A Highlander's Woman (Highland Heartbeats Book 12)

by Aileen Adams

  Margaret laughed. “Mother loved nothing. She loves nothing. None of us do. Remember? Perhaps you wished for her to love you, which is why you told her you would come for me. You wanted the satisfaction of killing me.”

  Arabella’s eyes spat fire. “And I will have that satisfaction.”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  The two of them lunged at once, every one of Margaret’s blows blocked by Arabella’s swift reactions. She could not get either of the blades near enough to her throat, her face, her chest. This did not stop her from trying.

  Finally, Arabella knocked one of the daggers from Margaret’s hand. Margaret did not dare look to see where it had fallen, did not dare take the chance of shifting her gaze away from her foe. Instead, she fought all the harder, but it was no use. Arabella’s crazed grunts, gasps, snarls spoke of how determined she was to murder the sister she had always envied.

  Margaret stumbled backward, all but exhausted, and Arabella pounced.

  This was it. She would die here, in the woods, knowing she had not been able to save Padraig. That he had died because of her. That anything which happened after this point would also be her doing—if the clan fell into disarray without the laird, this would be because she’d allowed Sorcha to bring her to the house.

  She brought nothing but death and sorrow everywhere she went.

  She would die knowing this.

  Arabella let out a triumphant cry.

  A cry which turned into a gurgle as blood bubbled from her mouth.

  Margaret gasped, then found the reason for this sudden change.

  Gabriella stood behind Arabella, having thrust the discarded dagger through the back of her neck.

  “Why?” Margaret whispered as she stood, while Arabella sank lifelessly to the ground. “Why did you do it?”

  Gabriella did not answer straight away. She did not look away from the body of the woman she had just killed. The silence was enough to unnerve Margaret, but she did not know what to do other than wait for an explanation.

  Gabriella wiped the bloody dagger on her cloak. “Have a happy life,” she whispered, then lifted her eyes to meet Margaret’s. “You are free now.”

  Margaret’s chin quivered as the truth became clear. “You came along with her to ensure…”

  “It matters not,” she replied with a shake of her head. But it did matter. It mattered most terribly. Margaret would have killed her to save Padraig, when Gabriella had only made the journey to ensure Margaret lived.

  Gabriella raised her hand, still holding the dagger, and touched the tip of the blade to her throat.

  “No!” It came out as a cry wrenched from the depths of her heart. “No! You cannot! Do not do this!”

  “I have no choice,” Gabriella informed her in a strained whisper. “There is nothing for me now. I have killed one of our own. I cannot return to the abbey. I have nothing.”

  “You have me.” Margaret took a chance and reached out, touching Gabrielle’s hand. “You have me, now and always. You saved my life.”

  “So that you might be happy. You love him, I know you do. Be happy with him.”

  “I owe you more than that. I will leave with you, go anywhere you wish to go. Only please, do not take your life. I beg you.”

  Slowly, slowly, Gabriella lowered her hand. Margaret breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Now, all I ask is one thing further. Just one thing.”

  “What is it?”

  “Help me take him back to the house.” She fell to her knees beside Padraig, who was breathing still but had not awoken. “Please. We cannot leave him here. He will die, and I… I cannot allow that to happen. Between the two of us, we could carry him, lift him onto the horse.”

  Gabriella chewed the corner of her mouth. “All right, then. Quickly. Take care with his head.” As if Margaret would do otherwise.

  Before moving him, she bent close and touched his face. She would not have the chance to do so once they left him at the house. They would have to hurry away from Anderson land before anyone caught them.

  “I love you,” she whispered, stroking his dirt-streaked skin, his blood-soaked hair. “I love you terribly. Thank you for showing me I was capable of such a thing.”

  With that, she slid her hands beneath his shoulders and under his arms. Gabriella took his legs, and together they rolled him onto his stomach before lifting him and draping his body over the mare’s saddle.

  Gabriella led the horse to the house while Margaret walked beside, holding his head steady. It seemed as though the blood no longer flowed as it had before, though it was difficult to tell. So long as he kept breathing.

  She hoped. One of the many things she’d learned in her training was the ability for the body to remain as though sleeping once an injury had been delivered to the head. If the injury was indeed severe enough, there was no telling how long it could take for the injured to awaken.

  If they ever did.

  “We cannot leave him out of doors,” she decided once they’d reached the door leading into the courtyard. “We must take him into the keep.”

  “Margaret, this is too dangerous.”

  “They are all sleeping,” she hissed in reply, hurrying to the door and swinging it open before turning back to help Gabriella remove Padraig from across the saddle. “Perhaps we can make a sound, something to alert them to his presence, but we ought to be away from the house by the time anyone comes.”

  She held him under the arms, Gabriella holding his ankles, his body sagging between them as they grunted from exertion. Someone would find him, in a matter of hours or even sooner.

  “Uncle Pad!”

  The shriek tore through the otherwise silent keep, causing Margaret to look up at the source of the cry—though she knew who it was, naturally, and her heart clenched like a fist when she saw Fiona’s stricken expression.

  Rodric appeared behind her on the stairs.

