Amanda Scott (39 page)

“Promise all you like, lass. You’ll not be going on your own.”

“I do need help,” she admitted, “but you must promise not to question what I mean to do, just to help me get outside the wall.
Kit trusts you, so I will trust you, too, but I do not mean to let anyone stop me or hinder my actions.”

“Very well,” he said. “I know Eustace’s men took Kit, because my room is just down the way and when I heard the commotion,
I looked out the door in time to see them hustling him away. I recognized two of them as Eustace’s men, but I never saw Eustace
himself.”

“That is because he stayed in our bedchamber after they took Kit away. He truly is a loathsome worm, that man. He taunted
me, saying that after they hang Kit, he means to ask Beaton to perform another marriage. I am to be the bride if you please,
and he the groom. By heaven, I’d shoot the man before letting that happen.”

Berridge smiled. “I do not think that will be necessary, my dear. We’ll find Kit, but I think perhaps you should wear your
own boots, don’t you?”

Looking down at her feet, Anne realized that she had forgotten to stay behind the door, and that Berridge could see everything
she wore. A bit sheepishly, she said, “I have only Fiona’s wedding dress in here, so I took some of Kit’s things, but nothing
fits. I mean to startle them, but I’m afraid that anyone seeing me dressed like this would only laugh.”

He chuckled. “In the darkness, the cloak will conceal everything, but you do need smaller boots. I’m not dressed for riding,
either, so I must change, but if you go to your own room and fetch your boots, I’ll meet you at the kitchen stairs. Kit showed
me that means of escape some time ago.”

“Thank you, sir.” She flung the cloak over her shoulders, picked up the bag containing the pistol and its accouterments, and
turned toward the stairway.

“One more thing, lass,” Berridge said sternly.

“Yes, sir?”

“Don’t leave without me. That would displease me very much, and if you should somehow and most miraculously succeed in finding
Kit and rescuing him by yourself, I doubt that it will please him overmuch either.”

Despite her fear for Kit, a shiver stirred at the image Berridge’s words produced, for they reminded her forcibly of the scene
in the hedged garden after she revealed that she had taken Fiona’s place.

“I won’t go without you,” she promised.

“Good lass. I expect that if Kit told you about me, he also told you about our Willie, did he not?”

“Aye, sir, he did,” she answered, fairly dancing now with impatience.

“’Tis a pity Willie’s not here,” Berridge said. “He might prove useful.”

“He said he would ride to Dunsithe to bring help,” Anne told him. “But that was before the wedding, before I knew that he
meant to elope with Fiona. I warrant he has ridden as far from here as possible and has completely forgotten about Kit.”

“Nay, Willie would not do that,” Berridge said flatly. “If he was riding to Dunsithe, we may just pull this business off after
all. Make haste, lass.” And with that, he turned on his heel and hurried off down the gallery toward his room.

Anne stood for a moment, stunned that after delaying her as he had he would command her to make haste, but she quickly collected
her wits. Yanking Kit’s boots from her feet, she flung them back into his room, shut the door, and ran barefoot with the long
cloak billowing behind her to her bedchamber, where she soon unearthed her own boots and pulled them onto her feet.

A second thought sent her to find her riding whip, but she waited for nothing more, running back to the service stair and
down to the kitchen door. Certain she would have to wait at the stables for Berridge, she was astonished to find him awaiting
her in the yard instead. He grinned, and she saw at once that the thought of adventure had stimulated him.

“Ready, lass?”

“Aye, sir, but are you sure you want to go?”

“I could not stay here,” he said. “Kit Chisholm saved my life by helping me escape from that damned ship. I will not leave
him to the likes of Eustace Chisholm and his ilk if I can do aught to save him.”

Anne half expected to find that Malcolm had disobeyed her and given orders instead to prevent her leaving, but the horses
were waiting and Malcolm himself stood beside them.

As she hurried up to hers, he made a stirrup of his hands and helped her mount, saying, “If there is anything else I can do
to help, my lady, you have only to command me. They had no business to take Sir Christopher from Mute Hill House. ’Tis an
invasion of our hospitality at best, and a criminal act at worst.”

“Thank you, Malcolm,” she said. “I need a holster for this pistol.”

