He turned, slamming my door behind him, and I suddenly felt more overwhelmed than I had thought possible. I pressed my back to the door and slid down it until I sat on the floor. I would wait long enough for supper to truly start, and then I would make my way to the secret tunnel that had been shown to all of us children years before, so that if we ever needed to escape, we could. It had taken me two days to find the tunnel door, as my memory was hazy about which room it was in. In the end, I’d found it in the nursery, behind a tapestry depicting one of the great battles of the Wallace clan.
I had hoped I wouldn’t have to use it, but hope was not for me. Tears filled my eyes, and I did not bother to fight them. Instead, I pulled my knees toward me, let them come, and pressed my forehead to my knees to muffle any sounds I couldn’t swallow.
Sobs racked my body as my tears dampened my skirts. Why had James not come? I ground my teeth with grief, with fear, and, aye, with anger. My mind fired off possible answers at me as it had for two days. Mayhap my letter had never reached him. Perhaps he had read it and thought me mad for claiming I could not age. Perhaps he had concluded that loving a woman with my affliction was a danger he did not wish to entertain. Perhaps he had not loved me at all. “Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps,” I muttered, sitting up and swiping at my face. “Perhaps ye are an idiot.”
I shoved the last thought away and stood. I could not linger to wallow in heartbreak. I donned my cloak and grabbed my satchel, which I’d stuffed with my medicines, wine, and hunks of bread. I lit the lone candle that would have to guide me through the secret tunnel out of the stronghold, then moved to the door, thinking over my plan. I could not return to Gillie andthe Summer Walkers. After careful thought, I concluded it was too dangerous for them and for me. They would be no match for warriors that might be sent to hunt me. The men of the Summer Walkers were not trained fighters, like Buchanan men or the king’s guards. No, I would make my way to Millicent. She had not come, but I had to believe, I chose to believe, she was en route to me and would shelter me, or, if not, she had not gotten the missive for some reason and would shelter me once I explained all. And then I would renounce my claim to Renfrewshire to her. I had taken a risk for love. I would give up all I had once foolishly believed I needed to be worthy of a man. These were the things Morgana had told me I must do to break the curse, and if that were true, if my curse did break, then mayhap I would be able to go somewhere far away with Millicent’s help, across the seas even, and age and live and love.
With all these thoughts in my head, I made my way slowly to my bedchamber door, glanced down the hall, judged it empty, and, closing my door behind me, hurried down the hall to the nursery, where once I had rested blissfully ignorant of men, of feeling less than, and of wishes and curses. I’d been a bairn, properly aging, cared for and loved by my parents. The tears started again, hot and stinging, and I swiped at them as I opened the door, closed it, and lifted the heavy tapestry that hung to the floor, back enough to press open the nearly invisible door that swung inward.
I stepped into the tunnel, and stone walls pressed close on either side of me. When the door shut behind me, my breath caught in the darkness that nearly swallowed me whole, though I’d expected it. The air was thick with the smell of damp earth and stale tallow smoke, and as I made my way down the narrow passage, cobwebs hit my face, making me shudder. I shifted my satchel and swung my free hand in front of me to knock the cobwebs out of the way.
The passage sloped downward, and as I descended, the air grew heavy with moisture and the temperature dropped. My heartbeat quickened until all I could hear was the thump in my ears. The passage took a sharp right turn, and down I went over stones carved into the ground, slick with water and moss.
Then the passage weaved to the left, and the ground beneath my feet grew soggy, so that my shoes squelched. I could barely see past the hand I held out. My candle’s flame guttered with each breath, threatening to go out entirely, and the shadows danced around me on the rocks. Even now, as I hurried to escape, and my thoughts should have been on the dangerous journey ahead of me, they turned to James. Why had he not come?
The simple act of questioning it made the ache that had been a constant companion in my chest grow sharper with each step I took, and I thought, for the hundredth time, what I might have said if James had appeared. I would have told him of the depths of my love for him and of my years of loneliness. I would have told him of my insecurities that had plagued me and how they had led me to make such a foolish choice as to wish not to age.
When I almost slipped, I braced a hand against the cool, damp stone to my right to steady myself. The passageway sloped downward again, then leveled out, then began to climb. My breath came in shallow pulls, the air too thick to fill my lungs. My free hand went to the small blade I’d taken from the dining hall and hidden in the folds of my skirt, a pathetic weapon but the only one I could find.
“Please,” I whispered into the darkness, though I did not know what I was asking for. Protection? Freedom? James? All of them, perhaps. All of them, and none.
The passageway ended in a heavy wooden door bound with iron. I set my candle on a small ledge in the wall and braced both hands against the rough wood, pushing with all my strength.For one terrible moment, it did not move, and panic rose in my throat. Had it been barred during the years I had been gone? I gave another hard shove, and then, with a groan of metal and wood, the door swung outward.
