by Kyra Whitton
Evie flipped it open, ignoring the table of contents and acknowledgments, instead diving right into the introduction, which of course promised heavy analysis of nationalism among women, the glorification of Flora MacDonald, and stories of other female warriors who took up the tartan to defend their homeland and raise up Bonnie Prince Charlie during the Jacobite uprisings. Some even succumbing to death for their actions.
Evie always had a particular fascination with Flora MacDonald, the woman who smuggled a defeated Charles from Scotland dressed as her lady’s maid. The woman’s portrait, reprinted in just about every book and article about the infamous uprising—this one included—had always impressed with her stoic countenance, a quiet amusement hiding just out of reach. She had a face more handsome than beautiful and a romantic story to boot.
But as Evie continued reading, it wasn’t Flora who most fascinated Evie, nor was it Lady Anne Farquharson Macintosh, the beautiful young woman who was the mastermind behind the Rout of Moy and given the nickname Colonel Anne by the prince himself. No, it was the tale of young Lady Elizabeth Carlisle, née Meyner.
One of the daughters of Chief Meyner himself, she stunned her family by marrying the youngest son of the fourth Duke of Carlisle, Lord Alexander. The young man, born some months after his father’s death, was robbed of meeting the duke after a particularly infamous duel in Hyde Park. The eldest son, John, inherited the titles and estates, the duchess moving into the dowager house before her youngest child’s presence was even confirmed.
Alexander spent his formative years in England, buying a commission into the Royal Army when he came of age. But the unexpected death of elder brother William, who had blighted the family with a rather scandalous love-match, died at the Lanarkshire estate where he had been overseeing the interests of the fifth duke for some years. Alexander gave up his commission to take over where his deceased brother left off.
It was in Edinburgh that he met the modest Elizabeth Meyner. There is little known about the early life of Elizabeth, only that she was the youngest child of the Meyner laird and his second wife, Mary. Lord Alexander only reports that he saw her from afar and was drawn in by a coy smile. Enchanted by her Scottish lilt and “eyes like the ever-changing mood of the lochs,” Alexander began a quick and heavy courtship that saw the two married as soon as the bans could be properly read. The young noble kept extensive journals, which included his infatuation with his bride, who was barely eighteen at the time of their nuptials. He referred to her as his darling Ailsa in those early days, and found it fetching when she called him Alistair rather than his Anglicized given name.
Evie flipped to the middle of the book where the thick, glossy photograph pages were, a thin line between the flimsy sheets of text. The third one back had a small miniature of Elizabeth, perhaps the only likeness in existence. Her eyes were large, rimmed by dark lashes, their centers a murky blue-green. They stared straight out, as if she were dressing the painter down. Her hair was pulled back from her face to showcase her pouty pink mouth, straight nose, and strong brow. The portrait was pretty in the way pictures of people long dead were pretty, antique, a little cracked, likely not an accurate rendering.
And below was a portrait of her husband, a man who was painted much the same; with a hint of amusement turning his lips up at the corners. He was posed against a white horse, one leg bent, the other hyper-extended in white breeches, his Army uniform a slash of color across the page. He would have been handsome had he not been painted to look far younger than his years possibly could have been.
The honeymoon period was quickly over, however, and soon Lord Alexander was finding himself more and more exasperated by Elizabeth’s zeal for politics and her disinterest in overseeing an estate that belonged to another. Less than a year after the hasty wedding, he wrote “the woman’s incessant prattle about naught but ‘the proud traditions of the highlands’ is enough to send any man to drink.”
Nonetheless, the young man saw something in the uprising, and even went as far as to forsake his family’s ties to the king of England, and led a small contingent of Carlisle clansmen to battle under the rebel prince’s banner. Some scholars theorize he took a gamble, hoping that if Prince Charles won back his throne, the Carlisle Lanarkshire holdings in the lowlands would be bequeathed to Alexander. Others suggest he was more swayed by his wife’s “incessant prattle” than he let on.
