A Highlander's Second Chance: Highland Temptations
Page 11
Anyone possessed of the amount of information she knew did not come about that information purely by chance.
Would she have advised any of the girls to respond to a question in such a manner? Of course not! She would have told them to feign ignorance. Instead of following her own advice, she’d revealed herself even further. What a fool she was.
And what a fool he was, as well, for he followed her rather than letting her go. “Wait. Please, Ailsa, I did not mean—”
“Do not worry,” she muttered over her shoulder, all but running down the corridor upon reaching the top of the stairs. All she need do was reach her chambers. She might think there. She might gather herself and find a way through this.
“Allow me to explain, at the very least.” For such a large man, he could certainly move quickly when he had a mind to.
There was simply no getting through to him by any other means.
She stopped outside her chamber door, and in one deft movement turned while sliding a dagger from beneath her skirt. He stopped short upon taking sight of it in her hand, pointed at him.
“All right,” she whispered. “This has gone too far. Why do you insist on following me this way? What do you know about me, and what do you think it means?”
14
The one thing he would never have expected was to find her brandishing a dagger. Pointed toward him.
Weeks earlier, perhaps, and even then, he’d only suspected she might be capable of violence in a half-serious manner. More as a joke to himself than anything else. If she’d added something to his food, it would have been nothing more devastating than an evening spent on the privy.
This was an entirely different matter. And he might as well have been looking at an entirely different woman, for Ailsa’s snarl turned her into the very image of a cornered animal, frightened and angry and dangerous.
Yet not dangerous enough.
As he’d done to Jamesina weeks earlier, he moved swiftly and took her by the wrist and pressed his thumb into the thickest part of the heel of her hand. This made her thumb relax of its own accord, and when the dagger dropped to the floor, he kicked it away.
“Dinna try it,” he warned when it looked as though she might strike him as Jamesina had. “I will not be so easy on ye.”
She struggled, but he managed to bundle her into her chambers and close the door before she whirled on him. “Tell me what you know, and tell me now,” she warned, lifting the pitcher from her washstand.
“What do ye plan to do with that? Throw it at me? I have nothing to tell ye, woman, and that is the truth!”
She blinked, arm still pulled back, hand still grasping the pitcher. He guessed it would shatter should it hit the floor, and that she would not be able to throw it hard enough to do him any damage.
Just the same, he was prepared to dodge the blow.
“Do not tempt me,” she warned.
“I’ve done nothing to tempt ye, Ailsa. Why are ye behaving this way? I merely asked—”
He stopped, his mouth open. So that was it. “Ye were a spy, then,” he whispered.
He then ducked as the pitcher sailed across the room and struck the wall just behind where his head had been. She had a decent throwing arm.
“Dinna try that again,” he warned, now incensed as he stood, watching to be certain she did not attempt another throw. “I would never wish to harm a woman, but there are times when a man has to defend himself.”
She stared at him, chest heaving. “I…” Her eyes widened as she gasped loudly, then louder still. “I…”
She could not breathe. Her gasps grew louder, her face as red as her hair. Her legs went weak, leaving her hanging on to the washstand to support herself.
“Ailsa!” He forgot the fact that she’d nearly struck him with the pitcher, that she’d only just held a dagger to him, in favor of taking her by the arms and sitting her on the bed. He imagined this room belonging to the highest of the order of nuns who’d once lived there, as the bed was far grander than the bare straw ticks upon which the girls slept.
She could not draw a breath, wheezing and gasping, her face now turning violet. He knelt before her. “Look at me,” he ordered, recalling a few of the men he’d fought alongside having such a reaction upon feeling gravely threatened. The youngest ones, normally, those who had yet to see real fighting with those who wished to take control of the Highlands.
They would panic, those brave, boastful lads, and would need to be calmed.
She met his gaze, the fear in her eyes enough to make his chest tighten. When he spoke, it was as he would have spoken to a frightened horse who might spook at any moment, slowly, in a low voice. “Ye can breathe. Ye simply need to calm yourself. Relax. There is no threat here. I will not threaten ye. I would never harm ye. Believe me, Ailsa. Trust me. Ye are safe. Breathe.”
Slowly, her eyes lost that panicked look. Her breaths deepened. Her color began to return to normal. “There ye are,” he murmured, rubbing her hands between his own. “Take your time, lass. All will be well.”
For a moment, he recalled soothing wee Maggie when she wailed as bairns tended to do, and his chest tightened further.
It was a long time before either of them spoke, then, if for different reasons.
She was the first to break the silence. “Thank you. I am feeling more myself again.”
He nodded even if he did not quite trust she would maintain her composure. “Does that happen often?”
“Not very often,” she whispered, looking down to where he still held her hands. There was no accusation in her glance, no discomfort.
Even so, he pulled back, suddenly embarrassed. “Why did it, then? Why does it? I mean ye no harm and never have.”
