Heart's Thief (Highland Bodyguards, Book 2) (5 page)

Just as she mounted the mare, voices rose outside the stable. Her blood froze as she strained to hear, her hands clenching around the reins.

One of the voices was clearly angry, while the other was afraid. Was one of the speakers Colin? She thought his Highland brogue drifted to her ears, but she couldn’t be sure. Had he discovered what she’d done?

The voices were too distant for her to make aught out. She would just have to risk drawing their attention as she fled, for she couldn’t stay cowering in the stables forever. Fabian needed her.

Nudging the mare forward, she hunched even deeper into her cloak. The mare passed through the door she’d left open. The two men were still speaking loudly to each other near the front of the inn, but Sabine didn’t dare glance their way.

With a squeeze of her heels and a snap of the reins, she urged the mare into the drizzling darkness, guiding her toward Dumfries.

Colin spun in a slow circle.

The man who’d been sitting in the corner a moment before, tucked deep into a dark cloak, was nowhere to be seen.

He strode toward the stairs and squinted into the shadows. He heard Osborn’s slurring voice mumble something to the lass he’d taken up there, and then the soft thump of their chamber door closing behind them.

Though he doubted the man had gone up there, he climbed the stairs nonetheless and quickly scanned the corridor. Naught.

Returning to the common room, he caught sight of the innkeeper’s wife squeezing between the patrons as she refilled foaming ale in awaiting mugs.

“Madam,” he shouted over the now boisterous mass of men.

She bustled by him with a nod and a distracted smile. Clearly she had her hands full, but he needed answers about the suspicious man.

“Madam,” he repeated, ducking his head so that there was no mistaking that she heard him. “The man in the corner a moment ago—the quiet one in the cloak—do ye ken who he was?”

She shrugged and tried to move past him, but he caught her arm. Quickly plastering a charming smile on his face, he took the pitcher of ale from her hand and refilled the nearest cup he saw.

“Just a moment of yer time, I swear,” he said, still grinning. “And I promise I’ll no’ slow ye down in yer tasks.” For good measure, he winked at her.

Her annoyance melting into a faint smile, she gazed at him for a long moment.

“The man,” he prodded. “Have ye seen him before?”

“Oh!” she gave herself a little shake as if waking from a dream. “Ye mean the one who didnae even touch his ale? Nay, I havenae seen him before, though that’s no’ so unusual. We’re only a few miles from Dumfries, and with such honest prices, we get lots of travelers passing through.”

She lifted her chin with pride as she spoke.

“When did he arrive?”

“Only this afternoon—about the same time as ye and that old windbag of yers,” she replied, her smile dropping at the mention of Osborn.

“Och, aye, windbag indeed,” he said, widening his smile. “Ye’re lucky ye dinnae have to share a chamber with him tonight—his snoring could wake the dead!”

The innkeeper’s wife giggled like a wee lass. Good. He still had her on his side, which meant he should be able to get a bit more information out of her.

“And did ye happen to see which direction he arrived from? The west? The south?”

She shook her head, her brows dropping despondently as if it pained her not to be able to help him.

“Did he say aught to ye?”

“Nay, no’ a word. I really must see to the others.” She glanced around the common room, her hands wiping down the front of her apron, no doubt a nervous gesture.

Though he could press her further, he would only draw attention to himself, and possibly raise the woman’s suspicion. Though some situations called for a harder, more direct approach to extract information, he sensed that this wasn’t one of them.

“Thank ye, madam,” he said, handing her back the pitcher of ale. He gave her a gallant tilt of the head and flashed another smile calculated to make her titter.

As she did just that, he pivoted and sought the inn’s door. He hadn’t heard the door open or close when his back had been turned to the man in the corner, but then again, the noise of the tipped over stool, Osborn’s drunken shout to him, and the general revelry of the men around him might have muffled the sound.

Colin ducked out the door and into the damp night. The rain had turned into a mist now, and the air was heavy with moisture.

Naught moved around the inn. No flap of a cloak or squelching step in the mud.

He slowly walked toward the stables, the mud sucking at his boots.

When he reached the wooden structure, he listened for movement within, but all he heard was the soft rustle of animals.

Just then, a flicker of motion caught his eye. A dark figure emerged from the shrubbery not far from the inn’s front door.

As the figure stepped toward the inn, Colin darted forward. He grabbed the man by the front of his cloak, giving him a shake.

“What have we here?”

The man yelped in surprise, his cloak hood falling back. The same dark eyes, now rounded with shock rather than narrowed in observation, met Colin’s hard stare.

“What are ye—”

“Who are ye?” Colin barked.

When the man only sputtered, Colin gave him another shake.

“Answer me. Who are ye?”

“M-Michael,” the man managed “Michael Gordon.”

The name didn’t ring any bells. “Why were ye watching my friend?”

“The lass? F-forgive me, milord. I didnae ken she was yer—”

“Nay, no’ the lass. The man seated next to me. Dinnae deny that ye were staring, for I saw ye. What were ye about? Who sent ye?”

