Malcolm's Honor

Malcolm caught her hand, his fingers curling around her wrist and forcing the cloth from his face. The power of his gaze, unbending and lethal as the steel sword at his belt, speared her.

“Is this a plot?” he demanded. “Are you attempting to fool me into a trap you and your lover have devised?”

“Lover? You mean Caradoc?” Outrage knifed through her. “What has that addlepated knave told you?”

“Only that he is your betrothed.” Was that amusement she saw flash in his dark eyes?

“As I said, ’tis untrue. He covets my father’s holdings. Seeing him bound like a scoundrel gives me great pleasure.”

Malcolm laughed, the sound rich and friendly this time, not mocking. “You need not tend my wounds, dove. They will heal in time. Day breaks. See to Hugh and prepare him for travel. We will leave him at this inn you know of. If I spy any act of treachery, I will chain you to the wall of the king’s dungeon myself.”

Aye, but you will never be able to find me. Fear trembled through her, and yet she forced a smile to her lips. Her heart thumped with some unnatural reaction to this man of sword and death, dark like the shadows even as the sun rose and brought light to the world.

Chapter Four

A sense of doom settled in Malcolm’s chest as he watched three of his knights lay an unconscious Hugh upon a rickety bed covered in fresh linen. He did not care what the traitor’s daughter predicted. They had brought Hugh here to die.

Malcolm could not stomach how he’d failed the young knight, who’d often proclaimed his eagerness to serve his king and fight beneath the Fierce One’s command. Bitterness soured Malcolm’s mouth.

“I’ll need hot water. You—” Elin pointed a slim finger at one of his men “—see to it.”

“Dove, these are my men to command. Lulach, Hugh needs fresh water. We cannot send the traitor’s daughter for it.”

“True.” Anger burned in resentful eyes, for Lulach, as Malcolm suspected others did, blamed Elin and her father for Hugh’s injuries. “I’ll go, but make no mistake. I’m no criminal woman’s handmaiden.”

Malcolm watched Elin of Evenbough blanch, and saw the denial sharpen her face. She muttered something beneath her breath—and he knew he would have objected had he heard it—then she knelt gracefully at Hugh’s side.

The poor knight’s chances were not good; Malcolm knew this even before she rolled back layers of wool and linen. A neatly stitched gash stretched from Hugh’s ribs to his groin. She bent to study it, her golden hair, with a hint of red, like a flame that caught and shimmered in the sunlight slanting through the open door. She was liquid fire, and when she tilted her face up to meet his gaze, his chest burned as if a firestorm raged there, wicked and untamed.

“I see no sign of fever. Look, no redness marks the edges of the wound.” A measure of joy filled her voice. Not triumph or pride, for Malcolm knew those well enough, but gladness. And her gladness surprised him. “I predict Hugh will live.”

“Do you always predict what you cannot control?”

“What? You doubt my abilities?”

“Aye, I doubt all women.” The girl was too green. She’d not seen death and dying the way he had. A gray pallor clung to the wounded man’s face and took hold, growing stronger as the light shifted and deepened.

“Truly, a man such as you sees naught but dying. What do you know of the living?” She turned her shoulder to him, as if he’d insulted her.

He could not argue. For once the dove was correct.

“Where’s Alma?” Her low voice wobbled a bit.

“I sent her to aid the innkeeper’s wife, who is crippled with joint pain. They are not accustomed to receiving so many men at once. ’Tis a small village, and these roads not often traveled. Only a traitor evading the king’s knights might choose this path.”

“You needn’t remind me of my plight.” Elin bowed her head, searching through the satchel she carried. Crocks clattered together, and the dull clunks and thunks chimed noisily in the somber tension of the air. “Bring me Alma.”

“Nay, dove. If you need assistance, I shall give it.”

“You?” Her eyes widened, and she lifted one corner of her mouth in disbelief. Then, mayhap remembering her vow to behave, she erased that sneer from her delicate lips, pearled with early morning light. “You admit you know naught of healing.”

“I can hold a trencher well enough.” He hid his chuckle behind a cough, amused at her valiant effort not to insult him. Aye, the poor girl was trying, but like an untamed horse facing the prospect of a saddle, she could not hide her unwillingness. “Besides, you are my prisoner. I’ll not leave your side, traitor’s daughter.”

Temper flared in her eyes, glaring like sunlight on water. Her fists curled, but no anger sounded in her voice. She was like any woman, always pretending. “I will honor your offer of assistance, for you are the greatest knight in all the realm.”

“Not so great.” He waited, and although he sensed them, no insults spewed from her sharp tongue. He accepted the trencher of steaming water Lulach handed him. “I’ve seen many manner of men, dove, and not one has been so noble as to bear that title.”

“In this we agree.” She tapped herbs into the water, her gaze avoiding his. “Do you think the king will believe Caradoc’s claim?”

“I cannot say. The king has a mind of his own, though he’s known to be fair. It depends on your father. Whether he chooses to speak the truth, or if he is swayed by Caradoc’s false promises to help save him.”

“Caradoc, aye, he is my fear.” She dipped the cloth into the trencher, leaning close. Her delicately shaped mouth frowned as she worked, and with it her entire face. Soft lines eased across her brow and crinkled at the corners of her eyes. His gaze flickered across the cut of her lips.

Aye, she was young, far too spirited for his taste and much too soft. Yet his chest tightened, and air caught with a painful hitch between his ribs.

“Caradoc is a man of much weakness, many lies,” he admitted.

“What? You believe me? That I am not betrothed to him?” Her measuring gaze latched on to his.

He could see the intelligence in those eyes, the thoughts forming behind them. “I know the like of Ravenwood far too well. I’ve seen many brutes of that ilk.”

“He’s nephew to the king.”

“Aye. I’m well acquainted with that fact.”

Hugh murmured, as if fighting to awaken. Malcolm reached for his hand so the young knight would know he was not alone. But Elin’s fingers were already there, and her compassion glimmered, as unmistakable as the steady glow of sunlight into the dim room. Hugh quieted, and she continued her work bathing his wound.

“Then he will awaken?”

“Aye.” She cast Malcolm a mischievous smile, quick and fleeting. “You doubt my knowledge, but you’ll soon see. Hugh will live.”

“Then he’ll owe his life to you.”

“Nay, to Alma. She pecked like a troubled conscience until I had to return to aid him.”

But Malcolm knew the truth when he saw it. “Nay, I think you returned to aid your betrothed.”

She sparkled with humor. “Go ahead, tease. You shall see what a sacrifice I made in returning, once you spend an entire day with Caradoc. Your knights are likely to behead him just to stop his insults.”

“Does he cast an insult more sharp than yours?”

She almost laughed, and with the sunlight alive in her fiery curls, she was transformed before his eyes into a nymph of beauty and mischief. “I admit I studied Caradoc’s skill, for although I hate the man, I do admire his foul temper.”

“’Tis a skill you practice then? Like wielding a sword?”

“Aye. I am a woman who does both.”

He laughed. How this girl-woman amused him. He’d not been amused by much in more years than he could count. He handed her a fresh bandage when she gestured for one. “Caradoc is trussed up in the stable under guard. At last report, he still had his head.”