by Anya Karin
“Oh, that I can tell you for the Sheriff wouldna’ stop with his boasting. He bribed your friend, as I understand it. Fooled him with a promise of cunny. Even the best of us have our weaknesses. Yours seems to be love, and your friend’s was...”
“John? John tricked me? No. No, I can’t believe that. I just can’t. We’re brothers. He’d never do that to me. No matter what he was promised.” Gavin rocked his head back and forth on the stone, forgetting the pain. “That’s not possible!”
“And yet, here you are. That fool of a sheriff’s been chasing you for two years and got nothin’ but a series of embarrassments. How did he catch you this time? What do you remember?”
“Nothing...not...John got a letter, and woke me, saying some woman was to let him into a noble’s house for a quick job, and-”
“And you still aren’t putting together the pieces?”
“I canna...I just canna think that way. He’s been with me through everything. Through me being given up for dead at the battle, helped me back to health, he’s been through everything with me. I can’t just believe my closest friend gave me up. Listen, friend,” Gavin said. “Is there any way to get out of here? I don’t care what happens to me, but I made a promise to someone. Promise to help her.”
“Her? Are you with a girl? All the talk was that the Ghost was alone. How can anyone be worthy of you?”
Gavin sighed.
“I’m not a hero. I’m not even a ghost. I’m just a thief, and yes, she is...well, I suppose I’m not exactly with her, since she’s to be married to Laird Macdonald. But, but yes, to answer you,” Gavin stood straight for the first time since awakening, as though the memory of Kenna put fresh breath into his lungs.
“She’s...well, think of it this way. Do you know the taste of a roast after you’ve been starved for three days?”
“I do, it’s divine,” Liam said. “Fills a void so deep, so terrible, that it hurts almost as bad to eat it, to destroy the scents and the tastes, as it does to stay hungry.”
“That’s far more poetic than I expected, but yes. Yes, exactly! I had not seen her for almost three years when I heard she had been taken into Macdonald’s estate. Just hearing that she was here, not three days away, right here in Edinburgh or close enough to count, it made my heart thump against my chest.”
“And then when you put your lips around the meat, feel the salty gravy drip down your throat, and bite into-”
“I’m sorry, but are you still talking about roast?” Gavin said.
“It’s been a long, long time since I tasted aught but bread and oats.”
“Yes, well, I’m sorry I brought up such a painful memory.”
“No, it isn’t painful! I’m just remembering what it was like to... yes, well. About that girl?”
“Well you know, most beautiful in all the world, filled my heart with levity just to see her smile and so on.”
“Yes, right. I’m sorry I ruined your excitement.”
“You didn’t, it’s just that right now there are more important things to discuss than how my love makes my heart pound and my breath quicken.” Gavin massaged his lower back with balled up fists. “Such as how to get out of this place. Huh?”
Liam visibly stiffened and poked Gavin with his bare toe. In the dim light, he made out a cocked eyebrow and a nod of the head.
“He’s right, you know.”
“Sheriff,” Gavin said through gritted teeth. “How did I know you were behind this?”
“Because you’re a criminal? And now you’re in jail? That took very little thought to puzzle out. You’re quite a prize, Gavin Macgregor. I’ll be sure to get something out of capturing you, especially after the ridiculous stunt you pulled at Macdonald’s estate. But, oh, there’s someone who wants to see you.
Heavy footsteps preceded a face that was the last one Gavin wanted to see, though the exact one he expected. As soon as he saw the short brown hair, Cardinal Richelieu style moustache, he took a step backwards. When the gloved hand, missing all but the two first fingers gripped the bars, he fell backwards, and only Liam’s catching him kept Gavin from caving his head in against the bench he’d woken up on.
“You’re almost late for your appointment, aren’t you Two-Fingers? Better hurry up so that Lynne doesn’t take the carriage and leave you alone here,” Alan said, lurking in the shadows. “Hate to be left in the dead middle of the Hangman’s Quarter all alone, wouldn’t you? Especially with what you did.” He whistled. “I think most of the town’s less desirable element has heard of you by now. If they haven’t, they will when they see the reward posted.”
