by Unknown
She turned to leave, but Ewan caught her wrist. She seemed to flounder for a moment as if reaching for her missing weapon again, and huffed. “Unhand me or… well…you’ll certainly be sorry you didn’t.”
Her threat made him pause for a second. The sharpness in her boast was backed up by the unnatural wind from before. So far, this slight woman hadn’t done much more than blow off hats. If she had an evil bent, wouldn’t she have brought a tree down on the preacher? She had to be lying.
“I’ve seen magic like yers, lass,” Ewan whispered, “and only good comes from it.” He reeled her in slowly until she stood before him. “I think perhaps we should discuss things further inside.”
“I don’t know what magic you’re talking about, but I have a blade that will make you sorry.”
“You mean the one ye keep looking for?” he asked, refusing to turn away from her glare.
“You aren’t coming inside,” she said through pretty white teeth stacked upon one another.
She must use polish. What does she taste like? He pushed the ridiculous thought from his mind. She was a hellcat; that much was obvious. After he found out who she was, he’d cut her free before getting scratched.
“Aye, we are. To talk,” he responded in the same vein. It was a standoff. She with her threats. He with his obvious strength. She needed to listen, to understand about her family. He’d saved her once, though she didn’t seem like she planned to admit her appreciation. But he would be negligent if he didn’t warn her about her family’s crimes. If she boasted about being Boswell’s daughter, she just might be damned with him.
“I won’t hurt ye,” he added.
A flash of blue light illuminated the darkness, its brightness blinding. At the same time pain shot along the top of Ewan’s foot as her pointy boot heel slammed down. The two assaults were just enough to allow her to twist her thin wrist through his grasp. She turned and flew from his reach as Ewan blinked, clearing his vision. She’d just reached the bottom of the steps when his hard voice boomed in the silent night air.
“Rowland Boswell isn’t coming home. He’s dead.”
She set her foot back on the ground and froze, her rigid back still.
“Ye’re right,” Searc murmured. “Meg has no need to worry about ye wooing the English lasses.”
Ewan growled low and ran a hand through his hair. He hadn’t meant to blurt that out. It definitely hadn’t been gentlemanly. He took a step closer to her. “I think we best go inside and figure out how to proceed.”
She turned slowly, the moon shining on her face, and her gaze landed on the covered cart. No tears, but… desperation, perhaps.
“Whatever ye had wanted him to help with, he wouldn’t have,” Ewan informed her. “He was quite against anything unnatural, and he only acted on what would benefit himself. Ye were better not knowing him, lass.”
Silence.
“You should say you’re sorry,” Searc said in Gaelic.
Ewan flashed him a scowl. As if he needed lessons from the lad on how to deal with women. He’d been winning over lasses since the time Searc had been born.
A sigh escaped her, and she seemed smaller somehow, as if his words had punctured her and sucked out her spirit. “By the devil,” she whispered and plopped down on the steps, her face in her hands.
Searc shook his head and walked over to Boswell. “I’ll bed down the horses, but I think we’ll be leaving before dawn.” He ran a hand down his horse’s nose and clicked to the two of them as he led them away.
Bloody lovely! He’d only been trying to stop her from getting away. Instead he’d thrown in her face the fact that she was now an orphan. She was alone in the world, without resources, and hunted by a torching mob. He’d also been orphaned way too young, but he’d never been alone. The old Macbain had taken Ewan in, raised him along with his own son, Caden. His stomach coiled the last vestiges of bannocks around in his gut.
He sat next to her and rubbed his forehead. “I’m sorry, lass, for the shock. Was not my intent to—”
“What am I going to do?” she groaned as if he weren’t even there, as if he didn’t matter, as if he couldn’t possibly help her.
Ewan frowned. He’d sworn as a boy never to leave a lass in need, not after he’d left his mother to fend for herself. And he wouldn’t abandon his oath just because this lass was… well… unconventional. “I will protect ye. I saved ye once, and I’m not about to watch ye fall to ruin.”
