The Captive Heart (53 page)

“You don’t want a little sister?” Alix asked her.

“I am too big now to enjoy a little sister,” Fiona said. “Remember, I am to be nine. But you must be sure my brother is not born on my birthday. I do not wish to share.”

“I have already told him, but we shall see if he is an obedient lad,” Alix replied, smiling at Fiona. How she loved her, Alix thought. Fiona was starting to look less like a young child and more like young girl. And with order and peace in her life now, Fiona was less and less prone to mood swings. She was learning self-control. “I think I have walked far enough today,” Alix decided.

“I told you you should have taken the cart,” Fiona responded. “Your burden is great now, and the bairn due to be born in another few weeks.”

“You sound like Fenella,” Alix teased the girl.

They turned together to walk back, Alix moving slowly, Fiona carrying the basket with their treasures. And then behind them they heard hoofbeats. A rider came up beside them and blocked their path. Alix moved to protect her stepdaughter. Then she realized that the horse’s rider was a woman.

“Is this girl Fiona Scott?” the woman asked in a hard voice.

“Who wishes to know?” Alix said quietly. She was less frightened now that she saw the horse’s rider was a woman.

“Who are you?” the woman now demanded.

“I am the Laird of Dunglais’s wife,” Alix said.

“His whore, you mean,” the woman declared. “Is this the laird’s daughter?”

Fiona stepped forward. “Do not dare speak to my mam like that!” she cried.

The woman laughed scornfully.
“Your mam?”
she said derisively. “She is not your mother. I am your mother, you little brat!”

“The mother who birthed me is dead,” Fiona said heatedly.

“I am not dead, brat! Your father imprisoned me in a cottage out on the moor with two servants when I refused to give him another child. ’Tis true you were a disappointment to us both, but there it was. When I wanted to go back to court your father refused to allow it unless I gave him a son. I tried to run away from him, and when he caught me he put me in that cottage.” She moved her horse between Alix and Fiona. Robena looked down at Alix. “Did you give him a son, whore? And I see your belly is big again. But know that you are
not
his wife.
I am!
Your bastards will inherit nothing from their father.” She leaned down from her saddle and, gripping Fiona by her long black hair, so much like her own, she yanked her roughly up and over her saddle. “Tell
my
husband that I have taken
my
daughter. No whore will raise her or be called her mam whilst I live.” Then, turning her horse about, she rode off with the girl, who had begun to scream and kick in an attempt to escape her captor.

Alix had teetered dangerously when Robena had drawn her mount around, for the creature’s nose just brushed her. She struggled to remain on her feet, and when she had finally regained a firm footing she stood stock-still in shock for a moment or two. That the woman who had just stolen Fiona was who she said she was Alex had not even the slightest doubt. While Fiona did favor her handsome father, she also had some of her mother in her, and Alix had recognized it. Not just the silky black hair, but the bright blue eyes and the slight slant of those eyes. Robena Ramsay lived, and Alix Givet was indeed the laird’s whore and her sons his bastards.

How could he have done this to her? Alix asked herself as she attempted to run back toward the keep. Did he really love her? Or was he just so desperate for sons that he did what he felt he had to do? Either way it didn’t matter. She was shamed, and her children were stained with the mark of bastardy. She would never forgive him. But for now, alerting her hus—the laird—that Robena had kidnapped Fiona was more important than her outrage and her sense of betrayal. Her breath coming in short pants, she gained the lowered drawbridge and stumbled across it, crying loudly, “Fetch the laird! Saddle his horse! To horse, men of Dunglais! To horse!”

Beinn came running, and Alix collapsed against him. “My lady, my lady! What is the matter?” He looked past her. “Where is Mistress Fiona?”

“The laird’s wife has her,” Alix gasped.

Beinn stiffened. “My lady, you are the laird’s wife,” he said.

Alix looked up into his big, honest face. “Nay, I am his whore, and the wife who he married ten years ago has come out of whatever private hell she inhabits and stolen Fiona away. Get my—his daughter—back!”

Malcolm Scott ran from the house. “What has happened?” he asked her.

