Heart of Stone by Rebecca Ruger

Chapter Fifteen

“Perhaps we ought torespect her wishes,” Peadar suggested.

For this, he was the recipient of the most ferocious scowl he had ever witnessed on Calum MacKinnon’s face.

But it was Finn who argued against it. “Respect her wishes? Respect her—are you daft, lad? Those ain’t her wishes. Did you no’ ken those lasses, all of them? Julianna, too?”

“That’s fear,” Artur said. “Sheer and simple and bluidy hell, no’ at all right.”

Peadar persisted now that Calum had taken his stalking and pacing further away. “I’m just saying, she stood up to us—to Cal—and then those men back at Robbie’s, and she raced into the fray at Kinclaven...and you want me to believe Julianna is suddenly afraid of an old woman in a strange headdress?”

Booth frowned as well. “Dinna really make sense.”

Calum whirled around, pinning them with a glare of unwavering defiance. “I dinna care what makes sense to you. Look what they’ve done to her. I’m no’ about to leave her there.” But wasn’t he dying inside for how she’d rejected him? “I’ll go alone if you dinna want any part of it, but we’re no’ leaving—”

“Dinna talk nonsense,” Finn interjected heatedly. “We’re going with you.”

“But how,” Booth wondered, “are we going to first, find her, and then, make her come with us?”

“We can get up those walls after dark, I’m thinking,” Artur said. “I once convalesced at a monastery down in Perth. The dormitories are generally on the top floor.”

“I can no’ be scaling any walls, no’ with this leg,” Finn grumbled, though it was tinted with a bit of shame.

“Aye,” Calum said, rifling through possibilities in his head. “Get in after dark, up to the dorter. Snatch her and go. Finn holding the steeds on the ground. In and out in fifteen minutes, none the wiser.”

While none the wiser mostly held true, Calum’s plan to be in and out in a quarter hour was stymied by the very object of his quest. Climbing the wall in the pale moonlight hadn’t been hard, but then it hadn’t been as effortless as he’d hoped. Once inside however, he and Artur and the lads crept stealthily into and through the dormitory. Immediately it was clear to them that they were being watched, that so many sets of wide eyes upon the narrow cots charted their progress through the aisles of beds.

And yet no one screamed or cried.

But Julianna was nowhere to be found, though Calum had noted several empty beds, and one in particular set in the middle of some familiar faces. Frustrated once again, he loomed over the shrinking figure of the next oldest lass who’d been with Julianna this afternoon.

“Where is she?”

The lass only shook her head. Calum growled and pulled his long dagger from his belt. He didn’t move any closer to the lass, but he did flex his hand that a strip of moonlight showed the shadow of the blade.

“Where is she?” He asked again, this time in a more dangerous voice.

“I’ll no’ give her up,” the lass maintained.

“She said you’d no’ hurt us,” came a voice from the next cot, the fey character he’d met at the door. “So we canna tell.”

Calum growled, “But ye ken, I only want to help her, get her away.”

“Should no’ have left her then, I guess,” said the older lass.

“So she’s only hiding to be stubborn, because she’s piss—angry with me?”

They shook their heads at the same time.

“We said she ought to go on with ye,” said the wee lass.

In the next bunk, too far into the shadows for Calum to put any face to the sound, a small voice said, “She dinna want to leave us.”

“Us? Who?”

“Her friends,” said that wee sprite.

Artur asked what Calum was thinking, “Because there’s evil here?”

The two lasses nearest nodded, naught seen but their faces and their huge eyes, their blankets pulled up to their chins.

“She knew I’d come tonight?”

More nods answered.

Calum had a suspicion Julianna was close. He said to his men, “Grab these three, let’s flush her out.”

And while Artur’s eyes widened at this directive, the lasses—four in total, actually—whipped back their blankets, revealing that they were fully clothed and their feet were shod. They jumped eagerly from their cots.

“Shite,” Tomag said, with a hint of a chuckle. “Ready to go, aye, girls?”

The wee fey lass said, “She’s only going with you if you take us as well.”

Calum favored her with a monstrous scowl, which intimidated the lass not at all. “She could have said as much earlier, saved me climbing a wall.”

“Aye, but she only thought of it tonight, when she guessed you might return when dark came,” said the older lass.

The littlest one lifted her arms to Artur, apparently expecting to be carried.

“Bluidy...” Artur began to grumble but did scoop up the lass.

“Where is she then?”

“In the night stair, waiting,” said another one, tiny as well, whom Peadar had taken into his arms.

Tomag lifted a brow to the older girl. “Hope you’re no’ thinking I’ll be carrying you.”

“Helen and I can walk.”

“Lead the way, then.”

The night stair was gained from the north end of the dorter, where the blue-gray light of the dormitory was left behind in favor of the golden but barely lit stairwell. Calum took the lead once they reached the stairs, not at all surprised when Julianna stepped out of the shadows between floors, dressed as she had been and sporting still that ridiculous wimple.

