The Highlander's Bride

by Amanda Forester

  It did not take him long to find a small clearing where the ruts told him the wagon had stopped, but all was gone—not even the horses were left. Marie Colette was nowhere to be seen. He slung himself down in an easy motion and inspected the ground, reading the tracks. His worst fears were realized. Tracks of the fleeing raiders rode off in all directions. Most likely, they had grabbed what they could from the wagon and fled. The wagon itself had also been rolled away.

  Marie Colette had been abducted.

  But which way? What if he could not find her in time? He gritted his teeth against the slither of fear. He must act now and fast. If he was to abduct a lady, he wouldn’t keep her in a cart. He’d get her on horseback and as far away as possible. He picked one of the tracks and raced after it.

  Seven

  Colette thought her day could not get worse. She was wrong.

  The cart rattled, jarring her aching head. Colette put a hand to her head, wishing she could remove her heavy headdress, yet in her current situation, she dared not. She did not feel any blood, which she considered a good sign.

  She attempted to sit up in the fast-moving covered wagon, bumping along, bouncing her on top of the trunks and crates. She needed to get out of the wagon before she was discovered. It was difficult to move while being jostled to and fro atop several large trunks, but she slid herself to the back with the idea of jumping off. With a jerk, the wagon came to a stop.

  The canvas was pulled aside and Colette was face-to-face with the thieves. The men had scarves covering most of their faces, but their eyebrows raised and their eyes widened to find her in the cart. For a moment, all was still. No one said a word. Her heart refused to beat. Then one of the men cursed, breaking the spell.

  “Grab the trunks. Hurry!” demanded a tall man.

  “What about her?” asked one of the thieves.

  “Leave her! They will be after her. Look lively now!”

  The men swarmed around the wagon, reaching in and grabbing the trunks, removing her things.

  “No!” she commanded. “You may not take these things. Stop now! Those candlesticks belonged to my grandmother. Oh!” She was unceremoniously dumped onto her backside when a man grabbed the crate on which she was sitting.

  It took less than a minute for the vultures to pick the wagon clean. Colette could do nothing but watch with fear, horror, and frustration, unable to stop the carnage.

  “Wait! What about me?” A thin man in a stained blue doublet and red hose ran up to the wagon, putting one hand on the back of the wagon and the other around his middle, bending over to catch his breath.

  Though his face was mostly covered, Colette could still see the captain of the thieves roll his eyes.

  “We left you the best part, Clyes. The princess!” The thief mounted in a flash, and he and his men disappeared into the forest.

  A heavyset man lumbered up behind the wiry man. “Did we get us the treasure?” he asked, looking toward the treetops as if riches were going to rain down on him.

  “We got ourselves a princess,” said Clyes, a thin man of objectionable hygiene.

  “She’s real pretty. What are we going to do with her?” asked the large man.

  “I am not a princess,” corrected Colette, feeling the need to join the debate now that her future was being discussed. She scrambled up to a standing position, though she was forced to stoop somewhat due to the canvas covering the wagon. “I request that you return me to my people on the road.” She used her most imperious voice, hoping to impress the two ruffians into doing what she asked.

  “You are not a princess?” asked the large man, disappointment on his face.

  “No.”

  “But your father, he is rich, no?” Clyes asked.

  Never in her life had Colette been asked a more impudent question. She swallowed down a retort. She needed these men to either help her or at least not prevent her from following the ruts of the wagon back to the road. “I have means to reward you both for my safe return to the road.”

  The men exchanged a glance. The thin one nodded. “We will drive you back, my lady.” He gave her a crooked smile. The large one removed his cap and nodded furiously.

  “Thank you.” The men walked around to the front of the wagon, and Colette sank down to sit on the wooden slats as gracefully as she could. Thick curtains hid her from view of the men in front, and she was relieved to have a moment of privacy in which to try to calm herself from the unwanted excitement. At least she was going back to her people. She lost a wagon of goods, but it could have been worse.

  The wagon brushed through thick foliage, rocking over unsteady ground. Since no one was watching, she leaned back on the side of the wagon and closed her eyes for a moment. She had always loved reading about great adventures, but now that she found herself in the midst of one, all she wanted to do was return home.

  The cart came to a stop with a jerk, and she opened her eyes, unsure how much time had elapsed. She pulled herself up and climbed over the back of the wagon, anxious to return to her people, but when she looked around, she realized she was not back at the road but instead in a small clearing surrounded by dense forest.

  She walked around to the front of the wagon and was further surprised to see not two men driving the workhorses, but two men detaching themselves from the harness and no horses at all.

  “They took the horses,” mumbled the big man as an explanation.

  “Where did you take me?” asked Colette, a knot of fear twisting her stomach.

  “You said there was to be a reward.” The wiry man walked up to her, a glint of avarice in his eye.

  “If you returned me to my companions on the road,” said Colette, emphasizing the important part of the proposed deal. “Where am I?” She hoped she sounded less frightened than she felt.

  “You are most welcome to my humble home,” said the thin man with a sweeping gesture to a hovel at the edge of the clearing. The hut was short and squat, dug partially into the ground like a fat mushroom. To say it was humble was to elevate it considerably.

