The kiss was full of promise and passion but over too soon. Laird pulled away and looked down at her, his fingers toying with her earlobe and the hair behind her ear. “Ye’ll hae curly hair when it’s longer, me thinks.”
“Yes, it is.”
“I should like to see that.”
I would like you to see it, too. Scarlett swallowed back a tortured sob. “Laird, I…”
“What is it?”
Her blood roared in her ears, buzzing in protest. “Nothing.”
“I ken that particular ‘nothing’. What’s amiss?”
Scarlett stared up into those remarkable eyes that would haunt her forever. “I’m just so terrified by the thought of losing you.”
It was true. All true. Her heart pounded like a drum in her chest as if she hovered on the brink of a precipice but Scarlett pulled back from the edge, a skitter of nerves chasing down her spine.
A man who wanted nothing more from her than her heart and the love she could give him. Everyone else had wanted something more from her, from her parents or from their fame. A piece of the Scarlett Thomas pie, carved out of her soul.
But what Laird wanted from her could not be taken or forced. It had to be given.
Scarlett realized then that it had been. All her attempts to keep an emotional distance from him had been pathetic. She’d fought against him in vain. All her denial just a bunch of natter to fill her head and drown out the truth.
She loved him.
This Scottish warrior. This domineering, stubborn, irascible, caring, honorable Laird who was so not her type. She loved him. Loved him all the more because of each of those things.
Amazing that a single moment in time could change her perception of reality. But reality didn’t care if she loved him. Laird was about to die. Why would Donell bring her here then? To make sure Scarlett knew what love truly felt like before stripping it cruelly away from her?
“Laird.”
The words would not come. The feeling was too new, too difficult to assimilate.
“Farewell, mo chroí.”
With one last kiss, Laird gathered up his sword and left the tent. Scarlett stared after him, her blood pounding in her ears. Throbbing in her chest. No, she couldn’t…
NO!
“Laird!” she cried, running after him and throwing herself into his arms when he turned to look back. Wrapping her arms tightly around his neck, she buried her face in his shoulder, dampening his skin with her tears as they fell freely. “I love you,” she choked out, her voice strained to break through the lump in her throat. “I love you so much. Please, come back to m-”
His mouth covered hers, swallowing the last of her plea and devouring her heart and soul as he held her so tightly against him that Scarlett could hardly breathe. It didn’t matter; she’d give her last breath to make sure he knew how dearly she loved him.
Just in case.
Laird set her back on her feet just as the sun broke the horizon, spilling its rays upon his face. His eyes glittered like polished silver as he framed her face in his hands and looked down at her. The slash of dimples appeared above the shaggy line of his short beard as a smile of pleasure such as she had never seen on him graced his handsome face. “I will be back to hear ye say that again, if for nae other reason.” He kissed her lightly and drew back, still smiling. “I love ye as well, my bonny lass. ‘Twas the grandest day of my life, finding ye at Dunskirk.”
“Mine, too. Be careful.”
“I will.”
Boom!
The first blast echoed over the camp in the late afternoon. The hideous reverberation was followed in waves by another and then another. Scarlett had seen enough historical battle scenes on film to recognize the firing of the cannon. That would be the opening volley King James had promised would set the English on their heels but Scarlett knew better. Scotland’s heavy artillery wasn’t going to scare anyone off.
Even from the distance, the shots sounded ponderous, as if the cannon was too fatigued already to spit out the cannonball without effort. As if the cannon knew its efforts were in vain.
Soon enough a more rapid fire responded. The English counter attack with its light artillery, aimed at taking out – not the Scottish forces waiting to fight – but the Scottish cannon that would impede their immediate advance.
Scarlett circled the clearing outside Aleizia’s tent restlessly, pleating the fabric of her skirts with nervous fingers. “How can you all just sit here like this?” The question was torn from her as she whirled back to the group of women gathered there, stitching away as if nothing were amiss. “Your men are out there dying! Your husbands. Your sons! How can you just sit here without doing something?”
“What is there for us to do?” Lady Glencairn asked. “Should we take up arms with them? Have them die even faster from the distraction of worrying over us rather than themselves?”
Scarlett gnashed her teeth in frustration. It was the same point some soldiers made even in her time about having women on the battlefield. Even a bigger point in a time when chivalry was still very much alive. She turned to Aleizia. “I thought you were a panicker.”
“I am,” Aleizia whispered, staring down at her sampler. “I want my husband safe. I want my babe to have a father.”
She pressed a hand to her abdomen and Scarlett felt her own stomach drop. Aleizia was pregnant? Oh, God, she was a just a girl! Too young to be a widow and a single mother. But still, even if the worst were to happen, she would always have that piece of Patrick and Scarlett had to envy her that.
The thought sent a shudder down Scarlett’s spine. Bearing a child in medieval times? No, thank you.
But what if it was Laird’s baby? Another sort of shudder ran through her. One of longing and yearning. It would be worth the risk. “Forgive me, Aleizia,” she said. “I know you’re worried.”
God, they were a brave bunch. It was easy enough to love a man who sat at home by the hearth each night and another thing entirely to love a man who might never return. It gave Scarlett a whole new respect for military wives in any time.
