A Knight and White Satin. Jackie Ivie

ask if you had,” he replied.

      “I have na’ even seen the man since…” Her voice trailed off.

      “Since a-fore our wedding?” he supplied.

      She nodded.

      “Good. A loyal wife is a great asset to a man. One who cares and protects her husband’s property in his absence is an even greater one.”

      Her eyes went wide and she knew he was watching for it. As well as the color in her skin as she blushed severely. Heat spiked through her, followed by a pallor severe enough to make her dizzy with it. And through it all, he didn’t even blink. That much of his intense stare was too much. Dallis moved her gaze slightly and focused on the open door behind him, with the bolt that was broken and lying at an odd position on the floor, rather than upright beside the door in preparation of being lowered into place.

      “I still dinna’ betray you with Kilchurning,” she finally answered.

      “And I repeat that I doona’ ask it. Here. Take the blade. Protect what’s mine.”

      “Yours?” She was showing emotion and bit down on her tongue to still it. She’d been taught better!

      “I’m speaking of my heir. Should God be gracious enough to grant that you carry one. Here. Take it.”

      Dallis looked. He held the blade out toward her, handle first. And then Dallis had it in her hand and was testing the weight. A good silversmith had smelt it for him if the balance was any indication. She tested it briefly and looked up. And watched him leap backward with both arms out.

      “Dinna’ fash yourself, Dunn-Fadden. I’ll na’ carve on you. Na’ yet, anyway. Mayhap…later.” Her attempt at humor would have worked better if she could curb the odd sensation that might be sorrow and loss.

      His grin was back and it had a devastating impact on her tongue. And her heart. Dallis didn’t know what the sensation that made her heart lurch in a huge motion was. She didn’t want to find out, either. She was too afraid.

      “You’ll protect my heir? Should we have created one?”

      Dallis blinked the moisture away and nodded.

      “Better than you protected and cared for my keep?” he continued.

      “Damn you, Payton! Can you na’ just leave?” The feeling overtaking her was so close to crying it wasn’t to be borne! Dallis pushed her teeth together and shoved her chin up and blinked until the room went back to being just a room.

      “You’ll keep it safe?”

      “I kept my silence for a reason. Dinna’ it ever trouble you what it might be?”

      He shrugged. “I doona’ know the workings of a woman’s mind. I dinna’ ken any man who does, either.”

      “You looking to be carved on already?” she asked.

      He shook his head. “Only speaking my words a-fore I meet my maker. As short or as long as that could be.”

      “There is only one thing worse than you. And that is the laird of Kilchurning.” She whispered it.

      “Truly? Why?”

      “Have you na’ seen him?” She shuddered.

      He grunted; straightened; lifted an eyebrow; speared her with a gaze that had her heart doing such antics she didn’t know how to stop it, and then he tossed his head back and laughed. It was such a full and hearty noise that it brought his man, Redmond, from wherever he’d been hiding. And two others as well.

      Chapter 5

      The protected land surrounding his castle that a lord could ride and return from on horseback was known as a demesne. The area that Payton Dunn-Fadden claimed stretched out in three directions since there was a loch covering the entire back side. The area was just as cold, sodden with newly fallen snow, and filled with misery as it had looked to be from the crenels they’d been patrolling and checking from before finally spotting movement. The Kilchurning was approaching and he wasn’t doing it with speed. That meant Payton had to use the same stealth; moving on foot—leaving the horses in the stables, where they were warm, well fed and groomed, and bedded down for the night.

      All of which was useless to contemplate when he had more pressing matters to attend to.

      Payton whistled softly, and accompanied it with a lift of his white wool and fur-covered arm. He wasn’t surprised to see the lump of white at the edge of his vision turn into a clansman, and beyond him was another and then another. Payton pointed and knew they’d look to where silent, dark-clothed masses of men were moving, circling about the edge of the meadow. That proved at least one thing. Kilchurning may be one of the king’s landed earls, but he wasn’t a powerfully cunning one.

      Only a white covered bulk had a chance of hiding amidst the snow-covered heather of Payton Dunn-Fadden’s land on a wintry eve. The mass of Kilchurning clansmen turned into individual spots numbering more than forty. Payton gave off counting when he reached fifty. And then he was communicating the tally to his man Redmond and waiting while it was transferred all about the line of white-clad lumps fronting his castle.

      Then he gave the sign to wait.

      There was no telling what Kilchurning had devised once he got his men set. It was going to be interesting to find out. Payton’s keep within the bailey hadn’t been repaired from the damage of three years past, but there wasn’t one gap in the stone of the curtain wall that an enemy could use. None. The mass behind them was solid and secure and impregnable.

      Which made it even more odd that Kilchurning would try and gird it with such a small force. It was a worse plan than the one hatched the night Payton had gained the castle. The irony made him grin and that just gave him an ache in his front teeth from the cold. It was better to stay grim and silent.

      He gave the motion to move behind the Kilchurning clansmen and start taking them down. Every man had enough twine to capture ten men and tie them up, orders to get at least three, and the command to do it in silence. The silent part was the easiest, since the snow muffled the sounds of scuffling well enough.

      It also made things slippery, the fog of air breath-enhanced, and the scene fantasy-driven. That was just and fair, and worked to their advantage more than the Kilchurning clansmen, since none of them were expecting the snow to turn into solid bulks of armed men. Payton had five of them down, choked to silence with a forearm to their windpipes and then gagged and trussed up before Kilchurning reached the gatehouse.

      It took time, though.

      His men appeared to have done as well and it was some satisfaction to note through snowflake-dusted eyelashes that each of his men claimed four to his credit. That meant perhaps a dozen Kilchurning marauders left. It wasn’t as satisfying to see they’d reached the castle gate and were some distance off, though.

      Payton pulled his bow from behind him, looked to each of his men and then nodded. They had orders to wound. Disable. Not kill.

      The man challenging his castle had vengeance in his veins. Payton could understand. If such a treasure had been stolen away from him, he’d feel the same. Kilchurning deserved a set-back; a defeat; a ransom paid from his clan to crippling effect on his treasury. He didn’t deserve death.

      Payton hand-picked his Honor Guard from the warriors of Clan Dunn-Fadden for such a thing. To kill a man was easy. To take him was a deed worthy of a champion. That’s why he’d ordered it so.

      Aside from which, if they killed Kilchurning, there’d be an accounting to make to the Stewart king who leveled fines for such things as clan wars. Payton was already indebted to the spiteful diminutive monarch.

      He would take Kilchurning by surprise, defeat him soundly, exactly as he’d done on the challenger list at Edinburgh more times than a man could count, and then see him settled in the dungeon. Then, he could go back to the pleasant pastime of enjoying his wife’s bounty.

      The