by L. L. Muir
Rory was suddenly in England again. His stomach rebelled. But the scene before him was clear…
Matilda’s father stood off to his left with the priest on the step behind. The latter wore a tall, gaudy hat but it still only made him a wee taller than Lord Piggot. Just as before, the Cathedral smelled of moss and stale dust. A spicy whiff of incense stirred off to Rory’s right and mingled with the heavy smell of blood.
Piggot and the priest stared down at Matilda's body slumped strangely on the flagstones where she'd fallen. They made no move toward her, in spite of the expanding pool of her blood that appeared black in the candlelight of the church.
If they wouldn’t see to the lass, Rory would.
He hurried forward, ignoring the danger. His betrothed still had her knife, but he was fairly certain that weapon had already found its purchase in the lass’s body. Though her head and shoulders faced the floor, her hips remained in the air. Her hands were lost beneath her. Not even the drape of her skirts moved.
Only the blood.
Gently, he took hold of her hips and rolled the silent woman onto her side. Her eyes were wide. Her lips quivered twice, then stilled. The handle of her menacing dagger protruded from her belly at a downward angle. The blade was lodged in her heart. A rosary dangled from her fingers, caught on the cross-guard as if she'd tried to dedicate his murder to God, but instead had cursed herself.
He reached down and closed her eyes, felt the warmth of her lovely face that had been so very alive with hate only a moment ago.
Finally, he stepped back to make room for her father, but the man remained where he was. His gaze rose from his daughter to Rory. There was only a flash of regret behind Lord Piggot's eyes before his face changed to indignation.
"Murderer," he whispered. Then again. His voice strengthened with each repetition. "Murderer!"
It was as if Lord Piggot had walked into the church to find Rory standing over Matilda’s body, as if he hadn't been present when his daughter’s stroll down the aisle had suddenly turned into a charge. The man had to have witnessed, as had the priest, when Matilda had lifted the dagger from her skirts and aimed the weapon at Rory. Had to have heard her promise--not to honor or obey Rory, but to kill him.
"I'll kill the barbarian first," she'd announced, just as she reached him.
Rory was so surprised he might have stood still for it--and even with his fighting experience it was a close thing--but he stepped aside as she lunged, careful not to harm her as he did so. After all, if the woman didn't want him as a husband, she shouldn't have had to die for it.
When she tried to stop her forward attack, presumably to make another attempt, she stumbled on her skirt and lost her balance. The sound of her head striking the floor echoed in the vast, stained glass cavern and sent a chill through him. But the blood told the rest.
The priest’s jaw fell open at the first accusation of murder, but then he gathered his robes around him and hurried away, worried more for his position on Lord Piggot’s property than for the truth to be told. Matilda’s father called for guards. His man fled to rouse them.
Rory faced the lord alone. “Did ye put yer daughter up to it? Or did ye simply frighten her out of her wits?”
The man glanced at the body between them and sighed heavily, as with profound relief. “Murderer,” he said again, looking Rory in the eye with a promise; his story would never waver.
Rory stooped and touched the woman’s face, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Peace be with ye.” And then he fled.
Once again, he stood in that upper chamber in the White Boar, staring at a woman who must have harmed herself. Had she been so frightened of what he might do to her? Would she cry murder? Had she planned this?
This time was different, of course. This time he cared more about the woman bleeding before him, damn her. And this time, there was still life in those eyes.
He sprang forward and lifted her chin, then pushed her hands away so he could see the wound. The pool of blood at the base of her throat made his breath catch, but he ignored it and found the cut across her fair neck. Not deep at all.
God be praised!
He reached into his sporran and pulled out a clean square of wool, then pressed it against her neck. “Ye’ll live yet.” He turned his head toward the door and bellowed. “Goodwife!”
The woman hurried through the door as if she’d been listening on the other side of it. “Aye, laird?”
