Page 25 of Highland Crown
The dining room, airy and well-lit from open windows, wasn’t empty. At the end of the table, a British officer laid his fork down. He stood and donned a dark blue regimental jacket ornamented with rows of gold braid down the front. At the sound of the door closing behind them, Isabella turned to find a second blue-coated soldier blocking their retreat.
CHAPTER8
Norman saw on English oak.
On English neck a Norman yoke;
Norman spoon to English dish,
And England ruled as Normans wish…
—Sir Walter Scott,Ivanhoe
The fire in his chest flared up with every labored breath he took. Some unseen hand was twisting a hot poker around in him, igniting every organ from his throat to his entrails, and the ache in his neck, collarbone, and shoulder seemed to be getting worse.
Cinaed wiped away the sweat standing out on his face. His shirt, soaked with perspiration, stuck to his body. At the same time, a chill lay like an icy blanket around him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d experienced such physical agony. Perhaps he never had.
The downward turn started when he’d tried to climb back into the cart. He might as well have been trying to scale a castle wall or climb the mainmast of his ship using one hand. And with each passing second, his body betrayed him more. He needed to find a place, a room, a hole, where he could crawl in and sleep. Somehow, he needed to fight off this fever.
Searc Mackintosh. He was slippery and untrustworthyas a greased snake—he’d grown even more so over the years—but Cinaed knew he was kin and his only hope. Twenty years ago, he’d taken in and cared for a distraught and friendless boy sent down from Dalmigavie Castle. Even now, when he thought back to the time spent in that labyrinthine house near the mouth of the Ness, the smell of malt houses and the river filled his senses. It was all so different from the clean mountain air he knew. But Searc had kept him safe until a ship was found that would carry him to Halifax. To a new life.
Sitting in the cart with the reins in his hand, however, Cinaed couldn’t bring himself to leave. Common sense told him the women were settled inside the inn and he should go, but his instincts ordered him to stay.
Vague arguments rolled back and forth in his mind. Perhaps it wasn’t his instincts he was hearing. Perhaps it was simply that he didn’t want to leave her right now. After all, the place looked like any other roadside inn. More customers were making their way to the door. Farm lads and fishermen, looking to enjoy a pint or two before going home to their supper. In the stable yard, a lanky lad with a shock of red hair was rubbing down a horse by the gate.
Cinaed needed water. He needed rest. And sitting in front of the inn for too long would draw unwanted attention. He should continue on to Inverness. A few more minutes.
He wasn’t sure what he was looking for. In fact, he wasn’t sure of anything, but still he couldn’t bring himself to go.
Hours went by, or perhaps only minutes. There was no telling the difference. His throat was rough and parchedas old shark skin. Finally deciding that sitting on a stolen cart on the coach road was stupidity of great magnitude, he flicked the reins. The quiet kirkyard around the bend seemed to offer a better choice than pulling in to the stable yard.
Driving around the back of the kirk, Cinaed reined the cart in under a tree beside a well near an empty curate’s cottage. He was growing weaker, but he managed to climb down from the cart. Drawing up a bucket from a well, he drank deeply and watered the old cart horse.
Where he sat, he had no view of the door of the Stoneyfield House. A plan formed in his mind. It wasn’t a particularly good one, but it was better than staying here. Cinaed ran his fingers through his hair and assessed the state of his clothing. Total disarray. Gingerly, he pulled the edges of the shirt together over the wound and buttoned up his waistcoat and coat all the way. He was disheveled, and his clothes indicated he’d been through a rough time of it. But unless he began bleeding profusely on the tavern floor, he didn’t think anyone around here would pay any attention to it.
Heading back down the road toward the inn, Cinaed felt each jarring step like a bolt of lightning coursing through his body. The shivering only seemed to be getting worse. His body was failing him, but his mind was becoming clearer. He would simply walk inside and pretend not to know the two women. If they were in the tavern with Jean’s nephew, all well and good. If they weren’t, then over food and a drink, he’d ask a few questions of the server and find out what he could.
As he stepped up to the door, the lanky stable lad with the red hair came running out and barreled intohim. The young man went sprawling in the dirt, and a missive flew out of his hand and dropped at Cinaed’s feet. He picked up the letter as the lad bounded up and held his hand out for it.
“A delivery?” he asked. “Didn’t I see you in the stable yard just now?”
“Aye, but the master told me to run with it.”
“Where to?” He started to hand the letter back to him.
“Fort George,” the young man answered.
Cinaed jerked a thumb toward the open door. “Is the innkeeper friendly with the soldiers at the barracks?”
“Nay. This ain’t from the master. It’s from them two officers who been lounging about the back dining room all day.”
Perhaps it was due to her training as a physician and the work she’d done as a surgeon. Perhaps it was an innate quality she’d always possessed. Whatever it was, Isabella had the singular ability to focus in the midst of chaotic situations. When the moment called for it, nothing could distract her from her purpose.
With all the coolness she could muster, she gazed at the British officer and this room in which they’d trapped her. The dining table contained a variety of food and drink. Outside the open windows, a few livestock sheds and coops for fowl stood between the inn and the open fields.
She’d felt it in the taproom. The vague responses Jean had received from the innkeeper. The delay before they had an answer about John Gordon’s whereabouts. A trap had been set, and she’d walked right into it. Andnow, she would keep up the pretense of ignorance until they exposed their hand. Regardless of being caught, Isabella forced herself to stay calm. She could see no path for escaping this predicament, so she simply focused on what she could control—her confidence and her conduct.
“Humble apologies, sirs,” Jean told them. “We’ve been sent to the wrong room. To be sure, we wouldn’t care to be bothering ye at yer dinner.”
