by Karen Ranney
“Are you Mary Gilly?” the nearly bald man asked.
She frowned at him, surprised. “Why would you be wanting to know?” Pushing aside a growing sense of unease, she approached the men, both of whom were looking around them with interest.
“Are you alone here?”
She didn’t answer them, instead broached a question of her own. “What do you want?”
“Are you Mary Gilly?” he asked again.
“I am,” she said, pressing her clenched hands hard against her midriff to still the quivering sensation in her stomach.
“We’ve come to arrest you, Mary Gilly,” the bald man said. “For the murder of your husband.”
When Hamish returned to the courtyard, he called out her name. Mary didn’t respond; only silence answered him. He halted where he was and looked around him, all senses alert. He left his horse beside the well and went looking for her in the kitchen.
Mary, however, was nowhere to be found.
He strode through the remains of the castle, seeing where feminine touches had altered the old structure. It no longer seemed abandoned as much as waiting.
The dread he was feeling grew as he left the castle and crossed the courtyard. She had a habit of coming there in the morning, and sitting on the edge of the well. Sometimes, he watched her staring up at the sunrise as if she’d never seen it in Inverness. The sky over the loch exploded in color, streaks of yellow, pink, and blue, but in truth, it was no match for her loveliness.
Now, however, the well rim was empty, as was the courtyard. Only he and his horse occupied it, and Hamish could feel the silence fold in around him.
He headed for the tower, climbing the circular stairs, calling out her name. “Mary.” The sound echoed up the steps, then faded to silence.
He entered his chamber, half expected to see her sitting on the bed teasing him with her smile.
“Did you miss me?” she’d say, and he’d want to shake her for worrying him. Instead, he’d kiss her soundly, a reward for being there.
She wasn’t there, either.
He opened the window, feeling the bite of the winter wind off the loch. She wasn’t in the castle. The place felt as empty as it had the day he’d left the longboat. He’d come here to live out his life, doing nothing to lengthen or shorten it himself. It was an agreement he’d made with God, a punishment he’d offered up for his sins.
Perhaps she’d gone out to gather leaves or herbs or roots for her medicines and gotten lost. Perhaps she’d injured herself and was waiting for him to come find her.
He retreated to the courtyard and mounted his horse again.
He looked for her until it became dark, and beyond. Calling out Mary’s name, he rode in concentric circles away from the castle until he realized that she couldn’t have walked that far. After dark, he exchanged his horse for Mary’s. After hours of riding, he returned the horse to the castle, retracing his steps on foot. But she wasn’t to be found. Dawn, when it came, found him bleary-eyed and tired, but determined to find her.
He mounted the stairs and entered the room she’d once called hers. It was only then that he realized her medicine chest was gone. She was never without her case. He recalled one time when she’d spread it open on the table, taking out each jar and holding it up to the light.
“What are you doing?”
“An inventory,” she said. “It’s not enough to heal; you must have the medicines with which to do so.”
Curious, he’d come and watched her, picking up a few of the jars. “What’s this?”
“Camphor oil,” she said.
“You’ve a great many herbs,” he said, noting the labels.
“The stock of any good healer.” She held up a vial with a solid yellow substance inside. “Pork fat rendered with rosemary and distle weed. It’s very soothing on a congested chest.”
“You’re missing a vial,” he said, pointing to an empty opening.
She made a face. “It’s my mercury distillation. I no longer use it,” she said.
Glancing at him, she answered his unspoken question. “I have my doubts as to its efficacy. I gave it to Gordon when he was experiencing stomach pains, and I think it made his discomfort worse.”
“You should talk to my older brother, Alisdair,” he said. “He’s been fascinated with Chinese medicines for years. In fact, Gilmuir has an apothecary of sorts, filled with all kinds of potions he’s imported from China.”
She looked entranced, as if he’d promised the jewels of the world to her.
“I’ve never known anyone who had such an interest,” she admitted. “I’ve only studied Matthew Marshall,” she said, handing him a dog-eared, much thumbed book.
He scanned it quickly, and then read the cover. The Primitive Physick, a Practioner’s Guide to Commonsense Medicine.
“Although he’s a minister, Mr. Marshall is very learned in medicine. I’ve found him a great source of advice.”
After she’d taken her inventory, Mary had closed up her chest, rubbing the leather of the case with a clean cloth.
Now the case was gone, and her valise. He realized, finally, that she’d left him.
He hadn’t wanted to be deviled by a healer from Inverness. Yet he had been, and equally so by the woman she’d revealed herself to be. Mary, whose laughter made him smile, and whose taunting words were the equal of his daring. He stood and left the room, closing the door firmly behind him. A moment later, he was in his lair, the home he’d made his for weeks before she’d entered his life.
The sun was coming up on the horizon, and it looked to be a changeling day. Toward the north, storm clouds announced that snow was coming.
He should rest, but he knew that despite the fact he’d spent the night searching for her, sleep would elude him. His nightmares would return. Or worse, dreams of her. He’d deliberately not thought of this moment, wishing it away rather than thinking of when she’d leave him.
Stay with me.
I cannot.
