Leith: A Clean Time Travel Highland Romance (Highland Passages Book 3)

by Annis Reid

  And it would likely be no small feat.

  20

  Melissa sat in the corner, on the floor, her ruined skirts giving her something of a cushion on the otherwise unforgiving stone.

  So this was it. This was how she was going to die. Hundreds of years in the past, branded a murderer when she’d only fought to save her own life.

  And wearing those stupid stays. That was the last straw, the fact that she could barely take a breath without the boning getting in the way.

  She looked down at herself, a small window giving her light to see by. There were some ugly looking scratches on her chest which would probably become infected before long. Who knew how much filth Flora had carried under her nails?

  Then again, there wouldn’t be time for her to get an infection, would there? She’d be dead before infection set in, if Niall MacNeill had his way.

  Closing her eyes, she leaned her head against the cool stone wall. Maybe it would’ve been better if that guy in the woods had cut her throat and gotten it over with. What was the point of surviving only to go through this hell?

  She could hear them. She might be able to close her eyes, but she couldn’t close her ears. Their curses, their mutters, their taunts from outside the crude cell house, a crumbling stone structure just inside the castle walls. It sat furthest from the keep, but that didn’t mean people couldn’t go out of their way to walk past and threaten Melissa with all sorts of lovely things.

  For a second, she imagined screaming at them. Shrieking. Telling them just what she thought of their filth and their pitiful, grimy existence. It would’ve made her feel better for maybe a minute or two.

  But then what? They would have the last laugh when she was swinging from the end of a rope, wouldn’t they? They would stand around and watch and mutter to themselves about how she deserved it.

  It was useless. Hopeless. All of it.

  Footsteps caught her attention, coming toward the cell rather than passing by the building. Who would it be? Mervyn? Probably. Come to do the job himself. She hoped he’d get it over with quickly, if that was the case.

  If only there was some way to send a message to her parents, so they would at least know what had happened to her…

  That brief thought fell to the wayside when she saw Leith duck under the low doorway and inside the cell house. Tears sprang to her eyes, and she crawled over to the rusted bars separating her from him.

  “Och, lassie,” he whispered, crouching so they could be on the same level. “Dinna allow them to see ye that way. Hold your head high. Ye are better than all of them put together.”

  She could only snicker at this. “Who are you trying to kid? I’d be dead already if it wasn’t for you convincing your uncle to give you a chance to prove my innocence. Not like you’ll be able to do that.”

  He sighed, wrapping his hands around the bars. She covered them with her hands and leaned her head against them. That felt nice. She wasn’t completely alone.

  “What happened?” he breathed. “I know ye did not kill her. But why were ye there with her, lass?”

  “I was such an idiot. She told me the view was so great from up at the top. I mean, I walked right into her trap.”

  “Was she going to send ye over, instead?”

  “That’s it. She said you told her you were going to take me away, so she had to get rid of me. My God, Leith, she was crazy.”

  She gasped then, remembering everything, and looked up into his eyes. Concerned eyes, filled with pain. “Her grandmother. She poisoned everybody at Castle MacNeill all those years ago.”

  “What now?” His mouth fell open.

  “She was gonna poison me. That was her original plan. Only we were gonna leave, so she couldn’t. She told me so. Her grandmother wanted her husband to be the laird, so she poisoned everybody. Can you believe it? She confessed it to me like it didn’t mean anything. I guess she figured I’d be dead in a minute, so it wasn’t like I could tell anybody afterward.”

  “She was worse than I gave her credit for.” He looked her over, his face hardening. “Look what she did to ye.”

  “She got me pretty good,” Melissa observed, glancing down at her chest. “She was de—determined to—”All at once she remembered the fury in Flora’s eyes, how determined she’d been. How close she had come to being the one lying at the bottom of the tower with her head turned the wrong way, her body broken. “I thought I was gonna die,” she gasped. It was hard to breathe.

