Heart's Thief (Highland Bodyguards, Book 2) (4 page)

Colin almost rolled his eyes at Osborn’s obliviousness, but managed to keep his features smooth and his gaze solidly fastened on the stretch of counter in front of him. Without knowing aught of the lass, it was fairly obvious that she was likely looking for a free meal—and Osborn was the fool to deliver it.

The lass lowered her kerchief, and Colin caught a flash of red lips in the corner of his eye. “Naught to burden ye with, milord, I am sure. I am just a silly, silly lass, that is all. And now I will pay the price for my foolishness.”

As the innkeeper’s wife set ale and stew in front of the lass, Osborn slid one stool closer to her. “Come now, ye are no doubt being too hard on yerself. What is yer name, then?”

“Sabine. Sabine Armstrong,” the lass replied.

“Well, Sabine, I am Harold Osborn, though everyone simply calls me Osborn.”

The lass giggled softly as if the messenger had just said something witty. “Verra well, Osborn. I thank ye again for the meal. My great aunt Edith always says almost everything can be fixed with a warm, full belly.”

Suddenly Sabine was whimpering into her kerchief again.

“What is it, missy?” Osborn asked, scooting over another stool. “Is yer great aunt unwell?”

“Oh, nay!” Sabine moaned. “Edith is in fine health. In fact, she is resting abovestairs. It is just…”

Colin polished off his bowl of stew, all the while trying to ignore Osborn as he attempted to coax information out of the girl. With a smile and a wink at the innkeeper’s wife, he had another mug of ale placed before him.

Mayhap instead of scorning Osborn for a fool, he should be thanking this Sabine lass for taking the man off his hands for a few minutes. Though Osborn’s incessant prattle, even when directed at someone else, still grated on his nerves, at least Colin didn’t have to feign good humor for the time being.

“…parents died of the fever, great aunt Edith took me in. So ye see, I am verra naughty for no’ being grateful to her.” Sabine said, dabbing at her eyes once more. “But I cannae forgive her for what she has planned.”

“And what is that? Surely she has yer best interests at heart if she has raised ye all these years, as ye say.” Osborn waved for another ale for himself and Sabine. The innkeeper’s wife grudgingly fetched them, setting them down with more force than necessary onto the countertop.

Sabine launched into her tale, telling Osborn in a hushed, plaintive voice that Edith had dragged her from their home outside Caerlaverock to come to Dumfries.

“I’ve never even seen a town as grand as Dumfries before—and now I never will,” Sabine said, her voice dropping dejectedly.

“I dinnae see why, lassie! We are practically in Dumfries now! Just convince yer dear old Edith to let ye have a look tomorrow. Who kens, perhaps the rains will finally clear up.”

Osborn tried to console Sabine as a fresh wave of sobs overtook her. Not so subtly, Osborn slid over the final stool that separated him from the lass and took one of her hands in his.

“Nay, she will not relent,” Sabine said. “For ye see, she is going to deliver me to Lincluden Abbey to live with…” She dragged in a ragged breath. “To live with
nuns
!”

Another round of tears and Osborn’s awkward attempts to simultaneously soothe and seduce the lass ensued.

Colin turned on his stool so that he could lean against the counter and survey the room. A few patrons had left in the time since Sabine had made her teary appearance, but more had arrived. Now nearly every table was occupied.

The volume in the room had increased as well, and not entirely because of the lass’s sobs and Osborn’s chattering. The evening had begun in earnest now, which meant that several of the men in the common room were making it their mission to drink as much ale as their coin purses allowed.

A few had taken up a game of dice at one table, while others had turned their attention to cards. Although some still shot lingering looks at Sabine, most seemed to accept that Osborn had claimed a first crack at the lass.

“…only a wee mistake. But she willnae listen. She thinks I am some sort of…
harlot
because…well, because of Thomas. And Henry. And Randolf. And William—but that was only once!”

Without looking, Colin could practically hear Osborn’s eyes bulging out of his head.

“Ye mean…ye mean yer dear old Edith is sending ye to a nunnery for being…indiscreet with the lads? Wench! More ale, if ye please!”

“Aye,” Sabine said. “But I loved each one, I swear! They were verra kind to me, ye ken. I just wanted to show them what they meant to me.”

Colin nearly snorted. Mayhap he had been wrong. The lass wasn’t playing Osborn for a free meal—she was just as foolhardy as the messenger. Somehow, Osborn had stumbled upon his perfect match.

Osborn leaned closer to the lass, pouring a cascade of reassurances for her wee transgressions and condolences for her fate with each breath.

