Highlander Mine (25 page)

It was time to go.

I found my dress and wrapped it around me. I put on my shoes. I could see through the window that the hour was just past dawn. Indigo skies were tainted with a dusky lavender glow at the base of the distant horizon line, which was jagged and curved to the shape of the mountains, veiled by a gauzy layer of misty drizzle. The clouds were thick. It looked to be another stormy day.

A sharp knock rapped on the door.

And another.

“Laird Mackenzie,” someone was calling, their voice impatient.

Knox woke instantly, sitting up. It took him a few seconds to fully comprehend the situation. He looked thoroughly disheveled, his hair tangled and shambolic. The departure from his usual sleek composure was so endearing I felt the urge to disrobe and slide back under the furs with him. To run my hands through his hair.
To kiss him and to sit astride him. As his thick, glorious manhood filled me deliciously, slippery and colossal and oh, so inspiring. He’s so unfairly resplendent he stuns my senses. I want to touch him again. I want to taste him, and kiss him, and feel his hands on my drugged, lust-soaked naked body. I love the way he moves. His scowling face. I want to turn that expression, to inspire his smile or even better, his rapture. I could. I have every power to drive him to the deepest throes of ecstasy. I know what he looks like when his bliss overcomes him.

“All
right,
” he yelled at whoever it was that was so insistent at his door. “I’m coming.”

His dark eyebrows furrowed when he noticed I was fully dressed. He rose, displacing the furs as he reached for his kilt, providing a glimpse of the glorious manhood I’d just been casually recollecting. This did not help my concentration, nor did it tone down my restless cravings.

Knox strode toward the door, clad only in his kilt.

“Knox,” I said. “I’m...here. Shouldn’t I perhaps...
leave?
Before I’m discovered? With you?”

“You’re here, lass, because I want you here.” My, but it must have been grand to be so sure of your own superiority that there was never any need to question it.

“Will people not, perhaps,
gossip
on the subject?”

He appeared to consider this. Very briefly. “Not for long,” he said, and I couldn’t be sure of his meaning. “If you’d prefer, there’s a small alcove behind that curtain. Wait in there, if you’re inclined, while I attend to this. It won’t take a minute, whatever it is.”

I did feel inclined to keep this...
love affair
private. Technically, I had disgraced myself beyond all hope of redemption. But, God help me, it had been more than worth it. I hid, shielding myself behind a thick red velvet curtain in what revealed itself to be a storage space. There were shelves piled high with rolled-up scrolls of all sizes. I wished I had the time and the light to unroll one or two, and read them. Another secret library, of a different description. His drawings and plans. His maps, letters and tactics. I was mildly enchanted.

Several women’s voices could be heard. I recognized them. Katriona and Christie. Katriona sounded upset about something. I peeled back the curtain an inch so I could hear more clearly.

“I tried to find you last night, but you’d left. ’Tis an urgent matter, Laird Mackenzie, that I knew you’d want to hear of urgently. I waited till the morn because I knew you wouldn’t want to carry out a banishment in the middle of the night, but—”

“What is it?” Knox was short with her, forcing patience. It was clear by his question that he believed whatever that matter at hand was, it could have waited.

“Well, you know I always had my suspicions. Even at the very beginning of her appointment. Since we first saw them in that tavern in fact, and—”

“Does this concern Amelia?” Knox asked.

“We just can’t decipher what it might mean.” Christie’s voice. “’Tis most unusual. We knew you’d want to know of it. In case it’s a threat to her.”

“Or to
us,
” Katriona insisted.

“What threat?” Knox said. “What is it? Show it to me.”

All were silent for a few minutes. I thought I heard the crinkle of parchment.

“Where did you get this?” Knox snapped.

“Well,” Katriona began, somewhat nervously if I was judging correctly. “As I said, I had my suspicions. One of the messenger parties was departing. It was just a day or two after they arrived at Kinloch—
after
she’d been appointed to teach my children, mind you—and I asked them to make a few inquiries. At the teaching college.”

My heart was in my throat, and my consciousness spun.

“The
teaching
college gave you this?” Knox asked. “What does it mean?”

