The Secret Clan: The Complete Series

by Amanda Scott

  He smiled wryly at his youthful folly.

  Birds chirped, clouds sailed across an azure sky, a light breeze blew, carrying a salty tang from Solway Firth, but that was all.

  Claud wished he could search for adventure instead of seeking an unknown, grown-up child, but Maggie had said he must find wee Bessie and not rest until he had. Still, if Bessie had survived a dozen or more mortal years where she was, surely no harm would befall her merely because he took time out for a bit of adventure. Maggie was just angry that the Circle had dared question her; that was all.

  As he let his thoughts wander, he became aware of light, tinkling, feminine laughter. Looking around, he saw no one, although the sound did not seem distant.

  Curious, and certain that he would lose nothing but his boredom in the few minutes it would take him to investigate, he went in search of the laughter’s source.

  The sound drew him into a nearby woodland to the edge of a grassy clearing. In its center, in a circle of bright spring flowers, a feminine figure danced. She wore a pale lavender gown of a soft material that caressed her body and legs as she moved. Her hair was like fine corn silk, long and flowing softly in the breeze. Looking as light as thistledown, she danced and skipped and twirled with astonishing grace and skill in time to her own musical laughter.

  Transfixed by the scene, Claud stood gazing at her. He had heard of fairies so lost in their dancing that they could hear only the music and could see nothing of the world around them. He wondered if she might be such a creature.

  Even as the thought flitted through his mind, she stopped and looked at him. Despite the distance between them, her eyes were like forest pools drawing him into their depths, her attraction so strong that he walked toward her without feeling the ground beneath his feet. Had he been capable of thought, he might have assumed that someone had cast a spell. Whatever stirred him, he had no choice but to respond.

  Up close, she seemed delightfully small and attractively plump with soft curves and a mischievous, enticing smile. Her face was ordinary, but her smile was magical, and her eyes drew him deep inside, as if he could touch her soul.

  “Ye seem a likely lad,” she said, laughing again.

  Her musical voice and even more musical laughter sent a thrill through him, stirring his most sensitive appendage instantly to life.

  “What do they call ye?” she asked.

  He tried to reply, but managed only a gravelly grunt. Clearing his throat, he tried again. “Brown Claud. And ye?”

  With another trill of laughter, she said, “I be Lucy, Lucy Fittletrot. Will ye dance wi’ me, Brown Claud?”

  “There be nae music, lass.”

  “We always ha’ music, Brown Claud, but the best be when me father plays his pipes for the dancing. I can always hear his music in me head. Can ye no hear it, too?”

  He shook his head. “Nay, I hear nowt. Worse, I’m a lump when it comes tae the dancing. I’d sorely disappoint ye.”

  “Fiddle,” she said, laughing again. “Try now, do. Can ye no hear it?”

  To his astonishment, he heard the merry tinkling of bells and the notes of a stringed instrument playing a lively tune. His feet started to move, and when she held out her hand, he grasped it. Before he knew what he was about, he was dancing with her in her circle of flowers as if he had done so forever.

  They danced and danced until at last they collapsed in a heap on the grass. Lucy Fittletrot was laughing, and she continued to laugh when Claud hugged her and drew her close, his body leaping in response to hers.

  “What brought ye tae these parts, Brown Claud?”

  “I were sent tae seek summat we lost in years past,” he said, stroking her soft hair and peering deep into her sultry eyes.

  “Aye, sure, a mystery,” she exclaimed in delight. “Tell me!”

  “I canna think, lass. Touchin’ ye muddles me thinking!”

  “D’ye no ha’ a lass o’ your own, Brown Claud?”

  “I do now,” he said, reaching for the lacing on the lavender gown.

  “Aye, ye do,” she agreed, “and when ye’ve taken your fill o’ me, I’ll help ye find what ye seek, for there be nothing and nae one hereabouts that be unknown tae Lucy Fittletrot.”

  Still laughing, Lucy helped him untie her laces.

  Chapter 2

  The Scottish Borders, April 1541

  “Elspeth!” The intrusive shriek rang through the hilly, sundappled woods.

