Highland Spy

by Madeline Martin

  Mortar had fallen in large chunks from the sides of the bridge, leaving the boulders within seemingly loosely stacked rather than solidly constructed. The castle itself did not appear any sounder. Fractures were visible on its surface in dark, jagged lines, and several stones were missing altogether.

  Ariana brought her horse close to Liv’s. Her friend’s pale hand came out and curled around hers. Liv’s eyes were wide with worry. “Have we made a mistake?”

  Ariana ignored the ball of unease tightnening in the pit of her stomach and shook her head.

  “Murdoch,” Sylvi shouted into the wind.

  The sun had already begun to sink, dragging with it any vestiges of warmth.

  Sylvi’s cheeks and nose were brilliantly red in the fading light, the rest of her comely face little more than shadows.

  A squealing creak rent the air and the gate opened before them, revealing a shadowed courtyard.

  Ariana’s temples thundered with the fluttering of her pulse and her breath came faster, puffing into the air in front of her. But she would not show her unease any more than she would reveal the discomfort of her saddle.

  She might be a pauper and a cheat entering a castle that appeared to be falling in upon itself, but she was a still a noblewoman.

  “Let us be strong.” Ariana squeezed Liv’s icy hands. “Like spies.”

  Liv gave a weak nod and her hand slipped away.

  Ariana drew herself fully upright despite the screaming protest of her back, and rode through the gates with the grace of a queen.

  She hoped.

  The courtyard was little more than an empty field of snow and flecks of crushed grass surrounded by impossibly high stone walls. It was every bit the cage any debtor’s prison would have been and, not for the first time, Ariana wondered if she’d made the right decision.

  A large man with wild blond hair gripped her horse’s reins, drawing her steed to a stop.

  “Welcome to hell.” Though he presented a jovial grin, his words shot straight to her gut.

  “Enough, Murdoch,” Sylvi said in a warning tone.

  The man shrugged his shoulders. “Ach, I’m just toying with the new lasses. I’ll no’ be here long to share my winning personality.”

  Sylvi offered an unladylike snort and leaped gracefully from her own horse.

  Ariana did likewise, except the act was far from graceful, and she landed on knees too soft to support her. When her legs buckled, she went sprawling to the cold, wet ground, no doubt staining her dress.

  She shouldn’t worry about her dress, she knew. After all, she’d lived in the garment for God knew how long, and only He knew how many stains the road must have already marked upon the once-fine velvet. But it was one of the few ones she hadn’t been forced to sell, one of the few reminders of her former life.

  And now even such a scant token was ruined.

  Just like she was.

  She lay where she fell, no longer possessing the motivation to rise, nor the fortitude to do so.

  The harsh sound of retching met her ears, followed by a curse from Sylvi. Ariana lifted her head, wanting to rise to aid Liv, but her legs would not comply.

  “Get Percy.” An authoritative masculine voice rose above Sylvi’s muttering, stopping it along with the beat of Ariana’s heart.

  She pulled in a hard breath, and the icy chill of it raked down her lungs. If only the ground would open and let her tumble away into its depths rather than let him see her thus. After all, it was the first time she’d seen him since he’d caught her.

  Connor.

  • • •

  Connor rushed toward the pile of pale blue velvet on the ground.

  “I’d rather ye took yer time arriving than show up with them half dead.” He shot a hard glance toward Sylvi.

  He bent over Ariana and scooped her up, the mass of skirts and velvet and all. The insignificance of her weight needled his thoughts.

  She lifted a hand to stop him and shook her head, but he already had her in his arms. “Please.” Her voice was a mere thread. “I can—”

  “You made them my responsibility.” Sylvi squared her shoulders and met his look. “And I saw fit to rush their arrival.”

  Despite her tone, her gaze darted with concern between both women.

  “Please, I can walk.” The sound came from the bundle Connor carried.

  Ariana moved in his arms, attempting to extricate herself.

  “Aye, but I can easily carry ye,” he said softly.

