Both he and Henry were forced to duck under the doorframe to enter, the occupants of the cottage being quite a bit shorter in stature than their guests. Jonathan snorted, If we could be considered as such given our welcome. He greatly despised the way in which they had been forced to seek shelter in the home of an unwilling host, but Jonathan could not risk their lives upon the storm-plagued roads, and in doing so risk Grace.
The ransom money was with the horses, each bag closed with the Earl’s seal. It had been his father’s idea to do so to prove that the moneys had not been tampered with in the event that the blackmailers claimed foul. Every piece of currency had been accounted for, then counted again to be sure. They had left nothing to chance. Jonathan knew that Fergus and Malcolm would not let the money out of their sight.
Jonathan and Henry stood in the doorway of the cottage, allowing their eyes to adjust to the change in light. A fire burned in the fireplace along the far wall to their left. Chairs flanked either side of the hearth. Along the opposite wall was a bed and in the center of the room was a table that looked as if it had been used for everything from eating to limb amputation if the scars and smells emanating from the wood were any indication.
Jonathan had expected to find a family within the cottage’s confines given the man’s protective nature toward his property, but there was no one inside. “Do you live here alone, sir?” The man grunted in affirmation of this and poked at a pot of something hanging over the fire. Jonathan hoped that whatever it was smelled better than the table it had most likely been prepared on. “I apologize again for the inconvenience and thank you for the hospitality of your hearth.”
The man snorted again and settled down in one of the chairs in front of the fire. “Who are ye then?”
“I am Lord Jonathan Dowding of Canterley,” Jonathan bowed slightly out of curtesy. He thought that it was the least he could do given their strained reception.
Henry stepped forward and did the same. “Henry Booth, Duke of Slantonshire.”
“Yer a bit far from home,” the man remarked with surprise at their titles.
“Indeed,” Jonathan agreed, wishing to be anywhere but where they were, doing what they were doing.
“And yer men outside?”
“Fergus MacDonald and Malcolm Maxwell.”
“Yer servants.” The man spat into the flames causing it to sizzle.
Jonathan chose not to answer this time but asked a question of his own. “And who might we have the pleasure of making acquaintance?”
“Robert Brown,” the man grunted again. The guttural sound appeared to be his preferred method of communication.
“Why did you meet us with such resistance upon our arrival? Have you had difficulty of late?”
The man looked up and met his eyes for the first time since entering the cottage. “When ye live along the border, there is always trouble. I was not always alone,” he added with a note of sadness. A cloud passed over his eyes and he turned back to the flames.
Jonathan moved to sit across from the man. “I am sorry for your loss.”
The man nodded slowly before answering. “As am I.” Taking a ragged breath he turned to study both Jonathan and Henry. “Ye do not belong here.” It was more of an observation than a warning or a threat.
“Nay, we do not.”
The man nodded but did not ask any more questions. He arose and grabbed a stack of wooden bowls from a shelf and dished out what appeared to be some kind of stew. He handed them each a bowl and spoon. Then sat back down and proceeded to ignore them as he ate. Jonathan looked to Henry who shrugged and sat in one of the table chairs to eat.
They passed the time in silence. Fergus and Malcolm remained in the stable with the horses. Jonathan doubted that the structure he had seen was sufficient to keep out the wind and rain, but he knew that the Scotsmen would not abandon their posts no matter the weather conditions. He was ever in awe of the loyalty and devotion that Amelia instilled in such men by simply being herself. It was not her title, wealth, or family name that incited such, but the sheer force of her own personality, bravery, and compassion.
If only our father felt the same. Jonathan prayed that all would be well between his father and sister in his absence. He had acted as an intermediary between them their entire lives and it had pained him to leave her there alone after everything that had happened. He hoped that with Grace’s safe return things would improve for everyone in their family.
Another clap of thunder shook the earth and a layer of dust fell from the ceiling raining down upon their heads. Jonathan studied the man across from him weighing whether he could be trusted enough to sleep under the same roof with. The man did not seem to be evil or even bad, simply lonely and sad, with a suspicious nature borne of hard times and difficult people.
He looked about the room for a place to sleep, contemplating whether it would be better to sleep in the stable with Fergus and Malcolm. He doubted that there was room for anything else within the small structure. He instead decided to sleep in the chair he was already sitting in. This close to the meeting site, he was not certain that he could or would sleep. Grace was so close he could almost feel her presence. Jonathan looked over at Henry and could tell that he felt it too.
A snore from the chair across from him told him that their host had already fallen asleep, the smell of alcohol wafting through the air around him. Henry stood and moved over to the bed. He shook out the covers, then sat down on the edge of the bed. “Tomorrow,” he murmured meeting Jonathan’s eyes across the room.
Jonathan felt a thrill pass along his spine at the promise and threat held within such an otherwise simple word. Tomorrow they would exchange the ransom. Tomorrow they would attempt to save Grace. Tomorrow they might all die. “Tomorrow,” he murmured back, then closed his eyes.