“Sent me, milord?” Michael’s brows collided even as his eyes remained wide. “I dinnae ken what ye mean. I wasnae
about
aught, nor was I sent.”

Colin ground his teeth together, his fists tightening around Michael’s wool cloak. There was a time for a light touch, for charm and friendliness, and then there was a time like this. “Dinnae toy with me, man. I’ll have answers from ye one way or another. What are ye about?”

Michael’s throat bobbed as he swallowed hard. “A-aye, I may have been staring, and for that I apologize, milord. But I wasnae staring at the man—or if I was, I meant naught by it. I was…”

“What?” Colin snapped.

“I was staring at the lass.” Michael flinched back as if Colin had raised a fist at his face. When no blow landed, he opened one eye. “I meant no harm, I swear. I didnae ken she was yer friend.”

The wheels of realization ground painfully in Colin’s mind. “Ye were staring at the lass,” he said flatly. “To whom ye think I have some claim.”

“Was she no’… Is she no’ yer…yer whore?”

“What the bloody hell gave ye that impression?”

“Well, ye were sitting next to the man whom she seemed to target. He showed her a bit of coin, which made her stay. Ye were keeping an eye on them. And then they went abovestairs.”

Colin cursed. The lass’s entrance, Osborn putting a coin on the counter for the innkeeper to serve her, and their drunken departure all appeared different now. Hell, even her interest in Osborn should have tipped Colin off—she was likely a prostitute looking for an easy mark.

“I was only watching to see if the man might turn the lass down. If he had…well, I would have been more than happy to take his place and—”

“Enough,” Colin growled.

“When she went abovestairs with him, I came out to piss, and then ye grabbed me, and—”

Now the man was blubbering.

“I said enough,” Colin repeated, but this time he lowered his voice. Slowly, he released his hold on the man’s cloak, smoothing the material where he rumpled it. “Go back inside.”

Michael nodded swiftly, his eyes still rounded with fear. He slipped around Colin and disappeared into the inn.

As Colin watched him go, someone emerged from the stables atop a horse. A dark cloak fluttered around a small figure. Though the light was low, he noticed a green skirt peeking out from the cloak where the figure’s boots sat in the stirrups.

The figure darted off into the night headed toward Dumfries before Colin could raise his voice in a shout.

What the bloody hell was going on?

The figure on horseback must have been Sabine Armstrong, for she’d been wearing just such a green dress. But no more than ten minutes could have elapsed between when she went upstairs with Osborn to now.

If it had been another night and another mission, Colin would have laughed until tears came to his eyes at the thought that Osborn, for all his bigmouthed boasting, had only lasted a few minutes with the lass. But instead of mirth, unease swelled in his belly.

Was the lass a prostitute after all? Why had she left in such a hurry? Some unnamed instinct whispered in the back of Colin’s mind that something was off.

Colin stormed back into the inn and shoved his way through the drunken men in the common room until he reached the stairs. He took them two at a time and made a direct line to the chamber he shared with Osborn.

Without preamble, he shoved the door open. A half-spent candle on a nearby table fluttered, casting flickering light over the chamber.

Osborn lay sprawled on the floor not far from the bed, snoring lightly. Naught else in the chamber was out of place.

Colin stepped forward and crouched at Osborn’s side. The man might very well have simply fallen over drunk right in the middle of the floor. That would explain Sabine’s hasty departure if she was indeed a prostitute.

He hefted the pouch on Osborn’s belt. Several coins clinked together inside. Another bit of strangeness. Why wouldn’t Sabine simply steal the coins if she was a woman for hire?

Suddenly a far darker possibility gripped him. His hand dove into Osborn’s tunic, searching for the pocket where he knew the dummy letter sat.

His heart slowed briefly at the feel of the letter in its proper place. Even still, he pulled it out and quickly discarded the protective wax parchment.

Inside, the Bruce’s seal was unbroken.

Colin exhaled as his finger ran over the seal. It had been foolish to suspect the lass, of course, but something about the whole night had made him as jumpy as—

He’d absently pressed on the King’s seal with his thumb as he’d held the missive. Underneath the pad of his thumb, the seal had compressed ever so slightly.

He tilted the missive toward the light.

Colin’s stomach plummeted to his feet.

There around the base of the seal, an extra ring of red wax had seeped out when he’d pressed on it.

The seal had been heated, the missive opened, and the seal reheated so that it could be sealed again. Bloody hell, the wax was still soft enough from the operation that the light pressure from Colin’s thumb had made a mess of the careful work.

Only one person had come into the chamber with Osborn. And only one person had just fled the inn.

Sabine
.

Colin tossed the letter to the ground, leaving Osborn to sleep off whatever she’d done to him. He tore through the door, then charged down the stairs and out the inn toward the stables.

What a sodding, blind fool he’d been. The whole evening, he’d been looking for some cloaked fiend or masked villain, as if whoever was spying on the Bruce’s missives would announce himself so obviously.

