Chapter One
Scottish Highlands 1720
Maren McEwen hobbled along the path cutting through the moors. Although her head swam, she was careful to keep to the narrow track winding between heather and gorse bushes jerking back and forth in a punishing wind. There was nothing to stop it for miles all around her – no cover, no dwellings, nothing but emptiness. The cursed wind tore at her as it whistled past, but she must concentrate lest she get mired up to her neck in a bog and meet a lonely end drowning in its muck.
Not that anyone would miss her.
Her nostrils flared at an acrid smell carried by the wind. Way off in the distance, smoke rose through a stand of trees at the moor’s edge. It was two miles away at least, but still, hope pinched at her heart. There might be a farm to provide shelter for the night or a campfire and someone from whom she could beg food. So Maren staggered onwards in misery, chiding herself for her prideful downfall. Why could she not just accept the limitations of her life instead of heeding her stubborn nature that urged her towards folly and the pursuit of freedom over safety?
Sobs overcame Maren, and she had to stop and lean over, hands on knees until she had stifled the anguish. She sucked her lip and tasted the blood where it was split. Maren spat it out and willed herself to keep walking. It would be dark soon, and without light to follow the path, the bog might claim her. Her strength was failing. As she plodded on, head down into the wind, in a fog of exhaustion, her mind sought the past. Why must it run towards torture and pain by presenting her anew with her fall from grace? Some things were as clear as day – bewilderment, pain, and fear, so much fear, sharp as a knife in the ribs.
She lay under Drayton as he slid in and out of her unprotesting body. The bed creaked with each thrust of his hips, and she would have laughed at the absurdity of what he was doing were she not so sore. It was the second time she had borne this indignity. The first time, she wanted to cry out at the sting of him ripping away her innocence, but pride stopped her. Besides, she thought it was all over and done with, and then he had slept, and she had time to gather her thoughts and her courage. But he had not slept for long, and when he had awakened in the dead of night, he had grabbed her again.
What else had she expected on her wedding night – hushed words of love and gentle caresses?
The man heaving on top of her was a criminal of the worst order – violent, strong and merciless – her father’s choice, for she had never been granted one. She bit her lip as his fingers dug into her hips, and his teeth nipped her neck – spiteful, like a dog’s bite.
Her father’s words washed over her. Had it only been a week ago? ‘I have found you a husband. I have summoned a priest, and he will be here at day’s end tomorrow to get you wed, daughter.’
When she had questioned him, all she had got for her trouble was a stinging smack and her father’s indifference. ‘Tis high time you were off my hands, and the bastard has long admired you. He has paid a goodly sum for your hand, so be sure to be obedient and pleasing, and he’ll not smack you about. And if you don’t wed him, you will feel the bite of my fist, lass.’
‘I cannot. Drayton is a bad man, father.’
‘And where will we find a good one to take you? There’s no man who will cross him and live, daughter, and he is loyal to me. He keeps my secrets, no doubt because he has long coveted you. Drayton will be a good provider and protector when I am off about my business.’
Was that what her husband was doing as he grunted on top of her - protecting her? It did not feel like it. Perhaps this was marriage and love, and it was all she would get in this life, this carnal attention, this succumbing, being a means of pleasing another with no pleasure for herself.
Her husband cried out and fell against her, crushing her, his sweat pressing into her skin and merging with her own. Drayton Carver rolled off her and declared, ‘Tis done, lass, and well done too. You are pleasing abed. I declare myself well satisfied. I hope I pleased you as much as you pleased me.’ He did not wait for an answer to his question, nor did he need one. Like all men, he assumed he was God almighty, and she in thrall to him. The bed shifted as he rolled off it. ‘Now, my love, I must be gone.’
‘Where?’ she said, pulling down her skirt and hoisting up her bodice.
