Much Ado About Highlanders (The Scottish Relic Trilogy)

by May McGoldrick

  She was as bloody transparent as a puddle on a sunny day. She was planning to jump ship.

  What a fool he’d been, making romantic designs regarding their first night in a real bed, of sorts, in the privacy of the captain’s cabin. Like some dreamy-eyed whelp, in love for the first time, he’d been making plans for wooing his wife and been ignoring everything that needed his attention on deck. Like some lovesick lad, he hadn’t stopped thinking of her all day.

  And all the while, she’d been making other plans.

  Alexander half expected Kenna to be gone—having dropped over the side and swimming for shore—by the time he burst into the cabin. She was still here. Dressed in the same clothes as before. She was wearing a dagger at her belt. Her hair was now tucked into a wool cap, and she was wearing boots he knew she’d borrowed from the second-in-command.

  She was poring over the details of the map, and leaped back from the table, clearly surprised to see him.

  “Just where do you think you are going?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He approached. “Don’t lie to me. Everyone has been telling me, word for word, what you’ve been asking.”

  She moved, keeping the table between them. “So now I’m not allowed to speak to the sailors?”

  “Of course you are . . . unless you have ulterior motives.”

  “Is that what they told you?” she asked, her violet eyes flashing at him. “That I have motives?”

  “Nay, woman. If any of them said such a thing about you, I’d have thrown him overboard straightaway.” He moved in one direction, and she countered, keeping him away from her. “That’s what I concluded, knowing you so well.”

  She snorted. “You don’t know me at all.”

  Alexander was relieved she was still here, but they were playing a game of cat and mouse. And what a fool he’d been to think she was done playing runaway games.

  “Know you? I know the trouble you’re about to get into before you even think of getting into it. Nay, wife. I know you very well.”

  “Oh, so you’ve suddenly become brilliant. I can name a half dozen village idiots with more brains than you. And stop calling me ‘wife.’ Word of our annulment could come any day, thank the Lord.”

  “Bloody hell, lass. Have you already forgotten that cave?”

  She looked in the direction of the door. “No one knows anything about that.”

  “I know and you know and God knows. And that bairn growing in your belly knows, too.”

  “So you’re a midwife now, as well.” Her face flushed. “Bairns aren’t conceived so fast.”

  “I suppose the Mother Superior told you that.”

  They stopped circling the table, and Kenna shook her head. “You can’t keep me against my will. I’m telling you now that I wish to return to the priory.”

  Alexander had spent enough time with her to know there was something different about her at this moment. This wasn’t the willful Kenna of before who would be difficult just for the sake of a good fight. Her eyes were red and puffy; she’d been crying. She avoided meeting his gaze. She didn’t want to be touched. There was a catch in her voice when she said she wanted to go back to the nuns at Loch Eil. He tried to reach her, but she moved again.

  “We made a promise.”

  “Promises get broken. You have to let me go. I have to get off this ship.”

  Alexander knew there wasn’t another woman like this one in all of Scotland. She embodied physical courage and ability that many men lacked. And she had determination. If she’d really set her mind to go—if her heart truly wanted it—she would have been gone already.

  Nay, perhaps a part of her wanted to leave, but the greater part of her wanted to stay. On that he would stake his life. He had to convince that other part to be reasonable.

  “Let’s talk about whatever it is that’s bothering you.”

  She shook her head. “Nay, it’s too late.”

  “It’s never too late.” Alexander stopped and planted both fists on the table, facing her. Her gaze darted into every corner of the cabin but not once at him. He saw the vulnerability she was trying to hide, and he saw the fear. She was as frightened now as he’d seen only once before . . . outside of the hermit’s door back in the cave. It stung him to think he was responsible for it. He gentled his tone. “Whatever is wrong, it must involve me. You’re angry with me. Tell me what I’ve done.”

