Highlander's Prize (36 page)

He smiled at her, the rogue in him unrepentant. “Well, it will nae be ye, because ye’ll be bearing Broen MacNicols’s babes. Unless ye come to me now and give the man the only reason the prince will accept to renounce ye: lack of virtue.”

Rejection surged through her. “Do ye think I lack the courage?”

His expression became serious. “I think ye know ye are trapped, and it sickens ye. But the prince is young, and he’s unknowingly left ye with a slim opportunity to escape his decree. But such will not come freely. Broen can only renounce ye for losing yer maidenhead, and I’m a blackguard for no’ offering to help ye deceive him.”

“But ye would welcome me to yer bed.”

Norris nodded. “As I said… a blackguard.”

“A choice…” she muttered, glancing back at Broen. He wasn’t sleeping restfully. The bedding was rumpled about his feet where he kicked at it. He didn’t want her, and her pride bristled beneath the weight of the knowledge. Combined with the memory of how he and Faolan had fought over her, she turned back to stare at Norris. Oh, the man was a blackguard, but at the moment he was also her friend because he offered the one thing she wanted most of all.

“Well now, Norris Sutherland, it seems ye do nae know all that much about this seduction matter, for I cannae loosen me dress on me own, and I rather thought seduction included more than simply tossing me skirts… yet ye’re the one claiming to be the experienced one.”

Something appeared in his eyes. She wasn’t exactly sure what it was, because he sat up so fast. Her belly tightened, a bolt of fear spiking through her as the man approached her. He was somehow larger than she’d noticed before, more menacing perhaps.

Yet he was also intriguing. She wanted to know what it was like to feel his heart beating against her. A craving to lose herself in the moment, while she forgot about everything the world around them expected of her, was licking across her skin. He slipped his hands beneath her short hair, gripping the silken threads just hard enough to send little ripples of discomfort along her scalp. She gasped from the intensity of the sensation. It wasn’t pain; it was deep enjoyment rising up from some place inside her she’d never noticed before. He pressed his mouth against hers, surprising her with how gentle the kiss was.

Her choice, and she was pleased with it.

***

“I have not seen you since you were learning to walk.”

Sir Richard Scope wore his knighthood proudly. He circled Clarrisa, studying her from head to toe before settling himself down with his comrades once again. They were watching her with a similar familiar glint in their eyes, gauging her worth to their cause. She was still on Scottish soil, but among the English—at least, men who believed themselves to be English. She wasn’t sure. After all, they had fought with the prince to overthrow his father in the hopes the young boy would assist them in pushing Henry Tudor off the throne.

“She isn’t worth what we gave up for her,” one man groused.

“I disagree,” Richard answered. “Since the young Scottish prince has given us sanctuary here, we would have had to return his lairds for naught. Now we have another blooded heir to help us push that pretender Henry off the throne.”

“She’s a bastard, and a female. That will be no help now that Henry has an heir.”

Richard picked up a mug and took a swallow. She continued to stand before the three men, no offer of chair or stool for her. Of course not, for she was a commodity to them, something with value to be used to gain what they wished.

“Babies die often. So do women. If Elizabeth of York dies in her next childbed, Edmund shall be king. Clarrisa will be used to secure a good alliance for his cause. We’ll dangle her blood in front of the noses of some of these Scots, or perhaps a French lord or two who seek connections with royal houses. There will be someone willing to pay us for her.”

Clarrisa stopped listening. Edmund was her cousin, his older brother having been killed in the last battle with Henry Tudor. He was a boy no older than the prince of Scotland and she had never met him. But she felt kinship with him; it seemed he was living a life much like her own.

“She’s likely no virgin.”

Richard snickered. “Who cares? James Stuart paid for her, and if she produces a child, it will have uses.” He snapped his fingers, and one of his men came forward. “Take her and see that she is guarded well until we depart for the tower we’ve been promised.”

