The Highlander’s Heart

by Forester, Amanda

  “I need to see him,” said Cait, the desperation clear in her voice.

  The guard looked taken aback and Isabelle squeezed Cait’s hand to remind her to keep better control of her emotions.

  “Is the prisoner secure?” asked Isabelle.

  “Aye, shackled to the wall. He will no’ be going anywhere.”

  “You are sure he is secure? There is no chance of his escape?”

  “None. Ye may sleep well, m’lady.”

  “In that case, Lady Cait needs to confront the man who abducted her to speak the words she needs to say.”

  “Nay, I canna allow that.”

  “By whose authority do you deny the Lady Cait access?”

  “Uhhh,” the guard stammered.

  “Unless Laird Campbell has ordered ye to block my path, then stand aside,” commanded Cait.

  Without waiting for a response, Cait whisked past the guard and down the stone steps.

  “W-wait—”

  “Best to let her be,” said Isabelle. “She needs to confront him, to speak her mind. Surely you can understand why she would wish to do so without others hearing.”

  The guard looked unsure.

  “I’m certain Campbell would be very pleased with how you are standing guard. Tell me, have you been in his service long?” Isabelle smiled, determined to keep the lad in conversation until Cait returned. The guard eyed the stone staircase. Cait best be quick.

  ***

  Andrew Campbell sat on a stone bench shackled to the wall. It was cool and damp in the prison, but at least they had provided him with a serviceable blanket and there was no standing water. Overall his cell was clean and he was fed at least once a day. Not too bad, considering the crime with which he was charged. Not that he had experienced prison before. This was his first. And considering the charges, most likely his last.

  Andrew leaned his head back on the rough, stone wall and tried to keep his mind blank. There was not a single topic that did not cause him pain. Though he rarely drank in excess, he wished they would bring him some whiskey. If any circumstance warranted inebriation, waiting for one’s execution certainly qualified.

  The swish of silk brought his attention back to his surroundings. Andrew froze as Cait Campbell walked down the stone staircase and into sight. Cait Campbell, the reason he was in shackles. Cait Campbell, who only a few days ago he had desired to wed. She was wearing blue silk with gold embroidery. Even his limited knowledge of fashion informed him that the gown alone was worth more than the entire contents of McNab Castle. Her blond hair was loose, with a gauzy veil framing her face. She was beautiful, and the reason he would die.

  “Andrew?” Her voice was soft, her eyes were large.

  “Aye.” He should insult her, say something cutting to make her regret her deception. He should hurt her the way she hurt him. He looked away, her perfect face too painful to look upon. Even though she deceived him, he still could not hate her.

  “I feared my brother would kill ye.” Her voice was strained.

  “Ne’er fear, there is still time. I warrant he brought me back for a proper trial before he has me executed.”

  “Nay, dinna say that. I’ll speak to him. I’ll tell him it was no’ ye who abducted us.”

  “With all due respect, my lady, but why do ye care? Ye have deceived me well. I was completely taken in. Whatever ye hoped to achieve was accomplished. Ye are home. I am in shackles. What more is there?”

  “I ken it was wrong o’ me to deceive ye—”

  “Nay, m’lady. ’Twas verra clever. I am impressed, truly I am. Please forgive me, but the sight o’ ye pains me. I have spent the past several days trying to forget ye. Ye standing there is hardly helping my resolve.”

  “But this is no’ yer fault.”

  “Nay, I am to blame. These past several days I have been forced to take responsibility for myself, and I canna be pleased wi’ the man I see. I have let my brother talk me into many ill-conceived plans or simply watched and let things unfold wi’out making a stand. I may no’ have kidnapped ye, but I helped to hold ye prisoner. I did no’ release ye as I should have.” Andrew bowed his head. “I was enjoying myself too much,” he added in a voice that was barely audible.

  Andrew held up his shackled wrist. “This is my fault. I might wish for a second chance to make things right, but I deserve none.”

  “But why tell David ye were the one to abduct me?”

