Chapter One

      Scottish Coast, October 1192

      Icy rain fell in sheets from a leaden sky.

      Duncan MacLellan didn’t think he’d ever felt anything so wonderful. Standing in the prow of the rowboat, he tilted his face upward and sighed. “Ah, there’s nothing like good, honest Scots rain to wash a man clean after all these years in the heathen desert.”

      “By God’s toenail, it’s so cold my arse is freezing to the seat,” grumbled Angus MacDougal.

      “Angus,” Duncan chided.

      His companion in arms snorted. “I’m sure God will understand the extremities that cause me to use his name in vain. Damn, if you aren’t the only grown man I know who takes his faith so serious-like.”

      “’Tis what kept me alive these past three years among the Infidels.” That and the determination to return to claim Janet Leslie for his bride, he reminded himself. By his own might and God’s will, he was only days away from doing just that...at long last.

      “Pity more of those who took up the cross weren’t as honorable and unswerving in the loyalty to God as Duncan,” Father Simon chimed in from his seat in the back of the boat. In contrast to the two brawny knights, he was a thin man, his bald pate still peeling from the desert sun. “Our holy enterprise might not have been such a dismal failure.”

      “We did not fail,” Angus exclaimed. “King Richard negotiated a treaty with that foul Saladin, granting Christian pilgrims safe use of the coastal ports.”

      “The cost was too high on both sides,” Duncan muttered. The memory of the terrible massacre at Acre, the slaughter of the Infidel hostages by England’s Good King Richard still infuriated him. There was no excuse for such wanton savagery. Honorable men did not make war on unarmed folk.

      “You’ve gone all queer about the mouth again, Duncan,” Angus muttered. He frowned at the thick bandage visible beneath Duncan’s mail. “Is your wound paining you again?”

      “It aches a bit, nothing more.” The slicing scimitar that had cleaved open his shoulder might have ended his life but for the timely aid of the nursing brethren of the Knights of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.

      “You should have stayed abed another week as the Hospitallers suggested,” Angus said. “You’re pasty as the sails of that cog what brought us home. And none too steady on your legs.”

      “I’m fine.” Mentally Duncan crossed himself and pledged to repent the lie as soon as he reached Threave Castle. “If I weave a bit, ’tis the motion of the ship. Not the lingering effects of the fever. Seeing my Janet again, knowing we can finally wed will restore me as none of the brothers’ potions could. Truth to tell, I was loath to tarry longer among strangers when I knew you two were leaving.” Instinctively his hand strayed to the pouch hidden beneath his thigh-length tunic. Stitched into it was a fortune in large rubies. The Templars had handled that transaction, exchanging the heavy plunder Duncan had amassed for the more portable gems.

      Angus grunted. “I hope your lady appreciates the risks you took to come home to her a wealthy man.”

      “She will.” Duncan looked toward the land. A fine mist shrouded the port of Carlisle. He recalled the jumble of docks and squalid buildings only vaguely from the day over three years ago when he’d set sail. But he knew right well the road from there to Threave Castle some eighty leagues distant. Threave Castle and Janet. “More important, her father will give his blessing to our marriage.”

      “Three years is a long time for a woman to stay faithful. How do you know she’s not found another?”

      “Because we are promised to each other. Janet would not go back on her word any more than I would. Even her father must respect the vow, for ’twas sworn on a holy relic.”

      “Men do not always honor such things,” Angus said.

      “Niall Leslie will.” Niall, laird of Threave and his father’s third cousin, was a man of his word. “Even though he considers me worthless, Janet is his fourth and last daughter. He promised her mother before she died that Janet could choose her own husband. She chose me.” The idea that someone as perfect as Janet wanted him still awed Duncan.

      “Well, I hope you’re right,” Angus said, “else you’ve wasted three years of celibacy for naught.”

      “She said she’d wait for me. Could I do any less?”

      “Aye, well, ’tis different for men than it is for women. Men have urges. Or were you blind to those dark-eyed lasses.”

      “Pagan women.” Duncan’s lip curled. Dark exotic creatures with sultry eyes and undulating hips. Many a Crusader had fallen prey to their seductive lures. Duncan had looked and lusted, but he’d not succumbed. He was made of sterner stuff, his self-control strong as tempered steel, thanks to the hard lessons beaten into him by Cousin Niall. Anxious as he was to see Janet, he was almost as anxious to watch Cousin Niall’s face when he beheld the fortune Duncan had garnered.

      Cousin Niall would not be calling him worthless scum or son of a harlot. Not when he beheld Duncan, wearing the Crusader’s cross on his chest, his hands filled with jewels.

      The prow of the boat came to a grating halt on the rocky coast. The sailors tumbled out and began to haul it up. As Duncan stepped ashore, his legs nearly buckled.

      “Here now...” Angus grabbed hold of his arm to steady him. “You best take a room at the inn and rest up a bit till you’ve got your strength back.”

      Father Simon hurried over to prop up his other side. “I could delay my journey to the monastery if you like.”

      “Nay.” Duncan straightened and gently pulled free of their well-meaning hands. He hated being weak, hated asking another for help. He’d been on his own, more or less, since his mother drank herself to death when he was ten and Cousin Niall had grudgingly taken him in.

      “’Tis my Christian duty,” Cousin Niall had proclaimed. But he’d made it very clear that Duncan was a most unwelcome burden. And a tainted one at that. That his favorite daughter had championed Duncan had made Cousin Niall all the more mean and spiteful...when she wasn’t looking, of course.

      “I’ll be fine, Angus,” Duncan said. “I’ve coin enough to buy a swift horse and a thick cloak to replace this rag.”