Parris Afton Bonds (12 page)

Ranald straightened his earlier contorted body and peeled off the band and its eye patch. It was barely three o’clock. He was weary and wet and chilled. Every muscle in his body ached. With the receipt of the merlin’s message tied about its leg, he had ridden hard to reach Oban. Locating a man and woman asking questions about him hadn’t been that difficult. Restraining his pity, a deadly weakness, had been.

His thoughts went to the Lowland wench the couple sought. She should be entering the kitchens soon to start the fires. Like the breakfast fires, her tresses blazed a fiery roy.

Alas, the breakfast porridge she cooked tasted like reekin’ sheep offal.

Chapter Seven

I
n the castle’s outer bailey men mended saddles or cleaned muskets, the guard drilled, a cat stalked a frantically clucking hen, a stray blackface sheep bleated for its flock, and a handful of village children played prisoners’ base.

The game reminded Enya of her status at the castle. A reluctant October sun peeked through gray-fringed clouds. Her dark-blue velvet cloak was lightweight, barely warm enough for the nippy day. She strolled at a vigorous
clip and with purpose.

Beside her, Annie Dubh pattered on. "Look at 'oo now! The way
’oo speak and walk. Tis clear ’oo were born to it!"

"
Dias Muire
!" Enya said, unconsciously resorting to the common Gaelic expletive of "God and Mary.” "If you but used your brain, Annie Dubh, half as much as you use your bum, you could pass yourself off as a lady with but little practice.”

Annie halted. “’
Oo mean that? ’Oo would make a lady of me?"

A half step ahead, Enya half-turned to eye the slatternly wench. Sloe eyes t
he color of hot molasses, a complexion like whipped cream, and an hourglass figure were Annie’s assets. Frowsy hair that had been badly hennaed, nails bitten to the quick, and stained teeth were to be listed on the debit side. Those, and dirty elbows and neck, but a good bath could correct the latter.

“
I didn’t say I would do it. Such an undertaking could take years."

Annie, cheeks rosy with the brisk air, flashed her a good-natured grin. Enya suspected that Annie no longer worried about her setting her sig
hts on the Reiver himself. ‘"Oo’r not going anywhere.”

God
’s blood, but she hoped Annie was wrong. More than six weeks had passed, and she was still a captive. Surely by now her mother and Simon Murdock had been informed she was missing.

“
I’m going to the smokehouse, that’s where." She set off again, with Annie trotting at her heels like Kincairn’s faithful collie.

"
’Oo could teach me to read, ’oo could.”

Enya stopped again, and her dove-gray gown of Italian silk swish
ed about the clogs she had taken to wearing against the ever-damp ground. Already her overskirts, hitched at her left side by a tassel in the French fashion, were frayed at the hem. She had brought with her no sturdy, working clothing. Of course, she had never thought she would be doing menial tasks. "You can’t read?"

The Lowlands
’ near-obsession with education had resulted in at least one school in every parish. Certainly all of Afton House’s servants read.

"Me da
’s a ploughman."

"That
’s no excuse. Hornbooks are easy enough to come by.”

"Weel, will
’oo? Will 'oo make a lady out of me? Mind ye, I’m not asking to be a grand lady. Just a lady."

She rounded on the scullery maid. "Annie, I don
’t plan on staying here. Understand?”

Her stained-toothed smile was co
nfident. “If’n the laird says ’oo are, then ’oo are."

"G
’day, milady—mistress," said Jamie, joining them. He wore a matching tartan plaid and a hunting kilt and gaily checked knee-high woolen stockings.

Annie turned a saucy eye on him. "G
’day, sire.”

His b
lue eyes alighted on her. Head to one side like a kestrel, he said, "You’re Annie Dubh, aren’t you?"

Pleasure heightened the rosy color of her cheeks. "Aye, that I am."

At that instant Enya realized her suspicions had been in error. It was Jamie, not Ranald, in whom the illiterate maid was interested.

“
Well,” he said, “tell Flora I am abducting her newest scullery maid.”

"I
’ve already been abducted,” Enya said after a pouting Annie set off to do his bidding.

"Ever see a goldcrest?”

“A what?”

“
Scotland’s smallest bird. Found right here in the Highlands." He took her arm. “Come along.”

“
But Flora—she sent me for—”

“
Fie on Flora. Should the old hag’s tongue lash you, she will have her hands full with your Elspeth.”

“
Right you are. Then show me this fascinating bird."

The outing was an opportunity to explore afoot the wooded countryside beyond the castle walls and their spying, grim windows.

If she and her companions had to escape on their own, any villager who observed them would report their flight. The forest offered concealment—but, also, the risk of getting lost.

Indeed, voluble Flora had said the quick weather changes had been the cause of many an accident and death. “
Me niece’s husband went out one sunny afternoon to herd sheep. Found him the next morning sitting beneath a tree—frozen solid as yon loch, we did."

Enya and Jamie strolled along paths layered with leaf mold and trimmed with spindly saplings of fir and yellowing larch. Jamie talked of the wildlife. “
The increase in human habitation has all but made extinct most of Europe’s wildlife. Even in England once common animals such as bear and lynx and fox are disappearing.”

“
So will the hart and the hind, with hunters like Ranald Kincairn scouring the forest.”

“
On the contrary," Jamie said, ignoring her spite, “the Highlands is their last refuge.”

"The Highlands is not my refuge but my prison," she snapped, then regretted her ill temper.

A prickly gorse bush snagged her overskirts hem, and Jamie knelt to free her. "You’re not properly attired for an outing, milady."

"Well now,”
she chided, "I did not know I would be held captive in the mountain wilds of the Highlands.”

"An incident I most sorely lament.”

