“Ye may go now,” Alistair said.
Tasgall withdrew from the room, his mother following closely behind. When they were both out of the room, she gingerly shut the door.
“Lads,” Alistair said to his warriors, “our plans have changed.”
* * *
Journeying through the country was a most inconvenient affair. Jane’s back ached from all the sitting. Her companions were taciturn, naturally. There was no chaperone who understood her needs and no companion to speak to. And worse still, they were heading into enemy territory.
Twice, she had had to relieve herself, and twice she had suffered the indignity of them pretending not to stare as she did her business in the bushes not quite far from them because, according to the more vocal of the two soldiers, they could not risk her being snapped up by Scottish savages.
Something weighed heavily on her mind, heavier than her new life in Scotland. It was how to find her sister’s lover. She was hopeful that it was all a misunderstanding and that as soon as she reached him, he would get on a horse and travel to England to claim Eleonor for himself. Which would unearth new problems, no doubt. But she had to find him first. And Jane had to hope against all hope that he would not display the weakness she had come to know with most men. Selfishness.
The carriage trudged through uneven terrain, and Jane found herself bouncing up from her seat occasionally. One of the soldiers cursed a blue streak, and it put fear in her. No woman should suffer through being alone with three strange men for an entire journey.
Her thoughts drove her to another bout of sleep. She had a dream in which Commander Pierce strapped her to his horse and paraded her before all of Scotland as his property. They were then attacked by Scottish marauders, and she was captured and subjected to inhumane treatment. Suddenly, her uncle Howard rescued her and sent her, in the unrealistic manner of dreams, to the King. The King asked who her husband was, and she replied, but quickly added his part in her capture.
The King was unmoved. “You must be returned to him at once,” he commanded, and then turned away from her, despite her pleas. She was then back in what her mind construed as Commander Pierce’s home, and he was sneering at her, brandishing a horsewhip.
She woke up in tears. Her throat was tight, and her heart was beating fast. Surely her fate could not be as terrible as her dream! Although she had not dwelled on it, she harbored a faint hope that she would be spared a marriage to the man by some twist of fate. That was unrealistic, and it only happened in books, but one could dream.
Her thoughts were interrupted when the carriage stopped, throwing her against the partition. She righted herself. “Why have we stopped?” she said, loudly enough for the soldiers to hear her. There was no response. Suddenly, she heard what could only be a war cry, followed by the sound of metal clanging against metal. One of the soldiers shrieked. It was so high-pitched; it was almost impossible.
Jane gasped. There was trouble!
The carriage door was flung open, and Jane found herself staring into the bluest eyes she had ever seen. They belonged to a man who look like a conqueror and an angel as well. His face was set in hard line. His blond hair looked menacing, putting one on mind of a vicious wildcat. His lips were set in a thin line. He regarded her darkly, and Jane had only one second to think before the intruder was in the carriage with her. He smelled of the outdoors, of wild and primal things.
And, faintly, of blood.
Jane resisted the urge to shiver.
“I will ask ye two questions,” he said, his voice low and deep. “Answer them truthfully. Who are ye? Why is your carriage on me land?”
“Go to hell!” Jane spat.
The man laughed. The next second, Jane was being dragged, by the waist, out of the carriage. She flailed, screamed, and pounded on the intruder’s back. This seemed to amuse him, for she heard him laugh. It was as though she weighed nothing. “Unhand me, you brute!” she commanded.
“I will be just that if ye keep fussing,” he said. This was a warning that she knew he would make good on. He set her down. She looked down at the grass and then up at him. He stood at least a whole foot taller than her. She looked beyond him and her breath caught. There were five other men dressed just like him, standing in the grass. She gasped. Surely, they had not killed her-
She turned her head and saw the two soldiers that had accompanied her. They were on the ground, blood pooling around them. Jane almost swooned, but she caught herself. She heard someone whimper and saw that it was the coachman. He sat on the floor, against the carriage, like a defeated child.
“Look up,” one of the other warriors said. Jane’s head jerked up, but it wasn’t she that the warrior had been addressing. He was a little shorter than the intruder, with ginger hair and brown eyes. His gaze was fixed on the coachman. “Who are ye both,” he asked the whimpering man, “and where are ye headed?”
The coachman shook his head, his face creased in fear. In one swift moment, the warrior put a knife to the coachman’s throat. It glistened with macabre promise. “I am nobody,” the coachman said quickly. Just a lowly coachman. My name’s Solomon Johnson.”
“And the girl?”
The coachman looked at Jane with something quite like apology before he said, “That is Jane Marsh, soon to be Jane Pierce. I have orders to take her to Commander Edward Pierce.”
“A commander’s wife-tae-be, is it?” the warrior with the blade said, looking at Jane with contempt.
But the intruder regarded her with a different emotion entirely. Pleasure. And that was a lot more worrisome. “How fortunate! Too fortunate, perhaps. We have taken the good commander’s bride captive.”
So, this was about Commander Pierce! These could be the Scottish enemies that Commander Pierce’s men had won in a battle. No doubt they wanted revenge. And she was the one caught in the crossfire. A chill went up Jane’s spine. “You are from Clan Fletcher,” she suddenly blurted out, and then chose to continue as there was no cure for it. “You seek vengeance because he defeated you in battle, do you not?”
She saw his face darken and his jaw worked, but she continued still: “He will not fall for whatever trap you mean to set for him.”
“Fer your sake it is better that he does, young woman,” the man said, and bent towards her. Jane flinched. His face came so close to hers. His blue eyes were cold and calculating, like a snake’s, yet she found it hard to look away from them. Until something caught her eye: the glint of a knife near her throat. Her eyes widened in panic. Alas, the warrior deftly cut off a lock of her hair. This excited the rest of the men, for some reason. The second warrior brought it to the coachman and squeezed it into his shaking palm.
