Hannah Howell (22 page)

“Aye,” agreed Meghan. “It might well grow even tighter when the time for the wedding draws near.”

“I shall have to watch closely for a chance. If worst comes to worst, then there could be a scene at the altar. I just pray that I have a wee bit of luck and that a chance to set him free does come in time.”

“It has best be soon, then,” mumbled Isabella, staring out the window. “The men have returned.”

The next few hours were hectic. Tess met Revan’s father, Thane Halyard, and his eldest brother, Colin. Nairn and Simon also joined the group. She suspected that her uncle Silvio had given the men little choice. It was not until they sat at the table, finishing a hearty meal, that she was able to learn very much about the battle or what was to happen next.

“I ken that the battle went in your favor, but ye havena told us much else,” she said as she refilled hers and Revan’s wine goblets. “It must have been a stunning victory if the king has let ye return home so quickly afterward.”

“There was hardly a battle at all, lass,” explained Silvio. “Sir James Hamilton deserted the earl of Douglas just before the battle. That prompted a very large desertion within the traitor’s army. Douglas camped that night with nearly forty thousand men only to wake in the morning to a sadly emptied camp.”

“So there was no battle at all?”

“Well, a wee one. Ere the Douglas bedded down for the night, his army and King James’s were nearly equal. The odds tipped heavily against Douglas when Hamilton joined the king. There was some fighting on the Esk near Langholm. Douglas’s brother Moray was killed. His other brother, Ormond, was caught and executed.”

“What of the earl of Douglas himself?”

“He fled to England with Lord Balvanie.”

“He deserted his own brothers?” Tess could not believe it.

“Aye. Ran to save his own traitorous hide,” muttered Tomas. “Well, he has saved little else. ’Tis all forfeited to the crown now.”

Tess looked at Revan. “All that trouble and it ends so swiftly, so ignominiously.”

Revan laughed. “Aye. I felt a wee bit cheated myself.”

“Is that why the king let ye leave the army? Because it was so easy?” asked Meghan.

Silvio grimaced. “We have a fortnight. I fear Revan’s kin dinna even have that. They must return on the morrow. The king is intent upon cleaning out all of the Douglas’s allies. If he is still punishing the traitors in a fortnight’s time, he wishes us to rejoin the army.”

There was a moment of silence before the conversation was renewed. Tess shared the dismay and disappointment of the other women. She might never call Revan husband, but she suspected she would always worry about him. No matter how skilled the knight, he still faced death each time he drew his sword in battle.

Kirsten nodded to her, and with a sigh Tess rose to help the women clear the table. She doubted she would have an opportunity to be alone with Revan. That saddened her, but she told herself it was probably for the best. It was time to begin distancing herself from him. She prayed that that would help ease her pain a little when she had to send him away.

“A bonnie wee lass, Revan,” Thane Halyard murmured as he joined his sons and Simon in the stable hayloft for the night.

“Aye, she is bonnie.” Revan frowned when no one else climbed up the rough wooden ladder to join them. “No Delgado or Comyn? Am I to be allowed a night without the charming companionship of one of their number?”

As he spread his blanket over the hay, Thane smiled at Revan. “Two are bedded down at the foot of the ladder. Another at each door of the stable. I think there are a few outside as well.”

With a soft curse Revan sprawled on his back on his blanket. “I gave my word. It should be enough.”

“ ’Tis not enough in this matter, lad. Aye, they trust you, but they will still watch ye closely until the vows are said. Even the finest of men can take it into his head to bolt as the day of his marriage draws near.” Lying down next to Revan, Thane crossed his arms beneath his head and looked at his son. “Ye probably arena hiding your reluctance as well as ye think ye are.”

“Well, no man likes to be prodded to the altar,” Revan muttered, a little dismayed that he could be so easily read.

“Then ye should have kept your braies laced tighter, m’lad.”

Revan cursed again as his family and Simon chuckled softly. “I can see that I will get no sympathy from you.”

