Master of the Highlands

Lily darted her eyes about the tunnel in search of something she could use to overpower Rowena, who was now using the stein to admire her reflection. Lily imagined she was likely also strategizing about which of Lily’s own body parts to pummel with it. She tried to stall. “And you are the new wife in question, I suppose?”



“Aye. ” Rowena turned the full force of her gaze onto Lily, and beamed with a look of self-satisfaction. “There you go,



Lil’, there’s the clever cat who bewitched Lochiel. I ’m to be the new wife. ” An eerily serene smile smoothe d her features. “Once I rid myself of the cat, aye?”



Lily smiled back, and it was a true smile. She had felt a pulse on John’s neck, strong and steady, and spied his eyelashes beginning to flutter. She suddenly saw Rowena for what she was. A weak, conniving brat whose petulance had deteriorated into something evil.



She sent up a silent thank-you for all those miserable years of step aerobics and kick boxing at the local Y. Lily had gone to the gym more out of guilt than pleasure, but she now realized that with so many years of those accursed Nautilus machines to gird her, she could eat a peevish little monster like Rowena for breakfast.



“Rid of …me?” Lily stood and her smile became radiant. “I don’t think so. ”



Uncertainty flickered in Rowena’s eyes, fueling Lily’s burgeoning confidence. But first Lily had to satisfy her curiosity. She understood why the girl might want John dead, but that didn’t explain the man spotted in her rooms.



“Before you have at me with your cup, Rowena, please do tell me, what was a MacKintosh doing in the castle?”



She was momentarily taken aback. “You’ve seen the MacKintosh in my rooms, eh? Your wee spy, I suppose. ” Rowena kicked John with her slippered foot, and with a toss of her blonde ringlets asserted, “The MacKintosh is long fled from the castle. If you or Robert or any other of your wee warriors had hoped to capture him, you ’re too late.”



“But what on earth could the MacKintosh man have to do with your plot?”



“He ’s as well served by the boy ’s death as I. Though he ’s eager to spill the blood of the father besides. He reckons some Cameron lands to be his own. If the son turns up dead, and the father too, then what bedlam, aye? Whilst the clan sorts itself out, the MacKintosh will take what land he will. ” Then she trilled, “Easy as you please. ”



Lily had to laugh. “You’re a dim bulb, aren ’t you Rowena?” Wickedly conniving was one thing, but recklessly stupid was more than she could bear. The fury that had been rolling in her steadied, and her anger attained a levelheaded focus “I mean, your plan goes out the window . if your husband-to-be is murdered by your coconspirator.



Or am I missing something?”



“Oh,” Rowena purred, “the MacKintosh has vowed to make any such…inconvenience worth my time. ”



She had always felt cowed by girls like this, with their effortless prettiness and blithe flirtations. She studied Rowena, and it struck Lily that she had something those types of females never had to rely on. Self-reliance was Lily’s currency. This freshly realized confidence summoned an otherworldly strength in her, and before her head knew what her body was doing, she launched herself over John ’s limp figure and hurtled into Rowena.



The blonde went down like a rag doll. She was thin but her body lacked muscle tone, and her doughy midsection expelled a clipped, satisfyingly high-pitched wheeze like a collapsed bellows as she hit the stone stairs. This time Lily moved quickly, and she at once pinned Rowena’s arms and squeezed her wrists until the pewter tankard slipped from her grip, clattering down the steps and disappearing into the darkness below.



“A nighean na galla!” Rowena hissed. “You ’ll nay get the better of me. The MacKintosh has a man after Lochiel even now. He’s likely dead, and you ’re soon to follow. If Ewen ’s not to be mine, then he’ll belong to no one.”



“You know as well as I, Rowena”—Lily dug in her nails for emphasis “— that nobody gets the best of Ewen. And besides,” she added through clenched teeth, “it looks as if I ’ve already gotten the best of—”



Wrenching her torso, Rowena yanked an arm free and jabbed her elbow into Lily’s ribs. She cried out, her arms instinctively recoiling, and lost her grip on Rowena, who quickly rolled out from under her and scuttled down the steps, fumbling under her skirts as she went. Lily sprang to give chase, leaving the torch perched along the stairs in her haste.



The women stumbled recklessly down into the increasingly impermeable darkness. Very quickly it became impossible to see, but Lily’s eyes still instinctively opene d wide, searching for some glimmer of light. She was forced to rely on her other senses, and could tell from the rustle of Rowena’s skirts that she was gaining on her.



They hit the bottom of the stairs at the same time and stumbled, legs adjusting to the pitch of the floor that their eyes were now completely blind to. Lily stepped on the hem of Rowena’s dress and the woman grunted, hitting the wall. She sensed Rowena’s arm stabbing empty space with her tiny sgian dubh. Lily flailed in the blackness, grasping a handful of Rowena’s skirts, her fingers and nails struggling for purchase on the slippery satin, when she felt the slice of a blade along her forearm. For a brief, shocked moment, there was a strange absence of feeling, instantly replaced by a sizzling pain and the warm feel of blood seeping along her arm.



