Chapter Five
The sun was beginning to lose its battle of hide and find with the clouds. And Mariote was beginning to lose her battle with her conscience. The farther away from the keep she went with Conner, the guiltier she felt.
They had been walking for a full hour and thus far, Conner hadn’t said more than two words to her. He hadn’t offered her his hand, hadn’t offered to carry her satchel for her, and had not once asked how she fared.
Mayhap he was simply in a hurry to get to Inverness. Snow was definitely heading their way. There was also a strong possibility he was keeping quiet so as not to alert anyone to their presence. Though who in their right minds would be out at this early hour, in this frigid weather?
Rarely did she see him scanning the land on either side of them. Nay, he kept glancing back, over his shoulder, beyond her.
Many times over the past few years, Lachlan had taken her on long walks so that she could find herbs and plants to be used for healing. He was ever vigilant in keeping a watchful eye out for any marauders or raiders that might have made it onto their lands. Thinking of him, of their deep friendship, sent another pang of guilt jolting through her stomach. Not only was she betraying the trust of her family by leaving like this, she was also betraying her friendship with Lachlan.
Her mother and sisters might understand why she was doing it. Even her father might eventually come around to the idea. But Lachlan? Nay, he would probably never forgive her. Why did that thought hurt so much?
Conner came to a halt at the edge of the meandering stream. Ahead, across a small burn, she could see smoke billowing from a chimney, but naught else. “Wait here,” he told her. “And give me yer coin.”
Perplexed, she studied him closely for a brief moment before asking, “Why?”
“There be a farm ahead,” he said as he once again glanced behind her. “I be tired of walkin’ and would like to purchase a horse from him.”
“Why can I no’ go with ye?”
He offered her a warm smile. A smile that she realized was not quite reaching his eyes. “When yer family discovers ye missin’, they will send out a search party, aye?”
Mariote nodded.
“They will be lookin’ fer ye, no’ me,” he said. “If I take ye with me …” He let the words fall away as he waited for understanding to settle in.
In truth, she was tired of walking. Her feet were frozen, the hems of her skirts crusted with snow, and she had lost the feeling in her fingers half an hour ago. A horse would be a far more delightful way to travel. “Verra well,” she said as she reached into her pouch and pulled out three sillers and handed them to him.
“Be this all ye have?” he asked incredulously.
“Do ye no’ have coin of yer own?”
There was that flash of anger in his eyes again. Only a flash before he replaced it with a smile. “We will need my coin for Inverness.”
That made sense, she thought. She pulled out another few sillers and handed them to him.
“Wait here,” he said. “I shan’t be long.”
Exhausted, she found the remnants of an old tree and sat down. Oh, how she wished she was sitting beside a roaring fire right now. She also longed for a hot bath, followed by climbing into a warm bed and drawing furs up to her ears.
Rubbing her hands together, she watched as Conner crested the hill, then disappeared. She could not help but wonder why he was so very different from the man in his letters. The letters had been filled with beautiful prose, words from a man who was very much in love. The only thing that made any sense was that he was nervous. Nervous and worried they’d be caught before they made it to Inverness. Mayhap he was better at expressing himself with the written word than with the spoken. Was that not a likely possibility?
Aye, she assured herself, that was it. He loved her with all his heart. She knew that because he had written it so many times. She was the only reason he climbed out of bed each day. The only reason he took one breath after another. She was, according to his letters, his only reason for living. Aye, in his letters, he was a hopeless romantic. Mayhap, after they were safely married, some of that might come through when he spoke to her.
It did not take long for him to return, and with a horse. Hurriedly, he came down the hill, leading the mount behind him. He did not look happy. The horse looked just as thrilled. ’Twas an old work horse, gray, with an even grayer mane and a swayed back.
“What be the matter?” she asked as she jumped to her feet.
With a frown, he replied, “The auld farmer wanted every bit o’ coin I had.”
She almost asked Ye gave him all our coin for that? But from the fierce glare on Conner’s face, she decided it might not be the best thing to say at the moment.
