Chapter Fourteen

Lillian prided herself on her sharp wits. If she had been a man, Richard had liked to say, she would have been a master strategist. It was why she had grown so fond of sparring over the chess board with Will. Though Will was an exceptional player, she always managed to see several moves ahead of him.

Which was why she sat atop the horse in utter, dumbfounded silence. None of this made sense.

They’d ridden through the night until they’d reached the edge of the forest. The trees had been cleared away and the town of Inverness sprang up before them. MacLeod had dismounted and stood beside her and the animal, his body taut as a bowstring.

Mayhap it was the lack of sleep, or the weary ache in her bones from riding so much, or the strange muddling effect MacLeod’s nearness had on her wits, but she simply could not puzzle out what she’d learned of the man—and what on earth they were doing in Inverness.

As a blue-gray dawn broke, MacLeod began to pace, keeping his gaze fixed on the town just beyond the screen of pine boughs and orange-leaved branches behind which they lingered.

They were a mere stone’s throw from a wooden bridge that crossed a wide, slow-moving river. Across the bridge sat a stone castle on a little rise above the river. The castle was surrounded by still-quiet cottages, huts, and wooden-sided shops.

With dawn’s breaking, the town slowly started to wake. Doors opened and women swept dirt and bits of rubbish from the fronts of their low huts. A slow trickle of people and carts began moving across the bridge, some entering town, and others leaving.

The activity seemed to make MacLeod even more nervous. He pulled the hood of his cloak low over his head, and several times he gave her a sharp look of warning.

He’d ordered her not to make a sound or cause trouble of any kind, with the vague threat that she would regret disobeying him. The problem was, she didn’t fear him—not truly.

Aye, she feared where he was taking her. Every time she imagined what had happened to Richard, and what might be done to her, she shuddered.

Her fear and the constant exhaustion from traveling so hard had clouded her mind earlier, but now her thoughts were sharpening once more. MacLeod wouldn’t hurt her—he couldn’t, for he’d admitted that he was to deliver her in good health.

It was more than that, though. His kindness toward her, his gentleness, didn’t make any sense next to his harsh words and eyes as cold as chips of ice. And when he’d saved that hawk—

Lillian was spared from making yet another maddening circle within her own thoughts, for MacLeod suddenly froze in mid-pace. His gaze had locked on a man walking a horse across the bridge from the town toward the wide road running north-south.

MacLeod whistled softly once, then twice. The man paused on the bridge, looking around slowly. MacLeod whistled again, a little louder this time.

The man’s gaze locked on the trees obscuring them from view. Lillian’s heart squeezed. What on earth was MacLeod doing? He’d made it clear that they were staying as far away from people as possible.

Her stomach spiked with a fresh wave of panic. Was this the man she was to be delivered to? Was this the last she’d see of MacLeod?

Dragging in a breath to clear her frantic thoughts, Lillian focused on the man approaching them. He was middling in years and built like a barrel. He wore a large leather jerkin belted over his stocky midsection. As he drew nearer, Lillian caught a flash of red on his right arm. It looked to be some sort of coat of arms sewn onto the leather, but she couldn’t make it out.

“Kirk?” the man said cautiously, eying the foliage.

His name is Kirk?

She didn’t have time to contemplate the rising warmth in the pit of her stomach at that piece of knowledge, for MacLeod spoke .

“Patrick. Here.”

The man called Patrick pushed through the branches, and suddenly he was embracing MacLeod in a bear-hug.

“Kirk! God, man, I havenae seen ye since the Bruce sent ye to Ireland—what was that, two years past? How have ye—”

“Patrick.”

The man pulled back at MacLeod’s harsh tone. MacLeod jerked his head toward Lillian where she still sat atop the horse.

Belatedly, Lillian realized that her mouth was hanging open as she stared between the two men. MacLeod—Kirk—had been in Ireland. At Robert the Bruce’s orders. She’d thought naught made sense a moment before, but now her mind tumbled into a haphazard chaos.

“We can catch up later, friend,” Kirk said quietly. “I need to ask a favor of ye—an urgent favor of grave import.”

Patrick scratched his graying head, looking back and forth between Lillian and Kirk. “Aye, of course, man,” he said slowly. “Would this have to do with—”

“No’ another word in front of the lass,” Kirk cut in sharply.

Patrick looked bewildered, but he blinked and nodded. “Aye, as ye wish. What is the favor?”

“I need ye to get a message to someone,” Kirk said, lowering his voice so that Lillian could barely hear him even only an arm’s span away.

Lillian’s gaze landed on Patrick’s right shoulder once more. Now that he stood in front of her, she could make out the patch on his arm. It was a red X across a yellow shield.

Her heart lurched suddenly against her ribs.

She’d seen that coat of arms before.

She and Richard had lived through several Scottish sieges against Berwick. All the Scots’ attempts had failed, but some had come close enough to succeeding that Lillian had seen the warriors swarming around the wall with her own eyes. The soldiers had worn tunics with the red cross on a yellow shield emblazoned on their chests. It was Robert the Bruce’s mark.

Lillian suddenly slid down from the horse’s back, landing with a little huff. Kirk’s eyes snapped to her, their icy depths holding a silent warning.

“I…I have to relieve myself,” she said, feeling a blush rise to her cheeks. Hopefully he would interpret her awkwardness as a sign of embarrassment rather than the manifestation of her wildly churning thoughts.