  She ceased her struggling. “And I can easily walk. I didn’t anticipate my legs would be so tired from the longer ride today.”

  “I’ll no’ have ye falling to yer death on the stairs,” he said, and strode toward the manor entrance with snow crunching under his feet.

  A glint of defiance sparked in her gaze despite her drooping lids.

  He shifted her in his arms, so her head rested against his chest and the stairs would be easier to maneuver. “Hush now, lass. Ye dinna have a choice in this.”

  Her protests quieted, and by the time he made it to the small room she would share with the other new woman, her deep, even breathing told him she’d fallen asleep.

  The room was cold despite the fire crackling in the hearth. It’d been lit recently, when the riders had been spotted, but hadn’t yet warmed the space.

  He settled her in the bed and pulled the coverlet over her. Shadows danced across the areas beneath her cheeks and eyes where the firelight didn’t touch.

  Fabric rustled in the doorway. Connor looked up to find Sylvi watching him with more anxiety than she’d ever admit to.

  “She’s too thin,” he said.

  Sylvi crossed her arms. “I tried to get her to eat, but she was too attentive to the other one.”

  He rose and crossed the room. “Let’s discuss this in private.”

  She followed without comment, her feet moving silently over the hard floor like she’d been taught.

  He wasn’t surprised. There wasn’t a lesson in battle she hadn’t mastered.

  He waited to speak until they were behind the closed door of the solar. The musty, lingering scent of the books once held within was familiar, and a low fire crackled in the hearth. Shelves lined the back wall, gaping with emptiness.

  “What were ye thinking, pushing them so hard?” he asked for the second time.

  Sylvi’s eyes flashed. “I told you, I made the decision. Liv vomitted her way through England and Scotland and every damn place between.” Her gaze slipped from his in a rare show of uncertainty. “I thought if I didn’t get her here in time, she’d die.”

  Connor shook his head. “I’ve no’ seen noblewomen travel as fast as ye pushed them. Delilah and I only just arrived yesterday.”

  “It was Ariana,” she said with a lowered voice. “The one you carried upstairs. She insisted she was fine. She pushed Liv to go on and helped when she was sick. I think she held the same fears I did.”

  The skinny scrap of a woman he’d carried upstairs hardly seemed strong enough to have survived the trip herself, let alone have pushed to travel faster.

  Sylvi widened her stance. “Why the hell did we do this now? It’s nigh the middle of winter.” An edge of her former baseborn accent slipped into her words, the roughness she’d worked so hard to smooth.

  Connor lifted a brow and she lowered the challenge of her glare. A muscle worked in her jaw.

  She was upset and had every right to be. He’d been unhappy with the timing himself, but had acted on the king’s orders. King James didn’t consider things like weather or how long the women took to train. He only cared that his orders were followed and those names Connor was given were eliminated in less than four months.

  As it was, Connor only had three remaining.

  “Traveling in this season doesn’t make sense.” She muttered it under her breath like a petulant child.

  “There are more missions,” he said. Two slips of paper sat on his desk.

  Sylvi gave an exasperated
hiss. “There are always more missions.”

  He wouldn’t look at the papers right now. He wouldn’t turn and see the two stark pieces of white parchment laid against the dark desk.

  Overall, he’d had five names in his three years of service to the king. But always one at a time.

  There’d never been two together before.

  She drew a deep breath and let the air hiss out the way women do when they’re displeased. In a house full of lasses, it was a sound he knew all too well.

  The rigidity of her shoulders slackened. “I don’t like this.”

  He didn’t either.

  “Go see to Liv, aye?”

  She nodded.

  “Let the poor girl sleep in the kitchen tonight for extra warmth.” He clapped a hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently. “Ye did well in getting them safely to Kindrochit.”

  She nodded again and turned from the room.

  He waited for some time to pass after her departure, until he could stand the scraping drag of time no more.

  Then he turned toward his desk to do what he’d been dreading.

