The Knight Read online

  Randolph wouldn’t be the only kinsman vying for Bruce’s favor.

  James’s rivalry with Sir Thomas Randolph, Bruce’s nephew who’d been rising in the king’s estimation since James had captured him from the English and brought him back into the Scottish fold, had intensified of late. They were always trying to best each other on the battlefield or whatever mission the king gave them. The king encouraged it because it helped him in his efforts to retake his kingdom. Aye, Randolph was a thorn in James’s backside. He should have left the blighter with the English.

  James couldn’t marry Joanna. He was the Lord of Douglas—dispossessed or nay—and she was his vassal’s daughter, for Christ’s sake! Marriage was a political alliance. A tool. One of the best means he had of advancing his family. It had nothing to do with his personal feelings. Hell, that’s why men had lemans. A wife was a duty; Joanna would be his happiness and his heart. How could she not understand that?

  He raked his fingers through his hair, not knowing what to do, what to say. He gazed down at her face, and his chest burned, as if each breath of air he drew into his lungs was heavy with acrid smoke. He didn’t want to hurt her. Christ, hurting her was the last thing he wanted to do. He loved her.

  He cupped her cheek in his hand. Her skin felt like ice. Usually, she would nuzzle into his touch, but she stood perfectly frozen, staring up at him as if seeing him for the first time. As if he’d just betrayed her in the worst possible way and destroyed her faith in him.

  A chill ran through him. His heart raced. If he didn’t know better, he’d say he was in a panic. “Jesus, Jo, don’t look at me like that. I can’t marry you—even if I wanted to.”

  She flinched as if he’d struck her. “Even if you wanted to?”

  He swore. “That isn’t what I meant. Of course I want to.” He did, he realized. But personal desires had nothing to do with marriage. “But I am not a peasant, bound only by the dictates of my heart. I have a duty to my family as lord. I must marry to restore the wealth and prestige of Douglas. Surely you can see that?”

  “But we made love. I gave you my innocence.”

  James cringed inwardly. Her words shattered the wall of glass he’d built around his guilt. What the hell could he say? It was wrong? He’d been helpless to resist? There were no words he could muster in his defense. “You wanted to give yourself to me. I thought you understood what that would mean.”

  It took her a moment to figure out what he meant, but when she did, the look of horror in her eyes cut him to the quick. “A leman. God in heaven, you never meant to marry me.” It was a statement, not an accusation, but it still felt like one. She folded her hands over her stomach as if he’d just kicked her. “How could I have been so foolish? I thought…” Her voice choked. “Oh God, I thought you loved me.”

  The tears shimmering in her eyes as she looked up at him ate like acid in his chest. He reached for her again, but she jerked away.

  “I do love you,” he insisted. “This has nothing to do with how we feel for each other.”

  His words fell on deaf ears. She shook her head in disbelief, her eyes never leaving his face. “Thom was right about you. I didn’t want to believe it. I defended you.”

  James stiffened at the mention of his old friend and boyhood companion. Their friendship had come to an abrupt end a handful of years ago when James realized Thom’s feelings for James’s sister, Beth. The blacksmith’s son reached too high. But it was more than that. It was the scorn and disapproval in the other man’s eyes that rang loud and clear every time their path’s crossed. Thom didn’t make it a secret that he didn’t approve of the way James was making a name for himself. But James didn’t give a shite about his old friend’s approval. Thom knew nothing about the duties and responsibilities of a lord.

  James’s fists clenched at his side. “MacGowan has been trying to turn you away from me for years. What the hell did he say?”

  “That you would never marry me. That your ambition would not permit it. That it didn’t matter what happened between us or whether—”

  He grabbed her arm, not letting her finish. “Christ, you told him?”

  Why did the knowledge that MacGowan had learned what they’d done make it feel infinitely worse? James could almost hear his old friend’s condemnation. His fingers bit into his palms as his muscles flexed and fists clenched even tighter. What the hell did a blacksmith’s son know about honor?

