Just in Time for a Highlander (18 page)

Duncan had managed to dress himself without feeling too much under Undine’s observant eye, and now they walked the path that would return them to the castle. “What does Serafina want of me?”

Undine looked at him, surprised. “I have no idea,” she said, as if his assumption of her knowledge of Serafina’s state of mind had been akin to an assumption she could fly. “I haven’t seen her since yesterday.”

“Then how did you—” He stopped. There was no point in asking how Undine knew anything. He just needed to accept it. Just as he needed to accept that serving Abby meant stripping himself of preconceived ideas of being her savior or protector.

“How has your strong-arm training been?”

“Well, I had my first go at swords yesterday—stripped to the skin, of course.”

Undine coughed. “Stripped to the skin?”

“Aye. I got the traditional first lesson. And I’m surprised to say I think it really helped.”

“I’m curious, sir. Who gave you your lesson?”

“Actually, it was—” He stopped. “There is no tradition of stripping, is there?”

Undine shook her head.

Idiot.
“Fell for it, did I?”

“I’m afraid so. That must have been quite the spectacle. I’m afraid your teacher was having a bit of fun with you.”

“Aye. So it seems.” He supposed it was the price he had to pay for observing her diving session. Given what the naked lesson led to, it wasn’t too much of a comeuppance.

Serafina came into view at the next rise. She was racing Grendel downhill, and Duncan was reminded how young she really was.

She saw them and waved. Duncan waved back. A thought had been niggling at him since they’d started back. “Maybe I do know why I was sent here, Undine.”

She regarded him thoughtfully. “Oh?”

“Because I know what will happen.”

Undine chuckled. “Dinna be so certain. First, no man knows everything. While you stand outside the castle wall waiting for the tyrant to fall as has been written, you dinna see the wagon that runs ye down. Second, the past is more mutable than ye know. A delayed attack here, a missed appointment there. Suddenly, the warp and weft has changed, even if the fabric remains whole. And third, even if ye do know, ye must take care. That kind of knowledge is a danger to possess. Do not let any but those you trust absolutely know about it.”

“Are you saying I shouldn’t tell Abby about the future?”
Or
you
, he almost added, for she had asked him no questions about it since his admission at the pool.

“I’m saying use your knowledge with care, and dinna be too certain of it.”

Serafina arrived beside them, cutting short the possibility of asking anything more.

Her energetic curtsy was punctuated by Grendel’s barks. “I’ve been looking for you, Mr. MacHarg. I hope you have recovered from your run-in with Lord Kerr. Lady Kerr was up half the night stitching his chin. I dinna think the poor man has been having much luck convincing her he’s the man she wants. I do wonder if the nursing session might have helped turn the tide for him.”

“Duncan has fallen in love with Lady Kerr,” Undine said abruptly.

“
Oh
. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said—”

“I have not fallen in love with Lady Kerr,” Duncan said, rising from a round of Grendel ear scratching. “And she has
decidedly
not fallen in love with me.”

“Then the fight was not about Lady Kerr?”

“Hardly,” Duncan said. “Rosston made a comment regarding a member of Clan MacHarg that required a response. That is all.”

Undine said, “I see you’re rewriting history already, MacHarg.”

“If it’s any comfort,” Serafina said, “Lord Kerr has not made an appearance since it happened. Of course, neither has Lady Kerr, and I—” Her face clouded. “Oh, dear. That’s probably not a good thing, is it?”

Duncan groaned. If Serafina was right, he’d certainly been a fool.

Undine said to him, “Sometimes one forgets to weigh the cost of a lifetime of regret against the satisfaction of a few moments.”

“I get it,” Duncan said sharply. “I screwed up.”

She touched his arm. “I meant Abby, my friend.”

Clearly distressed by her misstep, Serafina said, “Sir, I’m sorry to have added to your burden. But if you’re in love with Abby, you cannot let this lie.”

“And that is my cue,” Undine said. “There are some things over which even a fortune-teller has no power. Best of luck in untangling this.” She hurried off.

Duncan, who was in no mood to be upbraided over his failures with Abby, said, “But this is not the reason you came looking for me,” he said. “What can I do for you, milady?”

