Saving Grace Page 2

  "I dinna know if this is such a fine idea." Fiona looked as if the sky were about to fall down. On her.

  "Fiona. Tell me why you do not see it."

  "See what?"

  "God's plan. Right here before our very eyes."

  Fiona looked completely confused, which Grace figured was a good thing.

  "Think about it. I fell at the exact moment this McNab was riding past. Surely you..." she paused, placing a hand over her heart innocently, “…you would not have me question the Lord's way? I fell on top of him. What else could that be but God's plan?"

  "One might suggest clumsiness."

  Grace waved a hand dismissively. "You might think that, but remember the tinker who came to the isle for the first time in years? He told me about the McNabs' Michaelmas plans. The way I see it, I was supposed to fall on him. We are supposed to ransom him. You cannot say there will be trouble when it is God's plan instead of merely something you think I just dreamed up."

  Fiona stared at Grace in complete silence, then turned and looked at the fallen man. She turned back toward Grace and stared at her as if the truth would be written on her face.

  A loud clap of thunder echoed from the clouds around Ben Lawers, and sounded like God's own voice.

  Grace resisted the urge to laugh at her fine timing and crossed her arms over her chest. "See, there? Heaven speaks. God agrees with me."

  Fiona turned pale.

  "Surely you will not question a Higher Power?"

  Fiona shook her head vigorously.

  "I thought not." Grace turned back to the oaf.

  Fiona took a step closer to him. "He doesn't look much like a McNab." She pointed a finger at his face. "Look there! He has a chin!"

  "Aye."

  "I've never seen a McNab with a chin."

  "Most likely it came from some poor ancestor with strong blood. One who was probably kidnapped, then forced to marry an evil McNab."

  "Which one of them do ye think he is?"

  "One too many."

  Even Fiona laughed at that.

  Grace glared down at him. "Old Donnell McNab has twelve sons. How should I know which one he is? They're all sniveling, murdering cowards who maim old men and steal from women and children."

  "Aye, that they are."

  Grace leaned closer and said, "Did you know that the loch monster was once nothing more than a cruel McNab?"

  "He was?"

  "Aye." Grace stepped closer. "The man's deeds had been so very evil, himself so cruel, a fairy of the moor mist changed him into a beast and doomed him to forever live in the loch." She slowed her speech and lowered her voice." 'Tis said ..." She paused for effect. "No bogey. No ogre. No evil warlock is as horrible as a McNab!"

  Grace moved a step closer to the man, leaned down close to him, then hunched over and looked up at Fiona with an expression she hoped was fierce and mean and ogre-like. "Hell has two McNabs who guard its gates so no one can escape. Those vile McNabs ride across the flames on the River Styx astride wild, mad, frothing kelpies. Ugly kelpies. Did you know that the devil Himself looks exactly…" She lowered her voice to raspy whisper, “…I mean exactly like the laird of the Clan McNab."

  "Those tales are true?"

  “Aye, that they are,” Grace said. "McNabs cut out their captives' livers."

  Fiona gasped.

  "And they throw them to the wolves." She waved her arm and spun around, mimicking a McNab in the act. "The same wolves that follow them like pet dogs, slobbering, mad wolves. Hungry wolves. Horrible wolves."

  Fiona looked at the oaf and slowly eased two steps backward.

  In a truly sinister tone Grace said, "They skin their prisoners alive."

  Fiona stepped back again.

  Grace began slowly moving in a circle, her elbows high and her hands clawlike and pinching the air. "They scalp their captives' heads bald." Grace picked her way over to Fiona with giant, monster-like steps and wiggled her fingers near Fiona's curly red hair.

  Fiona grabbed her hair with her hands. "Nooooo."

  "Aye, they do. And worse!”

  "Worse?"

  "Aye. To the women." Grace waited, pausing for dramatic tension. "To the women. 'Tis said the McNabs strip them naked, then have their way with them."

  "No!" Fiona shivered, hugging herself.

  "Aye," Grace said with a smug nod. "They do."