Clarrisa left the tent gladly. Outside the day was dying, night falling over the camp. With the wind blowing in their favor, they couldn’t smell the stench of death from the battlefield. But she felt it.

Despair ripped at her heart. It threatened to steal her breath, the weight of it so great, it felt as though it might crush her. The Scottish camp was not so far away, but it might as well have been halfway to London. She could not return to Broen. He was as trapped by circumstance as she. The breeze turned her tears cold but she was sure fate was colder. Richard and his friends were busy deciding who to sell her to next.

By morning, the tents were being taken down and a long line of wagons began to carry away the remains of the battle. She mounted a mare while the sun was still only half risen and followed her relatives.

She wanted to kick the sides of the animal and urge it to run back toward the man she loved, but the retainers flanked her, keeping her as surely as any chest of gold they’d discovered. Yet it wasn’t the men guarding her she felt she couldn’t escape from. It was the certainty that Broen was not free to wed her or even keep her as his leman. Lord Home would surely demand she be taken from Deigh Tower if she returned there.

So it was better to face her fate sooner rather than later. Courage was after all within her power to grasp. She lifted her chin and refused to glance over her shoulder again. Broen’s face filled her thoughts anyway. She smiled in triumph because her kin could never force her to relinquish her memories.

***

Broen ripped himself from slumber’s grip at last. He wasn’t very well rested, his muscles aching from his restless night. With a curse, he rolled out of bed and tried to decide what it was that had been hounding him all night long.

The tent was low, and he frowned when he looked for his boots. He saw a pair lying on the floor that he didn’t recognize. His memory was slow to return, and he rubbed his eyes before reaching for one of the boots.

“I believe that one belongs to me.” Norris was still in bed, but the man didn’t sound sleepy. In fact, he sounded fully alert, which drew Broen’s attention to the man’s face. Sure enough, Norris was watching him from the other bed, his green eyes clear and focused. “Daphne put yers under the stool.”

Broen didn’t reach for his boots. Instead, he watched the rumpled head of blond hair snuggled against Norris’s chest begin to stir. Norris stroked the woman’s neck gently as she stretched and turned. Daphne blinked and reached up to rub her eyes.

“What in Christ’s name is happening here?” Broen exploded.

Daphne opened her eyes wide and sat up. He got a fine view of her small breasts when she left the bedding behind in her haste.

The tent’s door flaps were flung open, Norris’s men and Shaw all looking in to see why he was yelling.

“Ye tell me what’s happening, Broen.” He stood and swept Daphne out of the bed. He bundled her in the comforter, leaving the soiled sheet on display.

“God damn ye to hell—” Broen shut his mouth before finishing, the look of relief on Daphne’s face distracting him. Glee or fear, he’d have understood, but she gently pushed herself away from Norris and sighed as though a weight had been lifted off her shoulders.

“Close the flaps,” Norris barked at his men. “Ye’ve seen enough.”

There was grumbling from Shaw. “Go on, Shaw,” Broen muttered before sitting back down and yanking his boots out from where they sat under the stool. The tent flaps closed, and he spied the cup sitting on top of the stool. One sniff and he cursed.

“Ye doused me with a sleeping draught.”

“That was my doing,” Norris answered as he shrugged into his shirt. “It seemed the only way to keep ye from getting run through when ye went after Clarrisa in defiance of the prince’s order.”

“Something I’ll still be doing. Do nae have any doubt about that, Norris Sutherland.”

“And now ye can,” Daphne muttered softly. She’d donned her chemise and was lifting her underdress over her head, still looking relieved. No blush stained her cheeks, only firm resolution flickered in her eyes. He’d missed something about her when she’d revealed to him that she was alive—Daphne was no longer a girl. She was a woman willing to shoulder the weight of her own choices. She no longer feared the challenges life presented.

“Christ in heaven, ye did nae have to go to such lengths, Daphne.”

“Did I nae?” She turned to stare at him while holding her underdress over her breasts because it needed lacing up her back. “There was no other way to end this contract between us. Ye must renounce me, something ye would nae do without cause.”