“I cannot help it. I feel threatened, and suddenly I cannot breathe. It comes over me quite suddenly.”
“Why did ye feel threatened? Because I guessed at your being a spy?”
She held a finger to her lips, eyes wide again. “Do not call me that.”
“Ye dinna think everyone in the convent knows it? Or at least supposes ye were? Ailsa, come now. I thought ye had more sense than that.”
She gulped. Perhaps she had not thought of it, or perhaps she believed no one would pay much mind to how she’d come to learn all she knew. Rather shortsighted of her, but he supposed it was not a crime.
He knew then there was more to it. “Ye were not only a spy,” he murmured, standing and going to the door.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice tight.
“Making certain we are not overheard.” He looked out into the corridor, left and right, before closing the door again and leaning on it. “No one can come in. Tell me.”
“I…do not…” She chewed her lip.
“Tell me, because if we are to continue this together, I believe it would be best if I knew all there was to know about ye. That which might come back later, ye ken. I would not wish to be surprised if it can be helped.”
“I never wished to—”
“Tell me. I imagine that is so, but there is no helping it now.” He folded his arms. “Go on. I will not do anything to ye, no matter what it is ye have to say.”
He watched every movement of her eyes, her hands, all of it. Not to know whether she planned to attack him. He did not believe she would try anything so foolish again, not when he’d only just watched her nearly lose consciousness when she could not breathe.
She had shown weakness. While he would not take advantage of it, that weakness had strengthened his position over her. And they both knew it.
She stared at the wall opposite where she sat, to his right, clasping her hands tight. “Do not speak a word of this to anyone.”
“I will not.”
“Swear it. Swear you will not. I cannot have this getting out among the girls.”
“I swear,” he assured her without a moment’s thought. “What is it?” What could possibly be so dreadful? He asked himself whether she might be taking her fear too far.
He kept his silence as she touched a hand to her neck before smoothing her braid in front of it, as she normally wore it.
“If any of these girls learned that I am half-English, how could they ever trust me again?” Now she looked to him, searching his face for answers. “How could I ask them to listen to me when they so detest the English? I do as well, but how could they believe me?”
“Because they would do anything ye ask them to. If ye told them the truth and told them to believe ye, I think they would.”
“I think you do not know as much about young women as you might believe,” she muttered.
“I know what it means to look up to someone, to hold them in high esteem. I know what it means when they prove to be a disappointment. Ye are not a disappointment, Ailsa. Ye are half-English. Nothing more than that.”
“That is easy for you to say.”
“My wife and bairns were murdered by those filthy bastards,” he snarled. “Do ye not think I have as much right as any to hold a grudge against the English as a whole? But even I dinna believe ye have anything to worry over. Ye chose the side ye wish to fight on, and I believe when ye say ye fight along with us. That is all I have to know.”
He would not pretend it did not come as a blow, knowing where she’d lived and among whom, but it mattered little when compared to how much worse her secret might have been. She might have been an English spy. Instead, she had the poor fortune of having been born to an Englishman. Worse things had happened.
Her eyes shone with unshed tears. “Do you mean it? Truly?”
How had he not known all along? She did not have a bit of a brogue, for one, even when she was angry or speaking in a temper. Most of the girls under her instruction worked hard to hide their native way of speaking, but more than a few tended to slip when truly worked up during a fight. But not Ailsa, and she’d certainly had enough practice fighting with him.
“I mean what I say,” he assured her. “I dinna care where ye came from or who your people were, so long as these are your people now.”
“You are,” she whispered, a shaky smile beginning to appear. “And thank you.”
“So long as ye promise never to brandish a dagger again. Not toward myself.”
She snickered. “So long as you promise not to make me brandish a dagger toward you. I cannot make promises.”
He merely shook his head, rolling his eyes as he opened the door. “I had…best make haste. Mary might be in need of me.” And if anyone knew he’d been spending time alone with Ailsa in her chambers, they might have the wrong impression.
To his chagrin, he strode into the corridor with his face burning. Him, a full-grown man, blushing like a lass over the thought of being mistaken for her—her…what? He did not even wish to think the word, even to himself.
Life was complicated enough at the convent without him bringing further problems into it.
Once he’d left her on her own, he thought back to the word she’d chosen before he left.
You.
You are.
Not they. You. Meaning himself along with the rest.
Was he part of her people? He supposed so. Just as he supposed she was one of his, as well.
15
“Ailsa! There is a scroll for you in the delivery we received today.” Rhona handed her the rolled piece of parchment, the wax seal used to keep it closed still intact.
Not that she would ever have believed one of her girls capable of reading her private correspondence. But it did her heart good nonetheless to find them honest and trustworthy.
So far as she knew, Clyde had been as good as his word. Her secret was safe with him. It had been four months since the day she’d threatened him with a dagger.
