Highland Hearts 03 - Crimson Heart (7 page)

The innkeeper looked between them. “One,” Searc contradicted, and placed his hand over her small one on his arm and squeezed.

“Aye, follow me.” The portly innkeep turned like a heavily laden battleship to push between the tables to the stairs. Searc’s gaze connected directly with several of the more watchful patrons until they retreated back into their cups. He would not have Elena in another room under this roof where any bloody bastard could barge in on her while she slept.

Searc produced another penny for the innkeeper. “Do ye know the whereabouts of a man named Lyngfield?”

“Roger Lyngfield.” Elena turned in a tight circle in the equally tight room.

“Lyngfield? Hmmm…” The innkeeper pocketed the coin and tapped his thick lips. “May have. Think he works in the stables at the palace. Tall fellow, broad.”

“We could find him there?” Elena asked. “At the Holyrood stables?”

“If he’s the fellow I’m thinking he is, aye.”

“Thank ye.” Searc produced another coin and set it in the man’s sweaty palm.

“The room is ten pence per night with a meal another five.” He left them, apparently not concerned over their relationship in the least.

Elena leaned half way out the open window, looking downhill toward the abbey, whose spire one could see above small thatch-roofed shops along the cobblestone road. “I wish I knew what he looked like.”

“Tall and broad.” Searc sat on the bed to pry his boots from his feet. “We will ask in the royal stables, but first” —his boot clomped down on the uneven floor— “we will rest.”

The bed was small but took up half the tiny room. He shook the blanket that had been around Elena and laid it out on the floor before the door. He flattened out on the hard wood boards, his sword on one side and his dagger on the other. If anyone tried to enter the room, he’d know it before the bastard could even wake the lass.

Elena sat on the bed. “Why just one room? I still have coins.”

“Save them. Also, ye are safer with me in yer room.”

“Those men down below seem rough.” She unlaced her boots. A small sigh came from her as they dropped from her feet. She pushed her skirts aside, rolled down one stocking and checked the foot that had been stung. He watched her slender fingers work the poultice wrapping off.

“Much better, though I must say that breaking in new boots is hard on perfectly well feet too.” She pulled the other stocking-clad foot up and crossed it over her knee to rub.

Searc pushed up and took it from her, his thumb running along the arch. She groaned. “God’s teeth that feels wonderful.” She leaned back on her elbows, but he still felt her gaze on him. “I’m sorry about the rock.” He glanced up and she tapped her forehead.

“Perhaps I’ll be lucky and it will leave a scar.”

The whisper of a laugh came from her before she groaned again.

“New boots take some working before they aren’t torture,” he commented, determined to ignore the little noises she kept making, each one a torturous coal to fire up his blood.

“Maybe I should have had them made larger,” she murmured as he stroked deeply along the channel running up the underside. He squeezed and stretched each of her little toes through the stocking on her sound foot and then rubbed the ball of each foot with his hard palm.

The noises Elena mewed woke every part of his taut body. Sprawled helplessly across the bed, trusting and open to his ministrations, he ran his hands up her calves to continue the rub. Her muscles felt tight and rather strong for a lady who sat all day doing needlework. Although, she had just walked all the way from England.

“That feels so good,” she said. “Where did you learn to tend legs?”

He breathed fully to clear his head. “Dearg’s muscles are tense after training. I work them out much the same way.”

Her voice sounded dazed, dreamy, as if she were half asleep already. “You are so large and heavy. I can only imagine what it would be like to have you ride me.”

Searc’s hands stilled with his breath, his strong grasp on her calf. Going just a bit higher, he rolled the stocking down and off her foot. She didn’t stop him. The innocent lass just lay there, her breasts set like perfect mounds on her chest, her light auburn hair spread upon the quilted cover, the green material pushed up exposing her long legs. He doubted very much that she was imagining him riding her like
he
was imagining riding her.

She wiggled her toes against his thigh where her foot rested. On their own will, his fingers moved higher. Her warmth fueled the heat already beginning to boil through his blood. Higher still, he massaged until the wrinkled skirt bunched around her thighs. They were pale in the muted light. On the bed, Elena moaned.

