Love Above All (4 page)

“Perhaps I enjoy making plans,” he said,
offering a partial truth in return for her lies. “In the last few
moments, while you have been revealing selected portions of your
story, I have conceived a far better scheme than yours. It is more
likely to succeed, too. Would you like to hear it?”

She regarded him with an expression that
suggested she was afraid. Of him? Why should she fear him, when he
had kept her alive?

“How do I know I can trust you?” she
asked.

“You don’t,” he said. “You can only be
certain the scheme you have decided on has no chance of succeeding.
My idea, on the other hand, has all the advantages inherent in a
large band of well-armed and dedicated warriors.”

“Very well, I am willing to listen,” she
said. “However, I, not you, will decide whether or not we will
follow your plan.”

She’d follow it. He wasn’t going to give her
a chance to reject his idea. For the moment, he was content to test
her reaction.

“I want you to travel to England with me,
under my protection,” he began, and held up a hand to stop the
protest she was clearly about to launch. “After last night I’m not
certain you are fit to travel, but travel you will, for I cannot in
good conscience leave you behind to deal with your brothers and I
must return to England at once.”

From the look on her face Quentin concluded
that she was relieved about something, but was not in complete
agreement with his decision to take her along with him. In case she
was worried about her own safety while among strangers, he hastened
to reassure her.

“No one will harm you while you are with me
and my companions. Since King Henry is presently busy in Normandy,
the preliminary report on my discussions with King Alexander is to
be made to Royce, the baron of Wortham. Royce is an old friend of
mine, a man who has both the resources, and the wits, to devise a
scheme to free Janet and get her safely out of Scotland.”

“I don’t have time to travel to England and
back again,” Fionna objected. “My brothers could be on their way to
Abercorn at this moment. If Janet tries to refuse to marry
Murdoch’s friend, they won’t hesitate to stoop to violent abduction
and forcible marriage.”

“If you wish, I can send an urgent message to
King Alexander, asking him to take your sister into custody until
the question of her marriage can be resolved.” Quentin expected her
to reject the offer. She didn’t disappoint him.

“No! Don’t do that. You don’t understand.
After what my brothers tried to do to me, can you doubt they’ll
kill Janet if anyone crosses their will?”

“What, and lose their opportunity to contract
an advantageous marriage? My lady, you are not making sense.”

After years of secret missions undertaken at
the behest of his king, Quentin’s instincts were honed to the
sharpness of a fine steel blade. Those instincts warned him now
that he was lacking a vital piece of information, perhaps several
pieces. He frowned at Fionna, trying to think how to make her tell
him whatever it was he needed to know.

“Please, I beg you, leave it alone.” Fionna
covered her face with both hands. “Don’t interfere. Hurry back to
England, where you’ll be safe. Forget about me.”

She was genuinely worried about Janet. He
could see her fear in her posture and hear it in her strained
voice. Still, he sensed there was something else, something she was
bent upon hiding from him.

“From what you say, if I do leave this alone,
you and your sister are both in mortal danger.”

Her only response to his statement of obvious
truth was a quick shake of her head. Quentin regarded her
thoughtfully, wondering if it was merely a slip of her tongue that
declared he’d be safe in England, which suggested he wasn’t safe
while he remained in Scotland. Or was the remark a deliberate ploy?
He wished he knew her better, so he could more accurately judge her
sympathies and her intentions. As matters stood, he dared not trust
her. But neither could he leave her to the fate that awaited her in
Scotland if her brothers got hold of her again. The fact that it
would please him to keep Fionna near was irrelevant.

“I cannot, and will not, allow you to travel
alone to Abercorn,” he told her firmly. “You are going to Wortham
with me. Once there, you may tell your story to Royce and,
together, the three of us will work out a plan to retrieve your
sister.”

“Am I a prisoner, then?”

“Nothing quite so severe. But I will have
your word of honor that you won’t leave my party until we reach
Wortham.” He watched her for a moment, noting her slumped shoulders
and bowed head, and he found himself doubting that evidence of
female meekness. Whatever else Fionna of Dungalash was, she was not
meek.

