Part 17 (1/2)
Nay...
She started to go outside and demand they free him, but she knew the folly of such an act.
Besides, they wouldn't listen to her. She was only a woman and they were men determined to take him to the local lord.
”What on earth?” Julia asked from her side.
Cat stepped back into the tent. ”We need to find Simon and Stryder.” Grabbing her cloak, she covered herself before she headed toward the lists, with Julia one step behind her.
Sure enough, Lord Stryder was in his tent. She ignored the guard as she went inside without a single announcement.
Stryder was bare from the waist up as he washed himself in a large barrel.
Cat gasped at the sight of all his tawny skin before she turned around and forced Julia to follow suit. ”Forgive me for interrupting you, my lord. I should have knocked or waited to be announced.”
A deep laugh rumbled from behind her. ”I take it you have something of great import?”
”Aye.”
”Then turn around. I'm clothed now.”
Cat did and saw that he now wore a simple linen tunic. The laces of which were left untied so that even clothed, there was no hiding the fact he held an extremely well defined body. Not that she was attracted to his body, she just wasn't blind to it.
”They've arrested Lord Lochlan,” she announced without any kind of preamble.
He scowled at her. ”They? Who is they?”
She paused as she realized she didn't really know. ”I know not. They didn't say.”
He took two steps toward her. ”What are his charges?”
”Again, they didn't say.”
He narrowed his gaze on her as if considering her nonanswers. ”Interesting. Give me a moment, my lady, to finish dressing and we'll go to the castle to see what's going on.”
Grateful for his help, she gave a quick curtsy. ”Thank you, my lord.”
Cat returned to where Val stood with a knowing grin on his face.
”Another moment, my lady, and he'd have been naked.”
”You could have told me that before I entered,” she snapped at the man, who was all but a giant.
”I tried, but you were h.e.l.l bent to see him. Who am I to argue with a lady?”
”You're a wretched excuse for a guard,” Stryder said from inside the tent.
Val shook his head. ”I'll be glad when old age takes that man's hearing. It's far too sharp for my tastes.”
Cat laughed before she sent Julia back to their tent and waited for Stryder to finish.
Stryder came out of the tent with a glare on his face that could have quelled the devil as he finished lacing his surcoat. ”Remind me again why I tolerate you?” he asked Val.
”I saved your a.r.s.e more times than you can count.”
”Are we not even yet?”
”Nay. The day we become even you'll most likely kill me, so I intend to stay one step up.”
Growling at him, Stryder headed for the castle. ”Follow me, my lady, and let us see what this matter is over.”
Lochlan stood in the empty great hall before the count of Rouen, who was an elderly man with gray hair and sharp brown eyes. His gaze was filled with contempt as he stared at him.
”What do you wish me to do with him, Oswald?” he asked the n.o.ble who'd confronted Lochlan earlier.
”Hold him hostage until his father comes for him.”
Lochlan scoffed. ”That would certainly be quite a wait, my lords, since my father is dead.”
Oswald didn't hesitate in his venom. ”Then punish him in his father's stead.”
Lucky for him, the count seemed to have better sense. ”I can't do that without just cause. He's a Scottish lord.”
Oswald stiffened as if that offended him to the marrow of his bones. ”And I'm the cousin of a king. I demand justice, Reginald. His father destroyed my sister. He took her honor, her virginity, and her tongue. For that, I want his b.a.s.t.a.r.d son's neck in a noose.”
Lochlan ground his teeth to keep from protesting his innocence in this. It wasn't as if they didn't know. The problem was, Oswald didn't care.
”I can't hang a man for a crime his father committed.”
”Then flog him for it.”
Reginald gave Lochlan a measuring stare. ”How do you feel about that?”
He had to ask? Was the man daft?
”I protest it. Greatly. I've done nothing to warrant such punishment.”
”Nothing he's been caught for,” Oswald sneered. ”But mark my words, he's guilty of something.
The apple never rolls far from the tree.”
In this case, it most certainly did.
Lochlan heard the door behind him open and close.
Reginald scowled as he focused his gaze over Lochlan's shoulder. ”Lord Stryder. To what do I owe the honor?”