Amanda Scott (28 page)

The sky was no longer azure, no longer clear. Clouds swiftly gathered, including a huge black one that enveloped her as the sea heaved and water rushed into the boat, threatening to drown her. She was cold to the bone and all alone, abandoned again. A cruel, taunting voice in her head said she always would be.

Everything was black and wet and cold, and silent, although before the silence she had not been aware of any noise other than that awful voice in her head and before it, birds perhaps, singing in the sunlight, or water lapping at the boat.

Now, all was silence and darkness. She was sinking downward, underwater, plunging ever deeper. But she could breathe as easily as if water were air.

Then light again, a bright beam from an unknown source that illuminated a brassbound chest. As she stared in awe, the lid opened, revealing great treasure—rubies and pearls, gold and silver, piled high and spilling from the chest.

Hands in black gloves reached around the lid to lift a long strand of pearls and a handful of glittering rubies. When the strand of pearls coiled upward and changed into a coal-black snake with slitted green eyes, she felt fear deeper than any she had ever known, chilling her as if ice had filled her veins.

Then Waldron of Edgelaw, all in black, huge and menacing, stepped from behind the chest and wrapped the snake around her neck.

Adela screamed …

… and awoke, sitting bolt upright in bed, still screaming, naked and cold, clutching the gold chain necklace she had forgotten to take off the night before.

A shadow loomed over her, making her jump again. But it was only Rob, moving swiftly toward the bed, dim twilight from the window outlining him.

“What is it?” he demanded gruffly. “What happened?”

“A … a horrid dream,” she said, hating the quaver in her voice. “I have them sometimes.”

“Sakes,” he said. “I leave you for no more than a minute to relieve myself, and you have a nightmare. What happened in it?”

She hesitated, and when heavy rapping sounded on the door, she jumped.

“Be aught amiss, me lord?” a man shouted.

“Nay, my lady wife just suffered a nightmare,” Rob told him.

“Come now, tell me,” he urged, putting his arm around her and drawing her close as the man’s footsteps retreated down the stairs. “It will sound silly when you put it in words. I know of no better way to exorcise such demons.”

The warmth of his body against hers was comforting, and she leaned into him and helped him draw the coverlet over them both.

“I was cold,” she said.

“Foolish lass, I pulled the covers over you when I got up, but you pushed them off again.” Then, more firmly, he said, “Tell me about this dream of yours.”

“I meant I was cold in the dream,” she said, and described it. When she mentioned the treasure chest, she felt him stiffen. “Waldron stood behind it,” she said. “At first I did not see him, only hands playing with rubies and pearls. But then he stepped from behind the chest, and the long strand of pearls he held coiled into a snake. He … he wrapped it around my neck.” She shuddered.

He was silent for a moment, then said, “Common sense tells me that our talk on the way here stirred thoughts of that devil in your mind and mixed him in with other things you may have thought. Then, when your necklace got tangled…”

“Aye, I suppose that is all it was,” she said doubtfully, reluctant to remind him of how much it had frightened her, lest he think less of her.

“That
is
all it is,” he said confidently. “You’re safe now, sweetheart. I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

“No one should make such a promise,” she said. “People die, or things happen to prevent them from keeping such promises.” Then, for the first time in a conversation with him, she wished she had not spoken her thought aloud. Half to herself, she murmured, “Mayhap it means he is coming back again.”

“He can’t, lass. Surely you know he’s dead.”

“Ardelve told me he drowned,” she said. “But I never saw him dead.”

“Nor did anyone else,” he admitted.

She stared at him. “Mercy, sir! Then I would remind you that Waldron has been thought dead before and come back. Why should he not do so again?”

Damnation!

Rob wanted to kick himself for revealing that detail. They had purposely told Ardelve only that Waldron had drowned, not how and certainly not where.

Recalling what she had said before she began talking about Waldron, he said ruefully, “You are right to take me to task, sweetheart, on two heads. I wanted to ease your fright, and I have done the reverse. And some of the secrets I hold are things I begin to believe you should know.”

