by Lauren Royal
"There may be no man willing to take you to bride, you stubborn lass."
"Crivvens! Be off with you!" She swatted at him playfully. "You know what Mam used to say."
"I cannot wait to hear this one."
"Ha freens and ha life."
"Good friends make a full life," Cameron murmured.
She locked her gaze on his. All she had left to love were Cameron and Leslie.
She would not lose either.
"You're a fine friend, Cam. The best. Leslie will fare well in our hands."
CHAPTER FOUR
Hurrying into the Edinburgh room she and Cameron had taken overnight, Caithren opened her satchel to add the ribbons she'd just bought.
Mrs. Dochart, the chaperone Cam had chosen, clucked her tongue. Her three chins wobbled, and one foot tapped against the bare, wood-planked floor. "What took you so long, lass?"
"I'd wager you five to one she got lost on her way back," Cam told the woman with a grin. "What happened, Cait? Did you go to Whiteford House instead of White Horse Close?"
"Worse," she muttered. She tied two black ribbons on the ends of her plaits, then slipped the rest into the satchel. "I was wandering around Brown's Close. I remembered it was a color, but forgot which one." She fished out her money pouch and added the coins she'd received as change. "And I set down my hat, then couldn't find it."
Cam laughed. "How is it that anyone as efficient as you can be constantly misplacing her hat?"
She sent him a scathing look. "They're just hats, not all that important. I usually have much more pressing matters to worry about. The Widow MacKenzie's health, or the proper time to shear the sheep."
"We shall have to advance our schedule by half an hour from here on out." Mrs. Dochart brushed at the mustard-colored cloth that laced over her pillowish bosom. "One cannot be late when the public coach is running." Her beady black eyes honed in on Caithren's open satchel. "What have we here, lass? Men's clothing?"
When Cait went to shut the bag, Cameron nudged her hands aside and pulled out a couple of garments. "Breeches? A shirt?"
"I may ride a horse at Scarborough's. Adam went there for hunting, aye?" She pushed him away and stuffed the clothes back inside. "I'm not used to riding in skirts."
The chaperone pursed her lips. "You're off to England, lass. Not the wilds of Scotland." She bundled up in an ugly mud-colored cloak that reached to the floor, covering her uglier calico skirt. Caithren thought she looked like a lumpy brown mountain. "Women in England ride sidesaddle, garbed in riding habits."
Cam snatched his woolen plaid off a hook on the plastered wall, wrapped himself in it, and jammed his hat on his head. "Mrs. Dochart's right, sweet. You won't be on your own land where you may act as you choose and none will say nay. Those Sassenachs are civilized." He pronounced the word with more than a modicum of distaste. "I'll tote the breeches back home for you."
"I want to bring them." Cait took tiny framed paintings of Da and Adam off the table and snuggled them on top of the clothing. She shrugged as she fastened the closure. "Whether I'll wear them or not remains to be seen."
While she donned her own tartan wrap, Cam hefted the satchel. "Bring what you wish. You're the one who has to carry it." He handed her the bag, failing to hide his amusement when she strained under its weight.
Squaring her shoulders, Caithren followed Mrs. Dochart from the room and down two of the five narrow flights of stairs before Cameron caught up and took the satchel from her. "I'll miss you, Cait."
She managed a brave smile. No matter what she'd said last week in Da's study, it was a scary thing to be going to England alone. "I'll miss you, too. But I won't be staying in Pontefract long, not with Adam off to London for that wedding. I cannot believe I had to wait a whole day just to leave here."
Cameron laughed. "My impatient Cait. The coach runs naught but once a fortnight." He pushed open the inn's door. "You were lucky, sweet."
Caithren touched the old emerald amulet she wore on a chain about her neck—her good-luck charm. She sighed as she stepped into the gray Edinburgh day. A persistent drizzle kept the cobblestones wet and shining. Canongate teemed with coaches, horses, and humanity, and Holyroodhouse loomed in the background, tall and imposing.
It was as different from peaceful Leslie as she could possibly imagine.
She drew her blue and green plaid tighter around her shoulders. "I can only hope there are no more delays, or I'll miss Adam for certain. Then I'll have to go all the way to London." She paused for a breath. "I'd prefer not to even consider that possibility."
