Judith E French (12 page)

Ross was kind and gentle to her. He’d shown her passion that she’d only dreamed of before. He was strong enough to stand against Barbara and Murrane, and he made her laugh. Only a silly woman would let such a husband go because she’d been the one to fall head over heels in love, because she believed in storybook romances.

The money was the key. As soon as he got it, he’d be on his way back to America. If Anne could delay him by not giving him the passage fee, she would have longer to try and convince him that life in England as her husband could be very pleasant.

Barbara’s scream broke through Anne’s reverie and brought her to the inner bailey on the run. She stopped short as she caught sight of her mother and began to laugh.

Barbara stood shrieking atop an ale barrel and waved her arms frantically at the large white goose below. Emitting angry hissing noises, the goose spread her wings and snaked her long neck up to snap at Barbara’s ankles.

“Help! Help me!” Barbara cried.

Anne picked her way through the mud and animal droppings. “What are you doing to that poor goose?” she demanded.

“Me? Me? What am I doing to the goose?” Barbara’s voice hovered on the brink of hysteria. She grabbed at the skirt of her flowered satin gown and tried to lift it out of reach of the goose’s sharp bill. The hem was muddied with something Anne suspected was more than just dirt, and there was a great tear in her violet silk petticoat. One of her pink satin shoes lay a short distance from the ale barrel in a puddle of rainwater.

“Where is my husband?” Anne asked. “Did you see him this morning?”

“The goose, girl! Do something about this horrid creature!”

“Did you talk with Ross this morning?”

“No! No, he was gone from the table when I came down. I was coming out to look for him when this
thing
ran at me. Get it away!”

Anne looked around the bailey. It was deserted, if you didn’t count the sow and her piglets near the outer gate. Anne crossed to the wall and came back with a broom.

“Did you bring my money, Mother?”

Barbara swore an oath that would set a sailor’s whore to blushing. “I’ll rip out every hair on your head when I get down from here,” she threatened.

“Did you bring my money?”

“I brought your damned money. Now drive off this monster, or call a servant to kill it.”

Anne struggled to keep a serious expression as the goose beat her wings against the ground and made another leap at Barbara’s skirts. “You must have gone near her nest. She’s sitting on eggs. Geese are very defensive about their nests.”

“Get rid of it, you blithering jade!”

Anne’s gaze lit on the pearl earrings her mother was wearing. “How kind of you to bring me my jewelry as well as the money.” She held out her hand. “Give them over.” She had lost her other pair of pearl earrings to the gypsies, and she was not about to give up these.

“My pearls?” her mother asked.

“Scarbrough gave them to me as a wedding gift.” Anne insisted. “There’s not another pair just like them in the kingdom. I’ll take them now if you don’t mind.”

“How dare you talk to your mother like that? I should hope I’d taught you better manners. You’re no better than that colonial clod you’ve—”

“Spare me the performance. I’ve seen them all before. Now, give me my pearls before I call Roger Martin out here to see just how ridiculous you look. I’m certain he’d spread a pretty tale about this at court.”

“Take them!” Barbara muttered furiously as she ripped the earrings out of her ears and threw them at Anne. “Take them and welcome. They’ll not do you justice anyway, you mewing little mouse.”

Anne caught the earrings in the air and calmly fastened them in her ears. She’d seen them on Barbara when she’d arrived, and it had galled her then that she’d not had the nerve to demand her mother give them up. “Very well,” she said, raising the broom to drive off the goose, “I’ll—”

Dogs began to bark in the outer bailey. “What—” Ignoring Barbara’s protests, Anne turned toward the racket.

“Mistress! Mistress! Come quick!” Jeanne called, running through the outer gateway. “Ye maun come at once.”

Leaving Barbara at the mercy of the incensed goose, Anne hurried after the serving girl.

“A man has come from Edinburgh Town,” Jeanne cried excitedly. “He demands to see the master, but he’s rode out no one knows where. Hurley says ye maun come and hear.”

Hurley and a small knot of clansmen were gathered in the outer bailey. As they saw Anne coming, the circle widened to include her. The steward nodded respectfully. “Mistress, this be Cousin Archie Campbell of Edinburgh.”

The stranger tugged at a forelock of sandy-blond hair. “Mistress Strathmar,” he mumbled.

“Archie is a guard in Edinburgh Castle,” Hurley explained, “and he comes to us wi’ sad news. Our dominie, Malcolm Campbell, is dead.”

