Seduced by Destiny (30 page)

Breathless and sweating, Josselin retreated to the edge of the clearing to allow herself a moment of respite. She flipped
the hilt over in her grasp and pushed her damp hair away from her face with her forearm. Then she prepared to engage him again.

This time she drew him in, enticing him to continue his measured strikes by exaggerating their impact upon her, while carefully
evading his blade. She gasped and winced as his slices came closer and closer, lulling him into overconfidence. Then, when
he swung with lethal force toward her torso, she suddenly dove for the ground, rolling sideways at his feet.

Like a cluster of skittles upended by a barreling ball, he tripped over her and fell heavily, losing his weapon and lolling
onto his back. When she came up again on her feet, she was able to whip her blade around, placing it at his throat.

With a cocky grin, she stared down at him, squirming
there at the point of her sword. Now she had him. Now she could make him understand.

“Kill me then,” he ground out, his eyes no longer dancing, but full of cold hatred. “Kill me. But know this. I’m not the only
one after ye. Ye’re not long for this world, lass.”

She frowned. “Quit with your threats. I don’t mean to kill ye. We’re kin, ye and me. We both serve Scotland and the queen.
But I want ye to understand how ’tis with me, with us,” she said, gesturing toward Drew, “and if I have to do it with a blade
at your throat, so be it.” She took a deep breath. “Ye’re right. Drew MacAdam is no Highlander. He’s an Englishman. But he’s
no spy. He has no interest in royal intrigue. He only came to Scotland for the golf.”

Syme may have been listening, but ’twas hard to tell. His eyes smoldered like live coals, ready to ignite at any moment.

“My identity hasn’t been compromised,” she assured him, “and I’ve revealed no secrets. ’Tis true I forged the name on your
missive, but ’twas only to protect an innocent. I changed nothin’ else, and if ye’ve seen the letter, ye know that. I’d never
do anythin’ to endanger Mary.”

She let up slightly on the pressure against his throat. Syme was a reasonable man. Surely he’d realize it had all been a misunderstanding.
There was no need to risk pricking a fellow servant of the queen.

“Here’s what I propose,” she told him. “Ye’ll tell Philipe ye were mistaken about my disappearance. As far as identifying
Ambrose Scott as a possible agent,” she said with a smirk, “I’m sure the queen will be pleased to know her disguise was able
to fool—”

Without warning, Syme slapped her blade away. Before she could gasp in surprise, he rose up, grabbed her by the front of her
bodice, and tossed her aside like a sack of laundry.

“Jossy!” Drew cried.

The breath was knocked from her, yet she managed to gasp out, “Stay back, Drew!”

She scrambled back to her feet at the same time as Syme.

“He’s mine,” she told Drew, pinning Syme with her gaze.

She might be swordless, but her da’s had taught her to fight with her fists and feet as well. She still had plenty of weapons
in her arsenal to battle the brute. The last thing she needed was Drew coming between them.

Still, she silently cursed herself for her misjudgment. She’d let down her guard for an instant, and Syme had seized the upper
hand. Apparently, he wasn’t ready to listen to reason.

Syme circled her like a predator, his gray eyes now as flat and dull as clay.

He lunged forward, and she skipped back out of his reach. He lunged again, and she spun, coming around with a high kick that
caught him in the side of the head.

He staggered but didn’t fall, then charged forward with fists clenched.

She ducked two punches, but a third caught her in the ribs, and she bent forward, wheezing in pain.

“Jossy!” Drew yelled.

“Nae!” she protested.

Syme towered above her, his laughing face now a mask of grim satisfaction. While she cradled her bruised ribs
with her arm, he laced his fingers together and cracked his knuckles.

Will had taught her to use a strong man’s strength against him. When Syme swung for her chin, she pushed his forearm aside,
knocking him off balance. There was no time to reply, but she at least gained freedom as he stumbled past.

He turned on her again, growling like a raging bear. She flexed her knees and put up her fists, ready for him.

This time when he approached, she gave him a kick to his midsection followed by a punch to his chin.

Temporarily slowed, he wasn’t stopped. With both hands, he seized her by the throat and began to squeeze.

“Jossy!”

Josselin brought her fists up between his arms, splitting them apart, simultaneously kicking him hard in the ballocks.

Fury kept him from responding to the pain, and he continued to advance.