He jogged down the remaining steps, immediately taking note of her widened and anxious gaze, which was so much better than the ghostlike mien she’d worn this afternoon, and likely appeased by seeing all her favorite lasses in the midst of his men. He wanted nothing more than to pull her into his arms and kiss her with all the possessive and furious passion igniting him now, even as he was aware of the logjam behind him. Whether he would have or not would never be known. Adding further torture to him, Julianna lifted her hands between them, as if she might suspect he would want to touch her, as if she wanted nothing to do with it.

“You’re a stubborn lass, Julianna Elliot,” he said starkly.

She tipped her face up to him, her gaze pleading, her eyes glassy and tired. “I cannot leave them.”

“There’s thirty more upstairs, lass,” he said with more soberness than sympathy. “We canna save them all.”

“Maybe not tonight.”

“I’m no’ looking to take on—”

“It’s not too late to go then...without us,” she said, her voice a ragged whisper now. “And if it truly is your intention to bring me to Caerhayes to be—”

Through gritted teeth, he reminded her, “I’ve said you’ll no’ go to Caerhayes. But I’m no’ leaving you behind again.”

This enlivened her a bit, her eyes glittering with new hope even as she appeared wholly drained.

“Then we should go.”

Calum took her hand and they continued down the stairs. They might yet be discovered, trouble might loom beyond any corner or just outside these walls, but he knew an immediate peace when her hand was once again joined with his.

The night stair emptied them into a vacant chapel where Julianna breathlessly pointed to an exterior door, which likely only the priest might use, and they burst through it, into the cool night air. The only noise made was from their footfalls and the chafing of sheathed swords against legs.

Calum circled the dewy stone wall of the priory, dodging into the trees where they’d left Finn and their mounts at the east side.

As expected, his captain’s eyes went round. “Aw, bluidy—what the hell ’ave ye done?” He asked, spying all the extra persons.

“She wouldn’t leave without them,” Artur said simply. “All or none.”

“We’re bluidy soldiers,’ he groused. “We’re no’ wet nurses.”

Simply to be contrary, Calum was sure, Artur passed the little one into Finn’s arms. “Hold her while I get up there.”

“Aw, c’mon,” Finn groused, wincing as if the child in his arms were feral or dangerous. “What ye got to be smiling about, lass? Go on, get up there with Artur.” And he passed her on when Artur was settled, happy to be rid of the bundle.

Calum took the reins of his destrier from Finn then. He turned to Julianna, expecting to lift her up into the saddle, but was struck by the look she was giving him. He still held her hand, but the fingers of her other hand were lightly touching her bottom lip, which was trembling. Her head lolled a bit on her shoulders and a little gasped, “Oh,” escaped her just before her eyes closed and she collapsed against him.

Panicked, Calum collected her in his arms, but barely, that her feet were yet on the ground and she was fallen against his chest. His hand at her back met with something sticky.

“Julianna!” Calum’s cry was hoarse.

“I ken she were sick,” said one of the lasses.

***

THEY RODE SWIFT ANDstraight toward Blackwood, the nearest friendly place where help might be found for Julianna. She hadn’t wakened. Calum had patted her cheek while they’d ridden, but she never stirred. His men had interrogated the younger girls about Julianna’s condition while they moved, with Tomag calling back to Calum, “They took a birch switch to her—to all of them—but Julianna got the worst of it.”

He vowed he wasn’t done with Murkle, then, not by a long shot.

And that would explain the tackiness he’d encountered at her back. Blood.

Calum gave no thought to rousing Gabriel’s household so many hours before the sun would rise. He sent Artur and Finn ahead to announce their presence to the soldiers on the wall, lest they be mistaken for attackers come in the dead of night.

Thus, by the time Artur returned to lead them through the gate, which was being pulled open and Calum urged his steed forward, Gabriel Jamison was coming into the bailey from his keep, sans his plaid and sword.

A soldier as well, with the ability to assess a situation at a glance, Gabriel needed only to see Calum gingerly dismounting his steed with an unconscious Julianna in his arms to surmise what was amiss and what his reaction should be.

“This way, Cal,” he called, waving his friend inside. He turned and led the way, barking out names into the sleeping keep. “Fenella! Mary! Asgal!” He did not stop but swept through the center of the hall to leave undisturbed those making their beds along the north wall, and up the wide stone staircase that dipped into the shadows and up to the next floor. “Put her in here,” Gabriel said, flinging a door wide, and going immediately to throw back the heavy counterpane upon the feather mattress.

Gently, Calum lowered Julianna onto the bed. She opened her eyes but saw nothing, perhaps, before they closed again. He touched a hand to her forehead, catching sight of spots of blood on his forearm and inside his elbow where her back had rested against him.

