Heart of Stone by Rebecca Ruger

Chapter One

“Your betrothed comestoday,” her sister said.

Julianna closed her eyes and digested these words. Dear Lord, her betrothed. She wasn’t ready, and wasn’t sure she ever would be, certainly not for a man she’d not ever laid eyes upon. But she pasted on a bright smile and turned to her sister.

“He does.” The smile faded, misplaced by its insincerity, as Julianna attended her embroidery. Her hands shook but there was naught to be done about that.

She had only to wait, her meager trousseau and most treasured possessions packed and awaiting her departure tomorrow. She’d dressed today in her second best kirtle, the light blue one, which her sisters had ofttimes told her did remarkable things for her eyes. She’d allowed Effie more time with her hair today, hoping to make a good impression on her bridegroom, lest he think she’d put no endeavor at all toward their first meeting. But it was uncomfortable, the rare arrangement of her long golden hair, and she scratched with some annoyance at all the pins and baubles and ribbons adorning her swept-up curls. She’d thought the little bone beads—made to resemble pearls, she’d been assured—might have better been suited to her actual wedding and not the day before, but her sister Margaret had decided that she should wear a crown of summer blooms in her hair for her wedding.

The lone comb tucked inside the coiffure was made of bone as well and painted a bright turquoise. Effie had offered it to Julianna with great expectation, which did not dissuade Julianna from declining so precious a gift. She hadn’t supposed that Effie, who had labored at the Elliot keep for as long as Julianna could remember, might have been able to afford so fine a trinket, and she was well aware that Kinclaven’s bonemaker’s skill was not so advanced to have achieved so lovely a piece.

Effie had shrugged at the time, suggesting guilelessly, “Stolen, like as no’, but no less remarkable for its background. Dinna be wary, lass. The blue is perfect with the kirtle.”

Julianna had winced a bit at the very idea. Stolen? As Effie had affixed it to the mass of her hair, Julianna could only hope that it hadn’t been thieved from any non-living person.

“Are you excited?”

Julianna was startled out of her reverie and lifted her blinking gaze once again to Margaret. “Aye,” she lied, but tempered this with the obvious truth. “And fairly nervous.”

They sat in the hall, pretending some industry with oft-neglected embroidery. In truth they only waited, using needle and thread to keep themselves from hovering near the door with any of Margaret’s excitement or Julianna’s apprehension.

“I’d wager he’s handsome and brave,” said Margaret, who was several years younger than Julianna, the last of the four daughters, and the owner of a most romantic heart. Never, not once, had Margaret ever been plagued by anything so bothersome as anxiety. She was open and giving and suffered no qualms about speaking her mind, an easy endeavor as her thoughts were genuinely pleasant and pure. “He will fall in love with you upon first sight and you will be whisked away to his castle in the Highlands. I hope that he is fair, like Gowan, though I’m sorry that I cannot imagine that he could be more beautiful than Gowan,” Margaret continued, referring to the smithy’s son, for whom Margaret had held a devoted fondness since before she could walk, everyone agreed—and to whom she was now wed.

Presently, Julianna was more concerned with her bridegroom’s manner and his character than she was with his appearance. She’d heard the tales of many a Highlander, of their ruthlessness and their incivility, of their fearlessness and their cruelty. Not for the first time, she wondered why she couldn’t have been pledged to a southerner, as her sisters had been, three now suitably wed to genteel men of noble blood and fine manners. Never mind that Gareth, to whom her sister Alice had been joined, was so pale as to inspire one to seek a pulse in his wrist; or that Robert of Finlarig, wed to Hermione last year, seemed to have no care for his new bride, having installed her in his ancient home upon the River Lochay before departing for and remaining since, in Glasgow. Julianna might well meet her intended and wish for such lifelessness or disregard if this Calum MacKinnon proved even the most inoffensive rumors of those wretched Highlanders true.

Margaret was the only sister near enough, still within the bounds of Kinclaven, to be at Julianna’s side today. She’d come with obvious delight this morn, so bonny with the blush of love and sweetness that forever hung about her. It was unusual that she had married ahead of Julianna, certainly because she was four years younger, but for two things: Julianna had accompanied her sister Hermione after her wedding last fall, her absence allowing her stepfather to forget her existence for a while; and Margaret had long ago vowed that if she were to be denied wedding her dear Gowan, she would take no man but God. Julianna had often wondered if their mother, before her death several years ago, had somehow convinced her second husband that Margaret should be allowed this, for in an unusual turn of events, their stepfather, Angus Faucht, had raised no grand furor over Margaret’s plans, had indeed allowed her to wed Gowan.

