Lord of the Highlands (3 page)

A small smile touched her face. It was a Major Arcana card, representing success. Turmoil, conquest. Possibly an imminent voyage, or a life-changing event.

She’d be off on a new venture soon. “Are you saying I have to come to you?” she mused, her smile growing.

She turned the next card quickly.

The Lovers. “Yesss . . .” she hissed, grinning outright. It was a man and a woman. Some sort of glorious, celestial being watched over them, his hands outstretched in a beneficent gesture.

Lovers.
Her optimism swelled. There was her Viking right there. “Doesn’t get much clearer than that.”

Felicity flipped the next one more quickly than the last, and her hand froze. “What’s with all the Major cards?” It was the Wheel of Fortune.

She tried to remember what that one meant. A profound realization taking place? But it also meant twists of fate. She studied the spinning wheel and gave a shrug. “Round and round she goes, where she stops nobody knows . . .”

Felicity held her hand poised over the fourth card. “Come on. Give me something nice and easy.”

The Two of Cups.

“Oh yeah!” She patted the card triumphantly. “Yeah, baby.” She studied the image. Two people gazed at each other, both ready to share their oversized golden cup. Partnership, marriage, commitment.

Placing her fingers over the back of the next card, she rubbed it into the rug with the anticipation of a Vegas blackjack dealer. “Love and marriage, love and marriage, go together like a . . .” She flipped it.

The Five of Pentacles.

“Shit.”

Adversity and loss. This card pictured another man and woman, but this time they were trudging through snow, looking cold and hungry. The man’s leg was bandaged, and he struggled with his crutch in the snow. “What’s
that
about?”

Her excitement left her like air from a balloon. In a Tarot reading, each new card added meaning to the last, and she had no idea what this was all telling her.

She’d just wanted to find her true love. Just a quick, fun reading. But now she sensed she should’ve waited for Livia to do the reading for her.

Should now wait for her to finish it.

Felicity rubbed the edge of the last card with her fingertip. She had to know. She could ask her aunt what it all meant later. She needed to see what was hidden beneath this last card.

She turned it before she could chicken out.

“No . . .” Her voice was tiny. She looked at the hideous card in front of her and groaned. This last card, the one that defined the entire reading. And it represented a total breakdown in one’s life and world.

Lightning struck a great spire into flames. There was a toppling crown, and people falling to the earth. “No, not that.”

The Tower.

Only a fine thread of anger stopped her despair from turning to tears. Why couldn’t she have happiness? For once, something simple and pleasant. Felicity had always been dealt the bad hand.

Her parents had died when she was still in elementary school, and she’d never been the same. She’d never been quite a part of things, something always just slightly off as she made her way through the world.

All she wanted was for the loneliness to go away. For a decent boyfriend, someone who was who he said he was. It wasn’t so much. A
good
man.

Felicity abruptly raked her hands through the cards, sweeping them before her on the shag rug. “I wish . . .”

She plucked the Chariot card from the pile and rubbed it between her fingers. “Where are you?” The glowing, triumphant warrior. “I wish . . . I wish I could meet
you
.”

The dying light drew Felicity’s eyes. Her candle was guttering out. She looked back down at the cards, and the movement set her head to whirring.
Please no nausea.
She pursed her lips.
Damned sangria.

Her hands still on the cards, she slid down onto the rug. She’d lay there a moment, waiting for the spinning to stop.

Waiting, and wishing for her one, true man. Her Viking.

Chapter 2

Not again
, Will Rollo thought sourly. He’d saved his friend Ormonde from many a scrape, but the Tower of London? Frowning, he pulled his cowl further over his head. An escape from the Tower far exceeded the obligations of friendship.

He nodded to his companion, and they pulled the oars up to skim near the surface of the water, dragging the small boat to a stop. Traitor’s Gate loomed just ahead, connecting the Thames to the moat that encircled the Tower complex.

“Who goes there?” the guard shouted, jangling his keys as if to stress the gravity of his position.

It was early evening, and though there were hours yet before the gate would be locked for the night, traffic that time of day was uncommon.

His hired man shifted nervously at his side, and Rollo put his hand out, gesturing for calm. Coin bought men, but it didn’t always buy composure.

