by Anya Karin
The big man, with a huge red beard and darker mustache, nudged the tall, thick-shouldered one and tipped his head in Kenna’s direction. She immediately flushed and turned her back, pretending to select a drink from the table.
“Milady?” Another masked gentleman, this one wearing English-style dress, approached her.
“Yes of course,” she said before he asked her anything, and took his hands.
Slowly, they spun round and round to the swaying, lilting music. When Kenna had a chance to steal a glance, she did, but the Scotsman with the brown hair was vanished again. This time, the only one of his friends she found was the slender one with the gloves and what looked like some kind of injury to his hand.
Where did you go? And why can’t I take my eyes off you? Who are you?
The man’s face flashed in her mind. His soft blue eyes, deep as the waters of Loch Katrine, tickled the back of her neck.
“Is something the matter, milady?”
“Oh no, it’s nothing, I just thought I-”
Finally, Orrick wandered into the room holding a tray of sausages.
“Orrick,” she said. “Have you seen the three men, one of them rather fat with a big red beard, the other two more slender, and one of those has long brown hair tied into a pony’s tail, and the third is wearing black leather gloves?”
“Ma’am, that describes a number of guests,” he said with a smile. “Can you be more specific?”
She pulled away from the confused gentleman with whom she was half-dancing, and looked around the room.
“There!” she said.
“Now isn’t that curious,” Orrick said. “That’s Red Ben. He worked as part of master Macdonald’s household until very recently.”
“Are you sure? I mean with the mask and all.”
“He’s a hard man to mistake.”
The pipes began a rousing rendition of something that Kenna didn’t recognize, but from the reaction the men in the room gave, it was popular.
“I don’t mean to cause any trouble,” she said.
“No, it isn’t any trouble. But I don’t know why he’s here. I wonder if I should say something to...”
“Don’t,” Kenna said. “Please? For some reason I have a feeling this is...I don’t know why, but it seems like they are supposed to be here. Please? For me?”
“As long as they don’t cause any trouble, I see no reason to alert the guards.”
“Thank you Orrick.”
No sooner had he bowed and offered her a sausage than Kenna felt a hand on her shoulder.
Soft, curling fingers rasped against her gown.
A hot palm warmed her skin.
“My lady Kenna,” said the main behind the mask. “Might we dance?”
His voice was nothing like the rest of the speech she’d heard. It was plain, and it was from the north. She recognized the way he pulled at the end of the words. Without turning, she said, “who are you?”
“Now, now, isn’t it poor manners for a lady to ask who a man is? I’m wearing a mask for a reason.”
Even though he was behind her, Kenna felt the man’s breath on her neck and couldn’t help but smile.
“Aren’t you wearing a mask because it’s a masquerade ball?”
“Too smart for your own good, aye?”
She tried to turn but he held her in place and slid his hands around her hips. They burned through her gown and through the awful corset that felt like it was breaking her ribs.
“Tell me sir; is this what I’ve been hoping would happen? If it is, how is it possible?”
“Well lady Kenna, I can’t say for sure what you’ve been hoping for, but I know I’ve wanted this for three years. Probably more.”
From across the room, someone grabbed the gloved hand of the man with the ruined fingers.
“Hey! This foul creature is trying to steal something from my sporran! I caught his hand in it, jingling about with a mind to take my money!”
A roar quickly spread through the hall and Orrick rushed back in, past Kenna and to the man who screamed.
In the space a few breaths, a dirk came out of a boot, it was slashed and the gloved man recoiled with a cut across his cheek. He lifted his hand to the wound, looked at his bloody glove and yanked out a pistol he had secreted under his billowing shirt.
“John! No!”
Kenna’s heart stopped.
A flash erupted from the muzzle of the gun, but whizzed wide, shattered four glasses and buried in the wall behind them.
“Sheriff! Sheriff! He tried to shoot me!”
