My Shadow Warrior (5 page)

Rose thought she knew but didn’t offer up her opinions. Though she’d only met the groom the night before, she’d liked him immediately, and a bit more than was wise for a woman betrothed. Not only that, but he was a groom, and a bastard if she read his meaning correctly, and she thought she did. A hopeless attraction, nevertheless strong and undeniable. She’d indulged in such a doomed affair once before, and had learned her lesson; there would be no repeat of that folly here.

He stopped at the bridge, staring out at the gray, misty morning and the villagers emerging from their cottages.

“I can take you no further.” He did not hand over her bundle.

She looked up at him expectantly. It seemed as if he couldn’t look at her. He stared hard at the village with penetrating blue eyes that seemed to pierce the stone cottage walls and see the inhabitants within.

“I’m sorry you came all this way for naught,” he said.

She shrugged. “It’s not your fault.”

He exhaled impatiently, looking skyward for a moment. “I feel as if I should have been able to do more.”

Rose placed her hand on his arm, drawing his gaze to her. “I always feel that way. That’s why I’m here. All for naught it seems. Wasted time away from my father when his time is so short.” She sighed. “But I don’t suppose I would have done anything different had Lord Strathwick written back and said no. For some reason I felt that if I could just speak to him he would say aye. But he’s not the man I thought he’d be—or hoped he’d be. But I had to know, and now I do.”

He stared down at her, his beautiful gaze moving over her upturned face. “You’re so much bonnier than I expected.”

Rose started to smile, but it quickly turned to a frown. “What do you mean?”

He shook his head and looked away, thrusting her bundle at her. “From the letters. He read them to me sometimes. You were different in most of them.”

Rose clasped the bundle to her chest, her mouth falling open. “He
read
them to you? So he could mock me?” Her face flushed as she turned an evil glare on the castle. “I cannot believe he mocked my letters!”

His brows flew upward in bewilderment. “Did I say he mocked you?”

“Why else would he read them aloud? I met him—I know what he’s like!” She closed her eyes, mortified, trying to remember all the things she’d written, but her mind fixated on one letter, the one she’d poured her heart into and still had not managed to move him. “How many others did he entertain with my folly?” she muttered, face aflame. She didn’t wait for his answer. “I must go!” She whirled away, running across the bridge, not stopping until she reached the blacksmith’s cottage.

At the door she looked back. He still stood at the bridge, staring after her.

That had not gone at all as he’d planned. Not that he’d had any sort of plan in regards to Rose MacDonell. She’d just barged her way into his life and wouldn’t seem to go away. Even when she
was
away. He stared at the cottage she’d disappeared into, his irritation increasing. Irritation because in his own lands he could not risk crossing the damn bridge to go after her. Why he had an itch to do that was simply beyond logic.

He was already eliciting curious stares from villagers going about their business. He spotted a tall man with a thick blond beard. Allister. He exhaled grimly and returned to the castle. His people watched him hesitantly, clearly uncertain at this point how to address him. He did not spend time enlightening them. Once in his own chambers, he still found no peace. His brother sat behind the desk, letter in hand. The wooden box sat open.

Drake smiled guiltily. “The mulled wine was very good, thank you. I’d never guess you’d never made it before.”

“I didn’t make it then, either.”

William crossed the room and snatched the letter from Drake’s hand. He folded it carefully, glowering at his brother.

Drake gazed up at him, amused and entirely unabashed. This only further irritated William. He was inordinately vexed, but in truth, he did not know what he was vexed about, could not pinpoint any one thing. The way that woman had violated his home was enough to enrage anyone. But that was not it. Not at all. He was not angry about what she’d done. Indeed, he understood it. He understood her. Perhaps that was it—a sense of helplessness at his inability to help her. That was closer to what vexed him but not it exactly, either. He wanted to help her, but damnit, he
couldn’t
. Could he?

Drake leaned back in William’s chair, regarding his brother thoughtfully. “She’s bonny, I’ll give you that. But a damn shrew.”

“She’s not a shrew. She’s desperate. I was her last hope.”

Drake scratched beneath his chin, still regarding William thoughtfully. “I suppose. She’s a wildcat, though, aye? Too bad she thinks I’m you.”

“Why is that?”

Drake leaned back further, propping his feet on William’s desk and crossing them at the ankle. “We never go anywhere anymore, and no one ever comes here—well, at least we don’t allow anyone in.”

“That was your idea,” William pointed out.

“And a fine one it is—things have been far more peaceful around here since we’ve become recluses. But I grow bored of this place. Of these women.”

“I thought you’d set your eye on Betty.”

Drake rolled his eyes. “She insists she’s still married, despite the fact Allister had her driven from the village with stones.” He shook his head, helpless. “Naught I say will loosen her laces.”

William snorted, amused. Good for Betty. “Well, no doubt she knows what you’re about and wants none of it.”

Drake arched a brow incredulously, clearly doubting such a thing was even possible.

William laughed aloud, feeling better. Trust Drake to lighten his mood. He patted his brother’s shoulder. “Methinks that’s for the best. We need no more trouble with Allister.”

“I say we kill him. I don’t care who he is.”

William shook his head. “That’s not the answer, brother. Don’t even think it.” He held Rose’s letter up before replacing it in his wooden box. “Stay away from this one.”

Drake gave him a slow, sly smile. “Oh, she’s all yours.”

William scowled and shoved his brother’s feet off his desk. They hit the ground with a thump, startling a laugh out of Drake. “Oh, this one has you in a chuff all right,
Dumhnull.”
Drake left the room, chuckling to himself over William’s foolishness.

And foolishness it was. William sat in the chair his brother had vacated. He’d left her moments ago, but already he longed to seek her out again. But on what pretense? Neither Dumhnull nor Lord Strathwick had any reason to trouble the bonny healer any longer. And perhaps that’s what vexed him most of all.

