The Rose Red Bride JK2 Page 8

  But he loved his deceased wife.

  If nothing else, Vivienne had hoped to be desired for more than any child her womb might surrender.

  Despite all of this, Vivienne was achingly aware of the man behind her, she felt every breath he took, she was aware of the strength of his hands where he held the reins. She fancied that she could hear the beat of his heart and wished that she did not remember the taste of his kiss.

  How much of a fool was she?

  They rode in silence until the sun was past its zenith, then approached an abandoned structure on the coast. The stone walls were crumbling into the soil and the thick vegetation hinted that few had come this way of late. Vivienne guessed it had once been a hermit’s cell, as it was located far from even this day’s temptations. The coast was rocky beneath the point, the wooden roof over the structure itself was rotten, though part of it had been repaired of late.

  Her captor gave a command to the horse which halted and stood its ground, ears flicking. He dismounted then and lifted Vivienne to the ground. He led the horse away to a patch of grass where it might graze. He took his time in tending the steed, removing its saddle and brushing it down, evidently confident that she would not flee.

  And in truth, there was nowhere she might run and not be caught again first. She had seen how quickly her captor could move, even with his limp, and he was much taller than she. Vivienne was well aware of the high tower of her uncle’s keep of Ravensmuir still to their north, but it was sufficiently distant that even the sharpest gaze atop that tower would not spy them here. She thought she could see ravens circling over it, the merest black pricks against the azure summer sky, but dared not glance overlong in that tower’s direction lest her interest rouse suspicion.

  Vivienne folded her arms across her chest and watched her captor, noting how he pulled up his hood once more, as if accustomed to hiding his marred features. Perhaps he meant to hide his thoughts from her!

  Not that his expressions were readily interpreted. He had been impassive most of the time, more impassive when annoyed. Vivienne bit her lip, reminding herself to recall that detail.

  He wore undistinguished dark garb, none of it wrought of fine cloth or embellished with so much as a symbol or a thread of embroidery. His chausses were dark, his boots darker, his chemise rough and undyed. He seemed to not care about the hue or state of his garments. Perhaps he was not vain. Perhaps he was but pragmatic. He was not poor if he had granted Alexander a sack of coins in return for her.

  Perhaps he did not wish to be robbed while he traveled. Vivienne could not guess which was the truth.

  His jerkin was of boiled leather, his dark cloak wrought of thick wool coarsely woven. The garment fell to his knees and was cut full. His belt was thick and heavy, a sheathed sword hanging from one side and a sheathed dagger from the other. The hilts of both blades gleamed with fastidious care, though they were simple of design. So, too, with the horse’s trap, which was sturdy but without ornament. He had stuffed his leather gloves into his belt.

  The sole ornament he wore was a silver pin that fastened at the throat of his cloak. It was about the size of his palm and shaped like coiled rope, though Vivienne knew better than to ask to see it more closely.

  He appeared, after all, to be in a foul mood. He brushed the horse with care, giving every sign that he was unaware of her perusal though Vivienne doubted that was the truth.

  She wondered how he had found this refuge so readily. They had ridden without catching so much as a glimpse of another living soul. That was a feat, Vivienne knew, for this corner of Scotland was fairly thick with monks and traveling priests, with peasants and shepherds, and journeying noblemen, and the moors did not offer many places to hide.

  Her captor knew this land, she guessed, though she wondered whether he had learned of it lately or whether he had been raised hereabouts. She did not deign to begin a conversation with him to find out. She decided that she would flee, at the first opportunity, and lull him into complacency until that time came.

  Let him find another maiden with a fertile womb. There was no future for her with a man who loved his dead wife, a man who had need only of her womb and meant to abandon her after claiming its fruit. She would escape, while her family was yet within reach.

  He granted her a piercing glance in that moment and Vivienne wondered whether he could hear her very thoughts. Would he ever grow complacent? She doubted that he fully trusted another living soul.

