Highland Tides (11 page)

Her uncle turned his glowering gaze to the criminal. “Ye’d best tell me who ye are and what ye’re doing in my niece’s bedchamber,” he said in a low menacing voice, “‘afore I let Huntly slice off yer head.”

For some reason beyond her reasoning, an urge to beg the miscreant’s forgiveness surged up her constricted throat. If she hadn’t screamed he wouldn’t now be in peril of his life. “He didna hurt me, uncle,” she murmured.

The youth turned his head as far as his captor’s grip would allow, but only confusion darkened his eyes. Heartsick, she blinked away tears. Why was she forever driven to seek absolution where there was never a chance of it?
 

“I’m Callum Ogilvie,” the wretch rasped. “Late of Oban.”

His deep, lilting accent echoed in her bones, making her toes curl.

“Ye’re a long way from home, laddie,” Huntly growled, pressing his knee into his spine.

“Aye,” Ogilvie replied sadly.

The despair in his voice touched her heart. It struck her that his resignation had naught to do with the prospect of his imminent execution.

She was startled when a man she recognised as the Earl of Moray stepped out of the shadows near the doorway. “Ye canna kill him here, James,” he said to her uncle. “We dinna need unwanted attention.”

Lexi swiped the linens across her watery eyes. What were these powerful men doing in this tavern, together, evidently concerned with secrecy? Her uncle had undertaken to deliver her to the nunnery after his acquittal on murder charges, but mentioned nothing about meeting fellow earls.

A portly cleric she didn’t recognise entered the conversation. “I canna condone bloodshed,” he declared. “We must conclude our business with haste and go our separate ways. I suggest a quick marriage to preserve your niece’s honor.”

Lexi gasped. “But uncle, my vocation.”

“Ye should have considered that before,” he replied gruffly. “Get him to his feet,” he told Huntly. “My lord Bishop of Ross, ye can do the honors.”

Lexi had never liked her uncle. He’d been acquitted of complicity in the murder of Queen Mary’s husband, Lord Darnley, but she believed him responsible for the explosion that had levelled Kirk o’ Field two months before. She often wondered if her own dear departed father was in truth James Hepburn’s brother or if there’d been some inexplicable mix up at birth. Mayhap if she’d confided her suspicions concerning her uncle’s character, her parents might still be alive.

He grasped her hand and pulled her none too gently from the bed, exposing her state of undress to the noblemen who seemed suddenly to have forgotten the need for a hasty departure. She knew in her heart it would be useless to protest and resolved to hate James Hepburn until her dying day for this travesty.
 

“I canna be wed in my nightgown,” she whimpered, despising the weakness in her voice and the flimsiness of her excuse. Her
betrothed
must think her a simpering ninny.
 

But this intolerable predicament was his fault, not hers. How had he come to be in her locked chamber?

Surprisingly, her uncle relented. “Ye can prepare yerself while we conclude our business below stairs,” he conceded.

Ogilvie still stood as if in a stupor, until he was shoved out the door. His stricken backward glance convinced her he didn’t want this marriage any more than she did. Left alone in the silent chamber, she wondered who he was he and why he’d chosen her bed. Had her uncle put him up to it?

She frantically sought a means of escape. To her recollection there was only one large room downstairs where the Earl and his cronies must have gathered. The stairs led right by it. Had they taken Ogilvie there? It seemed doubtful, given their need for secrecy. However, it was unlikely they’d left him unguarded.

Her vocation to the religious life after the murder of her parents had replaced the girlish dreams of marriage, but she had never dreamt she’d be marrying a reluctant stranger in a tavern. And she was expected to prepare without the aid of a maidservant. Her sainted mother must be turning over in her tomb.

