The Firebrand (33 page)

“I was...in search of the countess.”

“And have you been in search of her all the other times you’ve passed by that door this morning, as well?”

“Aye,” Benedict answered carefully, working hard to hide the anger that was again flaring up within him at the Highlander’s brusque tone.

“Why not just have one of the servants bring a message in to her?”

“My message is important.”

A suspicious brow went up. “How important?”

“Important enough that I felt I should deliver it to her, myself.”

With a look akin to a sneer on his face, Adam took a step at his direction, and Benedict felt the hair bristle on the back of his neck. “Perhaps your message is so important that the two of us should barge into my brother’s study and interrupt a meeting that is of no concern to you…or would you prefer to continue eavesdropping out here?”

Benedict’s back stiffened and his hand moved furtively to the small dagger hidden in the sleeve of his clerical gown.

“There you are, Adam!”

Benedict stepped back as Adam’s hard gaze shifted to the young woman coming down the corridor. The lovely Mistress Susan, distant kin to the earl, and this blackguard’s intended. The monk hid his sneer, noting the difference in the Highlander’s face now. So soft. So vulnerable. Well, there would be another time for recompense, Benedict thought, bowing slightly to the woman.

“Good day, Father Benedict. Adam, did anyone mention anything to you about whether the MacLean men would be sleeping in the Great Hall tonight? If they’re to sleep in the guards’ quarter, someone should let the earl’s men know, I should think.”

“No need. I was given to understand that they will be leaving again for the west, as soon as they are finished here.” Adam’s hand lingered on his intended’s arm. “‘Incidentally, I was hoping to have a word with you on another matter…”

The monk had heard enough. So they were MacLean men! Proof enough that Sir Wyntoun had stabbed him in the back.

Edging away from the two, Benedict moved quickly down the corridor. It would not be long before he himself was summoned to that chamber. And there would be no answering the accusations that the cursed Blade surely sent in his messages.

*****

As he and Alan climbed the hill to Duart Castle, Wyntoun stared at the crystal ice that was forming where the dusting of snow had fallen just an hour or so before. Glancing backward at his carrack riding at anchor in the bay, he frowned with the thought of the ice that was surely forming on the lines and the rigging.

Well, he thought, no coating of ice would stop this journey. There was far too much at stake, and he and Alan had spent the morning making sure the ship was prepared to sail when word came from the Highlands. Nay, it would take far more than ice to stop him now.

“If you’re thinking of the weather, Wyn, you shouldn’t worry.” Alan said, as if reading his cousin’s mind. “I think those storm clouds that are blowing in from the southwest should be long gone before we set sail. But even if they settle in over us, that old wench has weathered many a strong buffet to her hull. We’ll be ready to sail into the teeth of a gale, if you so choose.”

The walls of the castle rose up above them, and the knight eyed the activity in the courtyard beyond the arched entry.

“We must be sailing…whether Adrianne’s sisters agree to our proposal or not.” He turned his face to the north and frowned fiercely. “Damn, if we only knew what was happening up there!”

“Do you think they might not give up their sections of the map?”

Wyntoun stared for a moment—considering the possibility for the thousandth time—and then shook off his doubts. “Nay, Alan. They’ll go along.”

“And what of Adrianne? Do you still think ‘tis a good idea leaving her here when we go after the mother and the Treasure?”

The Highlander glanced up past the ramparts of the curtain wall at the upper reaches of the keep. In his mind’s eye he could see his bonny bride as he’d left her before dawn, naked between the linen sheets. Her blue eyes had opened, revealing in their depths the snug afterglow of a night of lovemaking.

“Time to rise?” she’d asked. “Jean will be waiting for me.”

“Nay, lass. ‘Tis still too early. Go back to sleep.” He’d kissed her gently and she had drifted back to sleep. A passion like nothing that he’d ever experienced before had taken over his life since he and Adrianne had made love in the stables a fortnight ago. He wanted her all the time. Desire for her ruled his body. Thoughts of her confounded his brain.

And at every moment they were together, in so many ways, she gave herself to him with an unbounded affection that he knew he did not deserve.