“Nay,” Katriona answered. “They had no records of Amelia there. But there was a sentinel of some description, Balfour said, who had heard of her. Who was in fact looking for her, as well.”

Christie had clearly been told the entire story before she’d arrived at Knox’s chambers. “Balfour said the sentinel wouldn’t tell him what it meant. But he said that Amelia would understand it.”

“’Tis a message,” said Katriona. “For Amelia.”

“Have you seen her, Knox?” asked Christie. “We can’t find her anywhere.”

I stepped out from behind the curtain.

The women were entirely agog at the sight of me, but I walked over to them, undeterred. In his hand, Knox held the piece of parchment that had been inked with three scrawled lines. I took it from him.

The king is
dead, the knave is spared.

The queen of spades feels the knife.

The queen of
hearts holds the deck.

I felt myself
pale. I understood instantly what the message conveyed.

“Is it a riddle, Amelia?” Christie said. “What does it mean?”

“Who is it from?” Katriona asked.

I feigned lightheartedness, which took a great deal of effort. “Oh, it’s nothing. Nothing at all. Just a message from a...an associate of mine. In Edinburgh. ’Tis a greeting of sorts. Well-wishes, about our quest.”

“But
who?
” Katriona insisted. “It doesn’t
look
like a greeting. What does it
mean?
It has something to do with those playing cards Hamish was using, doesn’t it? Edward spoke of them. I’m sure I recognize the names.”

I glanced at Katriona, once again fighting an impulse to react to her in a way that was not only inappropriate but bordering on violent. But that infernally logical side of my mind knew that she had every right to question me, to research me, to find out the details of the person who was appointed to spend time with and educate her children. I had always taken an avid interest in those who shaped Hamish’s upbringing and she was entitled to do the same.

Still, I fought to keep the vitriol from my body language.
Say something convincing. Lie, cheat, steal, do whatever it takes to get back to Cecelia, before his blade makes its final cut.
He had her. He was using her as bait, as I’d known all along he would.
The queen of spades feels the knife. The queen of heart holds the deck.

Come back, or I will kill her.

That
was the message.

I was almost breathlessly grateful when another knock shattered the expectant, waiting silence. This time, a group of officers strode into the room through the now-open door. They glanced curiously at our little assembly before one of them stated, “The Machardies have arrived, Laird Mackenzie. They traveled through the night and they await you in the hall.”

Knox ran his hand across his jaw and turned his head, glancing once at me. He sighed and nodded, and attempted to smooth his hair, unsuccessfully. “Ladies,” he said, putting on his shirt. In the company of his guards and officers, his authority returned to him in full, pompous force. “I will greet our guests. Amelia, my guard will escort you to your guest chambers, where I will meet with you shortly. Gunn,” he said to one of his officers. “Escort Amelia to her rooms immediately. Guard her door so she is not disturbed. Katriona, Christie, I thank you for bringing this matter to my attention, and for delivering this message to Amelia. I will take full responsibility for getting to the bottom of the riddle when Amelia gives me a full explanation later today. That is all.”

I followed Gunn, as I’d been ordered to do, more willingly, to be sure, than I’d ever followed an order in my life. He led me through the quiet, empty corridors of the manor. He did not speak, nor did I.

When we reached my chambers, Gunn took up his post beside my door. I closed the door firmly, locking it.

I didn’t waste time. I took the sheets off the bed and ripped each of them into four strips, carrying out my task as quietly as I could. I tied the strips together tightly, creating a long, thin, reasonably strong rope. I knew how to do this; I’d done it before. I tied one end of the rope to the bed, then opened the window, looking down. Not overly far. And I could see no one about. It was still early. I tossed the sheet-rope over the edge of the windowsill. The end of it didn’t quite reach the ground, but it would do.

My mind worked on several levels.

Let him help you. He told you he loved you.
In the throes of passion, aye. That’s all that had been. Lust. And the louder, chanting, challenging litany echoed:
keep him safe, keep him safe, keep him safe. His clan needs him. Do not put him in harm’s way. He’ll fight for you if he learns of your plight. You know he will. And he might lose.
I knew I would rather wage my war alone than risk his life
.
I would rather live out my days imprisoned in Edinburgh than watch Knox Mackenzie die at the hands of the men I had led him to. It seemed almost perverse, this sense of protection I felt for him, of
preservation
. I had never seen beauty and morality so condensed in one person before. I couldn’t bear the thought of all that perfection being harmed in any way whatsoever.

