The Highlander On The Run (Iron 0f The Highlands Series Book 1) Read online

  Addie felt her body tense. She had no reason to be here whatsoever. She was doing Mrs. Miller a service already, by being here. She had no desire to stay longer and be ordered around.

  “I’ll finish the pastries,” she said tightly, feeling her body tight with indignation. “And then I’ll leave. I’m needed upstairs.”

  As it was, she’d dressed the hair of the ladies in residence earlier, before Mrs. Pritchard had come to her for help with the tablecloths. However, the annoying part was, that Mrs. Miller didn’t know that. She hadn’t even considered Addie’s being busy.

  “Oh, you’re needed upstairs, are you?” the cook said, making the words a mockery.

  “Yes,” Addie said coolly. “I’m needed upstairs.”

  With that, she finished the pastry she was doing, stacked it on a tray and handed the tray over.

  “You can put those in the oven.”

  Addie turned away, hiding her own grin at Mrs. Miller’s sudden shock. When she went to the table to complete the pastries, looking up, she thought she saw a smile in the darkness.

  Blushing, she looked down at her own work.

  What did he expect? That I wouldn’t fight? I do fight, when I have the vaguest chance of winning.

  She did her best to ignore the shadow in the corner, more convinced than ever now, that it was real.

  “Och, where’s that scalawag…?” Addie heard the cook saying. “I’ll have to do this myself…”

  Addie tensed as she bustled out, leaving her alone in the kitchen.

  She looked over at the shadow. He hadn’t moved. His eyes held hers. He smiled.

  “Addie McMurrie,” he mouthed to her. “A pleasant encounter.”

  Addie felt as if fire was stroking across her skin, setting alight her veins. She was heating up all over, her body tingling, as if flame raced down her blood vessels, warming her in the most unlikely places.

  “How are you here?” she whispered back. She looked round the kitchen, then stood.

  He was still leaning against the wall, watching, when she walked up to him. He raised a brow.

  “I walked in,” he said. “Like you did.”

  “People saw me walk in,” Addie said tightly. “Nobody saw you.”

  “I walk carefully,” he shrugged.

  She had to grin, though she thought he was infuriating. “Perhaps,” she said. “But what are you doing here?”

  “I can’t say,” he said. His face was grave. She frowned.

  A man hiding in the kitchen, on the eve of your master’s accession to the throne. What makes you think that he’s here to kill the master? Your real one, not the King of England. Or mayhap both…?

  “You’re spying,” she accused.

  He grinned. “If I tell you that you’re right, I’d be a poor spy.”

  “If you tell me I’m wrong, you wouldn’t be telling me the truth,” she retorted crossly.

  His cheek lifted with a smile. “Mayhap.”

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Addie whispered. She looked about the kitchen, remembering that they were in deadly danger. She could just see the lantern where the cook was somewhere in the garden, drawing water from the well. In any moment, she could come back. Or a servant, or a guard, or a knight or…anybody, really…could come down here. He couldn’t stay!

  Why am I worried about him?

  She had to admit, that made no sense. He was here as a spy – she was under no illusion about that – and he was probably against Baliol. She’d overheard enough gossip to know most people were. She still felt fiercely loyal to her old master, though, which meant she should hate him.

  “I suppose not,” he said softly. “What happens, if they find me?”

  She swallowed hard. An image of bright blood, dark against pale skin, flared before her eyes. She couldn’t bear it. “I don’t want to say.”

  “That bad, eh?” he raised a brow. Grinned. He seemed fearless to her, and she wondered again about his sanity. Hers as well.

  “You should go,” Addie said swiftly. She could hear the sound of people coming down the corridor. She knew it wouldn’t be long before an army of servants descended, fetching the next course.

  He seemed to hear the noise too, for he turned, looking left and right. Then he put a hand on her shoulder, scaring her.

  “I’ll go, then,” he said. “But I’ll come back.”

  Addie felt her tummy tighten in a knot. He really was mad. He looked completely calm. If the servants found him, they’d call the guards. If the guards saw him, they’d kill him.