  “To prevent him going back to destroy my clan. ’Tis too late for me now. I will pay for my crime, but my clan, ye ken how little they have. If Campbell marches against them, how many would die, the guilty and the innocent alike? If I am to die, at least I wish to be the only McNab to suffer for this crime.”

  The prison was silent. Andrew regarded Cait with sad eyes.

  Cait clasped her hands in front of her. “I need to know one thing, Andrew. I want an honest answer. I deserve that much, ye ken?”

  “Ask anything and I will tell ye true.”

  “When ye said… when ye said what ye said on the hill. The part about how ye felt.” Cait shifted from one foot to the other. “The part about love. Was that a description o’ how you truly felt, or were ye simply after my dowry?”

  Andrew looked her in the eye. “Everything I told ye that day was the truth, Lady Cait. Everything.”

  “Then I need to provide ye wi’ an answer to yer question.” Cait stepped closer to Andrew, her eyes wide and black in the dim light. “Yes, Andrew. I will marry ye.”

  “Lady Cait!” yelled down the guard. “Are ye well?”

  “Aye,” said Cait, and flounced up the stairs.

  Thirty-Two

  Archie McNab slunk into Glasgow with a dark purpose. He left his horse tied in a secluded glen. It had taken him days of riding and slogging through rivers and hiding in caves before he had convinced himself Campbell was no longer a threat. At least for today.

  His last attempt at freeing his brother without resorting to the abbot’s heinous request had failed. He had hoped to trade Lady Tynsdale for Andrew, but his brother was not there. No one was there, just the bastard Campbell. The last person he wanted to confront.

  McNab crept around an inn, keeping to the shadows. The cold, hard truth of his life was that everything he did was wrong. He could not get ahead for anything. Every instinct he had was wrong. Every natural inclination was wrong. He was born a horrible mistake, ought to have been drowned at birth. Considering all the harm he had caused, he wished he had been stillborn.

  If there was any justice in the world it would have been a dark and stormy night. The previous night, he waded through a bog with rain pouring down on him so thick he thought he’d drown simply by taking a breath. But now, when he could have used the dark night and the inhospitable weather, it was a warm night with a moon so bright you could see your shadow. He tried to be inconspicuous as he neared the bishop’s castle, but he was quite sure he had been spotted by several people along the way. Mostly couples gazing longingly in each other’s eyes. Truly, there was no justice at all.

  McNab reached the bishop’s residence, and slipped through the open gate and in the front door. It should have been barred. Why didn’t God warn his own bishop to keep thugs like him from entering their homes? He muttered curses and grasped his knife. He must do this. He had to follow the abbot’s demand to have any chance of saving his brother. He had to save Andrew. Nothing else, not his life, not the bishop’s mattered anymore, if they ever did.

  McNab crept down the hall and up a steep set of stairs. He guessed the bishop’s rooms would be at the top. At the top of the stairs another hallway filled with closed doors greeted him. McNab sighed. Would nothing be easy tonight? There was only one way to do this.

  He drew his blade.

  He put his hand on the latch of the first door when suddenly it swung into him smacking him hard on the nose.

  “Arrgh!” he said. It was the involuntary sound a person makes when their nose has been broken.

  “Dear me,
I beg your pardon, I did not see ye there. Please come in, sit down. Let me see how I can help.”

  McNab allowed himself to be ushered into the room and sat down by a small fire. Through the tears that filled his eyes he could see the white-haired bishop hover over him, the picture of concern.

  “Here now, take my handkerchief for yer nose. Gracious, but ye are bleeding like a fountain.”

  McNab took the handkerchief and pressed it to his nose. This was all going wrong. He needed to complete his errand and be away. He reached for his knife but realized he had dropped it on the floor when he was hit. It was somewhere on the hallway floor. He leaned back in his chair and groaned.

  “Whiskey?” asked the bishop.

  “Aye,” mumbled McNab. “By the barrelful.”

  A mug was offered and he used his right hand to drink and the left to press the bishop’s cloth to his nose. Neither spoke for a while, until the whiskey warmed his insides and dulled the pain. McNab took the linen cloth from his nose. It had been a fine piece, embroidered with lace around the edges. Now it was a bright red rag.

