Highland Hearts 03 - Crimson Heart

by Heather McCollum

  Searc’s mind snapped away from his plans to his new challenge, undressing Elena. It was one thing to lock the lass up in her dress. It was another to unlock that silky flesh.

  Searc brushed the softness of her nape when she moved her hair to one shoulder. God help him. Elena was all roses and sun shine. It made him ache. He finished quickly and stood, moving to the hearth to lay out his woolen blanket. Another hard pallet, but at least it was indoors.

  Searc heard the water in the basin as Elena washed. He rubbed down his blades in the light of the fire. Och, if the flames remained, it would be hot by the hearth. His ears caught the whoosh of her petticoats hitting the rug by the bed and she hung up the gown in the press next to it. After he heard her slide under the coverlet, he set his blades aside and drew off his shirt. He would sleep in his plaid again.

  “The bed is very soft,” Elena called. “And big. Even with the rug, the stone must be hard.”

  “I will survive.” Searc laid down on one side, his back to her.

  He heard movement in the covers and Elena sighed. “If you wanted to harm me, you could have done so in the hut you made, or when I slept in the inn at the village, or while we napped when we arrived in Edinburgh, or when you found me asleep in my bath. Searc…” She waited and he turned over so that he could see her sitting up in the bed, the covers bunched in her lap to show the white shift that scooped along her collarbone.

  She tilted her head. “I trust you. I would have you comfortable after all you’ve done to keep me safe.” She pushed her hands down in the tick. “This bed is exquisitely comfortable. If you want, you can sleep above covers while I’m underneath so you know I won’t mar your virtue.”

  I trust you. Her words rang in his ears. But she couldn’t really mean them, not after she’d seen him at his darkest. And the image of her naked beauty still seared his memory. He hesitated and she patted the bed again. She did seem to trust him not to take her honor. Did Searc trust himself?

  She slid from the bed, and he watched her shiver. “I will sleep by the fire then. You take the bed.”

  “Ye are the most stubborn lass.” He pushed up off the stone floor, meeting her halfway. “Get now, back under the warm blankets.” She grinned and dove under the thick quilts and fur. Lord help her if she thought it cold in Scotland in late summer. Who would keep her warm this winter? Me. He frowned at the thought. He wouldn’t even be in the Highlands.

  Searc set his dirk on the small wooden nightstand and his sword on the floor. Elena had scooted over to the side, giving him ample room. He lay on the coverlet and almost sighed out loud as he sank into the full tick.

  “Nice, isn’t it?” Elena pushed up on her elbow.

  “Aye, thank ye. Two weeks of sleeping on the ground and this feels heavenly, nearly like my own bed at home.”

  He could feel her looking at him, but he shut his eyes. “You miss your home, don’t you?”

  “Aye.” He pushed his mind away from the lush woman next to him to focus on the glittering loch he visited often on the border between his land and the Macbains.

  “Tell me about it,” she whispered. “If you aren’t too tired.”

  He opened his eyes to the dark and turned his head. Elena’s face was a little pale oval in the dim light, the darkness of her unbound hair across the white of the pillow. “It’s green.” She looks like an angel, ran through his mind.

  He swallowed and continued. “Moss and ferns, thick foliage that smells clean and earthy. Fields dotted with purple and yellow wildflowers, thistles. But it’s the mountains that take yer breath, soaring up high to kiss the clouds.”

  He turned away from her face and felt his chest tighten just thinking about the land he’d known his whole life. “The gray rocks stick out of the green here and there like the bones of the mountain breaking apart from its skin. Deer and sheep run free, grazing, especially along the clear, fresh water of the loch. ’Tis truly…beautiful.”

  Elena remained silent for a while, and he wondered if she’d fallen asleep.

  “You miss it so much,” Her words floated to him on the slightest of whispers. “Why did you leave? What did you do?”

  He didn’t say anything for several long moments. Would she try to use guilt again to get him to talk?

  “Did you kill someone?”

  Perhaps it was best for her to know that he wasn’t completely in control. She would stay away from him then, not invite him to share a bed. “Aye.”

