Samantha James (22 page)

“I’m in no mood to be charitable,” Egan said abruptly. “I’ve just learned that Annabelle’s parents—her brothers and sisters—were rousted from their hut last night.”

Her heart leaped. “Were they hurt?”

“Nay. They were left bound and gagged in the pigsty. They were half-frozen with cold, but otherwise unharmed.”

“You told Simon there was no trouble. Why didn’t you tell him?”

“Why should I when he already knows?”

She hesitated. “We don’t know that for certain.”

“Don’t we?” He stared at her long and hard, the plane of his jaw inflexible. “You defend him again, Glenda. Why?”

“I do not defend him, nor did I ever!”

“All right then. Even if he is not responsible, he’ll find out soon enough. I’m not about to make him privy to all that goes on here. I do not need his advice or his men. Or do you think me incapable of defending your lands?”

There was no denying that he was in a fine temper. She had no desire to quarrel, yet here they were.

“They are your lands, too!” The protest was made in half-irritation, half-frustration.

“Aye,” he stated coldly, “they are. Annabelle’s family was lucky. My guess is that these raiders pursued no further deviltry so they would not be discovered. But if it begins anew, I will do whatever I must to protect Blackstone’s people.” His expression
was taut, the words dismissive. He spun around and was gone, leaving her standing alone in the hall.

Supper that night was subdued. Even Brodie was less buoyant than usual. Egan scarcely deigned to look at her, let alone speak. Glenda tried not to let her misery show, yet throughout the meal, the threat of tears loomed perilously close. Before she embarrassed all of them, she made her excuses and left. Though she suspected Cameron was well aware of the true state of their marriage, he’d said nothing. She could feel his eyes following her as she left the hall.

The next morning Cameron announced his intention to return to Dunthorpe the following day. “Brodie is missing his mother—and so am I,” he admitted with a wistful half-smile.

Glenda nodded. “We’ll miss you, but I’m sure Meredith is just as anxious for you to return.”

Egan agreed. “Of that, there is no doubt.”

At least they were in agreement about something, Cameron thought. Mounting the stairs to prepare for the journey, he shook his head. He was tempted to return to the hall and shake some sense into the pair! They loved each other. Cameron knew it. He’d heard it in Egan’s voice that very first night. It was there in Glenda’s eyes, in every look bestowed upon Egan. Each had only to admit it—to themselves, and to each other. Yet, in truth, he reminded himself, the path to love for himself and Meredith had been no less rocky.

Nay, he would not interfere.

When it came time to take his leave, Glenda hugged Brodie, then turned to him. He winced at the
tear-bright sheen of her eyes, but he was proud that she summoned a wisp of a smile.

“Have a safe journey home, and tell Meredith my heart is with her.”

His eyes softened. “As hers is with you.” His lips quirked. “Make certain your husband does not forget the way to Dunthorpe. Meredith will be anxious to see the new babe, and with three young ones in tow, I fear I’ll never get beyond the gates.”

Gently he kissed both cheeks. Then, succumbing to impulse, he slid an arm around her shoulders and hugged her. She ducked her head low, and he could have sworn he felt her shoulders heave.

Damn
, he thought raggedly.
Damn
!

“All will be well,” he whispered against her temple. “Believe it, and it will be.”

Just then the babe in her womb gave a vigorous kick. Cameron drew back with a chuckle, welcoming the chance to lighten the air. “You see, I’m being sent on my way. Now I know it’s time I left!”

Standing near, but not touching, Egan saw the way his wife clung to Cameron, the glaze in her beautiful golden eyes. She seemed so unhappy…he longed to reach out and comfort her.

But she had Cameron. Niall’s brother.
Niall
, he thought.
Niall
! His insides squeezed. He stood stiff and silent, rooted in despair.

Would she always love Niall? Would she never love him? Ah, but he’d been a fool! he thought bleakly. She had come to him.
To him
. And he had allowed himself to hope…to believe that once he’d possessed her body, her heart would surely follow.

It was all for naught.

“Did you hear what I told Glenda? Do not forget the way to Dunthorpe, or Meredith will never forgive either of us.”

Egan smiled, when he’d never felt less like smiling.

Cameron was suddenly sober as well. “Egan, if you are ever in need of anything, you have only to send word.”

Their eyes met. A message passed between them, an unspoken bond.

