A vision of her beauty swam behind his eyelids. As in the flesh, she glowed with purpose and strength. He’d assumed her purpose was to rise above her past. I am no longer any man’s mistress, she’d told him with haughty disdain. She’d kissed him with passion, then sent him away.
Could it be she was somebody’s wife? He cursed long and fluently at the mystery. Then he turned and buried his face in the pillow.
Her lips were like rose petals, enticing him with their silken texture. Her passion was a hot spring bubbling just beneath the surface. He would go mad if he couldn’t have her. But what chance did he stand, scarred as he was—a man guilty of murder?
For the Slayer of Helmesly, passion took place under the cover of darkness. It was done quickly, spuriously, and always with feelings of guilt.
He’d never kissed a woman with the slow, searching sweetness that he’d kissed Lady Clare. Moreover, touching her hadn’t left him feeling guilty at all. How could he when she’d pressed herself so eagerly against him?
Why had she ultimately denied him then? Will you kiss me when I return? he’d asked. What did her silence mean?
Without his awareness, Christian drifted back to sleep. When he next cracked his eyes, the chamber was saturated with harsh, yellow light. He sat up quickly. Someone was shouting. Leaping from the bed, he rushed to the window. The shouts became clearer.
“Fire! Fire!”
Thrusting his head through the second-story window, he realized that the roofs of the huts below him were smoldering. Chased from their houses, Glenmyre’s peasants coughed against the smoke and huddled together. A few brave men struggled to put the fires out. But the water seemed to have no effect on the conflagration. It died with deceptive ease, then sprang up in a great roar. It made no sense, for the roofs had been newly thatched. The only explanation was that they’d been doused with a flammable substance and then set on fire with flaming arrows, volleyed over the wall.
Beware the powders that he uses to spread fire. Clare’s warning echoed in Christian’s mind. “Ferguson,” he ground out, realizing the Scot’s long-awaited attack had come at last.
He raked his gaze along the tree line, seeking sight of his enemy in the thickly shadowed pines. One man alone could have thrown packets of flammable powder over the wooden wall, for it was not particularly high. Fortunately the wall itself had been stained with a substance that was resistant to fire. The buildings inside, however, were not protected. Whatever Ferguson had used, it was highly combustible.
“Ferguson!” he roared. His shout was louder than the crackling fire below, so loud that it echoed back at him in mockery. But he was certain the Scots remained nearby, hiding in the distant trees perhaps, hoping that the wall would catch flame.
Suddenly he spied movement in the trees. His soldiers, posted on the wall walks, saw it also and whipped the bolts from their quivers. A solitary figure hurtled toward them. It tumbled into a low-lying area, then rose up again, racing over the earthworks toward Glenmyre’s closed gate.
Second by second, the figure took shape. It was not a lone Scot, as he’d first guessed, but a woman, dressed in nothing more than a white shift that molded her slender body as she ran. The sound of her cries rose over the snapping of flames. She was screaming for the gates to be opened.
“Hold your arrows!” Christian called. The men at the battlements heard him. Tension eased on the bowstrings.
Christian snatched up his boots and raced outside to join the soldiers on the wall. “Is she from Glenmyre?” he asked, breathing harshly from his race to the battlements. Smoke billowed thickly from the fire, obscuring his view of the field. For the moment he’d lost sight of the woman, but he could hear her. She was crying out, hysterically.
“I know not,” answered one soldier. The other one shrugged.
They were no more familiar with the people of Glenmyre than he was. Christian shimmied down a ladder and grabbed a peasant man by the scruff. “Come to the top with us. Tell me if you know the woman out there.”
The man scrambled obediently up the ladder. Meanwhile, the woman had arrived at the gate. She was pounding at the oaken barrier with great distress. “Do you know her?” he shouted, dangling the poor peasant over the edge of the wall.
“I . . . ne do not know,” the man wavered. “My vision be poor. But I . . . I think I do.”
“You think so!” Christian raged. This was not the time for uncertainty. He released the peasant and thrust his fingers through his hair. He did not have time to drag another peasant up the ladder. He longed to yell out for the gates to be opened, but wary of a ruse, he decided to be cautious. The woman could well be a decoy sent by Ferguson to get the gates open.
He searched the field for any sign that the Scots were hidden in the grass, rather than the trees, preparing to swarm forward and take them by surprise. He could see no one. Still, with Clare’s warning ringing in his ears, he was reluctant to open the gate right away.
He leaned over the parapet and peered through the haze at the woman below him. For a heart-stopping moment he thought it was Clare herself who bloodied her fists as she sobbed for entrance. But then he could see that this woman was older. Her slender bone structure was the same, as was her hair, only darker. As she threw her body against the oaken gate, she screamed until her voice was hoarse. All his instincts to shelter the weak demanded that he let her in.
“My lord?” queried the soldier he had posted at the gatehouse. Clearly the man suffered the same impulse.
“Wait a moment,” Christian answered grimly. He could not get over his impression that the woman was somehow related to Clare. A sliver of suspicion began to work its way beneath his skin. “Crack the gate,” he decided. “Let her in and shut it quickly behind her.”
“Aye, sir.” The soldier bounded into the gatehouse and jogged down the narrow stairs.
Christian heard the shouts below him. It took several men to lift the heavy crossbar from its slot. He hoped they could slam it into place again at once. He heard the crossbar roll to one side. Not too far, he cautioned silently.
There came an unmistakable roar of voices. Before his eyes, the very ground seemed to rise as men, disguised by mats of straw across their backs, leaped up and raced to the gate with their swords raised. At the same time the sound of thunder ripped Christian’s gaze to the tree line where shadows took the form of distinct silhouettes. Men on horseback exploded across the field in a second wave.
“Close the gate!” he roared down to his men.
They struggled now to shut the gate against the foot soldiers who threw themselves against it to push their way in. Though the woman had been a ruse to get the gates open, she now howled like a cat gone mad, seeming truly distraught that she’d been denied entrance. The crossbar rumbled back into its slot, effectively locking her and the army out. The force of it reverberated under Christian’s feet.
He turned his attention to the second wave. The Scots’ horses devoured the remaining distance to the wall. Ferguson was easiest to find, betrayed by the burnished beard that jutted from beneath his helm. He wielded his trademark battle-ax in lieu of a sword.
Out of the Scot’s leering mouth came the command to halt. His men pulled hard at the reins, out of range of Christian’s arrows. Horses reared up in whinnying protest. With a furious gesture, Ferguson roared for his men to retreat and the woman in the shift to return to him.
Christian cursed at his cowardice. “Weapons down!” he called to his men, who had readied their crossbows again. He did not want the woman accidentally struck while his men sought to pick off the Scots.
The woman refused to come. In reply to Ferguson’s orders, several of his soldiers grabbed her and began to drag her away. All the while, they looked over their shoulders, fearful of being struck by the Slayer’s arrows.