The Curse of Clan Ross

by L. L. Muir

  Isobelle.

  But if the lass wore Isobelle’s finest, the very dress his cousin planned to wear as she greeted her new city, what was Isobelle wearing?

  The ship had arrived a day ahead of schedule, so they’d been ordered to stand at anchor just inside the Port of Lido until a dock was free. If they hurried, he and Isobelle could find room in one of the small lancha boats and not be forced to wait.

  Ossian turned away from the young lovers and went in search of a mass of red hair, since he had no ken how his Scottish cousin would be dressed. Young Sophia was headed for the Franciscan abbey, so it was understandable she’d want to look pretty for Trucchio while they spent their last few hours together. But Isobelle was mistaken if she expected Ossian to stand about waiting patiently for the lass to finish with the dress.

  Izzy was not on deck, damn her.

  Another lancha was lowered away from the ship and his patience fled.

  What the devil was she about?

  He stomped the entire distance to the ladder, then lowered himself into the cargo hold where he and his bonny cousin had separated themselves from as many of the passengers and crew as possible. Isobelle’s hair never failed to cause problems; she refused to cut it, and the hair itself refused to be controlled beneath caps of any kind, so it was best Isobelle’s entire person was kept from sight as much as possible.

  None of their meager belongings remained, nor the hammocks they’d slept in.

  Ossian started stringing together some choice words for the moment he found her. But by the time he finished scouring every corner below decks, they were all but forgotten. A tiny seed of worry began to sprout in his belly, but he ignored it and planned to drown it as soon as they found a public house.

  Assuming his and Izzy’s paths had crossed while he’d been searching, he returned topside. A quick glance around proved the last of the lanchas was gone, damn it anyway. He sighed and meandered to the railing. There was no hurry now. He would leave it to Izzy to find him.

  Ossian maneuvered his elbows between ropes and spindles and leaned on the wood rail. A twist and a stretch, this way and that, loosened the muscles in his back. It would be good to sleep in a real bed for a change. Isobelle would feel the same after sleeping in a hammock. She might be dreading the task of settling in a new city, but she was as anxious as he to get off the carrack. He was surprised his cousin wasn’t the first over the rail when they reached the harbor.

  He frowned down upon that last lancha moving away from the ship. It was full of black-veiled nuns in brown tunics with a uniformed guard at each end. In the center of the boat sat Sophia, the new addition to their order. She was dressed in brown as well, but with only a white veil. By the time Ossian had a glimpse of her, the girl’s face was but a pink circle in the center of her wimple as she looked back at the ship. The veil seemed terribly large for her size, as if her hair were standing on end beneath it.

  He knew the spoilt lass didn’t wish to join the convent, but she’d been promised to the abbey by parents who could better afford a dowry to the church than a dowry to a husband.

  A horrible possibility suddenly occurred to him, and Ossian’s gullet started climbing up his throat. He couldn’t manage to swallow or breathe. He pushed away from the rail and spun on his heel. Up on the quarter deck, the green dress remained, as did Sophia, standing in the circle of Trucchio’s arms. She was all teeth and tears as she watched the small boat move farther away. Trucchio looked over at Ossian and lifted his chin.

  The highlander hoped the fury on his face expressed even half of the contempt he had for the wee bratling’s. When the boy finally lowered his chin and blushed, Ossian was mollified, but only for the moment. He would follow the pair, of course. He would need to know where to find Sophia in case the nuns tried to keep Isobelle.

  Heaven help them if they did.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Gaspar stood in the chancel behind an iron lattice. The screen, with its intricate spiral pattern, was a bit grandioso considering the abbey housed a Franciscan cloister, but it was not for him to judge. No. His judgment was reserved for more important matters.

