The Knight's Return

“Hold.” The king lifted one arm, a heavy gold nasc thick with engraving about his wrist. “Donngal, free Fergus and sheathe your knife. Men, you may put away your swords around our unarmed friend.”

When Donngal looked as though he would argue, Fergus growled low at him and that was all it took to quiet the younger man.

“Leave us, my friends,” the king continued, motioning to his knights.

Hugh watched as ten men filed out, some glaring at him, others paying him little heed. Only Fergus and the king remained. He sensed that boded well. If Hugh had been destined for death, he suspected the king would have accomplished the deed in front of all his men.

“Well done, sir.” The king’s whole aspect changed as he waved Hugh closer. “I have need of a man with your skills in the matter of my daughter.”

Warning hummed over Hugh’s skin. Did the king despise his exiled offspring so much that he would hire a mercenary to…He could not complete the thought. And he would not hurt a woman no matter what the prize.

“I hoped to fight at your side, Your Highness.” He inclined his head to show respect in an effort to balance his words of disagreement.

“You have already met my daughter.”

His head snapped up.

“She may be in exile, but that does not mean I do not watch over her.”

“It is true we exchanged words,” Hugh acknowledged.

“You could have killed her. Or worse.”

“I would harm no woman.”

“Precisely why you show potential as a protector for her.”

Who entrusted a princess to a foreigner, and a stranger at that? Tiernan would be at war with the Normans before the year was out. The king had no reason to trust Hugh.

“Why not a man of your house?” Why not Fergus?

“She is protected from afar, but not from up close, and she has always been too willful to allow my guards near her, even when she lived within my walls.” He scowled. “She once sneaked from the keep to ride with my men on a campaign against the Norsemen. She journeyed halfway across our lands in the guise of a man’s garb before she revealed herself, informing Fergus she was bored and wished to return home.”

Fergus grunted, shaking his head at the memory.

“Do you know she refused to allow him to escort her and made it a point to escape him at every turn until he had to tie my daughter to him like a captive?”

“A bold and unwise scheme on her part, Your Highness, but now that she is a mother—”

“She came to be a mother through deceiving me shamefully and cavorting with a man I’ve never had the chance to lay eyes on, lest he would be in his grave in many small pieces.” The king shouted for more ale as he clamped a gloved hand to his forehead. “The lass is a danger to herself and possibly a danger to her son, who is innocent of her crimes. I will send her to the convent by summer’s end, but until then, her son is too young to be taken from her. I would reward you generously if you would consider watching over her these next two moons without letting her know you are her protector.”

“And how do you suggest I would succeed where your men have failed?” Hugh was more than ready to take on a task concerning the princess after the leap of recognition in her eyes upon their first meeting.

“Ye boasted enough of your skills with or without a sword. Have you no answer for the chance to serve a wealthy king?” Tiernan Con Connacht held out his flagon as a flame-haired maid approached with a pitcher. “And have you no idea how to win a lady’s favor?”

“I am a knight, not some court poet to sing praises to a lady’s elbow.”

“You will court her.” The king took a long drink. “Offer to escort her about.”

“Surely you cannot propose a union when—”

“Of course not.” The fire in the king’s green eyes suggested he did not wish to imagine any man touching this spoiled daughter of his no matter how much he bemoaned her headstrong ways. “You may leave here a wealthy man come harvesttime when a convent is willing to take her in. As long as she is untouched and you have not revealed your true purpose to her by then, you may have your choice of rewards from the royal treasure stores.”

Guard a willful princess through the summer months until he could discover who he was? He guessed there must be drawbacks to this task that the king could not find a man of his own to manage the chore. But then, Sorcha would recognize all but the newest of her father’s knights.

Regardless, he would walk away from this a richer man, even if he did not regain his memory. He could not afford to say nay.

“What makes you think she will agree to this courtship?” Hugh did not deceive himself that he would hold any great appeal for a woman raised in the lavish setting of Tir’a Brahui. And his pride would not allow him to beg for any woman’s favor.

The king smiled. “I have banished her for over a year, son. The lass has had nowhere to go save a few quiet hills in the forest. She rejected the courtship of other noblemen at first, but I think she might be more amenable now if only the offers for her hand had not ceased long ago.” His eyes brightened. “By now, I suspect she would allow the devil himself to woo her if it meant being allowed to leave her domain.”

Sorcha unfurled the scroll from her father onto a worn table, the first missive he had sent in many moons.

In the early months of her exile she had burned his letters, refusing to hear anything he had to say after he cast her out. He had not listened to the explanation behind her growing belly. Had not cared that she was grievously deceived into thinking she was married after a false priest had said all the proper words to bind her to a man she thought would be her husband for eternity.

But time and motherhood made her less rash. While she would still not allow her father or any of his men near her, she had read his last three missives. They no longer contained recrimination and accusation. He had written her of how his sheep fared. Of negotiations with his allies as he prepared to fend off the oncoming Normans. She missed knowing the workings of the kingdom.

She used to read to her father once his eyesight began to fail and she’d taken pride in the education he’d granted her when most women had no such privilege. Her father had given her much, but had expected unswerving loyalty in return. A loyalty he considered betrayed.

Sweet heaven, she could not live in the past any longer. Staring down at the page, she read:

Daughter,

I have shielded you from suitors while you were in confinement and for many moons afterward, but by your leave, I will forward all future entreaties to you. As you do not wish my counsel, I will not offer it. Hugh Fitz Henry, a mercenary who wandered into our lands recently, will arrive at your cottage this day.

Yours,

The bottom was signed with all her father’s assorted titles in the way he might sign an official document. Lord of this, baron of that, and so on. Sorcha stared at the missive in vague horror. Her father did not bother to soothe her with any niceties.

A stranger wished to court her? A wandering mercenary, no less? Clearly her father did not think she was worthy of a noble union anymore. And didn’t it surprise her how much that could still sting her heart after all this time?

She blinked furiously at the burning in her eyes, determined to live with the choices she’d made. Choices she could not regret when they had given her the precious blessing sleeping two rooms away with his nurse. How quickly a woman’s life and all her illusions could be torn asunder.

She did not know how long she stood in the middle of the cottage’s small hall, numb to the core. Should she send this suitor away the way she had rejected her father’s other overtures? Sorcha had to admit this one did not seem so much like an offering, however. Her father’s note had implied he was giving up on her.

Could this be one of his tricks? Some overgrown nurse in disguise sent to spy on her? Or was he truly giving her one last chance before he made good on his threat to send her to the convent?

The knock at her door reminded her she’d been thinking for too long. What had happened to the days when she had followed her heart and trusted her instincts?

Glancing out a narrow window, she scanned the tree line for signs of her father’s men but found no one save the imposing warrior on the other side of her threshold.

Or, from what she could see, he appeared to be a warrior. The only visual her tiny window allowed was the sight of the man’s bulging bicep fitted with a golden torc.

A soft gasp leaped from her mouth before she caught it with her hand and stepped back from the wall. By the mantle of Our Blessed Lady, she had not even seen the man’s face and already her heart quickened. This Hugh Fitz Henry did not lack for virility. Slipping over to the window once more, she eyed the man’s strong arm again, his bronzed skin setting off the brighter gold of the torc. The ends of the ornament were fashioned into the heads of two bulls, which were surely a fitting device for a man whose arms were easily the size of her thighs.

When he knocked again, Sorcha stuffed her father’s parchment in a leather pouch that hung from her girdle and opened the door.

A towering man awaited her. Easily reaching the top of the door frame, he would have to duck to enter her home. A white linen liente gleamed with bright newness in the spring sun, the short sleeves showing the arm she had already admired.