The Storming Read online

  Hilaire shivered. If only the ancient tunnel hadn’t crumbled, she’d be safe now beyond the wall, far away from the tempers of unsympathetic men like the king, her father, and The Dire Dragan. Safe from the suffocating darkness that kept creeping in at the edges of her mind…

  Nay, she must not think of that.

  The man grunted as he struggled to move the rocks and gravel. His low murmur interrupted her thoughts. “He wouldn’t have harmed ye, ye know.”

  “Who?”

  “The Dire Dragan.”

  She shuddered. “I fear ye’re mistaken, sir. I heard the blows he thrust upon the outer gate, even from here.”

  “’Tis not his way to slaughter the defenseless.”

  She gave a nervous, humorless wee laugh. “Then pray tell what happened to his last three wives and their children.”

  A long, cold silence met her query. Then the dull thud of rock upon earth resumed as the man began to pound away at the wall.

  “Besides,” she added defensively, “’tis an easy thing for ye to say. Ye aren’t betrothed to the monster.”

  The pounding stopped as suddenly as it had started, and the man’s sharp intake of breath seemed to suck all the air from the tunnel.

  Hilaire clapped a hand over her mouth. She hadn’t meant to reveal herself to him. If, by some miracle, they managed to dig out of the rubble, she intended to continue along the tunnel to freedom, as originally planned. The knight would think of her no more, just bid her good fortune and return to defending her father’s castle. No one would be the wiser.

  But now—now she’d made a mess of things.

  Chapter 3

  “Ye’re…Lady Hilaire?”

  The musty air thickened, choking Giric like smoke from a quickly doused fire.

  She tried to deny it. “Nay, I…” Then she released a resigned sigh that seemed to blow through his soul. “Aye, I am.”

  A dozen emotions warred in his head—pain, relief, anger, joy, fear—like knights battling in a fierce melee.

  Hilaire.

  His betrothed.

  This maiden with the sweet voice, the fragrant hair, the tender touch.

  This woman who feared the dark and clung to him with the trust of a drowning kitten.

  Lord, what would it be like to wake up each morn to such a wife?

  He sighed. It was only a fleeting fantasy. They were dying, he reminded himself. There would be no wedding.

  Besides, he thought bitterly, she didn’t want him. Hell, she’d risked her life to escape The Dire Dragan.

  It was another tragedy in a long line of tragedies. And it was stinging salt in his wounds that though he’d scarcely met the lass, he suspected he might have grown to care for her in time.

  Yet he was damned to destroy all he held dear. Curse the Fates—he’d probably killed her already. It was his fault they were trapped. It was because of him the tunnel had collapsed.

  “Swear ye won’t tell the others,” she fretted, grabbing at his sleeve.

  “The others?”

  “My father’s knights. Swear ye won’t tell them I was runnin’ away.”

  Giric frowned. So the wee vixen had sneaked off, leaving her father and his knights to defend the castle while she made her escape. Yet what else should he expect?

  Though Hilaire was of marrying age, he could tell she was barely a woman. The lass had probably never had her heart broken, never stolen a kiss, never bedded a man. The prospect of wedding The Dire Dragon must have seemed like an order of execution.

  “God’s truth,” she said. “I’m ashamed o’ my cowardice.” Her hand came to rest upon the middle of his chest, too near his heart for comfort. “But don’t tell them. When we’re free, let me go in peace. Promise me.”

  He closed his eyes, almost feeling the warmth of her hand through his armor, and groaned inwardly. Even if they managed to survive this ordeal and get out alive, neither of them had control over their destiny. Two kings had commanded this union. She couldn’t avoid marriage to the man she feared. No matter where she fled, the forces of the English and Scots would hunt her down. Against her will, she’d be wed to Lord Giric mac Leod. And once married, she’d be subject to the curse of The Dire Dragan.

  But none of that mattered at the moment. They were going to die. What mattered was making her last hours peaceful.

  So he gave her his word. “I promise.”

  Her sigh of relief made it worth the lie.

