by Rowan Keats
She sighed heavily.
She and Muirne made quick work of seeing to their needs and returned to the warmth of the fire. Graeme replaced the older warrior on watch, giving his cohort leave to bury himself in the blankets and close his eyes. As Isabail should do. But the tantalizing thought of escape refused to die. MacCurran was a madman. He would slay her just as surely as he’d slain her brother—no doubt in some far-fetched notion of justice. But the ruin of his clan was his own fault, not hers or her brother’s. He’d dared to covet the ruby necklace King Alexander had commissioned for his new bride and had murdered a dozen people to get it. He was touched in the head to blame the Grants for his imprisonment.
She shivered. Unfortunately, having right on her side wouldn’t save her. She was at MacCurran’s mercy. He could exact whatever revenge he wanted. And with huge fists made for beating, he could do it with ease.
She must make another attempt. Dawn would soon be upon them, and this might be her last opportunity to reach safety.
“Muirne,” she whispered.
“Aye?”
“Make the lad a spot of tea.”
Her maid frowned. “You want me to show him kindness, after what they’ve done?”
“The man is no doubt chilled. Chat with him for a moment; ease his lot.”
Muirne tossed her a rebellious glare but got to her feet and put a small pot on the fire. The men’s supplies had been bolstered by their raid on Isabail’s party, and the copper pot was one of hers.
Isabail tried not to resent that as she peered around the camp area for a suitable rock. It had to be small enough for her to lift but large enough to knock the man out. Problem was, she had no clue how large a rock it would take. Denting a man’s skull was not one of the skills she had acquired while acting as chatelaine of Lochurkie. And even if it had been, she’d have been out of practice by now. Her cousin Archibald’s wife had taken over her duties after John’s death, leaving Isabail at a loss for purpose.
Aha. There was a rock that might do.
The guard was watching Muirne. Isabail waited until the maid had approached him with the tea; then, taking care not to wake the sleeping men around her, she eased from her pallet. Snowflakes had begun to drift down from the night sky. Moving as swiftly as her long woolen skirts would allow, she snatched up the rock with both hands and ran for the large boulder at the guard’s back. But the icy ground beneath her fine leather boots proved perilous. One moment she was darting for the boulder, the next she was flat in the snow. Her hip and elbow took the brunt of the fall. She bit back a squeal of pain, but feared the thump of her fall had alerted the guard. She held her breath and listened.
Muirne and the guard were talking.
“And what do they call you?” she asked him.
“Graeme.”
“Is there a lass waiting on your return, Graeme?”
They had not heard her fall. Isabail released her breath, slowly and carefully. Then she scrambled to her feet and rounded the boulder, slipping up behind Graeme. Apparently, Muirne’s conversation had him thoroughly engrossed. Only when she was within striking distance did he pivot to face her. But by then it was too late. The rock was already on its descent. She slammed it against his skull, and he went down fast and hard, collapsing against her and sliding to the ground at her boots. A trickle of blood oozed from beneath his hair, and Isabail felt a bitter pang.
“Did I kill him?” she whispered.
Muirne bent over him. “Nay. He’s still breathing.”
Relief made her dizzy. “Thank the Lord. We must hurry now. Who knows when the others will awake.”
Muirne looked back at the fire. “Can we take the blankets? And perhaps some of the food?”
Isabail’s gaze locked on the large sleeping shape of MacCurran. Falling snow had accumulated in the folds of his blanket, farthest from the fire. “We dare not. If either of the other two awakens, we are doomed.”
“But it might be days before the earl’s men find us.”
“My brother kept the bothy well stocked. There’s bound to be some food there. We must move swiftly.” She wrapped her cloak and fur tightly about her body. She was already missing the heat of the fire.
They set off for the standing stone once more, and when they reached it, turned sharply south. If memory served her correctly, the bothy was at the base of this hill, tucked into the woods. There was a small circle of stones about a hundred paces from the front door, and this taller, solitary stone pointed directly toward it. All they had to do was stay straight and true.