Gavin opened his eyes and squinted. John’s face was barely visible in the gentle flickering torch light outside the cell, but he knew his friend. Or he thought he did. Now he wasn’t so sure.
“Before you say anything,” John whispered. “Wait.”
He put a finger to his lips and tilted his head over to where the sheriff was still waiting. Before long, keys on a ring clanked, a heavy door swung shut, and with a ‘tell me when you’re ready to get out of this shithole!’ the sheriff was gone.
“Now listen, don’t talk.”
“I don’t think he could, you damnable weasel, you awful snake!” Liam growled. “He refused to believe me that it was you what put him in here until you somehow had the courage to show your face and now he’s passed out cold. He’s still breathing, but you’re a lucky man that he’s got a stout heart, and that his best friend’s betrayal didn’t strike him dead!”
Gavin groaned and rolled over onto one side, then pitched himself up onto an elbow.
“Gav, listen to me, listen to John, right?”
“Why should I?” the thief whispered. “Are you bringing Lynne to shoot me before I can hang? Or what is it now, has the punishment grown all the way to an old fashioned drawing and quartering yet?”
“Can you stand?” John said. “I want to feel your hand.”
“Liam, will you help me? I’ll look my Judas in the face.”
The man, not quite as big as Red Ben, but still sizable, and with a beard that stank of prison and dankness, helped Gavin to his feet and propped him up.
“Can we not be quite so melodramatic?” John said.
“You put me in jail!”
“Yes, that’s true and I’m sorry for it. I’m sorrier than I’ve ever been about anything. I thought I was doing what was right, but there’s something you have to know about these circumstances.”
“What can you possibly tell me that the ‘circumstances’ don’t?”
“For one thing, I could tell you a long story of blame and who is at fault and who isn’t, but that would waste time we don’t have. So I’ll just tell you two things. First,” he shot a glance over his shoulder and then back to Gavin. “First of all, know that I’d never do anything to hurt you. It looks that’s just what I’ve done, but this is for the best, as ridiculous as that sounds.”
“I’m listening,” Gavin said.
“The second thing...and this has cropped up very recently, and will make timing a bit hard.”
“Talk.”
“Yes, sorry, well, it seems as though the Earl of Kilroyston and his blushing bride are to be wed rather sooner than we thought, sooner than they announced.”
“What? I’ve to get out of here! I’ve promised to help!”
“Shh! The sheriff is only down the hall.”
“Do you care to explain to me why you sold me out to him for a wee bite of a girl?”
“Gavin!” John whispered urgently. “No time! That’s not what happened anyway. It wasn’t her fault, she was tricked. But, it’s in a week. Well, nearing five days now I suppose.”
“The wedding?”
“Aye. five. Yell at me.”
“What?”
“Make a big noise. Shout at me and punch at the bars or try to strangle me or something.”
“What’re you cooking?”
“Do you trust me?”
“No.”
Behind them, Liam laughed in agreement. “He’s a horse’s arse, this one! Don’t listen to him!”
“That’s probably fair. But give me one chance. You’ll see. Now yell at me. Make it convincing for the sheriff. He needs to be convinced that we hate each other.”
“Willna be hard.”
“Then do it!”
Gavin looked back and forth for a moment. Any other time he would have been able to immediate launch into a vicious tirade of insults, as that was how he and John spent a great deal of their spare time between jobs, and now with Red Ben around, he’d honed his verbal jousting skills further still. But this time, he just stared.
“Traitor,” he said under his breath.
John squinted. “What?”
“You heard me,” he said. “Traitor. Traitor.” The word dripped from his lips like black venom. “Traitor, come here!”
“Oh good, yes, that’s good, here grab my thro-”
Before he could finish, Gavin shot his hands through the bars and clamped down on John’s neck, thumbs pushing closed his windpipe. “Traitor!” Gavin screamed and pulled his friend hard against the door, thumping his chin on the iron rivets.