  “Your hospitality is most appreciated, but now I must return to my companions. They will be concerned for my welfare.” She was growing concerned for her own well-being. She glanced around at the trees, hoping her maids and soldiers would burst out at any moment, but she was alone. She had wished many times to have some freedom, but at this moment she would have welcomed being overprotected.

  “Sometimes these rich men, they do not like to pay after you give them what they want, no? They must pay before you return.” Clyes ran his hand through greasy hair.

  She gasped. “You are holding me for ransom?”

  “They make us rich, and then you go back,” explained the large man, as if she was unclear on the concept.

  “You are making a mistake most grave if you do not allow me to return to my people at once,” she demanded, her heart pounding. She considered running into the forest to escape, but in her unwieldy velvet gown and heavy headdress, she could hardly hope to outrun these two men. Besides, she did not know which way to go.

  The large man glanced at Clyes with uncertainty. “Maybe we should give her back?”

  “No!” hissed Clyes in an undertone to his friend, though Colette could hear him plainly. “This is our one chance to be rich. Would you let it slip away?”

  “My guards will come for me,” declared Colette, folding her arms before her as much to protect herself as to keep her wildly beating heart from leaping outside of her chest.

  “They will give us a whole wagon full of treasures, no?” Clyes was telling his partner, not listening to her at all.

  “No! If you do not release me immediately, your only hope is that my father shows leniency in the manner of your death,” she declared, but the men seemed to have fallen under the stupefying prospect of unfathomable wealth.

  “Please do come inside,”
said Clyes, beckoning her toward the hut. It was a bold, or rather foolhardy, decision to take her to their own home, but she supposed thieves were not the cleverest of creatures.

  Colette did not wish to enter the disreputable dwelling, but she had few options. She hoped she could convince her bumbling abductors to release her. It was with some foreboding that she entered the hut, having to stoop down so as not to scrape her headdress on the door frame.

  “Brought you a visitor, I did,” announced Clyes, following her inside along with his friend.

  A woman turned around, small and squat like the hut itself, with black hair sticking out at all angles. “What is it? Who is that?” demanded the diminutive woman in a sharp voice.

  “Never asked her name,” Clyes mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck.

  “You invite some high and mighty mademoiselle into my home and you do not even know her name?”

  “What’s your name, lady?” asked the rotund man without ceremony.

  Marie Colette held herself as high as she could without hitting her head. She paused, waiting for everyone’s attention in the room, and then she spoke with the voice of authority. “I am the daughter of the duc de Bergerac. I have been sent by special envoy from His Grace. Even now his soldiers are in pursuit of me. You will trust me when I assure you that they will find me and will not take kindly to me being held for ransom. I suggest you take this moment to say your prayers since you will most surely not live to see the morrow.”

  Her three captors stared at her. “You stole the daughter of a duke?” The woman’s jaw hung open.

  “They are searching for me now. It will only be a matter of time before they arrive,” confirmed Colette.

  “You are as foolhardy a knave as they come. Why would you bring her here?” The lady of the house raised her iron spoon and came after Clyes with a shriek. He and the large man took flight, though there was very little place to go within the hut, so the three of them ended up running around Marie Colette like some crazed Maypole dance.

  “Calm yourselves!” Colette had intended to put fear into her hosts in order to secure her release, but this madness was intolerable. “If you please, madam. If you would stop running for a moment.”

  Instead of ceasing her hostilities, madam grabbed a knife and brandished it menacingly. “I’m going to cut up your fool self and feed you to the pigs!” she threatened Clyes.

  “But, dearest, we don’t have any pigs,” whined Clyes.

  Colette wondered why, of all the things he could have protested at that moment, it was the lack of pigs he chose to highlight.

  “Madam, is this man your husband?” asked Colette, trying to gain some control of the situation.

  The woman paused a moment but did not lower the knife. “I suppose it is so. We share a bed and I feed him, so I guess that makes him my husband. Though he is a great imbecile.”

  “You have my condolences,” said Colette, much in agreement. “Now if you will simply let me be on my way, I am willing to forget the whole affair ever happened.”

  “On my honor, your duchessness, you be too good to us,” cried the stout madam. Without warning, she dropped her knife and rushed at Colette, throwing herself around her waist and sobbing into the velvet.

  Colette had never been so attacked nor so demonstratively adored. She patted the woman’s head awkwardly, wishing the mistress of the hovel would express her appreciation in some other manner. When Colette was finally able to disentangle herself from the effusive thanks of the sobbing woman, she glanced with trepidation at the velvet gown Mary Jeannette had spent countless hours making. There was no hope of trying to cover the stains. Colette sighed, knowing that not even abduction would save her from Marie Jeannette’s wrath.

  “It is not as bad as you say,” defended Clyes, scratching his grimy hair. “I still think it would have worked.”

  He was silenced by an icy stare from his wife, who returned to wailing into Colette’s skirts.

  “My dear madam, please do calm yourself. I see that you have made an unfortunate choice in husbands, but you still have your lovely home, no?” Colette struggled to find a bright spot in this woman’s drab existence. All this woman had to look forward to was to live in squalor with a fool for a husband. The least Colette could do was to give her some hope.