The Lord knew he didn’t have time to protect a witchy, Catholic, pirate, heiress who was the daughter of a known traitor, even if he was intrigued by her spirit. She’d been hauled off by a mob, nearly burned, and she’d just met her extremely dead father. Any other lass would be sobbing hysterically and quaking. Aye, the lass had fortitude.
Dory turned her head in her arms so that she could see him. “You will help me?” She lifted her head and the moonlight painted her skin with brilliance, calling attention to lips soft and lusciously full. Could they possibly be that naturally red or did she stain them like some women? He wondered what color her eyes were in the daylight.
Ewan peeled his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “Aye, lass, I’ll help ye.”
“On your honor and immortal soul?”
Ewan stared at her hopeful expression. “What exactly are ye needing help with?” He wasn’t a fool, no matter how beautiful she looked in the moonlight, or how binding his oath had been years ago when he’d been a selfish lad.
She waved her hand as if there was nothing much to concern him. “This and that.”
“This and that what, exactly?”
“I would think a big, strong man like you would be up to just about any task, especially helping a little woman like myself.”
“Aye, I am.”
“Wonderful!” She leapt up.
He followed her as she turned to enter the manor. “Ye haven’t said what ye need help with yet.”
“I need to go to London,” she said and illuminated the entryway with a chestnut-sized ball of blue light.
“We, too, are headed there.” He could certainly watch over her as they journeyed to London. “I can give ye a ride, but ye can’t be blowing hats off and glowing. ’Twill get us all on a pyre.”
She stared at him in the blue glow and then slowly let it die away, leaving just enough natural light to show her solid stance.
He nodded. “If ye can promise not to use yer magic—”
“I have no magic,” she said. “If you take me to London, get me to court, I am but a simple maid.”
Och, she would never be a simple maid. He paused, listening to the feathering of her breath in the empty house. His face heated as he recalled the gentle roundness of her backside as he’d kept her over Gaoth’s back. And here they stood, completely alone. If he wasn’t an honorable man, she’d be in definite jeopardy. The thought of her asking help from some disreputable man tightened his jaw. Nay, he wouldn’t—couldn’t—abandon her; although she didn’t know that.
“I am journeying to Hampton Court on the outskirts of London,” he said.
She inhaled quickly. “Is King Henry there?”
“Aye, we have business with him.”
He watched her silhouette bounce up in silent excitement.
“I am not certain if we will stay there or at an inn, but I will find ye rooms for the length of time we are in London.” Perhaps she needed help finding other family members. That shouldn’t be too difficult.
“I have business with King Henry as well,” she said. “Urgent business. I was hoping my father…”
Ewan felt the heaviness of guilt again at having blurted out that her father was dead and rotting on the back of the cart out front. “As long as ye keep yer breezes and blue glow to yerself, I swear to help ye resolve whatever ye wanted yer father to help ye with.”
She paused in the shadows. Grateful enough for a kiss, perhaps? Though things had started off altogether wrong, this situation could be salvaged. She was the bonniest lass
he’d ever seen and though he usually liked his ladies sweet and calm, there was something amazing about this Pandora Wyatt—or whatever name she wished to use.
“Do Scotsmen hold to their promises?” she asked cautiously.
Bloody hell! “I certainly do. My oath is solid as the earth below this great house.”
“You could change your mind, abandon me to the wolves of court,” she said, her voice timid, almost fearful.
“I said,” he repeated with force, “and I swear, on my life and honor as a warrior of Druim, as long as ye act like a normal lass, I will help ye resolve yer family issues.”
“Wonderful,” she breathed, and hiked her skirts high to tap up the steps. If there weren’t so many shadows, he’d be able to see her ankles at least. But he’d forbade her use of the light.
“Aye, we will be busy in London,” she said.
What was she talking about? Tension began to roll through his shoulders. She didn’t sound so fearful right now. In fact, she sounded victorious.
“Exactly what were ye going to ask yer father to do?”