  “Now,” she said with renewed hope, “if we keep diggin’…”

  Giric grimaced.

  The stone of the fallen castle wall was too dense and tightly wedged to allow escape through the hole he’d originally tunneled out, and the earthen wall of her secret passage was so hardly compacted, it might as well be rock.

  He had nothing to dig with—no spade, no adze, not even a sword. Their bare fingers would wear down to bloody stumps by the time they tunneled out even a yard of earth. Escape was nigh impossible.

  But he didn’t have the heart to let her know that. Besides, they might as well make the attempt. It would pass the time and prevent her from dwelling on the darkness. Certainly, it would keep his mind off his miserable past. And perhaps it was a blessing that in his final hours he was closeted in shadow with a lass who didn’t know him, a lass who had no cause to fear him.

  “Shall we try here?” she suggested. The optimism in her voice tugged at his heart.

  “Where?”

  Her hand wandered along the links of his mail until she grasped his wrist. Her fingers couldn’t even close the distance around his forearm, but she tugged him along like an unruly child, finally placing his palm upon a section of damp earth.

  He shook his head. If they dug there, they would wind up inside the keep eventually—perhaps forty days hence.

  “Do ye not wish to escape the castle?” he asked. “’Tis the opposite wall that leads to freedom.”

  “But if The Dire Dragan…” Her fingers curled anxiously atop his hand. “Ye wouldn’t understand.” Her troubled whisper brushed his face, perfumed with the faint scent of mint. It was as intoxicating as mead. “If he finds me…if he discovers I was fleein’…”

  He scarcely heard her words. The fragrance coming off of her hair, her skin—what was it? Rose? Lavender?

  “I won’t wed him,” she stated in no uncertain terms. “I cannot. He is a brute. Cruel. And dangerous. And evil. Have ye not heard? He murdered his first three wives and—”

  “So I’ve heard!” The words tore from his throat with more force than he’d intended.

  With a silent curse, he began jabbing at the soil, using his blunt fingers like daggers. She couldn’t know how she tortured him, what pain she dealt him with her careless remarks.

  “Perhaps ye think I should be stronger,” she muttered, her voice a shade cooler, misunderstanding his outburst. “Ye doubtless expect me to honor my vows as ye honor yours. But I’m not a knight who battles with a sword and a shield. I’m a lass armed only with my wits and my will. I won’t sacrifice myself to a monster when—”

  “He is not a mons—” To Giric’s mortification, his voice broke.

  Damn his weak spirit. He thought he’d become inured to such accusations.

  He thought he’d grown scaly plate like the armored dragon on his crest.

  He thought he could no longer be wounded by mere words.

  He was wrong.

  His heart plunged in misery, and his eyes stung, weary of aspersions. God’s blood—would even his last moments on earth be corrupted by his vile past?

  “Ye…ye know him,” she whispered suddenly with a woman’s insight. It wasn’t a question. It was an accusation. “Ye know The Dire Dragan.”

  “Nay.” He clenched his jaw against foolish self-pity.

  In a sense, he spoke the truth. Once he’d known him well. Once Giric mac Leod had been a noble young Highlander with a blade in his hand, the wind at his back, and adventure in his heart. Now The Dire Dragan was a nightmare he was forced
to live. Nay, he no longer knew the man who lived in the shell of his body.

  “But I’ve known men like him,” he said.

  She was quiet for a long while. Then he heard her retreat.

  He should have expected as much. Even here in the dark, without the benefit of face or name or reputation, he was capable of inspiring fear in a woman.

  “Who are ye?” she finally asked.

  “Nobody.” He returned to clawing at the mud.

  “Ye aren’t one o’ my father’s company at all, are ye?”

  “I’m a knight. That’s all. I go where I’m called. I fight when I must.”

  “Do ye have a name?”

  He cursed under his breath. “Are ye goin’ to help dig us out or ask questions all night?”

  A dissonant twang sounded suddenly as she recoiled from his harsh words. The lass must have a gittern or a harp. As the jangling chord faded, the silence grew heavy.

