The Knight's Broken Promise

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She shoved the comb back into her satchel. ‘Aye, I was coming to visit my sister, Irvette, her husband and their daughter.’

‘Maisie,’ he said, no question in his voice. ‘Maisie is their daughter.’

‘Aye.’ There was no need to hide the truth.

‘You buried your sister and her husband.’

She nodded. At night she had buried them and so many others. It was at night she had felt the heavy weight of both the living and the dead depending on her. Only then did she allow herself to feel her grief and her anger.

‘I couldn’t leave Irvette like that and I wouldn’t leave her husband, either.’

‘You stayed to bury the rest because of the children?’

‘Partly, but that’s not all.’ She tried to close out the vision of the night and her long trek down the hill, where the wind did not blow so hard and the moonlight obscured the remains of the village.

‘I have nightmares now. Not just because of what I saw, but—’ She stopped. It had been long, gruesome work moving the bodies to the garden. ‘I could hear the dead urging me to dig, you ken? I dug so hard the blisters on my hands broke, but the pain was sharp and dulled the ache in my ankle, allowing me to work faster.

‘Yet I couldn’t dig fast enough. Even in the cool of the night, I could smell the bodies and the flies swarmed. I moved, but the flies stayed on me as if they were waiting for me, as well.’

She shook her head. ‘But that wasn’t the worst. The worst was the sound the bodies made when they thudded into the grave I made.’

His gaze remained on the fire and she saw only his profile. She didn’t know what he was thinking.

‘I couldn’t make the graves deep enough to silence the sound,’ she said. ‘And it wasn’t the only sound they made.’

His brow furrowed, but he did not stop her speech.

‘I know you’ll think me mad, but I heard their voices, faint, coming from some other place, but loud enough for me to hear.’

She had to say it. ‘They thanked me,’ she confided. These were her most private thoughts, so personal she hadn’t thought she’d tell anyone, but somehow she knew he would understand what she spoke. ‘Thanked me for taking care of their children when they nae longer could.’

Robert’s hands jerked, but he remained silent. If he wasn’t sitting next to her, she would swear he wasn’t listening. How could he not hear what she was saying? Were her fears so easily dismissed?

‘But to what end?’ She gave a sort of hiccupped sob. ‘You’re not even going to help us.’

She was not mortified that her voice broke. She was beyond any pride. She was desperate. And afraid. And grieving. And he was going to leave her like this.

He breathed in raggedly. ‘This afternoon, I told you I was not helping you.’

She did not need reminders of the afternoon’s conversation.

‘But Alec came and you played with him,’ he continued. ‘Then you played with Maisie, too, and cared for Creighton and Flora. You smiled at them, gave them affection and yet, I knew you were distressed.’

‘Ach, there’s nae sense in self-pity.’ She batted at her cheeks and wished the tell-tale sign of any weakness would go away. ‘I’ve never shirked a chore in my life. And the children mean more than that to me. Much more. I made them a promise and I’m keeping it, with or without your help.’

‘I’ll take you to the nearest village.’ His voice was rushed with the release of his breath. It was as if the words escaped before he could stop them. ‘No further,’ he said more firmly. ‘It’ll be enough to get you an extra horse and further supplies.’

Instead of relief, her heart stabbed and tingled. He had given her some reprieve from her hardship ahead of her, but she knew it had been reluctant. It just added guilt to her already heavy heart. But she was in no position to refuse. She nodded and wiped her eyes with the back of her hands.

‘Aye,’ she whispered. ‘Only to the nearest village.’

He stood and moved as if he would leave, but then he stopped.

‘Gaira?’

She craned her neck to look up at him. His back was almost to her and he was looking over his shoulder. His body was fine and broad. She could see how his tunic stretched taut over the blades of his arm muscles, how his waist tapered to hose that were wrapped around legs sculpted from endurance and strength. The dim flickering fire did not allow her to see all the features of his face, but it did not matter. She felt his eyes, felt the return of the heat in them.

She felt her own body respond. She felt the sluggish heat of her blood, the shallow breath fill her lungs. Her clothing felt tight and confining.

It had to be her grief that left her feeing this raw, this open. She felt vulnerable to him, to thoughts he would not say.

‘Aye?’ she finally answered.

He did not touch her, but he might as well have been caressing her as the fire did. His eyes moved as if they were his hands. Not soft caresses of sight, but rough, consuming strokes of heat.

‘While I am with you,’ he spoke, his voice firm, ‘do not unbind your hair again.’

She hoped the dim fire hid her blush.

Chapter Nine (#ulink_9f1f95d1-28d4-5c66-8a96-02755a51ec53)

Busby did not quench his feeling of satisfaction. No, in fact, he let his pleasure be known as he flashed the crofter a menacing grin. He couldn’t help it. It was his nature. It was that exact nature that made the crofter give him the information he needed to find his fleeing betrothed.

It wasn’t as though she could hide from him anyway, even with her wearing lad’s clothing. She was tall and scrawny, but her long red hair was sure to catch someone’s attention, as was her riding a fine horse. A fine horse that was his.

