The Madam's Highlander

by Madeline Martin

  Freya's demeanor remained rigid, but her face had gone pale. “Are ye threatening my family?” She pulled the blade from the unseen pocket of her gown.

  “I’m ensuring the safety of my own family.” He lifted his jaw. “And if I dinna come back, there will be inquiries. A member of the Black Watch canna just disappear.” It was a lie. He’d told no one of her family. She didn’t know that, of course, which was a good thing, or she might well kill him. The rage flashing like murder in her eyes told him as much.

  Her lip curled. “I do not like being extorted, Captain.” She practically spat the last word.

  “I only want confirmation my mother is safe.”

  She remained quiet for long enough that he figured she was most likely planning his demise.

  “I’ll do this on one condition,” she said at last.

  He didn’t say anything and let the silence between them press her to continue.

  “After I meet with ye to tell ye of how she is, I willna ever see ye again.” She looked down at her blade. “Because if ye can threaten my family, I can just as easily threaten yers. Am I clear?”

  He nodded. “Bring me a note from my mother. So I know ye went.”

  She smirked. “Ye dinna believe me?”

  “I know these are no’ the best circumstances for this arrangement,” he said.

  She scoffed.

  “Thank ye.” He inclined his head. “From the bottom of my heart – thank ye.”

  She glared at him. “Get out.”

  He complied without complaint. After all, he would have confirmation of his mother’s safety soon.

  Why then did he have such an ominous darkness clouding his awareness?

  CHAPTER THREE

  Damn Captain Ewan Fraser.

  Were it not for him, Freya wouldn't be crammed into the boxy carriage, bouncing her way through the countryside, two days from the refinement of Edinburgh. She ought to visit her own family while she was out this way.

  The idea entered her head with all the delight of a prod to a fresh wound. No, going home was far too difficult to stomach. The farm she couldn't man herself, a mother whose ailments only worsened despite medicine and care, a sister whose weak body grew large with the child of a man who took what she had not been willing to give.

  Damn the captain, and damn the English too.

  Freya stared out the window at the trees flicking rapidly by. Her lids grew heavy and sleep tugged at her, playing a game of cat-and-mouse with her consciousness.

  Suddenly her body slammed backward and her head smacked sharply into the wall behind her seat. The carriage had come to a very abrupt stop.

  “Stay inside.” Edward's voice was low, dangerous.

  “Like hell I will.” Freya pulled the knife from her waist and put a hand to the flimsy door.

  “Wait.” Edward's voice held an edge to it.

  She’d initially hired the aging driver the first time when she had newly arrived in Edinburgh. He’d always treated her with respect and loyalty. She'd hardly leave a man so faithful and considerate at the mercy of highwaymen.

  She pushed through the door, jumped from the carriage - and stopped short. The knife she'd pulled back to strike lowered slowly and the breath fled her lungs.

  “Is this his home?” she asked softly.

  The trees cleared away on either side, and the path they were on continued onward for a long stretch - an opulent entrance to what must have once been a grand manor. What had been there now lay in charred remains. Several beams jutted up from the ruin like the bones of something dead, blackened with the trauma of destruction.

  A stone structure remained at the rear - an old tower home, simple and square and strong enough to have survived the devastation of fire.

  Edward leapt from his driver's seat in a nimble move Freya had thought him no longer capable of. He held his pistol cocked back beside his ear, keeping it from being pointed at her, but ready in case it needed to be aimed and fired. He observed the surrounding trees with sharp scrutiny.

  “Get inside the carriage until I know it's safe,” he said.

  “Is this his house?” Freya asked again. “Captain Fraser's.”

  “It is. Now get inside the damn carriage.”

  Freya cut her gaze to him. “I can handle myself.”

  Edward scowled at her and muttered something about ladies being too tough for their own good, or something of its like. Freya strode toward the ruin of Captain Fraser's home, the knife held tightly at her side.