He told her to fetch a healer and some clouts for cleaning a wound, but the woman didn’t move. Her gaze was fixed on his hand wrapped around Bridget’s neck.
“Her neck bleeds, woman. Go and do as I said.”
The woman looked up at his face and her eyes narrowed. “Macpherson, she called ye?”
He couldn’t help the growl forming in his throat when he realized his reputation had followed him even to such a remote place like Oggscastle.
Bridget knocked his hand away, held the wool to her neck, and stood. She pushed her way around him to face the Scotswoman. “I cut myself,” she said in clumsy Gaelic. “There was a knot on the ties of my cloak.” She gestured to the large black garment in a puddle on the floor. “And now I’m a mess. Can you help me?”
The woman nodded and left, but only after casting a wary look in his direction.
Bridget moved to the washstand and lifted the ewer. Rory quickly took it from her and poured water into the basin, then nodded toward the bed.
She resumed her seat without a word and the silence suited him fine. Whatever he’d planned to say was no longer important. She would need never know how he’d come to feel about her. How compelled he was to keep her with him. How his arms ached with the desire to pull her close.
What mattered now was getting her safely to Edinburgh without allowing any more of her blood to spill. Obviously, he posed the most danger to her because she could be harmed by simply fleeing from him. But neither could he walk away and leave her to the mercy of others. The best solution was to get them both back with Connor and the rest. If she were with her friends, she would be content. Ian or Connor could keep her in check. He could maintain a safe distance, which, in turn, could help wean him from his obsession.
He knelt before her and pulled the cloth away from her neck. Blood oozed from the slit in her skin while he cleaned the rest.
“The bleeding has nearly stopped,” he said, while trying to look anywhere but her face.
There were voices and footsteps on the stairs.
“You were about to explain something to me?” She glanced at the doorway, warning him they wouldn’t be alone much longer.
“It was nothing.” He wiped too hard and the wound opened a bit more. He sucked air through his teeth, then frowned at her. “Don’t speak.”
Her face fell and he realized she’d gotten her hopes up. He must have said too much already, that he wasn’t repulsed by her. He’d said she had it backward. Good lord, she already knew he was drawn to her! How was he going to deny it now?
He shrugged to himself. He would simply act as though it weren’t true. It wouldn’t take the lass long to understand. There could be nothing between them. If anything happened to her, another English lass, his reputation would be set in stone. He’d never be able to go home again.
And he certainly could never keep her for himself. Even if she came to care for him, she had a bridegroom waiting for her. Perhaps she even loved him.
He looked up into her eyes, wanting to ask her the question, but not fool enough to do so. She stared back. Instead of tears, comprehension and disappointment swirled in the depths of her dark eyes. The voices in the hallway neared, but he couldn’t look away. And while he watched, Bridget changed. In the time it took for her to swallow, her face became a passionless wall. She hadn’t moved and yet he felt as if the wide room stretched between them.
Half a dozen people pushed into the chamber. Rory stood and handed the goodwife the bloody clout and stepped aside to allow the old healer space to work. He
waited near the foot of the bed for Bridget to look his way, but she wouldn’t.
Feeling much a fool, he slipped through the crowd and out the door. Outside, the air smelled of rain and dust.
“I will go home again,” he whispered to himself. “I will deliver three packages to Edinburgh, and I will go home to the Highlands. Never to leave again, so help me, God.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“I say we give Rory one more day.” Ian tried not to look at the fair Vivianne when he said it, but Connor glanced at the lass in any case. The four of them were seated on the bank of the burn that poured through Linton.
Connor nodded. “I see no harm in waiting another day.”
Ian suppressed a grin, pleased his dark friend was as interested as he was to draw out the time they would have alone with the ladies. After two nights spent in close proximity, Vivianne was just beginning to trust him and had begun to speak freely. He expected it wouldn’t be long before she shared the details of the mysterious quest with him. He only needed to make certain Connor was not within hearing when she did.
