Highland Temptations: Boxed Set: Books 1-3

by Adams, Aileen

  William recognized it as having belonged to his father.

  Richard never allowed the weapon to stray far from his sight. He tapped the tip against the table, eyes on William all the while. “Dinna make me threaten ye, man.”

  “As if ye would,” William scoffed.

  “Dinna tempt me. You’ve had it coming to ye for many years, and perhaps I’ve been waitin’ for this very day. Ye shall go, ye shall what it is ye need to find, and ye shall return in time for the Christmas feast.”

  “Och, so there’s a limit to the amount of time I can spend away now?” Even as he asked, William rose, knowing he fought a losing battle. As ridiculous as it was, he would ride out in search of the one who haunted him so.

  His chambers were hardly as lavish as those of the laird of the house, but they were the rooms in which he had grown up when his father lead Laird Hugh’s men. This was his home, his world. He could close the door and shut out the concerns on the other side.

  Though it had offered very little comfort as of late, when night after sleepless night had left him walking the floors until sunrise. He’d watched the sky lighten from the window which overlooked the training grounds, watched the straw targets come into view as night turned to day.

  And there was no telling when he would return. That was the most difficult thing to come to terms with. Not knowing when he would rest his head there again.

  Or if he ever would.

  The sun had risen to its midpoint and just beyond, telling him he’d best collect his things and start moving before he lost much more time.

  He’d have to make up his plans as he went along, which was not a method to which he was accustomed. His skill at planning and then turning those plans into action were what made Laird Richard’s guard the strongest, the most feared of those of any clan within two, perhaps three days’ ride of Clan Stuart.

  Only a madman would dare test their forces against such a mighty, highly trained group of men.

  He might at least rest easy knowing he’d done all he could with them, that Richard would be secure during this fool’s errand.

  Yet even as he thought it, while folding his few tunics and trews he could not quite make himself believe it. Yes, it seemed the height of folly, especially to a man such as himself who’d always placed his trust in facts, in hard work.

  But in his heart, where he rarely had time or the desire to venture, there was no denying a pull toward… something. The moment the old crone to whom Innis Munro had sent him announced his quest, he’d known in that unused part of his body that she spoke the truth.

  He was meant to find this woman who’d called to him in his dreams, whose broken cries rang in his ears long after he woke. She never used his name, nor did she express her sorrow or pain in words. She need only pleaded for help.

  Help which, according to the seer and to that deep pull in his heart, only he could provide.

  2

  Drip. Drip. Drip.

  It never ended, that sound. The constant, steady dripping of gray water which crept through cracks in the stone walls above her. All around her. Tiny rivers cutting through rock, always flowing. Moving. Even when she slept, it moved—sometimes waking her from what little sleep she was able to get.

  Which was truly not much.

  Though there was little else to do. Sometimes she wished she could sleep, sleep through it all. Anything was better than hour after hour in a stinking cell, covered in filth. They would not even allow her to wash herself, and the stench coming from her body was enough to turn her stomach and make her gag on the meager bits of food her captor offered.

  Was this what they intended? To grind her soul down until she was little more than a grunting, stinking animal?

  They could wait forever, then, whoever they were. For she would not give them the satisfaction.

  The tiny window cut into the stone wall, very near the top and thus too far for her to reach, at least allowed a small bit of light into the cell. She stood in it, forcing herself to look up into the world outside. Not much was visible—grass, mostly—and a patch of gray sky.

  When she got out, when she was free, she would never take it for granted again. Not even during bad weather, which she had always hated as it meant rough travel.

  She had always traveled. In fact, these last weeks were likely the longest stretch of time she’d spent in one place over the course of her years, outside of winter quarters. Not much sense in struggling through the snow, the driving wind, the icy rain when they might sit by a fire and plan their next movements once the weather turned.

  They’d be holding those meetings without her now.

  As she did every morning, Shana Invermore gathered her skirts before her knees to form a cushion before kneeling in the patch of light. She closed her eyes, clasped her hands before her, and prayed to the same deities her Ma had taught her to pray to as soon as she was old enough to speak.

  Even before she knew whom she prayed to, or why one prayed at all, she had recited the old supplications. For safety along the road, for fine weather. For good health and enough food to eat. For a warm fire, for comfort, for peace. That they might be left alone, that their enemies—everyone, truly—would let them go about their lives.

  These were the prayers she had always offered, to the ancient gods and goddesses. The names flowed easily, but there was one to which she returned again and again. Tara. White Tara. Compassionate Mother. Green Tara. The Great Protectress.

  Protect me. Love me. Embrace me. Grant me strength, Mother, that I might be protectress to my own kin. She murmured this, eyes closed, swaying slightly as the fervent prayers lifted her away from her present state and into something better. Higher. Far away from the dark cell.

  She almost didn’t hear shuffling footsteps approaching. Almost.

  That shuffle was almost as familiar as the dripping water. Her lame jailor. Delivering a meager meal, no doubt, hardly enough to keep her body and soul together. Would the bread have already begun to sprout mold? Would it be hard enough to chip her teeth? There was no telling.

