The Rock (5 page)

The old stone peel tower of Park Castle wasn’t as easy to climb as Douglas Castle. Or maybe it was just that Thom was out of practice. It had been nearly five years since he’d scaled the walls of the tower house of Douglas Castle to meet Ella.

Their rooftop meetings had started not long after his father barred Ella from the forge, where she would sometimes (often) “drop by” with some excuse to watch him finish his work. His father was right. The lass could chatter for hours. But Thom had never minded. He’d listened to her stories and her silly jokes and even cleaning up had sped by.

Knowing how disappointed she was, and missing her company more than he’d expected, one night he’d decided to surprise her. She’d mentioned that sometimes when she couldn’t sleep, she climbed up to the roof and sat on the battlements, looking at the stars. He had to climb the tower five nights in a row, but on the sixth she finally emerged.

She’d been shocked, excited, and amazed. Not just at his ability to climb the keep, but also that he could do so while evading the castle watch. It hadn’t been all that difficult—although he certainly didn’t tell her that (even back then he wanted her admiration)—people didn’t look where they weren’t expecting to see anything. All he had to do was watch the guardsmen on patrol, figure out their pattern, and stick to the shadows. The castle itself, although “enceinte,” and fortified by a stone wall, was of wood frame construction, giving him a virtual ladder to climb.

For the next handful of years, a few times a month on the nights the mist permitted the stars to shine, Thom would wait in one of the outbuildings for the castle to quiet and then climb the tower where Ella would be waiting for him. They’d talk for hours—actually, Ella would do most of the talking, except when he’d point out the constellations and tell her the old stories his mother had passed on to him before she’d died. He didn’t know how many times he’d had to retell the one about Perseus and Andromeda, but the lass never grew tired of it.

Those nights on the tower were where their friendship had turned to something more—at least for him. The meetings had been their secret, until Jamie discovered them right before he’d marched off to join Bruce. Or so Thom had thought. He still couldn’t believe his father had known this whole time and never said anything.

Thom’s arm muscles strained as he reached for a gap in the rock big enough to grab on to in the rough surface of the stone wall. He made sure his grip was solid before moving his right foot and then his left up another couple of feet. Finally, with the next handhold he was able to reach the edge of the crenellated parapet wall and lift himself over and onto the battlements.

Christ, that had been harder than he’d anticipated. His arms were burning as he took a moment to look around and catch his breath. It hadn’t looked that difficult, but the jagged stone walls of Park Castle didn’t provide as many foot- and handholds as the wooden framework of Douglas Castle. Although the tower was small and no more than thirty feet high, he might not have been able to climb it at all had it not been neglected for years, with much of the lime-rendered harling—meant to even the surface and protect the stone from weather—cracked and worn away.

Park Castle had been built as a watchtower years ago by the church, but was purchased some years back by the English knight Lady Eleanor Douglas had married after the death of the old laird. William the Hardy had died in the Tower of London about two years after Thom’s mother for rebelling against King Edward again. Ella had been forced to leave Douglas Castle for a couple of years then as well. It had been a difficult time for her, one that she didn’t like to talk about.

With the English and Sir Robert Clifford in possession of the old Douglas lands, Park Castle now served as home to Lady Eleanor (recently widowed for the third time), her stepdaughter, Elizabeth, and Elizabeth’s two half brothers, Archie and Hugh.

He looked around. The pitched wooden roof and surrounding battlement were deserted. Thom tried not to be disappointed. It was early yet. Ella usually waited until well after everyone went to sleep, making it easier to sneak up to the garret to access the small door.

Despite the clear night, it was cold, and Thom was grateful for the extra plaid he’d tossed into his sack as he sat to wait. He’d been right. The stars were out tonight. Coupled with the nearly full moon, a soft glow had been cast across the quiet countryside. It seemed so peaceful it was hard to believe they were in the midst of a long, brutal war.

The village of Douglas had seen more than its share of conflict, and as long as the English occupied its castle, Thom knew it would see more. If James Douglas had to destroy the entire town, he would to rid Douglasdale of the English for Robert the Bruce. Thom wanted the English gone, too, but Jamie’s vengeance went too far. His former friend had changed.

Had Ella?

Thom didn’t want to think so, but why hadn’t she come to see him? When she’d left, he’d been so certain that she’d begun to feel the same way as he. “
Will you wear my ribbon around your sleeve when you are a knight in a tourney, Thommy
?
” or, “
I know you hate it, but how will we go to France when we are older if you don’t learn to speak French
?
” She’d been thinking about a future with him, even going as far as telling him one of the rare times he lost his temper with her that if he were her husband, she’d put spiderwort in his soup (which was known for its
digestive
effect), and give him cause for his black mood, if he ever snapped at her like that again. He’d been chastened and enchanted. His little princess had some fire.

If only Jamie hadn’t sent her away, damn it.

Time passed slowly while Thom waited. After a few hours, he was forced to concede that she wasn’t coming. He stood and started to stuff the plaid back into his sack. He was a fool. His father was right. Five years was a long time. She’d probably forgotten—

The door opened, and his heart dropped.

He glanced up as she stepped over the threshold, a beam of moonlight catching her in its hold and taking his breath along with it.

Jesus
.

He might have jolted. The glimpse he’d caught of her with her stepmother, as she’d ridden through the village a couple of weeks ago, had not prepared him for the vision before him now. Long, shimmery waves of flaxen hair tumbled around her shoulders in a silky veil down her back. Her features were small and even, perfectly positioned in an oval canvas of snowy white. Her mouth was red, her cheeks pink, and her chin delicately pointed. Dark arched brows and long feathery lashes framed round, wide-set eyes the unusual blue of peacock feathers. She was gowned in an ice-blue dressing robe lined with white fur, the thick gold braid belt around her waist emphasizing its trimness as well as the softly rounded curves above and below. Her breasts were firm and generous, her hips slender, and her legs long.