“I am full serious,” said Serafina, who would not be diverted. “If you love her, you must act. And if you do not love her, say so now. I know ye wouldna lie.”

“Well, I…I mean, Lord Kerr seems to have…” He wilted under her probing gaze. “Aye,” he said, “I do love her if ye must know.”

“I
knew
that was why the spell brought ye here! But have you told her?”

“What if I have? It didn’t do me any good. She spent half the night tending to Rosston’s cheek and the other half to his—”

“Mr. Mac
Harg
!”

“I was going to say
vanity
. In any case, Lady Kerr is rather angry at me right now.”

“May I ask why?”

Duncan shifted. “It would probably be better if you didn’t.”

“I see. May I give you some advice?”

Her tone indicated what followed would be less like advice than a direct order. “Well—”

“First, get yourself a clean set of clothes. That plaid is filthy. Would ye wear a butcher’s apron to a ball? Second, never make reference to any other suitor. ’Tis impolite, it betrays a lack of confidence, and it paints you as a churl. Third,” she said, holding up a hand to stop his response, “apologize. Instantly. Effusively. And quite possibly from your knees.”

Duncan crossed his arms. Regret was one thing. An apology was another. “
Mmphf
.”

“And fourth, kiss her. Thoroughly.”

He shifted. “She might not let me.”

“She might not
let
you? Mr. MacHarg, if that is your primary concern, we have a much bigger problem on our hands.”

“What I mean is, she may not want an apology—or like me kissing her.”

She gave him a fiery look. “You will bear up somehow. I’m sure of it.”

“Your hair color suits you. Has anyone ever told you that?”

“Many. My father, especially.”

“Was it his color too?” Duncan’s had come straight from his grand-da through his ma to him.

“My da? No, black as coal, but he was my stepfather. My real father died before I was born. And my mother’s hair was golden. I suppose it came through her people. I never met them. They came from up north.”

Duncan brushed off his plaid self-consciously and offered her his arm. “Have you finished your instructions? If so, and if I promise to abide by them, will you do me the honor of telling me why you were looking for me?”

“There was a note from Lady Kerr. She has called a meeting of clansmen—”

“Not again!” He calculated the time it would take him to reach the castle.

“Dinna worry. The meeting is not till the strike of ten. But I was to fetch you and to tell you the meeting is to be kept secret.”

“Oh. Well then.” The bells at the castle had only just struck nine. What secret did Abby Kerr have to share with him?

“Mr. MacHarg, may I observe you are looking a bit smug for a man who needs to be guided by humility—especially as you are not the only clansman invited to this meeting.”

Duncan tugged the belt tight over a clean plaid and sark, pinned the wool at his shoulder, and flew down the hall with Grendel at his side. He intended to be on time, at her side, and adding value from the start. He might not be the only man there, but he would be the handsomest, tallest, and smartest.

However, the Great Hall was empty. And after the footmen there claimed to know nothing of the meeting, Duncan began to wonder if perhaps Abby had played another trick on him.

“Any thoughts, old boy?”

Grendel looked in the direction of Abby’s room and whined.

“
Och
. Are you sure?” Duncan could face her in a room full of men. Finding her lounging in bed, eating bacon and eggs with Rosston would do very little for his morning.

Fortunately, Abby did not answer his knock. On the chance he might catch her with her father, he headed up the stairs.

He rounded the top and found Molly standing by the bed, bundling a blanket around her shoulders. Her cheeks were flushed. So were Lachlan’s.

Duncan scooped her cap from the floor and handed it to her. “Do you know where her ladyship is?”
And
does
her
ladyship
know
you
are
bedding
her
father?

Molly gave him a piercing look. He hadn’t seen her hair before. It was blond, which surprised him, given her dark brows and eyes.

“I havena seen her since yesterday.”

He ducked his head toward Lachlan, who seemed to be staring out a window that didn’t exist. “Is he in his head?”

“Bugger yourself,” Lachlan said.

Duncan sighed. “I’d like a word alone with his lordship.”

Molly gave him a look, and she left.

“Pretty girl,” Duncan said evenly.

“I thought ye were foucking my daughter. Or has she o’erthrown ye?”

