“When I’m gone, I’m sure you’ll manage to gather your courage.”
His hand tangled in her hair, pulled her head back and his mouth took hers possessively. “Haven’t you learned yet that you’re mine?” he half growled. “When are you going to admit that?”
He didn’t give her a chance to answer as he kissed her again, and much of the worry Elizabeth’d felt in the last days went into that kiss to make it one of desperation.
The touch of cold steel against Miles’s throat made them break apart. Instinctively, he reached for his own sword but met only bare flesh under the plaid he wore.
Over them stood Roger Chatworth, his eyes full of hate, his sword pressing against the vein in Miles’s neck.
“Do not,” Elizabeth said, moving away from Miles. “Do not harm him.”
“I would like to kill all the Montgomerys,” Roger Chatworth said.
Miles, in one quick motion, moved sideways, caught Chatworth’s wrist.
“No!” Elizabeth screamed and clung to her brother’s arm.
Miles’s bandages began to redden.
“He’s hurt,” Elizabeth said. “Would you kill a man who can’t fight back?”
Roger turned his full attention to her. “Have you become one of them? Have the Montgomerys poisoned you against your own blood relations?”
“No, Roger, of course not.” She tried to remain calm. There was such a wild look in Roger’s eyes that she feared to anger him. Miles lay against the wall, panting, but she knew that at any moment he’d leap again and tear his wounds further. “Have you come for me?”
There was a sudden hush in the little room as both men watched her. She had to leave with Roger. If she did not, he’d kill Miles. She knew that very well. Roger was tired, angry, beyond all rational thinking.
“It will be good to go home,” she said, forcing a smile.
“Elizabeth!” Miles warned.
She ignored him. “Come, Roger, what are you waiting for?” Her heart was pounding so hard she could barely hear her own voice.
“Elizabeth!” Miles shouted at her, his hand clutching at the hole in his chest.
For a moment Roger looked from one to the other, hesitating.
“I’m growing impatient, Roger! Haven’t I been away long enough?” She turned on her heel to leave, paused at the door. Her eyes stayed on Roger’s, not daring to look at Miles. She couldn’t risk even one look at him or she’d lose her resolve.
Slowly, puzzled, Roger began to follow her. A horse waited obediently not far from the cottage. Elizabeth kept her eyes on the animal, not daring to look around because she knew she’d see the body of Sir Guy. Only his death would have kept the giant from protecting his master.
Another shout, stone-shaking, came from the cottage. “ELIZABETH!!”
Swallowing the lump in her throat, Elizabeth allowed Roger to help her on his horse.
“We must have food,” Roger said and turned away from her.
“Roger!” she yelled after him. “If you harm him I—” she began and saw that he was ignoring her. She dismounted in a flash and was after him—but not in time.
Roger Chatworth ran his sword through Miles’s arm and as Miles lay there bleeding, Roger said, “Raine’s wife spared my life and it’s to her that you owe your filthy life now.” He turned to Elizabeth in the doorway. “Get on the horse or I’ll finish the job, if he doesn’t bleed to death as it is.”
Trembling, feeling very ill, Elizabeth left the cottage and mounted the horse. Within seconds, Roger was behind her and they set off at a grueling pace.
Elizabeth sat before her embroidery frame, working on an altar cover of St. George slaying the dragon. In one corner was a boy who looked remarkably tike Kit and St. George…the saint had some of the look of Miles Montgomery. Elizabeth stopped for a moment as the child in her womb kicked her.
Alice Chatworth sat across from her, a mirror held to reflect the unscarred half of her face. “I was so beautiful then,” Alice was saying. “Absolutely no man could resist me. All of them were ready to lay down their lives for me. All I had to do was hint at something I wanted and it was given to me.”
She switched the mirror to the misshapen side of her face. “Until the Montgomerys did this!” she hissed. “Judith Revedoune was jealous of my beauty. She is such an ugly, freckled, red-haired thing that she was worried over my dear Gavin’s love. And well she should have been.”