  Silence followed. Not even a bird twittered.

  “Elspeth, where are you? Mam wants you, and if I have to search for you, be sure that you will regret it. Come home at once!”

  More silence. No breeze stirred, no leaf twitched. It was as if every living creature in the woods held its breath, so quiet that one could hear the rushing of a burn some distance away.

  Minutes passed without a sound, and the next shriek, when it came, was farther away and fading. Soon no more shrieks shattered the silence, and then at last, a small brown cottontail rabbit hopped out from beneath a bush. It paused and looked about. Apparently satisfied that the offensive intruder had departed, it turned its attention to a nearby patch of new spring grass and started to graze.

  When the chip-chip-chwee of a chaffinch sounded from a treetop, echoed soon afterward by the chattering of a squirrel, a certain thick clump of shrubbery slowly parted in front of what looked like a rock slab, and a face appeared.

  It was a perfect oval with high cheekbones, black-fringed gray-green eyes, a tip-tilted, freckled nose, and full, rosy lips. The narrow, slightly arched eyebrows were considerably lighter than the lashes but many shades darker than the flaxen hair that fell in long, loose, silken sheets, framing the lovely face.

  The gray-green eyes were wide and watchful. The head turned cautiously, to the right and to the left.

  The bunny continued to graze, the birds to sing.

  One small, rawhide-shod foot stepped forth from the shrubbery, followed by the other, whereupon the slender figure of a young woman, seventeen or eighteen years of age, was revealed. She wore a faded, simple blue gown with a plain white apron, and if she had earlier worn the customary white coif and ruffled cap that most females wore in daytime she had mislaid both elsewhere.

  Free of the shrubbery, she paused and listened, and one could see that her fine, straight hair reached all the way to her hips. Apparently realizing that the hair required some sort of confinement, she reached over one shoulder with both hands and gathered it, flipping it forward to plait it with deft, experienced fingers.

  The birds continued to sing, and although the bunny had stopped grazing and seemed alert to possible danger, it did not dart away.

  The plait finished, albeit loosely and showing no sign that it would remain so for long, the young woman drew a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. She would have to go home now, and on the way, she would have to think up an acceptable excuse for her tardiness. Not that any excuse would help if her ladyship was already angry, but at least Drusilla had gone away. She could be sure of that, because Drusilla was incapable of keeping silent, let alone of moving silently enough to fool the birds and other denizens of the woods.

  That she had to return was a pity, because the day was a fine one for April, and she enjoyed the solitude of the woods. Moreover, she could not be sure that Drusilla had shrieked the truth at her. The elder of the two Farnsworth daughters might easily have come looking for her without a command to do so, because Drusilla was not kind and often exerted herself to make Elspeth’s life difficult, and others’ lives as well. Less than a week before, her complaints that Sir Hector’s falconer had dared to flirt with her had cost the man his position.

  As these thoughts flitted through Elspeth’s mind, a new sound intruded on the woodland peace. Although distant, it was nonetheless easily identifiable as the baying of sleuthhounds, and they sounded as if they were heading toward her.

  To hear such sounds in daytime was unusual, for sleuthhounds generally hunted reivers, and reivers generally did
their reiving by moonlight. Doubtless, someone was either training his hounds or—although the season was young—using them to hunt rabbits or deer. In either event, she decided she would be wise to leave the woods before the hounds surged into view. No animal had ever harmed her, but a sensible person left unknown dogs to themselves.

  Thus, she turned reluctantly homeward, but she had taken only a few steps when, just as she sensed a presence looming behind her, a large, warm hand clapped over her mouth and a muscular arm wrapped tightly around her torso, lifting her off the ground and holding her securely against a hard, masculine body.

  Kicking backward, her heel connected solidly with a shin, and she had the satisfaction of hearing a muffled grunt of pain, but her captor did not release her. Instead, his grip across her chest tightened, making it hard for her to breathe.

  She kicked a second time but missed, whereupon a low voice growled in her ear, “Easy, lassie, I mean ye nae harm, and if ye cripple me, I’m sped.”