She hurried to the iron chest wherein lay the plain riding gown she’d worn for the journey. It reeked of leather after two days on horseback, but would have to suffice. It was the only garment she’d brought with her.

~~~

Callum’s head swam with so many conflicting emotions, he thought he was still in the grip of Corryvreckan’s awesome power.
 

His captors had left him in the tavern’s kitchen while they concluded their business, whatever it was. Obviously something clandestine. It seemed even in heaven there existed men who schemed and plotted.

A burly fellow guarded the door, arms folded across his beefy chest, several daggers tucked into his belt.

A sweating two-eyed Cyclops stirred a steaming pot suspended over a fire in a stone hearth. A wench who reminded him of one of Braden’s doxies chopped some sort of vegetable atop a deeply scarred trestle table. Delicious aromas teased his nostrils. He supposed angels too got hungry.

He took several deep breaths to calm his raging heart and sauntered to the servant, thinking to imitate his brother’s easy way with such women. “Good day to ye,” he began, effecting a courtly bow.

She looked up sharply, scowling. “My, what grand manners,” she scoffed. “Ye can forget it if ye think to get me into yer bed.” She cocked her head towards the giant. “My husband willna be pleased.”

“Nay,” he protested, taking a step back, one eye on the massive cook, “I merely seek information. The exact name of this tavern eludes me.”

She smirked, wiping the sharp knife on her filthy apron. “Too much strong liquor has dulled yer brain, eh? This ‘ere is Ainslie Tavern. ’Tis my establishment. Named for me.”

He had never heard of a woman owning a tavern. “And what be the name of this place, the environs?” he asked.

She shoved him, hard. “Ye dinna ken ye’re in Edinburgh?” she scoffed.

He gripped the edge of the trestle table, impressed by her strength. Not even Braden could knock Callum off his feet. But Edinburgh? His afterlife was more confusing by the moment. He rubbed his bicep, feigning discomfort. “That’s a powerful punch ye’ve got for a wee woman.”

A grin split her face, robbing her of any beauty Callum may have imagined she had when a mouthful of rotten teeth were revealed. For a second or two he believed he’d suddenly been carried off to Hell in the company of a witch. She brandished the wicked knife at him. “Enough with yer flattery. Ye’re underfoot. We’ve a supper to prepare.” She winked. “And I hear a wedding to celebrate.”

“Aye,” he replied. “I fear in my besottedness with my bride, I’ve forgotten the names of our guests.”

Ainslie eyed him suspiciously. “Dinna fret. They be men who prefer to remain nameless. They ken Ainslie can keep her mouth shut.”

He nudged her with his elbow, nodding to the Cyclops. “I ken their business is secret,” he whispered.

“Aye,” she whispered back, “they dinna worry about him. He’s mute. However, ’twill be known soon enough once they’ve signed their agreement and then I suspect there’ll be no doubt who’ll be our Queen’s next Consort.”

This was puzzling. James Stewart was King of Scotland. Who was this Queen she spoke of?

She retrieved a cracked wooden bowl and scooped the chopped carrots and parsnips into it, apparently warming to the conversation. “Aye, mark my words,” she whispered, “since ye’ll soon be counted among Bothwell’s kin when ye take his niece to wife, I wager the Earl will wed Queen Mary before the end of this year of Our Lord Fifteen Hundred and Sixty-Seven. My wee tavern will be famous.”

She shuffled off to dump the vegetables into the cook’s massive cauldron, leaving Callum dumbfounded. How had he’d ended up more than one hundred years in the future, betrothed to an Earl's niece, a lass whose name he didn’t know, but who made a man’s toes curl with her kiss.

When Braden came to his wits slumped against the side wall of a building on a deserted street he recognised immediately he wasn’t in Inbhir Nis. He was heartsick that his plan to return to Charlotte had evidently gone awry. He felt immediately for the amber stone, relieved when his hand closed over the precious gem.

The few bedraggled men who ambled by gave him a wide berth. Their mode of dress confirmed his suspicions he hadn’t made it to the year 1746. The odors were different too. He got to his feet and wandered to the front of the dilapidated structure. A roughly made sign clinging to a strip of wood over the door proclaimed it as Ainslie’s Tavern. No wonder folks were anxious to avoid him. They thought he was a drunkard.

The name struck a cord. Something Charlotte had told him concerning one of the Stewart monarchs. But which one? Her love of history had shone through in their many conversations. He missed his wife keenly and wondered how she fared. She’d be distraught he hadn’t returned.