“It’s quite all right. We all are.” Aleizia’s words were calm. Sensible. Scarlett felt anything but.
“I just wish there was something we could do.”
Pacing away from the group, Scarlett started in surprise when a strong hand caught her around the arm and pulled her behind the tent. Donell! His wrinkled face was folded into a severe frown.
She didn’t feel much like smiling either.
“Och, lassie, what are ye still doing here?”
“Still doing here?” she screeched through clenched teeth. “You tell me.”
“I thought ye were clever enough to figure it out on yer own.”
“I thought I had. I tried to stop it,” Scarlett protested. “They wouldn’t listen.”
“Och, lass,” Donell spat in disgust. “Did ye think ye could change the minds of a thousand bull-headed Scotsmen? Ye daft lass, why did I choose ye? Only a knotty-pated beldame would think she could singlehandedly stop a war.” He clucked his tongue lightly.
Scarlett ignored his insults, determined to get to the heart of the matter. “Why then? What am I here for?”
“To save him, lass. Not the whole bluidy country. Him.” Donell shook his head in disgust. “I’m all for second chances, lassie, but ye’ve got to take them when they come along.”
“Why the hell didn’t you just say that right from the beginning?” she snapped, gathering up her skirts and turning to run to Laird. To the battle.
“How do you expect me to find him?” She spun back to ask the meddling old man. “There are tens of thousands of men out there. Arrows. Cannonballs. I’ll never find him now.”
“You’ll find him, lassie. Just follow your heart.”
“Follow my heart? What kind of fairy tale bullshit is that?” she asked but Donell was already turning away. Scarlett didn’t try to chase after him, knowing that it would be a useless endeavor and besides, she had something far
more important to do right now.
Running back through the circle of women, Scarlett raced on to her own tent.
“Scarlett, what are you doing?” Aleizia asked, scurrying after her.
“Something very, very stupid,” she said, snatching up her purse and slipping it over her head. She had to save Laird. She’d known it all along. Laird was going to be as mad as an enormous, green rage monster when he saw her on the battlefield. He’d likely hulk out completely, but at least he would be alive to do it.
“I’ll go with you,” Aleizia said. “It would be better than waiting here for news.”
Scarlett shook her head as she pulled out her pistol and checked the magazine. “No, you’re not. You stay here and take care of that baby.” She hugged the girl hard. “And pray. God, pray for us all.”
The sound of the battle was her compass as she lifted her skirts and began to run. The smoky haze gathering overhead, the pall hanging like buzzards over the bloodshed.
Reaching the top of a hill, she paused, watching the battle. A battle that no film could depict the essence of. No director – not Coppola, not Scorsese – could capture.
The reality of war was not something anyone would truly want to watch, especially for entertainment. Cannonballs flew flinging earth, blood and body parts into the air. Arrows zinged by, taking down the unshielded, unarmored Highlanders. Pikes lurched upward, piercing man and bone. And the noise! Beyond the explosive of the artillery, the clash of metal and screams of man where horrifying.
The Scots warriors were fighting like demons but it wouldn’t be enough. It would never be enough.
Then Scarlett saw Laird as if she were looking into a crystal ball. Through the swirling smoke, there he was.
And he was fighting for his life.
40
The English army left its baggage train at Barmoor and set out in two parts. The vanguard under the command of Howard, the Lord Admiral, crossed the River Till at the Twizel Bridge. The Rearguard led by Surrey had crossed at a little known ford point at New Heaton and the two regrouped on the northern edge of the battlefield.
Learning that they were being outflanked, King James ordered a rapid redeployment northwards from Flodden Hill to the top of nearby Branxton Hill. It was an equally commanding position, but without any of the defenses already prepared on Flodden, it was an ill-considered move.
They’d had another chance to gain advantage whilst the English army was crossing the Till. Borthwick begged the King to let him release cannon fire upon the unwitting soldiers but King James denied the request, insisting that his enemy meet the open plain before they met battle. They were waiting until their enemy was in position before the two sides began bombardment by cannon fire simultaneously.
The English compounded the attack with a rain of arrows from their longbow men, their archers far outnumbering the Scots. Screams were drown out by the artillery, masked by smoke and fire.
Five battalions of Scotsmen waited on the ridge for their enemy to advance. They had the advantage on the hill, so James was struck by horror when the King was provoked so quickly by the English cannon and sounded the attack, forcing them to give up their strategic position once again.
But give it up they did. The far left flank under Lords Home and Huntly charged diagonally, picking up troops from the middle as they marched forward. Under pressure, the English right flank was forced to divide. Riding with them, James approached the foe through the fog of battle.
The English scattered under the force of the wild and willful force of Home’s Border Scots and Huntly’s Highlanders. They fought as they always had, in close combat with sword, bill or bludgeon. They took Howard’s standard. The battle was flowing in their favor but it wouldn’t last.
Their center vanguard under the earls of Errol, Crawford and Montrose and another battalion under Bothwell and the Frenchman, d’Aussi, walked straight into a bog, heretofore unseen until they were ankle deep in the mire. King James left his command position at the top of Branxton Hill to take charge and urge his soldiers on, bringing his division into the fray with him, a division populated by the bulk of the Scottish nobility.
