“Dolores, what am I meant to do? Stay here the rest of my life knowing that that evil man is out there somewhere? How many other women might he hurt, Dolores? What if some other little girl just like Elena is out there —”
“You’re right.”
Marianne blinked, a little taken aback by how quickly Dolores had changed her mind – but grateful.
“I’ve tried – I have spent so many years trying to forget about that man,” she murmured, eyes on the remains of the fire that had burned all last night. “To push down the memory, to push it away, to not let myself think of him because it causes me so much pain. And he does cause me pain, that’s a lot of it. But mostly – mostly I just feel angry. And I hate to feel angry. It helps nothing, serves nobody. It’s like a fire burning unchecked in a forest, eating everything it touches. I truly hate the feeling of anger. But I am angry, with that priest. I am angrier with him than I have ever been with anyone. And if I can help you – if I can help you find him, and bring him to justice – maybe I’ll feel less angry. At least if he gets what he deserves, I’ll know that my anger did something. That I felt that way for a reason.”
“Dolores, it’s revenge for you as well.” Marianne sat up in the cot, pushed her hair out of her face and tried to find the right words. “What he did to you – what he did to you and your daughter was unforgivable. I want him dead for what he did. My father —” she choked a little on the word. “My father tried to have me exiled from our family for what I was, who I was. My whole life, he was so strict, so awful to my siblings and my mother, me. The day I cut him out of my life for good was the best day of my life. The damage he did is still there, but he can’t hurt me anymore, because I know I’ve freed myself from him.” She looked at Dolores. “I want to give you that. That’s how I want you to feel about this priest – that he’s over, finished, gone from your life forever. It’ll never undo what he did, but it might give you closure, which is the next best thing. And if I have to kill him to make that happen, then I’ll kill him. For Elena, yes – but also for you.”
“Thank you,” Dolores breathed. “I’ll do whatever I can to help.”
Chapter 14
Dolores had gone to a loose brick in the wall and extracted from that charming hiding place a bag of gold coins. She pressed them into Marianne’s hands, ignoring her protests – they’d been given to her by her family, years ago, in case of emergencies. In case, Marianne thought quietly, Dolores had decided to take Elena and flee from the priest – but there was no sense making that suggestion now. Dolores clearly felt more than enough anguish over the choices she could have made that could have saved her daughter. From what Marianne could gather, they were a reasonable amount of money – more than enough, Dolores said, to hire a band of mercenaries to travel with her for several months.
“To keep you safe,” she insisted stridently, her eyes full of tears. “I’d never forgive myself if – if—”
“Of course,” Marianne said soothingly. “Of course. Thank you, Dolores. I promise I’ll hire the toughest men you can imagine. I’ll be safe and sound.” Privately, she was a little intimidated by the prospect of hiring a bunch of strange men to travel the world hunting a priest with her – but if it set Dolores’s mind at ease, it was something she was willing to do. Besides, if she was actually going to make an attempt on the priest’s life, the more she thought about it, the more it felt like the right move – why should she suffer him to live any longer than he had? Then it would definitely make sense to have some people around who knew one end of a sword from another. Perhaps she could learn the basics of sword-fighting before she left? There was so much to do – so many plans to put in motion. She wished, stupidly, for her phone – she’d had a list-making app that she adored...
Once they’d finished talking about mercenaries, the indomitable Dolores went downstairs to help with preparations for lunch – she simply couldn’t be held down for any length of time. Marianne, not nearly as strong, spent the afternoon taking another nap. Her body seemed to appreciate the time spent lying down, but her mind was restless through her sleep. She kept almost waking then falling back to sleep, racing through thoughts of travel, of horses and carts, even ships and sailors…somehow she convinced herself that the trip would take her all the way over to the Americas, only barely colonized, where she’d trek ashore and find where San Francisco would be one day…
She started awake, realizing the sun was low in the sky. It hadn’t been the most restful sleep, but she certainly felt better than she had that morning when she’d nearly passed out on Cora. Thinking of Cora – she ought to fill her in on the new details of the plan. After carefully stashing the little bag of gold coins under her cot, she changed back into the simple dress she’d worn down to breakfast that morning and hurried down the steps toward the Great Hall.
The majority of the guests seemed to have left during Marianne’s afternoon of slumber – the castle almost felt quiet with just its usual complement of dinner guests. She found Cora and caught her up on the details of the plan to hunt down the priest, pitching her voice low and occasionally throwing in a false laugh to throw anyone off who might be watching, specifically Colin, who kept shooting them concerned looks from where he was sitting with Audrina.
“I told Audy all about it,” Cora said after they’d both glanced Colin’s way.
“You what? Cora, she’s married to the Laird!”
“She was my best friend years before she was his wife,” Cora said bluntly. “I trust her with my life. And with this.”
“And I trust you. So I guess that’s alright, then.” Marianne sighed. “What did she say?”
“That Colin’s as likely to change his mind as Ian is to learn the art of horse whispering in his sleep tonight,” she said heavily. “But she’s on our side. And she’ll make sure Colin doesn’t suspect us of anything.”