  Margaret sighed. She ought to have known better than to believe they could escape.

  22

  “What is this?” Rodric bellowed. He moved Fiona aside. “Go to your mother,” he growled over his shoulder.

  “Da…!”

  “Now!” he barked before reaching Padraig. “What is this? What have ye done?”

  “We were not the ones who did it,” Margaret was quick to tell him. “This I vow to you.”

  “Your vows mean nothing!” Rodric knelt beside Padraig, holding his bloodied head. “I shall see the hide stripped from your bones for this, make no mistake about it.”

  Gabriella touched her hand, silently begging her to come along while there was still a chance to escape.

  Margaret knew better. She heard pounding footsteps coming from the courtyard, from the corridor upstairs. There would be no escape now, not with the men coming on the run as they were.

  “Padraig. Padraig, open your eyes,” Rodric murmured, pulling one of his hands back to examine the blood which stained it. “Padraig, please.”

  “Rodric—”

  He glared up at her, then looked about him to where several of the men had already gathered. “Take these two to the pens beneath the keep,” he snarled.

  “Pens?” Margaret managed to ask as men she did not recognize held her by the arms. “What pens?”

  Padraig had never spoken of them.

  “Alan had them dug from the very ground beneath the keep,” Rodric informed her as she and Gabriella were both dragged outside. She caught sight of Sorcha and Caitlin, arms about each other, and she wished most fervently for the chance to explain herself to them.

  There would be no such chance.

  “Allow me to stay with him!” she called out, realizing she might never see him again. “I beg you! Allow me to be with him until he awakens! Please, Rodric!”

  Her words fell on deaf ears, it would seem, as Rodric gave no sign of hearing them. The last she saw of Padraig was of his brother and Brice lifting him from the floor.

  She would never see him again.


  Knowing it drew an animal cry from deep in her, splitting the early morning air, sending the birds from their nests and into the air where they flew about in fretful circles.

  To think, she’d always believed she could withstand pain.

  She’d never known true pain until that moment.

  It mattered not where they took her then, as she would not be with Padraig. They would like as not keep all knowledge of him from her. Perhaps Arabella ought to have killed her in the woods, after all.

  They dragged her down a set of stairs, one of the men who walked before them lighting a torch to guide the way. She paid little attention to her surroundings or, indeed, to even the men who treated them in this rough manner.

  It mattered not, so long as she was not with him.

  Even so, the depth of her despair was not enough to make her forget her training. She knew what she needed to do, having trained many times in the art of protecting herself and the Order from those who might discover her true self.

  It had never come about until now—even now, they did not know who she truly was. They did not need to know anything about her. They only knew she was the enemy, or believed she was. That was enough to earn her an uncomfortable pen with nothing but a thin, stained blanket on a floor of packed dirt.

  Gabriella was thrown into the pen beside hers, a wall of wooden boards between them. They spoke not a word to each other—another of the skills they’d learned. The less they spoke, the less those who would seek to ask questions would overhear and use against them.

  Though it pained Margaret terribly to think of Rodric or any of the Andersons as enemies. She shuddered to think of them using anything against her.

  Padraig simply had to awaken. He had to. He would. And he might speak on her behalf.

  It was cold in the pens. Cold and damp and dark. Water dripped from some unseen source, a steady sound which echoed in the otherwise empty space. Would that one of the men had left a torch for them, at least.

  While she could not imagine the underground prison being particularly pleasant, it might be better than staring into darkness and listening for the sounds of scurrying and scratching and knowing those sounds would grow louder as the rodents grew bolder.

  She closed her eyes, leaning her head against the splintered wood of the wall between herself and Gabriella. Sleep pulled at the corners of her mind, desiring to pull her down into the forgetfulness she wished she might indulge in.

  There would be no forgetting. She knew too well how ugly memories and unhappy realities could slip into one’s dreams, allowing no respite from pain and suffering.

  Even so, sleep did take hold at least for a short time, for when footsteps rang out in the darkness she sat up with a start, her thoughts slow and heavy.

  “Comfortable?” Rodric, for certain.

  She sat up straight, eyes trained on the wooden posts which sat in a row before her and separated her from the narrow passageway through which he walked with a torch in hand.

  When he reached her, he shook his head. “Nay. I would wager against it. My brother—our brother—did not care much for the comfort of his prisoners. Though I dinna believe he ever had the chance to use these pens. Ye might just be the first two visitors.”

  A dubious honor. She held her tongue, intent on ignoring him. There was no way of knowing how strong she and Gabriella were, how difficult it would be to break them down. Mother Cressida had seen to it that every woman in the Order suffered through imprisonment far more terrible than anything an Anderson could devise.

  She would never forget the nights spent in chains, locked away in the most frigid of conditions, ice forming on the walls, the iron shackles freezing to her wrists.

  Indeed, Rodric Anderson would need to go quite a bit further if he expected her resolve to break.

  “What was your intention here?” he asked, his brow furrowing as a note of despair touched his voice. “Why did ye come to this house? Were ye sent by another clan? Did your laird wish to learn of our ways? My brother trusted ye, damn your soul.”

