Chapter 22
Isa stretched her back before squatting down to fill her bucket with water from the stream. The muscles in her legs trembled, deliciously tired, as if she’d played on the slope of a steep hill all night long.
No hills, perhaps, but she certainly had played.
She grinned like a crazy woman, not caring one bit what anyone might think of her this morning.
And what a beautiful morning! Everything around her seemed brilliantly sharp and new. The sweet-smelling spring air caressed her face with its warmth and she felt the promise of new birth carried in that gentle breeze.
Time to begin her planting today. Robbie should wake soon, and they could have their morning meal while the water heated for her bath. She needed to put on a new porridge to simmer for tonight.
Jamie should arrive this day. She’d expected him yesterday, but he must have been delayed with his chores.
So much to do, so many things to organize now that Jamie would be staying with her. With them. Just like a family.
Such a lovely day. Even the waters felt warmer than they had only days ago. Holding her hands down beside her bucket, she allowed the stream to ripple through her fingers. The waters caressed her skin as if they were alive.
Or perhaps she simply felt more alive.
Chuckling at her own silliness, she reached for her bucket and froze.
What in the name of all that’s holy?
She dropped to sit on the grassy bank, staring at her hand. A mark covered her palm. A mark that hadn’t been there yesterday. A mark identical to the one on Robbie’s arm.
Plunging her hand back into the water, she scrubbed at her palm, but as if the mark were a part of her, nothing happened.
What could it mean?
“Robbie?” she called. “Robbie!” Louder, as she rose to her feet, running toward the cottage.
He met her halfway down the path, one hand clutched to his chest as he ran toward her.
“What?” His face was pinched with worry and he grabbed her shoulders. “What’s wrong?”
In answer to his question, she held out her hand, palm up.
He stared at her hand, much as she must have, before meeting her eyes. “Where did that come from?”
“I was hoping you could answer that since it’s identical to the one you wear on yer arm. Where did yers come from?”
He didn’t answer right away, but instead trailed a finger over the mark on her palm, setting her skin to tingling as if feathers brushed against it.
“It’s no exactly the same. It’s much smaller.” He looked away, reaching up to scratch at the mark on his arm.
What did smaller have to do with anything? And why did it suddenly feel so odd?
“Look!” Isa held up her trembling hand, staring at her palm, watching in fascination as the mark slowly disappeared. “It makes no sense. It’s gone. I scrubbed it in the water, before, and there was no even a smudge. And now . . .” She let her words trail off.
The mark might be gone but she felt as if hundreds of tiny, invisible creatures covered her skin. Her hand continued to tremble, beyond her ability to control, until Robbie grabbed it, clasping it between his own.
As suddenly as the whole bizarre experience had begun, it now ended.
“It’s no gone. See for yerself.” He turned her palm over and there it was, now on the back of her hand.
“I dinna understand any of this, Robbie.” Certainly she’d seen more than her share of strange occurrences, but this one frightened her.
Robbie half turned from her, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck. “We need to talk, Isa. Though I canna explain why this has happened, I may have an idea as to the source.”
“And?” she asked even as a hard lump settled in the pit of her stomach. This had the feel of the Fae to it. It must be her mother’s people behind this, but why? Why would they plague her now, just as she’d finally found some measure of happiness?
“It’s long past time I told you how I came to be here.”
“But why would that have any bearing on . . .”
He held up his hand to stop her words, his head tilted to the side as if listening. “Do you hear that?”
In the distance, a horse approached, its gait slow and unsteady. “That would be Jamie come at last. You should probably finish with yer clothing before he gets here.”
In all the turmoil over her hand, she hadn’t even noticed that Robbie had barely taken the time to wrap his plaid around him, throwing all the excess over his shoulder to trail on the ground before coming to her aid.
“Go on with you. I’ll wait here for him,” she said
He nodded his agreement, his eyes dark and serious. “But after. We still need to have that talk.”
“Aye,” she agreed. “And we will. Now go.”
She watched him walk away, gathering the excess of his plaid into a ball and holding it against his bare chest.
Even in a loosely wrapped plaid that man had the finest backside she’d ever had the pleasure to admire.
With a sigh, she turned her face toward the sound of the approaching horse and headed down the path in that direction. She could see them in the distance now, through the trees. As she’d surmised from the sound, it was the old horse Jamie always rode.
She called out his name and lifted her arm to wave in greeting, but he didn’t respond, though his mount stopped and lifted her head.
Odd, that. As odd as the boy riding all hunched over the horse’s neck that way.
“Jamie?” she called out again. Lifting her skirts and walking more quickly, she accelerated her pace, running until she reached his side.
“No.” Her agonized groan was ripped from deep inside as she pulled the little body down from the old horse’s back. “Jamie? Jamie!” she cried, falling to her knees with the child in her arms.
Blood crusted down the side of his face, the skin that had been smooth and clear now scraped and raw. When his good eye fluttered open, she felt as if her heart might burst.
“Thank God,” she sobbed, rocking him in her lap, pushing his tangled hair away from his face.
No matter what had happened to him, he would recover from it. He had to. In that brief moment she’d thought him already gone she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.
His whimper snapped her back to reality and she struggled to her feet, stumbling back up the trail toward the cottage, her long skirts catching between her legs as she tried to run.
“Robbie,” she yelled, gasping for air, hardly aware of the tears streaming down her cheeks as she ran. She needed Robbie. He’d know what to do.
And then he was there, lifting the boy’s weight from her arms, guiding them back to the safety of her cottage as the terror gripping her heart quickly turned to fury.