“I feel certain the only foucking your daughter will be doing will be with her new husband. I’m told a wedding has been set for this week. She’s marrying Rosston.”

Lachlan’s eyes narrowed. He wanted to believe Duncan, that much was clear, but he was canny enough to know that if a wedding date had been set, somewhere in the reaches of the sandstorm he called memory, he’d be able to remember someone telling him about it.

“The thing is,” Duncan went on, “I have nae doubt the happy bride and groom will set about producing an heir
tout
suite
. Winning over the clansmen is a tricky road, as you ken. Abby alone…” Duncan shook his head with regret. “The odds there are mixed at best. Abby with groom…better. Definitely better. But Abby with groom and son…” He ran a hand through his hair, pleased. “’Tis a combination I would not bet against. In fact,” he said, stroking his chin, “I suppose any man could father the child, really, no matter who the groom was, so long as Abby could say she’s produced an heir.”

Lachlan purpled instantly, his tongue churning thickly.

“But that is not what I have come for,” Duncan said. “You see, Lord Kerr, I am here on a very short visit. I have been tasked with helping your daughter overcome her financial difficulties. When I have done that, I will leave here. Forever. I should think that might be a very attractive proposition to you.”

Lachlan leaned forward far enough to spit out, “Bastard,” before collapsing back onto his pillows.

“The quickest way, it seems to me, is by breaking the back of this canal,” Duncan said. “Or rather unbreaking it.”

“Taxes,” Lachlan croaked.

“Pardon?”

“Taxes. We paid too much.”

Duncan had never met a Scot who didn’t think he paid too much tax, so he didn’t put too much weight on Lachlan’s assessment. Nonetheless, the complaint sounded like a bone the man had been chewing for a long time.

“Taxes for what?” Duncan asked. “The canal?”

“I told Moira, look at the taxes. But, no, Lachlan, dear, that is for you. I must ride. Ride, ride, ride. She rides all day, but she doesn’t look. She doesn’t
see
!” He clutched his covers, terrified. “Where’s Molly? I want Molly. Molly!”

The girl appeared so quickly, Duncan wondered if she’d been standing outside the door. He rather hoped she had. The message he’d delivered was meant as much for her as Lachlan.

He heard the first strike of ten.

“Dammit,” he said and caught Molly’s arm. “Where might a group meet if they’re not meeting in the Great Hall?”

“Do ye mean the group Lady Kerr has called together? I hear they’re in the Lady chapel.”

The sad cry of “
Moira!
” resounded as Duncan hurried down and down.

The tiny chapel sat like a tree house on an ancient gray battlement wall that divided two baileys. A man Duncan did not recognize stood inside one of the chapel windows. He shook his head when he saw Duncan pelting across the bailey’s worn cobbles.

Duncan strained for the sounds of talking and heard an upraised voice—not Abby’s—though he could not make out the words.

God, he hated to be late for meetings. At his firm, the last person to arrive at meetings not only had to take notes, but refill coffee, stand, and pay a hundred-dollar fine. He doubted there’d be much coffee or note-taking here.

He hurdled over a largish trough, clearing it easily but failing to anticipate the orange tabby cleaning itself on the other side.

The cat screeched. Duncan’s ankle turned, and he hit the ground palms first. He was scrabbling to his feet when he heard the
whoosh
and
smack
.

The arrow had missed him, only just, and spun to a stop after hitting the cobbles. Standing, he scanned the sight lines. No one on the wall. No one now in the chapel window. No one in any of the castle windows, though the curtain in one window fluttered suggestively. It dawned on him that the angled shadow behind him was cast by the tower in which Lachlan was situated. But there was no one in any of those windows either, at least no one he could see.

He waited a moment for another arrow—he’d just as soon have a chance to see his death hurtling toward him—then, concluding his attacker had meant to catch Duncan’s attention not put him in an early grave, he crouched down and picked up the arrow.

There was nothing distinctive about the design. It was very plain, with feather fletches, and looked more or less like the same ones Abby had used—Duncan froze. Squinting, he gazed up at Lachlan’s tower, did a quick spatial calculation, and followed the castle roofline till he found what must be the window by Abby’s desk. It was impossible to tell from where specifically the arrow had been launched, but Abby’s window could not be ruled out. His heart sank.