  It hardly mattered, for she would not allow them to see her break. She would not break. Not for anything. Not when the others needed her to be strong.

  “Aye. I’ve yer morning meal.” The old man hardly had a tooth in his mouth, turning his speech into a garbled, spit-filled mash of slurred words. Only time made him easier to understand.

  There was nothing else for her to do but learn to understand him, after all.

  She was not finished with her prayers, however. She kept her back to him, kneeling still, hands clasped. Please help me. Please, Mother Tara, help me.

  When she prayed to Tara, she imagined her ma’s lovely face. The olive skin, the wide eyes as black as her shining, soft, black curls. All of which Shana had inherited. She imagined this when she prayed to the great mother, and this helped make her seem more real.

  “Not gonna speak to me today, is it?” A wooden tray clattered to the floor outside the cell, leaving it on the other side of a row of wooden stakes with barely enough space between them for her slim arms to slide through.

  She had certainly tried.

  Upon finishing her final prayer, she stood and turned to face the lame, old man charged with looking after her. He had lived a long life, many years, all of them etched upon his ruined face. Whenever she came across someone of his advanced years, in such an advanced state of decay, she tried to imagine them when they were as young as herself.

  Imagining this man as young, strapping, handsome made him slightly easier to look upon without wincing. Wincing would hardly improve her situation. “I was praying,” she informed him in a cool voice. “Forgive me.”

  “Ye pray a lot, then.”

  “I do.”

  The man’s faded eyes moved about, looking at the cell and its walls covered in slimy moss. “It’s done ye good, I see.”

  She bit back a retort, reminding herself it would get her nowhere. While he was not a threat—if he dared try t
o hurt her she would snap his neck like a twig—he could shuffle his way to her nameless captor and report on her behavior.

  She might not get bread or water in the evening, or ever again. Even stale bread was better than none.

  “I am still alive,” she murmured instead, holding her chin high. Keeping as much dignity as she could muster, even as she stood barefooted and filthy in the same cell in which she crouched in a corner and answered nature’s call.

  “That ye are, but to what purpose?” Even as he spoke, he worked at the old lock which kept the door closed—she’d tried to break it, had tried just about everything she could imagine to escape, and slid the tray through before closing her in again.

  For such an old man who walked as slowly as he did, his reflexes were quick. She always watched as he did this, hoping to catch a weakness she could exploit.

  “There is always a purpose. I suppose there is even a purpose for you to be alive.” She splashed a bit of the precious water on her hands before picking up the bread. Mercifully, it seemed almost fresh.

  “Why do ye do that?”

  She glanced at him, brows raised in silent question as she gnawed on the bread.

  “Waste yer water on your hands.”

  “I’m trying to clean them,” she answered around a mouthful of food. What were the chances he would bring her something better if she was kind to him? If he trusted her, might he include a bit of meat?

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m not an animal. Do you not wash before eating?”

  He looked doubtful as he studied his hands. They were filthy, of course, the broken nails caked with dirt. She wondered if he had ever washed them at all. And to think, her people were the ones spat upon, viewed as mere animals. Less than human.

  She returned to her meal, what little there was of it. He watched as always, she supposed in case she decided to break the tray apart and use it as a weapon. Otherwise, there was nothing at her disposal but her fists and feet, both of which she would more than gladly use but was unable to with a wall of wooden posts between her and this foul, old man.

  He was not always an old man, though she was willing to wager he’d always been foul.

  “Was this your purpose in life?” she asked, curious and in need of conversation. Even conversing with her jailor was better than sitting alone, in the near darkness, going over and over the moments in which she’d been captured.

  “My purpose? What’s that?”

  “Did you always want to do this? Did you hope to bring food and drink to prisoners?”

  His wrinkled face wrinkled further when he scoffed. “O’course not. Don’t be daft.”

  “What did you wish to do, then?” She sipped her water slowly, savoring it. Fresh, at least, and cold. One of the great tortures of being imprisoned in this hole. Hearing the water’s drip and knowing she could not drink if she wished to avoid agonizing cramps and fever.

  “I didna wish to do anythin’.”

  “Not anything? Not at all?”

  “What do ye wish to do, then? Filthy gypsy such as yourself?”

  Her chest clenched, as did her throat. It was the same whenever she heard that word. How many times it had been hurled at her. How many snarls, screams, how many times had she been spit upon and borne the disgust and hatred of they who felt themselves worthy? Better? Decent?

  She was accustomed to ignoring it, at least. Or pretending she had. “Nay, nay, I asked you first.”

  He opened his toothless mouth as if he were about to make a snide reply. He did that well. Instead, he appeared to think better of it. His face softened. His eyes lowered. His shoulders fell. “I remember wantin’ to care for the horses. Ye know. Break ‘em in. Train ‘em. Me da did that.”

  “I see.” She also saw how his lameness would make that difficult. He could not move quickly enough, or smoothly enough, to be in control of the wild beasts, or get out of their way should they decide to run at him.