  Her lower lip quivered, but she held her head up and shook her head. “You’ve done nothing wrong. Please, let me go, Alexander. It’s for the best.”

  “Best for whom? It’s the two of us, now and forever. Remember?”

  As the tears broke through the shield she’d erected, the point of some invisible blade slipped between his ribs. Alexander breathed in sharply as the point touched his heart. In the next moment, he had her in his arms. He pulled off her cap and her hair tumbled down in shimmering waves. As he drew her head against his chest, he found himself mumbling what had to sound like nonsense. She remained in his embrace, no longer fighting him but crying softly. It was some time before he found his voice to speak again.

  “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  Her tears seeped through his shirt. It was a few moments before she spoke.

  “For once I’m trying to do what’s best for everyone. Why won’t you let me go?”

  “I don’t care what’s best for everyone. I won’t let you go. Not ever again. And if you run away, I’m coming after you. And I promise you, I’ll pull down the walls of that priory one stone at a time, if I have to. And that goes for anywhere else you try to hide.”

  He wiped away the wetness from her silky cheeks and lifted her chin until he could swim in the violet depths of her eyes.

  “Diarmad told you,” she wept. “Weren’t you listening? They’re after me. I’ll only bring danger to you, wherever you take me. I can’t do that to your people.”

  “And how will you protect yourself by running away? By facing those villainous vermin alone?” He touched her cheek. “Not as long as I live. There’s no battle ahead of us that you and I won’t fight together.”

  “Alexander—”

  “Hush, lass.” He stepped back and sat down on the edge of the bed. He drew her down onto his lap. “But there’s something else. Something you promised to tell me before. It’s time. Tell me.”

  She looked into his eyes and nodded. There was no hesitation. She batted away the wetness on her cheeks.

  “After you hear what I have to say—after you know the truth—I want you to know it’s not too late to send me away.”

  “Kenna, I don’t care what you’ve done. I don’t care if you’ve bedded the pope or murdered him. I will never send you away.”

  “It isn’t something I’ve done.” She took his hand, tracing his fingers with hers. “First, I want you to know that what I’m about to tell you, and show you, is mostly a mystery to me. I have so many unanswered questions. And I don’t even know who to go to for answers.”

  He said nothing and waited for her to continue.

  She reached inside the neckline of her shirt and pulled out a leather pouch. Lifting the cord over her head, she placed it in his palm.

  “This was given to me by my mother. Well, not exactly given. I found it on the day of our wedding, tucked among other gifts she’d left me. I think this is what Evers is after. This is the reason he’s offered a bounty for finding me.”

  “What is it?”

  She opened the pouch and dropped a piece of carved stone into his palm.

  It was cold to the touch. The edges were rough, as if it had been broken off of a larger tablet. Alexander lifted it to the light and stared at the unusual markings that had smoothed with age. The markings meant nothing to him, but the fragment seemed to be very old.

  “Do you feel it?”

  “Feel what?” he asked.

  “The warmth. The power that runs through it.”

  He met her gaze. “I feel nothing.
To me, it’s just a piece of stone.”

  “Touch my hand.”

  He did. Her smooth palm was cool and steady.

  Kenna took the stone out of his hand and held it out in her palm for only a moment. Then she dropped it in her lap and touched his forearm. Her hand radiated heat, and Alexander felt a surge of energy race up his arm from the place where her hand lay.

  “I feel that, by ’sblood.” He took her hand and turned it over in amazement. “How . . . ?”

  “It’s not my doing. It’s the tablet.”

  He picked up the piece again. It was cool. The feel of it was no different from before.

  “It reacts to you, but not to me. You said this was your mother’s? Do you have memories of her using it when you were a child?”

  “I never saw the stone before the day of our wedding,” she said. “What I remember is that she always wore the pouch around her neck. She never parted with it. And she was a gifted healer. I thought it just a lucky charm, the same as many folk wear. When I ran away to the priory, I wore it because it belonged to my mother. It was no precious jewel, so it also matched my new life of simplicity and poverty. I never thought it held any power.”

