The Knight(23)

And before he could take the words back, he spun on his heel and left her standing there.

His chest was on fire. Every instinct clamored to go back—to tell her he didn’t mean it—but he forced his feet forward. She had to learn that she couldn’t threaten and manipulate him into doing her bidding. He loved her, but he couldn’t marry her. She needed to accept that—and what it meant. This was what it would be like. But he felt like he was on the rack and having his limbs slowly torn from his body. If it was hurting her half as much as it was hurting him, she would be ready to jump into his arms when he returned in a few days. It wouldn’t be long. Just long enough for her to realize he meant what he said.

But he felt a vague uneasiness start to grow. He looked back, and his heart lurched. She looked destroyed—and oddly desperate. She’d wanted to tell him something, he remembered. The vague uneasiness turned to full-fledged trepidation. Something was wrong. He couldn’t leave her like this.

He would have gone back to her, but Randolph stopped him. Randolph, who reminded him of everything he was fighting for. Greatness. Restoration of the family honor. His father.

“Who was that woman?” he asked.

“No one,” James said.

“She sure looked like someone.” Randolph gave him a shrewd look. “Have a care, Douglas. My uncle has big plans for you.”

James’s mouth hardened. He didn’t need Randolph to warn him. “She’s only the marshal’s daughter. A lass I’ve known since I was a child. It’s nothing.”

The words tasted like acid in his mouth. His stomach churned uneasily and he felt like some kind of Peter. He needed to get the hell out of there.





No one. Nothing.

Joanna slumped against the wall of the stairwell in stunned disbelief. If she hadn’t heard him speak the words herself, she never would have believed it. He’d dismissed her as unimportant, refusing to acknowledge her and who she was to him. She was just the marshal’s daughter. Someone beneath him. Someone not worth acknowledging. Someone who didn’t matter.

Never had she felt the differences in their rank as sharply as she did at this moment. She’d been naive; she could see that now. She’d been deceived by the friendship they’d held for so long, by passion, by love.

Her chest felt like someone was standing on it. She couldn’t breathe as the ragged blade of disappointment pressed down on her, crushing in its intensity. This was how it would feel to be his leman. She would be by his side but remain unacknowledged—unworthy and relegated to the shadows.

If she hadn’t been certain before, she was now: She would never accept a life like that for herself or for her child.

In the smoldering ashes of her love a flash of anger ignited, for herself and for their child. They deserved better. How dare he do this to them—to her. She’d given him everything, and he treated her as if she meant nothing to him.

Whether he would change his mind when he learned about the baby no longer mattered to her. She had changed her mind. She wouldn’t marry him now even if the great James Douglas came crawling to her on his hands and knees.

But what was she going to do? The horror of the situation crashed down on her. She slid to the stair, cradling her stomach in her hands, hating him for making her feel this way. Hating him. Yes, God, she hated him.

Vaguely she was aware of the patter of tiny footsteps approaching. The soft scent of roses wafted through the air a moment before she felt the tentative press of a hand on her shoulder.

“Jo—Joanna, are you all right?”

The dulcet sweet tones were of the past but instantly familiar. Joanna lifted her gaze to the woman leaning over her.

She blinked, the magnificence of the beautiful face looking down on her almost rivaled the sun in sheer brilliance. Bright blue eyes, shimmering flaxen hair, skin so snowy-white it almost sparkled, and tiny, delicate features that belonged on a faerie princess, Elizabeth Douglas looked like something that had descended from the heavens.

Was this really her old friend? Gone was the wild urchin with the unkempt braids and torn skirts who used to run across the countryside with her. The lady standing before her was dressed as richly as a queen with every strand of hair perfectly coiffed beneath a diamond-encrusted circlet of gold and veil so thin it might have been spun from the threads of a spider’s web.

The hand that rested on her shoulder looked as if it had never known a moment’s labor. Soft and white, with perfectly oval-shaped nails bereft of a speck of dirt underneath.

Instinctively, Joanna curled her own hands—with her nails bitten almost to the quick—into her plain brown woolen skirts.