"Me, neither." Cam chuckled as he handed her satchel to an outrider and watched him heave it onto the coach's roof. "I cannot imagine you making it all that way without getting lost."
Mrs. Dochart paused on the coach steps. "Worry not on that account, lad. I'm goin' all the way to London, and if need be I'll make it my business to see she gets there on time and in one piece. That's what you hired me for, after all."
Cait watched the woman's ample rear disappear into the coach. "God alone knows how I'll survive the eight days to Pontefract with that old bawface, let alone nine more to London if need be. Already I cannot abide her, and I only met her this morning."
"She's exactly what you need, sweet cousin. I hired well." Cameron carefully counted eight pounds to pay the two women's fares. "I can only pray Adam will do as well finding a chaperone for you on the other end." He glanced at the slate sky, then drew off his hat and settled it over her plaits. "Here, I don't want to see you go hatless."
She looked up at the plain brown rim, then grinned. "Do you think I look bonnie?"
"Oh, aye." His eyes lit with humor. "A man's hat suits you." His expression sobered as he rooted beneath his plaid, then pressed a pistol into her hands. "And I want you to take this as well."
"Da's gun?" It felt heavy and vaguely menacing, the dull metal pitted, the wooden grip worn smooth from years of use. "But why?"
"I don't trust the English. Short of accompanying you myself, I'd at least send you with some protection."
"But I don't know how to use it."
He handed her a heavy little pouch and a flask of gunpowder. "Pour a wee smidge of powder into the muzzle, then wrap a cloth patch around a ball, ram it—"
"Nay, that wasn't what I meant. I've seen Da load this pistol hundreds of times. But I've never shot at anything, Cam."
"Damn, I wish I'd known that. I would've practiced with you." He took back the pouch and flask, hesitated, then reached beneath her plaid and stuffed them into her skirt's deep pocket. "Take it anyway. You're a bright lass, Cait. If need be, you'll figure out how to use it."
Slowly she slid the pistol into her other pocket. The weight of it did make her feel somewhat safer. And she'd seen Da shoot it often enough; she reckoned she could do it if she had to.
"Take care of yourself, Cait." Cameron leaned to kiss her cheek.
She blinked back the tears that threatened, lest her cousin see them. Thankfully he couldn't see her heart racing in her chest, or tell that her stomach rebelled at the mere thought of traveling so far with naught but a stranger for company.
She forced a smile. "I'd better go before the old bawface starts in yelling at me."
With a laugh, Cam helped her up the coach steps.
CHAPTER FIVE
"Damn, it will take three days to cover Cainewood in this bloody creeping carriage. Pass me that journal, will you?"
"Clever change of subject." Kendra handed Jason the leather book and one of the pencils made from the graphite mined on the property. She hitched herself forward, frowning at him seated across from her in the carriage. "You're not well enough to go. It's been barely more than two weeks."
"I'm not waiting much longer." He flipped open the estate journal and made a note to have the Johnsons' roof rethatched. "The reward I posted isn't bringing in Gothard. I've killed an innocent man, thanks to him."
"Thanks to Gothard? It's yourself you're blaming." As usual, Kendra was too observant for his comf
ort. "Someone else is hurt, and naturally, it's all your fault."
Ignoring her sarcasm, he scribbled reminders to buy another bull and see that Mistress Randall's spinning wheel was repaired. "Not hurt, Kendra—killed. And poor Mary fares no better. It's a wonder she still breathes." The attack on Clarice and Mary might not have been premeditated, but the episode at the Market Cross proved the brothers were cornered. Dangerous. He rolled the pencil between his hands. "I'd have left already if only I had some clue to the Gothards' whereabouts. They seem to have disappeared."
"They'll resurface. And the reward you've posted will ensure you'll hear of it."
"When?" He banged the journal closed and slammed it onto the seat. "When will I find the whoreson who made me kill an innocent man? How many others will die before he's caught?" His fists bunched between his spread knees. "And who died at my hands? The least I can do is send condolences to his family, make some reparations. Where the hell is Ford?"
