by Aileen Adams
“Royal blood? In Andershire?” Alana laughed. “I would like to see that.”
“Dinna repeat that to Padraig,” Caitlin warned with a wink. “He would like to hear of royalty moving about in the village bearing the clan’s name.”
Margaret snickered at this along with the rest of them. Yes, he would enjoy that indeed. She could only imagine how his chest would puff out in pride—and how he would scowl at her when he reminded him of the village being named for the clan, not for him.
“The word about the village is, they’re searching for their sister,” Sorcha continued. “All anyone can speak of is who the sister might be, or where she might have gone. Many suppose she died a long time ago, on her own in the wild. They wonder how long these two will stay in the village—I hear they arrived two nights ago.”
Margaret’s smile faded as her fingers closed around the handle of a knife one of the cooks waited for her to pass over. She handed it to the woman, then held onto the edge of a table in order to keep herself upright.
“Did ye hear tell of the sister’s name?” Ysmaine asked.
“Aye. Marguerite.”
“Ah, French,” Ysmaine mused. “Did the sisters appear French?”
“I did not see them,” Sorcha replied. “If ye ask me, the sooner they’re away, the better. No one can go about their business with these strangers about.” She continued on with another bit of village news, while the others seemed prepared to forget the strangers.
Margaret did not. She could not.
For they were there for her, whoever they happened to be. She knew it.
They’d found her.
The old ways came back all at once, allowing her to smile and jest and behave as though nothing of importance had taken place. She could do this, pushing back the screaming in her head, telling herself she could indulge in panic once she was alone. This was not the time.
But the time would have to be soon, just the same, for control slipped away with each passing moment. She’d been out of practice when it came to hiding her inner thoughts.
Especially thoughts such as the ones racing through her mind now.
There was nothing to be done but to find them, these strangers from a foreign land. No doubt those of the village believed them to be of royal blood; if they were of the Order they would carry themselves with a great deal of dignity which those of Andershire would consider high above themselves.
It was no wonder they attracted attention.
If they were indeed who she suspected they were.
Staying among the women in the kitchen, pretending all was well, was a torture she’d never endured. Scrubbing stone floors on her bare knees was nothing compared to behaving in a natural manner when she felt a noose tightening about her neck. How could she ever have considered herself one of these women, with their families and their cheerful days?
She could never be one of them.
And she never would be, if her instincts were correct and she’d been found.
Only when they dispersed did she dare slip away up the stairs to her bedchamber, where the disguise she’d worn in Andershire waited beneath the bed. How she’d hoped to never wear it again.
Yet she had not disposed of it, had she? Some part of her knew this would not end so easily, that the life she’d lived was not one she could decide to turn her back on with impunity.
She gathered the garments together and placed them in her burlap bag. The corridor outside the bedchamber was quiet, the morning’s work already finished. She closed the door with a soft thud before darting to the stairs, her body close to the wall.
What would she say if anyone saw her? She would create an excuse if the time came. If there was anything she could do well, it was lying to cover her actions. As she had lied so many times to Moira, to Sorcha. To Padraig.
There would be time to think of him. Later, once she knew for certain what was waiting for her.
“Might I make use of the gray mare?” she asked Iain when she reached the stables. He had not heard her approach and gave a startled jump. “Forgive me. I am sometimes more quiet than I believe myself to be.” A point of pride for any assassin.
He smiled in his shy way but was quick to nod. “Anything you wish.” A kind boy, a sweet boy. Little wonder his sister had longed to save him from their brute of a father.
She would miss watching him and Jamie turn into men. She would miss so much.
Stop this, she commanded herself as she waited for the boy to bring the mare from its stall. Stop it this instant. You know not what waits in the village. Do not allow weakness and imagination to cloud what you must do now.
She’d heard that voice in her head for as long as she could remember. A voice so like Mother Cressida’s. Someone she had held in high esteem, someone she’d longed to emulate. And where had her devotion gotten her?
She might very well be on her way to find assassins bent on ending her life.
“Thank you,” she managed to breathe when Iain brought the horse. “Now, if you would not mind it, let us keep this between ourselves. I so long to take a ride, but I do not want the others to think I’ve shirked my duties in favor of enjoying a lovely day.”
“It is bonny,” he agreed. “Worry not. It shall be our secret.”
So many secrets. This was merely one of an endless number. Oh, but she was weary of it all. She could not be honest even with a kind, dear lad such as him.
There was little time to berate herself as she hurried the mare into the woods, then deep enough inside that the shadows hid her from view.
After hobbling the mare, she changed into the trousers and tunic, careful to bind her breasts as she’d done before. The discomfort was unwelcome, but there was little choice if she hoped to live through the visit to Andershire.
If her sisters recognized her, they would not allow her to leave alive.