“Will you leave her behind?” Allan repeated his question.

“I have no other choice. The matter of her mother’s captivity has to be resolved before she can be told the truth.”

As they strode under the arched gateway into the castle courtyard, Wyntoun knew that his cousin had more to say on the matter.

“Wait.” Alan put a hand out to stop him. His perpetually serious face was even graver than usual as he searched for the right words.

“Aye, Alan. Speak your piece. A politician you’ll never be.”

“Very well.” He glanced around him before speaking. “Wyn, I know that you care for her. With all that is in the wind, I do not know how the Brotherhood…” He lowered his voice at the word. “I do not know how they might perceive your actions toward her. All that aside though, I know that your feelings for her have come a far pace from the day you formed your plans.”

“What’s your point?” Wyn asked darkly.

“Just this.” The shipmaster gazed steadily into his cousin’s face. “I do not think ‘twill be so easy for you to let her go, afterwards. What happens if she does not forgive you, Wyn?”

The image of Auld Jean’s cottage formed in Wyntoun’s mind, and he thought of his bonny bride spending her hours helping the old healer amid the clutter of herbs and jars and baubles.

“I’ll just have to make certain that she does,” he said gruffly, turning away.

***

The reclusive tanner lived beneath the bluffs at the northern end of Glen Forsa, where the river ran into the sea.

Adrianne repeated the directions in her mind as she continued to push the horse forward over the ice-encrusted trail. An hour’s ride, that’s what Canny had told her the day before, and then Adrianne had watched the young woman climb aboard the small boat that was taking her to Oban and her new home across the water from Duart Castle.

When Adrianne had initiated the meeting, she’d wanted to be sure that no resentment would remain, festering and unresolved. Canny had spoken first, her tears and words of apology immediate and unreserved. Far different than the response Adrianne had expected. The talk with Canny had provided not only peace between the two women, but had given Adrianne a valuable piece of information.

Canny had heard talk about the castle of Adrianne’s desire for a leatherworker. So in trying to put the past behind them, Canny said, she was giving the mistress directions to her father’s cottage beyond Scallastle Bay, saying that Dylan often left pieces of finished leather there while absent from the island. Aye, there should be enough to cover a lad the size of Gillie. Of course, Adrianne was more than welcome to take what she needed; she was the master’s wife. The distance to Dylan’s cottage and back, the young woman said, could be covered in a day on foot. Nay, she didn’t know how long it would take on horseback…an hour or two, she judged.

Adrianne knew that her decision to go this morning had been impulsive. She had been up early, visiting with Jean and making deliveries around the village and checking on Agnes, Kevin’s blissfully pregnant wife. Then Jean had mentioned how she was a wee bit concerned that she’d heard “nary a word from Barbara,” the wife of a young crofter whose farm lay “by a curve of shoreline folks call Scallastle Bay.”

Adrianne’s offer to take a jar of Jean’s medicine out to the farm had surprised the midwife, but on the other hand Wyntoun had been planning to spend most of the day on the carrack with Alan, readying the vessel for sea. True, she thought, the farm was on the way to the tanner’s cottage, but there was no need to worry anyone here with those kinds of details. And as far as taking one of Wyntoun’s horses to deliver some of Jean’s medicine, no one in the castle’s stables had dared to question the Blade’s new bride.

The visit had been brief. The weather was worsening as the day progressed, and Adrianne definitely wanted to be back in the castle before her husband returned from his ship. The crofter’s wife had been grateful for the medicine that was sure to help with the cough that had been troubling her husband for weeks.

Now, riding along the bluffs, Adrianne felt the sting of the icy rain against her face. An hour’s ride. It had taken her twice that long to get to the crofter’s cottage, and that long again to reach here. Still, she could still see no sign of the river that flowed out of Glen Forsa.

The horse stumbled, but righted itself. The young woman tugged the reins to move the animal away from the bluff. Far beneath them, a furious sea crashed against the rocks with an incessant roar.

Pushing aside that possibility that Canny might have lied to her, Adrianne tightened her cloak around her and forged onward.

***

“From what Bege tells me, your bride left the keep not long after you and Alan left this morning.”

