For one dizzying moment, Reade imagined this lovely girl with all of her sorrows behind her, come to his home in Glen Farren, where she would belong among the people he grew up with, in the pines and the mountains, where the lochs and the rivers gleamed like silver when the rare Scottish sunlight came through the clouds.
“I hope you find that, too,” he said.
To his surprise, she leaned in, the flame in her eyes the bright blue at the far edge of a sword as it was heated to bring on the sharpest edge.
“And I want you to help me.”
Reade blinked at her, and now it was his turn to laugh.
“Lass, lass, I'm sorry, but I'm not really one for... whatever it is that you're suggesting.”
“I can pay you. Well. Dev can pay you. When we get to Dun Warring.”
“Really. The man you haven't contacted, haven't spoken with since you were a child, the one who might have moved on since last you spoke to him, that is the man who is going to pay my fee?”
She sat up very straight, so proud that even his mother, bless her soul, would have been impressed.
“It is all I have. And it is your work, isn't it?”
“What?”
She pointed at his sword, where it leaned against the wall, and also at his shield, painted a flat black.
“You're a blank-shield soldier, aren't you? A mercenary.”
“What does that have to do with the price of eggs in Ayr?”
“That's your job. You are for hire. I've... that is, my master used to hire companies of blank-shield soldiers to see to it that his wares were being transported safely and securely.”
“And... you are saying that you are something that—”
“Needs to be transported safely and securely, yes. Are you currently doing a job for someone?”
Why did he feel as if the jaws of a trap were closing in around him?
“No, I'm not, but...”
“I have learned that it is only a week's journey or so to Dun Warring, and it can be faster than that if you have a guide who knows what he is doing and who knows his way around the Highlands. You are both.”
For a moment, Reade felt nothing but pure panic. He had gone undetected for months in the Lowlands, no one questioning his story about being one more blank-shield soldier washed up from Edward Longshanks's wars. What had he done that this one simple girl had found him out in less than an hour?
“How did you know?” he asked finally.
She grinned, propping her chin up on her hands. She had a heart-shaped face, with a chin that would be thought rather too sharp for beauty if anyone could see it past her gleaming blue eyes, her sweet mouth, and her rather perfect nose.
“I didn't,” she admitted. “But I know now, don't I?”
Reade only stared at her, and to his surprise, a small amount of guilt crept in to displace her smugness at discovering his expertise in the Highlands.
“I... guess that meant you fought for the North, doesn't it?” she said. “It doesn't matter to me, you know. I don't care who you fought for. Everyone needs to make money, don't they? To keep body and soul together. That's what I was doing.”
Well, it wasn't as if she was wrong. He had fought for the North, for Scotland and its independence from foreign rule, but he hadn't fought for money. Instead, he had fought for pride, and for love and for the world he knew, and it was only that love that could ever have convinced him to go south to learn about the lay of the land for his brother.
“You may have something right there,” he admitted.
She smiled a little at him, shy this time.
“I didn't tell you that to blackmail you or to bully you. Please believe that. It was only... that I thought we might have something in common. We're both people who did what we had to do, aren't we?”
“We are,” he said, and he wondered again what lay behind her in Ayr, how exactly she had made her master stop his harassment and what kind of thing she might be running from.
“Please. I want to go to Dun Warring, and you... you're for hire, aren't you?”
“Elizabeth, you must know that you sound like a teenage boy asking after his first whore.”
“Well, forgive me for not knowing anything about hiring blank-shield soldiers! We can't all come into the world perfectly experienced in everything that we need to know, can we?”
“I suppose not.”
“Exactly! And I don't see myself having to do this again, I suppose, unless you turn me down and I have to make my case to some other soldier that I find wandering around Glasgow.”
For some reason, Reade bristled at that. Surely, he was simply protective of the young servant girl who had gone so far from what she knew only searching for something better. It wasn't jealousy or rage, mere protectiveness.
“Don't do that.”
“I'll have to if you don't help me...”
“Don't do that. Blank-shield soldiers have their bad reputations for a reason, and they're as likely to turn on their masters as they are to serve them. You, they might use you for a week of fun before they sell you to a whore-monger in the worst brothel they can find.”
She blanched at his words, but there was a resolute light in her eyes.
“Then I suppose you will have to do it, then, won't you?”
When Reade started to protest, she shook her head.
“I can promise you on my honor that you will be paid. All you need to do is get me to Dun Warring. It may be hard for you to believe, but my family is honorable, and if Dev knows that there is a debt, he will pay it. And if Dev doesn't, then I will find a way. You may have my wages for the next two years if Dev won't pay, but he will. Please, Reade.”
The please nearly broke him, and there was already something in the back of his mind telling him that this was nothing but trouble. He had to go home. He had to make his report to Aidan, and by all that lay under heaven, he was sick to death of the Lowlands, sick of the food and the towns and the people.
All right. One more try and then whatever happens, happens.
He stood up from his chair and came around the table. Elizabeth blinked and flinched slightly to see him come so close, but she only lifted her chin again, refusing to back down.
