Scot On the Moors
Virginia Johnson awoke only when the carriage stopped rocking.
She prided herself on being an excellent traveler, which was no mean feat when one was a woman going abroad without a male escort.
Getting from New York City to the small hamlet of Rosedale Abbey in the middle of Northern England was a very long journey.
Mr. Hastings, the man her father contracted as her voyaging escort did not quibble with her when, upon docking in Liverpool, she bribed him with fifty American dollars to stay there until she was set to return.
Hastings could handle his own money exchange.
Thankfully, the man did help arrange her extremely heavy and extremely delicate trunks to be transferred to the train and spoke with the first-class porter to arrange a carriage for her at the end of the Great Northern Railway, which had yet to be completed all the way to Pickering.
And now, two weeks, three trunks, and one aching back later, Virginia Johnson could finally stop moving.
At least she’d had the carriage to herself, which was something she was grateful for.
No one was there to watch her sleep in her strange contortions.
Judging by the stiff skin on her cheek, she’d managed to drool on herself.
Another event that didn’t warrant an audience.
Waiting for the door to be swung open by the driver, Virginia straightened her clothing, wiped her mouth, and pulled her gloves back on.
She pushed the small curtain aside, only to see nothing but darkness.
It wouldn’t be the first time she was disoriented by a conveyance, so she leaned over to the other side to push aside those tobacco-smoke-heavy curtains.
But it was dark as pitch out that side too.
Where was the Coachman’s Inn? Had they broken an axle on the side of the road?
The carriage had looked older than her father when she’d boarded it, but there hadn’t been any other options.
From outside the carriage came a surprised shout, and one of the horses whinnied. Virginia’s stomach growled. She looked forward to a hot meal; it didn’t even matter what it was, as long as it was hot. She knocked on the side of the carriage.
“Hallooo?” she called out. “Have we arrived?”
“Stay in the carriage, miss!” the driver shouted. “I think we’ve a mite bit o’ trouble, but all should be well soon!”
Virginia nodded to herself, stifling a yawn.
Again, her stomach rumbled, and she wondered if she had any leftover morsels.
She struck a match and lit the candle stub that sat on the carriage’s sconce.
It was covered in dust and crackled as the flame took hold.
At least it gave her enough light to dig about in her carpetbag.
She pushed aside her novel that she hadn’t started—for who could read in a carriage?
Especially one so old and poorly sprung as this one.
Her embroidery—again, she was in a poorly sprung carriage.
She would not be attempting to use anything pointy.
But there, at the bottom of her bag, was a pouch of roasted almonds that she’d bought three weeks ago before she’d boarded the ship. How…delectable.
Before she could think better of it, she ate one. Her crunching seemed to coincide with odd banging outside the carriage. Perhaps the driver had stopped them to assist with another carriage, or someone in need on the side of the road.
The carriage lurched forward, sending Virginia sailing against the stale cushions.
She yelped in surprise, causing her to choke on the salt of her almond.
Before she could wonder what had occurred, the speed of the carriage picked up, going far faster than they had at any point in the journey.
She peered out the window upon the dark, rocky landscape, limned by a slender moon.
The carriage hit a rut in the road, and Virginia was launched into the air, landing hard on her backside when gravity reasserted its powers.
She pounded on the carriage wall with the flat of her hand, screaming at the driver to stop.
This was dangerous, and she had no intention on dying in the middle of York, tossed about like a raw egg in a drunken game of catch.
She used both hands, then feet, and bellowed at the top of her lungs.
Exactly the sort of behavior women were told their entire lives to not do, even in America, but when the situation was live or die, she chose life. That was the American way.
Her efforts were rewarded with the carriage slowing to a not-so-gentle stop. She heard the creak of the boards and then the carriage door was thrown open.
“Out!” commanded a man in the dark. “I’ve a pistol. Best get moving.”
The accent was Scottish, and the voice sounded familiar, but it must only be because of the accent. Everyone with a Scottish accent reminded her of Callum, as it had for the entire last decade. The coincidence would be far too much for him to be lurking about hijacking carriages in Yorkshire.
Virginia flattened herself against her seat.
If waving about a pistol was supposed to frighten her, well, she had not braved the Territory of New Mexico for nothing.