As soon as he reached her, he grabbed a fistful of mane and pulled himself onto the horse. Once he was comfortably seated, he held out his hand. “He did no’ have a saddle,” he told her. “And if he had, he likely would have asked fer me soul to pay fer it.”
Doubt began to plague her good senses. Why did he not seem the least bit concerned over her wellbeing? She was beginning to feel more and more uneasy about the man who had convinced her to run away with him. Nay, she told herself. He is just nervous and worried, as are ye. He loves ye, ye ken he does. Why else would he have written all those beautiful letters filled with so much love and adoration?
Dismissing her concern as nothing more than being nervous over their current circumstances, Mariote chuckled as she took his offered hand. He pulled her up and sat her behind him. ’Twas not easy climbing up with her satchel, but she managed. She had to put it between herself and Conner before scooting closer to hold onto his waist.
“Ye might no’ have procured us a gallant steed,” she said as Conner clicked his tongue and turned the horse around. “But ’tis preferable to walkin’, aye?”
He replied with a curt nod and they began to ride north and east.
Not only was their mount old, ’twas also quite apparent he was not used to being ridden. At least not for long distances or at any pace faster than a trot. Unaccustomed to riding without a saddle, Mariote kept slipping to one side or another. Her arms were beginning to ache from holding onto Conner so tightly, her legs to grow sore from trying to keep from falling off.
They had ridden a few hours—in complete silence—before finally finding sunshine and more even terrain. The snow was not quite as deep, but the air was just as cold. Her cheeks and ears were wind-burned and beginning to sting. Mariote was not about to complain, for she did not want her future husband to think her weak.
Finally, she swallowed her pride and asked him to stop. Begrudgingly, he pulled rein. “Do ye need to piss?” he asked.
Not only was she embarrassed by his question, she found his tone off-putting. It was not as if she were unaccustomed to such bluntness, for the McCullums were quite blunt. But she had hoped that her betrothed would have found a more gentile way of asking the question. “Aye,” she murmured softly.
He grunted, nodded his head, and threw one leg over the neck of their mount. Sliding to the ground, he took her satchel, but only after she asked him to. That sense of dread she had pushed away came roaring back to life when he turned his back to her and walked away.
Where was the man’s compassion? Where was the gentle, sweet man who’d been so evident in his letters? Letting loose a breath, she had to scoot forward, grab hold of the horse’s mane, and let herself down.
Her feet stung when they hit the cold earth. Holding on to the side of the horse, she counted to ten and moved her toes inside her boots.
“Do no’ tarry long,” Conner said as he stretched his arms out wide.
She wasn’t sure which upset her more. His silence or his gruff tone when he finally did manage to speak. Swallowing back her anger, she left him in the small clearing and headed toward a copse of trees for some privacy.
Once she was alone, she let the tears fall. This is no’ at all how I imagined ’twould be.
It had to be close to the nooning hour, for her stomach was growling. Freezing, tired, and hungry, she cried, her mind filled with doubts, guilt, and longing for home.
Mayhap this had not been the right decision. Mayhap Conner could only be kind and romantic in his writings. Mayhap she was seeing the real Conner for the first time: a rude, uncaring individual. If that was the case, she did not like it at all. Her anger was quickly replaced with a sense of heavy trepidation. No matter how badly she wanted a husband and bairns of her own, it was not worth being married to a man like Conner.
But how to explain it to him? Ye be no’ one to shrink from anything, she told herself. Ye have learned over the years to stand up fer yerself and to speak yer mind. She was simply going to have to discuss the matter with him, and now, before they were married.
With her mind made up, she dried her face on the sleeve of her cloak and took a deep breath before heading back to the clearing.
He was already mounted and looking perturbed. “I told ye no’ to tarry,” he said gruffly.
She stopped dead in her tracks. “Let us get one thing perfectly clear, Conner MacGavin,” she said as she stomped toward him. “Ye will no’ be orderin’ me about like some bar wench.”
Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say. He slid down from the horse and stomped toward her. His cloak billowed open and he looked furious. She stood her ground as he approached.