“I want something else if your precious cousin doesn't pay,” Reade said, his voice harsh. “And, lass, I have no intention of waiting for two years for a maid's wages, do you understand?”
“No, I—”
Elizabeth uttered a startled squeak as he took her by the shoulders, dragging her right out of the chair and into his arms. The blanket that she had been wearing around her shoulders like some kind of damned cape fell to the ground, and then she was wearing her shift, thin and flimsy, nearly see-through even in the candlelight.
“Do you understand yet?” he growled, and then, before she could answer, he swooped down on her mouth for a kiss.
Reade had intended for the kiss to be rough, something that a soldier gave a paid girl, something that most paid girls didn't even want to give. He intended to leave her slightly bruised, because better bruised then dead in the Highlands without croft or clan to look after her, to get himself out of this mess that his brother Aidan would have said was typical, just typical.
That was what he intended to do, but everything changed when his lips touched hers, when he felt her shivering in his arms and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he could never hurt her, even if he thought it would somehow protect her later on.
Instead, the moment their lips touched, Reade gentled a little, and instead of flinching away the way he thought she must, she reached up to twist her fingers in the fabric of his tunic, as if she would die if he left her now.
She tasted like bread and salt, like the stew that they had eaten and something only herself, so lovely and heady that he had to have her deeper. He traced the tip of his tongue along the seam of her lips, and when she opened for him, he felt as if he would certainly die, fall into her, drown in her.
And then, somehow, in this
experience that was meant to be terrifying for her, she was holding on to him and kissing him back, her mouth timid at first and then growing bolder, so sweet and passionate, and how in the world had he ever thought that she might be some stiff English lady, some girl too afraid of her own shadow to run?
The kiss shook him to his core, and it was only when he could feel himself start to grow aroused, truly aroused, that he pushed her back.
“Who in the blazes are you?” he said, his voice little more than a growl.
“Just me,” she whispered.
She looked up at him with those beautiful blue eyes, so beautiful that they went straight through him.
In that moment, it didn't matter. Nothing did. It didn't matter how they came to this place, who she might have hurt or worse to leave Ayr, how he might have to hide his true identity from her on their trek north. It was just her, just him, and Reade wondered if he could feel something deep inside him come undone.
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chapter 4
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The kiss shook Elizabeth to her very core. She felt as if she had become untethered from the world, and all of her troubles had been left behind her. All that mattered in that moment was hanging on to this man who had protected her, fed her, teased her, and now was staring at her with a gaze that was more than slightly haunted, more than slightly hungry.
Elizabeth had to lick her lips before she could speak again. She saw his eyes dart to the pink tip of her tongue, and she swallowed.
"Well?"
He looked surprised.
"Well, what?"
"Do you consider that enough of a promissory note?"
"You can't be serious..."
"Because that's what it was, correct? You wanted to... to test the goods so to speak before you agreed to guide me north."
"By all of heaven, you have a crude way about you."
"I'm afraid, Reade, that I haven't the luxury to mince my words or mind my proper etiquette. Honestly, for all that blank-shield soldiers have a certain reputation, you are the one who seems overly delicate—"
She yelped as Reade caught her up with his hands on her shoulders.
"Are you crazed? I'm trying to warn you, lass. This is no empty promise on my part. If I come to Dun Warring, and I receive no money from your people, I am not waiting around for your wages."
"I know that. You have been perfectly clear on the matter. If you don't receive your fee, you will... take it out of my body."
"That's a prim way of saying it and no mistake. Do you even know what that means?"
Elizabeth lifted her chin proudly, because not even housemaids liked to be thought of as innocent babes.
"Of course, I do. I'm not a child. And I know what I am promising."
Reade drew back. For a moment, she wondered if he was loath to touch her, wary of her in a way that she didn't understand.
"All right. On your own head be it then."
"You mean it? You'll take me to my cousin?"
"Aye, for all that I think this is a wretched idea and no mistake. Aye."
Elizabeth intended to nod coolly upon getting her way, but the relief that coursed through her was so great that she threw herself into his arms, hugging him tightly.
"Thank you, thank you. I promise, you won't regret it."
For just a moment, he held her, but then he pushed her away again. Despite the fact that it was only right and proper, she felt a strange pang of disappointment as he did so.
"Don't make me regret it, or I'll make you sorry. First, we need to do something about your clothes."
Elizabeth glanced at the dress still hanging up to dry. How on earth had she managed to forget that she was only wearing her shift throughout this conversation? She supposed that she should be writing from shame, but the truth was that she was simply too busy to worry about that.
"What's wrong with my clothes?"
"You look like a fresh-minted new maid from the English manors. There's nothing that screams an easy target like that one the farther north we go."
The dress, a pale blue kirtle complete with a starched and gleaming white apron, was one she had stolen from the stores at Blaken Keep. It was demure enough while she was in the Lowlands, but he was right. Even in Glasgow, she was beginning to stand out, and that was very bad indeed.
"Oh..."
"I'll look to it tonight. I have some business to conduct this evening."