Anne waited without speaking. It was clear to her that the man’s distress went far beyond the untimely death of the cleric.

“Murdered,” Rob Campbell said. Anne had not noticed him among the group of burly kilt-clad men. “Foully murdered.” He nudged the guard. “Tell the lady what ye told us.”

Archie removed his bonnet and twisted it between his scarred hands. “I work in the castle,” he began. “It’s nay work I favor, but I’ve a wife and six bairns to—”

Rob elbowed him. “Never mind that,” he ordered. “Tell her about the dominie.”

“Malcolm Campbell was brought to the dungeon on the orders of Baron Murrane. He was tortured and put to death by the baron’s will. Even now, Murrane marches the Strathmar road with two hundred English soldiers. He’s sworn to kill Ross Campbell and take ye back, lady.”

Anne’s knees went weak. She stared at him in disbelief. “Why would you risk your own life to come and tell us this?”

Archie’s protruding Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “The dominie promised me salvation. He swore to fix things with the Almighty for my sins if I come in time to warn your master.” Archie’s sunburned face blushed deeper red. “Some of what I tell ye came from the dominie’s lips, some I heard with my own ears. The number of English soldiers I saw with my own eyes.” He took a deep breath and let it out slow. “I done things in my life I ain’t proud of, lady, but I’d have no part of murdering a dominie. And I’d be a bigger fool to risk my chance at heaven to help an English lord murder a Scotsman.”

“How far behind ye be they?” Rob asked.

“An hour’s march, maybe. Maybe closer. My horse threw a shoe, and I had to run the last two miles. As God is my witness, lady, Baron Murrane is coming—and he’s coming for you.”

Hurley looked around at the crumbling castle walls. “Strathmar canna stand against an army, mistress. A herd of sheep could climb these walls. If the butcher of Sheriffmuir comes against us with steel and shot, he’ll run the loch red with Campbell blood.”

Anne tried to curb the waves of cold fear that washed over her. “If I went out to Baron Murrane . . .” she began in desperation. “If I surrendered myself to him? One of you could warn Ross. He would have time to get away.”

“Give yerself to such a monster?” Hurley scowled. “Nay, lady, you’re no good to him so long as the master lives.”

“I could try and reason with him—offer to get an annulment of my marriage to Ross.”

“A Scots annulment,” Rob scoffed. “That’s the only annulment he’ll be wanting. A dead husband is the quickest way to claim an heiress.”

“Nothing will stop Murrane from sacking Strathmar and murdering all within who give allegiance to the master,” Hurley said.

“Then you must all flee,” Anne said. “Take anything of value you can carry and run into the hills. My mother is here and Roger Martin. Murrane won’t dare harm them, or me if I’m with them.”

“Run before English dogs?” a clansman grumbled. “I’d sooner give them a taste of my claymore.”

“Aye,” another man shouted. “We’ll drive them back to Edinburgh with—”

“She speaks common sense,” Hurley disagreed. “There are women and bairns to think of. Once Strathmar was a name to be reckoned with, but no more.”

“As your mistress, I order you to go,” Anne repeated. Her voice trembled, but she stood firm. “I’ve brought this trouble on you, and I’d not have a drop of blood shed for my sake.”

“Aye, there’s sense from an English mouth,” Rob said. “There be time to fight, and time to run away to fight again. We’ve short notice. Look to your families. Bruce, alert the herders. Gray, Cullen! Take horses and ride out to search for the master. I’ll see to the servants.” He halted long enough to give Anne an admiring look. “God keep ye, lady, you’re a brave lass and that’s certain—brave enough to be Scot and nay English.”

“Ye heard him,” Hurley shouted. “I want Strathmar as empty as an ale keg on New Year’s morning when Murrane crosses the causeway.”

Rob hesitated. “Lady, come with me,” he offered. “I’ll see ye safe into the hills with Jeanne and Greer.”

Reluctantly, Anne shook her head. “No, I can’t. None of you will be safe so long as Murrane seeks me. Go quickly. I’ll be all right.”

The men scattered to begin the retreat, leaving Anne standing alone in the muddy courtyard. Hurry! she wanted to urge Gray and Cullen. Find Ross and tell him that his life is in danger. For the love of God, find him and tell him to run!

She knew she should go back into the castle herself, but she couldn’t resist walking to the outer gate and looking toward the far end of the causeway. If only . . .

