Page 130 of Come the Morning
She narrowed her eyes, staring at him. “Who are you?”
“Daro.”
She shook her head. “You are a coward, a liar. You’re not my uncle. Do you think that I don’t know my own uncle, my own kin? You bastard, how dare you use him, how—” she broke off, suddenly thinking that she did know the man. She didn’t know his name, or why he was so relentless, but she did know him.
“It’s you again. You think that you will convince Waryk that it is my uncle who is so determined to pillage, rape, maim, and kill our people. Well, he’s not a fool. He knows better. And he will catch you, and find out who you are, and—”
“You’d best shut up, Lady Mellyora. Neither your uncle nor your husband is here, lady. Your husband is quite possibly dead already, and if not, he will never reclaim what is his.”
She stared at the helmeted, nameless man who was her enemy and felt chilled. She pulled the surcoat more tightly to her.
“My husband is not dead.”
“Oh? And why not? He killed one of my men, but two remained to kill him.”
She shook her head, not wanting to tell him that she was certain his men had fallen.
“He has his father’s claymore. He will not be defeated,” she said.
“Well, other men carry their fathers’ swords, my lady, and that does not keep them alive,” he said sourly. “But no matter. We will reach Blue Isle before your husband—or his men, or the king’s men, if he is dead. And you will order the gates opened to admit us. We’ll have met with the rest of my men and Lord Renfrew’s forces, and once we’ve entered Blue Isle … well, it will be a Viking fortress again, my dear. You should be quite glad.”
The man’s plan was easy to understand—enter Blue Isle, and the walls were so formidable that the fortress was almostimpossible to take. But for him to believe that, even if Waryk were to be killed, he could reach the fortress without the king’s men coming for him was insane. And how and why he had plotted so relentlessly seemed equally insane. When one idea failed, he seemed ready to go to another, no matter how foolhardy or reckless.
“We’ll never reach Blue Isle.”
“We will, but even that will not matter, as long as I have you. I want the isle, of course. But there are things I want more.”
“What?” she asked warily.
He leaned toward her from his destrier. “Revenge, my lady.”
“Against me, my father, Waryk—”
“Ah! There you have it.”
“Why?”
“He killed my father, and worse. He killed Lord Renfrew, who would have made my family’s fortune, and given us position for all the years to come.”
“Your father fought Waryk?”
“You didn’t know your husband was a murderer, eh, lady?”
“I don’t believe that he is. I’ve seen him avoid bloodshed whenever he could. He’s reasoned when many a man would have drawn a sword. He’s not a murderer.”
The man suddenly drew his sword and pointed it at her throat. “I tell you he’s a murderer.”
She shrugged, trying to ignore the blade. “Kill me, if you think that it will hurt him. He didn’t choose to marry me.”
“But I understand that you’re carrying his child.”
She started, wondering how anyone could have known such an intimate detail. Angus? She felt sick suddenly, wondering if Angus, whom Waryk had trusted with his life and hers, could be a traitor to him. Everyone, it seemed, had Viking blood.
She tried to lie, though she had become more certain every day. “I don’t believe so.”
He dismounted from his horse, coming toward her. “Mellyora MacAdin, wild as the crags and hills and the windswept sea! Such a fighter! Well, my lady, you’re wrong about many things. No matter what comes, I will hurt your husband. He will bleed inside and out. I have you. And if you live, and he lives, he will wonder forever whose child you carried now. When it’s born, it will die. But he’ll have to wonder. He’ll always have to wonder. If he lives. If he dies, it won’t much matter. I’ll have Blue Isle. And like great Laird Waryk, I’ll keep you just the same. My wife.”
“I’ll never marry you! I have a husband—”