Of course, the wager wasn’t the only thing he wanted to win. Vivianne’s trust was a boon already won, but her heart was another matter. His friends might believe him mad for taking a fancy to an English lass, but Vivianne was simply too charming to resist. For instance, her habit of lifting her hair between two fingers and whipping it behind her shoulder. For some reason, she only did it on the right side. But after watching her for days, he realized she only did so when she wasn’t being truthful. It was a ploy to distract him from her prevarication. The realization was a silent but sweet victory and it served to make him more curious about her.
He was also driven to distraction by the way her teeth worried at her lower lip when she was nervous. The action was nearly always followed by a blast of false bravado. The more frightened she was, the braver she talked. When Mallory worried aloud over what trouble Bridget might be enduring with Rory, Vivianne worried at her lip for a moment, then insisted their friend could defend herself as well with her tongue as with a sword, and if they were to waste time worrying about either of the two, it was Macpherson who might not fare so well.
“It has happened before,” Connor told them. “Rory has had foul luck where Englishwomen were concerned. I have no doubt yer friend could lay him low without touching a finger to him.”
Mallory scooted closer to Connor. “What do you mean?”
Connor told the sobering tale of Rory’s father, in a favor to Queen Anne, betrothing his son to a lass in England. Only, as it turned out, the young woman was quite mad and tried to murder him in the church while the wedding party looked on. But the woman fell on her own blade and died. Her father told all and sundry that Rory had murdered his daughter, and when word reached Rory’s father, he chose to banish his son from his home.”
“Tilda?” The women exclaimed in unison, exchanging a look of horror between them.
“Rory was Tilda’s bridegroom?” Mallory put a hand on Connor’s arm. “I find it hard to believe his father would punish him. Everyone knew Tilda was mad. The queen herself had to have known it. And Lord Piggot was likely relieved. When he claimed her bridegroom killed his daughter, no one believed it. No one.”
“True,” Vivianne said. “It would have been more conceivable for your friend to attack Lord Piggot for trying to foist his lunatic daughter onto Rory as a suitable bride.”
Ian winked at her. “It is a pity the two of ye cannot travel to the Highlands with Rory and explain things to his father.” Of course, they would all need to go. So the plan had merit.
“Unless…” Connor gave him a dark look.
“What?”
“Unless Laird Macpherson had also known.”
Ian’s stomach turned at the suggestion. “Surely not.”
Connor shrugged. “It would explain the banishment. If Rory were back home, he might discover the truth. And we all ken how ambitious the man is. The Queen’s favor would mean more to him than the sanity of his own grandchildren.”
Vivianne gasped. “Poor Rory.”
Ian nodded. “And all the lad wants is to go home again. He needs a good woman to make him forget.”
Connor shook his head in denial. “He thinks if he finds a woman willing to wed him, his father will allow him home again.”
“Then he needs a wife who hates the Highlands.”
Mallory laughed. “A woman who would wed a Highlander, but who hates the Highlands? You’re looking for another woman not right in the head.”
Connor nodded once and fell silent. Ian turned his attention to the burn and hoped a solution would present itself, but eventually, he had to ask the question.
“What about Bridget Kennison? There is nothing quite as stimulating as close proximity to bring a man and woman together.” He glanced briefly at Vivianne, then looked at Mallory. “Do ye suppose yer friend might love a Highlander and eschew the Highlands?”
Both women shook their heads sadly.
“Not Bridget,” Vivianne said. “She will be marrying Baron Braithwaite. There is no stopping her.”
Mallory sighed. “And we’ve given our promise not to try.”
“I don’t understand,” said Connor. “Has it something to do with this quest of hers?”
“Ours. The quest is ours.” Vivianne looked accusingly at Ian. “And we will not discuss it.”
He held up his hands in surrender. “It was not I doin’ the askin’, lass.”
She huffed out a breath and nodded, appeased. “I’m sorry, gentlemen. You’ll have to find another miracle for Rory.”
