Chapter 2
Trevor pulled a handkerchief out of his breeches and mopped sweat from his brow.
The day wasn’t especially warm, but the riding had been hard.
His legs ached from gripping the horse, and his throat was parched.
He pulled out the crude map he had drawn of Scotland and turned it around, moving his gaze from the map to the horizon, trying to notice the landmarks.
It was difficult to decipher, and he began to wish that he had spent some coin on a proper cartographer rather than drawing the map himself, but his problem was that he had always found it difficult to rely on other people.
He patted the horse’s neck firmly. “What do you say, Nettle, shall we get some refreshment?” he said.
The horse whinnied and shook its dark mane.
Trevor laughed and turned the horse around, leading it back down the road to a tavern they had passed.
The smoke rose from the chimney in a straight line, and its thatched roof looked homely.
There were a few other horses stabled outside.
Trevor fastened Nettle with a rope. The horse immediately joined the others in quenching its thirst.
Trevor walked into the tavern and tapped his knuckles on the bar, flashing the most charming smile he could muster.
This place was smaller than the taverns he was used to in London, but that wasn’t surprising, really.
It didn’t look as though there was anyone eager for a fight either.
It had been five years since that fateful night when he had almost killed the butcher’s son.
Since then, Trevor had made a respectable man of himself.
He studied under his uncle to become a solicitor and now handled important matters for important people.
Coin flowed through his hands in rivers of gold.
There had been rumors of marriage, especially now that he was thirty, but as yet, he remained a bachelor.
Despite his success, he had still never felt as alive as he did when in the heat of battle, but at least this venture gave him the opportunity to leave his stuffy office and see another part of the world.
“I’ve got a horse stabled outside. I’d like a meal, some drink, and a room if you have one to spare,” Trevor said.
The innkeeper, a burly man with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, squinted at him.
“Ye are English,” he said.
Trevor wasn’t sure if it was a statement or a question.
“I am, but I’m sure my coin is as good here as anyone else’s,” Trevor said, plucking a few coins from his pouch and placing them on the bar. They made a rattling sound. The innkeeper picked one up and examined it.
“Aye, it is,” he said, and gestured to a table. “I’ll bring yer meal over shortly.”
Trevor strode across the floor and took his seat at a table.
The few patrons in the inn stared at him and then muttered under their breath, although he knew what they were likely saying.
It was rare to see an Englishman traveling alone in the Highlands.
There was no love lost between the two countries, but so far, Trevor had avoided any enmity.
He kept a wary eye on the people around him as well, just in case they attempted anything dangerous.
The innkeeper brought his meal out. Thick chunks of meat bobbed in a stew, accompanied by vegetables.
The broth was thick and the meal hearty, although it wasn’t as refined as some of the things he had tasted in London.
Still, for a man who had been riding for hours on end, it was welcome and helped to replenish his energy reserves.
“Ye are a long way from home. Are ye a trader?” the innkeeper asked.
“Of a sort,” Trevor replied. He was often cagey with people he did not know, but the innkeeper didn’t seem to take much of a liking to this attitude.
In truth, Trevor needed the help of locals as well.
He swallowed a mouthful of the stew and sipped his beer.
“I’m actually looking for someone. She might have passed through this way some time ago. ”
“Did yer wife run away from ye?” the innkeeper asked.
Trevor chuckled. “No, I’m afraid I’ve never had the pleasure of getting married. Say, I wonder… Have you heard of an English woman around these parts, perhaps someone who doesn’t seem to belong here?” he asked, using a tone of voice that suggested the thought had only just occurred to him.
The innkeeper tilted his head to the side and stroked his chin.
Trevor looked at him carefully. Being both a solicitor and a fighter did not seem to have too much in common at first, but actually, there were transferable skills.
Trevor had to be observant during fights and often had to understand what his opponent was going to do next.
These skills came in handy when it came time to decide if anyone was lying to him.
As soon as he asked the question, the innkeeper viewed him with suspicion.
“Ye know, for a trader, ye seem light on goods.”
“I trade in information,” Trevor said.
“And what would this information be worth tae ye?”
Trevor had suspected something like this was coming.
He glanced around warily at the other people in the tavern, not wanting to display his wealth to strangers if he could help it because there had been far too many stories of people being mugged.
Trevor wasn’t helpless, but it was better to avoid a fight if need be.
Thankfully the people in the bar were either old or keeping to themselves.
They didn’t seem interested in what was happening with Trevor.
He slipped a hand into his pocket and pulled out a coin, placing it on the table above him.
The metal made a heavy thud. It was a sound that was blissful to so many, almost as though it was a drug that intoxicated them.
The innkeeper was no different. Trevor watched his face for a sign.
He placed another coin on the table, and then another.
This was when the innkeeper’s face twitched, and Trevor knew he had found the right price.
In truth, he probably would have spent a coin or two more for the information he sought.
Traversing the Highlands had been more difficult than he had imagined, and he was beginning to wish that he had enlisted the help of a guide.
