by Jenna Stone
The Imposter
By Jenna Stone
“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.”
~Pablo Neruda
Chapter One
My choices were dismal. Forced marriage to a man twice my age or plunge to almost certain death in the icy water. I stood on the bow of the ship clad only in my shift, starting out at where the moonlit sky met the thunderous waves of the Atlantic Ocean.
No man will choose my fate. I am mine.
The frigid water took my breath away. Breathe. Breathe!
My muscles rebelled. For a moment I thought that death might win out. My powerful legs kicked to the surface, and I sputtered as I searched for the reference point of land. The swim to shore took every ounce of my courage and strength, but I arrived on shore a free woman.
***
I awoke in the early hours of dawn, chilled to the bone and immediately on edge.
I need to move before they find me. I can never let them find me.
I surveyed the remnants of my shift. The ocean had shredded its light gossamer fabric. I felt every pine needle and rock that I had slept on, each having made a painful imprint in the gooseflesh that covered my body. The forest was quiet now save for the early morning chirping of a few birds.
So, this is Scotland. Land of the bloodthirsty barbarians.
I remembered the words that my father had used to describe the land that was to be my new home. Rugged, beautiful, and filled with bloodthirsty barbarians. His words echoed in my head, and a chill ran the length of my spine as I surveyed the vacant forest.
My alabaster skin reminded me of that of a ghost, standing out in stark contrast to the dark soil of the forest floor. I ran my fingers across my skin assuring myself of my bodily strength. Although I found myself in quite a predicament, I knew that my lithe body was fit and strong enough to carry me to salvation. Fate had put me here and my stomach twisted with excitement to find out why.
***
I carefully rose to my feet, steadying myself with the help of a nearby fir tree. The bark was rough against my skin. I rested my cheek against its moss covered surface, giving my chilled, aching limbs a moment to adjust to the weight of my body.
“Ok, Kate…think!” I said out loud, willing myself to choose a course of action. In answer, the wood smoke caught my senses. If there was a campfire surely there would be people. I could watch them from afar and weigh my options. If I stayed hidden, I could gauge if it would be safe to reveal myself to them.
I set off in the direction of the smoke. My bare feet made slow and painful progress, crunching the pine needles on the forest floor. I raked my hand through my long auburn hair which was littered with the remnants of sticks and moss from last night’s restless slumber. I carelessly pulled them from my hair as I walked, then gathered my thick waves at the crown of my head and secured the pony tail with a knot. The wood smoke was growing stronger, tickling my nostrils, and I was encouraged that I was heading in the right direction as I trudged onward through the trees. Walking had forced some warmth back into my body, and the involuntary chattering of my teeth had finally stopped.
“Ouch!” I exclaimed as yet another sharp rock broke the skin on the bottom of my foot. I balanced on one leg and examined the foot in question, stained nearly black from walking through mud and twigs. I scanned the dense forest and continued my slow pursuit of the smoke.
The trees became sparse and I found myself standing on a primitive road. I mentally congratulated myself on finding such a swift path to salvation, knowing that roads led to people. I was quite overjoyed with my discovery of the road and suddenly the fact that I was nearly naked brought me crashing back to reality. I decided to follow the road, but for safety’s sake, and to preserve my last shreds of modesty, I committed to walk in the trees just off the road. When I came around the first bend in the road, I stopped dead in my tracks. I had found the source of the fire.
***
My pulse hammered in my ears as I frantically tried to make sense of the scene before me. Shock was an understatement. I surveyed the nightmare before me, frozen in place, having never seen such horror as what lie before me in the road.
My eyes darted nervously over the blood pooling around the three bodies that were crumpled next to a horse drawn coach. These people had been brutally slain and my eyes focused on the man first, crumpled in a final pose of anguish, eyes glazed and fixated on an object that I knew was not there. Fight or flight. My brain fought the impulse of telling my body to run. I stood fast.
The women lay where they had fallen next to the coach. The coach looked strange with no horses attached to the front end, and the loose leather straps swayed in the chilling breeze. The younger woman appeared to be in her twenties, and the other, more plump appeared to be a bit older. The remnants of the fire that had drawn me here burned a few feet away from their bodies.
My trembling legs reluctantly carried me closer to the coach, and I peered down at the young woman. Her dark hair had been ripped from its pins, and purple bruises stained the skin of her face and neck. She had fought like hell for her life, as was evidenced by the defense wounds on her lower arms and the blood beneath her broken nails. Blood stained the front of her dress, and had collected in a pool near the fatal gash to her neck.
I had never seen this amount of blood before. To see such a violent scene, such a young woman killed so brutally made bile rise, burning my throat. I took deep breaths, willing myself not to be sick. I felt my body temperature quickly peak. I was neatly sick in a grassy patch next to the young woman. I promptly turned away from her, embarrassed at the poor control of my stomach.
Breathe, Kate, breathe. Pull yourself together.