She saw it then: his blood-soaked tunic.
Fear rose in the form of bile, for she was quite certain ’twas not his own blood.
“I be no’ orderin’ ye about,” he said as he stopped in front of her. “We simply can no’ tarry. We must get to Inverness as soon as possible.”
She could not take her eyes off the bloody tunic. When he caught her staring at it, he quickly drew his cloak around his chest.
“Where did that blood come from?” She whispered the question because she felt as though the wind had been knocked from her lungs. Instinctively, she knew he was going to lie to her.
“I scratched myself on a tree branch,” he said. “Come, we must leave now.”
With her feet firmly planted in place, she shook her head. “Yer tunic was no’ bloody when we first met,” she told him. Tearing her gaze away from the sight, she looked him directly in the eyes and waited.
“’Tis an auld wound,” he said, doing his best to look as innocent as he could. “I was injured a few days ago, whilst trainin’. The branch merely opened it again. ’Tis naught to concern yerself with.”
A tic was forming in his jaw, his eyes … there was something off about his eyes, but she could not quite describe it. Her heart was pounding in her chest, her mind warning her to proceed quite cautiously.
“If we do no’ hurry,” he said as he took her by the elbow, “we shall be found out, each of us sent home, and I will be forced to marry Margaret.”
She froze in place. “Margaret?” she asked.
Mariote’s heart filled with dread that turned to white-hot anger. As best she could, she kept that anger in check. ’Twas all a lie. She knew it then, as certainly as the sun would set this night, he was lying. Every word of every letter he’d sent her was a lie.
He tried pulling her along, but she dug her feet in. “Margaret?” she asked once again.
Conner said nothing as his face began to turn an ugly shade of red. For the first time, she was seeing him through clear, logical eyes. What she saw terrified her.
“In yer letters,” she said, yanking her arm from his grip, “ye referred to her as Claire. Then earlier, ye called her Jean. Now ye say her name be Margaret. How many women does yer father wish ye to marry?”
“I misspoke is all,” he said, trying to cover his lie with a smile.
“I shall have the truth,” she challenged. “I will no’ leave this place without it. The truth about Claire, or Jean, or whatever ye will call her next, as well as the blood on yer tunic.”
The tic in his jaw increased as he clenched his teeth. “Ye bloody well will leave with me, and we will be leavin’ now,” he said harshly as he grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the horse.
“Let go of me!” she screamed as she struggled against his firm hold. “I am no’ goin’ anywhere with ye!”
She had not been prepared for his wrath. He spun around and with a closed fist, struck her cheek.
Mariote fell to the ground, stunned, angry, and terrified all at once. The pain radiated from her cheek to her eye and ear. Bright white lights danced in front of her as her stomach roiled. The last man who had struck her thusly ended up dead. But this time, Muriale was not here to come to her aid.
Stunned into muteness, with her ears ringing, her world began to spin. Only a rapid heartbeat later, she heard a loud roar similar to that of a charging bear.
Lachlan’s blood boiled as hot as a blacksmith’s forge. So much so that he saw red.
Letting out a loud, thunderous roar, with sword drawn, he tore across the clearing, hell bent on killing the man who had just struck Mariote. The imposter looked up; his eyes grew wide with fear. A heartbeat later, he was running as fast as he could away from Mariote and Lachlan.
Lachlan did not stop to see if Mariote was well, for he knew Willem would tend to her. He was focused solely on the fool who had just mounted the old farm horse and was trying to get away. Lachlan whistled for his horse, which came running immediately. As he ran alongside the horse, he reached up, grabbed the saddle and all but flew atop his fine steed.
Neither the farm horse nor the man he was intent on killing were a match for Lachlan. In no time at all, he was riding beside the imposter. With a strong arm, Lachlan unseated the fool and sent him hurling to the cold earth.
Dismounting before his own horse came to a stop, Lachlan straddled his prey. Grabbing the bloody tunic, he lifted the fake Conner up to look him in the eye. “Ye have made many mistakes this day,” Lachlan ground out. “Ye will no’ have the opportunity to make another.”