How did she know? Simply because she would have behaved in such a manner, if it were she who searched for a traitor. No matter where they were, no matter who was nearby, they would not wait and chance losing her. A dagger from behind would be all it took, and they would disappear before her body hit the ground.
How many times had she performed just such an action, after all?
It was a matter of minutes before she mounted up again, her braid tucked under the old hat whose brim she pulled low over her eyes. Would that she might not cross paths with one of the clan on the way to the road, for they might easily recognize her.
They would at least identify the saddle as being one of Padraig’s and suspect her of theft.
No such event came to pass, as most of the men were busy working at that time of day. They had little time to take note of a strange lad riding an Anderson mare down the road to Andershire. And if they took note, they would more than likely assume her to be part of the household. There were so many who worked behind the walls, after all.
Would she be one of them by this time tomorrow?
She reached the outskirts of the village before sunset, and the streets were crowded with those on their way home for the evening meal. The tavern’s open door revealed a bright light glowing inside. There was a fire burning to warm the patrons who had come in for wine or ale. The same light came from inside the cottages she passed, all of them reminding her of the families who lived inside.
She would never know that security, would she? Not if there was ever the chance of her sisters coming to take revenge for her betrayal.
Where would her sisters go, if indeed the seekers were her sisters? They would need a place to rest their heads, which meant the inn. But oh, the innkeeper might recognize her as the lad who’d once run errands for the women working on the other side of the village.
She would have to risk it, or else linger until morning when the foreign strangers were due to leave.
A stroke of immense cleverness on their part, and she gave them credit for it. They knew she would come looking for them and had therefore spread the word that they would only be in
the village for a short time. They knew that if she was near, she would hear of this and come to them.
Again, it was just what she would have done in their place.
They had been trained by the same people, after all.
She rode alongside the row of buildings, careful to allow room for those walking and to avoid the river of muck which ran the length of the street. It was important to maintain a slow but steady pace, as though she were in no rush. Simply a lad riding through the village, perhaps on his way home to his mother and the promise of a hot meal.
Would that anything were that simple.
Across from her was the inn, where she still was uncertain if she ought to step inside. It was a risk, but she’d risked riding to the village. She’d risked quite a good deal more than that over the course of her life.
Had she lost her courage?
Perhaps. Because in the past, her life had not been in such serious danger. She had always held fast to the certainty of her skill and talent. There was no guard, no soldier, no one who could stop her.
She’d never faced one of her own before—much less two of them.
If her sisters had indeed come for her, there was no denying that this might be the last fight she would ever face.
19
Margaret tied the reins off at the post which ran the length of the inn, patting the mare’s neck before leaving her behind. Would they even allow her to live long enough to step out of the inn? There was no telling.
While she would fight like mad until her final breath, she could not lie to herself. Lies would not help her now.
The inn bustled with activity, its patrons taking their supper in the large room beyond the front door. Margaret made herself as small as possible, walking close to the wall to avoid notice. She lingered by the fire, leaning in as if to warm her hands after a long ride on a chilly evening.
Every table was in use, the innkeeper and his wife too busy rushing from the kitchen to the dining room and back again to take note of a filthy lad making use of their fire. The room was full of mostly men, their laughter all but tearing her head to pieces as it built and grew and echoed.
Only one table held women. Two women, in fact.
They sat to Margaret’s left, wearing dark cloaks. They did not engage in conversation but instead took seriously the business of eating, heads bowed over bowls of stew.
Margaret did not need to see their faces clearly. She did not need to hear their voices.
She knew.
One of them was Arabella, and she might have wagered it so. While Margaret had never known open animosity toward, or from, any of her sisters, Arabella came the closest. It was the way she could not control her eyes, their expression. When she burned with bitter envy, her eyes burned as well.
Those eyes had burned so many times, and always while trained on Margaret.
This did not surprise her.
Arabella’s companion, on the other hand, did.
Margaret straightened, wiping her hands on her trousers, keeping her head low and her body pressed close to the wall as she had upon entering.
There was only one thing to be done, loath as she was to do it. With any luck, neither of them had taken note of her, but there was still no staying with the Andersons.
For Gabriella was the second of her assassins. If Gabriella had come for her—she who was the closest Margaret had ever come to having a true sister—there would be no escape. Mother Cressida had paired them as often as she had because their skills were so similar. She’d seen Gabriella at work, knew how swift and sure she was with a blade. How strong with her fists.
There could be no waiting for what was sure to come.
She would simply have to run away. And run away she did.
Not since she was a small child had the urge to weep consumed her as thoroughly as it did on the ride from Andershire, pushing the mare harder than she had on the ride from the house. Now that she was certain, there was no time to lose.
No time for weeping.
Such displays of emotion were against the rules of the Order, naturally. Mother Cressida and her ilk had no sympathy for little girls who wept instead of taking their pain and using it to strengthen themselves.