"What business?"
"None of yours, lass. At least, none of yours unless you are looking to get into a very different kind of work."
He raked her body with a lecherous gaze that made the color come up to her pale cheeks again.
She glared at him.
"All right, I have no interest in how you spend your time with... with other women. But you can get me a better dress for our travel."
"Aye. It ought not be too difficult. I suppose no time like the present to see to that."
He stood and buckled on his sword, a heavy thing that looked almost primitive to her. The English had started to favor swords of French and Spanish make, more delicate, chiseled with decorative engraving and gilded through the hilt. Reade's sword, Elizabeth noticed with a shiver, was designed to do nothing but end lives, and it did not have to look too pretty to do so.
"Stay here. I have the key to the room, so I won't trouble myself with knocking when I come in. If you're not here when I come back, I'll not trouble myself with looking for you."
For some reason, Elizabeth wasn't sure she believed that, but she nodded.
Reade paused.
"Take heart, lass. It's not all so bad."
While she was still blinking at his stilted kindness, he pulled his thick wool cloak around his shoulders and walked out of the room, leaving her alone.
Elizabeth counted to twenty, listening as his footsteps receded down the hallway, and then she collapsed back into the chair, shaking.
I did it.
She felt exhausted, as if she had run a marathon, and she told herself over and over again that the hard part was over. She was going to Dun Warring. She was going to get to Devon.
When she had fled from Blaken Keep, she had done so with a plan in mind. If she had simply run into the countryside like a willful foal, it would have gotten her caught in a fortnight or less, and likely dragged back to Blaken Keep to be whipped and then kept under lock and key.
Instead, she had considered where she might go, who her allies might be, and which ones might stand up to her uncle.
In the end, there was only one, and that one was Devon Montgomery, her mother's second cousin.
The Montgomerys were a proud family, soldiers of the Crown to a man, and Devon, who was only a handful of years older than Elizabeth herself, held Dunbar Castle up in the north. He had held it for Longshanks for almost four years now, keeping it from the hands of the clans, defending it with both bravery and wit if the stories were to be believed.
Her mother had spoken fondly of her family, and of how Devon was struck in the mold of her own father, courageous as a lion, stern as a judge, and always willing to see right done.
He'll help me. He has to help me.
A Montgomery would never countenance the abomination of a girl marrying her own uncle, and she prayed that Devon would feel the bonds of family as tightly as Elizabeth's own family had. That he would protect her.
All she had to do was to get to him.
Yes. Across miles and miles of hostile territory. With a blank-shield soldier who is more than what he seems.
She had caught it a few times. He never spoke of himself as part of the mass of blank-shield soldiers, always them, never us. Reade Fitzpatrick had his secrets, but right now, she didn't care what they were as long as he could do as he said.
She virtuously prevented herself from thinking of what might happen if Devon refused to help her, because Reade's kiss was still on her lips, the heat of his hands still on her shoulders...
"What is it?" she called out, trying to sound bold.
"Only Molly from below stairs, mistress. I've come with a bath for you."
"A bath?"
When Elizabeth opened the door, she found that the maid was speaking the truth. A copper basin large enough for her to sit in was placed in front of the fire, and in a trice, a chain of young boys had filled it with pail after pail of steaming water. Molly even sprinkled a few drops of oil into the water, perfuming the air with something sweet and floral.
"There you are, mistress. Your man had us send it up for you."
Elizabeth didn't know what to think about a blank-shield soldier who would offer her such a gift, so she decided not to think about it at all. Instead, she locked the door after the inn workers left, and with only a moment of hesitation, stripped the shift from her shoulders. In a small bag tied around her waist was the very last of her money and the few jewels of her mother's that she had kept, and she thanked heaven all over again that they had not fallen away when she had fainted earlier. She set them carefully aside and sank down into the hot water.
Heavens, how long had it been since she could bathe? She had been on the road for days, and there had certainly been no time to get clean. She scrubbed her limbs with the rough cloth they had laid over the edge of the tub, and then she simply soaked in the blissful hot water.
It is all right. It will be all right.
It was much easier, she thought wryly, to think that when there was food in her belly and after she had been scrubbed of all of the road dirt.
As she watched the fire, she thought of Reade.
Reade will make it all right.
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chapter 5
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For a few moments, Reade was sorely tempted to do as he had suggested he might, that is, to find a willing girl to spend a few hours with. Glasgow had girls in proper houses, their only job to entertain gentlemen, but he had found in his time in the South that plenty of pretty girls who worked in the shops or the inns wouldn't mind a good time for a bit of coin. Instead of asking a pretty servant girl for a moment of her time, however, he asked her for directions to purchase some cheap clothes instead, and from a woman with a barrow full of old clothes, he traded Elizabeth's dress for one thicker and plainer. Reade didn't know much about women's clothing, because the woman gave him a pair of thick boots as well, ugly clumping things, and he figured they would come in handy too.
Claimed By The Highlander (The Highlands Warring Clan Mactaggarts Book 1) Page 3