  He lifted the first strip of parchment and snapped the seal. Waxy crumbles fell in several large chunks to his desk, but he paid them no mind. He unfolded the note with great care and read the single name written in the blackest ink.

  Angus MacAlister.

  A laird Connor had met only once as a boy, though he remembered little more than the name and how unruly the man’s dark hair had been.

  Connor closed his eyes against the memory and tossed the parchment into the fire.

  After it had long since burned to ash, he reached for the second.

  The seal made a soft click as it succumbed to the pressure of his large fingertips.

  Two names.

  Two, dammit.

  As if the one weren’t already difficult enough.

  The paper crackled in his hands, loud as a shot in the silence of his room. His gaze skimmed the single name and his gut clenched.

  Kenneth Gordon.

  His hand curled shut, balling the paper in his crushing fist.

  Kenneth Gordon.

  A man he’d grown up with and once loved as a brother, who’d saved his life in the Battle of Glenlivet. The man who had then betrayed him.

  And now the man Connor would have to kill.

  Chapter 4

  A subtle clink broke through the dark nothing of Ariana’s consciousness. She squeezed her eyes shut, as if doing so might let her sleep longer.

  Clink.

  Like the sound of a lid being lifted from a jar.

  Ariana wriggled beneath the covers, loving the caress of the mattress and the soft sheets beneath her battered body. Had she ever been so wonderfully comfortable?

  She cracked an eye open and found a golden-haired woman kneeling beside her bed with a metal tray.

  The woman turned and gave the most beautiful, bashful smile. Ariana felt herself stare and was, embarrassingly, unable to stop. It wasn’t just the perfect white teeth showing between her full pink lips, but the woman herself.

  Her large green eyes were rimmed with impossibly long lashes and her hair fell in silky waves around her porcelain face.

  The woman was exquisitely beautiful.

  Ariana’s hair had not been combed in some time, and she’d fallen asleep in the very clothes she’d arrived in. Surely she looked a fright, especially compared to so lovely a woman.

  “I hope you slept well,” the woman spoke in a soft voice. The kind of voice Ariana’s mother always said ladies should employ.

  The woman’s gaze drifted away before turning back to the jars littering her metal tray. Her fingers were slender and gracefully tapered, each nail a perfect arc of healthy white. She selected a small cup from the table and offered it to Ariana. “If you drink this, your body won’t ache so terribly.”

  “What is it?” Ariana eyed the greenish brown liquid. “And who are you?”

  The woman lowered her eyes. “Um…” Her tongue flicked between her lips and she offered an apologetic look. “It’s a blend of different herbs and tinctures. The list is long and boring.” She gave an apologetic smile.

  There was a shyness about her, surprising for her considerable beauty, and it spurred in Ariana a spike of protectiveness, the way one might guard a fragile bloom in winter.

  “And your name?” Ariana asked gently.

  The woman’s cheeks colored. “Oh, yes, I’m Percy. Well, not really Percy. It’s Persephone, but it’s such a long name, you see. So, well, everyone calls me Percy. And what’s your name?”

  “I’m Ariana Fitzroy.” Ariana said her name with a considerable lack of pride. Her name meant nothing in this castle in the middle of snow-covered Scotland. Not like it once had when her parents were alive and had their noble connections.

  “That’s an enchanting name,” Percy said with genuine kindness. “Oh, here—let me help you sit up.”

  She carefully eased Ariana into a sitting position and the soft scent of violets wafted from her golden waves.

  Ariana accepted the drink once she was upright. The cup was warm against her fingertips, and she curled her whole hand around it to bask in the heat.

  The room she’d slept in was large enough for two narrow beds with a hearth between. A small, well-used hearth. Flecks of stone had been chipped away and a large chunk was missing, leaving a hole in the mortar like the gap of a missing tooth. Regardless, it kept away the chill without filling the air with smoke. The flames of a strong fire licked merrily away at fresh-looking logs. No doubt Percy’s doing.

  Ariana eyed the empty bed across from hers. “Have you seen to Liv?”