I surveyed the stillness of the scene before me. The perpetrators were long gone, evidenced by the forest resuming its rhythmic chatter of chirping crickets and calling birds. These sounds of normalcy assured me that the likelihood of ambush by returning murderers was minimal. The sounds of the forest didn’t stop the small hairs from rising on the back of my neck.
There was nothing that could be done for these people. I looked down at my blackened, bloodied bare feet. My basic needs at the moment were food and clothes. Certainly I would be forgiven if I took some clothes from these poor people given my desperate circumstances. I planned to take the first thing that I found; even a blanket would do for covering up. I walked toward the coach with heightened senses, the crunch, crunch, crunch of the gravel beneath my feet was deadening. The door of the coach was ajar, and I forced myself to quell my nerves and walk towards it.
I peered inside the dark interior of the coach, eyes scanning the upholstered walls and bench seats which were facing each other. There was a pillow on the floor, and the cushions covering the benches were out of place, exposing the possibility of storage spaces underneath each bench seat.
I pushed the brown cushion aside and lifted the hinged top of the bench to expose the contents beneath. Without realizing, I had squeezed my eyes shut, horrified by what I was doing, but hoping so intently to find the clothes that I desperately need. I forced my eyes to open and found that indeed, luck was finally on my side today! Right on top I saw the bodice of an olive green dress with intricate stitching detail of brown flowers beneath the low neckline.
I carried the dress with me into the forest so that I could change away from the coach. I felt better with each step that carried me away from the murder scene. I clutched the dress against my chest in an effort to stop my hands from shaking from the shock of the murders. It did
n’t work.
There was a rocky outcropping a good distance from the road, and I decided that it would suit for a dressing area. I stepped into the billows of the voluminous dress and pulled the bodice up about my breasts, holding its weight with my left arm, while my right hand reached behind me to struggle with cinching up the laces. With quite a bit of squirming and tugging, I reached both of my hands behind me to tie the laces into a secure bow, which I tucked into the folds of the skirt. Thanks to the lacings, this dress was adjustable in size and I cinched it into a perfect fit.
I surveyed my form as best I could, and took a few steps, noticing how the skirts swayed and swished as I moved about. I undid my pony tail, bent over and ran my fingers through my hair. I gathered it again at the base of my neck and secured it into a thick, auburn knotted ponytail. Strangely, I felt better. A lot better.
Feeling slightly more in control of my situation, and pleased that I would most likely not freeze to death, I trudged back to the road. I could now see the top of the ram- shackled carriage through the trees, and decided that as grisly as it would be, I should search the rest of the carriage for items that might be of use. I detested the thought of approaching the scene again but the growling of my stomach reminded me that there might be food within the carriage.
I remembered seeing a woolen blanket in the seat compartment next to the dress, and made a mental note to grab it when I searched the coach for useful items. It would make another cold night spent in the forest a bit more bearable.
The small hairs on the back of my neck stood in terror as I heard the voices.
I heard them just before I stepped from the shadows of the evergreen trees and into the dirt road. I stopped in my tracks, listening to the alarmed male voices and the clatter of horse hooves on the road. The blood was pumping in my veins, hammering in my ears. I turned and ran back into the forest as quickly as I could under the constraints of the dress. My breathing was ragged, and the skirts of the dress caught on twigs and branches, making my progress through the undergrowth less rapid that I would have hoped.
“Hey…..Stop!” shouted a male voice, I could hear him breaking through the branches behind me.
Whoever these people were, I didn’t want them to find me. I continued running through the forest, branches smacking me in the face in my haste, searching for a place to crouch down. The hairs on the back of my neck piqued. Instinct told me that these might be the same villains that killed the people with the carriage.
I didn’t even hear him close in on me. His hand clasped down hard around my wrist. A shot of pure terror went through my body. I screamed in a way that I didn’t even know was possible. The twin to the hand painfully restraining my wrist clapped down over my mouth to silence my protests. I used my teeth to bite at the large hand, and kicked my legs in vain at the body of my restrainer.
“Ouch, lass! Will ye not stop? Please?” he said with a grimace in his voice. He removed the hand from over my mouth and shook it to dissipate the pain of my bite.
“I don’t mean to hurt ye. Calm down,” he adjusted his grip on my wrist, and then brought his other arm around my middle, restraining me against the muscular wall of his body.
“You’re hurting me!” I exclaimed, feeling the sting of his grip where it had been on my left wrist. I stomped as hard as I could on the top of his right foot, but being that I was barefoot, my resistance was futile. Desperately, I brought my heel up hard into my assailant’s crotch with all of my might.
“Ye bitch!” he exclaimed. “Can ye not see that I’m trying to help ye?” The grip about my waist tightened, and the thundering of my adrenaline soaked heart pounded in my ears. “If I let ye go, will ye run?” he questioned.
His breath warm on my neck.
“No,” I responded, knowing that if I ran, he could easily catch me. I would be no match for him in this dress. I surrendered to the situation, having no choice but to do so. As if feeling my surrender, he released his grip about my waist, and turned me to face him.
“What’s yer name, lass?” he asked, bushy eyebrows drawn together as he blatantly appraised me, eyes scanning my frame from top to bottom.