Cold night air hit me, carrying the scents of pine and earth and the faint smoke of distant fires. I stepped out onto the road’s packed dirt, raising my candle to get my bearings. The moon hung low and fat above the trees to the east, casting enough light to make out the familiar shape of Renfrewshire behind me, its towers dark against the star-pricked sky.
And then I heard something, and fear skittered up my spine. I stilled, breath held, and listened. It started low, like a rumble, and grew louder with each breath I took, until I realized what it was—the thunder of hooves, dozens of them by the sound of it, moving fast along the road from the north.
My candle slipped from my trembling fingers, hit the ground, and guttered out in the mud. Just as I bent to retrieve it, fire danced in the dark, a line blazing a path straight for me, yet held, quite obviously, by riders. Dozens of them. Nay, mayhap forty or more. My brain and feet froze at the same time. I could not think who it might be. Was it my sister come to save me, or someone sent by the king to drag me back to court to be hanged or worse?
I did not dare hope for James, but then, as the horses were almost upon me and my brain and feet unlocked, allowing me to run, I caught a glimpse of a face, illuminated by the flames, and I cried out in shock, relief, and exploding joy. “James!”
Instantly, he pulled his horse up hard. The animal reared slightly before its hooves struck the ground. James dismounted in one fluid motion and ran toward me, closing the distance between us in long, ground-eating strides. He swept me up off my feet, his arms circling me, and my body molded to the length of his, so that his thundering heart beat into me like a frenzied tattoo.
His mouth came over mine in a desperate, devouring kiss that I matched as I clutched at him, afraid to let go and fearful I was imagining it. When he finally broke the kiss and set me on my feet, he cupped my face and looked down at me. Behind him, his warriors had arrived, and their torches cast enough light that when I looked into James’s face, I saw love. My heart was so full it ached.
“I came as soon as I read yer letter,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. “Nay, I was already on my way to ye,” he said, kissing me once more possessively on the mouth as he cradled my face. When he pulled back again, he said, “God’s blood, Katreine, I thought I might be too late.” He pressed his lips to my hair, my temple, and the corner of my mouth. “I love ye,” he said, the words filling every empty space in my heart that had been waiting all my life for him. “I want ye, nae yer land, nae Renfrewshire, nae any prize the king might offer.” He kissed me again and again, as if he, too, were afraid to release me and fearful he was imagining the moment. When he pulled back this time, he asked, “Will ye have a nameless man—”
“Nae nameless,” a stern voice said from behind him.
James chuckled, took my hand, and pulled me away from the group behind us. “That’s Munro.” He stopped walking and faced me once more. “Will ye have me? I’m a Ross,” he said, smiling now, “but I do nae possess a stronghold to give ye.”
“I do nae need one,” I assured him. “Only ye,” I added, cupping his cheeks as he was mine. I was crying now, tears tracking down my cold cheeks. “Ye understand the curse? Ye believe me?” I wanted only truth between us.
“Aye,” he said, pressing his lips to mine again. “Murieall told me before I even received yer missive. She recognized ye from my description of the freckles on yer shoulder, yer laugh, and yer eyes.”
“Murieall,” I breathed, our friendship of the past still so dear to me after all this time. What must she look like now?
“She told me everything,” James said. “About the goblet and the witch and the four of ye lasses and the wishes ye made.” His gaze bore into me. “She told me that, and that ye had nae ever been betrothed to Buchannan, and as the gods are my witness, Katreine, even if he had forced ye to wed already, even if he had claimed yer body, I would nae care. I want ye. I would defy anyone who tried to keep us apart.”
I could not contain myself. I flung myself at him, demanding a kiss, and he obliged, slanting his mouth over mine once more. It was savage with desperation, yet sweet with love. As our tongues met and then retreated, I knew I had never felt so seen, so loved, so valued in my life.
This time, I pulled back and pressed my cheek to his thundering heart. “I’m nae wed,” I assured him. “Alec could nae ever make me him, but he has nae touched me that way, either.” I looked up at James. “I was, in fact, fleeing just now to avoid him and the wedding, which is set for tomorrow.”
Suddenly, the door behind us creaked, then thudded open, cutting off whatever James had been about to say. As he shoved me behind him and drew his sword, a low growl rumbled from him, and I shivered at what he might do to Alec to protect me.
Alec emerged from the tunnel, a dozen of his warriors at his back, their swords already drawn and glinting in the torchlight. “Unhand my betrothed,” Alec said as he came toward us and withdrew his own sword. “She is promised to me by the king’s own decree.”
“A decree made because of yer lies,” James snarled as dozens of swords hissed from their sheaths behind us. I glanced over my shoulder to see the Ross warriors ready for battle. “Katreine is the woman I love, and my future wife,” James said, swinging his sword up to point it at Alex. “She is nae now, nae will she ever beyers to command or touch. If ye dare to do so, I will rip ye limb from limb.”