With the rain still dripping from his tartan and kilt, Wyntoun ran a hand over his face and turned from Mara to one of the serving women. “Makyn, check the apartments in the east wing for Mistress Adrianne.”

The woman curtsied and hurried off.

“She might have gone there directly to change.” Even to his own ears, his words sounded like those of a man trying to convince himself.

“You might want to be checking Jean’s cottage,” Mara added as an afterthought. “Every morning, the lass…”

“I know. And I’ve already been there!” Wyntoun, hopeful to see Adrianne, had gone there first. “Jean said that Adrianne was delivering medicines for her.”

“Wyn, you know how your wife is,” Mara said with a wry smile. “At this very moment, she is quite likely sitting before some villager’s fire with a half-dozen urchins hanging on her elbow, as she stirs up stew made with mutton intended for her own dinner.”

Any day but today, Wyntoun mused, he would believe that. But a gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach told him that all was not right.

It was true that Adrianne was already welcome at the hearth of most members of the Clan MacLean. In many ways she had ingratiated herself much more than Mara had after close to twenty years of marriage to Alexander. And Wyntoun silently admired this in his wife. Though noble by birth, she never seemed to shy away from those lower born than herself, whether they be sick or simply in need. It was the Celtic blood that ran in her veins, of that he was sure. Why, just consider all she’d done for Gillie.

“Gillie!” he said aloud just as a breathless Makyn ran in from the east wing and shook her head in disappointment. Wyntoun turned toward the door. “She must be with Gillie in the stables.”

In a moment he was crossing the sleet-covered courtyard toward the stables. The weather appeared to be getting fouler by the moment. In the time he was in the keep, the sleet had turned into a heavy, wet snow. Clenching the muscles in his jaw, Wyntoun swore under his breath that he wouldn’t scold her or even lecture her if she was there. Anything, he vowed, he would be agreeable to anything, as long as she was safe.

The uneasiness that had gripped him became immediately worse at the sight of Alan striding out of the stables.

“I was just coming after you.”

“Is it Adrianne?” Wyntoun asked, his heart hammering in his chest.

The shipmaster nodded before glancing toward the gates. “She took one of the horses out of the stables this morning. Alford says she has not returned.”

“Where did she go?”

“To a croft near Scallastle Bay. Supposedly she was to deliver some medicine.”

Wyntoun headed into the stables and toward his own horse. “If she went to Scallastle, she should have been back by now.”

“Wyn, you know Adrianne.” Alan said, following him. “Most likely she’s visiting and forgot the time. Those folks wouldn’t let her start back during this storm.”

“I
do
know Adrianne.” Wyntoun quickly threw a saddle across his horse’s back. “But there is no way that I know what that blasted woman will do next. I sure as hell don’t know that she arrived at that croft. I don’t know that she stayed there to wait out the storm, though my guess is that they’d have to tie her to keep her, if she had a mind to go. By the devil, Alan, I don’t know that she isn’t wandering in that storm even now.”

Wyntoun led his horse out the stable and swiftly mounted up.

“If I could read that firebrand’s mind, coz, my life would be far, far simpler!”

****

The winter sky was clear and blue above Balvenie Castle in the Highlands far to the north, and the two Percy sisters rose when Athol and William rejoined them in the earl’s study.

Both of their husbands had insisted that the sisters take a moment in private to discuss Wyntoun MacLean’s letter and his suggested solution to the finding of Tiberius and their mother. Catherine and Laura, however, needed little time in considering the proposal. They both had been certain from the first.

“If any one of us three is prepared to pursue this course, ‘tis Adrianne,” Laura asserted.

“Our only question would be her safety,” Catherine added. “But that too is answered by this news of her marriage to Sir Wyntoun.”

“And you are both willing to surrender your portions of the map to the man…and to your sister?” William asked.

“What’s the use in keeping them when Adrianne and our new brother are ready to go after it? In truth, Catherine should not travel, and I doubt that I would contribute a great deal.”

Catherine nodded in agreement. “Our greatest concern lies in the conveyance of the maps from here to Duart Castle.”