The melee that erupted in the middle of the banquet hall took everyone by surprise as a number of people attempted to wrestle the spent pistol from the man who fired it, and others tried to get the still-useful knife from the man who slashed at the thief.
“Kenna, look on me. It’s been too long.”
Her eyes shot wide open when she heard the completely unaffected voice. Her eyes traced the lines of the face behind the red and green mask. She examined him for any familiar sign and then when she had almost lost herself to doubt, she locked on his eyes. Those deep, stormy, ocean-blue eyes.
“Gavin?”
“I thought I’d never see you again. I’ve worried about it since the day I left, and I don’t know why. We’ve never talked, we’ve never so much as touched hands, but as ridiculous as it may sound, the first time I saw you I knew you were for me.”
She sucked a deep breath. The chaos erupting around them seemed a world away.
“I can’t believe-”
He pulled her close and lifted his mask.
“Believe it,” he said. “Red Ben said you’d be here. I wasn’t going to miss this for the world. And I do like a good dance party. From watching you dine, I’d say you weren’t here on your own accord?”
That got a laugh from Kenna. The first one she’d had in days.
“My father, he-”
“Not now.” He put his finger to her lips. “I’ve got to stop my friend from shooting anyone, and get out of here before that half-wit sheriff makes any arrests.”
She looked at him, refusing to let the man she’d wanted for her whole life leave without memorizing every single line of his face, every curl of his hair. As his hands went to either side of his face, another gunshot sounded, but no one screamed so it was probably fine, Kenna thought.
“I’ll be back for you. It might take a day or it might take a year, but I will be back for you. Your room is on the east side of the mansion, yes?”
“I don’t...I suppose so, how did you know?”
“I know things. Two mornings from now, look into the sun as it sinks below the horizon.”
“Why? What will I see?”
“Your hair, oh my Kenna, I’ve wanted to do this since I was eight.” He slid his hands behind her head, fingers scratching her neck softly as they tangled in the hair at the base of her neck.
He held her there for a moment. Nothing in the world existed, not the brawl, not the screaming sheriff or the panicked nobles, or the two rogues dancing around and playfully dodging clumsy blows. Nothing matter, except for her, and for him.
“Gavin,” she said. “I kept it. I never lost it.”
Gavin arched one of his eyebrows. His deep, ocean-blue eyes sparkled.
“The thistle,” she patted her chest. “I never take it off.”
A corner of his full lips curled into a smile, Gavin drank her in for another instant, and then pulled her to him, pressing his lips against hers. She shuddered as he parted her lips and slipped his tongue between them such that her very core tensed and released.
He tasted her deep, breathed her air, and inhaled her scent as though he was trying to never forget. Another moment passed as he looked at her, then Gavin kissed her again, pulled away and squeezed her hand.
“Don’t forget,” he said. “Two days from now at dusk. Straight out your window.”
Tears welled up in Kenna’s eyes as emotions she didn’t know she had flooded he
r heart. Gavin darted between wide-swinging sabers and drunken nobles who were waving around un-cocked pistols, and reached his friends.
He pointed back at her, John and Red both looked. Red touched his forehead and bowed slightly. The man called John flashed a roguish grin and Gavin pressed two fingers to his lips.
They ran, scrambling up the side of the hall onto a table. The two slender men snaked up a pillar, tossed a rope down to Red Ben, who wrapped it round his wrist, and managed to climb high enough that the other two could grab him under the arms, and then out the window they went, Red first, in a sparkling shower of exploding stained glass.
“Lady Kenna!” Orrick shouted as he neared her side. “Are you alright? That knave, he-”
“Remember the man I told you about, Orrick?” Kenna said through tears that washed her flushed cheeks.
“Yes, but-”
“He’s real,” she said. “And he’s most certainly not dead.”
Chapter Nine
“What is it, exactly, that I pay you for, if not to stop things like what just happened?” Ramsay Macdonald paced back and forth in front of the sheriff, wringing his hands. “Gunfire! In my estate! Right here, right under my own roof, Sheriff. I paid you for security, not to have you eat my food, then promptly get drunk off my brandy!”