“I’ll send for Teasag, the healer,” Gabriel offered and disappeared, having to push through the MacKinnons and the wee nuns who crowded the room.

Calum stood then, hands on his hips, staring down at her, not knowing what to do for her. She was no longer pale, but flush with fever, her skin burning under his hand moments ago. She wasn’t struggling to breathe and not moaning with any discomfort, as Peadar had writhed in the grips of his fever weeks ago. She was but still and sleeping, it appeared.

Blowing out a breath, not even daring to entertain the possibilities of what might have happened if he’d not recovered her from Murkle on this night, he glanced around at all the worried faces surrounding the bed.

Every watchful gaze, of the MacKinnons and the lasses, showed their own concern.

And then a woman entered, appearing all at once matronly and competent, that Calum welcomed her arrival and moved away from the head of the bed, putting his hands on Marta’s shoulders to move her out of the way as well. He only knew her name as the oldest lass had twice scolded her for crowding Julianna.

The woman assessed Julianna but briefly, doing as Calum had, putting her wrinkled hands to Julianna’s forehead.

“She has a wound on her back,” Calum informed her.

The woman nodded. “Aye, and Teasag’ll take good care of her when she comes. A pinch of this and dose of that and she’ll be right as rain come the morn.” She straightened then and addressed the group, her eyes widening only slightly at the sight of all the shorn-haired lasses. “And let us see all you folks settled then. The sickroom is no place for a mob.”

With his hands yet on Marta’s shoulders, Calum steered her toward the woman, who moved to the door and lifted her brows with expectation, though the girls were slow to move.

Each of them sent worried glances to different MacKinnons that Calum said, “You can see her first thing when you wake,” at the same time Artur was assuring them, “Aye, and she’ll be fine, lass. Off you go.”

And all the remaining hours of darkness were long. People came and went; Calum’s men were here and there, and then, with little help to offer, left to steal some sleep; Gabriel returned, asking the natural questions, though he didn’t push Calum for too much, easily sensing his distraction; the hag, Teasag, finally came, offering Calum hope when she pronounced what the other woman had, that Julianna would be well. She scuttled him out of the room, though, that only she and the household women, two who’d since come into the chamber, remained with Julianna.

He didn’t stay gone long, waiting just in the corridor until the women were done with their ministrations. The healer attended Julianna for more than an hour, leaving Calum with the notice that she’d entrusted the household women with the potions she’d mixed and had instructed them on changing the bandages and salve she’d applied to Julianna’s back.

Calum tried to thank her with coin, but she’d have none of it, turning her wide brown eyes up to him. “The laird dinna but rarely send for me in the night, so I ken you and she,” she angled her head toward the bed, “are kin of sorts. And you ken, there is no’ a price to be put on a good life.”

Closing the door behind the healer, Calum turned and leaned against it, his gaze falling onto Julianna on the bed. He scowled instantly and pushed away from the door. His face twisted with a grotesque fury when he saw that she’d been relieved finally of that godawful head covering.

Her beautiful hair was all but gone, butchered one inch from her scalp in an uneven and unsightly fashion.

“Aw, Christ,” he moaned and fell into the chair beside the bed.

He sat unmoving, slumped in the chair with this new and shocking revelation.

Aye, it wasn’t about her loveliness being cleaved away. She was bonny for sure but her greatest assets were, by his reckoning, her wit and her willingness to see good and her tender heart. She’d be bonny all the same, hair or no. But she would have trouble accepting this, and not because she was vain—Calum had not ever witnessed evidence of that—but because part of her identity had been stolen. As he somehow couldn’t see Julianna agreeing to the removal of her hair, and since he’d now been made aware of other corruptions at Murkle, he assumed this had been forced on her. Surely, this catastrophe must have played some role in the quiet despondency he’d sensed in her yesterday afternoon.

Bluidy hell! Could he do no right where she was concerned?

He watched her sleep, gowned now in a filmy nightrail of cotton, courtesy of Blackwood and its denizens. Curious and unable to stop himself, he leaned forward and lightly touched his fingers to her hair. It was soft yet, not prickly as the shortness suggested, though he was sorry that so much of the true blonde had been slashed away, leaving the darker interior locks of light brown.

“You’ll be fine, lass,” he said into the quiet. “Railing at me in no time for the trouble I brought to you.”

But, from this day forward, we’ll no’ be parted again.

***

GABRIEL SAT WITH HIMfor a while later in the morn, shortly after the sun had risen. Of course, the sickroom of a woman he did not know was truly no place for Gabriel, even if it were his own keep. But he and Calum’s friendship went back a decade, and they’d seen and shared the atrocities of war and so much more, including burying Gabriel’s wife years ago, that Calum did not begrudge his company.

