A Knight and White Satin. Jackie Ivie

they reached Payton, the ground started turning into a shaft-filled quagmire, filling with arrows that rained through the falling snow, peppering the ground all about Payton, and then starting to move outward. One landed in a thigh…afoot. Dallis heard the cries and started backing, yelling at Leroy as she went to pull the door shut and let Kilchurning escape as best he could.

      They were too few and Dallis couldn’t prevent the Kilchurning laird and most of his men, bloodied and bedraggled with the storm and their battle, from pressing into the castle ground of the lower bailey before the door shut. And worse. They’d brought their battering ram with them.

      She exchanged a glance with Lady Evelyn, accepted the woman’s censure and felt her frame sag. But only slightly. She couldn’t win if she didn’t continue planning and altering to what was needed.

      Behind her, they were jamming the door closed with not just the nearly split beam that had been the old bolt, but they’d shoved the felled tree across the portal as well.

      This was not what she’d planned, although greeting the man slated as her husband had been her intent when she’d opened the door. She had no other choice. That’s what one did when facing defeat and capture. Alter the plan. Welcome the conquerors. And get a chicory-dandelion soup into them.

      “Good eve, My Laird. Welcome—”

      “Get the men into the hall! Onto the tables!” He shouted it, interrupting her and drowning out her welcome. He pointed at one of his clansmen. “You—Riley! See she’s locked up. Back in her tower, of course!”

      “But—” Dallis started to exclaim.

      “And dinna’ eat or drink anything!”

      Kilchurning turned one eye to her, pinning her in place and then he smiled. Dallis knew then what fear not only felt like but what it tasted like: metallic, sour, and bitter.

      He’d altered since the one time she had seen him, on the day of her betrothal. He’d gotten even older and balder, which was apparent as he tossed the cloak away. He’d also gotten a larger paunch. He was probably uglier as well, although the cut above his eye, the bloodied nose and the face full of beard didn’t help with the assessment.

      “You!” He was pointing at another of his men. “Get outside and locate the men! He canna’ have killed all of them!”

      “But…the champion—”

      “Lies in his own blood. That’s where that whelp is! Use the Chieftain entry. It still exists?”

      He was asking Lady Evelyn. That woman didn’t have enough sense to keep her knowledge to herself. Dallis watched her nod her head rapidly, like a baby bird. The woman had little sense and no backbone.

      “See him there. Go! Call the clan! You canna’ hold this property with a small force. And why is she still standing there?”

      A rough hand gripped her upper arm, propelling her forward. Dallis didn’t turn to see who it was. She didn’t care and her mind was already moving to the next problem.

      Chapter 6

      The woman was made of ice and her form felt just as cold. And unforgiving. But her curves were full and ripe, and calling to him. Payton liked that, above all. Curves this slick needed caressing. Loving…

      And then somebody ruined everything.

      “Payton?”

      The woman turned into ice water and started surrounding him, her limbs cloying and clinging and pulling him under. Then he was swimming, the act bathing every bit of him with chill and frost. Then he started breathing the ice water in with every pained inhalation. And drowning.

      And then he started coughing.

      “Get him up. Now!”

      The command belonged to Redmond. The ice belonged to the sea of snow melt he was lying in, and the drowning sensation was due to breathing in his own blood with every inhalation.

      “Red…mond.” Payton whispered.

      “Dinna’ talk!” The hissing came from Redmond. “Just get your arse on the sheeting!”

      Sheeting. They were making beds. At least he knew how to do that. His legs didn’t belong to him, though. Nor did his arms. He wasn’t certain about the rest either.

      “Nothing…moves.” Payton was panting with the effort of telling them the issue and losing.

      “Christ! Send for the laird!”

      “Nae…na’ my da!” Payton forced his lips to say it but nothing worked there anymore, either.

      They were shoving him, making the ice water mess slosh into his face, and that just made everything that was paining him turn to agony. Payton concentrated as the frost-woman formed again and started calling for him, kissing him with lips slick with ice and breath tinged with frigid cold. She was cold, but she took the pain away. He’d pay her later. She was worth it.

      “I told you this would happen.”

      Dallis swiveled from contemplation of the gray skies that were all the day was bringing them and looked across at her companion. Lady Evelyn was perched atop a long stool, her back straight, her gray hair beneath a mantle of pale blue silk, and a deep frown between her eyebrows to join the other wrinkles lining her face. It was exactly the picture that a lady of the castle should be presenting as she concentrated on her tapestry.

      It was also wrong. Ladies of an occupied castle didn’t sit sewing and chatting when a usurper held their property. They plotted revenge.

      “I beg to differ with you, Aunt. You most definitely did na’ tell me Kilchurning would be warring against me. Nor did you mention he’d be holding my castle and treating me like a prisoner for near five sennights now!”

      “Treating us like prisoners,” Lady Evelyn replied to her handiwork.

      “Us? You can come and go at will! You are nae prisoner.”

      “Should you swear the man fealty, he’d probably grant you the same,” Lady Evelyn replied.

      “Never.” Dallis hissed. “He has nae right to hold me. He has nae right to hold my castle. He has nae right to dismiss my servants and put idiots in their place that canna’ even cook a decent meal!”

      Dallis shoved at the untouched platter of under-cooked venison they’d sent her way. And then she was pushing the heavy leaded glass doors to her oriel open to heave whatever her belly contained over the balcony. Again.

      Behind her she heard her aunt clicking her tongue. “I’ll ask for a nice gruel to be delivered a bit later for you. It will soothe your ills.”

      Dallis passed a hand across her mouth and grimaced. “You’ll do naught of the sort. Have a dirk delivered, instead. I’ll show him fealty!”

      “Kilchurning was to be your lawful wedded spouse, Dallis.”

      “He can rot in hell! I’ll never accept him. Na’ now.”

      “You should na’ spend more time out in the elements. Come back inside. Your cheeks redden and you ken the chill you’ll catch.”

      Dallis stepped back into her tower room, pulled the glass back into place, and shivered. Her aunt was right. The day held a cold the flames in her fireplace couldn’t defer. She couldn’t fight anyone if she got sicker…and it was without cause. She’d never been ill a day in her life, and now each morn, she suffered. It was enough to make a high-born noble-woman clench her teeth to prevent any anger from sounding. Dallis hadn’t the same control. She realized it as she kicked at the platter of food they’d brought, congealed now in its greased sauce, and losing a joint of meat as it rolled into the rushes.

      She should have listened to lessons of deportment better.

      “I’ll na’ catch a chill. I’d na’ be so weak a-fore him.”

      “Which