by Elisa Braden
She nodded, swallowing her deflation. “Very reassuring. Thank you.”
He tugged his cap as she made her way to the stairs. She was halfway up the first flight when another idea sent sparks down her spine. What if Sir Wallace had the animal trapped in a sort of uphill-downhill scenario? What if it first seemed that he would be defeated but then gained the superior position on higher ground?
But that would require a very particular landscape. She frowned, her fingers strumming the back of her notebook. Dashing upstairs to her bedchamber, she quickly retrieved her larger sketchbook and tucked a few pages of notes inside. Then, she dressed in walking boots and the tartan wrap Annie had given her as a visitation gift. The blue-and-green wool paired beautifully with her midnight-blue walking gown. She draped it around her shoulders and pinned it with a small brooch she’d purchased in Inverness. The jeweled piece was a pair of knots, one silver and one copper, intertwined and centered with a polished garnet. She stroked the gem with her fingertip and admired the folds of the woolen fabric in her dressing table mirror.
Several years ago, while miserably trudging her way through her first London season, she’d read the Waverley novels and become enchanted with everything about this place. Bits of tartan ribbon and the odd reading from Shakespeare’s Scottish play had satisfied her fascination for a time.
But nothing matched this—being here, wearing actual tartan. Hearing the splash of a fish in the loch below and the breeze rustling yellow-leaved birches outside her open window. The same breeze played with her hair, tossing brown curls around her cheeks. She grinned at her reflection and donned a sensible straw bonnet before gathering up her pencil and sketchbook.
Today, she would find a landscape wherein a legendary man could gain an advantage over the last wolf in Scotland. Where he could dispatch a frightful predator with a “wee” blade and then make a mantle of the animal’s pelt. Sir Wallace was a Highlander. A man to be admired and feared. A man whose legendaryness must bring audiences to their feet.
Or, at least, cause them to purchase her novel in some numbers. If she wished to live independently, she must sell well.
She hurried downstairs and outside, where sunshine turned the loch into liquid gold. Air as crisp as apples tickled her nose. Beneath lay the tang of pine, the burn of woodsmoke, and the loam of damp earth.
She grinned and filled her lungs, her step light as she hugged her sketchbook to her chest.
Ah, such majesty. The mountains, the water. Steep, green forests and deep-carved glens. She’d taken many rides and rambles here over the past weeks. She’d explored the waterfall and river north of the castle. The gentler fields and pastures to the southwest. The road that ran along the loch toward Angus MacPherson’s land and, eventually, into the village.
She’d even climbed to the top of one of the smaller hills, where one could see the two neighboring glens, Glenscannadoo and Glendasheen, merge like reflections in a mirror. That hill lay to the east, and she now headed in that direction.
An hour passed before she reached the spot she’d been seeking, a hilltop bare of trees and covered in yellowing grasses, strewn with large rocks, and sloped just enough for comfortable sitting.
She plopped down and began sketching the two glens with their two lochs. Her pencil flew across the paper as she studied the landscape, hoping to spy the perfect site for Sir Wallace to meet his wolf. Should it be the crease before the curve above Loch Carrich? The slope on the way to the quarry? Or something closer?
She glanced west, raising a hand to block the sun. Without thinking, she began to hum. Then sing.
“Oh, there once was a man named Sir Wallace, who needed high ground as a solace, for his battle with the last wolf in Scotland, who would die by a wee knife in his hand, if only the author were slightly more clever. Or cleverer. Is it cleverer? Who can say? That’s where cleverness serves one better. Will ever Sir Wallace have his triumphant day?”
Like most of her songs, it was extemporaneous, silly, and sung in an indecisive mezzo-soprano. But it kept her company while she sketched, so she continued on, “Dear Sir Wallace. Will you be my legendary hero? Will you sell a thousand books or zero? Or must I marry some tedious fop, and become a drudge who’s dull as a mop? Who says, ‘Pass the peas, if you please, dear husband, for mashed is how little Thomas prefers them. He is teething, you know, and woe, woe, woooe to my aching bosoms.’”