She stared down at his wavy auburn hair. Perhaps she should have been cautious about walking in the woods alone with him, but she trusted him instinctively. There was something in his manner—the eagerness of a jaded youth just beginning to appreciate life fully.

They resumed walking, and she said, “
With your enthusiasm, Jamie, you should have been the Cameron chieftain.”

He did not miss her bitterness, but he continued to smile. “
Alas, it seems I am not a leader of men. I don’t have a warrior’s heart.”

"This warrior has no heart.”

He eyed her speculatively. "I gather your attitude has not softened toward him?”

“
If there is one spark of warmth in the great stone face, it is for that collie.”

“
He cares for his sister, for—’’

“
You can’t see it. He rarely shows her or anyone else affection. Even an embrace would be some demonstration of emotion. After all, you are family."

“
Actually, my cousin is much more the family man than I. You see, at Winchester the other boys made fun of his Scottish ancestry and accent. He came home over the holidays and never went back. He was content riding, skating, fishing, and playing cards by the peat fire of the cottage.

"I, on the other, hand, prefer frequenting coffeehouses, bookshops, and taverns.”

She smiled. ‘"Tis obvious; you are well-read. And equally well-traveled.”

“
Aye. When Bonnie Prince Charlie decided to reclaim the Scottish throne I was in Europe taking the Grand Tour. I had been trying to make up my mind whether to read Divinity at St. Andrew’s University or look to law as a career.”

They reached the bank of the stream whose rapid cur
rent took it through the village. "That was in '45. What of the past five years?"

He smiled. "As you said, I am well-traveled. I know more about the Continent than I do Scotland. The money ran out, and I came home. To this.”
He spread his hands. "A land whose burns run red with the blood of reivers and Redcoats."

Looking at the burn, she glimpsed salmon hurtling their speckled bodies against the current. She was reminded of Ranald Kincairn
’s penchant for fishing. "And your cousin preferred fishing to facts?"

His smile broadened. "Ranald secreted one of those lovely pink salmons into a professor
’s bed."

"So the chieftain has a sense of humor. Warped."

"Ranald was but sixteen at the time and thoroughly detested schooling, you understand. And he—look, there! In the nearest bough of that alder. The goldcrest! Isn’t it lovely?"

She watched the bird, no bigger than her palm, perched on a branch. Something stirred in the underbrush, disturbing the goldcrest, and it took flight.

If only she could escape so easily.

A traitor lived within the walls of Lochaber Castle. Ranald knew this and didn’t know what to do about it. He scanned yet another time the cryptic message on the shred of paper he had found in the stable. The paper smelled of dung. The letters were scrawled—written by someone in a hurry?

Ranald and his Reivers ride to Glenfinnan with
in the fortnight.

Only someone sitting in on the council meetings could know have information . . . or an eavesdropper.

For instance, the Lady Enya?

Crumbling the paper in his hand, he started toward the castle keep, then sighted the maiden Mary Laurie. He
r shoulder resting on the doorjamb, she was talking to Cyril, whose job it was to salt the carcasses of the weaker beasts unlikely to survive the winter months.

By the signs he had been noticing
—heavier moss on the north side of trees, early-morning redheaded woodpeckers, increased activity by the squirrels, and the thickness of the spider webs—this winter was going to be a nasty one.

A heavy winter would be a blessing this year. The mountain roads would be impassable, giving his reivers respite from the En
glish, giving the weary Scots time to regroup, rest, repair.

"G
’day to you,” he said, bracing a hand just above her head. Inside the salt house, the husky young salter knelt in front of a slain cow. Its long, rust-colored coat was matted with blood.

Mary L
aurie looked up at him with eyes the color of a tranquil loch: not quite blue, nor gray. Her soft mouth widened in a timid smile. “G’day to ye, sire.”

From beneath her mobcap, brown curls peaked with caution. Something her mistress assuredly did not practi
ce. What was the Lady Enya doing in the woods with Jamie? He trusted Jamie. More than he could say for the Lowland woman. "Tell me, lass, can your mistress write?"

The thickly lashed eyes grew wary. “
Of course.”

“
Does she do so these days?"

“
You would have to ask her, though I doubt it. She is kept busy performing menial chores."

So, the maidservant was loyal. And courageous enough to brave his wrath. “
Ach, but ye do menial chores." He caught one chapped and roughened hand.

She withdrew it. “
And I am rewarded for it with bed and board.”

"So is your mistress.”

“Aye, but she does not work here of her own choice. I read and write, but it is by choice I work for me mistress. She pays far better than I would receive elsewhere.”

“
Ye read and write?”

“
Some.”

Mayhap
he was a fool. What if this seemingly reticent maid either wrote the note or hoped to find someone to smuggle it out? His eye fell on Cyril the Salter, a trusted lad from the hamlet.

But Mary Laurie no longer had the note, if she ever had it, to pass to C
yril, which meant she was talking to him purely out of interest. He ruled her out.

Perhaps it was time to change bases. He had found Lochaber Castle an excellent stronghold for sallies and a good defense position, since large armies could not advance on it
s mountaintop location. It had the added advantage of being unreachable until spring, once snowfall blocked the passes.

Mary Laurie slid him a nervous glance. "Is that all, sire?”

"Aye." Watching her go, he wondered why he did not simply confine her mistress to the castle rather than let her stroll about at her whim.

He wondered, too, why he should give the Lowland Amazon any thought at all. The woman was obstinate and arrogant. The defiant tilt of her cleft chin symbolized these abrasive qualities. Neverth
eless, she had proven capable of surprising fortitude and resiliency.

Admittedly, she was no beauty. Not compared to the slender, petite, and passionate Lady Hayward. Mayhap another expedition to Oban and Lady Hayward was required before winter
’s snow locked in Lochaber.