by Lecia Cornwall, Sabrina York, Anna Harrington, May McGoldrick
“Don’t be a fool,” she murmured to herself.
The wind was buffeting her, and the rain that began again almost as soon as they left the inn was falling harder now. Before they left the borough, it was coming down in sheets, driven nearly sideways by the gusts. She couldn’t remember a storm so powerful.
Her cloak and hair were whipping about her. Elizabeth peered ahead as they descended toward the cluster of cottages huddled along the banks of the River Forth. Once they reached the bridge leading to the abbey, they might see Clare and her fiancé at any time, if they were still out braving the weather. In any event, she needed to be alert. But the man striding beside her was definitely a distraction.
The Highlander suddenly reached out and pulled her against him as a donkey cart coming down the hill behind them came dangerously close to her.
She slipped, and her face pressed against his side. His tartan against her cheek did nothing to soften the hard, muscled body. The scent of wool and leather and man filled her senses. This was the second time he’d caught her. She righted herself and pulled away.
When she looked up at him, Macpherson was glaring at the farmer in the cart, who appeared to be laughing to himself as he continued on his way.
She needed to clear her head. She needed to keep her mind on why she was here and what she intended to do. Before they reached the abbey, she had to convince him that he was better off walking away from the upcoming nuptials.
“Elizabeth and I have been friends for a year now,” she said over the wind, encouraging him to ask questions.
“The Setons are an old family,” he said, ignoring her comment. “You’re a respectable lot, despite being Lowlanders.”
This was not the direction she wanted the conversation to go.
“Now that I think of it,” he continued. “I’ve met a few of you in recent years.”
Disaster, Elizabeth thought in panic. She knew almost nothing of Clare’s family.
“How about Elizabeth?” she asked. “I’m told you two have never met.”
He was looking at the sky, which was becoming darker and turning an odd shade of green. The torrential rain had already formed muddy streams in the road. Aside from the frown on his face, the Highlander seemed unaffected by the elements.
“Allow me to tell you about Elizabeth,” she repeated over the gusts.
“No need. Tell me about yourself.”
Her foot disappeared into a water-filled gulley, almost to her knee, and he caught her again as she pitched forward. It was impossible not to notice the power and the ease with which he lifted her and set her on her feet. It was also impossible not to notice that he was slow to release her. For an insane moment, his handsome face came perilously close as he adjusted her hood and pulled her cloak around her.
“How long have you been in the service of the queen?”
“A year,” she answered. “And I’m to be married end of the summer.”
“Who’s the lucky man?”
“I don’t think you know him. He’s a Lowlander.”
Truth and lies suddenly became a jumbled knot in her head. She tried to remember what she planned to say to him and what she’d already admitted.
“I assumed that,” he responded. “What’s his name?”
“Sir Robert Johnstone.”
“I know him.”
Damnation. Hellfire.
Why didn’t Clare say anything about this? How could it be that she didn’t know? How could Elizabeth take the Highlander to the abbey and show him a man he knew and a woman who was pretending to be her? It wouldn’t work. She was doomed.
She’d tried to tell Queen Margaret the plan would be a disaster. She wouldn’t listen. Elizabeth swore she would kill Clare the next time she caught up to her.
When her foot slid on the rock, all she could think was that the damned thing was smooth, it was slick with mud and rain, and it had no right being in the middle of good dirt cart path. She cried out. As she flailed wildly with both arms and feet in the air, time seemed to slow to a crawl until her face was only a splash away from hitting the ground. How he was able to scoop her up before she landed was a mystery. But before she knew it, her face was nestled into the crook of his muscled neck. Her lips were pressed against warm, taut skin. His scent filled her, and the urge to let her body sink into his nearly numbed her sense of reason.
“You don’t get out much, do you?” he asked. “Some wind and a wee bit of water, and you’re helpless as a bairn. I can’t imagine how many servants it took to convey Elizabeth Hay down this hill.”
A tingling warmth shot through her. Finally, he’d mentioned the name of the woman he was to marry.
As he put her down, Elizabeth drew back, pulling her cloak tight against the driving rain. With her eyes riveted on the increasingly treacherous cart path, she began to walk, and he fell in beside her.
Panic again seized her as they reached bottom of the hill. She needed to set up the ruse now, if there was any hope of it working. And that hope was fading by the moment.
“Elizabeth comes this way often,” she said as they started into the ragtag riverside village. “Sometimes daily, I believe. There is . . . well, I should just tell you. She meets someone.”
“Is Sir Robert in Stirling?” he asked, ignoring her.
“He is. But I’ve just told you that your intended meets a—”
“Where is he staying? I’d like to pay him a visit.”
Was he deaf? Could he think more than one thought at a time? Apparently not.
In spite of the storm, a surprisingly large number of people crowded the road to the bridge. Carts and a stubbly flock of newly shorn sheep slowed their progress. The bridge was just coming into view. Elizabeth’s blood ran cold. They were almost at their destination, and she’d done nothing to set up the ruse Queen Margaret and Clare devised.