  “When did you realize there was something different about it?”

  “Sometimes, when I was tending to people who were in pain, I would feel it through the pouch. It became warm against my skin. It still meant nothing. I saw no connection between the feeling and the people I was tending to.” She looked into his eyes. “Until you.”

  “Aye. You saved me, Kenna, when you cared for my wounds.”

  “It was this tablet,” she said softly. “Those wounds, all the blood you’d lost. There was nothing I could have done to close that gash. I was frightened. Desperate. I thought you were going to die.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I hoped, I wished, I prayed that this piece of stone was something more than just a lucky trinket that my mother carried around out of habit. I took it out. I held it in my hand.”

  “And then what happened? How did you know what to do?”

  “I didn’t know. But as soon as my fingers wrapped around it, something went through me. Heat. Lights. And there were faces and voices, directing me. Telling me what to do.”

  She touched his side where the wound had been. He felt the soothing warmth in her fingers even now.

  “It was a miracle. I didn’t understand it, but I thought I had mastered it. I thought I knew all there was to know about the power it held. But I was wrong.”

  “The pain was even worse the next day.”

  She nodded. “I knew what I had to try again. I hoped for the same miracle,” she said. “So at the standing stones where Jock led us, I tried again, grasping for faith—and magic, if that was at the heart of it—and it worked. This time it worked even better. You became whole. You had your strength back.”

  “You saved my life twice.”

  “Not I. The power lies in this.” She looked steadily into his eyes. “And I am more certain than anything I’ve ever known that the power doesn’t come from witchcraft or from the devil. This power of healing comes from somewhere good and holy. I know it.”

  Kenna lay the stone in his palm and held his hand in hers. Alexander felt a rush of heat where their skin touched. The power traveled up his arm, into his body. The sensation was soothing. It settled into his joints. It moved outward into his limbs.

  “But you bring it to life. Only you,” he reminded her. “And it appears your mother had the same ability before you.”

  She nodded and slid the tablet into the pouch. “And the way it responds to me has changed since the first time I used it on you.”

  “How?”

  “It’s becoming a part of me. I don’t need to take the stone out and hold it. Back at that camp by the loch, I never once reached for it, but I still felt it in my hands. The power of the stone was now mine to command.” She put the pouch beside them on the bed. “I’m learning how to use it, and in return it’s . . . it’s accepting me.”

  Alexander was enveloped in a state of serenity. To his thinking, there was nothing improbable about a healing stone. He’d grown up in the Highlands, a magical and mysterious land. The facts were simple and clear. Kenna had a gift, and it was his responsibility to protect her.

  “Have you noticed any feeling of, I don’t know, threat coming from the stone and directed toward yourself?” he asked. “Any sense of danger when you hold the relic?”

  “Not from this.” She touched the pouch. “Not at all. But I had strange feelings when we were at Hermit’s Rock. The underground chamber. Those walls. The door.”

  “The markings on them.”

  She shivered. “When I reached out to touch them, I had a sensation of burning. Whatever spiritual power, whatever magic exists in that chamber, it didn’t want me in there.”

  Alexander wished he’d paid closer attention to the old stories about the hermit who lived in that chamber. There were people he could ask at Benmore Castle. His father might remember it, too. He gathered her closer to his chest. She was much calmer now.

  “Are we done with this foolishness of running away?”

  She looked into his eyes. “Somehow Sir Ralph Evers knows about the tablet. That’s the only explanation of why he would want me.”

  “I don’t give a damn what he wants. He’ll have no chance against us once we reach Benmore Castle.”

  “But how could I lead him to your door? I am still the woman who ran away from our marriage, though contracts were signed and vows exchanged. Your people would never forgive me. Hell could freeze over before they accept me.”

  He drew her mouth to his and kissed her deeply. By the time he ended it, she had her arms around his neck, kissing him back with equal fervor.

