The Highlander's Secret Vow

by Eliza Knight

  Now, her mother was in the dungeon. The men had handled her just as roughly as could be expected, and Cora prayed she was further unharmed. She let out a little groan as she yanked open another drawer and found nothing of use.

  Thankfully, both of her brothers were away fostering with an English baron. They were much younger than she was. Twin boys. The heir and spare her parents had prayed for after she was born. It had taken years and several stillborn babes in between. If the boys had been here, there was no telling what their fate would have been. They might have ended up as her father had, or if they were lucky, they’d be in the dungeon with her mother.

  Cora stopped riffling through her father’s desk to listen. The squire near the door looked as pale as her sheets, and he trembled as much as she did. The young lad was risking his life being here when he could have escaped. Should have.

  “Please, one minute more,” she whispered.

  Fortunately for her, the men ranting and raving below stairs did not realize she was here. He was making enough noise to cover up her own movements. His men marched in clunking brutality in the great hall. She hated to think what they were doing to her family’s loyal servants. Before they’d tossed her in the dungeon, Cora had heard her mother effectively lie, in perhaps the first time she’d ever defended her daughter, by claiming Cora had been married off the year before. Every single one of the servants, bless their hearts, had corroborated the story. So, no one would be looking for her.

  There was no way to escape the castle unnoticed, not fast enough anyway. The lad was slim enough to slide through the garderobe and into the moat that surrounded their castle. With her curves, Cora would never fit. Her best bet was to hide, but even that wasn’t foolproof. Soon, her hiding place would be discovered. She just had to pray the lad could get away and find help before she was found out.

  “My lady…” The squire shifted nervously on his feet. “Hurry.”

  Cora gave up trying to find a blank piece of parchment. Instead, she tore off the bottom part of one of her father’s missives. She dipped the quill into ink, several drops falling onto the parchment, and scratched out a hasty note, crossing off words as she went, and rewriting. Oh, what did it matter what she wrote? Her plea for help was done, and hopefully, the squire risking his life for her would get it into the right hands. And hopefully the one she wrote would come, would believe her to be who she professed to be… Because she wasn’t where she’d promised to stay.

  In the meantime, she would have to figure out how to survive in the occupied castle like a ghost for the next month, because it would be at least that long before aid arrived.

  Her father had made enough enemies over the last two years that she wouldn’t be able to seek help from any of their English allies. For now, it appeared she was in very real danger of being murdered by the man who’d taken their castle. She didn’t even know who he was, or why he’d felt compelled to savagely besiege them.

  Her hands started to tremble again as she remembered how the vile man had so cruelly raised his sword against her father and then trampled him with his horse.

  “Here.” Cora rolled the parchment. “There’s no time for a seal.” And anyone who disarmed the lad of her letter would break the hardened wax anyway. “He’ll know ’tis real, for he’s the only one…” Her words trailed off, falling on ears that would not understand her meaning anyway. “Be safe. He will keep you safe.”

  The lad nodded, his eyes seeming too large for his young face. No older than the man she was sending the letter to had been when they first met.

  “Wait,” she called, when he tucked the missive up his sleeve and turned on his heel.

  She reached for one of the books on her father’s shelves, pulled it off and opened the cover that hid a small box set in the space carved out of the pages. She opened the box and handed him several coins. “For your trouble.”

  “I cannot take this, my lady. ’Tis my duty.”

  “Then for your meals on the road.”

  Reluctantly, he nodded and headed on his way. He disappeared soundlessly down the darkened corridor, and she prayed he would not be stopped. Dressed as a stable hand, he would have better ease of access getting around the bailey, though he’d have to keep his head down if he didn’t want to be noticed. Hopefully, with the stench of having gone through the garderobe clinging to him, no one would want to delay him.

  Cora dumped out the rest of the coins from the box and put them in her boot, unsure of when she might need them in the future. Again, she wondered how she would survive for a month in the castle without their besieger knowing. She supposed she could dress as a servant, but that would only put the other servants in danger if one of them let slip who she was or accidently called her my lady.

  She lifted the small burlap sack the squire had brought her—another example of how he and the servants had risked their lives for her. The sack contained enough food to last her several days if she rationed it right, and there was also a jug of wine beside it. Cora held the prized items close and released the lever on the side of one of the wooden bookshelves. She pushed aside the heavy piece just enough to squeeze into the tiny nook behind. Her grandfather had created the small room years before she was born so he could spy on his men and allies while they waited for him.

  How grateful she was to her paranoid grandfather for the secret nook that now acted as her hiding place. She winced at the creaking of the false wall as she clicked the shelves back into place and sank to the ground on the pile of blankets she’d managed to smuggle inside. The sack of food and jug of wine she set beside her, but she wasn’t hungry, even though she’d yet to eat that day.

  Her stomach was tied up in too many knots, and the very idea of eating or drinking made her want to wretch.