She didn’t care overmuch for her stepfather. True, her mother had been happy with him while she’d lived, but Julianna had also blamed him for her mother’s demise. Charlotte Elliot had ever been of poor health, so many pregnancies and difficult labors taking its toll on her weak person. Julianna recalled, even at the unadvanced age of thirteen, being horrified when she’d learned that her mother was expecting another child. Angus wanted a son, not just four daughters who were not his own. And while her mother had been thrilled to give her new husband a bairn, Julianna had only seemed to wait for the inevitable, which did indeed come to fruition, as her mother had perished, along with the bairn—the wish-for son—almost three years ago.

Never having been the warm and loving type, their stepfather had turned downright surly, and then began to take himself off so often, gone for months at a time, until one day he returned and announced his intent to begin contracting marriages for the four daughters. He’d minced no words, making sure they understood any matches would be for political or monetary gain only, that none of them should seek something so nebulous and useless as affection. Julianna could never be sure how Margaret had managed to escape this edict, but for believing her mother had made him promise, perhaps.

In some attempt to engage her mind with something other than worry over her own impending marriage or any unpleasantness that often surrounded any reflection about her stepfather, Julianna said to Margaret. “I can hardly fathom that it is already four months since your own wedding.”

Margaret smiled prettily, her blue eyes brightening. “Seems as if it were only yesterday. Other times, I feel as if we’ve been wed forever. But of course, there was no great ballyhoo tied to the event, as Gowan is but a smithy—which bothers me not at all,” she was quick to assure. She sighed and cast her gaze dreamily to the ceiling of the small solar. When she returned her attention to Julianna, she said brightly, “But you shall have a grand feast in honor of your wedding.”

“Angus will not part with so much coin for anything that even hints at grand. My betrothed is—in Angus’s words—a bluidy northerner, and I have reached an advanced age, where he might only be happy to have me gone, the matter settled.”

Margaret laughed, a pretty little sound and leaned forward to announce, “You are not old, Julianna.”

“Most girls are wed by the time they are sixteen or so, as you were, and I will see my twenty-first summer this year.”

“But that’s because Stepfather expects that the match should bring greater benefit to him and to the family. Lucky for me that my sisters have served themselves up on the platter of familial sacrifices that Stepfather is now well-pleased with all his alliances, in every part of the country, that I was allowed to wed Gowan.”

“Fortunate indeed,” Julianna agreed. And it was, and she bore no ill-will toward Margaret, who was too gentle and too mild to be given to just any man, who might not appreciate how lovely and genuine she was. Gowan was as enamored with Margaret as she him, which did induce some envy inside Julianna, but only for the lack of it in her life and not that she wished for Margaret to be stripped of Gowan’s affection.

Their gazes and attention were stolen by three of the Elliot soldiers racing through the hall, in from the bailey and disappearing into the corridor that would lead them to the rear yard of Kinclaven, if that be their destination. Frowning, her unattended embroidery ignored now, Julianna stared at the end of the hall where those men had disappeared. A prickle of unease stirred her that her frown remained as she picked up new sounds, that of growing activity just outside the door. Her breaths came in short, quick rushes, her unease mounting.

He was here.

“He must have come!” Margaret decided at the same time. Her expression was as colorful and animated as Julianna’s was bloodless. Margaret stood and grabbed her sister’s hand. “You must await your bridegroom upon the battlements. Hurry. Go! I will alert Martha and Effie in the kitchens.” She kissed Julianna’s cheek and squeezed both her hands now. “Oh, poor Julianna. Don’t be nervous. He will love you, I have no doubt.”

For her sister’s benefit, Julianna managed a shaky smile and a quick nod, which cheered Margaret and saw her off through the same corridor as those soldiers.

Julianna blew a steadying breath through parted lips and walked outside the keep.

Bright sunshine smacked her face at the same time her stepfather’s voice reached her, come from high upon the wall. ’Twas not unusual at all to hear him shouting and blustering, but it furrowed Julianna’s brow yet more. He sounded angry, not excited. Lifting her skirts of blue velvet, Julianna took to the steps adjacent to the main gate and set foot upon the stone battlements which flanked the entire yard as one massive rectangle. She found her stepfather directly above the gatehouse, one huge paw on the stone embrasure as he leaned out over the wall, watching the great sea of flat land before  Kinclaven.

