Passion and Plaid - Her Highland Hero (Scottish Historical Romance) (9 page)

He scrunched down and wrapped the rope around his
fist. His legs burned from the deep bend in his knees, but he knew he couldn’t
go – not just yet. He had to wait for John’s signal. Rodrigo gave his, two of
them were in place, but where was the third? Where was John?

Looking back at Olga, she was still in position,
length of thick rope taught between her fists. She shot Gavin a smile. He
nodded gravely.

“Right,” he said under his breath.

He glanced back to Rodrigo and saw him still
waiting.

“Where’s John?” Gavin mouthed. Rodrigo shrugged.

Time to act, he knew. There was nothing else to
do. Maybe John had taken a wrong turn. Maybe he had been distracted. There was
no way to know and nothing else to do.

Time to act.

Tightening his rope, Gavin signaled to Rodrigo and
all at once, both of them stood up, hopped over the short wall and charged the
sheriff.

“Don’t run!” Gavin shouted. “You’re surrounded!”

Rodrigo shouted something incoherent and dove.

A miss.

Alan, almost falling over with his dodge, somehow
managed to twist away from the flying Spaniard, who crashed to the ground and
grunted in pain.

“Where’s Elena?” Gavin said through gritted teeth.

“With Olga, I sent her over to where you were,”
Rodrigo shouted as he hopped to his feet. “Where’s John?”

Gavin shrugged and ducked a wild, sloppy punch
from Alan. Though the sheriff was so drunk he could barely stand, he was still
a thickly muscled bulldog of a man, and incredibly strong. He swung again and
Gavin moved out of the path of his fist at the last second, turned and wrapped
a loop of his lasso around the sheriff’s wrist.

“Who do you think you are?” he howled. “Let me
go!”

“No one wants you here,” Gavin said, straining to
snatch his other hand. “No one wants you here or in Mornay’s Cleft or in
Scotland at all! Hold still!”

Alan threw an elbow and caught Gavin in the cheek,
sending painful shocks through his face and sending him reeling backwards for
just long enough that the sheriff was able to wrench himself free. He stumbled
over a rut in the road, fell down, and somehow managed to spring back to his
feet with agility only someone who is very used to being in his cups could
possibly have.

Rodrigo rolled to one arm, pushed himself up and,
bleeding, grabbed his skinned elbow. “Where is John?”

“I don’t know. John! John! Where are you?” Gavin
called, and then remembered Olga. In case, somehow, the comically inebriated
sheriff was able to continue dodging the two of them, Gavin thought it wise to
at least herd him in her direction. He waved Rodrigo over.

“Good luck!” The sheriff yelled. “You two wretches
couldn’t catch me if was asleep. Rodrigo? Is that you? Why have you fallen in
with this riff-raff?”

Gavin noticed that Alan’s lip was bloody, and the
rope was still looped loosely around one wrist. Other than that though, he was
doing much better than either of the two of them, as embarrassing as that was.
Gavin rubbed his jaw and felt a lump already rising.

“John!” he shouted again.

“Did you find him?” a nearby voice responded.

“Yes! Get over here! Where are you?”

“Tavern, I...” his voice bounced as he ran and
when Gavin turned, he saw John was red-faced and his shirt was unbuttoned. “I,
uh...” He grinned sheepishly.

“Never mind that now, though, I congratulate your
timing. You go high, Rodrigo, go low – go for his ankles. I’ll try to tie him
when you do.”

“Aye, on three?”

The sheriff stared at them, spat onto the road,
and cracked his knuckles.

“Is he serious? He plans to fight all three of
us?”

“It’s worked so far,” Gavin said with a bitter
laugh. “One...two...three!”

All three men charged at once, John and Rodrigo
trying to flank him. As soon as they were within striking distance, they dove
just like they planned.

“How are you so
stupid
?” shrieked Alan as
he hopped backwards and both missed. Gavin charged one last time, but
carelessly. “How can three men not catch one drunk? I’ve had enough!” As Gavin
charged, Alan dropped the rope from his wrist, turned, and ran.

Gavin grinned.

“He’s coming! He’s coming from the right!” Gavin
shouted.

Alan hoisted himself over the short wall with a
great deal of effort, and hearing what was said, ran in the opposite direction.

“What is...Ow!”

A tremendous crashing sound preceded an equally
amazing quantity of sputtering, grunting and swearing. Gavin helped Rodrigo and
John to their feet, barely able to keep himself from grinning ear to ear.

“What is so incredibly funny? He got away!” John
said, going to run after the sheriff. Gavin stopped him and slowly walked the
two of them toward the wall.

“Let me ask you something,” he said. “What is far
more frightening than the three of us?”

John shook his head. Rodrigo, having realized what
was about to happen, started laughing.

“That.”

