Ashblane's Lady

“I want Falstone’s sister, I want his land and I want his life.”

The wound was making Alex light-headed, for the image of Madeleine’s naked pale limbs entwined about his own kept surfacing. And resurfacing.

Angrily he slammed his clay goblet down. He remembered the living flame of her hair as she had been bustled from the room and the cool feel of her skin when she had touched his hand.

I can help you.

Alex shook his head in disquiet. She was a hostage, that was all.

Ashblane’s Lady

Harlequin® Historical #838

Available from Harlequin® Historical and SOPHIA JAMES

Fallen Angel #171

Ashblane’s Lady #838

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Ashblane’s Lady

Sophia James

Bonny Laird of Ullyot

Oh, bold border ranger

Dark vengeance and danger

Stalk thee relentless

’Tween Jedburgh and Sark

On come the reivers

And wily South thievers

Hail, soldiers of Ashblane

Fight on till the end

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Epilogue

Chapter One

Heathwater Castle, northwest England.

30 September, 1358

‘There is a grounde called the Debatable Grounde, lying between the Realme of England and Scotland…’

‘Ian!’

The anguished keening cry of a name travelled on the wind over Heathwater as Laird Alexander Ullyot tore off his jacket and rocked back and forth across the dead body of his clansman.

Lady Madeleine Randwick, watching from the woods, could barely believe such emotion to come from him, for the Chief of the clan of Ullyot, born and bred in the Scottish Highlands and the bastard son of a royal father who had never claimed him, was far better known for his cruelty and callousness.

And she could well understand why. With the rain pouring down in earnest, his face looked hewn from cold hard marble. Not pretty. Not comely. No young man’s face this, full of dreams and promises, but a worn and tried visage underscored by danger and seasoned by tragedy. The scar that ran across his right cheek and into the hairline of his dark blond hair could be seen even from this distance, lending him a hardened beauty that took Madeleine’s breath away. No healer worth her salt had worked on him, she thought, folding her cloak across the brightness of her hair as his double-handed claymore caught the sun.

Lord, if he saw her!

Crouching lower, she viewed the oozing wounds on his arm and back dispassionately. A deep gash might well poison his blood. With intent, she weighed up her options. If he died, her brother might relax his guard around Heathwater, giving her the chance she needed to escape.

Escape from Noel and Liam and Heathwater. How long had she dreamed of that? She was about to turn away when she noticed his shoulders shaking.

He was crying.

The hated Laird of Ullyot, scourge of the borderlands and instigator of a hundred bloody battles, was crying as he brought the fingers of the one he mourned to his lips in a tender last embrace.

Madeleine stayed still, the image of muscle and war-toughened invincibility strangely disconcerting against such grief. She noticed him stiffen as soon as he perceived a sound from further down the valley, the dirt on his hands marking his face as he swiped his eyes and stood, glance chilling and sword drawn.

So this was her enemy close up. This man, whose land ran north of her own along the border of Scotland and joined with the tracts of her brother’s domain west of the River Esk.

She sensed his awareness of being watched as he scanned the undergrowth on the hillock behind her, but the arrival of a group of Ullyot men drew his attention away. She could hear his deep voice relaying orders as the bodies of fallen friends were separated from foe and placed on a dray pulled by two horses. She wondered where his own horse was, her curiosity appeased a moment later as he tilted his head and whistled to a steed of the deepest black. With a growing fear, Madeleine burrowed back into the root space and tried to recall all she had ever heard of the clan Ullyot.

Ashblane.

His keep hewn of stone, tall and windowless, the little light allowed in banished by dirtied cattle skin. Terence, her brother’s servant, had told her this once just after her mother had died. A cautionary tale, she had guessed, to balance her own lot against that of others, for no one could live more bleakly than Alexander, the powerful and arrogant Chief of Ullyot.

