Chapter Two

Hawick-upon-Tweed, Scotland

People crowded the market, but Eve weaved her way through the tables where goods were being hocked, determined to buy the best fruit and vegetables for the convent. She tugged on her itchy novice habit, which she had not, in eight years of hiding, ever become accustomed to wearing, and continued on through the throng of bartering townspeople.

She bowed her head and folded her hands in front of her, as if in prayerful consideration, while she passed a group of knights who donned capes emblazoned with the King of England’s coat of arms. She stole a sideways glance at them, not surprised when none of them spared the slightest look for her. Men never took notice of nuns—or women feigning to be a novice as she was. It was why Clara always had Eve wear her habit. It was the perfect disguise. Clara vowed it made her practically invisible to any man who might be searching for the lost heiress of Linlithian Castle.

Eve didn’t see how any man would even recognize her. She’d changed much in the years since she’d escaped from the Scots who had stormed her home, murdered her family, and intended to force her hand in marriage to gain her father’s castle. But Clara insisted that she was recognizable, and Eve’s uncle agreed. And because Uncle Frederick had been ruling both the castle and her father’s men in her stead until she reached eighteen summers, she’d had no choice but to relent. She had not seen her uncle in the years since she’d fled, but they had exchanged many letters, and any time Eve disagreed with one of Clara’s dictates, her uncle always sided with Clara and reminded Eve that she was obligated to heed him.

Eve had long dreamed of the day she could leave the confines of the Sisters of Saint Cecilia Convent and return to her home, and as today was finally her eighteenth birthday, she had every intention of making the journey to Linlithian within the sennight. She knew her uncle only sought to protect her by keeping her here, but she wanted to take her rightful place and rule fairly and wisely as her father had. She would take her uncle’s counsel, of course, but she had her own mind and would use it the way her parents had raised her to use it. And thanks to King Edward’s declaration when he had gifted her father Linlithian for saving his life, her father’s heir, should it be a girl, could rule the castle in her own right upon reaching eighteen summers and choose her own husband. She intended to pick a husband as soon as possible, and he would be a man she could love who would love her in return.

Eve plucked a berry out of a basket and sampled it as she thought about the possibility of marrying. She had long imagined it. Of course she had. Her parents had been very much in love, and she wanted that, as well. She frowned as she bit into another sweet berry, worry niggling at her. As the heiress to a castle that stood strategically between the border of Scotland and England, many men would wish to wed her for her home and not her true self. She would have to be careful and wise if she was to find real love. God willing, she would not wed for less.

“Let go of me!” a woman screamed from behind Eve, instantly sparking her protective instincts. She slipped her hand inside the slit she had cut into her habit for easy access to the dagger sheathed on her hip. Eve turned, her temper flaring at the sight of a gypsy woman in the clutches of one of the knights and surrounded by his comrades.

The knight jerked the dark-haired woman to him. “Help me!” she cried out, trying and failing to strike him.

“Sir,” Eve pleaded, turning to the fruit seller behind the nearest table. “Surely, you will aid the woman?”

The older man shook his head, remorse in his eyes. “If I aid her, I could lose my home or my life. My wife and children need me.”

Eve bit her lip in frustration. She could hardly argue with his comment. It was true. The king’s knights who traveled through these parts were often violent to the Scottish people of the village. Though Eve had no love for Highlanders, she had gotten to know the Lowlanders of these parts, and they were a civilized, kind people. Even the gypsies never hurt anyone and were generous with their knowledge.

She glanced at the woman again and tensed when the knight began to drag the crying gypsy off toward a side road. She swept her gaze around the crowded square, but the few men who were there were clearly averting their eyes from the knights. Eve curled her fingers around the hilt of her dagger as her heart began to pound. Clara would be furious if Eve involved herself, but what choice was there? The woman was helpless against so many men.

“In the name of King Edward, halt!” Eve shouted. She ran toward the knights, who had all stopped and were turning her way.

“Sister!” the fruit seller behind her cried out, but she did not look back as she raced across the courtyard.

“What do you need, Sister?” the knight demanded when she stood before him.

He raked his gaze over Eve quickly, but then his eyes widened a bit. He frowned, looking her over in a much slower fashion. The gypsy woman tried to jerk out of his grip, but he yanked her back so hard she yelped.

Eve ground her teeth. “You should not treat a lady so,” she said, struggling to keep her tone civil.

“This is no lady, Sister.” The man’s dark eyes bore into Eve. “Have you taken your vows? Seems a shame for one as young and pretty as you to give her life to God.”

Eve’s skin crawled at his words. She normally tried to avoid outright lying, but in this case, she would make an exception. “I am indeed a nun,” she fibbed, “and I can assure you that God will condemn you for treating this woman so roughly—as would King Edward, I’m certain.”

