Before Rosamund could brace herself, her hood was thrown back and her mask roughly untied and pulled away. Her wig was also hastily removed, and her own hair tumbled free of its pins.
‘Well, well,’ the Scotsman murmured. ‘Lady Rosamund Ramsay.’
It was Master Macintosh, Rosamund realised in shock, wrapped in the black, star-dotted cloak. She remembered those prickles of mistrust she had felt when he’d talked to her at the frost fair, and wished she had heeded their warnings.
She scrambled to sit up, sliding as far away from him as she could. She found she lay in the bottom of a sleigh, gliding swiftly along the frozen river. Macintosh knelt beside her and the other man held the reins, urging the horses to even greater speeds as the ice flew past in a sparkling silver blur. He glanced at her, and even though his face was half-wrapped in a knitted scarf she could see it was Richard. Richard—the man she had once thought she could care for!
Even through her shock, it made a sort of sense: his disappearance from home for months with no word; his sudden reappearance at Court; the hard desperation in his eyes whenever they met. The tension between him and Celia, who had her own dealings with the Scots. But why, why, would he involve himself in some treasonous conspiracy?
But, whatever his plot, it seemed clear he had not intended her to be a part of it. His eyes widened with surprise.
‘Rosamund!’ he cried. ‘What are you doing here?’
White-hot anger burned away the cold shock, and Rosamund actually shouted, ‘What am I doing here? I was foully kidnapped by you, of course. What would your parents say if they knew of this shame? You are a villain!’
Macintosh laughed, reaching out to grab Rosamund’s wrist and pull her roughly towards him. ‘Your Scots blood is showing, Lady Ramsay! She certainly reminded you of what is important, Richard—what your parents would say.’
‘And I would bleed myself dry of every drop of Scots blood, if this is what it means,’ Rosamund said, snatching back her hand. ‘Treason, threats—not to mention imbecility.’
Macintosh scowled, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her until her teeth rattled. Her head felt like it would explode under the onslaught, but she twisted hard under his grasp, wrenching herself away.
‘’Twas English imbecility brought us to this,’ he said. ‘Your ardent suitor here was the one who mistakenly grabbed you. You weren’t meant to be involved at all.’
‘Then I am glad his stupidity led him to take me and not the Queen,’ she declared. ‘She is safe from your evil intent.’
‘We never intended evil towards her, Lady Rosamund,’ Macintosh said. Somehow she could not quite believe him, with his bruising clasp digging into her shoulder. ‘We merely sought to help her to a meeting with her cousin. Queen Mary is most eager to see her, and yet your Queen Elizabeth keeps delaying. Surely if she saw my Queen’s regal and dignified nature, her great charm and beauty, she would give up the notion of marrying her to that stable boy, Leicester.’
‘So you were going to carry her in secret all the way to Edinburgh?’ Rosamund asked incredulously. It seemed there was plenty of imbecility all around.
‘’Tis true, it is a long voyage,’ Macintosh said. ‘And accidents do happen when one travels. These are perilous times.’
Then he did intend to kill Queen Elizabeth. And probably now her, as well, for getting in his way. Furious, Rosamund lunged towards him, arcing her fingernails toward his smirking face.
Macintosh ducked away, even as her nails left an angry red scratch down his cheek.
‘Bloody hell!’ he shouted. As he dragged her against him, his body fell into Richard, causing him to jerk hard on the reins. Confused the horses cried out and veered off their course towards the river bank. They crashed through the drifts of ice-crusted snow, coming to a halt wedged at an angle.
The cries of the horses, Macintosh’s furious shouts and Rosamund’s own screams tore the peace of the winter night. She elbowed him as hard as she could in the chest, and he slapped her across the face. Her head snapped back on her neck, her ears ringing.
Suddenly, burly arms seized her around the waist, dragging her from the listing sleigh. Richard held onto her even as she fought to be free, pulling her through the snow up the river bank.
Macintosh, still cursing, knelt by the river, pressing a handful of snow to his scratched cheek. ‘Tie up the English witch, and don’t let her out of your sight,’ he growled. ‘She’ll pay for this foolishness.’
