel.”

“Or?” she said with an anticipatory look that told him she knew he had something else in mind and was curious to know what it was.

“Or you could marry me and let me protect you,” he said more calmly than he had imagined he could say the words. An imp in his mind muttered that at least it should divert her from thoughts of the treasure.

Silence fell again, but heavy tension filled the air between them. In the dim glow of ambient torchlight from torches outside the houses lining the Canongate, he could see her chewing her lower lip.

Gently, he said, “Well?”

“Mercy, sir, you cannot mean that.” Her voice sounded loud, and hoarse.

His heart pounded. “I always mean what I say.”

“But so soon! You hardly know me, and my husband …”

“Ardelve is dead and cannot protect you. I am alive and I can.”

“But others can, too, and you cannot possibly
want
to marry me.”

His throat tightened as he realized that he did want her, more than he had ever wanted anything in his life— except, possibly, as a lad, his knighthood. He’d thought, all those years ago, that losing Ellen Douglas had devastated him, but he realized now that it was not the losing but the manner in which he had lost her.

Until that day, he had believed his father cared enough about him to take pride in his knighthood even if Will would not. That Sir Ian, aware that he wanted Ellen, could so callously arrange to marry Will to her instead had felt like base betrayal. That they could taunt him with that decision, even suggest that Sir Ian might change his mind if Rob would part with his secrets had only made it worse.

Able to say none of that to Adela but knowing he must say something or she would certainly believe he didn’t want her, he said, “More to the point, lass, could you find it in yourself to want to marry me?”

She was silent.

Her profile was lovely but stiff and strained. He wanted to see her face, her expression, to judge what she might be thinking.

“Adela? Prithee, lass, look at me.”

She turned then, looked straight into his eyes as if she studied him, as if she would peer into his soul.

He gazed back more confidently. She had not rejected his suggestion outright. Perhaps …

“I do not know what you may have heard about me,” she said.

“I ken fine that those rumors are false,” he said.

“Not about the rumors, about me. My sisters talk, I know, because … well, because they do, that’s all. I know they believed—” She stopped. “Nay, what they believed of me was true, and I should not make it sound as if it were not.”

“What was true?”

“That I married Ardelve for comfort and expediency,” she said, licking her lips. “Moreover, I ken fine that you would rather marry Lady Ellen.”

He grinned, glad he could speak the unvarnished truth to her, and said with deep sincerity, “Not if every other woman in the world were to vanish overnight.”

A gurgle of laughter escaped her. “What a thing to say!”

He put his right hand over her left. “Lass, truly, you should learn that I rarely say things I do not mean. But we are nearing the abbey gates. As you have not said you do
not
want to marry me, may I at least hope that you will?”

“Mercy, sir, if we are to speak plainly, I married Ardelve because I was tired of managing my father’s household, tired of trying to manage sisters who flouted my authority. Sorcha never even acknowledged that I had any!
And
because my father wanted to marry Lady Clendenen, who had sworn she would not set foot in the place until I
had
married. So I accepted him because he offered me a comfortable home and promised he would require little of me in return.”

“But I would require much in return,” he said, still gazing into her eyes.

“Would you?”

“I would.”

Her pupils were so large that her eyes looked black with gold flecks from reflected torchlight. She licked her lips again, making his body leap in response.

“Then if you really mean it, I think I will say yes,” she said.

“You won’t mind if our wedding is a hasty one?”

This time her smile was wry, and as the cart came to a stop in the kirkyard, she said, “I’m not good at weddings, sir, so the hastier, the better.”

The Earl of Fife was annoyed and in no mood for confrontation. But the man who had brought the lady Adela to his attention had come to him in the Spartan chamber he used to conduct business at the Castle and dared to question his actions.

Having silenced him with an angry command, Fife said, “I told you not to come to me unless I sent for you, Chevalier. To be seen together like this would do neither of us any good.”

“Doubtless you are right, my lord,” de Gredin said, eyeing him warily. “But I do not understand this course you have set.”