  “Go! You can’t stay here,” she protested.

  Again, he shrugged. Then, nodding to her and putting a finger to the edge of his lips, a gesture warning silence, he turned and, fluid as a dancer, reached up and hauled himself out through the window.

  Addie, standing breathless, heard the door open.

  “Well! If this isn’t a bit of…Addie?” Bonnie said, sounding shocked. “What’s the matter wi’ ye?”

  Addie turned around, feeling color flood her cheeks again. “Um…um…nothing.”

  “Well! If you’re standing about idle,” Mrs. Miller chided, “you can take a tray upstairs, too. I don’t see why you should be beyond a bit o’ lifting.”

  Addie closed her eyes, annoyance mixing with the remains of her fear. She waited for Bonnie to pass her a tray and, taking it, followed a footman upstairs to the hall.

  The place was a blur of noise and torchlight. A fiddler was playing, and dancers, their costumes sewn with bells, weaved between the benches on the floor. People were laughing and one or two drunken roars from the lowest benches sounded. She breathed in the thick, multilayered odors of cooking, torch smoke, wood shavings and humanity, sweating, closely packed, in their robes.

  Placing her tray on the first table she came across that needed more bread loaves, she fled.

  Upstairs in her bedchamber, she shut the doors and, heart thudding, sat down heavily on her bed.

  “He was here. In the castle!”

  She still couldn’t believe it. She had almost managed to make herself believe the intruder had been a figment of her imaginings. Now, she could believe that no longer. She’d seen him with her own eyes, right inside the kitchens.

  Who is he? What is he doing here?

  She thought he must be spying. He was one of those rebels who resented the English king’s high-handed dealings with Scotland’s rulership. That would explain everything – why he was here, why he was spying…why he seemed so dangerous.

  Her tummy tightened with the memory of that terror. She recalled how he had looked into her eyes and, oddly, she didn’t feel afraid so much as a rush of excitement.

  “That’s daft, Addie,” she told herself firmly. The fellow had meant to kill her, of that she was certain.

  “But if he’d meant to kill me, he would have.”

  She shook her head. It was all too much to make sense of.

  Her last thought, as she lay down wearily on her pallet, was of his words. I will see you soon.

  Her stomach tightened in a knot, and she couldn’t help that a small smile played across her lips, or that the feelings that evoked was not one of fear, but of anticipation.

  A BALL AT THE CASTLE

  Alexander leaned on the wall, a thin smile on his lips. He had watched her since she crossed the courtyard, carrying a dish to collect water. Now, in the late afternoon, the brickwork cooling after a surprisingly sunny afternoon, he pressed his broad shoulders to the wall where he’d climbed up onto the ramparts, and peered up at the window.

  “Och, lad. It’s getting to be an obsession.”

  He knew he had to stop doing this. Watching her. It was distracting him from his real goal, which was to gather information. The maidservant had caught his attention yesterday in the kitchen, obsessing him.

  “Brogan’s right. You’re getting soft.”

  He felt a grim smile twist his mouth, recalling the words of his sergeant the previous evening when he’d returned home fr
om his spying mission. The lad had sneaked up on him while he was sharpening his dagger, and he’d not heard him before he’d already grabbed his shoulder.

  “I got you!” he whispered.

  Gripping his wrist, Alexander had glared up into his face, feeling real anger at first. When he saw Brogan’s eyes, the joy at having surprised him at last mixing with a growing fear, he’d softened.

  “Ye did, aye,” he said. “You need to figure out a better technique than that, though,” he added, gripping the young lad’s wrist. “I could still kill you, if I pull you off balance.”

  “You could,” Brogan conceded. “I reckon.”

  The last words had rankled, cutting into his pride. Of course, he could! He was one of the best-trained men he knew. Killing men who sneaked up on him was a source of immense pride to him. The shame of having his own man outsmart him like that still cut.

  He’d vowed, then, to give up on watching the lass.

