Sophia James - Knight of Grace

The bile rose in his throat. Had it just been he, he might well have laid his hands around the slim column of her neck and squeezed the truth from her about what had happened to his brother.

But he couldn’t. Not with the fate of his people resting so firmly in her traitorous palms. Not with the threat of winter looming, close and long, and a hundred clan children who would not see the next spring should he take unwise retribution.

He hated the feeling of helpless anger he was suddenly consumed with. Hated the knowing smile on Grace Stanton’s face and the muted sobs of the group of yellow-haired girls. Hated Grantley and its luxury. Hated the problem of poverty he was faced with, and no way short of marriage and a rich wife to solve it.

When the front doors were opened by myriad servants, the opulence of the manor made him stop. The whole of the bottom floor of Belridden would have fitted into this one single salon, wealth screaming from each priceless piece of furniture. He wondered what Grace Stanton would make of the hall at his keep and knew the answer with a sinking heart. She would probably have one peek and burst into tears and take to her bed for a week. Wasn’t that the way of wealthy women?

Her bed. His bed? Their bed? Lord, he had not even had the time to think through the sleeping arrangements before being summoned south on the orders of his king. A niggling worm of doubt turned inside him.

To bed her?

To unpeel the high-necked gown from her body and discover the woman underneath. To enter her with the legality of the king’s missive between them and produce an heir? To see her stomach full swelled with the seed of his loins, ripe, womanly, available.

Even with his brother’s band on her finger, the idea was not repugnant. Not repelling. Nay, the very idea took on a breathless possibility and shimmered between them as they took their seats at the table.

Sensual. Shocking. Raw.

He noticed how she slid her chair as far away from him as she could manage.

‘S-S-Stephen will be here t-t-tomorrow.’

Her stutter made her strangely vulnerable and as their eyes caught close he saw something in them that garnered his pity. Pure and utter effort marked the velvet, and a light sweat beaded her upper lip.

‘We will be gone long before then, aye.’ No point in pretending otherwise. He was annoyed with his sudden want to make things a little easier for her. Annoyed, too, when the softness that had been in her eyes sharpened and she turned away.

A wife to provide a suitable heir. That was all he needed.

That and her sizeable dowry.

And as soon as he could rip Malcolm’s ring from her finger, he would.

Chapter Two

The party from Belridden hardly ate a thing.

They hardly touched the fowl or pork or salmon that appeared in course after course from the generous kitchens of Grantley. Nay, they sat there like a sullen solid wall of plaid and muscle and helped themselves to wine. But that was all.

Did they think the fare poisoned? Or was it food so unlike the nourishment at Belridden that they just could not steel themselves to try it?

A headache that had begun outside blossomed and the zigzagged beads of light that tore through Grace’s vision widened. She would be married under the name of God to a man she would only be able to half-see.

Blinking hard, she caught his glance.

No, his half-glance. One eye, no nose and the glimmer of a neck, and the rest of his body disappearing into jagged nothingness.

Wiping wet hair from her forehead, she no longer cared about the welts of thickened skin hidden beneath her fringe as she counted slowly backwards from one hundred. Sometimes that helped. Today it didn’t.

The arrival of Father O’Brian lifted the silence, his lilting accent welcomed.

‘I had it from the cottagers that the Kerr party were here, Lady Grace, and wondered when you’d be having a need of my services?’

He stopped as he came fully into the room and stared at the strangers opposite. She’d always thought Patrick O’Brian a large man, but compared to Lachlan Kerr he suddenly looked small. Still, to give him his due, the cleric tried to stand his ground as his eyes slid across the numerous swords. ‘I cannot marry you in battle gear, Laird Kerr. In the face of our Lord such a thing would be sacrilege.’

‘Then you cannae marry me at all,’ Kerr returned, no waver in his voice, just a cold, hard certainty. ‘And when ye don’t comply with the demands of your liege, the way forward from here for you might well be an uneasy one.’

Her uncle began to splutter, a red sheen covering his cheeks. Grace could see it because she had massaged the tight muscles in the back of her neck for the past two minutes and felt the instantaneous relief to the pain behind her eyes. As if by magic the spots of jagged light disappeared to be replaced by a headache. Dull. Heavy. Constant.

But she could see. See Lachlan Kerr’s anger and the gritted teeth of his twenty men. See the pale faces of her cousins and the nervous demeanour of both the priest and her uncle.

And in that moment Grace knew that, unless she took charge of this farce, everyone in her family would be at risk. More than at risk. Death lurked easy when one disobeyed the commands of the king, and her uncle’s building rage worried her the most.

‘I am certain that G-God’s will would not be slighted.’

Lord, if the Laird of Kerr were to walk out now she doubted the aged priest’s superiors would be easy on him for making such a mistake and the token of this truce to secure a fragile peace would be trampled beneath the weight of error.

Her cousins. Her uncle. Grantley.

In danger.

There was only one thing to do.

‘I w-wish to be m-married, now.’

Judith burst into tears and knocked over her wine, the red blush of it staining the tablecloth, a wider and wider blot along the pristine fold of linen. A sign? A portent? Was history repeated in such a simple action? The weight of uncertainty in Ginny’s eyes deepened and the smooth cold gold of Malcolm Kerr’s ring bound the past with the present.

Fickle and faithless and laughing, the secret of his death lay in the room like a shout, like a screaming echo of unrightness, like a shroud of shame that had brought them all to this pass, this penance.

Father O’Brian trembled against the lintel of the door, his fingers clutching the cross at his neck whilst he uttered a prayer, the dull monotones reflecting the mood as her uncle turned an even deeper shade of red.

Her wedding hour.

Chaos.

Her dress hanging in the corner of her cupboard, shrouded in calico. Unworn.

The flowers she had imagined to fashion into a fragrant bouquet, unpicked.

And a would-be husband that looked at her in the manner of a man who did not care at all.

‘ He will take my hand and stare into my eyes and a single tear will run down his handsome cheek as he tells me how much he loves me, adores me, cannot live without me, his finger softly tracing the smile on my face …’

Grace shook her head. How often had she told her cousins this story as she lay beside them in the hours before wakefulness became slumber, dream-time cameos where knights of honour and chivalry and faithfulness rode into Grantley demanding love. Her love, despite the itchy rash and cursed stutter. In these stories she had none of them. Even her hair was a less fiery shade of red.

Dreams?

Reality!

When Kerr dragged her into the space beside him, his hands were neither soft nor careful. When he demanded that the priest give the oath to bind them together, she heard hatred rather than love.

And when he gave her his answer two words kept repeating again and again in her head.