  Save his horse. The beast grazed, clearly accustomed to such care, and truly its chestnut coat gleamed with good health. It was a destrier, a knight’s horse, with a white star upon its brow.

  Vivienne watched with reluctant interest as her captor located a leather sack hidden within the shadows of the structure she had believed abandoned.

  He had been here earlier, then.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked. Without waiting for her answer - as if he had guessed that she had no intent of granting him one - he began to lay a simple meal upon the flat stones outside the small enclosure. Vivienne would have liked to have refused whatever he chose to offer her, on principle alone, but her belly growled. She moved closer, drawn by the sharp scent of a ripe cheese, and saw that he had bread and apples, as well.

  “The bread grows hard,” he said without glancing up at her. “But as it is dark bread, it was not overly soft in the first place. I suspect you have never eaten the like of it.”

  Vivienne could not resist the chance to surprise this man. “On the contrary, at Kinfairlie we eat brown bread every day but Sunday. My father always preferred to sell the fine flour and he said the coarser bread would not harm us.”

  Her captor glanced up. “Then coin must always have been scarce at Kinfairlie.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Few noblemen would choose to eat the bread of peasants. Perhaps you are unsurprised that your brother accepted my coin so readily.”

  “Perhaps I am. My father was unlike most noblemen and my brother follows his lead.” Vivienne decided she had little to lose by provoking him. “Perhaps Alexander accepted your offer readily because he was deceived as to your intent.” She bit into the bread and met his gaze, fairly daring him to correct her.

  He studied her in silence for a long moment, then looked across the sea without saying more. It was hardly an admission of guilt, but neither was it an argument against her conclusion. Indeed, once he had glanced away, he ignored her so thoroughly that she might not have been present.

  Perhaps he had not thought their night together to have been so wondrous.

  Perhaps his beloved wife had been more ardent than she.

  Vivienne ate, astonished at how hungry she was and how good the simple fare tasted. When she finished, noting that he ate no more, Vivienne rolled the remainder of the cheese into its piece of cloth. He returned the remnants of their meal to the leather satchel in silence, then spared her a bright glance.

  “We travel at night and only at night. I would suggest you sleep now.” Without waiting for her reply or assent, he pushed to his feet and paced the small area. He glanced to the sky and to the sea, then studied the empty stretch of land between themselves and Kinfairlie.

  Vivienne had no desire to sleep, but she would not accomplish much else while he was so watchful. She retreated to the cool shadows of the tumbling structure and gathered her cloak about herself as she sat against a wall with some discontent.

  A far cry from fated love this had proven to be! She drew up her own hood and narrowed her eyes, hoping she gave the appearance of slumber.

  Indeed, Vivienne intended only to wait until her captor eased his vigil. Then she would steal his horse and flee back to Kinfairlie, and have the truth from Alexander.

  * * *

  In the end, Vivienne did doze, because her captor showed no signs of taking a repose himself. He paced and he stood, he leaned against the wall and studied her, he surveyed the sea. He moved silently, with the grace of a warrior, but he was restless indeed
. Vivienne stifled the urge to tease him, as she would have teased one of her brothers, that he must be tormented with guilt.

  This man might well be. He kept his hood raised and his dark cloak furled around him, as if hiding his marked face from the very birds.

  Exhausted from recent events, Vivienne felt her eyes drift closed as the sun rose high. The sound of the waves lulled her toward slumber, though she was yet half-aware of her surroundings.

  She was startled at the cry of a merry voice close at hand.

  “Hoy, lad, there you are!”

  Vivienne’s eyes flew open and she saw her captor pivot at the shout and draw his blade. The tension in his shoulders eased slightly as he evidently recognized whoever called him, though he still was wary.

  Vivienne peered around the wall and saw a stocky older man approaching, leading a dappled palfrey. The horse was shorter than those in her family’s stables, and its fur grew long.

  “Well met, lad!” the man shouted, raising his hand in salute. His face was as merry as his voice. “Though you did grant me a merry chase, to be sure.”

