Amanda Scott by Knights Treasure Read Free Book Online Page A

Adela.”
    “I’m sure you could stay with Sorcha and Hugo at Hawthornden, too, if you’d rather,” Sidony said.
    “As to that,” Sorcha said, biting her lip, “I do not know that we will be at Hawthornden much longer. Sir Edward has said Hugo should go with Donald of the Isles when Donald leaves court to return home, and I mean to go with him. I have things to collect from Chalamine, and Sir Edward suggested that we might spend some time at Dunclathy on our way back, to see that all is in order there. We plan to be away most of the spring and summer.”
    “But Adela could stay at Hawthornden even without you, could she not?” Sidony persisted.
    “If she wants to, I suppose she can. I’ll ask Hugo.”
    “She has other options,” Lady Clendenen said. “Besides a generous financial settlement, Ardelve left her a house in Stirling, to use for her lifetime. Or, if she likes, she can stay with me in Edinburgh. I’d enjoy her company.”
    “Thank you, my lady,” Adela said. “However …”
    “Pray, don’t say that you will not,” Isobel cut in swiftly, and soon the others were discussing her among themselves again as if she were not there.
    Adela shut her ears to it all, staring into the flickering firelight, until Sidony said abruptly, “What do
you
want, Adela?”
    For perhaps the first time in her life, Adela did not hesitate to say exactly what she was thinking: “I want you all to go away and leave me alone.”
    Sidony’s eyes widened. “But—”
    “I don’t want to live in Edinburgh or Stirling, or in any town. Nor do I want to impose myself on you or Sorcha, Isobel. I’ll do my duty to Ardelve, and then I will go home. But all I want now is peace, so go away, all of you, and let me be!”
    A moment later, the door clicked shut behind them and she had her wish.
    At first, she was grateful, but it was not long before her thoughts and emotions began to plague her. What had happened too many times before was happening again. Unfair though she knew it to be, she was angry with Ardelve for dying, just as she had been angry when her mother had died, and her sister Mariota.
    A voice in her head suggested that she should depend on nothing and no one. People could not control the Fates. Certainly, she could not. The voice in her mind seemed so loud that she began to wonder if she were going mad.
    Why had she told them so rudely to leave? What would they think of her?
    The iron control she had developed had slipped away without warning, and the result was as she had so often feared. She had to regain her composure and keep it, because what might happen if she lost it altogether did not bear thinking about.
    Deciding she might relax if she lay down on the bed, she did so without even taking off her dress. No sooner did she shut her eyes than she fell asleep.
    A nightmare wakened her. She did not recall details, only that she had been frightened witless as usual and felt as if she were choking. She had suffered from bad dreams since her abduction, but this time her necklace had tightened round her throat as she slept. So, at least, she told herself as she straightened it, the choking sensation was understandable.
    The room was dark, the embers on the hearth barely aglow. She had no idea how long she had slept. But if her sisters had left her alone for hours, the chance that they would do so much longer was small. On the thought, she got up, relieved herself in the chamber pot, found the hooded lavender velvet cloak that Isobel had given her, and flung it on as she hurried to the door.
    Opening it cautiously, she peeked out, found the landing reassuringly empty, and fled up the winding stairs to the narrow door onto the ramparts. Praying the fog had not dispersed and that Hugo had removed all the men to guard approaches from the glen, she quietly opened the door and stepped onto the wall walk.
    Shutting the door behind her with no more sound than a metallic click as the latch fell into place, she felt as if