  Discretion was necessary for another moment or two while he gave the Bishop Gallo time to leave the grounds. There was no need for the man to know he’d been spied upon. An anonymous report claimed the man enjoyed a questionable relationship with one of the abbey’s nuns, and since Gallo was a bit enthusiastic about serving those particular sisters, the report warranted a closer look. Gaspar had been sent by The Patriarch of Venice to observe the forty year old bishop, but as it turned out, one of the cloister was a blood sister to the bishop, nothing more. It would be a rare treat to be able to report that all was well, and he was almost eager to make it.

  But he was equally eager to leave the abbey grounds for the simple fact the place was filled with women and therefore no place for a man like him—not that there were others like him. He’d made a vow twelve years ago that he would forswear the company of women and dedicate his life to serving God however he could, a vow easily honored if he kept his distance from any and all females. And though he was often called upon to judge a woman, he was determined to remain as detached as possible, especially if she could not be helped.

  And after twelve years of distance, it was difficult to linger in their presence, nun or no, holy ground or no.

  A few minutes, but no more. A few minutes to prove to God that I am able to withstand the temptations of the flesh. To prove I am able to stand in a nave full of nuns and virgins and come away with unsullied thoughts.

  Of course, after a dozen years of discipline, he hardly noticed temptation anymore.

  The narthex doors flew open and banged against the stone walls interrupting his thoughts. The nuns were still about then. He’d been wise to remain concealed.

  Gaspar Dragotti, sometimes called God’s Dragon—though typically not to his face—was Special Investigator to His Beatitude, The Patriarch of Venice. He was an Inquisitor, sometimes a judge, and when the circumstances demanded, an executioner. He was not Italian by birth, but had come to the church states to be closer to those who could speak to God. He’d taken the name Gaspar to replace that uglier name, the one women had called him by long ago, the name he’d all but forgotten. It was no longer a part of him.

  Gaspar was no priest, of course, but his position made him a powerful man among the clergy. Though his missions were usually grave and secretive, everyone knew their nature. Therefore he was given a wide berth by the people of Venice and the rest of the church states, for to have God’s Dragon knock upon one’s door could sometimes stop a man’s heart in his chest. Especially if that man suffered a guilty conscience.

  Women simply fled. Well…after pausing a moment to stare.

  Nuns were different, however. His business rarely involved the sisters more than it had that day, so for the most part they flitted around him like excited birds that imagined themselves immune to his dragon’s fire, exempt from his adjudication. Their fearlessness made him uneasy.

  Through the streams of sunlight and dust motes, he watched four guards usher a novice inside the narthex and then hurry back out the doors and bang them closed once more. The woman stared at the blocked exit for only a moment before her shoulders began to shake.

  What was this? A novice being handled so by guards? And worse yet, the chapel used to cage her? What irreverence!

  The woman’s voice broke into pieces, but she was not weeping as he’d supposed, she was laughing. And the unholy sound winged into the rafters on sharp feathers and chased away Gaspar’s concern for her treatment.

  Is she inebriated ?

  The laughter died with a sigh, and the novice turned and walked up the far aisle. Her gait was light and animated and she turned this way and that, walking sideways at times as her attention was drawn to the nave’s architecture and not where her feet fell. The silhouette of her veil swelled out behind her head as if she were hiding a satchel there, and the odd thought made it im
possible for him to look away.

  When she reached the transept, she turned and walked to the center, her head bowed, her hands lifting to her veil. She pulled off the head cover and flung it toward a bench as if it meant nothing. Then she raised her hands again to her wimple.

  Gaspar wrenched his head to the side, refusing to look upon her, refusing to feed his own curiosity. He turned bodily toward the small door at his back, no longer content to stand behind the rood screen and wait for others to go along their ways. If someone noticed him, so be it. His observations were complete. There was no true need for secrecy. Besides, the young woman would answer to God for her irreverence, not to Gaspar. He had a vow to keep, after all.

  “Damn you!”