Meanwhile, a conniving slip of a lass had waltzed right under his nose and made a fool of him.

The old wound from eight years past flared deep in his chest. He’d vowed never to be duped again—not after what Joan had done to him. And yet tonight he’d been taken in by a pair of pretty eyes and the easy flirtations of a practiced deceiver, gullible arse that he was.

As he swung onto his stallion’s back, he cursed himself all over again. There was more at stake here than his wounded pride. The King had entrusted him not only to deliver a message to his brother, but also to weed out the threat of spies. And Colin had let the devious lass slip right through his fingers.

He spurred his horse hard toward Dumfries. There was still time to set his failure to rights.

He wasn’t through with Sabine Armstrong just yet.

Sabine reined in the exhausted mare when the River Nith came into view. Though the inn had only been a small handful of miles from Dumfries, the roads were churned into a muddy mess, making for difficult footing for the horse even as Sabine had forced her ever faster.

The river looked like a wide black ribbon where it slid silently around the town’s wall. The moon gave off a diffuse, weak light from behind the bank of gray clouds overhead. Normally she would have shuddered at the clinging darkness, but tonight she was grateful for it.

Spotting Devorgilla’s Bridge farther down the river, she urged the mare into a walk. When the horse’s hooves clopped against the bridge’s wooden planks, Sabine pulled her to a halt.

Pursing her lips, she let out a low, trilling whistle. The mare sidestepped nervously at the sound, her hooves loud again on the bridge.

Sabine waited, barely remembering to breathe. The misting rain continued to drift around her, casting everything in dim haloes. Unease sat like a stone in her belly. Where was Miles?

At last, the door on the bridge’s gatehouse at the other end of the wooden expanse swung open. A large figure loomed out and began making his way across the bridge.

When Miles reached her, she allowed herself one moment of relief before fear once again pinched her chest.

“That was quick,” Miles murmured, looking warily behind her. “I wasn’t expecting—”

“Miles, we are all in danger,” she panted.

Mile’s large body stiffened as if he were about to launch an attack, but there was no one nearby. “What?”

“The missive I was sent to intercept—it bore the seal of Robert the Bruce.”

He nodded, unsurprised. How much had Fabian known before sending her on this assignment? And how much had he told Miles, all the while leaving Sabine in the dark?

She shoved the questions—and the prick of hurt they caused—aside. There was no time for silliness now.

“The missive was blank,” she blurted. “I think the King must know that someone has been intercepting his correspondence.”

Sabine could only assume that such work had been Fabian’s doing. He ran the largest organization of information gathering and selling in all of England, or so he said. And now he was expanding into Scotland—his clients were clamoring for it.

She knew she wasn’t his only thief, though she’d never met anyone in his organization other than Miles. Fabian said it was safer that way. Now she wished she had known that he’d sent others before her to read the King’s missives. If she had slipped up in any way, she may have lost her life—but then again, that was always the case.             

This new revelation had Miles’s dark eyes widening.

“I left no sign of my presence,” she added quickly, “but I fear we may have been compromised. Fabian needs to know immediately.”

Miles nodded swiftly. “I’ll get my horse.”

As Miles’s footsteps faded down the bridge, Sabine couldn’t help the shiver that raced up her spine. In all her years of thieving, never had she felt more exposed, more endangered, than she did right now.

She swung the mare around, her gaze searching the road she’d taken from the inn to the north of Dumfries. The road was empty and silent, as was the entire town of Dumfries beyond the city wall.

Her eyes traveled west to where the forest sat thick and black. Was someone watching her, or was it only her fear that caused the hairs on the back of her neck to stand up?

She nearly cried out with fright at the sound of horse hooves clattering at the far end of the bridge. She spun back around to find Miles riding toward her.

“If we are separated, do everything you can to reach Fabian,” Miles said tersely.

“Aye, of course,” she breathed.

Without another word, Miles spurred his horse east.

She could only hope that Fabian hadn’t moved his headquarters yet again in the few days since he’d sent her on this assignment. She’d lost count of all his safe houses over the years. He never liked to stay in one place for too long, but sometimes that meant it was challenging to find him.

That was what Miles was supposed to be for. He was her only contact in the field. She reported to him, and then he’d lead her back to Fabian. But Miles was currently disappearing into the dark gloom ahead of her. If she didn’t keep up, she’d have no certain way of getting her news to Fabian.

She leaned low over the mare’s neck, squeezing her heels firmly into the animal’s flanks.

Just as the mare burst forward, an enormous mounted figure lunged from the shadows directly in front of her.

The mare skidded in the mud, then reared, nearly unseating Sabine. Just as she got the mare under control, a hand shot out and snatched the reins from her grasp.

“There ye are, lass.”

Panic spiked through her. The words were growled with an unmistakable Highland brogue.
Colin.

“I have a few questions for ye, and I’m sure ye’ll provide some most interesting answers.”