“Gavin! Okay! That’s good!”
“You betrayed me and now you’re leaving me to die in this God damned jail so you could get a girl!” He pushed his friend backwards, then yanked him fore again, slamming his face against the door with a meaty thump and again, and again.
“Hey, hey! What’s this then?” Sheriff Alan charged down the hall as fast as his tiny legs could carry him and he smacked Gavin on the wrists with a stick. “Enough! Let go of him! You can’t beat a witness!”
“Witness!” Gavin shouted. “You’re a witness! You threw everything away for a girl!”
He slammed John against the door a final time, but he was already weakening, and fell backwards when the sheriff hit him again.
“Come on, vagrant, let’s go. You’re exciting the prisoners.” Alan tromped off down the hall, satisfied with what he’d done.
John followed for a moment, and then came back to the cell. He put his bloodied face right up to the bars and whispered: “I’ll get you out of here if it’s the last thing I do, and it’ll be before the wedding. Everything will make sense. I swear it.”
“You were my brother,” Gavin said, stunned and lurching.
“Aye, and I still am. Give me two days. You’ll see.”
Chapter Thirteen
“You did what?” Red Ben Black bellowed at the top of his lungs after John finished the tale. Alice, likewise, stared with an open mouth.
“You turned him in? How – why – how did that possibly seem like a good idea? If it were up to me, I’d strangle you here and now!”
“Calm down dear, he’s been throttled sufficiently, I’d say, judging from that lip. Let me get you some salt and alcohol for that. It’ll hurt but that’s better than it getting pus.”
John pushed himself back on his heels, leaning the chair back so he hovered on the back two legs. Gingerly, he stuck a piece of roast in his mouth and chewed slowly.
“It weren’t his fault,” a voice from beside him, a voice which Red Ben was unfamiliar with, said. “I told him to do it, but I thought it’d turn out a bit different.”
“Oh. Thought it’d turn out different. That’s fine then. No reason to worry, dear!” He shouted. “The girl with John told him to betray Gavin, but it’s alright because she thought it’d turn out differently.”
He leaned forward and narrowed his eyes to slits, which raised his cheeks, which in turn made his face look like a flaming ball.
“We’ve not been introduced,” he said with his eyes fixed on Lynne. “John, won’t you do me the honor of introducing me to the fine young lass what sits beside you? Hello, young lass,” he said to Lynne.
“She’s-”
“Lynne Stevenson, sir,” she said with an outstretched hand. “And you’re Red Ben. If this were a thousand years ago, you’d be a giant, but now you’re just a wee bite frightening.”
“And if it were two days ago, I’d be the most loyal friend you ever had. But now, I’m not so sure. Help me understand what happened. All’s been said is that you two had some kind of plan and it went back on itself?”
“That’s a good way to put it,” John said. “But I think I’ve done something else that can help us out of this mess in which we’ve found ourselves. Or I suppose we’re not the ones in the mess, but...”
“Aye, right, we’ve got a ways to go if we want to fix this one, lad.”
“Last night, before I went to see Gavin, I, well...this is going to sound curious.”
Alice came back with a pan of shortbreads and everyone took one except Ben, who took four and stuck one in his mouth.
“Go on, John, I’m listening. Seems you can’t get any stranger than you already have.”
“Aye, well, you know that Gavin said he’d go visit Kenna? Presumably to whisper sweet nothings in her ear from afar and whatnot?”
“I remember something of the sort.”
“This is delicious,” Lynne said. “Get on with it John, we’ve got other things to talk about than your chat with Gavin’s lady.”
“You what?” Ben grunted between cookies. “Explain!”
“Calm down, Goliath.” John said. “Sit, sit. It’s nothing so exciting as all that. I just thought that she might be expecting him so I, er...”
“You dressed up like him and talked to her, but you did a bad job at it, right, get on with the plan,” Lynne said. She grabbed another shortbread. “These really are delicious, Mrs. Black, are there more?”