  More than you. He pushed the voice away. He’d never meant for this to happen, damn it. He thought she’d understood.

  She lifted her chin; she alone had always been immune to his temper. “He guessed. But why should you care? You intended to make me your whore, or did you not think people would realize what it meant when you built me a ‘palace’ and surrounded me with bastards? Our babe will be a bastard.”

  He pulled her toward him angrily. “Don’t talk like that. Don’t make it sound ugly.”

  “It is not me who makes it sound ugly, James, it is ugly. Whore. Fornicator. Adulterer. Bastard. What else do you call it when you take one woman to wife and set up another as your concubine?”

  “I call it trying to make the best of a complicated situation. I call it doing what is necessary so that we can be together. What the hell would you have me do?”

  Her eyes held his for a long time. He thought she was beginning to understand until she said, “I would have you be the honorable man I thought you were for my whole life. I’d have you understand that what you have offered me, what you planned for us, is more impossible than marriage. I would have you love me enough not to even ask the question.”

  His mouth thinned. “It isn’t that easy, and you know it. I have a responsibility and duty, damn it.”

  “Is it duty that drives you or ambition? Have you not achieved enough? You are one of King Robert’s greatest knights, and he will reward you as such. Is it Douglas that seeks more or is it James?”

  His eyes narrowed. He wasn’t used to her talking to him like this. She sounded like MacGowan. “They are one and the same.”

  “Are they?” Guileless blue eyes peered into his with far too much understanding. “Nothing will bring him back, James. Nothing will change what was done to him.”

  A hot ball of emotion burned in his chest and throat at the mention of his father. “Don’t you think I know that? But I made him a promise. I swore I would do anything to see the Lords of Douglas restored to greatness. And that is bloody well what I intend to do. Don’t try to stop me, Jo.”

  Joanna’s heart was breaking. The man she thought she knew didn’t exist. She’d given her love to an illusion, a myth, a legend that he was sure to become.

  Here was the “Black Douglas” the English whispered about, the ruthless, uncompromising warrior who had led a campaign of destruction and terror in the English-held Borders. She’d seen hints of this man over the years but had never thought that ruthlessness would be directed toward her.

  How many times had she made excuses for him? Told herself the James she knew was different from the one on the battlefield? She knew the dragons of his past that James fought. Understood the toll his father’s cruel death in an English prison, stripped of everything and left to starve and perish from his wounds, had taken on him. She’d been there the day the then eighteen-year-old James had returned from the English court after being publicly humiliated by King Edward.

  At the urging of William Lamberton, the bishop of St. Andrews, James had petitioned Edward for the return of his lands and offered his allegiance. But upon learning his identity as the “son of the Douglas traitor,” Edward had lapsed into one of his famous Angevin tempers, spewing a vicious public diatribe against the upstart Douglases, who were no more than peasants in lords’ robes. Telling James he wasn’t fit to wipe his arse or clean his garderobe. The “Lord of the Garderobe” he’d dubbed him. James had been forced to flee for his life. It had been a stinging blow to his then youthful pride.

  She understood the dark shadows of vengeance t
hat drove him but naively thought that love would be enough. That she would be enough.

  Dear God, how could she have been so wrong?

  “I never said I would marry you, Jo. I never made you any promises.”

  He seemed to be reading her mind, something that had been commonplace between them. Until now she’d always seen it as evidence of their closeness—a fallacy that seemed laughable now.

  She looked up at him, chest burning, feeling her hopes and dreams char to ash. “You’re right. You didn’t make me any promises. I assumed that you honored me enough not to take that which was meant for a husband.”

  His face flushed with anger—and, she knew him well enough to detect, a tinge of shame. “I honored you enough to count you a woman who knew her own mind and was capable of making her own decisions. I did not take anything that was not freely given, nor was I made aware that there were conditions.”

  His words stung like a cold slap across her face.

