Chapter 32

“What?” Jossy snapped. “Don’t be ridiculous! Tell them, Drew. Tell them where ye’re…”

Drew gazed up at her, his heart heavy with guilt. A whole range of emotions played across Jossy’s face—disbelief, realization, horror, rage, and finally a cold hatred—and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do or say to make her hate him less.

He wasn’t sure what pained him more, that his uncles believed he’d betrayed his father’s memory or that Jossy believed he’d betrayed her trust.

Somehow he’d deluded himself into thinking he had a hope of happiness with Jossy. Maybe he’d lived so long as a Highlander that he’d begun to believe his own fiction.

How could he have thought she’d never discover he was English? Or that if she did, she’d somehow forgive him?

He was a bloody fool.

“Jossy,” he tried, scrambling to his feet, “I never meant to hurt you.”

She flinched.

“You have to believe me,” he said. “I…I love you.”

Drew knew ’twas the truth the moment he said it. It didn’t matter that she was Scottish and he was English. Their hearts beat to the same rhythm. Their spirits soared in the same dance. They were meant to be together…even if theirs had been an ill-fated love.

“Let her go,” Robert said.

“You’ll find another mistress,” Thomas chimed in.

“One who isn’t a bloody Scot,” Simon bit out.

Drew turned on them. “She’s not…”

He cursed under his breath. She was a Scot. But he’d been blind to that fact. He’d never once thought of her as his enemy. She was Jossy. Sweet, beautiful, spirited Jossy.

He raised apologetic eyes to hers. But he couldn’t do anything to ease the pain of betrayal he saw there, the hurt that lay naked underneath the fiery fury of her glare.

“’Tis time to come home, lad,” Robert said.

Drew clenched his jaw, his gaze still fixed on Jossy. “This is my—”

“She cannot love you,” Thomas said gently. “You’re her enemy.”

He looked into Jossy’s stormy eyes and glimpsed the awful truth. Thomas was right. She loathed him. Not only for being English, but also for deceiving her.

He couldn’t blame her. Everything he’d told her was a lie. Everything except…

“I love you, Jossy,” he breathed.

Her chin quivered, and he saw her eyes fill with tears, but the brave lass refused to shed them. Instead, she shoved her dagger back in its sheath, jerked her chin up proudly, and marched away.

“Jossy!”

Simon grabbed his forearm. “Let her go. You know it yourself. She’s better off this way.”

Drew hesitated, wondering if ’twas true. Could Jossy ever forgive him? Did her hatred for the English outweigh her affection for him? Was she better off forgetting him and finding some lucky, loyal Scotsman to love?

The thought crushed him.

But as he thought about her leaving—walking swiftly out of his life—an even more unsavory thought wormed its way into his brain.

Bloody hell, he had to stop her.

“Jossy!” he called, weaving through the trees. She was already well down the path. “Jossy, wait!”

His words had the expected effect. She began walking faster.

“Damn,” he said under his breath, taking long strides to catch her.

Behind him, his uncles shouted at him to let her go, but he paid them no mind. Did they truly believe that waylaying Drew and forcing him to return home with them would somehow show him the error of his ways? He was a grown man, for God’s sake. If he’d sneaked off to Scotland, ’twas because he wished to be there.

He should have ordered them home when he’d first laid eyes on them. If he had, the old fools might have made it safely to the border.

But now they’d done damage. They’d revealed themselves to a fiercely loyal Scot.

“Jossy, wait! I only want to talk to you.”

’Twas an outright lie. But he’d already told her so many lies. What was one more?

She increased her pace, never looking back. Her skirts snapped in the air, and her hair streamed out behind her.

He began to run then. He had to catch her before she got out of the woods.

The unfortunate truth was he couldn’t afford to let Jossy go. He still didn’t know what her relationship with Philipe de la Fontaine was, but he knew Jossy was devoted to Queen Mary. And the way she was feeling now, there was probably nothing she’d like more than to turn four Englishmen over to the authorities. If he let her leave, she’d go immediately to the queen.

She heard him coming and cast a startled look over her shoulder. Picking up her skirts, she began to run in earnest.

Cursing the desperation that forced him to such measures, he bolted down the path, gaining quickly on her, and tackled her to the ground, turning so his back would take the brunt of the impact when they fell.

’Twas like capturing a thrashing wildcat. He swiftly confiscated her dagger and tossed it out of reach, but she fought him with her heels and elbows, landing a number of painful blows.

He put up with her struggles, holding her patiently, his arms wrapped around her waist, until she wearied herself. Even then, she lay stiff against him as her breasts heaved with every rasping breath.

“Jossy,” he said, “I can’t let you go.”

“But I hate ye,” she said bitterly.

He swallowed hard. “I know.”

Faith, ’twas like a knife in his heart to hear those words, but no worse, he supposed, than the wound he was about to inflict.

“I mean I can’t let you go,” he explained regretfully, “because you’ll run straight to the queen.”