“Sympathy? Why should ye expect any sympathy? ’Tis evident that ye find the lass a delight beneath the blankets. She is a pretty lassie, too, with the finest pair of eyes I have ever had the pleasure of looking into. For all she is a wee thing, ’tis clear that she is strong. Proved that well enough in the fortnight ye spent racing about the borders. She has wit. Ye will be glad of that when the passion cools, as it will do over the years. And she has the land and coin I havena been able to give you,” he added in a quiet voice.

“I dinna fault ye for that,” Revan said in an equally soft voice.

“I ken it, lad. I regret it nonetheless. ’Tis why I was pleased when ye grew up to be such a bonnie lad. I hoped that face would help ye gain all I couldna give you.”

“Ye mean ye hoped it would make some wealthy lass wish to buy me for her husband.”

“Lad, ye have some very odd ideas. Ye expect sympathy for marrying a fine, wee lass many a man would want and then complain about the dowry that will come your way because of it. Get some rest, lad. ’Tis clear that weariness has dimmed your wits.” Thane shook his head, then closed his eyes. “I am sorry that none of your own kin will be attending your wedding, but as soon as there is peace, we will have a celebration for ye and the lass.”

A grunt was all that Revan could manage in reply. He was feeling very much put upon. His family had not made even the smallest of protests over how the Delgado-Comyns were keeping him a virtual prisoner. There were no chains binding him and no swords pointed his way, but he could not even walk to the privy without one of Tessa’s amiable kinsmen at his side. It seemed to him that his family ought to take some umbrage over his treatment. Instead, they acted as if the Delgado-Comyns were already family.

He sighed and got more comfortable on his rough bed. It was childish to concern himself with such petty matters. Even though he knew he would not back out of his word to marry Tess, her kinsmen had every right to act as they were. In fact, they were being far more gracious than many another family would be. He was just suffering from a natural resentment over being forced to do something, of having no real choices. Revan swore that he would rid himself of that feeling, for Tessa was certain to sense it and that would hurt her.

As he closed his eyes, Revan made another promise to himself. He would, somehow, gain both coin and land on his own merit. One day, and he prayed that it would be soon, he would have a fortune equal to Tessa’s. Then no one could accuse him of living off his wife’s largesse.

 

 

Tess eased her body out from beneath her blanket. Hardly breathing at all, she began to creep toward the door. If she could speak to Revan, tell him that he was freed of his promise to wed her, then his family and Simon could help him get away. As she edged around the people sleeping on the floor, she silently practiced her speech for Revan. When a bony hand suddenly clamped down on her arm she barely stopped herself from screeching.

“Just where do ye think ye are creeping away to, lassie?” whispered her captor.

“Isabella?” Tess peered at the person gripping her arm. “Is that you?”

“Well, it isna King James, ye great idiot.”

Lying down next to the old woman so that she could speak even more softly, Tess whispered, “Let me go. I think ye can guess what I am trying to do.”

“Well, for a moment there I thought ye might be sneaking away to have a quick rut with your man.”

“Cousin Isabella!”

“But I then recalled that talk we had just before the men returned. Sorry, lassie, but tonight isna the chance ye are looking for.”

“His kinsmen are here. They could help him get away.”

“Tessa, I doubt that ye would even make it out the door. Your kinsmen nearly cover this floor. There are more outside, in the stables, and even in the cow byre. We are knee-deep in Comyns and Delgados. One of them is certain to catch you or that pretty lad of yours. And ye can be sure that they will lock ye and him up very tightly after that. Ye will have to wait, lass.”

“Aye. I suppose ye are right.”

“I am. Ye would have to crawl through Silvio to get out the door.”

“Uncle is sleeping by the door?”

“Right in front of it.”

It was hard, but Tess had to accept defeat. She got back up on her hands and knees to return to her pallet. Tess had barely begun to inch along the floor when Isabella hissed her name.

“What is it?” she asked, now anxious to return to her bed before she was seen.

“If ye ever need anything, lassie, anything at all, ye come to me.”