Ella had always been beautiful, even as a child. But it had become so commonplace to him that he stopped thinking about it. The last time he’d seen her at a just-turned-sixteen, she’d still possessed the vestiges of the girl who’d traipsed all over the countryside with him and Jo. But the woman standing before him didn’t look like she’d ever traipsed anywhere—she floated. She didn’t look real; she looked like a figment from a faerie tale or an ice princess from the lands of the Northmen. Refined, sophisticated, and utterly untouchable. She looked nothing like the girl he remembered.

Thom didn’t second-guess himself very often, but he did so now.

It was only when he looked down on her wrist and saw the faint edge of brass that he felt some of his confidence return. She still wore the bracelet he’d given her right before she’d been sent away. She hadn’t forgotten him.

T
HOM WAS GRATEFUL
to be hidden in the shadow of the roof, as it gave him a moment to recover from the shock. But his voice still came out as a question when he spoke. “Ella?”

She turned at the sound. For a moment the icily perfect facade cracked, and he glimpsed the expression that he remembered, the broad smile and twinkle of girlish delight that had always lit her eyes whenever she first saw him.

“Thommy!” she exclaimed, the single word uttered in the familiar sweet voice filled with happiness.

He felt a rush of relief that was quickly doused when her expression changed to one of distress. She bit her lip. Something he’d seen her do countless times before, but now the sight of those tiny white teeth digging into the plump pouty lower lip provoked a very different reaction in him.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

He stepped out of the shadows. “Why not?”

Her eyes widened as he came toward her. “Good gracious, Thommy, what happened to you?”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

She took a few steps back, her hands fluttering nervously. “You . . . you,” she sputtered accusingly. “You’re huge! You must be as tall as your father.”

“Taller,” he pointed out, stopping in front of her, feeling a little bit like a horse at market as her eyes looked him up and down.

“And your shoulders . . .” She let her voice drop off, as if unable to find the right word. Her eyes lifted to his. “What have you been doing this whole time? Lifting all those rocks you like to climb?”

Thommy frowned back at her, not sure how to react. What had she expected? That he would be the same stripling lad she’d left behind five years ago?

Suddenly it hit him. Hadn’t he been having the same thoughts a few minutes ago about her?

Maybe they both had changed. But in appearance—not in what mattered. Inside he was the same. Was she?

One side of his mouth lifted. “I’ve grown up, El. I’m not an eighteen-year-old lad anymore.”

He’d wanted her to see that, but it seemed he need not have worried. She’d noticed. Although right now she didn’t appear very happy about it.

“Surely you didn’t think I’d look the same?” he asked.

She stared at him with that same frown on her face that she’d had when he’d accidentally ruined a Christmas surprise she’d had for him by showing up early one night on the roof. She’d been halfway through setting up a special picnic of his favorite sweets on a plaid, replete with a candle and wernage. The sweetened wine tasted like syrup, but he’d choked down a glass to please her.

Finally the frown fell, and she seemed to compose herself—the nervous fluttering stopped. “Which is why you shouldn’t be here. We aren’t children anymore.”

Something in her tone bothered him. It was as if she was trying to put distance between them—as if she was trying to forget.

“Yet here you are, too,” he said.

She looked up at him, unable to deny the observation.

“Why haven’t you been to see me, El?”

His tone was questioning, not accusing, yet she blushed guiltily as if it were. She dropped her gaze. “I intended to, of course. I’ve wanted to see both you and Jo; it’s just that we’ve been so busy since we arrived. The castle is in poor condition and you know my stepmother.”

He did. Lady Eleanor had been a wealthy heiress most of her life, and she liked to surround herself with the best of everything. It had become even more pronounced in the years following the old laird’s death, after she’d had most of her possessions stripped by Edward for being the wife of a traitor. Unlike the Douglases, however, Lady Eleanor was able to successfully petition for their return a few years later. It was Jamie’s dispossession and his inability to get his lands returned that had set him on the road to Scone five years ago where he’d joined Robert the Bruce on the way to his coronation.

But from the way Ella was avoiding his gaze, Thom knew it was more than Lady Eleanor wishing to bring the castle up to her high standards at work. Ella had always been a horrible liar.

“I thought you might have forgotten your promise,” he said softly, his deep voice blending into the dark night.

The heat that rose to her cheeks told him she hadn’t. The memory of that day hung between them. She’d run away from the castle the morning Jamie told her he was sending her to France and had gone straight to Thommy in the forge. She’d been crying and near hysterical as she’d launched herself against his chest and held on to him the same way she’d done in the tree all those years before. She wouldn’t do it, she told him, she wouldn’t go.

The horror of her words had been the only thing that had prevented Thom from embarrassing himself. At eighteen the feel of her in his arms had stirred his body in ways that he couldn’t control. He’d been instantly hard and hotter than he’d ever been at the forge, and in danger of exploding just from the pressure of her against him. But “go” had chilled him.

In between sobs, he’d learned that Ella was being sent to France for her protection during Bruce’s rebellion. She didn’t want to leave her home and friends again. She didn’t want to leave
him
. But Jamie—with the agreement of Lady Eleanor—would not be gainsaid.

After the falling-out between him and Jamie the night before, Thom wasn’t surprised. It was the speed of Jamie’s reaction that came as a shock. Jamie was taking no chances in allowing whatever it was between Thom and Ella to progress. In a strange way it had heartened him: Jamie had seen it, too.