But the youngest Carlisle did not return from Culloden. His body never recovered, it is rightly assumed he was buried in one of the mass graves with the men he led, all falling where they stood with the Meyner men. Elizabeth lost not only her husband in that fateful hour-long battle on the Drumossie Moor, but also her father and brother.
When Cumberland’s men began their march back to England, they were met with a large contingent of women wielding pitchforks, dirks, and clubs, all widows of Culloden. Elizabeth Meyner Carlisle at their head, musket at the ready.
The rebel women were quickly overwhelmed by the professional soldiers, Elizabeth taken into custody. She was sentenced to death a week later and hanged for her crimes. Her last words, reportedly, were “it is at the guarding of thy death that I am; and I shall be.”
Evie jumped as a car engine stuttered to life outside her open window. The book fell to the light quilt, its pages fanning out. The night before, she hurried back into the house, completely forgetting to pick up her trash from the backseat. She didn’t think she could live down the embarrassment of her father finding a condom wrapper in the floor board of his own car.
Feeling an impending sense of doom, she tiptoed her way down the narrow servants’ staircase, and out the back door. A shaking sigh of relief escaped her parted lips. Both cars were still parked beneath the hide of the oak tree. No one else was in sight. The air was already hot and sticky, despite the early hour, the bugs beginning their morning serenades.
Quietly, she opened the back door of the sedan and sank down to run her hand over the carpeted floor. The shadows still kept it in darkness, but her fingers quickly found a crumpled piece of paper. She knew immediately it wasn’t the wrapper, but that met the tips of her digits after another sweep.
She shoved the wrapper into the pocket of her gym shorts but kept the piece of paper in hand. She knew her father kept an immaculately clean car, and her mother had taken it to get detailed right before Evie borrowed it for her jaunt to Manhattan. Whatever was in her hand must have been something dropped last night. She unfolded it in a bit of sunlight, revealing five words in scratchy pencil: Flora MacDonald. Thistle and Rose.
She frowned, her forehead creasing. It was a bit of a coincidence considering her current reading material, but it also seemed odd for Iain to have it tucked into his pocket next to his spare condom.
Deciding she would ask him about it later, she shoved it into the pocket with the empty wrapper and went back inside.
Chapter Eight
“So, where are we going, exactly?”
Iain turned off the paved road half a mile back, his sport utility vehicle bouncing down the hillside between low-lying trees and dodging creek beds. All while ignoring the “No Personally Owned Vehicle” signs as he went.
The sun was moments from slipping behind the hills, the sky a pleasant mix of blues, purples, and oranges bleeding into one another. The heat had dissipated, replaced by a pleasant breeze and manageable humidity. Evening was alive with the sounds of summer; the deep calls of frogs, the chorus of insects.
“You’ll see,” Iain told her over the growl of the engine.
He looked more relaxed than she had ever seen him, lounging back in a sleeveless shirt, a pair of aviator glasses, and cargo shorts. He was more muscular that she had imagined his shoulders well-defined, his arms sculpted. She hadn’t thought he was unfit, but he had always seemed to be the more slender type. He had nothing on Evan, that was for sure. But who did? She wasn’t one to be impressed by large, ballooning pectorals, anyway.
“That’s a non-answer,” she yelled as the truck
lurched over a tree root.
He turned his gaze to her with a lazy smirk before giving the dirt road his attention, again. Suspecting she wouldn’t get any more of an answer, Evie sighed and let her head drop back against the seat rest. Above the roll bars, thick pockets of leaves and knotted branches sped, a parcel of heavy black birds gliding the winds above them. The vehicle bounced over deep ruts, curving to the left, later to the right, the birds somehow always coming back into view.
Eventually the trail ended in a clearing, deep gouges in the mud from tracked vehicles creating a circle where the large, heavy tanks and infantry fighting vehicles had turned around. The sun officially dipped below the horizon, but the sky was still light to the west, and the shadows cast by the trees become darker and more pronounced. Iain pulled the emergency brake, and shut off the engine, hopping out. He reached into the back bed of the old vehicle, pulling out an old, green and brown backpack.
