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A crunching sounded from beyond the trees, and James froze mid-thrust, his head twisting to his side as he listened.
“Wha—” Tosia started to say, but James slapped his hand over her mouth.
He lifted a finger to his lips in a shushing gesture, then withdrew from her body. He fastened his braies with one hand as he lifted his sword with the other — all in absolute silence.
Tosia brushed her skirts down to cover her thighs, but otherwise didn’t move. What was it he thought he’d heard?
When James stepped on light toes through the tree line, Tosia finally shifted onto her hands and knees to watch his trek through the wood, following far behind him, his body and the fragrant low bushes shielding her against the sounds he’d heard.
The first noise that disturbed the quiet majesty of the forest was a screech as James burst through the trees onto the unsuspecting English soldiers picking at a midday meal under a shady rowan tree. Tosia peeked through the brush to watch James do what he was best known for — finding vengeance and retribution in blood.
The first Englishman fell in an explosion of blood as James leapt down on him, his broadsword finding home in the crook of the man’s neck. Wrenching his sword from the man’s dead body, James turned as the other two English scrambled for their swords and out of James’s way. Tosia’s eyes flicked from the taller of the men to the shorter one.
The shorter one was also younger, with mussed blond hair, and his stained tunic hung on his frame. He wore no mail, no armor to speak of. He reminded Tosia of her brother. So young! What was he doing as a soldier?
James grappled with the taller soldier, who lifted his sword in a frontal attack. James spun and grabbed the man’s wrist before he could bring the sword around and stuck him in the belly like a pig. He dragged his sword across the man’s stomach as he removed his blade, and the man’s guts poured from his belly. The solider dropped his sword and tried to catch his innards as they dropped in a pile of steaming bloody offal, and he fell atop them.
When James moved again, almost in a dance, the length of his sword was an extension of his arm. The lethal sword edge dripped thick with blood as the point of his blade caught on the thin tunic of the youth, and a shriek tore from Tosia’s lips.
James paused, but kept his gaze fixed on the young man, whose own sword hung uselessly at his side.
“Tosia! What ails ye?”
She lifted her skirts as she climbed over the fallen log that, until moments ago, had been the English men’s picnic seat, and stopped an arm’s length from the panting James.
“Milord, please. Look at him. He’s little more than a boy.” Her pleading voice was low.
James’s visage altered a bit, his eyes narrowing at the Englishman.
“A boy,” he stated flatly. He wasn’t impressed with her statement.
“A boy. No older than Tavish.”
At this, James’s jaw ground his teeth together, yet his muscled arm didn’t move as it held the youth a breath from death.
“He is a soldier in the army that has cast its deathly shadow over the Scots for far too long. What will ye have me do with him?”
Tosia bit her lower lip and found her skirts suddenly interesting.
“Ye canna kill him. James, he’s just a boy,” she reasoned.
James inhaled, his broad chest expanding, and the lad quivered visibly, surely believing his young life to be cut short here in the Scottish wood.
“Ye canna mean for me to let him go. He’s a bloody English soldier!”
“He’s a lad,” Tosia pleaded.
James’s jaw worked even harder, and his stony eyes glanced to her then back at the lad.
His shoulders slumped and the tip of his blade lowered an inch. He flicked the tip of his blade to the fallen log and Tosia moved to stand behind James. In a moment of bravery that surprised herself, she rested her hand on his free arm. If James noticed, he didn’t show it.
The lad stumbled onto the log, sitting down hard. Every last bit of color drained from his face, and he was as pale as a day-old corpse as his frightened brown eyes fixated on James.
“My wife has a heart too large for this world. What’s to stop ye from scuttling back to your barracks and bringing the full weight of your contingent down upon us?”
The lad’s blond brow crinkled. “Contingent?”
James shook his head. “Ye dinna mean to have me believe ye dinna have a bloody army camped nearby?”
The lad’s head moved slowly back and forth, his eyes never leaving James’s threatening sword.
“I’m scouting, but we are just a few, living out of a tent near Locherbie.”
“And the king? He’s right behind ye?”
The boy’s brow crinkled more. “Edward the second? I don’t know the king’s whereabouts. In England I’d suppose?”
“Ye are lying.” He brought the sword tip to the boy’s chin where nary a whisker protruded.
So young! Tosia’s hand squeezed James’s arm where his muscle bulged under his sleeve.
The boy’s head whipped from side to side. “No! No! They don’t tell me anything! I’ve only just arrived here. I don’t know where I’m at, and I don’t know how I will even find my way back!”
His voice cracked as he protested, and James dropped the sword tip. Tosia was certain he tried to hide the tight smile that tugged at his cheek upon hearing the lad’s voice.