They marched forward, Muirne following Isabail’s lead. The older woman struggled over the rocky terrain and stumbled several times. As they traversed the hill, Isabail looked back at the standing stone several times to keep her bearing, but darkness and a thickening veil of snow soon blocked the stone from sight.
In some ways, the snow was a godsend.
Any evidence of their passage was obliterated by a sea of white. If Graeme roused or one of the other men awoke, they would not know in which direction the women had set off. They would surely assume they would head back the way they’d come—east, not south. But the snow was also a serious hindrance. It was thick and wet, and it accumulated with surprising speed, making walking much more difficult.
“Ah!”
Isabail spun around.
Muirne lay sprawled on the ground, pain etched on her face. “My foot. I’ve twisted my foot.”
Isabail waded back to her maid’s side. “It’s not much farther. I’m certain of it. Can you stand?”
“I don’t know.”
“Let’s give it a go.” Determined to get to the bothy and out of the blowing snow, Isabail offered Muirne her arm. “Up we get.”
The older woman clutched her arm and pushed to one foot. Then she gingerly tested her injured limb, wincing the instant she placed weight on it. “Nay, my lady. I cannot walk. You’ll have to get on without me.”
“Don’t be daft. I’ll not leave you here.” Isabail studied the snow-blurred tree line at the bottom of the hill. Where was the circle of stones? Should she not be able to see them by now? The snow was thick and drifting, but it hardly seemed possible that they would be completely buried. Yet there was no sign of them.
Without a guidepost, the wisest option was to head straight for the trees. At least there they would enjoy some protection from the wind.
“One step at a time,” she encouraged Muirne as they set off.
Between the snow, the uneven rocks beneath, and the shivers beginning to rack the older woman’s body, they made very slow progress. The weather was unforgiving. Few people dared to cross the Red Mountains in the winter, and Isabail got a bleak taste of why. Although the sky began to lighten with the impending day, the winds picked up and the snow changed from soft flakes to hard pellets. It stung their faces and snatched their breaths away. Unable to bury her hands in her cloak because of her hold on Muirne, Isabail’s fingers first reddened and then turned white. She could no longer feel her fingers or her toes.
Yet she fared better than Muirne.
Her maid’s cloak was woven of much thinner wool than Isabail’s, and she had no fur bundled about her shoulders. By the time they made it to the tree line, Muirne’s lips were blue and her usually rosy cheeks were pale as parchment.
“I cannot go on,” she murmured, sinking to her knees in the snow.
Isabail prodded the other woman. “You must. If you stop here, you will surely die.” She glanced around, hoping to spot the stone circle, but saw only a glaring sea of white. Had she wandered from the path to the bothy? “It’s only a few more feet,” she lied.
Muirne shook her head. “I cannot do it.”
Exhausted and thoroughly disheartened by the way the fates had played with her attempt to escape, Isabail flopped into the snow next to her maid and huddled against the wind. “Seem
s rather unfair, doesn’t it? To escape one death only to meet another?”
Tears sprang to Muirne’s eyes. “I’ll never see my Fearghus again.”
A pang rippled through Isabail’s chest. Muirne’s bitterest regret at this dire moment was failing to see her beloved husband one last time. Isabail had no similar yearning to latch onto. Her brother was dead; her parents, too. And she’d outlived her husband, who’d died of a festered wound only a year after they’d been wed.
Aye, she lived with her cousin Archibald, but they were not close. He would pay for her ransom, but more out of duty than fondness. He’d allowed her to remain at Lochurkie when he assumed the earldom in November, and they sat next to each other at the high table for meals, but she could not have named his favorite food, nor he hers.
Strangely, though, Isabail had never thought her life lacking until this very moment.
She pushed to her feet again and held out her hand. “Come on, then. Another hundred paces for Fearghus.”
Muirne shook her head. “I’m too cold.”