“I don’t have a choice, do I?” She spoke so
softly that Quentin was forced to bend closer to hear her. “As you
have pointed out, I have no horse, no supplies, no funds, and if
you don’t help me, no one else will. All right, then. I will ride
with you and your men. Now, will you kindly give me my
clothes?”

“Certainly. I’ll have Braedon bring them to
you at once.”

Quentin wasn’t fooled by her apparent
acquiescence. Nor did he fail to notice that she had neglected to
give her word of honor not to try to escape.

It was still early morning when Quentin’s
party assembled by the gate of Duncaron. When a few questions were
asked about the unexpected appearance of a woman amongst what was
supposed to be a troop of knights and men-at-arms, Quentin offered
only a terse response that the lady was traveling with him, and he
did not mention her by name. Fionna was relieved when not one of
Quentin’s men made any comment on her presence. The master of
Duncaron barely glanced in her direction before he bid farewell to
the Norman visitors.

Fionna kept her head down, with the hood of
the cloak Quentin had lent to her pulled up to hide her face, lest
anyone should recognize her. She didn’t think Murdoch and Gillemore
had any connection with Duncaron, but she didn’t want to risk being
seen. She was sure her best chance to rescue Janet lay in her
brothers’ continuing belief that she was dead.

“At this time of year the hours of daylight
grow ever shorter,” Quentin told her, breaking into her troubled
thoughts, “and we are long overdue at Wortham Castle. We will ride
from sunrise until dark every day for at least a week, longer if
the weather turns bad. I hope you are used to hard riding.”

“I will not delay you,” she replied with some
asperity. “I am no delicate court lady.”

“No one who has met you could imagine you
are.” He said it as if he was paying a compliment, but the stern
look on his face suggested to Fionna that he meant the remark as
criticism. “Shall I help you to mount?”

“I need no help from you.” She knew she was
being disagreeable, but she couldn’t stop herself. She felt torn in
two by conflicting obligations. She longed to rush directly to
Abercorn and Janet, but her duty to protect Quentin from her
brothers by not interfering with his immediate departure from
Scotland was compelling her to ride in the opposite direction from
where she wanted to go.

She preferred not to look too closely at the
effect Quentin was having on her emotions, or to recall that he had
held and warmed her for most of the night, while she lay naked and
unconscious in his arms. She told herself Quentin of Alney was an
irritating, arrogant man. The sooner she was quit of him the
happier she would be.

She hadn’t realized how weakened she was by
her recent violent experiences. Getting into the saddle was far
more difficult than she expected. Refusing to ask for assistance
after rejecting Quentin’s offer, she pressed her lips together and
called on every bit of strength left to her as she levered herself
upward. Once she was in the saddle she closed her eyes, fighting
dizziness and all too aware that Quentin was watching her.
Unwilling to let him see how ill she felt, she made herself look at
him while she drew her mouth into an approximation of a smile.

“I told you I didn’t need help,” she said
between gritted teeth.

“Well done, my lady. You are courageous, I’ll
grant you that much. I only wish you were as wise as you are
brave.”

Before she could voice the fiery retort that
rose to her lips, Quentin turned on his heel and headed for his own
horse. It was just as well; with his back turned he couldn’t see
the sudden tears on her cheek. Quickly, before he could glimpse any
sign of weakness in her, she wiped away the telltale moisture.

A few moments later they were on the road. As
soon as they were out of sight of Duncaron, Fionna pushed back the
hood of Quentin’s heavy, dark green cloak, which she was wearing
over her tattered and still slightly damp gown. Not one piece of
her clothing was completely dry. Her linen shift and her stockings
felt clammy against her skin, and her well-worn shoes were stiff
and uncomfortable. Since she possessed no other garments that she
could change into, she made no complaint, though she did offer up a
brief prayer for heavenly protection against the ague.

To her relief, Quentin rode at the head of
his band of men, leaving Fionna to follow. Sir Cadwallon and
Braedon the squire were riding on either side of her. She suspected
their close attendance was deliberate, that Quentin had ordered
them to guard her.