“Thank ye, Cousin. That is a comfort. Good sleep to you.”

“And to you, Contessa.”

When Tess finally reached her pallet, she crawled beneath her blanket and sighed. She was disappointed that the ordeal of sending Revan away was still ahead of her yet relieved that he would still be near at hand. She hoped that she would be able to conquer her contradictory emotions. If they lingered after Revan was gone, she feared she would never be able to overcome the pain of losing him.

“What exactly did he call this place?” Revan asked as they rode into the bailey of Thurkettle’s keep.

Tess grimaced as Revan dismounted, then moved to help her down from her horse. Just as she had feared, the king had granted her Thurkettle’s lands and money. Revan had not taken the news very well. His mood had been faintly surly for the whole journey. She knew he was now making an effort to be conciliatory, but after four days of enduring his moods, she was not sure she felt particularly interested in his effort. Inwardly she sighed and looked at him, stung by the hint of anger still clouding his blue-gray eyes.

“Simply Thurkettle’s Tower.” She shrugged when he scowled with distaste. “Ye can change it.”

“ ’Tis yours. ’Tis your place to rename.” His tone was less harsh when he added, “As ye well know, I canna even think of a name for my horse. Ye were going to think of one, remember?”

“Aye, I remember, and I finally thought of one as we traveled here, but I didna think ye were in the mood to discuss it.”

“Nay. Mayhaps not.” He knew he ought to apologize, that he had treated her badly, but he could not get the words past the knot of resentment clogging his throat. “What name did ye decide on then?”

She moved closer to his gelding and stroked the horse’s nose. “I thought of two actually. Ye can decide which one of them ye favor. Amigo or Compadre.”

“I like the sounds of the words. Spanish?”

“Aye.”

“What do they mean?”

“Amigo
means ‘friend’ and
compadre
means ‘companion. ’ ‘Friend,’ too, I think. Canna be certain. My Spanish has been sadly weakened by not speaking it for five years. Thurkettle wouldna allow it. It enraged him.”

“A great deal enraged that man. I suspect when he awoke to find his toes roasting over Satan’s coals, he was a wee bit enraged.” He smiled faintly when Tess giggled, then lightly swatted him on the arm.

“Hush. Ye shouldna jest about the dead. Ye wouldna want old Fergus coming back to haunt ye.”

“God have mercy on us.”

Silvio and Tomas walked up at that moment, and Tess nearly cursed. That was the first reasonably pleasant conversation she and Revan had had in the last four days. She was annoyed to have her kinsmen put an end to it.

All concern over talking to Revan fled her mind when Silvio and Tomas each grabbed Revan by an arm and hurried him toward the keep. “What are ye doing?” she asked as she ran after them.

“Since your wedding is on the morrow,” replied Silvio, “we feel it best if your lad is very well secured. Ye dinna mind, do ye, Revan?”

“I dinna suppose it would matter much if I did,” Revan murmured.

“Nay, I fear not.”

Tess cursed as she followed them into the keep and toward the steps that led down to the dungeons. “Are ye just going to toss him into a cell for the night, drag him out come the morning, and then wed us?”

“Aye. I ken it isna the best of ceremonies, lass, but we havena got the time for anything fancy or even for your aunts and female cousins to come here. We wouldna even have traveled this far except that there is a priest in the village. The one at Donnbraigh died about a year past. ’Twas just as easy to come here where we ken one is than to run hither and yon trying to find one.”

“That wasna what I was meaning, and well ye ken it,” she snapped as she stumbled after them, down the narrow, shadowed steps into the dungeons. “I mean that ye canna lock a man up on the eve of his wedding.”

“Hold the lad, Tomas.” Silvio got the keys and unlocked the cell door. “If ye are worried over his mood on the wedding night, lass, I shouldna be. A man can forgive most anything when he finds himself abed with a pretty lass.”

“I wasna worried about the wedding night. Revan, why dinna ye hit them or something?” she demanded even as Silvio nudged Revan into the cell and locked the door.

