by Karen Ranney
Ian and Leitis climbed the stairs in the same serenity, the moment hushed and almost sad.
“Will you come for me tomorrow?” she asked, when they stood in the priory once more.
“No,” he said shortly.
She stepped closer to him, placed her hand on his arm. “When will I see you again?”
He covered her hand with his before stepping back into the shadows. “I’ll get word to you when the ship arrives,” he said, and slipped into the staircase.
Clutching her arms around her waist, she watched as he disappeared. As the moments lengthened, she remained there, feeling a sense of loss so strong that her chest felt hollow. She didn’t wish to return to the laird’s chamber. Instead, she wanted to stand here where the memory of him lingered even now. Here, where there was a hint of him.
Please don’t go. The plea was in vain, because he’d already left her.
Chapter 23
L eitis slept heavily, waking with a question. When would she see him again?
Hours? Days? The waiting would be endless; the delay would feel interminable.
She would simply have to endure it.
Rising from the bed, she dressed. Her dress was still damp from the storm, but her shoes were in worse condition. Scraping the mud from them was no easy task.
The maneuvers of the soldiers captured her attention for a few moments, the sound of booted feet on packed earth so routine that it was almost lulling. They were, she thought, watching them march to the land bridge and back, a sight to inspire caution. All those red-coated men marching in a precise line, looking neither right nor left.
She moved to the loom, began to work, grateful for the occupation. The movements of her fingers were accompanied by errant thoughts. A black thread represented Ian as the Raven, a crimson one for the Butcher. And she was the white thread, all of them as entwined as the MacRae plaid. An odd thought, one that stilled her, the heels of her hands resting on the frame of the loom, her gaze pinned to the pattern beneath her fingers. The Butcher and the Raven? Where had that thought come from?
The colonel knew about the cave and Donald had been conveniently absent when she needed him to be. In addition, the English soldiers had been almost comically inept in following the provision wagon, allowing them to easily escape.
All things could be explained away. Coincidences, only that. The Butcher of Inverness would have been pleased to kill a Scot, not aid one.
Then why had he looked so stricken that night when he’d kissed her in his dream?
She shook her head, pushing those troubling thoughts away, and sat looking at the tartan, inspecting her work critically. The quality of the wool was important, as was the type of weather when the initial threads were tightened. Too much rain and the weave looked almost swollen, with gaps through the finished material. If the air was too dry, the wool felt almost scratchy to the touch.
Donald announced his appearance with a knock and a sneeze.
She glanced at him as he walked into the room. He didn’t look well, she thought, with his flushed cheeks and glittering eyes. He placed the tray containing her noon meal on the table and backed away.
“Are you ill, Donald?”
He shook his head at the same time he sneezed again.
Ever since he’d been attending to the colonel’s duties he’d been more reticent with her, their earlier camaraderie tucked beneath a newfound formality.
At the door he turned, his hand on the latch. “Would you like a bath, miss? The tub’s just sitting there and I don’t mind fetching the water.”
“You should be in bed, Donald, not offering to make yourself more work.”
“I’d just as soon be on my feet, miss,” he said with a half smile.
“It’s a bother,” she said, shaking her head.
“I’d be pleased to do it,” he answered.
She hesitated. “Then I’d be pleased, too,” she said, capitulating. It was too much of a temptation.
He left, only to return a little while later with his contingent of helpers and the copper tub. Once it was filled, she took the precaution of placing a chair in front of the door to ensure her privacy before undressing.
Why did it feel, she wondered as she slipped into the tub, as if all the problems in the world could be solved with a little hot water? She smiled at herself, began to use the soap Donald had brought. It stung her skin, but it was a petty annoyance against the greater pleasure of being clean.
She leaned her head against the back of the tub, closed her eyes, and simply enjoyed the hot water. The small moments in life are just as important as the tragedies and blessings, she thought. The completion of a complicated pattern on her loom, the pleasure of eating until she was full, this private moment in a deep bath, they were all to be savored in their way.
She tried not to think of Ian or remember the loving that they’d shared. Those moments would be remembered a little at a time like a bit of rare sweetness.
Would he come with her? He’d never said, and she had not asked. There was a sense of reserve about him still, as if he held parts of himself aloof.
What about Hamish? Was he going to change his mind or continue to be stubborn until the day they sailed away, leaving him behind?
Instead of asking questions that could not be answered at the moment, she occupied herself with washing her hair and rinsing it with the clean water Donald had provided.
Standing, she sluiced water over her body, then stepped carefully from the tub, reaching for the toweling. Frowning, she looked at her dress. She couldn’t bear to don such a filthy garment after her bath. She knelt before the tub, used the barracks soap, and began to scrub her dress and her shift.
She moved the chair, stretched her shift across it, and covered it with her dress. Moving to the dresser, she picked up a comb Donald had found for her and sat on the bed.
When the knock came, she pulled the coverlet up to her neck, ensuring that she was modest. She called out a greeting to Donald and heard his boots sounding hollow on the wooden floor.