  Yes, he had trusted her. And now, he could well be dead.

  Still, she held her tongue.

  “Why will ye not speak?” Rodric demanded, his voice tightening. “Why? Will ye not at least defend yourself? Explain what this is all about?”

  She weighed the danger of speaking and decided it was worth reminding him. “I tried to explain before you locked me away. You did not wish to hear it.”

  “Would ye have?” he spat, nostrils flaring, eyes narrowed. “My brother lay dying, bleeding on the floor. I had no choice but to put ye someplace where ye would not cause trouble.”

  “Ye might have sent me to my bedchamber,” she whispered. “Or to the kitchen. You know Sorcha would never have allowed me out of her sight there.”

  His jaw tightened. “I still dinna know what ye had to do with any of this, and I dinna know if I can believe a word from ye. It could be that this is where ye belong, at that.”

  “It could be.” She turned her face away, too tired to speak and too sick in her heart to pay much of a mind to what he thought about anything she said or did. “I only ask that you tell me when he wakes.”

  “If he ever does.”

  She closed her eyes, and a single tear rolled down her cheek. “Yes. If he ever does.”

  “Ye had better pray he does,” Rodric warned before leaving her again. Leaving them both, as Gabriella’s soft breathing was still present on the other side of the wall.

  She did not know how to pray. One of the few things she had never learned to do. She could snap a grown man’s neck with one practiced motion. She could create deadly poison out of nothing but a handful of herbs from the forest. She could address any member of English royalty using their proper title. She could pretend to be from nearly anywhere, changing her voice when need be.

  She could not pray.

  She knew not whether there was anyone to whom she would pray, whether anyone might hear her prayers. It would seem a great deal as though she were merely speaking to herself.

  Then there was the certainty that even if someone, somewhere could hear her, they would never answer. She was not deserving.

  But Padraig was. His family, his clan, they were. Perhaps if she prayed on their behalf, it would not be the same as praying for herself.

  Her eyes slid closed. She drew a deep breath in spite of the ache in her ribs, a reminder of what Arabella had done to her.

  Arabella. Would Mother Cressida understand what happened there? Would she mourn the loss of another two of her daughters? Her daughters. Margaret snorted. One of the many lies she’d been trained to believe.

  Pushing those thoughts aside, she chose to instead think of Padraig. Of the pride she’d heard whenever he spoke of the clan. Of his good, strong, brave heart. His determination to do the right thing by his clan.

  The uncertainty he’d suffered when their well-being became his responsibility.

  His devotion, his honesty. He deserved a long life, a good one. One with a wife and children.

  Her children, too. For yes, she imagined them beginning a life together. Sharing their lives, their love growing as their family did. How could she imagine anything but, now that she knew she loved him?

  She held this in her mind until it was clear as though it were all in front of her. Three children, perhaps four. As many as they could manage. Growing old together. Helping him, working alongside him as the women in the house worked alongside their men.

  And yes, she would be one of them, raising her children as they raised theirs. A larger family of which they could all be part. Something real, something true. Something her children could believe in.

  Not the lies with which she had come of age.

  She would be the mother she’d always wished for, the one she’d dreamed of in the deepest, most secret part of her heart. Those long, cold, lonely nights of her younger years, the last times she’d allowed herself to cry, wishing she had someone to console her.<
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  Though she’d never known a mother’s love, instinct must have told her such a thing existed, for she had longed for it. Her children would never have to long for such a thing. They would have everything their mother had gone without.

  If they were born.

  If Padraig lived.

  If Rodric ever freed her.

  Hours passed.

  They might as well have been days for all Margaret was concerned. There was little to do but wait in that cramped pen, to wait and ignore the numbness settling over her legs as the cold dampness seemed to seep into her very bones. Only Gabriella’s breathing and occasional shifting in place told her she was not alone.

  Until another sound met her ears, towering over every other.

  “Where are they? Show me to them!”

  In spite of the horrors of the last hours, Margaret smiled. She knew only one woman in the clan with a voice like that—well, two, but Sorcha’s voice was deeper, aged. This was young, bright, and blazing with fury.

  Moira.

  “Fergus MacDougal, I do believe you’ve gone as daft as your friend, Rodric!” She marched behind her husband, arms folded, jaw set firm. “I truly believe you lost the sense you were born with, if you were born with any sense at all!”

  “This is what needed to be done,” Fergus muttered, holding the torch high enough that Margaret might see the concern written in the furrowing of his brow.

  “You truly believe these women ought to be penned like livestock?” she demanded.

  He sighed. “They are not livestock.”

  “Thieves, then. Murderers. Do you believe it?”

  “I canna say,” he growled. “Och, woman, dinna press me. I’ve no patience for ye at this time.”

  “I merely wish for you to tell me. Do you believe they deserve this?”

  “Nay, nay,” he sighed. “I dinna know, and that is the truth of it.”

  “Then why did you not tell Rodric to place them elsewhere? Have they been fed? Do you even know?” She did not wait for her husband’s response, turning to Margaret instead. “Can I bring you anything?”