The Memory of Her Kiss
Highlander Heroes, Volume 2
Rebecca Ruger
Published by Rebecca Ruger, 2019.
This is a work of fiction. Names, character, places, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Some creative license may have been taken with exact dates and locations to better serve the plot and pacing of the novel.
ASIN: B07XPDQ4ZX
The Memory of Her Kiss
All Rights Reserved.
Copyright © 2019 Rebecca Ruger
Written by Rebecca Ruger
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Disclaimer: The material in this book is for mature audiences only and may graphic content. It is intended only for those aged 18 and older.
Rebecca Ruger
[email protected]
www.rebeccaruger.com
Table of Contents
Title Page
Disclaimer
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
The End
About the Author
Chapter 1
Scotland, September 1304
ANICE LINDSAY COULDN’T remember a time her eyes had ever felt this heavy, the lids pushed lower by some invisible weight. Bowing her head—supposedly in prayer—wasn’t helping, but neither was the ungodly hour.
Her elbow was bumped for the third time, rousing her once again. She sent a weary but thankful glance to her friend and fellow novice, Moira. She lifted her eyes, though not her head, and sent a tired gaze around the small dimly lit chapel, where dozens of her fellow sisters were huddled for matins in the rough wooden pews, their voices hushed and harmonized as they offered their devotions. The stone walls were particularly damp tonight, the odor within like wet leaves upon the cold ground in late fall.
The bells rung at two hours past midnight had rarely caused her such hardship, not since first coming to the abbey so many years ago. She had none to blame but herself, She should have been sleeping, but had been staring out the window instead, listening and watching for any sign of the brave Scottish warriors who were said to be in the area.
She wasn’t sure how anyone else had slept. How could a body find ease and comfort when so much gallantry and excitement might be just outside the window? Sadly, she hadn’t discovered any such thing, and she’d wondered if the abbess had been given false information. But Jardine Abbey sat so very near to the border of England that it was neither unprecedented nor unimaginable that their own heroic Scotsmen might be found nearby; border reivers and the dastardly English themselves were regular inhabitants and travelers in this area, so a Scots’ army presence was not unheard of.
Less than a fortnight ago, Anice had spied out a window from the dormitory some curious night travelers. They’d moved stealthily upon the main road which normally might only lead a person from East Lincoln to Haddington. That same road sent a long drive up to the front doors of the abbey and was the same one upon which several windows of the novices’ chamber looked out. It hadn’t been fear, but rather exhilaration that had sent her scurrying from the dormitory, less than an hour after they’d retired again after matins, to rush into the abbess’s private solar. Barged, is what she’d actually done, as the good Lady Eugenia had rather miserably told her. The abbess hadn’t cared who came or went on that road but had insisted the not-quite-fortressed walls and the very business of this lowly castle would keep them safe. And so it had. None had banged on the door, not reivers or English or Scotsmen, much to her disappointment.
She’d been punished for her insolence, specifically, for rousing the abbess,and had seen extra chores, most unpleasant. Threshing and winnowing in the granary with that miserable one-eyed man, Balfrey had been added to her daily list of duties and even worse, she’d been forced to assume the task of cleansing the abbey privies for five days straight. And this had come after she’d received ten lashes from the leather strap Lady Eugenia quite fondly carried upon her hip.
Perhaps it might have actually been worth it, if she had ever learned exactly who had travelled the road past Jardine. But she’d had only a sinking suspicion it was no more than those bothersome reivers, and this made her disagreeable punishment even more intolerable.
Anice’s arm was suddenly slapped away from her face, where she’d rested her palm to hold up her head. Startled, she yelped and knelt straight. Complete silence surrounded her. She looked guiltily around to find the chapel empty and the abbess, Lady Eugenia, glaring down at her. The lady’s nondescript brown eyes were skinny with displeasure, which was possibly the only expression she could ever recall seeing upon the old woman’s face.
“It would seem that our devotions,” the lady said, her voice sharp, “are beneath you, my child. Are you sufficiently pious that you haven’t need of further virtue? Are the souls who beg our prayers not worthy of your time?”
“Not at all, my lady.” Anice lowered her head, knowing better than to look too long upon the abbess. She would be judged guilty of more impudence, or disrespect, or outright contempt, and the punishment that was sure to come would only be made more unpalatable.
The punishment did come, and it was indeed most repulsive. She’d been dragged out of the chapel and out of the house by the abbess’s thick hand wrapped up in her wimple. She’d been forced to walked awkwardly at the abbess’s side, bent so much like a sickle as the lady’s strong hold upon her hair would not allow for her to stand straight.
She wasn’t so much frightened of the coming price she would pay for failing to perform her solemn duties within the chapel, only more curious which penalty would be inflicted upon her next. Going out of doors, and not toward the center cloister, but to the yard in front of the big gray stone building advised her that she would either suffer more lashes—Lady Eugenia enjoyed public retribution—or possibly she might be subjected to time in the stocks. She hadn’t a preference; the lashes were painful, and the stocks were humiliating, one just as bad as the other, and this she knew firsthand, from many occasions over the last seven years.