  The chances of her surviving this ordeal were very slim, but her mother’s chances were even slimmer. That was enough to bring tears and an uncontrollable trembling to Cora. Her entire body shook with such violence, she feared she’d make the mortar floor beneath her crumble. Her mother had never been her confidant, nor her biggest champion. But as it was, she was the only parent Cora had left, and she loved her despite their tenuous relationship. And now her mother wallowed in the bowels of their castle’s dungeon. She’d put her life in danger in order to save her daughter, showing that beneath the usual bluster, she had a heart.

  Cora squeezed her eyes shut, but that did little to swipe the terrible images from her mind. At least her brothers would survive to carry on their family legacy.

  She tucked her knees up to her chest and rested her forehead on top.

  For their own safety, the servants of the castle did not know where she was. None of them were aware of the tiny alcove carved behind the vast book cases. The only thing she had told them, was if they saw it in their hearts, to leave her a crust of bread or two on the mantle of the hearth in her father’s study. Word would soon reach Lord Mowbray, who fostered the twins, that the castle had been seized and her father, Lord Segrave, had been murdered. He would keep her brothers safe, and possibly even raise an army, but she doubted the latter. Mowbray was more likely to wait out the besiegers. If a few of her father’s men had been able to escape, they might make their way to Mowbray to try and convince him. But from what Cora had witnessed, the two score soldiers her father possessed had fought to the death. Those who weren’t dead yet, would be soon.

  There really was no hope save for the lad with her missive.

  Cora curled up in a ball on the floor, tucking one of the blankets around her. How drastically her life had changed, and so quickly, in a few moments.

  It was probably too much to hope that the one person who’d been able to save her before when they were besieged would rescue her once more. She should leave, save herself. She knew that was what her mother would want her to do; why else shout about Cora having been married off? But Cora couldn’t. Not when her mother languished in the dank dark, rats feasting on her toes. Not when her mother had suffered in order to save
Cora.

  If nothing else, she had to at least try to save her mother, for her brothers’ sakes.

  Cora rubbed at her arms, trying to soothe away her fear, but it did no good.

  What was it she had often heard her mother say? Something about without fear, one is reckless. And when one is reckless, everyone gets hurt. She had never really understood quite what her mother meant by that, but she thought it had something to do with making a plan.

  Well, her plan was foolhardy with plenty of room for disaster. But she had enough fear that maybe, just maybe, they’d be able to walk away from this.

  Chapter 2

  The atmosphere around them changed as they inched ever closer to the border. It wasn’t simply that the Highland air had long since disappeared, or that the colorful fields of purple thistle turned to trampled, soggy weeds. There was something about the way the villages reacted when they passed. The way the earth moved beneath their horse’s hooves. The sense of danger.

  Liam hated it. He was a Highlander through and through. Every bone and fiber in his body reached behind him, longing to make the trek back over the Grampian Mountains toward Sutherland lands and Dunrobin Castle. He used that longing to fuel them all forward. The quicker they obtained Ughtred, the better.

  And perhaps their path would cross by an abbey where he’d once left something precious to him that he dearly wanted.

  Their scouts returned with news they’d either caught wind of Ughtred themselves or overheard others speak of him. It seemed Ina’s henchman-husband left quite a wake behind him. They followed the clues until they reached a small village on the opposite side of the Scottish border on English lands.

  Liam and his men changed into their trews and shirts, so that they could pass for English if they remained silent, save for Liam, who had mastered the art of an English accent from his mother and his uncle Blane.

  Liam exited the tavern where they’d stopped to ask a few subtle questions, and to buy several sacks of oats for the horses, who’d worked hard to get them to the border a day earlier than expected.

  The tavern owner offered him use of the stables for the horses, but Liam sensed there was something else going on. Either the man suspected Liam wasn’t who he said he was and was keen on turning them over to the English, or the man wanted to steal their horses. Either way, Liam didn’t trust him. And as such, he nodded to Tad to give the men the order to ride. They’d not be staying the night.

  Though Ughtred had married a Scot, he’d married one whose clan had sided with the English, a traitor to their own country. Ina might have Scottish blood running through her veins, but she was every bit a Sassenach in Liam’s mind. In fact, Ughtred was not her first English husband. She seemed to have an affinity for the limp rags.

  They rode slowly through the village square, down the road and through the rickety gate attached to an even ricketier wooden fence that would serve no purpose in keeping the enemy out, though it would give the villagers a few moments to hide or gather their weapons. Given they were so close to the border, it was unclear why the villagers hadn’t gone to more lengths to protect themselves.

  Well, it wasn’t any of his concern. Besides, the backward English were constantly making decisions he didn’t agree with or understand, and it often seemed they were tempting death.

  When the last of his men had cleared the gate, Liam ordered his horse into a trot, keen on getting them as far away from the village as he could. He couldn’t pinpoint what it was, but something didn’t feel right. Alert and half-expecting a hoard of English mercenaries armed only with pitchforks and clubs rushing through the gates after them, he caught sight of a single rider in the moonlight barreling down the road. Though it was dark, the closer he came, he could make out that the figure was on the smaller side.

  “What the devil?” Liam picked up speed, his attention no longer on the line of his men, but on the rider in front of him.

  No one rode like that unless they were running from the Devil, or they were the Devil themselves. Either way, Liam was ready to meet him head on.