The bodies had been stacked now and angry drifts of conversation reached her fleetingly before the rising wind snatched them away and pulled at the plaid Ullyot had draped across the faces of his fallen. The dirty tartan was stained in red. His arm, she supposed. Or his nose. Or the slash she could see deep across his back as he turned, the marks of battle mingling with the rusty blush of blood.

His men crowded around him as if for comfort. Fleetingly she wondered who would give him comfort, the wayward thought catching her as being so absurd that she had to stifle a laugh. A man like Ullyot would need no comfort, no cosiness nor succour to lighten his way. The Laird had chosen his pathway, after all, and rumour had it that it did not include the support of anyone or anything. Loneliness was his code, and hatred his inspiration.

Glancing up at the sky, she tried to judge the time of day as the party disappeared through the wooded hills leading to the river. She dared not start for Heathwater Castle till the sun was lower, the ridges protecting her only marginally from the scouts and sentries she knew would be posted until the Ullyot party was well out of sight. Resisting the urge to creep forward to tend to any of her brother’s men, she stayed still until she could be certain that they truly had gone. Already she could imagine the knells and peels of the chapel bells at Noel’s castle, and she dreaded going back. Dreaded seeing the mothers of sons lying fallen, the colour of the Ullyot plaid not shading their faces as the cold and rolling mists settled in from the Scottish Lowlands.

An hour or so later Madeleine deemed it safe to move, and she had almost reached the line of trees where she had instructed her sister—dressed, as always, as her page and who was safer here than at Heathwater—to wait, when a movement caught her attention. One of the Ullyot soldiers appeared out of nowhere and was shouting as he tracked into the glade, sword drawn. A prickling fear enveloped her. Something was wrong. Even from this far she could see that it was wrong.

‘Jemmie,’ she screamed and raised her hand, surprised to find it whipped behind her back in a punishing grip.

‘Keep still, lassie.’ The voice at her ear was deep and imbued with the tones of a Highland Scot, and her whole world narrowed as she turned.

It was him, Alexander Ullyot, and she had not heard even the whisper of a footstep.

Eyes of the palest silver ran across her from head to foot, narrowing as the nails on her right hand raked down the ragged flesh on his arm.

‘Cease,’ he cursed and pulled her against him, pulled her into sinew and muscle and war-sculptured bone. Pulled her into warmth and sweat and the tantalising scent of pure male. And for a second everything slowed.

Safety. Strength. Potency. When had she ever touched a man who felt like this? Who looked like this? Her breath fanned out against the wide bare skin at his throat and lust swamped her.

A warrior.

A fighter.

A leader who knew his worth in a land that gave no second chances to those who didn’t. She wanted to place her cheek against his chest and beg for refuge. She wanted to hold him as a shield against a world she could no longer fathom…did not want to fathom.

‘Who the hell are you?’

No angel’s voice. The anger grounded her, as did the blood from his shoulder, dark against her arm and powdered into blackness. He would likely kill her if she gave her name. Red dizziness blossomed and the beat of her heart angled into panic.

‘Who are you?’ he repeated, his hand clamped hard across her shoulders. Maddy’s breath caught and thickened and when she tried to turn to see what was happening to Jemmie, the roiling tunnel of blackness stripped her of balance and she tumbled into nothingness.

Chapter Two

Madeleine came to in a filthy cell littered with marsh reeds. Jemmie lay beside her, unconscious, the fastenings on her thin wrists mirroring her own; already the rats were grouping. The cote-hardie she had worn was gone and her kirtle had been overlaid with the Ullyot plaid, the squares of blue, red and black dull in this light and barely respectable given the linen on her shift was ripped in a number of places and the ties at her bodice cut. Shock made her tremble; even in the coldness of this day she was sweating. Why were they here? And where was here? Not Ashblane, she mused, for a banner draped across the wall showed the crest of the Armstrongs.

Her movement brought a face to the cell door. A gap-toothed man with long dirty hair peered in through the bars, though he covered his eyes with his hand as soon as he perceived her watching him.