  I kept that up a long while.

  He chuckled to himself grimly, wondering why, then, he was standing in the courtyard, dressed in his woodsman’s gear, watching the bedroom he now knew to be her own.

  A tingle of sweet anticipation twitched in his insides as he saw a silhouette appear at the slit-like window. It was covered with oilskin, but she’d drawn it aside. He saw her moving in there and strained to get a better view. The sight crashed into him like a battering ram: she was up there combing out her red curls.

  As he watched, she lowered her gown from her shoulders. He thought he was actually going to fall off the roof, so intense was his stare. She peeled the dress away from her body, leaving her dressed in a tight-fitting under dress that laced up over her rounded bust.

  He felt his hands getting clammy and wondered, with a tingle of humor, if he’d be able to get off the roof, or if he’d be too distracted to get down. He stared through the window, his whole body fastened on her every movement.

  Her long curls fell about her shoulders, touching that pale skin. Her shoulders were gently rounded, the straps of the under dress dark against the paleness of that lush body. He gazed at her pale throat, long and soft-skinned, and let his eyes travel to the meeting of her breasts, straining against the laces of the dress.

  He ached to take them in his hands, to feel that damp, shining skin under his fingertips. Her hair was piled on top of her head, dripping and moistening her shoulders, her soft face. He wished he could climb up the last few paces, throw himself through the window, and ply those lips with kisses.

  “What’re you doing there?”

  The shout gave him such a fright he almost fell off the wall. Twisting round, horrified, he stared up. He was looking into the face of a guardsman. The fellow’s blue eyes glared down at him.

  “I said, declare your business.” The guard glared at him.

  “Um…I was spying the land,” Alexander squeaked, recalling at once his role as woodsman. He didn’t have to pretend the shock – he felt horrified that he had been so surprised, so unaware.

  “Funny, then, that you’re looking at the keep, not the woodlands,” the fellow observed.

  Alexander flushed. “Um, I was studying the lie of the land,” he said lamely, making a gesture that suggested mountains.

  “I believe that,” the guard snorted. “I reckon ye were studying that window, and that lass.”

  Alexander reddened. “No…no…” he stammered, lifting a hand to ward the fellow off. The look in those flint eyes was murderous. He backed away, taking care not to fall off the wall altogether.

  “I reckon you were,” the guard said ominously. “And I’ll have ye know. I’m Rendell Grayling, and I’m her friend. If you touch her, I’ll pull your head off.”

  “I believe you,” Alexander said dryly. “I’ll be on my way.”

  “Mind you do,” the guard observed. “If I catch ye here again, you’re a dead man.”

  If you catch me here, I might as well be, Alexander thought grimly. Reaching for the edge of the wall, he swung himself down lithely, hitting the ground with a jarring of weary limbs.

  “Och, lad,” he said to himself, with some shame. “You’re losing it.”

  He limped back to the barn and sat down on a bench. The other woodsmen, who would usually be in here, discussing animatedly, or playing at dice, were gone.

  “That’s it,” he said crossly. “No more lurking.”

  He had to step aside from this obsession. He only had a few more days here. He did have one question in his mind, however – the king was departing the next morning. Would she be going when he did?

  “I need to know. When I know that, I’ll stop.”

  A sound outside the hut made him get tense. He stiffened, listening. The other woodsmen were coming back. He stood and moved to the shadow of the wall. Two men came in, dressed in the drab green jerkins and hose of the woodsmen; the same outfit he now wore. The one was tall and strongly built, the other with the flat, hard muscle of a tracker. Both wore cloth caps, though the bigger man took his off, wadding it in one hand. He watched them and listened to their jocular interchange as they slammed the door and started stoking the fire.

  “Hey, Fergal! You coming tonight?”

  “The ball? Of course.”

  What ball? Alexander tensed. This was something he didn’t know about. He’d seen the servants dragging benches about in the great hall, smelled cooking from the kitchens. He’d guessed something was afoot, but had assumed the king intended to celebrate his departure from their country with several successive dinners.

