A Highland Inheritance (Highlands Ever After Book 2)

by Aileen Adams

  She glanced down at herself again and knew she needed a bath. Problem was, she had nothing to bathe in. No bathtub. No bucket to carry into the tent where she could disrobe and wash. She’d have to tear a gown just to create a washing cloth. She looked skyward, closed her eyes, and counted to five. She could do this. She had to make do. She would have to go down to the riverbank and bathe there.

  Her heart skipped a beat at the thought of disrobing in the open air. She couldn’t risk damaging the one woolen blanket or sheet that Elspeth had sent with Alasdair.

  Glancing down again, she realized that the gown she wore needed washing too. Maybe she would just wade into the river, gown and all, try to clean off as much soot as she could from her gown as she washed her body and her hair. Then, upon returning to the tent, she could remove the wet gown, don one of the gowns that Alasdair had brought, thanks to Beitris and Elspeth, and then hang the wet gown out to dry. She would use this gown, already torn and stained, for her work clearing out the remains of the home, separating stones and timber. What she couldn’t use would go into a separate pile.

  With a soft groan, she turned to walk down to the narrow stream, then paused and eyed the stout stick lying near the base of the tent. She’d take that with her, just in case… for support, for defense against animals, both four-legged or two. Her meager defense would do little against a boar or an outlaw with murder on his mind, but it was better than nothing.

  Despite her hesitance and gazing repeatedly over her shoulder and peering into the woods surrounding her, stopping often to listen for any sounds of intruders, she made her way down to the bank of the stream. She gazed upstream and down, peering into the thickets growing close to the banks in each direction. This area, behind the house where she usually gathered her water, had a small, sandy shoreline extending a short distance before it disappeared into overgrowth and close-standing trees.

  She spied a number of large boulders down near the riverbank downstream and moved toward them, thinking that shadowed space would offer more privacy, just in case. Water bubbled over flat, smooth rocks in the middle of the stream there, slowing the current and splashing gently along the shore, soothing her troubled thoughts.

  She carefully eyed the water swirling around the rocks, then stepped closer, noting the sandy, somewhat pebble-strewn bottom of the streambed closer to shore, but she’d need to step out farther. She decided that if she sat down, legs extended in front of her facing downstream, the water would likely reach her chest, perhaps a little higher. It would have to do. She removed her slippers, her bare feet tender against the pebbles close to shore, and she stepped carefully over dead, crunchy pine needles, scattered twigs and pine cones as she carefully navigated the bank and dipped her feet into the water. She hissed sharply as icy water flowed around the delicate skin of her feet and ankles. She hesitated. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. Unfortunately, there was nothing else to do.

  Taking a deep breath, she exhaled. On her next inhale, hands tightened into fists and gritting her teeth, she stepped farther into the water, allowing it to tug at her gown and calves as she stepped away from the bank. The temperature of the water uncomfortably cold, goosebumps rose on her flesh almost immediately. Before she could change her mind, she took two more steps, arms outstretched carefully at her sides, maintaining her balance against the tug-of-war of the stream’s current. Inhaling and holding her breath, she sat down, biting back a sharp cry of surprise at the cold water as it pushed against her torso, her arms and hands stinging with it. Her muscles tensed as she quickly grabbed a couple of handfuls of sand from the bottom and vigorously scrubbed every bit of exposed skin she could find.

  Teeth chattering, she then took the sand to her gown, but it was difficult to wash as it billowed and floated around her, the water tugging the fabric this way and that. That done, and with one thing left to do, she took another breath, her hands and arms already turning pink with cold, teeth clicking violently as she leaned forward, and dunked her head beneath the water. She jolted upright almost immediately, gasping, mouth open and heart pounding. So cold! A thousand needles of cold stabbed at her scalp, but she took another breath and dunked her head again. Using her fingertips, she violently scrubbed her scalp, allowing her hair to flow loosely with the current in front of her. When she could stand it no more, she lifted her torso and threw her head back, her hair slapping wetly against her back, gasping for breath, shivering even more violently now.

  She managed to roll onto her hands and knees, wincing as her shin bumped against a large stone but slowly stood, arms outstretched, her legs numb as she strode stiffly back to the shoreline. Bending down to grab her slippers from the ground, and with every muscle in her body contracted with cold, she laboriously scrambled along the bank toward the more open shoreline behind the house.

  At the sandy part of the bank, she paused, leaning against a tree to pull a slipper onto each bright pink foot. She quickly threaded her fingers through her dripping hair, trying to wring it out, but her hands refused to cooperate. She gave up and continued to stumble her way up the slope toward her tent. This wouldn’t do. Even in the heat of summer, that water was much colder than she had anticipated, the thought of bathing like that on a nightly basis untenable.

  Hair hanging over her face, her gaze riveted to the ground beneath her, stabbing the ground with her stick, her hands red with cold, her nail beds a shade of blue, she quickly made her way around the back of the tent and toward the entrance, looking forward to nothing more than peeling out of the wet gown—

  “What are you doing?”

  A garbled scream escaped her throat as she swung her head, her wet hair clumping against her forehead, impeding her view of whoever had approached her from behind.

