He scowled in response. “Take care, sister,” he said quietly, his long fingers drumming a pattern on his knees. “That man is not all that he seems.”
Chapter Seven
Callum kept histemper in check until he had made it out of the house and across the courtyard. Listening hard, he could discern Andrew’s ribald singing coming between bursts of hammering, and he used this as a cue to find the damaged barn where his men were working.
Here, just inside the shady entrance, he allowed his rage to surface in a guttural bellow. At the same time, he swung his fist so that an ancient, blackened beam by the door caught the full force of the blow.
Holy hell,that hurt.
He shook out his fingers, wincing from the pain. It was a foolish thing to do, given that a broken hand would not aid him in any way. But his temper was brewing inside him so fiercely that he needed a release.
Both the hammering and the singing ceased, the sound replaced by lowered voices. Within moments, his men would appear and questions would be asked of him.
Callum was in no mood to answer questions.
He should not have come here. Not yet.
Quickly he slunk away, running lightly away from the open barn towards a low building where a slatted door stood ajar. All he wanted was to be alone so he might think.
Callum paused at the door, nudging it gently so that it swung open and revealed an empty chamber.
It was not until he had walked through the door that he realised he was inside a modest chapel. Modest in its size—it would not hold a congregation of more than twenty—but far from modest in its execution. Painted glass softened the light and cast rainbow-hued patterns onto plastered walls which were adorned with frescoes so intricate he could not help but gaze at them, his breathing becoming more even as he made out a glorious pattern of intertwined stems and leaves twisting about the mullioned windows. Callum sank onto the nearest pew and rested his elbows on his knees. Silence pressed upon him heavily.
So Tristan had been in Scotland. There was no doubting that fact now.
Callum’s anger was so intense he thought he might weep. Albeit, there was still no proof that Frida’s brother had played a part in the storming of Kielder Castle. But the probability was rising.
Why else would Callum have been dispatched to this very place if it were not to assassinate a man who had brought death and destruction to his homeland?
He clutched his hands together, wondering if he might send up prayers asking the almighty for a sign as to how he should proceed.
It was then that the irony of the situation fell upon him like a rug thrown from on high. He was momentarily smothered, gasping for breath in the quiet chapel.
Callum had done exactly this in Wolvesley Castle. He had asked for help from on high when his feelings for Frida grew stronger than his will to serve his master.
His subsequent decision to leave England and abandon his quest meant that Tristan de Neville was left alive and free. Free to attack Scottish lands.
Free, perchance, to attack Kielder Castle.
A groan ripped from him as he realised the weight of these implications. The razing of Kielder Castle, the killing of the innocent, the destruction of his father’s lands; the blame for all of this and more could easily belong to him. For he had spared the man who had likely led the attack.
The strength drained from his body into the wooden pew. He felt as weak as a child.
He should have listened to his father. Obeyed his orders. Abandoned any fanciful notions of kinship with an English noble sworn to an English King.
Fanciful notions of connection.Nay,of romance, with the daughter of an English earl.
Callum rubbed the heel of his hands into his eyes. He had lived long enough on this earth to know that regret was baked into the very fabric of existence. One could never second-guess the future and there was little to be gained by reimagining the past.
What mattered was the present.
A present in which he vowed to take his revenge upon Tristan de Neville. God’s bones, if he must bide here a year or scour the earth to track the man down, so be it. He would do whatever it took to look the man in the eye and demand if he had led the raid on Kielder Castle.
If he saw, by the merest flicker of an eyelid, that the answer was yes, then friendship be damned. Tristan de Neville would know punishment for his myriad crimes upon the innocent.
In fact, enough time had been wasted. He would talk to Jonah on the morrow and establish Tristan’s present whereabouts. What he’d said to his men was true: Wolvesley Castle was far too well-defended to attempt an attack. But Tristan must travel on the roads at some time.
Breathing deeply, Callum straightened his back and fixed his gaze on the soft swirls of light emanating from the painted glass.