She bent and began to comb through the tangles, wishing she had some of Dora’s sweet flowery oil for her hair.
“I regret I timed my visit too late to view you in your bath.”
Her head jerked up, the comb snared as she stared at the colonel. He was impeccably attired, his crimson coat almost too bright in this room filled with sunlight. The brilliant white of the ruffles of his shirt was a testament to Donald’s perseverance, as was the shine of his tan boots. He wore the uniform of his country well, and assumed the power of it equally successfully.
She held on to the edge of the coverlet with one hand while she disentangled the comb with the other.
Her cheeks warmed as he continued to stare at her. “Then perhaps the timing favored me,” she said.
He smiled but said nothing. She wished he wouldn’t smile so, or study her so directly with that unflinching gaze of his. It felt, sometimes, as if he knew all her secrets, divined her thoughts.
If only he looked like Sedgewick. But he was so handsome that sometimes it took her breath away just to see him.
She looked away from him, uncomfortable with her thoughts.
“I need nothing,” she said. “If that is why you’re here.”
“No,” he said soberly, “you do not.”
She glanced at him, startled.
He strode toward her, and before she realized what he would do, touched the base of her neck, so tenderly that it startled her. She looked down, the sight of his gloved hand against her skin disturbing. His fingers traced the pattern of a red mark where Ian’s beard had scraped her. She’d not noticed at the time, but now it seemed a brand.
She jerked up the coverlet, pushing his hand away.
“You’ve been injured,” he said in a low voice.
Only by passion, a confession she would not utter to him.
He said nothing further, only walked toward the door.
“Why do they call you Butcher?” she
asked suddenly.
He spun around and stared at her. The question obviously startled him as much as it had her.
“It is easier to label one man,” he answered, “than to fault the many.”
She remained silent, wondering if he would continue.
“There were five judges in Inverness,” he said finally. “Each of whom was given the task of adjudicating the fates of the men who came before them.”
“Were you one of them?”
He shook his head. “I was given the responsibility of seeing that their orders were carried out.”
“The Crown’s executioner,” she said faintly. It was, if anything, worse than she’d imagined.
“If you wish,” he said, placing his hand on the latch. He stared at the door as if the iron-banded oak held a scene of some great interest. “There were those who showed compassion, Leitis,” he said soberly. “But it was dangerous to do so. Cumberland executed nearly forty English soldiers for the sin of showing kindness.”
“But not you, of course.”
He turned and faced her. “Be careful, Leitis, or your loathing of the English will become as strong as Cumberland’s hatred of the Scots,” he said.
Her stomach clenched at the near insult.
“You will become as blinded as he by it,” he added.
She did not hate him. The English, yes. But not the man standing in front of her, his brown eyes never leaving hers. From the very beginning he’d been different.
She stood, clutching the coverlet around her. “I don’t know who you are,” she said. “But I do know what you’ve done, at least since you’ve been at Gilmuir. You saved my village and protected me. What I don’t know is why.” A confession. She was confused by him, intrigued in a way she felt was dangerous.
“Have you become so cynical that you must find a reason behind every action, Leitis?”
“Perhaps,” she admitted. Or her curiosity might have been born of her dawning respect for him, and the feeling that they knew each other better than their new civility indicated.
He came and stood in front of her, reaching out one hand to touch her damp hair. It curled riotously after it had been washed and seemed to trap his fingers.
“What should I tell you?” he said in a voice barely above a whisper. “That you fascinated me from the beginning? That a beautiful woman with a core of strength and an awesome courage altered me? I would have protected you if you’d been an old toothless hag. But I would not have, perhaps, begun to dream of you at night instead of the nightmares I’ve had for months.”
He had dreamed of her. She swallowed heavily, gripping the coverlet with trembling fingers.
The voice of her conscience whispered a harsh chastisement. What sort of woman loves one man and grows warm at the words of another?
She moved away from him, disturbed. Was this sudden interest in him because she was new to passion? Had something dormant and dangerous in her nature been awakened since she discovered that the touch of a man’s hands on her could make her body bow in delight?
He came and stood behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders, pushing the coverlet aside until she felt the leather of his gloves on her skin.
He bent and whispered against her neck. “See me as who I am, Leitis. Not as you think I should be.”
“Who are you?” she asked, hearing the quavering of her voice and wondering at it. She had asked the same question of Ian that first night in the priory. But neither he nor the colonel answered her.
Instead he slowly turned her, looked down at her face, before pulling her closer. “Please don’t kiss me,” she said, almost desperately.
He wrapped his arms around her, placing his hand on the back of her head, holding her gently against his chest. She felt as if she might weep, so poignant was this moment, so charged with unspoken emotion. She wanted his kiss and feared it. Wanted to know him while loathing her own duplicity. With her eyes closed, she could almost pretend he was Ian. And it was ridiculously easy to do so.
Both of the men in her life had a capacity for tenderness, were of the same height, spoke in a voice that was similar.