And then, like an image summoned from a dream, she saw the outline of a dark horse and rider galloping toward the bridge. “Ross!” she cried. Without thinking, she ran down the causeway toward him.

R
oss reined in his stallion hard when he recognized the woman in the apple-green gown dashing toward him down the causeway. The horse reared and pawed the air. One powerful front leg was stained to the knee with human blood, and the scent maddened the animal. Ross leaned in the stirrups, throwing his weight forward, loosened the reins a fraction, and spoke to the horse in Delaware. Nostrils flared, neck arched, Tusca rocked and danced sideways as yellow foam sprayed from his open mouth.

“Easy boy,” Ross murmured in English. He patted the stallion’s damp neck and tightened his knees. “She’s a friend,” he said, “she belongs to us.”

Small wonder if the horse was nervous, Ross thought. They’d ridden through a straggly grove of trees straight into the arms of a four-man scouting party. The stallion had barely missed being hamstrung when one soldier slashed the animal’s left hind leg with a sword.

Ross kept his gaze on Anne as she skirted the mud holes and broken planks. Absently, he rubbed his right arm. He’d taken a lead slug—a flesh wound only, but the damned thing had bled like fury. The bullet had ripped through his
breacan-feile
and glanced off his silver brooch to bury itself in his outer arm. When he found a few minutes, he’d have to dig it out, but time was something he was lacking. All too soon Murrane’s army would come charging over that hill.

Anne was close enough now that he could make out the frightened expression on her face. Ross’s tight mouth relaxed a notch—the castle was already warned. If they had the sense God gave an opossum, the men and women of Strathmar would light out as if their bonnets were full of wasps.

Ross’s eyes caught the first flash of blue-green as a group burst from the outer gate and started down the causeway, driving pigs and goats ahead of them. He grinned. Trust his kinsmen to be shrewd enough not to leave Murrane’s soldiers anything to eat. Black smoke began to curl from the area of the great hall. If he guessed correctly, the Campbells were burning everything they couldn’t chase or carry.

He wiped his forehead, and his palm came away dripping blood. Ross fingered the furrow in his scalp and winced. At least that bullet hadn’t lodged in his thick skull. The slug had sliced an angled path that nearly cost him his feathered bonnet and left a neat round hole in the back. If the twice-cursed scratch didn’t stop bleeding soon, it would stain the wool. God knew where he’d find another bonnet in the Colonies!

“Ross!”

Anne’s cry of anguish made his throat constrict. Damned if she didn’t love him!

“Ross! Murrane’s coming to kill you! You’ve got to run!” She stopped short, breasts heaving, nearly out of breath. “A messenger,” she gasped. “We’ve had a messenger from Edinburgh. Murrane’s bringing two hundred soldiers to murder you.”

The stallion rolled his eyes and pawed the wood planks beneath his night-black hooves. He laid his ears flat and sent muscles rippling beneath his sweat-streaked hide. A nickering rumble started in his deep, wide chest and gained strength until it came out as an angry squeal.

Anne eyed the stallion with respect and stepped away from him. “Please, there’s no time!” she continued. “Hurley says—” She broke off, and her eyes widened. “Ross! You’re hurt.”

His mouth went dry.

Murrane’s scouting party lay on the heather behind him. The road to the sea was open ahead, and he had good horseflesh under him. There was no earthly reason for him to delay a minute. Murrane wanted Anne’s fortune—he’d do her no harm. She was as safe in the baron’s arms as she’d be in the Tower of London, surrounded by King Geordie’s palace guard.

“Ross, you’re bleeding!”

His gaze flicked over her, branding the memory of every line and curve of her, every curl, onto his soul. Sunlight sparkling off the surface of the loch lit her wheat-gold hair with fairy dust. Her lips were as red as ripening cranberries, her enormous eyes echoed the gray-green of the deep, cold water. Anne was such a little thing, he thought, such a wee lass to capture his heart in a noose and pull it tight. And he knew that when he kicked his heels into Tusca’s sleek sides, he’d never set eyes on her again in this life.

Unless I take her with me . . .

“Ross!” she cried frantically. “Are you deaf? Can’t you understand what I’m saying? You’ve got to flee for your life. Murrane’s army will be here any minute!”

His Scots logic bade him turn and ride like the wind, told him that any rational man would put Strathmar and this Englishwoman behind him for good.

But his fierce Indian blood seared away reason, and he leaned from the saddle and seized her in his arms.