Busby puffed out his chest and walked to his horse. He knew he cut a strapping figure wherever he went. He was a big man, bigger than most.

He loved the fear on people’s faces. The few crofter houses along the way were hardly a barrier to his questioning. In fact, the very first hut he knocked on, the resident had let him know a lass had ridden through less than two days ago.

Foolish wench to run in broad daylight where there could be witnesses. All he had to do was follow her, ask questions and eventually he would retrieve her.

Because running to her sister’s home and hiding would not dissolve her obligation to marrying him. His keep needed her. His children needed her.

He swung up on his horse, his lips thinning in disapproval. He probably would have already caught her if he didn’t have such a poor specimen of horseflesh to ride. He swallowed his anger.

He’d still get her. When he did, he would show her no leniency. If she wanted mercy, she wouldn’t have escaped, wouldn’t have jeopardised his twenty sheep and wouldn’t have taken his good horse.

* * *

Gaira woke the next day to no one trying to be quiet. Alec was crying, Flora was choking back sobs, Creighton was taking a log and banging it against a fallen one.

The racket woke Maisie, who was tightly wrapped in Gaira’s shawl. Loosening it, Gaira picked the young girl up. Maisie’s piercing scream went right into her ear and it took all her will not to add to the din herself.

It was not hard to spy Robert saddling the horses.

‘What are you doing?’ she shouted over the children.

He did not turn around. ‘Packing our things for the journey.’

‘You told them.’ She rocked Maisie back and forth until she quieted.

‘Aye, I did. It seemed necessary.’

Creighton stopped banging on the log, Alec stopped crying and even Flora’s sobs lessened in frequency. She was glad for the temporary quiet, but she didn’t want to have this conversation in front of them. ‘You had nae right. They are my responsibility.’

Every fibre of her being reverberated with the frustration she was feeling. She wanted to grab Creighton’s log, wanted to scream until her face turned as red as Maisie’s. Instead she took a few quick breaths to calm her heart.

Even before she had fallen asleep she’d had second thoughts about asking him to accompany them. She did not know him, did not know if he posed an even greater danger to them than the unknown.

But now he had told the children and there was no going back. By telling the children, he had subtly changed the leadership of their little group. She had asked him to help her on the trip, not to take over. She was still in charge. She didn’t want to be bullied again. She had had enough of overbearing men to last a lifetime.

‘Wait! Just wait. I need to take care of Maisie and I’d like to talk to the children myself.’

He did not seem surprised by her request. He just patted his horse’s neck and walked down towards the lake. She waited to address the children until she couldn’t see him.

Creighton was looking at her expectantly, Flora was looking at her hands folded in her lap and Alec seemed content to look for things in the grass.

She hoped that what she was about to tell them was the truth. There was too much left to chance. It was chance that her brothers would take the children, when they had done everything they could to get rid of their own sister. It was chance that Robert, despite being English, despite being a soldier, was a good man.

‘I’ve already told you of my home up north. My brothers are good and they’ll gladly take each of you in.’ She adjusted Maisie and could smell she was more than just wet. There was no time for a full change just yet. ‘But it’s far and there are dangers. I have asked Robert to take us part of the way there.’

Creighton grabbed the stick again.

Flora, anguish and surprise all over her face, said, ‘But, Auntie Gaira, he’s...he’s English. You said you’d protect us.’

Gaira knew that was coming, but to hear gentle Flora say the words still hurt. ‘I’d protect you with my life if necessary, Flora, all of you.’

‘But how can we trust him?’ Flora asked. ‘How do we not know if something bad will happen again?’

She had no answer to that. She didn’t know if something bad would happen again, didn’t know if Robert brought danger with him. But he had helped bury their kin and he had tamed his words for a little boy. It would have to be enough.

She had known these children for less than a week, but she knew she would do anything she could to take care of them. Anything. Including trusting a man she didn’t know.

‘I think the only way we are to trust him is how we’ve trusted each other already—on faith.’

Creighton banged once on the log. His eyes blazed, his lips thinned. It was not hard to see the man he’d look like with his eyes so full of anger. Her heart went to him. He was too young to be an adult.

‘Nae doona be thinking I’m taking this lightly, Creighton, because I’m not. Another horse will get us to shelter faster and having a man who knows how to trap and wield a sword are benefits I cannot just ignore.’

She went to a nearby tree and got down dry linen to change Maisie.

‘He may be English, but we’ll probably meet more along the way. I’d rather have one, who says he’ll help and has already proven himself, then someone who—’

She stopped. Flora had started crying again. She suddenly felt like crying, too. ‘I’m so sorry, Flora. To all of you, but I think this is something we have to do.’

She reached into her satchel, but didn’t feel anything. She yanked her arm out of the satchel, adjusted Maisie on her hip, flipped the satchel upside down and shook it. Empty and Alec was nowhere in sight.

‘Alec, where did you hide Maisie’s oatcakes?’

* * *

She left Maisie with Flora and walked down to the lake. She was done feeding Maisie, but Robert had not returned. She could wait no longer. Now that she had come to a decision, she was anxious to move.