“I know,” Egan said softly, “and I will.”

With a jaunty wave and a whoop from Brodie, Cameron was gone.

For the space of a heartbeat, neither Egan nor Glenda moved. A stifling tension descended; it was as if an impenetrable wall loomed high and unscalable between them. They did not speak, nor did their eyes meet. Egan went one way…Glenda the other.

Never had the gulf between them seemed greater. Both felt it keenly…yet neither knew how to breach it.

With Cameron and Brodie’s departure, it was as if all the laughter had been extinguished as well. Glenda felt as if a pall had fallen over her—and Blackstone Tower.

There was another raid that very night; this time there was true violence done. A man was so badly beaten it was not yet known if he would live or die. According to Nessa, he clung to life by the merest thread.

For indeed, it was just as Nessa had relayed the day of their arrival, Glenda reflected. Just when all began to feel safe, turmoil threatened anew. Mayhap it was her melancholic state, yet Glenda couldn’t banish the certainty that it would not end here.

She awoke one morning to the sound of shouting in the bailey. Rising, she saw one of the cotters and the miller having what appeared to be a decidedly vehement exchange. Fists punched the air. There was a shove, then one tackled the other and both tumbled to the ground. It took four guards to separate them. Unease abounded. Tensions ran high and tempers short…including her own.

She sat on a stool in her chamber one day, winding newly dyed wool around the distaff. Outside a ferocious wind and sheets of rain pounded the walls; flames hissed and sizzled with the wetness that leaked through the chimney. Though the hour was not yet noon, the weather but deepened the gloom which hovered over all.

Glenda’s fingers were clumsy, her mind askew, and all at once there was a tangle of yarn about her feet. Jeannine sat in the opposite corner. Glenda called for her assistance.

“A moment, my lady. Thomas is fretful today.” Jeannine’s brow was puckered in consternation; she plucked at the swaddling tucked in her elbow.

Glenda lost patience. “Jeannine, stop fussing! Thomas is gone! He died last winter!”

Jeannine’s head jerked up. She stumbled to her feet. “You are cruel,” she choked out. “Your babe died, and so you wish mine dead, too?”

Glenda froze, recoiling as much from the girl’s words as her own. Aye, her babe had died, but she had another. One who surged so strongly within her that at times she woke from a sound sleep. But Jeannine had nothing. Nothing to look forward to in the days to come, in the years ahead…

“Oh, God,” she whispered. By the time sanity returned, Jeannine had fled. The echo of the girl’s dry sobs went through her like a lance. She was ashamed as never before.

Pushing aside her guilt, she went in search of her. She found her huddled in a corner in a small storeroom off the hall. Kneeling down, she touched Jeannine’s shoulder.

“Jeannine,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry…I shouldn’t have said what I did.”

Jeannine raised her face. The girl’s eyes were puffy and swollen from weeping, so empty that Glenda could have wept herself. At her words, tears filled Jeannine’s eyes and overflowed. Glenda’s arms stole around her. She rocked her back and forth while Jeannine wept her heart out.

Yet when at last they arose, Jeannine clung tighter than ever to her bundle. What was she to do? Glenda wondered helplessly. She’d begun to believe it did more harm than good, allowing Jeannine to believe her babe still lived. Yet how was she to reach her? Indeed, she asked herself achingly, how could anyone?

Never had she been as weary as she was when she sought her bed that night; it was a weariness not only of the body, but of the mind, for the day had been a trying one. She closed her eyes, anxious for the healing balm of sleep.

It came, but alas, it was not healing, not this night. Her dreams were dark and disturbing. She dreamed of the horror of the past…the dread of the future. She was at Dunthorpe again, in the bailey. The stench of death was sickeningly cloying, for seven lifeless bodies lay in the dirt, all in a row; their limbs were mangled and slashed, their clothing torn and streaked with crimson. The first was Niall. His brothers Burke and Oswald, young Thomas. The burly form of his father.

She backed away, recoiling in horror. Even as she watched, Niall’s body arose. He got to his feet, and she began to scream and scream.

His head was gone.

Blood poured from his neck, the gaping hollow where his head should have been. He raised a hand. Pointing. Accusing.

“You killed my son.
You killed my son
.”

As if through a shrouded mist, she looked down and saw herself. She was on her knees in the bailey. In her arms was the limp, shriveled form of her infant son.