  “Relax, lass. Breathe slowly. Close your eyes and breathe slowly.” Leith tugged on the bars, grunting in frustration. “Damn it all. Damn everything. Damn me, most especially.”

  “No,” she managed to gasp, shaking her head. “No.”

  “Aye, lass. Tis all my doing. I ought to have listened to ye from the start. Never would this have worked, never would I have gotten away with it. I was a fool. I brought ye into this without imagining what might happen to ye. I told myself I could protect ye when I have done nothing but put your life in danger. I canna hope for your forgiveness.”

  “There isn’t anything to forgive. You weren’t the one who tried to push me off the tower. You couldn’t have imagined her doing anything as bad as that, because you’re a good person. You have such a good, strong heart. At least now you don’t have to worry about being stuck with her.”

  “To hell with her,” he whispered, straining to reach out and touch a strand of her hair which hung loose from its coiled braid. “I care nothing for her. Tis yourself I care for. What is the use of going on now without ye?”

  In the middle of all that darkness, a beam of light shone through and lit her up inside. “What are you saying?” she asked, barely daring to hope she hadn’t misunderstood.

  “I am telling ye, lass, that when I heard the screams, the first thing I thought of was yourself. And what I would do if anything were to have befallen ye. How I would go on without ye. I could scarcely breathe for the pain of it, because why would I wish to go on without ye now? What would there be for me without ye?”

  Tears ran down her cheeks. “You don’t have to say that just because they want to kill me,” she whispered. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to make things better.”

  “Dinna ye hear me, lass?” He could just barely touch her cheek, his fingers grazing her tear-dampened skin. “I love ye. I know it now. I knew it when I thought I might have lost ye forever, and I will not lose ye now.”

  It was so unfair.

  She wanted to be his, and she wanted to go home. She wanted to get out of this situation and put the entire thing behind her, but that would mean leaving him behind as well. And that was something she didn’t want to do, could never do now.

  “You were the last thing I thought of when I was about to go over the railing,” she confessed, soaking in his gentle, loving touch. “How I wouldn’t see you again. When I think back on it, I remember knowing you would blame yourself and I didn’t want that. And how I wished I had the guts to tell you what I felt when I had the chance.”

  “Ye have the chance now,” he murmured with a catch in his voice. “What is it ye wish to say?”

  “I love you, too,” she sighed. “It doesn’t make any sense, does it?”

  “That it does not, lass,” he agreed with a wry chuckle. “My love. My only love.”

  She rubbed her cheek over his fingers, weeping silently, her heart breaking and soaring all at once. He loved her, and she was going to hang for a murder she didn’t commit. “I always figured we couldn’t really be together, but I never imagined this would be the reason why,” she admitted with a weak laugh.

  “I will not allow them to harm ye. Do ye ken what I am telling ye?” He caught her chin on the tips of his fingers and raised it until their eyes met. “I might have failed ye before now, lass, but I will not fail ye again. I swear it. I will find a way.”

  “No.” She caught his fingers and wrapped hers around them, squeezing hard. “No, you can do something else for me, instead.”

>   “What?”

  “Go. Now. Get the hell out of here and never come back. This is no place for you now. You brought me here, and they think I killed Flora, so they’re going to eventually turn the blame on you. I couldn’t rest easy knowing you were in danger, Leith.”

  “If any were to harm me, they would risk war with the entire clan and our allies besides,” he scoffed. “None would dare it.”

  “Right—just like you were so confident you could get out of marriage by pretending you already had a wife. I’m not throwing that in your face to hurt you,” she was quick to add when pain touched his eyes. “Only to remind you that things tend to go the opposite way of what you expect sometimes. Mervyn is a grieving father. He’s not thinking clearly. And those guards of his who he brought along for the wedding probably feel like they owe him, and her. Who knows what they’ll try to do?”

  “I am not the one you ought to be concerned with now, lassie.”

  “Well, I love you, so of course I’m going to worry.” She held his gaze. “Leith. Please. Just do this one last thing for me. Go. Protect yourself now.”