  Even blind, he could sense the lass’s hurt. But that was good. It would keep her away from him, keep her safe from his evil, keep him bastioned from her charms.

  But as the silence dragged on, he heaved a contrite sigh. If one weapon could lay him low in a single blow, it was the knowledge he’d hurt a woman. He chewed at his lip in remorse.

  “Forgive my rough manners.” After several moments, she still hadn’t spoken. Finally, he surrendered and quietly admitted, “I’m called…’Claw’ by some.”

  It was a name he’d not gone by since he was a lad, one his cousin had stuck him with for the creature on his crest, The Dragon. It was a silly name, and for an instant he regretted divulging such a thing to her.

  Then he remembered they’d likely die here. She’d never utter the name beyond these walls.

  “Claw?”

  He grunted in reply.

  Hilaire couldn’t recall a Sir Claw among her father’s men.

  Why Claw? Were his fingers malformed? Nay, he’d held her hands in his. They’d felt…perfect.

  She wondered what the rest of him looked like. Perhaps if she could see his face, it would set her mind at ease, for his quicksilver temper certainly did nothing to comfort her.

  She approached him warily, crouching beside him to help scratch at the dirt. This close, she could detect the faint scent of his bath beneath the tang of leather and sweat, the scent of bergamot and woodruff.

  “Do ye…have a family?” she asked.

  “Nay.” His voice was gruff, short, to the point.

  A long silence ensued, broken only by the sound of fingers fruitlessly scraping against earth, a silence Hilaire soon felt compelled to fill.

  “Perhaps I’ve seen ye in my father’s ranks. What do ye look like?”

  “Plain. Dark. Ye wouldn’t remember me.”

  His abrupt tone irritated her. But she refused to give up. If he wouldn’t speak to her, she would do the talking.

  “Ye’re not the knight who rousted de Lancey at the spring tournament?”

  “Nay.”

  She struggled with a cobblestone lodged fast in the dirt. “The Lowlander who plied Lady Anne so diligently with roses last year?”

  “Nay.”

  The stone came loose. She tossed it aside. “Then are ye—”

  “Nay! Ye wouldn’t know me,” he said impatiently. “I’m not your father’s knight. I serve no man save the king.”

  She gasped with new respect. “Ye’re a knight-errant.”

  A fevered flush stole up her cheek.

  No man led such a provocative and fascinating life as a knight-errant. She’d sung songs about the wandering swordsmen, and she’d always envied their freedom and independence.

  “How thrillin’ that must be—pursuin’ impossible, noble quests, livin’ by your wits and your word, starin’ danger in the eyes without flinchin’.” She turned impulsively toward him, her cheeks still warm. “But tell me, do ye never get…lonely?”

  He stopped at his labors and cleared his throat, as if considering her question. But he answered as briefly as ever. “Nay.”

  “I think it must be lonely bein’ a knight-errant,” she disagreed. “Perhaps ye have a lady love?” Most of the knights immortalized in song did.

  “Nay.” He grunted as he plowed his hands hard into the soil, and she worried that he might break his knuckles on a rock.

  “Alas, I have no love either,” she told him. “Only the wretched beast I’m betrothed to.”

  Claw made no response, but she heard his labored breathing as he struggled against the unyielding wall.

  As they worked in silence, the reality of her situation seeped in to her thoughts like a chill black mist through cracks of a window, surrounding and enveloping her in despair.

  She supposed it was pointless to complain about The Dire Dragan, the brute she was to marry, because she wasn’t going to get out of here. Even with the aid of a strong knight-errant, they couldn’t carve out more than a small burrow in their prison.

  They were going to die.

  When she thought about dying, she thought about her family and her friends, the flowers that had just begun to pop up in the meadow below her window, the sky and the people and the seasons she would never see again. Soon, despite her determination not to cry, tears wet her lashes, and her heart ached as if it would break in two.

  It was a travesty. She was only nineteen summers old. She’d scarcely lived.

  She’d never given her favor to a knight in tournament.

  Never written a rebus to a secret love on St. Valentine’s Day.