The mists swirled and shifted. Suddenly she was here at Blackstone. A swarm of people clustered around. Nessa. Jeannine. Bernard and Milburn.

Egan stepped forward, much as Niall had done, his eyes sizzling with icy blue fire. “You did not want me,” he accused. “You did not want my seed. Will you kill this babe the way you killed the other?”

Everyone stared at her. Silently condemning. And then suddenly they were all moving closer, until she was being smothered. She turned and whirled, but there was nowhere to go. She lifted her arms to ward them off…’twas then she noticed.

Her hands were stained with blood.

In the distance, someone was screaming, the sound shrill and bloodcurdling.

Hands closed over her shoulders. She felt herself being shaken. Her throat felt raw. It took a moment for her frantic senses to realize those horrible sounds were coming from her.

Her eyes opened. The wavering yellow glow of a candle came into view…and Egan. He bent over her, his features taut and grim and almost forbidding. She wanted to scream anew. But her stomach was roiling, churning like the frothing sea.

She pushed him aside and tried to rise, only to fall hard to her knees in the rushes.

“Glenda!”

She clamped a hand to her mouth. “I’m going to be sick,” she moaned.

Swearing, Egan yanked the chamberpot from the cupboard. It appeared before her just in time. She retched violently, as violently as she had when the heads of Niall and his father had been delivered to Dunthorpe that horrible day. When she finished, she sagged upon her arms, too weak to do otherwise.

An arm slid around her waist, bearing her that small distance to the bed. Her head was still spinning when he pressed a cup against her lips and bid her rinse and spit. Glenda did as she was told, then leaned back against the pillows. She was dimly aware of him rising and crossing the room. The sound of water being poured into a basin reached her ears. Feeling weary beyond measure, she closed her eyes.

They opened when a cool, wet cloth passed over her cheeks. Egan sat beside her, somberly intent as he bathed her face and throat. At length he set the basin aside.

“Christ, I feared there was someone in here with you.” He paused. “Were you dreaming?”

Glenda nodded. The remembrance made her stomach rebel, but she took a long, deep breath. Mercifully, the spasm eased.

A tremor shot through her. She discerned no hint of coldness in his manner. Her gaze strayed to his chest, virile and bare.

In truth, Egan marveled that he’d heard her, for
his chamber was the floor below hers. “Of what did you dream?” he asked quietly.

She averted her head. “I cannot say.”

Yet somehow he knew. He knew. Though he no longer touched her, she could feel the stiffness that invaded him. Yet he did not withdraw, as she thought he would…feared he would.

“You dreamed of Niall.”

“Aye,” she said tonelessly. “He was dead. He and the babe.”

There was a never-ending silence.

“You must think I despise him.”

Glenda hesitated. She would never forget the day she had recklessly—and aye, so foolishly!—compared him to Niall. He’d been so consumed with rage. It was for that very reason that she had since guarded her tongue with far more care and closeness. Nay, since that day, the name of Niall had not passed between them…

Until now.

“I don’t hate him,” he said suddenly. “Christ, how could I? Yet I cannot deny my jealousy. Whenever I lay with you, I wondered if you thought of Niall…if you wished you were with Niall…. I know how you loved him…” His voice trailed away. His jaw tensed. “The night Niall and the others were slain—I hated myself. I hated myself for not being there with them!”

Glenda drew a sharp breath. Her gaze locked on his features. She was stunned by the ravaging bleakness reflected there.

“No, Egan, no. There was nothing to be done.
Cameron was lucky to escape with his life—he almost did not!”

“If I had been there, maybe I could have stopped it.”

She shook her head wildly. “No one could have stopped it, Egan. No one.”

His eyes darkened. “I’ll never forget your face that day, Glenda. I looked at you and it was like a knife twisting and turning…” Slowly he raised a hand. She felt the sweep of his fingers as he traced the contours of her cheeks, the line of her jaw. As achingly gentle as his touch was, his expression was all at once very fierce.

“I would have bartered my soul to the devil himself,” he said fervently, “if only I had been the one to die, not Niall. I shall never forgive myself. Never.”

The anguish she heard pierced her to the bone.

“What is there to forgive?” Her voice was low and unsteady. “I praise God you were not with them that day, Egan, for then you would not be here with me now.”

