Page 42 of The Scottish Bride
“My heart is my lady’s.” He stood, bringing her to her feet. “I know how tired you must be after our long journey.”
“So weary.” That was true. She had hardly slept the previous night and the day so far had been vexing. Glad for the brace of his hand, she moved away, aware of the guard’s scrutiny.
Liam Seton stooped to pick up her satchels, slinging them over his shoulder while his brother and cousin preceded them outside to see to the horses. When he took her elbow to guide her to the door, she lifted her chin as they passed the soldiers.
“Aye, very like her,” Parsley told his companions. “I would swear it. But she is that one’s wife. And he is mad for his lady, that is easy to see. Edward’s messenger, so he says.”
Mad for his lady? She glanced at Liam, who took his sword from its place against the door, sheathed it, then took her arm again. He smiled down at her and opened the door. She went still, seeing his tender expression, his brow lifted in question, noting the light in his eyes. Mad for her. For an instant, she felt warmth rush through her. The knight from the dream stood before her. She wanted that man, wanted that dream, that true companion.
The kiss that she could still feel on her lips had not been false. She was sure of that somehow—it had taken him by surprise just as it had taken her. That smile, the look in his eyes just now—those were genuine too. She did not want to think he could be anything other than what she saw in this moment.
“Give me that adoring smile again,” he said. “They are watching us.”
The words felt as cold to her as the rain whipping through the door. Sending him a scowl he surely deserved, she stepped past him.
Chapter Twelve
Breathing in thedamp, chilly air, Tamsin rode astride behind Liam, gripping his belt, gown tucked, cloak billowing. She leaned against his back as he set a good pace across rolling moorland under gray skies.
He said little, now again reaching behind to brace her with a steady hand as if he wanted to know she was secure. Looking around, she did not see Sir Gilchrist or Sir Finley. They had vanished over a hill a while ago, taking another route with Roc. Hoping none of them would be pursued, she kept glancing back anxiously.
The monastery was not far now, she knew, for she had traveled this way more than once with a Dalrinnie escort to visit Holyoak. The abbot kindly allowed her to study the books in their small library. Her sister Rowena had gone there occasionally too, assisting in the hospice located there. In that small Benedictine abbey, Tamsin would feel among friends. It would feel like a temporary sanctuary.
Yet, given the strict rules and integrity of the order, the abbot might insist she return to Dalrinnie or stay in a convent. She sighed, suddenly uncertain, still hoping she could count on them as friends when she needed help.
“Is something wrong, my lady?” Liam Seton’s voice had a warm resonance that she instinctively trusted. Yet she felt uncertain about him as well.
“Just tired. Are you sure we were not followed by that patrol?”
“They may return to Dalrinnie to report to Comyn. But we are in luck. The rain is lifting and the ice melting.” He urged the stallion to a canter.
She clung to his belt, noticing the muscled power of his long legs and the sure guidance he gave the horse. But she also felt urgency thrumming in him like a brooding storm. He seemed driven, determined; she sensed it in his wary glance, in his long silences as they rode. No longer her supposed husband, he was her grim and dutiful escort with a mission to accomplish and little to say.
Drawing her cloak closer, she watched the horizon for the familiar profile of Holyoak Abbey, with its wooden palisade walls and fieldstone bell tower, the whole set on the rise of a hill near a long curving loch. The waters that filled that blue crescent flowed eastward as the Yarrow Water. Beyond lay Ettrick Forest, and on the far side of that vast green sward lay Selkirk, where she must accomplish her mission.
But suddenly she wanted to disappear, never arrive at the monastery, never see Comyn again, never follow King Edward’s orders to surrender the Rhymer’s work. She closed her eyes, fighting tears, fatigue, frustration.
Seton glanced back as if he sensed that change in her. “Aye?”
“Aye, well enough.” She was tempted to tell him her thoughts, craving the tenderness he had shown at the inn. Tears pulled and she dashed them away. She could not submit to some sentimental need to trust a harper, an outlaw, a sometime knight. God only knew what he wanted, for the man did not share his thoughts readily.
She needed desperately to trust someone, and she felt so keenly drawn to this man now that she only felt more frustration. Suddenly she wished he would keep riding fast andfar to disappear over the next hill and the next, taking her with him, never stopping until they reached some distant hideaway. If only she could be with him, with his gruff kindness, even his secrets, they could discover trust, freedom, truth between them. Foolish as it seemed, she felt it could be so.
But she was only indulging a dream. He was not the knight of dreams, but a man with secrets. She was on her own and must sort this out for herself, even amid uncertainty.
Then she heard the bell. The sound rang through the air, rich and true, faint with distance. A chill wind streamed past, lifting her braid like a banner. She tucked it away.
“Holyoak’s bell,” she said, as it rang out again, three more times. “I thought it was telling the hour, but they are still ringing it.”
“It is not a call to prayers. They are sounding it against the weather.”
“The weather?”
“That old bell is said to improve the weather when rung. It is inscribed for it.”
“Inscribed?” She leaned to look up at him. He slowed the horse, varying the pace, adjusting the reins.
“‘Ego sum qui dissipo tonitrua,’” he quoted. “‘I am the one who dispels the thunder.’”
