Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

R ory walked both his brothers along the narrow path through the trees, one hanging onto each of his shoulders. He had taken Cailean’s weight from the woman as soon as she’d let him, though not without a small row. She was completely impossible. Rory kept one eye on her as she walked ahead of them. Pale light found its way easily through the sparse overstory of the pines and broadleaves, then combed through her disordered brown hair as she led them farther on.

Rory noticed the trees above them, raining golden leaves, and foreign birdsong in the air. The well-worn path beneath his boots. The rustle of some woodland creature not far off and the plummeting temperature and definitely not the woman’s meager backside. In truth, the woman was meager in every way. She looked not much better off than poor Cailean. Do all colonists starve out here in the backcountry?

Finally, and thank Rabbie’s God for it, they stepped into a small clearing on the steep side of the mountain, where a crude cabin and barn had been built with logs and patched with scrap wood. Beyond and above the cabin, several terraced gardens seem to have been dug into the hillside. Between the cabin and the barn, a knee-height fence of braided branches circled the area, which included what appeared to be a small chicken coop on the far side and at least eight goats milling around a firepit. The woman, Rory noted, was positively destitute. He’d seen the finer houses on the coast of Virginia, he knew that many colonists lived quite well. She…did not. She opened a gate and the goats ignored the four of them, though their bells jingled a sweet chorus of welcome.

Suddenly, Rory heard a voice.

“Sister, have you...Oh.”

Rory whipped his head to the side and instinctively reached for the stolen knife in his waistband, but the source of the sound was a girl, perhaps a woman, a bit shorter and a few years younger than the one who had led them here. Her eyes were a shade or two darker—far less arresting—and she had a few more curves on her. Their hair was about the same color, but this younger one had hers wrapped into a plait that hung over one shoulder.

A long tense moment followed as the two women stared at each other, the older one wide-eyed, the younger’s lips twisting into a wry smile. Rory swore silently, realizing that he should have known there’d be family there, and that the family might have all kinds of reactions to taking in three large and underdressed strangers.

“Goodness. And you said I was the better fisherwoman,” the younger one said finally, raking her eyes admirably over Rory and his brothers. Remarkably, the sister didn’t seem completely scandalized to see them.

“Amity,” the woman chided.

“I’m just saying, it’s quite a fat catch. Oh, dear,” the girl called Amity said, once her eyes reached Cailean, whose face was now caked in blood. “You’d better get them into the barn before Father sees.” The woman nodded quickly and motioned them forward.

Father. There was a man here with these women. A man who shouldn’t see them. Tension roiled in Rory as his eyes swept his surroundings and his hand hovered near the knife.

“In there.” The woman pointed to the dilapidated one-story barn.

Rory pulled Cailean forward and stepped between her and Rabbie when she tried to assist his middle brother, who was swaying again.

She frowned but let them be. “Lay them both in the hay, then.”

The barn had no door, which he was sure Rabbie would be pleased about, but it was dark inside and not too cold. Rory set Rabbie down against a horse stall near the opening of the barn, then laid Cailean onto a soft mound of grasses and hay farther back, a feast which must have been collected for the goats. When Rory looked over his shoulder, the woman had disappeared.

“Rory,” Cailean murmured.

“We’ll be fine, lad,” Rory said soothingly, not wanting to touch the deep cut that sliced Cailean’s left eyebrow in half. Boots crunching on dry grass alerted Rory to the woman’s return.

“Here,” she said, pulling meat from her tattered apron and placing it into Rory’s hands. Rory could tell it was hard for her to part with it, which caused him more pain than he thought possible at this point in his life. Stop, he reminded himself silently. Ye’ve only two responsibilities, and they’re lying right behind ye.

Rory kneeled over Cailean, then Rabbie, letting them both take a handful of what he assumed was smoked goat meat.

“An angel,” Cailean said again, gazing at the woman through half-lidded eyes.

“There’s fresh water in the barrel behind you,” she said, pointing, and Rabbie silently got up and dunked a nearby wooden bowl into it. He drank deeply, refilled it, then brought it over to Cailean, carefully avoiding the woman.

