Heart of Stone by Rebecca Ruger
Chapter Three
Morning came.
The night had been excruciating. She’d barely slept, and her wrists were chafed from the ropes. Her fingers, too, had suffered trauma from her repeated attempts to unravel the cage that odious man had wrapped her in. Critters had scurried all around her while she was trapped and something had crawled up her arm in the near-total darkness, skittering across the bare skin of her collarbone before disappearing only God knew where. She’d been tempted to scream, but had been afraid to open her mouth, lest something crawl inside. She’d wept instead.
Now, with the rising sun, she was happy to put the long, terrifying night behind her.
The only hope that welled inside was sparked just this morning. It occurred to her that fear should not keep her from at least trying to get free. They were bound to kill her anyway, by Calum MacKinnon’s own words; therefore, she hadn’t anything to lose by any attempt to escape. And God willing, she might even find success.
And then, conversely, she’d been plagued by guilt by her want to be free, and to survive. A man had died yesterday, a lad who likewise had committed no offense to justify his death, and yet he had died anyway. Was she in any different circumstance? She, too, was guilty of no crime to warrant her promised death. Long minutes of inner turmoil ensued, until she was able to justify any flight, if she dared or was presented with the opportunity, with the sure knowledge that any person, if afforded the chance, would fight for freedom as well.
I should not be put to death for the sins of my stepfather, she determined, and vowed she would find her way to freedom, or she would die trying. It was her right to do so.
The MacKinnons stirred rather all at once. Awake already, and miserably so, Julianna watched the camp rise and greet the day.
She thought an occasion to escape might present itself when she was untied and allowed to attend her personal needs. The red-haired youth—she thought she’d heard him called Tomag last evening—had approached her, his expression grim, and had made quick work of the ropes in which she’d spent the night trussed up. To her disappointment, however, when she’d been disconnected from the tree, he’d wound much of the rope around his own arm in some orderly fashion but then looped one end around her wrists once more and tied this tightly. And then he led her as if she were merely a hog being dragged to its own slaughter, yanking at the rope before giving her a good shove into a denser grove of trees and brush, telling her gruffly, “Get busy in there.”
Julianna left off acting on the fantastic urge to give her own yank on the bluidy cord, supposing it would not pull him off his feet as she might wish.
Calum MacKinnon spared her scant attention, mostly of the scowling variety, which had her wondering if he owned any other emotions or visage. She realized with biting bemusement that this was what she’d been reduced to—treated inhumanely had her picking fights with any and all shortcomings she imagined or perceived in these men. As if it mattered what manner of man he actually was. He would be her executioner, that was all she would know.
She worked all morning while they rode, making slight but steady progress in loosening the rope—not from where it was secured to the pommel, but by loosening the strands around her own wrists—so that when they stopped late in the morning while one man fussed with the foot of his horse, using a long knife to flick away at some trouble there, Julianna begged of Tomag that she be allowed a bit of privacy once again.
“You had that already,” he said dismissively, his bright blonde brows scrunching low. “And you haven’t drunk anything yet, so what’s there to—"
“It is not water I have to let,” she said, her cheeks pinkening with this lie.
He grumbled some obscenity but did dismount after a moment. As he worked to undo the knot he’d tightened around the pommel, he called out over his shoulder, “Heads up! She’s off to the brush again.”
It was only her own confidence that she would very soon be away from them that allowed Julianna to disregard this ignoble announcement. She was pulled down to the ground and Tomag flopped the bulk of the rope at her feet, pointing to the jumbled hemp before retying the end of it to the pommel once again.
“Length of that is as far as you can go,” he advised levelly. “Better get to it.”
She sensed rather than saw that several sets of eyes watched her, which showed her straightening her spine as much as she could. The wretched night knotted to a tree and so many hours in the saddle had put her in sore condition. She ducked within the abundance of hazel trees, which served her purpose sweetly, for how green and full they were and because they were more of a shrub, growing out of many stems from the ground that they provided much cover. Julianna skipped around four or five of them, as far as the attached rope would permit, flexing and wriggling her wrists with each step until she was able to release her left hand and then remove the binds from her right. Initially she’d only planned to drop the rope and run, but a sudden thought had her using precious seconds to knot the straggly end around a sturdy hazel branch. If Tomag yanked, it would seem she was attached yet. It might buy her a few more minutes, at the very least.
As she’d already exhausted the extent of her planning, Julianna only knew to pick up her skirts and run as if the devil himself were chasing her, which might well be the case when they discovered she was gone.
The terrain was tricky, sloped and pocked and infested with slippery ferns and lichen that she skidded often and fell twice, running so fast and furious. She hadn’t thought ahead enough to have charged in any specific direction, was only going away from the MacKinnons. As the MacKinnon’s path had taken them through a valley, Julianna decided she might be well served by climbing the hill, supposing—hoping—her pursuers wouldn’t imagine she’d opt for the more difficult task of an uphill climb.