  Never bestowed her affections upon a man.

  Though she battled to stop them, her tears spilled over. Yet even as grief wrapped throttling fingers around her burning throat, angry denial sprouted beneath her sorrow.

  It couldn’t be true, she decided, desperate for the man with her to speak further reassurances, even if they were untrue.

  She couldn’t die now.

  She was too young, barely a woman.

  What reason did fate have to punish her? She’d done nothing so evil.

  Except perhaps to run away from her betrothed.

  And defy the king.

  And leave her entire household in peril.

  She swallowed guiltily.

  “Can ye play that?” Sir Claw asked quietly. By his gentle demeanor, she wondered if he could sense her despair. If so, he was too chivalrous to mention it.

  She blinked back her tears. “The harp?”

  He grunted.

  “Aye,” she said around the ache in her chest. “My father says I play like an angel.”

  “An angel.” He chuckled low. It was a sad sound. “Well, angel, will ye play for me?”

  For one instant, her spirits lifted. There was nothing she loved better than playing her harp. What should she play for him? A roundelay to spring? A madrigal about love? A heroic ballad about a knight-errant to inspire him?

  Then all at once she remembered her injured hand. Her heart sank.

  “I…I can’t.”

  Sir Claw stopped digging. She heard him turn to her.

  “My hand was smashed in the rock slide,” she explained.

  He dropped whatever stone he’d hefted and moved toward her. “Let me see.”

  His command was absurd. There was nothing to see in the inky black. Nonetheless, she offered him her hand.

  She hadn’t noticed the pain before, only a cool numbness. In the midst of deadly peril the injury had seemed the least of her worries. Now, as he tenderly cupped the underside of her hand, she grew aware of a deep throbbing ache underlying the sharp sting of torn flesh.

  She sucked her breath between her teeth as he carefully examined her fingers one by one. When he tugged on the last one, she gasped in pain.

  “’Tis cracked, but I think not broken,” he told her. “Have ye a linen underskirt?”

  She blinked at his intimate question.

  “Ye need a bandage,” he explained. “I don’t intend to dig our way out o’ here only to have ye bleed to de
ath.” His words were grim, but his tone was teasing, and she was glad of his gruff care. “If ye’ll allow me?”

  She withdrew her hand and steeled herself as he crouched before her. His fingertips brushed her bare ankle before they found the hem of her underskirt, sending an enticing warm quiver up her leg. Then he shredded the flimsy fabric, and she winced as the loud ripping split the quiet of the cavern.

  His hands upon her wrist felt massive, but far from clumsy. Indeed, he handled her with such tenderness that she wondered if he performed such tasks often. She supposed a knight-errant, traveling alone from tournament to tournament, battle to battle, would have to know how to bandage his own wounds.

  He wrapped the linen lightly about her hand, enclosing her cracked finger in a cloth cocoon. He bent his head over her hand while he worked, as if he could perform the task better by at least pretending to see. She shivered as his slow, measured breaths crossed the back of her wrist.

  She wondered again what he looked like. He’d said he was dark and plain, but by the breadth of his shoulders, his rugged, masculine voice, and his calming touch, she couldn’t imagine him possessing anything less than godlike features.

  Where had he come from? His speech was not unlike hers—a melding of English and Scots common along the Borders, where boundaries shifted as often as the tides. Had “Sir Claw” joined her father’s forces to secure peace? Or was he simply a mercenary in need of coin?

  Hilaire furrowed her brows. Now that she thought about it, he’d never specifically said that he fought for her father. Perhaps he’d only been passing by when the siege…

  A strange chill settled upon her shoulders like a blanket of snow. Where exactly had the knight come from? There was only one passageway leading from the castle.

  “There, lass,” he said lightly when he’d finished, “good as new.”

  “Thank ye.” She curled her bandaged hand protectively against her chest, where her heart thumped with foreboding. “Sir Claw?”

  “Aye?”

  “How is it…that is, how did ye come to be…next to the passageway?”

  He stilled, for a moment seemed to vanish, so quiet was he.