My dearest daughter, Mary,

I pray this letter finds you healthy and of happy spirits. How I miss you, my little one, but it is not safe for you to return to Scotland. There has recently been an attempted poisoning at Holyrood. Possibly due to my procurement of the title regent. No matter. I am well protected by our French ambassador, Lord Henri Cleutin of Roussillon. I will continue to secure your kingdom so that when you come of age, Scotland will be ready for you to be their queen. Until then, you must remain under the protection of the court at Château de Chambord.

I truly miss you, my sweet daughter.

With a heart full of love,

Marie de Guise, Reine d’Ecosse

Elena’s muscles ached from the long ride and even longer walk. She stretched out on the small bed that, despite its lumps, was so much more comfortable than a forest floor. Searc rubbed her feet with just the perfect amount of pressure. The man was a master. Her heart beat harder as she recalled the kiss she’d given him in the town, but she pushed it aside. He was clearly just honoring his promise to help her. Hopefully he didn’t think she was trying to persuade him to continue his protection.

His strong fingers worked in little circles to unknot the worst of the aches in her legs. “Searc.” She moaned at the heavenly feel and yawned. He’d been right. She couldn’t think straight with so little sleep. Surely that was why her mind kept replaying the feel of his mouth on hers. Yes, she needed sleep. “Thank you.” She pulled her legs up as she rolled away onto her side. “You are too good to me.” She breathed deeply and forced her thoughts to pastures and the calm surface of water, a trick she’d always used to fall asleep. Her mind began to skirt over the briefest of thoughts as it fell into a deep slumber. She floated in darkness for a long while before the dream grew.

Green leaves everywhere, towering trees swaying with wind and rain. She started off walking, always walking, day in and day out. The forest gave way to the surrounding countryside. Familiar meadow flowers bent to her as she passed. She smiled down at them. A sound made her turn to see Grimsthorpe’s bulky stone shape flanked by gardens far off. She should turn back toward the castle, but she longed for more time away from the whispers and pitying looks. Thomas would visit again soon. He always had some fun in store for her, a new game or a trick of hand he’d learned at court.

Wear a crown? How ludicrous, though she couldn’t tell him that. His heart was so set on it. Through her, he could control England.

No, she wouldn’t go back yet. She’d walk a bit more. She heard the galloping before she saw the riders. Tears gathered to ache behind her eyes. “A lady doesn’t weep for a traitor.” Lady Suffolk’s voice cut through her, making Elena press her palms to her ears.

“No!” she yelled across the field and started to run. Into the woods, low gnarled branches caught at her clothes and hair. Her slippers slid from her feet and still she ran, skirts ripping. “No!”

Up ahead a man stood, tall and bare-chested, his kilt slung low on his hips. He raised his sword, his eyes trained behind her. “Searc!” Could she reach him in time? She splashed into water, deep, engulfing. She fought to surface, gasping.

Elena surged upward on the bed, her eyes blinking at the bright light streaming into the room. Searc sat, his back against the door. She gasped. The faint glow of red seemed to seep from his hands. “Searc?”

“I will not hurt ye, Elena.” His voice came low, gravelly.

She swallowed down her panic. “Is there a danger?” Why was he staring at her? He fisted his hands at his side, and bent his knees up, feet flat on the wood floor.

“Yer nightmare. Ye were frightened, nearly frantic.” He breathed deeply.

The forest and fear of the chase were already fading from her memory as dreams often do. She brushed wild hair back from her face and exhaled. “I’m sorry.” She’d made his curse rise up within him. “I didn’t mean to—”

“Ye did nothing,” he interrupted, his clear blue, sad eyes watching her.

“Has it always been difficult for you to control?” She glanced at his hands that seemed normal again.

“Nay.”

She blinked. The covers up to her neck should mute the loud beating of her runaway heart even though it thundered in her ears. “Do I bring it out in you?” she whispered.

Searc ran a hand through his hair and folded in on himself to stand upright. He stretched his arms up to rest his hands flat on the low ceiling. “Ye do have a certain panicky air about ye.”

She frowned.

He shrugged as if perhaps he’d tried to jest. “Was the nightmare horrible then?”