  Elspeth stopped struggling, realizing that further such efforts would be useless. He was too large, too strong. She would hurt only herself.

  “Good lass,” he said. “What lies behind yonder shrubbery?”

  His hand was tight across her mouth. When she tried to twist away, he said, “I ken fine that ye canna speak, but I’ll ha’ your word first that ye willna shriek.”

  She hesitated and then nodded.

  He moved his hand so that she could talk but kept it near enough to let her know he would slap it across her mouth again if she tried to scream.

  When she did not speak at once, he said more urgently, “Be there a cave there, where ye were hiding?”

  “Aye,” she said, “but ’tis only a shallow one.”

  “Big enough for the pair o’ us?”

  “Since I cannot see you, I do not know how large you are,” she said.

  “Large enough,” he said, and to her surprise she detected laughter in his voice. “I’ll put ye down, lassie, but if ye shriek, I swear I’ll throttle ye.”

  He set her gently on her feet, and she turned to face him.

  She had known from the way he held her and the ease with which he had lifted her that he was a large man, but the reality was greater than she had imagined. He was a full head and shoulders taller than she was, which made him at least two or three inches above six feet, a height unusual among Borderers, who tended to be small and wiry. His shoulders were broad—very, very broad.

  He had thick, dark hair, but where a shaft of sunlight touched it, it gleamed with auburn highlights. His eyes were stone-gray, set deeply, with lashes long enough and curly enough to be the envy of many a woman, and laugh lines at the outer corners. His eyebrows were thick and straight, like hasty slashes in a drawing. His other features seemed well chiseled, as if a skilled sculptor had modeled them. His complexion was tanned and ruddy, his beard short and well trimmed, emphasizing the strong, straight lines of his jaw. He was the handsomest man she had ever seen, and his intense, penetrating gaze stirred feelings in her body the likes of which she had never known before.

  He wore the tawny breeks and brown doublet of a hunter but carried himself with an arrogance that showed he thought he was superior to most men. Doubtless, his size gave him such confidence, she decided, his size and the sword and dagger he wore at his side. Certainly, he looked capable of wielding both weapons expertly.

  His voice was deep and pleasant, but his accent puzzled her. He spoke broad Scot, of course—or English, as they called it on the other side of the line—but the cadence was neither that of a Scottish Borderer nor yet quite that of an English one. Still, to her finely tuned ear, it sounded nearer the latter than the former, and although the exact line was debatable, England was close, only a few miles away.

  Bluntly, she said, “Are you English?”

  “Nay, lass, I be as much a Scot as ye be yourself, but we’ll no fash ourselves over me antecedents just now if ye please. Will I fit into yon cave o’ yours, or no?”

  “Aye,” she said, measuring him again with her eyes, “but barely.”

  “Then we’ll ha’ tae cuddle up a bit, I expect.”

  “You cannot keep me with you,” she exclaimed, feeling nerves stirring to life in places she had not known she had nerves. The thought of cuddling with him was not at all distasteful but, indeed, quite the opposite. Nonetheless, she said firmly, “I must go home. Surely you heard Drusilla calling me!”

  “I didna recognize that infernal screeching as anything so tame,” he said. “What a heathenish voice that lass has got! Still and all, I collect that Drusilla must be your sister and ’tis rude o’ me tae condemn any kinswoman o’ yours.”

  She opened her mouth to correct him but, instead, said again, “I must go.”

  “Nay, lassie, I canna afford tae trust ye that far, I fear. Ye’ll bide wi’ me in yonder wee cave till the danger ha’ passed.”

  With a sigh, she nodded and turned to lead the way, pausing when she reached the thick bushes in front of the opening. Clearly, the dogs had his scent, and she wondered when it would occur to him that simply hiding in the cave would not be enough to shield him.

  The cave was larger than she had led him to believe, but it was not deep enough to protect them both from discovery or attack, and the dogs were drawing nearer every moment.

  “Who is chasing you?”

  “My erstwhile host,” he muttered.

