Always Mine (39 page)

Always, Guardian kept so close he brushed against her skirts.

She was well into her seventh month.

’Twas the end of fall, and the lovely painting of leaves that had made the surrounding forest a feast for Brianna’s eyes had now fallen, leaving naught but skeleton trees. One day, after her noonday rest, she and Meghan strolled along the curtain wall. David trailed behind. Cloud Dancer patrolled the skies, soaring high above, flirting with the clouds for which he had been named. The wind was colder than expected, and Meghan went below to fetch heavier cloaks.

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Brianna sighed, enjoying the beautiful day. She watched Mereck ride across the drawbridge, entering the front bailey. Not far from him, a movement startled her. She shaded her eyes to see what it was. A woman with a large falcon on her gauntlet moved stealth-ily from behind a cart, where she must have hid, waiting. The raptor looked like a gyrfalcon, the largest and fastest of the falcons. But how could that be? All thoughts fled as Brianna saw the woman’s stomach was very heavy with child. Brianna’s gaze flew to her face. She gasped, feeling like a fist squeezed her chest.

’Twas Asceline.

While Asceline removed the raptor’s hood, untied the jesses and raised her arm in triumph, her peals of laughter reached the parapet. The great wings took the wind. The falcon spotted its prey. Within a span of seconds, the predator plunged. David shouted and sprang forward. Meghan burst out onto the parapet, dropped the cloaks and sprinted to Brianna.

Guardian howled and jumped into the air, his teeth gnashing as he strained to reach the falcon. Standing in front of the opening between two merlons, Brianna bent over to protect her stomach and flung her arms around her head. The falcon sped to her, and its talons grasped her wrist. The momentum and weight behind the large raptor jolted her forward against the edge of a hard stone merlon. She screamed. Cloud Dancer plunged through the air, shrieking.

The falcon released Brianna’s wrist. She stumbled, her hands clawing and grasping for some hold to keep her from falling to the ground far below. Meghan lunged to wrap her arms around Brianna’s hips. Leaning far out, David grasped Brianna’s shoulders and lifted her back to safety.

Bleddyn and Damron burst through the doorway, the same doorway through which Guardian now streaked downward.

The wolf was soon out into the bailey, with bloodcurdling growls and snarls coming from his throat. Just seconds away

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from the wolf ’s jaws, Mereck galloped over, and with one arm, jerked Asceline up onto his horse.

But ’twas not only the leman the wolf sought. The wind carried the remembered scent of the man who had attacked Brianna in her room. The culprit, seeing the wolf loping toward him, mounted and tried to escape. A cart filled with hay was in his path. The horse reared, and tossed the man to the ground. In a trice, Guardian was astride him, his slaver-ing jaws wide. Just as his teeth clamped on the man’s neck, Cloud Dancer dropped the dead gyrfalcon on the ground beside them.

Damron raced with Brianna in his arms. In their chamber, he placed her still form on the bed. Meghan, who never showed fear, stood ashen and trembling.

“David, run quickly,” Bleddyn ordered. “Fetch my black pouch from the medicinal hut. ’Tis on the table at the far wall.”

David nodded and dashed out the door.

Phillipa patted Meghan’s shoulder, then urged her from the room. “Please, love, tell everyone to wait within your grandfather’s room. I will come to you when we learn more from Bleddyn.”

After the room emptied, she hurried over to help Damron as he straightened Brianna on the bed. He smoothed her hair back from her face, his jaw clamped hard to keep from crying out.

Bleddyn’s fingers felt alongside Brianna’s neck and collarbone. “Her heartbeat is too slow and faint.” His face did not change expression at any time while he listened to Brianna’s body and probed with his hands. He checked the sheets beneath her, and seeing no telltale red stains, sighed with relief.

David, out of breath and gasping, hurried into the room and handed Bleddyn’s pouch to him. “David, now I must ask you to bring sturdy logs to prop up the foot of the bed. ’Tis important we raise her lower body higher than her head.”

Bleddyn tended the cuts and scrapes on Brianna’s arms and

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face, then looked for further damage. Finding none, he mixed herbs and dribbled small amounts past her lips.

“We must wait until she wakes. She needs more than I can give her in this way.” He moved back from the bed so Lady Phillipa could cover Brianna with a warm blanket.