“What are you doing?” she screamed, striking out at him with her fists. “Put me down! What are you doing?”

“Taking ye wi’ me,” he answered. He pulled hard on the reins, and the stallion reared again. Ross raised his left hand to salute Rob Campbell, galloping down the bridge on a bay horse with Jeanne clinging to his waist.

“No!” Anne screamed. “You can’t!”

“I was promised a ransom,” he growled into her ear. “And no man or woman shall cheat me of it.” He gasped as her fist struck his bad arm. “Be still, hinney,” he threatened, wheeling the horse in a tight circle. He leaned forward with Anne held tightly against his chest and dug in his heels. Tusca shot forward like a bolt from a crossbow, and they thundered down the rocky path away from the Edinburgh road toward the open sea.

 

Murrane’s second cannon volley shattered the inner bailey gate. His lieutenant, John Brown, led the charge across the empty courtyard—an enclosure guarded by a single barking mongrel and one lame donkey.

A mercenary in the front rank ran the dog through with a pike. Baron Murrane shot the donkey.

The English soldiers swarmed over the castle, overturning furniture, slashing moldy tapestries, and thundering up and down the stairs.

Beet-red with frustration, Murrane deposited himself in a chair at the high table in the great hall and ordered beer. Two of the soldiers found an intact keg in the kitchen cellars and carried the ale up to the great hall. “Leave it,” Murrane ordered.

When no drinking vessels could be found, a uniformed orderly ran back to Murrane’s pack train at the end of the causeway and returned with a tin mug. He poured ale for the baron with trembling hands, placed the mug carefully in front of his master, then leaped back before Murrane could deliver an accustomed blow to his head.

“The castle is empty, by God,” Murrane fumed. He drank long and deep of the coarse ale and wiped off the foam with the back of his hand.

Brown hurried down the curving stone steps. “We’ve found them, m’lord,” he said.

“Don’t just stand there, you fool!” Murrane snapped. “Bring them here. And I’d have the balls of any man that harms a hair on Lady Anne’s head.”

He took another swig of the ale and wrinkled his nose. By the sacred wounds of Christ, it was foul stuff! These Scots lived like pigs, he decided. He slammed the mug down on the scarred table and rubbed his aching arm.

He’d suffered mild chest pains when Brown had reported the four dead soldiers on the road. Then, later, when those hairy-arsed milkmaids who dared to call themselves fighting men had lost one of his cannons over the edge of the causeway, he’d thought the pain would knock him out of the saddle. A French cannon! Worth more than a hundred men and the horses under them! Murrane ground his teeth together in seething fury.

Brown had said the loch was too deep to recover the cannon without rebuilding the causeway and bringing experienced seamen and engineers to the site.

Murrane cursed the soldier who’d caused the accident—cursed him back to the day he’d dropped from his mother’s womb. He’d put a bullet between the man’s eyes and kicked him over the side after the cannon, but he took small satisfaction in his revenge. It would take a fortune to replace the gun, whereas soldiers were to be had for a handful of coppers on any street corner.

He swore again into his ale. Five men and a cannon Ross Campbell had cost him—six men if you counted the clodskull who’d managed to fall off his horse and break his neck on the road from Edinburgh. Murrane massaged his arm; the pain had receded to a dull ache. He drained the mug and motioned for the orderly to pour him another cup.

Men didn’t appreciate good health when they had it, he mused. A bad heart had plagued his father. For most of his seventy-six years his sire had moaned and pissed about his chest pain—then the old fool had been stabbed to death in his bed by a drunken whore.

Murrane leaned back and propped his spurred boots on a bench. He’d given up strong drink and rich food on his doctor’s advice, anything more was in the Lord’s hands. He’d not spend his days coddling himself. He was a soldier, by God, not some sniveling, lace-drawered Jack of Dandy.

He straightened in his chair as he heard the sound of a woman weeping. That would be his dear, sweet Anne. Murrane’s eyes narrowed to slits. Damn her for a wanton slut! He’d give her reason to weep when he had her lover’s hide peeled like an orange and his codpiece tanned for a tobacco pouch.

Protesting loudly, the small group, surrounded by armed soldiers, moved toward the high table. Murrane counted nearly a dozen, mostly liveried servants. He was surprised—Strathmar looked too poor to support a proper staff.