Later that night, they lay around the fire listening to the pop and crackle of the last branch laid upon the fire. Connor’s attention wavered back and forth between the dark-haired Englishwoman lying nearby and his worry for Rory.
Laird Macpherson might have known about Matilda’s madness. A sobering thought. And if he shared that thought with Rory, he might lose a friend.
No. It was better if he found the right bride for the man and remove the need for such a discussion at all. And he couldn’t shake the feeling that Bridget Kennison could be woman enough to make Rory stop thinking of home altogether.
“Mallory,” he said quietly. “Are ye yet awake?”
“I am awake,” she said clearly.
“I have one pressing question I cannot help but ask.”
The woman rolled onto her stomach and looked over at him. “Nothing about the quest.” It was a warning.
“Not about yer quest.”
“All right. Ask it.”
“Does Bridget love her baron?”
“No,” Mallory answered without hesitation.
He was caught a little off guard by her candor. It took him a moment to recover, but finally, he continued. “Do ye suppose it would do any harm for her to fall in love with Rory, then, if only for a wee while?”
Vivianne rolled over from where she lay next to Mallory. “If Bridget comes to love him, it will break her heart to leave him.”
“Then as her dear friends, ye must decide if love is worth the breaking of her heart.”
The women looked long and hard at each other.
“We haven’t been in love,” Vivianne confessed. “How can we judge?”
Ian stepped forward out of the trees where he held the first watch, clicking his tongue and shaking his head. “Vivianne Kenton, have ye no ears? Have ye never heard tales of knights doing battle, risking their lives to defend the honor of a lady love? Men riding off to war, happy to die with a kiss on his lips and a scrap of ribbon from her hair tucked in his pocket?”
Vivianne gasped and sat up. “What has that to do with love? If he truly loved her, he would avoid the war and return to her alive.”
Ian reached down and pulled her to her feet. They stood there, smiling at each other for a moment before he clicked his tongue again. “But she cannot love a man with no honor.”
She scoffed. “She will not love a fool, and if she does,
she will love briefly.”
“Because she is fickle?”
“Because he is dead.”
Ian barked with laughter. Vivianne laughed as well.
Mallory looked at Connor and gestured to their friends.
He could only shake his head. According to Ian, the pair had argued most of the time they’d been alone together, so their teasing was likely a new development. As for himself and Mallory, she’d been teasing him from the start. And each time he thought he knew her mind, she proved he hadn’t.
Glasgow, for instance.
He’d been prepared to drag her away from the Glasgow route, but she’d come along willingly. By the time they reached Linton and found the other couple, he’d been exhausted. Staying primed for the better part of a day left him spent. He’d been gratified Ian was able to watch her for a few hours, to give him a rest. During his early morning watch, he’d worn himself out yet again, prepared for her to sneak away in the darkness. But she’d slept like the dead. Risen like a flower refreshed by the morning dew.
Perhaps that had been her way of punishing him, keeping him suspicious and on edge. What he’d like to do, with their additional night of waiting, was to tie her securely to a tree and enjoy a death-like sleep himself.
Or better yet, tie her to himself…
“Well, Sir Ian,” Vivianne said, “if you are so experienced in the value of love, perhaps you will also know how we might go about forcing Bridget and Rory to fall into it. Shall we hold them at gunpoint and insist he kiss her?”
“They’ve already kissed,” Mallory said quietly, and Connor wondered if perhaps she hadn’t meant to say it aloud.
Vivianne gasped. “When were you going to tell me?”
“When they were in the kitchens together,” Connor guessed.
Mallory nodded.
Ian grinned. “Well, then, we are half way home.”
“How so?” Vivianne asked.
“Do ye not know yer Shakespeare, lass?” Ian took Vivianne by the arm and pulled her close. “Love goes by haps; Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps. Or better yet, The sight of lovers feedeth those in love. All Rory and Bridget will need, to spur them on, is to see the four of us acting like lovers.”