  Do not feel sorry for him. Do not feel sorry for him. How her brothers and cousins would laugh at her if they knew what she was thinking just then. How they’d jested and laughed at her all her life for her soft heart. Taking care of wounded animals. Taking care of them, even, using the old ways Ma had taught her.

  She’d never taught the lads, or they hadn’t cared to learn. Hardheaded, all of them.

  Now that she’d learned that the old man had wished to train horses rather than what he did now, her soft heart wanted to pity him. No matter how cruel he’d been. That cruelty was what she needed to recall, even as she pretended to be kind.

  “I have always loved riding,” she confessed. “When I was a wee lass, I would sleep among the horses at night rather than sleeping along with my family. I preferred their company to that of other people.”

  “Doesn’t say much for those people, does it?” Even so, he chuckled. “I was the same. Never cared much for people. Never wished to know ‘em, and they never wished to know me.”

  That wasn’t what she’d said at all, but she clicked her tongue in sympathy. “I know that feeling all too well.”

  “I would wager ye do. Bein’ what ye are.”

  Not who. What. Once again, her blood threatened to boil, but she poured cool reason over it before she could lose control of herself.

  He snickered, unaware of how he infuriated her. “Aye, I suppose I’d hate the world if I were ye.”

  “I have at times,” she confessed in a whisper. Especially when the mounted men, armed with swords and pistols, had taken her away from her kin and thrown her in a cell. Not because they wished to put an end to the raiding they’d been performing—oh, no.

  Because they hadn’t been able to catch the rest of her party and wanted them to come for her in hopes of capturing them, too. There was a price on their heads, on all of them, and the laird of whichever great house she was living beneath wanted to collect.

  If she remembered correctly, she’d heard Manfri and the rest speaking of the Stuarts the morning before the raid took place. They’d been having a time of it, all right, and making a killing night after night while moving during the day.

  Manfri had insisted his baby sister stay behind, at their camp, to keep her safe. Little did he know she’d be taken from her tent while he raided a village, not an hour’s ride from where she’d been waiting for their return.

  “Are ye of Clan Stuart, then?” she asked, hoping to surprise the man into answering honestly.

  And he did. “What of it? We’re a strong clan. Mighty. And your kind thought they could raid lands belonging to Jacob Stuart. His tenants work for him, which means the men and women your kin raided stole from him. You’re lucky they didn’t slit yer throat.”

  “Aye. I’d wager I am,” she whispered. Not that they wouldn’t have liked to try. Not that they wouldn’t have liked to try a great many things. Any number of things to degrade and defile her.

  But they’d decided, and wisely, that leaving her unbothered and spreading the word that they could share her among their men at any time would be more likely to bring her brothers and cousins and friends on the run.

  And it would have at any other time.

  She supposed she understood why they hadn’t come. Why they couldn’t come.

  “I’d best be gettin’ back.” One more look up and down. A cunning old man. She had not given him his due. “As much as I enjoy speakin’ with ye, the laird won’t like me bein’ too friendly.”

  “I understand.” She made a point of looking as pitiful as she could, which, in her state, took no effort. “I shall see you later today, then.” A note of hope in her voice.

  “Aye. Ye shall.” He shuffled away, dragging his lame left leg behind him a half-step. No, he would never have done with the horses. They would have trampled him.

  Perhaps they should have.

  He was not her friend. None of them were, no matter how badly she wished she had one in this desperate situation. And it was getting desperate, no question. For soon, Jacob Stuart
—she had a name for him at last—would grow tired of waiting. For weeks he’d waited, to no avail.

  He or his men would begin to question her soon. It was a wonder they hadn’t already. The old man normally tried to get information out of her, this morning a rare exception when she’d gotten information from him instead. Stuart’s patience had to be running thin by now.

  It was only a matter of time before what was already a terrible situation would become much worse. A pit of waste in the corner would seem like nothing compared to what Jacob Stuart might do.

  3

  The seer had told him to ride south, and so he had.

  For four days he’d traveled, stopping in villages to listen for news in the taverns and inns. Anything of interest, a missing lass, in particular.

  Nothing.

  A fine mist hung over the entire world, it seemed, as William continued the journey south. Mist which hardly helped his spirits improve as he rode to nothing, nowhere.

  The seer must have breathed in too much of the thick, acrid smoke from the bundle of leaves and herbs which she’d fire to during their meeting, either that, or she’d never been sincere. How long had she managed to wait before laughing herself sick at how easily she’d led him astray?

  What would she think if she could see him now, that hideous old crone? His cloak heavy and wet, the cold seeping into his bones? His breath had begun to fog around his head, just another sign of how winter crept up and brushed its icy fingers over the land. Snow would not fall for weeks, gods willing, but this was a reminder of how close he was to that time.

  Never in all his memory had he ever been so miserable. Tired, his bones aching from chill dampness and so many hours on end spent in the saddle.

  The only thing keeping him moving was the faint hope that he’d find her. If she existed, she was in peril which likely grew more serious by the day. She needed him, whoever she was.

  And he needed sleep. His soul needed peace. He considered this a fair trade-off.