Highland Steel (Guardians of the Stone Book 2) (15 page)

Her name is Lael.

Simply Lael.

By the king’s decree, she was no longer a prisoner meant to be forgotten. Nor was her name to remain
simply Lael
. Nay, but regardless, he could never have forgotten her, with those unsettling green eyes, so bright in color that it brought to mind spring’s first pale blades of grass.

He stared hard into the rising flames, and had a vision of Lael at the head of an army, riding proudly on the back of a dancing white steed—a warrior princess with flowing ebony hair and eyes so compelling a man would die to fight at her side.

He had to remind himself she’d fought to seat Broc Ceannfhionn, not the other way around, but either case was treason. For all his loyal service David had aligned him with a treasonous shrew.
Devil hang him!
If David wished him dead, he should have ordered a quick beheading rather than consign him to sleep night after night worrying about waking—or not waking—with a blade to his neck.

“Is there room for one more?” Luc asked, appearing at his side.

Jaime was uncharacteristically distracted. “One more?”

The lad grinned up at him. “On the pyre,” he said and nodded toward the blaze.

Jaime shot the lad a beleaguered glance for his endless well of good humor, and he had the good sense to appear chastened. There was a time and place for jests and this was not it. He arched a brow. “Are you perchance looking to join them?”

“Nay, my lord,” Luc replied, and fidgeted uncomfortably. Jaime allowed him a brief moment to squirm, intent upon helping him learn his place. After all, this was now their
home
—amidst men who would as soon see them both dead. Simply because their fathers were fellows and Jaime liked the lad was not enough reason to allow him to endanger himself or others with a lack of sobriety. “’Tis but… well, they discovered… a body… in the gaols,” the lad stammered.

Jaime assumed that perhaps one of the attackers had fallen after last night’s battle and only now had been found. “Bring him up. Put him on the pyre,” he commanded, then turned back to assess the fire. It was slowly licking its way over the mound of dead. “There’s still time,” he said.

“Uh… ’tis no man,” Luc replied.

Jaime’s gaze skidded back to his squire. A sense of terror shot through his veins. He feared at once for Lael, and had a sudden vision of her skewered through by the guards—no doubt prompted by her acid tongue.

He didn’t wait to hear more. He left the squire standing open-mouthed beside the pyre and sprinted toward the chapel.

The body belonged to Aveline of Teviotdale.

It was the most gruesome discovery Lael had ever beheld. Only moments prior she’d been thinking of the girl, and it was almost as though she’d sensed her presence even before they’d discovered her body.

Bloodstained though it was, the Teviotdale coat of arms was emblazoned upon the cloak the girl lay wrapped in. Too badly decomposed to determine precisely how or when she’d died, her mouth was frozen in a ghastly scream, stuffed with a wad of cloth. Her hands were gnarled, her fingers bent to claws, as though she’d died attempting to scratch her way out of the wretched box. In fact, there were desperate claw marks along the ceiling of her tomb, bloodstains marking the wood.

Had Rogan buried the girl alive?

The possibility horrified Lael.

Before they began to dig in earnest, they removed Lael from her cell and shoved her into Broc’s, but no matter how much she didn’t wish to watch the grisly disinterment she didn’t have much choice. No one but the diggers themselves had a better view and she clung to Broc in the farthest reaches of his cell. Yet despite her sense of horror, she could not bring herself to look away. Even when Broc attempted to make her turn her head, she refused.

“Now we ken why the chapel doors were locked,” remarked one of the two diggers. Another half-dozen onlookers were crammed into the tunnel, watching the excavation unfold.

Only months ago—how long?—Aveline had been a guest of theirs at Dubhtolargg. And although Lael had not much liked the whiney lass, and in truth had wished her gone, she would never,
never
have wished such a terrible end for the poor girl. Aveline had begged Aidan to send her back to Rogan. She’d come to her brother, weeping—nay, begging—to be released from her duties as Lìli’s maid, because she’d wanted so desperately to bear her babe here at Keppenach… near the child’s father. Lael could scarce bear the notion that she might have played a part in seeing the girl to her gruesome demise, because Lael herself had nearly begged Aidan to let the girl go home.

Only now did she realize that Rogan was more a monster than anyone knew. Oh, they had known he wasn’t a particularly good man, but this—
this
—was a sin greater than any sin Lael would have placed upon his shoulders.

She remembered the night he’d died at her brother’s hands and was heartily glad Aidan left his bones to be picked clean by the wolves. The arrogant bastard had nearly killed Lìli and her boy, and it was in that instant when Lael spied the fear in young Kellen’s eyes as he ran away from Rogan that she had fully embraced her brother’s new family.

But she hadn’t known about Aveline then.

Apparently Rogan murdered her sometime before that night, and then buried her alive where no one could hear her anguished screams. And just to be certain no one stumbled upon his crime, he’d padlocked the chapel doors to keep anyone from wandering into the church and into the hidden tunnels.

Indeed, no wonder the doors were locked.

“Christ… she’s got a babe,” announced one of the diggers, and Lael gagged—even knowing the girl had said she was quickening with child. At last, unable to bear it, she buried her head against Broc’s shoulder and tried to block out the sounds. But it was in precisely that instant the Butcher made his appearance. She felt him before she saw him. His presence was unmistakable from the instant he walked in through the door. As tall as he was—nearly as tall as Broc—the top of his head grazed the tunnel’s ceiling. His men parted before him like trees bending before a wind, but he said not a word. He spared her but a single glance, glowering at her before dismissing her.

Lael sucked in a breath and held onto Broc for support, dizzy, and sick to her belly. The Butcher walked past and stood, peering into the adjoining cell, and for a moment, Lael watched him unheeded, unable to keep herself from it. His throat bobbed at what he spied through the open door and he moved closer to examine the grave. Only then did his gaze return to Lael.

