The Raider (Highland Guard #8)(87)

Her stomach twisted with fear and anxiety through the long night. It must have revealed itself on her face, for not long after dawn broke Sir Alex rode up next to her. “Try not to think about it, my lady. We will find out what happened soon enough.”

She nodded, a lump growing in her throat as the emotions she’d kept bottled inside all night threatened to erupt at his show of compassion. “I’m not sure I want to know. Whatever happens, I fear the result.”

His gaze held hers with understanding. “’Tis often how I feel. It is not easy having friends on both sides and constantly being caught between the two. With my lands so close to the border, it’s a position I’ve faced many times myself.”

“How do you deal with it?”

“I don’t. Not very well at least.”

“I can’t bear the thought of anyone being hurt. What do you think has happened?”

He gave her a sad look, as if he knew what she wanted to hear but wouldn’t lie to her. “If Boyd catches up to them, your brother’s men are dead.”

She paled, feeling ill, knowing he was right. And if Robbie did kill them, it would make it that much harder for her to convince Cliff to agree to a match between them.

But Sir Alex was wrong about one thing. “Those were not my brother’s men—they were Sir Henry’s.”

“I thought you only saw one. How can you be so sure Clifford did not have a part in it?”

She didn’t know, but she was. “Cliff wouldn’t do something so risky.” So rash. “Something that would put me in danger like that.”

Sir Alex studied her for a long pause. “I hope you are right, my lady. If Boyd believes your brother has broken the truce…” He let his voice fall off.

An ominous chill swept over her, making her skin prickle. She didn’t want to ask. “What?”

Sir Alex’s mouth fell in a hard line. For a moment, he looked just as grim and forbidding as Robbie had before she left. In that instant she saw not the Golden Knight, but the hard edge that had made Sir Alex part of the band of rebels.

“I don’t know. But he will use whatever weapon he has at his disposal to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Me. He means me.

Rosalin shook her head. “He won’t hurt me.”

“Nay, not physically, but I fear—” He stopped. “Have care, my lady. That is all I’m saying. If you put yourself in the middle of this battle, you cannot win.”

He spoke like a man who knew what he was talking about.

Rosalin was surprised that he’d guessed the direction of her thoughts so easily—were her hopes for the future so transparent? If the sympathetic look Sir Alex was giving her was any indication, they must be.

Embarrassed, and not a little discouraged, she was glad when one of the men riding ahead turned and said something to Sir Alex in Gaelic, pointing in the direction of a small village that had just appeared in the distance.

In the soft light of early morning, with the swirls of mist gently dissipating like smoke from a pipe, the village on the grassy strath below them looked almost enchanted—like something from a mystical bard’s tale.

Straddling both sides of a wide, winding river, the stone and thatched cottages appeared so quiet and peaceful. The slate roof of a sizable church with a turreted tower in the center of town rose high above everything else. She scanned the buildings again. For a village of this size, there should be a castle. She felt her first whisper of premonition when her gaze snagged on a large empty area not far from the church on the banks of the river. Except it wasn’t empty, she realized. From the distance, she could just make out large piles of stone scattered haphazardly about.

“What is it?” she asked.

Sir Alex turned to her, his expression strangely blank. “We’re almost there.”

“Where?”

He paused. “Douglas.”

Her eyes widened in horror, as her stomach took a sharp dive. He might as well have said hell. For a Clifford, the village of Douglas was tantamount to the same thing. Her brother had tried for years to hold this land—and its castle—making plenty of enemies along the way.

“Castle Dangerous” it had been called by the garrisons sent by Cliff to hold the Douglas stronghold, and for good reason. Three times the Black Douglas had attacked and burned his own castle, including the infamous episode of the “Douglas Larder” that she knew Robbie had been involved in. The last had occurred about a year ago, and the castle had been destroyed—by Douglas himself. How could Robbie send her here, into the very heart and dominion of her family’s greatest enemy?

“You have nothing to fear, my lady,” Sir Alex said, trying to ease her rising panic. “You will be safe here.”

“Safe? Surrounded by people who would probably like nothing more than to sink a dagger into my back?” She gave a harsh, bordering on hysterical, laugh. “I did not try to escape, but it seems Robbie is making sure of it. Am I to be thrown into a pit prison after all?”

“You will be treated with every consideration. I know it seems hard to believe, but trust me, you have nothing to fear. Joanna Douglas is not like her husband.”

A short while later, when Rosalin was welcomed to Park Castle like a long-lost relative (replete with gasps of horror at what she’d been through and concerned pats of her hands) by a woman who was as beautiful and sweet-looking as her husband was dark and frightening, Rosalin was forced to concede Sir Alex was right: Joanna Douglas was nothing like her husband. In truth, she seemed more like the cherub she resembled than the devil’s consort. Perhaps he’d abducted her?