“Uh, yes, well that’s about the size of it. I talked to her for a bit, she told me she was getting married in a week so they could trap me – Gavin – and then I swore an oath to rescue her, and told her to meet us at the salon where I dishonored myself.”
“Good summary,” Lynne said. “Right, so what is it exactly that we’re doing?”
A moment later, the rest of what John said struck her.
“You what? How in God’s name is she going to meet us at a salon in the middle of the Queen’s Street? I assume you told her to meet us at night? How do you expect her to manage that?”
“Look, Lynne, you’re the one that told me to do it. I dinna know why you keep on blaming me for all this when you’re the one who talked me into all of it in the first place.”
“Wait. Hold right there,” Ben said. “You’re to tell me, and mind you, I’m to believe – that after this woman talked you into getting your best friend thrown into jail that you took her advice on something? Why does this seem to me a less than perfect idea?”
John took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. “Look, there’s nothing I can say except that I’m sorry and get on with the fixing of it.”
Ben leaned back on his chair, which creaked loudly. “There’s one question that’s left to be answered, aye?” He eyed Lynne.
“Me? The question is me, aye?”
“That would be it, yes, lass. What stake have you in all this? Why do you care about Gavin or the sheriff or any of the rest of this business?”
Lynne pushed her straight, black hair behind her ear and leaned forward, her elbows resting on the tabletop. “This might take a while,” she said.
“Alice! Bring the bottle, we’re to hear a great and sundry tale, and I canna do it without drink.”
Whiskey poured, more shortbreads plated, Lynne swallowed hard, sipped her drink, then downed it.
“Another?” Ben said.
“Aye, it’s...a hard story to tell. Thanks.” She drank it down. “Another?”
“Ach, this girl’s got more of a man to her than you do, Two-Fingers. Here. Now get on with it.”
Lynne lifted the clay cup to her lips, inhaled the fiery scent, and then put it back to the table.
“When Alan came to Edinburgh, you remember, he went on a real tear, aye?”
Both men nodded. “He defiled that noble’s wife, then he found
himself up here in the midst of a town he hated, surrounded by people he thought to be less than dirt,” John said.
“And more than that, he was taken away from his wealth, from his estate in Manchester. Dinna forget that he has to him a lot of old money, though he’s been removed from it. He’s got also the King’s wrath, because of the trouble he caused just after the second George was brought and given the crown. Keep that in mind.”
They nodded again. John sipped his whiskey and grimaced as it burned the inside of his mouth.
“To answer your first question, I don’t care about Gavin and Kenna – or I didn’t. Not until I actually saw him. When I saw the pain in his eyes as he was lying there, tied up and half conscious, I knew that look because I’d had it once before. Eyes half-open, drooping on the corners, and terrified.”
“Gavin’s never terrified,” John said.
“No, not for himself. The way he looked wasn’t fear that he’d be hurt or killed. No, I could tell he wasn’t afraid of that one bit. He’s got a burning heart full of courage and pride and pain. There’s nothing to him that says he’s a coward. But his was a different sort of fear. He was afraid for someone else.”
“Kenna...”
“Aye, he’s afraid for her. He loves her. He has no reason to, from what I’ve been told, except fate, or destiny or whatever you’d call it, but there it is. The first man I loved I had no reason for either. No reason except that I loved him.”
“I still have no reason for mine!” Alice shouted from the other end of the house where she stirred a pot.
Lynne tried not to smile, but she drew her full, bowed lips up at the corners and when she closed her eyes for a moment, John stared at her, amazed at what he saw.
“But there doesn’t need to be a reason. Although from what John said, Gavin first saw her when they were both young, and they played at flirting for going on ten year, which will make anyone a fool for anyone else.”
“I saw ‘em,” Ben said. “I saw how he held her when they were dancing at that party. I watched him go from a thoughtful, cautious man to something entirely different in the space of a second and a half. You, either of you, can say there’s no reason for the way he feels and the way he acts around her, but to me there is, and it is plain as day. You can say that fate is no reason for anything, that it’s all luck or chance, but to me that’s just not the way of it.”