by Karin, Anya
Instead of answering with words, he pulled her close, held her to his chest and kissed her so achingly, sweetly deep that she felt it in her toes. His lips were just a little rough but warm and sweet and wet. Slowly he pulled her lip inside his mouth, and ran his hands up her back to the nape of her neck where Gavin curled his fingers.
Kenna felt the breath leak out of her as he held her there against his chest. She closed her eyes, letting the feeling of her lover, her safety wash over her. He embraced her whole being, body and soul. A tear ran down her cheek that she whisked away with a flick of her wrist, and then another one came that she ignored.
She felt Gavin’s eyes on her and opened hers to see his deep blues, so soft and gentle and strong. He swept one tear off her cheek with his thumb and kissed another away.
“Dinna move,” he said. “I’m going to remember every freckle. Every single one.”
“That’s a lot of freckles to remember,” Kenna said, smiling in spite of herself as another tear ran down her cheek.
After another long, beautiful moment with his eyes caressing her face, Gavin kissed Kenna’s cheek, then her forehead, then her eyes when she closed them to blink.
“As to what you said before. I promise I won’t be gone a second longer than I must. Don’t forget me, aye?”
Pulling away, he held her face still between his gentle hands.
“Aye,” she whispered in his ear, smiling through the tears. “I’ll try not to forget you.”
As soon as he went through the doors and she heard his horse’s feet hit the packed dirt, a sinking feeling took Kenna.
“He’ll be fine, lass,” Duggan said from behind her. She was so wrapped up in Gavin she'd hardly remembered he was there.
Red-faced and just a little puffy, she turned to the gruff old man and found a little bit of comfort in his kind eyes. “Are you sure?”
“Aye, as sure as I’ve been of anything. There are some men you just don’t doubt will do what they say. That one right there? He’s not telling a lie when he says what he did. Hell or Heaven either one wouldn’t stop him from coming back to you. I’d know the look in his eyes anywhere.”
“You would? Why?”
“Ach, he reminds me of someone, that’s all.”
“Who?”
“Reminds me of me about twenty years past. That’s the way I looked at my wife, when I left to fight in the Bonnie Prince’s first war.”
“Did you see her again? After the war, I mean.” Kenna sat down at the bar and fiddled with her fingers.
“Aye, I did. I came back after a year of war and she was still here, right here, sitting about where you are now. Thinking of it, she even looked a little bit like you. Bigger hair though, and darker. But when I saw her, she was every bit as beautiful as she was when I left. Probably more.”
She saw a little twinkle in Duggan’s eye and asked him what happened then.
“Ach, well, I canna say. Wouldn’t be proper. But, our first little one didn’t come along too long after that, I’ll say that much.”
Both of them laughed, and he poured a wee dram for the both of them. “Sure as I’m here, he’ll be fine. Don’t you worry.”
“Duggan, there’s something I need to tell you. I’m sorry I dinna do it before.”
“What is it Ke...er...Mary?” He grinned.
“How did you know?”
“An innkeeper learns to listen to the goings on in his establishment without appearing to be listening. I dinna blame you though. These are dangerous times.”
“Well there’s no harm in it then. I’m Kenna Moore, and I’m sure you’ve figured on Hamish actually being Gavin Macgregor.”
Duggan patted Kenna’s hand gently. “Aye, lass, I might just have. Dinna worry. You two are safe with me. One thing has me a wee bit confused though. In the posters, and the papers, your hair was never quite so exciting.”
Three
Edinburgh
August 16, Late Evening
“Ach! John Two-fingers, you’ve got elbows so sharp they could blind Polyphemus hisself!” Lynne Stevenson hissed and punched John on the arm playfully. The bed they awoke in was a tiny thing, one of three that lay hidden in the secret upstairs loft of the Lion’s Mane Tavern, right in the middle of Old Edinburgh. It was here that Gavin and John began their life of honorable crime, or as John called it, “the most fun I’ve ever had.”
John yawned wide, stretching his arms above his head and rolling to look out of the tiny boarded-up window. “Still dark,” he said. “And what was that about my elbows? You’re not terribly plump yourself.”