His odious man, Leven, whose presence Julianna could never stand for more than a few minutes, noticed her arrival first and thumped Angus Faucht on his arm. Her stepfather turned first to his captain, and at the inclination of that man’s head, swiveled his gaze around to find Julianna approaching.

Even before her stepfather’s ill-favored face screwed up into a heavier frown, Julianna sensed that something was not quite as it should be. Taking her gaze from Angus and Leven even as she continued to walk toward them, she cast furtive glances around her. Men—Kinclaven’s soldiers—scurried here and there; many were poised at the wall, to the left and right of her stepfather; sturdy baskets filled with arrows stood at the ready, spaced evenly between all the men; someone shouted, “Spence! Git down and check that lock. Make sure the brace is tight!”

Her lips parted, her eyes finding her stepfather once again.

“What are you doing up here, gel? Git on down to the—”

“What is happening?”

“There’s naught to be fussing about,” he said, taking her arm, steering her away from the wall. “Go on now.”

“Are we being attacked?” Oh, dear Lord. She’d heard of such things, of sieges being laid to defenseless keeps, of the savagery visited upon the hapless residents. But no, that couldn’t be—

“Nae, child, all is well. Just an exercise,” Angus assured her.

“But the MacKinnon is expected soon—now,” she reminded him, unable to believe she should need to do so. He was the one who had insisted to her that she would marry whomever he’d chosen, and that he was well pleased for having managed a contract with the MacKinnons of Nairn. Her panic increasing for the poor timing of whatever he and his soldiers were about, she asked with some shriek to her voice, “Stepfather, can this exercise not be dismissed now and rejoined at another time?”

His fingers tightened on her arm. He steered her with greater swiftness toward the steps again. “It is nothing like that—”

“In sight!” A soldier bellowed from further down the wall, bringing both Julianna and her stepfather to a hard stop. At the same time, another man called out, “MacKinnons a’coming!”

Julianna’s jaw gaped in earnest now. She wrenched her arm away from Angus and faced him. “What are you about? Why are you—sweet St. Andrew, what are you doing?”

Angus Faucht gave up his wretched effort at pretense. A heavy scowl flooded his features. “He thinks he’ll play both sides of the fence, with me in the middle and I’ll not stand for it. I’ll be cold in my own grave before I allow some backwoods northerner to destroy what I’ve worked for a decade to establish.”

“But do not forget, sir, that gold exchanged hands as well.”

Julianna swiveled sharply to find Leven lurking with that oily grin of his.

His narrow black eyes were on her stepfather when he added with a sneer, “Let’s not pretend all of it is altruistic.”

Blood drained from her face. She was confused yet, but Angus Faucht’s malice and Leven’s finer explanation  clarified much. In her periphery, she sensed archers lifting their bows from where they had leaned against the wall. Clutching at her stepfather’s sleeve, she cried out, “Why did you agree to it in the first place, then?” She shook her head, it didn’t matter now. “Please stop this! Stop this at once. Those are innocent men—”

He yanked at his arm so forcefully, Julianna was flung several steps backward. “Innocent? There’s not one among them that might be acquitted of savagery or deception or murder. The northerners are a brutal lot. I’ll not have my daughter wed to one of them. Never met a decent highlander that wasn’t dead.”

Oh, my God. Julianna was dumbfounded, could do naught but stare at her stepfather. He was a hard man, always had been. But in all her life, she’d not ever have suspected him of such treachery as this. True, she’d not wanted to wed, not to a man she’d not ever met, and who hailed from—and thus would take her—so far away. But to murder them in cold blood!

With one last shove, Angus Faucht pushed her toward the steps. Julianna tripped and fell against the wall, righting herself soon enough. She stumbled blindly down the rest of the steps, into the empty bailey.

The empty bailey?

The yard of Kinclaven was rarely without persons milling about or crossing to some business in one of the low-roofed buildings of the smithy and stables and storage or the armory. Was everyone but her aware of the treachery about to unfold? Had they made themselves scarce to bear no witness to whatever melee would follow?

As if inside a nightmare, sounds grew distant. Her eyes blurred as tears fell, weighted by the utter helplessness she knew at this moment. Julianna spun around, seeking nothing, finding no one, staggered by this unsettling and fantastic turn of events. The noise above her faded, overtaken by the sound of her own heartbeat thrumming in her ears. My stepfather is a monster, she concluded inside the void of sound and sense, making war against men who came in peace, and possibly with hope.

