Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
Agreat roar erupted outside the church. If Gaspar wasn’t mistaken, and if his memory served, they’d just heard a Scottish war cry. Though his Gaelic was only passable, he was familiar enough to know that an entire clan of Scotsmen might well be surrounding the church and preparing to attack it.
The nuns needed warning and possibly protecting.
So for the second time, he raised his hands to the gate, intent on taking charge of the situation.
But the outer doors crashed open yet again, and he paused to assess the danger, to determine if his position might give him the advantage of surprise after an enemy entered.
Would a hoard of Scots dare defile a church?
Then again, hadn’t their countrywoman already done so?
One of the church guards flew, prone, through the opening and slid to a stop at the baptismal font.
His fellow fell just inside the narthex.
A single man entered afterward, stepped over the second man, then put his hands on his hips and glared toward the front of the church.
But it wasn’t the abbess at whom he glared. It was the Scotswoman.
“Isobelle Ross,” he snarled. “It would serve ye rightly to leave ye here. I dare ye to tell me I am wrong.”
“Ye are wrong, husband,” she said, stressing the last word.
Gaspar could not say for certain, but she might have been warning the man of the role she needed him to play for the nuns. Was she not married in truth?
He ignored the small thrill that followed the thought.
The Scotsman started up the aisle nearest Gaspar, in no rush, as if his own thoughts were impeding his progress.
“I’m nay so sure, Izzy,” he said, halfway to the transept.
“Ye’re nothing but trouble. It makes no mind where we go.
Perhaps yer antics and meddlin’ have finally brought ye to a safe place, aye? ”
He spoke to her as if they were the only two in the room and Gaspar felt as if he were eavesdropping where he had no right to do so.
But he determined to wait and see if these two were man and wife.
The abbess might have a new initiate after all.
And it was only right that he should observe in case his opinion were requested in the matter.
It had nothing at all to do with the woman’s devil hair or her interesting mouth, or the way she seemed to soften when the man called her Izzy.
Gaspar was tempted to test the name on his own tongue, but pushed the notion aside.
It was simply a strange affair inviting strange thoughts, not his youthful weaknesses rising again in his blood.
After all, he was standing on holy ground; the devil could not truly touch them there.
Could he? If he were a priest, he’d know.
“Ossian,” she called the Scotsman. “I couldna just stand aside and watch another tragedy. Surely, ye ken that. I’d be haunted, I would, if I let another lass be torn from the arms of the lad she loves.
Or would ye have me try to unite Sophia and Trucchio with some witch’s spell? Must I be buried alive again?”
Another one!
The nuns gasped and crossed themselves. Gaspar could not resist doing the same.
Could the woman be a witch? A true witch?
Even after all the women he’d had arrested, he’d never reported one.
Guilt was not a judgment he relished making.
And on those rare occasions when he’d been ordered to judge a woman, he’d never believed one to be guilty of witchcraft.
Guilty of other sins, yes. But never witchcraft.
Scotland was an odd place, filled with more than its share of odd people, clever people.
A place where the word witch might not cause others to cross themselves.
A word that was used for a good many characteristics.
And the way the woman used the term in God’s house made him suspect she had no notion of the danger the word provoked.
No. He would not report it. But neither would he be surprised to be called back to the abbey in a day or two to investigate a report of a witch, even if the Scotsman managed to remove her. It was still uncertain whether or not the pair of them were truly wed.
The man stopped ten feet from where the redhead still held the nun as a shield.
“I do understand, Izzy. You couldna stand by. I must admit young Sophia is shrewd for her age. She kenned just how to win ye to her side. Whether or not she exaggerated her feelings for the boy, I canna say. He was the only young laddie available to her—”
“Ossian!” The woman shook her head, horrified by the man’s words for some reason. “Just because no man can truly love me, that doesna mean I doona ken real love when I see it, aye?”
The man sighed and gave her a pitying look, and Gaspar wondered what might make such a beauty unappealing.
