Chapter Five
Market day in the village was something Annys had always looked forward to and enjoyed.
The people of Glencullaich were skilled in many crafts.
People came from miles around to purchase their goods.
Every merchant was busy, local and traveling ones alike.
Every room available for a traveler was occupied, every place where a horse could be stabled or a carriage sheltered was full, and the alehouse could not hold all the men looking for a drink.
The sight of such promise for Glencullaich was one that always lifted Annys’s spirits.
Today it was not doing so. The blame for that could be placed squarely on the broad shoulders of one Sir Harcourt Murray.
Annys cursed her own foolishness. The man was not the master of her emotions.
The confusion she suffered from was one of her own making.
She could still taste him, still recall all the heady warmth of his kiss, and was shamed by that lust he stirred within her.
Her husband had been dead for only ten weeks.
It was wrong for her to want another so soon.
But want him she did. She could not shake him from her mind.
Memories of the times they had visited their hidden bower near the burn kept crowding into her thoughts.
Her dreams left her aching and all asweat each morning.
Guilt over that was a hard knot in her chest. The realization that, although she had loved David and respected him, she had never desired him added to that guilt.
Somehow she had to get past that but she could not think of a way to do so.
She had, after all, broken a lot of rules during her time with Harcourt.
It was a tiring circular path her mind refused to get off.
She was starting to annoy herself. Such fretting and indecisiveness was not like her.
She had been the lady of a busy, prosperous keep for too long.
At five and twenty she should be able to cease leaping from one thought to another and just act.
She was letting her emotions rule her thoughts, pulling her in every direction.
Just decide, Annys, she told herself. Aye or nay. It is that simple.
A noise from deep within a narrow alley to her right drew her attention and she welcomed the distraction.
Annys stepped into the mouth of the alley that was little more than a narrow, stony path cut between two houses and running down to the burn.
She listened closely, heard nothing over the sounds of the busy market, and was just about to return to wandering through that market, when the sound came again.
It sounded very much like an animal in some distress.
Annys hurried down the alley, going deeper into the shadows, and silently scolded herself for having a too-soft heart.
The stable master had already complained about the number of cast-aside or injured animals she had brought home.
He would not be at all pleased to see another.
When she first saw the cat, she cursed and hurried toward it, idly wishing it was a puppy.
The stable master liked dogs. Someone had tied the cat to a small stake in the ground, the binding visibly tight around the animal’s back leg.
It stood there looking utterly exhausted and she knew it had struggled mightily against its tether.
She may need to have another talk with the children about how they should treat the animals that shared their homes and lands.
Annys did not care if people thought her concern strange, only that they followed her wishes in how they treated their animals.
Speaking softly, she crouched in front of the cat.
It hissed but she did not flinch for the warning was not accompanied by a show of claws.
Cautiously she edged closer to its trapped leg, pausing to gently scratch the animal’s ears, a touch that was slowly accepted.
Just as she reached out to see if she could easily untie what imprisoned the cat, someone grabbed her from behind.
The cat hissed and tried to leap at something, claws out, only to be pulled back by its tether.
Before she finished drawing a breath for a scream a gloved hand was slapped over her mouth.
Someone had used her too-well-known softness for animals against her.
“I cannae see her,” Harcourt grumbled as he searched the crowded market for some sign of Annys.
“Joan said she was here, that she had seen her near the ribbons,” said Nathan, pausing to smile and wink at one of the younger women selling ribbons. “That woman usually kens right where her lady is at all times.”
“True. She does keep a verra close watch on the lass. Doesnae trust that fool Adam. Nor do I. Too much anger, e’en hatred, in the mon.
Aye, greed and envy as weel. I believe he sees Lady Annys as the reason he isnae sitting in the laird’s chair right now.
As if David was too witless to ken what he wanted and what would be good for the people of Glencullaich. ”
“Sir David was a verra learned mon, wasnae he?”
“Aye. And he ne’er stopped trying to learn more. He stirred a greed within me to do the same.”
“Your kinsmen prize learning from all I have heard. Did they nay teach ye that?”
Harcourt chuckled. “They did. They still do but young lads are nay always interested in such things. I was too busy learning how to wield a sword and woo the lassies. But, David read to me whilst I was trapped in bed healing from my wounds. Nay only clan histories or bards’ tales, either, but learned books, ones that taught ye something aside from who sired whom or who sighed after whom.
I discovered I liked it e’en when what he read left me with as many questions as it answered.
I gained a hunger to find those answers. It hasnae hurt me none.”
“Nay,” agreed Nathan, “and that hunger has certainly helped ye at Gormfeurach.”
The sound of a brief scuffle from within the dark alley to his left caught Harcourt’s attention.
He stepped closer to the opening but heard nothing else.
Instinct was urging him to go down there, to get a closer look into the shadowed part where it sloped down toward the burn running alongside the village.
“Something wrong?” asked Nathan, stepping up beside Harcourt and peering down the alley.
“Thought I heard something,” Harcourt replied, “but ’tis quiet now.”
“Yet ye remain as taut as a bowstring.”
“Gut is telling me to go and have a look.”
“Then let us go and see if your gut is right.”
Annys struggled as hard as she could in the grasp of her kidnapper.
He cursed her when her heels slammed into his shins.
Although it was muffled a little, she was certain she recognized the man’s voice.
She could not believe Sir Adam could be so utterly witless as to try to drag her out of her own village in the middle of market day.
And, if it was not him, it was someone he had sent after her, for there was no one else who would be interested in abducting her.
All her struggling finally succeeded in altering his grip on her just enough to allow her to slam her hip into his groin.
It was not as telling a blow as one could make with a fist or a shod foot, but it still served its purpose.
He let her go, instinct and blind need causing him to cup his privates.
He cursed her for a bitch with a ferocity that was chillingly familiar.
Annys did not waste any time looking at her captor, but started to run back toward the mouth of the alley.
She glanced back once to see that her captor and his two companions, the lower halves of all their faces covered by cloth, had abruptly halted their pursuit of her, turned, and run.
Then she ran into something tall and hard.
She staggered back only to be grabbed by the arms. Annys tensed, preparing herself to fight some more, and looked up into the face of her new captor.
Sir Harcourt stared down at her, anger and concern tightening his fine features.
She was so relieved, it was difficult to keep standing.
She just wanted to curl herself into his strong body and hold on tight.
“Are you harmed?” he asked.
“Nay,” she replied, determined to hide her embarrassment over her brief weakness, and then found herself quickly set aside.
“Stay here.”
Before she could object to being ordered about as if she was some soldier under his command, he and Nathan ran after the ones who had attempted to abduct her.
Annys sighed and shook her head as the sound of hoofbeats echoed in the distance.
There was little chance of catching anyone.
Harcourt had no horses near at hand to give chase.
Realizing she was right back where she had been caught, she slowly approached the trapped cat.
It was young, she decided as she crouched down in front of it.
Weaned but not for very long. She murmured soft, nonsensical words of comfort as she cautiously moved to unbind the animal.
Too thin, dirty from its battle to get free, and trembling, the cat was a wretched creature but it had eyes very much like Harcourt’s.
Dunnie, the stable master, was not going to be very happy to see this one show up at Glencullaich.
For a moment she thought of just letting it go but then, as she slowly ran her hand along its side while reaching for the tether that held it to the stake, she felt its ribs and knew she would be taking it home.
Cats and dogs bred too freely, and too often, leaving far too many animals to feed and care for.
She could not get everyone to cage the animals they had when they went into season.
Neither could she let the unwanted just starve.
She certainly could not ignore the pleading in those eyes that matched the ones she saw too often in her dreams.