Elizabeth gave an exaggerated yawn, ignored Alice’s look of hate and turned to Roger, who was standing by the fireplace, mug of wine in hand, his face brooding. “Roger, would you like to go for a walk with me in the gardens?”
As usual, Roger looked at her stomach before he looked back at her face.
“No, I have to talk to my steward,” he half mumbled, his eyes searching her face.
She could feel what he wanted to say, what he’d said many, many times: You’ve changed.
She’d been back with her brother and her “family” for two weeks and it brought home to her how much she had changed in her five months with the Montgomerys. The time had not been enough to make any changes in the Chatworth household, but it was enough for Elizabeth to have started the makings of a new person.
For all her insistence that Roger was different from Edmund, she saw that Roger had actually not enforced his own beliefs within his household. In many ways, the Chatworth house was the same as when Edmund was alive. The reason Roger could easily have Alice live with him was that he was oblivious to her. Roger lived with such inner turmoil, with all his love and care given to Elizabeth and Brian, that he was truly unaware of a great deal that went on around him.
Elizabeth had no more than dismounted her horse, tired after days of travel, when two of Roger’s men, who had once been with Edmund, began to make snide comments to her. They hinted that they could hardly wait to catch her alone.
Elizabeth’s first reaction had been fear. It had been as if she’d never left the Chatworth estates. Her mind raced over her repertoire of debilitating tricks to use on the men. But her thoughts went back to Sir Guy and how she’d broken his toes, how he’d hobbled for weeks—and later she’d sat with him, saw tears of worry gathering in his eyes over a man they both loved.
She would not return to her skulking, fearful ways. She’d come a long way in conquering her fear of men and she wasn’t going to throw all she’d learned away.
She’d turned to Roger and demanded that he send the men away immediately.
Roger’d been very surprised and had quickly hustled her out of the stables. He’d tried to patronize her but Elizabeth wouldn’t listen to him. The idea that his dear little sister would talk back to him shocked as well as hurt him. To his mind, he’d just rescued her from a hellhole and she was ungratefully complaining.
For the first time in her life, Elizabeth told her brother the whole truth about Edmund. Roger’s face had drained of blood, he’d staggered backward into a chair and looked as if someone had beaten him. All these years he’d thought he’d protected his dear little sister but, in truth, she’d lived in hell. He had no idea Edmund had summoned her from her convent whenever Roger left the estates. He didn’t know that she’d had to defend herself from his men.
By the time Elizabeth finished, Roger was ready to kill the men in the stables.
Roger Chatworth’s fury was something to be reckoned with. Within three days, he’d put fear in the hearts of his household. Many men were dismissed and if a man so much as looked at Elizabeth with slanted eyes, she went to Roger. No more was she going to stand for such insolence. Before, she’d not known how a lady should be treated, as her only experience was with Edmund, but now she’d had five months in a place where she didn’t have to be afraid of walking in a garden alone.
Roger had been taken aback by her demands and she realized how she and Brian had always protected him. Roger could be so kind and at the same time so cruel. She tried only once to talk to him about the Montgomerys, but Roger’d exploded with such h
atred, she feared for his life.
Since it had been months since he’d seen her, he quickly noticed the changes in her body, remarked that she’d put on weight. Elizabeth had put her chin in the air and, with no regret, stated that she carried Miles Montgomery’s child.
She bad expected rage—she was prepared for rage but the deep, deep hurt in Roger’s eyes threw her off balance.
“Go. Leave me,” he’d whispered and she obeyed.
Alone in her room, Elizabeth’d cried herself to sleep as she had every night since leaving Miles. Would Miles realize she’d gone with Roger to save her lover? Or would Miles hate her? What would they tell Kit about where Elizabeth had gone? She lay on her bed and thought of all the people she’d come to care about in Scotland.
