Dreamer (Highland Treasure Trilogy) (36 page)

“I said, I love you, Cat!”

He watched the way her magical eyes
rounded--her full lips parting to say something but then saying nothing. The
way her perfect face shone with the warmest glow he could ever imagine existing
this side of heaven. 

He leaned down to kiss her lips,
but she pulled back slightly. “What did you say?”

“I love you, Cat. I have for a long
time. ‘Tis just that I’ve been so ignorant...about so many things. Why, I...”

She kissed him with all the passion
in her soul, and John Stewart was the one left breathless a moment later,
standing and staring vacantly at his wife.

“You were saying?” she cooed
mischievously.

“I was saying?” he replied vaguely.

“So, now ‘tis you who are
forgetting your words.”

Rather than denying it, he lifted
her off the ground and hugged her slender body tightly against his.

“And I suppose this kind of
persuasion is something else that you plan to steal from me.”

He quieted her words with another
kiss. “Aye, I can steal...nay, I will learn whatever I can from my perfect wife.”

She nestled against him
contentedly, but only for a moment, before her gaze darted to Tosh, who was
sitting up, woozy but clearly conscious, against the wall of the bluff.

“Oh!” she blurted out, trying to
break away. “Tosh! Did you see him?”

“Aye, I checked on him while you
were sending your slithery friend on his way.” He held onto her hand and they
made their way past the bound prisoners huddled together on the ground. “He has
a good lump on the side of his head, but as far as his wound, the bleeding has
stopped. He’s had worse. You do not get a face like his tending sheep. He’ll be
back to his old self in a few days, though I do not know that he’ll survive the
knowledge that he spent the entire battle under the protection of the lasses
he
was supposed to be protecting!”

“I saw Adam of the Glen.”

“Aye, ‘twas my brother, indeed,
fighting beside me.” Athol’s smile disappeared as he turned a sharp glance on
Catherine. “But how is it, wife, that you recognized him?”

She patted his arm soothingly.
“‘Tis a long story, my love. And one that I’ll be happy to give you in
elaborate detail, once we are in dry clothes and sheltered somewhere.”

Just then, Athol saw Adam come up
from the horses with a very bright-faced Susan on his arm. Looking at the
protective way that Adam had wrapped his arm around Susan, Athol frowned and
then shrugged. “I can see that there is something else, as well, about which
you’ll need to be enlightening me.”

“In good time, husband. I promise
you, there will not be a secret left between us when I’m done telling you all I
know, including the reason why these gentlemen wanted to kidnap me and take me
back to England.” Catherine again patted him gently on his arm and whispered. “But if you’d like to keep my company, I’m going to go and fuss over some of your wounded men.”

Together, they moved to a group of
warriors by the fire. Thankfully, none of his men had been seriously injured,
and in a moment, she was busy wrapping slashed arms and shoulders as Athol
looked on.

“‘Twas the most amazing thing,
John,” she said. “You were not here, but I swear I could sense you coming
through the night...”

She continued to talk, but John
Stewart, the fourth earl of Athol, found himself drifting off into a land of
dreams. To a place where the sky was blue, and the bounty of the Scottish earth
reflected the happiness in his life. He saw himself walking through a glen with
Catherine on his arm. She shone with the brightness of the sun. She was holding
his hand against her swelling belly, acquainting him with their bairn.

He then saw himself holding her
high in the air, her beautiful face and silky hair cascading around them, the
sun gleaming through the ebony locks. And then, tumbling into the soft grasses
and heather, they held one another--their tender lovemaking a sign of the
longing, the affection, the love that would last as long as the Highlands itself. 

Her voice came softly through the
vision.

“You’re daydreaming!”

He smiled into Catherine’s midnight
blue eyes.

“Aye.”

*****

The oak door of the cell swung open
heavily, and the man hurriedly stepped into the dark chamber.

“Get up, monk! Get up!” The Deputy
Lieutenant moved toward the huddled body of his prisoner. The man was clearly
broken. “I’ve decided to have mercy on you and give you another chance to serve
the king.”

A low, hoarse chuckle escaped the
monk’s throat, quickly becoming a rumbling cough.

