MacAdam's Lass

by Glynnis Campbell

  Temporarily slowed, he wasn’t stopped. With both hands, he seized her by the throat and began to squeeze.

  “Jossy!”

  Josselin brought her fists up between his arms, splitting them apart, simultaneously kicking him hard in the ballocks.

  Fury kept him from responding to the pain, and he continued to advance.

  She drove the sole of her foot into his knee, and he twisted but didn’t fall.

  She stamped her heel upon his other foot, and he grunted but didn’t stop.

  He managed to bend his arm around her waist, trapping her against him, and clamped her tightly, crushing her battered ribs.

  She drove her elbow up hard into his throat. With an agonized cough, he released her, then staggered off, nursing his collapsed windpipe.

  Exhausted, Josselin hunched forward, bracing her hands on her knees, preparing for the next onslaught.

  She didn’t notice that Syme had recovered his dagger, and she didn’t see the flash of silver until ’twas almost too late.

  “Look out!” Drew barked as Syme lunged forward with his blade.

  She dove sideways, rolling atop and reclaiming her own discarded blade, then coming to her feet, sword in hand.

  Syme’s underhanded attack was like a sudden awakening slap. Josselin realized he didn’t want to listen to her, to negotiate, to hear the truth. He wasn’t just a spy. He was an assassin. He meant to kill her. What had before seemed a contest of skill was now a fight to the death. And ’twould not end until one of them lay bleeding on the ground.

  She clenched her jaw and prepared to engage him in earnest.

  In effect they were now evenly matched. Josselin’s longer blade equalized Syme’s superior reach. What Josselin lacked in strength, she made up for in dexterity. And while his attacks were more powerful and lethal, he fought like an assassin, accustomed to slaughtering helpless victims, not opponents who could defend themselves.

  Thus, the battle continued at length as Syme hacked away at her and she dodged and nicked him, neither of them able to do much damage.

  Eventually, Syme made a fatal mistake. While Josselin kept him busy, blocking her slashes, he forgot about her agile feet. She pumped her left leg forward and kicked hard at his wrist. The dagger sailed from his grasp.

  This was her moment. He was at her mercy. She had to kill him now.

  She drew back her sword, preparing to plunge the blade into his heart.

  Suddenly, the world seemed to slow impossibly around her, and everything came into sharp focus. She saw her own hand, grimy with soil and sweat, gripping the swept hilt of Drew’s sword. Her gaze followed the long, bright blade as it shivered in the dying light of day. She saw Syme’s black doublet with its ebony buttons, smudged with mud, and the seams that perfectly tailored it to his frame.

  Her eyes drifted upward as if weighted by lead. His pulse beat sluggishly in his neck, and she could see every bit of black stubble on his chin. His lips were parted, and they trembled as he sucked in a long breath. His nostrils flared, and she watched a drop of sweat roll slowly down his brow.

  She looked him in the eyes, and there she saw the spark of human life, the spark she intended to extinguish.

  ’Twas then the impact of what she was about to do dealt her a crushing blow. Her heart sank to the pit of her stomach. The breath caught in her throat. And her arm began to tremble. While the world moved on in its strange lethargy, Josselin stood paralyzed.

  She heard Drew call her name, but the sound was muffled, as if he were underwater. Slowly, she turned her head toward him. Drew was scowling, lumbering toward her as if he were moving through honey.

  Josselin didn’t know exactly what happened next as she was yanked abruptly back into real time, but all hell broke loose.

  It had nearly killed Drew to watch Jossy battle the assassin and not to intervene, and he had the white knuckles to prove it. But now his moment had come.

  While Jossy faltered with her sword, unable to make the killing thrust, Drew saw Syme’s left hand steal down his thigh to extract a slim rondel secreted in the top of his boot.

  Drew warned Jossy, but she seemed dazed as she turned curious eyes toward him.

  As he’d planned, Drew whipped out her dagger and flipped it in his hand, gripping the blade between his fingers. He hurled the dagger forward, aiming for the assassin’s chest.

  And missed.

  Drew cursed as the blade sank into the flesh of the man’s dagger arm, slowing but not slaying him. Now what?