  Without thinking, functioning on pure instinct, she tightened her grip on the stick, and using both hands, swung it in a wide arc toward the dark figure standing behind her.

  She heard a grunt of surprise, saw a flash of movement, an arm lifting to defend himself, and then a heavy thwack as the stick made contact.

  A yowl of pain immediately followed the blow.

  Heart pounding, panic seizing her, she dropped the stick and ran, stumbling away from her tent into the small meadow between the ruins of her home and the path that would take her to the village.

  She had to get away! Could she outrun her attacker? She stumbled, tried to right herself, and then heard a shout, the sound of footsteps behind her, approaching closer, ever closer.

  No! She had to escape! She glanced back over her shoulder at her pursuer at the same moment she felt two arms reach around her waist to grab her torso.

  She screamed again, thrashing her fists, trying to punch the figure behind her, her feet windmilling as those vise-strong arms lifted her from the ground and swung her around.

  She briefly made contact against a shin with her slippered heel. Her erratic moves pulled her off balance, taking her attacker with her as she tumbled to the ground. She landed hard, cried out in pain, the hair flying back from her face, so she got a good look at her attacker as he landed on top of her, staring down at her in wide-eyed amazement.

  Sheriff Ramsey.

  Colin.

  17

  Colin cursed as he fell, Iona’s wild thrashing sending them both to the ground. He tried to protect her from the brunt of the fall, but she was all arms and legs. She screamed as they fell and he landed on top of her in the dirt, both rolling slightly. Panicked, mewling sounds escaped her throat until she made eye contact with him.

  She froze for several seconds, then muttered imprecations while all he could think about was how she felt in his arms—until a knee caught him in the groin. He groaned and rolled away from her, cupping his injured privates, teeth gritted.

  “Oh, no,” she whispered.

  His pain, if not forgotten, was pushed to the back of his mind as he quickly rolled back toward her. “Are ye hurt?”

  She stared at him, eyes wide, her mouth open in horror.
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  “What?” he asked, pulse once again racing, his stomach turning with uncertainty. Had he hurt her? Where? How bad?

  “I just took a bath in the stream!” she groaned, voice heavy with frustration. “Now look at me!”

  He did. She sat upright, her legs sprawled in front of her, hands brushing the still dripping strands of wet hair from her face, leaving smudges of dirt on her cheeks. Much of her gown now caked with dirt. The wet fabric clung to the outlines of her shapely torso, prompting him to stare.

  “Colin! Look what you’ve done!” She held her hands out in front of her, recrimination in her eyes. “Why did you have to scare me like that? Couldn’t you have announced your presence—”

  “Are ye all right?” His own tone frustrated now, he scrambled up from the ground and then reached his hand down for hers.

  For a moment, he thought she might slap it away, but she finally reached out her own dirt-smudged hand and clasped it in his. He almost smiled. For such a slight young woman, that swing of her stick had hit hard, and his left forearm throbbed. He gazed down at the red mark and resulting welt that the stick had left behind and then glanced from the mark up to her face and then back again.

  “I’m so sorry,” she mumbled. “I didn’t know who you were—”

  “Not your fault, I suppose,” he cut her off. “You’re a lot stronger than ye appear.”

  She gave him a look of surprise and amusement. “I’ve told you before that I’m used to taking care of myself.”

  She stood in front of him, arms akimbo, glaring up at him, her hair hanging down around her face, clothes clinging to her body, and while he didn’t doubt the truth of her words, he also couldn’t help a nagging sense of protectiveness toward her. So defiant, so stubborn, but truly, no match for bandits, outlaws, or hatred. He cleared his throat and looked over her shoulder at the darkness of the woods beyond.

  “If you’ll excuse me, I need to change,” she said. She started for her tent. “What did you come here for anyway?”

  He opened his mouth, started once again to warn her not to go traipsing off into the woods by herself, and then changed his mind. “Go ahead and… change.” He paused halfway between the tent and her ruined house. “I’ll wait.”

  She stared at him a moment, and then nodded. Plucking the hem of the gown from the dirt, her slippers coated with the fine, silty dirt near the tent, and muttering under her breath, she ducked into the tent and then roughly pulled the flaps into place, completely shielding her from view.

  He turned toward the ruins of the house and noticed a separate pile of burned timber, what looked like salvageable timber, and some of the loose stones from the foundation, charred and black with soot. He frowned as he stepped closer. What was she up to now? Did she really think that she could build a new house? By herself? He exhaled a long, deep, somewhat patient sigh, a grin turning up the corners of his mouth. Well, if there was any woman who would even attempt it, it looked like that woman was Iona Douglas. Another niggle of admiration for her flowed through him, along with an equal amount of frustration and annoyance.

  “Stubborn woman,” he muttered under his breath.

  “I heard that!” she shouted from the tent, not ten paces away from where he stood.

  He barely squelched a chortle of laughter. He realized that she must be intending to salvage what she could to construct a frame for a new home, probably a small hut somewhat similar to what Endorra lived in. Well, she had courage, there was no doubt about that. Common sense, maybe not so much.

  “So tell me about this treasure that’s supposedly hidden around here on my property.”