  “It’s going to be grand fun,” the first man said, stretching expansively as he drew out a bench to sit down. “And Brenna’s going tae be there. I cannae wait.”

  “You and the lass,” the fellow chuckled.

  “Well, what of it?” the first man demanded. Alexander hadn’t been here long enough to know their names yet; just one or two days. “If I want to dance with a lovely sewing maid?”

  “Nothing,” Fergal conceded.

  The two of them sat in silence for a while. As they continued, Alexander, still concealed in deep shadow in the corner, started to put a picture together in his mind. There was going to be a ball that night, clearly. It was a ball to which the servants and villagers were invited. That meant, more or less, that anyone, suitably anonymously dressed, could enter.

  I wonder if I…

  He bit back a grin. If he did it, he could determine which members of the household were staying, and which leaving. He would gather information about the time and manner of the king’s departure – numbers of horses, numbers of swords. He told himself, very firmly, that he had a dozen productive reasons for being there.

  And one very good reason to want to be there.

  He fought the thought down, but it kept on glowing inside him, like buttercups on a flattened field. He was going to see the lass.

  Later, when the sounds of strings and pipes and drums started to drift up from the courtyard, Alexander drew his hat down over his face and joined the queue of shuffling, thronging people, heading into the courtyard.

  There was a ball in Berwick castle, and he was going in.

  * * *

  Her hair had dried about her shoulders. Addie stood before the tiny scrap of mirror – a gift from her father – and stared at herself. She twisted, watching the way the firelight tracked down the locks of her hair.

  She felt a knot of excitement in her belly, one she couldn’t fight down no matter how hard she might wish to. It was the eve of the ball, and she had time to prepare.

  She looked down at her body, clad in the new petticoat she’d been given when she entered service here. Made of serviceable linen, it laced up well, better than any petticoat she’d ever had before.

  Breathlessly, she lifted the gown.

  Holding it against her, she let herself whirl round, watching what it did to the thin linen. It drifted out like a cloud, whispering against her ankles.

  Barely able to contain her excitement, she lifted it and
let it drop over her head.

  The gown was beautiful.

  Cut in the same style as the noblewomen’s gowns, it was long-sleeved and loose fitting, designed to be belted over the waist with a kirtle. The bust fit snugly over her own, the product of three fittings with her friend, Mrs. Pritchard.

  “Oh, thank ye, thank ye!” she whispered joyously.

  She twirled round again, watching the skirt billow. The gown was white, and her friend had worked a second fabric into the neckline, so that close to her face was pale green brocade. She stared.

  “Is that me?”

  The woman looking back at her was wide-eyed, her cheekbones high and firm, mouth a soft red. She bit her lower lip to bring out the color and stared again, feeling herself smile for joy.

  This is really me! And this is my party.

  She giggled to herself. It wasn’t really – it was the king’s farewell. However, it was the first ball she’d ever been to. Without a doubt, this was the most stylish dress.

  “I still can’t believe it.”

  She reached for her kirtle – a deeper version of the green brocade – and fastened it.

  Then, staring one last time at the effect of knotting the waist, she turned and drifted lightly from the room. She was wearing her indoor shoes, and they were soft as a whisper as she walked lightly down the stairs.

  In the hallway, she paused, heart thumping. She could hear drums and the melodious thrum of pipes. The raucous sound of many voices overlaid it, adding to her nerves. Addie had an inherent fear of crowds. She felt herself hesitate at the doorway.

  “Why am I going? I barely know anyone.”

  She felt her mouth dry up suddenly. This was silly. She shouldn’t be here! How was she going to have fun here, when she couldn’t bear crowds, and found it hard to talk to strangers?

  “Addie!” she heard a voice. “By! You look bonny.”

  Addie stared at her friend. Bonnie was there too, wearing a gown of unbleached linen, a strip of lace making a border round the neckline. Her hair was loose and she wore a wreath over her hair.

  “You look beautiful,” she whispered fondly, meaning it.