Warrior's Bride (9 page)

  She slipped her fingers from his grasp and nervously brushed at the gathers of her dirty brown gown.

  His frown deepened at the glint of triumph in Fiona's gaze as she fingered the rich linen of her own kirtle and surcoat "Do you have any training?" he asked Isobel in a harsher tone than he had intended.

  Her brown eyes widened. "Only to serve."

  "Did your mother never teach you the ways of a lady?"

  "There was no need," she said simply.

  "And you never resented that fact?"

  "There is very little room for resentment in my life— past or present" Her chin rose a notch.

  Anger and pity battled inside him, and he turned abruptly away to the serving girls who had gathered round to clear up the mess. "Find Mistress Rowley to take Isobel upstairs. See that water for a bath is brought up. And for God's sake, someone find her some clothing that befits her station."

  Fiona crossed her arms in front of her, her gaze a malicious assault. "What station is that?"

  Wolf flexed his hands open and closed. When he felt more in control he turned back to Isobel. The heat from the fire had brought a golden glow to her skin and turned her straw-colored hair to burnished gold. Despite her impoverished state and bedraggled appearance, there was something both innocent and seductive about the way she held herself, like a blade of grass in stormy winds that neither wilted nor bent. A blade of grass that belonged to him.

  This woman was his to protect, to own, to bed. His father had bound her to him. At the moment that fate did not seem such a bad thing.

  "Answer me, Wolfie. Who is she?" Fiona demanded, interrupting his thoughts.

  He allowed his gaze to linger over Isobel's narrow waist, the soft swell of her breasts, the long column of her throat. The woman would be enchanting given the slightest bit of care. "Fiona," he said without taking his gaze from Isobel, "meet my future bride."

Chapter Eight

  Silence descended in the great hall like the falling of a gauntlet All eyes turned to stare at the foursome gathered near the hearth.

  "Your bride?" Fiona shrieked.

  An expectant lull hung in the air as Wolf’s household awaited the acknowledgment of his words.

  A series of rapid emotions darted across Isobel's slight features—anger, denial, fear. She moistened her lips with her tongue as if to speak. "I..."

  "You what?" Fiona challenged.

  Isobel's pulse fluttered wildly at her throat. "I..." she tried again.

  Anticipation hovered over the room. Wolf waited, like everyone else, for her response. Time stretched with agonizing slowness. He leaned forward, awaiting her acceptance.

 
Bloody hell.
What was wrong with him? He wrenched his gaze away, seething with sudden frustration. When would he ever learn that caring what others thought about him only led to great pain? "She needs to rest."

  Wolf cut in. He caught her about the waist and, ignoring her resistance, guided her toward the stairs at the far end of the great hall.

  Fiona kept pace. "If she stays here tonight, then I shall not."

  Wolf halted. "I don't care for ultimatums."

  Fiona's features were hard. "Why, Wolfie? Everything was perfect between us."

  Wolf frowned. He hated that name, and she knew it. Yet she persisted. "What the king had ordered cannot be undone, not by you, not by me."

  Fiona's dark eyes blazed as she gazed at Isobel. "Perhaps when you tire of her you will return to where you belong. In my bed and by my side." With a flash of tawny skirts, she stormed away.

  "You should go after her." Isobel tried to pull out of his grasp. "She needs you." A look of confusion had settled over her face, and he longed to wipe it away.

  "Nay," he snapped, irritated by his response. "Fiona will be more reasonable when she has had time to cool down. Besides, you need me more. Until I know you are safe, you will remain with me."

  "That is unnecessary."

  "Perhaps. But until I am convinced otherwise, we are bedfellows in a very real sense of the word."

  Her eyes went wide and wild color stained her cheeks. "I shall not. . . you promised . . ."

  "I have never had to force a woman to my will before." Nay, in the past he had wooed them slowly until they came to him with their own burning desires. A primitive jolt of satisfaction moved through him at the thought of Isobel coming to him in the heat of her passion.

  It was almost a challenge worth taking, but that challenge was not for him. He'd made her a promise—marriage in name only. It was a promise he would have to keep unless she changed her mind.

  He loosened his grip about her waist but did not release her. "Come. I shall show you how safe a castle can truly be."

  He gave her no choice but to follow as he hurried up the stairs. At the top of the staircase, he continued down the hallway at the same swift pace. To Isobel's credit, she kept up with him without complaint. At the end of the long hallway he stopped before his chamber's door. He had never taken a woman into this room before, not even Fiona. Their dalliances occurred in another chamber two doorways down. A wife or a mistress's room would have adjoined his own, but that was before he had converted the chamber into a solar.

  The soft sound of her breathing whispered behind him. "I would be more comfortable in the great hall near the fire." Her voice held a slight tremble. He turned to look at her, noting the glimmer of fear in her eyes. The question was, did she fear him or the enclosed space they would share?

  "You need not worry, Isobel. This room will be to your liking. It is a favorite of mine." He lifted the latch and swung the door open, revealing not a darkened chamber but a room filled with prisms of brilliantly colored light.

  He stepped back, giving her access. The hitch of her breath as she entered the room brought a curious warmth to his chest.

  Her face awash with awe, she glided into the chamber and turned slowly around. "It is even more impressive than below stairs." Her gaze caressed each tall, thin window that flanked the outer wall of the chamber. Thin plates of glass in a repeating pattern of orange, purple, gold, blue, and green filled the room with dazzling splashes of color. He watched her expression, craving her approval. She moved to the window and reached out with one finger to touch a pane of purple glass. She plucked her finger immediately away, as though expecting the smooth surface to be warm to the touch, not cool.

