Page 46 of Highlander's Sinless Nymph
Edward kept his mouth shut. He did not trust himself to speak just at that point, and he also thought it would be less damaging to whatever relationship had sprung up between himself and Charlotte if she was to get to the end of this road of thought by herself.
“It was something to do with supporting the Jacobite cause, I think he said…” Charlotte said. Suddenly, she looked up, her eyes sparkling with sudden remembrance. “There was a woman!” she said. “A traitorous woman from your clan who was hanged for aiding and abetting the Jacobite cause, despite my father’s best efforts to dissuade her otherwise!”
She looked confusedly at Edward.
“That’s why the fort was in such a state of frenzy! I remember it now, even though I was consigned to my room most of the time we were there. The whole place was like an anthill that had been stirred up with a stick.”
“She was me mither,” Edward said quietly, the four words taking a real effort of will before they made it through his tight lips.
“I never did hear why there was such a commotion about the hanging of a common traitor,” Charlotte babbled on, caught up now in the current of her own memories. “We had to return to England for a spell, which I was very excited about because––”
“She was my mither,” Edward said again, louder this time.
Charlotte stopped in mid reminiscence, her mouth open. “I’m sorry,” she said, “who was your mother?”
“The woman,” Edward said, his jaw clenched so tight against the directionless rage that was bubbling up inside him that he was amazed that any words could escape him at all. “The woman––thecommon traitor,as ye put it––that was hanged, that was me mither.”
Charlotte’s mouth, far from being tightly closed like Edward’s, hung open like a landed fish’s.
“I don’t underst––” she began.
“The woman that yer faither had hanged without cause was memither, Charlotte! Yer faither, the esteemed Captain Bolton, had her put to death because me faither would nae withdraw his support fer the Jacobite cause!”
Without his knowing it, Edward’s voice had risen almost to a shout. Charlotte sat stunned on the other side of the fire to him, all trace of excitement, at the fact that he might share a little bit of his personal story with her, gone from her.
With a tremendous effort, Edward lowered his voice, tried to stop the anger shaking it.
“Yer faither abducted me mither in retaliation fer me faither, the Laird, helpin’ to fund and support the Jacobite cause,” he said again. “He thretatened me faither that if he did nae stop what he was doin’ then he would kill me mither. My faither thought that Captain Bolotn was bluffin’. He was nae.”
Edward hung his head, fatigued suddenly far beyond the point of caring whether Charlotte believed the words or not. Now that the words sat within his breast, he had to speak them, to cleanse himself of their poison.
“He hung her from the walls of the fort like a common criminal. Hung me mither fer the sport o’ the watchin’ crowds.”
Edward shook his head. He could not say more. Slowly, feeling as if it weighed a ton, he raised his head to look at Charlotte.
The young Englishwoman was staring at him in abject horror, but it was a horror that was modulated with pity.
“I’m…” she started to stay, but then she suddenly sprang to her feet and took a couple of faltering steps away from him. “You’re no hunter,” she said.
“Nay,” Edward said. “Nae in the way ye thought I was. But I am huntin’ fer somethin’––fer someone.”
“You’re the heir to the MacQuarries,” Charlotte continued, as if laying down the pieces in front of her and not acknowledging that she had even heard Edward’s response.
“That I am,” Edward replied.
Charlotte’s eyes snapped into focus again. She pointed an accusatory finger at him. “That’swhy you were in the forest,” she said. “You were––what?––waiting, spying?”
“I was watchin’ to see if I could catch a glimpse of yer faither,” Edward said. “I have been trackin’ him a fair while now.”
Charlotte shook her head like one who cannot believe what they are hearing.
“Why?” she asked. “What would have happened if you’d seen him? Would you have tried tokillhim?”
Edward was a strong-willed and resolute man, but even he could not suppress the savage light that lit his eyes then. “Good God, Sassenach, if ye kenned how much pleasure I would derive from doin’ that, after what he has taken from me and me faither…” He took a steadying breath. “But, nay, it was nae me task to kill him. Only to gather information on his movements.”
“And so, this…” Charlotte said, taking another step away from the fire. “This is not a simple case of a stranger happening to be in the right place to help me? You never intended to show me where to find healing herbs the day you asked me to meet you, did you?”
The hurt on her face cut Edward to the very bone. He felt more wretched than he had felt for a long time.