‘Richard, what are you about?’ Rosamund said as he plunked her down beneath a tree. Her thick cloak kept away some of the cold, but the wind still bit at her bruised skin. It was a terrible cold, dark night here in these unknown woods, and she couldn’t shake away the nightmare quality of it all.
‘They offered me money,’ he muttered, leaning his palms on his knees as if he struggled to catch his breath. ‘A great deal of money, and land to come. With so much, your parents could surely no longer disrespect me. They would be sorry for what they said.’
‘They did not disrespect you! They merely thought we were a poor match, and it is obvious they were correct.’ More than correct. They had seen things in Richard she could not then, but now saw so clearly. He was not Anton, he was nothing like a man she could love.
‘This was for you, Rosamund!’
She shook her head, sad beyond anything. ‘Treason cannot be for me. Only for yourself, your own greed.’
‘It was not greed! If seeing the rightful queen put on the throne could help us to be together…’
‘I would not be with you for all the gold in Europe. I am loyal to Queen Elizabeth. And I love someone else. Someone who is honourable, kind, strong—a thousand times the man you are.’ Rosamund slumped back against the tree, feeling heartily foolish that she had ever been deluded by Richard.
‘So, you are like your parents now,’ he said, straightening to glare down at her. Even through the milky moonlight she could see, feel, the force of his anger. The fury that she would dare reject him. It frightened her, and she pressed herself hard against the tree, gathering her legs under her.
‘You think yourself above me, after all I’ve done for you, risked for you,’ he said. ‘You will not be so haughty when I am done with you!’
He grabbed for her, but Rosamund was ready. She leaped to her feet, ignoring her cramped muscles; her painfully cold feet in their thin shoes. She shed her cloak and ran as fast as she could through the snow, her path lit only by the moon shining on the ice. She lifted her skirts, dodging around the black, bare hulks of the winter trees.
Her breath ached in her lungs, her stomach lurching with fear. Her heart pounded in her ears, so she could barely hear Richard stumbling behind her. She did not know where to go, only that she had to get away.
She leaped over a rotten fallen log, and Richard tripped on it, landing hard on the snow.
‘Witch!’ he shouted.
Rosamund, panicked, suddenly remembered how she would climb trees as a child, how she could go higher and higher—until her mother had found out and put a stop to it.
She saw a tree just ahead with a low, thick branch and launched herself at it. Tucking her skirts into her gold kirtle, she jumped onto the branch, reaching up, straining until she could clasp the next branch up. Her palms slid on the rough, frosty wood, her soft skin scraping. She ignored the pain, pulling herself up.
Up and up she went, not daring to look down, to listen to Richard’s shouted threats. At last she reached a vee in the trunk and wrapped her arms tightly around the tree as the wind tore at her hair, battered at her numb skin. She remembered golden moments with Anton, moments where they had kissed and made love, and she knew they were meant to be together.
She held onto the thought of him tightly now.
Help me, she thought, closing her eyes as she held on for her life. Find me!
Anton glided swiftly along the river, the dark countryside to either side of him flying along in a shadowed blur as he found his rhythm. The
rhythm that always came as he skated, made of motion and speed, the knifelike sound of blades against ice. The cold meant nothing, nor did the darkness.
He had to find Rosamund, and soon. That was all that mattered. He loved her. He saw that so clearly now. He loved her, and nothing mattered beside that. Not his estate, not her parents, not the Queen, only their feelings for each other. He had to tell her that, to tell her how sorry he was for ever sending her away.
He followed the grooved tracks left in the ice by the runners of a sleigh. The vehicle had been heavy enough to leave a pathway, but it was already freezing over.
The thought of Rosamund out there in the cold night, shivering, frightened, alone, made him angrier than he had ever been. A flaming fury burned away all else, or surely would if he’d let it. But he knew that such fury, out of control, boundless, would not serve him well now. He needed sharp, cold focus. The anger would come later, when Rosamund was safe.
He remembered how he had felt on the battlefield, enclosed by an invisible shield of ice that distanced him from the death and horror. Such a feeling kept fear away, so he could fight on and stay alive.
Now it would help him find his Rosamund.
