An Outlaw's Word (Highland Heartbeats Book 9) Read online

  An Outlaw’s Word

  Highland Heartbeats

  Aileen Adams

  Contents

  An Outlaw’s Word

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  An Outlaw’s Word

  Book Nine of the Highland Heartbeats Series!

  Some words are meant forever...

  Ysmaine’s half Scottish, half French, all attitude and independence.

  Quinn’s a mercenary that needs more cash than the recent jobs have been providing.

  She’s got the means to money. He’s got a need for it.

  She’s not willing to do what needs to be done for the money. He’s willing to kidnap and hold her for ransom.

  Until…

  Until a Frenchman with a title and no morals steps into the picture.

  Now…

  Her wants change. His word changes.

  1

  “That’s it? That’s all we have to show for ourselves?”

  Quinn Murray looked around at the others, the three men who were as close as brothers to him and knew the answer full well. There was no need to ask the question.

  Still, he held fast to a slim hope that one of them may have been holding out a surprise.

  That hope was dashed when Rodric Anderson shook his head. “Aye, that’s all. And don’t think for a second that I don’t feel the pinch as acutely as any of ye. Me with a bairn on the way.” Rodric’s wife, Caitlin, was due to deliver within days.

  It had been a mild winter by all standards, what little snow was left on the ground by March was thawing quickly and aided by heavy rains which washed away all traces of the long nights and cold days. While the air had not quite been warm—there was still a need to ride beneath furs provided by Padraig, Rodric’s brother and their host for the winter—the four of them had seen little reason to huddle around the fire when there was silver to be collected.

  They might have done just as well to cluster by the warmth of the flames, judging from the paltry sums they’d been earning.

  There simply wasn’t much need for them, at least not yet. Most in the Highlands and the surrounding country were still making the necessary repairs to their homes and fields, unconcerned for much beyond their borders. Most news from the village and further out hadn’t been delivered yet, the men on horseback more likely just on their way west from Kirkcaldy, or from Inverness to the north.

  Once such news had been delivered, old Murphy would likely have more opportunity for them, missions they might accept. Until then, the pickings were disappointingly slim.

  “I might ride into the village to see if Murphy has anything for us,” Quinn proposed.

  Brice lifted a questioning brow. “Oh? What’s the hurry, then? We’ve still got more than enough to sustain us comfortably.”

  “Aye, and it isn’t as if Padraig has asked us to make our leave,” Fergus agreed. “On the contrary. Did he not extend the invitation for us to treat the Anderson stronghold as our home for the foreseeable future?”

  Their placidity baffled him, then again, they could afford to be placid. Rodric was in his ancestral home, having spent much of the winter advising his younger brother on clan business on the rare occasions when Padraig needed assistance. Brice and Alana had wed over the winter and had spent much of their time behind closed doors, as newlyweds were wont to do.

  Fergus, meanwhile, had done his level best to train the Anderson men in combat. Up to that point, they’d been undisciplined. Unskilled. Prone to allowing emotion—typically rage—to inform their tactics. Typical clansmen, really, good at wildly swinging their weapons but likely to walk straight into an oncoming blow.

  Everyone had found their place within the clan, at least for a time, and along with this they’d all insisted on compensating Padraig for the food they consumed and the work it took for Caitlin’s aunt, Sorcha, and her household staff members to clean up after them.

  It was a comfortable arrangement.

  It was enough to drive Quinn half out of his mind. He wanted to move, to be out of doors even if it meant riding in the chill dampness of late winter. He longed to feel free. Instead, the walls were all but closing in on him and had been throughout the winter.

  One of the household lasses sauntered through the room a bit slower than she needed to, catching Quinn’s eye as she always made a point of doing. He looked away, the stirring in his loins little more than a bitter reminder of what Sorcha had promised to cut off if he touched even one of the young women she oversaw.

  “Ye know how fond I am of all of ye,” she’d whispered after having cornered him one evening, while the rest of the household enjoyed a large, raucous feast in the Great Hall. She’d trailed him when he’d followed a serving girl into the kitchen and caught him unawares, pushing him up against the wall while holding a large carving knife below his waist.

  “Aye,” he’d choked, afraid to draw too deep a breath, much less move. While he was rather fond of Sorcha in return—she who reminded him so much of his mother—he had no doubt she’d be deft with a blade.

  “I’m also rather fond of the lasses who work in the household,” she’d informed him. “They’re fine, good girls who do not need a rascal such as yourself to get them with child, then run away on some fool adventure he might never come back from. Are ye understandin’ me?”

  He’d nodded, deeply uncomfortable at the increase of pressure at his groin. How sharp was the knife, exactly? He wasn’t in a hurry to find out.

