Chapter One

      The Village of St. Oln, Scotland

      1300

      Cristiane inghean Domhnall, the half-English daughter of Domhnall Mac Dhiubh, sat on a rocky promontory overlooking the crashing black waves of the North Sea. The wind had kicked up, and the clouds overhead were thick with moisture. Cristiane knew there would soon be a downpour.

      ’Twas no matter. There was a cave nearby if she needed to find shelter. She would not return to the village by choice. Lord knew she was barely tolerated in St. Oln since the death of her parents.

      Cristiane stretched one arm out and opened her hand, letting it rest quietly beside her. Soon enough, a pair of soft gray kittiwakes approached, one more shyly than the other. The bold one stood looking at Cristiane, then hopped closer, eyeing the outstretched hand, tilting his head this way and that, viewing from all angles the bit of bread she held.

      Cristiane smiled wistfully. ’Twas a game she’d played for years, with the guillemots, the shags and the puffins that inhabited this place. The birds were unafraid of her. Wary, of course. She expected nothing less of them.

      But soon she would see them no more. For her mother had arranged for her to be escorted to York, to the estate of her uncle. Elizabeth of York had known that Cristiane had no future here in St. Oln. When the lass’s father, the Mac Dhiubh, had been killed in a skirmish with a neighboring clan, Elizabeth had begun to seek a new home for Cristiane.

      She wondered if a likely husband existed in York. There was no one in St. Oln who’d have her, especially now that her father was gone. No Scotsman would willingly take a half-English wife.

      Again, ’twas no matter. There was no one Cristiane was interested in having, either, though she did yearn for a man of her own, and a family. By the age of two and twenty, all the village lasses were well and truly wed, and some already had babes and wee children playing at their feet. It hurt Cristiane deeply to know that she was never to have the same pleasure.

      She knew she was different from them. Besides being half-English, she had been reared separate from the other village children. Her father had tutored her in French and Latin, and she could read. She’d also had hours of leisure to explore the cliffs, and to learn the ways of the creatures that lived here.

      ’Twas no wonder none of the men of St. Oln would have her.

      The brazen kittiwake approached, and with its long, sharp beak, quickly snatched the bit of bread from Cristiane’s hand. Then it hopped away to pick at its food and argue with the shy one over it. Cristiane closed her hand. She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.

      She knew she had only a day or two left at St. Oln before the earl’s men came for her. ’Twas her mother’s dearest desire that Cristiane leave this poor, unfriendly land where Elizabeth had been banished by her own father so many years before. Now that her mother was dead and buried, Cristiane was compelled to carry out her last wish.

      ’Twas a bittersweet promise. Cristiane had no regrets over leaving the village of St. Oln, but when she traveled to the strange land to the south, she would lose the comforting presence of the familiar birds and the wee creatures that nested on her beloved cliffs.

      But she had no choice in the matter. Her English-bred mother had been wife to the Mac Dhiubh, and therefore tolerated as long as there was peace in the land, and the laird was alive. But the once-prosperous St. Oln had fallen on hard times. War with the English king and with neighboring clans had made the people suspicious of all outsiders, including Lady Elizabeth and even Cristiane inghean Domhnall. Her father’s influence was no longer a force to be reckoned with.

      Cristiane had always known she had ties in England. Her mother’s elder brother was the Earl of Learick, away south in the land of York, and it had been her mother’s last wish that Cristiane remove to his estates there. On her deathbed, Elizabeth had made her daughter promise to go with the earl’s men when they came for her.

      Cristiane had no idea what her mother’s connection was to the Earl of Bitterlee, or why ’twas Bitterlee’s men who would come for her. By the time her mother had spoken of these plans, she had been too ill to be questioned. It still seemed strange to Cristiane that it was not her uncle who was coming for her, to take her directly to York.

      Ah, well… ’twas too late now to learn any more from her mother. Elizabeth had rarely spoken of her family until the very end, so Cristiane knew little of them. Only that her mother had been disowned by her father all those years before, and sent away to St. Oln to marry Domhnall Mac Dhiubh. Domhnall had been chosen because her Yorkish uncle had known him in Paris years before.

      Cristiane sighed as the first drops of rain touched her face. ’Twas spring and the weather was fine, but the rain was cold and biting. She gathered up her thin, ragged skirt and climbed to her shallow cave, where a few of her precious belongings were stored. Since no one ever came up here, Cristiane knew they were safe.

      ’Twas a strange provision, Adam thought, that the Mac Dhiubh girl be allowed to adjust to Bitterlee before he made her his wife. Still, he’d allowed Sir Charles to agree to it when he wrote to Elizabeth Mac Dhiubh. After all, it suited Adam’s own purposes perfectly. This way, he would not be compelled to wed the girl if she were unsatisfactory.

      Nay, ’twas lucky for him that her mother had insisted she be given time to adjust to Bitterlee before he even suggested they wed. ’Twould give him time to evaluate and adjust, as well.

      Adam doubted the girl would be suitable, anyway. Even if she were half-English, she’d been raised here among the lowland Scots, barbaric people who had a decided mistrust of all things English. Clan Mac Dhiubh might even be responsible for harrying English border estates.

      Adam did not need a bloodthirsty Scot for a wife.

      The village of St. Oln was a poor one, he thought, as he and his escort dismounted in front of its ramshackle stone church. His leg, horribly butchered during the clash at Falkirk, pained him from sitting so long in the saddle. The cold rain hadn’t helped, either. He stood still a moment as his two knights flanked him, then he limped to the church steps, glancing around him at the village.

      Here lived the true victims of the wars, he thought, the people who remained after the battles, ragged and hungry and disillusioned. The villagers gathered their children and scampered into their huts in order to avoid the three hauberk-clad English knights who rode in, just as bold as could be.

      “Be