The arrow’s shaft was unmarked, though a small piece of paper, no wider than his thumb, had been quilled around it. He unrolled the paper. “Leave now and never return” had been written in a tight script. He tried to remember the look of the writing in the expense book on Abby’s desk, but nothing concrete came to him.

He shoved the note in his sporran and took the stairs to the battlement wall two at a time.

This chapel was in considerably better shape than the one on the banks of the Esk. Red, blue, and emerald glass sparkled in the intricate scenes rendered in the window over the door, and numerous grotesques lined the chapel’s roofline. The heavy door was propped open, and Duncan was surprised to see no more than a half dozen men. They stood in a close circle near the altar, most of them members of Rosston’s sept. Unfortunately, Rosston was among them. Duncan stepped inside.

The men fell silent when they saw him. Duncan wondered if there was a bow stashed nearby.

“I saw ye trip,” said one wearing a dun-colored cap. “Take care on those cobbles.” As the warning seemed less concerned than amused, Duncan refrained from offering his thanks.

Rosston stood with his hands on his hips. With his dark coloring, sullen expression, and Abby’s neat black stitches anchoring a fiery length of crimson across his chin, he looked like a cross between Oscar De La Hoya and a five-year-old child.

Duncan sighed. He walked up to Rosston, purposefully moved the arrow from under his right arm to under his left, and extended a hand.

“My apologies, Lord Kerr.”

In truth, Rosston owed him as much of an apology as Duncan owed him, and possibly even a thank-you given what followed the smackdown, but Duncan knew the melee had upset Abby and he held himself responsible. He also knew that, unlike Duncan himself, Rosston looked liked he’d been dragged through a hedgerow by a four-inch chain.

Rosston did not take the proffered hand.

“Lady Kerr,” one of the men said, and Duncan let his hand fall to his side.

Abby stood at the door, bow over her shoulder, beside Jock. The subtle greens and browns she wore made her look like a forest goddess in some Edward Burne-Jones painting. The look on her face made it clear she had witnessed Duncan’s exchange with Rosston.

“Gentlemen,” she said flatly, managing in three syllables to greet the group, imply the seriousness of what was to come, and suggesting at least one among them did not measure up to the characteristics inherent in the word. In this case, Rosston was her target, and the look she cast in his direction carried such stinging disapproval, Duncan nearly felt sorry for the man.

Rosston made an unregretful noise.

Duncan withdrew the arrow from under his arm and placed it with a firm snap on the priest’s table. Abby’s eyes narrowed, but he saw nothing in them that might betray a previous knowledge.

He was taking a seat on the front pew when a warning noise from Abby brought him up again.

“We will hardly be making our council here, Mr. MacHarg.”

“No, of course not.”

Rosston but not Abby caught the hint of mock obsequiousness in his voice and surprised him by smiling.

“Come, gentlemen,” Abby said.

They trouped through a side door and down a dark stairwell—
Was
the
entire
bloody
place
lined
with
hidden
stairs?
—into a windowless, though Duncan thought probably not staircase-less, room. With only the scant light coming down the stairwell to guide them, the men took seats at benches on either side of a long table. Duncan wondered if the space had once been a classroom. Abby, perhaps responding to the sense of the place, clasped her hands behind her, teacher-like, until, one by one, the men fell silent.

“We have a problem with the English,” she said.

One of the younger men snickered, but Rosston sat straighter and Duncan heard the strain in her voice.

“I’ve called you here today,” she said, “because I know I can trust you. I received word today from someone on the English side who is sympathetic to our cause.”

Undine
again? Or is there another informant?

“Bridgewater is making immediate plans to attack, despite the fact the English army has strict orders from the queen not to stir things up during this delicate time.”

The “delicate time” Abby referred to being the negotiations for the Act of Union, the treaty that would strip Scotland of its independence in exchange for ensuring the financial health of a few influential Scots. Duncan, swallowing his disgust, thought of the lines from Robert Burns:

We’re bought and sold for English gold,

Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!