Sir Arthur gave a hard kick to the
man’s lanky body, doubling the monk over in pain and eliciting more hacking
coughs. Removing the man’s shackles, he cuffed the cleric behind the ear and
backed away, tossing them to the side.

“Get up!”

“You had the abbot killed.” The
monk pushed himself up and looked toward the Deputy Lieutenant. “You were a
fool not to believe him when he said he knew nothing about the Treasure of
Tiberius.”

“I still say he lied. You are all
in this together--all you monks! You’re all liars. You’re all filthy buggers
and liars.”

“And you are as good as dead.” The
monk announced, slowly pulling himself onto his knees, moving even more slowly
to his feet. “I heard the jailers talking. I’ve even spoken with them. They
said that word went immediately to the king. They said that men from the king have
arrived this very day.”

“I know nothing of this nonsense.”
At the sound of some commotion down the hall, the Deputy Lieutenant glanced
nervously in the direction of the open door. “Those men were impostors! Court
idlers. I take my orders only from King Henry himself. We’re going. Move.”

“But you know, now, that the abbot
was an uncle to Anne Boleyn--the king’s new wife. Did he neglect to tell you
that? Did these ‘idlers’ tell you, before you killed them, that the king has
ordered your head on a pike for killing a member of his wife’s own family?”

“The fool could have talked!”
Courtenay blurted out. “He simply refused to say anything of the treasure.”

“What treasure is that? the king
might ask,” the monk taunted. His eyes were burning black slits. “I can hear
him now. ‘Whom have you been serving, Sir Arthur, since we have not heard so
much as a whisper about any treasure? Tell us, lackey, what you’ve been up to
and what is this fortune you kill our uncle for.”

The sound of shouts could be heard
in the manor yard.

“Move your lying carcass, monk! We
are leaving
now
!”

The monk raised himself to his full
height and turned fully toward the king’s deputy. In the darkness of the cell,
all Sir Arthur could see for a moment was a light burning in the depths of the
man’s eyes, like a light shining at the bottom of a grave. Courtenay’s mouth
fell open.

“You are finished, Sir Arthur. This
is the end. The last map, the one you tried to keep from me, pointed you to
your final resting place. You were just too stupid to understand the power--the
force of Tiberius.”

The king’s deputy shoved hard at
the man to move him along. But surprisingly, despite the days of torture he had
undergone, the monk didn’t move an inch.

“Get moving!” he snarled. “My men
will be bringing Catherine Percy back to England any day now, and between you
and me and what we force her to tell us, we will need no king--no country.
We’ll be rich enough to buy our own kingdom. We--”

As the dagger pierced the wall of
his chest, the Deputy Lieutenant dropped his head and stared with a look of
sick surprise at the hilt of dagger protruding from his doublet. As he looked,
a dark colored stain, almost black on the deep green velvet, began to spread
out in a widening circle down over his belly. Sir Arthur choked, sputtered, and
looked up into the face of death.

“How...why?”

“I told you this was the end!” the
monk whispered. “They have always been with me. ‘Twas easier still to gain my
freedom once your treachery to the king became known. Your own men gave me the
dagger, Sir Arthur. They’ll plead that they killed you in an attempt to save
the king’s messengers.”

“The treasure...treasu...” Arthur
clung to the man’s arm as he sagged to the floor.

“There was never a treasure for
you, Courtenay. While the Treasure of Tiberius was in our possession, we worked
for centuries to protect its secrets from the likes of you. And we’ll continue until the Second Coming, if we must, to find it again and keep it safe from
man’s evil and from the greed that drives him to it.” The monk pushed the
king’s deputy to the floor and drew out the bloody dagger. He looked directly
into the man’s grimacing face. “You have little time left. Prepare your
answers, sinner. The lies that you use on your king in this world will not fool
the King of the next.”

Stepping around the twitching body
of the dying man, the monk moved to the open door where he saw a tall soldier
approaching the cell.

 “‘Tis done.” Handing him the
dagger, the cleric grasped the soldier’s arm and spoke in a low voice to him as
they moved off down the corridor.