The sun’s rays gleamed on the bronze form of Shiva dancing merrily within his crenelated circle. The statue was the embodiment of a tenuous belief that even good might come from bad circumstances. A lesson he’d learned not from his imprisonment, or the events afterward, but from his parents. They’d taught him that even despair and tragedy might eventually beget joy.
For most of his life, he’d believed in himself, had labored under the notion that anything he wanted could be had as a result of his efforts, timing, and perhaps luck. His family had shown him that survival was a matter of will, that he could, if he wished, surmount any difficulty. Yet his experiences in India had taught him that resolve was not enough. Pride, courage, endurance—none of these was enough. There were some circumstances he couldn’t endure, just as there were some things he couldn’t have.
Like Mary?
He grabbed the statue and flung it out the window, where it lay half submerged in the icy waters of the loch. There it would remain, he vowed, until hell itself claimed him. He wasn’t going to allow her to leave him. Not like this. Not without a word spoken or an explanation proffered. If she didn’t want to remain with him, let her tell him to his face. Let her try to walk away from what they shared. Let her deny that it was important. Let her convince him that she wouldn’t miss it.
What if she wouldn’t?
The thought sobered him. Perhaps what he’d thought so unusual, so special, even rare, she considered commonplace. Had she experienced the same passion with her aged husband?
I have been known to scream, but only when I’m feeling abandoned.
He hated the dead Gordon Gilly, in all his aged splendor, hated the fact that he’d called Mary wife, that he was uncomplicated and pure of thought and deed. A tradesman, with no onerous sins plucking at his conscience like the talons of a bird of prey. Not for him sleepless nights or sweating nightmares. No, Gordon’s only sin was to die and leave behind a widow who genuinely mourned his passing.
She must have gone back to Inverness
, and without a backward glance, no doubt. Had he bored her, or kept her here so long that she sought an escape? He should thank her for the kindness of her desertion. There would be no scenes between them, no harsh words.
Except, of course, that this mute defection was unlike her. He could conjure up a dozen instances when she’d surprised him with her directness. He’d tested her with his questions or his statements and she’d responded in kind, a verbal daring. The Mary Gilly he knew would have come to him and told him it was time.
“I’m leaving now, Hamish.” He could almost hear her words, spoken in her grave voice, a low, somber tone to match the seriousness of her speech.
“Must you?” He would be smiling, his attitude one of casual nonchalance, as if her departure mattered little.
“My life waits for me. It’s time for me to leave.”
“Are you certain there’s something for you in Inverness, Mary?” Something more important than Castle Gloom, or the hermit who occupies it? Even in his imagination he came close to begging, and that would not do at all.
“There is my life,” she would say, and he’d nod, carefully hiding any emotion from her.
“Very well,” he’d respond, looking as if he were bored. “I promised I would take you back, and I will.”
“There’s no need.”
But he would insist upon returning her to Inverness.
It made no sense. She would have come to him. There was only one thing to do, of course. He was going after her.
The coach that carried Mary back to Inverness wasn’t luxurious. In fact, it was little more than a box on wheels. The journey was done in silence, her two jailers choosing not to speak other than a few softly voiced comments to each other. They’d searched the castle, taking her case, which now rested on the seat beside one of the men, and stuffing her clothing into her valise. She’d had no time to leave word for Hamish, and she hadn’t told either man about him. The last thing she wanted was a confrontation between him and the men sent to arrest her.
“I’m not guilty,” she said now, but neither of them looked at her. “Who has accused me?” Again, no answer.
She and Brendan had covered the distance between Inverness and Castle Gloom in a day. But then, they’d been traveling with a slower wagon. In a matter of hours, it seemed, they crossed the River Ness into Inverness.
A few minutes later, she was ushered into a building she knew well, but only from the outside. The jail was a red brick building set adjacent to the Sheriff’s Court. Each man took an arm, and she was led through a series of hallways. They passed a dozen doors with small barred openings, slowing before one where a guard was seated at a small table.
“Is she the murderess?”
“The very one,” the bald man said.
She remained silent as the guard opened the door, and the two of them followed her into the small room. The encroaching darkness dimmed the one barred window.
“Am I to be left here, then?”
Neither of them answered her.
“Until when? Can I not, at least, prove my innocence?”
“You’ll come to trial eventually,” the bald man said.
“When?”
“When the sheriff wishes, and not before.”
They left her there, closing the door behind her.
Slowly, she looked around the room. In the past, she’d worked with the poor, visiting dwellings that seemed hardly able to act as shelter with their sagging roofs and dirt floors. But this place, although solidly built, offered less comfort than a rude cottage. The window had no shutters to block out the cold, and she could feel the chill of the stone floor seeping through the leather of her shoes. The only furnishing was a bucket, and it quite evidently served as a chamber pot.
She stood on tiptoe to look through the bars of the window at the view of a remarkably pretty courtyard.
“If it’s the gallows you’re looking for,” a voice said, “you’ll not be finding them. Sir John doesn’t believe in littering Scottish soil with corpses. Instead, he ships them off to other places to die. Or they perish at sea.”
