Bones for Bread (The Scarlet Plumiere) (23 page)

Northwick had finally found an excuse to exorcise it from his house. Ash would have to remember to return the favor before leaving Scotland at the end of summer. It was a pity to leave such a sentimental thing where it couldn’t possibly be appreciated.

Discomfort, while sitting, led his thoughts back to the woman who’d left him for dead in the woods on a cold winter/spring night. As her knee had come for him, he’d at least been able to turn a bit. Had he taken the blow head on, he’d never been able to crawl back to the house. Finn might have found him in the morning, frozen like a garden statue tipped on its side.

Had he not turned. . .

Phantom pains shot through him and he jumped to his feet. He needed distraction, and the brandy from the drover would have to do.

He pulled the cork and let the heady flavor surround him as he poured the entire contents into a crystal decanter Tolly had left for just that purpose. As the aroma hung like a cloud around him, he remembered a similar cloud that clung to Harcourt, Stanley, and himself while they’d tried to drink themselves dead with grief and guilt. For months, they’d searched for North, knowing full well the province where the kidnappers were holding him but unable to find him. They’d had no choice but to give up and go home after they’d searched every blade of grass, every hovel, then they’d searched it all a second time. They’d done everything but start digging, to look beneath the very sod.

But leaving one of them behind was not something they could have accomplished sober. So they’d drank.

Even now, the memory of his hopelessness urged him to set the stopper aside and pour himself a stout glass of the liquor. The little ball rang like a bell as he tossed it onto the tray and hefted the now heavy decanter.

One finger. Then two. Remembering that the entire household was abed, he poured four. And even as he set the bottle aside and stopped the opening with the little ball of winking glass, he knew he drank tonight not to forget, but to remember.

To remember a slightly gentler lass, a woman called Scotia.

He removed his coat, tossed it over the back of a comfortable couch, and took his drink to the African chair where he sat carefully. He raised the glass in a silent toast to his best friend, acknowledging the fact that North had known the perfect thing to send to bring a smile to lips that seldom smiled.

He’d fled from his friends, but he did miss them a little. Not enough to invite them to join him, of course. It was not unlike the way he would miss the ring if it weren’t in his pocket. It was part of him. They were part of him. No matter how far he traveled, they would be with him. If putting Hadrian’s Wall between them wasn’t distance enough to provide a respite, nothing else would do the trick.

He set aside the half-full glass for a moment to remove his cravat. Then he unhooked some buttons and allowed some air against his skin, wondering if it was the Frenchwoman or the Scottish staff who kept the house so hot.

He pushed away the possibility that it might be the thoughts of Scotia that warmed him. But the thoughts pushed back. As he took up his glass again, he summoned her image. A beauty mark. A full black cloak. Her hair when she’d tossed her hood back, to impress upon him the fact he was her only hope. Her muddied hem. The cold square of her fireplace.

With his free hand, Ash fingered the ring through his vest pocket. Touching it gave him comfort. Looking at the little owl did the opposite, so it remained in his pocket.

Scotia. Come to me
.

He straightened, brought the glass to his mouth, and poured the whole of it down his throat. Only after he’d swallowed the last of it did he find a bitter taste on the back of his tongue that had nothing whatsoever to do with brandy.

Alarm sang in his brain. He jumped to his feet and reached for the bottle he’d emptied into the decanter. He smelled the opening, but with the aftertaste still in his mouth, it was impossible to tell where the slightly acrid smell was coming from! His mind reeled. Was it his own panic that made the room spin? Or was it the poison?

He stuck his fingers into the back of his throat and gagged himself, but his stomach would not turn! He tried over and over, knowing it was his only chance, to get as much of the poison out as possible, but his body would not cooperate!

The floor shifted.

Poison! Hardly a noble death. He’d much prefer to die with a weapon in his hand. But who was his foe? The Reaper would be coming for him after all, but who had been the accomplice. Tolly? Martin? One of the footmen? With Scots in his household, he should have been more on his guard!

Then he thought of Finn. Sarah. The Frenchwoman. Those he trusted. Which of them would find him in the morning?

He lurched for the decanter and knocked it from the tray. It fell to the floor beside him. Not all of it spilled.

He reached for the empty bottle but it was beyond his reach. As his fingers stretched toward it, the dark glass seemed to stretch farther away. He commanded his body to move, to crawl, until the hard glass was within his grasp. Then he crawled back.

With all his miniscule might, he lifted the bottle over his head and brought it down upon the decanter. Glass and the tainted brandy flew everywhere, but none of it would find its way into another mouth, another belly.

With the house turning into a storm-ravaged ship beneath him, Ash’s stomach finally turned. But he knew it was too late.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Blair waited in the barn.

Her heart was rocking so hard beneath her ribs she was worried the sound would wake the household. But they’d had little choice, she tried to convince herself. They’d needed to do something drastic. This Englishman would not tuck tail and run as the others had.

“For the good of the people,” she murmured. She wouldn’t have risked such danger just because the man reminded her of Ash. But even as her whisper fell silently among the straw, she knew it was a lie. May God forgive her, she was a coward. Frightened of a memory. Frightened of anyone who might stir that memory.

Of course this English lord could never compare to Ash. She’d had only a fleeting look at him in the darkness with the lighted windows of the manor behind him. She wouldn’t be surprised to find he was a lanky chap with blond hair and that her imagination had taken control of her eyesight. But there had been some look about him that promised he would never be intimidated by the likes of a country phantom.

The call of a nightingale—her signal to open the barn door.

She pushed it wide and stood back as Jarvill and Coll carried their victim through it. Her stomach dropped when she realized the Englishman was wrapped in a sheet, but she closed and bolted the door before she dared make so much as a squeak.

