by Alisa Adams
While an order from the laird could not be denied, Finn was riding into a northern province known for its rebels and skirmishes. And with him journeyed a golden beacon that could attract the darker natures of any of them. Tomas would definitely refer to this as “excess risk.”
The only assurance that Finn had managed to secure from the steward at the Mackenzie estate was that his absence from his military group would be explained. That, in exchange for accompanying the man’s daughter to her intended, the laird would sign a missive to his commanding officer in order to explain that he had not deserted. It at least ensured that Finn would keep his head once he returned to his brothers.
As he navigated Ajax around a recess in the road, Finn raised a hand to indicate that the carriage should follow, so its wheels didn't get stuck.
With his gaze sweeping the open meadows on either side of the path, Finn's thoughts returned to his musings. They were his only form of entertainment after three hours of riding.
In truth, Finn could not honestly say that he wouldn't have accompanied the Mackenzie daughter, even if he hadn't been given the leave from his other duties. As crazy as it might be to risk explaining his absence to his superiors without proof, Finn would have struggled to have seen the girl leave at daybreak that morning without following, for she had looked so small stepping into the carriage with only her trunks and single lady’s maid for company.
As best as he could, Finn had tried not to look upon Lady Merith.
Ever since he had first met her the previous day and escorted her back to her family, he had kept his eyes away from her face. In respect for her fairer sex and higher breeding, he had taken to turning his gaze to his feet or looking distantly over her shoulder whenever he spoke with her. Not only did it seem inappropriate for him to look upon her as an equal, but her sweet beauty was difficult for him to look at for too long—like trying to stare at the sunshine at high noon. It was blinding, and only served to remind him of her worth, so far above his own.
Finn was no depressive. He wasn't suicidal in his tendencies (his choice of career aside), nor did he think himself worth nothing. But he knew the ways of the world. And he knew how the nobility was spawned from great kings and queens, how they held something grand within their blood that was missing from everyone else. He knew how they were precious and valued for more important purposes than those who served them. He could serve with dignity, honor, and self-respect even if he knew he was made from clay instead of crystal.
Meeting Merith had done nothing to dissuade this idea.
For, even when Finn wasn't looking directly at her, her features were clear in his mind as if they had been burnt there in clear detail by the rays of her inner sun. Rounded cheeks, big eyes, and pert lips gave her an almost childlike look. Yet her stare was solid, curious, and held the mind of an adult. Her hair was soft and wavy, spun from the purest white gold. Her figure was—
Finn snapped his mind back to the here and now.
It was not his place to think upon the woman he escorted in such a manner. He was, for God's sake, escorting her to her betrothed, to the man who would marry her. While she was her own individual and held value as a person, it could not be denied that Merith belonged to the laird of Mackay as much as if she were his horse or possession. Were Finn even to contemplate the fact that she was the prettiest girl he had ever met, he would be toeing the line of theft.
Regardless of his common birth or his lack of a good name, Finn was an honorable man. He was no thief.
As he spotted a crossroads up ahead, Finn reached into his tunic and withdrew a folded map of cloth. He opened it, intent on working out their needed lane before the group came upon the choices. His brow furrowed as he stared down at the words and shapes that he couldn't read and tried to work out where they were headed.
It hadn't been Finn's intention to lead the group. He had been content to sit in the back and behave like a simple sword for hire.
But Lady Merith had seen to his role becoming more significant on her journey across the Highlands.
By turning to him that morning, speaking with him as to the route, the means, and asking him to see to her belongings and her comfort within the carriage, she had identified him as the man she trusted most in her entourage, which had the other guardsmen following suit. By the time they had left the courtyard of the Mackenzie castle, Finn was at the head of the command and being given the map by one of the three livery-clad soldiers that journeyed with them.
It seemed to have crossed the mind of no one to ask whether or not he could read.
It was rare for Finn to feel shame in what he was or what he had been born to be. And, if anyone asked, he would insist that he could read. Aggie had seen to it that he knew certain words and could get himself about more or less. He knew the difference between the words public house and prison, and therefore which to avoid, and he knew which way was north. He could write his own name, and he could recognize the names of his brothers.
But he could not read a map.
Given that the roads east and west of the crossroads up ahead either swept back in the direction they had come or ended with a dot of ink and a little box that he assumed to be a building, Finn directed them easily enough down the northern road straight ahead without so much as a hesitation to their progress.
So far, he had managed to make educated guesses of their route, thankful that the Highlands were vast and the junctions and choices few. But he knew his luck would not be able to run the entire day.
Finn's fears were confirmed four hours later when the road ahead split into two. Both appeared to head in roughly the same direction, each pointed on his map towards small clusters of shapes that were likely towns. The names of the towns were written in a curling script that meant nothing to him. Yet, one of them was likely to be their first destination.
The journey to Mackay's lands would take them three solid days of road. Arrangements had been made by the laird's wife that, for the first night, Merith was to stay with a rich family beholden and friendly to the Mackenzie household. It was Finn's duty to see them safely there today and then on again towards the Mackay castle in the north on the morrow. If he got them lost now, there was a limited likelihood that they would make it to the safety of that abode before nightfall, and they would delay Merith's meeting with her intended husband.