He leaned further forward, remembering her smile, the way she curled against him in bed, so trusting and loving. His beautiful, sweet winter-fairy. She was all he had thought could not exist in the bleak world, a bright spirit of hope and joy. She made him dare to think of the future as he had never done before. Made him think dreams of home and family could even be real, that loneliness could be banished from his life for ever.
And now she was gone, snatched away from the Queen’s own palace with nary a trace. But he would find her, he was determined on it. Find her—and see that her kidnappers paid. That was the only thing that mattered. He listened to his heart now, as his mother had urged him to do, and it pressed him onward.
At last he noticed something, a break in the endless snowy riverbank. As he came closer, he saw it was a sleigh driven into the snow at an angle. It was empty, and for a moment Anton thought the only living things near were the horses, standing quietly in their traces. No Rosamund, no people at all. Only silence.
But then he heard a faint noise, like a muffled, muttered curse. Anton crouched low as he crept closer, drawing his short sword from its sheath.
A man in a black cloak knelt on the other side of the sleigh, scooping up handfuls of snow and pressing them to his bearded face. He half-turned towards a beam of chalky moonlight, and Anton saw it was the Scotsman, Macintosh.
A Scottish conspiracy, then. Somehow he was not surprised. The concerns of Queen Mary seemed to have permeated every corner of Whitehall of late. Now they had absorbed Rosamund, too, ensnaring her in that sticky web.
But not for long. Anton carefully slipped off his skate straps, inching closer to Macintosh in his leather-soled boots. Silently, carefully, like a cat, he came up behind the Scotsman and caught him a hard hold about the neck. He dragged him backward, pressing the blade of his sword to the man’s treacherous neck.
Macintosh tensed as if to fight, but went very still at that cold touch of steel.
‘Where is Lady Rosamund?’ Anton demanded.
‘She ran off, the stupid wench,’ Macintosh said in a strangled voice. ‘We never meant to grab her, anyway, she just got in the way.’
‘You thought she was Queen Elizabeth,’ Anton said, thinking of Rosamund’s red wig, the fur cloak.
‘I didn’t want to hurt the lass, even after she clawed me,’ Macintosh said. ‘Not that it matters now. She’ll probably freeze out there, and our errand is all undone.’
Anton’s arm tightened, and Macintosh gurgled, clawing at his sleeve. ‘You let a helpless lady go off into the snow and did not even follow her?’
‘That fool Sutton ran after her, wretch that he is. He’s the one that took her in the first place. He was in a fury. If he catches her, she’ll likely wish she froze to death first.’
So Richard Sutton was involved, determined to take some revenge on Rosamund for her rejection. A man like him, with primitive emotions and urges, would be capable of anything when angered. Anton twisted his sword closer to Macintosh’s neck.
‘Are you going to kill me?’ the man gasped.
‘Nay,’ Anton answered. ‘I’ll leave that to the Queen. I’m sure she will have much to ask you, once you’re taken to the Tower.’
‘Nay!’ Macintosh began frantically. He had no time to say more, for Anton brought down the hilt of his sword hard on the back of his head. He collapsed in an unconscious heap in the snow.
In the bottom of the sleigh were some thick coils of rope, no doubt meant for the Queen—or Rosamund. They served now to bind Macintosh. Anton made short work of the task, depositing the Scotsman in the bottom of the sleigh to wait for the Queen’s men, before cutting the horses free so the man could not escape.
Surely Lord Langley and Anne Percy would have alerted Leicester to what had happened by now? Anton had to find Rosamund quickly. He scanned the woods just beyond the river bank, turning his sword in his hand.
At last those beams of moonlight caught on a set of blurred footprints leading into the trees. Large, booted prints, heavy, as if they dragged—or dragged something with them.
He followed their erratic pathway until he discovered a small clearing, a smudged spot just beneath a tree where perhaps someone had sat for a time. And, just beyond, a crumpled white fur-cloak, lightly covered by new snow.
He knelt down, lifting up the soft, cold fur. It still smelled of Rosamund’s roses, and the Queen’s richer violet-amber scent. Along its edge were a few flecks of dried blood. Macintosh’s—or Rosamund’s? His heart froze at the thought of her bleeding, hurt, alone.