  Seeing her reaction, he swore under his breath. The harsh lines of his face softened. “I’m sorry, Jo. I will accept the blame for my part, but I will not be cast in the role of wicked seducer or evil deflowerer of virgins. I did not act alone. You wanted what happened as much as I did.”

  As much as she wanted to curse him and blame him, he was right: It was just as much her fault as it was his. She was not a girl fresh from a nunnery; she knew what was happening, and what it meant. She’d been just as carried away as he had. In fact, as she recalled now to her shame, she’d begged him to take her innocence—pleaded with him when he’d hesitated.

  But it didn’t solve the problem or lessen the crushing blow of disappointment. Right or wrong, James had let her down.

  And it wasn’t just her who would pay the price for her foolishness. Oh God, the baby. The baby, who only minutes before had seemed like a blessing, now felt like a curse.

  What was she going to do?

  A bird whistled in the distance. At least she thought it was a bird until his ears pricked in that direction.

  “I have to go,” he said. “They’re looking for me.” He looked torn, clearly not wanting to leave her like this. He reached for her.

  This time she didn’t shirk away, but neither did she let him comfort her. She felt strangely numb—strangely hollow.

  “I don’t want to fight with you, Jo. We’ll figure something out.”

  Maybe he didn’t know her at all. “There is nothing to figure out. You do not intend to marry me, and I do not intend to be your leman.”

  He frowned. “What are you saying?”

  She straightened her spine, looking him right in the eye. “That you have to choose. In this there is no in between. Nor will you convince me otherwise. My whole life I have given you everything, but I will not give you this. I will never be your whore. It is me or your ambition.”

  His mouth thinned, his face darkening with anger. “That sounds like an ultimatum.”

  James didn’t like being put in a corner—he never had. But she didn’t care. “It is,” she said stonily. “How much are you willing to sacrifice, James?”

  “Jo—” The sound of another whistle cut him off. “Damn. I have to go. But this conversation isn’t over. I will find you tomorrow.”

  She turned away, not wanting him to see her tears. What choice did she have?

  “Jo, please.” He took her chin and turned her face toward his. “We will figure this out. Trust me.”

  But that had been her mistake. She looked into the handsome face of the man she’d thought she would love forever and almost hated him. Her chest burned. It hurt just to look at him. The strong nose, the hard jaw, the piercing eyes. Features she knew as well as her own. Yet it turned out she’d known so little.

  “If you mean figure it out by convincing me, you are wrong. I meant what I said, James. I will never be your whore.”

  She spoke softly but resolutely so he could hear she meant every word.

  His jaw hardened. It was clear he wanted to argue with her, but when the next whistle came he gave her a hard look. “Tomorrow,” he promised, before disappearing into the trees.

  James caught up with the two men looking for him halfway down the hill.

  Robbie “Raider” Boyd, the strongest man in the Highlands and de facto enforcer of the Highland Guard, stood before him, effectively blocking his path. “Where the hell have you been?”

  “I told you I had something to do,” James snapped back. Few men had the courage to do that. Boyd might be more rock than flesh, and more steel than sinew, but if he wanted a damned fight, James was in the perfect mood to give him one. The conversation with Jo had killed the bliss of their lovemaking, leaving him angry and on edge. He couldn’t believe the sweet, kindhearted, always-agreeable lass he’d known for as long as he could remember had issued him an ultimatum.

  But she didn’t mean it. She loved him too much.

  Boyd’s eyes narrowed to hard slits. “Did this something have to do with a lass? I hear you have a sweetheart in the village.”

  James tensed, his muscles bunching with readiness. “Leave it, Raider. It’s none of your business.”

  “To hell it isn’t! We’re risking our damned hides to help you get the English out of your castle—again—and you are off on some lovers’ tryst?”

  James met his anger head-on. “I didn’t ask for your help, you wanted to come. Now get the hell out of my way.”