The sensation focused Lily, and she pulled her opponent toward her, clamping an arm around her tiny waist. So close, she could smell the scent of rose in Rowena’s hair and the tang of sweat soaking the satin of her dress, straining now over her panting chest. Wrestling for control of the woman ’s knife arm, Lily’s nails found the back of Rowena’s hand, clawing her viciously. The ping of the blade hitting the floor echoed off the damp stone walls, and Rowena began to thrash like a wild creature in Lily’s grip, slamming them into the wall of the landing.



Lily barked out a curse as her hip struck a sharp protrusion, then she grinned in the darkness, realizing she had just found the doorknob. Still clutching the struggling Rowena, she reached around and fumbled with the handle, encouraged by the sounds of Loch Linnhe, lapping on the other side of the door. The knob was jammed tight with rust from years of neglect and moisture, and when Lily finally managed to turn it, the door swung open through a tangle of undergrowth, flinging both women through the biting shrubbery into the muck along the lake, the shore of which lay much closer to the edge of Tor Castle than Lily had realized.



It took Rowena a moment to understand what had happened. Lily pressed her advantage and wrestled her down into the mud, straddling her and pinning her arms at her back.



“Och,” Rowena spat, “you’re a braw coo, aren ’t you?”



“A coo? What’s a… a cow? ” Lily leaned hard into Rowena.



“Did you just call me a cow?”



“Aye, I always thought you a shaggy coo with that mop of hair. ” Rowena thrashed under Lily’s weight. “Och, what is that infernal stench?”



“A cow, huh?” Lily laughed. “Well, if we ’re talking farm animals here, I ’d have to say you’re a sheep.” She leaned down and, ignoring the brown halo of grunge along the edge of Rowena’s skirts, tore into the fabric with her teeth.



“A ghalla! What are you doing to me skirts?”



“Or would it be a lamb? No, no, too innocent. I ’d say you’re most like a sheep because, my dear”—Lily rent the fabric of Rowena’s skirts up the middle “— you are about to get shorn. ” She began methodically ripping strip after strip off from the hem, all the while keeping the now frenzied Rowena pinned between her knees.



“Dé an diabhal a…” Rowena screeched. “Bloody hell, fool! What are you doing? Och, hell, bitch, you let me go. ” She bucked and screamed, struggling to get Lily off of her back.



“I’ll see you dead, a shiùrsach!”



“Let you go?” Lily was having fun now. “I’ll let you go in one moment. ” Anchoring Rowena’s arms with her own, Lily deftly wound the strips of fabric around the blonde ’s wrists.



“Just. About. Done. There, now I ’ll let you go.”



Lily stood over Rowena, hogtied, howling, and raging, almost completely immobilized in the muck.



“Oh, you asked about the stench? I ’m surprised you don’t recognize it. ” Lily began dusting herself off, and exaggeratedly adjusting her clothing. “Though, I suppose you ’ve always had servants to deal with these sorts of things for you. Not for long, once Ewen gets wind of what you ’ve done. Anyhoo, that smell? It’s the aroma of chamber pots. They must empty them out this side of the castle. ” Lily looked around with an exaggerated thoughtfulness.



“Makes sense. It ’s so remote back here, and right by the lake too. ”



Lily began to make her way back to the door. “Get used to it, because you ’ll be smelling it until someone finds you. If anyone finds you. ” Lily cleared the brush aside and opened the door. She turned once more to look at Rowena, who was now hysterical and rolling on her belly in the mud, arms and legs writhing like a flipped turtle.



“So” Lily smiled “gardyloo, honey, because if one of those — — pots gets dumped on you … well, you’ll never get the stain out. ”



“Don’t upset yourself, Lily. The laddie ’ll be right as rain come morning. ” Kat tucked the quilt snugly around John’s shoulders. “Though how you managed to get him up the stairs all on your lonesome is no small miracle. A big and braw one John is, just as his da was at this age.”



Lily sat on the bedside, stroking John ’s hair. He had regained consciousness then quickly slipped back into a deep sleep with the help of a dram of whisky insisted upon by Kat. Getting the boy back up all those stairs actually hadn’t been as hard as she would’ve thought. Between her brawl with Rowena and fear for John ’s life, adrenaline had been coursing through Lily. She ’d just knotted her skirts at the knees and, heaving the boy into a fireman’s carry across her shoulders, did what she had to do. She barely recalled the long trot back up the stairwell. Panicked thoughts of John ’s safety had pushed all else out of her mind.