"Help," he added.
"Aye," she said, in exasperation, "that had been my plan. I even brought clothes with me for such an event, you great horse's arse."
He grunted, but seemingly had nothing to say.
Amanda pursed her lips. Perhaps he was merely a Scottish clansman, lost on the wrong side of the border. She stood there with his arm across her neck, leaned back against him, and gave that more thought. Perhaps he was a Scottish clansman who had been robbed and left for dead on her father's land. That, too, was possible.
But where had he been going? What business had he been about? Where was he from in truth?
Well, wherever he was from, he was chilly. She stroked his forearm across her throat absently. She couldn't help but have some bit of sympathy for a man who had been trapped in this bloody place for the whole of the night, cold, hungry—
He sneezed all of the sudden.
"Exactly," Amanda said.
He lowered his arm far enough for her to ease herself away from him. She pulled Nicholas's clothes from beneath her tunic and turned to face him.
"Here," she said. "Take these."
He accepted the clothes with a look of surprise, then hesitated, as if he wasn't sure what to say.
"Thank you?" she prompted.
"Thank you," he repeated, his pronunciation of that, at least, without flaw.
The guards were still making noises of alarm. Amanda turned her back on the prisoner to give him some privacy and made motions for the guards to be silent.
She waited, tapping her foot as she stood there in that very chilly dungeon and listened to the man dressing behind her. When he stopped making noise, she turned to find him wearing her brother's clothes. He was, however, quite still.
He was staring at his shoes.
Not that she could blame him. Unfortunately, the only shoes she'd been able to find were the slippers that Nicholas wore—under very loud protests, of course—to court, or when royalty descended upon Artane. They looked exceptionally ridiculous on the muscular man in front of her, but they looked equally as ridiculous on Nicholas, so perhaps there was nothing to be done about it. At least when Nicholas wore them, he was dressed in his finery. The man in front of her was dressed in rugged work clothing; dainty shoes were not a good addition.
And then he looked at her.
And Amanda wondered how it was she could be so warm in such a chilly place.
She was, as she desperately reminded herself, quite accustomed to the sight of very handsome men. There wasn't a man in her family that didn't cause women of all ages to either blush prettily at their winks, or fan themselves after the men in question had passed. She was unimpressed by a handsome face, unaffected by pleasing features, completely unmoved by strength of arm.
But somehow, despite her indifference to all those things, she found herself being quite undone just the same. There she stood in her father's uncomfortable dungeon, freezing and burning at the same time, staring into darkened eyes, and all she could do was wish desperately that she hadn't used so much soot on her face.
He reached out and touched her arm.
She tried to ignore that. It wasn't as if she hadn't touched men before. Indeed, she'd slapped several. But never in all her days had the mere touch of someone else's hand on her person left her so unsettled.
And there she was, on the verge of sending him away.
He slid his hand down her arm until he had enclosed her fingers with his own.
He pointed toward the open door.
Suddenly, the spell was broken. She had expected him to leave. Indeed, hadn't she come down here for just this purpose? Then why did it suddenly seem like the worst idea she'd ever had? And given how many ideas she'd had over the course of her life which had turned out to be quite bad ones indeed, that was saying something.
Before she thought better of it, she pulled him along behind her, ignoring the protests of the dungeon guards. Cook hardly looked up from the stirring of her pot, and the kitchen lads were too surprised to squeak.
The great hall was a bit more difficult. Her brothers were there, yawning and scratching. Sir Walter was hastily pulling his tunic over his head and bellowing for his squire to hand him his sword. But even he fell silent when he saw her with her baggage in tow. Sir Walter's men were scrambling to put themselves in some sort of defensive position. Amanda glared her open-mouthed brothers into submission but found the way blocked by Sir Walter and a contingent of his more intimidating lads.
"My lady," he began, "I must insist—"
"I insist, as well," she said firmly, pulling her stranger behind her. "A terrible mistake has been made."
"Aye, those shoes with that tunic," John muttered.
"Be silent, you fool," Amanda snapped. She turned back to Sir Walter and took a deep breath. "This is no peasant." His language aside, of course. "If we cannot offer a man of his obvious nobility a place at the table, then we must allow him the use of the gates. To hold him prisoner is to bring nothing but ruin down upon our very deserving heads."
"Oui," the man behind her said, his rich, melodious voice sounding every inch the educated, cultured lord.
A pity he couldn't seem to spew forth any other phrases that might make him sound less an idiot. Amanda almost turned to tell him as much, but the fight was in front of her, not behind.
"Let him go?" Sir Walter said doubtfully.
"What else are we to do?" Amanda asked. "Hold him here until his folk come seeking him and then lay siege to the castle in return for the insult to their lord? If you are bent on keeping him in the dungeon, best kill him now and toss his body by the wayside, so his people may find him there and think ruffians are responsible. And then you, Sir Walter, will have his blood on your hands, not I."
Sir Walter hesitated, a sure sign he was near to being bested. But he was, after all, an old and wily warrior and had not earned his reputation for relentlessness in battle for naught.