  Colette took a jeweled pin from her gown and pressed it into the woman’s hand closing the dirty fingers around it. “Now you take this,” she whispered conspiratorially into the woman’s ear. “And you buy with it some pigs. And if your man ever gives you trouble, you go ahead with your first plan.”

  The woman smiled at her and hiccuped, a wide grin gracing her dirty face.

  An inhuman roar ripped through the hut along with the grinding blast of splintering wood as the door itself was torn from its hinges. An enormous man brandishing a large sword stood in the doorway.

  Sir Gavin had arrived.

  Colette knew that Sir Gavin was a large man, but in the small confines of the humble hut, Gavin was a monstrous man. Mountain trolls might have been of smaller stature. He not only filled the entire doorway, but stooping low to enter, he took up at least half of the hut’s space as well. Sir Gavin was built of impressive proportions.

  “Release Lady Mary Colette or ye’ll die where ye stand,” commanded Gavin.

  The two men and the unfortunate woman screamed in terror and all tried to hide behind Marie Colette, reaching out to grab on to her velvet gown, which at this point was a complete loss. The hapless thieves begged her to intercede between themselves and what could only be a giant of mythic proportion.

  Marie Colette prided herself on the ability to remain calm in all situations. But this was one that she never encountered in all her life. In truth, when she woke up this morning, she in no way foresaw that she would, mere hours later, be standing in a squalid hut with three persons of the most dubious character cowering behind her, facing Gavin Patrick with eyes blazing, sword raised, coming to her rescue. Not one of her heroic tales ever described such a ludicrous scene. It was a situation so absurd that a bubble of mirth simmered to the surface.

  Colette tried to contain herself. It would be most unseemly to laugh at a situation of this gravity. After all, she had been abducted. She was being held for ransom in this squalid hut. Never mind the fact that she had essentially already extricated herself from the situation.

  The combination of the raw emotion of the momentous day mixed with the utter ridiculousness of the situation was a force even Marie Colette could not fight against. She desperately stifled a laugh. She giggled. She snorted. And then she laughed out loud until tears ran down her face.

  Sir Gavin Patrick stared. Her two abductors stared. The mistress of the house stared. And everyone took a step back from what could only be a madwoman.

  It only made her laugh louder.

  “Are ye quite well, m’lady?” Gavin now had backed up so far that he was standing outside the hut, his head no longer visible due to the low-hanging eaves of the thatched roof. Her vantage of the headless Sir Gavin was a new point of hilarity and Colette only laughed harder.

  “Perhaps we should leave?” suggested Gavin.

  Marie Colette, without a shred of dignity left, struggled out of the hut, trying to contain her inappropriate mirth. She placed her hands over her mouth, forcing herself into better regulation. She must stop this. She could not go on cackling like some crazed fiend. In her head, she could hear her maids reprimanding her to stop at once.

  She took a gulp of fresh air, hoping it would restore her sanity. “I fear I have gone quite mad.”

  “Aye, m’lady. I fear that as well.” It was the first time Gavin had agreed with her, and only that she was not well in the head.

  “Pay me no heed, I beg you, Sir Gavin. It has been a trying day and I am not myself. I shall soon recover, I am sure.”

  “This day has definitely
been…different.” The corners of Gavin’s mouth twitched up.

  Colette became fascinated with that mouth. It was a fine, wide mouth, supple, and ever moving. What could a man like that do with a mouth like that? Colette pushed aside the question as another manifestation of her current madness.

  “I have never been abducted before,” explained Colette. “But if I ever was, I had supposed the thing would be done with more finesse and less stupidity.”

  The edges of Gavin’s mouth which had threatened amusement now brightened into a wide smile, revealing straight, white teeth. “I see ye’re less concerned with the fact that ye were abducted, but rather that the thing was done poorly.”

  “I am the daughter of a duke. I have high expectations of everyone around me.”

  Now Gavin started to laugh. And with his laughter, she could hardly contain her own. So they both laughed. It was a huge relief; the worry, the nerves, the fear, the grief, the absurd ridiculousness of the entire situation, it all came out in laughter and tears with a man who was not judging her but merely laughing with her.

  Something within her tightly guarded heart cracked open, and she felt the wind on her face and smelled the fragrance of the pine trees around her as if for the first time. She felt as though she had awoken as from a long, dark sleep. She had never felt so alive. And she had never before seen a man more handsome nor more perfectly built than Sir Gavin.

  With that thought, her mirth ended. She was not free to love as she pleased. She was not free at all, for she was bound in marriage to save her people. It would not do to be too alive, to hope for things that could never be hers. It was a most sobering reflection.

  Colette took a deep breath and blew it out again. “We should return. My people, they will be concerned for me.”

  “Aye, m’lady.” Gavin’s laughter died away, but the humor remained in his eyes, and despite everything, she liked it there. She enjoyed laughing with him, sharing something that had more to do with who she was, not what she was. It was refreshing since she had so few interactions that did not revolve around power or position. She knew this moment, for good or for ill, would be one she would treasure.