“I haven’t seen BDU material in ten years.” Evie laughed as she unbuckled her seatbelt. The old green and brown camouflage of the Battle Dress Uniforms was retired when she was a child, the Army replacing it with colors and patterns better suited for more modern wars.
“I just use it for hikes. It came with the truck.”
Evie lifted her eyebrows and shook her head. “That’s a rather odd thing to throw in with the sale of a vehicle, isn’t it?” When he didn’t answer, she decided to let it drop. “So, if you won’t tell me where we’re going, maybe you can tell me what we’re doing?”
“Hiking.”
“You do remember that I have a bit of a limp, right?” She gestured to her bad leg as if she were presenting a prize on a game show.
“It won’t be far.
“If I fall over and break my nose, I’m blaming you.”
“I’ll catch you.”
Evie put her hands on her hips and screwed her mouth to the side. “You better.”
He cracked a grin, something he rarely did, and motioned for her to follow him. She slung the thin strap of her purse over her head so the leather lay across her midsection and fell in step behind him. They trudged over the tall, waving grass, and she cringed inside, uninterested in picking up any six-legged hitchhikers.
“You know, I like trolling for ticks just as much as the next person, I’m sure,” she said as they wound around a fallen tree, cracked and dry, grass growing up through its hollow insides. “But wouldn’t it be easier to just rub up against a few stray dogs?”
He snorted but didn’t say anything.
“Do you come out here often?” she asked after the silence became uncomfortable. She suspected she wouldn’t get anything out of him before they arrived wherever it was he was dragging her.
“Almost every evening.”
“Really? Why?”
“I like the solitude. And I enjoy the hike. It keeps me in shape.”
At that she allowed her gaze to drift down to his butt. Yup, it was working. “How long are you out here?”
“A few hours.”
“So, what you’re saying is that if I want to keep hanging out with you, I’m going to have to buck up and get used to this?”
“Something like that.”
“Damn it, that sounds terrible,” she muttered.
They continued in silence, the screeches of insects growing in volume the darker the sky became. To the east, several stars made their presence known where the sky was darkest, only the brightest winking directly above head. The horizon was still light but fading into a deeper blue. She had to hurry to stay close to Iain, frightened she would get separated from him. She didn’t want to find any of the skunks or coyotes that roamed the hills on her own.
Iain suddenly halted and put his arm out to keep her from walking any further. “Here,” he murmured.
Evie frowned as he dropped his pack to the ground and dug through it. He extracted some dark colored clothes then shoved some of the cloth into her hands. When he stood, again, he pulled his shirt off, revealing a smooth, sculpted chest. He tossed his shirt on the ground, and looked at her face, lit now only by the moonlight.
“Put that on.”
“What?” She tossed the balled up cotton from hand to hand, her lip curling in confusion. What the hell was this? “No, I think I’m good.”
“Put it on, Eve,” he ground out.
No one ever called her Eve. Even when she was young, her parents always used her full name to show their displeasure. But he said it like he had said it a thousand times before. Like she had always been Eve to him. Had he ever called her Evie? Her brow puckered. She wasn’t sure.
She gulped and the tiny hairs on the back of her neck rose. She was out in the middle of who-knows-where, alone with a man she didn’t know well.
“I think… I think I’d like to leave.”
At her words, a murder of crows circled overhead, their caws mixing together until they became one voice. They spread their wings, taking the air under their feathers, spinning faster and faster, like the hand of a clock speeding out of control.
Beware the crows.
The simple line of text flashed across her memory. At the time, it had seemed so harmless and silly. But the flock moving and growing above twisted those three simple words into terror, and the unease slowly washing over her quickly formed into full-fledged panic.
Evie stepped back. Her heel crunched on a brittle stick, snapping it. Iain’s hand clamped over her upper arm, yanking her back. She pushed and clawed at him, but his grip remained vice-like, and she kicked out at him.
