“Stay here,” he told her firmly, worry on his face. “Where it’s safe. I’ll see what’s going on.”
Like hell, she thought privately. But she nodded meekly until he’d dressed and headed out of the door – then she leapt up just as quickly and dove into her drawers, searching for her old clothes – jeans and a T-shirt were a lot quicker to pull on than the dresses she’d been given. She pulled a cloak around her shoulders, too, mindful of the chill in the air, and quickly crept through the door and down the silent hallway. Too silent, she thought with a frown. With the crashing and calamity downstairs, wouldn’t there be servants hurrying to see what was going on?
She reached the top of the stairs, squinting as she tried to see what was going on down there. There were low voices down there – she recognized Baldric and Robert, and as she headed down the stairs she saw a gaggle of servants standing about looking extremely worried. A few of the men seemed to be injured – and her eyes widened when she finally saw Baldric. Blood was running freely from a wound on the side of his head, and he was grimacing as a woman dabbed gingerly at the blood with a cloth. Robert was at his side.
“What’s going on?” she said quickly, wanting to get caught up. It had been four years since she’d been any kind of cop, but the instincts didn’t die.
“Brianna,” Robert said, sounding disapproving to see her there – but she realized with a private thrill of triumph that he couldn’t exactly tell her off for going against what he’d told her to do. After all, that would let on to Baldric that they’d been in her room together… and she had a suspicion that he was as keen as she was to avoid that particular scandal for the time being. Baldric sighed heavily.
“Bad news, I’m afraid, Lady Brianna,” he said heavily. “A group of men disguised themselves as servants and broke into the manor. Bill here realized something was going on when he didn’t recognize the man who came to relieve him of guard duty at Weatherby’s door, but by the time he’d raised the alarm…” He sighed, shaking his head. “They’ve taken the Lord hostage. I tried to stop them, but I didn’t have my sword, and…”
“You couldn’t have done anything,” Robert said, his face drawn. “Who are these men?”
Brianna’s heart was pounding… she had a horrible feeling she knew what Baldric was about to say. Sure enough, the knight shook his head as he spoke, clearly equally dismayed by what had happened.
“The highwaymen, I believe. The Stuart refugees who the men from the Keep routed from their usual hunting ground. They’ve come after greater quarry, it seems. Foolish,” he added through gritted teeth. “I should have posted twice the guards –”
“They disguised themselves,” Robert said firmly. “The number of guards wasn’t the problem. How many men are there?”
“We counted half a dozen, though they brought more in through a side entrance once they’d secured Weatherby,” Baldric said, his jaw tight. “We outnumber them easily, but with the Lord in their clutches… I don’t like our chances of getting him out before they get a knife into his windpipe.”
Brianna couldn’t help but shudder… and there was something else eating away at her, activating her anxiety. This was a hostage situation. Armed men had broken into the manor and taken a hostage. Negotiating between the two parties was one thing… but the idea of facing a hostage situation was sending adrenaline spiking through her, making her feel sick to her stomach as her heart pounded, images of a burning building coming unbidden to her mind…
“What do they want?” she heard herself asking as though from a great distance, her body and mind clearly running on autopilot even as the panic threatened to claim her. “Men don’t take hostages unless they have demands…”
“Haven’t talked to them,” Baldric said, glancing around at the worried gaggle of servants who stood gathered in the foyer. “They took Weatherby in his quarters and have posted their own guards on the doors. They made it very clear that any attempt on the room would end poorly for Weatherby, though. He’s probably terrified,” the knight said softly, real worry evident on his face.
Brianna couldn’t help but feel touched by the man’s genuine concern for his Lord – even though it was clear that Weatherby’s supercilious attitude and bossy outlook irritated Baldric, there was real love there, somewhere under the surface. Love that was manifesting as frustration and tension.
“He’ll be okay,” Brianna promised, feeling her instincts kick into gear. “If they wanted to kill him, they’d have killed him, right? This clearly isn’t an assassination attempt.”
