The Knight (Highland Guard #7.5)(3)

She ignored the wry edge to his voice that almost bordered on sarcasm. “It’s true?” She pounced on him excitedly. “Have you seen him?”

He shook his head. “Nay, but Park Castle was fairly abuzz with whispers of his imminent—or should I say eminent—arrival.”

This time there was no mistaking his sarcasm. Thom made no secret of his disapproval of his former childhood companion and the man most in Scotland regarded as a hero, “Good Sir James,” who fought to rid Scotland of its English oppressors. But it wasn’t James’s politics or his methods that Thom objected to, it was his relationship with her.

Thom just didn’t understand.

Something else in his voice, however, had caught her attention. “You saw Beth—I mean Lady Elizabeth?”

James’s younger sister had recently returned to Scotland and was currently residing at the old Park Castle, since the English had garrisoned Douglas Castle. The four of them had been inseparable in their youth—before the war had sent James to battle and Elizabeth to France for safety.

He didn’t answer, but the slight tightening around his mouth answered her question. “I’m leaving, Jo. It’s been arranged. I’ve come to say good-bye.”

She stared at him, perplexed. “Leaving? But where? When will you be back?” Was there a market nearby that she hadn’t heard about? Taking some of his father’s goods to market was about the only time that Thom left the village.

“I don’t know. Not for some time, I imagine. Perhaps a year or two.”

Joanna blinked, stunned. “A year or two?” She couldn’t have heard him right. “Is your father moving to another castle?”

He shook his head. “This has nothing to do with my father. He’s the smith of the Lords of Douglas—even in their absence—and he’ll never be anything else. He’s never wanted to be anything else. But I…” He stopped, a look of deep pain crossing his face. “I can’t stay here.”

Joanna put her hand on his arm, knowing the cause of that pain. Thom had loved—practically worshiped—James’s younger sister, Elizabeth, since the time he was a lad. About the only person who didn’t realize it was Lady Elizabeth herself. Thom had been dying for an excuse to see her since she’d returned with her stepmother and two younger half brothers. He must have found one. “Whatever she did, I’m sure it was not meant to hurt you. She’s never understood how you feel.”

His eyes hardened. “She does now.”

Joanna sucked in her breath, his pain so intense she felt it herself. He must have told her, and gauging from his reaction, the lady did not return his affections. “Oh God, Thom, I’m sorry. Perhaps if you gave her some time—”

“I’ve given her most of my damned life. It’s enough.”

She could see the determination on his face and knew there would be no dissuading him. And part of her knew that as much as it would hurt to lose him, it was probably for the best. He would never see another woman with Lady Elizabeth nearby. “Where will you go?”

Expecting that he would find work as a smith at another castle, she was shocked when he said, “I’m going to pledge my service to Edward Bruce.”

“But how?” she blurted. One didn’t just decide to be a warrior; it took training, connections, and more important, coin.

“My mother always wished it for me. She set aside some silver should I ever decide to leave.”

Thom’s mother had been the daughter of a knight, she recalled. She’d married beneath her—for love. “And now you are sure you wish to do so?”

The look in his eyes was as hard and sharp as a shard of black onyx. “I can’t stay here. She doesn’t see me as a man, but as a girlhood companion—and one too obviously beneath her. She’s a Douglas.”

Joanna did not miss the warning in his voice. It was one she’d heard many times before. “James isn’t like that—and neither is Elizabeth. I know you are angry with her, but you know he loves me, Thom.”

He gazed down at her pityingly. “Love doesn’t matter to a Douglas. Pride. Ambition. Those are what will help your James build his dynasty. You will always be the marshal’s daughter, just as I will always be the blacksmith’s son. Your father might be a baron, but he is still a vassal. Douglas will take a wife who feeds his ambition. One who will bring him wealth and position.”

Just for a moment his certainty sent a flicker of icy fear racing through her heart. “James isn’t like that. You don’t know him like I do.”

She believed in him—in them.

He held her gaze intently. “Aye, I do. I knew the boy, and I know the man. Ambition and James Douglas go hand in hand. People around here might revere him as a hero, but don’t be mistaken: He is ruthless. Nothing will stop him from getting what he wants.” He paused, letting some of his anger cool. “Are you sure you know him as well as you think you do?”

“You know better than to listen to the English, Thommy. James is not the black devil they would make him out to be.” But even as she defended him, Joanna acknowledged a growing unease about James’s reputation. The fearsome man who’d struck terror in the heart of the English was not the James she knew. It was hard to mesh the gallant knight she loved with the ruthless “Black Douglas” who cut a swathe of destruction across the Marches.