“Let me go!’
“Well, well, well.”
The throaty, feminine purr stopped Evie short.
Her head snapped up as the words emerged from the cawing, and the crows condensed and faded into the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. Hair as black as a raven’s feather and skin of alabaster shone in the silvery cast of the moon, red lips twisting into a feline smile.
“Iain, I am impressed. I didn’t think you would be able to track this one down. She’s been a bit of a problem, hasn’t she?”
Evie’s mouth fell open and she looked from the woman to Iain and back. Iain stood stoically, shoulders set and mouth a grim line, but said nothing.
The woman cast her gaze to the ground. “And a fairy circle here? How quaint.” A wide circle of mushrooms perfectly outlined the small clearing. “I’ll have to remember that my faith in you is always so well placed.”
Iain nodded once, slowly, almost like a bow.
The woman’s attention turned back to Evie, her light eyes glittering in the twilight. She took two steps forward, her feet crunching on old, brittle leaves and the sweeping black fabric of her dress billowing around her. She pursed her lips and canted her head. “And are you ready, my dear?”
Evie swallowed past the lump forming in her throat, and immediately regretted the move. Her stomach rolled and knotted, threatening to be sick. She pulled her arm once more for good measure, but Iain’s hand did not loosen.
“Who are you?”
The woman’s sneer remained tight-lipped, not reaching her kohled eyes.
“What the hell is going on?” Evie demanded.
“Ah, there is the spirited little warrior we all know. Come, child. It’s time to return home.” The woman motioned toward the fairy circle.
“Child?” Evie snarled, all of her insecurities bubbling up. “Go to hell, lady.”
She stomped as hard as she could on the top of Iain’s foot. He sucked in his breath in surprise, his grip dropping.
It was all Evie needed.
She took off, ignoring the twinges in her leg and the screaming in her lungs. Pushing through the dense underbrush, she sprinted away. Low-stretching branches scratched her face, snagged her hair, and she sobbed through the pain slicing through her back and hip, and leg.
She glanced over her shoulder to catch Iain’s dark form leaping through the forest with the grace of a practiced hunter. She sharply zagged where she should have zigged and tumble
d over a downed limb. The breath knocked out of her, and she struggled to pull in another, panicking when nothing happened, crying with relief when air finally hitched into her lungs. She tried to scramble back up—damn it, she didn’t even know what she was fleeing—but Iain caught her by the waistband. He hauled her to her feet then wrapped his hands around her upper arms, stilling her.
He jerked her to him. “No more of that, Eve,” he growled in her ear. “You have to come with me, now. Please.”
He didn’t even sound breathless, and her heart pounded in her chest, her breathing loud.
“Where?” she managed to choke out.
“Back.” He whirled her around and nudged her back in the direction they came.
She obliged, what fight she had abandoning her. “Why don’t you just kill me?”
“It matters not to me,” he murmured. “I will get you back there one way or the other. But it would be far easier if you just come willingly. You’ll see that. You will. I promise.”
“But where?” she demanded.
“You really don’t know, do you?” His voice held a hint of awe.
Was he so surprised? She opened her mouth to ask, but his grip fell away and his cry of pain echoed in her ear.
“Run, Evelyn!”
She whirled to stare wide-eyed at her rescuer.
Alec.
Evie couldn’t move.
She knew she needed to, but her legs wouldn’t respond, her feet wouldn’t work. All she could do was stare slack-jawed at them both, her gaze darting from one to the other.
Slammed into dead and decaying leaves from seasons past, Iain groaned, quickly rolling to his feet, a growl of annoyance ripping through his gritted teeth.
“Evelyn. Go.”
His yell was all she needed. She took off at a run, her breath sobbing out of her, tears streaming down her face.
How could she have gotten mixed up in-in whatever the hell this was? She had been so sure she got it right. Who was the woman? And what were she and Iain going to do to her? How did Alec fit into all of this?
