Terri Brisbin (9 page)

Joanne Rock

With thanks and humble gratitude to my three sons,
Taylor, Camden and Maxim, for providing me with
the most profound experience of my life…motherhood.

Scotland, 1310

T
here had been a time when Countess Brenna Douglas Kirkpatrick would have never paid a visit to Blackburn Keep without brushing and perfuming her hair, cloaking her brown mane in the best silken veils her father’s moderate riches could obtain. She would have pleaded and wheedled with her sister to borrow her best gown, a taffeta and velvet surcoat dyed in the deepest shade of purple, because Brenna fancied the rich hue complimented her dark hair more than her sibling’s blond tresses.

Once upon a time, Brenna’s heart would have pounded with feminine anticipation the whole way to Blackburn Keep, her pulse unsteady as she indulged in girlish hopes for a future with the strong and silent Scot whose legendary sword had kept invading English forces at bay when he was a mere nineteen summers.

Yet today Brenna rode hard through desolate moors and dense thickets in the inky blackness of night, heedless of hawthorn branches slapping her cheek or frigid creek water splashing against her calves as she raced to see the very same man. Frosty Highland winds burned her skin and whipped
through her uncovered hair, the damp breeze penetrating a threadbare cloak. The leather of her worn boots provided little protection from the brooks overflowing with newly melted snow, the water seeping through cracks too numerous to patch any longer.

And although her heart pounded at a furious rate, the relentless thump had naught to do with the Lord of Blackburn, whose keep rested just beyond the next hill. Nay, her blood raced with hot fury through her veins for another reason entirely.

Fear.

Swallowing back the cold wave of dread that threatened, Brenna used the surge of emotion to nudge her horse harder, faster, over that last barrier between her and the only man she could turn to for help. Tears stung her eyes as she rode, but she told herself the damp streams coursing down her cheeks and streaking back into her hairline were caused by the bite of bitter mountain winds against her tender skin and not an outpouring of soft emotions she could ill afford. She intended to wall off her fears and feelings for now, a technique she’d perfected in the past three godforsaken years of her twenty-three summers.

Although she would give Lord Gavin Blackburn anything he required in order to secure his assistance just this once, she would not hand over the last scraps of her pride along with it.

She might not be the spoiled daughter of the noble house of Douglas anymore, but she still retained her noble bearing despite the yoke of an unwanted marriage, the realization that her dead husband was a traitor and the hardship of English imprisonment these past three years. No matter what life had doled out for her she had clung to her pride—in herself, in her father’s clan and in her country. For no matter what her traitorous husband said to the contrary, Countess Brenna Douglas Kirkpatrick had always been a loyal Scot to the bone.

Brenna had traded her soul to hold her head up and make such a claim and, by God, no man would take it from her now.

There would be no indulging of weak emotions until she’d retained Gavin’s help to recover the only precious thing left in a world that had forsaken her.

Gavin Blackburn sat upright in his bed, awakened by a sound. A movement. He could not be sure.

Fingers flexing against the crisp linens his servants had dried in the cold mountain winds the day before, Gavin held himself perfectly still. Listening. Waiting.

His hound, Rowan, tensed on the floor beside him. Even in the dark shadows of his bedchamber, lit only by scant moonlight that told him the hour was well past midnight, he sensed something amiss in his keep. Rising from his bed, he didn’t have long to wait to discover the source of his unease.

A feminine voice raised in anger lifted through the gallery to echo off stone walls.

For the first time in a year, a woman had entered Blackburn Keep.

An interesting turn of events since his gatekeeper, young Alister the miller’s son, had strict orders to admit no one. And Gavin didn’t believe for a moment any of the village women would be foolish enough to enter the keep these days. They knew of his peculiarities. Respected his wishes. Left him alone.

Nay, the woman in his hall could only be an outsider. And heaven help young Alister if her purpose was treachery. The English had been known to use the lowest means to gain entry to Scots fortresses, and considering the way they had treated Scots noblewomen taken captive during Robert the Bruce’s bid to free Scotland, Gavin would not be surprised if they resorted to using women as a way to distract young gatekeepers.