  She let a long breath feather out of her. “I’m sure it was an accident, Searc.” She placed a hand on his arm, but he kept his gaze aloft.

  “Nay, I meant to kill the bastard. He was trying to kill my unarmed father.”

  “Then why…”

  “I used my dark magic, incinerated him before my clan. They didn’t know I had such evil in me. They fear me now, and I won’t live with people who fear me.”

  “But they know you, don’t they? You were raised there. They know you have an honorable heart. You were just defending your father.”

  “A father who now looks at me with suspicion and fear in his eyes.”

  She let out another long sigh and he shut his eyes, shut out the taint of pity he’d heard on her breath. “I will be all right, better off on my own.”

  “Searc.” Apparently she was not finished. “What if you’d never seen a sword before?” It was a ridiculous question, so he didn’t answer. “What if I suddenly had a long, shiny, lethal sword in a land where no one had ever seen a sword before,” she continued, not getting the hint that he was ready to force himself to sleep. “And a thief was trying to kill someone I loved. I would of course use my sword to stop him. If no one had ever seen my sword before, that would shock them.” He didn’t say anything. “You left right after it happened, didn’t you?”

  “I gave them a full week to get over the shock, as ye say.”

  “A week of shutting yourself away or avoiding them and not showing them your sword again,” she added. “How could they get used to seeing you with your great, life-saving weapon if you only showed it to them once and then acted ashamed of it?”

  “Ye don’t understand, lass.”

  She huffed. “You’re the one being thick, Searc. If I had a sword—”

  “Ye’d cut off yer own foot, lass.”

  “That no one had seen before, a weapon that could kill. And then I used it and tucked it away without explaining how much training I’d done to wield it, then you wouldn’t get near me, not when you didn’t know if I could accidentally use it on you.” She waited but he didn’t say anything. “You don’t talk much.”

  “And ye talk too much.”

  “I doubt you told them anything.” A silent moment passed and he hoped she was done. His face felt hot, tight. Should he have stayed longer, tried to explain what he knew of the curse, the red power in his hands? What if they’d still thought him evil? It was better to just find his distance.

  “You need to go home, Searc.” She flopped over onto her other side, her back to him. “Home is home. I’d go if I had one.”

  …

  Elena woke to tapping—insistent tapping. She blinked at the gray cast of dawn in her room and rolled over to face the door, her head still on the pillow. She pushed up and scanned the empty space. Where was Searc? She felt the coverlet. It was cool. How long ago had he left?

  Elena heard the click of the lock on the door. “Mistress?” A lady in servant’s dress pushed in while pocketing a duplicate key to the room. She balanced a small tray of food and wine and placed it on the table near the cold hearth. “I am Hannah,” she said in a Scottish accent. “The queen regent requests yer attendance at mass this morn. I am here to help ye dress.”

  “Do you know where…” she was about to say “Master Searc” and changed her mind, “…Jacqueline is? She helped me yesterday.”

  “I have not seen her. I was sent directly from the queen regent herself.”

  Elena hurried out of bed. She would have to wear the blue d
ress she’d brought.

  “Do you have your rosary?” Hannah tapped her little foot impatiently.

  Elena’s stomach tightened. Mass? She was going to mass with a woman who was quite practiced in Catholic rites.

  “No, I lost it on my travels,” Elena lied evenly. She’d been to mass a few times, and the church services at Henry VIII’s court had been in the Catholic fashion even if the king had pulled away from Catholicism to start the Church of England. But Marie de Guise was clever and practiced.

  “Ye may borrow one of the regent’s rosary strands for ye may need it in confession with Father Renard.” She rolled her eyes at Elena. “He likes to give lengthy penances.”

  God’s teeth! What would she say to the priest in confession? He was supposed to keep the confession in secret to take to his grave, but would he tell Marie de Guise Elena’s true identity? She couldn’t risk it. She’d have to lie to a holy man of God?

  Elena sucked in as Hannah tightened her stays in back and lowered the blue gown over her head. The woman brushed and wove Elena’s hair into some braids to wrap in a wide bun, finally securing the French hood over it. “Ye look lovely.” The maid gave her a quick smile.

