The Rock Read online

  She was tempted to stomp over there and berate him for the untruth—and indeed might have done exactly that—if someone else hadn’t beaten her to him.

  She stopped in her tracks as a woman, a very beautiful dark-haired woman, rushed forward to greet him. She must have come out of the refectory.

  Thom had his back to her, so Elizabeth couldn’t see his expression, but the one on the woman’s face was enough to make her heart seize in an icy hold.

  It was the coy, flirtatious look of a lover—or a woman determined to make him so. She looked at Thom as if he belonged to her and she couldn’t wait to get her hands all over him.

  “Who is that?” Izzie asked at her side.

  Elizabeth shook her head. “I don’t know.” But her heart squeezed; she suspected it was his widow.

  “Lady Marjorie Rutherford,” Edward Bruce confirmed later at the midday meal. Elizabeth was pretending not to listen to his conversation with Jamie. “She grew tired of waiting for MacGowan so she decided to take matters into her own hands, so to speak. I do admire a woman with determined hands.” He laughed at the ribald jest, ignoring the censorious look from the abbot a few seats away, and took another long drink from his goblet, which from the loudness of his voice—and his jests—Elizabeth suspected contained something stronger than wine.

  The jest might be inappropriate, but it was painfully accurate. The beautiful widow did indeed have determined hands. Every time Elizabeth glanced at the table across the aisle, the “lady” had her hands on him. Nothing too overt: a brush of the arm, a graze of his fingers, a “thoughtless” touch of his shoulder when he said something that amused her, which seemed to be often, and one time when her hand had slipped beneath the table to—Elizabeth would swear—rest on his leg.

  Something akin to panic had taken hold. A cold sweat broke out on her brow, her pulse spiked, and nausea swam in her stomach.

  She didn’t know whether she wanted to throw up or march over there and toss the woman off the bench—probably a little of both. It was the anger—which was both unjust and irrational—that made Elizabeth realize the emotion was jealousy.

  If only the woman wasn’t so pretty. But with her dark hair, tilted eyes, and striking red lips, she had a sensuality and exotic appeal with which Elizabeth couldn’t compete.

  Her reaction—her distraction—hadn’t gone unnoticed.

  “Lady Elizabeth?” Randolph said. “Are you unwell?”

  She shook her head. “Perhaps a bit tired.” She smiled. “And maybe all those tarts are catching up to me.” He looked so concerned she regretted the jest. “I was only teasing. Now, you were mentioning something about your new lands in Badenoch?”

  In addition to the earldom of Moray, Randolph had been given the old Bruce lordship of Annandale, the Comyn lordship of Badenoch, the lordship of Man, and the lordship of Lochaber. Only the king’s brother had been granted more. The knowledge should please her—thrill her. She couldn’t have hoped for a better marriage.

  I can make you happy . . .

  “Aye, Lochindorb Castle is quite an impressive structure—Comyn might have chosen the wrong bed to lie in, but he did know how to build a place to put it—but the interiors will need some modernizing. A woman’s touch, if you will. I hoped that you might be willing to help?”

  The panicked feeling came over her again and this time it had nothing to do with Lady Marjorie and her wandering hands. She knew what he was asking and knew what she should say. But the response was harder to form than it should be.

  Unable to meet his gaze, she looked down. “I would be honored, my lord.” Her voice came out far softer than she intended.

  If he noticed her tentativeness, he did not let on. He had the answer he wanted. She had as good as agreed to marry him. She half-feared he might get down on his knee and make some spectacular proposal right in the middle of the meal. Horror washed over her. Good gracious, would he do that?

  She was saved from finding out when Joanna asked him a question. “Did I hear some prisoners were freed from Dunbar, my lord?”

  “Aye,” Randolph said. “Although I’m not sure you are supposed to know about that. But it seems your friend MacGowan is a highly skilled climber. I’d wager the English think those men flew out of the prison tower.” He explained that the prisoners at Dunbar were kept in the base of a tower on a separate rock from the rest of the castle, accessible only on one side. Unless—that is—you approached from the sea and climbed the rock.

  Elizabeth wasn’t sure she wanted to hear anything else. God in heaven, he could have been killed! Just what Thom considered dangerous she didn’t want to contemplate.

  “Too bad he can’t climb Castle Rock,” Randolph added with a wry smile. “Maybe we could finally put an end to this accursed siege.”

  Elizabeth had felt the blood leech out of her face at his words, which she prayed were in jest. “But an attempt to climb Castle Rock . . . that would be akin to suicide, my lord. It is unassailable.”

  Thom wouldn’t be so foolish, would he? Please tell me that is not why the Guard is recruiting him?

  She chanced a glance in his direction, feeling a stab in her chest when she saw the two dark heads bent together, obviously deep in conversation.

  Randolph grew at once contrite, offering her a comforting smile. “I didn’t mean to cause you concern. I’m not that eager to best your brother’s recent escapades at Roxburgh. Climbing that rock isn’t an option. We’ll have to take the castle the old-fashioned way—with patience. Though I wish I had more of it.”

  He’d obviously mistaken the source of her concern, but he’d eased it all the same.

  She smiled back at him. “I’m relieved to hear it, my lord.” She could say something about finding ways to distract him from his boredom, but flirting with him felt . . . wrong. Instead, she said, “I’m sure they will surrender soon enough. From what you’ve said they cannot hold out much longer without being re-provisioned. And I think you have men in place who will see that doesn’t happen?”

  Randolph met her gaze, knowing to which men she referred. Men whom no one was supposed to know about. “Aye, I do indeed.”

  “After the past few years, I think you deserve a bit of a reprieve from battle. Perhaps you might look at the siege as a rest for what is to come?”

  He gave her a long, appreciative look. “That is indeed a good way of looking at it. I shall try to remember that when I’m cursing the mud, endless trenches, and staring at closed gates willing them to open.” He looked down the table. “Where is your cousin today? I hope she is not feeling the ill effects of our morning indulgences?”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “She said she had some letters to write and would join us later.” She frowned, realizing the meal was almost over. “I guess she had more to do than she realized.”

  “Your cousin writes?”

  “Aye, as well as a scribe. My aunt insisted. I was fortunate to share her and her brothers’ tutor for a while, although I’m afraid I never took to learning as well as Izzie. If she had been a lad, my uncle said she could have gone to Oxford.”

  He laughed at the very idea. A woman scholar? “Strangely, I can almost see it. She is unusual, your cousin.”

  It almost sounded like a compliment.

  She would have said as much if she hadn’t caught movement out of the corner of her eye. A corner of her eye that had unconsciously been fixed on the other table.

  She sucked in her breath. Thom and his widow were leaving. Together. Alone.

  Her lungs felt like they’d been filled with molten lead. She felt the crazy impulse to go after them, and knew her thoughts must have been plain for all to see when Joanna asked her a silly question with a worried look on her face and a quick shake of the head. Don’t. “Do you have any plans for the afternoon, Elizabeth?” her sister-in-law asked.

  “Nay.”

  “Good, I was hoping you might help me with something.”

  Elizabeth took her meaning. She could find Thom later