Pulling on his braies and shrugging into a tunic, Gavin did not bother with a hauberk as he leaned down to pat Rowan’s head. He didn’t even take time to tie his garments about him, assuming any woman who entered his keep past midnight
without an invitation could damn well suffer his lack of attire. Gripping his sword grown ice-cold in the drafty chamber, he stepped out onto the gallery just in time to collide with Kean, his bailiff.

“I told Alister ye would kill him dead, my lord.” Kean followed Gavin down the corridor leading to the stairs while Gavin craned his neck for a glimpse of this woman who—by the low fury of her tone—seemed to be raising bloody hell.

He could see naught but a few long shadows below, since he had never found a need to burn tapers all night.

“Did she give her name?” Gavin hit the steps at a brisk pace despite the fact that the stairs disappeared into blackness. “Lay a fire in the hall and make sure Alister knows the gate willna open again this night or I will personally toss him into a deep patch of poison ivy until next winter. Ye ken?”

“Aye.” Kean nodded vigorously beside him, already moving toward the fireplace as they reached the bottom of the stairs. “And her name is—”

“Brenna.” The woman herself stepped in his path, her face materializing from the shadows in the dim light cast from two narrow candles that provided the only illumination in his great hall after midnight. “Brenna Douglas Kirkpatrick, my lord, and I would have never come at this hour if I did not seek your aid in the most dire of quests.”

Brenna.

Dear God, she hadn’t needed to say any more than that. As if he had ever forgotten this woman who had become Scotland’s most lauded patriot during the recent years of tumult with the English. She bore little resemblance to the fanciful girl he remembered from his youth. Her father had married her off to the English-sympathizing Kirkpatricks and by all accounts, Brenna had not gone to the altar quietly. Gavin would have stepped in to speak to her father himself if he hadn’t been fighting at Robert the Bruce’s side during those years.

“By all that is holy, how came ye here?” Gavin moved to put his arm about her and usher her toward a seat near the grate where Kean was busy laying a fire, but something about her rigid posture stayed his hand before he touched her. There was a wariness in her eyes now that had never been there in their youth. “Come, warm yerself by the hearth and Kean will fetch some wine. The last I heard tell of Brenna Kirkpatrick, she was locked in an English keep as Edward’s own prisoner.”

She moved toward the bench nearest the fire that now crackled and hissed as the wood slowly caught flame. Gavin could see her better in the reflected glow of the growing blaze, her dark brown hair glinting damply against her gray woolen cape. Her thin cloak molded to her body, the garment as lean and sparse as the rest of her. The soft curves of her youth had been replaced by willowy strength. Even her cheeks that had once dimpled in perpetual smiles now possessed a taut angle, bringing her green eyes into startling focus.

“Let me take yer cloak before ye catch yer death.” He moved to help her with the wet garment and noticed her stiffen as if unaccustomed to another’s touch. Or, mayhap, she simply feared the contact with a man. There was no telling what kind of atrocities she had faced while held captive, no matter that she slept in a remote keep instead of a public prison. Throwing the cloak over a table to dry, Gavin settled in beside her, taking wine from Kean before dismissing him along with two other servants who lurked about the echoing hall. Only his hound remained to keep them company.

Brenna accepted a stout wooden cup from the tray and drank deeply while Gavin tried to remember everything he knew about her daring in those early years of Robert the Bruce’s campaign to unite Scotland. She’d wed as her father willed, he recalled. And although Gavin had had no plans to ask for her hand himself back then, he distinctly remembered
being disappointed to learn another man had married the willful young countess who had grown up on neighboring lands.

He’d always thought of her as too young for him, too full of fire when he had sought simple things in life. Peace. Security. Good crops. But he’d long admired her spirit and he’d thought it a crime her father would shackle her to a craven English supporter simply because Fergus Kirkpatrick offered richly for her.

Gavin had put her out of his thoughts after that, consumed with his own role in securing Scotland’s freedom. He’d heard no more about fiery Countess Brenna until he heard from the Bruce himself that the bold Scots noblewoman had personally chased him down to warn him of Kirkpatrick treachery and a bold new plan of attack by the English. ’Twas only hours after the king had sent the brave beauty back home that she was beset by the English on the shores of Dornoch Firth. Nearby, English knights had already captured a handful of other Scots noblewomen seeking refuge in a hallowed sanctuary, but the Scots hadn’t learned until later that Brenna had been seized, as well.