But the plan was shite anyway. Nothing was working. She might as well turn around right now, climb back up that muddy hill to the castle, and put on her wedding dress. What madness had caused her to think any of this could possibly work?
And what a delightful way to start their long, long, long life together. They weren’t even married yet, and she’d already lied to him. Told him she was someone else. Damnation.
She needed to face it. She needed to tell him the truth. If there were no options and she was going to marry him, she simply needed to accept her fate—pirate husband, hovel in the Highlands, death as a hunted sow, and all.
“Mam . . . Mammy . . . Mam!”
Elizabeth’s head came up as two wet and muddy urchins ran up and attached themselves to her legs. She leaned down and looked into their dirty faces.
“What’s the matter? Have you lost your mum?” she asked gently, looking around, hoping the real mother was nearby.
A young lass, perhaps a head taller than the two appendages still clinging to her, hurried over. Instead of dragging them away, however, the girl took her hand, nearly tugging her off her feet.
“Come home, Mama. Himself is waiting, and you know how he is.”
“What? Who is waiting?” Elizabeth asked, finding herself being pulled toward an alleyway. She looked over her shoulder at the Highlander. “These children must be lost. Let me see if I can help them find their—”
The rest of the words were lost as a lean hand clamped on to her arm and turned her around. “Blast you, wife. Why are ye not at home? And what are ye doing nuzzling with the pirate?”
Elizabeth gaped up into the soot-smudged face of a tall, wiry blacksmith.
“But . . .” she managed to blurt, “but I’m not your wife.”
“Don’t ye be starting with that. We’ve been through this afore, ain’t we? Now, stop shaming us and get ye home.”
She glanced at the Highlander, who was looking on with surprise at what he surely must see as a mistake unfolding before him. The three children continued to tug on Clare’s skirts and cloak, crying out and making demands. The man claiming to be her husband was wea
ring a heavy leather apron, and the grip on her arm testified to his trade.
“Let me go,” she cried.
Rather than releasing her, the man began to drag her away.
Elizabeth could not understand how this was happening, but it was clear enough that she was in dire straits. She looked back in desperation at Alexander Macpherson. He was standing with his hand on the hilt of the dirk sheathed at his belt, looking at the children and villagers who were beginning to crowd around him.
“Do something, Highlander. Please! I’m not his wife.”
No one seemed willing to get involved, Macpherson included. He was simply standing with a look on his face that she could not decipher.
When two of the castle’s guards suddenly appeared at the edge of the throng, Elizabeth dug her feet in and cried out to them. The crowd grew silent and parted, but the men made no attempt to approach.
“Help me,” she begged. “You know me. I’m one of queen’s ladies-in-waiting. Tell this man to let me go. There is something gravely amiss here.”
The guards looked at each other, and Elizabeth thought they actually looked amused. Fury and indignation began to crowd out her fear. When they all got back to the castle, she’d make sure there would be hell to pay.
“Your name, lass?” one of them asked, holding his hand up to shield his eyes from the rain.
Elizabeth gaped at them. They knew her. They surely knew her. But she couldn’t say her name. If she said it now, the Highlander would hear, and all would be lost.
“Clare . . . Clare Seton,” she responded more quietly than she’d cried for help.
The guard looked at her and shook his head. “We saw Mistress Clare at the abbey just now. Can it be there are two of you?”
The queen assured her that the guards would be there to protect her. That they would be told of the plan. Something must have gone wrong. Had she been set up by her own friends?
Over the heads of the crowd, Macpherson was watching attentively, standing as still as a bronze statue. She heard laughter from some of the throng around her.
The smith was still holding her arm. The rain continued to pour down, battering at her face. Struggling against his grip, she felt cold fear wash down her back.
Her gaze darted back to the Highlander. A look of suspicion had edged into his features. He was clearly waiting for her reply to the guard’s accusation.
It was no use. The ploy hadn’t worked anyway. She had to give it up. Speak the truth.
“Very well,” she finally called to the two castle men. “I’m Elizabeth Hay. You know who I am. Order this man to release me.”
The guards moved off before she finished speaking
“Where are you going?” she shouted. “Help me. Stop!”
The horror that came with the realization that they were not going to help her lasted only a moment. The panic that replaced it instantly turned her blood to fire.
Turning on the blacksmith, she struggled, trying to wrench her arm free.
The man’s grip slipped and she fell backward, skidding along in the mud and scattering a half-dozen sheep. But there was no time for escape. The smith had a hold on her again before she could even get her feet under her.
When he pulled her upright, Elizabeth saw that the road had erupted in a brawl. The Highlander appeared to be fighting the entire village. Two brutes who’d been waiting for the trouble to start were Macpherson’s primary foes, trading blows with him while village women and children swarmed around him.
The world had gone mad.
“The de’il,” the blacksmith muttered, his eyes wide with panic. “What now?”
Suddenly, he was dragging her toward the river as fast as he could go, and Elizabeth realized she was getting farther and farther from the only person who could help her. Screaming for the Highlander as she fought to get free, she saw him disappear beneath the mob and the two huge men.
