Seduced by Destiny (21 page)

She heard him coming and cast a startled look over her shoulder. Picking up her skirts, she began to run in earnest.

Cursing the desperation that forced him to such measures, he bolted down the path, gaining quickly on her, and tackled her
to the ground, turning so his back would take the brunt of the impact when they fell.

’Twas like capturing a thrashing wildcat. He swiftly confiscated her dagger and tossed it out of reach, but she fought him
with her heels and elbows, landing a number of painful blows.

He put up with her struggles, holding her patiently, his arms wrapped around her waist, until she wearied herself. Even then,
she lay stiff against him as her breasts heaved with every rasping breath.

“Jossy,” he said, “I can’t let you go.”

“But I hate ye,” she said bitterly.

He swallowed hard. “I know.”

Faith, ’twas like a knife in his heart to hear those words, but no worse, he supposed, than the wound he was about to inflict.

“I mean I can’t let you go,” he explained regretfully, “because you’ll run straight to the queen.”

She stopped breathing.

“ ’Tisn’t that I blame you,” he said. “But I know where your loyalties lie. I can’t let you go.”

She was quiet a long time. When she finally spoke, her voice was low and solemn. “If that’s the way of it, at least let me
die with my dagger in my hand.”

“What?”

“If ye’re goin’ to kill me—”

“Kill you! What? How could you…” He hugged her closer to him, though she’d gone stiff as a club. “After all we’ve… Do you
really think I’d…”

Of course she did. She probably thought Englishmen were monsters. He’d thought as much of Scots… until he’d lived among them.
Now ’twas hard to dredge up a healthy grudge against the lot.

“Nay,” he said. “I meant what I said. I love you, Jossy. The Fates curse me for a star-crossed fool, but I do.”

Then the Fates must curse her, too, Josselin thought, because some tiny piece of her heart still beat for this man who was
supposed to be her worst foe.

But the rest of her was filled with loathing—for him and for herself, rage, and a thirst for revenge.

How could she have been so blind and so gullible?

Bloody hell! She’d been beguiled by an Englishman. She’d supped with him, flirted with him, kissed him…. She squeezed her
eyes shut in horror as she remembered what else she’d done with him.

“I never meant any harm, to you or your country,” he told her sadly. “I only came to golf. But now… You have to understand,
Jossy, I can’t leave you behind. I’m going to have to take you with me.”

He was right. He’d be a fool to let her go. She
would
rush to Queen Mary with news of English spies in the forest. ’Twas her duty as a Scotswoman. ’Twas her duty as Lilliard’s
daughter. He had to abscond with her. If he didn’t, he’d be signing his own death warrant.

But she wouldn’t make her abduction easy. She’d fight him at every step. He might have disarmed her, but at the first opportunity,
she’d find a way to escape. And God help whoever stood in her way.

The three men were coming down the path now, the one with the staff hobbling behind. She knew now where she’d seen him. He
came regularly to The White Hart.

What she didn’t understand was why, if they were Drew’s countrymen, they’d lured him into the woods and wrestled him to the
ground.

“God’s blood, Andrew, let the wench go,” the tall man in front grumbled.

“She’s better off without you,” said the man with the staff.

“Unless, of course,” sneered the burly one, “you’ve put a babe in her.”

Josselin felt the world go still. She hadn’t thought of that. What if ’twas true? What if he’d gotten her with child? A chill
slithered up her spine. She couldn’t give birth to the child of an Englishman. ’Twas too horrible to contemplate.

“We have to take her with us. She has connections,” Drew said, holding tight to her waist and hauling her to her feet, “to
Mary.”

“The queen?” the three men asked in unison.

Lucifer’s ballocks! His words stunned Josselin. Why had he told them that? Now they’d never let her go. Even
more motivated to make her kidnapping as difficult as possible, she began thrashing against Drew, who somehow held her fast
with one arm. She started screaming at the top of her lungs and managed to get out three long shrieks before Drew silenced
her with a wad of linen.

“God’s teeth!” the man with the staff said. “She could summon the dead with that caterwauling.”

If only ’twere true, Josselin thought. She’d summon her mother to make minced meat out of these English bastards.

“Connections to the queen, you say?” the burly man asked, rubbing his grizzled chin in speculation.