She lowered her legs over the side of the bed and sat straighter, smoothing down her rumpled skirts with painstaking attention to detail. “I’ve had worse. Is it late?” She glanced out the window. The sun was high above. Noon.

“We needed the rest after last night. Food was brought up.” He indicated the cold hearth where dark bread and cheese sat on a small lopsided table. A pitcher sat beside it with two tin cups.

The bread was no longer warm but very fresh. Her growling stomach quieted at the first bite, the coarse texture melting in her mouth. Elena watched the busy street from the window and ran her comb through her wild waves. Hawkers, villagers, and a few children walked the gray cobblestone snaking uphill toward the looming Edinburgh Castle. Her gaze followed the path down the opposite way to Holyrood Palace.

Searc sat on the bed. He laced his boots, his dark head bent, long fingers deftly crisscrossing the leather twine. She grabbed her own pair and perched next to him, though trying not to bump him. Hopefully the torturous leather would soften over the next few days.

“Shall we start by enquiring for my cousin at the palace?” Her heart continued to beat fast with Searc so near, and on a bed in a little room where they were nearly upon one another. She’d rarely been so close to a man. Lady Suffolk’s lecherous sons had still been boys when they would surprise her in her room. Elena breathed deeply and banished the memory.

Searc’s arm brushed hers, making her almost jerk away, but she stopped herself. It was completely her own fault she was so jumpy. After all she was the one who had kissed him. What must he think of her? Hopefully he didn’t think her a wanton woman or he may have thought to take advantage of their sleeping in the same room. No, he’d been quite gentlemanly. But what if he thought she expected more from him? Like a protector. Like a home. Like a husband.
God’s teeth.
The worry brought on a flush.

“Aye, we’ll start at the palace.” He worked on the second boot without saying anymore.

“Searc?”

He turned blue eyes on her and her tongue seemed to stick to the top of her mouth. She swallowed and continued. “The kiss…”

He stilled. “Aye?”

“’Twas nothing to concern you. I had too much wine, and there was dancing…” She trailed off under his hard stare. Her eyes dropped to his warm mouth. It had been so soft yet powerful moving against hers. His mouth hardened and she met his gaze. “The kiss meant nothing.” She forced a smile that couldn’t have looked natural. “You could be rid of me by nightfall,” she offered.

His brows lowered in confusion as if he wasn’t sure how her statements connected. “Only when I’m assured of yer safety.”

She nodded. It was the only thing she could do caught in the tether of his dark, intense eyes. When he turned back to his boot, she wet her lips and stood to find a ribbon to pull back her hair. There was no time to find a maid to help her weave it.

“I won’t be a burden on you,” she reminded him and fastened a small coif and dark blue hood to her head.

“Ye are light, and I don’t intend to carry ye.”

“I mean, you don’t need to worry—”

“I know, lass.” He eyed her headdress. “But ye aren’t but a wee burden and a man likes to feel useful.”

“Oh, I’m sure I could use you for a right number of things.” She stood.

His eyes opened wider, a slight grin softening his hard mouth.

“Such as?”

“Well…making shelter, roasting rabbits, saving me from drowning.”
Kissing me senseless
. She pinkened. The room felt so small. “Shall we go?”

…

Elena felt the stares of the patrons as Searc guided her out the front door and into the afternoon crowd. He brought Dearg with them, but they walked with the flow down High Street.

“Do you suppose anyone has sent notice of two outlaws from the village?” She spoke low, her face tilted toward him.

“Word doesn’t usually spread that quickly, but with there being another missing girl, the Edinburgh constable may have been alerted. We should try to fit in with the other folk.”

Fit in?
Elena raised one eyebrow. Searc Munro was large, his stance a head above most everyone else. Strength and prowess radiated from him with each confident movement. Starkly handsome features, thickly dark hair, and his intense, predatory stare had already stopped one lady in her tracks. Another girl tripped and two others giggled together as they gaped openly at him. Elena frowned and tucked her hand in Searc’s arm. Fit in? They were doomed.

“Perhaps you should hide.” She frowned at a saucy woman with invitation evident in her fluttering eyes. “I’ll come find you after I see if my cousin is at the stables.”