She stopped breathing.

“’Tisn’t that I blame you,” he said. “But I know where your loyalties lie. I can’t let you go.”

She was quiet a long time. When she finally spoke, her voice was low and solemn. “If that’s the way of it, at least let me die with my dagger in my hand.”

“What?”

“If ye’re goin’ to kill me—”

“Kill you! What? How could you…” He hugged her closer to him, though she’d gone stiff as a club. “After all we’ve… Do you really think I’d…”

Of course she did. She probably thought Englishmen were monsters. He’d thought as much of Scots…until he’d lived among them. Now ’twas hard to dredge up a healthy grudge against the lot.

“Nay,” he said. “I meant what I said. I love you, Jossy. The Fates curse me for a star-crossed fool, but I do.”

Then the Fates must curse her, too, Josselin thought, because some tiny piece of her heart still beat for this man who was supposed to be her worst foe.

But the rest of her was filled with loathing—for him and for herself, rage, and a thirst for revenge.

How could she have been so blind and so gullible?

Bloody hell! She’d been beguiled by an Englishman. She’d supped with him, flirted with him, kissed him… She squeezed her eyes shut in horror as she remembered what else she’d done with him.

“I never meant any harm, to you or your country,” he told her sadly. “I only came to golf. But now… You have to understand, Jossy, I can’t leave you behind. I’m going to have to take you with me.”

He was right. He’d be a fool to let her go. She would rush to Queen Mary with news of English spies in the forest. ’Twas her duty as a Scotswoman. ’Twas her duty as Lilliard’s daughter. He had to abscond with her. If he didn’t, he’d be signing his own death warrant.

But she wouldn’t make her abduction easy. She’d fight him at every step. He might have disarmed her, but at the first opportunity, she’d find a way to escape. And God help whoever stood in her way.

The three men were coming down the path now, the one with the staff hobbling behind. She knew now where she’d seen him. He came regularly to The White Hart.

What she didn’t understand was why, if they were Drew’s countrymen, they’d lured him into the woods and wrestled him to the ground.

“God’s blood, Andrew, let the wench go,” the tall man in front grumbled.

“She’s better off without you,” said the man with the staff.

“Unless, of course,” sneered the burly one, “you’ve put a babe in her.”

Josselin felt the world go still. She hadn’t thought of that. What if ’twas true? What if he’d gotten her with child? A chill slithered up her spine. She couldn’t give birth to the child of an Englishman. ’Twas too horrible to contemplate.

“We have to take her with us. She has connections,” Drew said, holding tight to her waist and hauling her to her feet, “to Mary.”

“The queen?” the three men asked in unison.

Lucifer’s ballocks! His words stunned Josselin. Why had he told them that? Now they’d never let her go. Even more motivated to make her kidnapping as difficult as possible, she began thrashing against Drew, who somehow held her fast with one arm. She started screaming at the top of her lungs and managed to get out three long shrieks before Drew silenced her with a wad of linen.

“God’s teeth!” the man with the staff said. “She could summon the dead with that caterwauling.”

If only ’twere true, Josselin thought. She’d summon her mother to make minced meat out of these English bastards.

“Connections to the queen, you say?” the burly man asked, rubbing his grizzled chin in speculation.

Drew nodded. “If we don’t bring her along, she could very well set the Scottish army on us.”

The man with the staff gave her a disparaging glare and suggested, “We might lose her somewhere in the forest.”

“Nay,” the burly man said. “If she has connections to the queen, maybe we can learn something from her. A few well-placed clouts might loosen her tongue.”

Drew’s free arm shot out like a snake striking. He grabbed the man by the front of his shirt, hauled him close, and snarled. “You touch one hair on her head, old man, and you’ll answer to me.”

When he let go, the man staggered back, blinking in surprise.

“Have you gone soft, lad?” the man with the staff asked gruffly. “Have you lived here so long you’ve forgotten about your father?”

Josselin felt Drew stiffen, but he didn’t answer the question.

“We do this my way,” Drew said, “or I stay in Edinburgh.”

The men seemed utterly bewildered by the idea and began arguing among themselves. Finally the tall man conceded on behalf of all of them.

“Fine. We’ll take her with us.”

Drew gave them a curt nod. “Now,” he said, “where are the shackles you brought along?”
The men feigned ignorance.

“Don’t try to tell me you thought you could singlehandedly drag me all the way back to England without shackles.”

The tall man cleared his throat and produced a pair of black iron manacles.

Josselin kicked and bucked against Drew. He was nonetheless able to clap one iron around her right wrist. Then, to her consternation, he fastened the other to his own left wrist.

“Are you mad, lad?” the man with the staff asked.

The burly man shook his head. “I wouldn’t even shackle myself to a willing wench.”

“Faith, Andrew, I hope you know what you’re doing,” the tall man sighed.

It appeared she and Drew’s three English friends had at least one thing in common. They all thought he was daft.