  “I saw to her first.” Percy smiled, and again Ariana was struck by her extraordinary beauty. “I think she’ll be fine after she rests.”

  Ariana released the tension creeping over her shoulders and regarded the drink in her hands. The perfume of rose and some other sort of flower greeted her. Surely it could not taste so bad if it smelled so pleasing.

  “It will help,” Percy said reassuringly.

  Without thinking on it more, Ariana let the floral liquid wash into her mouth and swallowed quickly. It tasted as it smelled, with an edge of bitterness mellowed by a touch of sweetness.

  Percy took the cup from her and handed her a bowl of pottage. “I put honey in it to make it taste a little better.”

  It was all Ariana could do to thank Percy before devouring the thick gray substance as daintily as was possible. While it was not the most appealing food Ariana had ever eaten, it was by far the most delicious. After days upon days of cold meat and bannocks, those hard and crumbling oatcakes, the gooey warmth of the pottage filled her stomach like a feast.

  “Is my training to begin now?” Ariana asked when she was finished eating.

  Sylvi had mentioned their training would start immediately. After displaying such an appalling weakness upon their arrival, Ariana was eager to prove her worth.

  This was security, she reminded herself.

  This was freedom.

  Percy’s mouth fell open. “Oh no, you must rest after your travels.”

  “What kind of training is it? I know nothing of what is expected of us.”

  Percy put a stopper back into one of the bottles. “No, I imagine Sylvi didn’t explain much. The women do training every morning. It starts with a run, then they learn to fight with weapons. To defend themselves if need be. In the afternoon, there are lessons, if needed, to enable them to be better at gleaning information from others. It’s rigorous, but beneficial.”

  “You say women.” Ariana looked toward the empty bed. Would it be Liv staying with her, or would she have another roommate she didn’t know? “How many women are here?”

  “Five now, with you and Liv having arrived.” Percy took the empty bowl from Ariana’s hands. “Then myself, Sylvi, and Delilah. The only other person here is Connor. No staff; we do everything on our own.”

  Ariana nodded, taking in the information sh
e’d been wanting to know all through the course of the last month. “Are Delilah and Sylvi resting now?”

  Silence greeted her, as well as a telltale shift of Percy’s lovely green eyes.

  She wasn’t sure if the women were training presently or not, but she refused to lie abed if they were.

  She would not come across as weak again.

  Ariana pulled herself from the bed, not an easy feat when the heavy exhaustion in her body begged her to follow Percy’s request.

  “Please, you mustn’t,” Percy said. “Connor doesn’t like to be disobeyed.”

  “I refuse to rest if others aren’t.” Her conviction surged through her body, providing a burst of necessary energy. Her heart galloped in her chest and, like when she won at cards, she felt the dizzying wash of invigoration.

  Of living.

  Percy’s hesitant expression blossomed into a grin, as if the eagerness flooding through Ariana were infectious. “If you’re going to train, you’ll need proper clothing. The women train most days with these garments, and then at least two days in dresses so they’re used to fighting in all attire.”

  Within several surprisingly efficient minutes, Percy helped her out of the stained, travel-worn dress and into a pair of black trews with her breasts bound beneath a black léine.

  Together, the two women made their way down the stone steps. Like the hearth of her bedroom, the stairs were in poor condition. Several cracks ran through the stone walls on either side, and the middle of each step had been worn into a dip. They seemed sturdy enough underfoot, which was what truly mattered.

  The pants hugged her legs up to the crotch in a foreign manner, but were surprisingly comfortable, especially with the loose léine and jacket she wore over them.

  “Connor won’t be upset with you for letting me fight so soon, will he?” Ariana asked before they pushed through the large doors.

  Percy shook her head, and the loose curls of her hair rolled against the velvet of her blue dress. “No, Connor never gets angry with me. He might not be too pleased with you though.” She pressed the flat of her hand to the door. “Are you ready?”

  Everything in Ariana hummed with a nervous excitement so powerful it made her jittery and weak all at once.