Just as sound returned to normal all around her, Julianna swiped at her watery eyes and knew that she must warn the MacKinnons. They had done nothing to warrant this. She could not, in good conscience, simply walk inside the keep as Angus had demanded and imagine that men were not bound to die just outside the gates—men come at an invitation given in her name.

Margaret burst from the hall just as Julianna was spinning around, trying to decide what she might do. Her sister’s beauteous face and bright smile were dashed away as she met Julianna’s tortured mien.

“What? What is it?” She rushed forward, her hand on her chest. “Jules, what has happened?”

Margaret’s very presence cleared Julianna’s mind. The younger sister always seeking aid and counsel and wisdom from her older sister had served a purpose, that her very presence just now stomped out Julianna’s fear, putting her once more in the role of older, wiser, steady sibling. Forcefully, she took Margaret’s hands in hers.

“Angus has lost his mind. He plans to ambush the MacKinnons.” Margaret’s eyes widened as she gasped. Julianna ignored this, squeezing her hands tighter. “Stay out of harm’s way! I must warn them.”

“Jules—”

“I must, Margaret,” Julianna insisted. “He comes for me. He should not die for me.”

“Sweet Jesus,” Margaret whispered brokenly.

Julianna turned her around, gave her a shove in the same fashion as Angus had done to her, sending her off to the keep. “Do not come out until quiet descends.”

Putting her sister out of her mind, Julianna turned and sent her gaze toward the southwest side of the keep. Before fear insisted that she not do so, she strode quickly toward that spot and around the smooth stone of Kinclaven, toward the postern gate. More tears came now, but these were manifested by panic for her own safety. She was about to put herself outside the gates, where arrows would fly, where death might be.

Oh, and she was the greatest of all cowards.

Lord, give me strength, she pleaded as she wrestled with the latch of this man-sized door and pushed her way through it.

***

HE SPARED NO CHARITABLEthoughts for his bride.

In truth, Calum MacKinnon spent quite a bit of time disparaging her person inside his head while he travelled to claim her. He’d not yet met her of course, had only learned three days ago of his fate from his uncle.

His sentence, Finn had called it.

Julianna Elliot.

Sounds English, had been his first thought. She wasn’t though, was of an old family in the south, his uncle had assured him. Julianna. Also sounded rather matronly, he’d decided with some disgruntlement. He pictured a crooked hag who walked with a staff, whose very mouth was in all probability unseen for having pinched and turned her lips with great disfavor upon one and all that it had been folded inside her face now, lost to time and displeasure. Possibly, he further deliberated, he might guess her voice would be shrill and often employed at many octaves greater than any need required.

Jesu, stop! He chastised himself. He was just being fanciful now, outright cruel. As if that would serve as any balm to the odious circumstances.

He allowed that he thought he might understand Domhnall’s want of the match, why his uncle might think it would bring them any boon at all. Calum wished the man had more faith in those he called the rebels of Scotland. He wished he’d only once met and heard the words of William Wallace. A man with any bit of a heart, with even the smallest kernel of belief that England had no right to lay claim to the nation of Scotland, could not but be swayed by the vigorous passion and eloquent words of his rousing speeches. Wallace referred to Scotland as she, likening her to a mother or lover or wife, calling on men to fulfill their natural-born duty to protect her from any that would dare to encroach.

Domhnall wasn’t interested in the raw beauty of Wallace’s petitions or hell, even the sanctity of the land and the people; he cared well about the MacKinnons, but only about the MacKinnons, gave no thought to the horrors being visited upon the rest of Scotland.

Aye, but what Calum wouldn’t give now to be at Wallace’s side. Give him a good, clean fight and Wallace’s unmatched patriotism and keen humor any day over descending from the Highlands to retrieve his bride-to-be. Mayhap he should’ve wed with Agnes Pringle when he’d had the chance, he thought as the trees thinned and were left behind. A vast field of thistle and heather greeted Calum and the party of six others he’d brought with him while he reflected that Agnes Pringle had been his last—his one and only—chance at a future with a bride of his choosing. She’d been fairly bonny and pleasing enough upon the feather mattress that he had considered overlooking her annoying habit of shooting spittle from her mouth with so many of her words. He never could decide which had bothered him more, the constant saliva projectiles or the fact that she often referred to herself as Agnes or she. Agnes likes what she sees had, sadly, stayed with him far longer than the recollection of the swiving they’d enjoyed.