  “Sorry for ruining this.”

  “’Tis I who should be sorry for injuring ye, my friend. Usually I’d be asleep in my bed at this hour, but ’twas such a fine night I thought to have a little walk in the moonlight.”

  Archie nodded. God was protecting the bishop after all. And in a way that caused Archie pain. Aye, his luck was holding as well as ever. Which meant, of course, he had none.

  “I fear I may have broken your nose,” said the bishop.

  “Would’na be the first time,” McNab mumbled.

  “What brings ye here at this hour, my friend?”

  McNab figured it would come to that. He needed to come up with some plausible reason, and quick.

  “I was sent to kill ye.” McNab’s shoulders slumped and he put his head in his hands, which caused the blood to start flowing again. That was the truth; he was supposed to lie. He was an idiot. Maybe he had been injured worse than he realized. He had heard if you hit a man’s nose hard enough, a piece of skull could get lodged in the brain, causing death. He could only hope.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I think I have a piece o’ skull lodged in my brain.”

  “What’s that?”

  “But I canna die right now ’cause I must save Andrew or they will hang him for sure.”

  “Who?”

  “My brother. Which is why I have to kill you. I am terrible sorry about it. Ye seem nice and all.”

  “Perhaps I could convince ye to lean yer head back, ye’re pooling blood on my floor.”

  “Sorry.” McNab tilted his head back up. “Can I speak wi’ ye?” He desperately wanted to talk, the words spilling from his mouth. And since he was going to kill the bishop anyway it seemed he might as well speak the truth.

  “Aye, my son. Tell me what is troubling ye.”

  McNab told the bishop of the poverty of his clan, his failed attempts at improving his fortune, and his dealings with the abbot. He talked about trying to give Andrew a better life by sending him to university, of failing to protect his sister, of wishing he was never born. He spoke of abducting Lady Cait and her maid, and being tricked into thinking the maid was Cait. He told the bishop of how Andrew had been taken by Campbell and would most likely be killed. Last of all, he spoke of how killing the bishop was the only way he had left to try to save Andrew and how it didn’t matter anyway because he was already damned.

  If the bishop was surprised or concerned by any of McNab’s words, it did not show on his face. A man accustomed to hearing the confessions of many, the bishop hid his feelings well.

  When he was done, McNab laid his head on the table. He was so tired. He wished to sleep and never wake.

  “Abbot Barrick, ye ken he be a man o’ God?” asked the bishop.

  “He be the devil incarnate,” groaned McNab.

  “Strange then, ye would go to him for spiritual advice. How can ye account for it?”

  “I ne’er went to him for no spiritual advice.”

  “Get yer story straight, lad. Ye just told me it made no difference whether ye committed murder because the abbot said ye are damned.”

  “Aye… am I no’ then? Speak yer mind clear for me. ’Tis too late and I’ve drunk too much whiskey for riddles.”

  “Yer abbot has been a boil on my backside for the past score years. Truth is he lied to ye. Ye are no more damned than the rest o’ us. That is why God sent a savior. All sinners, even grievous sinners, can be forgiven if they come before God with a repentant and contrite heart.”

  McNab tried to make sense of what the bishop said, his wits dull with whiskey and pain. “Ye’re saying I can be forgiven.”

  “Aye, lad.”

  “That’s good. But ’tis no’ me I wish to save, but my brother.”

  “What if I went to talk to Campbell for ye?”

  McNab’s eyes opened wide. “Would ye do that? I would gladly trade myself and take my brother’s place. ’Tis me who is to blame.”

  “I will speak to him, but I will no’ trade ye. There is something I need from ye. I need ye to bear witness against the abbot. I am going to appeal to the archbishop or to Rome itself to have him defrocked. I need yer testimony.”

  McNab rubbed the back of his neck. “I want to help ye, but who would believe me against the word o’ the abbot? And I am no’ partial to displeasing him. He has more than me working for him and he woud’na care if my crops were burnt or my clan was killed.”

  “I canna protect ye from him. I can only say that wi’ him gone, fewer people will be hurt. Yer clan included.”

