Dreamer (Highland Treasure Trilogy) (38 page)

“When Athol died, and your brother
became earl, I knew you were nearly sixteen years old. I forced myself to stop
fretting over your future. Knowing your father, I was certain that you had been
educated well. I prayed that you were making your way in the world.

   “Then, a few short years later,
John--my youngest by Duncan--and his wife died in a horrible fire in this same
wing. For a few months, I even thought Joanna dead, as well. The curse was
unending, it seemed. But secretly, I thought that perhaps I had been able to
save one of my children’s lives.

“About six months after that fire,
Gavin Kerr was given Ironcross Castle. Somehow, he found Joanna hiding, waiting
for the chance to avenge her parents’ deaths. Between them, they were able to
unearth the secrets of Ironcross Castle, and put an end to the curse.

“I have been so wrong about so many
things in my life, Adam. But still thinking that you were safe and now
assuredly well on in your own life, I chose not to doubt my original decision.
For the days and the years that followed, I enjoyed the love of a granddaughter
who wanted to include me in her life. Gavin’s and Joanna’s love for one
another, their abundant affection for all, and their lovely children showed
me--for the first time in my life--a glimpse of what happiness could be.”

Lady MacInnes closed her eyes and
continued.

“But ‘twas all a sham. Two years
ago I learned of the Treaty of Bruges from Ambrose Macpherson, who was visiting
Ironcross with his wife Elizabeth. Everything changed then.

“Again, I became like a madwoman,”
she whispered, gazing at his grim face. “I used my connections at court to find
out who had been sent to London so many years earlier. And what poor souls were
still
there. My own child had been languishing in a miserable English
prison for so long, while I was growing old with laughing bairns around my
knees.

“I sent for Ambrose Macpherson. Of
all the diplomats in Scotland, I knew he was the only one who had a chance to
negotiate anything with the English king.

“For once, God smiled on me, for
Ambrose succeeded. He sent me word that you were free.”

Adam kissed his mother’s hand. “Did
he know of our kinship?”

 “In my haste, in my madness and
worry, I do not know what I told him of that. But he knew...I am certain of it.
Ambrose Macpherson, though, is not one to divulge a confidence. I knew he would
not tell even you.” Lady MacInnes closed her eyes for a moment and let out a
weary breath. “That was why it was so urgent for me to see you--to tell you the
odious truth of your mother.”

“I see nothing, in all you have
done, that deserves anything less than my love and gratitude.” Adam wrapped
both of his hands around hers and held them, warming them. “I have already
stopped mourning the past. ‘Tis time to think of the future...mother.”

A weak smile broke over her lined
face. “You are your father’s son. He never blamed me for what I did.” She
slowly brought his hands to her lips and placed a gentle kiss on his fingers.
“You are as honorable as he, Adam...and as true!”

Lady Agnes MacInnes died a
fortnight after Adam’s first visit with her.

Surrounded by her loved ones, she
took her son’s and her granddaughter’s hands in each of her own, and breathed
her last.

Catherine was pleased that the
truth of Adam’s parentage had immediately been made known by Lady Agnes to the
rest of the household.

From the first, Catherine and Athol
had considered sparing John’s own mother of any discussion of the old earl’s
infidelity. But amazingly enough, after Catherine and John returned to Balvenie Castle with Adam and Susan, Lady Anne immediately requested an audience with Adam.
From the relationship that soon developed, the meeting between the two was
clearly one of both healing and forgiveness.  

Putting the lit taper to the tinder
in the hearth of her small chamber, Catherine sat back on her heels and watched
the flames begin to lick at the logs, dispelling the early-morning chill. Her
husband had still been sleeping when Catherine, unable to break her predawn ritual, had left his bed and come back to this chamber to gather her thoughts and begin
writing to her sisters.