“I dinna think that would be the proper way to treat one’s future kinsmen, Tessa.” Revan found it curious that he was not angry, did in fact have difficulty not laughing.

“These future kinsmen ought to be hanged. Give me those keys.” She tried to snatch them from her uncle’s hand, but he hung them back on the hook, which was out of her reach. “Will ye let him out of there?”

“Nay. Canna do it, lass. Now, the two of you have been very accepting of this marriage we have demanded. But ’tis the eve of saying your vows to each other. ’Tis the time when ye can grow very resentful, get nervous, and think of bolting, and when ye start to have doubts. Now, be honest, Contessa, I suspect ye have a doubt or two.”

“Oh, aye, I have a doubt or two—about your sanity. Now, cease this mad game and set him free.”

“ ’Tis no game, my Wee Countess, but common sense.”

Tess gave a soft screech of surprise when Silvio suddenly picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder. “Put me down!”

“I will as soon as we get ye into your chamber.” He started toward the stairs, ignoring the way she pounded on his back with her small fists. “We will send ye down a hot bath, lad,” he called back to Revan. “Aye, and a hearty meal and clean clothes for your wedding day. If ye think ye are in need of clean linen for that bed, just ask the lad who brings ye down your bath.”

“I believe I will be fine.”

The moment Tess and her kinsmen were gone, Revan sat down on the narrow cot and laughed. He knew he ought to be enraged, but he was not, and that struck him as being funny as well. After a moment he sighed and sprawled on his back on the bed, idly noticing that it was new and not the rat-chewed cot that had been in the cell before. He was full of contradictory emotions concerning his approaching marriage. A little more time to sort himself and his feelings out would probably be for the best, but there was no time left. He prayed he would not hurt Tessa too much as he battled his own vagaries and confusion.

 

 

Tess laid on her back on the bed, exactly where she had been tossed by Silvio before he had run out of the bedchamber, locking the door behind him. She found it all very hard to believe. While she and Revan had been virtual prisoners since they had sought refuge with her uncle Silvio, it had been a captivity easily ignored. This was not. She did not understand why Revan had not been as enraged as she was. In fact, he had looked amused by the whole business.

She was still nursing her anger and puzzling over Revan’s curious attitude when the servants arrived with a hot meal and a hot bath. It was very tempting to make a bid for freedom, if only to prove a point, but she resisted the urge. Instead, she sat on the bed silently glaring at them. They hurried through their chores and fled the room. She hoped they went straight to her kinsmen and reported on her fury, then cursed. Silvio would probably find her bad temper a source of great amusement.

After indulging in a long, hot bath and feasting upon her meal, she felt sleepy but fought the temptation to lie down and close her eyes. She could not go to sleep now. It was far too risky. She could easily sleep straight through until morning and lose all chance of giving Revan his freedom. The way he had acted when she had been awarded all Thurkettle had forfeited only made her more certain of the need to let him go.

The second time she caught herself dozing, Tess knew she could wait no longer to act. Since she was in Brenda’s old bedchamber, she did not need to worry about the door her kinsmen had locked. She walked over to the huge wardrobe against the wall, pushed Brenda’s many gowns out of the way, stepped inside, and opened the door at the back. It let her into the next bedchamber, the one Brenda had always put the handsomest male guests in.

Cautiously Tess eased into the hall. Although careful to keep an eye out for anyone who might sound an alarm, she hurried outside. There were a few things she needed to do before she could go to Revan.

“She has put our guard to sleep and tied up the stable lad.”

Silvio stared at the grinning Tomas for a moment, then laughed. “She is her father’s daughter. No question of it. I wonder how she put the guard to sleep.”

“She tipped some small vial of liquid into the water bucket just before the lad took it round to give each man a drink. A sleep draft. Probably Brenda’s. As for the poor stable lad, she just tiptoed up behind him, tapped him with a lump of wood, then tied and gagged him.”

“Has she finally made her way to that lover of hers?”