I hesitated for a moment, terrified to be face to face with one of the Scottish barbarians that my father had described. The man’s accent was thick, and although we were speaking the same language, I had difficulty understanding his English.
I regained control of myself, now shaking only slightly. I decided that I might as well use my real name. My father’s ship was probably well up the coast already. There was no chance that people on land could have been alerted to my disappearance.
“I’m Kate,” I said simply, meeting his steely gaze by raising my eyes almost a foot. This man was huge and he towered above me.
“Oh, thank God, yer safe!” he exclaimed as he crushed my body to his in a bear hug, resting his chin on top of my head.
***
I soon learned that my captor’s name was Nathan, not through an introduction on his part, but from the shouts bellowing through the trees referring to him as such. He was an immense man with shoulder length mousy brown hair,and a pock marked face which he had tried to conceal beneath a thick beard.
“I’ve got her! Kate’s alive! She’s escaped this, don’t know how, but she has!” he bellowed through the trees in the direction of the coach.
“I’ll be damned,” was bellowed back by a deeper voice, and accompanied by the approving hoots of a few other men. “The Laird will be pleased!” another voice shouted from the coach.
Nathan’s hand was secure around my wrist as he led me, or rather drug me, through the trees back to the road. Terror coursed through my blood.
They had been expecting to find me.
A knot settled in my stomach and I felt as if I would be sick again.
I was pulled into the clearing of the road, and confronted with five large men, all clad in traditional Highland tartan. I inhaled sharply as I surveyed the scene. The men had stopped their work amongst the bodies and were all starting at me with looks of disbelief.
“Get her outta here!” barked a man with black hair and a beard that matched Nathan’s. “Have ye no care for the lass, Nate? These were her people. She canna see this!”
Reacting quickly, Nathan jerked my wrist in the opposite direction, and back into the trees we went. He picked me up and unceremoniously sat me on a fallen log, then crouched before me his eyes scanning my face.
“I’m sorry lass. I dinna mean tae pain ye anymore than what ye’ve already been through. Sometimes I forget that, well, that women folk are different. More sensitive, I guess.” He smiled sheepishly, offering both peace between us and some form of an apology.
“Where in the hell am I?” I asked.
He chuckled heartily. “I’d heard that ye were quite a lady, the Laird would have approved of ye I’m sure. Yer just on the border of the McClain lands, lass. Almost made it before, before…” his voice trailed off.
I knew that he was referring to the attack on the coach. Clearly he thought that I had been traveling with the group and had somehow escaped murder.
“How did ye escape, lass?” he asked, eyes inquisitive as they watched me.
“I don’t remember,” I lied easily, having decided that this was the best course of action to take.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, his eyes searched mine. “We should have set out tae meet ye sooner. We never thought that this could happen.” His huge hand grabbed mine, offering his best effort at consolation. “McClain is going to be seethin’ with anger when he finds out that ye were attacked so close tae the border. This willna be forgotten, lass. Mark my words.” His eyes were kind as he looked down at me but the vengeance in his voice was threatening.
Barbarians. My father’s words haunted me.
“Thank-you,” I replied uneasily. What was a proper response when it was believed that your companions were murdered and you were an unwitting imposter? I decided that it was best to limit the information I provided
to these men until I had a firmer grasp on this precarious situation.
Confident that I would not run off into the forest, Nathan left me sitting on the log and went back to the road in search of some food. He returned with a hunk of bread and a small piece of cheese, which I devoured in a very unlady-like fashion and washed down with warm ale.
Nathan was a very amiable companion. I liked him at once even though I was doing my best to avoid entering into further conversation with him. I could tell that he was nervous in my presence and he was in possession of the characteristic of rambling on in meaningless conversation when faced with a situation in which he was uncomfortable.
As I quelled the growling of my stomach with bread and cheese, he rambled on about an array of topics ranging from the weather to the fine new horse that he had just acquired. He was quite animated as he spoke and I enjoyed watching his ever changing expressions and gestures that accompanied his thick Scottish brogue. The burr in his voice was intriguing.
I brushed the last crumbs of the bread from my skirt and wiped my mouth on the sleeve of my dress. Nathan certainly didn’t seem to be one of the barbarians that my father had described.
“Yer no at all what I had expected,” Nathan chuckled, studying my most unlady-like manners. “Being high born as ye are, I guess I expected ye tae be more snobbish and refined,” he nodded in approval as he started down at me with his big brown eyes.
I remained quiet, unsure of how to respond.
“Yer a damn sight more pretty than I expected ye tae be as well,” he divulged, giving what I thought to be a form of compliment. “Having met yer Da, I wouldna have expected ye tae be sae fair. Yer small boned as a bird. And yer hair, it’s the most beautiful, unusual color,” he added, leaning against a nearby tree as he looked down at me from beneath his bushy eyebrows.
I was embarrassed by his frank appraisal of my features, but worried about the fact that he knew the father of the other Kate whose identity I had inadvertently stolen. How long would it be before these men realized that I was not in fact the Kate that they thought me to be?