“I would nae have taken me freedom at the expense of yer good name, woman,” Broen muttered with a bitter taste filling his mouth. “It was me duty to resolve the matter, no’ yers.”

She lifted her overdress from where it rested over the arm of a chair. “I knew ye would say such. So it fell to me to end this before we drove one another to bitterness because neither of us wanted to wed. I’m going home now. Perhaps I am a poor daughter, but I will take me father home to be buried on MacLeod land.”

She left the tent, having to wait as Norris’s men and his own shifted out of her path. Daphne held her chin high as she went, the open back of her underdress speaking clearly to every man watching. The flaps closed, and Broen slammed his fist into Norris’s jaw.

“Damn ye, Norris! Ye should have tied her up and kept her from doing such a thing.”

Norris rubbed his jaw but didn’t retaliate. Guilt shone in his eyes. “I know well I’m a knave for taking advantage of her, but I am nae a liar. No’ now, no’ ever, Broen MacNicols. Ye can hate me for the things I do, but ye will never have to wonder if I’m telling ye the truth when ye ask what me position is.”

Broen sat down heavily, the bed ropes groaning beneath his weight. He stared at Norris and the soiled sheet, and God help him, he felt relieved, but guilty because Daphne had been the one to resolve the situation.

“I’m a damn bastard too,” he muttered.

“Ye’re a lucky fool, for I swear I’d no’ take a blow from any other.” Norris rubbed his jaw before searching for his boots. “But ye’re entitled to a few. Lord Home took that damned letter from me doublet when I was too weak to notice. He sent his men up and convinced Clarrisa to leave the protection of Deigh.”

“Where is she?” The relief transformed into a raging need to claim the woman he loved. “Where is Clarrisa?”

“They traded her for Faolan last night. I hear the prince has granted her kin sanctuary from Henry Tudor’s desire to wipe all York blood off the face of the Earth. They will be staying in Scotland.”

Broen stood up, but Norris blocked his path.

“Get out of me way, Norris, or ye’ll sample a few more blows from me hand I doubt ye’ll be so quick to forgive.”

“Stealing her will nae solve yer dilemma. Think, man. This is nae as simple as stealing the woman. Is yer desire for her so great ye’d risk her life as well as yer own? Once ye’re dead for treason, it will nae take long for Home to finish her off.”

Broen let out a frustrated growl that sent the tent flaps opening again. He waved Shaw away and waited for Norris to do the same with his men.

“There are times I hate needing others too, Broen, but alliances keep our clans strong. I need ye as much as ye need me. Ye’re smart enough to know a bride with royal blood must be contracted. And that ye would no’ be the only man wanting her wed into yer clan.”

“That’s a fact, one I plan to make into reality.”

But it would not be simple. In fact, it was most likely impossible. But Broen refused to think about the facts. He’d find the way because the thought of failure sent white hot pain through his heart. The steady look on Norris’s face assured him he wouldn’t have to do it alone. He offered Norris his hand and his friend took it.

“Let’s make a plan,” Norris muttered.

***

“Oh now, I’ve been so worried about you,” Maud muttered. She busied herself with snapping her fingers at the two maids pulling lengths of sheeting off the furniture in the chamber.

“This tower is older but it is made of stone. That gives me good solace, it does, seeing as how we’re still in Scotland and on the border of the Highlands no less. God is testing us, I have no doubt.”

Clarrisa walked to the window. The keep looked north.
To
the
Highlands…
All that much better for her to dwell upon happier times.

She busied herself with helping to clean the chamber. It helped her to not dwell upon the fact that her last link with Broen was gone. Her monthly courses had arrived to confirm her brief sojourn into free will had not resulted in a child.

“The master is beginning to receive offers for ye, and ones which include marriage this time,” Maud continued to babble. She stopped and rubbed her hands together. “Your obedience has paid off, indeed it has. You’ll be a proper wife, of a nobleman possibly…”