She stopped at the top landing and looked back down at him, the moonlight through the broken clouds illuminating her face through the foyer window. Her lovely lips formed a saucy smile. “We’ll be freeing Captain Bart and Will from the tower.”
“What?” he yelled.
“You promised,” she threw back and skipped down the hall.
The lighthearted, teasing lilt in her voice broke his restraint. Tricked. He’d bloody been tricked!
…
The warrior charged up the stairs like a whale chasing a seal onto land. She yelped and turned, but he caught her before she’d taken two steps. He swung her up into his arms. Totally unwarranted!
“Ye tricked me. Into giving ye my oath for a suicide mission!”
She wasn’t sorry. Now that Rowland Boswell was dead, she had no other options. She’d already wasted a week in England traveling inland and waiting for a useless father. The smithy’s cousin who washed the linens of the damned at the tower said that the next hanging fair was just before Eastertide. Which meant she only had a little over a week to buy, trick, or rescue Captain Bart and Will out of the tower. They were truly her only family now.
“You did swear on your honor as a warrior,” she reminded him as he deposited her on the bed. Her heart sped along despite her ignoring the fact that he loomed over her on the very comfortable, large bed she’d been sleeping in. His chest moved in and out, presumably with fury, since his hard body couldn’t possibly be winded by the climb.
His ruggedly handsome face came near to hers. “I swore to take ye to London and help ye with family issues. Not put my head in a noose.” He backed away looking around at the shadowed room as if searching for a way to escape. “Bloody hell. Ye’re not only a witch, a Catholic, an heiress, and a pirate. Ye’re bloody insane, too.”
Uncalled for, but she’d let him have his rant. She watched his muscles bunch as he flexed his shoulders like he was preparing for a fight. He was like a snorting bull in a Spaniard’s ring, readying to charge.
“Rescuing people from the Tower. It isn’t done. Has never been done.” He paced across the floor and she scooted to the edge of the bed, facing him. She didn’t dare blink, else she miss his intent, and nearly jumped when he pulled flint from his pocket to strike at a rush light near the empty hearth. A soft glow illuminated the room as he lit several tallow candles in sconces along the walls. The portrait of a lady and her baby daughter over the mantle seemed to catch the warrior’s attention. The painting was the reason Dory had chosen this room to sleep in.
Ewan paused, taking in the beautiful likeness done in oils. Dory breathed fully, thankful for the distraction, at least for the moment.
“She looks so happy, doesn’t she?” Dory said. “Holding her baby.”
Ewan pivoted and strode back over to her. “She was burned on false accusations of being a witch, her daughter lucky to have survived.”
She swallowed and blinked at the burn in her eyes.
“Which is exactly why ye can’t work yer magic where anyone can see ye or even think they see ye.” He rubbed a hand through his hair as if he wanted to pull it from his head.
“I will keep my side of the bargain,” she said, her voice low.
He shook his head. “Who are these men that ye would risk so much?”
“Captain Bartholomew Wyatt kept me alive when my mother died on his ship. He raised me as his own when he could have sold me into slavery. Will is my friend.”
“Why are they in the Tower?”
“It’s a long story.”
“One I deserve to know before I risk a single hair on my head.”
“’Tis a very noble cause.”
“Noble? Ye’re pirates. How is that a noble cause?”
“We are good pirates.”
“Doesn’t exist. The very definition of piracy is criminal.”
“In a world that doesn’t offer options, it’s making a living.”
“Killing and stealing.”
Granted there had been some of that in her time on the Queen Siren, though Captain Bart usually locked her in his cabin when he knew there would be trouble. She looked hard at the warrior, her gaze tracing the lines of his scars. “I’m guessing you’ve done your share of killing and stealing, warrior, or did you get those fine scars from needle pointing tuffets?”
Ewan met her stare, his voice low. “I will get ye to London and find ye a bed, even get ye an audience with King Henry if I can, but when my business there is done, ye are on yer own.”
Dory felt her stomach pitch as her heart dropped into it. “I was wrong about you, Ewan Brody. You might play the part of a warrior full of honor, but at the first difficulty you break your oath.”