Adam had refused offers of land
from both John Stewart and Gavin Kerr. Instead, he’d decided to take over
Huntly’s demesne as the older nobleman had insisted. He and Susan were to be
married in the spring--as soon as arrangements were finalized with her family.
More than likely, the celebration would take place shortly before Catherine
gave birth to the bairn that she was carrying right now. Imagining herself,
full-bellied and wobbly, standing at the door of the church with the happy
couple, only made her smile. Knowing her own doting husband, she could picture
Athol carrying her up the steps in his arms.  

Rising from the hearth and sitting
on the chair by the small work table which she’d had brought in, Catherine
considered the letters she intended to write. For the safety’s sake, the Percy
sisters had all agreed before their departure from England that they should not
attempt to communicate with one another unless there was something of grave
importance to share. Although each knew the whereabouts of the other two, none
wanted to put her sisters at risk.

But there
was
a matter of
importance that her sisters needed to know.

When Catherine had returned to Balvenie Castle with her husband, the small wooden chest in her chamber had been broken
open, and two of the monks, Brother Paul and Brother Egbert, had long since
disappeared. After revealing the truth of it all to her husband and explaining
how she had left the true map with the dowager--placing an imitation of her own
devising in the chest--she had needed to restrain Athol from going after the
thieves.

Unlike the brigands who had
kidnapped her and Susan, the two monks--she was convinced--threatened no one.
In fact, thinking back to the night when Catherine had followed Susan to Adam’s
encampment, Tosh reminded them that Brother Paul had been the one to put out
the fire by Catherine’s room. Catherine suggested that perhaps the monk himself
had started the blaze to bring attention to her absence and to the danger he
thought she might be facing.

Questioning Brother Bartholomew, they quickly learned that the portly monk had been too trusting of his brethren.
They even learned that the journey to the Scottish Highlands and Balvenie Castle had not been completed as a group. The other two monks had caught up to Bartholomew just north of Athol’s hunting lodge at Corgarff.

In the light of all this, Catherine
knew she should warn her sisters of all that had occurred and alert them,
should any of their old acquaintances suddenly appear from the abbey in Yorkshire.

She had other news, of course, to
tell them. Of the school that was about to open with the assistance of Brother Bartholomew and the tutors from Elgin. And of the small matter of a marriage and a
bairn.

Dipping her pen into the inkhorn,
she smiled. But before she could write a word, she was interrupted by a knock
at her door.

‘Twas still too soon for the
household to be up and about, Catherine thought. Getting up and crossing the
chamber, she pulled open the door. To her surprise, outside of her door, two
grooms stood silently with the large cloth-covered chair from the laird’s outer
chamber in their hands.

She looked questioningly from one
man to the next, and then noticed Jean standing directly behind the two with an
odd look on her face. Her hands were piled high with clean linens.

“What is all this...” Catherine
began, stepping out of her chamber to help her serving woman with the linens.

Her mouth dropped open as she looked
down the corridor.

Behind Jean, there were two other
men, holding in between them a section of the wooden frame of a large bed. And behind them, two burly stable lads were carrying a feather mattress.

Catherine squeezed past the
workers. To her shock, what she had already seen proved to be only the
beginning.

Working her way along the corridor,
she passed a seemingly unending line of serving folk. There were men and women
carrying benches, chests, chairs, coffers, tapestries, stools, trunks--even an assortment
of swords, shields, and lances. Catherine lost count of the number of people
and the pieces as she wound her way down the circular stairwell and past the
entrance to the Great Hall. At the end of the line, she found two kitchen
lasses each carrying a pile of blankets.

In a moment, she was at the door of
her husband’s outer chamber. A grinning Tosh and another warrior were just
carrying out the laird’s huge work table, under the gloomy but watchful eye of
the old steward.

Baffled, Catherine stared past them
at the empty chamber, and finally stepped in. Everything was gone.
Everything--including the wooden shutters from the windows!

Shaking her head at the madness,
she walked to her husband’s bedchamber and peeked in. That room, as well, was
devoid of all furnishings.

“It took you longer than I
thought.”