‘I am off hunting,’ said Drayton, rearranging in breeches which he had not removed completely in his haste to have her. He turned with a wickedly handsome grin, and she knew he was not talking about hunting animals. ‘I am loath to leave your bed as you are heaven on your back, lass, but I have a grudge to settle, which is long overdue, as well as a pompous laird who needs to be separated from his cattle.’
Drayton cupped her chin and stared deep into her eyes. ‘But fear not. I will return, and you will have me abed again, Maren, and next time, I will take you with less haste.’
God forbid.
Drayton patted her cheek before taking up his pistols and sword and leaving without a second glance at his new bride. Maren lay back on the pillows and hugged her knees to her chest. She hadn’t expected much, and yet, still, Drayton had managed to disappoint her. If this was as bad as it could get, maybe she could bear him. And he would often be gone about his evil business and leave her be. He was a fine-looking man in a bleak, rough way. Many of the lasses had said she was lucky to be getting such a husband, but they were nought but ignorant fools. If this painful surrender was the worst part of marriage, she would have to find a way to endure it.
Fool. Dimwit.
It could get worse, a lot worse. Drayton Carver was in a good mood now that he had spent his lust. She knew full well that when he was in his cups or in a bad mood, he lashed out, sometimes murderously. He might have pursued her relentlessly this past year with presents, jewellery and casual compliments, even presenting her with wilting bunches of wildflowers here and there. But that was because he was after something. He was not in love, for he was not capable of it. No, it was about possession, having a shiny jewel to bring out when he felt like and boast about to his friends. Maren sometimes wondered if he had a heart beating in his broad chest at all.
A distant rumble of thunder wrenched Maren back to the present. She was almost at the moor’s edge, and her feet were wet and cold. She looked down and saw stinking water and sedge up to her ankles. Maren stepped back carefully, her boots squelching and slimy, as she let out a sob. She wiped tears away with the back of her hand and stared ahead. It was close now, for the wind carried a strong smell of smoke, and Maren’s heart picked up its beat as she spotted a chimney peeking through the trees just ahead, where the ground rose up. Rain began to fall, blowing in sideways, and there was not a soul in sight.
Maren hurried to get off the moor and soon found herself before a low dwelling squatting in a clearing. At its side stood a small barn, and she quickly stole across the grass and fallen leaves to reach it.
All was deserted inside, save for the shuffle and snort of cows and a horse in the stalls, so she climbed into a pile of hay to warm herself and hide. All she wanted to do was sleep. Nothing else mattered. She curled into a ball as exhaustion overwhelmed her. Again her mind wandered with hunger and shock, letting its guard down so that his face crawled back in, so red, so ruined.
‘See what those English bastards did to your husband,’ said her father flatly.
A lead shot had left a neat hole in his shirt and a vivid stain, as though a red rose bloomed from his chest. There was a gaping hole where his face should have been, caked at the edges with blood and ragged flesh, dried to brown, smashed remnants of teeth still clinging to purple, deathly gums.
‘See how they defiled him, leaving his face like that. They have no respect, for we are nought but animals to them. Aye, we are squeezed by the lairds and the English alike, parasites who feed off the rest of us, and each one as bad as the other.’
Maren tried to feel something, but she was numb. Drayton, her husband, had returned to her, but not as an eager lover to press her down into that bed again and have his way. No, he had come back as a corpse, shot by redcoats who caught up with him on the road to Black Pass, or so her father said. He seemed remarkably unperturbed by the loss of his right-hand man. But then why should he be? He would soon find another to do his dirty work, and now he had no younger rival to test his leadership.
A terrible thought occurred to Maren. The two of them had been at odds of late, and the marriage seemed to have healed the breach. Her father had been cordial to Drayton, and all seemed well. But whoever crossed her father tended to die young and without warning. Had her father made a whore of her? Was her marriage nothing more than a way of getting Drayton to drop his guard and turn his back while her father slid a knife into it? Maren could never be sure, and she could not ask him. That would end in punishment of the worst kind.