It was several minutes, mayhap as many as ten, before she heard any sound of pursuit. She was halfway up the incline by then, well populated with more hazel trees and other low-growing vegetation that she imagined she was sufficiently concealed. She was disabused of this notion as she heard a voice call out, “There she goes!”
A cry burst from her as she struggled against the underbrush and gravity itself, the slope of the hill becoming more disagreeable.
They closed in quickly, which did not spur her forward with greater stealth or speed despite her efforts but seemed to make each step feel as if she waded through a sea of sludge. She was tripped up by a viny plant, which snagged her foot and propelled her toward the ground. She stumbled, though did not fall so much down as forward that she then clung to the undergrowth and clawed her way upward. But the duplicitous bracken, which had so easily tripped her up, refused to hold her and her desperate scrambling moved her very little that she was not at all surprised to feel a hand land on her shoulder.
She fell forward completely then, letting her face drop into the brush with her despair. The fingers of the hand curled into the fabric of her frock. Instinctively, she ascertained it wasn’t Calum MacKinnon who’d caught her. The fingers curled, held her securely, but did not whip her around or wrench her to her feet.
She turned on her own, and discovered it was Tomag and he was not pleased at all.
“Please don’t kill me,” she begged, meeting his gray eyes, holding her hand up in front of her face.
“No’ yet,” he said, and Julianna blanched. “C’mon then.”
She was dragged once more, this time to the bottom of the incline, and shoved toward Calum MacKinnon. She wished she were brave enough to spit in his face, rather pleased for even this small inconvenience she’d caused to him.
She was not though, was not brave at all, she knew.
He said nothing to her. Possibly the ticking muscle in his cheek spoke to her, told her all she needed to know at the moment. Dragging her behind him once again, he collected the rope from Tomag—snatched it out of his hands—and strode angrily to his own black steed. There he surprised her by knotting the frayed rope around only one of her wrists and lifting her effortlessly up into his saddle. Any confusion she might have known for not tying her to the pommel or securing both her hands was cleared up when he made a point of cutting the rope with his long knife that only a few feet remained attached and hanging from her arm. After he’d tucked away the cut portion in his saddlebag, he proceeded to bind the loose end to his own wrist.
Julianna’s jaw gaped.
Sweet Jesus. She was now attached directly to him.
He lifted his hard green eyes to her, and one dark brow arched upward. Immediately, she read both the challenge in his heated gaze even while she was sure he was asking, with that look, Are you happy now?
***
CALUM BEGAN TO BELIEVEit might be entirely possible to grind his own teeth down to little nubs for all the clenching and twisting of his jaw. He’d underestimated her, his bride-to-be, had believed her pretense of being naught but a meek and clearly terrified lass. He would do well to remember how unafraid and assertive she’d been yesterday when she’d participated in the plot to see him and his men murdered. Nevertheless, he didn’t begrudge her escape attempt, supposing he’d have done no less. Truth be told, he blamed himself for misjudging her and he blamed Tomag for his carelessness.
Sometime yesterday and for but a brief moment, when the atrocity of Faucht’s crimes had been absorbed and compartmentalized, Calum had really noticed her. For just the space of a second, she’d not been the stepdaughter of a monster and not complicit in his crimes, had been naught but the woman he’d been sent to wed.
An exquisite one at that.
He found no humor in the irony that his internal speculation yesterday about his bride had been so far from the actual truth. Julianna Elliot was no aged miss absent either the bloom of youth or any gifts of the gods. Fine kirtle and elegantly styled tresses aside, she was a woman of remarkable beauty, her skin fair and bright, her lips pink and full, her eyes an unusual light green that had astonished him upon first glance. They showed no hint of blue at all, but were so light as to put him in mind of the autumn rosette of the thistle, before the bloom, when the bract was naught but a spiked bulb of silver-green.
Angrily, he’d dismissed her beauty as mediocre at best when taken as a whole, as she was tall and thin—angular he’d thought uncharitably—lacking any curves that might have enticed him if he’d been of a mind to have been charmed by his bride.
She’d given so few words as of yet, he could claim no knowledge of her character save for what he knew to be true because of her actions. And while he was sorry that if what Finn suggested were true—that she hadn’t a hand in the deadly scheme, that indeed she’d been intent on warning them—it remained that she must die.
From this he would neither be deterred nor distracted, no matter how fetching his almost-bride was.
He hoped to make Uddingston by day’s end, and by God’s grace, Caerhayes in three days’ time. There, he could put Julianna Elliot’s fate into the hands of his uncle, who was chief of all the MacKinnons of Strathcarron, kin to the mighty MacKinnons of Skye. In all his twenty-eight years, the last several of which had been consumed in battle, Calum had not once put a lass to the sword. Truth be told, if his men had demanded yesterday that she be executed on the spot, he couldn’t say if he would have been able to carry out the deed.