As if on cue, Marianne saw Audrina lean forward and engage the Laird in conversation, her hand on his forearm and a flirtatious smile on her face – his attention was drawn away from Cora and Marianne’s conversation and to his beautiful wife.
Cora grinned. “See? She’s a good one.”
“Glad she’s with us.”
“I’d recommend heading down to the tavern tonight,” Cora murmured while Colin’s attention was distracted. “There’ll still be mercenaries in town – I’m sure some of the MacClaran clan hired some armed escorts for their trip here, maybe there are some still hanging around.”
“Tonight?” Marianne felt an uneasy stir in her stomach, and suppressed it firmly. “Right. I will. You’ll cover for me, if anyone asks where I am?”
“Of course. You and I will be sewing in my quarters all night,” Cora said archly.
And so it was that Marianne found herself riding down the road to town. The horse she’d borrowed was one of Cora’s favorites – a sweet old mare, chestnut with grey whiskers, and the calmest animal she’d ever encountered. She appreciated the choice. Horses had never been an interest of hers back in the real world – she’d ridden a pony or two at a petting zoo here and there, but never really figured out how to ride. Sweetpea, as Cora had named her, seemed to know the way to the village without any kind of input from Marianne at all, for which she was deeply grateful.
Theoretically the reins would steer the horse, she suspected, but she didn’t trust herself to try it out. Not when there was a very real chance of getting thrown into the dirt and trampled. Well, maybe not that last part. But there was something about horses she didn’t trust yet.
The sun had been down for an hour or so when she arrived in town, but the tavern on the main street of town was well lit – it shone like a rosy beacon in the gloom, and Marianne reflected for a moment on the importance of the hearth in old fiction. She’d always disregarded it, but with the chill of the night closing in and the impenetrable darkness of the moors behind her, she found a new appreciation for a well-lit building full of noise and laughter.
At Cora’s insistence, she
was wearing a hood that disguised her face a little – it was no superhero mask, and anyone looking in her eyes would know whom she was soon enough, but it would at least prevent every soul in the place turning to stare at her. Elena Corso, back from the dead. Not for the first time, Marianne considered the prospect of cutting all her hair off. At least that way she wouldn’t be recognized…but at the same time, she was reluctant to forfeit the opportunity of seeing that recognition in the priest’s eyes, showing him once and for all that young women weren’t so easily gotten rid of. Yes, vengeance would be much less sweet without that flare of recognition. She looked forward to it.
The tavern was reasonably crowded. It may have been six hundred years before her time, but Marianne knew what a local pub was like, and very little had changed. There were a handful of regulars at a few well-worn tables in the back, laughing and talking, and a few diehard drinkers at the bar itself, hunched over great flagons of ale. There were a few out-of-towners she recognized vaguely from the feast the night before, too – perhaps they’d woken up too late to make a good start on the journey home, she reflected, amused.
But how was she going to find a band of mercenaries? She’d had some vague image of a group of men at a table, sharpening swords or counting money – but there was nobody like that here. The first table she saw, in fact, was host to a man and woman and two young children, eating their nightly meal. A little put off by this, but reassured at least by the fact that nobody had turned to stare at her, she made her way up to the bar. Tavern staff always knew all the goings on of a town, right? Certainly if she ever wanted any gossip back home, the bartenders were the first people to check with. But the woman behind the bar didn’t seem interested in conversation – she served Marianne a pint of ale when she asked for it, but as she opened her mouth to enquire about mercenaries, the woman was gone up to the other end where a man had called to her, waving a gold coin in the air. Some things never changed.
“Tired of the castle already?”
A shock of recognition ran up her spine as that low, gravelly voice sounded beside her – and she turned to see none other than Eamon MacClaran, sitting at the bar with a half-empty flagon of ale in front of him. “Eamon!” She was honestly happy to see him, she noticed – then felt a flare of acute embarrassment at that realization.
“Ye sound surprised. Where else did ye expect to find the town drunk?”
“You look less like the town drunk now than you did the last time I saw you,” she retorted, studying his face. It was true – he’d tidied his hair up, and shaved the unkempt growth of beard, leaving him with a five o’clock shadow that flattered him instead of making him look homeless.
“Well, I did give my word I’d tidy myself up.”
“That’s two I owe you, then,” she said, and his eyes crinkled as he smiled back at her. “Care to make it three?”
“So new in town and already racking up debts,” he said with mock consternation, shaking a finger at her. “Irresponsible young women get into trouble around here, ye know.”
“I’ll risk it. Listen, do you know any mercenaries?”
Eamon frowned. “Mercenaries? Why?”
She hesitated, not sure how much to tell him about the plan. Telling Cora and Audrina was one thing – after all, they were in the same situation as she was, and anyway, Cora was family. There was a bond of trust there. Eamon was a stranger – and hardly the most trustworthy person she’d met in her time there, with the accusations of murder and all. Then again, her own ancestor stood accused of witchcraft – Marianne wasn’t sure much store could be set by what people were and weren’t accused of. Much safer to trust your intuition, your instinct – and no matter how much she thought about it, she just didn’t believe Eamon was a murderer. Something else was going on, yes – something she was very interested in getting to the bottom of – but not murder.
