The Wicked Viscount

by Heather McCollum

  Cat nodded. “Thank ye.” She inhaled deeply. “Let us ride.” She turned and…damnation, the horse was watching her.

  Evelyn walked with her to Stella. “Left foot in the stirrup and swing your right leg over,” she said softly. “Keep your heels down in the stirrups and try to rise up slightly with each step to save your bum when the horse trots. Hold the reins with a light touch. Pull back on them when you need Stella to slow down or stop. Press in with your heels when you want her to go faster or click your tongue to start her off.”

  “Save my bum?” Cat asked, imitating Evelyn’s English accent as she ran her hand down the horse’s sleek neck.

  “You use different muscles when riding. You are bound to be sore for the first few days.”

  “Lovely,” Cat murmured.

  “Climb up by grabbing high on the saddle,” Evelyn said and moved around to the front of Stella, talking softly to the horse as if calming her, too. As much as Evelyn’s Sassenach accent and manners irritated Cat, her tone and cadence were soothing. Hopefully it was the same to the beast.

  She grabbed hold of the saddle and raised her knee to step into the stirrup but couldn’t quite reach it. “Here,” came a voice beside her. Nathaniel’s deep timber sent lightning through her. “Set your…left foot in my hand, and I will help you up.”

  A flush of heat suffused Cat’s face and neck, and she planted her right foot back on the ground. If she had managed to reach the stirrup and raised up, she would have seated the horse backwards for everyone in the bailey to witness. Looking down at his intertwined fingers, Cat stepped her left foot into Nathaniel’s hands. With no effort, he lifted her, and she straightened upward, circling her leg over the horse to seat herself. Och. Must the beast be so bloody tall? She was used to climbing in trees, which were much taller, but a tree couldn’t buck her off or swing its massive head around to bite her leg.

  Her fingers wrapped around the saddle horn, and she looked out over the horse’s head. Stella’s ears flicked, and Cat forced herself to breathe. I am strong. I am capable. She repeated the words that Scarlet had taught all the Highland Rose ladies to say to give them strength and courage. Scarlet called them affirmations. Whatever they were, they were Cat’s only weapons against the wild thumping of her heart that was starting to make her lips tingle.

  Nathaniel remained next to her leg. He clasped her short boot and pushed her heel down. “Just checking your stirrups,” he said, stepping around to the other side. “Keep your heels low to steady you.” He picked up the leather reins to hand to her, and she realized she was still clutching the pommel of the saddle.

  “Aye, thank ye,” she murmured. He had to know she was a novice now.

  “Cat,” Nathaniel said, and she slowly met his gaze, but there were no questions or signs of amusement on his face. “We will journey safely. You can relax a bit.”

  She nodded stiffly, raising her shoulders to her ears to rotate backward. “I am relaxed.”

  He smiled, the brim of his hat blocking the midday sun from his eyes. They were kind eyes. Blue. She remembered staring into them when he was feverish from gunshot, when she hadn’t left his side for days. Did he remember that?

  His palm touched her calf in the leather trousers. The warmth of his hand made her muscles tighten, and she breathed deeply to slow her heartbeat when he walked away. Leaning forward, she patted Stella’s long, black neck. “Ye are a beauty,” she said. Stella’s ears flicked. The mare snorted and shifted her weight, making Cat cling tightly with her thighs. Aye, this was a different exercise from running.

  Ahead, Nathaniel swung easily up and into the saddle on Gaspar, his bay with the shining brown coat. Even in winter, these horses didn’t grow shaggy like the ponies that roamed the hillsides. He raised his hand, a signal perhaps, and clicked to make Gaspar start forward. Stella waited.

  Evelyn tapped a finger against her mouth and nodded. Cat cleared her throat, opened her lips and clicked. Stella stepped forward quickly as if to catch up to Gaspar, pushing Cat back in the saddle before she straightened.

  “Godspeed,” Alana called, followed by several others yelling the same. Izzy waved and ran alongside Stella until they rode under the raised portcullis. As Nathaniel and Gaspar picked up speed into a slow run, Cat let Stella do the same. The jarring reminded her of Evelyn’s advice, and she tried to lift up with each hitch. For several steps, she failed miserably, the saddle slamming into the crux of her legs with the wrong cadence. She adjusted, rising in time with the horse’s gait. Better. She needed practice and would surely get plenty on the journey.