Truly
, he thought,
this is the last time
.

Rollo cleared his throat, trying his best to shed the Scots from his voice. “I’ve come wi’ ale, gov’ner.”

He frowned at the answering silence. He had one shot to get Ormonde out and needed to think quickly.

“It’s for his lordship,” Rollo added. He’d grown up on the other side of the servant-lord relationship, and knew invoking the wrath of an angry nobleman—even an anonymous one—was good for getting results. “He says I deliver it before the gates is locked for the night, or it’s all our hides.”

Rollo let out a quick, sharp cough. Keeping up the false accent was a struggle and an annoyance. Ormonde might thrive on these sorts of intrigues, but Rollo much preferred fighting his battles in the light of day. Preferably on horseback.

There was a pause, then a strained, “Be on your way then.”

Rollo’s shoulders eased.
Without question, the last
, he thought, giving the guard a nod as they rowed past.

He noted the man’s greedy eyes paused on the cask, and fought the urge to heave a visible sigh of relief. The thing was empty, but for a stretch of rope, over twenty fathoms long. It was his ticket in and Ormonde’s ride out.

Rollo spared a quick, satisfied smile. The barrel and its promise of drink had been just the thing. Only a painted French whore would’ve bought him swifter passage.

They cut a sharp right, rowing into the moat toward Cradle Tower, which jutted out along the southeastern side. Long ago, Edward III had built it as his own private water entrance. The days of such niceties were long gone, and Cradle Tower was now filled instead with prisoners from the Civil Wars. Cromwell’s enemies all.

The fortress rose high above them, its beige and brown stone an ominous gray in the night’s growing dark. As they glided in and toward the Galleyman Stairs, he contemplated the thin arrow slits along the façade. The small openings offered no help—he’d have to get Ormonde out from above.

Even though it was his crippled legs that were stiff, Rollo rubbed his shoulder, remembering his long-ago wound. He’d been shot on the field at Philiphaugh, and left for dead. But it was Ormonde who’d found him. Ormonde’s boyish persistence that had pulled him from the field to safety.

He rolled his shoulders, eyeing a second guard coming into view.
The last time, Ormonde.

“What have you there?” The guard was a beefy man, and it was at times like this that Rollo was glad of his cane.

“Ale.” He stood, his cramped legs trying to find balance in the wobbling boat. His hired man pulled them close to the stone landing, and Rollo used the cane to make his way from the craft. “For you guards, mayhap?”

Rollo tried to wrench his face into a smile, but his thoughts were only for the blood that flowed too slowly back into his limbs.
Damned boats.
He despised them.

“What’s this then?” The guard laughed. “You’re lame!” He shook his head in wonder. “Can’t be an easy job of it, hauling ale on feeble pins.”

Rollo found his footing. He tossed his cane up, catching at its midpoint, and swung. He caught the guard behind his ear, and the man fell in a solid heap. “Not feeble,” he gritted out.

Taking the man by the heel, Rollo dragged him under the wooden staircase. He patted down the guard’s coat, plucking a ring of keys from his inside pocket.

“He’ll wake,” he said, returning to his companion. “But we have time.”

Rollo noted the heavy length of rope that his hired man had hauled onto the landing. “Good work. You’re earning your coin, and a bit besides.” He looked back out to the moat, almost completely shrouded in darkness. “Be gone now,” he told him. “Wait on the far side. You’ll see us.”

The sound of Rollo’s shuffling step echoed off the dank stone as he made his ascent. The thick loops of rope cut heavily into his shoulder, but he dare not risk the noise of dragging it.

He headed straight for the end of the hall, knowing exactly where he’d find Ormonde. The Sealed Knot was a clandestine bunch, working anonymously to topple Cromwell and reinstate the true king. But they weren’t so secretive as to watch in silence as one of their own was imprisoned. When alerted that Rollo planned on freeing his friend, an agent had sought him out, pointed him to trustworthy hired help, detailed Ormonde’s position, and all but escorted Rollo to the Tower.

Ormonde was a nobleman, and his cell was actually quite an accommodating affair, with a settee, fireplace, and small desk. “How’d you know where to find me?” he asked the moment Rollo found the right key and slipped in.