Slowly, he stood up, examining the tracks leading away from the clearing—small, dainty feet, blurred as if she ran, zigzagging. Followed by those heavy boots. Dropping the cloak, he trailed those tracks, every sense heightened, fully aware of every sound and motion of wind in the bare branches.
Rosamund gave a good chase, he thought with pride, veering around trees, over fallen logs. Then, at last, he heard a noise breaking through that eerie, glass-like night: a man’s hoarse shout, a woman’s scream.
Holding his sword firmly, Anton followed the sound, running lightly through the snow until he found them. It was an astonishing sight—Rosamund was high up in a tree, balanced on the split trunk, her skirts tucked up and her white stockings glowing in the moonlight. Richard Sutton was at the base of the tree, shouting and waving his sword at her, even though she was too high for the reach of the blade.
Rosamund tottered on her perch, grabbing harder onto the trunk. The freezing wind had to be numbing her bare hands—yet another thing to kill Sutton for.
‘Sutton!’ Anton shouted, advancing on the man with his sword held out in challenge. ‘Why don’t you face someone your own size, rather than bully defenceless females?’
Richard swung towards him, waving his own sword about erratically. The steel fairly hummed in the frosty air. ‘Defenceless? You are deluded, foreigner. The witch has defences aplenty, as well as a cold, fickle heart. She will desert you as sure as she did me.’
‘Anton,’ Rosamund sobbed, her fingers slipping on the bark.
‘Hold on very tightly, Rosamund,’ Anton called, struggling to hold onto his icy distance. The sight of her pale, frightened face, her tangled hair and torn gown, threatened to tear away that chilly remove as nothing else could.
But it also made him determined to protect her at all costs.
‘You will never be worthy of her, not in her haughty eyes,’ Richard cried. ‘Nor with her family. None are good enough for the mighty Ramsays.’
‘Ah, but I have something you will never possess,’ Anton said, tossing his sword lightly from hand to hand as he advanced on his quarry.
‘What might that be? Money? Land?’
‘Nay. I have the lady’s love.’ Or he had once—and he would fight for it again for the rest
of his life.
With a furious shout, Richard dived towards Anton, swinging his blade wildly. Anton brought his own sword arm-up, and the blades met with a ringing clang. He felt it reverberate down his whole arm, but he recovered swiftly, twirling his sword about to parry Richard’s blows.
At first he merely defended himself, deflecting Richard’s wild attacks, fighting to keep his balance on the frozen ground. But his opponent’s burning fury quickly wore him down, while Anton was still fresh, still fortified with his quiet, cold anger. When Richard faltered, Anton pressed his advantage, moving forward with a series of light strikes.
He drove Richard back towards one of the looming trees, until the man clumsily lost his footing and stumbled against the trunk. With a roar, he tried to shove his sword up into Anton’s chest, unprotected by armour or padding. But Anton was too quick for him, and drove his own blade through Richard’s sleeve, pinning him to the tree.
‘It seems I have something else you lack,’ Anton said. ‘A gentleman’s skill with the sword.’
‘Foreign whoreson!’ Richard shouted. He ripped his sleeve free, driving forward again, catching Anton on the shoulder with the tip of his blade. Startled by the sting, Anton was even more shocked by what happened next. Richard took off, running through the woods, crashing like a wounded boar.
Anton ran after him, following his twisted, half-blind path as they headed back towards the river. His shoulder ached and he felt the stickiness of blood seeping through his doublet. The sweat seemed to freeze on his skin, but he hardly noticed. He ran on, chasing after Richard as the coward fled.
Richard broke free of the trees, sliding down the steep, snowy banks towards the sleigh as if he meant to drive away and escape. But the horses were gone now, broken from their traces, and Macintosh, still unconscious, lay bound in the bottom of their sleigh.
Richard, though, kept running, straight out onto the river itself. Anton pursued him, but skidded to a halt as he heard an ominous cracking sound, one he heard all too often in Swedish spring-times. He eased back up onto the bank, watching in shock as a thin patch of the river cracked beneath Richard’s heavy weight. Screaming with horror, a terrible sound indeed, Richard fell down into the water below.
The Winter Queen Page 21
