Surrender to the Highlander(53)

“Laddie!” Ronson roared, releasing his grandmother’s hand, and charging after the dog when he suddenly raced off into the woods.

While Bessie frowned after the boy, Edith never took her eyes from the woman. As long as Ronson stayed close to Laddie, he should be fine. She, on the other hand, was in a pretty tricky situation. The woman had come out here to kill her, she was sure. The question was whether she’d planned to do it in front of her grandson and hope he wouldn’t tell anyone, or had planned something else. Since she should know that Niels had left with them, the most likely approach would have been for her to shoot arrows at them from the cover of the trees so that Ronson had to witness the deaths, but not who caused it, she thought, and asked, “Where’s yer bow and arrows, Ealasaid?”

“Where’s me—?” the older woman began with feigned confusion, and then paused abruptly. Eyes narrowing, she asked softly, “What did ye call me, m’lady?”

“Ealasaid,” Edith repeated quietly and then raised her eyebrows. “It’s yer name, is it no’? Ealasaid Drummond. Sister o’ one Glynis and mother to another. Sister to me father, as well as his murderer.”

The woman eyed her for a moment, and then gave up her hunched stance and straightened, her mouth compressing.

“I presume ye came to kill Niels and me, and brought yer bow to do it,” Edith said when the woman just stared at her. “Right in front o’ yer grandson, too,” she added grimly. “That would have been cruel.”

“Aye.” Bessie nodded solemnly. “It bothered me to have to do it in front o’ him, but it needs doing. And I will no’ let him see me do it. In fact, that’s why I do no’ have me bow now. The minute the dog came running and I heard Ronson chasing after him, I hid me bow and quiver under a bush.”

Edith felt like she’d been punched in the stomach. She’d sorted it out and had thought she knew what was what, but finding out she was right was different than suspecting she was. And it appeared the woman still intended to kill her. “Why?”

The question slid out unbidden, and then just hung there in the air between them for a moment before Bessie snapped, “Why do ye think?”

“I really have no idea,” Edith admitted. “Until today I thought every last member o’ me family was dead and ye were just some old woman trying to look after her grandson. Now I find out the aunt I thought died before I was even born is alive and behind the murder o’ the rest o’ me family.”

“Is that what yer father told ye? That I was dead?” she asked with a hard laugh.

“Nay, me mother did,” Edith said mildly. “The subject upset me father too much to talk about it.”

“I bet it did,” Bessie said with cold sarcasm and then held her arms out and said, “Well, ye can see that was a lie. I’m alive.”

“Aye,” Edith agreed. “So then are Glynis and yer mother alive still too?”

“What?” she asked with surprise. “Nay. O’ course, no’. They died from the sweating sickness near to thirty years ago. Just before me father threw me out like I was rubbish and told me never to return.”

“Me father was told ye died with Glynis and yer mother,” Edith said solemnly.

“Aye. Well, I would no’ doubt it. Our father was enough o’ a bastard to do that. But I do no’ believe fer a minute that someone else here did no’ tell Ronald the truth in private afterward. He must have kenned.”

“If that were true he would have come to find ye like he did Cawley after his father died,” Edith said with certainty.

Bessie scowled at the suggestion and snapped, “Where’s that husband o’ yers?”

“By now he should have been back at the castle fer quite a while. Certainly long enough to have told everyone who ye really are and that ye’re the one behind so many deaths. No doubt they’re now all searching the bailey and keep fer ye and trying to decide if ye should be hanged, or just left to rot in the oubliette.”

Bessie closed her eyes briefly in defeat, and then opened them again and glanced around as Ronson came running back into the clearing and hurried excitedly to them with Laddie on his heels.

“Look what Laddie found, m’lady. A bow and quiver. And look, they are no’ broken or anything. Are they no’ fine?”

“Aye, Ronson, very fine,” Edith agreed, never taking her eyes off his grandmother.