Feeling a pressure between his shoulder blades and in the back of his head, Finn felt certain that the other guardsmen were looking his way for instruction, especially as they drew closer, and he had yet to declare the route to be taken.
Finn felt a bubble of annoyance that the other men should have so easily placed him in the position of leader and now might judge him for his lack of the required skills. He pushed the feelings aside, though. Irritation helped no one. Instead, he looked ahead towards the fork in the road.
On one side of the wide lane they traveled, the hillside rose at a steep incline. A half mile off, it was likely that such a hillock would become more mountainous, stained grey, and sporting a sprinkling of snow. The new year had been only a few weeks ago, and the dark months of winter were drawing close. But down in the vales, on the open stretches of land, the wind was still warm, and the air cool instead of chilly. On the other side of their pathway was an open field. A few feet of grassland before a wooden fence cut off strangers from the cut fields of grain. The harvest was over and done, and there was nothing in the field to protect, but the fences would remain until the following summer when they would hug and protect the rising growth of gold once more.
Glancing at the sun and the hour of the day, Finn raised a hand and directed their party to the side of the road. Ensuring that the carriage was not so close to the grass that its wheels suffered, nor that it was in the path of approaching coaches, Finn dismounted from Ajax's back and tied him to a nearby post in the wooden fence. He made sure the animal had enough slack in his reins to bend down and enjoy the lush grass before jogging around to the carriage door.
R
eaching for the frame of the open window, Finn paused and, unsure of himself, decided to knock on the wood. Was that the appropriate thing to do?
After a moment's pause that told him no, that was clearly not how servants were supposed to act when escorting ladies from a carriage, Finn resented the blush he could feel in his cheeks and stood firm and dignified when the door was opened, and Lady Merith's older serving lady peered out in confusion.
"It is past noon, ma'am," Finn told her. His eyes narrowed against the sun as he looked up into her regal and lined face. "I thought the two of you might wish to stretch your legs? Eat in the sunshine?" Words and chatter had always been Finn's natural skill, and he felt himself smile as he settled into something familiar. "We'll not have many more sunny days before the winter really sets in. It would be a shame to waste 'em, don’t you think?"
Despite the look of surprise on the old woman's face, it took only a few moments for the ladies to be out in the midday light. Finn had fetched down one of the larger chests of Merith’s belongings that was latched to the back of the carriage and set it down in the grass at the side of the road; the women had taken a makeshift seat upon it. In their laps sat bundles of food wrapped in soft linen.
Finding a place for himself on the mile marker they had parked beside, Finn hitched his butt over the top of the rock and stared down at the map he spread out across his thighs. With only the barest rations from his unit, Finn wasn't hungry enough to eat yet, but food would have been the last thing on his mind regardless. There was a tightness in his belly, a nervousness of his lack of direction that would have made eating impossible.
And yet, his shame couldn't bring him to ask the others over for help. Firstly, because he doubted if the other men he journeyed with were any more adept than he. And secondly, that left only the women, didn't it? The idea of Lady Merith thinking him an illiterate idiot tore at the little sense of pride he had always held dear somewhere deep inside of him.
Distracted by his sense of impotence, Finn almost jumped at the pretty visage that was suddenly standing beside him.
Dressed in an icy-blue gown of silk, a cloak of soft grey about her shoulders, Merith's body appeared too bulky for the delicate features that rested atop it. Her hands were small and almost lost in the folds of her clothes, and the cloak made her shoulders appear almost normal-sized, which only went to show just how slight and fragile the frame beneath truly was.
"May I see the map, Sir Finn?"
For a moment, Finn wondered if he had gone deaf, his eyes focused so severely on the shape of her lips, and how they formed her sentiments that he had lost track of the words themselves. Luckily, his ears had picked them up and held them for his brain a moment later. After a moment of staring, her question registered, and he was forced to clap his jaw shut and stammer like an idiot.
Sir...?!
"Er...o-of c-course, my lady."
Handing the sheet of woven fabric to her, Finn was struck by the difference between the two of them. His hands were large, broad across the back with long, lean fingers. His knuckles were defined, his nails short, and his skin tanned a deep brown by the sun. The hands that took the map from him were small, almost the purest of whites, and possessed sweetly tapered fingertips and nails that shone in the sunlight. They barely looked able to hold the weight of their own fingers and thumbs, let alone take anything else in hand.
And yet, they turned out to be perfectly capable, as Merith took hold of the map and looked it over. She assessed the markings, glancing up at the fork in the road they had stalled beside.
"Oh, good," she said with a smile. The brightness of it had Finn's breath catch, but he was determined this time to listen. He refused to look at her mouth. "I was hoping that we would be headed that way." Her words were accompanied by a point towards the right-hand lane. "We'll head through the woodlands, and I shall be able to smell the pines."