“Is that how you intend to meet him in the afterlife? By telling him you could not return to him because you were too cold?” Isabail grabbed her maid’s hand and tugged hard. “Actions speak louder than words, Muirne. If you truly love him, you will strive until the your last breath to be with him. To your feet now.”
The other woman rocked to her feet, her face a reflection of utter misery. “Every part of me is numb.”
Isabail was exhausted and cold as well, but she suspected her fur shoulder wrap offered protection the other woman’s woolen brat did not. The fur was her just due as a noblewoman, but the stark hopelessness on Muirne’s face called for uncommon action. A practical act, not one based on right. All that mattered was encouraging Muirne to move again.
Isabail unpinned the beaver fur, wrapped it around her maid’s shoulders, and fastened it at her throat. “The bothy is just ahead,” she lied again. “You can make it.”
The other woman’s face eased noticeably as the heat from Isabail’s fur seeped through her clothes. “Another hundred paces.”
“Aye.”
They set off again, hobbling through the drifts. The wind tore at Isabail’s cloak, sapping what little warmth she had left. She supported Muirne’s weight, and they made slow and steady progress, right up to the moment they ran into a snow-plastered standing stone. Wet snow had encased the stone’s gray facade completely, making it impossible to see against the background of white drifts.
Isabail’s heart thumped with excited fervor. They were indeed close to the bothy. A little to the left and through the trees and they would be there. Her legs strengthened. “I can see the door, Muirne. Don’t falter now.”
They pressed on.
It look longer than Isabail could’ve imagined to bridge the gap, but they eventually arrived at the door. Isabail unlatched it, and they fell inside. The bothy was a primitive one-room abode with a dirt floor and no bed, but Isabail viewed the open chamber with a huge grin. Against all the odds, they had made it.
But the struggle had sapped Muirne’s last reserves. She collapsed just inside the door, sinking to the floor without uttering another word.
Isabail shut the door against the blowing snow and checked to make sure Muirne still breathed. To her relief, the woman was alive, just bone weary. Brushing the snow from her clothes, she tried to make her maid as comfortable as possible. Then she took stock of their surroundings.
A table, two chairs, and a fieldstone hearth. Some blankets and an iron kettle, but no food and no kindling. When her brother had been earl, the bothy had been well provisioned because he had enjoyed the hunt and had spent every spare moment in the saddle. Archibald took more interest in political affairs and spent much of his time in Edinburgh. A fact Isabail regretted at that moment.
No fire, no food, no water. The sorry truth was, although they had succeeded in reaching their goal, they were as likely to die here as they were in the snow. Only more slowly.
Isabail gathered the blankets and a small pile of rabbit pelts. She covered Muirne with most of them, but kept two for herself. Unfortunately, the snow had left her clothing damp, and the chill in her flesh remained in spite of the extra layers. In desperate hope that she would find some forgotten tidbit, Isabail searched every corner of the bothy, every box and every tin.
Nothing. Not even a crumb.
She sat on a chair and glared at the empty hearth. A cruel twist of fate to be so tantalizingly close to safety. A few logs and a piece of flint would have worked a miracle.
Muirne murmured something unintelligible, shifting beneath the blankets. Some color had returned to the older woman’s cheeks, but the tip of her nose remained bone white. Isabail was familiar with basic healing remedies, such as willow bark tea for pain and mint for nausea, but her skills did not extend to treating severe cold. She had a sense she ought to do something more for her maid. But what? A sense of helplessness tugged at her shoulders. Not a common feeling for a woman who typically had three dozen gillies at her service.
She was chewing her bottom lip, contemplating her very limited options, when the door to the bothy burst open. A very large, snow-covered figure stepped across the threshold, nearly filling the room with his broad shoulders. He shoved back his hood and stared silently at Isabail.
She swallowed.
Dear God. It was MacCurran. And judging by the dark glitter in his eyes, cold and hunger were the least of her problems.