“I suppose I could part with this much, depending on how good the information is. I have a map, but I’m not familiar with the terrain around here, and I fear I’m lost.” Trevor produced the map, unfolding it across the table.
As he did so, he pushed the coins toward the innkeeper in a smooth, fluid motion.
“So are the rumors true? Is there an English woman living around here?” Trevor asked.
The innkeeper pursed his lips and glanced at the coin. “Ye are nae gaeing tae hurt her, are ye?” he asked, for evidently, he was a man of good conscience, although even good consciences had a price.
“Heavens no!” Trevor cried out. “I simply have some information she might find of interest from her homeland, that’s all.”
“Well, I suppose there’s no harm in telling ye then.
I dinnae know if she’s the lass ye are looking for, but there is one woman who came up here from England some years back now.
Oh aye, it was a story at the time. Some people thought she must hae been a spy or some agent from England, but as far as I hae heard, she’s kept tae herself. ”
“Is her name Lyndsay Smythe?” Trevor asked.
The innkeeper tossed the name around in his mind.
“Aye, that might sound about right, although it haes been a number of years since I’ve heard of the story.
I suppose she would nae be a Smythe any longer either, nae if she married one of us.
Perhaps if more of yer women made their way up here, they would see that Scots make better husbands than ye English,” the innkeeper said with a hearty laugh and a wink.
Trevor offered a polite smile but declined to reply to the comment.
“And where would I find this village? I had heard it was around here…” Trevor pointed at the map.
The innkeeper studied it and shook his head, evidently unimpressed with the efforts made to draw the map. He thrust a thick finger onto the map and slid it through a forest, pointing the way.
“They’re there,” he said.
“Thank you very much,” Trevor said. “I’m glad to have found such a helpful man. Sadly there are a number of Scots who aren’t willing to help an Englishman in need.”
“Aye, well, such is the way of the world. But there’s always room in my heart for a wee bit of help here and there,” the innkeeper said, swiping the coin from the table as he spoke.
Trevor nodded and knew that it wasn’t his nationality or his plight that had caused the man to help him, but rather the coin he offered. All in all, it was a bargain as this knowledge would save him traipsing through the Highlands in search of one single woman.
After his meal the light was beginning to fade outside so Trevor went to his room and stripped off his clothes, slipping into the bed.
The mattress was harder than the one he was used to back in London, and the air was colder.
For a while, he watched shadows dance upon the wall as a candle flickered, allowing his mind to wander.
He had been warned that the Highlands were a strange and unforgiving land and that he would be far better served to leave this matter in the past, where it belonged, so that he might stay in London.
But something about this situation stirred a sense of adventure in Trevor’s mind, and when the opportunity to travel to the Highlands had presented itself, he found himself unable to resist. It had been too long since he had tested himself.
London was becoming too comfortable, so comfortable it was beginning to itch.
His mind turned to thoughts of Lyndsay. So, if the innkeeper was correct, then she had married a Scot, which lined up with the rumors that had come his way.
He shook his head at the thought of an English lady taking up with a savage Highlander and wondered what ailment had plagued her mind for her to lose her senses like this.
He could never imagine living up here in the wildlands with wild people, shedding his sense of civility.
She must have been desperate indeed to fall in love with a Highlander.
At the thought of love, Trevor’s mind turned to the past and to the hole that had been left in his life.
He never had quite managed to settle the conflict between the fighting spirit in his heart and the outer shell of a gentleman.
There was a war in him, and the fighter always threatened to break free.
Over the years, he had thought about the butcher’s son many times, and occasionally his heart was pained by the fact that he had almost taken the man’s life.
At the time, he hadn’t been much affected by the impact, but when he realized how people were looking at him and what they were saying about him, well, it began to sink in that he had almost done something terrible.
Other people seemed to think that life was far more precious than he did.
To him, it had always been something worthless, a mere quirk of fate that had summoned his consciousness from the darkness in which all souls reside, a darkness that he would fade back into when his time came.
Others saw life as a gift, and the greatest sin anyone could commit was to kill the flame of another’s spirit.
Trevor hadn’t been able to fight since then—not in the way he liked, anyway.
He had embraced the life of a solicitor and gave the impression of a well-to-do man with a steady income and prospects that many would consider to be good.
The women who took a liking to him were attracted to the life he could offer, but he knew they would turn and flee the moment they caught a glimpse of his true nature.
Sometimes he longed to bare his teeth and show them his savage side, to make them see the kind of man he was.
It would be a brave woman who could stare at him without flinching, that was for sure, and he wasn’t convinced there was such a woman in the world.
It meant his life was destined to be a lonely one, but for the moment, he had accepted his fate.
It was something he could cope with most of the time, but there were nights like these when he hated sleeping in a cold bed.
When the morning arrived, Trevor bid farewell to the innkeeper and made his way to the village, hoping that Lyndsay Smythe would be there waiting for him, else he would have to travel deeper into the Highlands.
The deeper he went, the more danger waited for him, for he was English, and he was different, and these people liked neither thing.