Rory sighed. This is my fault . He’d thought the prison ship, docked in English waters, would break their spirits, then surely the harrowing voyage to the colonies, shackled in the brig, would be their end, but this half-hatched escape plan was turning out to be far more dangerous than either.

Mercy Barnett stopped outside her father’s cabin with hands on hips as her face fell into a deep frown. She’d just helped three strange, bearded giants into her barn, no doubt escapees from indentured servitude in Belhaven. Scots and other unwanted criminals were being involuntarily sent to the Americas by the shipload these days.

Had these men come down the Wagon Road into the valley below, had they been properly dressed, she’d have thought nothing of it. But she knew from the news in town that the prisons in England were overfull of the Jacobites who’d rebelled against King George on the battlefield, and that many of them were sentenced to indentured work in the colonies. She wondered if the punishment for helping these men would be the same as aiding a runaway slave, but she doubted it. And really, who would ever come looking for anyone here on Black Knob?

They did need her assistance—of that she was certain. She wondered how long they had been wandering through the woods in only their shirtsleeves. The largest one had quite obviously filched the waistcoat he was wearing, as it barely fit over his impressive frame. They must have been freezing out there at night, she thought with a pang of sympathy, just as her sister came around the cabin.

“Oh, do tell me everything,” Amity said at once, her mouth fitted with a sly grin. She was quite obviously elated to have guests here on Black Knob. They did not entertain often, and when they did, it was with the nervous townsfolk who came to Mercy for healing tinctures and teas, or the drunks who followed their father up the mountain after the Halfway House refused to serve them any more ale. No one wanted to be seen there, and none of them wanted to stay long.

“Not now, dearest,” Mercy said hastily, thinking rapidly of all there was to do. She was always thinking of all there was to do. Her mind constantly swam with all there was to do. Feed the chickens, feed the goats. Make sure to grow enough corn so that she was able to feed the chickens. Make sure there was enough hay to feed the goats. Milk the goats. Make the cheese. Collect the seeds from the tobacco and harvest their leaves. Pinch off the flowers from the mint and the bee balm. Shave the cedar for distillation. Harvest the rest of the upper garden before winter arrived with heavy blankets of snow. Chop wood. Haul water. Catch fish. Smoke fish. The list went on and on. And then it went on some more.

“Honestly, Mercy, you have all the luck. I’ve been to the creek at least twice a week for years and have only ever caught a brook trout or two.”

“Amity,” Mercy said with a frown, exasperated and not a little annoyed. She glanced at the cabin. “Is Father awake?”

“I doubt it,” Amity said, lifting a brow sardonically. “If there’s spirits to be had…”

“Right. Heat some milk, Amity,” Mercy said, motioning towards the cauldron over the cooking fire in the middle of the clearing. As her younger sister grumbled yet did as she was told, Mercy walked up the sagging cabin steps and opened the door as slowly and quietly as she could.

“Father?” she called softly into the darkness. Her eyes adjusted and she glanced nervously around the two-room cabin. In what used to be the kitchen, as usual, was empty save for a small wooden table and a bucket. Her bed, near the collapsed hearth, was the only tidy corner in the entire home. Clothes, bottles, bones, and other refuse littered the uneven wooden floorboards. Even Amity’s bed pallet sported an empty whiskey bottle, which made Mercy furious. If her father was going to drink himself to death, the least he could do was let her and Amity have some sanctuary from his debauchery.

Finally, she spotted the skinny old man drooling in his wooden chair in the corner. His wrinkled mouth was open, and his wisps of prematurely white hair fell over his brow as he snored. On the floor next to him was a half-empty bottle of whiskey, a bottle Mercy recognized well. What luck that her father should have splurged on moonshine rather than hauling his usual vats of cider back from town. She sighed with both relief and contempt and went to her bed pallet, kneeling to where she’d stashed her sewing kit under the floorboard—she couldn’t risk her father selling what few things she owned for more drink. She clutched the kit and an unmarked jar to her chest and replaced the floorboard carefully.

