Draco A Medieval Scottish Roma - Jayne Castel Page 0,26

green cross-hatchings—the De Keith plaid—hanging from his broad shoulders. Like Draco and Maximus, Cassian wore his hair cropped short. His hazel eyes, usually warm and frank, were guarded this afternoon.

Immediately, Cassian’s gaze swiveled to Elizabeth, before his attention snapped back to Gavina. “I’d hoped to talk to you alone, My Lady … if possible?”

“Lady Elizabeth can stay, Captain,” Gavina replied with a sigh. “She knows everything, so nothing ye are about to say will shock her.”

In response, Cassian’s expression tightened, while Elizabeth pursed her lips.

Silence filled the women’s solar for a few moments, before Cassian eventually broke it. “I know all of this has come as a shock to you, My Lady.”

“Aye, it has.” Gavina crossed to the fireplace and sank down into a high-backed chair beside the hearth.

“Surely though … now that you’ve had time to consider things, you have—”

“I believe this ‘White Hawk’ and ‘Dragon’ thing to be a coincidence,” Gavina cut him off. “Ye are looking in the wrong place for yer answers, Captain. Draco doesn’t even believe it.”

Cassian’s strong jaw tensed. “Sorry, My Lady … but I don’t think we are. For years, I have tirelessly searched books and clan histories, believing that the clues to solving the last lines of the riddle would be complex and hidden deep. As for Draco, well, I’m afraid he hasn’t been himself for some time, and this has come as a shock to him too.”

“A shock to him? Ye do realize what ye are asking of Lady Gavina?” Elizabeth spoke up now. “She can’t wed one of the Wallace’s men … even if the church allowed a widow to remarry so soon, she’d bring scandal upon herself and the De Keiths.”

Cassian stared back at Elizabeth, his rugged face going taut. “Do you think I don’t know all of this?” he replied, a rasp to his voice. “Do you think I’d ask, if there was any other way.” His attention shifted back to Gavina then. “Believe me, My Lady, I understand what it is we are requesting of you.”

She held his gaze. “Yet ye ask me, all the same.”

“I have no choice. If your and Draco’s union is the last part of the riddle, I have to ask you.”

“Ye understand that Gavina would have to step down as laird if she was to wed Draco Vulcan?” Elizabeth cut in, her cheeks flushed now.

Cassian swung around to her, his hazel eyes narrowing. “A breach that you are more than capable of filling, My Lady.”

Elizabeth sucked in a shocked breath at his presumption, while Gavina stared at him, her lips parting in surprise. She’d never seen Cassian like this before. Urgency rippled off his big frame, and his hands clenched at his sides. He was holding himself on a short leash.

Gavina’s chest started to ache. How could he put her in this situation? She understood why Elizabeth was angry with him. He had overstepped in coming here and making such demands. However, dire need had made him act that way, and so she bit back the sharp retort that rose within her.

“Look, Cassian,” she began, searching for a way to explain her position without upsetting him further. “I’m sorry, but—”

The boom of a horn cut her off. The blast was so loud that it caused the stone walls of the keep to shudder.

Whatever Gavina was about to say was lost then. Lurching to her feet, she put one hand to her galloping heart. She’d heard that horn once before, just after coming to live at Dunnottar—when the English had laid siege to the fortress.

Across the solar, Cassian had gone still, although his gaze now gleamed. “It seems our scouts have brought word from the south,” he said when the horn’s wail died away. “Edward approaches.”

XI

THE HAMMER STRIKES

“THE HOUNDS OF Hell bite my arse,” William Wallace muttered. “It looks as if Longshanks has brought the entire English army with him.”

Draco scowled. He wished he could contradict his leader, but from their vantage point atop the walls of the guard tower, it certainly appeared as if a vast force marched toward them.

“The Lady of Dunnottar is making her way up the stairs, Wallace,” one of their men called. “She wishes to see the army for herself.”

Draco clenched his jaw. After arriving back at Dunnottar, he’d deliberately stayed away from Lady Gavina’s meetings with Cassian and the others. It had been a relief not to see her for a couple of days. Their last few interactions had been awkward, especially in light of recent discoveries,