  I play my part perfectly. I know the mass. I am clever. Elena repeated the affirmations in her head. Katherine Parr had taught her to fight nervousness back when she’d lived in the kind lady’s household at Sudeley Castle. The words somehow tricked the body into calming down, and Elena certainly needed to remain calm.

  “The mass will begin shortly, mistress,” Hannah urged her to the door.

  “My husband won’t know where I’ve gone.” Where was he?

  “Quickly. The queen regent will be cross if ye’re late.” She thrust the rosary beads into Elena’s one hand and grabbed the other to tug her through the door.

  Elena barely had time to scan the bailey as Hannah pulled her. Guards stood about at regular intervals. The early morning bite in the air made Elena shiver. No sign of Searc. Her stomach clenched for a moment before reason thankfully forced its way in. The Highlander wouldn’t leave her here alone. He’d made that clear when he’d called her his wife before royalty. That was before you questioned his leaving home, you nidgit.

  They entered the even cooler, stale air of the sanctuary and walked past a middle-aged monk whose brown hair was cropped to resemble a bowl atop his head. Hannah paused. Elena turned to follow her line of sight and blinked, holding her gasp, as water sprinkled into her face. The brother, garbed in brown sack cloth, looked slightly sheepish at having hit her in the face with the holy water. Elena still managed to pass her fingers from her forehead to her heart and then shoulder to shoulder in the sign of the cross at the man’s blessing.

  Hannah grabbed her hand and they were off again, trotting on tiptoe down the center aisle. At the end, Marie de Guise knelt before the priest who had brought news of the dead girls the night before. Marie was dressed in modest cloth, her head bowed. Hannah gestured toward the embroidered pillow next to the queen regent. Elena saw the tabernacle that held the host’s bread to the side of the priest. She genuflected, her knee bending to touch the ground and passed the sign of the cross once more over her chest before kneeling next to Marie. Hopefully the rituals in the English court were the same here in Scotland.

  The priest spoke in Latin. His deep, melodic voice droned on in a timbre that seemed to lull, but also quickened Elena’s pulse. Nerves. The smell of incense burning in copper bowls to cleanse the air made her nose wrinkle. Dear Lord, please hold my sneeze.

  She knew Latin as well as she did French, and she concentrated on the readings and creeds. Her head bent, she kept her gaze trained on the side of Marie. She’d mimic the regent’s movements. After a series of long monotone readings, Elena recognized the part where she should move once again, but she waited for Marie’s arm to start its upward lift. “A reading of the holy gospel.” The priest held a thick bible in the crux of his hand, embroidered ribbons hanging down from the spot he’d saved.

  Almost in perfect unison, Elena raised her arm and made the cross over her own forehead, then her lips, and then her heart. Elena’s breath lodged in her throat as she met the hard stare of the priest. He seemed to study her. Did he wonder why she was there with the queen regent?

  Father Renard began the story from the gospel, the entire reading in Latin. “No one who practices deceit shall dwell in my house; no one who utters lies shall continue before my eyes.” It was a psalm she had been made to recite once over and over again to Lady Suffolk when she’d been caught lying to cover for her friend Patty who was off meeting the love of her heart. Did the priest think she was lying?

  Father Renard turned to the tabernacle and removed the bread that had been blessed. He spoke over it before placing the thin bread in Marie’s open mouth with a flat spoon. He ignored Elena. Same with the cup of wine. Perhaps he only gave communion to the regent. More Latin and finally a prayer before Father Renard turned and walked away, passing through an arched door on the side of the large church, his shoes echoing in the stillness.

  Elena kept her head bowed and moved the beads in her fingers. When Marie lifted her head, Elena passed the sign of the cross before her and stood. She followed Marie down the aisle, once again on her toes, though the queen regent didn’t mind clip clopping in her heeled shoes, the staccato rising throughout the vaulted space to the carved angels in the ceiling. Several attendants, ladies of her court, stood in the small alcove before the doors. They bowed as she entered.