“You jabbed me in the ribs you right bastard.” Lynne punched him again, a little harder this time.
“Well then I suppose we could make different arrangements. I’m sure a place as fine as the Lion’s Mane has any number of grand accommodations available for-”
“Oh shut up, you,” Lynne said, quieting him with a snuck kiss. “I didn’t say I minded so much, just that I don’t enjoy to be woke up of a morning with your pointy little elbow in my side.”
Laughing softly, John slid his hand underneath Lynne as she lay on her side, and yanked her up on top of him. Her legs fell gently on either side and she kissed him once on the chest, and then nuzzled his neck.
“I canna believe I’ve barely known you a week and a half, milady,” John said as he looked down at the top of Lynne’s tousled hair. “Seems just three or four days ago that you suckered me into an empty house and almost got me killed before having my best friend arrested.”
“Seems so,” she said. “I’m sorry about that, and I’ll stay that way until the day I die.”
“Ach, woman, if I wanted to blame you, I could have killed you back then.”
“Oh you coulda? I seem to remember it a mite differently. Way I remember was that you and Gavin were both quite at my mercy because the two of you bumbled into a house you didn’t bother to clear first before settling in to steal everything what wasn’t nailed down.”
John couldn’t help but chuckle. “So that’s what happened. I knew there was something amiss with my memory. It all worked out though, aye? Gavin and Kenna off on a grand adventure to Fort Mary, the two of us inseparable and in love, two shortbreads in a tin.”
“Who’re you calling short?” She couldn’t help but smile. It was true what he said, though. Ever since that first night she saw John, his dashing grin, and gentle eyes intoxicated her. It all came together so quickly that it was a little surprising, but for the first time in her life, Lynne Stevenson looked forward to waking up.
“Ach, well, you are shorter than I am,” he said and slid his hand underneath the soft cotton of Lynne’s sleeping tunic. Her skin prickled as his fingertips danced a little circle on the small of her back and she let her breathing fall in time with his. She drew a deep breath, held it for a moment and then let it trickle out of her lips.
“How do you do these things to me, John?” She whispered. “I’m usually rather a grouch in the morning.”
A soft knock on the door interrupted John’s response, so instead he just kissed Lynne’s forehead and asked who was knocking.
“Rodrigo,” was the answer from the proud Spaniard who managed to best John in a knife fight – no easy feat – and then helped John, Lynne and the others not only escape from the dungeon where Gavin was held, but also to nab the awful Sheriff Alan.
“What is it? Don’t get me wrong, it’s good to hear from you, but I’m half nude and the sun hasn’t come up yet.”
“Get dressed,” he said. “Things to do.”
“Ach, not one to mince words, are you?” John struggled to roll a softly chuckling Lynne off him and stand up. Once he managed, he pulled on his trousers and went to the door.
“What is it, friend? Something wrong?”
“No. Well, in a way. Can I come in?”
“Of course!” Lynne said from across the room, pulling a blanket around her shoulders more to ward off the early morning chill than out of modesty.
>
Rodrigo thanked her, and smiled at John as he pushed the black-haired Scot out of the way.
“What is it, Rodrigo? Trouble?” John pulled up a chair and turned it for Rodrigo to sit in, but the big Spaniard remained standing.
“It is... my wife’s friend, Olga. She was...she taught Elena to speak English at Laird Macdonald’s house. Now that he’s lost face from all that happened, he’s threatened to stop paying the house help.”
“You can’t be serious,” John said. “That’s what got us all interested in his business in the first place.”
“Well that and a certain flame-headed lass,” Lynne added.
“That too. But without Red Ben Black’s wife wanting us to break into the Laird’s mansion to collect payment he promised but never delivered, we would never have known about her at all.”
“He’s down stairs, too.”
“Laird Macdonald?” John’s eyes got wide.
Lynne pursed her lips and sighed. “I’m guessing he means Ben.”
“Right, Ben. He and Alice are downstairs. So is Elena.”
