Imposter Bride (27 page)

They walked in silence for a good five minutes,
their hearts heavy, their path closed in by the steep walls of a
glen with a small brook running black and cold at its bottom.

“What is this place?” he asked, still not sure of
his bearings. “I got lost in the fog.”

“Dunure.”

“Ah.” He knew of Dunure. A few more hours of riding,
and he would be home to Loch Lemond.

“What’s your name?” Ramsay inquired as he urged his
horse through the shallows of the brook to the other side.

“Connie, Sir. Constance MacLoughlin.”

“I’m Ramsay.”

“Not Captain Ramsay?”

“You’ve heard of him?”

“Oh, aye. ‘Tis whispered ‘round here that if ye make
it t’ London, Captain Ramsay and his bunch’ll help ye, no questions
asked. He’s an angel. The only hope some of us got, sir.”

“A knight in shining armor, eh?” he commented
bitterly, knowing he had not done nearly enough for his homeland.
He had not made a stand for Scotland as his father had done, had
not sacrificed his life for the cause. He had done nothing but
provide small gestures of aid, a service that seemed cowardly and
small-minded when Scotland needed help on a much grander scale.
Still, he was alive and able to help while his father’s bones
rotted in the ground, useless. Somewhere between the two extremes
lay the proper course. He just hadn’t found it yet and wasn’t
certain it existed. “This captain of yours sounds more myth than
man, Connie.”

“You don’t know him then? He’s not your kin?”

“Not the man you speak of, no.” He guided his mount
up a steep incline, making sure the body stayed securely upon the
back of the horse. “The only Captain Ramsay I’ve heard of owns a
gambling house in London.”

She turned and looked at him, her eyes red and
hard-edged from crying. “I believe the captain’s real, Mr. Ramsay,”
she said vehemently. “I have to.”

He stared at her, struck to his core. How many other
Scots knew his name and felt the same way? Or was his reputation
known only here in the southwest?

After the better part of an hour, they came upon a
clearing and a small cottage built of stones gathered from the
surrounding field. There, Ramsay met Connie’s family, her gaunt
mother and father, and a swarm of offspring—far too many people to
live in three small rooms. He tried not to let the dismay at seeing
their living conditions show in his face, and left a generous
handful of guineas on the mantel when no one was looking. Then he
and Connie’s father headed off to bury Jamie in a thicket where the
grave could not be seen. The ground was hard and difficult to
break, and after another hour, they finally chipped out a hole deep
enough for a decent grave. When the job was finished, Ramsay
checked his watch, shocked to discover it was past noon. The
morning had disappeared in a swirl of mist and misery. At this
rate, he wouldn’t make it to Loch Lemond until mid afternoon.

As they returned to fetch the rest of the family for
a few words in Jamie’s memory, they heard a scream rend the
air.

Ramsay dashed toward the cottage, leaving the older
man to catch up. He pulled on his coat as he ran, admonishing
himself for leaving his horse out in the open, and his weapons out
of reach. Breaking from the wall of gorse, he spied three men on
horseback, wearing the familiar scarlet uniforms of the English
army. One of them had Connie by the hair. Ramsay’s blood rose in
anger, and he shouted at the soldiers. All three of them looked his
way, their expressions plainly displaying their surprise at
discovering a gentleman among the peasants.

“What’s going on here?” Ramsay demanded, taking
their measure. The three soldiers were cut from the same unsavory
cloth as many of the men he’d seen posted to the frontier in any
part of the world: unshaven, unkempt and mostly unprincipled.
Patrolling the outback of the British empire, the trio likely
deemed themselves above the law, as their superiors turned a
convenient blind eye to their activities, as long as the King
benefited. So had it been in the colonies.

“This bitch defied the Crown,” the sergeant spat,
giving Connie’s red hair a yank. “We told her to leave MacLoughlin
swinging, but she didn’t listen.”

“Let her go.”

“Not on your life, sir. We don’t let treason go
unpunished.”

“Since when has it been treason to bury a
husband?”

“When the Crown says to let him swing and rot!”

“Then let him swing in the spring, gentlemen. The
poor brute will last this cold winter through, only serving to
scare poor post boys and the ladies and getting in the way of the
mail coach.”