  “Ye’ll go to Campbell and get Andrew?”

  “I will try. That is all I can say.”

  McNab slowly nodded his head. “Aye, bishop. I’ll serve ye as I have served him. I ken ye to be a better master.”

  “I am and no mistake.”

  The bishop stood and motioned to the door. “Let us retire for the night. This is much too much excitement for these old bones.” The bishop led McNab down the hallway to an empty chamber. “I think ye will be comfortable here for the night.”

  McNab entered the clean, serviceable room and turned back to offer his hand to the bishop. “Thank ye, yer grace. Ye have given me hope. ’Tis no’ a common thing for me.”

  The bishop shook the hand offered, saying, “Sleep well, my son. Tomorrow I will ride for Campbell.”

  The bishop closed the door to the bedroom, locked the door, and pocketed the key. He may be a trusting soul, but he was no fool.

  Thirty-Three

  Isabelle walked through a sea of mist. Where was she? A dark figure loomed in the distance and she walked toward it. As she drew nearer, she could see he was the figure of a knight, concealed in armor.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “Do you not know your own husband?” The knight removed his helm revealing the withered face of her husband. “I am master of Alnsworth now.”

  “No!” The mist dissipated and she was in the courtyard of Alnsworth, her people standing in chains around her. “No! You cannot do this!”

  “If only you had returned,” said her nurse, her eyes dark and sorrowful. “None of this would have happened. But now it is too late.”

  “You cannot do this!” Isabelle shouted to Tynsdale.

  “There is none to stop me. I am coming for you, Isabelle.”

  Isabelle woke with a small scream.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Cait, opening a sleepy eye.

  Isabelle sat bolt upright. She was on her pallet on the floor next to Cait’s bed in the room that served as the sleeping quarters for the unwed Campbell sisters.

  “I-I had a nightmare. I must go home, now!”

  “Now?” Cait stifled a yawn. “’Tis early, no?”

  “But I must. Oh, I have been away too long. They must think me dead or that I have abandoned them.”

  “Who?”

  “My people. At Alnsworth! I must sp
eak to David, uh, Campbell—Laird Campbell,” Isabelle corrected herself. She was so spun around she could not keep her innocent façade in place.

  Isabelle had worried herself sick all yesterday about what to say to Campbell when she saw him, but she never did. He never sought her out and sent his apologies to the supper table that he was much too engaged making “arrangements” to join the family for the meal.

  Cait closed her red, swollen eyes. “What good is it to ask David anything? He is too busy preparing to kill Andrew.”

  Isabelle drew up her knees and rested her chin on them. Cait was right about one thing, Campbell was much too engaged at present to arrange travel for her. Isabelle thought fast, her mind considering, turning around, and discarding many bits of plans. There must be a way. She could not abandon her people. She could not.

  “Cait!” Isabelle moved closer to Cait and glanced around the room, but all the ladies continued to sleep. “I have a plan to save Andrew,” Isabelle whispered.

  “Oh! Tell me!” Cait sat up, her blue eyes sparkling, her golden hair falling around her.

  “Shhhh!” Isabelle admonished and they leaned their heads in closer. “Remember you said your lady-in-waiting was still being held by McNab? What if you asked Campbell to trade Andrew to get her back?”

  Cait clutched Isabelle’s hands. “Aye. That’s perfect. We can trade Andrew for Alys. Thank you, Isabelle!” Cait grabbed Isabelle into a quick, tight embrace. “Quick, let us dress, we will speak to David directly.”

  “Good,” said Isabelle. When Campbell sent Andrew she meant to be one of the party at least to Glasgow. She must get help for her people. Time may have already run out.

  ***

  Campbell nodded to his elders as they left. He walked back into his solar and eyed the bottle of whiskey. Tempting, but it was yet too early for drink. He had spent the morning arranging a trial for Andrew McNab. It was an unwanted responsibility and one he would gladly give up, as Gavin had been fortunate enough to do. But Andrew must have a fair trial, and Campbell would see it done. It was a grim business, for unless something dramatic happened to sway the evidence, Andrew would most surely be sentenced to death.