Her body prickled, as though he’d actually touched her.

“Who found her?” he asked the men at large.

“The dún Scoti wench,” one of his lackeys replied. “William said the bitch was attempting to escape.”

His arm snaked out so fast Lael barely saw him move, but he was suddenly gripping the man’s arm in his fist, halting the shovel’s thrust. He muttered something beneath his breath that she could not hear, and she pushed herself away from Broc. “I was only attempting to bury the pine marten. They left it in my cell.” She pointed at the beast that one of the diggers had kicked aside to avoid stepping on it.

Once more, the Butcher tore his gaze away, and the sensation was purely physical, and he turned to glare at the man whose arm remained clasped within his steely grip.

Jaime found himself incensed in Lael’s behalf.

It was one thing to lock her up, yet another to abuse her and call her a bitch. Already, he’d cautioned his men against their treatment of Broc Ceannfhionn. As far as he was concerned, whatever else the man might be, he was still a man, and not even David who had so much to lose in this conflict, would see another human being mistreated in the name of peace.

God’s teeth! Half the reason they were embroiled in the nature of this campaign was because David preferred politiks to war.

Unfortunately, he had a sense that David’s politiks might also be responsible for the girl who now lay girded by earth and consigned to bones.

Whilst his man expounded upon the state of the dead girl’s bloated body, Lael’s eyes spoke to Jaime in a language he understood only too well. She was the enemy, soon to be his wife, but at the instant she was naught more than a frightened lass, with a vulnerability in her gaze that not even she seemed wholly aware of. At her side the blond giant silently pleaded in her behalf.

Are they lovers then?

It would certainly explain much.

Hard-pressed to keep his mind on the macabre discovery in the adjoining cell, Jaime nevertheless felt a surge of relief to find her not merely alive, but alive and well if the state of her tongue was any indication. He’d feared the worst, thinking she’d finally pushed one of his guards too far. His gaze traveled the length of her, wanting to be entirely certain she was unharmed. And thank God, she was, albeit once again as dirty as a London waif.

He stood there, half listening to his man explain how the event unfolded, and could scarce think of anything more than how relieved he was to find his bride unharmed.

“Enough!”

“My lord?”

“Unlock the cell,” Jaime directed. “Return
Lael
to the tower.”

When they didn’t move quickly enough, standing there as though they hadn’t quite heard him aright, he narrowed his gaze.

“
Now
,” he demanded.

Two men jumped at once to do his bidding and another asked, “What should we do with the body, laird?”

Forcing himself to dismiss Lael for the moment, Jaime took a somewhat longer look into the adjoining cell, examining the evidence they’d uncovered.

A body, shriveled and black, lay twisted in an ungodly position, as though the poor lass were struggling to squeeze herself out of any small crack. Her mouth was open wide, her neck twisted backwards so that her eyeless sockets peered into the corner of her small, dark tomb. Her pale green dress was stained with what Jaime knew must be her own blood. A shovel rested beside her waist, and the material of her gown was torn, revealing yet another form—small but distinct.

Unexpectedly, bile rose in his throat. He had seen far more blood and gore on the battlefield than most, but no death was ever so grotesque as this. Whoever had entombed this girl had a sick and twisted mind.

For some odd reason, he thought of Rogan’s steward, but the girl was far too decomposed to be a recent burial. However, there was still much Maddog had yet to answer for, not the least of which was his appropriation of the laird’s chamber. Fortunately for him, presumptuousness was hardly the same as murder and there was little doubt in Jaime’s mind: Someone intentionally buried this girl alive.

He sighed heavily, thinking of Teviotdale. Her father was a piggish reiver, but no man deserved to see his daughter end this way. Better to offer the girl the dignity of a funeral pyre. “Be certain there’s naught of consequence left in the box. Remove her cloak so we can return it to her sire, then take the box in its entirety and place it upon the pyre.”

“Aye, my laird.”

His men returned to the excavation and Jaime spun to face Broc Ceannfhionn. “What are you to Lael?”

Both men stared at one another for an uncomfortable moment, and Broc’s jaw tightened visibly. His blue eyes were assessing. “If ye harm a hair on her head,
Butcher
, I’ll be the death o’ ye yet—in this world or in the next.”

“I have no intention of harming her, though I do expect an answer to my question.”

Silence met his demand.

“Why do ye care?” the other man asked, his blue eyes gleaming shrewdly. “What’s it to ye,
Butcher
?”

An inexplicable wave of jealousy washed over Jaime at the thought of Broc’s or any other man’s hands upon the woman who would soon be his wife. Some part of him understood that Broc’s highest impulse was to protect the lass, but he’d be damned if he’d explain himself to a prisoner of war, and particularly this one. He was fortunate enough that Jaime had spared him the gallows.

The two locked gazes, like bulls in a pen.

However, fortunately for Broc, Jaime did not live by his sword. He saw the futility of engaging Broc in a battle of wills. He recognized the stubborn strength in the man’s gaze. The inevitable end would be his death and Jaime wasn’t prepared to make that decision. Not yet.

Prideful bastard.

Jaime held his gaze another moment, ceding for the time being. “Ye’d best hope she shares your devotion,” he warned, and then he turned and left the blond with just those words.

Let the man chew upon his threat and wonder what he meant.

For Jaime’s part, he was wholly incensed that with but a simple, unexpected decree from David he now suddenly found himself dealing with emotions he found foreign and entirely unwelcome—not all of which were specific to his dún Scoti bride.

Suddenly, he wanted far more than a capitulating wife.

He wanted a home.

He wanted what his father never had.

He wanted, in truth, to be the new laird of Keppenach.