She longed to send a message to someone in Scotland but there was no one she could trust to deliver it. But yesterday, as she took her afternoon walk, an old woman she’d never seen before offered her a basket of bread. She started to refuse it until the woman lifted the cloth and showed a MacArran cockade. Elizabeth grabbed the basket quickly and the old woman was gone before Elizabeth could thank her. Greedily, she tore into the basket.
There was a message from Bronwyn saying she well understood why Elizabeth’d returned with Roger—but Miles didn’t. Sir Guy had been hit with three arrows but they thought he’d live. While Miles was untended, he’d gone into a rage, torn all his stitches apart. When Morag found him he was in a fever and for three days they didn’t believe he’d live. Stephen had returned from Raine’s outlaw camp as soon as he heard Miles had been injured. He bore the news that Raine was taking young Brian under his wing and Stephen had every hope of there soon being peace between the two families. Bronwyn added that Miles was recovering slowly and he refused to mention Elizabeth’s name.
Today, as Elizabeth thought of that last sentence, her skin grew cold, making her shiver.
“You should have a cloak,” Roger said from behind her.
“No,” she murmured, “my plaid is enough.”
“Why do you flaunt that thing in front of me?” Roger exploded. “Isn’t it enough that you carry a Montgomery within you? Do you have to slap me in the face every time I see you?”
“Roger, I want this hatred to end. I want—”
“You want to be my enemy’s whore!” he snarled.
With one quick angry look she turned away from him.
He caught her arm, his eyes soft as he looked at her. “Can you see this from my side? I spent months in hell looking for you. I went to Raine Montgomery to ask where you were, yet he drew a sword on me. If his new wife hadn’t stepped between us I’d be dead now. I went to the king on my knees and do you think that was easy? I bear no love for the man since he’s fined me so heavily for what happened to Mary Montgomery, but for you I’d have gone on my knees before the devil.”
He paused, put his hands on both her arms. “And getting in and out of Scotland was no easy task either, yet when I found you you were cuddled beside Montgomery as if you wanted to become a part of him. And the playacting you did! I felt as if I were the enemy because I was rescuing my own sister from a man who’d held her captive and taken her virtue. Explain all this to me, Elizabeth,” he whispered.
She leaned her head forward to touch his chest. “How can I? How can I tell you what has happened to me in the last few months? I’ve seen love and—”
“Love!” he said. “Do you think that if a man takes you to his bed, he loves you? Has Montgomery sworn undying love to you? Has he asked to make a Chatworth his wife?”
“No, but—” she began.
“Elizabeth, you know so little of men. You were a pawn in this feud. Don’t you know that the Montgomerys are laughing because a Chatworth bears a Montgomery child? They’ll think they’ve won.”
“Won!” she spat at him, pulling away. “I hate this all being thought of as a game. What should I tell my child, that he was a chess piece, used by two families in their silly war?”
“Silly? How can you say that when Brian is out there somewhere, possibly hating me because of the Montgomerys?”
She hadn’t told him of seeing Brian in Scotland. “Did it ever occur to you, Roger, that perhaps you caused Brian to leave? I would like to hear your side of what happened to Mary Montgomery.”
He turned away from her. “I was drunk. It was a hideous…accident.” He turned back, his eyes pleading. “I can’t bring the woman back and the king has punished me more than enough with his fines. Brian has left me and you return from my enemy bloated with his child, and instead of the love you once gave me, now all you do is question me, doubt me. What more punishment do you intend for me?”
“I’m sorry, Roger,” she said softly. “Perhaps I have changed. I don’t know if Miles loves me. I don’t know if he’d want to marry me to give our child a name, but I do know that I love him and if he asked me, I’m sure I’d follow him wherever he led.”
Only Roger’s eyes showed the pain he felt at her words. “How could you turn against me so completely? Is this man so good in bed that your screams of pleasure make you forget the love I bear you and have always had for you? Does five months with him wipe out eighteen years with me?”
“No, Roger. I love you. I will always love you, but I want you both.”