“And until then, let him sleep in the ground?”

“Why not?” Ramsay continued in his best American
drawl. “He’s learned his lesson. Don’t trouble him until spring.
Until then, you three men can enjoy the pleasures of a nice warm
pub, with my compliments.” He held out a hundred pound note.

A hush fell over the little group, as Connie’s
family stared at the money, praying the soldiers would take the
bribe and leave them be, while the two privates gaped hungrily at
the drinking money, obviously hoping their superior would let them
kick up their heels by a fire instead of trudging about the dreary
countryside in the dead of winter.

“You’re a logical one, governor,” the sergeant
snarled, releasing Connie’s hair with a cruel jerk that sent her
sprawling backward in the snow. “I like the way you think.” He held
out his hand for the money.

Ramsay kept the bill at chest level, forcing the
mounted sergeant to bend over to claim it. When he did so, Ramsay
grabbed him by the arm, unsheathed his knife, yanked the unbalanced
soldier off his horse, and slit his throat—all in one swift
movement. Before the body had settled in its own pool of blood,
Ramsay jumped onto the sergeant’s horse, pulled the steed around,
and slapped him to a full gallop.

Just as he had planned, he heard the stunned
soldiers take after him, their horses pounding across the clearing
in pursuit. Ramsay jumped a small stone fence and tore through an
expanse of heather, praying his mount wouldn’t lose its footing,
and trusting in his quick reflexes to read the terrain as it
appeared out of nowhere in the mist.

He had killed the ringleader, he was sure, and now
wracked his brains for a way to dispose of the two lesser men. He
was confident that he could outride them—he could outride almost
any man—but running away was not good enough. The other two
soldiers could implicate him and Connie’s family in the death of
their sergeant. He had to make sure he killed them both. But how?
He had left his pistol on his horse. The sergeant had been heavily
armed on his person, but his mount carried only a musket, which had
to be primed and loaded. Shooting a musket while standing on solid
ground was inaccurate enough, but shooting the weapon from the back
of a horse would be sheer idiocy. He’d have to find a place to
ambush the soldiers.

The longer he rode, the stronger grew the smell of
the sea, and he wondered if the route he was on would take him to
the ocean’s shore. Through the rising fog, he caught a glimpse of a
gray expanse of water, and surmised he must be traveling northward,
paralleling the sea at fairly close quarters. To the left, he knew
the land dropped two hundred feet in stark cliffs to the rocky
beach below—a dangerous leap he had no wish to take in the fog. He
would have to be doubly careful, riding at such breakneck
speed.

His mount was tiring, however, and foam flecks
spattered Ramsay’s knees and cuffs as they thundered northward, the
soldiers not more than three lengths behind him, appearing and
disappearing in the puffs of fog like dogged apparitions.

Then suddenly, the ground dropped away. Shocked,
Ramsay pulled hard to the side, dragging his horse’s head nearly to
his right knee. The horse screamed and reared up, dancing on the
wet stone precipice of a great gorge, which had been eaten away by
the relentless surf pounding hundreds of feet below. Ramsay hadn’t
seen the drop off until the very last moment, and now struggled
with every fiber in his body to control his mount and keep them
both from plunging to their deaths. His horse reared again,
throwing him backward. He landed with a hard thump on the mossy
ledge of the cliff, and immediately rolled to the side, out of
harm’s way, ignoring the sharp pain in his hip.

Behind him galloped the other two horses, oblivious
to the danger ahead, until they, too, scrambled in terror at the
moment of truth, but a truth that had dawned too late. Ramsay saw
their terrified eyes rimmed in white as horse and master tangled
into a desperate churning of legs and arms. The horses’ massive
bodies turned and twisted as they skidded over the edge, screaming
like men as they plummeted downward, taking their white-faced
riders to a watery grave.

For a moment, Ramsay lay near the edge of the cliff,
trying to catch his breath, thanking Providence for sparing him
from the fate of the two others, and allowing his quaking limbs to
recover. He hadn’t been that close to death in years. In that
moment, he was reminded how sweet life was and how lucky a man he
was for being spared.

He closed his eyes and Sophie’s face loomed behind
his lids as it often did when he fell into bed or lapsed into
thought. What was he going to do? How was he going to live with
himself if he did not tell her the truth? And how could he sell her
to that bastard, Edward Metcalf?