As she held the map back out to him, her face was perfectly innocent, and yet a suspicion lurked in the back of Finn's mind. Her eyes watched him in a manner that was too-knowing, and he suddenly thought the lady had noticed his difficulties and was helping him out without revealing his faults.
As he went to take the map, the lady let it go, and with both of them caught in the other's gaze, it fell between their fingers and tumbled to the ground.
In a hurried manner of embarrassment, Finn darted down to grab at it, but the lady did the same, and suddenly, the two of them were crouched on the floor, reaching for the cloth, their faces only an inch from one another.
They froze.
Both had been lucky enough not to collide heads, but in that moment, safety was the last thing on Finn’s mind. He was too distracted.
Soft and warm breath brushed across his lips. He watched as Lady Merith's eyes widened, and her pupils grew. Her lips parted, and her cheeks flushed. Finn felt his chest tightening and his eyes dropping to the curve of her lower lip. Her features were so sweetly lined, so lovingly crafted by the Lord's hand that he wondered if they would taste that way—sweet. Would her mouth yield the taste of sugar and honey, or would his clumsy kiss see her lips smeared and ruined? Like a pretty painting that should not be touched?
Finn knew his thoughts were inappropriate, that he shouldn’t be wondering such things. But, as Merith’s fingertips brushed his in their attempts to collect the map and her lips parted, Finn was sure he wasn’t the only one considering such things.
A sharp cough from beside the carriage had them both jumping.
Merith leaped to her feet, narrowly avoiding clocking Finn in the chin with her shoulder, and was hurrying back to Ilya. She moved swiftly and with a light dancer’s step.
The older woman placed her hands on the girl's shoulders and patted a few of her locks back into place. Her stare in his direction could only be described as scathing.
Finn swallowed.
Right. He needed to remember why he was there. She was on her way to meet her husband.
As he rose to his feet, map in hand, and commanded the men to fall back in line, Finn busied himself with the practicalities of getting them back on the road. Now that he knew which way they were to go, there would be no more delay in setting off.
It was only when he was once more upon Ajax’s back and leading the rolling, rumbling carriage down the right-hand lane that Finn was calm enough to douse himself with logic and reason.
Lady Merith was a beautiful young woman. She was kind, elegant, and perhaps smarter than most might give credit to a woman that looked as angelic as she.
And, in two weeks, she would be married.
Even if she wasn’t, the beautiful creature back in that coach box was not for him.
He was a soldier. Common as muck and as hardy as a thistle. He was born of the earth, and he would die of it. Lady Merith was a star in the sky. Beautiful and bright. And far, far out of his reach.
5
The township of Brigmorne was a little different from the hazy images in Merith's memory. She and her sisters had been sent to stay with the Braith family on numerous occasions over their growing years, most specifically because Mrs. Harriet Braith was a great socializer. To the extent that her home had been built far larger than any other in the area for the sole purpose of a grand hall that was of no practical use for the family, but was invaluable for the large gatherings, Mrs. Braith was so fond of collecting under her roof.
Merith and her sisters had visited often under the pretense of strengthening bonds of friendship. But, in truth, their mother had intended for them to meet as many eligible men as possible while in the care of the Braiths as their own father cared little for socializing. Despite such intentions, it had been several years since Merith had been this far north in her family's province.
As the carriage moved through the town, even the lowering dusk could not cloud the details with which Merith was familiar. She recognized the sign over the public house—a prancing horse with a horn on its head. She knew the colors in the signs for certain shops. Eve
n some of the displays in the dressmakers’ shops were unchanged, merely dusted over the seasons. The town carried an air of age about it but never seemed weary. It was a populace and place that was comfortable in its set ways and enjoyed the notion of growing steadily dustier, as if the layers of misuse would only see to making them cozier.
Merith had always liked Brigmorne.
Never primped and primed for social acceptance, never polished and forced to stand straight. Little plaques and memorials here and there declared it to be proud of its achievements, and that was where the ego ceased.
Brigmorne simply was.
In contrast, the household that belonged to Mr. Braith had taken every opportunity to declare its might and value. Not noble by blood, the Braiths were what Merith's father referred to as “climbers.” Those who possessed all of the money of the higher echelons of society but none of the breeding. Those of higher repute accepted them because they lavished money upon parties, gifts, and business deals. But all the while, they were presented with an invisible barrier to see that they remained on their own side of social life.
Given the monstrous wall and gateway that surrounded the Braith estate just outside of Brigmorne, Merith could easily see that the ostracisation did not stop with those above the rich merchant family but also those below. The Braiths wished to make the division between themselves and the common people just as clearly as the nobles sought to divide themselves from the Braiths.
Merith felt saddened by the very idea.
Just what was so important about how one was born? It wasn't as if Merith had ever decided to be born into a family of royal bloodline and had made some form of achievement in being so. Just what made her any more special than others of use and purpose?
As the carriage rolled in through the open gates and rounded a central fountain to the front doors of the Braiths’ large manor, Merith put such thoughts aside and tried to turn her mind to pleasanter topics.