  The curse struck Gaspar as if he’d taken a blow to the stomach, and he turned back to the screen, his reaction no longer his to control. Avoiding the woman was no longer possible. He could not walk away and leave her free to further desecrate God’s house. But he hoped a brief bit of instruction would be enough to put an end to her thoughtlessness.

  He stomped to the screen and raised his hands to the gate, but they stilled in the air before reaching the latch, his attention caught on the sight unfolding in a glorious stream of late afternoon sunshine. And he the only witness.

  A thick, decadent mane of red hair poured around the woman’s shoulders while she struggled to remove the wimple from her face. Dark red hair that looked far too familiar, though it could not belong to one of the ghosts from his sinful youth. How could it be anything other than a test from the Almighty Himself?

  Chaos galloped and kicked in his breast like a mad horse in a confined space. He could not bring order to his thoughts, though in the back of his mind, he suspected he was being punished for believing himself above temptation. He immediately prayed for forgiveness, his mouth shaping the words easily and silently, but he should have closed his eyes to do it, for the prayer was forgotten as he watched the woman struggle with the wimple. A long copper strand wrapped itself around the white cloth like a living vine.

  Perhaps God means to strangle her.

  A preposterous thought, considering that in all Gaspar’s years engaged in the patriarch’s business, he had yet to see such direct intervention from Heaven.

  The woman took a firm hold on the wimple with both hands and braced her feet apart as if preparing to rip the hair from her very head. Gaspar’s gasp betrayed him and the woman stilled. For a long moment, neither of them moved. But the silence was broken when the large doors opened once again. The woman released the worrisome cloth and glanced in his direction before turning to the back of the church.

  The manly-sized abbess glided into the nave with six nuns behind her, seven faces lit with a combination of determination and excitement, all hands tucked modestly inside their sleeves. They moved in such uniformity, they might have been a company of soldiers.

  The woman in the transept pushed aside her wayward hair to watch the newcomers, but still Gaspar could not see her face clearly. He was pleased she hadn’t damaged her head, then chided himself for wasting his concern. Was he not prepared to reprimand the woman for defiling the chapel only a moment ago?

  That hair. It was all the fault of that hair. A mane of red, marking her for the devil, some would say. So perhaps it was the devil who had sent her to tempt God’s Dragon and not God reminding him of the weakness of his past. But if so, the devil had underestimated him. A simple head of red hair was not enough to erase twelve years of discipline.

  “Young woman,” the abbess hissed in Italian. “You will be silent in God’s house. God’s Dragon may still be lurking about, and I won’t have him bothered by the likes of you.”

  Ah. So. Someone had noticed him after all, but no one cast a glance at the screen.

  “I doona understand ye,” came the woman’s muffled voice. “I’d be much obliged if ye’d help me. I tried to tell them it wouldna fit over me hair. Now it’s tryin’ to strangle me, aye?”

  Scottish!

  Gaspar exhaled carefully, wishing he could expel the woman from his sight so easily. And so silently. The chaos increased in his chest, but with stark fear added, Gaspar felt true pain and clutched his tunic. The face and form of a different red-haired Scotswoman tried to rise from his memory, but he forbade it. At any moment, he might be forced to cry out just to keep all his old demons at bay. He only hoped the nuns would take their charge and depart before that happened. Leaving one hand clutched over his heart, he released his tunic with the other and clamped it firmly over his mouth, just in case.

  “You don’t speak Italian?” the abbess asked in English while she untangled the red lock of hair, then placed her hands on her hips. “Any Latin?”

  “Latin?” The young woman straightened. Her hair fell away from her face and Gaspar’s breath grew cold in his chest.

  Perhaps it was he who had underestimated the devil, for she was a beauty. As beautiful as he’d once been himself, he admitted, before he’d removed that curse.

  “Some Latin,” she said. “Me brother is a Highland Chieftain. We were educated—or more like, he was educated and me sister and I spied in most days.”

  “So. You are not Sophia Pedrotti,” the abbess said, though she could not have suspected the woman to be Italian once she’d opened her mouth.