Although his eyes widened when she pulled the pistol from the satchel, he made no objection, merely signing to an underling
to obey her request.

When the pistol was holstered and the satchel tied behind her saddle, Malcolm asked if there was anything more. About to tell
him she needed nothing further from him, she said instead, “How many men have we here?”

“Not enough to make an effective rescue, I’m afraid,” he said.

“But enough to guard the wall and everyone inside?”

“Aye, certainly.”

“Then tell them to keep strict watch and be ready to open the gates at an instant’s notice. We may need to hurry back and
seek sanctuary here. I’ve a notion that Eustace and his men are heading for the line, but if they have merely taken Sir Christopher
to the nearest hanging tree, we may be able to track them quickly.”

“They headed south, my lady,” Malcolm said. “I was about to tell you as much, for I asked the lads here, and several watched
them go. One enterprising youngster followed them down the backside of Mute Hill and saw them ride onto the ridge overlooking
Tarrasdale. They appeared to be following the track towards Kershopefoot, he said.”

Anne frowned. “I’m not sure I know that track, but I do know how to reach Kershopefoot from the Towers. Perhaps we should
ride that way.”

“Nay,” Berridge said, turning his mount toward the gate. “I ken the track they took. We’ll do better to follow in case they
change course along the way. Moreover, if they ride the Tarrasdale ridge, they’ll ride near Liddesdale. And mark me, lass,
I’m guessing our Willie will have set men to keep watch there.”

“Faith, is Dunsithe near Liddesdale, then?” Anne asked, following him.

“Nay, it lies west o’ here some little distance, near the Debatable Land, but Willie would not have taken his lass with him
so far as that, I’m thinking. He’d take her into Liddes-dale, mayhap to Mangerton, to keep her safe.”

“Then he won’t have had time to reach Dunsithe yet,” Anne said.

“Never you fear that. They eloped this morning, did they not?”

She nodded.

“Then our Willie has had sufficient time to ride fifty miles if he had the will to do it, for he told us many and many a time
that he and his reiving band often rode that far in a single night, and I’m thinking he’d need to ride less than thirty today.”

When they were outside the wall, making their way down the back of Mute Hill, Anne said, “You seem to know a lot about reivers.”

“Aye, sure, for our Willie talked a good deal.”

“I’ll warrant he did, since that seems to be his nature, whilst yours seems to be to keep yourself to yourself. Kit said you
never spoke much on shipboard either, at least not about your past.”

“I’m a reticent creature, that’s all.”

“What was the crime for which you were sentenced to that ship?”

He was silent.

“You insisted upon accompanying me, sir. I think that even you would agree I’d have to be a fool to be riding into the night
like this with a man who served time aboard a prison ship and escaped, without at least knowing the crime he committed. Kit
has been exonerated of his. Have you?”

“No,” he admitted. “But Willie would tell you it was no crime at all.”

“Then you also were found guilty of reiving,” she said.

“I was, but we’re wasting time, and I owe my freedom and likely my life to Kit Chisholm. If you can keep up, we can make up
some distance, I’m thinking, for I remember this track well and there is sufficient moonlight to give the ponies their heads
a bit here.”

“I can keep up,” Anne said, urging her mount to follow his.

“Catriona, wake up!” Maggie commanded tersely, giving her a shake.

“What’s amiss?” Catriona asked, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.

“Ye were supposed tae watch them,” Maggie said, moving to shake Fergus, who was curled into a ball at the hearth end of the
dais in the hall. “That Eustace took your lad right out o’ his bedchamber, and be threatening tae hang him.”

“Oh, no!” Catriona exclaimed. “I fell asleep, and I wasn’t even sleepy.”

“It were that Eustace, like I told ye,” Fergus said, yawning.

“More likely, it were Jonah Bonewits,” Maggie said. “Did ye no say ye could feel his presence?”

“Aye,” Fergus said, watching her warily. “I dinna feel it now, though.”

“Nor do I feel Claud,” Maggie said, realizing the sensation that had been as familiar to her in past days as her own breathing
had vanished, leaving her feeling bereft. “And that Carmichael woman be fast asleep in her chamber, for I looked.”

“What about me lass?” Fergus asked belatedly.