The knights all laughed. The one standing before her said, “The king gives us freedom to deal with Scottish townspeople as we see fit. And if God disliked how I was treating this woman, he would have incited one of the cowardly men over there to stop me.” The knight waved a negligent hand in the direction of the square.

“God incited me to stop you,” Eve said, clutching her hidden dagger more tightly as the men laughed at her. The gypsy’s eyes grew large. To Eve’s right, a traveling bard began to sing a story that, to her dismay, featured a young nun with lavender eyes and bold claims. Eve shot a glare at the bard, who grinned at her.

“How could you possibly stop me, Sister?” the same knight asked, amusement underlying his words.

Eve surveyed the man carefully. He was bigger than her, but that alone did not frighten her. She’d long ago befriended the gypsies, known as the Summer Walkers, who traveled by the convent every summer, and they’d taught her to be quick with a sword and a dagger. She had spent the years in hiding training her mind and body so that she’d never again feel helpless the way she had the night she’d been taken. But she did not have her sword with her now, and the dagger could only do so much against a group of men. She could likely defeat this one man, but then his comrades would simply seize her if she did. This battle called for strategy.

“I’m quite good with a dagger,” she finally answered, allowing her tone to become slightly boastful as she withdrew her hidden blade.

The knights’ laughter immediately died when the sun caught on the sharp, gleaming edge of her weapon. The one before her cocked his eyebrow as he shoved the now-quiet gypsy woman to one of his comrades. “Where did a nun come by such a thing?”

Eve shrugged. “From the hand of a thief who tried to rob me.”

“You disarmed the man of his dagger?” the knight asked, his disbelief clear.

“I assure you,” Eve said evenly, “it is not as unlikely as it seems. I’ll wager you that I can disarm you, too.”

The man scoffed at her, but when she simply stared at him, he frowned. “All right,” he replied, his tone taking on a manipulative edge that she recognized. The abbess of the convent always sounded that way when she was bartering in the markets. Sister Mary Margaret was a cunning woman with a huge heart, but she was unyielding when it came to getting what she desired. If Eve could be half the leader of her father’s men that Sister Mary Margaret was of the nuns, then she would be a good ruler.

“You’ve nothing to offer me,” the man growled, then leered at her. “Now, if you weren’t a nun…” His gaze trailed slowly along her habit.

When his eyes returned to hers, Eve simply gave a half smile and a shrug. “If you’re fearful I’ll best you, simply say so.”

“Come on, Darius,” one of his comrades spoke up. “You cannot let a nun goad you like that. If you won’t fight her, I will!” All the men standing with Darius laughed, and the knight’s face turned red.

Darius look at her. “When I best you, I’ll take your dagger as my prize.”

“All right,” Eve said, struggling not to smirk. “But when I win, you’ll set the gypsy free and vow to let her go without harm.”

“As you wish, Sister…?”

“Mary,” Eve replied, using her sister’s name on a whim. She certainly could not give her own, and it seemed fitting somehow to remember Mary when rescuing this woman, as Eve had failed to rescue her sister.

Darius pointed to Eve’s dagger. “I suggest you sheathe your weapon for the fight.”

“Ye kinnae really mean to fight the nun?” someone asked from behind her.

Eve whirled around to find the man who had refused to help the gypsy standing there. Behind him a small crowd from the market looked on from a safe distance.

The knight shrugged. “It was the nun’s idea. But if you’d rather not, Sister Mary…”

Eve faced Darius once more. The man had brawn but little brains. “The winner is the first to disarm the other,” she announced. “And you will take a care not to cut me.” She added the last line for his benefit, to make him think she was fearful.

“Of course,” he replied, motioning to one of his comrades for his sword.

Eve eyed the sword, taking in the length, shape, and type of metal used to forge it. It was very similar to the one she secretly had made in town the previous year, in preparation for returning home. When Darius held the weapon out to her, she let it tip to the ground and then made a show of struggling to lift it upright. “It’s very heavy,” she huffed, inwardly rolling her eyes.

The pompous man snickered as she lifted the weapon with several well-timed grunts. When it was hip height, she said, “I believe I’m ready.”

The knight nodded and swiveled his sword forward, gently tapping his blade to hers. She gasped and feigned nearly dropping it while he laughed. His blade was directly in front of her, mid-waist, exactly where she wanted it. This was too easy. “Sister, that was a warning tap,” Darius said. “You’re certain that—”

Eve shoved her sword upward and to the left, clanging against his. His jaw dropped. He tensed and began to react, but it was too late. The momentum of her hit had driven his blade far to the right. When he turned awkwardly in order to correct his hold, she dipped her sword down and into a full arc, bringing it back up to slam into the other side of his blade. His weapon went flying out of his hands, and she sent the tip of her sword toward his chest, directly over his heart.