  “The Macphersons will accept you and vow their allegiance to you and fight for you,” he whispered against her lips. “You’re my wife. You’re their mistress. And you’ve saved my life. Not once, but twice. That alone places you up there with Saint Fillan, at the very least.”

  “But I’m no saint.”

  He smiled, feeling her breast through her clothing. “And that’s the best bit of news for me, but they don’t have to know that.”

  The river ran strong with the recent rains, and Sir Ralph looked from the water rushing beneath the nine stone arches of the bridge to the letter in his hand.

  The message from the duke of Hertford was crystal clear. On no account was Evers to take his troops north of this river. All military engagement was to focus on the Borders. All treasure recovered was to be sent south to the duke and thence to the king’s coffers.

  Julius Caesar faced this moment, Evers thought. Do not cross the Rubicon, the Roman Senate warned. Do not advance any closer to Rome with your armies. Caesar knew his moment of destiny was at hand. Cross the river and defy the Senate, or remain and follow orders. Take command of his own fate . . . or disappear into the oblivion of history.

  Most men would have greatness, but fear to do what they must to achieve it. And then there are the few who see the tide rising and use it to carry them to the heights.

  Caesar crossed the Rubicon with his army, burned the bridges behind him, marched into Rome, and became emperor.

  This river is my own Rubicon, Evers thought. Cross the bridge, and there is no turning back. This bridge will take me to greatness . . . or ruin.

  North of the river, three more pieces of the stone tablet awaited him. Great power awaited him. Thrones and immortality awaited him.

  I’ll not deny my destiny, he told himself. I will be king.

  Signaling to his commanders, he spurred his horse across the bridge.

  At the horizon to the north, beneath the cloud-covered peaks of distant mountains, lay the heart of Scotland.

  Chapter 19

  And when I liv’d I was your other wife;

  And when you lov’d, you were my other husband.

  Kenna leaned her back against the door and glared in
the dim light at the trunk. Who was he to be ordering her to wear one of these dresses? Nobody ordered her what to do, what to wear, how to behave. When these men were done in the commander’s cabin, she was tempted to stuff her husband into one of these dresses and parade him on deck.

  Kenna kept her temper under control. She knew what Alexander was trying to do now. He was making arrangements as if it were their wedding night. A clean cabin and a sumptuous dinner.

  Even as she thought of it, she felt herself softening . . . again. The romantic beast.

  Still, these dresses! Standing naked in the small closet, she stared at the wooden chest filled with women’s clothing. Her old dress and shift were gone, probably thrown overboard by her husband.

  “Oh!” she fumed, stomping on the shirt and rough wool jacket she’d just discarded. “Miserable, sweet, Macpherson worm.”

  Six months. Six months ago, she’d disappeared into the night. And that was the right thing!

  She couldn’t do this. Six months ago, he’d turned up in that French whore’s bed. And now he was asking her to wear a dress that had to belong to one of his mistresses. He expected her to wear a dress that he’d probably peeled off the willing body of another woman.

  “By the Virgin, Kenna,” she murmured in torment. “What are you doing?”

  Kenna would have walked right out into the cabin and given him a piece of her mind if it weren’t that she could hear the voices of men coming. She decided they might notice that she was wearing nothing.

  “Almost ready, wife?”

  “Wife? Wife? I’ll give you a wife, you fickle, wench-chasing sea slug,” she grumbled under her breath, trying to push the chest open. It wouldn’t budge.

  “What did you say?”

  “The blasted thing doesn’t open. It’s sealed shut.”

  Kenna jumped as the door swung open, and Alexander stepped in, closing it behind him.

  “I thought I latched that,” she told him.

  His back was to her, and he filled the closet with his height, his shoulders nearly stretching from wall to wall. This close to him, she felt herself melting. All she wanted right now was to touch him, to feel his powerful body against hers.