Four days later
The forest was restless.
Caderyn "Black Cade" MacLachlainn, clan chieftain and one of the most feared warriors in the Highlands, whispered words from a tongue long since forgotten by most men. The wind obeyed his soft command, soaring overhead to move the clouds obscuring his sunlight. The trees before him bent away for him to see the path beneath him more clearly. Ferns tickled his exposed arms and neck, and the calming scent of earth tempered his impatience.
With his belly pressed to the ground, and his senses filled with nature, he was able to suppress the restless pacing of seillie sorcery in his blood to focus on why he was hiding in the first place.
"This isna right," whispered the raven-haired, steely-eyed warrior hidden beneath the brush to his left. His cousin, Niall, bore scars across his face and spoke with a mild lisp, both traits that helped him keep his longtime vow of celibacy, as no woman wanted near him.
"Nay," Cade agreed. "'Tis not."
"What 'tis it?" Father Adam's voice was too loud for their situation. He was to be forgiven, however, because of his age, which rendered his eyes weak and his hearing even weaker. The only non-seillie in the clan, he relied upon the men around him to explain the magic he could not sense.
"The wind speaks to us, Father," Niall replied.
"No more rain, Cade. Yer foul mood is worse than yer wine," Father Adam grumbled.
"Tis not a storm, Father." Cade glanced at the sky. His magic played out across the heavens, altering the weather according to his mood. He had been concerned of late, hence the previous fortnight of hard rain.
"Then what?" Father Adam asked.
She is coming. The message, accompanied by the faint tickle of the wind, swept across Cade and his cousins.
"That canna be good," Brian, the third member of his trusted advisors, murmured from his right. With a pleasant face women swooned over, he was unlike Niall in appearance but no less deadly in battle. Niall and Brian were close enough to his age for them all to have been raised together under the tutelage of Father Adam.
"Nothin' good ne'er came from a woman," Niall agreed.
"Unless she has gold," Cade said.
A horse bearing two forms appeared on the road at the bottom of the hill, and they grew still and quiet once more, observing the ancient gelding and its ill-dressed riders.
"There isna room for gold," Cade said. "Ye assured ye read it well?" He twisted from his position to see the elderly priest leaning on his cane behind him.
"Me eyes are no' so good, but yea," came the response. The priest of Norman birth had wandered the Highlands preaching Christianity for many years before being adopted by Cade's father. Since becoming a clan member, he had the task of reading the written word to the rest of the clan. "A great lord sent message of a precious gift destined for clan MacDonald from the English court as reward for MacDonald sending all his warriors to the Crusades."
"Methinks ye are too old to see yer own nose, Father." A hardened man of battle, Niall's tone carried warmth he reserved for his priest and cousins.
"'Tis yer wine. That swill willna keep a man young."
Always the wine. Cade snorted. "In time, old man, ye'll 'ave yer good wine. I am land rich and gold poor."
"Yer land poor, too, cousin," Niall pointed out. "We'll be cast out 'fore winter."
"Yea but I have a plan." Cade scowled at the reminder of the dire situation of his clan. He left the Highlands with his cousins when they were barely men to fight for gold and titles in the Crusades, only to come away poorer than before.
When Cade returned bearing nothing more than the warrior name Black Cade, it was to a clan with no chief, no land, no gold and no home. His father's death and empty coffers had sentenced his clan to wander the countryside and rob passersby to survive. Cade had since improved their lot in the three years he had been home by selling his sword and making allies of lairds who paid him in grain, sheep and silver.
His greatest triumph since leaving the Holy Lands: the keep where his clan was housed, albeit for a short time. Had he more gold, he could possess it longer. Robbing travelers kept his kin fed but wasn't enough to buy them a home, and he had finally agreed to humor the proposal of a wealthy clan chieftain who wished to marry his daughter off to Cade.
Even so, he had not given up hope of finding the gold to allow his clan to remain where they were, close to the seillie's ancestral lands lost by his wastrel of a father.
The streak of darkness within him, leftover from the Holy Lands, stirred, and black clouds began to form overhead in response.
"Cease yer worry, cousin," Brian murmured to him.
With his emotions written across the sky, Cade was unable to hide his concern from his cousins. He focused once more on the scene beneath the small hill where his raiding party waited. He was expecting a wagon filled with gold or other precious items.
Instead, there were two people on horseback with not a saddlebag in sight.
"What d'ye want us to do?" Niall crouched beside him. The rugged, muscle bound man was uglier than usual when he frowned.
"Take 'em to the keep. Perchance we can ransom them, if they 'ave no gold. I'll scout behind them t'see if there's more." Disappointed, Cade shook his head and climbed to his feet. He easily stood a head taller than the members of his clan. His cousins alone came close to his height. "Englishmen canna be trusted, even in their letters."
He moved a short distance away from the overlook, where their horses waited, and slung his muscular frame into the saddle of his favorite warhorse, a gelding with a tan coat. "Adam," he called to the priest.