  “Also,” she’d grunted, “I’ve neither the time nor the patience to comfort a weeping young lass after her heart’s been broken beyond repair. There’s work to be done here, from morning until night, and that work does not include emotional outbursts. Do ye hear me, Quinn Murray?”

  “I do.”

  “Then you won’t be laying so much as a fingernail on any of them? No matter how much they seem to fancy ye?”

  He’d groaned inwardly, suddenly questioning the wisdom of this bargain. It would mean avoiding temptation time and again, and he’d never been one to turn his back on temptation.

  And there was still an entire winter ahead. Likely cold. Lonesome in his bed at night, comfortable thought it might have been, wondering who might be warming it…

  “I don’t hear your response,” Sorcha had grunted, pressing the side of the blade more firmly against the inside of his thigh.

  “Aye, aye, all right. You win, woman. I’ll keep my hands to myself.”

  Just like that, it was over. She’d stepped back, smiling her usual smile, then turned to pick up a platter of roasted root vegetables. “Here. Make yourself useful and take this to the table. Padraig loves his turnips.”

  Yes, it would be a fine bit of distraction to ride into the village. Perhaps he might avail himself of the company of a lass or two in one of the
establishments intended for such doings. He normally stopped himself at one but, after all, it had been a long time. There had been no occasion to pause and enjoy himself while on the road with his friends.

  Rodric sat back in his chair with a shrug. “Aye, that might not be a bad idea. I would go myself, only…”

  Quinn waved a hand. “Ye needn’t say it, lad.” With Caitlin so near her time, Rodric had been loath to step foot out the front door in the last several days.

  “Do ye want one of us to accompany?” Fergus asked.

  “Nay, you’ve both enough to do here,” he insisted. “And it would do me good to get a bit of time to myself. A man needs to be alone with his thoughts at times.”

  “But ye won’t be alone,” Rodric jested, and the three of them laughed in a knowing manner. There was no getting anything past them.

  Quinn joined them in their laughter.

  There was still a chill in the light winds coming in from the west, carrying the reminder of winter even as the sun tried to warm the earth and coax it into new life. As he rode away from the house, the sounds of activity fading behind him with each step the horse took, he noted the beginnings of fresh, bright green blades of grass poking their tips out from the rich, black soil.

  It was always his favorite time of year. So much promise of what waited ahead. So much life ready to burst forth. Opportunity around the bend.

  He’d always felt that way, ever since an unhappy household had made winter miserable for him in his youth. His father with little to do in the way of work, the small family farm quiet, the fields frozen over. Nothing to do but brood and drink far too much ale and take his boredom and frustration out on his wife and sons.

  His second wife. Quinn’s mother. The poor wretch of a woman. Warm, loving, eager to please, always trying her best to win her husband’s approval.

  But she never had, not quite, for she was not the woman the late Kenneth Murray had loved. The woman he’d lost to some unnamed illness when their son, Lennox, was only two years old. Kenneth had married again in haste, desperate to provide a mother for his boy.

  He’d never gotten over that first wife of his, whose shadow had hung over the Murray farm as long as he’d lived. Which hadn’t been far past Quinn’s fifteenth birthday, after a drunken night in the village tavern had caused old Kenneth to fall from his horse and drown in a shallow puddle along the side of the road.

  A sad end to a pathetic man who was like as not happier to be dead and with his beloved wife, if Heaven existed, which Quinn was doubtful of.

  The only bright light in the house had been Lennox. Quinn had adored him as only a younger brother could, all but worshipping him as a hero. Four years separated them, making them a bit too far apart in age to ever have been close, though Lennox had protected him and cheered him when things were darkest.

  And they had gotten quite dark, indeed.

  It was with amazement that he reached the village, having directed the horse without conscious effort. Too wrapped up in memory. He greeted a few familiar faces who passed his way, men he’d grown to recognize over the months spent in the area.

  He wondered what it would be like to make a home somewhere, a real home, to cease moving to and fro as necessity deemed fit. It would like as not be enough to drive him out of his mind, for movement and action had become his way of life. If he had hardly been able to sit through an entire winter without losing hold of himself, what would an entire year do?

  The closest tavern was rather quiet, though it was early in the day and most of the village men were busy about their work. Quinn slid from the saddle and tied the horse off to a post before entering.

  The owner of the establishment was a jovial man, though Quinn suspected this attitude was more the result of good business practices than any true warmth on the man’s part. While his mouth was normally tipped upward at the corners in a smile, his eyes were unfailingly hard and sharp as flint. Seeing everything while his shrewd mind worked out how to squeeze another few pence from his patrons.

  “Aye, so it’s young Quinn Murray, is it?” he called out, waving Quinn over to where he’d just rolled a cask of ale from a small side room. “And how are things with the Andersons?”

