She allowed him to lead her toward the doorway to the gardens. A well-behaved lass, as most of true nobility were.
Lightning flashed silver-white against the windows and he knew it’d be miserably wet in addition to bitterly cold.
Ariana followed without protest despite the horrendous weather. He pushed open the door to the hissing shush of rain, and they stepped into the dark. The cold curled around him, but years in the Highlands left him immune to its bite.
He let the door slip closed. They were completely alone. Lightning flashed once more, illuminating her in a blaze of light. She was thin, aye, but the shadows further highlighted her narrow face and called attention to the hollows of her cheeks.
For all her winnings, the girl was practically starving.
“What’s to become of me?” Her breath puffed in a frozen cloud of steam in front of her.
Though they were alone, he stepped closer to ensure the privacy of their conversation. No one could be allowed to overhear. An eavesdropper would pay with their life, and he didn’t want any more death than was needed staining his hands.
He met her wide-eyed stare and spoke the necessary words he’d been dreading to say. “What if I told ye there was a way out?”
• • •
Ariana couldn’t breathe. The harder she tried to pull air into her lungs, the more breathless she became.
If only her heart would stop pounding so.
Her thoughts hammered in time with the unbridled beat, repeating over and over again.
Caught, caught, caught, caught.
Caught.
She stared at Connor in the darkness, a man who truly was a stranger. Light streamed from the windows and partially bathed him in a golden glow, leaving slanted jagged shadows over his face.
The garden was dark and cold and wet. Rain came in hard splats everywhere.
If she ran, he would catch her.
“Ariana.”
She started at the sound of her name and jerked back toward him.
A knot formed in her throat, painfully hard.
Caught, caught, caught.
“Ye dinna have to be frightened of me.” His voice was so smooth, so filled with powerful conviction.
She wanted to trust him, especially if he could make all this go away.
The king trusted him; he’d said as much only minutes before.
But she could not.
She took a step back. “Who are you?”
The cold air, thick with moisture, pressed into her gown, her hair, her burning face. She wished she could drown in it and be done.
“I’m the man who found ye cheating at cards.”
Caught. Caught. Caught.
Ariana’s knees went so soft she feared they might slip out from under her.
If only she could breathe. If only she could think.
“I’m the man who can save ye,” he said. “Or see ye punished.”
She pressed her hands to her skirt and gripped the fabric as though it could save her. The heavy silk was wet and cold against her stiff fingers.
Punished.
The world around her spun and she had to widen her stance to keep her balance on the stone beneath her.
“I could say you’re lying.” The idea flew through her mind in a wild burst of hope.
“Who would vouch for you?”
She scrambled through a sea of names and faces, all people who might have stood by her once. But no longer.
“And you would speak against me?” Her voice was small as she remembered the way the king had looked upon Connor with respect.
“The king doesna tolerate cheating at his parties. I’d be punished instead if he found out I knew and dinna tell.”
“You said you could help me.” She shook her head at the emotions and thoughts crowding inside her skull: confusion, fear, frustration, shame, desperation. “How do you threaten and offer aid in the same minute?”
“I can offer ye an opportunity to no’ ever have to steal from others again.”
Steal.
The word cut into her.
She wrapped her arms around herself and squeezed to keep from shattering.
“How?”
“By working for me.”
She took an instinctive step back and hit the cold stone wall behind her.
He smirked. “No’ anything like that. I need ye to get information for me. Most men never suspect women. I imagine it’s why ye went the whole night without being caught. Several other women work for me as well in Scotland. They’re trained on what to listen for, and how to defend themselves. Ye wouldna be alone in yer duties. Ye’d have a place to stay, food to eat, fine clothes, and a monthly stipend.”
Ariana’s mind raced faster than her heart. Could what he said be true?
“And what of the king?” she asked. “What if he finds out you’ve concealed my cheating from him?”
Connor tipped his head at a sly angle. “Who do ye think I work for, lass?”
Ariana sucked in a breath of cold air. “You want me to be a spy? For the king?”
She was a noble’s daughter, raised only to become a wife. What he was suggesting was ridiculous, unheard of. The fraying of her nerves began to unravel everything civil and social within her.
She was a fox cornered in a hunt.
“Come to Scotland with me, and I’ll teach ye things ye’ll no’ learn anywhere else.” He held out his hand to her.
She stared down at his wide palm creased with lines. His long, thick fingers had seemed so graceful in candlelight but now appeared quite menacing.
“Even if I dinna tell on ye, it’s only a matter of time until ye get caught,” he said. “Without a way out.”
He was right.
If he’d noticed her, someone else could too.
“If ye dinna come, I’ll have to tell the king.” The heavy note of disappointment in his rich voice made her open her eyes. His hand was still extended.
She looked up at him, at the lines of muscle showing at his neck, at the square set of his jaw. But for the hardness of his appearance, his regard toward her now could only be described as soft.
How long had it been since anyone had looked at her so?
Not for as long as she could remember.
Her throat tightened.