  The redhead gave a wide smile. “Alas. I am not.” She reached for the rope at her waist and began picking at the knot.

  The abbess gave a dainty shrug of her shoulders. “Pity. But you’ll do.”

  The Scotswoman stilled. “I’ll do what?”

  The abbess shook her head and smiled. “You’ll do in her stead. You intended to take her place, certainly, if you donned her habit and allowed our order to remove you from the ship without a word of protest.” She nodded at the nuns behind her. “Gag her and bring her along. We’ve got to get her hidden before that dragon pokes his head in the church.”

  “Oooh, no,” said the woman. “Me...me husband won’t take kindly to me takin’ the veil, I assure ye.” A couple of brave nuns took her by the arms while another peered closely at the discarded wimple, then at the woman’s mouth. Surely they didn’t expect to shove all that cloth between her teeth.

  Gaspar considered that mouth for a moment. Pink, plump. The lower lip a bit fuller than the other, as if the woman pouted too often. There was nothing more to observe, and yet he could not stop staring. It was so rare that he considered a woman’s mouth. He rarely looked at women at all, and rarer still did he look them in the eye, let alone study their faces.

  The chaos had settled. The dread had ebbed away while he’d watched and listened. This woman would not be his downfall, nor had she managed to unearth his demons enough to be a threat to him. He turned his head aside again to break the spell, for a spell it must be if she was able to distract him as she had. It would be best if he slipped away and left the woman in the abbess’s capable hands. It was no business of his how the large woman ran her abbey—unless an order from the patriarch instructed him otherwise.

  A scuffle, a yelp and a grunt, brought his attention back around to find the two women who had been holding the Scotswoman lying on the floor. The third, the one who’d been holding the wimple, pulled one corner of that large white cloth from her own mouth while the final three sisters advanced to finish what the first three had started.

  The devil’s temptress grabbed the fumbling nun before her, spun her around, and pulled the teetering woman back against her like a shield. Then she turned her head and looked through the screen as if it weren’t there. Bright green eyes stared into Gaspar’s own as she mouthed the words, “Help me.”

  Gaspar was suddenly affixed to the stone floor upon which he stood. The fear that had ebbed away returned and washed over him like a baptistery poured over his head.

  CHAPTER THREE

  A great roar erupted outside the church. If Gaspar wasn’t mistaken, and if his memory served, they’d just heard a Scottish war cry. His Gaelic was a bit rusty. He could
n’t understand a word of it. But an entire clan of Scotsmen might well be surrounding the church and preparing to attack it.

  The nuns needed warning and possibly protecting. So for the second time, he raised his hands to the gate intent on taking charge of the situation. But the doors crashed open again, and he paused to assess the danger, to determine if his position might give him the advantage of surprise after an enemy entered. But surely, even a hoard of Scots wouldn’t defile a church…

  Then again, hadn’t their countrywoman already done so?

  One of the church guards flew, prone, through the opening and slid to a stop at the baptismal font. His fellow fell just inside the narthex. A single man entered afterward, stepped over the second man, then put his hands on his hips and glared toward the front of the church. But it wasn’t the abbess at whom he glared. It was the Scotswoman.

  “Isobelle Ross,” he snarled. “It would serve ye rightly to leave ye here. I dare ye to tell me I am wrong.”

  “Ye’re wrong, husband,” she said, stressing the last word.

  Scots spoke so oddly, Gaspar could not say for certain whether or not she was trying to give the man a signal of some sort—possibly to tell him the role he must play before the nuns. Was she not married in truth?

  He ignored the small thrill caused by the question.

  The Scotsman started up the aisle nearest Gaspar, in no rush, as if his thoughts were impeding his progress.

  “I’m nay so sure, Izzy,” he said, halfway to the transept. “Ye’re nothing but trouble. It makes no mind where we go. Perhaps yer antics and meddlin’ have finally brought ye to a safe place, aye?”