Kendra stared at him. "He's working on it," she said carefully.
Her pale green eyes looked so troubled. He consciously relaxed his jaw and, with a sigh, reached to put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry. I don't know what's come over me." He glanced out the window at the peaceful fields of Cainewood, struggling for the calm that usually came to him so easily. "I feel so damned powerless."
Kendra's gaze followed his and caught what he'd missed in his blind fury. "Look, he's back." She leaned to watch her twin gallop up the lane.
Jason knocked on the roof to stop the carriage and threw open the door. "News from Chichester?" he asked. "Do we know who I killed?"
"No." Breathless, Ford shook his head. "Whoever he was, his companions bore him away without so much as reporting his identity. That's not what I rode out to tell you, though." He swept off his hat, dragged a hand through his wavy brown hair. "There's a stableman waiting to see you. At home. Two of your horses have been stolen."
A hard ball of anxiety hit Jason in the stomach. "Not Chiron?"
"No. Pegasus and Thunder."
"Thank God for small favors."
Although he was relieved his favorite mount had been spared, he still cursed the slow carriage a hundred times before it finally rolled over the drawbridge and through the barbican into Cainewood's grassy quadrangle. A man waited on the wide steps that led to the castle doors, cap in hand and a crude blood-stained bandage tied around his head.
With an agility that wrenched his shoulder and made him wince, Jason leapt from the carriage and made for the double oak doors. "Porter, come in, will you?" He gestured the stableman into the entry.
The man frowned and touched his fingertips to his forehead.
"Come in," Jason repeated. "You're no longer bleeding. And these floors have seen their share of blood through the years, in any case."
With obvious reluctance the man climbed the steps after Kendra and Ford. Staring up at the slim pillars that supported the stone hall's vaulted ceiling, he seated himself gingerly—not in one of the carved walnut chairs that Jason indicated, but on one of the iron treasure chests instead, probably figuring it would be easier to clean.
Jason followed Porter's awed gaze as it swept the entry, taking in the intricate stone staircase, crowned at intervals with impressive heraldic beasts. "Who?" he asked impatiently. "Who has stolen my horses?"
The man dragged his gaze back to Jason's. "Those men, my lord. The brothers. The ones on the broadsides."
"The Gothard brothers? In stark daylight?" Jason's jaw dropped open in astonishment. "Right from under our noses?"
"They knocked me out." Slowly Porter shook his injured head. "I'm sorry, my lord. I didn't hear much, and I couldn't seem to move."
"What did you hear?" Jason crouched at the man's feet and peered into his apprehensive eyes. "Anything. Anything you can remember, I want to hear it."
The groom fiddled with the cap in his hands. "The one was saying he didn't want to take the horses." He set the cap in his lap. "I couldn't hear what the other said."
Reeling with confusion and frustration, Jason touched the stableman on the knee. "Anything else?"
"They did mention another man's name. They were headed to Lord Scar—" He stopped and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. "I cannot remember," he said at last. "Lord Scar-something. He said his brother was entitled to whatever this other lord has. And they were going to take the horses and go get it."
"Gothard." Jason stood and cursed under his breath. "Cuthbert Gothard, the Earl of Scarborough. Why didn't I think of that connection?"
"It's a common name," Ford said. "You had no reason to think the Gothard brothers were connected to Lord Scarborough."
But he should have. It was his job to eliminate any threat to his village. "I could have sent a letter of inquiry to Scarborough, asking if they were relations and what he knew of their whereabouts." He paced the three-story chamber, his footsteps echoing off the vaulted stone ceiling. "Now it's too late—the brothers are on their way already." He paused midstep. "If I hurry, maybe I can reach Pontefract before they do and give Scarborough fair warning. Then lie in wait."
"Lie is right." Kendra slanted him a look of utter disbelief. "You'll end up lying in the road somewhere. You'll never catch them if you're riding in a carriage, with them on the backs of your fine horses. And you cannot ride Chiron such a distance in your condition."
Hadn't his father told him to stand up for what he believed in? Even without his personal responsibilities, common decency would demand he warn the earl.