“Do ye think I could have it fer me own?” he asked hopefully. “It might have been Lonnie’s and his family may want it. Maybe I—”

“I’m quite sure ’tis no’ Lonnie’s,” Edith assured him and then, arching an eyebrow at Bessie, said, “If yer grandmother says ’tis all right, then aye, ye can have them.”

“Gran?” Ronson asked, hurrying to her. “Can I? I’ve always wanted a bow o’ me own. It’s all I’ve wanted me whole life. Can I have it?”

Bessie peered at him sadly and then nodded. Voice gruff, she said, “Aye. ’Tis yers, lad. Now go practice on that tree down by the water, and let us talk.”

“Come on, Laddie,” Ronson cried excitedly.

“Be careful ye do no’ shoot yerself in the foot,” Bessie called out. “And do no’ shoot the dog either.”

“Aye, Gran,” he called back happily.

Sighing, Bessie peered back to Edith and then raised an eyebrow in question. “What now?”

“Now ye answer me questions,” Edith said solemnly.

Bessie’s eyes narrowed. “What questions?”

Edith hesitated, and then said, “Ye were thirteen when ye were supposed to have died and that was nearly thirty years ago.”

“Aye.”

“So, ye’re forty-two or three?”

“Forty-two.”

Edith nodded and then asked, “How did ye make yerself look so old?”

Bessie laughed grimly and said, “Me hair was always so fair it looked white. As fer the wrinkles on me face, some are strategically smudged dirt, but some are mine. Peasants do no’ have the same luxury a lady does in avoiding the sun,” she explained sourly.

“What happened to ye?” Edith asked with bewilderment. She couldn’t imagine any circumstance that would lead to Ealasaid, the daughter of one of Scotland’s most powerful and wealthiest lairds, becoming the servant, Bessie.

“What happened?” Bessie muttered harshly, and then shrugged and said, “As I learned too late, while a peasant can no’ become a lady, a lady can certainly become a peasant does she dare to go against her father . . . I dared to go against me father.”

“How?” Edith asked at once.

“He’d arranged a marriage fer me to a smelly old bastard I could no’ even bear to look at. I decided I was no’ marrying him, but I was no’ stupid enough just to refuse. He simply would have put guards on me and forced me to go through with it. But me father could no’ force me to marry if my maidenhead was gone I thought, so I got clever. I seduced a visiting English lord. Adeney.” Her mouth tightened, “At least, that’s what I like to say. The truth is I had no idea what I was doing. All I really did was slip into Lord Adeney’s bedchamber through the secret passage in naught but me shift. The next thing I kenned I found meself lying on the bed with me shift thrown up over me face as this fine laird plowed into me, tearing me asunder. And he did it repeatedly through the night.

“Come the morning I could barely even walk the pain was so bad. But I dragged meself from that bed and made me way back to me own to lay there whimpering all day. All the while completely ignorant o’ the fact that me sister and mother had fallen ill with the sweating sickness in the night.

“The morning next I felt a little better and sent fer me father to tell him triumphantly that I was ruined and he could no’ force the marriage. He heard me out and then told me that Glynis and me mother were dead, and I was now dead to him too. I’d chosen Adeney and would be leaving with him. He could do with me as he wished.”

“He did no’ make him marry ye?” Edith asked with dismay. Despite everything this woman had done, Edith still managed to feel pity for the child Ealasaid had been and her foolish choices. A more honorable lord would have sent the girl back to her room. This Lord Adeney obviously hadn’t been a very honorable man. He also obviously hadn’t married the child he’d ruined. But Edith found it hard to believe that her grandfather, bastard though he might have been at times, hadn’t made Adeney marry Ealasaid.

“Lord Adeney already had a wife. I knew that when I chose him,” Bessie admitted, and then suddenly moved swiftly toward her.



“Well?” Niels asked as he led his brothers out of the passages and into the laird’s bedchamber where Tormod stood waiting.

The old man shook his head solemnly. “The men have searched everywhere. She’s no’ in the gardens, the bailey or down in the village, and no one has seen her since Moibeal saw her slip into the garderobe.”

“Well, she was no’ in the passages or the bedchambers,” Rory said with a frown. “Where else could she be?”