Page 46 of Taming the Highland Misfits
It had to be Robert Thomson, he thought. Who else could it be? The servants had no doubt all gone to bed hours ago, and were likely sleeping in their basement quarters. It had to be him. Finley was working out how to enter the house without alerting the guards. Could he scale the walls? Crawl over the ground? He had no idea yet, but he would find a way, he resolved. A fresh surge of determination pushed him forwards. Little did Robert Thomson know it, but at this moment he was taking the last breaths he would ever breathe.
Finley began to walk.
* * *
Isla had paced Raffy so that she would stay just behind Duff and Finley, and she only moved up towards him when he reined the big horse in. She wondered for a moment what he was looking at, then she followed his gaze and saw the light at the window.
‘He is wondering who is up at this time of night,’she thought.‘And he has guessed that it is my father. Who else but the master of the house would be able to stay awake till this time in the morning?’She knew that her father habitually went to bed in the early hours of the morning and did not wake up till nearly noon. As a girl and a young woman she had always loved the hours just after dawn and around breakfast time. Those were the hours when she could read and play uninterrupted, and sometimes even go out riding with her mother.
In those days they had ridden together on one horse, since she was only around six years old Raffy had not yet come into her life. Isla had a bittersweet memory of the cosiness and safety of her mother’s arms around her. Unlike most women, Edina, when she was riding with her daughter, rode astride. This had been regarded as quite scandalous by nearly everyone, but Edina had pooh-poohed the convention that women should ride sidesaddle for decency’s sake. “What about our comfort and safety?” she asked Isla. She gave away all her side saddles and had ‘proper’ ones made. Isla was lost in admiration for her brave, spirited mother.
The only time she ever saw her cower was when her father threatened to hurt Isla; then she would back down quickly, and since Robert Thomson knew that this was his best weapon against her, he used it often to great effect.
All these thoughts had been running willy-nilly through Isla's mind as she thought of her father, but now she jerked her attention back to Finley. She was terrified of what he would do next; he had murder in his eyes.
Finley growled, then drew his sword out of its scabbard and put it back in again just to see how smoothly he could withdraw it if he needed to. He had begun to stride purposefully towards the house by this time, but Isla ran in front of him, blocking his path.
He made to sidestep around her, but she matched his movements so that his path was still obstructed. He tried to dodge around her again, this time around the other side, but again she placed herself in his way. He was about to give her a hefty shove when he stopped himself abruptly; what was he doing? What kind of man had he become that he was thinking of treating the woman he loved in this way? He shook his head, wondering what was happening to him, and Isla wrapped her arms tightly around him.
“Think, Finley,” she said gently. “I hate him just as much as you do, although he is the man who sired me. I know it is not natural for a daughter to feel this way about her father, but then, he brought this on himself. Yet I do not think killing him would be the right course to take.” She waved her arms towards the house. “You know that at any time there are ten guards around this house, each one a former military man armed to the teeth and skilled at using his weapon?”
“I didnae realise there were as many as that,” Finley admitted. He sighed and laid his cheek on Isla’s hair, wondering how Robert Thomson could be responsible for the existence of this wonderful, beautiful woman. As he breathed in the scent of her body, it soothed him greatly, and the raging spirit that had almost taken over his reason faded away. He was not yet completely calm, but it seemed as though Isla’s body was a bulwark against the worst of his anger.
“Do you think killing my father, or Iain and Alec Crawford will bring your mother back?” she asked, then answered her own question. “No, of course it will not. It will do nothing except make sure you are hanged for murder because you have no proof that any of them did anything wrong. We both know inside what the truth is, but I’m afraid feelings are not evidence in a court of law.”
“Thank God you are here, Isla,” Finley breathed. “I needed ye tae talk some sense intae me.”
Isla watched his face as it dropped from an expression of fierce fury to one of infinite sadness. Something had just fundamentally changed his life because of what he had just heard. Before, he had had suspicion but no proof, whereas now that certainty had slammed into him, hard and sure, and he had to face it.
Isla could not even begin to imagine how Finley was feeling. Yes, she had lost her own mother, but at least she had seen her corpse and knew that Edina Thomson had seemingly not had a violent death. Finley had just found out that his mother’s last moments had been a brutal struggle for life, and she felt herself beginning to weep inside for the man she loved. He looked absolutely desolate.
“You don’t need sense right now,” Isla said softly. “You need comfort.” She stepped into his arms again to embrace him. “You are in shock, and you need a wee while to think about this and make sense of it. I will no doubt feel the same if I find out what killed my mother, then we can comfort each other, Finley. If I were in your shoes I doubt I would do any better. In fact, I know I would not. You are a strong, brave man, Finley, and I admire you very much. Never forget it. One more thing; I am very proud of you, and grateful to you. You not only saved my life, but you helped me to escape from hell.”
He looked down at her and smiled as he pushed a lock of hair away from her eyes. He could not see them well in the fitful moonlight, but he knew that every time he gazed into them he never wanted to look away. He had never met another Scottish woman who looked anything like her, so dark and exotically beautiful.
“I am so lucky tae have ye, Isla,” he murmured. “What would I dae without ye?”
“You would go back to Angus and become an honest, hard-working blacksmith,” she replied. “But you will always have my support, Finley, whatever you do, unless you go back to a life of crime. Yet I know you will never do that, because you promised me, and I know that you are not a man who breaks his word.”
For a long moment, they stared at each other as if spellbound, then Isla looked away and tried to turn her mind to practical matters. It was a lovely night, but chilly, as Highland nights often were. A few clouds scudded across the sky, but rain looked unlikely. She doubted whether either of them would get much sleep that night, but she knew that they had to lay their heads down somewhere, otherwise they would not have the strength to run in the morning.
“I think we must find a place to hide,” she observed, looking around. “And hopefully get some rest if we can.”
Finley hugged her more tightly for a few seconds, indulging himself in the enjoyment of her womanly scent. Because of all their previous hugs and kisses, he had come to know the contours of her body as well as his own, and despite the circumstances in which they found himself, he began to become aroused.
He stood for a few more seconds, indulging himself in her softness and warmth, then kissed her hair before gently pushing her away. “I have had tae hide in many places over the years,” he said grimly. “No’ always very nice places, Isla.”
“I don’t care if they look like a dungeon or a pigsty, Finley,” she replied. “I feel safe with you, much safer than the house I was brought up in.” She shuddered, and Finley had to resist the impulse to draw her even more tightly into his embrace and kiss her senseless.
“I have a wee place that I use when I absolutely have tae,” he said reluctantly. “But it’s no’ very big an’ we might be a bit cramped.”
“I am sure I will survive,” Isla assured him. “I’m not quite as frail as I look, Finley.”
He grinned. “Isla Thomson.” His tone was filled with wry humour. “If I had ever thought o’ you as frail, I certainly wouldnae anymore! You are one o’ the strongest women I know.” He turned Duff around and waited until Isla had done the same with Raffy before he pointed in the direction of the road that ran north out of Inverleith.
“Right on the edge o’ town there we will find a wee ruined church,” he told her. “Underneath the altar is a crypt where they used tae keep the bones o’ some saint or other.”
“Saint Elfgiva,” Isla supplied. “The Viking saint. She was canonised for her kindness and good works among fishermen and sailors who were shipwrecked along the coast. Her bones were taken to Rome, as I remember.”