They’d never spoken of it again, naturally.
And the attitudes of her girls had not changed. They had not begun looking upon her with disgust or distrust, as she had so feared even after he’d vowed to remain silent.
In fact, she’d sat up half that night planning ways to escape should he see fit to reveal her past. She’d been that certain of losing all she’d worked so hard to secure.
But it had been for naught, for the girls still looked up to her and listened to her every word as if it were law. And Clyde had never once made mention of her dubious bloodline.
It was late summer then, the days stretching out into golden-hued evenings. The air was still quite warm, the stones comprising the convent and its surrounding walls heated by the sun. She ran her hand over a few of them as she walked past the thriving garden where Una and Elspeth were cutting great handfuls of white snakeroot to be hung to dry. There were still another two months before frost killed everything, or so Ailsa hoped, though they’d grown, dried, and crushed a great amount of plants which might now be used in potions and tonics.
Clyde was in the courtyard with several of the girls, and to her surprise, he’d wrapped linen strips over the eyes of half of them. When she opened her mouth to question his methods, he merely held a finger to his lips and stepped away to see what might transpire.
She found herself deeply interested in what was about to take place, too.
Mary was one of those who’d been blindfolded, and Ailsa’s attention naturally went to her. There was no pretending she did not feel a special fondness toward the girl, to say nothing of an appreciation for her dedication and skill.
No matter what Clyde had originally believed, there was no denying her natural affinity for this life.
Ailsa took note of the way he watched her, too, and when he ordered the girls to fight, he smiled at the way Mary managed to duck each blow Fenella tried to land.
She then kicked out with her right leg, swinging it around in a half circle which swept Fenella’s legs out from beneath her.
Her mouth fell open. How was it possible? The other blindfolded girls were doing well enough, but Mary seemed able to see through the linen. There could be no other explanation.
Clyde glanced her way, grinning, and his pride was unmistakable. He did not wish to be so proud of her, Ailsa knew. He wished she were doing anything else with her life. Preferably something safe, something involving a husband.
Yet even he could not ignore Mary’s ability. And he could not help but be proud of her for it.
“Well done, all of ye,” he added, lest it appear he gave too much credit to just one of his students. “Ye might uncover your eyes now.” Ailsa paid close attention to Mary’s blindfold in particular and found it to be just as heavy as the rest. She’d been granted no undue advantage.
“How long have you been teaching them this method of fighting?” she had to ask. And how had she missed it?
The answer was simple. The summer had brought so much more to be done. Gardening, drying, preparing the potions, testing the girls’ knowledge of which mixtures to use in specific situations. When it would be best to leave a man sleeping versus when to nauseate him, for example, and how much of each mixture to give him.
Then, what to do once he’d been taken care of and the spy in question was able to search for the information she’d been tasked with obtaining.
All of this was done in a flurry of excitement and energy. Ailsa had felt all summer as though something were on its way. A new discovery, an announcement, something.
And she had not been alone, for the young women of the convent knew they would soon be called into service.
Clyde grinned. “We have been working on it for weeks. Have ye not noticed the bruises some of the girls have earned?”
Branwen giggled. “Many of them are not where anyone can see,” she reminded him, leaving the other girls
to giggle knowingly along with her.
When Ailsa noticed Clyde’s shamefaced expression, she covered her mouth with her hand to hide her grin. “You have done splendidly. All of you. I imagine if you were called upon to fight in the dark, you would do well.”
“It is a weapon. As fine a weapon as I can imagine,” he informed her. “For no matter how strong or quick their opponent, I’d wager anything they are unable to find their way about in the dark.”
“We have been moving about our chambers with our eyes covered,” Mary confessed. “To grow more comfortable without sight.”
“I never would have thought of it,” Ailsa admitted, and that caused Clyde to smile wider than before.
Which made her smile, too. Seeing him react with even a slight bit of pleasure when she spoke favorably of the work he’d done brought her a surprising amount of gladness.
She cleared her throat, recalling the presence of a scroll in her fist while Clyde dismissed his students. “What is that about, then?” he asked, nodding in acknowledgment of the scroll.
“I do not yet know,” she whispered. “It arrived with the goods delivered today.” He fell in step beside her as she climbed the stairs.
“They dinna often send word.”
“They almost never do. Only when they sent new girls to me did they have the girls bring along a message so that I might know for certain they were trustworthy. McTavish came to me to announce your arrival. That is all.” The more she spoke, the heavier the simple parchment scroll felt.
She left the door open for him so that he might join her in her meeting chambers as she cracked open the wax seal embossed with a familiar raised crest. She’d seen it before, telling her this was from the same person who’d sent the others.
“What is it?” he asked once she’d gone over the message. She barely heard him, choosing instead to read the familiar script again. And again.
She sank into the nearest chair. “This says they want someone to scout a new location for the girls to stay while they are between missions.”