  Syme’s discarded sword lay on the ground between Drew and the combatants. If he could claim it in time…

  He hurtled forward. With not an instant to spare, he slipped the toe of his boot under the hilt of the dropped sword and flipped it up into his hand.

  As the desperate assassin drew back his injured arm, preparing to thrust the deadly blade between Jossy’s ribs, Drew charged forward, pushing Jossy aside, and plunged the sword into the man’s black heart.

  Chapter 47

  For once, as he watched the assassin sink lifelessly to the ground—the man’s gray eyes dimming in his sallow face and blood trickling from his death-pale lips—Drew didn’t feel a shred of the nauseating guilt that had accompanied killing before.

  Instead, a powerful surge of relief and justice filled him. Jossy was alive, whole, and unharmed.

  He turned to her. Her sword fell from her fingers, clattering on the ground, and she looked bone-pale, as if she were about to faint. He lunged forward to catch her, sweeping her up in his arms.

  “Oh, Jossy,” he said with a fierce hug, “ye’re safe, lass. Ye’re safe.”

  He touched her all over, as if assuring himself she was real, and pressed his lips again and again to the top of her precious head.

  After a moment, Jossy moaned softly, then squirmed against him and scrambled out of his embrace. Her face white with panic, she stumbled to the edge of the clearing and retched into the bushes.

  Drew knew exactly how she felt. This was her first taste of real war, and ’twas far more bitter than she’d expected. Some could stomach the violence. Others, like Drew, could not. For now, Jossy needed to recover. Later, she’d decide whether she had the fortitude to live by the sword.

  The battle was finished, but Drew feared their troubles were far from over. There were things that needed to be done now, and quickly—loose ends to tie up, decisions to make, lies to tell. And Jossy was in no condition to take care of them alone.

  So while she hunkered over the bushes, shivering, Drew dislodged the sword and tossed his cloak over the body, shielding Jossy from the gruesome sight. That done, he came up behind her, gently placing his hands on her quivering shoulders.

  “I couldn’t do it,” she lamented. “I couldn’t kill him. I froze.”

  “I know.”

  “Why?” she asked, turning to him in anger and distress. “Was all my trainin’ for nothin’? Am I just a coward, unfit for battle? A disgrace to my mother? Bloody hell, why couldn’t I finish him?”

  He cradled her bleak face in his hands and demanded her gaze. “For the same reason your mother died on the battlefield. The same reason I won’t go to war.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, my sweet Jossy,” he told her, “ye have a heart.”

  She frowned in disgust.

  “’Tisn’t a bad thing,” he assured her, licking his thumb and wiping away the smudge of blood on her injured chin. “Ye’re a great fighter. Ye held your own against him. And I’ve never seen such agility—in man or maid. But there’s much to war that ye don’t understand, much more than any amount of sparrin’ can prepare ye for.”

  As he spoke, he checked her briefly for injuries.

  “War isn’t bonnie or noble or fair,” he said, examining her arms one at a time. The flesh was reddened and scraped, but there was no swelling. “When a man is fightin’ for his life, there’s no chivalry. And there are no rules.” He turned her head to one side, then the other, looking for breaks alon
g her jaw and lumps upon her brow. There were none. “’Tis ugly. Messy. Brutal.” He probed gently along her ribs. Luckily, they seemed intact. “And if ye have an ounce of empathy, a morsel of humanity—if ye glimpse the enemy just once, not as a foe, but as a fellow man…” He shook his head. “Ye can’t bring yourself to senseless slaughter.”

  Josselin furrowed her brow. Was Drew right? Was she too softhearted to be a warrior?

  When it had come to the final blow, the taking of a man’s life, she hadn’t been able to look into his eyes, into his soul, without remorse. Even watching another slay him had sickened her.

  “What about ye?” she challenged. “Ye claimed ye hated bloodshed. Yet ye had the stomach to kill him.”

  Drew’s eyes grew as cold and solemn as the grave. “I do hate bloodshed. But I’d kill anyone who threatened the woman I love.”

  The intensity of his threat gave her chills, even as his words warmed her like mulled wine.

  “I owe ye my life,” she realized. Were it not for Drew MacAdam and his dogged guardianship of her, she’d be dead now at the hands of an assassin.