James watched it, helpless to change the tide of history. Surrey was massacring the Scots in the center, Scots exhausted from their charge through the swamp. A barrage from the English longbows was let loose on their right flank, Argyll and Lennox, their Highland warriors not wearing a stitch of armor were easily shot down as they too slogged through the mire.
Determined to meet his foe on equal footing or perhaps to inspire his troops, King James dismounted from his horse and ordered his nobles to do the same. Clad in full armor, they were nearly immobilized by the mud and James’ heart seized in anguish as he saw his young cousin Bothwell fall. Then his uncle, George.
Leaving behind his successful flank, the soldiers of which were now looting the dead and injured English soldiers as much as fighting them, James forged a path atop his powerful steed in aid of his sovereign. He hadn’t been called to the King’s side for battle but he couldn’t stand aside and watch Fate take its course without lifting hand to stop it.
For hours they fought. The pikes they’d trained on with the French were useless in these tight quarters. So many of his countrymen were nearly defenseless with the unwieldy spears in hand. Again James lashed out, sparing one man from certain death, uncertain if it would save him in the end.
“Your Grace,” he shouted as he neared his monarch, cutting down the enemy around him. “The battle is lost. We maun see ye to safety.”
“I cannae withdraw,” the King protested, then looked at James. “See that Home secures Coldstream for our retreat. Go! See that it is done.”
“I willnae leave ye here to die, Your Grace,” James said tightly, dismounting and hoping to urge his monarch up on his horse.
“It is not my day to die.”
Brave words but James knew better. Everything Scarlett had warned him of had come to pass. Everything was happening just as Scarlett’s pamphlet had said. Everything. His King was worn out and on the verge of death. In all likelihood, James would die today as well, though his death had not been imprinted on the paper.
“We are blood, James,” King James said under his breath. “I hae ne’er admitted it aloud, perhaps no’ even now is it loud enough for another to hear. Ye are the only Stewart ne’er to envy my place, to conspire against me. Ye ne’er did.”
“No,” was all James said.
“Watch over my son. Guide him. Protect him.”
James wanted to protest. To beg his King once more to retreat but only nodded. He knew stubbornness well enough. He was a Stewart in part, at least. King James would not give in. If he himself could make it out of the day alive, he would do as King James commanded, not because he was James’ sovereign but because he was family. “I swear it.”
“Go then.”
James fell back, hacking his way through the English who had them nearly surrounded. Stepping on the bodies of his clansmen, his countrymen as he fought. Some dead, some yet alive but not for long as they drown in the muck and blood of their fallen comrades. His shoulder screamed in protest as he lifted his heavy sword again and again. Slashing, stabbing his way through the mob. Fighting to survive.
For her. For Scarlett.
He had been alone for most of his life. From his grandfather, he’d gotten a name. From his father, a family of sorts. But they couldn’t give him a home. They could not bring him the sense of belonging he’d always longed for.
He’d never known a mother’s love. Never known a woman’s love. Never known that a woman’s soft arms could cradle him, surround him with something more than a physical release.
He knew those things now. Knew them because of the appearance of a single extraordinary lass who had nearly brought him to his knees. James didn’t want to lose that now. He didn’t fear death in battle as much as losing the love of a will o’ a wisp of a woman. Now, as he never had before, he wanted to live life to the fullest.
With her. With Scarlett.
Swinging up into his saddle, James saw Home join Huntly as they made good their escape toward Coldstream. James could see the same salvation waiting for him. It seemed wrong that he should survive when so many others would not and was tempted to return to battle but the King’s command weighed on him. The prince, the new King was just a bairn. He would have no one on his side.
A Sassenach pike caught James in the side and lifted him off his horse. Staggering to his feet, James fought for breath against the all-encompassing pain and swung his sword once more. Clash of steel against steel vibrating through his aching shoulders. Slash to his enemy’s side and the man fell with a hoarse cry.
Clutching his side, James lowered his sword just as an angry cry sounded behind him and he turned to see yet another Englishman’s sword swinging for his head and no time to raise his sword in defense.
James closed his eyes waiting for the deathblow to fall, knowing that his end was at hand. A high-pitched pop rose above the low din and opening his eyes, James saw the surprise on the Sassenach’s face as a small badge of red blossomed on his chest and unfurled. He lifted his hand to the wound in surprise, his eyes shifting beyond James. Another pop and the man staggered back and fell to his knees as a tiny red dot appeared on his forehead.
In astonishment, James spun about to find Scarlett thirty yards behind him, wrapped in his red Hepburn plaid. Her arm raised and pointing at the man with the small firearm she had shown him in her hand. A delicate wisp of smoke wove skyward from the barrel. She was more pale than ever, her eyes dark with horror as she stared down at the body at James’ feet.
“Scarlett!” The word was choked with surprise as he lurched toward her. “What the fook, lass! What are ye doin’ here? This is nae place for a woman.”
Scarlett brows rose at that, color infusing her cheeks. “Don’t you take that tone with me, Laird Hepburn. I just saved your life!”
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