But could he turn his back on Highclyffe?

Ramsay scowled. His thoughts churned as they had
roiled with every step northward. There was no good answer. No easy
answer. But he had to decide soon.

When his breathing grew close to normal, he slowly
stood up and hobbled over to his exhausted horse. Its ears pitched
forward in wariness at his approach.

“A bit more service, laddie,” Ramsay said, slowly
reaching for the reins so as not to spook the animal. “‘Tis all I
ask of you.”

The horse jerked its head up, but Ramsay managed to
grab the leads. Carefully he retraced his steps, leading the horse
away from the cliff, and cheering as a weak ray of sunlight cut
through the rising fog.

“There, you see?” he commented, as much to encourage
his still-shaking knees as the animal behind him. “The worst is
over.”

At one o’clock, Ramsay and the sergeant’s horse
cantered into the clearing where all the trouble had begun. Each
bounce of the horse hurt his backside where he’d fallen to the
ground after being thrown, but he continued to ride, determined to
finish the day’s work.

Connie and her father met him in the yard.

“Are you all right?” Connie asked, running up to his
horse.

“Aye.” Ramsay looked around. “Where’s the
sergeant?”

“What sergeant?” Connie’s father replied.

Ramsay glanced at the ground where he’d last seen
the soldier lying dead. All traces of blood had been removed.

“Where’s my horse?” he asked, without inquiring what
had been done with the body. It was better that neither of them
knew much of the others’ work.

“Tied in the gorse, so no one can see it.”

“Good.” Ramsay dismounted with a grimace, and gave
the reins to Connie. “Give this one some water and grain if you
have it. He served me well. Then give him a slap so he’ll go home.
He has a tale to tell.”

“Of the others?” Connie asked.

“Aye.” Ramsay brushed the foam-flecks and mud off
his sleeves. “The others took a trip to the beach.” He looked up,
his mouth grim. “The hard way.”

“Then they’re dead?” the old man asked,
incredulous.

“Aye.”

“What can I say, man?” Connie’s father reached out
to shake his hand. “You saved our lives!”

“No, I put you in danger. And I had to make up for
it.”

“Will you stay for a bite or a drop at least?”

“My thanks, but I wish to make Loch Lemond before
nightfall.”

The father nodded and Connie returned from her
task.

“Shall I show you to your horse?” she inquired.

“Yes, thanks.”

Ramsay said farewell to Connie’s family and then
slowly walked back to the area they’d buried her husband. She
ducked through a wall of dense shrubbery, and he followed. His
horse whinnied in greeting.

“He’s watered and fed, sir,” Connie remarked,
reaching for the reins and handing them to him with a smile.

“Thanks, lass.” He took a moment to look at her.
“You’d best report your missing spouse as soon as possible. And be
distraught.”

“Aye. I will.”

“Good.” He turned to put a foot in the stirrup.

“Sir?”

He paused and turned. She stepped up and wrapped her
arms around him, hugging him tightly through all the layers of wool
he wore. He let her embrace him, though he was anxious to take his
leave.

“Thank you!” she breathed near his throat. “God
bless you, Captain Ramsay!”

He gently pulled away, ignoring her last words, and
swung up to the saddle.

“Good luck to you, lass,” he said. And then he
turned, and headed northward, wondering what he’d find and how he
would feel when he saw Highclyffe at last.

When Sophie and Edward descended the last of the
Border hills into Scotland at midday on Friday, she knew the week
of relentless traveling was coming to an end. Soon she would have
no excuses left for fending off Edward’s advances. The last two
nights had been difficult, but she’d managed to convince Edward to
wait until their wedding night to consummate their marriage. She
knew it was silly of her to push him away, as he was going to be
her bed partner for the next thirty years, if they were fortunate
enough to live that long. Still, each night she did not have to
share his bed was a night for which she would fight.

All too soon she would have no reason to refuse
Edward Metcalf. She would be joined to him, sentenced to lie next
to him and to allow him whatever access he desired to her body. She
had expected more from life once she had arrived in England, but
bad luck had eliminated what few choices she had. She must settle
for a loveless marriage and a name that was not her own.