  There was a long pause before Fiona dropped her hands to her sides and gave Grace a direct look. "What does that mean? Have their way with them?

  Grace was lost in thought, trying to think up her next grim detail.

  "Grace?"

  "Hmm?"

  "I asked ye what it is."

  Grace looked up. "What what is?"

  "McNabs having 'their way with’ women."

  Grace had no idea, so she planted her hands on her hips. "Well, if you don't know what it means, I'm not going to tell you!"

  Fiona paused, then narrowed her eyes. "Do ye know?"

  "Of course. I am the laird's granddaughter. I have to know these things."

  "Then tell me what it means."

  "I cannot. You are not the laird's granddaughter."

  "I'm yer friend and a distant cousin."

  Grace shook her head. "And as your friend, a true friend, I'm going to spare you the gruesome details. Now stop pestering me and help me tie up this devil."

  Fiona frowned at her. "How do ye do that?"

  "Do what?"

  "Manage to twist yer argument until ye make sense?"

  " 'Tis gift from God, like this McNab oaf." Grace answered over one shoulder as she knelt beside the man and struggled to push him onto his side. "He has to weigh close to fifteen stone!" She sat back on her heels and muttered, "Must be that hard and heavy McNab head. Come help me push him over."

  After a few hard shoves and grunts, they managed to move him onto his side, and Grace wedged her knees beneath him to prop him off the ground. She extended one hand toward Fiona. "Hand me the rope."

  When her hand remained empty, she glanced at Fiona, who just stood there, frowning before she turned her left ear toward Grace.

  "The rope!” Grace shouted. “Give me the rope."

  Fiona turned this way and that, searching the area. "Where is the rope?"

  Grace scooted backwards and dropped the man's shoulder. He thumped to the ground like a sack of rocks. She turned, stunned. "What do you mean, 'where's the rope?*"

  "Don't ye have it?"

  "No. You were supposed to have it."

  "I don't have it."

  "But I told you to get it."

  "When?"

  "Before we left."

  "Ye did?"

  "Aye. I told you to get the rope from the stables."

  While chewing her lip uneasily, Fiona put her hand into the sporran that hung from her belt, felt around for a moment, then pulled her hand out and opened it for Grace to see.

  In her palm was a brown waxy ball the size of a walnut.

  "What is that?"

  "The soap from the table."

  Grace groaned. Fiona had misheard her…again. "Well, what's done is done. I still need something to bind him with." She stood and began to search the area. "Stand over him, and if he so much as moves, clobber him on the head with that broken branch."

  "What broken branch?"

  "The one that's lying next to him."

  "That branch? Me?" Fiona's voice was barely a squeak. She took two more steps back.

  "Aye."

  "What if I kill him?"

  Grace just looked at her.

  "I cannot kill him."

  "He's a McNab. You couldn't possibly hit him that hard."

  Still, Fiona just stood there.

  "Trust me. The Lord, in His infinite wisdom, would not have broken the branch if He didn't want us to use it."

  "I thought you broke the branch."

  "I did, but remember it was God's plan. I just happened to be part of it. Now…" she said, thoughtfully tapping a finger against
her pursed lips. "What can we use for a rope?"

  Fiona stood over the man, the branch held in her quivering hands.

  Grace eyed the belt that held Fiona's plaid in place; then she looked down at her own. A belt would bind him well. But he, too, had a belt. Why should their plaids be left to billow in the icy Highland air? Let this McNab freeze.

  She knelt beside him and began to unbuckle the belt; it was fine wide leather, ornately tooled, the buckle itself a solid piece of heavy, expensive silver. It almost broke her heart to look at it and think of how many meals that buckle had cost.

  After the hard years they had suffered, all she saw was how many people the cost of such an ornament would feed. She could vaguely remember her mother wearing jewels and precious metals, but that was back in the days when Clan McNish had power and wealth. What little finery the clan owned had been stolen by the thieving McNabs or sold and bartered for food.