“Let the nun go, Izzy.” The Scot gestured for her to come to him. “Let us be away from here and hope we’re nay tossed from Venice before we’ve tried the place.”
Again, the redhead looked at the screen, frowning.
Gaspar took a step backward into the shadows just as the Scotsman began to follow her gaze.
Suddenly, she released the nun. “Beg yer pardon,” she said sweetly, though sincerely.
Then she bent forward, took hold of the bottom of her brown robe, and pulled it up and over her head before Gaspar had a chance to avoid the sight.
But instead of the woman standing nude before them all, she was clothed like a man, in hose and a tunic.
While the nuns stood in shock, the man took his countrywoman’s hand, and together they ran to the near aisle and raced the abbess to the doors.
Gaspar didn’t know who he hoped would win until the last locks of red hair disappeared from sight and his gut clenched.
The abbess stopped at the last pew and sat, breathing furiously.
Damn, he thought, and in a church too.
Standing before the charming wee home, Isobelle’s heart beat like the hooves of a heavy horse across a thin wood bridge.
The stone house was everything their living quarters in Spain had not been.
This one had windows in all three rooms, and better still, sunlight shining through them.
In Spain, the windows had been small, the single room dark and smelling of the parade of people who had come before.
She and her cousin had been forced to leave Spain quickly, however, before she’d been able to do much about the smell.
She ought to feel contrite about it all, but she did not.
Her cousin, Ossian, had done an admirable job of caring for her since they’d left Castle Ross nearly a year and a half ago.
He’d promised Monty, her brother and laird of the clan, that he’d see her settled and happy somewhere.
It was no fault of hers if they were still looking for a place where both those needs might be met.
Ossian had all but given up ever going home again—she should regret that too--but the idea of being left behind while Ossian returned to the Highlands was unbearable.
Sadly, she had no ear for languages. Hadn’t she tried to learn Spanish?
So close to French, but not close enough to make her feel as if she could remain there alone when neither the Spaniards nor Moors could understand her.
If Ossian had left her there, she’d have been dead in a week if only from frustration.
The men were the worst, choosing to believe Isobelle was flirting with them, making up their own interpretations to fit their moods.
It was no wonder their wives were so suspicious.
And before Spain, it had been France. Before that, Denmark.
She’d refused to freeze in Norway. Now she wished she would have tried harder to convince Ossian to try Ireland from the first. At least she might have been able to look out over the Irish Sea for a glimpse of home.
But Ireland wasn’t far enough, he’d said.
And one familiar face might mean her destruction.
But the farther they travelled, the more danger she faced from simple differences. Her cousin had jested once that in Mesopotamia, her hair could cause war.
Now, Venice might well be her last hope.
And standing in front of the cheery cottage, in spite of the light and fresh breeze blowing from the lagoon nearby, she felt the weight of the moment.
There was a tender balance beneath her feet and the slightest disturbance might destroy it.
Her last chance. A promising chance, but still her last.
The choice was at hand. Did she want this life? If Venice was her last prospect and something went wrong, would Ossian give up trying and take her home? And if home meant death for her? Would she rather go home to die than live a half-life here?
A hundred times, she’d wondered what the difference might have been between water and spirits.
If, when she’d escaped the tomb in which she was supposed to die, Ossian and Ewan had given her water to sooth her twelve-day thirst instead of heady spirits, would she have argued against leaving Scotland?
Would she have taken a moment or two and decided for herself?
Or could it be that she’d been fighting happiness all this time simply because leaving home had been someone else’s decision?
She thought of all the places they’d lain their heads since that choice was made. If she’d wanted to find happiness, could she have found it long ago? If she wanted it now, was it hers?
Isobelle inhaled slowly. Her chest expanded with excitement. It was time to decide, but she didn’t want to rush. She would consider first, then the choice would be hers. Not Ossian’s. Not Ewan’s. Not Montgomery’s.