And anyway, what choice did she have? It was trust either this near-stranger, or a complete stranger from the bar. If she thought about it, telling her plans to Eamon was a step up on the original intention.
“I’m going on a trip,” she said finally. “I’ll need protection.”
“From hired thugs? Are ye sure?”
“There’ll be danger,” she said, then glanced around the bar. It was raucously loud in there, and the only people within hearing distance were a couple of men who were so deep in their drinks it was a wonder they were still upright at the bar. Still, she lowered her voice a little. “I’m going to find the priest who killed Elena.”
The half-smile that was on Eamon’s face disappeared completely, leaving a thundercloud in its place. “Ye’re joking.”
“I’m not,” she replied steadily, meeting his shocked eyes. “I’m going to track him down and bring him to justice, whatever it takes.”
“Ye’re as mad as a cut snake, lassie,” Eamon said flatly. “Even if ye manage to hire a band of mercenaries who don’t just take what ye pay ‘em and disappear across the moors at the first sight of trouble – do ye have any information about this man, where he is? Do ye know how powerful he is, how many powerful friends he has? D’ye know how badly this could end for ye, Marianne? There—” he hesitated, and she could hear him consciously controlling his voice. “There’re worse things than dying.”
“I know,” she said levelly, thinking of her dreams, the powerlessness, and the terror of imprisonment. “That’s why I’m asking for your help. Maybe you know someone who won’t just rob me blind.”
“Aye, I may know honest men who’d escort ye in yer travels,” he acknowledged, his eyes troubled, “but going up against the Church – that’s another question entirely. No sane man challenges that kind of power.”
“Then find me some insane ones.”
“Ye’re set on this, aren’t ye?” He was studying her face with an intensity that made her feel shy – but she stifled the urge to look away.
“You knew Elena. She was an innocent woman who was put to death for an evil man’s peace of mind.” She hesitated a little – after all, it was just a hunch – but with nothing to lose, she played her trump card. “What can I say? False accusations don’t sit well with me, no matter how powerful the accusers.”
That hit home. She could tell in the slight widening of his eyes, the way his expression flickered as his thoughts whirred a mile a minute. She sipped at her ale, not nearly as good as the stuff at the Castle, she noticed, wrinkling her nose a little, and waited for his agreement.
“I’ll do it.”
A private smile. “You’ll find me an escort?”
“Nay. I’ll be yer escort.”
Chapter 15
Marianne stared at Eamon, completely taken aback by the offer. “You’ll—”
“I’ll come with ye. I’ll fight for ye, keep ye safe. And if I need to, I’ll drive my sword through his heart myself.”
She opened her mouth, closed it again. “Eamon, are you sure—”
“Ye said it yerself – ye need a madman. Ye need an escort with nothing to lose, Marianne. I’ve been exiled from my own family home, I’ve got nothing left to do with myself in this life except drink away the last of my money in this tavern then die in a ditch somewhere. This – this is an honorable way to go out, at least. To die trying to right an injustice – that would be something.”
Marianne cleared her throat. “To be clear, I don’t intend to die. This is meant to be a successful mission.”
“Oh, aye, of course,” he agreed.
However, she could still see the distant gleam in his eye as he thought of dying gloriously. What was it about men and dying in battle? It made them reckless and stupid. No wonder every functional organization she’d encountered thus far had been run by women. Even this tavern was flourishing under the sullen but effective care of the woman behind the bar.
“Eamon, I can’t let you come with me. Really, I appreciate the offer, but —”
“Please.”
That surprised her – his voice changed entirely, drop
ped low and soft, and when she looked up at him from her ale he was looking right at her, his face deadly serious.
“I was there, ye know.”
“What do you mean?”
“The day he dragged Elena through the streets to the bonfire. I was there. I followed down the street and I stood by as he burned her.”
She was reminded of Dolores, telling the same story – but while Dolores had been anguished, twisted by regret and thoughts of what might have been if she’d behaved differently, this was a man who was fully reconciled to what he had done. And a man who hated himself for it.
“Eamon, you couldn’t have stopped it—”
“No. If I’d tried to stop him, he’d have had his men kill me too, then burn her anyway. And the last thing she’d have known was that she’d caused my death. She’d have hated that.” He smiled a little, eyes full of pain. “She was always telling me off for being too rash. Well, she’s gone, and she can’t stop me now. Please, Marianne. Let me help ye do this. For Elena.”
Marianne sighed, her hands tight on the flagon of ale. Was this really the best idea? To set off into the wilderness with this strange, wild man at her side, searching for a priest who’d had at least one woman put to death already and wouldn’t hesitate to add her to the list? And who’d miss her, really? Cora and Audrina, yes, and their husbands – but as far as her original world was concerned, she was already gone. Was she really willing to die for this?
A flash of the fear and hopelessness of the dream, of a young woman cut down at twenty-two for no good reason but the evil of men. Yes, she was. And looking at Eamon – this huge, frightening bear of a man, sitting and waiting and watching her think this through – she knew that he was as well.
Highlander Protected: A Scottish Time Travel Romance (Highlander In Time Book 3) Page 9