Rollo chuckled at his friend’s exuberance. Ormonde’s bright red hair was in a tousle, and could use a fair spot of barbering besides, but these things only heightened the man’s boyishness. Though Ormonde was in his forties, Rollo expected he’d never lose his bright-eyed zeal.

“Your Sealed Knot men seem to have much information at their disposal.”

“But how . . . ?”

“Later.” Rollo eyed the windowless room. They’d have to continue up, making their escape from the roof. “Let’s away from here before your guard wakes sore and angry.”

“Give me that.” Ormonde gestured to the rope.

“I can manage,” Rollo said coldly.

“You never change, do you? I know better than most how well you can manage”—he reached for the heavy mass—“but I’ve been cooped up here for weeks, and if I don’t set this nervous energy to something, I swear—”

“Fine.” Rollo shrugged the rope from his side. “Let’s just be gone.”

They made their way up a cramped spiral staircase to the rooftop. Rollo had read of a Jesuit priest who’d made this same escape not one hundred years prior, and he figured if a man of the cloth could do it, two battle-hardened soldiers could manage as well.

“What mission do you risk your head for this time?” Rollo placed his hands on the cold stone of the battlements and peered down. The moat—and he hoped his boat—waited for them in the blackness below. “Hand me that,” he said, pointing to the rope.

“The same as ever. I’ll see the true Stuart king reinstated before I die.” Ormonde helped Rollo secure the end of the rope around one of the battlements. “Cromwell and his Parliament may have beheaded King Charles I, but they dare not behead his son. I vow, Charles II will be restored to the throne.”

“They do call it a
kingdom
, after all,” Rollo said dryly, tugging the rope tight, testing his knot. “There now. Who shall be first to give it a go?” He spared Ormonde a smile.

“I need to tell you something, Will.”

Rollo’s face grew stoic once more, waiting in silence for what his friend had to say.

“Your brother.” Ormonde looked into the distance, weighing his words. “It’s Jamie. Jamie’s the one who orchestrated my capture.”

“I knew . . .” Rollo inhaled sharply. “I anticipated this day. I knew, when he traded wives. To go from Graham’s sister to Campbell’s. Aye, getting in league with Cromwell himself wasn’t far behind.”

“So you’re not . . . surprised?”

“There’s no ill my elder brother could conceive that would give me surprise.” He glanced quickly at his legs before he gave the rope one more tug. “Up and over, you.”

Ormonde smiled, shaking his head, and clapped his friend on the shoulder. “I thank you for this, Will.”

“Aye,” he muttered, watching Ormonde’s descent. “And it’s the last time, for certain.”

“Good evening,
cripple
.”

Rollo turned sharply, though he knew from the voice whom he’d find. “Jamie. So happy you could join me. ’Tis a lovely wee fortress you have here. Though it does seem to have sprung a leak.”

“Did you think I’d not hear your clopping about?” Jamie eyed his brother with disdain. “The years pass, and still you trudge around like a one-legged fishwife.”

“Aye.” Rollo smiled broadly. “The years pass, and still you talk to me as if you’re the same twelve-year-old in our father’s stable yard.”

The hiss of Jamie’s unsheathed broadsword cut through the night.

“Dear Jamie, you surprise me.” Rollo laughed softly, tapping his cane lightly on the toe of his boot. “You’re fighting your own battles now? Or is it that Cromwell doesn’t have a sister for you to bed?”

Jamie leapt for him, but Rollo was ready. Tossing his cane up, he grabbed the curve of the pistol-handled grip in one hand and pulled his sword free of its wooden sheath.

“Hiding a weapon in your walking stick.” Jamie slashed hard, and their swords crossed with a sharp clang. “Not fair, little brother.”

“You speak of fair?” Rollo cut his sword in the sharp diagonal slash he’d perfected in years of cavalry fighting, and his brother’s blade caught it just before it bit into his shoulder. “What’s not fair is destroying an innocent seven-year-old simply because you don’t like his pony.”

Jamie unleashed then, thrashing with rapid but sloppy strokes. Rollo’s legs prevented him from bobbing and weaving as another swordsman might, and he suffered the onslaught, meeting each thrust with his own block and parry.