“Hold still,” she commanded, “or the point may slip and plunge into your heart. I am only a woman, after all, too weak to hold up this great big sword.”

The knight turned nearly purple as his comrades guffawed. Eve smiled at Darius. “You will keep your word, yes, and allow the gypsy her freedom?”

Darius nodded. “Unhand the wench,” he ordered his comrade, who immediately did so.

The gypsy woman staggered away from the man and turned to run, but then she glanced over her shoulder. “Ye have my eternal gratitude, Sister Mary,” the woman said.

Eve inclined her head in acceptance. “Flee now, madam.”

“Marianna,” the gypsy supplied.

“Marianna, only God knows how long a promise, once given, truly lasts.”

The woman nodded, turned, and ran down the same side street the knight had intended to drag her down. Eve focused her attention once more on Darius. “I’ll lower my blade now, but if you think to harm me, I vow God will strike you down.”

With that, she threw the sword at the man’s feet and made the sign of the cross while narrowing her gaze upon him. Darius’s face twisted with his rage. Eve bit her lip on the desire to laugh, and clutching her skirts, she stalked around the knight, and strode back toward the market and the road that led to the nunnery. As she passed the crowd that had gathered, they cheered for her. Grinning, she exited the market, the sweet, high-pitched voice of the bard singing about the dangerous, violet-eyed nun floating on the wind.

She laughed as she rounded the corner to the dirt road, but when the convent came into sight a few minutes later, her grin faded. Clara was going to be so upset when she heard of the day’s event. Eve slowed her steps as she considered what to say. Clara worried because she loved her, Eve knew that. So she would simply tell Clara that there was no need to fret that their enemies might hear the story of a nun named Mary with strange-colored eyes and associate it with Eve. Besides, her uncle had explained carefully in his letters that he’d allowed everyone to think she and Clara had drowned on that fateful day eight years earlier. Clara worried unnecessarily, but even if Clara’s caution was not unfounded, Eve would soon be gone from this place.

Eve entered the convent and hurried down the corridor toward the nuns’ small bedchambers. She paused in front of Clara’s door and inhaled a deep breath to steady her mind. It was time for them to return to Linlithian, and Clara needed to see that, too, because Eve could never leave the woman behind. She was like a mother to Eve.

Eve knocked and waited, but when Clara did not answer, Eve opened the door to the tiny, windowless bedchamber and went inside. The room was only large enough for a small bed, table, and chair, so Eve pulled out the chair and sat, determined to wait. Papers strewed the desk, and as Clara was the tidiest person Eve knew, her old lady’s maid must have been called to help in the convent and had not had time to straighten up. Considering that she wanted Clara’s undivided attention when she returned to the bedchamber, Eve began to gather papers and stack them, but as she did so, she spotted the letter she had given Clara to send to Frederick a sennight ago.

Eve picked up the parchment and ran her finger over her signature and seal, frowning. Clara must have forgotten to send someone with the letter. Eve stood and made her way out of the room, and to the abbess’s chambers. She would ask Sister Mary Margaret to send someone with her letter today, as her uncle needed to know she was returning to her home.

Before she could even knock on the abbess’s door, it swung open, and the tiny, spritely woman blinked in surprise. Her gray eyes, which matched the color of her short hair, crinkled affectionately at the corners. “Eve, what can I do for you?”

Eve held the letter out to the abbess, glad she could speak plainly with Sister Mary Margaret. The woman had known the truth about Eve and Clara since the day they had come to the convent seeking shelter.

“Clara forgot to give you my regular letter to my uncle to be taken to Linlithian.”

Sister Mary Margaret’s silver eyebrows dipped together, and two extra lines appeared on her wrinkled forehead. “I know I’m aging, but I don’t know what you are talking about. In all the years you and Clara have been here, she’s never given me a letter to take to anyone, from you or her.”

“Never?” Eve said, her breath hitching. An odd hollow feeling filled her stomach. That was impossible! She had been writing to her uncle for years—and he’d responded!

Sister Mary Margaret shook her head. “Child, I’m happy to have our man ride the letter there, but I must ask… Is this prudent? I know you have reached eighteen summers, but you need to pick a husband. Last I spoke with Clara, she believed another year was needed for you to make a wise choice of a husband. And then, of course, we will need to discreetly make inquiries of candidates and—”

Eve held up a hand, and the abbess stopped mid-sentence. The two of them stood facing each other in silence. The corridor seemed to grow smaller, the space more confined, hotter. Sweat beaded on Eve’s lip, and her underarms grew damp. “Where—” The word cracked under the weight of her trepidation, and she had to swallow before forcing the rest of the question out. “Where is Clara?”