Despite some determination just then to think no more upon her even as she sat upon his big black with him, the wind refused to allow his thoughts to leave her. Yesterday’s configuration of her golden locks had known much trauma since they’d first encountered her that it was in dire straits, possibly about to tumble away from the shiny baubles and the lone blue comb which held it so precariously now. And so a stray breeze, a wisp of air, was able to pull one lock away from the sloppy mass and stroke Calum’s chin with the soft strand.
He swatted at it, simultaneously adjusting himself in the saddle so that a sliver of space now sat between them. This was altogether better. ’Twas bad enough he’d had to bind himself to her, and then worse that to manage the reins effectively, his arms must needs surround her. Worse yet, his testiness of yesterday, assuming her bony and without any softness was so quickly contradicted by the round derriere and thighs resting between his legs. No jutting bones poked at him, no evidence of any hard angles assaulted him. Despite her rigidity—so constant that he would be surprised if she suffered no aches and pains this night—she was soft and womanly and amazingly, an entire day into their journey, managed to smell yet of lavender and honey.
He ground his teeth once more and tried to bring Agnes Pringle’s naked body to mind. The face Agnes owned wasn’t as bonny as the one before him, but as she had been his most recent bed partner some months ago, her form was easiest to recall. He found little success in this endeavor, Agnes’s charms seeming to have lost their appeal.
The sun had just met with the horizon when they made camp near Uddingston. They stayed about a half mile outside the small town, having no desire to announce their presence. A travelling army, no matter how small, was always greeted with narrowed eyes and wariness. Tomorrow, they would make for Glasgow and replenish supplies they’d originally planned to have been replaced at Kinclaven before their departure. It was good practice to stop in some of the larger towns when travelling, to pick up news of the land in addition to goods.
As silent as the entire day’s ride had been, Calum dismounted and reached for Julianna. She did not, or would not, meet his eye. And likely, she’d rather not have touched him—he wasn’t too keen on placing his hands on her either—but when he gripped her waist to hoist her off the horse, her own hands instinctively found his shoulders to steady herself as she was brought to the ground. They didn’t stay there long, her hands; no sooner had her feet touched the hard soil than she removed her hands, bending her wrists back, lifting her fingers off him.
With some malicious intent, Calum didn’t move straight away. They stood facing each other just at the side of the big destrier and Calum refused to move, wanted to see what she would do, if she would dare to meet his eye. She did not, not immediately. She breathed a wee bit quicker and she drew in her bottom lip, but she didn’t raise her green eyes. They moved over her hands until she lowered them and then lit upon his chest, at eye-level, until she turned her face and feigned a great interest in the coarse coat of Calum’s horse.
When still he did not move, when she lifted her gaze to him, the action came suddenly, and with a curt query. “What? What are you staring at?”
He had been staring, of course, that had been part of the goading. He drew two conclusions at the same time. First, he noticed that the light green of her eyes was striped with tiny flecks of gray. He thought this might be why they appeared sometimes silver-green. He wasn’t sure that the thick fringe of dark brown lashes played any role in the perceived color of her eyes but could not discount it. And then, he determined that she was truly afraid. It couldn’t be suppressed, was shown in her rapid breaths and blinking, and the swift rise and fall of her chest. Calum couldn’t imagine that she would take the trouble to try to hide her fear if she’d first bothered to manufacture it.
He wasn’t often dishonest with himself that he acknowledged some vague wish that she wasn’t so damn bonny. He didn’t investigate any further this wish but did concede its existence.
Still, he said nothing to her, just turned and led her toward the camp already being made.
Only bread and cheese remained of their food supply, but there was plenty to share. Finn set himself to the task of making their fire, which he did with quiet efficiency. He’d spoken not one word to Calum since the harsh words they’d exchanged yesterday when Calum had caught his captain providing sustenance to their prisoner. Calum seated himself upon a long-ago fallen pine, which forced Julianna to sit next to him. He accepted his share of the fare from Tomag and began to eat. He offered nothing to her. Part of him was still of mind that she deserved far less consideration than they’d shown her thus far. Another part of him was curious if she would beg some food from him or any of his men. He guessed she would not, and then revised his guess. He knew she would not. Calum allowed one sardonic, possibly unnoticed grin to stretch his lips while he chewed. Pride was a damnable thing.
She sat unmoving, making no eye contact with any of the men seated around the fire, that her attention never stirred away from the bright flames. The mood of the group was less gloomy than it had been last evening, the talk quiet and without its typical animation. Yet they sat up late, talked well into the night.
After a while, Calum eased himself down from the trunk to sit on the ground and lean his back against it. Moments later, Julianna moved for the first time in hours, shifting herself as he had done, to find a spot upon the cold, hard earth.