Damron stood, mute. This terrible happening was his fault.

It would have been better to have sent Asceline over a cliff than to have given her this chance to harm Brianna. He looked up, expectant, when Mereck entered.

“I assigned ample guards over Asceline. They will watch her door and all windows to see she never again shows her face at Blackthorn.”

“What of Guardian’s kill?” Damron straightened, his jaw thrust forward.

“Neither Connor nor I could identify him. The wolf savaged his face so thoroughly we were unsure of who he was.

Seeing his long, pale hair, we asked Eric if he knew him.”

“And?” Damron waited, expectant.

“Eric also had trouble making out the mangled face. The hair and forehead looked like Rollo. He couldna be certain.

After he spied the man’s belt buckle, he said aye, ’twas his cousin. Rollo won it as a trophy while wrestling last All Hallow’s Even.”

“Was there aught else to identify him?”

“Aye. A scar high on the man’s thigh.” Mereck’s face tightened, his lips thinned. “Small crescent marks. We have found who abducted Brianna on her journey here.”

Just before the first perfect glow of sunlight made its way above the horizon in the wee hours the next morn, Brianna’s eyelids fluttered. She took refuge in the darkness within her mind, and resisted the voices calling her name. She heard Damron’s pleas while he smoothed her hair.

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“I am so sorry, Brianna, ’tis not what ye think,” he murmured.

She jerked her head away and opened her eyes.

“No? What isn’t what I think, Damron?” Her voice was faint.

“Though my eyesight is poor, didn’t I see the woman you supposedly sent away? Wasn’t she heavier with child than I?” She shook her head, warning him to silence. “What she did isn’t a surprise to anyone but you. Your cruelty is beyond hers, for you took vows to honor and cherish me, yet you kept her here.” She stared deep into his eyes.

Foreboding swept over Damron, feeling the torment that filled her soul.

“Drink this, little one,” Bleddyn spoke softly beside Damron. “’Twill strengthen the blood flowing through the bairn.” He lifted her head, and she swallowed the bitter brew.

She was so very tired. Her eyes closed and she slept.

“I will see she sleeps often until she regains her strength.”

Bleddyn spoke with deliberate calm.

Damron read the worry behind his words. “It will not harm the bairn?”

“Whatever harm comes to the bairn will not be by my hand, Damron. We must keep the babe safe, until she grows big enough to stand the rigors of birthing.”

“She? How do ye know ’tis a daughter?”

“Brianna senses it. She has talked and sung to her all these months. Do you not realize by now your wife is not as ordi-nary women? You, who are closest to her, know her the least.”

Damron shivered as he watched her. Thankfully, she was no longer sickly pale and, when he laid his hand over her heart, he felt its stronger beat.

Bleddyn sat and prepared a missive seeking Alana’s support. At the window opening, his whistled summons brought Cloud Dancer silently over to perch on the ledge. The mystic secured the note around the eagle’s sturdy leg. His long fingers stroked the regal head and back, while he murmured in

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strange, high-pitched tones to the great bird. Cloud Dancer answered with strident bursts of sound, then soared off into the darkening sky.

For days, Brianna slept soundly, waking only to drink Cook’s nourishing broths. When she finished and took whatever potion Bleddyn held to her lips, she sighed and returned to sleep. Either Damron or Bleddyn was always by her side.

Damron chafed when his duties took him from Brianna’s side. Where once he had thrown his whole being into settling disputes and making decisions for the whole of Blackthorn, he was now impatient until he could return to find how she fared. One day, his suspicions roused on seeing her eyelids flicker. Realizing she feigned sleep when she heard his tread, he removed his boots before again ascending the stairwell.

When he spoke to her, she was polite, but no expression was in her eyes or her voice. The only time she showed feeling was when Guardian whimpered and nuzzled her arm for her to pat his head. After she did so and crooned a soft melody to him, his big mouth spread with a grin, and he slept.

The day Cloud Dancer returned, Bleddyn untied Baron Ridley’s answer and read that they would begin their journey the next morn after fetching Alana from Saint Anne’s.

He and Damron removed the lifts from beneath the foot of Brianna’s bed. She was up and about more each day. Her stomach continued to grow, while her face became paler, more strained. Her gaze reflected lost dreams and heartache.