  The men followed, forming a line, giving the rider nowhere else to go but through them—which would only result in him getting unhorsed, as the men held up their pikes, prepared to knock him off.

  “Halt,” Liam demanded, surprised to see the rider was no more than a dirt-covered lad. Muck smeared his skin, and the stench of him came before his body.

  Liam gagged, as did several of his men.

  The lad proved to be a reckless one and tried to rush right through their line. But Liam was faster. He grabbed hold of the lad’s collar as his horse passed and lifted him clear off his mount. Tad caught the horse’s reins, while Liam held the boy aloft beside him, the lad’s legs kicking like a marionette.

  “Did you not hear me, lad, I bade you stop.” Liam continued to use his English accent, uncertain yet what to do with the lad, and not wanting to leave any trace of his Scottish roots behind in this treacherous place.

  “Let me go!” The lad’s voice was strong, not only for his age, but for one hanging in mid-air.

  “I’d be happy to grant your request as soon as you tell me why you were riding so recklessly. You could have killed yourself and made your horse lame.”

  “I owe you no answer, sir.” The lad’s voice dripped insolence, but also fear.

  Liam couldn’t help but think he was brave for speaking up. “You’ve ballocks of iron, I’ll grant you that. But it will not help you in this situation. What is your aim, lad?”

  “I am on a mission.” He wriggled more violently now, swinging his arms in an effort to punch Liam without success.

  “Ah, so am I. Do tell, what is your mission?” Liam kept his voice jovial, as though he weren’t dangling the lad above the ground.

  The lad locked eyes with Liam for the first time, and he frowned, as though trying to hide his confusion. He looked like he was assessing Liam very much the same way Liam was measuring him. Smart little bugger. Again, Liam was impressed. He thought all the English were bred to be whelps. Clearly, that flaw had bypassed this one.

  “Well?” Liam encouraged. “I’ll not be letting you go. Best get on with telling me what I want to know?”

  “I’m on a mission for my mistress, and if you do not let me go, ’twill be a matter of her death.”

  “Her death?” Liam scowled.

  “She may be dead already.” The lad shuddered.

  Liam frowned. “Why? Is she very old? Ill? Where were you going?”

  The lad pressed his lips into a firm line, and when Liam shook him, he said only, “I do not have permission to give you that information.”

  “You make a good messenger. Loyal. I admire that,” Liam said.

  The lad’s eyes shifted toward his horse, perhaps hoping that Liam would let him go in light of this observation. Wishful thinking. Did he take Liam for a fool? Well, he supposed if the lad believed him to be English, he might think that very same thing.

  “Have you ever heard the phrase, do not kill the messenger?” Liam asked.

  “Aye.” Frightened eyes met his.

  “Why do you think that is?” Liam flicked his gaze back toward the village, quiet and dark as when they’d arrived.

  The lad screwed up his face in confusion. “That I’ve heard it? Or that it exists?”

  Liam shrugged a shoulder. “Indulge me with answers to both.”

  The lad wiggled his legs in a faint effort to escape. “This is a waste of time, sir. I need to go! My mistress—”

  “Answer me,” Liam growled.

  “If she dies, ’twill be on your head.”

  Liam bared his teeth, and the lad yelped.

  “I’ve heard it said because everyone has,” the lad said. “And it is said as a reminder to men not to kill those who would only deliver the message.”

  Liam grinned. “Aye.”

  “So, you will not kill me?” Relief flooded the lad’s features.

  “Nay, of course not. But I won’t let you go,
either, until you tell me your message.”

  He tensed up again, all the fear and uncertainty drained from his young face and was replaced by anger. “I’ve told you already, you’re simply not listening. It is just that. The lady’s death is upon her, and she seeks…someone.”

  The lad was speaking in riddles. “Who is the lady, and who does she seek?”

  “I cannot tell you.” The lad fidgeted with his sleeve.

  Liam barely made out the shape of a rolled scroll beneath the fabric. “Give it to me.”

  “What?” the lad sputtered, realizing too late his mistake and what he’d revealed.

  Before he could argue more, Liam wrapped a large arm around the lad’s body and used his other hand to pull out the parchment, all the while the lad spewed such insults Liam was certain he must have learned the words from a gang of outlaws.

  He tossed the lad to Tad, who held him in a tight bear hug, while Liam unrolled the parchment that bore no wax. Had the writer been in a hurry? Ink smudged the parchment that had been torn raggedly from its original piece.

  Dear Savior

  Dear Sir

  Dear

  Dear Liam,

  Not a day has gone by in all these years that I have not thought of you, nor forgotten how very much I owe you, including my life. But alas, the time has come where I must beg of your help once more. I am besieged. My father is dead. My mother imprisoned. Come soon, for I fear my death.

  ~C

  The blood left Liam’s face, and he wavered slightly on his horse. The mount shifted, making up for the swaying of its rider. The name—Liam—was it a coincidence? The contents of the letter contained truths of his past, and the initial at the end suggested this could be a letter from the lass he’d saved nearly half his life ago. But the odds of the parchment being for him were daunting. His Cora was safely tucked away at an abbey… or so he thought.