“That’s true,” Robert acknowledged. “They were able to get hold of servant livery – if they’d wanted him dead, one man would have done the job. Sneak in, get into his quarters… well, easier than taking him hostage, at any rate.”
“They’re likely interested in using him for leverage,” Brianna said, shaking her head. “Possibly a reaction to the increased guard on the road… without even crime to resort to in order to feed their families, these highwaymen have decided to take Weatherby hostage to get what they need.”
“It seems short-sighted,” Robert frowned. “It confirms exactly what Weatherby thought of them in the first place… that they’re violent criminals.”
“Desperation will do that.” Brianna shrugged.
“What do we do?” Robert asked her simply.
Baldric frowned at him, clearly confused as to why he was asking Brianna. She had to admit, she’d have preferred not to have been put on the spot like this. She almost regretted telling him about her work back home – but he was already turning to Baldric, stung by the look of confusion and irritation on his face.
“Brianna does this kind of thing professionally,” he told Baldric firmly. “Back in her own time, it was her job to speak to violent criminals like these men – people who’d taken hostages. She can help us.”
She hesitated, feeling her heart pounding. “I don’t really do that anymore,” she said weakly… but Robert wasn’t listening, still telling Baldric about how good she’d been at her job, about the terrifyingly dangerous weapons that people had in the future. The servants were exchanging mystified glances, and a few of them were looking at her with definite suspicion. Great. So now the household staff were all going to think she was a witch. Just what she needed right now.
“Would you help us, then?” Baldric asked, his dark eyes troubled as he turned to her. “If this is an area of expertise… we could use all the help we can get.”
She hesitated, biting her lip, feeling frozen and put on the spot there in the torch-lit entrance hall. What was she supposed to say? No, sorry, I’m still traumatized from what happened a few years ago, deal with it yourself? It almost felt like this was why she’d been brought here… as though this hostage situation had been handed to her on a silver platter. Or was it just a coincidence? It was no coincidence that she was the spitting image of Robert’s wife, was it? Then it was no coincidence that her profession, the thing she’d spent her whole life training for, was exactly what these people needed. There was no way she could simply turn them down.
“I can help,” she said, feeling anxiety and dread crystallize deep in her stomach. “I’ll do everything I can.”
Robert beamed at her gratefully, but she could see a look of slight worry on his face. Baldric dismissed the servants and got to his feet with a grimace – the bleeding of his scalp had slowed a little, but he was still a rather frightening sight with blood all over the black armor he’d hastily put on in the night. Once the servants were gone, he turned to Robert and Brianna with a grimace.
“Not the best hospitality we’ve ever offered, I’ll admit,” he told her with that familiar twinkle in his dark eyes. She smiled, glad that the knight’s good spirits weren’t entirely extinguished by the goings-on. “What’s our next step here?”
“We establish contact with the hostage-takers,” she said, her eyes drifting to the staircase. “Find out what it is they want, first of all… though I think I have a decent idea.”
&nbs
p; “Aye,” Robert said, a shadow on his face. “It’s easy enough to imagine, isn’t it? But will we be able to get Lord Weatherby to agree at knifepoint?”
“He’ll promise anything at knifepoint,” Baldric said with a roll of his eyes. “The question is whether the men will trust him to act on his promises if they let him go.”
“We’ll deal with that when we get to it,” Brianna said firmly. She could feel her body trembling, and she wished fiercely that Robert would take her into his arms again and hold her close, just for a moment… just until some of the old trauma faded a little and she could focus… he shot her a quick look, clearly worried, and she shook her head, trying to summon a mask to cover her anxiety for the time being. They needed her to keep it together right now. There’d be plenty of time to fall in a heap later. “Let’s head for his quarters. Presumably they want to talk – just sitting in there with Weatherby won’t get them anywhere.”