The robed man did not move, and Cade realized how much the priest had aged recently. He barely saw and heard much anymore.
"Niall, tell the old man t'stay here this time!" Cade said in irritation.
Niall waved to show he heard and tapped the elder on the shoulder.
Wheeling his horse, Cade maneuvered through the forest. The sky had grown dark in response to his agitation. The first rays of morning stretched across the eastern sky, though clouds were racing towards the blue and sun.
Dawn was one of the two times preferred by his mother's people. The second – twilight, when seillie sorcery was strongest. The weather always changed faster during these two times as well, in response to the influence of his magic. By the time he reached the path the two on horseback had traveled, clouds had overtaken the blue sky completely.
He scouted a quick route behind the trespassers, venturing no farther than a league before turning back. He did not expect to find a wagon filled with gold and yet, he had hoped to find more than he did. The days before he had to choose between wedding a woman he had never met, and seeing his clan thrown out of their home, were waning. He needed gold before the harvest moon, or he would be forced to wed. If so many lives did not depend upon him, he would never consider marriage, not after how much the Crusades had changed him.
Death had become a daily rite in the Holy Lands, until one day, he felt nothing – and became nothing more than a beast who did not care who fell beneath his sword. He had left the Light Court and treaded into the unseillie waters to save his cousins and men, a path that could never be reversed. It left him scarred, dark, and distrusting of himself, for he was no longer the same man he had once been.
He certainly did not trust himself with a non-seillie wife, who would be more vulnerable to the darkness in him, and he dared not expose a clan of pure men to the seillies hiding in their midst. If the Christian armies of the world had converged on the Saracens, what would they do to learn the seillies, and their magic, were more than legend? He risked the lives of his clan by exposing them to men and a religion that allowed for no other god but one.
But with no home, there would be no MacLachlainn kin who survived the harsh Highland winter. The seillie would perish.
Dread was heavy in his gullet, and he admitted secretly he did not see a way for him to save his kin from every danger facing them. This left him troubled, which caused it to rain harder than usual in late Highland summer.
Cade turned his horse and trotted down the path towards the raid party. There was a time when he was not burdened by such reflection, when he thought no further than of how he was going to live through the day.
He ordered the dark clouds gathering above the forest to hold their rain. His mood was ill, and he, too, wished for a few days of sunlight but doubted they would see them before winter.
As he neared the bend in the road, Brian hurried to meet him, a smile upon his face. The youngest of the three of them, he alone had not lost his love of laughing during their ordeals, and his blue eyes gleamed with warmth.
"If ye come to tell me Father Adam set hisself upon 'em again, I doona wanna hear it," Cade said.
"Nay. This will beguile even you, Cade." Brian drew alongside him. "A noble wench demands t'see the leader of our band of swill-drunk reavers."
Cade raised his eyebrows. "Did she call us such?"
"It wasna what she said but how."
"I canna stand nobles."
"The lass is English."
"English? Here?" Cade's brow furrowed. "She's far from home."
"Yea."
"Remove her belongings and bid her farewell. I doona want English in my hold."
"Nay, Cade. Ye must see her."
Cade bit back a response. His mood grew graver by the day, and it was not his cousin's fault. An English noblewoman, however, would not be spared his anger. He held no love for the English after his interactions with them in the Crusades.
They reached the ring his men had formed around the horse and traveler. Cade dismounted, somewhat irritated to see no one had bothered to tie the form at the center or strip the horse of trappings that could be sold for a few coppers. All he could tell about the noblewoman from behind was that she had narrow shoulders, a well-made cloak and auburn hair coiled in a bun.
"I thought there were two," he said to Niall, pausing beside his cousin.
"Yea. One fled when she saw our banner."
"Why did ye not-"
"Are you the lord over these men?"
He looked up at the soft voice and froze. The woman before him was beautiful in an ethereal way: perfect of features, from almond-shaped blue eyes surrounded by long eyelashes to clear skin, high cheekbones and plump lips that were naturally rose in color. There was an exotic tint to her face he was unable to pin down, a sense of vulnerable beauty similar to that of his mother's kin. The seillie women were said to lure men into traps with their beauty alone. He had never believed it possible for a woman not of seillie birth to possess such beauty.
Young and slight of frame, she bore the haughty carriage of nobility. Her gaze was direct, unusually so for an Englishwoman, though perhaps it was her rank that gave her the sense of equal footing with men. An instinct stirred within him, one of warning. Despite her riveting looks, this woman reeked of danger.
He studied her, unable to understand what bothered him, aside from the memory of his two unpleasant interactions with English ladies. "Yea. I'm their laird," he said and folded his arms across his chest.
"Do you intend to escort me to my journey's end or to take me hostage?" she asked boldly.
"Hostage," he replied, amused.
"Very well. I am prepared." She clutched a satchel to her chest.
"Tell him who ye are, lass," Niall said. He was trying hard not to smile.