  Marie ignored them, turning instead to face Elena. “As you’ve just heard from God’s own mouth,” she intoned. Her almond-shaped eyes flashed with open irritation. “It is a sin to lie, Madame.”

  Chapter Six

  22 August 1554

  Most holiest of Fathers,

  The runes have almost completely been translated in the ancient tome. It is evil in nature, explaining ways to draw a person’s power from them by cutting their flesh to release it. The author seems to be pagan, perhaps from the early Druids practicing their evil incantations in this area of Britain. Please send your orders as to what I should do with the tome upon completion of the translation.

  In Christ our Lord’s most holy name,

  Father Renard, Holyrood Abbey, Edinburgh

  Searc’s fingers curled into the sides of the wooden barrel of fresh water as he dunked his head in, the cool liquid momentarily blocking the sounds of the stable. He pushed upward and threw his head back. Water trickled down his bare chest and he scooped more out to wash himself. A thin sliver of lye soap worked well to remove the stink of sweat and horse.

  He’d taken Dearg out before dawn, partly to see if anyone would stop him and partly because his charger needed to stretch his legs. The air was hot and stagnant in the lowlands compared to his home.

  He’d left Elena sleeping soundly and locked her in. He hadn’t been long. Quickly he wiped the horse down, fed, and watered him, then washed himself. Searc toweled off with a cloth he’d grabbed from the kitchens and threw his dirty shirt over one shoulder. He’d find a fresh one in the room.

  “Chi mi a-rithist thu.” He ran his hand down the horse’s nose. “We will leave soon.” He looked into the horse’s large brown eyes. Dearg wasn’t happy away from the Highlands. Neither am I.

  Searc walked along the empty stables. The queen regent’s white mare nickered and came up to the stall door, her nostrils flaring slightly. He palmed her some oats from a nearby bag.

  “Are ye her keeper now?” Roger Lyngfield leaned against the edge of the stable door.

  “Nay, just checking on her.” Searc met the man’s gaze with a steady chill. “Shouldn’t there be guards about the regent’s horse?”

  Lyngfield pushed off and walked to the mare. She came quickly to his hand and he fed her a turnip from his pocket. “Aye, there should, but now I’m not even here to watch her.” He turned to Searc. “I wouldn’t harm a horse, no matter what my politics be.” The straightforward meeting of the man’s gaze sh
owed Searc that he spoke the truth as much as his senses did.

  “Where were ye when the horse was saddled?” Searc asked.

  “I was sleeping one off.”

  “It was past noon.”

  Lyngfield shrugged. “Had a bit of a party with the ladies. Didn’t close me eyes until dawn.” Lyngfield absently ran his hand down the mare’s nose. “When I got in she was already saddled. Thought Eddie had saddled her.” He shrugged off the blame. “It must have been someone who knew the regent was riding that afternoon.” He paused. “So…where are ye keeping my dear cousin?” The man’s smirk made it obvious that he knew she wasn’t his cousin.

  “We are guests of the queen regent.”

  Lyngfield crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the stall. “Now from what my ma told me before she died, her sister-in-law, the lady Katherine Parr, had only one daughter and she’d be about five years old now. She’s the only cousin I would have. Yer wife looks a wee older than that.” He rubbed the bushy end of his chin. “And Katherine Parr was such a pious, legs-closed type of woman, that I don’t see her having a bastard a score of years ago.”

  “Did ye receive a letter from Lady Suffolk about Elena?”

  Lyngfield gave him a half grin. “Aye, but it didn’t say much, just that she was my cousin on me mother’s side. I certainly wasn’t expecting a lush woman like Elena.” He grinned roguishly and yanked on his trews, “I’d certainly have made room for her, especially since she ain’t really my cousin.”

  Searc could kill him. Easily. But he held tight to the heat of fury churning in his stomach. Years of controlling his emotions helped him contain the magic that could suck that sneer right off Lyngfield’s face along with the rest of his life. Nothing of Searc’s anger showed on his face, no emotion at all. He just stared at Lyngfield until the man’s smile slipped away, and he shuffled his foot in the straw. Did he know how close to death he stood?