The Widow's Bargain. Juliet Landon

in his arms with neither the time nor the wit to protest. His hand buried itself deep in her hair as his second assertion of authority came fierce enough to take her breath away, making her cling to him for support.

      His reply was breathless and husky, as if he was fighting for control. ‘Until our bargain is sealed, my lady, you can’t be sure, can you?’ he said. ‘So don’t go where I can’t find you.’

      Chapter Two

      Even as the door closed behind him, the relief of being allowed to stay by her child’s side was being eroded by doubts that her bargain with such a man could be the action of a sane and intelligent woman. During the most humiliating and degrading conversation of her twenty-three years, Ebony’s mind had been crystal clear in obtaining one thing at any price. Now, she found that a cold fear was setting in like a Scottish mist, chilling her to the bone and waking her to the significance of her first bid and of his raised stakes, resulting in an abominable bargain that could tie her to his side indefinitely unless she took prompt action to release herself and Sam. Escape? Yes, there were ways out of the castle other than the gatehouse. She had not fled from one mob of reivers simply to be caught up in this devil’s crowd, and nine years was not too long for her to forget her way home.

      At fourteen, Ebony had been more than eager for a new life in Scotland. Coming from Carlisle, just over on the English side of the border, to Galloway’s glorious mountains and lochs had meant a complete break from her widowed mother, Lady Jean Nevillestowe, who had willingly accepted an olive branch from a Scot to cement a prestigious family connection. Sir Joseph had no problem, he had said, with the idea of an aristocratic Englishwoman for his newly knighted only son Robert. And though the two countries had not been on the best of terms in 1310, it was not so uncommon for the English and Scots to unite at board and bed, ignoring dissenters whom Sir Joseph could stare down with his pale prominent eyes.

      So she had gone to live with the Moffats of Castle Kells to prepare for the time when she would wed Sir Robert, and by the age of seventeen she had been deemed old enough to accept him as her husband and to bear him a son almost immediately. Tragically, their idyll lasted only three years, their manor being in the path of English reivers during one of their raids from across the Solway Firth. The last image Ebony had had of her dear one was silhouetted against the roaring flames as he pushed her, Sam and Biddie out of a low upstairs window. The house and its contents had burned to the ground with Robbie in it while the three survivors had fled to the nearby woodland where the thick bracken had hidden them all night. At daybreak, trembling with shock and cold, they had set off in their shifts along the loch side to the castle. Sir Joseph had found them, the man who last night had been inflicting the same fate on someone else as she and Sam slept safely. Had he found the culprits at last and taken revenge for his son’s life? And were his wounds the result?

      Since that appalling event, her main concern had been to keep her small son safe from further harm and to find ways of redirecting his cries for the father he adored. Lately, he had stopped asking for him, but his nightmares continued to be fuelled by his insensitive grandfather who saw no harm in nightly warnings that, if he didn’t go straight to sleep, the reivers would come and get him. Needless to say, he rarely did fall asleep quickly, and never alone, and now he was in the very hands of those ghouls who were cleverly disguising themselves as his friends. Whatever bargain she had made with them, she saw no dishonour in making an effort to outbid Sir Alex which he, no doubt, would call going back on her word.

      As far as she knew, this was the first time that Castle Kells had suffered a raid. She had begun to think it would never happen, being so well fortified and protected by the loch and the mountains, and Sir Joseph a reiver himself and more than able to look after his own. Now that he was out of action, she had not for three years felt so vulnerable or so out of her depth.

      Stuffing the caul from her hair into the pouch at her girdle, she forced her shaking legs to move reluctantly down the stone-flagged passageway to where the laird of Kells was apparently suffering a dose of his own medicine. Believing Sir Alex to have been exaggerating the seriousness of Sir Joseph’s injuries, she was unprepared for the ravaged body that lay motionless and grotesquely spread out upon the trestle table in the steward’s confined office where his rolls of parchment were squashed beneath tatters of burnt clothing.

      ‘Meg…oh, Meg!’ she whispered. ‘Dearest. I’m so sorry.’

      Meg’s fresh, smooth face was almost as white as her father’s, her blue long-lashed eyes sorrowing at the plight of her disabled protector. ‘The first day of May, Ebbie,’ she said, quietly, ‘and this is what we get. Who would have thought, this morning, when we…?’ Her voice broke, her arms opened and dropped helplessly to her sides. Always so tidy and prim with the air of an efficient red squirrel, Meg at twenty-four years old was not one to break easily. With a father as difficult to please as hers, and a life constrained by her environment, her natural stoicism had been honed to perfection, a barrier against melodrama in any form. This was one of the few times that Ebony had seen her distraught.

      She held out her arms and took Meg into them, rocking her. ‘Shh, love,’ she crooned. ‘Hush, then. ’Tis all right. We’ll get through this.’ She caught Brother Walter’s dour expression over Meg’s shoulder as he shook his head and frowned as usual, which was his habit whether he had good reason or not. As Sir Joseph’s chaplain and physician, this was probably the only time he had tended his obstreperous master without having to fight him about the treatment.

      His pessimism appeared to have affected the usually buoyant Meg. ‘Perhaps,’ she said, ‘but Father won’t. Just take a look at him.’

      The terrible wounds were much worse than Ebony had supposed and now she understood Sir Alex’s wry comment about carrying him up flights of stairs. He was badly burned, and unconscious.

      Brother Walter surveyed the mountainous, hairy, scorched body, then offered his verdict. ‘Nay, but I dinna ken when I’ve seen worse na this, m’lady. ’Tis bad. Verra bad, I tell thee. Clooted him across his back, it did.’

      ‘What did?’ Ebony said.

      ‘Flaming timbers, m’lady. His back’s worse na his front, ye see.’

      Instead, Ebony saw only the irony of Sir Joseph’s timing after the numerous occasions she had wished him to hell without the slightest hope that he would ever oblige.

      ‘But what I dinna ken either,’ Brother Walter grumbled as he carefully peeled away a charred sleeve off one arm, ‘is why that crood shoulda come here, of all places. I ken Scots raid their own side when it suits ’em, but na-body’ll traipse all the way up this glen unless there’s a ver’ guid reason. If they hoped to kill the maister while they were about it, then they must be wearisome glad the noo.’

      ‘I believe they may not be,’ Ebony said, rolling her sleeves up. ‘It’s information they’re after.’

      There was the sound of muffled sobbing from the corner where Meg’s maid, Dame Janet, stirred a pot of lotion, hardly daring, even now, to come too close to the man who cared not for too many females in his household.

      Meg stared at Ebony, seeing for the first time the streaks of tears that had left their mark upon her cheeks, the disordered hair, the swollen lips that had howled and pleaded and been ruthlessly kissed. ‘Ebbie! You’ve been weeping! Oh, my goodness…what happened? Did they harm you, pet?’ She took her sister-in-law’s hands in hers. ‘Tell me!’

      ‘No, nothing,’ Ebony said. ‘I was bothered about Sam, that’s all.’

      ‘And you found him? He’s safe? And Biddie?’

      ‘Quite safe, love.’ Her eyes held less than the truth, and Meg was quick to see it.

      ‘You mean, safe at the moment? What, Ebbie? You must tell me. D’ye mean they’re going to take him?’ She shook Ebony’s hands.

      Tears welled up again as the words were forced out angrily. ‘Sam and me. I made them promise not to take him without me. I believe they’re planning to stay till tomorrow so they can get Sir Joseph to speak.’ She glanced again at the blistered