  “I canna.” He lifted his shoulders. “I will be with ye all the while, lass. I will not leave ye. I will find a way to free ye.” His lips brushed against her hand, eyes glittering with determination.

  “Leith…” But there was no getting through to him, the stubborn idiot. He stood, turning away without another word. “Leith, please! I’m begging you to go!”

  Well, he went, all right. He left her sitting there alone.

  But she knew he would never actually leave the castle until he either did what he promised, or she was hanged.

  And by then, she feared, it would be too late.

  21

  “I tell ye, she did not do this!” Leith slammed his open palm on his uncle’s table, the cups which sat upon it trembling and losing some of their ale.

  “What proof have ye?” Mervyn retrieved his cup, wiping the spilled ale from it before drinking deeply.

  “I have none but her word,” Leith admitted. “And the scratches and bruises she bears. They had a terrible fight.”

  “Which Niall could easily explain as his daughter fighting for her life against your wife,” he reasoned with a shrewd glint in his eye. “Ye know it as well as I do that it looks bad for her. Verra bad, indeed.”

  Mervyn sat with a sigh.

  Leith took note of the sweat beading on his bald head. He was just as overwrought as Leith or anyone else over this matter.

  “What reason would Flora have to attack Melissa?”

  “What do ye think? She wanted to have her out of the way, that we might be wed without complication. I told her I was going to take Melissa away.”

  “Ye did what, man?” Mervyn’s eyes bulged.

  “Aye, I admit it.” He leaned over the table, meeting his uncle’s gaze. “Am I the only one in this entire castle who saw her for what she was? Who she was? Do ye wish to hear what she told Melissa before trying to throw her over the railing?”

  “I canna say with any certainty whether I wish to or nay,” Mervyn admitted in a strangled whisper.

  “She spoke of her grandmother poisoning the MacNeills. Flora was going to poison Melissa as her grandmother poisoned the entire family, that the second son might be laird.”

  Mervyn finished his drink before pouring another. “Tis a grievous accusation to make,” he grunted without glancing at his nephew. “Grievous, indeed.”

  “What reason would she have to lie?” he demanded.

  “For one, she is accused of murder.”

  “But I know her! I know what she is capable of and I tell ye, she would never have done this. At least, not out of spite. If she did push Flora, if she was the reason for her falling to her death, it was done in self-defense.”

  “She is your wife, man. Why would she not wish to dispatch with the lass?”

  Leith’s breath caught. He stood straight, his hands now clammy and his heart hammering against the inside of his chest. Why, indeed? “She is not my wife. She never was.”

  Mervyn emptied his cup yet again before slamming it onto the table. “Ye must be out of your mind, man.”

  “I can explain—”

  “I ken all too well. Ye intended to bring her here as proof of why ye could not be held to the betrothal, though ye never wed her. Who is she, truly?”

  “A lass I met not far from Castle MacNeill. Two of your men were after her, truth be told, about to have their way with her when I stepped in and sent them on their way. She was in need of shelter and clothing, and I needed an excuse. Nothing more than that.”

  “Ye brought her into this. And if what ye tell me is true and Flora was the cause of all of this, ‘tis on your head.”

  “Ye dinna need to tell me,” Leith murmured, his soul crushed under the weight of his uncle’s words. There was a great deal of truth in them. While it was nothing more than what Leith had already told himself, there was something much worse about hearing it come from the mouth of another.

  “Where is he?” Both men turned to find Niall MacNeill stumbling into Mervyn’s chambers. “Ye will hang beside her for this! Both of ye! Ye plotted between ye, is that it? Ye wanted my bonny Flora dead!”

  “Niall, sit yourself down, man.” Mervyn rose, going to his old friend. “Ye are beside yourself, not thinking clearly.”

  “I have never thought so clearly in all my life!” His voice was loud enough to shake the very stones, and the rage in his words sent chills down Leith’s spine. Were the man to have the chance, he might have strangled Melissa with his bare hands and laughed all the while.