  She followed Nathaniel down the road, past Kirstin’s cottage, where she waved, past Craig’s smithy where his apprentice, Eagan, pumped the billows, and finally down the road past her family’s old cottage. Her gaze slid to the roof where the thatching sank down over the pocked walls and the windows stared blankly out like vacant eyes. She didn’t like to look at it. It reminded her of the sadness that had always permeated it and how even more had descended like a plague when her father had been killed. Her mother was never the same and had followed him to the grave within three years, leaving Cat and her young sister alone.

  Cat’s attention snapped back as Stella shook her mane. Maybe she was ready to run. After all, the horse had traveled this route before, where Cat had never gone more than a couple leagues from Killin her entire life. The idea of visiting other villages, towns, and London was both exciting and worrisome. “Lord keep me,” she prayed softly.

  Nathaniel glanced at her over his shoulder. “You do not strike me as a woman who prefers to ride behind a man.”

  “Ye know the way,” she called but pressed gently into Stella’s sides. With a surge of speed, the mare found a smooth rhythm, bringing her up quickly next to Gaspar. When the horse slowed back to a trot, she was jounced again until she started to rise and fall with her steps.

  “How do you like Stella?” Nathaniel asked.

  “She is beautiful and seems like she wants to run.”

  He chuckled. “’Twas why I thought she would be perfect for you.” He looked ahead. “When we break from these trees, there are some flatter spaces. We can let our mounts stretch and fly a bit.”

  Cat wasn’t sure if she was ready for flying, but Nathaniel’s calm smile made it seem like all would be well. “Ye know Stella then.”

  “I helped birth her down at Hollings,” he said. “Her parents are quite noble. Her father being the fastest stallion outside Spain.” He looked toward Stella’s face. “I thought she was getting bored cooped up at Finlarig, and Evie agreed that the journey will benefit her.”

  They rode for several long minutes before Nathaniel pointed ahead where a clearing signaled a flat meadow that would likely be covered with bowing cornflowers in the spring. Now snow covered it.

  “Not too fast,” Nathaniel called. “’Tis slippery.” Gaspar leaped forward as Nathaniel leaned toward his neck. “And hold on.”

  Stella whinnied, working against the bit in her mouth. “Very well,” Cat said on an exhale. “But it is up to ye to keep us safe,” she whispered. Gently she pressed her heels into the horse’s flanks and leaned forward. Stella leaped, her head high as she yanked the bit. Quickly, Cat let up on the reins, giving the horse more freedom. The mare shot forward, her legs stretching out as if they could eat away the miles under her. She leaned low over her neck, one hand on the reins while the other clutched the pommel. Her thighs gripped around the horse’s middle while they flew, her hair streaming out behind her. How could she ever have felt like she was flying before while running with her own human feet?

  “Bloody hell,” she yelled, her eyes wide. She laughed, the wind catching her hair, the crisp chill of winter filling her inhales. Holding tightly, she tried to enjoy the roll of the horse’s gait, the smoothness of it despite the terrain. Stella caught up quickly to Gaspar, riding alongside him as if he were a guide, which was perfectly fine with Cat. The more the horse did on her own, the less she had to worry about.

>   For several hours, they rode along wooded roads and then across frosted moors, climbing hills and walking down into winter-bare valleys, though mostly they stayed to the main road. The sun began to set, making the stark trees look like black skeletons against the sky. A wooden signpost denoted the edge of a town ahead.

  “We will take shelter in Stirling tonight,” Nathaniel said. “I know an inn.”

  All Cat could do was nod. They’d been riding all day, and she was exhausted. So much so that if Stella decided to throw her now, she’d have very little energy to keep her seat.

  Breaking off the pebbled road, Cat followed Nathaniel onto a cobblestone street where merchants were covering their wagons at the end of the day. Several looked up at them as they passed. Perhaps they hadn’t seen a lass in trousers before, though she had wrapped the wool cloak around herself and pulled the hood up to keep the warmth in and her wild locks contained.