"I can ride Chiron, and I will." He turned to Porter. "I thank you for a job well done. They'll doctor you in the kitchen. Tell Ollerton I said you may have the day off."
"Thank you, my lord." Porter stood and bowed, but Jason's attention was already elsewhere.
"Ford, ask Claxton to bring a portmanteau to my chamber. I'm off for West Riding."
"No, you're not!" Kendra ran after him up the wide stairway and jumped ahead of him as he entered his chamber. "You were shot two weeks ago, for God's sake!"
Shouldering her out of the way, Jason strode to his chest of clothes to choose a few of his plainest shirts. "It's not serious; the surgeon said so himself. The first days found me groggy from the laudanum, and I've let you coddle and care for me since. But now the bastards have stolen my horses, and I've a lead where they're headed. Nothing you say will keep me here. Lives may be at stake, and apparently, for reasons I cannot fathom, I am involved."
Ford came in with Claxton, who had brought the portmanteau and moved to pack it. "This is no ordinary journey," Jason told him. "I'd best choose my wardrobe myself."
His manservant blinked. "Then I shall go ready myself for travel."
Jason shook his head. "I go with no valet, but alone, dressed as a commoner. If Gothard thinks I'm dead, it makes no sense to call attention to myself."
"Alone, Jason?" Kendra railed as Claxton left the chamber. "Who will care for you?"
He walked to the bed, opened one of the two leather bags, and tossed in the shirts. "The shoulder doesn't pain me much," he said, stretching the truth, "and there's no sign of infection." That at least was fact.
And if his siblings were looking at him as though he'd gone around the bend, so be it. He would do what was expected of him. What he expected of himself.
Kendra pulled the shirts back out and folded them neatly. "You should have let Claxton pack."
"I may be surrounded by servants, but I'm capable of caring for myself." Bending over his chest, he selected two fine lawn shirts and a snowy cravat, depositing them into his sister's outstretched hands. He threw open his tall, carved clothes press and took a dark blue velvet suit from a hook. Three pairs of his plainest breeches and a couple more workaday shirts found their way into his bag. The boots on his feet would do.
"Geoffrey Gothard must be stopped." Jason paused in his packing to gaze out the diamond-paned window. In the sunshine beyond lay his land, his people. "I cannot face my own villagers until it's done."
; "You sent broadsides near and far," Kendra argued. "It's common knowledge Gothard is a wanted outlaw. For the hundred pounds you've offered—"
"—that MacCallum woman will see it done," Ford finished for her.
"Emerald MacCallum? That fabled Scot who wears men's clothing and carries a pistol?" Jason blinked and dragged his gaze from his land back to the dim room. "Don't tell me you've fallen for that claptrap. A woman tracking outlaws for the reward—why, you'd have to be maggot-brained to believe such fancies—"
"Then someone else will see it done." Kendra crossed her arms.
Jason could feel his face heating. Part of him agreed with her, but the expectations he'd been raised with overrode her cool logic. "I cannot wait for someone to see it done. Since King Charles abolished Cromwell's Major General districts, there's no central authority of any kind." His sturdiest stockings joined the pile of clothing. "For God's sake, didn't you see it with what happened in Chichester? A man was killed, and no one even knows who he was."
"Charles did well to abolish the districts," Ford protested. "Their main activity was to tax us Royalists." He raised a finger to make another point, then shook his head as though realizing this was not the time for their old argument. "Jason, think about what you're doing."
"I've thought of little else. England has never seen such lawlessness." Jason paced the red and blue carpet, snatching up an ivory comb and his shaving kit as he moved past his dressing table. "There's no provision for passing vital information from one county to another. Depending on a reward offer—someone's greed—in order to see this man put away…no, I cannot do so."
He dropped to sit on the bed, fighting to marshal his temper. "I killed an innocent man. I won't able to live with myself until Gothard is behind bars, never to murder again. And I'll hear from him just what he thinks my part is in this debacle."
Kendra came to stand before him. "I've checked the church's birth records, and, contrary to popular belief, your middle name is not 'Responsible.'" She smiled, a gentle smile that tugged at his heart. "Gothard is gone from this area—you can be sure of it. You're injured. You have people here, people who need you. And family. Jason—"