Surrender to the Highlander

by Lynsay Sands

  And then there was the other part of it . . . if Bessie was Ealasaid, and her father had been as close to his sisters as her mother had claimed, how had he not recognized her when she came to Drummond? More importantly, why would she kill him?

  Edith was lost in such thoughts when Laddie suddenly lunged from the furs, barking and making a beeline for the woods on the edge of the clearing across from her.

  "Laddie!" Ronson cried sleepily, on his feet before he was even quite awake. "Come back."

  "Ronson, no!" Edith shouted, and tried to catch his arm, but the boy was almost as quick as the dog and was off across the clearing before she could stop him. Cursing, she stood to hurry after him, but paused abruptly after only a couple of steps when she heard Ronson cry, "Gran! What are ye doing here?"

  "I just wanted to be sure ye washed behind yer ears."

  Frozen to the spot, Edith heard that response and then backed slowly to the furs and bent to pick up the sword by its hilt. Gripping it tightly, she watched the woods, simply waiting, and then tensed further when Ronson led his grandmother out of the trees and toward her with Laddie nipping at their heels.

  To say that Ronson's grandmother looked vexed was something of an understatement. She was eyeing Laddie like she'd like to kill and skin the poor beast, Edith noticed. More importantly, in her vexation, she was walking straight and at a normal pace, rather than in the slow, hunched-over manner she usually used. Even as Edith noted that, the woman began to slouch and lean forward, her pace slowing. She also changed her expression to a more servile attitude as she turned her attention to Edith.

  "Oh, m'lady. 'Twas such a long walk to get out here," she said waving her hand before her face as if she felt quite faint from the exertion. As well she should. This spot was a good distance from the keep. Too far for her to have walked here in the time since Edith, Niels and Ronson had left the keep. She must have a horse somewhere nearby, Edith thought to herself.

  "Laddie!" Ronson roared, releasing his grandmother's hand, and charging after the dog when he suddenly raced off into the woods.

  While Bessie frowned after the boy, Edith never took her eyes from the woman. As long as Ronson stayed close to Laddie, he should be fine. She, on the other hand, was in a pretty tricky situation. The woman had come out here to kill her, she was sure. The question was whether she'd planned to do it in front of her grandson and hope he wouldn't tell anyone, or had planned something else. Since she should know that Niels had left with them, the most likely approach would have been for her to shoot arrows at them from the cover of the trees so that Ronson had to witness the deaths, but not who caused it, she thought, and asked, "Where's yer bow and arrows, Ealasaid?"

  "Where's me--?" the older woman began with feigned confusion, and then paused abruptly. Eyes narrowing, she asked softly, "What did ye call me, m'lady?"

  "Ealasaid," Edith repeated quietly and then raised her eyebrows. "It's yer name, is it no'? Ealasaid Drummond. Sister o' one Glynis and mother to another. Sister to me father, as well as his murderer."

  The woman eyed her for a moment, and then gave up her hunched stance and straightened, her mouth compressing.

  "I presume ye came to kill Niels and me, and brought yer bow to do it," Edith said when the woman just stared at her. "Right in front o' yer grandson, too," she added grimly. "That would have been cruel."

  "Aye." Bessie nodded solemnly. "It bothered me to have to do it in front o' him, but it needs doing. And I will no' let him see me do it. In fact, that's why I do no' have me bow now. The minute the dog came running and I heard Ronson chasing after him, I hid me bow and quiver under a bush."

  Edith felt like she'd been punched in the stomach. She'd sorted it out and had thought she knew what was what, but finding out she was right was different than suspecting she was. And it appeared the woman still intended to kill her. "Why?"

  The question slid out unbidden, and then just hung there in the air between them for a moment before Bessie snapped, "Why do ye think?"

  "I really have no idea," Edith admitted. "Until today I thought every last member o' me family was dead and ye were just some old woman trying to look after her grandson. Now I find out the aunt I thought died before I was even born is alive and behind the murder o' the rest o' me family."

  "Is that what yer father told ye? That I was dead?" she asked with a hard laugh.

  "Nay, me mother did," Edith said mildly. "The subject upset me father too much to talk about it."