Her abductor stopped only when they reached a boat, tied to a stake at the edge of the flooding river. The three children pretending to be hers were gone. It was now just Elizabeth and the blacksmith, if that was truly what he was. No one would ever know what became of her.
The smith shoved her into the boat, and she sprawled in the bottom, stunned by a knock to her head as she landed. Before she could react, he’d pushed off and leapt into the boat himself.
Even as he struggled against the wind to get the oars into the locks, the fast-moving current was carrying them away from the shore and quickly downriver. The boat rocked and shuddered in the raging waters, which poured in over the sides.
Furious with herself for thinking lies and trickery would succeed, Elizabeth cursed her decision to go along with the queen’s plan. What was happening was simply divine retribution. She’d been out of her mind, and she was now paying for it.
Chapter Five
She was no blacksmith’s wife.
The panicked woman’s scream cut through the roar of the wind and shouts of the villagers keeping Alexander from getting to her. And that was exactly what they were doing. Not fighting him as much as holding him back while the sooty scoundrel dragged Elizabeth away.
And she was Elizabeth Hay. Even though they’d never met before today, she matched every description he had of her. Besides, he could easily imagine some bored court chit doing something this outrageous—pretending to be someone else just to meet him covertly.
But why they had to venture out in a gale was still a mystery.
“Help me, Highlander,” she shrieked over the caterwauling and the weather.
Whatever was going on, the blacksmith was dragging her out of sight toward the river.
Enough of this.
With a roar, he tossed a clinging assortment of villagers clear of him. One of the two bruisers in the mob came at him. Alexander’s fist connected with the square jaw and the monster went down. Shoving the next attacker into the advancing crowd, he ran for it, jumping across the shafts and traces of a donkey cart and racing in the direction of Elizabeth’s cries.
As the flooded bank of the river came into view, Alexander saw the boat carrying the blacksmith already out in the raging current. At first, he saw no sign of Elizabeth, but then the top of a golden head appeared above the gunwale.
The gusting rain blasted his face like needles as he ran along the water’s edge. The boat was spinning out of control. The smith was clearly no waterman. They were far from shore and about to disappear around the river’s bend.
Alexander knew this waterway. Looping through the low, flat land beneath the castle, it quickly grew wider between here and the Firth of Forth. Turning his back on it, he cut across the bulge of land formed by the loop of the river. Moments later, he reached the bank once again.
The boat hadn’t yet come into view around the bend. Branches of trees, barrels, and whole sections of a dock or a bridge floated by. A battered coracle flipped and skidded across the surface, carried by the wind. The storm was so wild now that he couldn’t even see the other riverbank. Without hesitating, he dove in and began pulling himself into the middle.
As his strong strokes carried him through the churning, wind-chopped froth of brown, Alexander realized this was yet more confirmation that she could be no one but Elizabeth. Their upcoming wedding was big news in Stirling. Someone had clearly decided to kidnap the bride, assuming that Alexander would pay handsomely to recover his future wife.
Whoever was the brilliant mastermind behind the plan obviously didn’t think it through very well. After all, he was the pirate Alexander Macpherson; he was the one who demanded payments. The Black Cat of Benmore paid no one.
Swimming hard, he rose to the top of a swell just as the boat swept into view. Elizabeth was up, trying to fight her captor, but the smith shoved her back down. Her head sank below the gunwale. The craft tipped as it turned in the current, and Alexander thought for a moment it was about to swamp.
As it reached him, the boat was still moving quickly. Reaching up over the side, he grabbed th
e man’s leather apron and toppled him into the water. The man’s momentum took them both under, and the current carried them beneath the boat.
Alexander lost his grip on the man’s shirt and took a solid kick to the chest, pushing him down deep in the river. The Stirling folk called this Abhainn Dubh, the Black Water, and with good reason. He could see nothing.
Kicking upward, he was ready for battle. As he broke the surface, he was next to the boat, but there was no sign of the kidnapper. Taking in air, he spun around in the water and spotted the blackguard swimming hard for the shore.
Bloody Lowlanders. No fight in them at all.
With his heart pounding in his chest, Alexander grabbed the side of the boat and started to pull himself up.
He saw the oar swinging at his head at the same time that he saw Elizabeth’s dismayed face. It was too late. He heard a hard cracking sound. An instant later, the world went black.
* * *
Damnation. Disaster.
“Oh, my Lord! What have I done?”
The oar dropped into the river, and Elizabeth grabbed for the Highlander’s shirt and tartan before he could slip back into the torrential waters. As she tried to pull him in, a gust of wind hammered her from behind, nearly pushing her overboard.
He was heavy. They say the dead weigh more than the living.
“Come on, Highlander,” she panted. “Wake up. Don’t be dead.”
Elizabeth felt him slip back a little, but she wasn’t about to give in. If he wasn’t dead, she couldn’t let him drown. Pulling, tugging, she staggered as the boat rocked madly under her feet, taking more water.