Rose had first thought to leave immediately. Get on her horse and never look back. She was humiliated and depressed and wanted to be away from this place. But there was no wisdom in that. It was noon. She was tired and needed rest. Tomorrow morning she would start fresh, putting this whole unpleasant incident behind her.

Though she’d hoped for rest, it was not her fate. It rarely was. Excluding the elusive Lord Strathwick, the village had not had the benefit of a healer in some time. Rose spent the day helping the blacksmith’s wife make lard candles, interrupted with the odd ailment from a villager who’d heard there was a healer present. The news traveled quickly, so that by evening she’d tended festering wounds, boils, rotting teeth, coughs, and aching bellies. It was good work, and she threw herself into it. It made her forget, for a time, how she’d failed.

She was in the blacksmith’s cottage, rebreaking and setting a lad’s leg, when she noticed Wallace through the window. He sat on a stump on the village side of the bridge, his bay hobbled nearby. When she had a moment, she joined him. He stood, spitting out the blade of grass he’d been chewing.

She pushed back a hank of sweaty, disheveled hair that had come loose from her plait. “What are you doing?”

“Waiting, miss. When you’re ready to return to Lochlaire, I’ll accompany you.”

“I made it here without your help, I’ll make it back.”

“You shouldn’t be traveling alone.” Disapproval laced his words. “My lord Kincreag wouldn’t like it at all.”

She shot him a cutting look. “I might not have come at all if you’d returned.” She doubted that was true. She’d needed to speak to the wizard herself. “Why did you stay? Have you so little loyalty to the earl of Kincreag?”

“Nay, miss,” he said hastily, his brown eyes panicked. The scar on his cheek reddened. “That’s not it at all! It’s Lord Strathwick…he healed me. I was attacked by broken men not far from here. They left me for dead. I lay there for two days, the buzzards circling, waiting. Two of Strathwick’s knights found me and brought me here. I should have died…but he brought me back. I owe him my life. The debt is far from paid.”

Rose’s jaw hardened as her gaze was drawn to the castle. The resentment boiled up inside her. Strathwick had helped Wallace but would not help her. Wallace had been a stranger to him, just as Rose was. Why did he deny her, when she’d come so far? Would it have been different if she’d brought her father with her? But her father could not survive such a journey, and Lord Strathwick refused to come to Lochlaire. She wanted to scream her frustration.

Instead she pinned Wallace with a hateful glare. “Then stay here and pay your debt. I don’t need you.”

It was dusk when Rose trudged out to the shelter that was the blacksmith’s stable, gratefully tired from her long day of work. The more tasks she had to accomplish, the less her mind turned and turned. And she did not want to think of all that had passed this day. The pain of Strathwick’s rejection was still raw, still there, waiting for examination, but she could not. She had a long ride ahead of her on the morrow. She would not be able to escape from it then.

The leather bag containing oats rested atop her saddle. Rose picked it up and turned to feed her horse—and yelped with surprise. Dumhnull leaned against Moireach’s stall.

Rose put her hand to her chest and let out the breath still strangling in her throat. “You frightened me.” Then she frowned and looked around cautiously. They were alone. “I thought you said you couldn’t come to the village.”

“I don’t, usually. Not during the day, at least. And not where everyone can see me.”

He was dressed again in old and faded garments, though it did nothing to mask his height and breadth, singular so far as she’d seen in Strathwick. It would be difficult for him to disguise himself. He possessed a presence that couldn’t be hidden simply with rough clothes.

She remembered their last conversation at the bridge, where he’d shared the fact that Lord Strathwick had read her letters aloud, and her face grew hot. She brushed by him, pouring oats into Moireach’s trough. Rose scratched the mare between the ears as she ate.

“Why are you here?” she asked, still avoiding his gaze.

“I heard you were tending the villagers’ ailments.” He hesitated, then continued diffidently, “I…have a problem with my elbow. I was hoping there was something you could do for it?”

Her eyes narrowed, skeptical. “Why not have Strathwick heal you?”

“Go to Strathwick? For a strained elbow?”

She leaned an arm on the top slat of the stall and turned to face Dumhnull. “He doesn’t heal elbows?”

He looked momentarily bewildered, then lifted a shoulder. “No. It’s…fatiguing for him to heal. One does not ask him to do it for such minor complaints.”

She thought grimly about the day she’d just spent, the ailments she’d tended, the exquisite effort it had taken to break and reset the leg—her muscles still ached from the strain—and glowered at Dumhnull.

“Well then,” he said, straightening from where he leaned against the stall. “I suppose not—”

“How did you hurt it?”

He paused, then leaned against the stall again, eyeing her cautiously. “I was kicked.”

“In the elbow?”

He nodded, straightening and folding his arm experimentally. “It hurts.”

Rose sighed. “Very well. I suppose I owe you.” She straightened from the stall, wincing and rubbing at the small of her back. “Let’s have a look.”

He shrugged out of his doublet, untied the points at his right wrist, and pushed his sleeve up. Rose took the arm he offered, giving it a cursory inspection before she used her magic. It was a very fine forearm, thick with muscle and dusted with black hair. The wrist in her hand was strong-boned and wide, the palm broad, the fingers long. She could smell him, standing this close. He smelled clean, of wool and soap, as if he’d recently washed. For her? A quick glance upward revealed slightly damp combed hair. She smiled inwardly, and when she called on her magic, passing her hand over his elbow, she saw nothing, only his color—strong and healthy blue. She frowned and did it again, spending more time with her palm hovering over his elbow. If there was damage of any sort she would see it—dark red streaks, or a gray film or dark blobs.