‘She’s awake.’ The slippery vowels of Gaelic. She’d never learnt the language past the rudiments and could not catch the gist of the reply from further out.

The sackcloth surprised her as two men strode inside. As they wrapped it firmly around her head, she wondered why they should want to carry her this way and began fighting as soon as her wrists were released. She was rewarded with a harsh smack across her cheek and tears stung her eyes. These men would kill her. Fear throbbed deep as she listened to the passage they took. Up some stairs, she guessed, and into a room warmer than the others. The slight smell of charcoal assailed her nostrils, and also the more astringent aroma of sweat, as the men placed her on her feet.

‘Remove the covering.’ The voice was chilling and she straightened, her eyes blinking in the harsh and sudden lightness.

Laird Alexander Ullyot stood before her, flanked by two men almost as tall as he. He had not bathed since she had seen him last, though now he wore a coarse woollen over-jacket. The hard planes of his face in the glow of a banked fire were ominous, as were the leather bindings that anchored his left arm. She knew without being told that they hurt him, for he kept himself strangely still even as he held the attention of all those around him.

‘The Armstrong laird names you as Madeleine Randwick? Sister to Baron Noel Falstone of Heathwater? Is this the truth?’

Nodding, her glance fell to his heavy bladed falchion before regaining his face. The surprise she had noticed fleetingly a moment ago had escalated into anger as he strode forward, tipping her chin up and rubbing at the bruise on her cheekbone.

‘Who hit her?’

‘She struggled, Laird, and I had to—’

The man who had taken her from the cell got no further. A backhanded jab from Alexander Ullyot knocked him flat.

‘Replace him, Marcus.’

One of the men beside him nodded and Maddy felt heartened by the exchange, though Ullyot’s next words were not at all comforting.

‘You are a prisoner here, Lady Randwick. A hostage to make your brother see sense.’

‘He will not—’

‘Silence.’ The quiet order was more disconcerting than an outright shout. She noticed simultaneously the corded veins in his neck and the chips of dark silver in his eyes. She also saw the intricate crest that topped the gold ring on his little finger. The lion of Scotland! Danger spiralled into dizzying fear and she stumbled and would have fallen had he not come forward to steady her. His hand was cold and the hard shape of a dagger strapped in the fold of his sleeve unnerved her further. He felt the need to carry hidden weaponry even in the company of his own men and allies? What laws did he live by?

The answer came easily.

None.

Paling as the implications of her deduction hit her, she dug her nails into her arms to distract panic with pain, ceasing only when she caught him looking at the red crescents left on her skin.

Distaste crept into slate-cold eyes. ‘Why were ye there? In the dying fields?’

She blanched. Could he think her part of the battle? ‘I am a healer,’ she said, defiantly.

‘A healer, is it? Rumour says differently,’ Ullyot said with distaste. ‘Quinlan, take her back to the dungeon.’

‘No.’

‘No?’ A light of warmth had finally entered his eyes, though the effect in a face etched with none was unsettling. ‘You would question me?’ He stood so close now she could see the blond tips on his lashes. Long eyelashes and sooty at the base.

‘There are rats.’ The laughter of those around her made her jump and she fought to hide fear. The ill-tied plaid she was dressed in dropped below the line of the torn kirtle and she noticed keen eyes upon her breasts. Just another humiliation—she sighed and edged the warmer wool up with shaking arms.

‘Take her back.’

‘Please. If it’s money you are after I can pay you. Handsomely.’ Every man she had ever known had his price, although this one’s frown was not promising.

‘It’s flesh and blood I’m wanting from your brother, Lady Randwick. Gold canna’bring back those men that I have lost.’

‘So you mean to kill us?’

Before she could say more he placed one hand around the column of her throat and squeezed gently. ‘Unlike your brother, I do not kill women and children.’

She felt the breath leave her body in a sharp punch of relief, though a new worry threatened. She had seen what Noel did to the captives at Heathwater and rape could be as brutal as murder.

A living death.