Willem scooped Mariote up into his arms and carried her toward his horse. Dazed, she tried to focus on the blur that had just raced past her. “Lachlan?” she murmured in confusion.
“Aye,” Willem said with a chuckle. “That be Lachlan.”
At the sound of his voice, Mariote’s eyes opened wide. “Willem?”
He chuckled again but said nothing as he sat her down on a felled log.
“Ye came fer me?” she asked, wholly bewildered at his presence.
“’Twas Lachlan who came after ye,” he told her. “I was only along for amusement.”
Amusement? Mariote certainly found nothing amusing about her situation. He was inspecting her face for injury. Batting his hand away she said, “Ye find this funny?”
“Nay,” he said, his tone growing serious. “I find it utterly repulsive that a man would strike ye. Or any woman, for that matter.”
“His name is Conner,” she told him. “Conner MacGavin.”
Willem raised a brow. “Nay, lass, that be no’ Conner MacGavin. I do no’ ken who he is, but I can assure ye he is no’ Conner.”
Her stomach began to churn. “What do ye mean?” she exclaimed. “He has been writin’ to me fer months.”
“That may verra well be the case,” Willem told her. “But he is no’ Conner.”
“Then who in the bloody hell is he?” Her anger was growing with each beat of her heart. Betrayal blended with fury.
“Mayhap Lachlan will learn the truth before he kills him.”
In wide-eyed astonishment, she stammered, “Kills him?”
Willem chuckled again. She was beginning to find that habit quite annoying.
“When a man loves a woman as much as Lachlan loves ye, then aye, he will kill any man who brings harm to ye.”
Her head began to spin. “Tell me ye jest,” she said. The man was daft. Insane.
When he simply smiled his reply, a smile that said, think on it fer a moment, she felt like weeping. “Tell me ye jest!” she demanded.
With a slow shake of his head, he said, “Nay, lass, I do no’ jest. The poor fool has been in love with ye fer an age.”
“But that can no’ be,” she said, pressing a hand against her chest. Nay, Lachlan thinks of me only as a friend. Even if she made the attempt, there was no hiding her confusion.
“Why is it so hard to believe?” he asked with a wide grin.
It made no sense to her. Not once in all these years had Lachlan behaved in such a way to make her think he had anything other than a brotherly affection toward her. “He is my friend,” she told him. “Naught more.”
Lachlan did not need to threaten to kill the man in order to get the information he wanted. The coward did not protest or put up any kind of fight. As soon as Lachlan asked him who he was and what he was about, the words came spilling out.
“I be Fergus MacGavin. Me da is the blacksmith for the MacGavin clan,” he said, his voice trembling with fear.
“Then why does Mariote believe ye to be Conner MacGavin?” Lachlan asked. He still had the man pinned to the cold, damp earth.
He stammered only for a moment. “I saw her last spring at the festival,” he said.
When he fell silent, Lachlan pushed hard against his chest, warning him to continue.
“I found letters. Letters our laird wrote our lady. Filled with poetry and flowery words meant to impress her. I took them and copied them, putting Mariote’s name in our lady’s place.”
“But why?” Lachlan asked through gritted teeth. It took a good deal of energy not to pummel the bastard into the cold earth.
“I thought if she believed I was the laird’s son, I could convince her to marry me,” Fergus said raggedly.
Clarity dawned, causing Lachlan’s fury to intensify. “And improve yer lot in life.” Disgusted, he shook his head. “And by the time Mariote realized the truth…”
“’Twould be too late,” Fergus added, his face turning purple as he fought to catch a breath.
Furious, repulsed, Lachlan let the man go and stood up, hovering over the coward. The fool had lied to Mariote. Lied well enough to make her believe he loved her. Well enough to convince her to steal away and marry him.
Fergus rolled over to his hands and knees and took several deep breaths.
“Ye be a coward,” Lachlan ground out. “Ye used the tender heart of an innocent lass.”