I held the note I had written to Hamish. I kissed the folded parchment, and placed it on the bedside table behind the oil lamp, where it was inconspicuous enough yet could still be easily found if anyone were looking.

I quickly changed into my traveling garb, packed my few belongings and climbed down the rope into a cold, blustery, overcast day.

CHAPTER NINE

W
ALKING
QUICKLY
, I
descended the slope of the hill to the loch. A rising layer of mist hovered over the smooth expanse of the loch and I was glad of this; it would afford me an element of cover.

The boathouse was eerie in the early morning light. The water lapped against the rocks with cool, gloomy regularity. There were several boats to choose from and I had no preference. My only requirement was that it float. Giving a cursory appraisal, I chose the smallest. It would be easier to launch, I reasoned. It was a good choice. The vessel was far heavier than I expected it to be and took all my strength to lug off its rack and down to the water. I retrieved two oars. Then I pushed the boat clear of the rocks, wetting my shoes in the process. The water was icy.

My boat sailed through a small passage of the high, stone bridge, the one that linked the encircling walls of Kinloch. The passage was so small I had to lean low in the boat in order to fit through it, and the tunnel itself was dark and unnervingly confined.

Once clear of the tunnel, I began to row. I had never steered or rowed a boat before. I was grateful that the current of the small river was strong enough to propel me without much expertise on my part. Without
any
expertise, more accurately. I had never captained a boat before. Finding an awkward rhythm, I was able to guide the boat so that the front was facing more or less forward.

The mist was thick and soupy, almost completely obscuring the view in any direction. But there was only one way to go. Downstream.

I floated without much difficulty for a time, pleased enough with my escape. I willed myself not to think of Hamish apart from the fortunateness of his new home. Knox would find me gone. He would be angry, at first. But he was already angry. For the lies. For the trouble that could be inflicted on his clan because of me, if I were to stay longer at his keep. I hoped he would feel relieved to be rid of me: a pest, a vagrant, a hussy. He might think of me now and again, when he had the occasional lurid thought, or when he ate an apple.

I entertained myself for some time recounting my memories of Kinloch. A mythical Eden, to be sure. And one that would remain as such, in my fading recollections. As I sailed and found comfort in my revelries, I thought an hour might have passed since I launched my boat. Maybe several.

A thudding noise brought me back to the present. Behind me. A bump. A splash. My eyes had adjusted to the murky mist and I could detect a shadow. Moving closer.

Terror surged through my chest.

Someone was following me.

* * *

I
WAS
AS
frightened as I had ever been in my life, but also oddly prepared for the fear. I had known to expect dangers.

And here one was.

Was it Fawkes’s men? Had they tracked my trail north, now that they knew of my whereabouts? Had they waited outside the walls for their opportunity? This seemed unlikely. They would have been spotted, hanging around like that. The environs of the Kinloch keep, outside the walls, had been cleared of trees for a mile in all directions, I had heard it said. For that very reason: so intruders would be easy to spot. I had also heard, from Hamish, that the Mackenzie guards were especially vigilant. There had been an unexpected invasion of some sort a year or two ago and the army had vowed that it would never happen again. But I was no longer within the confines of Mackenzie land. Far from it. I paddled faster, remembering only then that I had forgotten to ask for—or borrow, as it were—a weapon. I silently cursed myself for such a glaring oversight. Maybe I wasn’t cut out for this life on the run, after all.

My pursuer was gaining on me.

The river was getting wider, and swifter.

My senses took on a peculiar, sparky sentience. In my mind I had prepared myself for peril, even death. To face such things is a very different experience than preparing for them from afar and from a safe vantage point.

Whoever he was, he was strong. Trained and able. He was able to steer and accelerate. The gap between his boat and mine was shrinking.

It was the glint of gold in his black hair that triggered my recognition.

“Amelia!” he shouted.

None other than Knox Mackenzie.

The nature of my fear took a turn. I no longer feared for myself. I feared for
him.
“Go back!” I shouted at him. “Don’t follow me!”