She tried her best to ignore Braedon. The
twinkle of amusement in his deep blue eyes early that morning when
he’d brought her clothing to her had offended her. She had been
painfully aware of the warmth that doubtless stained her cheeks
bright red as she seized her gown from him, and she couldn’t forget
that he had seen her undressed. Quentin had been serious about the
way they’d found and cared for her, but Braedon seemed to think it
was funny.

Fionna was finding Sir Cadwallon’s company
preferable to that of the jaunty squire. Cadwallon was a huge,
brawny man, with brown hair and eyes and a respectful, gentle
manner that soothed her jumpy nerves. With little probing from her
he spoke freely and with warm affection about his Welsh mother, his
little sister, and his older brother, a minor baron who had
inherited their Norman father’s lands located between Wales and
England.

“As the younger son, I faced a poor future if
I stayed at home,” Cadwallon explained. “I longed for more than a
simple knighthood, so I’ve taken service with King Henry. He has a
reputation for generosity toward his household knights. I hope to
earn land of my own, and a title from him.”

“Was it royal generosity that ordered you to
the wilds of Scotland?” Fionna asked, flashing a smile at him
because she liked him.

“I believe King Henry thought my strong sword
arm would be of use to Quentin,” Cadwallon said. “Unfortunately,
there has been no fighting for me to do. It’s too bad; I’d enjoy a
bit of exercise. I always sleep better after a battle.”

Despite this hint of bloodthirstiness, Fionna
didn’t find Cadwallon the least bit intimidating. He wasn’t at all
like Quentin, who sat proudly upon his huge grey stallion and never
looked her way.

She was glad Quentin wasn’t paying attention
to her, and she hoped her rudeness about refusing his help to mount
would keep him at a distance. His disinterest would make it easier
for her to proceed with her plan to escape from him.

She had been shocked to learn how long the
journey to Wortham would take. Once she understood the time
involved, Fionna decided not to depend on Quentin’s offer to ask
his friend to rescue Janet. Help from Wortham would take a month or
more and Janet’s plight required prompt remedy. Fionna would rescue
Janet herself, as she had originally planned. She would set out for
Abercorn just as soon as Quentin was safely on English soil. She
was already considering just how to accomplish the rescue.

She didn’t know where Quentin had acquired
the horse she was riding, and she didn’t care. What mattered to her
was the animal’s sturdy form, which suggested it wouldn’t give out
if she rode it hard after she finally got away from Quentin. Better
yet, she thought the horse could easily carry two slender
women.

She was riding astride, as she preferred to
do, and while she owned no saddlebags to fill with food or personal
items as the others did, there was a blanket rolled up and fastened
behind her saddle. Into the folds of the blanket she had tucked a
chunk of bread she’d kept from her morning meal. She planned to
pretend to have a ravenous appetite, and she’d save a little from
each meal over the next day or two, until she had collected enough
provisions to sustain her during the ride to Abercorn.

She hoped to use the time before she made her
escape to regain the strength she had lost in her struggle with
Liddel Water, but during that first morning of the journey she
discovered she was much weaker than she thought. She was surprised
by how easily she tired, so she was glad when Quentin called a halt
at noon.

“You will want to get off your horse and walk
for a while,” Braedon said, reaching up to help her dismount.

“I can do it myself,” she informed him. The
last thing she wanted was to have the squire touch her. From the
curve of his mouth and the twinkle in his deep blue eyes, Fionna
assumed he was recalling the sight of her unclothed body with
fiendish glee.

In truth, she could have used his assistance.
It was all she could do to swing her leg up and over the horse’s
back and then drop to the ground without falling. Her leg muscles
ached, her head ached, and her chest ached, too, whenever she
coughed, which she did far too often.

She was hanging onto the saddle strap, hoping
she’d regain her balance before she fainted, when a pair of strong
male hands clasped her waist, steadying her. Forgetting her
weakness in a burst of anger, Fionna whirled around with one hand
raised in preparation to strike.