“Aye, she went in through the tunnel. Mayhaps ye shouldna have had it cleared. Made it too cursed easy for her.” Tomas moved to the large bed in the center of Silvio’s bedchamber and lay down on it. “Are ye still certain we should let her do this? She will be no maid yet no wife.”

“I ken it.” Silvio lightly drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair he sat in. “I dinna like the thought of that at all. But, Kirsten swears to me that this is the right thing to do. Didna your Meghan say the same?”

“Aye, she did.”

“And they are both right, as is that old corbie, Isabella, who fair bent my ear ere we left to come here. Ye saw how the lad acted when she got word that she now owned all of this as well. When she tells him about her fortune, he willna be able to live with it. I canna believe the women fully understand how deep a man’s pride runs, how much a part of him it is, but they do ken what can happen if ye strip a man of that pride.”

Tomas grimaced and nodded. “He isna a cruel man, but he could easily destroy our Tess. She loves him.”

“Aye,” Silvio agreed in a soft voice. “More than I had guessed. It takes a very deep love to do what she is doing. She is going to let go of the one she values most in this world because she canna bear to chance that the marriage could destroy him.”

“I canna understand how the man can be so blind. He cares for her. I am certain of it.”

“Oh, aye, he does, the young idiot. The man was half-mad with worry when she was in Thurkettle’s hands.”

“Yet he will leave her.”

“Sometimes, lad, a man has to be faced with losing something ere he realizes how much it means to him.”

For a moment Tomas stared at his uncle, then his eyes widened, and he started to laugh. “Ye are a sly one. Ye dinna believe he will go very far at all, do ye.”

“Nay. Not more than a mile or two. Come on, lad. We had best take up the watch upon the walls until our men wake up.” Silvio stood up and started out of the door, Tomas quickly falling in behind him. “Just dinna let either of those young idiots catch sight of you. If they think I have stuck my spoon into the pot, they could become very bullheaded.”

 

 

Revan frowned as a light drew nearer to his cell. He sat up in bed when he saw Tess. She smiled faintly, set her lamp on the table, then tugged the stool over and set it beneath the hook the keys dangled from. Revan tugged on his braies and reached the cell door just as she started to unlock it.

“Thought ye had your own set.” He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the cool iron bars.

“I lost them when we first fled from this place.” She opened the cell door and looked at him. “We have to talk.”

“Now? In the middle of the night?”

“Aye. Now. Tomorrow will be too late, much too late.”

She went and sat on his bed after placing her lamp on the small table next to it. Revan hesitantly moved to sit beside her. She was looking so serious, so grave, it began to worry him. He took her hand in his. When he met her gaze, he felt a flicker of alarm. Even in the dim light he could read the sadness in her eyes.

“Tessa, what is wrong? Is it Silvio? Tomas?”

“Nay. They are fine. ’Tis me, Revan. I need to tell ye something about me that I dinna think ye will like to hear.”

He smiled, relieved, for he was sure that there was little Tess could tell him about herself that was as bad as she seemed to think it was. “What about you, Tessa?”

As she stared down at their entwined fingers, she said, “I lied to you.” She glanced up and noticed that the look of indulgent amusement had left his face. “Well, I didna tell ye the full truth.”

“The full truth about what?”

“My fortune.”

Revan tensed, not liking the turn the conversation had just taken. “What about your fortune?”

Simply mentioning her inheritance had him tense and wary, anger lurking just below the surface. Tess wanted to weep but fought to maintain her calm. Her money and her lands, things that should be a source of comfort, were going to cost her the one thing she really needed to be truly happy.

“Do ye remember when we were trying to decide what other reason Thurkettle could have to want to kill me, and ye asked me if I had some money, some fortune, or land?”

“Aye. Ye said ye had a bit of land here, in Scotland, and a bit in Spain, as well as a few thousand riders. Ye dinna have these things?”

There was the hint of hope in his voice, and she sighed. “Aye, I have them. Mayhaps I should tell ye about my bit of land.” In a flat voice she described her large, profitable estates in Scotland and in Spain, watching him pale a little more with each detail.