  "I bet it did," Bessie said with cold sarcasm and then held her arms out and said, "Well, ye can see that was a lie. I'm alive."

  "Aye," Edith agreed. "So then are Glynis and yer mother alive still too?"

  "What?" she asked with surprise. "Nay. O' course, no'. They died from the sweating sickness near to thirty years ago. Just before me father threw me out like I was rubbish and told me never to return."

  "Me father was told ye died with Glynis and yer mother," Edith said solemnly.

  "Aye. Well, I would no' doubt it. Our father was enough o' a bastard to do that. But I do no' believe fer a minute that someone else here did no' tell Ronald the truth in private afterward. He must have kenned."

  "If that were true he would have come to find ye like he did Cawley after his father died," Edith said with certainty.

  Bessie scowled at the suggestion and snapped, "Where's that husband o' yers?"

  "By now he should have been back at the castle fer quite a while. Certainly long enough to have told everyone who ye really are and that ye're the one behind so many deaths. No doubt they're now all searching the bailey and keep fer ye and trying to decide if ye should be hanged, or just left to rot in the oubliette."

  Bessie closed her eyes briefly in defeat, and then opened them again and glanced around as Ronson came running back into the clearing and hurried excitedly to them with Laddie on his heels.

  "Look what Laddie found, m'lady. A bow and quiver. And look, they are no' broken or anything. Are they no' fine?"

  "Aye, Ronson, very fine," Edith agreed, never taking her eyes off his grandmother.

  "Do ye think I could have it fer me own?" he asked hopefully. "It might have been Lonnie's and his family may want it. Maybe I--"

  "I'm quite sure 'tis no' Lonnie's," Edith assured him and then, arching an eyebrow at Bessie, said, "If yer grandmother says 'tis all right, then aye, ye can have them."

  "Gran?" Ronson asked, hurrying to her. "Can I? I've always wanted a bow o' me own. It's all I've wanted me whole life. Can I have it?"

  Bessie peered at him sadly and then nodded. Voice gruff, she said, "Aye. 'Tis yers, lad. Now go practice on that tree down by the water, and let us talk."

  "Come on, Laddie," Ronson cried excitedly.

  "Be careful ye do no' shoot yerself in the foot," Bessie called out. "And do no' shoot the dog either."

  "Aye, Gran," he called back happily.

  Sighing, Bessie peered back to Edith and then raised an eyebrow in question. "What now?"

  "Now ye answer me questions," Edith said solemnly.

  Bessie's eyes narrowed. "What questions?"

  Edith hesitated, and then said, "Ye were thirteen when ye were supposed to have died and that was nearly thirty years ago."

  "Aye."

  "So, ye're forty-two or three?"

  "Forty-two."

  Edith nodded and then asked, "How did ye make yerself look so old?"

  Bessie laughed grimly and said, "Me hair was always so fair it looked white. As fer the wrinkles on me face, some are strategically smudged dirt, but some are mine. Peasants do no' have the same luxury a lady does in avoiding the sun," she explained sourly.

  "What happened to ye?" Edith asked with bewilderment. She couldn't imagine any circumstance that would lead to Ealasaid, the daughter of one of Scotland's most powerful and wealthiest lairds, becoming the servant, Bessie.

  "What happened?" Bessie muttered harshly, and then shrugged and said, "As I learned too late, while a peasant can no' become a lady, a lady can c
ertainly become a peasant does she dare to go against her father . . . I dared to go against me father."

  "How?" Edith asked at once.

  "He'd arranged a marriage fer me to a smelly old bastard I could no' even bear to look at. I decided I was no' marrying him, but I was no' stupid enough just to refuse. He simply would have put guards on me and forced me to go through with it. But me father could no' force me to marry if my maidenhead was gone I thought, so I got clever. I seduced a visiting English lord. Adeney." Her mouth tightened, "At least, that's what I like to say. The truth is I had no idea what I was doing. All I really did was slip into Lord Adeney's bedchamber through the secret passage in naught but me shift. The next thing I kenned I found meself lying on the bed with me shift thrown up over me face as this fine laird plowed into me, tearing me asunder. And he did it repeatedly through the night.