“I – I’m sorry, sir,” Sheriff Alan said. “Everything seemed so calm, I didn’t-”
“Think? You didn’t think? Is that what you were going to say?”
“Now look, sir, I know I made a mess of things, but I’m the King’s man. You can’t just-”
“I canna talk to you like that?” Macdonald slipped out of his practiced borderland accent in his anger. “I canna say how useless and how awful you are? I canna tell you what kind of worm I think you to be? I canna even give you a wee little bit of my anger, because you’re in the King’s employ. Is that it?”
“Well, I...”
“Finish your sentences, man! At least have that respect for me if you have none other.”
“All I was going to say, sir, is that even if I hadn’t been in my cups, it would not have mattered much. I was out of the room dealing with another pair of your guests who decided your party the best time to deal with their personal squabbling about honor.”
“So while you were breaking up a fist fight, some brigands started shooting in the room next door?”
“Yes sir, and as soon as they did, I came running.”
Macdonald squeezed his hands together so that his fingers popped at the gnarled joints. The Sheriff fished out his tobacco plug, and cut himself a slice.
“Why are you doing that?”
“Oh well, sir, if Rodrigo isn’t around, I got to do it myself.”
“No, you great bumbling fool, why are you doing it at all? Do you think this is a horse stable?”
“Now look, sir,” Alan said. “I know you’re upset, but let’s not get at each other directly. There’s little point to it. The matter at hand is the fact that Reid Crannaugh expects you to pay him back for the purse that was stolen.”
“All this? All this over a stolen pouch?” Macdonald shrieked. “A stolen purse? Why did he not just give the robber a few pounds and ask me to replace his coin purse? Or better yet, why didn’t he just stop the thief? Grab his hand and slap him across the face? Everyone knows that robbers are just overgrown children. If you confront them, they cower.”
“Well, my lord, in a manner of speaking, that’s what he did. Although admittedly he did it with a lot more squealing and a little bit of crying and a knife to the man’s face.”
“Cut in the face, laden with coin and, from what my butler has told me, with my silverware and some china, and even a few bottles of whiskey and two very expensive bottles of brandy, they escaped! One of them, Orrick said, was Red Ben Black, a great fat man with a huge beard. How could a man such as he just pranced off without you having anything to say about it?”
“Well I tried to stop them. They went out a window.”
“A window?”
“Yessir, the two little ones scampered up, got into one of those display windows that goes outside, and dropped a rope for the fat one. He’s a strong one, no matter how fat, because he climbed right up and punched through the window, then they jumped.”
Laird Macdonald, going gray in the face, sat down at the desk in his office and put two fingers from each hand into his temples.
“He jumped.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Ben Black, with his belly to rival mine, and his great fat arse, leapt from my window. That’s what you’re telling me?”
“Right, sir, that’s-”
“If I could do it and not be hanged, I would take the pistol out of my desk and I would shoot you.”
Alan laughed. “I’m sorry sir, but-”
“I would shoot you in the stomach, and then I’d put my fingers were the ball went, and I’d push it deeper. With you writhing about on the floor like a beheaded worm, I’d push it in until I couldn’t manage any more. Then I’d pull the dirk out of my belt,” he tapped his fingers on the hilt for a visual aide, “and I’d use the point of it to push the ball until it came out of your back.”
Footsteps outside the door and then a series of soft knocks interrupted Macdonald’s fantasy. He stood up from his desk, never taking his eyes off of the sheriff, straightened his waistcoat and adjusted his wig.
“Who’s there?”
“Orrick, sir. I’ve finished checking with the guests.”
“See?” Macdonald turned to the Sheriff. “My butler is a more able investigator than you. What would your precious king thing of that?”
Alan pursed his lips.
“Come in, Orrick, come in.”
“Sir, I’ve got some strange news.”