“You trusted me at Lestalric when the Earl of Fife came,” she said, her tone making it clear that she was displeased with him. “I trusted you, too. I have not even asked you what you gave me.”

“Aye,” he agreed. “But trust is not always such a simple matter. Some secrets must remain secret. I have sworn an oath to that, and I will not break it. This business of Waldron, however, is not of itself one such as that.”

“Are you certain he drowned?”

“Aye,” he said. “But I remember that Hugo told me afterward that you recalled little about the day we rescued you. Do you remember the cavern?”

“Aye,” she said. “I remember the chests, too, and talk of treasure. And, too, Waldron told me he served God and was seeking a treasure taken from Holy Kirk.”

The room was gray now with the light of approaching dawn as it spread over the landscape outside.

Ignoring the treasure, he said, “Waldron drowned in the cavern’s lake. He went under, and the devil claimed his own, because he never surfaced again. Hugo and I built a raft and searched every inch of that lake shore. In most places, the cavern wall is sheer, impossible to grip even if one were not severely injured, and he was nearly dead before he went in. Other places, one might climb out but not go anywhere, only sit on a narrow ledge or outcropping. And, too, that underground lake is very deep and very cold, not likely to return its dead to the surface.”

To his surprise, she nodded. “’Tis like the sea round the Isles,” she said. “That water is so cold that bodies just sink and stay sunk, even in the sounds.”

Her head rested in the hollow of his good shoulder, and hugging her closer, he kissed her hair, breathing in the scent of it and feeling himself stir again.

Doubting that she would be as interested in the state of his libido as he was, and knowing he had at least one more apology to make, he strove to ignore his eager, apparently sex-driven body as he said, “I should not have made it sound as if I believed your nightmare to be of small account. The experience you had with Waldron is bound to stay with you for a long while. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that your jumpy nature results from that, too. Your nightmares certainly do.”

“I think they do, although it seems silly for them still to plague me so long afterward, when I am perfectly safe again.”

“There is a rule in warfare,” he said. “If one suffers great defeat, especially if a commander loses many men, that commander and his surviving men must train even harder than his new recruits. They must sharpen their skills and strive to learn new, even more difficult ones.”

“I’d think such survivors prove just by surviving that they know what they are doing.”

“Aye, sure,” he said. “They may be the finest soldiers in the land. Even so, each saw close comrades killed, mayhap even stood beside one cut down by a weapon that could easily have killed him instead. Learning new skills rebuilds and strengthens one’s confidence, and confidence does more than any skill to aid a man fighting a battle. I’m thinking it ought to do the same thing for a woman.”

“Mercy, would you train me for battle?”

Suppressing his too-ready sense of humor, Rob kept his tone serious as he said, “There is more than one way to do battle, sweetheart. It is early yet. Do you want to sleep a little longer, or are you too fully awake now for that?”

“I am wide awake, so if you want to get up …”

He chuckled. “Part of me is likewise wide awake, standing up in fact and causing me some small suffering. Mayhap we can do something to ease that first.”

“What can I do?”

“I’ll show you,” he said.

Adela’s second lesson proved even more pleasant than the first. Afterward, her husband being willing to help her find and don her discarded clothing, she was in full charity with him when he left her to finish her ablutions while he found a manservant to tend his wound and ordered food for their breakfast.

That she was wearing her tawny silk dress from the night before reminded her again of her abduction, when she had worn one dress for days. Recalling that Isobel had sent clothing to Hawthornden for Sorcha, who like-wise had arrived at Roslin with little of her own to wear, Adela decided that after breakfast she would search until she had found more suitable clothing for such an untidy place.

Mentally making lists of where she would begin the task of setting Hawthornden to rights, she hurried down-stairs to find her husband, shirtless, on the hall dais, having his wound tended by a burly young man-at-arms as gillies prepared the linen-draped table nearby for their breakfast.

“My lady,” Lestalric said, “I would present Archie Tayt to you. Be kind to him. His uncle is an influential burgess in Edinburgh. Make your bow, lad.”