Kirk narrowed his gaze on her. “Dinnae go far,” he said at last. “I’ll count to one hundred, and if ye arenae back, I’ll hunt ye down.”

She nodded, then ducked her head and hobbled as swiftly as she could into the woods, striding parallel with the edge of the trees and keeping Inverness’s bridge on her right side.

When she had gone more than a dozen paces, she stopped and crouched low in the underbrush. Kirk and Patrick’s voices drifted ever so faintly to her, but they spoke too quietly for her to make out the words.

What did this all mean? Based on Patrick’s offhand remark, Kirk had once been in Robert the Bruce’s army in Ireland. When and why had he become a bounty hunter, then? And why had he come to Inverness to speak with a man who was clearly one of the Bruce’s soldiers?

Did it mean that Robert the Bruce, the man who’d sent Will to protect her, had traitors in his midst? Did Patrick, who so proudly wore the Bruce’s coat of arms on his shoulder, actually work for the same organization of bounty hunters that employed Kirk?

Something simply didn’t sit right with that idea. Naught about Kirk MacLeod made sense. He was not what he appeared, some instinct told her. Her mind had worked the puzzle over and over again, but no thread had come untangled yet.

None of that mattered, though.

All that mattered was that she was alone for the first time in almost a sennight. And she was near others who might help her.

She’d always known that she would never be able to overpower Kirk with strength, nor had she believed she would be able to trick him into allowing her to escape.

But he’d made a terrible error if he thought her compliance thus far meant that she wouldn’t fight tooth and nail for her life. She was small and soft-spoken, aye, but that didn’t mean she would passively accept being kidnapped and turned over to torturers.

This might be the only chance she got to escape, or at least get word to someone who might be able to help her. Steeling her spine, she rose and moved to the very edge of the tree cover. The bridge was so close, yet she’d have to traverse the open, exposed span of ground before she could join the thin stream of villagers and travelers moving in and out of the town.

Heart hammering against her ribs, she slipped from the cover of the foliage, not daring a glance behind her. Had Kirk reached his count of one hundred yet? Would he come barreling up behind her, scooping her up and whisking her away once more when freedom was so close she could practically taste it?

She wouldn’t hear him if he approached from behind, for her blood pounded deafeningly in her ears. Ahead of her, a large cart stacked high with hay bales rumbled down the road toward the bridge.

This was it. She had to make her move. Ignoring the throbbing pain in her ankle, she darted forward and around the cart as it rolled slowly toward the bridge. She was now heading for the heart of Inverness— someone in a town of so many would surely help her.

As she took the last step across the bridge, the hay wagon peeled away down a side-street, presumably toward the town’s stables. Lillian felt too exposed again. The streets were quiet, for even though dawn had called forth some early risers, the morning had not yet fully broken.

She glanced down several branching paths before her, all the while resisting the urge to dart wild looks around. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, but she told herself she was safer now than she had been for the last sennight.

Down a street to her right, she heard boisterous voices and activity. It appeared as though the local ale house was only just now clearing out from the previous night’s revelry. Several men stumbled from the doorway, blinking in bleary-eyed surprise that it was no longer night outside.

A tiny bell of warning rang in the back of Lillian’s mind, but she silenced it. The housewives she’d seen sweeping earlier had all returned indoors to tend to their chores, and only a few other early risers hurried through the streets. Besides, the owner of an ale house was usually the most knowledgeable person in town. He would know exactly who could help her, or how she might secure passage out of here.

Pushing down the last of her misgivings, she limped forward.

As she reached the front of the ale house, a few of the men began dispersing slowly. Two men lingered, though, their bloodshot eyes landing on Lillian.

“I need help,” she blurted when she was near enough.

Both men narrowed their eyes at her. Belatedly, she remembered her English accent and cursed herself. At best, it drew unwanted attention—and at worst, it would endanger her safety.

“What kind of help, lass?” one of the men asked, stepping forward.

“I…I need to speak with the owner of this establishment,” she said.

The other man snorted so hard that it caused him to sway unsteadily. “Old one-eyed Pete? What business could a bonny wee thing like ye have with him?”

Realization seemed to dawn slowly over his coarse features. “Och, I ken now. Ye are one of his new girls, arenae ye?” The man waggled his thick eyebrows at her as if she should understand what he was talking about.

The first man, who was thin and yet still had a paunch around his middle, cackled gleefully. “Pete said he was bringing in girls from the Lowlands, but I had no idea he meant English wenches!”

Did they think…? Dread shot through Lillian. “Nay, I am not a…a prostitute. I just need—”

“Pete wouldnae mind, would he?” the second man said to the first. “As long as we pay her and all?”

“Nay,” the first man replied, licking his lips as if Lillian were some morsel of meat and he were a dog. “This is what she’s here for, isnae it?”

Lillian tried to bolt then, but one of the men caught her around the waist. Despite their drunkenness, both were far stronger than she was. She opened her mouth to scream, but a grime-covered hand clamped over her mouth before the sound broke free.

“Dinnae fight us, lass,” the first man said, pulling Lillian into the dark alleyway behind the ale house. “We are fair men. We’ll take our turns and pay ye for yer services.”

Lillain clawed and kicked, but the two men had no trouble dragging her into the shadows. She screamed against the hand over her mouth, but there was no one to hear her muffled cries.