He smiled at that. “How very young you are, Elizabeth. You want a man who, I hear, is also wanted by half the women of England. You want a man who takes you to his bed, gets you with child and never speaks of marriage. And what kind of marriage would it be? Will you care for all his bastards as you have for his eldest son?”
“What do you know of Kit?”
“I know a great deal about my enemies. Miles Montgomery likes women. You are one of many to him and I respect the man for at least not lying to you and saying you were going to be his one and only love.”
He touched her arm. “Elizabeth, if you want a husband, I can find someone for you. I know several men who’d take you bearing another man’s child, and they’d be good to you. With this youngest Montgomery you’d be miserable inside a year.”
“Perhaps,” she said, trying to think rationally. Maybe Miles’s hands on her had made her lose reason. He’d always been kind to her, but then he’d been kind to serving girls. If she did desert her brother for a Montgomery, Roger would hate her, and what would she feel for Miles years from now? What if, as a practical joke, someone else “gave” him a pretty young girl? Would he decide she belonged to him also? Would he bring her home to Elizabeth, smiling, expecting her to care for the girl as she did for his bastard children?
“Let me find someone for you. I’ll bring many men for your approval and you can choose who you want. At least look at them. If you want to remain unmarried, you can.”
She looked at him with love. He’d be laughed at for allowing his sister to bear a child out of wedlock. Some would say she should be killed if she refused to wed. Roger had suffered much disgrace over the last few years, yet he was willing to risk more for her sake.
At her smile, he grinned, and for the first time he looked as if he had a reason for living.
“Yes, I’ll look at your men,” she said from her heart. She would try with all her might to fall in love with one of them. She’d have a kind, loving husband, children to love and her brothers, because somehow she’d reunite Brian and Roger.
Elizabeth learned a great deal about love in the next few days. Never, before she met Miles, had she had any idea what love was. She’d never even considered loving a man, but then Miles came along and changed that. Within five months of his patience and humor he’d made her love him. She knew she’d always have a soft spot for Miles but there were many men who were good and kind in the world. All she had to do was fall in love with one of them and it would solve everything.
But Elizabeth underestimated herself.
Roger began parading men before her like so many studs ready to service her. There were tall men, short men, thin men, fat men, ugly men, men so handsome you
merely gaped at them, swaggering men, bold men men who made her laugh, one who sang beautifully. On and on they came.
At first Elizabeth was flattered by their attentions, but after just a few days, her old fears began to return. A man touched her shoulder and she jumped high, put her hand on her eating dagger at her side. After a week, she was finding excuses to remain in her room, or else she was always in Roger’s company.
Then suddenly, Roger left the estates. He said nothing to her but rode out with eight men at a furious pace. A servant said Roger’d received a message from a dirty, black-toothed man and within seconds Roger’d left. The message was tossed into the fire.
Elizabeth was close to tears knowing that there were eleven male guests below and she was their hostess. She couldn’t talk to one man with any coherence because she was always concerned with where the other men were. All Miles’s months of patient training were disappearing. Once she brought a brass vase down on the head of a man who’d dared to walk up behind her.
With her skirts flying about her, she fled to her room and refused to return to the hall.
She lay on her bed a long time and all she could remember was Miles. Every time she met a man, she compared him to Miles. Some utterly splendid man would be introduced to her and all she’d think was, he moves his hands too quickly or some other such nonsense. And one night, she’d allowed a man to kiss her in the garden. She’d caught herself just before she brought her heel down on his little toes, but she couldn’t keep herself from wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. The poor man’d been terribly insulted.
Elizabeth tried very hard, but not a single man even interested her. As the days passed, she wished she could see Bronwyn and ask advice. She was considering writing a letter when the bottom dropped out of her world.
A haggard, wasted Roger returned bearing the mutilated body of Brian.
Elizabeth greeted him but Roger merely looked through her as he tenderly carried Brian’s body upstairs and locked himself in a room. For two days he stayed locked inside with Brian’s body and when he emerged, his eyes were sunken and black.