The Knight (Highland Guard #7.5)(15)

“Now!” he shouted. “A Douglas!”

The men echoed the battle cry behind him, racing from their cover in the trees. If it had been like a rug had been pulled out from under them before, when the fleeing Englishmen met James and his men it was as if they’d run straight into a wall. They seemed to crumple in a slow backward wave as English horseflesh and mail met the steel wall of the Scottish pikes.

After the initial strike, James led the charge, swinging his two-handed great sword in a long, deadly arc into the ribs of the English coward who’d turned and broken first. The force of the blow took the man from his saddle. He landed in a dead heap at James’s feet. Perhaps a dozen Englishmen remained. But wedged between the score of Scotsmen attacking from both sides, they had nowhere to go.

James fought his way toward the center, dodging blows of a hammer and an axe as he wound through the tangle of soldiers to the commander, who’d been dismounted.

He saw the flicker of recognition in De Wilton’s gaze—and fear. To his credit, the knight did not balk. He held steady, swinging his sword around to meet him. But it was the bravado of a dead man. For that’s what he was. De Wilton had sealed his fate the moment James had learned of his interest in Jo.

James attacked with a vengeance, anger and jealousy lending a brutal edge to his blows. To James’s surprise, De Wilton held him off, blocking every crushing swing of James’s blade with his own. The clamor of steel on steel thundered in his ears, reverberating in his bones. The Englishman’s skill only made James angrier.

Vaguely he was aware of the frenzied fight going on around him and the noise of the castle attack behind him, but his focus was locked on the man struggling to hold him off. With two hands, De Wilton held his sword defensively inches from his head, where James’s blade was poised over him. De Wilton’s arms were shaking with the struggle to keep the blade back, but James used his height to press. Below the edge of his steel helm, James could see the knight’s pain. His face was red, his teeth were clenched, and veins were bulging in his temples.

De Wilton might be strong.

But James was stronger.

Slowly the knight lowered to his knees, James’s sword inching closer and closer to his head.

Their eyes met. Enemy-to-enemy. Knight-to-knight.

“Yield,” De Wilton gritted out. “Damn it, I yield.”

James didn’t want to hear him. He kept pressing. Kept inching closer to the deadly victory he craved.

What mercy had the English shown his father? None. They’d shown him none.

“Damn it, Douglas, he said he yields.”

Seton’s voice penetrated the frenzied veil of battle, pricking something James didn’t want it to: his conscience.

James stared in frustration and anger at the warrior who’d come up beside him. He saw the condemnation in his friend’s gaze.

“This isn’t who we are,” Seton said.

Knights. They were knights. With a code that he was supposed to ascribe to, even if at times he would like to forget it.

James warred with himself. De Wilton was barely holding on. One more push and he would be crushed. He wanted this man’s death, wanted it badly. But Seton’s words had come perilously close to Jo’s. It was her voice he heard now. It was her voice that stayed his hand.

With a furious oath, he lifted his sword and moved back from the knight that had been moments from death.

Seton gave him a short nod and started to move off.

De Wilton’s sword had fallen to his side, but out of the corner of his eye, James caught a movement. The knight was reaching for something at his waist. De Wilton grabbed hold of something and started to pull it out.

Instinct took hold, and James reacted. Spinning around, he whipped his sword across the other man’s neck. The steel of De Wilton’s armor prevented the blow from cleaving him in two, but he fell to his side, blood spurting from the deadly wound.

That’s what James got for showing mercy. A knife in the back.

“What in Hades?” Seton said, turning at the sound.

“He was reaching for a blade,” James replied before moving off.

He left Seton standing there and headed toward the castle, shocked to realize the battle was over. There wasn’t an Englishman left standing.

One of the men Boyd had taken with him ran out to meet him. “We’ve taken the gate, my lord,” he said. “The rest of the garrison has retreated into the tower and are asking for terms, but Boyd says we can take it. He awaits your instructions.”

“Tell him to take it,” James said. “Kill them all.”

“Wait,” Seton demanded angrily, coming up behind him. “Before you condemn those men to death, you need to see this.”

Like Joanna, James had had enough of Seton’s interference. Still he asked, “See what?”

“What the knight you just killed was reaching for.”

To James’s surprise, it wasn’t a blade that Seton held out but a piece of parchment.

He scanned the words, his heart sinking with every flourishing stroke of ink on the page. His stomach sank.

Ah hell.

Joanna was awakened by the loud roar of a cheer echoing through the floor of the bedchamber that she shared with her three younger sisters. Her two brothers—also younger—were away being fostered.

It was her sisters’ presence in the room that had prevented Joanna from completely falling apart upon returning from her disastrous meeting with James yesterday. Though she suspected sixteen-year-old Eleanor had noticed her red-rimmed eyes and tear-stained cheeks, thirteen-year-old Constance and twelve-year-old Agnes were too busy arguing over a lost silk ribbon to pay any attention to their older sister’s shattered emotions.