Heaven and the Heather (3 page)

The beauty reached up with a twisted hand to replace the hood over her hair. He gave her hand no more than a passing glance. Her eyes were far more interesting.

“Aye, well,” Niall said finding his grin, “the true
sauvage
is—”

“A MacGregor!” A horrid and familiar voice rang out behind him.

Niall jerked around taking the soft leather purse with him. He stabbed his free hand under his cloak for his dirk.

But it was as futile a gesture as deeming to soften one of the royal Court to him. Several pairs of hands grabbed him, yanking him roughly away from her, jerking his hands from his knife.

“Ye’re ruining a lovely moment, lads,” Niall said to the guards. Jest was all he could find for the moment. He struggled against his many captors.

They whirled him about. His head was yanked back pulled by a fistful of his hair, forcing his chin up. His gaze met that of Satan himself.

“Campbell,” he rasped.

“The
mademoiselle
knows you better than you know yourself, MacGregor,” Campbell said.

“Then she must also realize that ye are nothing but shite beneath her feet,” Niall hissed.

Campbell slapped him. The leather gauntlet stung the side of Niall’s face, but he remained steady, giving his enemy not so much as a wince.

“Ye hit like a lassie,” he said. “Weak, like your claim to Gregor land!”

“Take this scum to the Tolbooth,” Campbell snarled.

“On whose authority do you do this, Lord John?”

Campbell bowed low to the queen, a stately woman with hair more fiery than Niall’s. Her clothes rivaled the sun with their brilliance.

“Release this man,” she commanded.

The guards obeyed her. Niall stumbled toward the queen.

He bowed before Scotland’s new sovereign. Hope for his clan burned deep inside his soul. He prayed the queen had not heard the lies against his people, had no knowledge of the edict posted against all MacGregors.

“Lord John, what say you to this disruption?” the queen asked.

“Your Majesty, I heartily apologize—” Campbell began.

“I did not ask for apology,” she said, voice firm. She waved a hand forward. Still bowing, Niall looked up through his hair. The French lass stepped forward. She was more lovely than her sovereign. Surely, that must be treason in itself.

“Our Sabine, what say you to this disruption? You appear to be the source of it.”

Niall’s grin escaped. He now knew her name.

Sabine curtsied. “I regret,
Madame
, that I cried out. I was affronted.”

“Affronted? By whom?”

Campbell stepped forward. “That MacGregor, Your Majesty. An outlaw from an outlaw clan. Your Privy Council decreed it, in your name.”

“We did not solicit a response from you, Lord John. We are most affronted that policy is made by our Privy Council without our knowledge. We have yet to determine the truth of any accusation you bring to one of our subjects.”

Niall held his head higher and threw a wink at his queen. She was a lass after all. The merest hint of a smile played at the corners of her mouth.

“But, Your Majesty, MacGregors are—”

“Enough!” The queen stifled a yawn with bejeweled fingers before her lips. “We are weary from our journey. This matter can certainly wait.” She turned away to the carriage and the huddle of nobles that had seemingly appeared from nowhere. Sabine continued to curtsy but took a furtive glance at Niall.

He mouthed her name.
Sabine.

She blinked, gasping. Good. He deserved something from her, even if it was a startled reaction. If she had not disarmed him with such beauty, he would not be in this predicament.

“Take him away,” Campbell said to the guards.

Niall suddenly dropped to the mud. Like a newt, he slipped through the muck evading the grappling hands. With one hand he reached for his dirk, neatly sheathed, hidden in a fold of his kilt. Brandishing the weapon, he parted the crowd in a hail of gasps and startled breaths. He ran through Leith with speed and fury of a spring storm, to the outskirts, to a forest where his horse was tethered and hidden.

He vowed to see Sabine again, for the sake of his clan. She would get him inside the palace, but how?

He looked down at his left fist. He had not unclenched it since he had been torn away from Sabine. He opened his fingers one by one revealing a small, leather purse in his palm.

An idea leapt to mind. He sat down in cover of the forest and opened the purse.

S
abine stared into the mist as a light rain began to fall.

“He has escaped, no?” she asked Lord Campbell.

She knew the answer to her question. One as bold as that MacGregor could leave her life as quickly as he had entered it. She could still feel his firm touch upon her legs, see his fierce yet Heavenly gaze in her mind.

“Curse all MacGregors,” Lord Campbell replied to the mist.

Sabine allowed him to escort her to her queen. This vile and savage place was her new home and not for long.

She reached inside her cloak, down to her
sac
, with her right hand, stretching the fingers, strengthening them, reaching to the symbol of her freedom—

Her heart froze and her spirit plummeted to harsh reality. She rustled her hand frantically under her cloak until all about her gave her hard stares. She stopped, forced her hand into view and stood quiet and demure as a good attendant should. Inside the depth of her mind and soul she was screaming.

Mon Dieu!
Her
sac
and the hope it bore was gone!

Lord Campbell stared at her, face frozen in confusion, unsure of what to think of her. Then he offered her a thin smile and his hand.

Sabine had no choice but to place her hand in his. She offered him her left hand this time. He gladly took it and escorted her to the waiting carriage.

N
iall sat against a stout oak. He allowed his breathing to calm. His mount chewed lazily on the undergrowth of fern, the chomping a distant sound.

He opened the gut strings wide and reached into the purse. He pulled out what at first glance looked liked brittle autumn leaves, but upon closer inspection they were scraps of paper with images from another place drawn in charcoal.

“She drew these,” he guessed out loud.

He picked up one of the papers. Set before his wide eyes were jagged snow-topped mountains. The sun shone on these bold outcroppings to the knife’s edge of a fir forest. Niall did not have to see the winter sunlight to know its power and rarity in these select charcoal markings. He also knew this place was not Scotland.