Smiling at the “lad,” who, like most of Sir Hugo’s men, stood more than head and shoulders taller than she was, Adela responded to a twinkle in his blue eyes as she greeted him by adding for her husband’s benefit, “Indeed, my lord, and I hope I should be kind to him even if he had no uncle.”

“And
I
hope not too kind,” he warned with a teasing look.

Stifling the retort that sprang unbidden to her lips, she said, “How does his wound look, Archie?”

“It’s fine,” Rob said, grimacing as Archie returned to smearing salve on it.

“I was asking Archie Tayt,” Adela said, moving closer as Archie shot her a look of near anguish, telling her as plainly as words that he feared saying something that might anger her husband. “Never mind,” she said. “I’ll look for myself.”

Rob said in a long-suffering way, “Sakes, Archie, you see what I’ve done?”

“Aye, me lord, ye’ve married yourself a good woman, ye have. Likely she’ll make a gey fine mother for your bairns.”

“True enough,” Rob said. “But
I
don’t require mothering.”

“Aye, well that be …”

“Thank you, Archie,” Adela said. “Stand aside now, if you will, and let me see how it progresses. I have seen it thus far only by moonlight. Stand still, sir,” she added as Archie made way for her and Rob started to turn toward her.

“Well, lass,” he said a moment later. “What do you think?”

“I think you were singularly fortunate for a second time, sir. You mend with commendable speed.”

“’Tis nobbut the countess’s potions,” he said. “Many of us have had cause over the years to be grateful for her skill. Cover it up now, Archie, and I’ll thank you not to be telling every man and rascal that my wife leads me by the nose.”

“I’d no do that, m’lord, nae for nowt,” Archie said earnestly.

Rob thanked him, adding, “Don’t forget that other matter I asked you to attend for me.”

“Nay, then, sir, I willna forget.”

“What did you ask him to do?” Adela asked as they sat down at the table.

“To find a wee item I’ve a mind to give my wife as a bride gift.”

“What?”

“You’ve become gey curious all of a sudden.” He grinned at her. “Well, I’m not telling, so eat your break-fast. And don’t give me that look, either. I have already decided to let you slap me after we eat, so save your ire for that.”

Chapter 15

A
dela barely spoke to her husband as they broke their fast, afraid he would continue to tease her about her increasing curiosity. She certainly could not deny it. Had it not leaped in response to his promised gift, it would have done so after his astonishing declaration that he expected her to slap him. She could not imagine striking him—not without far more provocation than he had provided.

He had stirred her ire more than once, but naught that was slapworthy, even had she been a woman inclined to slapping large men.

Sakes, she thought, she had never even slapped Hugo. And he had offered her ten times the provocation that Robert had.

Curiosity continued to burn in her, giving her to understand better than ever before her more curious sisters’ impatience to satisfy theirs. But at last he ate the last bite of his bread, swallowed the last few drops of his ale, and stood up.

“You’ll need suitable clothes,” he said. “You don’t want to spoil that gown.”

“I thought about that earlier,” she said. “Sorcha may have left things here, things Isobel lent her. But if Sorcha wore Isobel’s clothes, I can, too.”

“Let’s go see,” he said. “There’s a kist with a few items in it upstairs. I ought to have thought of that this morning, but I had other things on my mind.”

She felt a rush of flames to her cheeks at the memory of what had diverted him. But he said no more about it, and she let him hurry her upstairs.

They found two garments in the kist that she thought would fit her.

Accepting his help, she donned the plainer one, a simple blue kirtle with red silk front lacing. As she tied the embroidered girdle that went with it low on her hips, she glanced at him to judge his reaction.

“Very becoming,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind if it gets dirty.”

“Why should it?”

“You’ll see. Come with me.” He led her back down-stairs and out to the courtyard. “To do this properly I’d take you out on that grassy hillside yonder. But until I know what danger may come our way, we’ll stay here in the yard.”

Determined not to give him more reason to tease her by demanding further information, she followed meekly until they reached the farthest corner of the courtyard, where two pairs of men were wrestling.

Setting the four to new tasks without explanation, Rob faced her and said, “Now, lass, do as you have been yearning to do and slap me as hard as you can.”