“The time is delicate for Clan Kerr as well,” she added. “’Tis no surprise to anyone that we are in desperate financial straits. We can make a go of it with the canal if I can get a loan from the bank.”

Rosston held his tongue this time. Duncan realized with a shock that Abby and Rosston must have reached an agreement on the subject. There was a palpable sense of negotiated truce in the air, and he wondered what other subjects they’d come to terms on. Oh God, how he regretted that fight with Rosston.

When he wrestled his attention back to the matter at hand, the men were discussing how to rally the clans to the border.

“No,” Duncan said, interrupting. “We mustn’t let the English army choose the mode of battle or the battlefield. We won’t concede the terms of the fight to them.”

“What choice do we have?” Jock demanded. “They’re attacking.”

“Perhaps ye think we can just send a footman over with an invitation,” one of the young men said, then laughed.

“Well…” Duncan hadn’t totally thought things out before he spoke—a very unwise move. But he’d watched enough war movies to know there was always a way for the good guys to outsmart their enemy. Then it came to him. “Say you’re a man in charge of a large army who’s not supposed to attack but wants to anyhow. What’s the one thing that would make you wait?”

Rosston held up a hand to stop the snickering. “What?”

“If you heard the other side was going to attack you.”

Abby looked at Rosston and nodded. “He’s right.”

“So we’re going to attack the English army instead, just to choose our own time and battlefield?”

“Well, it’s always better to do the choosing yourself,” Duncan said, thinking of the choices Abby may have made in the last twelve hours. “It’s called having the weather gage in sailing, and it gives you a distinct advantage. But I’m not suggesting we attack. I’m suggesting we let them
think
we’re attacking.”

“Shall we send them a letter?” the capped man said with sarcasm.

“No,” Duncan said carefully.

“They’d ken it was a trick. And it would be,” Abby said, getting into the spirit. “We have to make them think they found out about the planned attack on their own, right?”

Duncan grinned. “That’s right.”

“How?”

“I’ve got it!
The
Man
Who
Never
Was
!” Duncan remembered the movie clearly. It had been a fairly pulpy melodrama about England fighting the Germans during World War II. He had watched it with his father on one of the last days before the bastard did a runner, and his father had downed half a dozen cans of beer and ranted about the plot being “too bloody convoluted.”

“The man who never was?”

“It’s a”—he stopped himself before he said
movie
—“way of confusing your enemy. You plant a dead body with misinformation on it in a place where the other side will find it. For example, if you’re going to attack Sicily, the papers on the body say you’re going to attack Sardinia,” he said, repeating the subject of the planted misinformation in the story. “The trick is making the other side believe the dead person is a person with insider knowledge of your plans.”

“So we kill Jock?” the man with the cap said with a guffaw.

“No.” Duncan smiled. “Not required. The dead person just has to seem like a person who would be trusted with Kerr secrets. For example, he’d need to be wearing a plaid, and maybe carrying a flask with Kerr whiskey in it. He’d probably have a letter or two in his sporran in addition to the letter stating the plans for the attack—No, I take it back. The letter about the attack would have to be hidden on him somewhere…”

“The hollow heel in his boot?”

“A false back in his sporran?”

“Written on silk and stuffed into a wooden tooth?”

Duncan eyed his companions. “You people scare me. Aye, any of those things would do—so long as we could count on the English army finding the letter.”

The man who’d suggested the wooden tooth grinned, revealing an entire set of them.

“Seems to me,” Abby said, “the only problem is finding a dead man.”

One of the younger men sized up Duncan.

“I’m sure Lady Kerr wasna suggesting we kill someone,” Rosston said, though his tone suggested that wasn’t an unreasonable idea.

“Then how do we find a body?”

Christ, the Middle Ages ended like eighteen years ago. Aren’t people dying by the hour?
“Well…” Duncan quickly paged through the random snippets of science fiction, horror movies, and episodes of
CSI
stowed away in the dusty rafters of his brain.

“We could rob a grave,” Abby suggested.

“Unfortunately, we can’t have the man be too dead. Alas, poor Yorick and all that. But you’re definitely onto something. Does anyone happen to know the local gravedigger?”