She pulled the coverlet closer, abruptly conscious that it alone covered her nakedness. Stepping back, she moved away from him, the thoughts coming fast one on the other.
He spoke a different language, but his voice was the same. Ian knew English as well as Gaelic. He wore a mask, yet his smile was identical to the colonel’s. So, too, the look in his eyes. He commanded with ease, and formulated battle strategy even in the exodus of the villagers.
A foolishness, to think them alike. She loved Ian with a breathless wonder, while this man only made her cautious.
Her hands felt cold, her lips dry. She was wrong. She had to be. The two men could not be the same. She could not love the Butcher of Inverness.
“Who are you?” she asked again, taking another step away from him.
“Whoever you wish me to be,” he said enigmatically. His face changed, falling into more severe lines, as if he wore a mask of flesh.
“Please leave,” she said, the words sounding choked.
His smile looked oddly sad, but he left the room, leaving her to stare at the closed door.
Captain Thomas Henry Harrison stood before the home of Alison Fulton, experiencing a fear greater than any he’d ever felt. Even before a battle he’d not been this uncertain. War, in fact, seemed easier than the task he’d given himself.
He flicked a piece of lint from his sleeve, pulled at his tunic, arched his neck until his collar felt as if it weren’t strangling him.
He lifted his hand to the brass knocker, then dropped it again, stepping back.
The house was square-built of red brick on a crowded Inverness street. Four small windows faced him, their panes of thick watery glass set in white frames. There were flowers in the tiny beds on either side of the front door. A sign of occupation, as was the gray smoke that curled against the night sky.
He forced himself to take the step again, raising his hand and gripping the knocker. It struck the brass plate hollowly, surely not loud enough to be heard. His next knock was much harder, but was still left unanswered.
Stepping back, he straightened his tunic again, bent, and brushed a speck of imaginary dust from his boots. He told himself that it would be best to leave now, return to Fort William. His errand was done, the ship hired. There was nothing to keep him in Inverness.
He flattened his palm against the painted white door in farewell. It opened, and for a moment he wondered if he’d pushed it ajar. But no, there was her beloved face, looking as startled as he felt.
“Alison?” he asked, standing at attention.
“Thomas?” she whispered, a smile coming to her face.
“You look well,” he said. An understatement, he thought. She was still unearthly beautiful, with her golden hair and light green eyes.
“It’s been months, Thomas,” she said, frowning at him. “Months, Thomas,” she admonished him again. “And no word. Not a letter, nothing. You might have come sooner.”
He blinked at her, stunned.
She reached out and gripped his arm. The top of her head only came to his shoulder, but she was strong enough to pull him to her. Standing on tiptoe, she fixed an irritated look on him.
“You’ll not get away again, dearest Thomas,” she said.
And to his utter and stunned delight proceeded to kiss him.
Chapter 24
T here was no reason to see Leitis. A warning that Alec gave himself during the next two weeks, his resolve weakening as each day passed.
He was, he thought with some amusement, no wiser than a young boy experiencing his first love, uncertain and delighted, terrified and joyous.
There wasn’t one remark she’d made or one laugh she’d uttered that he didn’t recall with perfect clarity. And every moment of those times they’d loved lingered in his mind in the moments before sleep, before waking, and the seconds between each task and each duty.<
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He had marked her, the memory of the discovery vivid and fresh in his mind. She’d sat wrapped in her cocoon of coverlet and he’d touched her with a delicate stroke of his finger. The look on her face, startled and reproving, was a caution to him as strong as words. It was all too evident that she might love the Raven, but she still hated the Butcher.
And it was just as clear that she was refusing to accept his identity. The clues were there, but his masquerade functioned only because she wished it to remain in place. The denial was a bulwark against a greater truth—that he was English and a soldier and a man rumored to be a monster.
For the most part, he was able to occupy himself with those mundane and necessary tasks that fell to the colonel of the regiment. He inspected Lieutenant Castleton’s alterations in the stores and approved the changes, sent Captains Wilmot and Monroe out on patrol if, for no other reason than to give them experience in command.
Today he’d had the task of a tribunal, adjudicating those offenses that required his attention.
“Have you anything to say for yourself?” he asked the two men who stood before the table.
“No, sir,” the first one said.
“I wouldn’t have struck him with the bottle, sir, if he’d not said something about my Sally,” the second one responded.
“It’s a good thing you chose not to demonstrate your irritation on duty,” Alec said sternly. “The punishment for such a lapse is flogging.”
Both men looked suitably chastised, even more so at the amount of the fine he levied on them.
A second miscreant had been discovered cheating at dice. Honor was important in a military institution. Even more important was the fact that a man’s companions needed to trust him. In battle, teamwork was not only necessary, it might mean survival.
“Is this accusation correct?” he asked the man. To his credit, the soldier did not deny it.
“You’ll surrender your next month’s wages to your companions in the game,” he said. “In addition, your ration of rum is forfeited for that time.”