  Perhaps next time she came to the country she'd bring a pistol, like Edward. Her father's knife was plenty for breaking up a rabble at Molly's, but wouldn't do much of anything against a band of redcoats. Outside Edinburgh, she was just another Highland wench to rape.

  She was not far from the destroyed home when she saw the first body. The smell hit her before she caught the bright yellow of a dress nestled among the high grass. Her heart clenched and bile burned a path up the back of her throat.

  Was that Ewan's mother?

  Flies hummed greedily over their fare and scattered in a dark, lifting cloud when she approached. A splash of black rust stained the yellow cotton bodice, just over the heart. Blood. At least her death would have been quick.

  Freya swallowed thickly and tried to command her frantic heart to calm. Sometimes even her will was not enough though, and her pulse practically vibrated beneath her skin.

  She forced her gaze to the woman's face and gave a choked cry. The woman was young, her cheeks sunken in with death and her eyes closed against the ugliness of her own fate.

  This was not Ewan's mother, but she was young enough to be Freya's own sister. This could have been the fate of her family. Except they'd left them alive. Alive, but broken, destroyed by their brutal rape of Marian.

  “Lady Freya, I—” Edward stopped beside her. “Those damn redcoats.” His features hardened. “Get yerself back into the carriage. Leave this to me to tend to.”

  Freya shook her head and backed away from the woman. “I have to find Lily Fraser.”

  She’d expected Edward to argue, but the fight visibly drained from his body and he regarded the dead young woman with quiet mourning.

  Heart pounding, knees weak, Freya shuffled to what was left of the manor on legs no longer seeming her own. The wet odor of charred remains hit her nostrils along with the sickly-sweet stink of more death.

  And more death was found. Several men, and the body of an older lady.

  Captain Ewan Fraser's mother was dead.

  Freya turned her back on his ruined life and staggered away blindly, her vision blurred with tears for people she'd never met, who’d had dreams and hopes and families and love. A deep place in her heart splintered open for so much loss, so much death.

  Several twigs snapped inside the forest before Freya. Her heart jolted in her chest and her entire body went rigid, on alert - ready to fight. The cracking and snapping within the trees increased, like an army of soldiers heading her way.

  Freya's breath panted between her lips. Sweat prickled her brow. Her body was cold and hot all at once.

  She wouldn't run. She wouldn't turn her back for them to shoot her as she fled.

  No, she would fight.

  The bushes rustled.

  Her heart galloped like a runaway beast, but she stayed in place. She would fight.

  Fight.

  Fight.

  Fight.

  A figure emerged from the bushes, a flail of white limbs and white hair flying wildly about a white face. The figure shrieked and ran toward her.

  Confusion stunned Freya into place. This was no army. This was a wraith. The eyes were wide and haunted, the mouth gaping, eager to suck the soul from her body, the shriek high enough to puncture her ears.

  Realization jarred Freya and the fear holding her still released her just as abruptly. This was not a wraith, it was a frightened old woman clad in a dirty shift.

  Freya ran forward and caught the old woman as she pitched forw
ard. She was like a bundle of dry sticks in Freya's arms, all skinny limbs and weighing near nothing.

  “Help me.” The woman licked her cracking lips. “Help me.”

  “Aye, I'm here,” Freya said. “Ye're safe.”

  The woman's thin arms and gaunt face were covered in scratches. Her shift was torn in several places and once-fine lace trailed from the hem in tattered tendrils. Her face crumpled and sobs hiccupped from her throat. No tears though. She had clearly been too long without drink.

  How many days had she been in the woods?

  “They're all dead,” she moaned. “I should have stayed to help, but they insisted I run. I dinna know they would...I dinna know—”

  “Ye're safe now.” Freya pulled her cloak from her own shoulders and ignored the bite of cold as she wrapped the woman in it. “Let's get ye some water and food, aye?” She helped the woman stand and held her skinny ribcage to offer her support.

  “Thank ye, child.” The woman held onto Freya with the strength of a kitten. “I need to see my son,” she whispered. “He...he needs to know.”