  "Come the morning I could barely even walk the pain was so bad. But I dragged meself from that bed and made me way back to me own to lay there whimpering all day. All the while completely ignorant o' the fact that me sister and mother had fallen ill with the sweating sickness in the night.

  "The morning next I felt a little better and sent fer me father to tell him triumphantly that I was ruined and he could no' force the marriage. He heard me out and then told me that Glynis and me mother were dead, and I was now dead to him too. I'd chosen Adeney and would be leaving with him. He could do with me as he wished."

  "He did no' make him marry ye?" Edith asked with dismay. Despite everything this woman had done, Edith still managed to feel pity for the child Ealasaid had been and her foolish choices. A more honorable lord would have sent the girl back to her room. This Lord Adeney obviously hadn't been a very honorable man. He also obviously hadn't married the child he'd ruined. But Edith found it hard to believe that her grandfather, bastard though he might have been at times, hadn't made Adeney marry Ealasaid.

  "Lord Adeney already had a wife. I knew that when I chose him," Bessie admitted, and then suddenly moved swiftly toward her.

  "Well?" Niels asked as he led his brothers out of the passages and into the laird's bedchamber where Tormod stood waiting.

  The old man shook his head solemnly. "The men have searched everywhere. She's no' in the gardens, the bailey or down in the village, and no one has seen her since Moibeal saw her slip into the garderobe."

  "Well, she was no' in the passages or the bedchambers," Rory said with a frown. "Where else could she be?"

  "We did no' check the tunnel," Geordie pointed out quietly. "We looked down it a ways, but did no' follow it to the end. Ye do no' think she went that way and is trying to escape?"

  "Escape from what?" Alick asked dryly. "No one has seen her since shortly after Niels and Edith left fer the loch with Ronson. We did no' ken until Niels returned that she was really Edith's aunt and behind the killings, so there was nothing to escape from."

  "The tunnels come out halfway between the keep and the loch," Niels muttered, worry beginning to gnaw at him.

  "Aye, m'laird," Tormod said with a frown. "Ye're no' thinking Bessie used the tunnels to follow ye to the loch, are ye? If so, then Lady Edith is there alone and--"

  The old man's words died abruptly as Niels turned on his heel and hurried from the room. He had a bad feeling that that was exactly what the old woman was doing. She'd probably hoped to kill two birds with one stone, or both him and Edith in one go . . . And he'd left his wife alone and defenseless in the woods with naught but a boy and a dog to protect her.

  Chapter 17

  Edith was so startled by Bessie's sudden lunge toward her that she was slow bringing up the sword she held. Not too slow, thank goodness, and Bessie paused abruptly as the sharp tip pressed against her stomach.

  They eyed each other briefly and then Bessie backed up a step, just enough to get the point away from her skin. She then shrugged as if to say she'd had to try.

  Edith just stared at her. She'd thought sure once the woman knew that others would now be aware of her perfidy and all was lost, she'd stop trying to kill her. It seemed not, though . . . and that made Edith wonder if the woman was mad or just stupid.

  Or perhaps Bessie had decided she could poison every last person at Drummond, blame it on someone else and yet claim the title fer herself, Edith thought suddenly. She had no idea. But whatever the woman was thinking, it was obvious Edith couldn't let her guard down again. Bessie was much closer than she'd been before that lunge. Another trick like that and Edith could wind up dead.

  "Did ye have any more questions?" Bessie asked accommodatingly.

  Edith narrowed her eyes, took a cautious step back, and then another. Once she was a safer distance away, she asked, "How did Lord Adeney and his wife feel about yer care now being his problem?"

  "I have no idea how Lady Adeney felt, but he was fine with it," she assured her tersely. "As far as he was concerned, this was all grand. He had a wife, and now he had me, whom he could do whatever he wished with. It turned out what he wished was to dump me in a cottage in the village where his wife would no' have to look at me, and send fer me whenever he felt the need to do some plowing."

  "O' course, I got with child," Bessie said conversationally. "But that actually turned out to be a good thing. Once I grew big, he was no' interested in me and I got some respite from his rough attentions."