  Small, stone cottages lined the narrow streets, some of them two and three stories tall. She’d never seen a city before, and her nose wrinkled as the smell of sewage assailed her. Yet people laughed and walked along, chatting and pushing their carts. Perhaps they didn’t know how sweet the countryside smelled, the press of humanity being all they knew.

  Their horses’ hooves clopped along the stone, sounding hollow in the aging twilight. Nathaniel led them around a corner to a building with several horses tied out front. A sign showing a bed hung high above the door. “There is at least one bed open for the sign to still be hanging,” Nathaniel said and gracefully dismounted to tie the reins around a post. He stretched his broad shoulders and back. “I will secure it inside.” He seemed to wait.

  “Go on,” she said. “I will…be along.” As soon as she figured out how to get off the horse. Her body ached, her legs quite numb from gripping all day. She watched him walk into the lit common room, the sound of rough laughter rolling out.

  Glancing around, she saw no one of interest and leaned forward to swing her leg over. She stifled a groan. Sliding along Stella’s side, Cat tried to propel herself outward, jumping down to the cobblestone.

  Her legs completely abandoned her, and she yelped as her backside slammed onto the wet cobblestone.

  Chapter Three

  Nathaniel paused just inside the doorway at the sound behind him. “Cat,” he murmured and pivoted on his heel to push back outside. His head whipped around, but he didn’t see her. “Cat?”

  A muffled curse came from the other side of the horses, and he rounded Stella who nodded her head as if applauding his deduction of the woman’s location. Cat sat in a puddle of mud and snow, head thrown back onto the cobblestone road. “Blast,” he said, jumping forward to help her sit up. “Did you fall off?”

  “Nay,” she said, her voice snappish. She lifted a hand to shove back the wild curls that fell from her dropped hood.

  “Hold still,” he ordered and gently touched the back of her head where a bump was already forming.

  “Cac,” she cursed in Gaelic, ducking forward to evade his light touch. “My bloody legs gave way.”

  He glanced at his fingers in the dim light of an oil lamp in the window. “You are bleeding.” She cursed again, touching the spot to see for herself. He yanked out a handkerchief and pressed it into her hand for her to hold to her head. “Let’s get you inside and up to a room.” He lifted under her arms, and she huffed, her legs flailing out as she tried to make them work. “Enough,” he said.

  “What?” She tipped her head up, her gaze connecting with his. The usual tightness of anger in her eyes was muted by something else. Embarrassment? Pain?

  Without another word, he lifted under her legs, pulling her up against him. “Put me down,” she said, her words in a soft huff.

  “For you to fall on your arse again,” he answered, pushing into the inn. The entire room, filled with rough looking Scots, turned to stare, the laughter and talk dropping off almost immediately. Nathaniel ignored them as he gazed toward the bar keep. “A room for the lady,” he said, his English accent making the barkeep frown.

  “We doona’ serve the English,” he said, nearly growling.

  Nathaniel knew better than to produce his bag of coins with the ruffians looking on, and even though he’d fair just fine outdoors, he wanted Cat warm and clean before she had to spend the night camping. “I am from Finlarig, friend to the Campbells, brother-in-law to Grey Campbell, the chief.”

  “And I am a born-and-raised Scot,” Cat said, shifting in his arms to grab something strapped to her leg. Without warning, her blade whipped through the air, its lethal tip embedding in the beam next to the barkeep. “And I would like a bloody room.”

  Their audience sat silent for the space of a heartbeat before several men, who were obviously well into their cups, hooted, pounding their tankards on the scarred, wooden tables. “Give the lass a room, Gus, before she pokes ye full of holes,” one yelled, and several others agreed with boisterous words in broken English and Gaelic.

  Traveling in the Highlands, speaking with an English accent, dressed in English style garb… Damn, he should have borrowed one of Grey’s kilts. Instead of protecting Cat on this crucial journey down to help the king and queen, she was protecting him. His eyes narrowed as he followed the barkeep toward the steps.

  Cat wiggled her feet. “I can walk,” she whispered, and he set her down gently by the stairs. When he was sure she wouldn’t fall, he left her to retrieve her blade, all the time feeling the room watch him. His hand itched to draw his sword. Would he have to kill someone to prove his mettle? He’d rather not give the Scots another reason to hate the English, but if any of them attempted to harm Cat, he wouldn’t hesitate.