“See?” Tosia stood on her toes to whisper into his ear. “A lad.”
“Could be a lying lad,” James threw over his shoulder. His hard gaze landed on the boy again.
“What’s your name, laddie?”
The young man’s frightened eyes flicked between James and Tosia. “Simon,” he squeaked out.
James let his shoulders drop but kept the blade tip on the lad.
“Out of deference to my wife, and against my better judgment, I’ll send ye off into the wood and ye can try to find your way back. If ye bring your army here, I’ll cut it down in a thrice. If it comes back that ye said a word of this to anyone, ye’ll find yourself at the end of my sword again, your bloody gullet hanging from the tip like your kinsman over yonder. Aye?”
The lad straightened and nodded furiously.
James set his sword by his side and shifted his head to speak over his shoulder to Tosia.
“Dinna let it be known that James Douglas has a soft spot for his wife. I’ll no’ hear the end of it.”
“Douglas?” the boy squeaked. “Black James Douglas?”
James didn’t hesitate and lifted his sword to the boy’s neck again.
“My reputation precedes me. Consider yourself fortunate and thank God above for your good fortune. Few enemies cross my path and live. And ye never saw me, do ye understand my meaning?”
Again, the boy’s head nodded. James’s sword flicked toward the wood. “Go. Get ye gone. Find your own way through the wood and ye never saw us. A random group of Highlanders came upon your group, and ye managed to escape with your life. And ye canna recall where in the wood. Aye?”
More nodding. A surge of warmth flushed through Tosia, and her shoulders relaxed. The boy would live, for now. At least she wouldn’t have this lad’s death on her hands. Nor would James.
James waved his hand at the boy who scrambled to his feet and ran into the trees as if every demons of hell chased him. Perchance one did.
They stared after the lad as he disappeared into the forest.
“I fear I might regret this, wife. And we dinna tell the king. ‘Twere but two men, aye?”
Tosia smiled into her husband’s broad back. “Aye, husband.”
Now he’d have to hedge the truth with his king, a feat James dreaded. He’d have to alert the king as to the English scouts and admit one got away. Would the Bruce believe such a tale? Mayhap he could use Tosia as his excuse, that he was focused on her safety and didn’t give chase . . .
They retrieved the rest of their belongings on the west side of the tree line, and James kept a protective arm around Tosia’s waist as they walked back to Auchinleck. They were silent for most of the walk.
James worried for his wife. She was too silent. Was she in shock? Had she seen a man die before? She certainly hadn’t seen her husband slay a man before — was she horrified at the true man that lived in the skin of the loving man she presumed her husband to be? He was a beast at his core, and today she saw the reckoning of that beast. Would she turn from him now that she witnessed him firsthand?
“Are ye well, lass?” James asked in a low voice. Christ knew he didn’t need to scare her more than he already had.
“Ye have my gratitude for no’ killing the boy,” she told him, keeping her face forward as they walked. James did the same, studying the horizon.
“Your gratitude?” he asked.
“Aye. Ye could have killed him. Ye probably should have. But ye didn’t. Ye stilled your sword. Thank ye for that.”
James cleared his throat. Whatever he expected her to say, it wasn’t that.
“Ye aren’t distressed over my slaying the other men?”
“The other men who would have slain ye and ravished me before killing me? I may have experienced little in my life, but my mam raised me to be smart enough to know danger when it presents itself. Nay, I know we are at war and what monsters the English can be.”
James tilted his head toward her and flexed his arm so her body pressed closer to his.
“But no’ your husband.”
Finally, her delicate face and those wide, amber eyes looked up at him. “No’ my husband? What do ye mean?”
James stopped walking and turned her to face him, her body tight against his. She curved into him, as though she were made for him, and he had yet to stop his wonder at that.
“Your husband as a monster.”
There it was. They might have discussed his military strategies, his violence in war, but this was personal, killing men right before her eyes where she could see the beast instead of only hearing rumors.
Was he holding his breath? Was he worried at what she thought of him? Bloody hell — he was. Shabib would laugh his deep rumbling laugh and call James smitten.
The Black Douglas, smitten. Wonder never ceased.
“If ye are a monster,” Tosia said as she rested her palms against the broad planes of his chest, “’Tis only because circumstance has demanded it. What I saw today was a man, a fair man, who slayed when necessary and gave a young man a lesson and the gift of life. One he will no’ forget. That is what I saw today.”
James cupped her cheek, her smooth skin a moment of softness in his hard, hard world. And he knew one thing for certain — he was the most fortunate of men to have that softness.
“I made a vow to ye, that ye could ask anything of me and I’d deliver it to ye. Today ye asked much, and I could no’ say nay. That ye must know, I can deny ye nothing.”