“Wait, wait, wait, what time is it? Why are all of you here so early?”
“Early?” Rodrigo laughed. “It’s an hour to midnight still.”
“Oh. So that explains the levity of your mood,” John said to Lynne.
“Come on, get up. We have to move fast.”
“Of course we do. Fast this, fast that. Why can’t things ever go at a nice, slow pace around here?”
“You’ll have to forgive him, Rodrigo. John’s not yet had his full eleven hours’ sleep.” She and Rodrigo laughed. “Get up, grandfather John. Let’s go. I’ve been wondering when we’d have some more fun.”
“What? We haven’t been having fun?” By the time he answered, Lynne and Rodrigo were both halfway down the hall.
“Hey! Wait for me! I thought we’d been having fun!”
“John Two-fingers! Get down here and drink,” a big, loud, smiling voice said from somewhere he couldn’t see. “We’ve got things to discuss!”
John smiled to himself as he traded trousers for kilt and tucked his baggy white tunic into the top. He missed Gavin and Kenna, but they were gone north. Their lives were elsewhere. His loud, burly, red-bearded friend Ben, though, was right down the stairs.
“Coming!” he shouted from the doorway. “Get me a mug and a dram!”
Only moments later, Red Ben Black, John, Lynne, Alice Black, Rodrigo and Elena were back together warming seats with a bottle open between them. Every time Ben took a swallow, Alice glared at him playfully and asked if he was going to stop before he fell asleep.
“So what you’re telling me,” John said, “is that we have to get back into Ramsay Macdonald’s house and spirit off one of his maids?” The whisky was good going down.
“Aye, but not just any maid,” said Ben. “Here, Elena will tell it better. I knew the woman but these two damn near lived on top of one another.”
“Olga a very good woman, but do not want to leave. When moved to here, she...um...Olga she took me under her care and teach me how to do everything I need. She help Kenna get out of Macdonald’s house. She help everybody but won’t help herself.”
“Why not?” John asked. “Is she scared something will happen?”
“I think she am – is – I think she just want to see the best in everyone. She don’t hate Macdonald for keeping Kenna and all that things. But he not going to pay her. Not right. And I want her safe.”
For a second, John and Red Ben looked at each other, both trying to think of something to say. It was Rodrigo who broke the silence.
“Then we go. We go tonight – go now – and get her. She deserves better than Macdonald’s abuse.”
“I’ll need my key,” Red Ben said. “I left it at home.”
“Well then, that solves the next question I was going to ask, which was ‘how are we going to get in this time?’ But it doesn’t solve another problem. Are there guards? Even broke, the Laird canna be so ruined he has no guards.”
Elena shook her head. “Olga, she say the guards all leave. He won’t pay, they won’t work.”
“They’ve got some sense at least.” John looked back and forth between the two men. “Right, so we go to the Black’s house, get the key, and then what? Just ride to the house and walk in the back door?”
“Well, aye, that’s about the short of it.” Ben said with a huge grin spreading across his lips, underneath his enormous red beard. “Though I don’t think it will be as entertaining as last time. No masquerade ball at which to pull a knife on someone.”
John squinted and grinned. “Watch yourself, or next time might be you with the knife pulled on him.”
“You’d best be quite accurate with it,” Red Ben said loudly, slapping his belly. “Most places you stab wouldn’t hurt me very much!” A roar of laughter spread across the table from one person to the next. Before long, they’d finished their drinks, Red Ben ate a bowl of stew, horses were collected and they were on the road.
“We need some kind of name,” John said. “You know, for the gang. When it was just Gavin and meself wandering the streets that was one thing. But now we’re...one, two, three, eight...nine? Nine of us? Got to have a name for a gang of nine. Huh. That’s a good one, don’t you think?”
“Ach, I’m not one of you,” Alice said. “I’m a proper lady with seven little ones scampering about.”
“And how do you count nine, John?” Lynne grabbed his hand. “Hard to count when you’re missing three fingers?”
“Aye it – wait a tick, what a cruel woman to make fun of my brave injury.”
