But after a fortnight, Joanna was no longer so sure. For two weeks, James arrived at Hazelside about an hour after the morning meal and asked to see her. And for two weeks he left a short while later after being refused.
Each day he would glance up to her room in the tower house as he rode away, and from where she peeked out behind the wooden shutter, Joanna swore she could see the silent plea in his eyes. The plea for forgiveness that would melt even the hardest of hearts, including her father’s.
On the fifteenth day her father brought the request to her himself. He gave her a solemn look. “I don’t know what happened to turn your heart against the young lord, but I’ll assume whatever it was, it was horrible. But I also know you’ve loved him a long time, and if you care at all about him, you’ll put a stop to this. He’s determined to prove something to you, no matter what it costs him. His stepmother demanded to see me yesterday and ordered me to force you to marry him before he destroys the family. Apparently, he was supposed to return to Bruce last week, but he’s refused, and the king is furious. He’s threatened to send James to the Island of St. Kilda as his sheriff if he doesn’t appear soon.”
St. Kilda was an island in the farthest reaches of the Western Isles—it would be like being exiled to the end of the world. And the thought that Eleanor de Lovaine—whose ambition rivaled James’s—would be so desperate that she would see James marry Joanna gave her a moment’s pause.
But only a moment, and then her mouth fell in a hard line.
Her father made a sound of frustration. “You are as much a stubborn fool as he is. But this is not a game, Joanna. This will cost the young lord dearly.”
When the young lord strode into the Hall the next morning, it was Joanna who waited for him and not her father.
The look of surprise was followed quickly by a smile—the boyishly crooked one she loved—that slammed into her chest and put the first crack in the ice around her heart.
Furious by her reaction, she scowled. “Why are you doing this, James?”
“Doing what?”
She didn’t buy the innocent act for one minute. She put her hands on her hips and gave him her most stern look. “What do you plan to do, come here every day until someone arrives to put you in chains for dereliction of duty or treason?”
His jaw locked. “If that’s what it takes to prove to you that I love you, then yes.”
He sounded so calm, while she was anything but. “Are you mad? You can’t ignore the king’s orders.”
“I didn’t. I told him I had a family emergency.”
“So you haven’t been ordered to return?”
“I have.”
“And?”
“And he’ll have to wait.”
“Have you informed King Edward of this by any chance? Isn’t he planning something soon? A war maybe?”
He answered her sarcasm with a shrug.
Joanna couldn’t believe his carelessness. “I know how hard you’ve worked for this, James. Would you really throw it all away?”
“Throwing something away is exactly what I’m trying not to do. You are the most important thing in the world to me, Jo. I’ll not walk away from you again.”
“You won’t have to. You’ll be dragged away.”
He smiled at her outrage. “I don’t think it will come to that. But, aye, I suspect the Bruce is angry enough to divest me of a few of my properties—and perhaps my title—right about now.”
Joanna looked at him in horror. How could he jest about something like this? Their eyes met and she felt another whack of the hammer strike the ice around her heart. Her voice was a whisper. “You’re serious about this, aren’t you?”
He nodded and held out his hand. “Give me a chance to show you, Jo. Just a chance—a few days—that’s all I’m asking.”
Tears sprang to her eyes. The feelings that she’d buried on that horrible day over three months ago came back to her not in a rush but in a whisper. A tantalizing whisper of what could be.
Could she trust him again? Could she put the past behind her and give him another chance?
Joanna didn’t know, but she knew she was going to try.
With a deep breath, she slipped her hand into his.
Joanna had given him his few days, and James made the most of them. He took her riding, fishing, to the fair in Lanark on Saturday, and dragged her all over Douglasdale to practically every place they’d ever been, trying to remind her of all the memories they shared.
Except for one. He avoided Pagie Hill. Their hill, and the place where they’d made love that first time—and the second—under the trees. She wasn’t ready for that memory, and truthfully, neither was he.