Fergus laughed as he struggled to his feet. “Aye, and ’twould have worked if ye hadn’t come along.”
The idiot had the audacity to smirk, to look proud of what he had almost accomplished. The thought of Mariote being married to someone like this insipid, weak excuse for a man sickened Lachlan. “The blood on yer tunic?” he asked with a nod.
Fergus glanced down at the blood. “This?” he asked, grinning stupidly. “This belongs to the farmer who refused to sell me a horse.”
The smirk, the sinister gleam in the man’s eyes, the thought of what might have happened to Mariote was too much. Red hot fury erupted and so did Lachlan’s fist. He punched the man square in the jaw and sent him to the ground. He picked him up by the scruff of his tunic and hit him again.
Three more punches to the ignorant fool’s face made Lachlan feel only slightly better. He dragged Fergus’s unconscious and bloody body to a tree, retrieved the rope from his saddle, and tied him to the trunk.
Before leaving, he said, “Ye will no’ live long enough to hurt anyone else. If the MacGavin does no’ kill ye, I will.”
Willem knew better than anyone how Lachlan felt about Mariote. While his friend had never come right out and expressed his feelings—for warriors simply did not do such things—he knew. ’Twas the way Lachlan smiled whenever he spoke her name. The way the man stared at her like a wolf wanting to devour a doe whenever he caught sight of her. Aye, his friend wanted Mariote, and who could blame him? She was a beautiful lass, with long, wavy, golden tresses and big, bright eyes and curves in all the right places.
Willem also knew Mariote had feelings for him. He valued his friendship with Lachlan too much to act on those misplaced feelings. He also valued his life too much. For if he did act on those feelings—as he would were she anyone else’s daughter—Alysander McCullum would kill him. Besides, he respected Mariote far too much to give in to any temptations he might have.
“Aye, Lachlan does consider ye his friend. But methinks he would like it to be more than that.”
From her bewildered expression, he knew she still did not quite believe him.
“Trust me, lass, when I tell ye the man is in love with ye.”
She shook her head in disbelief as she swallowed back her tears.
“He’d make a right good husband,” he told her. “Men like Lachlan always make far better husbands than men like me,” he said. Laughing, he added, “I would make a most horrible husband, fer I doubt I could ever be faithful. I be far too greedy in that regard.”
“Greedy?” she asked, her pretty brow knotted.
“Aye,” he said with a nod. “I be a right greedy bastard when it comes to the opposite sex. I love all women and not in the way that is necessarily best fer them. I be far too selfish to give meself to just one woman, ye ken?”
Nay, she did not understand, not in the least. Mariote swallowed back more tears. Why was he being so hard on himself? “’Tis no’ yer fault women throw themselves at ye.”
He chuckled again. “Mayhap no’,” he replied. “But were I a better man, I might not catch all the women who throw themselves at me. Were I a better man, I would no’ take such enjoyment from it.”
Was he being honest? Or did he have a suspicion that she cared for him and was doing his best to discourage those feelings? She realized then that he was only trying to protect her. He might believe he was naught more than a scoundrel and ne’er-do-well, but she saw through his facade. He did care. But not in the manner in which she had been dreaming and wishing he would.
He was wrong about one thing, however. Lachlan did not love her in a romantic sense. She began to grow angry again, not because Willem had been honest with her about his own faults—and there were many, she realized. But because she felt he was simply trying to shove her off on to his friend so she would leave him alone.
She was about to give him a piece of her mind on that matter when she saw Lachlan thundering across the field towards her.
Beyond any shadow of a doubt, he was furious. Never before had she seen that look in her friend’s eyes. Valiantly, she fought off the urge to scream and start running for the hills.
As he approached, she could see that his lip was bleeding, but not horribly so. There were more spots of blood on his tunic. But whose? His or the blasted Conner MacGavin imposter? Part of her hoped he had killed the man, but only after he had learned who he really was and what the reasons behind his deceit were.
Momentarily stunned speechless, she could only watch as he drew closer.
Lord, above, but he is enraged! And he is looking straight at me.