“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 againstthe 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.”