She drove the sole of her foot into his knee, and he twisted but didn’t fall.

She stamped her heel upon his other foot, and he grunted but didn’t stop.

He managed to bend his arm around her waist, trapping her against him, and clamped her tightly, crushing her battered ribs.

She drove her elbow up hard into his throat. With an agonized cough, he released her, then staggered off, nursing his collapsed
windpipe.

Exhausted, Josselin hunched forward, bracing her hands on her knees, preparing for the next onslaught.

She didn’t notice that Syme had recovered his dagger,
and she didn’t see the flash of silver until ’twas almost too late.

“Look out!” Drew barked as Syme lunged forward with his blade.

She dove sideways, rolling atop and reclaiming her own discarded blade, then coming to her feet, sword in hand.

Syme’s underhanded attack was like a sudden awakening slap. Josselin realized he didn’t want to listen to her, to negotiate,
to hear the truth. He wasn’t just a spy. He was an assassin. He meant to kill her. What had before seemed a contest of skill
was now a fight to the death. And ’twould not end until one of them lay bleeding on the ground.

She clenched her jaw and prepared to engage him in earnest.

In effect they were now evenly matched. Josselin’s longer blade equalized Syme’s superior reach. What Josselin lacked in strength,
she made up for in dexterity. And while his attacks were more powerful and lethal, he fought like an assassin, accustomed
to slaughtering helpless victims, not opponents who could defend themselves.

Thus, the battle continued at length as Syme hacked away at her and she dodged and nicked him, neither of them able to do
much damage.

Eventually, Syme made a fatal mistake. While Josselin kept him busy, blocking her slashes, he forgot about her agile feet.
She pumped her left leg forward and kicked hard at his wrist. The dagger sailed from his grasp.

This was her moment. He was at her mercy. She had to kill him now.

She drew back her sword, preparing to plunge the blade into his heart.

Suddenly, the world seemed to slow impossibly around her, and everything came into sharp focus. She saw her own hand, grimy
with soil and sweat, gripping the swept hilt of Drew’s sword. Her gaze followed the long, bright blade as it shivered in the
dying light of day. She saw Syme’s black doublet with its ebony buttons, smudged with mud, and the seams that perfectly tailored
it to his frame.

Her eyes drifted upward as if weighted by lead. His pulse beat sluggishly in his neck, and she could see every bit of black
stubble on his chin. His lips were parted, and they trembled as he sucked in a long breath. His nostrils flared, and she watched
a drop of sweat roll slowly down his brow.

She looked him in the eyes, and there she saw the spark of human life, the spark she intended to extinguish.

’Twas then the impact of what she was about to do dealt her a crushing blow. Her heart sank to the pit of her stomach. The
breath caught in her throat. And her arm began to tremble. While the world moved on in its strange lethargy, Josselin stood
paralyzed.

She heard Drew call her name, but the sound was muffled, as if he were underwater. Slowly, she turned her head toward him.
Drew was scowling, lumbering toward her as if he were moving through honey.

Josselin didn’t know exactly what happened next as she was yanked abruptly back into real time, but all hell broke loose.

It had nearly killed Drew to watch Jossy battle the assassin and not to intervene, and he had the white knuckles to prove
it. But now his moment had come.

While Jossy faltered with her sword, unable to make the killing thrust, Drew saw Syme’s left hand steal down his thigh to
extract a slim rondel secreted in the top of his boot.

Drew warned Jossy, but she seemed dazed as she turned curious eyes toward him.

As he’d planned, Drew whipped out her dagger and flipped it in his hand, gripping the blade between his fingers. He hurled
the dagger forward, aiming for the assassin’s chest.

And missed.

Drew cursed as the blade sank into the flesh of the man’s dagger arm, slowing but not slaying him. Now what?

Syme’s discarded sword lay on the ground between Drew and the combatants. If he could claim it in time…

He hurtled forward. With not an instant to spare, he slipped the toe of his boot under the hilt of the dropped sword and flipped
it up into his hand.

As the desperate assassin drew back his injured arm, preparing to thrust the deadly blade between Jossy’s ribs, Drew charged
forward, pushing Jossy aside, and plunged the sword into the man’s black heart.

F
or once, as he watched the assassin sink lifelessly to the ground—the man’s gray eyes dimming in his sallow face and blood
trickling from his death-pale lips—Drew didn’t feel a shred of the nauseating guilt that had accompanied killing before.