How was it that Osborn, the oblivious, chatter-mouthed fool, was having the luckiest night of his life while Colin was left to play nursemaid? And how had Colin convinced himself that this was the best use of his skill, his training, and his dedication to the Bruce’s cause?

He shifted slightly on his stool. The waxed parchment wrapped around the King’s missive made the faintest crinkling noise, reassuring him that it was still in place where it lay sewn into his tunic’s double-layered wool. He’d placed the missive directly over his heart. Someone would have to kill him to get it. Aye, he reminded himself, this was the reason he was here.

“…only have one night left before I am to be shut away in the nunnery for the rest of my life,” Sabine was saying. She hiccupped, then giggled behind her hand. How many mugs of ale had Osborn offered her? And how many had the messenger had himself?

Colin leaned over, grabbing a fistful of Osborn’s sleeve.

“We need to leave early tomorrow,” he said lowly to the messenger.

Osborn swayed slightly on his stool. “Och, I ken that. I take my job verra seriously, thank ye verra much.” The words ran together slightly, but Osborn managed to yank his sleeve free of Colin’s grasp.

“Dinnae make a fool of yerself,” Colin shot back.

“Just because ye are jealous,” Osborn whispered loudly, “doesnae mean ye must ruin
my
good fortune, Colin.”

Colin would have been sorely tested not to punch Osborn’s red, bulbous nose in that moment, except that he sensed a pair of eyes on them.

He turned to find a cloaked man sitting in one of the common room’s dim corners. The man was watching them intently—or more precisely, he was staring at Osborn.

Unease lanced through Colin’s gut. Even with an increasingly raucous and crowded room, the man sat quietly, a mug of ale untouched on a small table next to him.

Could this be the very scenario the Bruce feared? Mayhap this shadowy stranger was waiting for Osborn to drink himself silly before making a move.

Colin glanced away casually, keeping his features relaxed. He feigned taking a sip of ale, lazily scanning the room once more. As his eyes skittered across the cloaked figure in the corner, he again found the man’s gaze locked on Osborn.

Something was off. The familiar heat of battle surged in his veins as he stood. If the man was a spy and missive thief, he would get far more than he bargained for this eve.

He strode with deadly calm across the crowded common room. Halfway to the man in the corner, he heard a stool clatter to the ground behind him, followed by Sabine’s giggle.

A glance over his shoulder revealed Osborn looping his arm around the lass.

“Our chamber will be occupied for the evening, friend,” Osborn slurred, a crooked grin on his face. “See ye in the morn.”

Muttering a curse, Colin turned back to the corner.

The cloaked man was gone.

Sabine staggered under the weight of Osborn’s arm. She forced a flirtatious giggle from her throat as she struggled to keep her footing on the stairs.

“I hope yer room isnae far,” she panted, half pulling him up the remaining steps.

“Just there.” Osborn pointed a swaying finger at one of the wooden doors down the hallway.

Sabine helped him stumble to the door and waited as he shoved it open. As he fumbled with a flint to light the single candle in the room, she closed the door behind her, drawing in a steadying breath.

As the candle caught and flickered to life, Osborn seemed to lose his courage.

“Och, lassie.” He wiped the palms of his hands on his breeches, wetting his lips with his tongue. “Ye look verra fine in the candlelight.”

“Thank ye,” she said absently, her hand slipping into the folds of her skirt. As her fingers brushed the heavy hilt of her dagger, a strange calm came over her. She knew how to do this.

She stepped forward slowly. “Do I have a treat for ye,” she drawled in her well-practiced Lowland accent. “Close yer eyes.”

A lopsided, almost sweet smile touched Osborn’s lips as his lids drifted closed. He swayed on his feet. By God, she likely didn’t even need the dagger. He was ready to fall flat on his face from the ale already.

She’d been prepared to surreptitiously switch mugs with him all night, letting him nearly drain his own and then passing her full one to him. Instead, he’d gotten soused all by himself. She was grateful for that, for his friend’s perceptive gaze had fallen on her enough times to make her sick with fear.

Sabine’s Lowland accent was flawless, she knew. Her story, while melodramatic, was plausible. And her fingers were light and quick enough that she had never been caught stealing or even switching cups.

She was good at her job. And yet, Osborn’s thug—Colin, she’d heard him called—set her nerves on end. Those bright blue eyes were far too intelligent for him to be considered merely a brute.

The weight of the dagger enclosed in her hand snapped her back to her task. She gripped the gilded hilt. It had been a gift from Fabian, just like the ring that dangled on the chain around her neck.

She took a careful, silent step forward until she could smell the ale wafting from Osborn’s breath. With a flick of her wrist, she yanked the dagger free of her skirts.