  Wolf allowed his gaze to move from the curiosity on her face to the shadows of the trees to the west that marked the edge of his land. Working glass was not the hobby of a warrior, nor that of a gentleman. Yet the craft brought him pleasure when the responsibilities of his station weighed heavy upon him. As of late he had spent many hours before the clay oven, melting beech wood ash and washed sand into glass as he tried to determine how to deal with his hostile neighbor to the west.

  Lord Henry Grange was as vile a man as he was a master. Many of the crofters and servants who lived at Duthus Castle had come seeking shelter from the abusive tyrant. Wolf had offered them asylum, which only angered Grange more.

  Wolf’s attention returned to Isobel, and he was startled to find her gaze on him.

  "Who created such a wonder?"

  The reverence in her voice caught him off guard, with his thoughts still centered on his enemy. A sharp rap on the door spared him from answering.

  The door swung open and Hiram entered the room, carrying a copper hip bath in his bulky arms. The overly large warrior set the bath near the hearth. "Milady," he greeted in a shy tone, careful at all times to present the unmutilated side of his face to Isobel.

  A renewed spark of anger flared inside Wolf at the damage Grange had caused one of his own warriors for failing to win a battle. Hiram looked at him, and his face paled. "Forgive me, my lord. I dinna mean tae displease ye."

  Wolf cleared his expression. "It is not you, Hiram, who has me angered. Thank you for your service."

  Hiram bowed, turning to leave, when a gasp from Isobel stopped him. He turned fully toward her, then just as quickly hid his face and raced from the room.

  Isobel stared after him before her gaze swung to Wolf, her accusation clearly written there. "The man fears you." Her gaze sharpened. "You hurt him."

  Wolf clamped his jaw tight, trying to stall the slash of anger that surged through him, opening a wound he thought had long since healed. Why did they always assume the worst about him? He wanted to explain the truth, but he'd learned long ago that his defense often fell on deaf ears. The sins of his past, sins forced upon him long ago by his father, were a curse he would always bear.

  Still, he had hoped for something more from her.

  He was oddly relieved when Mistress Rowley stepped into the room, bearing a wooden tray laden with smoked meats and crusty brown bread. Four maids followed in her wake, carrying buckets of steaming water. They filled the bath, then left as quickly as they'd come. Only Mistress Rowley remained behind.

  "A bath and a meal for master and his bride." Mistress Rowley offered him a knowing smile. "'Bout time you decided to settle down and start giving me some bairns to chase after. How else am I to keep myself young, don't ye know?"

  All the color drained from Isobel's cheeks. She looked utterly terrified. Of him.

  He clenched and unclenched his right hand, imagining the solidness of his grazing iron there. His work helped him think, helped him vent his aggressions into something more productive than anger or worry. It was where he needed to go now.

  He looked at Isobel, and then Mistress Rowley in the fading light of the evening that forced its way through the colored glass. "Isobel, you will be safe with Mistress Rowley. I shall expect you below stairs shortly to join me for dinner, and when you do, please see that you smell of something other than seaweed and salt. I'd have my bride smelling of sweet flowers and not the sea."

  Alone in the rooftop watchtower of his keep, Wolf rolled the long metal rod in his hands, heating the glass at the end in the clay oven he had built himself.

  By day he wielded a sword, by night a grazing iron. Destroyer and creator. It was the sum of his life thus far.

  Twisting motions took the unformed glass in and out of the flame. In the heat the molten mixture left behind obscurity to become something more. A phoenix rising from the ashes to bathe the world in light.

  As the glass heated and changed its shape, Wolf glanced about the enclosed space of the tower. His private lair. No one dared enter here, at least no one who valued his life. The members of his household respected his warnings to stay out. He knew they whispered among themselves, wondering what he did in the darkened space at the edge of the keep, but no one had ever violated his edict in order to find out.

  There was a time when he had deserved their fear. He had been the nightmare his father had named him— dark and ravenous. But those days were behind him. He had changed since that first meeting with Master de Joinville in Vienna.

  That first glimmer of liquid fire had become for the Black Wolf of Scotland a beacon of light to a brighter future. In the dark and dusty hovel where the master created miracles with glass, Wolf had found the salvation he so desperately sought. He'd risked it all and turned away from his father, gathered his own men, and tried to serve his people as best he could.

  Wolf tightened his hands on the warm metal rod, rolling it once more in and out of the flames. Yet nothing had changed. His love for his brother and his misguided compassion for Isobel had shackled him into service once more.

  Wolf paused, the rod hanging slightly above the greedy flames. What would happen if he let whoever was after Isobel find her? With her death he'd be free. But even as the thought formed, he knew he could never be so cruel. The nightmarish beast he had once been could have done such a heinous thing. But he was that man no more. He protected life. He did not destroy it. And he would protect her.

  Resolved to his fate, Wolf removed from the flames the grazing iron with its liquid ball of blue glass at the end. Carefully, he reached for a second grazing iron and transferred the ball of glass from one rod to the other. Once that task was complete, he drew his dagger and, with a flick of his blade, sliced open the end of the glass ball.

  With slow, even movements, he rotated the rod between his hands. The cut glass elongated and stretched, forming a cone with each passing rotation. The weight of the rod pulled at his arms and beads of sweat dotted his brow. The controlled movements worked his arms in ways his sword never did, as well as easing the tension from his shoulders, neck, and soul.

  In creation he found peace.

  He allowed the sensation to pass through him, to draw away his worries of the day. Even the troubles he had gained along with Isobel no longer seemed as overwhelming or discouraging. Someone had tried to kill her. He had to figure out not only who, but why.