"And if we release him, how will we know he will return to his folk?" he asked. "Insult has already been done to him. It is possible he will lie in wait outside the gates, ready to take his vengeance."
"With us safely inside," she asked, "what does that matter?"
Sir Walter smiled pleasantly. "My thinking exactly. So, my lady Amanda, you are in agreement that until your elder brother or your sire returns, you will keep yourself within the gates? For safety's sake?"
Damn the man. The glint of victory in his eye was all too plain. She scowled at him, but saw no way to accomplish her desire without giving up something in return.
"I will not go outside the gates without an escort," she conceded. "But I also will not be kept prisoner in my own home. Not even for this man's sake will I go that far."
Sir Walter was no fool, and she supposed he knew he would get nothing else from her. He nodded in satisfaction.
"Done."
"Harrumph," she said as she pulled the reason for her loss of freedom along behind her. Men parted to allow her passage, but her brothers followed immediately, like a wake that could not be outswum.
"At least those are Nick's clothes," John said clearly. "And he won't miss the shoes."
"Shut up, John," Amanda said, wrenching open the front door. She pulled at her captive, but he wouldn't move. She turned to look at him.
There was, she had to admit, a look of genuine regret in his face.
"He's under her spell already," Montgomery said matter-of-factly. "Another one felled without a stroke."
"He's anxious to go home," Amanda said flatly. She looked at the man and nodded down the stairs. "This way," she said.
He wouldn't move. He pointed at her. "Amanda."
"Aye, well, that would be my name," she said briskly. "And yours?"
He stared at her blankly.
"He's daft," John noted, sounding rather disappointed by that discovery. "Perhaps that is why he was robbed. He was too big a fool to run."
"Perhaps 'tis merely because we don't speak his languag
e," Montgomery said. "I'll try Scots." He said something to him in what Amanda could only assume was Gaelic. Lord Pevensey had many Scottish retainers, lads he imported from over the border who didn't care if they served an Englishman or not. Montgomery was forever muttering in it, though he was the first to admit that he didn't know as much as he might have had Lord Pevensey given him but five heartbeats peace to breathe now and then.
The man looked at Montgomery in astonishment, then replied.
Amanda looked at her brother. "Well, what did he say?"
"I think," Montgomery said hesitantly, "that his name was Jake."
"Jake," Amanda repeated, the name feeling foreign and strange on her tongue. She looked at the man. "Jake?"
"Jackson Alexander Kilchurn," he said slowly. "IV."
"Kilchurn," she repeated. "IV."
"Jake."
"Jake."
John sighed in exasperation. "Just call him 'dolt' and be done. I for one would like to return to my bed!"
Amanda would have delivered the slap he deserved aside his head instead of to the empty air if he hadn't been so quick. She contented herself with a look of warning before she turned back to Jake.
Jackson Alexander Kilchurn IV. If that wasn't a Scottish name, and one made for a lord not a peasant, she didn't know what was. Aye, they would have made a mistake by confining him.
Even if that confinement would have meant she might have been able to see him now and then.
"A horse, then," she said, "and he'll be on his way." She looked up at Lord Kilchurn. "You're ready to go home?" she asked.
"You're ready to go home," he repeated, flawlessly.
"An imbecile," John grumbled. "And he looked so fierce…"
Amanda hissed for him to be still. She looked at Lord Kilchurn and found that he had offered his hand.
She paused.
That sweetness washed over her, the same feeling she had had the past pair of months every time she looked at her home, the same feeling she'd had when she first touched the man standing before her.
Home…
She felt, for the first time ever, as if she might have met someone she could be fond of. She could certainly spend many years looking into those beautiful eyes and finding herself not unhappy. That she was escorting him out of her father's front gates shouldn't have surprised her.
Poor lordly imbecile that he was.
He rubbed his head suddenly, as if it pained him, then waited for her to take his hand.
She did.
And to keep herself from making a complete fool of herself, she led her stranger to the stables, her brothers trailing along behind her, Sir Walter and his men trailing along behind them. Jake spent a goodly amount of time looking at his shoes as he walked, shaking his head as if he either couldn't believe he sported something so completely repulsive or he couldn't fathom that anyone would put those colors together and call it fashion. Amanda shared his opinion thoroughly, but refrained from comment.
She stopped at the entrance to the stables and waited until the stable master had come out. He bowed politely.
"Aye, my lady? Are you thinking to exercise your sire's finest again today?"
She looked at him archly. "I am a very good rider, Master Otto."
"Too good, I'd say," he replied, but with a polite nod. "Who will you have today?"
"Have we not some mount about who might bear this lord hence to his home?"
Master Otto looked Jake over, then nodded and retreated into the stables. He came out several minutes later leading a tall, black horse with a white blaze down his nose. The animal looked good-natured, but not overly polite. Amanda recognized him as one her father had bought a month or two ago. She'd never ridden him, preferring to see what sort of demon horses she could liberate from her father's stables. Perhaps Jake would find him to his liking.
Master Otto invited Jake to mount.
Jake stared at him blankly.
John made "I-said-as-much" noises that forced her to elbow him in the ribs. He coughed and fell blessedly silent.