“You want to tell me what this is—who she is?” Gabriel asked, one brow lifted. “Saw you but a week ago and you made no mention of a bonny lass with no hair.” He laughed briefly. “Or the passel of likewise crop-topped moppets that accompanied her.”

Though loathe to take his gaze from the peacefully sleeping Julianna, Calum did give his attention to his friend.

“’Tis Julianna Elliot, who was at one time my betrothed,” he began, rousing Gabriel’s curiosity. He went on to spell out the entire tale, from the attack at Kinclaven, and his belief that she hadn’t any part in it, to his deserting her at Murkle, and now this, how she came to be here and in this condition—this being his fault, he knew.

In some attempt to alleviate Calum’s guilt, Gabriel said sagely, “I ken you’d no’ take up with a frivolous sort, Cal, so I’m guessing she’ll no’ hold you responsible. She must ken you only did what you thought best.”

“I would, were I her. Hold me accountable,” Calum admitted. “She wasn’t vain, Gabriel, but damn, her hair was magnificent. She’d have every right to knock me upside the head if she were of a mind.”

“So, what goes on then, at that Murkle?’ Gabriel asked, a frown hovering.

“That’s what I’m wanting to ken. When Finn and Artur poked their heads in a bit ago, I tasked them with getting to the bottom of it, sussing out anything those lasses might share. It canna be good, but if the lasses there give an indictment, mayhap something can be sent off to the bishop, see what might be done about it.”

“I can make that happen. DeMoravia is hard-nosed, but he’ll no’ stand for the abuse of minors or any under the cloak of the church.”

Calum nodded, satisfied with this.

“What then?” Gabriel wanted to know. “Last week, you hinted at some discontent with Caerhayes and Domhnall. I sensed you were not keen on returning, or was that only because of your lass here?”

Leaning back in his chair, giving his regard again to Julianna, Calum shook his head. “I dinna ken. The addition of those wee lasses rather changes even the vague plans I had.”

Gabriel grinned. “Dare I ask about these vague plans, and how much Julianna Elliot figures in to them?”

Calum considered his friend. Gabriel was like him. All they knew was war and kin and keeps. He might not understand.

Drawing a large breath, he confessed, “The lads and I were considering striking out on our own.” And before Gabriel might have assumed too much, or was attacked by questions, Calum clarified, “Just a simple crofting life. I’m no’ looking to restructure the MacKinnons, but Gabe, I dinna like the path Domhnall’s leading us down.”

Gabriel nodded, thoughtful. “When my da’ lived, you ken he could never abide your uncle, said the man should no’ be trusted any further than you might sling a stone.”

“Your da’ was a wise man, saw through all the horseshite. If anyone’d ken, it would have been him.”

“You ken I’ve got thousands of acres, Calum. You’re welcome to a great big section, but are you telling me you’re done with fighting then?”

Calum shook his head. “No. Never that. No’ till it’s done.”

“Then take the acres, nice areas up in the north of Blackwood, other side of the loch. Take a year, construct what you need, get your legs under you, then you get the same terms as all the tenant farmers.”

Calum was overwhelmed by Gabriel’s generosity. “You’re serious?”

Gabriel shrugged. “Of course. Calum, more tenants benefit me and Blackwood—indeed Scotland’s quest for freedom. The more leaseholders I have and the more industry upon my soil, the more coin I see in the general coffers. In turn, I’m able to afford and then provide a greater army to the cause.”

Calum was pleased. “I’ll talk to the lads. We thought we’d head down near Robbie, lease from the Cisterians, but this...this is very generous of you.”

Gabriel shrugged. “You’d do the same for me, I ken. And Robbie’s but a few hours away from here.” He grinned. “How many bairns he got now? Twenty? Thirty?”

Chuckling, Calum told him about their most recent visit to his cousin, but his mind was roiling with all the possibilities that Gabriel had just provided to him.

He sent his gaze often to Julianna while he jawed with Gabriel over another half hour. He was anxious then for her to wake, that he might tell her of his plans—their plans, if she would be so good as to accept them. And at one point, when he and Gabriel stopped talking when Julianna began to fuss a bit in her sleep—the length of which was made possible by the potion Teasag had given her, he’d been assured—he leaned forward and took her slim hand in his, rubbing his thumb along the soft skin of the back of her hand until she settled.

And a bit later, when Gabriel had excused himself, Calum had no sooner given some thought that he was surprised the chamber had not yet been visited by those lasses, when a knock sounded, and Artur pushed his head around the door.

“I canna hold ’em back much longer,” he said.

The pale morning light showed Artur what they’d done to her, Calum supposed, hearing a sharp intake of breath from the man.

“Aye, bring ’em up,” Calum said, watching Julianna and not Artur. “She’s sleeping yet, but they can sit with her while I clean up. And I need a few minutes with you and Finn and the lads.”