Chapter 32
“Jonathan! Jonathan!” Henry’s voice pierced the fog of slumber. “Jonathan, wake up!”
“What is it?” Jonathan groaned. His eyes felt like they were filled with dirt and grime. They probably are.
“Robert Brown is dead.”
“What?” Jonathan startled sitting up. “How?” He opened his eyes and looked at the man across from him only to find that he was not there. “Where is he?” Jonathan looked toward the door and found Malcolm standing in the doorway.
“He shot himself. It looks like he did it last night during the thunder storm,” Henry answered, his brow furrowed in concern. “He left this.” Henry handed him a short note written on a piece of paper that had been ripped from a book. “The thunder must have covered the sound of the gunshot.”
Jonathan looked down at the nearly illegible scrawl. ‘Bury me out back next to Mary and the babe.’
“It appears he grew tired of waiting for nature to take its course. He was just waiting for someone he knew would be honorable enough to bury him,” Henry observed. “What a difficult life he must have led to have performed such a desperate act.”
“He had lost everythin’ he had e’er cared about. The notion came tae me as well when I lost the wife and bairn, but I had my family tae think about and tae get me through the worst o’ it. This man had nae one.” Malcolm’s voice held such empathetic understanding as to break the heart of anyone within hearing distance. “I’ll start diggin’ the grave if ye lads will prepare the body for burial?”
“Yes, thank you, Malcolm,” Jonathan nodded, still in a state of disbelief that the man had done such a thing. Turning back to Henry, he walked over to the door. “Let us carry him in here to the table and we will see what can be done for the poor soul.”
Henry nodded and the two of them walked out into the misty morning to retrieve the corpse. They found him at the base of a tree not far from where his wife and child were buried. “Mr. Brown,” Jonathan breathed at the bloody scene before him. “Oh, Mr. Brown,” he shook his head in sympathy for the poor man’s plight.
“He could not live without her,” Henry murmured looking from Robert Brown’s body to t
he graves. Jonathan knew that he was thinking of Grace in that moment between life and death, their white puffs of breath in the air punctuating its lack from Robert Brown.
Jonathan reached out a hand placing it on Henry’s arm in reassurance. “We will get her back.”
Henry sighed, nodded, then turned his attention back to the task at hand. They carried Robert Brown’s body into the house, cleaned it, and prepared it for burial, wrapping it in a blanket, then placing it in the cold, wet ground next to his family. All four men stood around the grave staring down at the mournful pile of dirt that held what remained of a stranger who had entrusted them with his last hours.
“What does one say at a time such as this? Scripture does not seem suited to the purpose as is usual, we are not ministers to present such,” Jonathan questioned, at a loss for words given the circumstances they found themselves in. The dirt stood as an eerie reminder that they too might be shortly joining the ranks of the silent.
“’Twas another Robert who I believe said it best for such occasions,” Malcolm murmured. "O Death! the poor man's dearest friend, The kindest and the best! Welcome the hour my aged limbs Are laid with thee at rest! The great, the wealthy fear thy blow From pomp and pleasure torn; But, oh! a blest relief for those That weary-laden mourn!" The words of the Scottish poet Robert Burns hung in the air, Malcolm’s familiarity with their sentiment clear in his voice and eyes.
Jonathan studied the Scotsman’s face. To have loved and lost to such a measure, to have had the greatest of gifts that life has to offer and to have them wrenched away… he could not finish the thought for the fear and pain that it caused. A new respect dawned within him for any man who could suffer so much and yet find a way to push through, to somehow brave the coming morn.
“Very fitting, Malcolm. Thank you,” Henry nodded in approval.
The four men walked away leaving Robert Brown to lie at rest with those he loved most in the world and set out to save one of their own. Jonathan took one last look at the sad scene as he mounted his horse, then turned and rode away. That will not be my family. That will not be us, not if I have any say in the matter. Hold on, Grace. We are coming for you.
* * *
Grace lay among yet another stone-laden prison, her body raging with fever. Her ability to distinguish between reality and illusion was severely compromised as she faded in and out of consciousness. She had no notion of where she was. Peering through blurred vision at the aged grey stone around her, for the briefest of moments she thought perhaps she had been returned to the broch at Mousa, but the walls were not remotely as tall or stacked in the same manner. Where am I? Her mind groaned against the pain.
A flutter of movement to her right caught her attention and she turned her head toward the flash of black and white. An angelic form glided through the air toward her and in her fevered state it appeared to take on the features of her sister. “Amelia…” she croaked out through parched lips. She reached out her hand in supplication to the illusion only to have it fade before her eyes into the corporal entity of a magpie as it flew over her head and disappeared from view in the forest below.
“Amelia,” she sobbed in bitter disappointment. Tears streamed down her cheeks at the loss of the hope the illusion had awakened in her heart. “Amelia,” she whimpered before the darkness overtook her once more.
* * *
“Grace!” Amelia sat up, startled awake by the stark clarity of the dream. She had seen her sister as clear as day lying among what appeared to be stone rubble. It was unclear whether the ruins were from an ancient fort or castle, but Grace had had no real protection from the elements. She had been shivering with fever and crying. She had called out Amelia’s name with such desperation that it had shocked Amelia awake.