"I am the wife of Black Cade," she proclaimed. "I assure you that he will not take kindly to you mistreating me."
Surprise rendered Cade speechless. One of the men behind him covered a laugh with a series of coughs. "How come ye to ..." He stopped, suddenly suspicious. An English noble appeared in his forest claiming to be his wife? It was treachery of some sort, one that left him unsettled – and wary. One Englishman had known where to find him, a fellow warrior Cade had befriended and adopted into his Highland army in the Holy Lands and then left behind in a Saracen prison.
Cade had not heard talk of the scarred knight, known as Saxony, surviving the ordeal. He had been too mad to know his own name when Cade last saw him let alone tell anyone where to find Cade. If Saxony had not perished, why did he send this woman to find Cade with a tale this outlandish?
"How did ye come t'be Black Cade's wife?" Cade asked. "Are ye no English?"
"The King of England decreed it."
"The English king has no power here, lass," Cade said, unable to stop the chuckle that escaped. He had a wife, as ordered by the English king? It was better than any war tale he had heard regaled around the evening bonfire.
"Then the King of Scotland decreed it," she said, gaze sliding away from his briefly.
"We doona listen to our king either," Niall said.
The lass is hiding much, Cade assessed.
"Does Black Cade ken?" Brian asked.
"Of course he does. You cannot become betrothed without both parties knowing," she replied.
Brian turned away, his laughter loud enough to draw the attention of the noblewoman. Her cold look was unamused.
Cade cleared his throat. "Ye have a name, Lady Cade?"
"Lady Isabel de Clare, daughter of Baron William. I have the writ sealed by His Grace's hand announcing our betrothal."
Cade's interest increased. She spoke like a polished noblewoman yet wore the clothing of a young man: tunic, trews, overtunic and boots. An old bruise had not quite disappeared from one cheek, and the skin around her eyes and lips was tight. The daughter of a baron certainly never knew hardship and had no reason to dress in man's clothing.
"Then ye are betrothed, not wed," Cade clarified.
"There is no distinction between the two. Either way, 'tis a fate worse than death for a woman."
"Lass, the difference between betrothed and wed is the difference between a nun and a woman with four children at her feet." Cade approached and circled her, imagining the feminine shape beneath the manly clothing. Her hands were delicate without any sign of callouses and her nails clean. Her hair smelled faintly of lavender. Her fur-lined cloak would fetch more than her horse. She bore some indications of wealth and others of poverty.
"As you please," she said with effort. "Do you consider yourself to be a man of honor, m'lord?"
He paused before her. "Yea."
The noblewoman leaned her head back to meet his gaze once more. He saw it then, something more concerning than an Englishwoman claiming to be his wife. Familiar shadows haunted her gaze. He innately recognized the suffering of another after his quest to the Holy Land. It was not solely what remained of his healing magic whispering to him. He had also spent nigh a year imprisoned at the hands of the Saracens and learnt what suffering was.
What did a woman of her rank know of great pain?
Pink rose to her cheeks under his steady stare. "Then I command ..."
He bristled, not about to be told what to do by an English king or a woman.
"... request, m'lord," she softened her tone, "that you treat me with honor. A noblewoman requires a level of consideration you may not be familiar with but which I will impart, if desired."
"Praytell." Cade took her jaw in one large hand and tilted her head to the side.
She winced without resisting. Her hands trembled, and she clenched them. "Wine, if you have it. Shelter from the cold, a pallet free of disease, and your protection."
"'Ye seek much for a hostage." Cade was uncertain when he last experienced interest this strong. The woman was vexing. She was tough yet vulnerable, scared and determined. Men ran or soiled themselves when they saw him on the battlefield or during his raids. The petite damsel afore him stood braver than almost every man he had ever faced.
"We can behave in a civilized manner," she whispered, fear sliding into her tone for the first time.
In the brightening light of the forest, he was able to see there was more than one bruise marring her face. They were faded, and he began to piece together what was before him. "Ye are no' accustomed to civilized," he observed. "Ye have no purse, no trappings befitting a noblewoman, nothing to slow you down. Yer either fleeing someone, Lady Cade, or yer an imposter with a bard's tongue."
She flushed. Anger glittered in her eyes, and she lifted her chin from his grip. "I am not an imposter!"
"Then who sent ye t'find Black Cade?"
"No one sent me! I came to find him, as is my right, according to royal decree. This is all that concerns you," she said firmly.
If ye had land, I'd wed ye before that MacDonald lass I'm all but betrothed to, Cade thought, looking her over again. She was spirited beneath the veneer of cold control she struggled to maintain. What was a woman with all the marks of rank and birth fleeing? And, more pressing, why did she think she was betrothed to him?
"So ye come t'wed Black Cade, the fiercest warrior in the lands," he mused, eyes on her pillowy lips. "What makes ye think he will take ye as his bride, if he doesna listen to your king?"
"I did not come to wedhim," she replied. "I came to take his life."