She pushed herself back up quietly and grabbed one of the liquor bottles he’d left on the side table, hoping to God he’d been so drunk when he’d brought them home that he hadn’t counted them: there’d be hell to pay if he woke to find any missing.

Outside, the sun had already fallen beyond the mountain slope, and would draw night behind it quickly, as one would a flannel bedsheet. Though it had been warm earlier, the autumn nights up in the mountains could chill a man to the bone.

Mercy passed Amity coaxing the fire and thought about how many blankets she could spare from her own bed for the men. Walking into the barn, she startled the largest giant, who looked as though he’d fallen asleep. Though his brothers lay still, snoring gently, he hurtled himself up and bent his knees, pointing his dagger at her, venom in his sleepy eyes, ready to pounce.

To her shame, Mercy let out a whimper. Her cheeks heated. She couldn’t let these men see that they frightened her. Lord knows her father couldn’t protect her and Amity. Even if he chose to, and she doubted highly that he would. Amity’s safety and reputation was of the utmost importance. The giant relaxed when he realized it was only her, then shoved his knife back into his waistband, not bothering to apologize. She prickled at the revelation—he’d given no thanks, no apologies, since she’d met the beast.

He really was a beast in every sense of the word. His sable eyes were so dark that they seemed to suck in the light from around them, and his dark brows and black curls did little to lighten his features. His lips, large and wide, seemed to be perpetually turned into a grimace beneath an overgrown beard. Mercy realized that she was looking over the rest of his form a little too long, half-admiring the bulking muscles that rippled under his well-worn shirt, a shirt that probably used to be white. She let her gaze fall over his tight brown overalls—long trousers that covered his boots, boots whose leather looked to be on the verge of falling completely apart.

Though he cast a terrifying form, Mercy could tell that he was inarguably handsome. The others, too, though dirty and gaunt, were uncommonly good-looking. They had the types of faces that would catch the eyes of the Rose Clintocks and Jane Wests of the world.

She resisted the urge to straighten out her dress and run fingers through her hair.

“I need to sew your brother’s forehead,” she managed when she was sure she’d gained enough composure to speak without her voice shaking. Though she’d turned her stare to the injured man, she watched the giant nod out of the corner of her eye and sink back down with a grunt. Mercy sighed and made her way to the smallest man’s side and shook him gently, stroking his face.

The sight of the woman’s slender fingers trembling over his brother’s skin had him swallowing back a growl. Cailean moaned and fluttered his eyelids, and the smile on his handsome young face when he felt the woman’s touch inexplicably incensed Rory even further.

“I’ll wake him,” Rory growled suddenly, standing quickly and falling onto his knees on the other side of Cailean. The woman glanced back at Rabbie, who was still breathing deeply as he slumbered against the horse stall, then looked across Cailean’s prone body at Rory, her face flushed in what looked to be anger, and he responded in kind, glowering until she fell back onto the heels of her boots. Rory shook his brother violently until he opened his eyes.

“Careful,” the woman cried out suddenly and threw her hands over Cailean’s chest. Lord, Rory realized with surprise: she wasn’t afraid of Cailean. She was trying to be as gentle as possible with him for his own comfort, not hers.

“Ack,” Cailean yelped as he was jostled. “Angel?” he asked when his eyes were fully open.

“Pray, be still,” she cooed in that throaty voice of hers. It was low and almost hoarse, and indisputably soothing. She held out a large brown bottle. “For the pain,” she explained, looking at Cailean, but Rory couldn’t help but feel like she was explaining it to him, and not his brother.

She cradled Cailean’s head as he drank from the bottle hungrily, coughing a bit. Rory smelled the sweet and biting aroma of whiskey when she tipped the bottle back from Cailean’s mouth and poured it sparingly over his forehead. His brother winced slightly and groaned.