Instead, a powerful surge of relief and justice filled him. Jossy was alive, whole, and unharmed.

He turned to her. Her sword fell from her fingers, clattering on the ground, and she looked bone-pale, as if she were about
to faint. He lunged forward to catch her, sweeping her up in his arms.

“Oh, Jossy,” he said with a fierce hug, “ye’re safe, lass. Ye’re safe.”

He touched her all over, as if assuring himself she was real, and pressed his lips again and again to the top of her precious
head.

After a moment, Jossy moaned softly, then squirmed against him and scrambled out of his embrace. Her face white with panic,
she stumbled to the edge of the clearing and retched into the bushes.

Drew knew exactly how she felt. This was her first taste
of real war, and ’twas far more bitter than she’d expected. Some could stomach the violence. Others, like Drew, could not.
For now, Jossy needed to recover. Later, she’d decide whether she had the fortitude to live by the sword.

The battle was finished, but Drew feared their troubles were far from over. There were things that needed to be done now,
and quickly—loose ends to tie up, decisions to make, lies to tell. And Jossy was in no condition to take care of them alone.

So while she hunkered over the bushes, shivering, Drew dislodged the sword and tossed his cloak over the body, shielding Jossy
from the gruesome sight. That done, he came up behind her, gently placing his hands on her quivering shoulders.

“I couldn’t do it,” she lamented. “I couldn’t kill him. I froze.”

“I know.”

“Why?” she asked, turning to him in anger and distress. “Was all my trainin’ for nothin’? Am I just a coward, unfit for battle?
A disgrace to my mother? Bloody hell, why couldn’t I finish him?”

He cradled her bleak face in his hands and demanded her gaze. “For the same reason your mother died on the battlefield. The
same reason I won’t go to war.”

“Why?”

“Because, my sweet Jossy,” he told her, “ye have a heart.”

She frowned in disgust.

“ ’Tisn’t a bad thing,” he assured her, licking his thumb and wiping away the smudge of blood on her injured chin. “Ye’re
a great fighter. Ye held your own against him. And I’ve never seen such agility—in man or maid. But there’s
much to war that ye don’t understand, much more than any amount of sparrin’ can prepare ye for.”

As he spoke, he checked her briefly for injuries.

“War isn’t bonnie or noble or fair,” he said, examining her arms one at a time. The flesh was reddened and scraped, but there
was no swelling. “When a man is fightin’ for his life, there’s no chivalry. And there are no rules.” He turned her head to
one side, then the other, looking for breaks along her jaw and lumps upon her brow. There were none. “ ’Tis ugly. Messy. Brutal.”
He probed gently along her ribs. Luckily, they seemed intact. “And if ye have an ounce of empathy, a morsel of humanity—if
ye glimpse the enemy just once, not as a foe, but as a fellow man…” He shook his head. “Ye can’t bring yourself to senseless
slaughter.”

Josselin furrowed her brow. Was Drew right? Was she too softhearted to be a warrior?

When it had come to the final blow, the taking of a man’s life, she hadn’t been able to look into his eyes, into his soul,
without remorse. Even watching another slay him had sickened her.

“What about ye?” she challenged. “Ye claimed ye hated bloodshed. Yet ye had the stomach to kill him.”

Drew’s eyes grew as cold and solemn as the grave. “I do hate bloodshed. But I’d kill anyone who threatened the woman I love.”

The intensity of his threat gave her chills, even as his words warmed her like mulled wine.

“I owe ye my life,” she realized. Were it not for Drew MacAdam and his dogged guardianship of her, she’d be dead now at the
hands of an assassin.

“And I owe ye mine,” he said. He shook his head in amazement. “Ambrose Scott? I can’t believe ye risked forgin’ a royal missive
for me, and with that name.”

She raised her chin to give his words back to him. “I’d risk anythin’ for the man I love.”

His smile was gentle and grateful, and it heated her to the core. When he slipped his hand along her cheek and leaned forward
to press his lips softly against her brow, his kiss was like a salve for her wounds. Reveling in his tender caress, she no
longer felt the cuts and bruises of battle. Bathed in his loving light, she forgot her aching legs and twinging shoulder,
her scraped arms and battered ribs, and surrendered to the balm of his affection. His touch soothed the violence from her
blood, replacing it with a mellow elixir of love and peace and harmony.