  “Ruari Macleod,” the younger man said. He placed the tip of his blade against the ground and braced his hands upon the hilt. “I never thought to lay eyes upon you again.”

  The arrival grinned. “Ah, there is no evading me when I am charged with a mission, lad. My errand was to seek you out, and so, you see, I have done it.” He bowed with a flamboyant air and Vivienne wondered if this portly man would burst his belt buckle at the effort. She was tempted to smile, so charming was his manner, though her captor spoke coldly.

  “How did you find me?”

  Ruari snorted. “You leave a trail fairly blazed by your passage, lad. If you mean to journey unnoted, you will have to do better than you have done when I am on your trail. Did you learn naught from me? All those lessons I granted to you about following some soul through the wilderness might have fallen on deaf ears for all the good they have done you.” Vivienne heard the lilt of the Highlands in his voice, more pronounced than it was in the words of her captor.

  Had he truly pursued the younger man so far?

  Why?

  To her surprise, her captor seemed discomfited by this. “I was cautious,” he insisted.

  “Not cautious enough,” Ruari declared with a shake of his finger. “Men have eyes in their heads and in these days whatsoever they have witnessed can be loosed from their tongues with the smallest coin imaginable. These are dark times, lad, upon that you may rely, and I rue that we are compelled to endure them.”

  Ruari stretched out a hand in greeting, which the younger man pointedly ignored. He shrugged then and hooked his thumb into some increment of space behind his belt, squinting at the younger man as he surveyed him. “I cannot say that I would blame you for holding a small grudge against me.”

  “Any grudge I hold is far from small.”

  Ruari squinted into the shadows of that drawn hood. “You have grown harsher since last we met.”

  “Perhaps I have grown wiser.”

  Vivienne leaned against the stone wall and watched her captor walk away from his guest. He shoved his sword back into its scabbard, that gesture and his pose showing that he trusted the new arrival, despite his harsh words.

  Vivienne was intrigued and eavesdropped shamelessly.

  “Wiser? Is that your word for your circumstance?” Ruari demanded, skepticism in his tone.

  “My circumstance is not my fault alone.”

  “What of the price upon your head in Kinfairlie village? Is that due to the deed of another?”

  The younger man glanced over his shoulder at this, but said nothing. Vivienne’s heart thrilled at these tidings. Her family had not abandoned her fully! Even if Alexander had agreed to some wager, their departure this morn had not been part of it.

  Ha! She had known that Alexander had her welfare at heart.

  Ruari shook a finger at the younger man, as if scolding him, though Vivienne could not imagine a man less likely to be scolded. “Four gold sovereigns is the sum named by the Laird of Kinfairlie himself for your sorry hide.”

  Vivienne bit her lip. Could Alexander afford such a reward?

  Her captor scoffed. “Did you seek me that you might collect your due?”

  Ruari snorted with disdain. “You should know better than that, lad, though I will not be the last to follow you here.” He raised a meaty finger like a preacher delivering the moral of his sermon. “Dead or alive were the words of the laird. Dead or alive! Any man of sense knows that dead is easier. You tempt fate in lingering so close at hand. Had you the wits your father granted to you, you would be half the way to Ireland by now instead of pacing by the sea.”

  Vivienne’s captor turned to confront the sea once more, the hem of his cloak flicking in the wind. “I thank you for your counsel, Ruari. Godspeed to you.”

  Ruari continued, undeterred by this dismissal. “And four sovereigns more for the return of the laird’s sister,” Ruari added quietly. “Eight, if she is returned without injury. What do you know of the disappearance of this lass, Vivienne?”

  “Nothing you need know.”

  “Vivienne Lammergeier is her name, Vivienne Lammergeier of Kinfairlie. I cannot be the only one of we two who has heard that name before.”

  Vivienne’s ears pricked at this. How could either of them have heard her name before? She knew nothing of either of these men.

  “Your recollections are of no import here, Ruari.”

  “Are they not? No good comes of using an innocent maiden as a tool for vengeance. You should know the truth of that!”

  “She is innocent no longer, Ruari.”