Arm rising over her head, Sabine inhaled through her teeth. Then with all of her strength, she brought the dagger down on Osborn’s head—hilt first.

The heavy hilt thumped against Osborn’s skull. With hardly more than a whooshing exhale, he crumpled to the floor.

Sabine watched him in the flickering candlelight for a count of one hundred—another trick Fabian had taught her. She’d never killed before, and she didn’t plan on starting tonight. It was easier, this way—cleaner. The messenger would have no memory of this in the morning, nor would she have to deal with a body.

Osborn’s breathing was shallow but steady. Sabine exhaled in relief. He wouldn’t be waking for a long while. When he did, he’d have a hell of a headache, but he’d likely attribute it to the ale.

Though she knew she had time, unease spurred her to set about her task quickly.

After slipping the dagger back into the folds of her skirt, she knelt over Osborn’s prone form and began patting him down.

Mayhap it was the messenger’s damned companion that had her pulled tighter than a bowstring. Again, she was plagued by the thought that the man was far more than a bit of hired muscle.

Apparently Fabian had briefed Miles on this assignment before speaking with her, for when she met Miles at their checkpoint in Dumfries that afternoon, he already had a description of both the messenger and his thug. He even had the name of the inn they were staying at just outside the town.

She’d slipped into the inn’s second storey by a sheer stroke of luck. A ladder had been left out by the stables. Trusting that the corridor abovestairs would be quiet what with most of the patrons in the common room, she’d propped the ladder below a small window at the end of the hallway and crept up. All she’d had to do then was stash her damp cloak in a shadowy corner at the end of the corridor and make her way downstairs, dabbing a kerchief at her face.

Miles’s account of the messenger had been nondescript enough: a thin man approaching middle age, short brown hair, a bulbous nose, and an ever-running mouth. But his description of Colin had hardly prepared her for what she found in the inn’s common room.

Miles had said that the man was built like a warrior. He hadn’t said that he was so tall and broad of shoulder, so lean and yet so muscular, that he looked like a wild lion barely caged by his simple tunic and breeches. Miles had noted blond hair, not a mane that curled around the man’s wide shoulders. That tawny hair was the only part of him that looked at all soft. Miles hadn’t been close enough to note the brute’s eye color, yet even if he had told Sabine they were blue, it wouldn’t have prepared her for the shockingly clear, vibrant gaze that had locked on her when she’d entered the common room.

Nor was she prepared for the sharpness of the assessment he gave not only her, but everyone in the room. Nay, he was not merely a hired thug. He was skilled, that much was obvious.

She’d never had to work so hard at appearing natural as she’d seduced Osborn practically right under Colin’s nose. Even feigning disinterest, she’d felt his cool, piercing gaze slide to her several times.

Sabine’s fingers brushed against waxed parchment and her thoughts halted abruptly. Her work required her complete focus. Fretting over some man’s searching glances was how foolish little girls wasted their energy—not her.

She let her fingers probe delicately along the pocket inside Osborn’s tunic. The pocket was simple enough—not sewn shut, but placed carefully over his heart, a very common place for messengers to carry their missives.

Even still, she carefully felt the depth of the pocket, letting her fingers memorize just how deeply the letter was pushed, just how far to the left edge it rested. She would have to put it back exactly as she found it. Even if Osborn wouldn’t remember most of this night, Fabian had taught her to be as precise and careful as possible.

Once she was satisfied that she could put the missive back just right, she slid it from the pocket.

She could make out a red seal through the layer of waxed parchment that protected the missive from the elements. Carefully unfolding the outer layer, she brushed her fingertips along the missive.

As she carried the little packet to the table where the candle sat, she slipped the letter from its wrapping. After she placed the wax parchment on the table, she tilted the seal toward the candle to assess it.

A breath caught in her throat at what the candlelight revealed.

It was the King of Scotland’s seal.

She’d never encountered it before in the field, but Fabian had sketched it, along with dozens of others, for her to memorize. Especially when her assignments involved memorization rather than retrieval of missives, the seal could often be more important than the words written within.

Though he had drilled countless different seals into her head over the years, she would never mistake this one—a knight brandishing a sword and shield on horseback—for any other than King Robert the Bruce’s own mark. He was a warrior King, after all.

Fabian had been right. Whatever this missive contained was of the utmost importance if it came from the quill of a King. Her chest swelled slightly at the thought that Fabian had given her such a significant assignment.

All the more reason to do everything exactly right.

Sabine removed the dagger from her skirts once more, carefully sliding it from its gilded sheath. She held the blade over the candle’s flame, turning it slowly to heat it evenly.