Alix looked up at him with angry eyes. She wanted to slay him where he stood, but now was not the time to give way to her fury. Fiona must be rescued from that horrible woman and brought home to Dunglais. “Your wife accosted us on the moor and took Fiona away,” she told him.

He didn’t bother to deny or explain. Ignoring her, he said to Beinn, “The bitch can’t have gotten far on foot.”

“She was a-horse,” Alix said stonily. Then she turned on her heel and left them.

Beinn shrugged fatalistically. It was obviously his horse.

“We’ll go alone,” Malcolm Scott said. “We can’t have this getting out of hand, or the Ramsays will be at my door spoiling for a fight. Damn!”

A stable boy ran up with the laird’s big stallion and Beinn’s new large gelding. The two men mounted. When they approached the gate, the laird gave instructions that the drawbridge should be drawn up after them and the gates closed until he and Beinn returned.

“Robbers have stolen Mistress Fiona,” he explained. “Beinn and I will go after them and fetch my daughter home again, but the keep must be secured.” Then he and his captain rode across the oak drawbridge and out onto the moor. “She’ll be heading for her cottage in all likelihood,” Malcolm Scott said.

Beinn nodded in agreement.

“She knows the penalty of exposing herself. I warned her that if she could not settle herself peaceably I would intern her in the dungeon of the old tower by Dunglais Water. I probably should have done it in the first place, but I could not bear to think of anyone living in that dark and damp pile of rock,” the laird said.

“You should have strangled her when you caught her with Black Ian,” Beinn said bluntly. “She had already been tainted by him, and I’m not so certain the Ramsays didn’t cheat you when they gave you their daughter to wife. I never knew such a high-strung lass as the lady Robena. But until now she has been content to abide in her confinement.”

“I couldn’t kill her, Beinn. Even when I saw what she had done to that poor creature she killed in order to hide her tracks. She was a woman, and she had given me my daughter. But now I will kill her when I catch her. I have no other choice. I did not lie to the Ramsays seven years ago. Thank God they will never know of this incident.”

“What will you do with Fyfa and her half-wit of a brother?” Beinn wanted to know. “You have been candid with her all along. But if you kill the lady she will know.”

“They will have a choice of either remaining in the cottage, or leaving. If they leave, I will see they have the means to begin anew wherever they go,” the laird said. “I will not kill Robena in their sight, so they will never know what has happened to her, and I suspect that will suit Fyfa well. She is a practical woman.”

“And pretty too,” Beinn said with a small smile.

The laird laughed. “ ’Tis not often you speak of a woman, old friend.”

“She’s a good woman, my lord. When her father’s heir sent them away, she remained with Rafe to look after him, for he could not fend for himself. She might have found employment alone, but who would have cared for him? I admire her.”

The laird chuckled. “You’re a good man yourself, Beinn,” he said.

Am I?
Beinn wondered, remembering his hours as Robena Ramsay’s captive. At the last, when he had had her on her back, he had found a certain enjoyment in fucking the vicious little bitch. He would not be sorry to see her dead.

The two men galloped their horses across the moor in the direction of Robena’s cottage. Finally they saw a horse ahead of them and they spurred the mounts to catch up.

She heard them coming. She did not bother to even turn. The young girl across her saddle had ceased to struggle and was half-conscious. But her horse began to slow its gait, limping, and she cursed volubly, finally drawing to a stop. There was no help for it. She couldn’t have the damned animal collapsing beneath her.

Fiona whimpered. “Da! Mam!” she sobbed.

“Shut your mouth, you little brat. I’m your mother, and if I have to beat you to death to understand that, I will!” She dug her fingers into the girl’s scalp and yanked cruelly on the dark hair so like her own.

Fiona cried out softly.

The laird and his captain had finally reached her. Malcolm Scott looked at the woman who had once been his wife. She was still beautiful, but there was something dissolute about the shape of her mouth he had never before noticed, and her beautiful bright blue eyes were hard and merciless. “You will return my daughter to me, Robena,” Malcolm Scott said in a quiet but firm voice.

“
Our daughter,
Colm,” she answered him.

“You rejected her at birth, and when you deserted her at two you relinquished your right to call her yours,” he replied. “Fiona is my daughter.”

“She calls your whore
Mam
. Do you think I will let her be raised by that whey-faced English bitch, Colm? Do you think I will let her call that woman Mother?”