Sure enough, as they headed down the hallway toward where Weatherby’s sumptuous quarters were, she could see the signs of struggle – several side tables had been upset, there was damage to half a dozen paintings, and at the end of the hall a great statue had fallen and broken into pieces. But she couldn’t focus on that for long – her eyes were drawn to Weatherby’s doors, where two unfamiliar men were standing, still wearing the livery of Weatherby’s servants. But when one of them spoke, warning them to come no further, it wasn’t in the crisp English accents she’d gotten familiar with over her time here at the manor.
No – those were Scottish accents. The accent that she most regularly heard from Robert, who was standing at her side with his jaw clenched and his hand on the knife that he carried at his belt. They were the accents, she knew without asking, of the Stuart clan. She looked at the guards on the door, knowing that she was looking at the highwaymen who’d been causing so much trouble in the area.
This was all getting terrifyingly real.
Chapter 20
Brianna took a deep breath, then a step forward. She raised her chin, making direct eye contact with the guards, and spread her hands to prove she was unarmed.
“Hi. I’m Lady Brianna. I’m here to negotiate.”
The guards exchanged suspicious glances with each other, then looked at her closely. Even from here, in the torchlight of the passageway, she could see that they’d had a rough time of it. Their faces were sunken and sallow, and the clothes they were wearing under their disguises looked almost entirely worn out. That answered the question of why they were still wearing Weatherby’s livery, she supposed – it was in better shape than their own clothing. Even their boots were completely worn out – she could see huge holes in both men’s footwear, and some damage to the skin beneath. A pang of sympathy for their plight moved through her, but she firmly reminded herself that these were dangerous, armed men.
“On whose authority?” one of the guards said suspiciously.
Baldric and Robert stepped forward then, and the knight cleared his throat.
“Sir Baldric. I’m Weatherby’s right-hand man. And Robert MacClaran is kin to the Laird – he speaks for the family.”
“We’ve no quarrel with the MacClarans,” the other guard said firmly, elbowing his fellow in the ribs. “But if you’re going in to speak to Kellan you’ll need to leave your weapons with us.”
Robert nodded, his jaw tight, and detached the knife from his belt, handing it to the guards. Baldric did the same with the knives she realized he’d secreted about his person. She spun to demonstrate her lack of weapons, arms raised, hoping the guards wouldn’t insist on patting her down, but to her relief they seemed satisfied. One of the guards slipped through the door behind them and was gone for a moment while the other put the weapons on a side table, and after a long, tense moment, the other guard re-emerged and jerked his head toward the door.
They entered, Brianna almost getting comfortable with the way her heart was pounding and the sick feeling in her stomach. Had she always felt this way going into negotiations? No – this was new. She’d never been in such personal, direct danger before… most of her negotiations had taken place from well beyond the line of fire, technology allowing her to do her work from a distance. But there were no mobile phones here and now. All they had was themselves.
Weatherby’s little sitting room had changed a great deal since the last time she’d been here. Much of the furniture had been upset, leaving a clear space in the middle of the room – the signs of struggle were very clear. She scanned the room quickly, searching for the Lord and seeing no sign of him. What she did see were half a dozen people sitting by the fire, huddled and showing clear signs of utter exhaustion. Brianna realized with a shock that though she’d been expecting a gaggle of armed men, there were women and children among them, too. The children looked gaunt and miserable, sitting huddled together – one girl was fast asleep, wrapped in a huge blanket and lying as close to the fire as she could get, with a worried woman stroking her hair.
But her gaze was quickly lifted from the group of refugees by the fire. One of the men who had let them through the door had returned to their post outside – the other was standing by them, his hand on the sword at his belt. Opposite them stood another man, his sharp eyes taking in every detail, and Brianna sensed that this was the leader of the little band that had taken Weatherby hostage.
“And who are you?” he asked, his voice low and flat. He was as skinny as the others, with sunken cheeks and a dour expression, and she could see from here that his clothing was worn and in equally poor condition to the guardsmen.
