Page 41

Three days later

F rida and Tristan had reached an uneasy truce, helped in part by Mirrie, who could not bear tension between two of the people she loved the most in the world.

Loathe to cause her more distress, they had once again started to dine together in the evenings and talk with the civility expected of the eldest de Neville siblings.

Another factor in their rapprochement was Frida’s quick thinking.

She’d realised that, much as her father would be disappointed with her actions, he would be equally aggrieved to learn that his eldest son had linked their family name with the lawless slaughter of innocent women and children.

She wrote as much in a scribbled note to Tristan, which she slid under his bedchamber door.

Her brother never openly acknowledged receiving her missive, but nor did he talk further about her returning to Wolvesley.

The snow had melted away entirely now, leaving the lands around Ember Hall to enjoy the last gasp of autumn.

Mornings were white with frost but although many leaves had fallen, the woodlands still retained a hint of fiery colour.

Frida loved this time of year, but every time she stopped to admire a display of flame-red holly berries, she thought of the men trapped in a dark cellar who could not enjoy it.

It did not take long for her to find a solution.

Jonah was the first to mention it.

“You have arranged for the prisoners to be moved,” he commented as they broke their fast before a roaring fire in the great hall.

The temperature at night had dropped heavily and the heat of the morning fire had yet to permeate the vast chamber.

The two siblings had pulled their chairs as close to the hearth as they could manage, their knees all but knocking together.

Frida kept her response short. “Aye.” She spread a cut of bread thickly with home-churned butter.

“Did Tristan give his approval?” His blue eyes watched her closely.

Frida did not look up from her trencher. “He did not need to. Tristan is not in charge here.”

“I think he will have an opinion.”

“He usually does.” Frida raised her eyebrows and they chuckled together conspiratorially.

“I still say, take care, sister.” Jonah’s hand dropped to her wrist and held it for the smallest moment, whilst Frida all but froze with surprise at the unprompted show of affection. “I would not see you hurt,” he added.

“The prisoners will not hurt me,” she declared boldly.

But she was extra aware of her every move when she went to see them later. Following the paved path to the bakehouse, she pushed all thoughts of her last journey there out of her mind. She could not hope to converse with anyone if she was forever blinking tears from her eyes.

She missed Callum with a force that was almost painful and her only comfort was that it seemed he had got clean away from Ember Hall.

She nodded to the guard, one of her own men, who shot back the newly added bolts on the thick door and stood aside to let her pass.

Andrew and Arlo did not smell very sweet and both were disguised by a thick growth of beard.

Their hair was mattered and their clothes dirty.

Frida was concerned that infection may have set into Arlo’s wound, even after her days of careful tending, but she could not discern the unhealthy tang of putrefaction amidst the general fug of unwashed bodies.

She stood before them, struggling to control her nerves.

The prisoners were not bound and could come at her in a moment, but how would that serve them with an armed guard waiting at the door?

Besides, the two men slumped together on the earth floor did not have a look of defiance about them.

Their eyes, which previously had sparkled with life, had grown dull and listless.

She cleared her throat. “I asked for you to be moved here for the better light. I am only sorry it did not happen sooner.”

Not so much as an expression crossed over their faces.

“You are being offered food and water, are you not?” she asked with sudden concern.

One of them, she thought it must be Andrew for the tinge of red in his dirty hair, nodded once.

“You can speak,” she said abruptly. “I know that you kept silent before for fear of giving away your accent. But all of that is in the open now.”

Andrew looked for a moment as if he might. Arlo only gazed at the floor.

Frida twisted her hands behind her back. It had been a mistake to come here. She had told herself that she wanted to make sure the prisoners were being afforded their basic dignities, but in reality, she had been driven by a more selfish goal.

Andrew and Arlo are my last link with Callum.

As if thinking his name had triggered a response. Andrew finally spoke up, his voice reedy with lack of use.

“Where is Callum?”

Her eyes opened wide. “You do not know?” At their blank looks, she cursed her stupidity.

How could they know? It was unlikely the guards would share any gossip as they brought in their rations.

She bit down on her lip, considering the best response.

