The Knight(27)

Still, James should have easily been able to defend himself, but his former friend managed to get in four or five solid blows before someone pulled him off.

Or tried to pull him off. It took two men to pin MacGowan’s arms back, and he was still spewing fire. “You fucking bastard! I should kill you for what you’ve done!”

John of Carrick, one of Edward Bruce’s captains, had rushed over when he saw what was happening. “What the hell do you think you are doing, MacGowan? You just attacked one of the king’s chief lieutenants and a member of his personal guard. You’ll be in irons for this.” He turned to Douglas. “I apologize, my lord. He is a new recruit. I will see that he is punished.”

James dragged himself to his feet. He eyed MacGowan, who was staring at him with venom in his eyes, and shook the other man off. “That won’t be necessary. It was a misunderstanding. I know this man.”

John didn’t look happy about it. He gave MacGowan a look that told him he wouldn’t get off that easily and nodded to James.

Quite a few curious stares were thrown in their direction, but the crowd that had gathered at the commotion gradually dissipated.

The two men squared off in silence. Finally, when they were alone, James spoke. “What the hell was that for?”

He detected the shock in the other man’s eyes, but it was quickly replaced by a fresh burst of rage. “God, you still don’t know? What kind of selfish bastard are you not to contact her for months? She loved you. God knows why, you never did anything to deserve it. She gave and all you did was take as if it were your bloody due. The high and mighty Lord of Douglas and another loyal minion. That’s all she ever was to you. Someone to admire you and tell you how wonderful you were. And what did you do? You took her innocence and then left her with your bastard.”

James felt as if he’d been leveled by a battering ram. If MacGowan had just swung a blade and sliced him in two he would have been less stunned. His heart, his breath, everything inside him seemed to stop working. Except his mind, which was working too quickly, scrambling to fit the pieces all together in a picture that he could finally see. A babe. That’s what she’d been trying to tell him. Post the banns sooner than you realized… If it was just me… Our babe will be a bastard.

“Jo is with child?” he managed. His voice didn’t sound like his own. It was strangled and choked with emotion. They were going to have a baby. A bubble of happiness swelled inside him.

MacGowan’s hard-eyed gaze held no pity for the blow he was about to impart. “Was with child. She lost the baby in the accident.”

Lost…? Accident…? It took James a moment to process the cruel words, and the moment of joy became a plunge into the cold depths of despair. Oh God, no. Their child was dead. And Joanna? Fear and panic unlike any he’d ever imagined rose up inside him.

The fact that an accident had taken the life of their unborn child was horrible enough, but it couldn’t have taken more. He grabbed MacGowan’s arm and would have lifted him to his face, if the bastard weren’t built like a rock. “What accident? Is Jo all right? Tell me what happened.”

MacGowan shrugged out of his hold. “As if you care. It’s too late to pretend. It doesn’t matter anymore. You left her there to die alone. You abandoned her when she most needed you.”

James’s mind was blaring. His heart was racing wildly. Jo was fine. She had to be fine. Christ, no! He couldn’t even contemplate it. “Damn it, Thommy, stop torturing me and tell me what the hell happened.”

“You deserve to be tortured. You nearly destroyed her. She gave you her heart and you treated it as if it were nothing. Aye, she’s alive. By some kind of miracle she survived a fall that should have killed her after running from your damned castle after you left.” He clenched his fists, looking as if he were thinking about using them again. “I hope you are suffering, but I assure you it’s not half of the suffering that poor lass went through in the weeks after you rode out without a backward glance.”

“I sent word—”

“Aye, well it wasn’t enough. Damn it, Jamie, she deserved better from you.” James barely even registered the old nickname. No one but Beth called him Jamie now. “She believed in you. If I had someone with that much faith in me, I would do anything to hold on to it.”

Something passed in the other man’s eyes, and James’s eyes narrowed. “You mean like making yourself a soldier?”

Their eyes met, the woman—James’s sister—who had torn apart an old friendship still between them. “Go to hell, Douglas. My reasons are my own. They have nothing to do with your sister. Any illusions I might have had in that regard are long gone. Like brother like sister, I suppose.”