  Hope flickered through Freya. She'd been so stunned, so overwhelmed by the woman's survival, at the state of her, she hadn't even considered...

  “Who is yer son?” she asked.

  “Ewan Fraser,” said the woman Freya had been seeking. “Captain Ewan Fraser of the 42nd Black Watch Regiment.”

  ***

  Ewan had never been so eager to enter a brothel.

  Despite all his discipline and control, his hands trembled and his palms were slick with perspiration.

  The note from Freya had said to come see her. Not that everything was well and good or that she was angry for having to venture into the country on his behalf.

  She wanted him to see her.

  Tessa was behind the bar, as usual. Her pretty smile wilted somewhat when she saw him.

  A menacing stab pierced Ewan's heart and his knees went soft.

  Tessa pointed to the office door mutely.

  Sounds faded away, muffled as if plunged underwater. His heartbeat, however, echoed in his ears in heavy thumps.

  He opened the door without knocking and found Madam Freya perched in a chair beside the hearth, staring into the flames. A whisky bottle sat on the desk before the uncomfortable chair he'd sat in before. Beside it was one glass.

  “My mother.” He could barely speak the words.

  Freya pulled her attention back to him. There was no playful coyness to her expression now, not even the glower of hatred. Her full lips were thinned with severity, her smooth brow puckered.

  “Yer mother is safe,” Freya said slowly.

  Relief buckled Ewan's knees and pulled free the rope of tension constricting the air from his chest. And yet...and yet there was more.

  “But...” he pressed.

  “Please sit,” she said.

  “I dinna want to sit.”

  She rose and met his gaze levelly. “Sit.”

  He lowered himself to the chair. Freya closed the door, which he'd left open in his haste, and strode toward him. She pulled the top from the whisky with an audible pop and poured a sizable portion into the cup.

  “Yer mother is safe,” she repeated. “But yer home is gone. It's been burned.”

  Ewan stared at her for a long moment, his ears having heard but his mind still processing. “The servants?” he asked.

  Freya lowered her eyes. “Dead.”

  Ewan was glad then for the hard chair beneath him, for the support to hold him up as his world fell away.

  Dead.

  Their faces came to him, carried on the wings of fond memories from a sad childhood made brighter only because of their love. The cook who'd always seemed to know the hardest days and made them softer with special treats baked for him, his mother's lady's maid who had innocently flirted with him as a young man and bolstered his fledgling confidence, the steward who had pulled coins from his ears and soothed his mother's worries through all those uncertain years. The stable master who had filled in as a father after Ewan's own had been denounced and killed.

  All dead.

  Ewan stared forward, his body and mind numb, yet his heart was an explosion of blinding pain. It was almost worse having everything be so numb, so that he could feel the hurt in his chest that much more. “How?”

  Freya was silent a beat too long. Ewan jerked his gaze up at her. “How?”

  This time she met his stare. “Redcoats.”

  Redcoats. The English.

  The very men he worked with.

  The hurt in his heart erupted into something blazing and far more powerful - rage.

  Freya shifted closer, an action Ewan hardly registered. Her hand curled around his, soft and warm against the clammy chill of his own. She pushed something against his palm, something cool and slick.

  A glass.

  “Drink.” The command was quiet but firm.

  Ever the soldier, he obeyed. He put the glass to his lips and swallowed the amber liquid in one large gulp. It burned down his throat, searing a path into his churning stomach.

  Warmth started at the base of his neck and melted over him, bringing with it a sense of quiet.

  “Where is my mother?” he asked.

  “She's safe.”

  “Where is she?” Unspoken threat edged his tone, but he didn't care.

  Freya took the glass from him and filled it. This time, it was she who tossed it back with a single swallow. “She's with my family.” She pulled in a deep breath. “My mother has a healer who visits her regularly and can see to yer mother. My sister has a heart so kind, she makes nuns look wicked. Yer mother is safe and being cared for.”