The whole place was teeming with lunatics and firearms. “If you’ve a pistol, then I don’t want to go anywhere with you.
Drop me at the nearest inn, and I won’t trouble you at all. ”
She heard an exhale and cursing. “Who’s in there?” The man’s voice was low and irritated.
“Just me.”
“Ha! You expect me to believe ye’re a woman traveling alone?
Who’ve ye got with ye?” The voice was altogether familiar, and at this point she could practically picture Callum.
But it must only be because of the time she’d spent with her family in the Highlands.
And this man was decidedly not from Glasgow or Edinburgh.
Those accents had changed too much, and this man’s mouth was full of the old rustic tones she remembered from that summer so long ago.
“I am a woman traveling alone, thank you very much. And no one is with me in here.” Viriginia blanched at her mistake.
No, she shouldn’t have identified herself as traveling alone.
That put her in grave danger. She fumbled for her carpetbag and the tiny purse pistol she’d bought for just this sort of trouble.
The Territory of New Mexico did not have a monopoly on firearms or lunatics.
“But I also have a pistol, so watch out!”
“Put down the bag, miss. I’ve no desire to hurt ye.”
“Then you put down the pistol, sir!” Virginia cried out into the darkness, fumbling with her bag. She suddenly wished she could be more organized.
“Ye’re an American?” he asked, his voice closer.
Her hands shook and she suddenly needed to relieve herself. “Yes, and you sound as if you’re from the Highlands.”
“Aye. C’mon out, lass, I won’t hurt you.”
“Then you come in here,” she said, absolutely ready to cry from fright, but unwilling to do so, for fear of being accosted while her eyes were blurry with tears.
“’Fraid not, luv. I’ve no death wish.”
Her breath came hot and fast, panicked. “Then I’m not coming out!
Why would I? I’ve ‘no death wish’ either!
” It was probably poor taste to mock someone who had a pistol trained on one, but she couldn’t find her purse pistol and she was losing her New Mexican bravado and instead was very, very scared.
She didn’t say anything, nor did her kidnapper. The sounds of the early autumn night leaked into the carriage with a terrifying clarity. She was lost in the sounds of wind, when the man spoke again, this time his words were even more terrifying.
“…Miss Virginia Johnson?” the man asked.
She panicked. Was it better to say yes or no? Finally, knowing she had no recourse, she decided to take a bullet with honor. Trembling like an autumn leaf, she straightened her spine and admitted her identity. “I am Virginia Johnson, yes. I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage.”
There was a great deal more swearing, and she heard him kick something. “What the devil are ye doing out here, ye crazy, batty—”
“I’ll not sit here and absorb your insults, sir!” Though his reaction did somehow put her at ease.
“Fer feck’s sake. Don’t blow me head off. I’m coming in.”
She put her feet up as if she could kick him through the doorway. “The hell you will!”
“It’s Callum. Callum MacLeod.”
The cold fright washed out of her, replaced with a hot fury. “What the blazes are you doing, you stupid, idiot—”
The carriage leaned harshly as he climbed up in it, and she felt the horses shift on their feet. “I’ll not absorb yer insults either, Ginny.”
“I hope you hobbled the horses, otherwise—”
“—Stop telling me what to do,” he snapped back.
He climbed into the carriage seat across from her.
She could only see one side of his features, from the bit of moonlight that she’d seen highlight the moors.
He’d grown up. But of course he had. The decade and a half since the last time they’d seen each other had put lines on both their faces.
His cheek had lost the softness of youth, and was now the rough chiseling of high cheekbones and a pronounced jaw.
As if the faint light couldn’t caress his cheek so much as fit it like a square ruler to measure a stonemason’s cut.
“What are you doing?” she asked at the same time he questioned her with the same words.
Then they both sat in silence, waiting for the other to either answer or take the initiative to ask again.
She wondered what he saw. A washed-up spinster?
An old lady, dried up like a pressed rose?
There were worse synonyms that she’d read for women like her, but well, those didn’t bear repeating.
She knew her skin was not as firm as it had once been.
Her pores had grown into swimming holes, or so the looking glass and Mrs. Francine Tremblay liked to point out.
“Why are you in England?”