Tosia turned her head, her rosy lips puckering to kiss the rough skin on his hand. Too rough to deserve a kiss from the rose that was Tosia.
“Aye. Ye have more than shown me. And I vow the same. I’d lay my life down for ye.”
The mere thought drove a knife in his chest, and he clenched his arm to crush her against him, as if he might fend off the thought by shielding her from it with his body.
“Dinna speak such a thing,” he said hoarsely. “Dinna ever speak it.”
Tosia rested her head against his chest, nestling into him. Exactly where she should always be, he thought.
“Yet I make the vow. Because I have managed to fall in love with the beast of a man known as Black Douglas,” she admitted in a trembling voice.
Was it possible for his heart to wrench from his body? James grazed his lips over the top of her brunette hair, warm under his lips even in the cool air of the late day.
“And I, ye, lass. The king indeed gave me a gift, one I have come to adore, one that resides in my heart.”
Tosia sighed into his chest. “Och, who would have thought the Black Douglas so have such romantic sensibilities?” she teased lightly as she wrapped her arms around his waist.
“Dinna tell anyone. ‘Twould ruin my reputation,” he teased back before lifting her chin to press a light kiss on her welcoming lips.
Aye. He’d never admit it to Robert, but Tosia was a gift indeed.
Shabib leaned against the cool limestone wall, his head lowered under his blue hood so only the tip of his nose and his rough black beard peeked through, when James entered the stairwell with Tosia.
James noted his presence right away. He wanted something, that James knew well enough. Whether it was something serious or not, he couldn’t discern, but better to not take the chance. James kissed Tosia’s forehead and patted her backside as she ascended the stair to clean up and ready herself to help serve the evening meal.
Her fingernail trailed along his wrist as Tosia glided up the steps, and she gave Shabib a small smile before stepping around the curve in the stair.
“You have accomplished no small feat,” Shabib commented with an air of authority.
“What do you mean by that, oh sage one?”
Shabib tipped his head to the stairwell as he pushed himself off the wall. “The lass, your coppery wife. You have managed to make her love the beast.”
James’s jaw clenched involuntarily. That beast hadn’t been well tamed today, and worry of Tosia’s safety only made his fury toward the English worse. The idea that she might suffer for his sins hadn’t fully occurred to him until this day. James drew his shoulders in and turned to Shabib.
His face was touched with a shadow of joy — something James hadn’t truly seen on his friend before. That Shabib found joy in James’s happiness reinforced James’s commitment that one day, Shabib, too, might find his own joy.
And that joy was never found in vengeance. James had seen the look in the Bruce’s dark eyes when they attacked the MacDouall’s — he felt a sense release, but no joy. Vengeance didn’t bring back family, it didn’t restore love to a bereaved heart.
Only love could do that. Robert was confident that he’d be reunited with his wife soon, and that hope was the last thread of humanity that remained in the Bruce. That and his love and admiration for his men.
Shabib had none of that. Nor had he expressed any interested in trying to mend his heart after the loss of his own family in Spain. The dark Moor had been a ghost to himself, a shell of a man. James had pulled him from the precipice of decay, and though his friendship with Shabib and Shabib’s rediscovery of his faith had given the man a semblance of himself back, the emptiness in Shabib was discernible to any who knew him well.
“Och, mayhap the beast was ready to be tamed. I can only hope that she finds peace in the wake of my monstrous ways.” James clapped his hand on the lean man’s shoulder. “And mayhap we must find a woman for ye, one who can bring ye a measure of peace. A long time has passed, man.”
Shabib’s smile tightened, and he dropped his face under his hood.
“James, you well know my peace awaits me after my death, when I join my family in the afterlife.”
James shook Shabib. “Aye, that is most assuredly true. But would your wife want ye to pine away while ye still walk the earth? Or would she desire that ye find peace here while ye may?”
Shabib grew stiff under James’s hand. He’d struck a chord, one Shabib wasn’t ready to release. Now was not the time to continue that train of thought.
“Did ye have a need of me?” James asked, changing the subject. “Were ye waiting on me?”
“Aye. The Bruce desires to meet before the eve tide meal, to study your next moves on the English. I’d ask that I might be able to attend?”
James nodded. “Of course, as ye will. The invitation is always open to ye. Let us go.”
Shabib’s eyes lifted back to James, and he shook his head. “Not until ye wash the blood and grime from your clothes. I dinna know what you do with your wife in the wood, but perchance make it a little less aggressive?”
James’s jaw clenched again as his hand went to his tunic. Was it that obvious? Shabib chuckled under his breath as he walked away, leaving James to his ablutions before he attended the king.