  “Just fine, thank ye,” Quinn replied, his eyes moving about the room as they always did when he entered an enclosed space. Pure reflex, honed throughout his days in the army. A soldier never entered a tavern or inn or even a home without surveying his surroundings.

  “Please, send my best wishes to Padraig,” the tavernkeeper insisted.

  “I will that,” Quinn replied out of habit, too distracted to pay attention. “Has old Murphy been around these parts as of late?”

  “Aye, he has, the old rascal,” the man chuckled, shaking his head. “He tells stories fit to keep a man’s interest for hours on end, that one. I must admit, between the two of us, that I always sell more ale and wine when he’s in the place.”

  It wasn’t on account of Murphy’s personal charm, of that Quinn was certain, for the man reeked like a cesspool on a humid summer’s day, and that was when he was at his least offensive.

  But he could see how Murphy’s tales of past adventure and close calls with bands of thieves, violent noblemen and the like could capture a man’s imagination and keep him drinking far past the time he’d promised his wife he’d return home.

  “Was he here recently?” Quinn prompted.

  “Earlier in the morning, having his customary mug of ale and crust of bread. How the man keeps body and soul together is beyond my understanding. He said something of checking with a few friends over at the inn, if you’re in need of him.”

  “I am and thank ye.” It was a bit of good fortune as Quinn saw it, seeing as how he did not much care for the tavernkeeper or his false pleasantries. He’d always been in favor of a man facing another man full-on, with no pretenses.

  Which was why he would never be much of a businessman, he thought with a wry grin.

  The inn was only two doors down from the tavern, the village blacksmith sitting in between the establishments. Quinn nodded in greeting to the men working inside, the doors flung open, so they might let out some of the heat which built as they bent iron to their will.

  It was like walking through a wall of flame, Quinn thought as he passed. Working inside must have been akin to working in hell. Another trade he would be ill-suited for, though he thought nothing of riding for endless days under the blazing summer sun and sleeping out of doors in the harshest, wettest conditions.

  He preferred the man who ran the inn, who seemed genuinely happy to see him when he entered, and not because he felt it might earn him a few pieces of silver. “Ah, it’s been far too long,” Clyde McDervish beamed, clapping Quinn on the back. “As soon as I saw ye riding past, I hoped you might cross my threshold.”

  “I understand a friend of mine may have also crossed your threshold,” he explained, looking over Clyde’s shoulder into the main room of the inn’s ground floor where patrons gathered to eat, converse, and conduct business.

  “He did, and he’s enjoying his dinner,” Clyde explained, steering Quinn inside to where Murphy sat alone at a table in the corner. He speared a hunk of some unknown roasted meat on the end of his knife when he saw Quinn approaching.

  “I hope that isn’t what you wish to do to me,” Quinn chuckled as he sat. “I’ve no desire to be at the end of your knife, old man.”

  Murphy laughed over a mouthful of food, revealing both his ruined teeth and the food he’d somehow managed to chew with them. “Nay, nay,” he insisted, spitting bits of meat and bread out with each word.

  Quinn managed to disguise his disgust, at least, he hoped he did.

  He decided to do the speaking in hopes that the man might at least swallow what was left in his mouth. “We’re at a loss, my friend.” He leaned in against his nose’s better judgment. “Tell me ye have something for us, or I might go stark raving mad.”

  Murphy laughed again, but not as genuinely this t
ime, which Quinn knew meant bad news. His heart sank.

  “I’m sorry to say it, but I’ve nothing of real worth for ye,” he lamented after taking a deep gulp of the ale left in his mug. He wiped his mouth with the crusty sleeve of his tunic.

  Quinn averted his eyes before curiosity caused him to wonder exactly what had dried there. “Nothing at all?”

  “Nothing of the nature which you four normally undertake,” Murphy explained. “A handful of smaller tasks which, between ye and myself, four men aren’t needed for. Two, at the most.”

  “I see.” That would mean deciding which two of the four would sit back and allow the others to collect a fee.

  “I didna think ye’d be wanting to decide that sort of thing amongst yourselves,” Murphy observed, watching Quinn’s crestfallen face.

  “You were correct, though I’m certain we could work something out.”

  “Perhaps ye might, at that.” Murphy leaned in. “I have some news for ye, just for ye, which might change yer mind and leave ye feeling less inclined to allow yer friends to collect what could be yours.”

  “What are ye getting at?” Quinn murmured, careful to avoid being overheard the moment Murphy’s voice dropped to little more than a whisper. The nature of their meeting had suddenly changed.

  “I’ve word from yer brother. Lennox.”

  Quinn’s heart clenched. “What about him?”

  “He’s in debtors’ prison. I’m sorry to be the one to tell ye.”