  “I beg your pardon, sir. I do not understand what you mean.”

  “Them be English soldiers, lass, and not pleasant folk at all. Now, get ye inside,” he added, this time his words a clear command. He held the bushes apart and nodded at her to go first, then followed, pulling the branches together again.

  Inside, enough light penetrated the shrubbery to reveal the walls of the cave, and he grunted at the sight. She could stand upright, but he could not, and although they could sit, they would be more vulnerable to attack on the ground.

  He drew his sword. “This doesna seem the best place for concealment after all, lass. We’ve no retreat, and they’ll easily track me here. Mayhap ye’d best leave me, after all. I’ll no want ye tae suffer for helping me.”

  She had been trying to think of a way to persuade him to let her go, but at these words, perversely, she changed her mind. “One moment,” she said, turning away. “I have something here that might help.”

  He made no move to stop her when she bent to retrieve the jug that some weeks before she had placed on the floor of the cave near the wall.

  “What be that stuff?”

  “Aniseed,” she said. “Sir Hector’s huntsman told me it is one thing that will put sleuthhounds off their scent. One of the local reiver bands uses it, he says.”

  “Ye begin tae intrigue me, lass,” he said. Taking the jug and removing the stopper, he sniffed and grimaced. “Ha’ ye tried it on your own hounds?”

  “Not yet,” she admitted. “I did think, however, that it might prove useful if Drusilla ever set our dogs to find my hiding place.”

  “Do I just shake it out yonder on the ground?”

  “Rub some on yourself first to disguise your scent,” she advised, “and perhaps you would be wiser to let me do the shaking. If someone should see me, he would think nothing of a young woman walking in the woods.”

  “I’ll let ye, but only if ye promise to do it quickly and come back here,” he said firmly as he took a large handful to smear over himself. “I’d no trust the men wi’ the dogs tae act honorably wi’ any female.”

  She did not argue with him, nor did he repeat his insistence that she return. She had a feeling that it did not occur to him now that she might disobey him. What sort of man, she wondered, had that sort of confidence in his ability to command others? Surely, he was not just a common huntsman.

  He held the shrubbery aside for her, and she hurried out, going the way he must have come, toward the barking dogs. They were only minutes away now.

  When she had gone as far as she dared, she shook anis
eed from the jug. Realizing that the method was inefficient, she poured some into her hand and then cast it to the breeze, as if she were scattering grain for chickens.

  Although trees blocked her view of the dogs, she could tell they were much closer, perhaps only a half mile away.

  Backing hastily toward the cave, she scattered more aniseed as she went, taking care to scatter it heavily over the route they had taken after he captured her.

  As she neared the cave, still scattering the pungent herb, she wondered if she had taken leave of her senses. She had only his word that the men hunting him were English. They might as easily be Scots, chasing a thief or a murderer, but she could not shake the notion that returning to him represented safety while remaining where she was represented danger. She had no time left to make for Farnsworth Tower. The dogs would be upon her before she could cover a quarter of the distance.

  They were too close now for comfort. What if they could catch her scent on the air? Deerhounds and many sleuthhounds possessed that ability.

  Running now, still flinging aniseed across her path, she saw that he was holding the bushes apart for her. Diving toward them, she stumbled, but he caught her arm, steadying her and drawing her into the sanctuary of the cave.

  “Take a few deep breaths, lass,” he recommended calmly. “Ye must calm your breathing, else the hounds will hear ye. Their sense o’ hearing be nigh as acute as their sense o’ smell.”

  The dogs had been baying in a rhythmic way, all making similar sounds, but that rhythm suddenly changed. They were yelping now in some disorder.

  “They’ve come upon the aniseed,” her companion murmured. “Be still now. Not a movement, not a word.”

  “I am not a fool, sir,” she said.

  Nevertheless, she was grateful to feel his large body close to hers. Big, warm, and solid, it made her feel safe despite the increasing danger outside. Her fears continued to ease only to return threefold when she heard hoofbeats and knew they announced the riders following the hounds. Chills shot through her body. She had not let her thoughts dwell on the men with the dogs.