His arm contracted under her hand. “I am not leaving yer side until I know ye are safe, Elena.”

“Well,” she huffed. “You’re certainly not blending in here.”

He shrugged. “Perhaps I should buy some sheep to herd through the town. Besides, I think it is ye who are drawing more looks,” he grumbled, and she spied a man in a fine coat and hose, very much in the English style, watching her from the other side of the street.

A shiver passed down her back. Would anyone recognize her this far north? Thomas had said that she resembled her father in coloring and features, but her form took after the mother who had given her up. Searc hadn’t seemed to think she resembled anyone important, although when he’d found her she’d been covered with mud and rain with her hair half sheered.

She quickened her pace, and Searc easily kept stride as they neared the park leading to the majestic Holyrood. She kept her face forward, ignoring the stares of men and women alike. Could word have already spread about Searc’s escape?

Elena stumbled and Searc dipped his face toward her ear. “Is there a pebble in yer boot? Do ye need me to carry ye?”

“Oh now, that would make us blend in so much better. We’d be nearly invisible.” She rolled her eyes and glanced up with a tilt of her head, only then realizing just how close he was. She stumbled again and he grinned as he hauled her closer, his arm firmly under her hers. “What an inappropriate time for you to lose your frown,” she huffed. “What if they arrest us at the palace?”

The small grin faded. “I can sense a trap, Elena. ’Tis one of my talents.”

“And you don’t sense any danger now?”

“There is always danger when so many people are squashed within walls. But if anger or danger heightens in our vicinity, I will sense something, and I’m very capable of getting us out of it if warranted.” His low voice strummed a shiver through her, setting her heart to pounding. Yes, Searc Munro was very capable of getting out of deadly situations, but he’d said that he regretted using his powers in that way.

Jutting out of the back of the heavy, rectangular palace, sat the soaring, pointed arches of Holyrood Abbey, the seat of the church in Scotland and where Marie de Guise worshipped. Marie de Guise was the queen regent for her young daughter, the Queen Mary Stewart, who was safely tucked away in France until she came of ruling age.

As they strode, with Searc’s horse following them, up to the gates of the palace, Elena noticed a priest speaking with a monk who lifted a basket of bread. Even though the balding priest didn’t stare, his close-set eyes turned their way. Elena felt an instant shame as if she were being judged by the man, by the church, by God.

He had no way to know that she’d run from what many thought should be her duty to stand and be used. Elena refused though to suffer the fate of poor Jane Grey in the Tower. The young girl had been used by those wanting to rule England through her and had paid the price with her head. Elena hadn’t the conviction to become a martyr. But this man of God didn’t know that. She breathed as they passed, calming her heart that seemed to flutter way too frequently as of late.

Beige blocks of stone stacked upon one another in a heavy framework of genteel strength, very different from the gray stone built around the large hill holding Edinburgh Castle at the top of the Royal Mile. One of the guards stepped before them and Elena’s breath caught with her toe on a cobblestone.

“Where are ye headed and on what business?” the guard asked.

“To the stables,” Searc answered honestly. “We are here to find a stable boy, Roger Lyngfield. Do ye know of him?”

The guard frowned as if angered he couldn’t arrest them on the spot. “Aye, the man helps to keep the regent’s horses. He’s working. What do ye want with him?”

“I am his cousin, visiting Edinburgh, and wish to speak to him,” Elena explained. She offered the guard a small head bob and a gentle smile.

The guard grunted and moved aside. “Be quick about it.”

They walked on briskly and Elena drew in a breath. “Why do I feel like I’m a criminal?”

He leaned close to her ear. “Because ye are, lass, after helping me.” Her eyes opened wide, and he continued. “But none of them know that. The less information you give out the better.”

She nodded. Of course. That was one of Thomas’s golden rules.

“Best to keep our information about the village silent,” Searc continued. “Yer cousin need not know.”

“Could he get in trouble for harboring me?”

“Do ye like to create things to worry about, lass?”

“No.” She cut him a sharp glance.

“No one knows ye helped me, and I won’t be staying at yer cousin’s so he won’t be harboring me.”