The Touch 0f Her Hand (Highlander Heroes Book 1) Read online

  From the village at which Tess had fled from the hag’s wagon, she’d headed south, into the woods. At least she thought it was south. She was only slightly unnerved to have no idea where she was. Evening would come very soon, and the darkness that would come with it frayed her nerves just a bit more, but Tess trudged on. The only strategy she’d managed to form in all her time since leaving Inesfree was that she needed help to get back to Marlefield. To that end, she’d thought to enlist aid within one of the many villages that dotted the Scottish countryside. She hadn’t dared seek help in the village where she’d exited Metylda’s wagon, on the off chance that the beast actually figured out how she’d managed to flee him this time. If he suspected or somehow figured out how she’d quit the walls of Inesfree, he would trace Metylda’s steps, which would bring him to that first village at which the hag had stopped.

  The rain needled her cold flesh and her knees had long ago begun to protest so much ungainly walking through the forest. It was fortunate then that she spied a lone thatched cottage, across a flat expanse of tall grass with a dark forest of trees behind it.

  Cautiously, Tess approached the house, which showed no signs of occupation. Not a single light shone on this dreary day and not a thread of smoke rose from the chimney. But shelter, however undesirable, was welcome and Tess neared the door just as it swung open from within.

  She jumped back, startled.

  “Who comes?” Demanded a man, who Tess decided immediately had seen more years than even Metylda. He was tall and thin and slightly bent, his eyes milky and sightless and settled just above her head. His garb was untidy, the original color of his ragged tunic lost to time, his breeches stained and tattered. One shoulder of the tunic hung off an impossibly thin shoulder, while his sparse hair clumped in wispy patches his head.

  “I am Tess,” she offered hesitantly and watched his head move very slowly so that it appeared to stare almost directly at her. “I have become lost in the wood. May I take shelter inside?”

  The old man straightened to this full height, perhaps the height of the MacGregor even, and announced, “Such a bonny voice. It’s raining, you ken.”

  “Yes, I do know that,” she said with a small laugh.

  “Then come in now, won’t you? We’re no idiots to keep you out in the rain.” Holding onto the door, he shuffled his feet backward and Tess entered the cottage.

  It was dark within, at which Tess frowned, until she realized that a blind person would have no need of candles. The cottage was only one room, and filthy at that. Cobwebs hung all around, not only in the corners and the thick rafters. The floor, pounded earth, was puddled in some areas. The few pieces of furniture were ancient and gave the impression of frailty.

  “Do you live here alone?” She asked.

  “All my life,” he answered, still hovering by the door. “Go by the name Angus Kilkenny. Have a boy—Fynn, he is—comes ‘round on Tuesdays, brings me game. Sit down. Sit down, lass.”

  Tess did not precisely trust the constancy of that lone chair, but she was weary and so sit she did.

  “I have water from the stream, here in a jug...somewhere,” he said, moving away from the door and searching with his hands atop the table until his fingers settled around a tankard. He turned and Tess found herself rising already, lest he be forced to find his way to her.

  “This is very kind of you, sir.” And she drank deeply. The water was surprisingly clear and refreshing.

  “Angus is all,” he said. “No ‘sir’ hereabouts,” and he chuckled, a raspy little laugh that made Tess smile. “I’ve bread, too, though it be moldy by now, no doubt.”

  “Thank you, Angus, but I am not so hungry,” she lied. She glanced around his ‘kitchen’ which was no more than a shelf built into the wall, that held a tin bucket and a few wooden trenchers. There appeared to be no foodstuffs at all. Tess wondered how he survived, but then considered his very lean frame.

  Tess glanced at the still-open door and measured the darkening day. “Angus, would you mind if I made a fire?”

  The old man’s bushy brows rose over suddenly brightened opaque eyes. “Ach, now, that’d be grand. Only ever have fires on Tuesdays when Fynn comes. Too dangerous, ofttimes,” he explained vaguely.

  Tess rose and perused the items near the hearth, which was heavily filled with ashes. She employed a thinner, flat piece of wood from a pitiful supply on the floor to move the ashes to one side. She arranged what little else was available to her, wishing she’d paid more attention to the boys who’d always kept the fire burning in any place she’d ever lived. Perhaps there was enough, she guessed, of kindling, logs, and dry pine needles.