She resumed walking along the curtain walls, and stared into the distance that was England, or down at the waters of the Kyle of Tongue.

Damron watched, his fists clenched. Did she long for her old

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life? He would never let her go. He had to have her with him always. He vowed one day she would learn not to hate him.

Cloud Dancer patrolled the forests, and one early morn, he circled above the parapets, letting them know their guests would soon be within the keep. Damron insisted Brianna stay abed until the Ridleys were close. He came to the room to be sure she slept.

Her head moved restlessly, and tears seeped from her eyes. He knelt beside the bed, his eyes stinging, and leaned close to her ear and stroked her head.

“I would have yer vow, Brianna. Promise me! Promise me ye will ne’er leave me! I canna live without ye, for I love ye with all my heart,” he pleaded. He pressed his cheek to hers and sang to comfort her. His chest tightened and ached with the emotions he could not release. The warrior in him wished for the distraction of battle, to hack and butcher, and ease the fear and pain in his mind.

Brianna awoke the next morn to find Mari had prepared a warm bath. The faithful woman never ceased trying to make her more comfortable, and was cheerful and bright while in the chamber. Brianna relaxed in her bath, and after she was done, Mari helped her dress in a forest green tunic with an ivory smock beneath.

Damron strode into the room and placed his hands on Brianna’s shoulders. “Wife, ye are the most bonny lass in all of Scotland. Ye look like a fairy queen that dwells in the forests or deep within the lochs. Ye could tear the heart from a man.”

Damron’s voice whispered soft and bittersweet.

“I never sought to tear any man’s heart. All I’ve ever wanted was to love and be loved.”

“Ye canna say ye are not loved, wife. Not a man or lass in our clan has failed to take ye to their heart. Grandfather loves ye as his own. Mother thinks of ye as her bairn, and ye are sister to

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everyone. Come, let us greet yer Alana. She is crossing through the barbican and will be impatient to see yer lovely face.” He carried her, carefully maneuvering the many stairs down to the bailey.

When Alana stood before them, he lowered Brianna to her feet.

Alana’s arms opened wide. With a low cry, Brianna snuggled into them. Her sister held her close and smoothed her hand over Brianna’s dull, lifeless hair, down and over her back. Alana’s gaze searched out Bleddyn’s. A low cry escaped her lips.

At the sound, Damron’s body tightened with fear.

“Come, my heart, you will be happy to see who else brings you love and lightness,” Alana said, a strained smile on her face.

Brianna sensed Damron behind her, for no matter where he was, she felt his presence linked to her. Tense waves flowed from him. Puzzled at what caused them, she searched up and over Alana’s shoulder. Uncle Simon and Aunt Maud stood there. Then someone moved from behind them. She met Galan’s beautiful blue eyes.

“Come, Alana, you take overlong hugging my Brianna,”

Galan said, his arms outstretched as he came to her.

Damron hissed air through his teeth, but Galan paid no heed. As his arms closed about Brianna, he laid his face atop her head. He squeezed his eyelids, trapping his hurt there.

Before he took her chin to peer down at her, he spread a com-ical look on his face.

“Never did I expect to see my Brianna so fat. Why, I have my doubts I could lift you without lurching like a man in his cups. That must have been a great apple seed you swallowed to fill you so.”

Brianna laughed up at him, and for seconds her eyes lightened.

“For shame, Galan. Elise and I were such silly twits to believe you. How you and your friends must have laughed when we refused to eat an apple.”

“Come, greet yer aunt and uncle, Brianna, so we may go into the hall. Ye grow weary,” Damron prompted beside her.

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After Maud and Simon kissed her cheek, Damron gathered her in his arms. He did not put her down until they reached the fireplace in the hall.

The weather was cold and clear, and Damron placed a warmed plaid over Brianna’s lap. She sighed with pleasure, feeling its warmth. Galan sat on the floor in front of her chair, his knees drawn up and his arms crossed over them. Damron looked at Brianna, and for the first time, he realized she wore the gift Galan had given her before they left Ridley. The gold chain and pendant with the dancing horses nestled between her breasts. His jaw twitched, but he quelled his jealousy and relaxed. He would do nothing that would take the smile from her face.