Mary turned to find a woman sitting almost at her feet, her back to the wall. She hadn’t seen her in the shadows. Her clothes were wrinkled, the hem of her skirt edged with dirt, but otherwise, she was remarkably clean given the condition of their surroundings. Her brown hair was liberally sprinkled with gray and braided tightly. A dark crimson scarf covered half of the coronet of her hair and was tied at the nape of her neck. Her face, shadowed as it was, hinted at age, but her voice was that of a younger woman.
“I thought I was the only one here.”
“Sir John rarely allows this cell to remain empty. What is your crime?”
Mary turned back to the window, wondering how to say the words. “They say I killed my husband,” she said finally.
“Are they correct?”
She didn’t turn, but addressed her remarks to the bars. They felt cold and rough to her hands. “I did not,” she said firmly.
“Then I pity you doubly for your innocence. He will find you guilty despite your protestations. Our sheriff believes in rough justice.”
“I’m not guilty,” Mary said, feeling as if this experience was no more than a terrible dream, that the woman addressing her was a talking apparition whose tired-sounding voice foretold a terrible future.
“You don’t have to be guilty to be punished in Sir John’s court,” the woman said. “If you have a brother or father, now is the time to solicit their aid on your behalf.”
“I don’t,” Mary said faintly.
“Someone, then, who might speak a fair word for you?”
“What about you?” she asked, glancing over shoulder.
“If I had anyone I would not be sitting here, calmly waiting for my fate.”
“What is to happen to you?”
“I’m to be transported. That is my sentence for stealing a few apples.”
Mary had heard of Sir John, of course, but up until this moment had never considered that his form of justice might be wrong. For the most part, the good citizens of Inverness appreciated his strict sentences. He ensured that there was little crime in the city.
How could he believe that she’d murdered Gordon?
She’d expected to be judged for the sin she’d committed, for disregarding the rules of the society in which she’d lived, by spending delicious days with a man in a tower. She’d been willing to endure the censure, the talk, even criticism from those who’d once smiled on her in approval. However, she’d never thought to be accused of something as horrible as the death of her husband.
Ever since they’d taken her from Castle Gloom, she’d been afraid, but she’d been able to tamp it down, waiting for the moment when she could face her accuser.
Even that had been taken from her, and she’d never before been so alone or terrified.
Chapter 18
H amish told himself that he was a fool, but censure didn’t alter his course. Instead, he continued on toward Inverness, banishing his fatigue, intent on finding Mary.
If she was going to repudiate him, let it be to his face. Let her tell him exactly why she was leaving. Why? So that he might argue with her? Or attempt to change her mind? Perhaps. But at least he would know why she’d returned to Inverness without a word.
He might even kidnap her, take her back to Castle Gloom, and keep her a prisoner, as Brendan had once accused. He’d seduce her with pleasure until she’d never think of leaving him again.
The journey was surprisingly easy, the road one built by General Wade decades earlier. From time to time, he’d catch sight of an odd hamlet or village, but he skirted civilization, choosing instead to keep to the road.
The time reminded him of when he’d escaped from the Atavasi. The last days, he’d been alone as well. His conscience had nagged at him so completely that it served as his companion. In the end, he’d pushed on toward the horizon, hoping that he’d find civilization. This journey was as filled with
thoughts of his own culpability. He wondered what he’d done to cause Mary to leave him so precipitously.
Yesterday morning, he’d kissed her gently on the nose, almost changing his mind and joining her beneath the covers, rather than going hunting. But the larder was getting empty, and they needed fresh game.
He’d stood, realizing that if he’d retrieved the cot from the room below, he could lash it together with this one, thereby making the bed more spacious. The cannon had long since been moved to the landing, but he glanced around a room to see if there were other pieces of furniture that could be similarly disposed of to make room for a larger bed.
He’d begun to plan. Without being aware of it, the future had slipped into his mind.
He’d given some thought to the woman he’d eventually marry. She’d be as intelligent as Iseabal and as charming as Riona, thinking of his sisters-in-law. He’d never considered where she might live, what nationality she might be. Perhaps he’d thought of returning home to find his bride, selecting her from one of the many women who’d shared his childhood. He’d never thought that she might have loved before, or been a widow. That her nature would be one of stubbornness and pride, or that she might prove to be so fiercely independent.
Or that she might choose a life without him.
“My patients will be missing me,” she’d said a few nights ago.
“They can wait,” he’d said curtly.
“Can they? Perhaps I miss my friends as well.”
He knew he was being arrogant, but he didn’t care. He didn’t like the idea of her choosing others over him. “Who?”
She’d only smiled at his churlishness. “There’s Elspeth. I treat her father for his gout, and her mother for headaches. She’s a good friend, and I’ve missed her. And there’s Betty, my maid. She and Cook fuss if I’m not there.”
Who did he expect she might enumerate? A suitor? A friend, someone she hadn’t spoken of but would mention now? He’d not felt jealousy over a woman since…His thoughts ground to a halt. He couldn’t remember ever feeling jealous before. In fact, he’d teased Alisdair one day, when one of the stonemasons at Gilmuir had regarded Iseabal with more favor than Alisdair thought proper.