Chapter 2
Aiden stared at Isabail Grant, torn between berating her and hugging her with joy. She was alive and seemingly in good health. But, damn it, the story could so easily have had a bitter ending. He glanced down at the maid. Frostbite had gripped the woman’s fingers and nose and likely her toes.
They needed a fire.
He crossed to the hearth, pulling several peat bricks from his pouch. Breaking one of the bricks into small pieces, he crouched to light them with his flint. “Remove her boots and any wet clothing.”
When Isabail just stared at him, wide-eyed, he barked, “Now.”
She scrambled to the other woman’s side.
“Put your hands on any flesh that is white. Do not rub; just hold her.”
The peat came to fiery life with gratifying ease, and he layered on more bricks, taking care not to smother the flames. Then he snatched the rabbit furs from the pile atop the maid and shaped them into a thick pallet before the fire. When he was satisfied the bed would triumph over the cold of the dirt floor, he crossed the room to the unconscious woman.
He scooped her up, blankets and all, and carried her to the fire. The color had returned to her nose, a good sign. When she was settled, he turned back to Isabail.
“You next.”
She blinked. “If you think I’m going to disrobe in front of you, you are—”
He grabbed her and forced her onto a chair. “Boots first.”
“My feet are fine.”
The leather was soaked, which suggested her stockings were also wet. “I’ll be the judge of that.” He untied her boots and tugged them off. Her stockings quickly followed. The tops of her feet glowed a healthy pink, but the soles were a bloodless white. Unceremoniously, he opened the lacings on his lèine, took a foot in each hand, and planted her soles on his chest.
Her cheeks flushed a furious shade of red, but she said nothing.
He studied her face. A collection of delicate features, very feminine—except for her eyebrows, which were strong arcs above her smoky blue eyes. A contradiction not unlike the lady herself. Who would have guessed she’d make a bold bid for escape? With a rock, no less. “You’re a fool.”
“Because I dared to escape?”
“Because you very near killed your maid.”
Her gaze dropped. “Were it not for the winter storm, we would have traveled much swifter. I cann
ot be blamed for the snow.”
“Had you looked at the clouds, you’d have known.”
Her eyes lifted. “You knew it would snow?”
He said nothing, believing the answer obvious. Why else would we have built the camp in such an open area? He checked the soles of her feet. Still pale, but no longer colorless. “Warm your maid’s feet while I fetch some wood from the log pile.”
“How do you know there’s wood? The food stores are empty.”
“I’ve passed this bothy many a time in the summer.”
She frowned. “If you knew it was here, why did you make camp in the hills?”
He tossed her a cold, pointed stare. “I do not willingly take solace from my enemies.”
Aiden yanked his brat over his head and braved the blizzard once more. Isabail Grant was his enemy. He had to remember that. John Grant had robbed him of all he held dear—his reputation, his home, and his kin. The justiciar could have chosen to believe Aiden’s version of the events—in fact, for a brief time Aiden thought he had won the man over—but he had not. The earl had ruled against him. And he hadn’t stopped there. In the days that followed, he’d brutally tortured Aiden and outlawed all who carried the MacCurran name. Every hardship his people currently endured could be laid at feet of the Grants. Seeing Isabail as a gentlewoman in need of protection was a mistake.
She could restore his life, or she could destroy it.
And it was up to him to decide which it would be. Isabail possessed information that could redeem him in the eyes of the king and return his clan to their rightful prominence. She knew the identity of the man in black—the man who was behind all of the misfortunes that had befallen him.
Gaining that information was all that mattered.
Aiden trudged around the bothy to the woodpile, which was buried under several thick inches of snow and ice. He swept aside the layer of snow; then, with a clenched fist, he hammered the ice. With one mighty blow, the ice cracked and fell away. The smaller pieces of kindling were at the top, the larger split logs at the bottom. Aiden scooped up some of both, then returned to the bothy.