Julianna Elliot sat upon the ground very close to the fire, her legs drawn up to her chest. She wrapped one arm around her knees, the other hand set on the ground between she and Calum so that there was plenty of play in the rope and neither his hand nor hers was disturbed by the other’s movements. She never said a word, never allowed her gaze to be torn from those flames. From his periphery, Calum noticed that she did not often blink. He noticed, as well, that her profile was both striking and delicate. He would have thought innocent, but he knew that she was not.
Artur was the first to turn in, gargling the last of his ale before swallowing and covering himself with his plaid and stretching out from where he sat. Finn and Tomag followed while Peadar and Booth continued to debate the merits of one dubious but coveted lass, Ceit, who lived very near to Caerhayes.
Calum rose to his feet. Julianna tilted her face up to him, a question in her eyes.
“I have to piss,” he said, not bothering to make his language tender for her ears.
“Can I just stay—”
Calum flicked his wrist, yanking on the rope. “No, you can no’.”
He didn’t go very far away from camp, but then was not such a monster that he stayed in plain view of the fire and those around it, should she have a need as well.
Of course, he could have managed with one hand, but wasn’t of a mind to inconvenience himself to spare her any discomfort. While she—by necessity and by the short length of rope—stood very close with her back to him, Calum attended his business and said over his shoulder, “Might want to do the same while you have the chance. I’m no’ about to rise in the middle of the night—”
“I am fine.”
“Stubbornness is misused for this. You must have a need by now.”
“Mayhap I would, if I’d been given anything to eat or drink.”
He chuckled. The first time in days by his own recollecting. It felt strange. And misplaced as well.
When he was done, he untied the rope from her wrist and inclined his head toward the deeper and denser brush. “Go in there. You’ve got exactly one minute. If you run, I will not hesitate to cut you down on the spot.”
She hesitated, looking up at him, her pretty eyes narrowed, wary. He had the sense she only questioned if he planned to cut her down in the next minute no matter what she did.
“Go on.”
She did and was returned in half a minute.
She walked up to him and lifted her hand, turning it palm up, offering her wrist. She kept her gaze on her hand.
Calum returned the rope to her arm, more remorseful than he should have been for the red welts already circling her pale skin.
“Are you always so reticent? So quiet?” He’d rarely met a woman who didn’t talk overmuch. “Or is it only that fear has got your tongue?”
“Am I expected to make conversation with the man who has declared I will die?”
Calum shrugged. “Thought you might want to give more voice to those arguments against the plan.”
“Will you listen to any defense I give?”
Calum shook his head.
“Then I haven’t anything to say.”
He considered her, the stoic manner. He didn’t know her well enough to name the emotions that so readily colored her expression, but he wouldn’t have said that she was forlorn. Resigned, mayhap, and fearful yet, but those might be his only guesses.
Without further ado, he turned and led her back to camp. He sat where he had earlier, with Julianna on his left. With little care for how she might accommodate herself, he stretched his huge form out on the ground, flapping the plaid out to cover him from his shoulders to his shins. He folded his free arm at the elbow and tucked it beneath his head, considering the moonlit night while his thoughts scattered.
It was many long minutes later when she assumed a reclining position. His eyes were closed by then but he felt the rope shift while she made her bed on the ground.
Calum woke at some point. He blinked several times and let his eyes adjust to the darkness. Clouds shrouded the moon and stars and the fire had died a slow death that he thought dawn might be only a couple hours away. His hand was vibrating, he realized, supposing that might have been what awakened him. He jerked upright when he realized the rope was being moved, waking fully now that he believed she was trying to undo the tether.
She was not. She was coiled into a ball on her side, her hands tucked against her chest, but shivering so violently that the entire short length of rope between them shook forcefully.
Her gaze was upon him, her hatred instantly understood. She moved, lifting her hands to cover her mouth, her fingers folded against her lips. In the next minute, while she held his gaze so wretchedly, her shaking slowed and then stopped entirely.
Calum scowled and laid down again. He kept a good portion of her in his periphery.
She was still yet, hadn’t resumed her shivering from the cold even as he’d abandoned his watchful stance above her. He thought she must have willed herself to stop trembling from the cold. Willed the cold to bother her not at all.
After a moment, she closed her eyes again.
Calum watched the even pulses of white breath waft over her fingers with each breath.
Guilt and something else, something unknown, gnawed at him until he wrestled with a portion of his plaid, extending half of it across the space between them. He settled it over her shoulder, intent on dropping more of it over the rest of her. Before he might have done so, her gray-green eyes flashed open.
Julianna yanked the warm wool away from her shoulder and met his frown with a stormy gaze. One hand struck out, forcing his plaid back toward him.
“Keep your charity. I have no need of it.”