by Aileen Adams
“Ailsa.”
“Aye, I’m aware of the woman’s name,” he grumbled, cursing it silently. The nerve of her.
“And it did not go to her directly. It isn’t as if she hoards our offerings.”
Offerings. He snorted at this but said nothing.
She continued, “Ailsa is just as devoted to our cause as any other. More so, naturally, as she is the one leading the charge.”
“And just what makes her fit to lead?” he asked, glad she had brought it up. “How is it she knows as much as she does about English accents and being comfortable while moving about in society? To say nothing of codes and poisons?”
“Many of the girls ask themselves that very question,” she allowed.
“Then I must give them their due for having enough sense to wonder. Have ye come up with an answer, though?”
She shook her head. “I heard her husband was not a soldier, but a spy. Killed for it, he was.”
He stroked his chin. This was possible, yet would the man have shared his secrets with his wife? If it were up to Clyde, he would do no such thing. Janet had never heard of the actions he took while fighting. He’d done his best, always, to leave that where it belonged.
Though now he questioned whether that had been indeed the best course of action, for she might have been able to defend herself…
He sighed. It was all too much to be managed at once, and he had hardly slept in days. “We shall make camp here until dawn,” he decided. “And after that, we shall be on our way.”
“Where?”
“Where do ye think, lass? Have ye gone daft?” This really was too much. “Home. I told ye, if ye wish to live in my cottage, where I lived with Janet, ’tis yours for the taking. Or ye might come farther, to the MacIntosh farm. ’Tis where I have lived for some time. I wrote to ye of it, did I not?”
“Ye did.” She gazed into the fire, thinking. “I suppose that would be for the best. I dinna know what I was thinking.”
“Ye were wrapped up in something which struck ye as terribly exciting,” he allowed, softening considerably now that she was speaking sense. “If anyone knows what that feels like, ’tis myself.”
“Thank ye for coming for me,” she whispered with a faint smile. “I ought to have known I could trust ye.”
“Think nothing of it.”
“Though perhaps ye might have avoided binding my wrists so?” She winced, moving them as much as she could, which was not much at all, seeing as how he’d given her nearly no slack.
However… “Ye know I canna release ye that easily,” he murmured, mournful. “Forgive me. Perhaps once we have put another day between the convent and ourselves. For all I know, ye shall flee to the village we passed on the way here.”
“I would never!”
“Just the same…” He stretched, and a yawn nearly split his head open. He’d been on the crest of exhaustion before, and this felt eerily familiar. “We had best rest now. I would like to continue at dawn.”
She nodded, meek and chastised. He still suspected she would not so easily go along with him, that she’d undermine him at every opportunity, but this was a start. He retreated deeper into the woods to relieve himself before settling in for a few uncomfortable hours of sleep.
But even that was better than nothing.
I did what I could, he told Janet. He imagined her looking down upon him, and hoped she could understand he’d done his best. He might not have prevented Mary from making a terrible choice, but he had at least saved her from what would have come of that choice, were it not for the better judgment of a caring family.
He would do better by her now. That much he would vow with utter certainty. She would not be alone again.
“Do ye need privacy?” he asked as he approached the fire after taking care of his needs.
And he immediately told himself he ought to have known better.
For she was gone.
And so was his horse.
“Mary!” he shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth. But she was likely well on her way by then.
Back to the convent.
7
“What do you mean, she is missing?”
Ailsa had been in the act of combing through her long, thick, hopelessly snarled hair—she’d tossed and turned so, it had worked its way out of its braid—when Una had come on the run.
The lass was still breathless, one hand held to her chest. “She is not in her chambers, nor is she in the kitchen. I have asked Rhona and Jamesina to search the grounds for her, but as yet she is nowhere to be found.”
She nearly broke the comb upon slamming it down on the washstand. “What of Clyde McMannis?” she snarled, fetching her dress from its hook and pulling it over her shift.
There was little need to ask, for she knew.
He’d taken her, the devil. Pretending all the while to be impressed with the convent and the girls and the instruction she provided them.
He had never intended to stay. He had always planned to take Mary away with him. The fiend!
“What do you wish we do?” Una asked, rubbing her hands together.
Ailsa whirled on her, prepared to speak scornfully. What in the world did the girl think they ought to do? Find her, naturally, though they could not precisely wander to the nearest village and describe what they were all about behind the convent walls.
As far as she knew, in fact, none of them were aware of what went on there. And she wished to keep it that way.
Yet she knew it would be a mistake to take out her frustration—nay, her thirst for the man’s blood—on this trembling young woman. Una was one of the most promising in the group, fearless and extremely nimble. To see her so terribly frightened softened Ailsa’s heart, if only a bit.
But it was enough. “Go about your morning chores, and give the order to the others that they are to do the same. If anyone has a question or believes this is not the correct way to handle the situation, they are more than welcome to take their concerns up with me.”