  "The babe was Glynis?" Edith asked.

  "Nay. That first babe did no' take and was born too soon. It came early and dead. That happened several times ere Glynis was born. Adeney's seed was weak. Fer twelve years he plowed me, giving me nothing but weak seed and babes who were either born dead or died in me arms in their first moments."

  "Until Glynis," Edith murmured.

  Bessie smiled grimly. "Aye, but wee Glynis was no' Adeney's child. Her father, William, had strong seed."

  Edith raised her eyebrows. "And who was William?"

  "He was one o' Adeney's soldiers, and a good, kind man. He often had to escort me to the keep and back. He kenned how miserable I was, and how Adeney made me suffer." Pausing, she explained coldly, "The lord was as weak as his seed. As the years passed it became more and more difficult for him to get hard, until he could no' perform unless I was in pain. He took pleasure in giving me pain."

  Edith didn't know what to say to that. Offering sympathy to a woman who had killed so many people just seemed wrong, so she didn't say anything, and Bessie continued, "Fer years William carried me back to me cottage when Adeney was done with me and tried to tend me wounds. He was so kind and gentle . . . I fell in love with him, but when he told me he loved me, I spurned him. I kenned Adeney did no' like to share and our feelings would be trouble. But the day came when Adeney was called away to court for longer than his usual few weeks. The king wanted his consult and company and kept him for more than half a year."

  Bessie smiled faintly. "'Twas like the heavens had opened up and sprinkled happiness from the clouds. The days were warm and sunny, the flowers were in bloom and William . . ." Sighing, she looked down. "After the first couple o' weeks when we tried to fight it, we spent every minute o' every day o' those months together. He taught me that the bedding needn't be terrible painful and horrid, and he taught me that all men were no' selfish, evil bastards like me father and Adeney. He wanted me to run away with him, but I was too afraid. I loved him so, but . . ." Bessie scowled. "But at least there I had the cottage and food. Had we fled . . ." Staring down at her hands, she shook her head. "Our love cost him his life."

  "Adeney found out?" Edith asked.

  "Oh, aye. I do no' ken who told him, and he did no' confront me at the time so we had no warning he kenned. But shortly after he got back, Adeney sent William to deliver a message with two o' his more loyal men and William did no' return. They claimed he fell from his horse and broke his neck and they'd buried him in the woods along the way."

  Bessie gave a short hard laugh. "Fool that I was I believed it when Adeney told me. I thought mayhap God was punishing me." Shaking her head, she c
ontinued. "Glynis was born a mere six and a half months after Adeney returned. She was full-term, but wee, and I felt sure Adeney believed me when I said she was just early . . . because he pretended to. Right up until she was twelve."

  Expression hardening, she said grimly, "I had gone out to collect some healing weeds fer one o' the women in the village who had the flux. I'd been using the skills me mother had taught me and added to them over the years. That day I returned to the cottage to find poor, wee, beautiful Glynis bloody and weeping on the bed in the cottage while Adeney enjoyed an ale at me table," she said bitterly. "The child had barely started her courses, but he'd raped her and tore her asunder just as he had me all those years earlier."

  Her mouth tightened. "I flew into a rage. How could he do this to his own child? How could he? And he sneered and said, 'Ye mean William's child, do ye no'? She's no kin to me.' And then he smiled real cruel like and said, 'Terrible his dying ere he could see his bastard. But he should no' have played with what was mine.'"

  Bessie let her breath out on a slow sigh and added, "He walked to the door then saying, 'In the end, William did me a favor though. She's a pretty little thing, even prettier than ye were in yer day. She'll be the one the soldiers come to collect from now on, Ealasaid. I tire o' yer ugly old body.' And then he just walked out, leaving me there kenning me love had killed William and put our daughter in the same hell I'd endured."

  Closing her eyes, she heaved out a long breath and then said, "True to his word, Glynis was now transported up to the keep each night. It broke me heart. She'd cry and beg me no' to let the soldiers take her, but there was naught I could do."

  Ye could have packed her up and left, Edith thought, but held her tongue.

  "After a handful o' months, Adeney's seed finally took in the girl and Ronson was born a year and a month after the first raping."