“Stay still,” she whispered sweetly. She then poured what looked like Soldier’s Woundwort powder from a jar into her palm and carefully sprinkled it onto the cut, which staunched the worst of the bleeding. However, head wounds were different, and Rory knew that. He assumed that was why the woman insisted upon sewing it shut.

“Ye are an angel sent from Heaven to me,” Cailean rasped as she tied her hair back with a tattered yellow ribbon. She then took up some thread, licked the end, and put it expertly through the eye of a small needle.

“This might hurt,” she said, her lips lifting in a pitying smile that nearly broke what was left of Rory’s heart. She placed the heels of her hands gently on either side of the wound and pierced his skin.

“Devil woman!” Cailean roared suddenly, followed by a volley of Gaelic curses. Rory watched the woman’s face scrunch up and knew that she was interpreting the meaning of Cailean’s words correctly. Rory was forced to hold him down, trying his very damndest not to laugh. “Get her away from me!” Cailean cried. His brother was pale and sweating, crying out like the baby Rory knew him to be. At nineteen, nae, perhaps Cailean was twenty now, he still had a tantrum or two left in him yet. His moods ebbed and flowed like tides, though they were very unlike the tides, as one was never certain when they would come.

“Ye’re being a baby, Cailean, ye are,” Rory managed to say, his lips twisting into a genuine grin for the first time in weeks. He sat back and watched with perverse pleasure as the woman struggled against the bombardment of his brother’s flailing arms. Cailean looked like a flopping mackerel on the deck of a boat. Rabbie had woken from his spot against the stall and seemed to be enjoying the spectacle with dancing eyes.

“Imagine if he’d been sliced through in battle,” Rory said with a laugh when he caught Rabbie’s eye. “He canna take the pinch of a woman’s needle, let alone a man’s sword.” Rabbie couldn’t help but join in, chuckling at the little woman’s frustration as she struggled with the tiny needle and their brother’s thrashing.

“Ye’re...ye’re getting blood all over the… the missus,” Rory managed to tell Cailean between guffaws.

“It would help if you’d hold him down instead of laugh at him so,” she said, throwing her hands up in the air and glaring at him.

“Aye,” Rory said with sudden solemnity, “maybe more whiskey would help.” The woman nodded seriously in agreement. Rory snatched the bottle and put it to his own lips. He threw his head back, his throat thumping with each gulp. This stunned the woman so much that her pale lips fell open. “Aye,” Rory said as he flashed a white smile. He wiped his wet lips with the back of his hand. “The whiskey helps.” He was grinning like an idiot when she snatched the bottle away.

“The whiskey was meant for him, not you,” she snapped, and he smiled even wider.

Rory leaned over his brother’s body and placed the bottle of whiskey on the ground next to the woman.

Mercy froze. The man’s scent was penetrating. Earth and cold sweat all mingled together in a sort of perfume that radiated from the man’s smooth, tanned skin. He stayed there for a moment, their heads quite close, and there was something positively inscrutable in his black eyes. Mercy tried to drag hers away, but the giant was making it difficult for her.

“Lean... lean him up,” she managed to instruct the brute, finally looking away.

“How about some whiskey for Rabbie?” he asked, nodding his head in the redheaded giant’s direction with a lopsided grin.

“Absolutely not,” she snapped, and he laughed again, a low rumbling Mercy could feel in her stomach. The sound startled her, as well as his two brothers, who both broke into grins despite themselves. “Now, will you allow me to continue mending your head?” she asked, turning down to stare severely at the one with the wound. “It’s getting dark, and I’d rather not poke your eye out.”

“It sounds as though you already have,” Amity said matter-of-factly, entering the barn with a jug of steaming milk and a candle, which she held out to Mercy.

“May I?” Mercy asked again, ignoring her sister’s words but accepting the candle and placing it directly next to the man’s ear. Amity poured the warm liquid into tin cups for the men.

“Aye,” the injured man replied slowly, grumbling something about the face of an angel and the hands of a devil.

“I’m no angel, nor no devil,” she said after a few stitches, which seemed to hurt her patient more emotionally than physically. “I’m Mercy Barnett, and this is my sister, Amity.”