  The older man swore. He pivoted and paced a distance, then turned to confront the younger man once more. “And what do you mean to do about that? Have you wed the lass?”

  “Nay and I will not.”

  Vivienne’s heart sank to her toes at his conviction. So she was to be no better than a courtesan.

  “Is this the root of the laird’s claim?” Ruari demanded. “He will have your prick for this crime, upon that you may rely! Some cunning man will drag you back there for the price upon your head, upon that you can rely, and the tool you used to do this deed will be the first sacrifice demanded of you.”

  “Then I had best not be captured.” The younger man turned his back upon Ruari once again.

  For the first time, the older man looked on the brink of losing his temper. He took a deep breath, reddened in the face, then bellowed. “It was not whim that made me pursue you now, lad, nor was it the prospect of reward from the Laird of Kinfairlie and his kind! I have no need of your secrets and your confidence, but I am determined to accompany you from this point forward all the same.”

  “You will not do so.”

  “Aye, I will, and I will tell you why that is so. Nay, do not argue with me. It is not because you make such a cursed mess of what is left of your days, though that would be reason enough. It is because your father saw the truth at the end, and thus he dispatched me to your side. I am to aid you, lad...”

  “The time when you and my father might have aided me is long past.” Vivienne’s captor stood tall and straight, his tone telling her that he did not welcome Ruari’s offering.

  “Have you never erred and regretted your choice?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then so did your father, and you have no right to hold as much against him. The past cannot be changed, only the future can be wrought in new design,” Ruari said sternly. “Thus your father taught me, and thus I know he taught you.”

  “How unfortunate that he did not similarly instruct my brother.”

  Ruari spat upon the ground. “You cannot say that your brother did not change his future to suit himself better than his past had done. There were other lessons he did not heed, to be sure, but that one was the making of him.”

  When the younger man might have spoken, Ruari held up a hand. “We are in agreement, lad, as to the true nature of N
icholas and the weight of his crimes. Though I come late to your aid, my intent is no less strong.” He offered his hand once again. “Are we met in peace, then?”

  “I have no need of your aid. Begone, Ruari.”

  “You have need of all the aid you can muster!”

  “I have the aid of the Earl of Sutherland, and that will suit me well enough.”

  “Do you now?” Ruari arched a bushy brow. “And how much do you know of the Earl of Sutherland that you are so keen to trust his word? What will he have of you in exchange? These are treacherous times for those too keen to grant their trust, and we both know that you are within their ranks.”

  “I know little of the Earl and his intent, but I have no other choice. He at least offered me aid when my own kin denied it to me.”

  “And for what cost?”

  The younger man held his ground and folded his arms across his chest. “Why did you come, then, Ruari? You will not depart without the telling of your tale, so tell it all, then mount your steed and begone.”

  Ruari looked away, his expression pained, and took a few slow paces. He glanced back, his gaze bright, and took a steadying breath. “For many a year, I served a man, loyal and true. I served him willingly, I served him unswervingly. I followed him into every battle, I granted him my best counsel, I loved him like the father that never I had. He treated me well, better than one so lowly born as myself had any right to expect, and never did he ask me for more than my loyalty and trust.” He swallowed visibly. “Until a month past.”

  “No,” Vivienne’s captor said, his voice wavering slightly.

  Ruari bent his head. “Aye, lad, the end comes for all of us sooner or later, and so it came to the man I had served for most of my life. And when he lay dying, when he confessed his sins and make his reckoning, he saw that he had made one grievous error in his days. And because his time was short, he entreated me to set matters aright in his stead.”

  Ruari turned and appealed to Vivienne’s captor. She listened greedily, savoring each detail. “He begged of me to find his eldest son, he asked of me to see the crimes wrought against that son redressed -” Ruari reached beneath his cloak and offered a sheathed dagger on the flat of his hand. The large sapphire trapped in the pommel of the dagger glittered in the sunlight. Vivienne peered at the blade, then noticed that her captor stared at it like a man transfixed.