The tuneless nonsense continued until she noticed her paper turning gray. Then dark. A droplet splashed on its surface. She squinted up.
“Well, that moved in swiftly,” she murmured.
Towering black clouds split the sky into dark and bright. A distant rumble heralded a storm. She scrambled to her feet and closed her sketchbook, but some of her loose notes caught and flew on a sharp, sudden gust.
“Drat,” she muttered, chasing the pages as they drifted uphill then fluttered north toward the thick woods as though headed for a lovely jaunt through the countryside. One page landed in the grass.
Stretching out her arm, she raced to catch it. The notes were from her interview of Angus MacPherson, who’d gruffly explained the differences between raising cattle and sheep upon Highland lands. She must have them for Chapter Eleven, when Sir Wallace rescued Fiona from a fateful encounter with a herd of Farquharson-McPhee cattle. Her fingers brushed the corner of the page before the paper took wing again.
“Blast and dash it all. Dratted wind.”
The second page flattened on the trunk of a tree. Changing direction, she raced to retrieve it first. “There! I have you.” She shoved the paper inside her sketchbook and resumed her chase of the first page. Another blast shoved her hard, and she stumbled forward into the deeper shadows of the wood. Rain began to patter then beat upon her bonnet. She glanced around, noting the thick layer of pine needles and the diminishing light.
“Where did it go?” She spun in a circle. Twice more. Wandered in the direction of the wind. Finally, she spotted the paper near a thicket of ferns and brambles. By the time she retrieved it, she had two gouges on her wrist and a sore toe from an unseen rock.
“Damn and blast and curse every thorn in Scotland.”
Tucking her sketchbook beneath her arm, she peeled back the edge of her glove to get a better look at her injuries. The air had gone rather purplish. She wandered toward a small clearing to her left where the light was better. Just past a coach-sized boulder and a gnarled tree that resembled an owl, she paused and looked again. Twin scratches welled red on her inner wrist. They’d already stained her sleeve. Huffing out a breath, she glanced up. The sky was nothing but low, ominous clouds. No sign of the sun, and night was falling swiftly.
Drat. How long had she been sketching? She frowned and looked behind her. Boulder and owl tree. She looked ahead. A slope angled down into a mix of trees, ferns, and rocks. A pair of pines on a small rise waved madly amidst the gusts now swirling and threatening to remove her bonnet. She walked toward them, trying to reorient herself.
Where the devil was she? It appeared to be a small valley in the upper foothills east of the glen. But she’d turned herself around so much, she couldn’t tell one direction from the next. Frowning, she braced a hand on a rough pine trunk and struggled to see past the thick woodlands.
It was dark. Nothing looked familiar. And rain was beginning to pour from her bonnet’s brim. She must try to find the way back to her hilltop. From there, she knew the way back to the castle. She started forward with a firmer chin and a great deal of self-reassurance. This would not be difficult. The hilltop must be past the clearing. Just beyond the wood.
It was not.
For the next hour, Kate searched for something—anything—to put her back on the path to the castle. She climbed to gain a better vantage point. But darkness kept her from making out anything but trees and more hills. She slipped and carefully picked her way downhill, thinking surely down would put her at the bottom of the glen eventually. But down always seemed to end w
ith another up.
She had well and truly lost her way. When full dark descended and rain soaked her to the skin, panic rose up to grip her throat.
“K-Katherine Ann Huxley,” she admonished. “Stop being a ninny.” A pine bough slicked past her nape, cold and dripping. “John will surely have sent out a MacDonnell or two in search of you. Highlanders are superb at such things. Obviously. All you must do is locate a path, which will take you to a house. Or a road, which will take you to a village.” She skirted around a large rock and stumbled on a root. “Ooph. Or a brook. That’s brilliant. Water runs downhill; so shall you. A brook runs into a river and a river into a loch. There are two of them that cannot possibly be far. All you must do is keep going down until you find one. Simple, really.” Her teeth began to chatter, and she hugged her damp shawl tighter around her shoulders. “Provided you don’t freeze to death.”