In the end, she settled for the truth. “He has escaped.”

This got a reaction. Andrew lifted his head and smiled. Arlo looked as if he might weep with relief.

“You thought him dead?” she guessed.

“We feared the worst, aye,” Andrew agreed. She heard immediately the Scottish brogue that the big warrior had masked all this time.

“I do not know what has happened to him since, but he left Ember Hall under his own volition.” She turned her gaze to Arlo. “Is your shoulder healed?”

When he nodded mutely, she sighed in frustration.

“Does it pain you still?”

This time there was a pause, followed by a slight shake of his head.

Frida looked to Andrew for support, but the highlander only shrugged. “He talks to me still. You needn’t fear the lad has lost his wits.”

Frida thought that she should walk over to Arlo and inspect his wound for herself, but something held her back. Something that she was not proud of. Distaste of getting too close to the men who had not washed for many a day was part of it. Fear of provoking a physical attack was another.

She fought an urge to apologise for the rough treatment they had received from the guards and for taking away their liberty. Even now, she was still refusing them the right of fresh air and exercise.

But these men had come to Ember Hall intending her family harm. They had lived and worked here under false pretences. She could not forget that.

She gave her head a little shake. “I am sorry this has happened,” she said. It was true enough. She wished it had all turned out differently.

Arlo spoke up, making her start with surprise. “Thank ye for bringing the news that Callum still lives.”

She nodded. The emotion in the lad’s blue eyes made her say more. “You were close to him? You have known him long?” Again, she cursed her foolishness. Surely they would sense her misguided need to hear more of her lover’s past and would choose to ignore her.

But Arlo held her gaze without flinching. His lips trembled with sincerity. “He is like kin. The only kin I have left to me.”

Andrew’s voice was harsh. “Both Arlo’s parents were cut down at the siege of Kielder Castle.”

She could not help an instinctive gasp of horror, picturing the scene and Arlo’s subsequent heartbreak. “I am sorry for your loss,” she muttered, her words ineffective against a past containing so much bloodshed.

Andrew inclined his head. “War is war,” he said, cryptically.

Frida nodded, not knowing quite what she was agreeing with. “Callum was your leader?” she suggested, hesitantly.

“On this quest, aye.” Andrew looked away from her, as if embarrassed to talk of the planned assassination of her brother, but Frida realised after no more than a second that this was not so.

The highlander was thinking only of Callum.

“I also think of him as kin.” His tone was gravelly now.

“I have ridden out alongside him in many a battle. There is no man I would sooner have with me than Callum Baine.”

Her heart lifted to hear her lover praised, despite the grim circumstances. She knew she should take her leave, but she could not bring herself to break off the conversation just yet. Mirrie’s words, words that she had dismissed out of hand at the time, hovered in the stale air before her eyes.

Who knows what the future may bring?

“You would say he is a man of courage, then?” she ventured. “One that will ne’er give up on once he has set his heart on something?”

There was a long pause, during which she could hear only the pounding of her pulse in her ears. Andrew regarded her steadily, as if fully aware of her secret. ’Twas Arlo who broke the silence.

“Callum is a man who ne’er gives up on anything he wants,” he declared, fervently.

Calum will not give up on me.

Frida had vowed to harden her heart to hopes of the future, but in that moment, her hastily-erected barricades crumbled.

Callum will find a way to come back to me.

Before she could say more, Frida turned and walked briskly away from the prisoners, keeping her composure until she had turned the corner away from the guard.

Then she leaned her back against the outer wall of the gatehouse and heaved a deep sigh, releasing her pent-up emotions.

She flattened her palms against the stone wall, as if by sheer force of will she might travel back in time to the evening she had last seen Callum.

Not to do anything differently; just so she might gaze upon his face one more time.

She only became aware of Jonah when he cleared his throat and stepped into view.

“I did not mean to startle you,” he said, pre-emptively.

“What are you doing here?” Frida put a hand to her heart, feeling it beat beneath the grey wool of her serviceable dress.

Jonah was dressed impeccably in the emerald-green colours of Wolvesley. His hair shone golden in the autumn sunlight. He resembled their older brother more than he would ever see.