  He turned sharply, an eyebrow lifted as she emerged from the tent, her hair still wet but now pulled and tied behind the nape of her neck, wearing a dry gown that was a little short, showing her feet and the tiniest bit of ankle. The dress must have belonged to Beitris, who had the same frame as Elspeth and Iona, but was several inches shorter. She walked toward him, barefooted, looking like some woodland nymph and once again, his heart skipped a beat as she approached.

  “Ye mean the legend of the treasure?” He shook his head. “I already told you, it’s a myth. It’s been a myth forever, passed down for at least two generations in the area.”

  “And nobody’s really gone looking for it?”

  He shrugged. “Hardworking farmers don’t have the time for such silliness. Of course, youngsters—even I—have gone searching through the forests around here, but not too seriously. Those woods can be dangerous, running with wild boar, outlaws, not to mention less than friendly people who own some of the land out here.”

  “Like Dougal Craig?”

  “Aye, like him, although when I was a lad, he didn’t live here. He’s only been here for about seven years now, like you, inheriting the property from a relative.”

  “You think he’s hunted for the treasure?”

  Colin frowned. “Now why would I know the answer to that?” She lifted an eyebrow, crossing her arms over her chest as she peered at the ruins and what she had started.

  “You’re not friends?”

  He shook his head. “Dougal Craig doesn’t have any friends. He stays to himself.”

  She appeared to give that some thought and then nodded. “So what’s the story?”

  He bit back a groan and turned toward her, likewise crossing his arms over his chest. “According to the myth, marauding Norsemen terrorized the seas and the lands of England, Scotland, and Ireland, including the outlying islands to the north and south of us. The story goes that they’d been making their way through the North Sea from Amsterdam when a storm pushed them westward toward the eastern coastline of Scotland. The damaged ship managed to make its way into a small harbor that in turn fed into a river that took them farther inland, where they hoped to find the timber they needed to make necessary repairs.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “I don’t have the small details, lass. Remember, it’s just a story, something to tell the children on a cold winter’s night in front of a fire.”

  Iona said nothing, but merely gestured for him to continue.

  “Supposedly, they were carrying gold ingots, coins, and jewels that they had robbed of other marauding pirates—”

  “From where? Who are these other marauders?”

  Colin closed his eyes and then opened them, striving for patience as he gazed down at her. “I don’t know, Iona. Maybe other Norsemen? Maybe pirates from other countries? Who knows?” He shrugged. “I’m just telling ye the story as it was told to me.”

  “Who told you the story?”

  He frowned. “I don’t remember, lass. It was a long time ago.”

  “Was it your parents?”

  He shook his head. “My parents died when I was just a lad.”

  “Oh,” she said softly. “I’m sorry.”

  “Regardless of how these Norsemen or whoever they were got the treasure, the legend goes that they were unable to make the necessary repairs to their ship. So what were they going to do with their treasures as they made their way overland to the coastline, probably prepared to steal a ship from some harbor? They could try to make it north to Inverness, or even farther south to Edinburgh or Glasgow, but the treasures were heavy, and they couldn’t carry it very far.”

  “But this part of Scotland, it’s truly in the center of the country, isn’t it?”

  “Close enough, and again, I didn’t say that the myth made sense. Sounds illogical to you, doesn’t it?” Without waiting for her to answer, he gestured toward the landscape around them. “Look at those mountains to the north, the woods, and forests to the east spreading to the horizon. And to the west are rivers, bogs, lakes, the terrain rough and hilly, and that’s even before ye get near the rugged coastline. What were they doing out here? Where did they come from? Where did they think they were going? They were marauders. Enemies. They had a fearsome reputation of being brutal, taking what they wanted when they wanted it. Heavily armed and in a strange land, it ha
rdly makes sense that they would pass through here, doesn’t it?”

  Iona gazed around the landscape, a thoughtful frown tugging at her brow. He sensed her interest, her mind trying to imagine what had happened years before she was even born. Curiosity prompted her to tilt her head, one raised eyebrow, gazing with focus on every aspect of the land around them.

  She was interested, he had no doubt, based on her questions.

  “And then what?”

  “What do ye mean?”

  She turned to him. “Well, what happened to them? After they supposedly buried the treasure somewhere around here… in this valley somewhere perhaps, in those woods behind my house butting up against the mountains rising to the north, or over there, in those woods that seem to stretch on forever?”

  He shrugged. “What happened to the marauders was not part of the story.”

  “Do you think they ever made it back home? Or did they die out here, their bones bleached by the years, scattered by wild animals until there was nothing left of them?”

  Her voice had taken on a wistful, wondering tone.

  He’d never thought about the legend overmuch, believing it nothing more than fanciful thinking. Nevertheless, especially when he was younger, he and a few other people believed that there was some truth to it. He gazed down at her, still staring off into the distance.

  “What are ye thinking?”

  She looked up at him and glanced away, back toward the forest stretching into the distance. “I’m thinking that if the story is true, and they found themselves out here for whatever reason, they would’ve had to mark the spot somehow. Nothing terribly obvious, but something that would guide them back to where their precious treasure awaited them, don’t you think?”