  He stopped at the bottom of the steps and slowly pivoted back to the hushed room, his gaze sharp as it connected with each set of staring eyes. He’d inherited the dark, promise-of-death stare from his father, one of the most cutthroat of Charles’s parliamentary ministers before the king dissolved the system. Some said it was enough to stop a man in his tracks.

  He let a small grin touch his lips. “I would not tempt the lady. She is a wee bit bloodthirsty.” With the warning, he turned to follow Cat up the steps into a narrow hallway. The floor slanted to one side as if the building was slowly falling over.

  The vacant room sat at the end of the hall, with no back stairs that he could see. He frowned. No way out except the front stairs and possibly a window inside. “Is there a place to wash?” Cat asked inside the room, and he followed her into the small interior. One medium-sized bed took up the length of wall on one side, and a privy pot stood by the grime-covered window with a ripped curtain. A charred stone fireplace stood cold and empty.

  “We will need peat to burn, clean water, ale, and a meal,” Nathaniel said, producing several coins that should cover the cost and then some. He flipped Cat’s blade in the air, catching it by the middle of the blade to hand back to her. The innkeeper grumbled something but bobbed his head, pocketing the coins.

  He closed the door behind them, and Nathaniel went to the window, unlocking it.

  “Ye sound so bloody English,” Cat said, sitting on the edge of the grey mattress while checking the blood staining his handkerchief.

  “I am English,” he said, unlatching the old hinged window to push it outward. The drop was two-stories straight down to the packed dirt. He’d bring up a rope after he sheltered the horses. No one could filch Gaspar, because the animal would kick and bite a thief trying to take him, but Nathaniel didn’t know what Stella would do. He’d need to pay a stable boy to sit with them all night.

  “Sounding so English will get ye killed up here. Or at least ignored and likely attacked.”

  He shut the window, turning back to her. “And throwing knives at people and cursing at them will likely get you attacked at court, though perhaps not in the same way.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him but didn’t say anything.

  He went to the door. “I will see to the horses and our provisions.” Shutting i
t, he paused to stand for a moment in the darkness, breathing in the staleness and aroma of cooking mutton that wafted up from below. He’d told Evelyn that he didn’t mind going back down to court. At one time, he’d thought he preferred it to the quieter life of Hollings Estate. But since he’d spent time up in Killin, the sourness of the elite had grown distasteful.

  The more he imagined Cat being subjected to the stricture and social conventions that had ruled his life, the more tense he became. She was not someone who would be tamed, nor would he want to see her ever locked in a cage, no matter how gilt it was. But court life was dangerous, especially for someone used to speaking her mind. Damn, he didn’t even know the present mood at court or who was in power while the king convalesced.

  “Hell,” he said to the darkness as he strode to the splash of light coming up the steps. Because whether she liked him for it or hated him for it, he was going to keep Cat Campbell safe.

  …

  Cat’s eyes flicked open to dawn light filtering in through the dirty window. Gray and under clouds, it barely lit the room, but she could see the bulk of Nathaniel sprawled across the floor. His large frame took up almost every inch of space. He was turned toward her, and she studied his classically formed features. Even in his sleep, his brows were furrowed as if his dreams were dark. His longer hair and short beard made him look less civilized, more rugged like a Highland chief. And his lips, och, they looked frigging perfect.

  Idiot. Although she wasn’t sure which one deserved the label more. She, for her foolish thoughts, or he, for not taking comfort by sharing a bed when he had the chance. Although he’d probably thought she’d stab him if he startled her by climbing into her bed. Before succumbing to exhaustion, she’d washed as best as she could, scrubbing the dirt from the backside of her white leather trousers and pouring the cleanish water through her hair to wash the wound on her scalp. He hadn’t returned until after she was asleep.

  Her fingers dabbed at the scabs on the back of her head, her hair still damp from her quick wash. At least blood would blend in with her red-hued tresses. She sighed. Good God. What had she gotten herself into? To benefit the queen, she’d need to blend in with the courtly ladies, especially if she was to discover an assassin. Would it be obvious from the moment she rode up on Stella that she was no lady? Even if she donned petticoats?