Drew nodded. “If we don’t bring her along, she could very well set the Scots army on us.”

The man with the staff gave her a disparaging glare and suggested, “We might lose her somewhere in the forest.”

“Nay,” the burly man said. “If she has connections to the queen, maybe we can learn something from her. A few well-placed
clouts might loosen her tongue.”

Drew’s free arm shot out like a snake striking. He grabbed the man by the front of his shirt, hauled him close, and snarled.
“You touch one hair on her head, old man, and you’ll answer to me.”

When he let go, the man staggered back, blinking in surprise.

“Have you gone soft, lad?” the man with the staff asked gruffly. “Have you lived here so long you’ve forgotten about your
father?”

Josselin felt Drew stiffen, but he didn’t answer the question.

“We do this my way,” Drew said, “or I stay in Edinburgh.”

The men seemed utterly bewildered by the idea and began arguing among themselves. Finally the tall man conceded on behalf
of all of them.

“Fine. We’ll take her with us.”

Drew gave them a curt nod. “Now,” he said, “where are the shackles you brought along?”

The men feigned ignorance.

“Don’t try to tell me you thought you could singlehandedly drag me all the way back to England without shackles.”

The tall man cleared his throat and produced a pair of black iron manacles.

Josselin kicked and bucked against Drew. He was nonetheless able to clap one iron around her right wrist. Then, to her consternation,
he fastened the other to his own left wrist.

“Are you mad, lad?” the man with the staff asked.

The burly man shook his head. “I wouldn’t even shackle myself to a
willing
wench.”

“Faith, Andrew, I hope you know what you’re doing,” the tall man sighed.

It appeared she and Drew’s three English friends had at least one thing in common. They all thought he was daft.

S
he just… vanished,” the beer-wagon driver said with a shrug, tipping his chair back against the wood-paneled wall of The White
Hart Inn.

The three old comrades-in-arms—Will, Angus, and Alasdair—as primed for a fight as they’d been on the Ancrum battlefield years
ago—scowled ferociously at the man.

“What do ye mean, she vanished?” Will ground out.

Angus brought his boot down on the rung of the man’s chair, bringing it upright with jarring force.

The man’s eyes went wide, and he glanced nervously at the three men. “She was there all morn,” he said, gulping, “and then
suddenly she wasn’t.”

“Poof?” Alasdair narrowed his eyes in threat. “Into thin air?”

“I mean,” the man amended, “I saw her go off…”

“Go off?” Will said. “Where?”

“Toward the woods. After that golfer.”

“Golfer?” Alasdair frowned.

The beer-wagon driver smirked. “She was always chasin’ after him.”

Will clenched his teeth. “Go on.”

“Then it got dark. The way I figure it, she must have caught him.” He grinned at his own jest, but one glance at Will’s scowl
and his smile faded. He scratched his arm defensively. “I couldn’t stay. Like I said, it was gettin’ dark. I had to come back
to the inn.”

Angus growled. “Ye son of a—”

Will stopped Angus with a shake of his head. They were in a crowded inn. Starting a brawl would only delay their progress,
and they’d already lost a day.

“Look,” Will said, crouching down to speak to the man in a reasonable voice. “What’s your name?”

“Davey.”

“Look, Davey. We need to find the lass. Ye were the last one to see her. So ye’re goin’ to show us the place she disappeared.”

“ ’Tis all the way in Musselburgh,” he whined.

Will fought the urge to backhand the puling dolt, instead muttering, “Then we’d best be leavin’ now.”

Deciding ’twas in his best interests to cooperate, considering he was outnumbered, Davey gave a sulking nod and shuffled to
his feet. He nodded to the innkeeper. “They want to look for the beer-wagon wench.”

The innkeeper scowled. “Everyone’s lookin’ for the beer-wagon wench.”

Will scowled back at him, and the innkeeper motioned him toward the counter to confide, “The queen’s secretary was sniffin’
around last night, askin’ after the lass.”

“The queen’s secretary?”

Will hadn’t expected that. When he’d discovered Josselin wasn’t in the royal army, but was working as a beer-wagon wench,
he’d assumed she’d exaggerated her connection to the queen.

Maybe she hadn’t exaggerated after all.