She knew they would not. Una all but fled from the room, leaving Ailsa alone. She thought it said quite a lot for her self-control that she did not slam the door.
Instead, she chose to press her face to her pillow and scream until her voice broke. How dare he? Typical man, believing he knew best. Believing he had the right to take a young woman from her bed. She assumed this was how he’d gone about his evil deed. Simply because he’d once been married to her sister.
As if that gave him the right!
No one could tell her Mary did not wish to be part of their group. If anything, she had been the most devoted, the most dedicated. Working from dawn until well past dusk. Studying accents, learning family lineages. She had even seemed to take enjoyment from deciphering the most difficult codes.
The girl was happy. She felt as though she had purpose.
And he had taken it away.
The nerve of him!
Once she had screamed herself hoarse, she finished combing her hair and braided it while hurrying down the corridor and out to the courtyard. She’d heard the echoing voices of so many confused women the moment she opened her chamber door and knew they needed a bit of direction if they were to go about their work that day. Or at any time in the near future.
There were perhaps a dozen of them out there, with more joining them by the time Ailsa descended the last flight of stairs on swift feet. The very sight of her silenced them, and a few at least had the good grace to appear embarrassed at their gossip.
She made a point of ignoring them and their guilty expressions. Were she their age and so deeply devoted to one she considered a sister, she might have behaved in a similar fashion.
“I suppose by now you know,” she said, taking the time to look upon each of them in turn. “Whether Mary decided to leave of her own accord or whether she was forced, it is none of our concern.”
A murmur of confusion rose up as more than a dozen scowls greeted her at this announcement.
�
��None of you wishes to bring her back more than I,” she continued, raising her voice slightly to signal silence from them. They were not foolish enough to disobey once she’d raised her voice, and she knew it. “However, short of announcing her disappearance, I am afraid there is little we can do. I would not risk any of you for anything in the world. Nor would I risk the secrecy we’ve maintained behind these walls. No one outside is to know we are here, which is why we cannot search for her. It simply cannot be done. What would be best now is to go on with our work, our instruction. We can always find another person to instruct you in close combat. I have no concerns. You will do well without him.”
All the while, her insides nearly boiled. How dare he?
She dismissed the girls, waving them off, biting the side of her tongue to hold back her rage. How Thomas would have laughed to see her contain herself this way, knowing all the while how she longed to do nothing more than tear the convent down, stone by stone.
After murdering that traitorous wretch. He was the lowest of the low, that one. Lying straight to her, all the while planning to take Mary away. Little wonder he had been so interested in her progress, in how important she was to the entire group.
That was what he could not understand, what no one aside from the girls and herself could possibly know. Each and every one of them was important. They were all part of a larger whole, and every one of them had their duties, their strengths.
This sudden change not only affected the day-to-day life of the convent but the spirits of the girls. She feared it would be days, perhaps longer, before they returned to normal.
Damn his lying soul to Hades for having behaved this way.
She turned around, intending to go to the kitchen and ask if anyone need be assigned there to make up for Mary’s loss, when the distinct sound of hooves outside the gate roused her attention. She lifted her skirts and ran toward the sound, cutting across the courtyard.
She was dirty. Her hands were bound before her, clasping the pommel of the saddle.
But she had returned.
“Mary,” Ailsa breathed, on the verge of tears. Not until that very moment had she understood how much she’d come to care for the girl.
She opened the gate to allow the horse inside, then helped the exhausted girl from the saddle and quickly unwrapped her wrists.
Mary winced, crying out once the blood began to flow through her hands again. “Come,” Ailsa bade, an arm around her waist. “We must feed you and—”
“Wait.” Mary planted her feet. “Might we speak somewhere privately first? I can imagine the others know I went missing.”
“They do.”
“I would like to speak of it with ye before seeing them. I hope ye do not consider me too forward—”
“Not at all.” If anything, the girl showed further good sense. More sense than Ailsa could credit herself with at that moment. Rather than taking her straight to the kitchen, then, she led Mary to a small antechamber off the courtyard, where few ever ventured.
She still rolled her wrists back and forth as they entered the room, chafing them, gritting her teeth.
“Sit. Rest. You look as though you need it,” Ailsa bade, drawing a heavy wooden chair from a corner of the small space. There was no fire lit, and the chill was enough to set her teeth on edge.
Mary released a heavy sigh. “He will in all likelihood return for me,” she predicted, sounding none too pleased.
But this was nothing compared to Ailsa’s fury. “Let him try,” she whispered. “I wish he would.”
“Wait. Ye dinna ken why he did it.”
Ailsa asked herself if the girl knew she’d slid back into the brogue she had worked hard to break herself of. Too much time spent with that hulking beast who called himself a man, no doubt. Yet another reason to hold him in the lowest esteem. “Why did he, then? And be mindful of your brogue,” she added, as it was still her responsibility to instruct the girl.
Mary’s cheeks went pink, and when she spoke it was with greater care than before. “As I was saying, you do not understand.”