“The coin I left inside…?” She couldn’t even form the groveling question. But she had to. She would not see the servants suffer for her actions.
He gave a simple nod. “Ye may have it delivered to yer servants.”
The frantic gnawing of panic in her waned at his agreement. She drew a breath, a real, true one, for the first time since she’d been caught.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He lifted his extended hand higher, into her view. “Come work for me, work for yer king. Ye dinna need to live like this anymore.”
The kindness in his eyes pressed deep into a dark place within her, and for a moment she felt as if he truly understood her.
A spy. For the king. Such a position was one of great power.
She’d had a taste of being powerful—when she sat at the card table and manipulated the odds into her favor. It melted on her tongue like a sweet.
Her breathing came faster at the thought. Never again would she have to slink helplessly through the card tables, securing just enough coin to see her through the next fortnight, nor would she go to bed with her stomach gnawing at itself in hunger.
Blood pumped through her veins with vigorous energy, an energy she tasted only when she cheated at cards. She placed her hand in his, and hoped to God she was not making the wrong decision.
• • •
Connor strode from the brilliantly lit hall, leaving the chattering noise of the party behind. He’d been successful in his mission.
Not only had Ariana agreed, but he’d also already delivered her into Sylvi’s capable hands.
He tried not to think of how frightened she’d looked despite her composure. Her chest had expanded and falle
n with the barely contained rapid breath of a snared rabbit, and she’d twisted her hands into the fabric of her skirts. Doubtless so he wouldn’t see how they trembled.
But it was true. If he’d caught her, someone else would too, eventually.
At least the life he offered was better than most for a disgraced woman who cheated at cards.
That was what he told himself, to ease the tightness burning like hellfire in his chest.
Delilah appeared at his side from the shadows, exactly as planned.
She lifted her brows in silent question.
“Aye, she’s joining us,” he said.
“I’ve found another as well,” Delilah said. “She’s already with Sylvi. I discovered the woman by accident. She was threatening the life of a duke who tried to take more than she was willing to offer.”
Another girl.
They didn’t need any more. Hell, his soul was burdened by the ones he had already.
“She wouldn’t have had anywhere else to go if I didn’t encourage her to join us.” Delilah spoke quickly, as if reading his hesitation. She picked at her thumbnail.
“What else?” he probed.
“Sylvi and the new girls will have to go to Scotland ahead of us.” Her answer tugged his heart into his stomach.
There was only one reason he would be delayed from leaving. “The king wishes to see me.”
She nodded, her eyes wide, almost sorrowful in her rounded face. “I know sometimes that means you must stay in England longer.”
“Go on, then. Tell Sylvi to begin the journey to ensure the girl you found doesn’t get caught. We’ll travel faster than them on the return, and most likely arrive first.”
He’d never divulged what the king asked of him, but Delilah had worked with him long enough to notice the shift in his mood after such meetings.
And he did loathe his rare meetings with the king, when he received his next private task.
When he would report on his findings in Scotland and receive the slip of paper, a silent communication conveying the name of another he would be forced to kill.
Chapter 3
Exhaustion pulled Ariana forward in her saddle, making her sag against the hard, creaking leather. Snow-covered hills rose and fell over the course of their travels through an endless sea of white. A dull white when the night came, and a piercing white when the sun reflected off its pristine surface.
White. White. White.
And so cold it gnawed at her sanity and threatened to break her.
Still, she was far better off than poor Liv.
She glanced beside her, where a bit of copper hair showed from between the folds of a tightly wrapped plaid. A single hand extended from the rough wool, limp and white where the reins rested against delicate fingertips.
Ariana edged her horse closer and tensed her body to catch Liv should the other woman fall. It would not be the first time.
“Do you need to stop?” The warmth of Ariana’s breath passing over her lips was fleeting as she spoke, quickly replaced with the wet chill of late winter.
“So we can be spies now?” Liv slid her a bemused look.
It was a joke they’d shared. Neither one of them knew where in Scotland they were going, how they would be made into spies, or how any of it worked.
Or even if it was all a lie.
“You do too much for me already.” Liv nestled deeper into her blankets and her response came out muffled. “I’ll be fine.”
Ariana’s heart squeezed for her new friend.
Liv hadn’t been quite so sick at the beginning of their journey. In the carriage from London, she’d introduced herself with a sardonic grin and proudly announced how she’d landed a blow on a duke. Every night when they made camp, they’d lain side by side in the dark and shared stories until they fell asleep. Both had been raised outside of court and placed there during their parents’ attempts at an advantageous betrothal.
They were two women rejected by the court they’d once loved so much, two women who had lost everything and at least found friendship in one another. The first week or so of travel had been some of the most fun Ariana had had in almost her entire life.
But then Liv got sick. Nausea, weakness, and vomiting. The late-night stories and giggles had stopped and the bright smiles Liv gave had faded, like a sun hidden behind heavy clouds.
Ariana had tried to help, giving Liv extra rations from her own food and caring for her through the night. To no avail.
They’d lost track of how many days they’d traveled, how many times they’d changed horses.