He ignored this completely, pulling his boat up next to mine. I took my oar and pushed at the edge of his boat with it. The shove was enough to propel his boat away, but he jumped, lunging.

With the swift currents guiding the boats erratically, he almost missed. He was half in the water, his arms wrapped over the edge of my boat, tilting it severely. I was nearly thrown overboard by his heavy impact, and his efforts splashed water over me in a shocking torrent.

“Let go! You’ll sink us!” But I grabbed his arm.
Damn this man! He might get swept away by the strengthening current, pulled under, drowned, killed!

“These boats are designed not to sink when a man climbs aboard,” he gasped, pulling himself up. I clung to him as he dripped all over me. “We’ve tested them and developed the shape to make them virtually unsinkable.”

I paused, finding this somewhat interesting. Then I resumed my outburst. “You shouldn’t be here,” I accused. “I don’t need you to save me!”

He climbed into the boat, his big body rocking the small craft as he levered himself into it. Soaked and stunning, he said, “I know. I’m the one that needs saving.”

The blunt confession struck me for its honesty. Knox Mackenzie, with all his considerable powers and potencies, was not, as I knew him, prone to admit such things.

Even so, now that he was safely in the boat, I released the full force of my fury. “Knox Mackenzie, I don’t want your help! I want you to stay at Kinloch, to safely tend to your clan and fulfill your regal purpose. I forbid you to chase after me. You’re not my keeper!”

He eased the oars out of my hands and sat on the supported seat at the middle of the boat. He began to steer us, through undulating rapids that were gaining momentum. The boat was tossed in a lurching roll. I had no choice but to sit next to him and hang on for dear life.

“Did you hear me?” I said.

“Aye. I heard you.”

“Will you go back?”

“Nay.”

“
Nay?
Why not?”

His eyes were flashing and his face bore an expression of severity. Errant strands of his black hair ruffled in the wind. I was barely able to comprehend through the radiating prisms of his glory that he did not look at all pleased. “I’m going to help you do whatever it is you need to do. I always protect what’s mine.”

I always protect what’s mine.
I let it echo, but I refused to let it permeate me.

Knox continued to focus on the task at hand—steering the boat—which, admittedly, did look as though it required some element of concentration. He did not appear at all fazed by my rage. In fact, he seemed to barely notice it. Once he had steadied us, he said, “My darling Amelia. There is a question I need to ask you. I didn’t get a chance to before you fashioned a rope with my sheets, climbed out the window and stole down to the boathouse to borrow one of my boats.”

“What question?”

His silver eyes appeared liquid in their volatility. He pulled on the oars in a heaving stroke. The boat tossed in the waves and I was forced to wrap my arms more tightly around him for fearing of falling overboard. He had to speak loudly over the roll of the river water. “In light of what happened last night, there is only one thing to be done. It is only right that you should agree to... Well, that we should—”

He paused to navigate around a rock.

A fleeting jab of panic was laced with curiosity. “We should what?”

He looked down at me and I could see the circle of a muted sun glowing above the thick fog behind him, like a halo. “Amelia, marry me.”

At first I thought I’d misheard him. But the words hung there in the ensuing river-silence like white windblown moths in a dark night, collecting light, dancing and taunting yet utterly blind.

My response bubbled out of me before I could stop it. I laughed. “Don’t be daft.
I can’t marry
you.
”

“Of course you can. And you must.”

“I—” I brushed a strand of hair that had blown over my eyes. And I thought of my sister. I imagined the cold prison in which
he
held her, with damp stone walls and iron bars at the tiny windows. My fate was decided, and it was far removed from the splendor of Kinloch and the fantasy of Knox Mackenzie. “Nay. I’m sorry. I cannot marry you.”

He stopped rowing and looked down at me. There was incredulity in him. Confounded, brewing indignation. Rage, even.

When the boat began to drift and swivel, he turned his attention momentarily back to righting our course and once again we glided through relative calm.