Now, Gavin waited quietly while she finished her wine, his gaze soaking in the angular cut of her hollowed cheeks, the dark circles beneath her eyes. Two raw scratches across her temple told him she had made the trip across the dark moors in haste. Blasted hell, between her dripping boots and mud-soaked hem, she looked as if she had been riding for days.

“I was only released from my English prison last week.” She did not look at him, but kept her emerald eyes trained on the flames in the grate. Her voice rasped slightly, as if she had not spoken in a long time. “I rode straight for my late husband’s holding, but arrived to find his brother’s standard flying above the keep. I was not given admittance because it seems I have been dismissed from the family.”

“But ’tis no secret ye didna ever care for his kin. Have ye no dower lands to seek retreat? Or perhaps yer father will welcome ye home?”

“I would sooner take up residence in the nearest den of thieves than live under my father’s roof, but I do have dower lands. I care not about the loss of my dead husband’s holding so much as I care about something else his family has stolen from me.” Her voice lowered to a harsh whisper, and at first Gavin thought she nursed a deep anger. A need for revenge.

But as she wrenched her attention from the leaping flames crackling merrily in the hearth, he could see that her vivid green eyes were filled with tears.

Gavin’s heart clenched at the sight of this stiff, unbending woman who wore her muddy, threadbare clothes with pride yet could not hold back tears at the thought of some injury by the Kirkpatricks. Hell, she could have told him she wanted to retrieve a family ring, an heirloom brooch or a damn scrap of ribbon from her husband’s conniving clan and he would have gladly picked up his sword to see it done.

His heart had been rent in two by another woman’s tears, another woman’s pain. He could not abide to see such tangible proof of feminine hurts.

“Dinna cry, lass. I’m sure we can make it right.”

To his surprise, Brenna blinked before her tears were shed, her glimmering eyes turning cold and hard in the firelight. “Nay. I will not cry because I will not let them take the best of me, but I need your help to succeed in my quest. You have only to name your price.” Her words were soft but sensible, as matter-of-fact as any man conducting his trade.

Gavin wondered if she realized how much the Highlands had faded from her speech in the years she’d been imprisoned, how much she almost sounded like one of
them
. He found himself struggling to recall her melodious lilt as a girl when they might have sat close to this fire with his siblings and hers, their clans friendly if not overly close. They had shared a bond long ago, and one stolen kiss that Gavin would never forget.

“Before I name any price, lass, I’d best know what it is ye’d like me to fetch for ye.”

She hugged her arms about herself as if no amount of heat from the grate could warm her. Gavin did not miss the hitch of her breath as she drew in a long draft of air fragrant with the scent of burning cedar.

“’Tis my children the Kirkpatricks have stolen from me, my lord.”

Gavin stilled, his heart slugging painfully in his chest as it had anytime he’d thought of children this past year. He had not forgiven himself for the loss of his fragile young wife who had been so determined to bear his babes despite the limits of her delicate body. After losing two bairns early in their terms, she’d managed to carry a third for nine moons only to lose the little girl during a delivery that had stolen his wife’s life along with Gavin’s heart.

Brenna peered at him with a desperation in her eyes that resonated clear to his toes. He knew well the sacrifices a woman was prepared to make for her children, and he would not let Brenna fight this battle alone.

She leaned closer, her visage glowing with fierce maternal love. “Not for anything else in the world would I confront the Kirkpatricks again, but I will not have my boys stolen out from under me. I have been denied three years of their young lives, my lord, and I will not be denied another day.” Her voice cracked with a soft swell of emotion before she recovered herself, her hands clenching into frustrated fists in her lap. “I am prepared to pay you any price to secure your sword for the task. Will you help me?”

His heart eased somewhat as he separated his past from his present. He could never save Aileen’s babes for her, no matter how much he had prayed and wept before God. But Brenna’s sons could be freed by his sword, a weapon he needed no divine intervention to wield.