It was the stocks, she saw, as the big wooden hinged boards came into view. They sat literally in the front yard, which was actually raised and sloped, as Jardine sat atop a small rise. It resembled a stage, she’d always thought, risen above the audience of any upon the main road. Thus, her humiliation would not begin until sunrise, for while the lone torch, placed into an iron flute that shot from the ground would for certain illuminate her locked within, none might be about at this hour to witness it. The sub-prioress, the mousy Lady Eleanor, had stuck the torch into its frame and stood aside as another prioress—Lady Eugenia’s henchmen, she’d often thought—scrambled ahead with keys rattling to ready the device. The top board was lifted, and the abbess shoved her onto the ground. The grass was tall and cold and damp, and she wondered if she might then have preferred the lashes. Anice didn’t need to be ordered or told what to do. She placed her feet onto the bottom board, setting her ankles just where the half-mo
on was carved out of the wood. The abbess wrested the keys from the other nun and slammed the top board down herself. She winced, always expecting it to chop her feet off, but the groove in which sat her ankles prevented this of course. The top lay flat against her limbs, just where her foot might bend, though there was little space to do so now. The stock was locked again. She placed her hands on the grass on either side of her thighs, aware suddenly of how cool the air was.
She didn’t dare look up at the three nuns looking down upon her, but imagined their expressions showed the usual amount of disdain.
“You are ever an incorrigible child,” the abbess said. “I’d have thought by now to have broken you of that.” And then, speaking to the other sisters, “We must take greater pains if we are ever to see her willfulness and brashness checked.”
And then they left. Without a backward glance, they moved away, fading into the darkness outside the glow of the torch light, returning to the warmth of the abbey.
She wanted very badly to lie down but feared the damp grass would intensify her already tremendous shivering. It hadn’t been more than an hour, and she’d kept her arms crossed and her hands tucked within the folds of her woolen kirtle but felt still the chill rising from all parts of her that did touch the ground, through the layers of her tunic and habit.
With little to occupy her save what her mind might provide, she was left to be tortured by her own thoughts. The would haves and should haves plagued her, as they often did, scolding herself for allowing this to happen to her. Again.
Truth be told, when facing or enduring her punishment, as she had on a rather regrettably regular basis, was when she most often thought of her family. She’d left them seven years ago, had been delivered to the abbey not by her own parents personally, but rather by the neighbor—she couldn’t recall his name, remembered only his gap toothed grin and his annoying carrot-topped child, who’d made the journey upon the back of their hide-laden cart most wretched. She was one of four daughters, not the youngest, but not the comeliest, and so, as she was unlikely to be given to a husband, she was given to the church instead. The other girls, the prettier ones, were likely married now.
While Anice hadn’t particularly noted any sounds about her as she’d sat, she did now notice the lack thereof. She tilted her head, listening. To nothing. While she hadn’t specifically been aware of critters scurrying about the wood across the road or an owl hooting, she was just now aware of complete stillness. Her eyes moved around, but she saw nothing. Behind her was the large stone abbey and before her, at the bottom of the slope, was the well-packed but narrow road. Beyond that, just a thick copse of trees into which she had never ventured.
She released her breath, which she’d held to better listen, and watched it emerge as a plume of white air in front of her face. She shivered and wondered if she might actually freeze to death before morning.
And then she saw, most incredibly, a man standing on the road, looking at her.
GREGOR KINCAID THOUGHT he might be hallucinating. He’d been wounded several hours ago, not gravely, though he knew the hole in his side would need attention, sooner rather than later. Or, perhaps it was a serious condition even now, hence his eyes deceiving him into thinking that across the road, upon that hill, there sat a woman of the cloth with both her feet plunked into wooden stocks. Around her, the bare light of a fading torch showed only a light fog which would settle as morning dew, and further, the gray stone of a three story dwelling.
He blinked again, thinking he must have passed out. He didn’t remember this scene from earlier, when he’d taken refuge in the thicket. He wasn’t concerned with having been separated from the small regiment of the Kincaid army that had accompanied him on this foray. They knew well enough to await him for three days in Haddington, as he would them if he managed to arrive first. He was sorry for the loss of life today, mayhap as many as half a dozen of his men, courtesy of the nagging English who regularly harassed the borderlands.
False information had been their foil and had been the reason they’d been so surprised, first by the actual number of English, more than double his own, and secondly, by their location, behind and not in front of the Kincaid army. But for now, he squinted again into the darkness and stared through the trees and across the expanse of green under the light of the torch. The light was close enough that the white of the woman’s wimple was well-lit and easily identified; he recalled that a nunnery, Jardine he thought it might be, lie somewhere outside of Haddington.