“She’s gone after them,” Maggie said, forcing herself to concentrate on the moment at hand, “but she’ll need our help.”

“Sakes, what can we do?” Fergus demanded.

“Can ye call upon other Ellyllon tae help ye?” Maggie asked him.

“Ye ken fine that I can,” he said.

“Then ye’ll do that, for here’s what I think we should do.”

He listened carefully, his anger growing stronger by the moment. Jonah was going to win this game of his if someone did not
stop him.

With his hands bound tightly behind him, Kit was having all he could do to stay mounted, because Eustace set a fast pace.
When the man leading his horse suggested that, tied so, their prisoner might fall off, Eustace had laughed and said it did
not matter if he did because they were going to hang him anyway.

Kit thought the two Chisholm cousins with Eustace seemed unhappy about that course of events, but they clearly lacked the
strength of mind to oppose it. Still, one of them muttered the word “murder” and suggested to Eustace that such an act might
preclude his inheriting the estates.

“Aye, it might were we the ones that murdered him,” Eustace said, chortling, “but it won’t be us, lads. We’ve merely arrested
the man and be taking him now to Cardinal Beaton. Faith, but had the man not left for Cacrlaverock in such a hurry after the
feasting, we’d have turned our prisoner over to him at Mute Hill House.”

“But Caerlaverock lies to the west of us,” one of his men protested.

“And we’ll turn west soon enough,” Eustace said. “We came this way only to thwart anyone trying to follow us, but you can
be sure that I mean to ride no closer to Liddesdale and the traitorous Armstrongs than we must. We’ll stay west of Tarrasdale
and head south toward Caulfield.”

“We’re going tae Caulfield? Be we going tae cross the line then, laird?”

“Nay, only to ride near it,” Eustace said glibly. “We’ll meet our friends long before we reach the village, I’m sure.”

Kit did not have to tax his brain to determine who those friends might be, since Eustace expected to meet them so near a village
practically straddling the line. Several armies roamed the Borders, to be sure, but he doubted Eustace would turn him over
to any Scottish force. He had soon realized his uncle was easily swayed by anyone who promised him wealth or power, and Henry
of England would promise both to any man willing to help him win Scotland and its Kirk to his rule.

“So you mean to hand me over to the English, do you?” he said grimly.

“Oh, I don’t think I’ll do that,” Eustace replied.

“But you’re meeting them. You’re a traitor to your own country and a disgrace to the proud name of Chisholm.”

“Don’t be naive, lad. In the Borders, one does what one must to survive. What matters which kirk one serves, or which king?
They are all much the same, are they not? But Henry controls his own army, and our Jamie does not. Thus, Henry is more powerful.
What’s more, he puts men to death when they disagree with him. It is clear he will win in the end, and I am no fool.”

“Henry will never control Scotland,” Kit declared grimly. “He may breach the line, thanks to support from traitors like you,
but he will never make headway beyond the Borders, and he will never control the Scottish Kirk. Do you truly think he is more
powerful than Beaton, who has the power of France and Rome at his back, not to mention that of the Scottish people?”

“What I think need not concern you,” Eustace said. “You will live only long enough to let us attribute your unfortunate death
to the villainous English army. You need not fear that I’ll turn you over to them, though. I made the mistake once before
of trusting another to see to your death. Since I mean to win Hawks Rig for myself, I won’t make that mistake twice.”

“The first time being when you trusted Beaton?”

“Aye, your so-powerful cardinal. He told me your death was assured, that you would be arrested for murder and hanged. But
he agreed instead to let the men who captured you turn you over to the captain of his ship, a detail he did not see fit to
mention to me until after you’d escaped and shown up here. Even then, he promised he would see me in possession of Hawks Rig.
only to betray me again. When I reminded him of his promise, he said the law was clear on the issue of betrothals. He said
also, however, that although he could not be associated with your murder, if you disappeared again or met with a sudden death,
he would do as he had promised from the outset and see me safely in possession of your estates. Once that happens, I intend
to marry the lovely widow and live happily ever after.”

“Lady Carmichael?”

“Aye, unless you know of a wealthier widow hereabouts.”

Kit grimaced, saying nothing, and the conversation ended.