Nodding in the direction the sheriff ran, Gavin
braced himself against the little wall, doubled over, and almost exploded in
laughter.

Olga, Elena and Lynne were all three standing
above the hog-tied sheriff. Olga in particular had a very satisfied look on her
face, but all three of them were grinning.

“Smart
and
muscled, Mister Gavin,” Olga
called. “What a brilliant plan!”

“That was all planned?” John said with disbelief
in his voice.

“No, not one bit,” replied Gavin, not once
breaking his smile, as he waved to the women. “But if those three realize they
just saved us from having to chase him through the entire city, we’ll never
live it down, aye?”

“Aye,” John started to laugh. “But somehow I think
they’ll figure it out at some point.”

Rodrigo shook his head. “Well, si, that’s probably
true. But why not let it last as long as it can?”

The three of them threw their arms around one
another’s shoulders and shared a laugh. “Let’s go. Kenna will be expecting me
shortly. She’ll be as happy as a shorn sheep to see the rest of you,” Gavin
said.

“Aren’t sheep usually very upset about being
shorn?” Rodrigo cocked an eyebrow.

“Ach, well, not...in the summer?”

The three of them laughed again, made the rest of
the distance along the alley and collected the bruised, squirming, angry
sheriff.

“Well, that’s done,” Gavin said with a sigh as he
threw Alan over the haunches of a mule. “Shall we make for the north?”

“Aye,” said John. “I wish Ben could go with us.”

“I think if he did that, Alice would kill him.”

“Have you brutes considered that maybe he
wants
to stay with his family instead of going off on a wild adventure?” Lynne sidled
up beside John and gave him a playful elbow. “Some people actually
like
their
lovers.”

“Ach, what’re you meaning? I like you just fine,”
he said.

“I was referring to myself,” she said. “Let’s go,
then.”

Olga and Elena nodded in agreement.

“I love you all,” Gavin said. “And I couldna have
done it without you. But I have to say, I canna imagine missing anyone more
than I miss Kenna right now.”

Within an hour, as the sun had just peaked for the
height of noon, six horses and one mule were loaded with travelers. Six of the
travelers were seated and comfortable. One of them was most decidedly not.

 M
ornay’s Cleft

August 17, Near Midnight

––––––––

T
he rapping of Mayor Willard’s unused fork against
the side of his crystal wine glass – conspicuously filled only with water since
the beginning of the meal – sent a chill down Kenna’s spine.

Course after course of food had come to the table
served by what seemed an army of waitstaff. Salads, both cold and warm,
followed soup served inside of a pumpkin. After those two courses, a number of
various meat pies, fatty meats and stews were brought. She ate only sparingly
of everything, and even with how delicious and nearly sinfully rich every dish
was, she couldn’t bring herself to have much of an appetite. She ate only
enough to avoid rudeness.

Several times, Willard asked her if something was
the matter, or if she was feeling poorly, but each time she said no, only that
she was over-tired from travel, and not sleeping well since arriving in town.
He left her alone for most of the rest of the evening, but every so often when
she looked around the table, Kenna found him watching her with his eyes half
open, as though he was asleep or in some sort of trance.

And then there were those scars on the backs of
his hands...

“May I have your attention?” His voice, almost
shadowy in its curling tone, so different from the courtroom, filled Kenna’s
ears, shaking her concentration.

The low roar of conversation continued for a
moment longer. Again he made chiming sounds with his fork on the glass. Around
the table, the chattering Englishmen with all manner of accents shushed one
another and eyes turned to the mayor.

“Thank you.”

Steven Marlowe Willard smiled, cleared his throat,
and replaced his fork carefully atop his napkin, which remained, as it had for
the entire meal, folded in a sharp triangle. Then he pushed his untouched plate
forward. When he did, one of his sleeves slid backwards ever so slightly and
underneath the cuff of a glove, Kenna once again saw the crisscrossed scars
that had caught her mind several times already. She had to shake herself to
stop staring at the ribbon-thin pink lines.

“We’re here tonight for a couple of reasons, both
celebratory. First of all, as all of you know, we’ve just gotten – or you have,
I suppose – finally received word to purchase my lumber. And so here’s to what
I hope is a wonderfully fruitful future for myself and for the East Indies
Company.”

It took all the will Kenna had not to fish her
notebook out of her sash and start scribbling, but she already knew about the
deal with the Company. What he said next put her teeth on edge.

“Aside from that, as you’ve probably noticed, we
have a new guest at our table who you’ve not seen before. This is Miss Kenna
Moore.”

Her cheeks burned. The effort it took for her not
to start writing notes halfway through dinner was nothing compared to the
concentration required for her to keep her eyes off the table.