“I understand very well. I understand he saw fit to take you away from us.”
“For my sake.”
“How could that possibly be so?”
“He is quite protective.” She chose her words carefully, speaking slowly. “I have always been of a mind that he blames himself for my sister’s death.”
“How did she die?”
Mary’s jaw hardened. “English soldiers killed her and her children while Clyde was away with the Highland Guard.” There was a tightness in her voice.
This explained quite a lot. For one, the girl’s eagerness to be of service. Her willingness to test her skill on an unwitting gentleman, which she had done and had succeeded beautifully. Ailsa asked herself whether Clyde was aware his sister-in-law had already killed a man.
Would he have been so keen to steal her away had he understood how dangerous she already was?
Not that Mary would ever have brought him harm, she knew. The girl was still good, still kind. There was tenderness in her voice in spite of the trouble the man had put her through.
“I see.” Ailsa leaned against the cold wall, shivering but remaining in place. She sighed. “What do you believe he will do? You stole his horse.”
“I did. I believe he will return, and not for the horse,” she added with a wry smile.
“Is he that daft?”
“No. That determined.” She shook her head, her mussed blond curls swinging loose about her shoulders. “He sees it as his responsibility to look after me and took a great deal of offense to my offering my savings in service of the cause.”
“It is your money to do with as you please.”
Only now did she appear uncomfortable. “Money which he sent me over the years. He has been providing for me. My parents died three years ago, you see. When he learned where his money went…”
Ailsa groaned. She could only imagine. “Still, once he sent it to you, it was yours.”
“I know, and so does he. But it disturbed him greatly. I take it he does not agree with what we do here. Not that he is a sympathizer,” she was quick to add, though it was unnecessary. No one who lost his wife and children to the cruelty of the English army could ever sympathize with their cause.
“He simply does not believe women have the ability to conduct themselves in this manner,” Ailsa finished for her.
“That is it, I believe. And he…cares for me. I know he does. It upsets him to imagine me placing myself in danger. I cannot curse him for it.”
“But he stole you away.”
“But I came back.” She smiled at this. “Let him know how he underestimated me. How he underestimates us.”
This did bring a smile to Ailsa’s face, as well, though her thoughts were still dark. “Do you believe him foolish enough to alert anyone to our presence here?”
“Och, no,” she was quick to reply. “I know he has more sense than that.”
“He did not have sense enough to leave you be.”
“He is not perfect. But he is no fool. No, he will return, and it will be in secret. I am certain of it.”
Ailsa was not so certain. A man his size, going unnoticed? She found it difficult to imagine.
“As he will return, I think it would be best we call this a misunderstanding,” Mary suggested, standing. “Forgive me if I speak too freely, but I believe we can both imagine what the others would do to him if they understood him to be the enemy. He is not, I promise you. He made a mistake. By all means, make certain he knows what he did, but they do not need to know, do they?”
Ailsa wanted nothing more even then, after hearing Mary’s plea, to let her girls tear him to bits. Let him see what women were capable of.
But the girl was so anxious, and it was clear she cared for him. That had to mean something. He could not be terrible if he inspired such strength of emotion.
“Very well, then,” she allowed. “You may tell the girls I ordered
them to overlook this incident if and when he should return.”
“Thank you,” Mary sighed, relieved.
“By the by, how did you escape?” She simply had to know.
Mary’s smile flashed bright even in a dark room. “It was quite easy. I recalled your instruction, never allow a man to know what you are thinking. It worked beautifully well.”
8
“Ye are a fool, man. Ye know that, do ye not?”
Clyde cursed himself as he trudged through the woods, where snow still lay heavy in places where the sun had not yet touched. It was quite a bit colder among the pine and spruce, leaving him clutching the sides of his fur-lined cloak and drawing them tight against the chill in the air.
At least he had been wearing it when Mary ran off. She had taken everything else, as everything else was still packed away in saddle bags which he had not yet removed from the horse’s back.
How daft he’d been, leaving her on her own.
How daft he was to follow her back.
At the very least, he knew he could make the journey on foot. After all, he’d led the horse the entire way from the convent. But his boots were in poor condition, poorer all the time thanks to mud and snow and stones which wore away at the leather. His feet had certainly been in better condition. Had he known he would be without a horse he might have seen to a new pair while passing through Inverness.
Besides, he had taken a more direct path from convent to woods, walking in the dead of night, knowing there would be less chance of curious passersby asking themselves from where he came. There had been no need to avoid notice.
Now he would surely earn the attention of countless villagers if he ventured too close to the small settlement. A man of his size, limping after hours spent on his feet, would certainly draw attention.
If he’d possessed a shred of sense, he would have gone in the other direction and simply walked home. It would have taken days, but he’d been through worse.
He had taken leave of his senses, no doubt, but he’d also made a promise to Janet. And thus he’d set about returning to the convent.