“If you’re going to tell me one of the brigands was Ben Black, I already know.”
“Well, in that case, yes sir, that was the main point I wanted to raise. It would seem that he was responsible. I believe the motivation was little more than anger at your missing his pay for-”
“Alright, that’s enough Orrick. What else did you find out? What about the two men with him?”
“Aside from their interest in fine china and silverware?”
“Yes,” Macdonald growled. “Aside from that.”
Orrick clenched his jaws. “No, nothing. They seem to have swooped in from outside, robbed us, lifted Mr. Crannaugh’s purse and dashed off into the night.”
“Don’t forget that he ravished Kenna,” the sheriff added.
“He what?”
“I wouldn’t call it ravishment, sir,” Orrick said. “The fellow with the long hair asked her for a dance while I was next to Miss Kenna and him with the drink tray. It all seemed perfectly innocent. Of course, he did steal an improper kiss from her, but it was just a youthful silliness. Nothing to worry about, I wouldn’t think.”
“Oh, you wouldn’t think?”
“No sir,” Orrick said.
“Good thing you’re not paid to think.”
The butler stiffened and pushed his shoulders back. “Sir.”
“You’re dismissed, Orrick. Oh, one more thing. If you happen to find anything more about our visitors, don’t hesitate to tell me. I have the feeling that’s not the last time we’ll see those three, but I’m not sure why I’ve become a target.”
“Aye, sir, I’ll do it,” Orrick said, slipping back into his Highland voice. “Sorry sir, I’ll do as you ask.”
“See that you do. Go on; make sure the footman and the maids get the mess cleaned up. I’d rather not go downstairs and see the mess that I’m sure is there.”
“Sir.” Orrick bowed low and left, closing the door behind him as he went.
“Alan, tell me something.”
The sheriff crooked an eyebrow in response.
“Do you think Kenna had anything to do with this?”
“Lord Macdonald, I don’t-”
“I don’t mean that she's at fault or that she
called those brigands down on us, but before I left to acquire her, we’d never had so much as a peep from any of the wretched Scotch.”
“Remember, sir,” Alan said, “you’re one of them. Maybe it’s some kind of retribution for your taking land in a grant from the king? These are people with long memories. They hold grudges very well, though I’ll not say anything else good about them.”
“I am, yes. One of the two regrets I have is having been born a Scot.”
A moment passed in silence, punctuated by Alan’s spit hitting the back of a small cup.
“God, but that’s awful.” Ramsay Macdonald said. “Get up, you great horror. We’ve got someone else to talk to. I doubt she’ll be any use, but I need to slake this curiosity.”
“Yes, sir,” said Alan taking a deep breath and sighing heavily. “I suppose we do. But, there’s something I need to tell you before we do.”
“What is it? I’m growing tired of your babbling. Wipe your face.” Macdonald handed the sheriff a handkerchief, then tossed it aside. “We need to speak with Kenna before she forgets what happened or gets emotional.”
“Yes, but, I have a feeling that those three knaves were the same men I’ve been looking for. You’ve heard of the Edinburgh Ghost? The Scotsman said to haunt the night and steal from the rich? A gape-jawed fool playing at Robin Hood?”
“Get to the point, Sheriff.”
“I heard that they might have gotten another obnoxious ragamuffin to tag along with them on their adventures. It’s something that’s been in the back of my mind since I saw the scene play out.”
“And?”
“Are you not following me? I thought for sure I’d spelled it out.”
“Stop wasting my time, sheriff.” Macdonald turned to leave but Alan stopped him with a hand on his chest.
“They’re one and the same, Lord Kilroyston. Don’t you see? This ghost is the one I’ve been hunting. Never seen him this close before. He played a jape at me in front of your estate, and then once showed me his arse. But it all has started to make perfect sense. And then, that means he’s the one who stole the jewelry box a few nights back. Wasn’t just some thief, it was him in the flesh.”