With Sir Arthur Courtenay, the
king’s Deputy Lieutenant dead, and with the treasure still out of their reach,
the monk knew he would need another like him to aid in the search. Perhaps,
though, not someone quite so greedy.

He sensed already that his efforts
in the Highlands would prove fruitless. Though his fellow monks had followed
Catherine Percy into hiding, he knew that their emotional ties to her were
great. No doubt, their loyalty toward the young woman and their devotion to the
pursuit of the Treasure of Tiberius were in conflict. Otherwise, they would
have returned by now.

   But he had no doubt that
Courtenay was mad, thinking that his own men could steal Catherine Percy from a
castle and a powerful husband in the Highlands. Nay, capturing or even
questioning Catherine Percy was probably no longer a viable option.

But there were still Laura and
Adrianne, still unmarried and still quite vulnerable. Aye! There were still
many opportunities left.

He would simply need to be more
vigilant!

Joanna MacInnes Kerr knew that her
grandmother’s death was near. The old woman had awakened one night and told her
that the angel of death was standing by the window. After suffering through the
deaths of a husband and her three sons, Lady Agnes MacInnes was ready, at last,
to join them in the next world.

Her grandmother had also told Joanna that she had a single dying wish. Almost a year ago, she’d asked a favor of their friend,
the diplomat Ambrose Macpherson. She’d asked the Highlander to go to the king,
and then to England. She’d asked him to use whatever method he must to
negotiate the freedom of a man in prison there. A man named Adam Stewart.

Her dying wish was to see Adam
Stewart once before she died.

When Joanna had sent a letter to
her friend John Stewart, the earl of Athol, asking for his assistance in locating
the man, she had not even wanted to guess what lay behind her grandmother’s
wish. The dying woman had asked, and that was enough for Joanna.

Now, leading the giant,
grim-visaged Highlander in the bloodstained clothes through the winding halls
of Ironcross Castle, Joanna felt a bit hesitant about her decision.

He’d arrived here with Athol and
the earl’s new wife, Catherine, and with Susan MacIntyre. He’d been introduced
as Athol’s half-brother. That alone had been enough to astound the master and
mistress of Ironcross Castle, since--for as long as Joanna had known the
family--she’d never heard even a whisper of another brother.

But there had been no opportunity
for pursuing the matter.  Athol, also bloody from their skirmish with outlaws
on their way to Ironcross, had begun to show her husband Gavin a wound on his
forearm that was sure to form a handsome scar. But as her husband had gravely
started with his questions about the brigands, and about the well-being of the
two women, Joanna had simply led Adam Stewart from the Great Hall. Her
grandmother would not wait much longer.

Although Joanna would have liked to
pretend that her grandmother’s illness was the same as those imagined ailments
of the past few years, she knew that the old woman’s time in this world was
running short. Stepping into the newer south wing of the castle, into the area
where, through her husband’s efforts, a massive renovation had taken place
nearly eight years earlier, Joanna shot a glance to the side, covertly studying
Adam Stewart.

He was tall and handsome, with many
features that called for comparison to the earl of Athol’s looks. But beyond his appearance, Joanna could sense a distinct agitation, a tension that seemed to
have grown since they left the Great Hall. 

Taking him up the spiral of steps
to the next level, where Lady MacInnes’s chambers lay, Joanna couldn’t stop
herself from asking the question that had been plaguing her mind for this past
year. “I hope you do not mind my asking, but how long has it been since you last
met my grandmother?”

The tall man’s piercing gray eyes
narrowed, focusing on her. His voice was cold, emotionless. “We’ve never met. I
mean, not...not that I remember.”

Joanna nodded as she continued the
ascent. “I’m glad! Then you won’t be too disappointed, for lately her health
has taken a turn for the worse. But I...I try to make visitors aware,
beforehand.”

They reached the second level and
moved quietly to a closed oak door. A flickering wick lamp hung on the stone
wall. Turning and facing the Highlander, Joanna fought back the sudden wave of
protectiveness that made her want to bar the door against this man. The
coldness in his voice just now--the look of careless disdain on his face--all
of this made her extremely suspicious, extremely cautious. More than anything
else now, she wanted to ask him who he was and why was it so crucial for her
grandmother to see him.