But how barbaric, he thought, questioning not the nun’s offense, but that a house of the church should practice such callous cruelty. He placed his hand again over the wound at his side, deciding it may have stopped actively bleeding, though the woolen hose he’d stripped from his legs and had shoved under his tunic was well-drenched in his blood.
He leaned away from the tree against which he’d slumped hours earlier and came to his feet, with no little amount of pain. Walking would be good, passing out again would not. He had to see for himself what went on atop that hill in the yard of the abbey. He was quite deliberate in his efforts to be quiet as he moved around the brush and trees and stepped out onto the road. He stood for a moment just there, not wanting to startle the small woman, but became aware that she appeared to be looking directly at him. He moved again, his gait ungainly at best, across the road and up the incline. He stopped when still several dozen feet stretched between them.
“Are you a ghost?”
The wimpled head shook back and forth.
Gregor took a few more steps.
“Are you a sinner?” He thought to ask.
She shook her head again, slowly this time. He wasn’t close enough yet to see her clearly, certainly not with the torchlight behind her, putting her face into shadows, but he was made well aware of two things: her large and owlish eyes and her chattering teeth.
He moved again even as his vision began to blur. He stopped and steadied himself, close enough to see the trembling of her lips and indeed most of her tiny body. She appeared not more than a child, those glass-like eyes staring at him with some unnamed emotion. They were large in her small face, framed in that white head covering.
“Should I set you free, lass?”
She pinched her lips together, to stop the quivering or to hold back words, he did not know. She shook her head again, very slowly now, but her eyes had flashed with some bright and then quickly extinguished light. Hope?
“Aye, I think I will.” He took several more steps and stood at her feet, with the stocks between them. She hadn’t protested. He held her eyes. She seemed only to wait.
Gregor withdrew his dagger, not his long sword, and meant only to kneel down close to the wooden beams. But he rather fell onto the ground there, much weaker than he had been only moments ago when he’d first stepped onto the road. He held the dagger with the hilt facing downward and in one strike, had the metal lock separated from the beam. He straightened, still on his knees and lifted the top bar of wood. Her tiny feet slipped out of the stocks and he let the piece fall.
She remained on the ground, tucked her legs under the full skirts of her habit and continued to stare at him. Warily, he thought. He passed a glance over her, and as she appeared otherwise unharmed, he concentrated on rising to his feet again. He stumbled, catching sight of her quick rush to her feet, as if she might assist him, before he caught himself.
“Your cold feet for a swift steed,” he proposed, bothering to brace his feet apart to steady himself. He looked around, wondering where the stables might be.
“I-I don’t have a horse.”
Gregor’s eyes shot back to her at the sound of her voice. Small and soft, almost velvety, it fit her perfectly. “But there be horses somewhere.”
She nodded again, and he thought it a shame that she didn’t use that pretty voice once more. She lifted one hand, pointing a finger to her left, where the abbey’s likely inadequate stables were located.
“Aye, and can you lead the
way, sister?”
She walked ahead of him while Gregor had all he could do to remain upright and following. He’d lost too much blood after all, he guessed, and walking required too much strength and concentration, that trying to formulate a plan was not possible right now.
They finished climbing the hill of the yard, angling around the side of the abbey. He lifted his eyes off the ground to find the nun stopped and waiting for him. He focused on breathing evenly, determined not to lose consciousness now. And then the sister walked back to him. She approached slowly, her steps unsure, her incredibly large eyes showing concern.
She came very close to him, her eyes darting from his face to his abdomen, where his hand pressed against his bloodied tunic at the lower corner of his breastplate. Her hands lifted toward him, as if to guide a wobbly toddler and Gregor felt nausea rising as weakness overtook him. He slumped down onto one knee, amazed he hadn’t fallen onto his face.
She was at his side then. He felt her hand slide a bit under his arm, less trying to lift him as that would have been impossible, but more in an attempt to induce him to rise. It wasn’t easy, requiring plenty of oaths that would turn red the ears of even a hardened warrior, but these couldn’t be helped. Anger, frustration, exasperation all played a role in his outburst but also served to help him first straighten, and then rise completely. The little lass was right at his side, her arm around his waist. His lips thinned and his head swam. His step faltered. He felt the girl push a shoulder into him, just there at his unscathed side, under his arm, to straighten him out.
“How far?”
“Quite far for your condition,” was all she said as they trudged along slowly.
Each step proved ridiculously painful. He knew that his ribs hadn’t been hit, but also realized it was pretty damn close, as with every step it almost felt as if something scraped against them. It was agonizing and nauseating.
The lass talked here and there while they plodded along, mayhap to keep him awake, mayhap to distract him from the pain. “We had been warned just today that soldiers were in the area. I’ve been waiting for years to get just one glimpse of... well, you, I guess.”
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