His mood yet sour, Calum swiveled his head to peruse those following. Many of his men appeared as if they, too, were being sent to their own unfortunate doom. But no, he understood they were only irked that their very fresh homecoming had been cut short for this distasteful mission.

Finn, as ever, was the exception, always more cheery as they departed Caerhayes—as opposed to how sullen he might become when they headed home. He’d grow more surly by the minute the closer they got to Caerhayes upon any return. Calum never questioned it, knowing that thoughts of Magda, Finn’s wife of twenty-three years, would bring no smile to any.

With a new sense of what his own future might look like, he said to his captain, who rode near, “I’m about to turn into you. Smirking when I leave Caerhayes and pissing when I’m bound to return.”

“Aye, lad,” said Finn. He twisted his mouth with some sympathy at Calum. “I’d no’ have wished it for ye—on any man but the enemy—but there ye have it. Unless she’s keeping a heart of gold and owns a smile to turn men good, you’re done for.”

“Bluidy hell.”

Kinclaven finally came into view. Emerging from a forest of pines, his men fell into line behind him, with only Finn at his side. The keep was well-kept, two stories of gray stone with a circular tower in each of the front corners. ’Twas not so large as Caerhayes, and truth be told, Calum was a wee bit surprised to see that no fanfare had been arranged for his coming. True, the parapet teemed with watchers, but no banners had been draped over the wall and no trumpet or horn sounded his arrival. Frowning, he realized the gate wasn’t even open. In contrast, he’d bothered to don his finest tunic and breeches, had shaved his long-worn beard, had even procured new boots for his wedding. Yet, the home of his bride showed no welcome at all. Surely, as his party became visible to the watchers on the wall, the gate should have been lifted.

With some irritation, he decided he needn’t have bothered convincing himself to be polite as his hosts had no plans to behave likewise, it seemed.

“Aye, and there’s a fine welcome,” Finn grumbled.

No sooner had his captain uttered these words than a woman appeared, coming from the west side, in front of the keep. She was alone and on foot, stumbling, he thought. Frowning and squinting across the great distance of a barren meadow that separated he from her and the keep, Calum knew a bit of confusion at this unusual greeting. From this distance, he knew only that the woman was dressed in a fine kirtle of light blue and that when she reached the closed gate, she began to walk toward he and his men, upon the well-trod lane. She didn’t move with any great poise or grace but appeared to be rushing toward them. More than once, she turned and sent her gaze up to the battlements.

Befuddled now, Calum slowed his pace, peering with greater interest as the woman had moved far enough away from the shadow of the wall that she was visible to those atop it. At this point, she turned toward the wall and lifted her arms wide at her side.

Finn, too, was confused by this strange welcome. “What the—?”

Great shouts and calls wafted across the air and space then, coming from the walls and all those Elliots positioned there as they noticed her beneath them. The woman called something up to them, walking backward now, her arms extended still.

Calum’s gaze was trained on her, on the shiny gold of her hair, his bewilderment rising to new heights.

“Jesu!” Tomag barked. “They’re taking aim, Cal!”

Lifting his gaze away from the woman, he saw that indeed they were. Dumbfounded, he reined in sharply, which effectively stopped all his men as well. The woman called out something else and then turned. Calum was shocked to see her lifting her skirts and running toward him even as the soldiers on the wall nocked arrows into their raised bows and let loose.

“Go! Go!” He shouted when the fog of confusion waned. He punched his heels into the big black’s flanks and pulled the reins toward the right at the same time as arrows lit across the sky toward them.

His men scattered. Calum raced for the cover of the pines to the west of the keep, glancing back as one of his men gave a guttural cry, obviously hit. It was Peadar, galloping in the opposite direction to the pines on the east side, an arrow protruding from his upper arm. Still furiously pushing his own steed out of harm’s way, Calum caught sight of the woman. She was situated well underneath the arc and trajectory of the missiles sent through the air, but possibly could hear the whoosh of the projectiles. She cried out and collapsed to her knees in a heap of ballooned fabric, covering her head with her hands. One hapless arrow landed within several yards of her, which lifted her face. She turned toward the wall, screeching something unintelligible before she rose to her feet and dashed off as Calum and his men had done, into the trees. She was far enough away yet that he could distinguish no features clearly, couldn’t say if she were blue-eyed or brown, or young or old. He saw only that she was tall and lean and crowned with a head of blonde hair. Before he lost sight of her, while she was yet within the spray of the bright sun, he caught the glint of sunlight shimmering from her cheeks, reflecting off her...tears?

What the bluidy hell was going on?