“Alix has been more of a mother to Fiona than you ever were,” the laird told her, “and she has spent more time with her than you ever did. Beinn, get Fiona.”

Robena backed her horse away. “Stay where you are!” she cried.

“I spared your life seven years ago, Robena,” the laird said. “I will not spare you again. I warned you then if you defied me I would put you in the tower dungeon.”

“You will never put me there, Colm, and you shall not have Fiona back!” Robena Ramsay screamed at him. And then, pulling her horse about, she kicked the injured beast, who leaped forward, startled, and disappeared from sight with its shrieking rider and Fiona.

“What the hell . . .” the laird cried out.

“Wait, my lord, wait!” Beinn shouted, and jumping from his own horse he walked carefully forward. “Dear God,” he said, for the moorland disappeared suddenly and unexpectedly at the point where they were standing, giving way to a steep drop down into a fast-running water that tumbled over its rocky streambed. “We must go on foot, my lord. Hurry! Hurry!” And he immediately began the descent downward.

Malcolm Scott swiftly joined him, and together the two men made the climb down to where Robena Ramsay’s horse lay in a crumpled heap, its rider and passengers beneath it. Quickly the two men struggled to move the dead animal enough so they might get to the child. The angle of Robena’s neck indicated that she had been killed in the fall. They both crossed themselves at the realization. A little groan from Fiona increased their sense of urgency as they reached her. Carefully Beinn extricated the girl from the tangle, and they climbed the steep incline once again. Gaining the top, the laird mounted his horse and reached out for his child. Cradled in his arms she opened her eyes, smiled, and said, “Da!” Then her eyes closed again. Her breathing was labored. Her little face pale.

Malcolm Scott sent his captain on ahead to alert the keep and see it was opened to him. Then he slowly and carefully made his way back to Dunglais, his injured daughter in his arms. As he clopped across the lowered drawbridge into the keep’s courtyard he saw Alix and Fenella waiting. Beinn took Fiona from his master and, following instructions from the women, brought the child into the dwelling. When the laird finally reached the hall it was empty. “Where is my daughter?” he asked a pale-faced Iver.

“They have taken the little mistress to her bedchamber, my lord.” Tears sprang into the steward’s eyes. “She is grievously injured, I fear. I have sent for the priest.”

Malcolm Scott felt as if an icy hand had clutched his heart. He ran up the staircase to the upper hall and into Fiona’s room. His daughter, white as snow, lay upon her bed. Alix sat on one side of her, holding her small hand, Fenella on the other. Her gown was wet and streaked with dirt. Her small face was dirty from her tears. “Why is she not clean and dry?” he demanded in a fierce voice.

Alix looked up at him but said nothing.

“We dare not move her, my lord. It is too painful for her,” Fenella said. What she did not say was apparent.

Fiona Scott was dying. Her little body had been crushed by the weight of Robena and Robena’s horse. Her bones were fractured and broken. Her innards were shattered beyond any repair that might be done had they had a physician to aid them. But at the sound of her father’s voice she opened her eyes and whispered, “Da!”

He was at her side in a moment, taking the little hand that Fenella relinquished. “I am here, my sweet bairn,” he told her, fighting to hold back his own tears. “I am so sorry, Fi. I am so sorry I could not protect you better.”

“Love . . . each other,” Fiona whispered to him. “Love . . . my . . . mam. I . . . love her.”

“I love Alix, my bairn,” he told Fiona. “I love your mam.”

Fiona turned her head slowly, painfully so she might look at Alix. “Tell . . . my . . . brothers . . . that I . . . loved . . . them,” and then she died with a small shudder.

He looked across at Alix. “I do love you,” he told her.

Alix arose from the dead child’s side. “I will never forgive you for what you have done to all of our bairns,” she told him. Then she walked slowly from the death chamber.

Malcolm Scott put his head down and began to cry. Shocked to see her master so distraught, Fenella crept from the room. Her own heart was filled with sorrow, but her head was clearer than either her master or her mistress. Going to the hall, she found Iver waiting. “The little mistress is dead,” she said to him even as Father Donald ran into the hall and heard her tragic words.