When the tip of the blade glowed faintly orange in the dimly lit chamber, she drew in a breath and lowered the dagger to where the missive rested on the table.

With a steady hand, she gently guided the dagger’s tip along the folded parchment until it encountered the red wax seal. Carefully, she slid the blade between the parchment and the seal.

Even the slightest of tremors now could crack the seal, ruining the mission and potentially endangering her life. If whoever had paid Fabian so handsomely for the information in this missive discovered that he’d been compromised… She could only imagine what such a powerful man would do to a lowly thief like her.

Relief flooded her as the blade glided smoothly under the seal. With a faint noise, the seal popped up, opening the parchment halfway.

Sabine set the dagger aside and took the missive into her hands. With gentle fingertips, she unfolded another one of the parchment flaps, then another. At last the inside of the missive was bared to the flickering candlelight.

Her jaw slackened in shock at what she found inside.

The parchment was blank.

She turned it over, holding it to the light. The back side was blank also.

Dizzying fear stabbed through her like the hot blade she’d just wielded.

What in…

This didn’t make any sense. Why did the missive bear the King of Scotland’s seal but naught else? Where was the message? Why had Robert the Bruce sent an empty letter with a messenger—a messenger guarded by a sharp-eyed warrior, no less?

Her mind spun wildly, the blank sheet of parchment trembling in her fingers. She dragged in a ragged breath, trying to force herself to calm down and think clearly.

She glanced down at Osborn’s still form, but he couldn’t give her any answers. He’d begun snoring lightly, the sound grating on her frayed nerves.

Like a bolt of lightning, a thought struck her.

Osborn was a dupe—as was the blank missive.

“Nay,” she breathed as the pieces crashed into place in her mind.

It was far worse than Fabian had suspected. He’d thought that mayhap the thug sent along with Osborn was just for extra protection—the roads were dangerous these days, and the missive was no doubt valuable.

But the blank letter implied something else.

Someone was on to them.

Someone knew that missives were being intercepted, that information was being lifted and passed along.

And not just
someone
—Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland, arguably the most powerful man in the Kingdom at the moment, knew what Fabian was up to.

She had to flee—and she had to warn Fabian. Those two thoughts clanged through her mind so loudly that she had to resist the urge to cover her ears.

She was in lethal peril, with Osborn sprawled unconscious at her feet, the King of Scotland’s missive lying open before her, and Colin sitting belowstairs at this very moment.

Fabian needed to know that they’d been compromised. She owed him her life—she owed him everything. She would do whatever it took to get word of this breach to him.

Heart hammering so hard it nigh jumped into her throat, she reached for her dagger once more. She held the tip over the candle’s flame again while she deftly folded the missive with one hand.

There was still a chance that she and Fabian could slide through this ordeal without notice. But she had to do everything exactly right. Aye, the Bruce was on to them, but that didn’t mean that she would confirm her presence here this night. If she placed everything back as it was, he would be left unaware that they knew he’d planted the decoy missive with Osborn.

Her thoughts snagged at that. She was tangled in an intricate and deadly web. Forcing her mind to still, she removed the dagger from the flame. For a count of three, she rested the orange tip against the backside of the King’s seal. When she pulled the dagger away, the underside of the seal was soft and tacky, while its face, embossed with the armed knight, remained intact.

She pressed the seal into the parchment until it once again held the blank sheet closed, then quickly rewrapped the missive in its waxed paper. Kneeling beside Osborn, she tucked the packet into the inside pocket where she’d found it, then stood.

There was no time to drag him to the cot a few feet away. Besides, she didn’t trust the strength in her trembling limbs at the moment. So she left him lying there, still snoring softly.

All that remained was slipping away from the inn without encountering the perceptive warrior belowstairs again.

Sabine eased open the chamber’s door. Finding the hallway empty, she closed the door behind her and glided toward the window she’d used to enter the inn. The sounds of merrymaking drifted to her from the common room, but the voices were faint. No alarm sounded. No one drew nigh.

She snatched her cloak from the corner and spun it around her shoulders, taking a sliver of comfort in lifting the deep hood over her head. She pulled back the wooden shutters and found the ladder right where she’d left it.

The ladder’s rungs were slick with rainwater, but her feet and hands were blessedly sure as she descended. When her boots squelched in mud, she allowed herself one steadying breath. Then she darted across the dark space separating the inn from its stables.

Again, no attack was sprung on her as she slipped into the barn. A few of the horses tethered there shifted at her arrival, but they remained quiet. She found the spritely mare Fabian had allowed her to take for this assignment and made quick work of saddling and bridling her.