And such harm could come from any number of these men present. Indeed, when she looked around the room she saw many eyes brush across her body as the Ullyot soldiers contemplated their share of the easy spoils of battle.

Summoning courage, she stood her ground as Alexander Ullyot’s eyes darkened, fathomless for ever, eyes drenched in the colder undertones of sorrow. Grief juxtaposed with fury. Grief for the man he had cradled and wept over. Madeleine was lost in what she saw.

‘I can help you.’ Her words came from nowhere and she felt him start as she laid her fingers across the heated skin of his hand. Grief was as much of an ailment as the ague or an aching stomach, and the healer in her sought a remedy.

‘I do not need your help.’ He snatched away his arm, angrier now than when she had first been brought into the room. ‘Take her away.’

The irritable bark of instruction was quickly obeyed as two men stepped forward, though as she looked back she saw that he still watched her. Framed against the light, the Ullyot laird looked like a man from legend: huge, ruthless and unyielding. But something else played in the very depths of his pale eyes. Something she had seen before many times on the faces of many men.

Interest. Lust. Desire.

She smiled as he was lost from sight and bent her thoughts to wondering as to how she could best use this to her own advantage.

‘What do ye think of her, Alex?’

Quinlan’s voice penetrated Alexander’s thoughts as he upended his glass. ‘Madeleine Randwick looks rather more like a dirty angel than the conniving heartless witch it is said that she is.’

‘She’s taller than I thought she would be.’

‘And a thousand times more beautiful, aye?’

Anger levelled him. ‘A pretty face can be as deceiving as a plain one, Quinlan.’

‘She was scared of the rats.’

‘Then get rid of them.’

‘The rats?’

‘Tomorrow we leave for Ashblane and we’ve not the time to waste transporting a sick woman. Put her in another room and post a guard at the door.’

He made himself stop. His left shoulder throbbed, the paste the physician had applied to the wound searing into the flesh. As he tried to lift his arm the breath caught in his throat, his heart pounding with the effort it had taken.

Ian. Dead.

Everything was changed. Diminished.

‘Damn Noel Falstone to hell,’ he whispered fiercely and walked to the window, trying to search out the dark shape of the Cheviots to the east and tensing as Adam Armstrong came to stand beside him.

‘I am sorry. I ken how close you and Ian were and—’

Alex held up his hand. Anger was far easier to deal with than sympathy and much more satisfying. ‘I should have ridden into Heathwater with the men I had left and flushed the bastard out. Ian would have done that for me were I to have been lying on the cold slab of your chapel with the salt upon my belly.’

‘And you’d have died doing it.’ Adam, as always, sought the calm logic of reason. ‘Nay, far better to wait and continue the fight on another day when the element of surprise is on your side and you are not so battle-wearied. Besides, you are wounded. At least let me see to your arm.’

‘No. Hale has already done so.’ Moving back, Alex brought his left arm into his body. He wanted no one close. No one to see what he could feel. The wound was not small and he was far from home. Tomorrow when they reached Ashblane there would be time enough. For the moment, here in the keep of the Armstrongs, he wanted control. Or at least the illusion of it, he amended, as a wave of dizziness sent him down to the chair beside the table.

‘Ian should’na have come with so few men.’

‘Why did he, then?’ Interest was plain in Adam’s voice and, pouring himself another draught of ale, Alex was pleased for the distraction. It gave him a moment to swallow and settle the nausea. When he felt steadier he began to speak, though the beat of his heart was constant in his ears, the normal tones of his speech masked by rushing blood.

‘Noel Falstone had burnt down cottages and taken womenfolk from a village west of Ashblane, and Ian left in fury before I had a chance to join him. If he had waited, we could have hit the bastard together.’

‘Waited?’

‘I have been away in Edinburgh with the King.’

‘And when the King knows of the Falstone treachery? Will he act?’

‘Our liege lord has lost heart after his long captivity under the English and prefers diplomacy these days to battle.’ Alex was careful with his words.