“Isabella! You must calm yerself or you’ll wake the lad.”
They’d tended to Jamie’s scrapes and bruises as best they could. It was the wounds they couldn’t see that worried Robert now.
Both Jamie’s and Isa’s.
“I am calm,” she hissed, stabbing her poker into the fire with a force that sent sparks flying. “I’m sure his little rib is broken and I just canna see how Roland could be such an animal as to do that to a wee lad like Jamie.”
Robert had wondered that himself.
“Do you believe me now that it’s no safe for you to stay here? No you or the boy, either one. When he wakes, we can be on our way to MacQuarrie Keep.” Where his family could see to their safety when he was no longer able to.
Isa whirled, throwing the poker to the hearth.
“Do you think I can simply turn my back on this? You heard what he said of Roland. If it’s true—if that whoreson has murdered my grandfather—I canna let him get away with that any more than I can allow him to go unchallenged for what he’s done to the lad. ”
Robert didn’t question the truth of what the boy had said in the least. It was, in fact, because of what Jamie had told them that Robert felt so much urgency. He had to make her see reason.
“There’s more. Things I dinna tell you. The night of yer grandfather’s wedding, when those men waylaid me, the reason I dinna want to spread any alarm was that I suspected Lardiner was behind it.
I kenned the truth of it then that he’d do anything, even murder.
It’s why I tried to convince you then of the need to come away with me. ”
If only she would agree. He didn’t want to hurt her by telling her what he’d found before meeting those men in that dark hallway.
But it seemed her stubbornness knew no bounds.
“Suspicion is one thing. What we see with our own eyes, what that beast had done to poor Jamie, that is something else altogether. Roland might batter a wee child, or push an old man already in his cups down the stairs, but he’s a lowly coward. He’d no lay his hands on me.”
She left him no choice.
“Yer wrong about the man. I’ve good reason to believe he laid his hands on yer friend, Auld Annie.
I’d gone to her room that night, hoping to speak to her again.
But when I arrived, I found her dead. Strangled, by the looks of it, though the maid who walked in on me assured me she’d died of her sickness in her sleep. ”
“That canna be. She was no sick when I saw her. Only frightened.”
“Exactly. They murdered her. I saw her body with my own two eyes. It was coming out of her room I was attacked, but when Jamie found and wakened me, I’d been moved to another part of the castle.”
It broke his heart to watch the pain wash over her face, but she had to know, had to understand how important it was for her to get away from here. Surely she’d see reason now.
“You saw this? At the castle, before we left? And you dinna tell me? Surely you had to realize I would want to hear of this travesty against Auld Annie.” Her face had lost its color, as if shock were setting in.
“That’s exactly why I dinna tell you. Yer safety was more important to me than any revenge you might seek.” And with her temper, he didn’t doubt for an instant she’d want justice for her old friend.
“It’s no a matter of revenge. Roland must be made to pay for his crimes.” The color that had drained from her face when he’d first told her about Annie flooded back, washing her cheeks a deep dull red.
“Isa. Think about what you say. With Lardiner in charge, you and I alone canna take on the whole of the MacGahan clan. You canna ask that of me. Think of the boy. Let me get you both to safety. You and Jamie. Once we reach MacQuarrie Keep, I’ll lead men back here if it’s what you want, but listen to reason for now, lass. ”
She glared at him, eyes glassy with unshed tears, her lips pressed into a thin, tight line. Then, as if a door had opened, her expression blanked before turning into a small, sad smile.
“As you say, Robbie, I canna ask that of you.” She wiped her hands down the front of her shift and crossed to him, leaning in to kiss his cheek. “We’ll need to make sure enough feed and water is left for the animals to carry them over until yer people can come back for them.”
Finally! He gathered her into his arms, covering her mouth with his for a kiss she met boldly. He knew she hated to leave her home, knew it saddened her. But this was the only viable option, and he thanked the saints she’d seen the truth of that at last.
“I’ll see to the animals. You gather rations for us to carry on our journey. Though it will add an extra day, I’m thinking we’d best go the long way around to avoid Castle MacGahan.”
He stopped at the door, glancing back to reassure himself it was real. She had already spread out a cloth and even now placed two loaves of bread in the middle of it.
“Go on with you, Robbie. We’ve much to do this day. Both of us.”
With a sigh of relief, he strode out the door toward the stable. For the first time since he’d arrived in this century, he felt as though the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders.
Isa kept her back turned until she heard Robbie close the door behind him. She might not be able to stop her tears, but she certainly did not have to let him see them.
She grappled with her emotions, forcing herself to keep moving, to gather what was needed for the journey. It felt as if she stood outside herself, watching herself go through the movements as a normal person might, but she felt anything but normal.
Anger seethed through her, twisting and burning like a fiery serpent. Worse still, the pain in her heart beat at her. Heavy and throbbing with the knowledge of her loss.
She piled as much as she could onto the cloth, then tied the corners together, making a neat bundle for the journey to MacQuarrie Keep. That should do well enough for the two of them.
Crossing the room, she ran her fingers lightly over Jamie’s sleeping face, tucking his hair behind his ear before brushing her lips over his forehead.
That Robbie would see to his welfare she had not the slightest doubt.
At the door she paused for one last look around her beloved home.
Robbie had been absolutely correct. She could not ask him to risk his life in confronting Roland. Nor was she willing to put poor Jamie in danger again.
But there was nothing to prevent her from delivering the justice Roland Lardiner deserved. He’d taken from her the only family she’d ever had and she meant to make him pay for his crime.