  “And I owe ye mine,” he said. He shook his head in amazement. “Ambrose Scott? I can’t believe ye risked forgin’ a royal missive for me, and with that name.”

  She raised her chin to give his words back to him. “I’d risk anythin’ for the man I love.”

  His smile was gentle and grateful, and it heated her to the core. When he slipped his hand along her cheek and leaned forward to press his lips softly against her brow, his kiss was like a salve for her wounds. Reveling in his tender caress, she no longer felt the cuts and bruises of battle. Bathed in his loving light, she forgot her aching legs and twinging shoulder, her scraped arms and battered ribs, and surrendered to the balm of his affection. His touch soothed the violence from her blood, replacing it with a mellow elixir of love and peace and harmony.

  For a moment, she almost forgot her troubles…the royal note she’d forged…the Englishmen with whom she’d fraternized…the assassin, who lay in a pool of blood a few yards away.

  Then, as if a great milldam burst, all the implications of their actions flooded her brain at once. Drew and she were in grave danger. And there was little time to lose.

  She broke from Drew’s embrace, pushing him gently away.

  “God save us,” she muttered, “we’ve murdered the queen’s man. What do we do now?”

  Drew bit the inside of his cheek. Jossy might have shrugged off Syme’s dire warning as an empty threat, but Drew knew better. They were no safer than before, and now they couldn’t afford to make any mistakes.

  They both spoke at once.

  “We have to hide the body,” he said.

  “We have to inform Philipe,” she said.

  “Nae!”

  “But we have to,” she said with a scowl.

  “Philipe…can’t be trusted.”

  She planted her hands on her hips. “He’s the bloody secretary o’ the queen. If he can’t be trusted, who can?”

  He placed his hands on her shoulders and fixed her with a sober gaze. “Listen, I know ye don’t want to hear this, but it has to be said. Syme was sent by Philipe.”

  “What!” With a sneer of disbelief, she tossed off his hands. “That’s impossible. Philipe had no cause to suspect me of anythin’. I handed the missive to him myself. If he didn’t believe my story, if he didn’t trust me, why would he return me to Musselburgh to spy for him?” She shook her head. “Nae, if anythin’, that missive cast doubt upon Syme. Syme was the only one who knew ’twas a forgery. Which is why he came after me.”

  “Do ye think Syme wouldn’t tell Philipe ’twas a forgery?”

  “And admit that he’d let the missive fall into enemy hands? I don’t think so. Syme came after me because I made a fool o’ him for namin’ the queen as an English spy.”

  Drew might have believed that, if not for Syme’s threat. But how could he prove his suspicions to Jossy?

  “Think, Jossy. What made ye come to The Sheep Heid?” he prompted. “Why did ye agree to meet with Syme?”

  “I wasn’t supposed to meet with him. Accordin’ to the note, I was supposed to meet with Ph-…” She stopped short, realizing what he was insinuating.

  “Philipe?” he prodded.

  She scowled, reluctant to acknowledge the truth.

  Drew continued. “Was Philipe’s mark on the note?”

  “Aye,” she admitted, bristling. “But that could have been a forgery.”

  He answered quietly. “Ye don’t really believe that.”

  She was silent. He could see she was digesting the painful possibility that Philipe had betrayed her.

  He took her hand in his, and though she resisted, he refused to let her pull away.

  “What did ye sign, Jossy? That first day when ye met Philipe in The White Hart. What did ye sign?”

  She compressed her lips.

  “Was it an oath?” he asked. “Did he make ye swear to kill yourself if ye fell into the hands o’ the enemy?”

  She gave him a quick startled glance, then averted her gaze.

  “That’s why ye tried to take your life in the forest, isn’t it?” he asked.

  Her stony silence was answer enough.

  “Philipe,” he told her, “Philipe means to finish the deed. He means to murder ye.”

  “Nae!” she snapped, trying to pull away.

  He held on firmly. “I know it hurts ye to hear it, Jossy, but in the royal game o’ chess, ye and me, we’re only pawns. When it comes to the safety o’ the queen, if there’s any doubt whatsoever about your trustworthiness, Philipe would sacrifice ye without battin’ an eye. ’Tis his duty, and he’s very good at it.”