‘You may well be right; besides, David will’na slay a man as wily as the Baron Falstone no matter what the provocation. He is too useful to him with his lands on the border and the Marches completely in disarray.’

‘Which is exactly why I will have to do it myself.’ Alex pulled himself up. This time the room did not sway. ‘Falstone is a braggart and a risk taker. Bur he is also a man of habit. He spends each January in Egremont and travels by way of Carlisle with only a small guard of men. He thinks himself safe.’

‘You could not breach the sanctity of England so far south. Not like that.’

‘Could I not?’ His eyes hardened.

‘As it is now, you stand in favour with the King. Imperil the treaty and you will lose Ashblane under the banner of treason. No one could save you.’

‘No one will see me.’

‘You would not wear the plaid? Lord, let me warn you of the pitfalls in this pathway. David may be your kin, but he is first and foremost King and he allows you Ashblane as a royal fortress. Should there be any instability here, any hint of falseness…?’ He spread out his hands across the table in a quietly eloquent gesture. ‘I am your friend, Alex, and from my experience men with a single purpose often bury their logic to define what they were not sure of in the first place. Take your clan safe back to Ashblane where Falstone cannot harm you, neither in siege nor battle. And while you are at that, toss the Randwick woman back to her brother with a note of clemency. Falstone may even thank you for it and David certainly will with the ink on the parchment of the Berwick Treaty hardly dry.’

Anger exploded as Alexander drew himself up from the chair and threw the last dregs of his ale into the fire.

‘It is not thanks I am seeking,’ he growled and watched as the pure alcohol caught with alacrity and the flames licked upward. ‘Nay, Adam. Vengeance is what I want. I want Falstone’s sister, I want his land and I want his life.’

‘And the de Cargne sorcery? How will you still that in Madeleine Randwick when it is said she can make a man believe anything?’

This time Alex did laugh. ‘You’ve a strange way to interpret the Holy Scripture. Thou shall not worship false idols, and are not sorcery and witchery the falsest of them all? If it is the magic you fear, then do so no longer, for the Bible would’na countenance the existence of such inexplicable unreason.’

Adam Armstrong brought his hand down hard. ‘You have stayed in the world of warfare for too long, Alexander, and strayed from the gentler teachings of God, so do not lecture me on the interpretation of scripture. The border lore is full of the tales of the de Cargne women whether you deem to listen or not. Josephine Anthony. Eleanor de Cargne. And now Madeleine Randwick. She uses her beauty to tie men to promises they canna remember making when they wake in her bed come the dawn. Strong men. Brave men. Brought down by the wiles of a witch.’

Alex took a deep breath and groped for normality. One more day and he would be at Ashblane. Twenty-four hours and the malady of what burned in his bones could be healed. Aye, the wound was making him light-headed, for the image of Madeleine Randwick’s naked pale limbs entwined about his own kept surfacing. And resurfacing.

Angrily he slammed his clay goblet down. He remembered the living flame of her hair as she had been bustled from the room and the cool feel of her skin when she had touched his hand.

I can help you.

He shook his head in disquiet. She was a hostage, that was all. A valuable means of vengeance and retribution when expediency demanded he find a way to exact conditions from the rampant greed of her brother.

A convenient pawn. A woman whose very name was synonymous with treason and immorality.

The Black Widow of Heathwater.

With an angry swipe at the ale beside him he upended the bottle and felt the pain in his arm numb. She would be gone before the week’s end. He swore it. And Ashblane would stay safe.

She had hardly got back to her cell when the man named Quinlan came down the stairs.

‘Unshackle her,’ he called to the guard and waited as this was done.

Maddy tensed—she had seen the anger in the Laird of Ullyot’s eyes. Had he rethought his plan and sent his minion to kill her? Panic made her struggle and pull back.

‘Where are you taking me?’ Deciding indignation was the best way to push her advantage further, she stood.

‘To a room without rats.’ His reply was measured, and the humour in his words struck her as odd. She struggled to make sense of it all.