  Grief did that to a man. It tore his reason away and left nothing but a deep, endless thirst for satisfaction. Whether that came in the form of revenge or some other means, it mattered not. A man could not rest until that thirst was quenched.

  “It was an accident,” Leith attempted to explain, knowing all the while how pitiful an excuse it was. “Nothing more than that. Melissa bore your daughter no ill will.”

  “I saw her!” he roared. “I saw the claw marks all over her! My Flora did that! She struggled! She fought to survive that wretched, wicked thing you brought into our midst! I ought to take your head for that!”

  “Enough of this!” Mervyn all but shoved Niall into a chair which creaked under his substantial weight. “Ye are not thinking or speaking clearly. Dinna say that which canna be taken back, man.”

  “Dinna tell me what to do,” Niall warned, casting a doleful eye upon his friend. “This is your nephew, dinna think I have forgotten it. Your sister’s son. Ye would defend him if only for her sake, would ye not?”

  “Nay, man.” Mervyn crouched before him. “I have lost those I loved. I know the pain too well. The same pain which causes ye to think and speak this way. Ye canna give in to it.”

  Niall chose to glare at Leith rather than acknowledging his friend’s sage advice. “She will hang at daybreak.”

  While he had expected nothing less, the sound of this proclamation sickened Leith. “She is innocent,” he protested. “I will prove it.”

  “How can ye prove any such thing?” Mervyn asked. He appeared to care, at least, to desire justice—no matter the form it took. Leith thought his uncle might pity him and Melissa both.

  “I wish I knew, but I will find a way. So help me.”

  “Ye would do better to ne’er show your face to me again,” Niall growled. “I could kill ye myself.”

  “That is enough,” Mervyn warned, but Niall shoved him away.

  “Ye did this. Ye might as well have pushed her yourself. Where were ye, eh? At the time. Where were ye when my daughter fought for her life against that evil thing ye brought into our midst?”

  Before Leith had the chance to so much as draw breath, Niall burst into tears. Never had Leith seen a grown man cry, not even his father after his mother’s death. The sight and sound of it was unsettling, to say the least.

  Mervyn glanced at Leith and jerked his head in t
he direction of the door, telling him to leave them while he had the chance. As remaining in his uncle’s chambers to argue on Melissa’s behalf would certainly be a waste of his time, he made haste to escape.

  Daybreak. He had mere hours in which to do something, anything to save her. Could he break her out of the cell and escape with Eoghan? Perhaps, but the chance of success was slim. No doubt there would be guards looking out for just such an attempt.

  What, then? What else was there? He could find proof, but what proof would there be of Melissa’s innocence? He doubted Flora would have left something behind to shine a light on her true nature.

  Never had he been so hopeless. So useless. This was entirely new, the feeling of having nothing to offer. All he could do was consider sitting outside Melissa’s cell to comfort her, that she might not be alone.

  She did not need comfort. She needed a champion, someone to fight for her. While he would certainly kill any man who put a noose around her neck, by then his fighting would be too late.

  She needed something now. But what? What could he say to get through to that weeping, grief-stricken man? Certainly, telling him that Melissa’s death would not bring his daughter back would be of little help, and to reveal the confessed plan to poison Melissa as his family had been poisoned would only worsen matters.

  He stepped outside, welcoming the cool air. Only a sliver of a moon was visible in the inky sky, with a smattering of stars around it. Would that Donald were able to make it to MacManus land in time, to gather their forces and race across the countryside on a night with no moon to guide them.

  The sound of hooves beating the ground caught his attention. He turned more out of idle curiosity than anything else, searching for the horse in question.

  It was not the horse which captured his curiosity.

  It was the girl in the saddle. A girl with freckles and wide, fearful eyes. A girl whose gaze fell upon him, causing her eyes to widen further. She was terrified of something.

  Before he had the chance to find out just what frightened her so, she dug her heels into the poor beast and urged it into a full gallop. The horse pounded out of the courtyard and through the gate.