“She’s in the chapel,” the abbess responded, giving Eve a concerned look.

Eve nodded absently, her mind whirling with questions. Surely, the abbess was wrong and confused. She was old. Eve’s stomach roiled as she took in Sister Mary Margaret’s paper-thin skin, the lines around her eyes, her sagging neck, and weathered hands. She was very old. That’s all it is. Forgetfulness.

Eve would speak with Clara the moment the woman was finished in chapel. “If you’ll excuse me,” she said, her head fairly spinning. She did not wait for a reply. She turned on her heel and made her way back to Clara’s bedchamber to wait. She sat at the desk once more, Sister Mary Margaret’s words playing repeatedly in her mind.

Wise choice of a husband… Never given me a letter…

A horrible suspicion began to niggle at Eve, and she found herself scanning Clara’s bedchamber. If Clara was going to hide Eve’s letters—assuming they’d been hidden and not destroyed—where would she do so? Eve looked to the cluttered desk as a numbness settled over her. Trembling, she started to sift through papers and open the desk drawers. With each one she opened, her stomach grew tighter and her heart pounded harder. When she came to the last drawer, she had trouble grasping the handle because she was shaking so terribly. The tiny drawer opened with the scrape of wood upon wood, revealing nothing more than green hair ribbons that Eve was positive must be a gift for her from Clara, likely for Eve’s birthday. Clara never wore ribbons, and green was Eve’s favorite color.

Eve touched the silky edge of the ribbon, and a wave of guilt flushed her. She hurriedly closed the drawer and sucked in a deep breath. She had no right snooping through Clara’s private things. There had to be a simple explanation. Eve shoved up from the desk, deciding it was best to simply go speak with Clara. Eve hated to interrupt her in chapel, but the sooner this could be sorted out, the better.

She started toward the door, but the tip of her slipper caught the edge of a small rug, and she lurched forward, catching herself on her hands as she fell to her knees with a painful thud. Rolling to her side, tears blurred her vision and her knees throbbed. She lay huddled that way for a long moment before putting her palms down to push herself into an upright position. When she did, the wood beneath her fingers gave a loud creak, and it felt as if the boards were bending forward slightly. Eve frowned and looked down at her hands, then at the spot where the rug had been pulled back. She gave the wood a hard push. The board was loose.

That same terrible suspicion overwhelmed her. Scrambling to her knees, she hooked her fingernails under the rough edge of the plank and pulled. The board moved easily, and she peered into the hole, her lips parting with a sharp intake of breath. Pain stabbed at her chest as her gaze traveled over a bundle of letters. A choked, desperate cry escaped her, and she reached for the letters as tremors of betrayal and rage coursed through her.

Slowly, she brought out the bundle, some of the paper yellowed from years of being hidden, and hot tears trickled down her cheeks. Nauseating, sinking despair threatened to engulf her, but she made herself open the letter on top, just to be certain they were hers. She had only to read the first line for the confirmation she did not want:

My dearest Uncle Frederick,

A bellow burst from her, and she slammed the letters onto the wood and beat her fists on top of them. Her lungs burned, her stomach ached, and her head pounded as she beat at the paper, trying to obliterate the betrayal which was impossible to destroy.

She stilled at the sound of the door opening and clutched at the letters scattered in front of her until she had a bundle in both her hands.

“Oh, Eve!” Clara cried out, the dismay evident in her voice.

Eve raised her head, shoving her hair away from her eyes with the back of her hand. “You’ve been lying to me!” Eve shook the letters at Clara, the woman who had long ago saved her, the woman who had taken her mother’s place after her mother had been killed.

Eve expected tears, or denials, or pleas of forgiveness, and she clenched her teeth, prepared to ignore it all. But Clara merely folded her hands in front of her, and a determined look settled on the older woman’s soft, wrinkled face and hardened her gaze. “Yes, I have. To protect you.”

“Protect me?” Eve shouted, still waving the letters about as she rose to her feet. “Protect me from whom? My uncle? He is my kin, my blood!”

“Yes,” Clara said with a nod. “Because I cannot say for certain that he was not the one to betray your father…”

It was too much. Eve could not listen. Going home was all she had wanted, all she had to look forward to. If she could not even trust her uncle, she had nowhere to go. No home. “I don’t believe you!” Eve sobbed and threw the letters at Clara. “I won’t believe you! You’re a liar!” With that, she shoved past Clara and fled.