  Ewan's heart flinched. “My mother needs a healer?”

  Freya filled the cup again and put it back in his hands. “She escaped the redcoats, but she remained in the forest for some time, we believe possibly a fortnight.”

  Ewan sat with the glass forgotten in his hands. His mother, his delicate, frail mother with skin so thin the veins showed through, and a frame so slight a stiff wind could sweep her away - his mother had lived in the woods for a fortnight.

  Her survival was nothing short of a miracle.

  “I want to go to her,” Ewan said.

  “That isna necessary.” Freya put a hand on his shoulder. The scent of a sweet and pleasant perfume followed the gesture. Hers.

  “It is necessary,” he insisted. “What if she—”

  “She won't.” Freya said the words with ferocity.

  “I must go to her,” Ewan said again. “I will go to her.”

  The madam brought her young face level with his and met his gaze with her extraordinary blue eyes. “If ye go to her, ye will be deserting the Black Watch.” She said it slowly, as if he were an idiot. As if he didn't know.

  But he did know - more than she could ever possibly imagine.

  “Ye'll be considered a traitor,” she continued. “And ye'll be shot.”

  A traitor.

  Like his da.

  A traitor.

  Like the redcoats who he'd promised his life to, his unquestioned loyalty. Like the redcoats who destroyed his home and harmed his mother.

  He lifted the glass to his lips and took another blazing swallow. Leaving the Black Watch would make him a traitor - the very word he'd worked the whole of his life to avoid. His everything had been devoted toward being a good soldier, to being a loyal subject of the English crown who ruled over both England and Scotland. He'd besmirched the Scottish, his own brethren, for their wild ways and their faith in a man deemed by so many as the pretender. But would the alleged pretender lay to waste his own men?

  A traitor.

  A rebel.

  A Jacobite.

  Ewan’s heart thundered in his chest. His cheeks were hot, not only from the drink, but also from the precipice he teetered over. “I'll only be shot if I'm found,” he said. “I hereby renounce the Black Watch.”

  And everything he'd ever believed in. Even if it mean
t he had become the very man his father had been.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Will ye help me?” Ewan looked up at Freya.

  Her hand still lingered on his shoulder, her perfumed warmth a quiet comfort of its own.

  “It's one thing to help yer ma, or even an injured soldier.” She removed her hand slowly. “It's another to aid a man in desertion from the English. Yer mother is safe.”

  Ewan rose on numb legs and set the glass on the desk. He stood nearly a head taller than Freya. “I've spent my entire life working for those men, fighting alongside them, considering them my brothers in arms.” The weight of the world crushed upon his shoulders. “I can never fight by their side again without wanting to turn my pistol on them. I joined to protect my mother. Look where that got me. Look where that got her.” He could not keep the bitterness from his tone.

  Freya folded her arms over her chest. “What would ye do? Where would ye go?”

  Ewan's thoughts scrabbled through a mountain of ideas. “To yer home where my ma is. We could find somewhere to live, rebuild where people dinna know us.”

  “To my home?” Freya's pretty face pinched with obvious distrust.

  “We wouldna stay.”

  “And have ye coin enough to find a home right away? Do ye have kin who can take ye in?”

  Ewan ground his teeth in frustration. He would not have access to his wealth without giving his name and putting himself at risk of arrest.

  Freya raised strong points, ones he hadn't considered in his hasty attempt to find solutions to the burden of all his troubles. He hissed out a sigh and scrubbed a hand over his jaw.

  “And how would ye get to my home?” she asked. “It's near Callander, but in more of the country in a verra small village.”

  “Ye could tell me the way and I can ask when I get near enough.”

  “No.” A flush spread over her chest and crept up her long, slender neck. “Ye'll get everyone killed doing that.”

  She pulled herself upright and began to pace the small room. Her footsteps clicked on the hardwood floor while her gaze danced around thoughts she did not voice. Ewan watched her in silence, careful not to say a word lest he tip the scales of her consideration.