  “An’ now you can be telling auld Angus how it is you’ve lost your way,” said the old man from behind her.

  “Oh, well,” answered Tess, not wanting to lie to him, but certainly not about to reveal to him the whole truth. “I’d been detained down at Inesfree for a while,” she hedged. Upon the spare and rough mantel, she found both flint and steel, and even the remnants of a char cloth. “Today, it was imperative that I start back home.” There. Not quite a lie. “The rain seems to have turned me around a bit.”

  Tess struck the steel down across the sharp edge of the flint many times before she found success, which she then pushed immediately into the char cloth. She set down the fire implements and picked up the char cloth, lowering herself and the cloth to the kindling inside the hearth.

  “Inesfree, you say? I once brought my wares down there. Sometimes leathers, sometimes fabric, if I could get ‘em. Back when the MacDonnell was alive. Long ago.”

  Her tiny fire popped and sizzled, growing quickly. Tess stood and surveyed her handiwork, then stretched her hands out to warm them.

  “That’s nice, lass,” Angus said. He’d taken up a seat on the bench at the table.

  “Come closer Angus,” Tess said. “It’s so nice and warm.” She touched his arm and he rose without opposition, allowing Tess to lead him to the chair, nearer the hearth. He patted her hand, before she’d released him.

  “Do you know the current laird, the MacGregor?” Tess asked of him, keeping her voice neutral.

  “I haven’t been down that way in years, since before Fynn was birthed,” he said with an aimless shrug of his narrow shoulders. “Might smoke me some pipe, now you’ve made so nice a fire,” he hinted.

  Tess glanced around, found his pipe atop the mantel, set apart from the flint and steel. A soft flax pouch sat next to it—what he smoked, Tess could only imagine. She pressed both into his hands. “You fill. I’ll light it.” She left him to insert the pipe into the pouch, with such familiarity he needn’t have sight, while she selected another thin piece of wood and lit the end of it. She returned to Angus, just as he finished pressing the filling down tightly within the pipe. “Here,” she said, and he placed the pipe between his lips. Tess joined the small flame to the filling and Angus drew deeply upon it until it was well lighted.

  “Aw, but aren’t you an angel,” he said, settling back into his chair, the pipe now hung between his lips.

  Before she sat, she stood at the door, surveying the wide clearing that was Angus’s front yard. Dusk had definitely settled. “It has stopped raining,” she told Angus. “Mayhap, I should try again to find...my way.”

  “Getting toward dark now, lass,” Angus noted, his teeth still clamped ‘round the pipe. “You’ll sleep here. Might be Fynn’ll come tomorrow. He’ll be able to see you where you need to be.”

  “Has he a horse?” Tess inquired, intrigued by the possibility. She closed the door and finally removed her cloak, setting it upon one end of the bench while she sat at the other end. The cottage was cozy now, aglow with soft light and warm air.

  “Of sorts.”

  “Angus, do you mind me asking why you stay here?” Tess dared. “I mean, all by yourself.”

  He shrugged again, a comfortable enough motion, Tess thought he must do it often. “Nowhere to go. My boy is gone too much to have his own hearth. Trad
es up and down, he does.” He began to talk of what Tess assumed had been life before he lost his sight, telling her of his youth, much of it spent fighting wars for Alexander III, upon the Isle of Sky. There was a way about him, his eagerness to talk, which suggested to Tess that he’d seen no company other than his own son for many a year. Tess was happy to listen, comfortable upon the bench, warmed by the fire and Angus’s melodic speech, though she felt her eyes drooping after a while.

  “You take the bed, lass.” Angus offered, after he’d been quiet for a few minutes.

  “Angus, I’ll not put you out of your bed. I can—”

  “Nonsense, lass. ‘Tis often that I do catch me winks here.” He waved her off with a frail hand.

  “You have no idea what this kindness means to me, Angus.”