He looked at another paper. A man with a small mustache and pointy chin whiskers stared back at him. One thin brow was cocked jauntily above a glinting green eye. The realism was startling. The fact that this man was naked was more startling.

“A lover, no doubt,” he mused wickedly. This man was not Campbell. “I wonder if the bastard knows about this.”

Amused, he thumbed through the other papers. More beautiful scenery met his eyes, but no more revealing portraits. He looked to his lap. There resting in the center, nested in the dark plaid like an egg—it was a ball made of strips of wool wound round and round.

He picked up the ball. He lifted it to his nose, and savored her delicate flowery fragrance. He drew her scent in deep and captured her. A curious possession, aye, but no more curious than this woolen ball.

Niall recalled her right hand. A minor flaw on an otherwise perfect beauty. Perchance, it was not a flaw at all. He gave the ball a squeeze. The muscles in his fingers tightened against the slightly resilient orb. He squeezed as hard as he could until the veins on his forearm stood out against the pale, mud-streaked skin. He relaxed his hand, his fingers felt a wee bit stronger.

The purse still weighed heavy in his palm. He upended it. Five gold pieces fell into his lap.

“A bloody ransom!” was his first reaction.

He then clapped a hand over his mouth. He glanced through the wood, and up and down the road. He remained alone.

Five gold pieces! ’Twas wealth as he had never held before, yet alone seen.

“She’ll want this back, oh aye,” he said with a grin.

He shoved the papers and the wool ball back into the purse. He dropped the coin one by one into the opening and cinched the gut strings tight.

He was no thief. He was chief of a clan that would be slaughtered of he did not seek out the queen. The MacGregors could remain hidden in their remote glen, fend off an attack, but for how long? As much as he hated to admit it, he needed help.

He could not help but grin to himself. He knew several of the French lass’s secrets. Perchance he would know more, after he forced her to do his bidding. If she wanted it returned she would take him to the queen. This leather purse was his key.

Sudden hoofbeats seized his attention. He reached under his cloak for his dirk and held it at the ready while he waited in the tree shadows.

The rider wore a cloak that blew back from his shoulders. It ill-concealed his dark plaid and the chaotic black curls of his hair.

His best mate, Rory Buchanan, a hapless but loyal soul fostered a score ago into Clan Gregor, slowed his mount to a stop before the stand of oak. He puckered his lips and let loose with a poor imitation of a woodcock trill. Niall relaxed and placed his dirk back into its sheath at his hip.

“Aye, aye,” he said stepping from the wood. “I hear ye, ye daft bastard.” He glanced down the road. “What news of the Canon Gait? Any witnesses against Campbell?”

Rory slumped a wee bit in the saddle. He sighed and raked a hand through the rat’s nest on his head.

“What is it?” Niall asked, taking the reins of Rory’s mount as his friend thumped to the ground. Rory would not leave his father alone. The Buchanan, a giant, but with as much brains as a midge fly, was the chief’s champion, his protector.

Rory looked askance to nowhere in particular on the horizon.

“What news?” Niall demanded.

Finally, after a heaving another sigh, Rory looked his chief in the eye and said, “Nowt.”

“Nowt?” Niall stood firm. There were no witnesses? Not a bloody one?

“None.” Rory’s voice trailed off on a meandering, unintelligible path.

Niall held tight to Sabine’s purse. Rain began to fall around him. He looked to the south. One word crossed through his mind and his lips. He shoved the purse into his sporran, a humble satchel that hung from the belt that cinched his plaid to his waist.

He turned and walked determinedly to his mount. He climbed into the saddle over the horse’s rain-slicked back and faced the beast north to the Palace at Holyrood eleven miles away.

Sabine’s purse weighed heavy inside his sporran. She would help him. She had to.

chapter 2

Hope, Lost and Found

H
ope had abandoned Sabine, and she had been in Scotland but a day.

She raced from the queen’s chambers where she had pretended to unpack Mary’s extensive wardrobe while searching desperately for her
sac
. No one saw her leave. No one noticed the frantic look upon her face when she made her most horrible discovery.

Sabine blindly wound her way through the polished wood corridors of this Scottish palace, humble in comparison to the great
Palais Royal
they had occupied in France. She ran as fast as her legs could carry her, heart pumping with the steady flurry of a moth around a flame.

She took it on faith that her destination was ahead of her, around the next corner. All palaces had one. This palace of Holyrood had an abbey, or part of one, if the rumors Sabine had heard were correct.

Only Saint Giles, France’s famed hermit and patron saint of cripples and hopeless causes, could help her now.

She passed a surprised guard who had no time to lower his pike and bar her way out of the corridor. She stumbled through a pointed stone arch and skidded to a halt. All around her were ruins only to rival that of the remains of Pompeii, or so she had seen in sketches in a book…once.

She looked about her at the blackened timbers, the soot-stained stone walls. A score of years ago Henry, the father of the English Queen, ordered his soldiers to sack the abbey.

Saint Giles had guided her here, and perchance he would listen to her. Sabine prostrated herself before the wreckage of the altar under the glowering faces of the burnt icons, praying. In the rainbow colored reflection of the broken stained glass windows on the sooty stone floor, Sabine prayed for strength from her beloved patron saint. The damaged traceries held the jeweled fragments of glass. Perchance, Saint Giles did not come to such a desecrated church. He brought no answers to Sabine’s prayers. Only truth. Her
sac
was gone. She no longer had a choice to her life. She would have to marry Lord Campbell and live the rest of her life in his Highland kingdom. She saw nothing but dread ahead of her.

Sabine gripped a stick of charred timber with her right hand, strengthening her twisted fingers. She had to think some more. There had to be other choices.