That was what such emotion was used for.
Not in the selfish, self-indulgent practice of weeping one’s heart out over every dream they’d dared imagine for themselves shattering into shards too small to gather.
This was unfortunate, as there was nothing Margaret wanted more than to give voice to her disappointment, her bitterness, by screaming out her rage and allowing it to course down her cheeks in hot, salty streams.
How foolish she’d been!
To think she could ever be one of them. To think they would trust her, take her into their hearts upon knowing the truth of her terrible, murderous life.
To think she deserved such sweetness.
It would have been better if she’d never met them. She would not know what she’d missed. Prior to meeting Moira and Sorcha, she had been content to live in secret, protecting herself. No friends, nothing that might serve to weigh her down.
Yes, it would have been easier to never know how different life could be.
Better never knowing how much she’d missed, how she had been robbed of the greatest pleasures.
Now, no matter where she went, no matter how long she managed to live, she would always question what might have been. She would always remember the clan, the family inside the keep, the laird whose kiss had seared her soul.
A tear rolled down her cheek. She did not wipe it away.
By the time she reached the woods beyond the house, there was hardly a light shining in any of the windows. All of the candles had been blown out, most of those in the keep were undoubtedly sleeping. All the better for her.
Had they missed her at supper? It was likely, though questions were rarely raised. When she did not appear for tea in the morning, however, her absence would be noted and acted upon.
By then, she would be far away. In time they would forget her. He would forget her.
The burlap bag holding her kirtle and chemise waited as she’d left it, hung from a spruce whose lowest branches brushed the ground and provided privacy while she changed. With any luck she would not be noticed as she hurried through the house, but there was no sense in taking further risks that night.
She’d taken enough risks, such as returning at all.
Why had she, then? The question pulled at the corner of her mind as she dashed for the house, through the courtyard, into the keep. Why not simply take to the road and not stop until either she or the horse were about to collapse from exhaustion?
The answer was clear—she would not allow Padraig to believe she’d stolen his horse.
A silly thing. She knew this. Padraig’s high opinion of her would be cold comfort if her sisters caught up to her, would it not? She would die, more than likely, but he would not think her a thief. She would leave money for the horse, in the one place where they would know she had put it.
What a fool she was.
But she’d been a fool ever since she had arrived.
As she dashed up the stairs on silent feet, she remembered the night she rocked Fiona to sleep in her arms. Sweet Fiona. She would be quite a young woman. Perhaps Moira could teach her to fight and hunt, and Ysmaine could tutor her as she’d tutored children before meeting Quinn.
Margaret wished she could see all of this. She wished she could see all of it, every day.
Yet. even more pressing than her life was the lives beneath that roof. If her sisters came for her—and they might, truly—there was no telling how many of the household they could dispatch with before reaching her. She’d never sleep for the certainty that they would steal in during the night after spying on the house and confirming her presence.
Perhaps they would cross paths with young Fiona as she ran through the corridors…
Shaking the unhappy image from her head, she closed the door to he
r bedchamber and breathed a brief sigh of relief. All she needed now was to escape unnoticed—and if she had to stun an unsuspecting friend in order to keep them silent, so be it.
A few shillings on the bed. More than the horse was worth, perhaps, but she was using the saddle as well and wanted to leave their account even.
Whether or not he agreed was out of her hands. He might soon find out who she truly was, and then he would be glad to be rid of her. He might even thank her in the quiet depths of his heart for sparing him her presence.
The thought of leaving a message for him crossed her mind, but she decided against it. There was too little time. What mattered was putting as much ground as possible between herself and the clan before morning, when her sisters would leave Andershire.
Perhaps if she moved north, toward the Grampians, she might be able to outrun them.
There was only one way to find out for certain.
Something held her in place when she tried to open the door. She closed her eyes against the tears which stung there, threatening to slow her more than she had already slowed herself by behaving so foolishly.
It might have been the need to spend just a few minutes more in her simple yet welcoming bedchamber, then, that inspired her to change back into her disguise. She would leave the kirtle there, on the bed, as it was the one which Sorcha had given her on arrival. She’d only owned the clothing on her back, after all, and that garment had been all but ready to fall apart.
“This will serve until you’ve earned enough to purchase one of your own,” Sorcha had declared in her usual, strident tone. As though she’d dared anyone, man or woman, to defy her.
Margaret would miss her, as well. Not a day would pass during which she would not think of all of them, question their well-being and hope they were thriving and happy.
This was truly it, then. The moment in which she would have to leave. With one final look about herself, she opened the door and crept into the corridor.
The possibility of Fiona twirling about in the entry hall passed through her mind as she traveled the corridor’s length. She paused just before turning the corner at the top of the stairs, holding her breath that she might hear the light, dancing footfalls.