  She hadn’t any intention of sleeping too long. Tomorrow was not Tuesday, she knew, so it was unlikely Angus’s son actually would come and she dared not stay longer than necessary. It was her plan that she should push on very early in the morning, to be further still away from Inesfree.

  She didn’t need much persuasion to climb into the stiff bed, harder than she imagined, though surely more comfortable than the cold wet ground outside.

  CHAPTER 14

  She woke next to the feel of a hand, huge and warm, clamped over her mouth. She tried to bolt upright but was unable—the long fingers of another hand were pressed around her throat. Eyes wide with fright revealed near complete darkness. The fire had died, and Tess knew not what had become of Angus. Squirming and clawing at the hands gained her naught but an increase of pressure. After a futile moment, Tess stilled, though her own fingers remained tensed over the mammoth, detaining paws.

  “Give me one good reason no to kill you here and now, Tess.”

  Had her mouth been disengaged, she might have actually sighed her relief upon realizing the voice as Conall’s. But quickly enough, her fright did multiply. His words and his tone had been chilling. Here was an anger she’d yet to experience from him; seething, quiet, controlled. It frightened Tess as nothing before had.

  After a last shove against her mouth, to emphasize the breadth of his rage she was sure, he pulled away, then removed the other hand from around her neck.

  Tess coughed and fought for breath while he hauled her abruptly to her feet from his bed. She glanced quickly about but did not see Angus.

  “Move,” Conall commanded and pushed her to the door.

  “Where is Angus? What have you done with Angus?”

  He didn’t answer. He continued to shove her, out the door, and into the utter dark of night. Tess thought she detected at least a dozen soldiers waiting there. But no Angus.

  She pushed back against Conall, holding her ground. “Where is Angus?”

  “There are penalties, Tess,” he clipped cryptically. Roughly, he threw her up onto Mercury’s back. “People who abet runaways are punished.” He climbed up behind her though he did not wrap his arm around her middle as he usually did.

  “Oh, Lord in Heaven!” she cried. She was forced to hold onto the pommel as the group galloped away. “He is blind! He did not know I was escaping—please tell me you haven’t killed him,” she begged to be assured, her own fright at Conall’s mighty wrath forgotten as her distress over Angus’s fate increased. “Please—"

  “Your accomplices will always be punished.”

  Tess let out a sharp cry, her shoulders sagging as the implication set in. Oh, God, he had killed that kindly old man.

  TESS’S HATRED FOR HER captivity grew tenfold over the next few days. Angus’s death lay heavily over her. It was entirely the MacGregor's fault that the poor man was dead, but Tess found that it was her heart that ached with guilt. And with this weighing mightily upon her, she feared she would never escape Inesfree and Conall MacGregor.

  Never again to see Marlefield, or even so much as a friendly face.

  After her return from this most recent escape attempt, she'd been summarily thrown into the tower again by Conall. He’d said not one word to her during that long ride. She’d yet to see Bethany. And Serena—always kind, always gentle—had shown herself once, sans food, only to inquire in a bristly tone if Tess had need of Metylda for any reason.

  So now, three days after that fateful misadventure, Tess was no further ahead. Indeed, she was suffused with a sense that she was, again, nearer to the status at which she had begun at Inesfree: a hostage with neither rights nor kindness. Without mercy. Without food.

  Soon, she imagined, she’d be without her mind, for one did not suffer these ups and downs without some defection of wit.

  She was cold and damp and hungry and no doubt this contributed to her lack of hope and confidence. And, too, her failed attempts were disheartening to a ruinous degree.

  Upon the furs once again, Tess rolled onto her back, flinging an arm over her head. She stared at the ceiling but found little there to hold her attention. She'd already counted the timbers and the stones within this wretched room. She'd not like to find herself counting raindrops next, though like as not it would prove productive, as the rains had yet to abate.

  As a child, she had always prayed for rain. Her mother, of a charitable yet variable character, hated the rain. She would retreat to the inner sanctum of their rooms within the abbey, finding comfort in herself. Her changeable nature had, at these times, unnerved Tess, but the songs she'd sung, to keep herself calm during the storms, had soothed Tess and haunted her still. There had been a quality about her mother's voice—peaceful, lulling, hypnotic—as her soft little chants carried through their apartments, filling Tess with tranquility. To this day, Tess ached to hear her mother's voice in song.