“I realize,” I said, “that you might feel obliged to approach me with this proposal, but truly, it isn’t necessary.” A particularly intimate detail of last night’s revelries crept into my thoughts. “Aye, we’ve shared a moment. A very beautiful moment. I’ll always treasure the memory of you, and of us. But you’ll be far better suited to one of your noble Highlands ladies. And I, well, I must—”

“Amelia,” he said. “There is no question about this. You
must
marry me. The marriage is already all but sealed. All we need is the blessing of the minister to make it official.” Even as he prepared to say it, I could sense that he was questioning his own tactics. He knew me well enough by now. “It
will
be done.”

“I’m sorry but I cannot agree to—”

“I am laird of this keep,” he thundered, looking around at the foggy expanse into what would have been, if we could see clearly, non-Mackenzie land. “I am laird of
my
keep, and it is my—”

“Aye, I am well aware of that. You are very lairdly and important. Yet we are no longer in your keep. And, as much as I’d like to, I am not returning to your keep any time soon. Furthermore, as I’ve mentioned to you upon, oh, three or four occasions, I do not abide orders. Not yours or anyone else’s!”
Unless they threaten me or mine with a slow, torturous death, that is.

Knox was staring at me with a mixture of fury and exasperation. He took several deep breaths, clearly attempting to calm his own temper. He spoke slowly, as though to a child who was having difficulty understanding his dictates. “You are already mine, Amelia. We have known each other in a biblical sense, which means that we are bound in body and soul. In life. I am a devout man, and a powerful one. With great influence. Mock me if you will, but I do not take these things lightly, as I have already explained to you.”

I wasn’t sure if he had intended to ask me—or order me—to marry him before we had succumbed to our baser urges last night, or if he had decided somewhere between then and now. I suspected—and this occurred to me only at this very moment—that he had decided that I would become his new wife long ago, maybe on the night we had shared by the loch, under a crescent moon and a million stars. Or perhaps as long ago as the afternoon in the apple orchard, at our very first meeting—although this seemed incredible, almost absurd. Who decides such things in a fleeting moment? Who believes in love at first sight? I was seeped in cynicism, until I remembered that
I
had already admitted to
him
that I had loved him that very first day, from that moment he had appeared to me as a sun-touched vision. And I had meant it.

I
believed in love at first sight. I had well and truly experienced it.
Deeply. Madly.

Yet I felt almost as though I wasn’t entitled to indulge such a luxurious fantasy. I couldn’t allow my whims to interfere with my mission. Perhaps, if I was successful—which, I knew, was a long shot—I could mull over the idea of accepting this fairy-tale ending to my debauched, very un-fairy-tale life thus far. What he was offering me was the type of happiness I had never, ever envisioned for myself, even as I had once sketched pictures and scrawled poems about green hills and peaceful meadows in my little red book as I skulked in the corner of the small, underused library of the gaming club, hiding from amorous wanderers and overzealous drunkards.

Curse
these inconsistencies and confusions he seemed to incessantly introduce!

Annoyed by my silence, he continued, spelling the situation out with even more clarity. “There may be a...child to consider, and protect. A very important one. The heir of Kinloch.”

This startled me. I hadn’t thought of that. Clearly I should have, but my impulses had guided me and I knew in my heart that such a consideration would not have changed my decision. It was true that I’d acted without thinking of much at all, aside from Knox Mackenzie’s superb physical attributes and endowments.

“I...I don’t think you should worry about that,” I mumbled.

“Why not?”

I had read enough of my father’s books on the human body to understand the intricacies of the matter. I thought it too early in the month. Not that, if truth be told, I had counted especially carefully before now. “The timing would make that unlikely,” I said. I sounded, I thought, somewhat convincing.

But he was not appeased. “Either way, even if the slightest possibility exists, which it does, then such a thing must be prepared for. Celebrated.”

His demeanor changed then, quite suddenly. He looked tired. He made some adjustments to our direction using the oars. Then he rested the oars on his knees and ran a hand through his thick hair. I understood this change in him. Of course, the possibility of a child would be immense, in his mind. He had lost a son, and a wife. And here was I, the chosen one. I could fill his void. I could overflow his void with life and love. I remembered the words he had whispered in the heat of an unequalled moment.
I can’t breathe when I can’t see you. You are milk and honey and innocence and lust. You are agony and pure, pure ecstasy. I want you. I love you.