Lynne pursed her lips to squelch a laugh. “By my count there’re seven, dear John, eight if we count Alice, because even if she doesn’t want to be counted, she seems to be right here with us.”
“Seven, nine what’s the difference.”
A moment later, a shriek from down the way caught their attention.
“The Hell is that?” John said to Ben.
“Seems to be just some rowdy drunk. But that voice...”
Slumped over on a horse, hat in hand, was a short, round figure who had obviously had plenty in the eyes of the pub’s owner, but not in his own.
“Is my money no good here?” the little man shouted. “Do you not know who I am?”
“Ach, I know well and good who ya are, you foul little beast. I know what you did and I know I dinna have to listen to anything you say. Now go on with you. Not welcome here.” The tavern keeper spat on the ground beside his feet, turned, and went back inside.
John, Ben, Lynne and the rest halted in the middle of the dirt road, not quite able to believe what they were seeing.
“Isn’t...isn’t he supposed to be in the back of a wagon on the way to Glasgow?” Ben asked John. “You don’t think...?”
“Ach, nay, I dinna think anything happened to Gavin. This wretched creature musta got away somehow.”
“But,” Lynne said, “if there weren’t any problems, how did he get away?”
John just shook his head in response. “No,” he said. “Canna think like that. I’m sure he’s fine. But still, it does worry me some. Ben, can you go with Rodrigo and Elena to get Olga? I think I want to go north. I want to make sure nothing’s happened on the road.”
“Aye,” Ben said as he stroked his beard. “I can understand that. You go. We’ll get Olga. Should we meet back at the house?”
“Nay,” John shook his head. “No time for that. I’m to head –”
“We,” Lynne cut in. “We’re to head north.”
For a moment the two of them looked at one another, but then John nodded and agreed. “We’re going. And I know this is going to sound wild, but will you come to meet us? The next town up is Mornay’s Cleft. They’ve only been gone a day so I canna imagine they’ve gone farther than that.”
“Two days now, lad, but aye, we can do that,” Ben said.
“You’re the best friend I could ask for. We’ll ride north now, and
stop when the moon is at its height and camp just off the road. We’ll go the rest of the way in the morning.”
Ben nodded. “We’ll meet you on the road. Or at least I will. The rest will have to make up their minds for themselves.”
Rodrigo’s expression was suddenly stern, “We too will come. I owe you my life.”
Elena, too, nodded. “Olga will want to see Kenna.”
“Alright, then. It’s decided. We ride north, you will meet us.”
“Except me,” Alice said. “I’ve sprouts to look after.”
“Of course,” John said, leaning over and giving Alice Black a kiss on the cheek. “See you all soon?”
Ben patted him on the back with his usual disregard for his own strength. “Aye, willna take long at all.”
And with that, they split company for the first time that night. As Ben and Rodrigo and Elena went one direction, and Alice went in the other, John watched them all until they disappeared into the darkness.
“Well,” he said, turning to Lynne and holding onto her hand like he needed her for an anchor. “I dinna know why, but I’ve got a strange feeling about this.”
“About them going to Laird Macdonald’s?”
“Nay, not that. About Gavin and Kenna and why Sheriff Alan is back. Something just feels wrong.”
“That’s not helping me understand what you mean,” she said, squeezing his hand back. “But you’ve a face drowned in worry. What’s bothering you?”
“Ach, I’ve just never known Gavin to be careless like that, letting the Sheriff go.”
“He’s distracted. Think about it. Gavin’s wandering about, holding someone captive who he plans to deliver to Glasgow, and all the while, he’s got the woman he’s loved for his whole life right in front of him.” She moved close and wrapped her arms around John’s waist.
“Hey!” John cried out when Lynne slid her hands down to the top of his legs and gave him a squeeze.
“He’s not the only distracted man amongst you, is he, John?” She let an impish grin crawl across her face. “But I guess we have no time for that sort of thing now, do we? But dinna worry. Gavin’s not the type to let himself get in too much trouble. And he certainly wouldn’t let anything happen to Kenna. We’ll find him. Everything will be fine.”