Ashblane's Lady. Sophia James

      ‘Take her back.’

      ‘Please. If it’s money you are after I can pay you. Handsomely.’ Every man she had ever known had his price, although this one’s frown was not promising.

      ‘It’s flesh and blood I’m wanting from your brother, Lady Randwick. Gold canna’bring back those men that I have lost.’

      ‘So you mean to kill us?’

      Before she could say more he placed one hand around the column of her throat and squeezed gently. ‘Unlike your brother, I do not kill women and children.’

      She felt the breath leave her body in a sharp punch of relief, though a new worry threatened. She had seen what Noel did to the captives at Heathwater and rape could be as brutal as murder.

      A living death.

      And such harm could come from any number of these men present. Indeed, when she looked around the room she saw many eyes brush across her body as the Ullyot soldiers contemplated their share of the easy spoils of battle.

      Summoning courage, she stood her ground as Alexander Ullyot’s eyes darkened, fathomless for ever, eyes drenched in the colder undertones of sorrow. Grief juxtaposed with fury. Grief for the man he had cradled and wept over. Madeleine was lost in what she saw.

      ‘I can help you.’ Her words came from nowhere and she felt him start as she laid her fingers across the heated skin of his hand. Grief was as much of an ailment as the ague or an aching stomach, and the healer in her sought a remedy.

      ‘I do not need your help.’ He snatched away his arm, angrier now than when she had first been brought into the room. ‘Take her away.’

      The irritable bark of instruction was quickly obeyed as two men stepped forward, though as she looked back she saw that he still watched her. Framed against the light, the Ullyot laird looked like a man from legend: huge, ruthless and unyielding. But something else played in the very depths of his pale eyes. Something she had seen before many times on the faces of many men.

      Interest. Lust. Desire.

      She smiled as he was lost from sight and bent her thoughts to wondering as to how she could best use this to her own advantage.

      ‘What do ye think of her, Alex?’

      Quinlan’s voice penetrated Alexander’s thoughts as he upended his glass. ‘Madeleine Randwick looks rather more like a dirty angel than the conniving heartless witch it is said that she is.’

      ‘She’s taller than I thought she would be.’

      ‘And a thousand times more beautiful, aye?’

      Anger levelled him. ‘A pretty face can be as deceiving as a plain one, Quinlan.’

      ‘She was scared of the rats.’

      ‘Then get rid of them.’

      ‘The rats?’

      ‘Tomorrow we leave for Ashblane and we’ve not the time to waste transporting a sick woman. Put her in another room and post a guard at the door.’

      He made himself stop. His left shoulder throbbed, the paste the physician had applied to the wound searing into the flesh. As he tried to lift his arm the breath caught in his throat, his heart pounding with the effort it had taken.

      Ian. Dead.

      Everything was changed. Diminished.

      ‘Damn Noel Falstone to hell,’ he whispered fiercely and walked to the window, trying to search out the dark shape of the Cheviots to the east and tensing as Adam Armstrong came to stand beside him.

      ‘I am sorry. I ken how close you and Ian were and—’

      Alex held up his hand. Anger was far easier to deal with than sympathy and much more satisfying. ‘I should have ridden into Heathwater with the men I had left and flushed the bastard out. Ian would have done that for me were I to have been lying on the cold slab of your chapel with the salt upon my belly.’

      ‘And you’d have died doing it.’ Adam, as always, sought the calm logic of reason. ‘Nay, far better to wait and continue the fight on another day when the element of surprise is on your side and you are not so battle-wearied. Besides, you are wounded. At least let me see to your arm.’

      ‘No. Hale has already done so.’ Moving back, Alex brought his left arm into his body. He wanted no one close. No one to see what he could feel. The wound was not small and he was far from home. Tomorrow when they reached Ashblane there would be time enough. For the moment, here in the keep of the Armstrongs, he wanted control. Or at least the illusion of it, he amended, as a wave of dizziness sent him down to the chair beside the table.

      ‘Ian should’na have come with so few men.’

      ‘Why did he, then?’ Interest was plain in Adam’s voice and, pouring himself another draught of ale, Alex was pleased for the distraction. It gave him a moment to swallow and settle the nausea. When he felt steadier he began to speak, though the beat of his heart was constant in his ears, the normal tones of his speech masked by rushing blood.

      ‘Noel Falstone had burnt down cottages and taken womenfolk from a village west of Ashblane, and Ian left in fury before I had a chance to join him. If he had waited, we could have hit the bastard together.’

      ‘Waited?’

      ‘I have been away in Edinburgh with the King.’

      ‘And when the King knows of the Falstone treachery? Will he act?’

      ‘Our liege lord has lost heart after his long captivity under the English and prefers diplomacy these days to battle.’ Alex was careful with his words.

      ‘You may well be right; besides, David will’na slay a man as wily as the Baron Falstone no matter what the provocation. He is too useful to him with his lands on the border and the Marches completely in disarray.’

      ‘Which is exactly why I will have to do it myself.’ Alex pulled himself up. This time the room did not sway. ‘Falstone is a braggart and a risk taker. Bur he is also a man of habit. He spends each January in Egremont and travels by way of Carlisle with only a small guard of men. He thinks himself safe.’

      ‘You could not breach the sanctity of England so far south. Not like that.’

      ‘Could I not?’ His eyes hardened.

      ‘As it is now, you stand in favour with the King. Imperil the treaty and you will lose Ashblane under the banner of treason. No one could save you.’

      ‘No one will see me.’

      ‘You would not wear the plaid? Lord, let me warn you of the pitfalls in this pathway. David may be your kin, but he is first and foremost King and he allows you Ashblane as a royal fortress. Should there be any instability here, any hint of falseness…?’ He spread out his hands across the table in a quietly eloquent gesture. ‘I am your friend, Alex, and from my experience men with a single purpose often bury their logic to define what they were not sure of in the first place. Take your clan safe back to Ashblane where Falstone cannot harm you, neither in siege nor battle. And while you are at that, toss the Randwick woman back to her brother with a note of clemency. Falstone may even thank you for it and David certainly will with the ink on the parchment of the Berwick Treaty hardly dry.’

      Anger exploded as Alexander drew himself up from the chair and threw the last dregs of his ale into the fire.

      ‘It is not thanks I am seeking,’ he growled and watched as the pure alcohol caught with alacrity and the flames licked upward. ‘Nay, Adam. Vengeance is what I want. I want Falstone’s sister, I want his land and I want his life.’

      ‘And the de Cargne sorcery? How will you still that in Madeleine Randwick when it is said she can make a man believe anything?’

      This time Alex did laugh. ‘You’ve a strange way to interpret the Holy Scripture. Thou shall not worship false