“Robert MacClaran,” Robert said firmly, then gestured to the others. “This is Sir Baldric of London, Weatherby’s right-hand man, and Lady Brianna Kendall. Where’s Weatherby?”
“Safe, for now,” the man said, narrowing his dark eyes. “In his bedroom with a few of us keeping him company. No harm need come to him if you play this smart, MacClaran. I’ve no quarrel with your house.” The slight stress on ‘your’ told her all she needed to know about this man’s anger – and the look in his eyes when he turned his attention to Baldric was frightening. “You serve Weatherby, then? Why?”
“A job’s a job,” Baldric said, clearly working hard to stay neutral. “Who are we speaking with?”
“Kellan Stuart,” the man said brusquely.
“And you’re the leader here?”
“Aye, for the sake of convenience,” he said, “though you’ll take instruction from any of our number, you understand? We’ll not hesitate to harm the Lord if we sense our instructions aren’t being met. As you can see, we’ve not got much to lose at this point.”
“We’ve been doing our best to help you,” Baldric said through gritted teeth. “This is a damn fool enterprise, Stuart. If you’d waited a day or two –”
“We’ve been waiting months,” Kellan cut across him like a blade, flat and deadly.
Brianna glanced over to the huddled group by the fire, particularly worried by the little girl who was lying close to the fire. She looked so still, so pale… her hair was like straw, her face pale and shadowed sharply…
“We’ve been dying. This is a reckoning that your Lord Weatherby is long overdue for, so don’t even think about telling us we’ve acted rashly, here.”
“Fine,” Baldric said tersely. “What do you want?”
“What we’ve wanted for months, for a start. Food and shelter,” he said, teeth gritted. “Medical aid for my – for our sick.”
That was interesting – his face had tightened as he’d corrected himself. Brianna made a note of that. Information was power at this stage.
“We can organize that, can’t we?” Robert said, and she appreciated the soft, conciliatory tone he was using – it was clear that Baldric was still hurt and frustrated from the attack, a little more confrontational than she’d have liked.
At this stage, it was all about developing a rapport with the kidnappers, making sure they felt heard and understood, ensuring they didn’t feel a need to do any fu
rther harm to their captives.
“We’d like some assurance that Weatherby isn’t hurt,” she said, balancing firmness and kindness in her voice. “You understand.”
Kellan gave her a long look, his eyes hard and suspicious. “Aye, we can do that,” he said finally, a little grudgingly. He jerked his head toward the door behind him that lead to Weatherby’s bedroom, and the guard behind them nodded and made his way over to it. “He’s unhurt, the pompous old fool, for all that, you’d think we’d murdered him a dozen times over from his caterwauling.”
Baldric cleared his throat gruffly – had that been something like a laugh? She could sense his relief that the man hadn’t been harmed, and she felt a burst of something like hope, tempered as it was by the lingering panic that was interfering with her clarity. If Weatherby was unharmed, they’d be a lot closer to coming to an agreement that could keep everyone safe.
“Before we bring him out,” Kellan said, raising a hand as the guard disappeared into the room, “as a gesture of good faith, I’d appreciate some food being sent for my people. Include some broth,” he said firmly. “Some of us haven’t eaten more than scraps in months.”
“I can do that,” Baldric said, giving Robert a quick glance. “You stay here.”
That was probably for the best, Brianna thought as she watched the knight go. That wound on his head needed some attention, and his lingering frustration and worry wasn’t helping the atmosphere in the room. Sure enough, Kellan seemed to lighten up a little once Baldric was gone, and even gave Robert something like a smile.
“We wish it hadn’t had to come to this, MacClaran, truly we do,” he said softly, shaking his head.
“I understand,” Robert said simply. “Please know we were doing all we could to convince Weatherby. I’m not convinced this was the best route, Kellan.”
“It was this or starve on the highway like dogs,” the man said firmly, a hard glint in his eyes. “Would you let that happen to your family?”
Highlander Returned: A Scottish Time Travel Romance (Highlander In Time Book 9) Page 14