Amelia sat there shaken with the intensity of the nocturnal vision and drew her knees up to her chest wrapping her arms around them as if they could act as a wall of protection against the fear and heartache that threatened to overtake her. She looked across the smoldering coals of the fire and could just make out the line of Mrs. O’ Boyle on the opposite side. She peered out into the dark around them and attempted to access how long it would be until dawn’s light would shatter the pitch black of night.
She longed to continue on their journey north as quickly as was possible, but the storm had caused them to take shelter in the forest under a rock overhang. It wasn’t quite a cave, but it was close enough to offer them some protection. Amelia had not seen a storm so fierce since they had left the Scottish Highlands what seemed like an eternity before.
Amelia sighed and raked her hands through her hair, tangling her fingers in her dark curls. The Grace from her dream had been very near death from the ravages of fever and illness. Amelia’s heart seized in her chest as she was once again struck by the reality of the dream. A sense of urgency reawakened within her body pulsing through her veins with every beat of her racing heart. We are running out of time.
Standing, Amelia walked around the embers and shook Mrs. O’ Boyle awake. “What is it, darlin’ girl?” Mrs. O’ Boyle came immediately awake, knife in hand. “Are we set upon by brigands?”
“Nay, but we should arise and make haste,” Amelia urged, going back to pack up her bedding.
“’Tis not yet light,” Mrs. O’ Boyle reminded. “It is dangerous to ride in unfamiliar environs in such blackness.”
“I am aware of the danger, but we cannot tarry, even for the sake of sleep and safety. We must continue on. Everyone’s lives depend upon our arriving in time to warn them of what has transpired.” The inescapable feeling of wrongness that had plagued her from the beginning welled up with such ferocity that it threatened to choke the air from her lungs. Saddling her horse, she leapt up into the saddle, waited only long enough for Mrs. O’ Boyle to do the same then turned her horse back toward the road.
We will make it in time or die in the trying.
* * *
Tristan sat across from the Earl of Canterley and wished more than anything else in the world to shoot the man between the eyes. He had been forced to gag him as the man would not stop bellowing threats as they rode north. He had been drawing entirely too much attention to their little party of travelers and Tristan needed to get to the rendezvous place without interruption. He did not need some well-meaning good Samaritan or ill-intended fiend slowing them down by making inquiries into their business.
When the storm hit, they were ill prepared. They could not take cover at an inn having taken the Earl prisoner so were forced to continue on until they came to an old castle ruin where they took shelter in one of the remaining tower stairwells. The stone tower steps wound their way up to the parapet in typical medieval fashion providing housing for small birds and rodents.
“How could you do it?” he demanded to know, his voice low and threatening. As the Earl was still wearing a gag Tristan did not expect an actual answer, he simply could not look at the man without asking the question over and over in his mind. Shaking his head, he turned away and looked out the arrow slit near his shoulder at the raging storm “This is going to slow us down. It is a delay we cannot afford.”
They were a day behind Amelia and two days behind the others when they left London, but they had made good time on their trek, riding day and night without stopping for very long at all, except to rest the horses as needed. Tristan looked down the staircase to find Jacob sleeping with his back against one wall, his feet propped up against the other. He clutched his pistol in his hand ready for action at the slightest provocation.
Tristan’s eyes burned from lack of sleep and his body ached from the abuse of endless hours in the saddle. He longed to succumb to the flood of exhaustion that plagued him but resisted. He had taken first watch of his own accord. If the storm lasted, Jacob would take his place in a few hours’ time. Sighing, he shifted in his seat to put some distance between himself and the object of his loathing. The Earl in turn glared at him over the gag.
Tristan held the bags of money under hi
s arm unwilling to let them from his sight. They were Grace’s salvation and he could not afford to let anything happen to them. He hated the feel of it against him. It felt tainted somehow by the Earl’s depth of betrayal and depravity. If he had his way, he would not pay a single pound sterling. He would much rather shoot every last one of the men involved in the head, but Grace’s safety could not be risked no matter how deserving the retribution he sought.
He prayed that Amelia was safe and chuckled at the thought of Mrs. O’ Boyle standing at the manor house clutching her knife as if ready to cleave the heads from the brigands’ shoulders. Amelia is in good hands. I only hope that Mrs. O’ Boyle is not forced to use that knife. A flash of lighting illuminated the castle stairwell. The Earl was still glaring at Tristan, his dark brown eyes looking black in the dim light. Why did I not notice that such pure evil lurked there before now? Shaking his head, he turned away once more.
Thunder shook the stones beneath his feet reverberating up his legs and into his spine. He closed his eyes for the briefest of moments willing the unease in his belly to subside. He thought of Jonathan and Henry, unaware of the trap they were about to step into. Tristan knew that Malcolm and Fergus would do all in their power to protect them, but without forewarning it would be a difficult, if not impossible, task.
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