He tried the door, disappointed when it failed to open. A draught of fine ale wouldn’t go amiss. This drowning business was thirsty work. He was on the point of wandering off down the street when the door creaked open and two men emerged. Hats pulled down over their faces, they soon disappeared into the maze of dusty alleyways beyond where Braden stood. Their clothing and bearing indicated they were noblemen. He was pondering what such men were doing in a seedy part of whatever town he’d landed in, when two more similarly clad gentlemen emerged and strode off in the opposite direction. Something was afoot within the tavern. If only he could remember what Charlotte had said. Half the time his attention had been on her tempting breasts and not on what she was telling him. Mayhap more than half.

When a high ranking cleric emerged, perhaps a bishop judging by his garb, a pulse started its throb, throbbing in his throat. A foreboding he’d not ended up in this place by accident crept up his spine.

He tried the door again, filled with mixed feelings of relief and apprehension when it opened. Cautiously, he stepped into the dark interior, colliding with the ample bosom of a wench who reminded him of a girl he’d known in Oban, before he’d drowned. He regretted those philandering days now, thanking God and his saints for a wife like his beloved Charlotte.

“Private party,” she said huskily, shoving him back towards the door. “’Tis a wedding and the likes o’ ye are nay invited.”

If it was a wedding, why had some of the guests left in a hurry? He was on the point of asking when a mountain of a man appeared behind her, mopping his sweaty brow with a filthy rag. Perhaps retreat was the best idea in the circumstances.

He turned and was about to leave when someone shouted his name.
 

“Braden, by the saints, am I glad to see ye.”

As Callum was hustled to his fate by the burly guard, noise of an argument at the front door drew his attention. In the dim light he scarcely believed it was Braden he beheld. Hope rose in his pounding heart. Mayhap all was not lost. “Braden,” he yelled, praying fervently his brother’s well-loved face wasn’t an apparition. “By the saints I’m glad to see ye.”

To his delight, a broad smile split Braden’s face; how he had missed that grin. But Mistress Ainslie seemed determined to block his way.

“’Tis my brother, Callum,” Braden explained.

She turned to the guard, her worried face betraying her uncertainty.

The fellow shrugged. “Let him pass. I s’pose he’ll need someone to stand up wi’ ‘im.”

His fear Braden might turn out to be a phantom disappeared when his brother enfolded him in a hug that threatened to squeeze the life out of his lungs. He pounded Braden’s back, emotion choking his words.

“What’s this about a wedding?” Braden rasped in his ear.

“Aye,” he replied. “I tell ye, I dinna ken what’s happened. I woke up in a bed, but there was a woman in it and—”

The guard prodded him. “Get a move on. My master’s anxious for this to be over and done.”

To Callum’s surprise, Braden lay a hand on the man’s arm. “My friend, can a fellow nay have a few private moments to apprise his younger brother of what to expect from marriage?” He winked at the gaping guard. “Do ye take my meaning?”

The man cast an anxious glance over his shoulder then grinned. “A moment then. The bride has yet to appear anyway.”

Braden drew Callum aside. “Listen,” he whispered. “We have but a moment and I have much to tell ye.”

“Can ye no get me out o’ this marriage?” Callum pleaded. “There’s a lot going on here I dinna understand. Mistress Ainslie says this is the year 1567 and there’s an Earl, Bothwell I think, who insists I marry—”

Braden slapped his forehead. “Of course. Mary, Queen of Scots. The Ainslie Tavern Bond.”

Callum’s heart fell. Now his brother was speaking in riddles. “What?”

Braden gripped his forearm. “Listen. Trust what I say and dinna argue. We didna drown in Corryvreckan. ’Twas a portal to another time. I went to the future, to Seventeen Hundred and Forty-Six. It seems ye have landed in Fifteen Hundred and Sixty-Seven.”

Callum was certain then that drowning had addled his dear brother’s wits. “How is it you’re here now?” he asked softly.

“No time to explain,” Braden replied, looking towards the stairs. “Here comes yer beautiful bride.”

~~~

In ordinary circumstances Lexi considered she was passably winsome. Since making the decision to enter religious life, she hadn’t fussed over her appearance.

As she nervously descended the creaking stairs, she was overwhelmingly aware of her shortcomings as a bride. Her curly hair refused to respond to the coaxing of the brush. Her gown was creased and worn. She’d brought no creams or powders to freshen her body. A novice had no need of such things. Her uncle hadn’t offered to have a bath brought to her chamber.

As she cursed James Hepburn under her breath, he emerged from the large room, looking as angry and harried as ever. He eyed her up and down, no doubt thinking what a fright she looked. Out of the corner of her eye she was aware of her groom, but resolved not to look upon him. He’d ruined her life, and she vowed to make him pay for his unsettling kiss.