  She looked at the man, this McNab, knowing he represented everything cruel in her world, everything stolen from them. She began to unbuckle his belt.

  A minute later, when her empty stomach growled loudly, she scowled down at her enemy for a flicker of a second, then braced her knees and grasped the belt tightly with both hands.

  Then she pulled the belt flap back just a wee bit too hard (with all her might).

  The belt tightened a good three notches and man grunted loudly.

  "Grace McNish!" Fiona screeched, jumped back and almost dropped the branch. "Are ye trying to wake him?"

  "I couldn't help myself. Come closer, Fiona."

  "Why?"

  "Because I am going to use his belt as a rope to bind him. Come, now. Help me."

  "How?"

  "You guard him while I try to pull this belt out from under him." Grace started to roll him over again, then paused. "Remember, now. If he so much as opens an eye, clobber him."

  Chapter 2

  He’d like to clobber her.

  Colin Campbell, Earl of Argyll, Lord of the Isles and a descendant of the King of the Scots, lay surprisingly still as the little shrew tried to belt his hands together. He was the second most powerful man in all of Scotland, yet he lay there and willingly played the captive, eyes closed, his breathing deceptively even, except for the painful moment she had near halved him with his own belt. She must have pulled it a good five notches tighter.

  She was strong, he thought. Probably had bulging arms and a chest like an ox. Skinny legs and no ass. A woman shaped like a tree, with the kind of face that went with that mouth of hers. Grace McNish would have ruddy skin, a crooked hook of a nose, a wart or two, straggly brown hair, and small, sneaky eyes, black to match her humor.

  "There," she said brightly, as if she had just tied a ribbon in her hair instead of binding the hands of the man who held her very precarious future in them.

  He heard her brush her own hands together with a couple of cocky claps. She stood next to him and shouted, "Put the branch down, Fiona, and help me turn the oaf."

  Colin's jaw tightened. He wanted fiercely to teach her a fine lesson about whom she called an oaf.

  Two pairs of small hands gripped him; one pair tentatively held him by his left shoulder.

  Fiona.

  One pair pinched viciously into his left hip.

  Grace, the shrew, whose future was looking dim.

  With a few grunts and gasps, they rolled him over and onto his back, where he rocked slightly on top of his bound hands. He listened for their next move and thought about when he should make his.

  "Grace!" a lad shouted from behind them; then there was the sound of running feet thrashing through the nearby bracken.

  The thrashing ceased with a loud thud!

  Twigs, mud, and damp leaves splattered on the side of Colin's face. He didn't flinch, but he could feel a wet leaf slowly slide down his cheek and stop in his ear.

  The lad scrambled to his feet, sending more mud this way and that. "They're coming. Grace! The McNab supply wagons! They're almost here! And there's no guard!"

  "I've captured their guard, Duncan." The shrew placed a small bare foot atop his belly and pressed hard enough to make him grunt.

  He could feel her look, but kept his breath even and shallow—something that wasn't easy with that little foot jabbing into his gut. He could feel them all staring at him and wondered what they would do if he just leapt up. If his hands hadn't been bound, he would have done it, too.

  Grace took her foot off his belly. "There is no time to stand here and gawk at him. Where are the others?" she asked.

  So there were more of this little McNish band of thieves. Colin waited to see if they mentioned how many.

  "They are still in their hiding places," Duncan answered.

  "Quickly, then! Drag this stupid oaf into the bushes and hide him well."

  "The bushes?"

  "Aye. But you'll have to use the really big bushes over there. Then get back into your positions."

  "What about his feet? They're free." Duncan took a step closer to him.

  There was a long moment of silence.

  "Tie his shoes together with those silk laces," she said. "Tie them in knots."

  Colin mentally swore. She was a wise little witch.

  A moment later, with his cloak and beltless plaid dragging and bunching beneath him, they hauled him through the sharp bracken while he began to covertly work his wrists free.

  He needed them free so he could wring her scrawny neck.

  They stopped after dragging him over a sharp rock, then dropped him into a thicket of bushes.