“Kenna, greet everyone, don’t be shy. She’s a
Scot, but she’s one of the good type. She keeps herself quiet most of the
time.” Many of the men around the table chuckled at what he said, but Kenna
just grit her teeth. She well knew that her first inclination – to fire off a
witticism – was not the best idea.

“Hello gentlemen, nice to meet you all.” A quick
glance around the table and a courteous nod did the trick of taking care of her
obligation for courtesy.

“Oh, that’s fine, then.” Willard looked at her and
made his approximation of a smile which was little more than him pulling his
thin lips back over his small, square, hauntingly white teeth. “Miss Moore will
also be staying with me here at the mayor’s manor for the remainder of her stay
in Mornay’s Cleft.”

Kenna’s eyes shot wide open, and she racked her
brain for an appropriate response to Willard’s audacious declaration. She wanted
to politely decline, but had a sneaking feeling that almost nothing could be
said to keep her from having to board with one of the strangest, most
off-putting and utterly bizarre men she had ever met. Willard did not strike
Kenna as a man that could be easily deterred once he’d made up his mind.

“I...I – suppose so, yes,” she stammered, resigned
to the uncomfortable fact that any action she took would likely do more harm
than good.

Immediately, a number of whispers began to circle
the table. It was obvious what they were about. The mayor has a new concubine,
she heard from a man to her left. From the other side, she heard a man titter
and then remark that he must have gotten through his year of mourning at the
death of his daughter in fine fashion.

“It should be mentioned that Miss Moore is also
engaged to one Gavin Macgregor. He’s a fine man, but as you can see presently,
he is indisposed through some difficulty that must be severe, else he wouldn’t
have left his blushing bride-to-be in a place like this, so full of lusty,
lonely farmers.” His voice took on such a strange, menacing tone that Kenna
almost lost her resolve and ran from the dining hall, but somehow she held on
and refused herself the indulgence.

Though the Englishmen at the table had initially
been chuckling and laughing, they almost immediately seemed to become
uncomfortable. As the mayor continued to speak, saying the same sorts of
things, just slower, and softer as time went on, they got more and more uneasy
until finally one of them asked for dessert.

“Dessert? Oh, of course, you’ll have to excuse me
gentlemen, I’ve just been so excited about my guest that I completely forgot
about everything else. Rollo! Get the dessert ready.”

“What’re we having?” one fellow from near the
opposite end of the table from Kenna, asked.

“I haven’t any idea. Rollo! What’s for dessert?”
The voice from the courthouse returned. It seemed to Kenna that he used
completely different sorts of speech when he talked to subordinates and when he
talked to equals – or in this case, superiors. Wasn’t all that strange, she
thought, it was just the wild difference in the voices that struck her.

“Y – yessir,” said the short hunch-backed man as
he shuffled to the table. He nodded respectfully to Kenna, which was the first
respect she’d been shown since the whole awful dinner began. “We’ve got a
rustic peach pie, two sorts of sweet pudding, and fruit porridge.”

“Fruit porridge? What is that? Oatmeal with fruits
in it?” The man who asked about desserts in the first place cried. “So we’ve
pie, pudding and oatmeal? Leave it to those savage Scots to be daft enough to
call porridge dessert! Well, when in Rome, I suppose. I only thank God that you
didn’t serve us haggis for dinner!”

The entire crowd began to laugh boisterously and
someone knocked his glass on the table, then accidentally elbowed someone
beside him who stood up sharply and knocked over
his
glass.

“Enough!” The mayor said again in his courthouse
voice. “That’s enough! Rollo! Clean this mess, and get the staff to bring
dessert!”

Kenna had no idea how that whole affair had gotten
out of hand so quickly, but then it occurred to her that the uproar had nothing
to do with dessert. It was likely the outcome of the mayor’s awkward behavior
moments before, which had created an uncomfortable tension in all of these men,
and not just in Kenna. Added to the constant supply of drink over too many
hours, the tension had bubbled to the surface with the convenient excuse of the
Scots’ unforgivable affinity for apparently unsophisticated desserts.
What’s
wrong with oats and fruit, anyway?
She looked out the large window that was
installed in the roof of the mayor’s dining room and saw that the moon was
dangling directly overhead. Midnight, or past it, she thought.
How much
longer can this ordeal go on?

Kenna sighed miserably. And what about her things?
She wondered what was to become of all of her and Gavin’s bags and their
supplies at Duggan’s inn. To say nothing of her worry at actually having to
stay with Willard, which she considered getting out of by offering her soul to
the devil himself.

Some sort of noise from outside caught her
attention. No one else seemed to notice it, with all the grumbling about
dessert and the complaints from the man whose lap was filled with spilled drink.
Kenna squinted and tried to see what was out there, rustling about in the
bushes, but she couldn’t.

Willard began to get agitated and slammed his hand
on the table. As soon as he did, the whole room went silent. All attention,
even Kenna’s, snapped to him.