Egan went very still inside. “I will not be angry,” he said quietly. “I will not blame you. But can you look at me now—and tell me from the depths of your heart—that you do not wish that
I
had been the one to die instead of Niall?”

“I can, and I do.” She shook her head, a soft cry breaking from her lips. “I would never wish you dead, Egan, never!”

Their eyes clung. His gaze roved over her features, deep and intense, as if he sought to see clear inside her. “Truly?”

“Aye,” she whispered through a faint smile. “Egan,
you are so hard on yourself, both then and now. Blackstone has prospered through your efforts. The people love you. They respect you. We have supplies laid in for the winter. The earl’s rents have been paid. It’s all because of you, Egan. Don’t you know how much everyone needs you?”

His heart contracted. Even as her words brought him no small measure of satisfaction, he couldn’t help but wonder…what of her? Uncertainty gnawed within him, a vast, gaping emptiness. Did
she
need him?

He was afraid to ask…for fear of the answer he would receive. With bittersweet irony, he decided mayhap it was better if he did not know. It would be best—God knew it would be easier—if he returned to his own bed…

Yet a niggling voice of conscience battered him. How could he leave her alone this night, when the demons of the night and the past still haunted her?

Rising swiftly, he shed the rest of his clothing, blew out the candle and crawled in beside her.

She startled him by turning into his arms and melting against his side. Her lips grazed the smooth hardness of his shoulder. “Don’t leave me,” she said in a tiny little voice.

His arms locked tight about her form. He laid his cheek against her hair, inhaling of the clean, fresh scent of her. He felt the softness of her form, the way she clung to him, her breasts rising and falling in gentle tempo against his side. His arms tightened protectively. It had been torture, having her so near at hand, near enough to touch, yet knowing she would not welcome it. Having her turn to him, nest
ling against him as if he were all that she sought, made his chest swell and his heart fill.

No other woman had ever made him forget about Glenda. He’d made that discovery long ago at Dunthorpe.

No other ever would.

He discovered then that his motives were not entirely unselfish. His body responded in a way he could neither will nor control…It had been many weeks since they’d lain together; he would not sully her—or himself—by going to another woman. Shame pricked him, even as longing shot through him, a sizzle of lightning. His blood scalded him. Desire flamed and swelled his loins to full, aching hardness.

’Twas his strength she sought, he told himself harshly, not his weakness. ’Twas his comfort she needed, not his lust. How could he take her without damning himself for a randy oaf?

It was a decision he did not have to make.

Glenda burrowed against his encompassing warmth, reveling in the sweep of his arms hard about her back. She’d felt so lost and alone, and so very frightened…Was it her dreams of death? It mattered not. He was warm. Vital. Alive. Power and strength. She longed to run her hand down his lean, muscled frame, to slide her palms down his chest with its curling mass of dense, dark hair.

Unable to overrule the dictates of her mind, her hands followed suit. Her mouth grew dry, for his skin was hot as fire. Her fingertips crept down the ridged tautness of his belly, journeyed down to hair-roughened thighs that might have been forged of
iron…it was on this plundering, upward journey that her fingertips chanced to graze the jutting lance of his arousal.

Her breath caught. She dared not look down to know that he was rigid and thick and straining.

“Look at me, sweet.”

His velvet whisper demanded compliance. Her heart pounding, Glenda looked up into stark, hungry features.

He lowered his head. Their lips just barely brushed. “I want you,” he said.

No protest would he find in her. No further invitation did he need. She wound her arms around his neck and wordlessly offered her lips.

A tremor shook her. It was heady, that kiss, as heated and shattering and raw as his whisper had been. It was everything, that kiss…deep and searing and long and tender. She wanted to weep with relief, cry out with the dizzying passion that surged like a tide inside her when his hands slid over her, stealing her gown from her and leaving her as naked as he.

She felt the span of his fingers, wide upon the taut curve of her belly, and gloried in the stark possessiveness that flared in his eyes. With hands and lips and tongue exploring the rounded shape of her, he sucked the deep, straining centers of her nipples into his mouth until she whimpered and thrashed and twisted her fingers in his hair.

But he was not yet finished. Lean fingers threaded through her curling nest, parting her wide. Her heart skittered into a frenzy. That wanton finger dipped and circled and taunted, a torrid, tormenting caress
that rendered her slick and damp and nearly delirious. Half-mad with desire, she writhed against him, aching for him as never before.