  CONALL HAD THREE TIMES approached the tower, and three times had retreated without entering. She needed to know he played no game. She must understand—be reminded—that his desire to once again possess Marlefield played a foremost role in every action, hers or his. Every word, every deed, every thought should be undertaken with only one objective in mind. She must never guess anything other than this to be true.

  He would never admit—not to her nor anyone else—that the larger issue here, and the greater part of his fury was a result of the ache he’d felt when he realized she actually wanted to leave him. Repeatedly, he’d shaken this off, feeding the anger instead, over any possibility that this was only about his feelings being hurt. He needed to be able to look into her eyes and remain hard and unyielding and fearsome. His dealings with her prior to her most recent flight had been motivated more by softness than anything else. That was done now. He’d allowed her some freedom, had thought she’d accepted her position here, at Inesfree and in his life, had thought indeed she’d accepted him, and her fate. Their fate.

  And so, for the fourth time, he climbed the stairs, resolved now to contend with Tess. As he reached the landing of the second floor, just as he placed his foot upon the first step of the stairway that would lead him to the tower, he became aware of a humming sound. It was melancholy at its brightest, its fluid tone a soft, somber cry. He stilled for a moment, seized by a heightening anger, and then charged up the steps and barged into the tower.

  But he found, as he entered, only Tess, upon her back, one leg settled atop the opposite knee, rocking to the hum of her song.

  “Get up."

  She tilted her head upon the fur, looking at him upside down. He noted immediately that she was in a terrible state. Unkempt, uncaring, she regarded him.

  "Ah, the Lord does come now," she said tartly though made no move to rise as he'd commanded. Indeed, her knee still moved in time to her song of a moment ago.

  “You do try me, Tess," he snarled. She ignored him, fueling his already frayed temper. She had in her hands, which rested on her stomach, a small torn piece of fabric, perhaps from her dark overskirt. She threaded it between her slim fingers, one end unraveled into dozens of loose strands. "Get up, I said." She moved not at all, save for her hands, fiddling with the fabric. Conall was at her side in an instant. He s
hoved his booted foot into her hip. "Move. Now."

  "I think not."

  "Goddamn it! Think you I'd no kill you now because I haven’t yet?" Still, her hands toyed with the piece, ignoring him. There was an urge then to shove his foot at her with greater might. To provoke her into...something. She began to hum again, as if he did not stand above her engulfed in a towering rage that had much to do with her near successful escape—her very perseverance in this course—and more to do with this ungovernable desire for her, even now. Abruptly, he took her wrist in his, pulling up his arm, forcing her to come to her feet or chance being dragged. She rose, dropping that damn scrap of cloth, her eyes only momentarily wary. She knew her trouble was deep but was willing to accept her supposed doom for the very chance to rattle and vex him.

  Set upon his own course, and with no great desire to accommodate her shorter steps, Conall led her down several flights of stairs and out into the yard. Several persons halted their business to stare, though in this everlasting drizzle, there were few about. He knew Tess eyed him critically. He could feel the burn of her glance upon his back as he pulled her along. He waved away the guard at the inner gatehouse and marched through the outer bailey. Nearer to the portcullis, he gave a call for it to be lifted, his stride unbroken as he ducked under the slow rising gate, forcing Tess to do the same. He continued to drag Tess, through the tall grass, cutting through a sparse copse of short trees until they reached the stream which sometimes afforded Inesfree its fresh, clear water if the well were dry.

  There, Conall stopped, though his arm continued to move, bringing Tess around to his front. Without hesitation, he lifted her into his arms, holding her slight form to his chest and waded into the stream. She made not a sound; no protests came forth. And when he directly dropped her into the icy water, she was silent still.

  She went under immediately but surfaced quickly enough. As the depth here was slight, she just sat there, covered up to her breasts, her knees bent above the water. She might have inquired of his purpose, she might have shivered in the cold, she might have railed at him for this abuse. But she did none of these. Her eyes met his, watchful, curious perhaps, but without the fear she should have been feeling.