“Fitzhugh? By the king’s royal arse, is that you, Fitzhugh Murrane?” A lady in a scarlet gown pushed to the front. “What’s the meaning of this outrage?” She spun and slapped a crying maidservant soundly across the cheek. “Shut up,” she commanded.

Murrane leaped to his feet. He knew that voice—it belonged to his bride’s mother. “Lady Langstone?”

Lady Langstone’s blue eyes spit flame as she continued to castigate him. “You? You’re the one who attacked the castle? Are you stark, raving mad?”

With a sinking feeling, Murrane realized Anne was not among the prisoners. He recognized the foppish gentleman behind Lady Langstone as Lord Montclaire’s third son. Murrane signaled, and the foot soldier holding Roger Martin’s arms behind his back released him.

Roger dusted off his coat and moved to stand alongside Anne’s mother. “My father will want to know the meaning of this,” he said haughtily. “By what right am I assaulted by common soldiers?”

“Where’s Anne?” Murrane demanded.

“Where indeed?” the lady flung back.

Murrane’s chest grew tight. “I want Ross Campbell!” he roared. “I want them both. Where are they?”

She didn’t flinch. “These are my people,” she insisted shrilly. “
Mine
—all but this one wailing slut.” She indicated the maid she’d slapped earlier. “Mavis. You’ll not touch her—Roger has taken her under his protection. Treat us with the respect we deserve, and I’ll be more willing to answer your questions. Unless, of course, you’re planning on murdering Roger and me and all our servants. Have you forgotten the position my husband, Lord Langstone, holds? It won’t be the same as doing away with Scots peasants. You’ll have to kill us all, you know, and then you’ll never keep it quiet. Some of your people will talk, and you’ll be facing charges before the—”

“Shut up!” Murrane shouted. How dare she speak to him like this? He wanted to order her thrown down a well—or have her tongue ripped out. He forced himself to smile ingratiatingly. “To the contrary, Lady Langstone, you were never in any danger from me.” Sweat beaded on his forehead, and his fingers ached to tighten around her throat. “I came here to rescue your daughter from the hands of a vicious bandit. I’d no idea you were in residence.”

Her mouth puckered. “You came to steal her back from her husband.”

“Not her husband at all,” Murrane lied glibly. “You’ve been deceived, m’lady. They aren’t legally married. The cleric who performed the ceremony was a fake. Anne and I were formally betrothed. If anyone can claim her, it’s I. This has all been a foul plot to rob us of the Lady Anne and—”

“And her fortune,” Lady Langstone finished for him.

“I see we understand each other.”

She shrugged. “Perhaps. But you’ve forgotten we’re in Scotland. Here, it is only necessary for a couple to declare in public that they are man and wife for a marriage to be recognized. Your tale of a false cleric means nothing. Anne is wed. Unless . . .” Lady Langstone fluttered her thick eyelashes. “Unless an accident should befall Ross Campbell . . .”

Murrane fixed her with a glare. “Where are they?”

She spread her scarlet-tipped fingers gracefully. “According to the servants, they’re on their way to take ship for the American Colonies.”

Murrane’s stomach lurched. “How did they know I was coming? Who warned them?” He knotted his hands into tight fists. “You permitted your daughter to go with him?”

She laughed. “Permitted? Hardly. That colonial’s made as much of a fool of me as he has of you.”

Murrane turned away, unable to look into Lady Langstone’s face any longer without planting his fist in the center of her painted mouth. He picked up his mug and drained it to the dregs. “I’ll find them,” he swore softly. “I’ll find them if I have to follow them to hell.” He sank into the chair again.

Mavis tugged on Roger’s sleeve, and he tilted his head to listen to what she had to say. Then he nodded and smiled. “Baron Murrane.”

“What is it?” Murrane snarled, holding out his mug to be refilled.

Roger Martin’s smile grew even wider. “The girl says not to drink the ale.”

“And why the hell not?” Murrane demanded.

Roger snickered. “She says the steward, Hurley Campbell, left it especially for your pleasure.”

“And? And?”

“And she says it is common practice for the Campbells to serve their enemies beer that—” He broke off delicately. “I’d not wish to say, actually.” Roger glanced at Lady Langstone. “Not with a lady present.”

“Out with it man!” Murrane roared. “Am I poisoned?”

Roger whispered in Lady Langstone’s ear, and she began to giggle. “Hardly poisoned, Murrane,” she murmured with amusement, “unless Scottish piss contains enough venom to do in an English baron.”