On her very next step, her foot slipped. Her legs flew from beneath her. With bruising force, she landed on her right hip and slid several yards down a muddy slope before her clawing hand grasped a clump of grass and yanked her to a stop.
The pressure in her chest built. The ache in her throat tightened. Pain radiated from her hip and buttock, and tears filled her eyes.
“Katherine Ann Huxley,” she choked. “You will not weep like some mewling milksop. Stop it this instant.”
She gritted her chattering teeth. She firmed her aching muscles. She braced her sore hand on the ground and shoved to her feet, clutching her damp sketchbook harder.
Her surroundings were nothing but dark blobs of blue, gray, and green. Occasionally, a distant boom of thunder would precede a faint flash of light, but such flashes were coming less frequently. Squinting into the misty black, she tried to determine what lay ahead. More trees, she thought. They were downhill. She must go downhill. Like water, she would simply follow gravity. At least it was a direction.
She didn’t know how long she’d been walking when she heard the odd, rumbling growl. It might have been minutes or an hour. All she knew was that her skin was cold enough to chill one of her favorite chocolate ices, and her muscles ached and shook and threatened to give up. When the sound reached her through softening rain, she froze.
Her heart battered its cage in a frantic revolt. So loudly did it pound—wah-whump, wah-whump, wah-whump—that she scarcely heard anything else.
Except this. The growl was deep as caverns, rough as gravel. It resonated past pinewoods and undergrowth and her wah-whumping heart. It sent a warning flash of ice across her skin.
“Th-there are no wolves in Scotland,” she whispered. “No wolves in Scotland. No wolves in Scotland.”
Her breathing shallowed to a pant as she listened closely.
There. A grunt. More of the rough, jagged rumble. An odd, wet crunch. A rolling thud.
She blinked. There it was again. The rumbling. Was that … a voice?
“… thought … escape, did ye?”
It was. It was a voice. A man’s voice.
Oh, thank heaven. This wasn’t a wolf. It was a man. And, unless he was a bit eccentric like Kate, he probably spoke to someone else. Another man, perhaps, or a dog or horse. Yes, that must be it.
Perfectly normal. A man was out here in the dark woods at night admonishing his dog for running off. Or fetching a horse who’d wandered away. Or arguing with his chum about who played a superior hand of whist.
Releasing a relieved breath, she chuckled at herself. Ninny, indeed. She wound her way toward the sounds, taking care to avoid acquiring any more bramble injuries. As it was, she’d look a fright when she asked the gentleman with the rumbling, distorted voice for directions back to the castle. He might even refuse to help her until she informed him of who her brother was.
“… bluidy swine.”
Kate slowed. That had been a snarl. Were they arguing about livestock? She knew the sheep-cow debate was a sore one here in the Highlands.
A dull crack. “Get up. We’re nae done.”
Her eyes widened as she glimpsed a faint light. A lantern, perhaps, but a dim one. It flickered low through the wiry branches and steady rain. She searched the small clearing, a twelve-foot pocket of space between thick trees. When she saw a figure at the edge, beyond the lantern’s light, she blinked.
Couldn’t be real. Not possible.
Her breath whooshed out, ending in a wheeze. Lungs flattened. She couldn’t blink. Couldn’t breathe.
Not. Possible. He was … too big. Seven feet tall, at least. Enormous. Nothing but a hulking black shadow with faint light flickering along muscles that more rightly belonged on a Thoroughbred. No, he was human. Wasn’t he? Something was … wrong with his face.
Her chest hurt. Oh, God. What the devil was he?
Lightning flashed white overhead, illuminated his jaw. It was a tangle of jagged lines. And where his eye should be was … nothing. Sunken skin and raised, puckered scars. Where his mouth should end, it didn’t. Instead, a gruesome scowl had been carved downward, contorting his face into a permanent sneer.
But his monstrous appearance and unearthly size weren’t what frightened her most. No, what terrified her was what he held aloft.