  For one long moment the two men squared off against each other, and it seemed as if they might come to blows. But Alex Seton, who hailed from Yorkshire and was the hate-all-things-English Boyd’s unlikely partner, stepped between them. “Leave Douglas be, Raider. No harm has been done. And he’s right—you wanted to be here as much as he did. You never miss the chance to tweak Clifford’s nose.”

  “I’ll do a hell of a lot more than that, if I come face-to-face with the blackguard again,” Boyd said, uncharacteristically stepping back. Boyd had been born to brawl and he rarely backed off from a fight.

  “If I don’t find him first,” Douglas said.

  The familiar refrain immediately eased the tension between the two men. James and Boyd regularly prodded each other about who would be the first to meet their enemy on the battlefield. Clifford had earned James’s enmity by claiming his land and Boyd’s by nearly taking his life in prison.

  “Aye, well, it’s the English who will be doing the catching if we aren’t careful. Too many people know of your presence in the area,” Boyd remarked. “What did you do, send out heralds?”

  James smiled. “Not quite. But it can’t be helped; we’ll need the aid of some of the local men if this is to work. You need not fear they will betray me. This is not the first time they’ve been called to action.”

  “Aye, but let’s hope it’s the last,” Boyd said.

  James’s mouth curved. “Holding Douglas Castle is already the least popular, most feared post in the English army. When we’re done, I intend to make damn sure there is nothing left to hold or rebuild.”

  Seton looked between James and Boyd, his expression lacking their intensity or eagerness for battle. Boyd and James might cross swords every now and then, but when it came to the English they were of one mind. The hatred and vengeance that drove them both, however, was distinctly lacking in Seton. His resolve as to what was needed to win this war was not as intense as the rest of the Highland Guard. He was clearly conflicted about their more “un-knightly” methods. Though when called upon he fought just as ruthlessly as the rest of them, the Englishman seemed an odd fit for the secret army of “brigands” as the English called them derisively. Even his war name of “Dragon” harkened to the tension—it was a jest on the Wyvern that was part of the Seton arms that would normally be worn on a knight’s tabard or surcoat.

  “Then we should get on with it,” Seton said. “Let’s find the others and see if this plan of yours will work.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  It had to work, James told himself. But by the time the men
were in position, it was precariously close to dusk, and he knew that his delay with Joanna might have well cost him his chance to take the castle.

  From their position in the forest east of the castle, Boyd glanced to the west where the sun had already begun to sink over the horizon. “Not much light left.” His eyes fell to James’s. “I hope to hell she was worth it.”

  James clenched his jaw, biting back the angry retort. She was, but Boyd’s criticism was on the mark. Staying so long with Jo was irresponsible, and James knew it. But it wasn’t going to happen again. He wouldn’t let it. Joanna was making too many demands on him, interfering where she should not. He had to focus on what was important: restoring their honor by achieving greatness for himself and his family.

  The Douglas name would never be disparaged again. By anyone.

  Joanna would have to understand.

  Boyd didn’t seem to expect a response, and James didn’t give him one. But every minute they waited for Seton to appear on the horizon felt like an eternity.

  The English would be very wary of a trap after the two previous attacks, and luring them out from behind the safety of the castle walls even in the daylight was going to be difficult.

  But James had taken the lessons of the Highland Guard and the outfoxing of the English at the Battle of Brander to heart. He had earned a reputation not only for the frenzy and surprise of his attacks, but also for the craftiness of his plans. The Black Douglas seemed to spring up out of nowhere, whether it was in the church by mingling among the English on Palm Sunday, as he’d done in the first attack against the castle, or driving off the castle cattle with a small party to encourage the English to follow, and then leading them into an ambush, as he’d done last time.

  For this third attack his plan was even more subtle. Seton and a dozen of James’s men would pass to the west of the castle in peasant robes, their horses laden with bales of hay and bags of grain, as if they were making their way to the fair at Lanark tomorrow. James and Boyd, with their distinctive builds, recognizable even at a distance, and the other half of his men from their position near the castle gate would wait to close in on the English sortie from behind and, if all went according to plan, take the castle.