Page 1 of When A Laird Loves A Lady
One
England, 1357
Faking her death would be simple. It was escapingher home that would be difficult. Marion de Lacy stared hard into the slowlydarkening sky, thinking about the plan she intended to put into actiontomorrow—if all went well—but growing uneasiness tightened her belly. Fromwhere she stood in the bailey, she counted the guards up in the tower. It wasnot her imagination: Father had tripled the knights keeping guard at all times,as if he was expecting trouble.
Taking a deep breath of the dampair, she pulled her mother’s cloak tighter around her to ward off the twilightchill. A lump lodged in her throat as the wool scratched her neck. In the manyyears since her mother had been gone, Marion had both hated and loved thiscloak for the death and life it represented. Her mother’s freesia scent hadlongsince faded from the garment, yet simply calling up a memory of her motherwearing it gave Marion comfort.
She rubbed her fingers against therough material. When she fled, she couldn’t chance taking anything with her butthe clothes on her body and this cloak. Her death had to appear accidental, andthe cloak that everyone knew she prized would ensure her freedom. Finding ittangled in the branches at the edge of the sea cliff ought to be just the thingto convince her father and William Froste that she’d drowned. After all,neither man thought she could swim. They didn’t truly care about her anyway.Her marriage to the blackhearted knight was only about what her hand could givethe two men. Her father, Baron de Lacy, wanted more power, and Froste wantedher family’s prized land. A match made in Heaven, if only the match didn’tinvolve her…but it did.
Father would set the hounds of Hellthemselves to track her down if he had the slightest suspicion that she wasstill alive. She was an inestimable possession to be given to secure Froste’sunwavering allegiance and, therefore, that of the renowned ferocious knightswho served him. Whatever small sliver of hope she had that her father wouldgrant her mercy and not marry her to Froste had been destroyed by the lashingshe’d received when she’d pleaded for him to do so.
The moon crested above thewatchtower, reminding her why she was out here so close to mealtime: to meetAngus. The Scotsman may have been her father’s stable master, but he washerally, and when he’d proposed she flee England for Scotland, she’d readily consented.
Marion looked to the west, thedirection from which Angus would return from Newcastle. He should be back anyminute now from meeting his cousin and clansman Neil, who was to escort her toScotland. She prayed all was set and that Angus’s kin was ready to depart. Withher wedding to Froste to take place in six days, she wanted to be far awaybefore there was even the slightest chance he’d be making his way here. Andsince he was set to arrive the night before the wedding, leaving tomorrowpromised she’d not encounter him.
A sense of urgency enveloped her,and Marion forced herself to stroll across the bailey toward the gatehouse thatled to the tunnel preceding the drawbridge. She couldn’t risk raising suspicionfrom the tower guards. At the gatehouse, she nodded to Albert, one of theknights who operated the drawbridge mechanism. He was young and rarelyquestioned her excursions to pick flowers or find herbs.
“Off to get some medicine?” heinquired.
“Yes,” she lied with a smile and alittle pang of guilt. But this was survival, she reminded herself as sheentered the tunnel. When she exited the heavy wooden door that led to freedom,she wasn’t surprised to find Peter and Andrew not yet up in the twin towersthat flanked the entrance to the drawbridge. It was, after all, time for thechanging of the guard.
They smiled at her as they put ontheir helmets and demi-gauntlets. They were an imposing presence to any whocrossed the drawbridge and dared to approach the castle gate. Both men weretall and looked particularly daunting in their full armor, which Fatherinsisted upon at all times. The men were certainly a fortress in their ownright.
She nodded to them. “I’ll not belong. I want to gather some more flowers for the supper table.” Her voicedidn’t even wobble with the lie.
Peter grinned at her, his kindbrown eyes crinkling at the edges. “Will you pick me one of those pale winterflowers for my wife again, Marion?”
She returned his smile. “It tookaway her anger as I said it would, didn’t it?”
“It did,” he replied. “You alwaysknow just how to help with her.”
“I’ll get a pink one if I can findit. The colors are becoming scarcer as the weather cools.”
Andrew, the younger of the twoknights, smiled, displaying a set of straight teeth. He held up his coveredarm. “My cut is almost healed.”
Marion nodded. “I told you! Nowmaybe you’ll listen to me sooner next time you’re wounded in training.”
He gave a soft laugh. “I will.Should I put more of your paste on tonight?”
“Yes, keep using it. I’ll have togather some more yarrow, if I can find any, and mix up another batch of themedicine for you.” And she’d have to do it before she escaped. “I better getgoing if I’m going to find those things.” She knew she should not have agreedto search for the flowers and offered to find the yarrow when she still had tospeak to Angus and return to the castle in time for supper, but both men hadbeen kind to her when many had not. It was her way of thanking them.
After Peter lowered the bridge andopened the door, she departed the castle grounds, considering her plan oncemore. Had she forgotten anything? She didn’t think so. She was simply going towalk straight out of her father’s castle and never come back. Tomorrow, she’dannounce she was going out to collect more winter blooms, and then, instead,she would go down to the edge of the cliff overlooking the sea. She would slipoff her cloak and leave it for a search party to find. Her breath caught deepinherchestat the simple yet dangerous plot. The last detail to see to was Angus.
She stared down the long dirt paththat led to the sea and stilled, listening for hoofbeats. A slight vibration ofthe ground tingled her feet, and her heart sped in hopeful anticipation that itwas Angus coming down the dirt road on his horse. When the crafty stable masterappeared with a grin spread across his face, the worry that was squeezing herheart loosened. For the first time since he had ridden out that morning, shetook a proper breath. He stopped his stallion alongside her and dismounted.
She tilted her head back to look upat him as he towered over her. An errant thought struck. “Angus, are all Scotsas tall as you?”
“Nay, but ye ken Scots are biggerthan all the wee Englishmen.” Suppressed laughter filled his deep voice. “Soeven the ones nae as tall as me are giants compared te the scrawny men here.”
“You’re teasing me,” she replied,even as she arched her eyebrows in uncertainty.
“A wee bit,” he agreed and tousledher hair. The laughter vanished from his eyes as he rubbed a hand over hissquare jaw and then stared down his bumpy nose at her, fixing what he calledhis “lecturing look” on her. “We’ve nae much time. Neil is in Newcastle just ashe’s supposed te be, but there’s been a slight change.”
She frowned. “For the last month,every time I wanted to simply make haste and flee, you refused my suggestion,and now you say there’s a slight change?”
His ruddy complexion darkened.She’d pricked that MacLeod temper her mother had always said Angus’s clan wasknown for throughout the Isle of Skye, where they lived in the farthest reachesof Scotland. Marion could remember her mother chuckling and teasing Angus abouthow no one knew the MacLeod temperament better than their neighboring clan, theMacDonalds of Sleat, to which her mother had been born. The two clans had ahistory of feuding.
Angus cleared his throat andrecaptured Marion’s attention. Without warning, his hand closed over hershoulder, and he squeezed gently. “I’m sorry te say it so plain, but ye mustdie at once.”