“Quiet!” he shouted. “This was a fine, genteel,
enjoyable dinner until we began to talk about dessert. Why don’t we all take a
moment, calm ourselves, have a drink and then continue? We’re all getting very
upset over nothing.”

As he talked, she heard another noise outside and
again strained to see or hear what was happening.

“Rollo!” The mayor shouted, turning back to the
kitchen door. “Dessert!”

The waitstaff poured into the dining hall, every
one of them carrying a tray or a platter of some sort of sweet dessert, and as abruptly
as chaos had erupted in the hall, it went silent. The angriest of the
Englishmen was quite content with the tremendous slice of pie that he received,
and the scoop of pudding that went beside it. Rollo approached Kenna with an
apologetic look on his face and asked if she’d like anything. She told him yes,
just to avoid attention.

And then something brushed past a bush immediately
outside the window. She couldn’t possibly be sure, but she thought that
somehow, against all odds, against all reason, she saw a person’s face out
there.

She thought she saw Gavin.

––––––––

 “A
ch! There’s never a dull moment with you, is
there?” John snickered and crouched low, well outside of sight of anyone in the
house.

Gavin turned and grinned in response. “Wouldna
have it any other way, aye?”

“Makes me feel alive to constantly be on the verge
of getting hanged. What are we doing though? You said she was poking around
town to try and figure out this corrupt mayor and now she’s in there...poking,
so to speak. Sorry.”

Waving his hand dismissively, Gavin shushed John.
Rodrigo joined them just then, creeping around the corner nearest the door to
the estate.

“Two guards at every entrance,” he whispered. “I
think there’s a way up to the roof, but it requires a smaller man. If I tried
it, the drain pipe would fall, I think. John might be able to make it. Not that
you’re small. Well, you are, but-”

Gavin shushed him too, hardly able to keep his
laughing quiet. “Right. The problem is, I’mna sure we
need
to get in.
She looks rather irritated, but not troubled, particularly. I canna help
wondering if we’d just be messing about in things we needn’t mess in.”

For a moment, none of the three spoke. Gavin
chewed his lip, John tugged at the little beard on his chin, and Rodrigo looked
very stern.

The Spaniard broke the silence a moment later, “The
guests are all occupied with a meal and nothing else is going on about the
mansion. And there’s one other thing – these guards, I recognize the uniforms.
The men dining must be dignitaries from the East India Company.”

“Are you sure? Shouldn’t they be in India?” John
whispered.

“You’re a simple man aren’t you?” Rodrigo grinned.
“The higher ups in the Company, the ones who make deals and so on, they always
travel with heavily armed guards. I’ve seen these sorts before.”

“You have? When?” Gavin crouched down and took a
peek inside at Kenna, who was busy poking at some sort of food that a little
hunchback brought her, but not actually eating.

“When I was in the Caribbean. There is much about
me that neither of you know. So far as I’m aware the only one who knows is
Elena.” Rodrigo pulled back his sleeve and in the faint orange torchlight where
they crouched, Gavin could make out the faint outline of a P-shaped burn on the
man’s forearm.”

“Ha! Nice to meet you, Captain Rodrigo,” John
said. “How did you get away?”

“Long story, doesn’t matter. Suffice to say,
pockets are always open in the Caribbean just waiting for Crowns to fall in
them.”

Both men nodded.

“But as I was saying, these aren’t normal
soldiers. They’re highly trained, and more importantly, heavily armed. Each
will have a brace of at least four pistols about his chest, under those silly
jackets they wear. That’s aside from the muskets they carry and the most
dangerous of all their armaments.” He paused but never resumed.

“...And that would be?” John asked.

“Their whistles.”

“Might just be me,” said Two-fingers, “but I’d be
more worried about having my brains shot out than someone blowing a whistle at
me.”

“Shh! The whistles are for calling the other
guards, you sheep’s ass. Quiet, someone’s coming.” Gavin waved the other two
men to silence, and crouched lower, looking up through the window as someone
drew near.

“Ah, what luck that I have what I believe was
called a ridiculous device?” John extended his telescoping mirror and bent the
arm of it at an angle to look at the incredibly tall, severely sour-faced man
who loomed above them. All in black, from head to toe, with a long and regal
nose, hair pulled back into a tight pony tail. He watched Mayor Willard glance
about outside, move his lips in speech, and then turn back to the crowd in the
table. There was a slight eruption of noise and then silence, just like a few
moments before.

“What do you suppose he’s doing?” John said to
Gavin as the man in black moved away from the window.

“Seemed to be looking for something, though I
canna say what. He couldna have seen any of us. Kenna saw me I’m almost
certain, and maybe he caught a glimpse of her looking out the window and got
curious. I canna shake the feeling that’s something’s wrong, though from the
look of things, there’s nothing in particular.”