A man. At least, she thought the limp, light-haired, bloody-faced figure was a man. His throat was currently being crushed inside the bearish paw of the monster who dangled him two feet off the ground.
Good God, the strength that required. The menacing, furious, brutal strength of a seven-foot monster. Blood poured from the dangling man’s broken nose. It shone red upon the man’s exposed teeth. Exposed because he was … grinning?
The monster reeled back with his fist and drove it into the man’s eye. Then, he dropped the man in a heap upon the ground and released a wordless roar. He kicked the man’s ribs.
The man used the momentum to roll away, but the monster followed. Kicked him again.
“Get up, ye craven bastard!” He stomped the man’s hand with a sickening crunch, and the man groaned. Another kick. “Get up!”
The rage inside the monster’s graveled roars coiled around her heart and squeezed. Harder and harder and harder it squeezed until she gasped for relief. Mewling sounds escaped, and she tried to cover them.
The monster was leaning down, now, beating the man on the ground with furious blows. The light-haired man wheezed and stilled.
Oh, dear God. He wasn’t moving.
The monster had killed him.
The monster had murdered someone while Kate had stood here and watched. Her stomach lurched. The cry that slipped past her fingers was as high as a child’s. Fear battered her like fists, covered her like wet wool. Kate stumbled backward, away from the clearing.
Away from him.
But not soon enough. The monster’s heaving shoulders stiffened. He straightened to his full height. Then turned.
White light flashed moon-bright, and for a moment, she was a rabbit pinned by a wolf. The monster’s intact eye flashed and narrowed. He took several long, hitching strides closer.
Closer.
Closer to where Kate cowered in the brush, waiting for a dangerous predator to come and claim her.
CHAPTER TWO
Her throat felt as crushed as if he’d closed it inside his powerful fist. She must run. Run! She screamed the word inside her head then repeated it. Run, run, run!
She spun. Time slowed and the nightmare sank its claws into her.
She ran. Up the slope she’d just descended. Across a ridge she’d failed to notice. Around a stand of white-barked birches. Across a field of grass. Through the rain that was slowly turning to mist.
She ran until her lungs burned and her feet cramped and her knees were muddy from slipping so many times.
She didn’t realize she was sobbing until she saw the owl tree. She braced her back against it and clawed her hand into the bark. Only then did she dare to look behind her.
The monster wasn’t there.
And the darkness wa
s lighter than before. She looked up. Clouds had moved off the moon.
Swiping her cheeks and gathering her breath, she searched for other familiar features. There! A knoll similar to one where she’d rested earlier. She shoved away from the tree and staggered toward it.
The rain stopped, leaving only cool damp. The moon continued to shine. It was so bright, she spotted her hilltop easily, and from there, she swiftly made her way down to the road.
Dougal MacDonnell and his brother were the first to find her. Dougal immediately wrapped her in his coat, placed her on his horse, and took her back to the castle. He questioned her gently, but she couldn’t answer.
She felt muddled and choked. Cold and far away.
By the time John came to lift her down, she was shaking apart.
Her brother kissed her temple and rushed inside the castle, shouting for Mrs. MacDonnell to bring tea and prepare a bath. John was shaking, too, she noticed, though he carried her steadily enough.
“We’ll get you warm and dry, sweetheart. Not to worry. Annie loves nothing better than taking care of her wee lambs.”
Kate rested her cheek against his strong shoulder and sighed.
“Can you tell me what happened?” He nodded to one of the maids as he carried her into her bedchamber and lowered her onto a small sofa. “Where did you wander off to?”
Kate heard the control he was exerting. Their papa was the same way—in a moment of crisis, he remained calm and steady. Only later did he permit his emotions to show.
She found his solid strength reassuring. Yet, she couldn’t force an answer to the surface. Instead, she sat very still and stared at her brother’s chin.
Annie entered and immediately set to work removing Kate’s soggy bonnet, which now dangled down her back. “Katie-lass, ye’re soaked to the bone,” she said matter-of-factly. “We must dispense with yer shawl and gown before ye catch yer death. English, I’ll summon ye when she’s done bathin’.”