“Did he say anythin’ else?” Will asked.

“He seemed a bit out o’ sorts, though ’tis hard to tell with the man. He said I was to send word to Holyrood at once if she
turned up. Then he muttered somethin’ about her bein’ a dead woman.”

Will’s heart turned to ice. A dead woman? What the devil was Josselin involved in? Had her bold tongue gotten her into trouble
with the royals?

“A dead woman?” he repeated. “Are ye sure?”

The innkeeper grimaced. “I think that’s what he said. ’Twas hard to tell with his funny way o’ talkin’, but a dead woman,
aye.”

“Nae, nae,” the tavern wench chimed in, “not dead
woman
. Dead
wrong
.”

“Dead
wrong
?” The innkeeper shook his head doubtfully. “Dead wrong about what?”

The tavern wench shrugged. “How would I know?”

“Bedwoman,” said a man at the counter. “The Frenchman said she was his bedwoman.”

“Bedwoman?” the tavern wench said with a laugh. “What the hell is a bedwoman?”

“Probably French for a lady o’ questionable virtue,” the man replied.

“Besides,” the tavern wench said, “she wasn’t
his
bedwoman. She was swivin’ the Highlander.”

Will felt ill. He never should have let Jossy go to Edinburgh alone. With a shudder of dread, he grabbed Davey by the arm
and growled to the others, “Let’s go.”

“If ye find her,” the innkeeper called as the three headed out the door, “she owes me a day’s wages.”

’Twas early afternoon when they arrived at the Musselburgh
links. There was a commotion on the course, wagerers complaining because there had been a forfeit of a match. One
of the players, a Highlander, hadn’t shown up, and he was nowhere to be found, not even at the inn where he was supposed to
be staying.

’Twas too much of a coincidence, Will decided. Could he be Josselin’s golfer? Had they run off together?

Will ground his teeth. ’Twas too distasteful to think about. Jossy was only a child. At least in his mind she was.

Nonetheless, ’twas a distinct possibility that she’d gone willingly with the man, and that troubled the three of them only
a wee bit less than thinking she’d been abducted. Still, whether she’d gone willingly or not, they’d go after Josselin and
exert their fatherly influence to persuade her to leave the filthy, cradle-thieving bastard and come home.

Thankfully, there was a clear path into the woods at the place where Davey said she’d disappeared.

Will had always been the best tracker of the three da’s, though he hadn’t used his skills since the time they’d served together
in the Scots army, tracking the enemy. He put his rusty talents to work now as they entered the forest.

’Twasn’t long before they discovered signs that there were more than just two travelers. It appeared one of the men had a
walking staff. At one point, deep footprints in the mud indicated someone had been running at high speed. And at the spot
where the tracks abruptly left the path, there were numerous broken branches, torn leaves, and ruts in the earth, evidence
of some sort of scuffle.

This, more than anything, convinced the three that
they needed to make haste. Josselin was outnumbered and in danger.

They didn’t eat. They didn’t sleep. They marched through the woods with the same cold-blooded determination they’d had years
ago marching to war. They’d already lost one maid of Ancrum. They weren’t going to lose another.

And thanks to Will’s still keen eyes and their relentless pace, on the second night, they managed to catch up with her.

F
or two frustrating days, Josselin endured the company of the Englishmen, who she finally learned were Drew’s uncles, as they
traveled south through the thick Scottish woods, avoiding the main roads. They supped on oatcakes, hard cheese, and berries
they found in the forest and never crossed paths with a single Scot. She was beginning to despair of ever getting an opportunity
to escape.

Drew kept her shackled to him almost constantly. On the first day, he’d gagged her as well. But the linen had sucked all the
moisture from her mouth and left her insufferably thirsty. So she promised she wouldn’t cry out, and though the others chided
Drew for trusting a Scotswoman, he took her at her word and removed the gag.

Of course, she would have broken her word and screamed her bloody head off if they’d ever run into another single soul.

But on the third day, they crossed the border, and with each mile farther from Scotland they traveled, Josselin grew more
ill at ease.

All she knew of England was that ’twas filled with bloodthirsty villains who burned and pillaged the homes
and churches of good Scots, stole cattle, razed crops, and cut down women in battle.