Coll dropped his end of the load and walked to the wall where the light of a single candle glowed from within a closed lantern. He opened it an inch, then took up his end of the wrapped body once more and helped Jarvill place it on the chair she’d prepared in the center of the floor. The body was limp as a wet flag.

He’d drank too much. They’d killed him!

Blair was going to be ill. No matter that he was a Peer of the Realm, he’d been a man—a gentle enough man who’d kindly invited her to return to the manor and talk things over, a man who she’d nearly maimed in her bid to escape. If they’d known he would drink so heavily, they’d have put a great deal less Belladonna in his brandy.

God forgive them!

Jarvill began tying the man’s torso to the chair. Coll knelt to do the same with his feet.

“Why tie him to the chair if he’s already dead?” she whispered.

“Why indeed,” Jarvill answered, “unless he’s not dead after all? We had to wrap him in a sheet to carry him. If the barn were another fifty steps away from the manor, we’d have not been up to the task, aye? He’s a monster, is this one. I understand now why you claimed he’d not flee like the rest.”

He wasn’t dead? He wasn’t dead!

It wasn’t just her soul she was relieved for. She felt the same way about her enemy as she did for a large animal. It would have been a true pity to put him down when he’d done little to deserve it. He’d taken her brother as a hostage, but Finn had been well cared for—better cared for than under their father’s roof. How could she begrudge the man for that?

Coll strained to move a heavy leg.

Ash had been a monster as well. Heaven help her, did England produce so many that size?

Jarvill pealed back the sheet so he could bind the man’s hands, and he was right to do so. A man like Ash might be able to burst his bonds; they’d be smart to use every inch of rope possible. The collar of his shirt got caught and was peeled back as well, but she wasn’t about to ask Jarvill to fix it. She didn’t want her friend to think her some bawdy maid to notice such a thing. But she did notice.

She also noticed how the white fabric stuck to the body beneath.

“Why is he wet?” she whispered again.

Coll snorted. “Had to dip his head in the horse trough. He’d tossed up his accounts on the rug. Slept right through it, aye? But he smells better.”

She took a step back, not wanting a whiff of sick. There were few animals in the barn, not enough to make it warm, but she tugged off her cloak and handed it to Coll to play the part of The Reaper. She had too many things she wished to say to this man and not the patience to relay it through one of her friends. The sooner they were away, the sooner she could get warm.

She shivered, but it was more out of pity for how cold their prisoner must be than for herself. But the longer she gazed at that half-bare chest, even in shadows, the warmer she got.

“Wake him,” she told Jarvill.

She stayed a good ten feet back. Coll came to stand beside her with his hands on his hips, his hood pulled forward. Standing behind the chair, Jarvill tipped it back on its hind legs and shook it. The man’s head wobbled a bit, then settled again when the chair rested back on all its legs.

“There’s a fine chance the man willna wake, if the cold water didna stir him,” said Jarvill. He walked around to face the unresponsive man, grabbed the man by the hair to lift his face, then slapped him none too gently. “Wake, yer lairdship.”

The man growled. A few breaths later, he snored. Jarvill released his hair and the man’s chin dropped back to his chest.

Blair huffed. She wasn’t going to be getting warm any time soon, it seemed.

“Here,” Coll said. He retrieved a stool from the wall and sat down, then slapped his knee. “Come. Sit. This cloak can cover us both.”

“Shhh!” She shook her head at him. “No speaking while you’re wearing the cloak. Remember it.”

Coll nodded, then lifted the dark fabric like bird’s wings. Since she’d removed her attention from the prisoner’s chest, the cold air had begun seeping into her bones, so she accepted her friend’s invitation and sat on his knee. The dark wings wrapped around her and her chills were gone in no time at all.

Jarvill sank down into the straw piled in the corner, wrapped his plaid in a cozy cocoon, and lowered his head. And with nothing to worry over while they waited for their sleeping giant to rouse, Blair allowed her thoughts to roam where they would.

Ash.

Did he ever think of her? And if so, did he think of kissing her? Or did he still believe she’d been the enemy? Did he rue the night he could have executed her in the stables near Givet Faux? But instead of heartache washing over her and bringing tears to her eyes, as it usually did, it only disgusted her. She’d barely known the man and yet she’d been hurt more by his cruel assumption than by the prospect of her own execution.

She could only hope that she’d outgrown whatever defect had inspired such nonsense. It gave her hope when the memory only tugged at her a bit. Never again would she allow a man to leave her distraught and hopeless. She was The Highland Reaper—the one sought by others when they were similarly afflicted.

She was the cure.

Blair sighed and wondered if the man would wake before sunrise. If not, they would have to maneuver his bulk onto a horse and take him to The Vale with them.

Finally, the man’s head moved. Then it bobbed. A moment later, the chin rose from the chest and the man stared straight ahead. At her.

He shook his head as if trying to shake off the effects of the drug.

Wake, ye bloody bastard.

It was time. She dared not wait until he had complete control of himself.

She nudged Coll’s arms and he opened them slowly. Then she stood and walked toward the Englishman, veering away at the last moment to walk around him. She began to hum. Finally, she put words to the tune.

“Fee. Fie. Foe. Fum. I smell the blood of an Anglishmon. Be he live, or be he dead. . .” She paused to run a finger along the man’s neck. “I’ll grind his bones to make me bread.” Then she laughed and hummed her way back to Coll, who had risen from the stool.

“Poison,” the Englishman muttered, turning his head from side to side.

Blair wondered if he was still not sober enough to remember her dramatics.

“No. Not poison,” she said. “but it could have been. Remember that, yer lairdship. It could have been. And the next time it will be. If ye fail to leave us in peace.”