  He lay there listening to their muted voices, to the shrew shushing the others, and the sounds of them shimmying up the nearby trees.

  Then there was nothing but nature's silence, the same deceptive silence he'd blindly ridden into like a damned green fool, on a damned green and foolish horse.

  His own stallion had turned lame in the same fall that had ruined his clothes and forced him to borrow these at the last inn.

  If he had been astride Torquay, instead of some hired, skittish nag, he wouldn't be lying in a thicket trussed up like a Michaelmas goose with his own damned belt. His men would find this vastly amusing, fodder for jests that he would not easily live down. His men should have been scarcely an hour's ride behind him, and, luckily for him, the belt was loosening.

  Soon this Grace McNish would care very much about his good and bad side.

  The call of voices and the creak of wagons came from the road. He turned over, using their noise to camouflage any sound his movement might have made. He opened his eyes for the first time.

  Through the bushes he could see three heavily loaded provision wagons as they lumbered up the grade. Their drivers were only servants, old men who tossed a wineskin between them, drinking and laughing and jesting as they drove right into a trap.

  The lead wagon edged past.

  Colin looked up at the nearest tree.

  Sunlight caught the glint of metal—a dirk pulled. The dirk moved. The branches shifted.

  A moment later, from that tree came a shrieking battle cry that sounded like the howl of a sick hellhound.

  "A McNish!"

  A flash of wild black hair and bare wiggling legs flew through the air.

  Past the driver...

  Past the wagon...

  Past anything remotely near her target.

  She landed with all the grace of a tangled puppet. Right into a huge mudhole.

  He bit back a bark of laughter.

  She lay sprawled there for no more than a blink, then scampered up, covered in mud from head to toe. She launched herself at the driver.

  Somehow she managed to get her dirk poised at the man's throat. "A McNish!" she shouted again.

  "A McNish!" came the answering battle cries of her band, and they began to fall from the trees on top of the other wagons.

  Fall, not jump.

  There was a loud thud and a curse.

  "Duncan?" the shrew called out.

  "A
ye?"

  "Is all well?"

  "Aye." He paused for a long telling moment, then said, "I missed."

  So did she, Colin thought, amazed that they had managed to capture these wagons at all. But they had. The old men driving them looked stunned as they wobbled on their seats, so drunk they looked ready to keel over.

  A truly awful screeching and hellish bellow rent the air; it sounded like a wildcat dying.

  Colin winced, shook his head slightly to get his ears to stop ringing, then turned toward the racket.

  Standing in the road beside the first wagon was a red- haired lass, the reed of a bagpipe between her lips and her cheeks puffed and red as plump autumn apples.

  Fiona.

  She blew on the thing again.

  The blare rang clear through his teeth right down to the very bones in his toes. His jaw fell open in surprise and pain.

  The mud-covered shrew flinched, her shoulders hunching almost to her ears, while the old driver closest to him pounded the heel of his hand against one ear.

  Fiona started to blow on that damned thing again. It was such an ear-bleeding and awful sound Colin almost leapt up and bolted from the bushes to stop her himself.

  But Grace reached out with her free hand and grabbed a cord on the drone pipe, pulling it away from the girl's mouth before she shouted, "Fiona!"

  The lass looked up.

  "Enough pipes! Why are you blowing on them?"

  " 'Tis our battle hymn. Could ye hear it?" Fiona asked with a frown. "I couldna."

  Colin's teeth were still ringing. Hell, you could have heard those pipes in Edinburgh.

  "Aye, Fiona. We can hear it. Next time sling the pipes from your left side, next to your good ear. Then you can hear it, too."

  A deaf piper, Colin thought. Now, why didn't that surprise him?

  "Duncan?" The mud witch spoke through clenched teeth, and she gave die lad in the next wagon a sharp look.

  Duncan was a lad of about sixteen, whose hair was covered in leaves and his face freckled with specks of mud. He held an old claymore, its point on another of the drivers, who was so drunk he fell forward and began to snore loudly.