"Montgomery, tell him he may take the horse."
"I don't know how to say horse in Scots," Montgomery said.
"Then say, 'Get up there and ride off,'" Amanda suggested. "Say anything!"
Montgomery said something. Jake considered, then shook his head with a smile. He made walking motions with his fingers.
"As I said," John muttered. "He's hopeless!"
Amanda could hardly believe her eyes. Was it possible this man, this handsome, powerful-looking man, could not ride? She stared at him in shock and a bit of dismay. Perhaps he was as John had said: a simpleton let loose from his village when someone failed to attend him closely enough.
But, by the saints, he was so handsome. She could hardly bring herself to believe he wasn't what he seemed.
Perfect.
Beautiful beyond belief.
"Show him the gates," John prodded, "before he forgets how to use his feet."
Jake sighed.
With regret, if anyone had noticed.
As if he might have liked to stay.
"Tell him to go, Montgomery," John said pointedly. "Before our sister swoons any further."
Montgomery sighed and said something to Jake. Jake replied, haltingly. Montgomery looked at Amanda.
"He said, and 'tis but a guess at that, that he's sorry to have to leave the table so quickly but stew stirred too much turns to mush."
Amanda considered.
Very well, so he was an imbecile. "Tell him he is free to go but to have a care. Ruffians abound, as he well knows. Can he find his village?"
Montgomery and the man attempted conversation for quite some time before Montgomery turned back to her.
"He hopes he can find his village. As I said, Mandy, his language is very weak. But he promises to be wary and thanks you for the hospitality of your cooking fire." Montgomery paused. "It sounds to me as if he learned his words at the cooking fire of an ill-humored Scottish grandmother."
Amanda blinked. "I daresay."
John blew out his breath and walked away.
Amanda gestured toward the gates in front of her. "There you are," she said to Jake. "Off with you, then."
He turned toward her. The next thing she knew, he had taken her face in his hands and was scrubbing off the soot. She stared up at him in surprise, then wished she hadn't. Daft though he might have been, and incapable of intelligible speech, she had to admit that he was quite magnificent.
And his touch made her tremble.
He smiled once more, then walked away.
Amanda stood amidst the activity that was normal fare for her father's home, and watched Jake for as long as she could. He stood taller than the groups of peasants as he made his way to the front gates and out. She watched until she couldn't see him anymore.
He did, she noted with something akin to satisfaction, turn himself about several times to look back at her.
When she could no longer see him, she turned but found her way blocked by Sir Walter and his men. She knew the steward didn't care for her roamings along the walls, and she was quite certain she could have told him to take himself and his men to the devil quite happily, but it had been a most tiresome morning already, and that, added to the intrigues and difficulties from the day before, and the trials leading up to that, had left her with great pains in her head.
She ignored the pain in her heart.
"I will take my ease in my chamber," she said regally.
"As you will, my lady," Sir Walter said, with a little bow.
She walked sedately inside the hall, giving one after the other of her younger brothers a shove when they tried to waylay her, and continued on to her chamber.
Then she bolted for the roof.
By the time she reached the west wall, Jake was leaving the village. She watched him until he was nothing but a speck in the distance. And then came the point when she wasn't sure if she was actually watching him or seeing motes in the morning air.
/>
Well, that was that. She was better off. He was beautiful, but lacking in wit. Her father never would have approved. Far better that she watch him leave before her heart was involved.
All the same, perhaps she would do well in a few hours to have herself a ride outside the gates. It wouldn't do to let a guest find himself assaulted by ruffians. And, as her father would be the first to say, lawlessness in the north was on the increase.
Aye, she would make certain Jackson Alexander Kilchurn IV hadn't been waylaid again.
* * *
Chapter 8
Jake walked along a dusty track, contemplating the twists and turns of Fate. He also contemplated the twists and turns of his pointy-toed shoes, but that was but a distraction from the irritation of tights that chafed. He decided, at one point, that Fate had a very vile sense of humor. As did Gideon de Piaget, whom Jake would repay for his current straits as soon as he possibly could.
That was assuming he could find Gideon to repay him. Jake scratched his head, but that didn't provide him with any decent answers—and answers were certainly what he needed at present.
He stuck his hands in his pockets only to realize he didn't have pockets, damn it, he had tights. He scowled. If he managed to get home, he would definitely have to find something else to wear right away or no one would ever take him seriously again. Not that anyone would, if they ever caught wind of where he'd just recently been.
Not that anyone would have believed him anyway. He wasn't sure he really believed it himself, except that the facts were almost beyond dispute.
There was the business in the great hall the night before, with everyone in their medieval costumes. Weird, but that could have been just a fluke. But waking in a dungeon? Twenty-first century Englishmen didn't put other men in holes under kitchens and leave them there for indeterminate lengths of time.
The language was another problem. He hadn't had all that much chance to familiarize himself with it the night before; the men sitting outside his cell had been remarkably uncommunicative. Still, what he had heard from them, and what he'd heard from Amanda had brought him to the unmistakable conclusion that she and her family spoke French. But it wasn't modern-day French.