John Stewart stood by the hearth,
his broad back to the small fire. Catherine stepped in and pushed the door
closed behind her.

“You forgot the fire.”

He smiled in that same devilish way
that made her heart melt. And then she watched him as he slowly straightened
and walked toward her.

“I warned you, my love.”

“Warned me?” she said half
innocently, cherishing the way he gathered her into his arms.   

“I warned you about continuing to
leave my bed.” He started nuzzling her neck, her ear, brushing his lips along
the line of her cheekbone. “I said I would come after you.”

Suddenly, everything registered,
and Catherine placed both hands on his broad chest and stood on tiptoe, trying
to look directly into his sparkling, gray eyes.

“You are not moving all of those
things into my chamber. By the Virgin, there is at least three or four rooms
full of furniture waiting in those corridors. And...all those blankets?”

“That chamber of yours is a drafty
room.”

“But--but all that furniture! It
will never fit!”

He shrugged indifferently, and then
took possession of her lips in a deep and passionate kiss. When he broke off
the kiss, she didn’t care a whit about what would fit and what wouldn’t.

“I told you before, lass. I want to
wake up in the morning and have my wife in my arms. But at the same time, I’ve
learned to respect your need for a work room of your own. A work room,” he
repeated meaningfully. “Not a bed chamber.”

“So your solution is to move
everything in with me?”

“Aye, and in the other chambers of
that old section of the castle. Until we are done renovating this section.”

Catherine looked about the large,
bright chamber. “But there is nothing wrong with this part of the keep!”

“But there is, my love, and you
made me see it.” He drew her closer against his chest. “When we are done here,
there will be a bed chamber--here in this room. But instead of one work room,
I’ll have a section of the corridor added to these chambers, so that we’ll end
up with two.”

“Two work rooms?” She couldn’t hold
back her smile.

“Aye! And I’m thinking we should
add a nursery, as well.” He pulled at the laces on the back of her dress. “But, when our bairns happen to be in Jean’s care...”

“Or visiting their grandmother...”

“Aye. We’ll both be working quite
hard. And yet, having you so near...”

She shivered with excitement as he
slipped her dress down over her shoulders.

“We’ll need...a place to...talk?”

He nodded and stepped back,
spreading his tartan on the bare floor. “But before any of that...”

“We should check the draftiness of
this
room.”

“Aye, my love.”

Catherine sighed contentedly and
followed him to the floor. He was her husband, her lover, and the father of her
unborn bairn.

Here in the Highlands, she had
found at last her knight of a thousand dreams.

As most of you have probably
guessed, Catherine’s story is the first in a trilogy about the three Percy
sisters. In the two books that will follow (
Enchantress
and
Firebrand
),
you’ll be introduced to Laura and Adrianne and have a chance to meet the
mysterious Nichola Erskine Percy as we move closer to learning the truth behind
the Treasure of Tiberius.

In
Flame
,
the novel in which the secrets of Ironcross Castle are uncovered and in which
Gavin Kerr meets his match, Joanna MacInnes, we were delighted to introduce
John Stewart, the 4th earl of Athol. Unfortunately, we found that we simply
could not rest until we had found a suitably headstrong heroine for such a
hero. And for those of you who enjoy “catching up” on the heroes and heroines
of our past novels, we could not resist including Ambrose Macpherson from
Heart
of Gold
. It is through his wife, Elizabeth, and her relationship with Anne Boleyn, that Ambrose is able to negotiate Adam’s freedom. And to those who have read their
story,
you
know why!

Balvenie Castle and Elgin
Cathedral, two treasures of Scottish history, will certainly be identifiable to
many of our wonderful readers, as will many of the place names in the book. We
have tried to portray those places accurately, and to people them
appropriately--right down to the lairds, bishops, and millers who inhabit them
in our fiction.

Lastly, we’ll like to give our
sincere thanks to G. Leonard Knapp of the Eastern Herpetological Expo for his
help with our research regarding the snakes of Scotland and England.

We love to hear from our readers.