“Does she need rest?” A woman’s firm voice sounded behind Ariana.
She looked behind her toward Sylvi, who had escorted them from London to the frozen hell of Scotland. And escorted was all she’d done. She never answered their questions and gave them none of the information they so desperately sought.
Sylvi’s hair gleamed white as the snow and had been pulled away from her face in a half a dozen small braids. Unlike Ariana and Liv, Sylvi did not cower beneath the flimsy refuge of a plaid. No, she leaned into the wind with little more than a fur mantle upon her shoulders and a simple dress, a challenge in the ice of her own hard blue gaze.
Ariana had once heard Scotland was wild and beautiful. There wasn’t much beauty she could see outside of the wall of frozen misery she faced every day.
At least Scotland smelled a great deal better than London, where the streets ran with filth and the people lived atop one another. Especially near where she’d resided the past year. The small rented rooms, barely large enough for her and several staff, all paid for entirely with her winnings.
The thought of London stabbed at Ariana’s heart. Not with longing, but with sharpness of memory at how she’d barely managed to scrape together a life for herself. At least the servants had been paid their final coin. Delivered by Sylvi, who had also collected Ariana’s meager belongings.
Liv too had been eager to leave London. She didn’t say why, but her eyes had filled with such sorrow that Ariana could not bring herself to press for an answer.
A savage wind stung at her cheeks and tried to pry the sodden plaid from her hard-knuckled grip. She clawed the blanket more tightly to her. Surely they would be stopping soon. They’d already traveled far longer than any day before.
“You’re cold.” Liv’s horse came beside Ariana. “Will you take my extra blanket? I’m much warmer now.”
She extended her pale hand with the blanket pinched between her fingers. It was the blanket Ariana had given her just that morning.
Ariana strengthened herself against the chill. “Keep it. I imagine we’ll stop soon.” She offered her friend a smile in an effort to convince her.
Liv gave her a fragile smile in return and her slender arm dropped as if she did not have the strength to hold it aloft anymore. She had wasted away so much during their travel. It pained Ariana to have watched it all unfold, and to be so helpless to stop any of it.
Hunger grumbled low in Ariana’s stomach, no longer assuaged by the hard bit of crumbly oatcake she’d had earlier.
Sylvi’s horse sidled up next to hers. There was a stern quietness to Sylvi, a strength so powerful it chipped away at Ariana’s own resolve.
Was this how Connor would instruct her to be?
“We’ll be arriving soon if she can make it a little longer.” Sylvi’s low voice carried over the wind. The ribbon tight around her throat lifted with the strain of raising her voice. The presence of the thin, delicate luxury seemed entirely out of place on Sylvi, who wore no additional adornment on either her simple blue gown or the thick gray fur mantle draped over her like a cape. And yet, there it was—a single black silk ribbon tied into a neat bow at the very center of her throat.
Though they’d traveled for almost a month together, Ariana found she knew nothing more of the woman aside from her apparent lack of sympathy for poor Liv, and the strange battle moves she executed each night when they finally stopped.
�
�We’ll be arriving at our next campsite?” Ariana shifted in her saddle. A breath of cold air scurried around her legs and bottom, and the pinch in her back was no better off once she settled.
“At Kindrochit Castle. Where we live. Where you’ll be living.” Sylvi’s reply was in her usual efficient, emotionless manner.
A spiral of hope curled hot and eager inside Ariana. “Truly? Truly we’ll be done traveling?”
A little smile played on Sylvi’s lips, the first Ariana had seen. “Truly.”
They’d be in a castle.
Ariana could imagine the glow of a warm hearth and soft beds. Where the endless, rocking sway of a horse would stop.
“Did you hear, Liv?” Ariana leaned in her saddle to peer at her friend.
A pale face with lackluster gray eyes peered from a triangle of parted fabric. “I’ll believe it when I’m there.”
“Then you’ll believe it very soon,” Ariana said with as much encouragement as possible.
Liv gave a weak nod beneath her pile of cloth, and her eyes showed the smile all the blankets hid.
“There,” Sylvi said. “In the distance.”
Ariana searched the dulling skyline until she noticed a fleck of black in the distance.
It was far away, but noticeable nonetheless.
They were almost there.
No more sleeping on the cold, hard ground or facing the winds with little more than sodden wool and chapped cheeks for protection.
A gurgling sound filled the air, soft at first and then louder, like the rushing of water.
And, indeed, as they approached, the snow fell away to a ribbon of churning river too large to cross.
The castle stood on the opposite side.
Each fall of the horse’s hooves toward the bridge jarred her bones, each shift she made in the saddle cramped her muscles. Each step forward seemed so ineffective, they might as well have been stepping back.
Their entire journey thus far had not lasted as long as the final grueling hour.
Finally the darkened face of a castle rose before them, preceded by a stone bridge.
The muffled slush of the horse’s hooves in the snow became hard clapping strikes upon the bridge, an almost deafening sound by comparison.
Highland Spy Page 2