  Jossy broke loose of his hold and rounded on him in fury. Despite his efforts, despite the overwhelming evidence, the loyal lass simply couldn’t accept that the country she’d vowed to defend with her last breath and the queen to whom she’d pledged her life now wished her dead.

  “’Tisn’t true!” she cried. “I won’t believe it.”

  She began pacing in agitation, as if she could outrun the inevitable truth.

  “Jossy, listen to me!” he barked in frustration. “We don’t have much time.”

  “But I’m a faithful servant o’ the queen,” she countered. “Philipe knows that. Mary knows it.”

  “Damn it, Jossy! Did ye not hear what Syme said? He’s not the only one after ye,” he bit out. “He told ye so himself.”

  She stopped pacing abruptly. Her brow creased as she searched her memory for Syme’s exact words. “Nae,” she breathed.

  “Remember? He said ye weren’t long for this world,” Drew insisted, “and aye, he told ye he wasn’t the only one after ye. Who else is a threat to ye, Jossy? How many others want ye dead? How long before Philipe sends another man? Before another assassin comes to finish what Syme started?”

  Chapter 48

  Josselin’s heart, which had sunk to the bottom of her stomach with the dull ache of betrayal, now bolted into her chest, clearing her head and awakening her instinct for survival.

  There was no time to dwell on misplaced loyalties or broken vows or crushed dreams. Drew was right. Philipe meant to kill her.

  She couldn’t blame him. He was only doing his duty. He had to eliminate any threats to the queen, and if that meant having his own spies assassinated, he was honor-bound to do so.

  But that didn’t mean Josselin had to sit politely and wait to be killed. Her life was at stake. Assassins were on her trail. She had to flee…now.

  She eyed Drew, wondering if she had the strength to do what was right. She had to let him go. She knew that. She couldn’t let Drew, dragged into the danger through no fault of his own, come to harm for her sake.

  “Go!” she commanded. “Go back to England.”

  “Not a chance.”

  “This isn’t your battle.”

  “Damned if ’tisn’t,” he said, arching a brow.

  “I don’t want
ye here,” she lied.

  “I don’t much care.”

  Shite, the man was infuriating. “I can’t…” The words stuck in her throat. “I won’t watch ye be killed for my sake.”

  His gaze softened. “And I won’t watch ye be killed, darlin’. Which is why we’re goin’ to fight together.”

  She gave him a disapproving scowl, but she couldn’t stop the secret relief that filled her at his promise. The odds might be stacked against her. She might be walking into a hopeless, suicidal mission. But unlike her mother, she wasn’t going to the battlefield alone.

  They lingered long enough to drag the assassin’s body into the bushes. Syme might have been a God-fearing man, worthy of a proper burial, but according to Drew, the backstabbing bastard deserved to be eaten by wolves. By the time they kicked leaves over the bloody sod, the moon was rising.

  They dared not return to The Sheep Heid or The White Hart. There was no telling who was friend or foe. So they crept through the moonlit streets of Musselburgh, crossed the links, and walked down to the shimmering firth, stealing along the shore until they came to a low cave carved out of the sandstone wall. ’Twould be a safe enough haven for the night to attend to Josselin’s injuries and hatch their plans.

  They huddled together on the sandy floor of the cave, gazing out at the hissing sea.

  “What if everyone were led to believe that Syme completed his mission?” Drew suggested. “What if he did kill ye?”

  He lifted her bare arm to tie the makeshift linen bandage around her wounded shoulder.

  “I can’t die,” Josselin insisted, watching Drew dress her wound. “’Twould kill my fathers and Kate. Besides, where would I go? To your fabled village of Tintclachan?”

  “Ye could flee with me to England,” Drew said, though she could tell from his bleak voice that he didn’t want to leave her beloved Scotland any more than she did.

  “In the company of a man deprived o’ his precious golf for the rest o’ his life?” She chuckled ruefully. “Nae, thank ye.”

  Drew finished tying off the bandage, and Josselin sat forward, hugging her knees to her chest in thought. There had to be a way for them to remain in the Lowlands, under the noses of the royals, without being discovered.