He walked to the small glass window looking out onto the bailey. “I’m no fool who would surrender my head for a beautiful lass.”
“Beautiful?” she whispered.
He huffed and turned. “Just because,” he indicated her there on the bed, “ye look like that, all soft and lovely, doesn’t mean ye can trick me to do a dead man’s errand.”
Soft and lovely? No one had ever called her anything close to beautiful. Well, there were the drunken hoots from sailors at port, but then they’d end up slit, stabbed, or knocked unconscious by Will or the captain. God, what would she do without them?
“You swore to help me with my family issues. They are my family.”
His stare pierced her, his handsome face hard as the granite face of a mountain.
“If they die, I’ll have no one.” She swallowed hard, caught in the line of his gaze. “Please… don’t abandon me.”
It was difficult to tell in the low light, and it happened so quickly, but Dory swore the warrior flinched. His hands contracted into tight fists. If she could touch him, she could tell what was going on inside him physically. He wouldn’t even know that she could read him like that, and it might tell her something. She slid off the bed slowly and leaned forward. Before she could touch him, he grunted and strode toward the door.
“I don’t abandon helpless lasses. We leave for London before dawn.”
Chapter Three
5 September of the Year our Lord God, 1517
Dearest Katharine,
He says he poisoned the queen and thus prevented her from conceiving another after Princess Mary, yet there is no proof. Have him stay close to Henry, gaining acceptance into the king’s inner circle. We will yet have our day.
Yours forever,
Rowland
Dory covered her nose with the edge of her shawl as the stench of rotting flesh washed over her on an errant breeze. With a silent exhale and twirl of her finger next to her leg, she sent the breeze blowing the other way to carry the smell of her father, the decaying corpse, away. A quick glance showed that neither of the Highlanders noticed.
What terrible luck. Not only was her father dead and unable to help her, Rowland Boswell’s royal summons ra
ng of King Henry’s fury. The corpse would be treated like that of a traitor. If Henry’s anger wasn’t assuaged on a dead man, it could bubble over to scald his only living blood relation.
The three of them agreed she should keep her relation to Boswell a secret. It would be wise for her to have no connection to the corpse at all, but there wasn’t another way to reach the king or the Tower. Traveling with the two Highlanders was the quickest way there. Although she didn’t have any idea what she would do once they arrived. How much would the warrior help her?
Dory’s glance ran down Ewan where he strode beside the horses, his boots crunching on pebbles in the dawn light. Her heart thumped sporadically at the display of muscles through the linen shirt. Her fingers ached to test the hardness of his arms. Hours of sword play had molded him into a formidable warrior. Legs strong and well-sculpted led to a firm, rounded backside.
“I can understand bringing the dog,” Ewan said and gestured to the fluffy, light brown mongrel trotting next to him. He turned back to look at them riding on the cart seat. Dory’s eyes shot up in case Ewan noticed where her gaze had rested. She released her breath as he looked to Searc. “But the cat, too?”
Searc shrugged and glanced at his feet where a small tabby cat slept in a Rosewood bathing sheet. “It’s still a kitten,” Searc said. “Ye don’t abandon lasses and I don’t abandon beasties.”
Ewan grumbled something in Gaelic and Searc reached down to rub the purring kitten. “Aye, but mine doesn’t scratch.”
Dory glared at Ewan’s head. She’d learned French and some Latin, but none of the guttural language of the Scots. Her fingers twitched to blow some dust in his face, but she intertwined them helplessly in her lap. If he suspected her of breaking her promise, he might very well leave her in the road. And she needed his help.
“So… what am I to call myself when we reach London?” she asked, throwing her voice forward so Ewan could hear her over the wagon wheels.
“Do ye want to be known as the Mereworth Wellington heiress?” He didn’t turn to meet her gaze. Irksome. If he talked to her, he should look at her.
“Do I appear to be an heiress?” She smiled, her heart thumping a little harder as he turned to assess her. She couldn’t help but sit up straight and tilt her nose in the air for show.