Heart of Stone Read online

  Heart of Stone

  Hearts of the Highlands

  Book Three

  Paula Quinn

  Copyright © 2019 by Paula Quinn

  Kindle Edition

  Published by Dragonblade Publishing, an imprint of Kathryn Le Veque Novels, Inc

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Additional Dragonblade books by Author Paula Quinn

  Rulers of the Sky Series

  Scorched

  Ember

  White Hot

  Hearts of the Highlands Series

  Heart of Ashes

  Heart of Shadows

  Heart of Stone

  *** Please visit Dragonblade’s website for a full list of books and authors. Sign up for Dragonblade’s blog for sneak peeks, interviews, and more: ***

  www.dragonbladepublishing.com

  Amazon

  To my sister Lori, thank you with all my heart and soul. Thank you.

  I love you.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Additional Dragonblade books by Author Paula Quinn

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  About the Author

  I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

  Ezekiel 36:26

  Prologue

  Invergarry

  24 years ago

  Nicholas MacPherson screamed as loud as his two-year-old lungs let him. Someone smacked his rump hard with one hand while continuing to haul Nicholas around the flames by his ankles. He sobbed and cried longing for his mother while strange men spoke over him and finally tossed him over someone’s saddle. He fell into a deep, blessed sleep until they arrived in Berwick, where he was thrown into the hands of the kitchen scullions. He was put to work immediately with washing in the kitchen or fetching what was needed. He had no mother to cry to at night or after a beating to his rump and to the backs of his thighs for disobeying or performing a duty incorrectly. Still, he cried but no one comforted him.

  Until a nurse called Berengaria rescued him from the darkness of despair and loneliness and brought him a fire.

  The fire’s name was Julianna.

  Chapter One

  The kingdom of Northumberland

  Winter

  The Year of Our Lord 1322

  “Can you repeat what I have told you so far, Miss Feathers?”

  Julianna put down her quill and blew on the words then read them. “Margery, I hope you are well. I have heard…” She picked up her quill again, dipped it into her small jar of ink and waited for him to continue.

  He smiled, exposing a row of missing teeth. “I have heard,” he continued, “of an opportunity.”

  She blew out a silent sigh and wrote what he said.

  Since leaving the abbey four months ago, this was what she did for coin to stay alive and see to her purposes.

  Her father had been the Governor of Berwick, Viscount of March, before Robert the Bruce’s men had seized the castle and all lands around it. Her father, gone, slain by the Scots’ sword, as was everyone else she’d known, including villagers and castle servants.

  She didn’t want revenge for the attack. She wanted her life back from the aftermath of it. She wanted enough coin to find William Stone, her father’s servant, and Berengaria, her nurse. She hadn’t seen either one in years.

  She used her skills in the arts, singing in taverns or painting outside inns along the coastline in the summer, and this, penning letters for others in order to see to her needs. She even delivered some letters, which was what she was doing for Archie Sommers at present in a tavern on the north coast of Northumberland. She traveled often and was always available somewhere to be a messenger.

  “…employment that might suit you, Sister.”

  She wrote, dipped then wrote again.

  “The Earl of Rothbury needs a governess for his child,” he continued. “I hear he is paying quite handsomely.”

  Julianna looked at him through the corner of her eye and waited, her heart suddenly racing. Rothbury.

  Her ear tilted toward him. It was completely unlike her to take information meant for someone else and use it for her gain. But Lismoor Castle was in Rothbury—and she could use the coin.

  “There are conditions, of course,” he said, watching her write. “You must be available at all times.”

  Did she just feel Sommers’ breath on her? She cringed and moved further away. He inched closer.

  “Sir,” she said and dipped her quill. “If you come any closer or try to touch me in any way, I will stab you in your eyes.” She lifted her sharp quill and pointed it at him. She wasn’t sure she could make good on her threat. Hopefully, she wouldn’t have to. Thanks to the abbess, her ink was laced with a special herbal poison that, if pricked into the skin by her quill, would almost immediately put its victim to sleep. Or kill him, depending on how much poison had been injected.

  The tips of Julianna’s knives were laced with the poison, as were the tiny stingers of wasps and the tiny fangs of spiders forged to metal rings and bracelets so that she could prick the skin of any threat with ease.

  All such adornments and poison blends, from the work of a Reverend Mother who lived on the moors.

  Still, idle threats about an abbess would not stop him. Jabbing his eyes out sounded like something a madwoman would say, so she chose that. “Do you think I travel alone without any knowledge about hurting or killing my enemy?”

  She crooked her mouth at him and a red curl sprang forward from beneath her forest green woolen hood. She had pulled the unruly mass of locks into a tight bun in the back of her head earlier, but she was afraid it was going to burst free of its pins and spill out all around her.

  She didn’t flinch when his eyes fell to the lock and his hungry smile grew.

  She held up her quill and reached for her poison-tipped knife. “Now, make up your mind. Do you want to lose an eye or get this missive to your sister?”

  He let a moment pass and she prayed she wouldn’t have to put him down. For then she wouldn’t get paid.

  “You must eat and sleep at Lismoor Castle,” Sommers continued, moving away from her. After a moment, he blinked at her and looked at her stilled hand. “What is it, Miss?”

  “Nothing,” she managed and dipped again. Lismoor. It had belonged to Aleysia d’Argentan before the Scots had taken it from her. It was the last known place she could connect to William. But she had already paid handsomely to discover if William resided there. He did not. “Go on. You must sleep…”

  He nodded. “At Lismoor Castle. Do you know it?”

  She shook her head. “I know of it.”

  She inhaled a deep silent breath and forbade herself to think of him. The
boy she’d known since she could walk. The boy she’d grown up loving. He’d been a man when he left her after their first night of kissing in the stable. Some said her father had seen them and beat William and threw him out of the castle, but why hadn’t he come back for her right away? She shook her head. He would have died with the rest of them at the hands of the Scots the next morning. Or maybe not, since he was a Scot, himself. And since he rode with them the last time she saw him.

  She had told herself that perhaps his decision was the best for him. It had kept him alive and he had wanted her to come with him when she saw him a few months after the massacre at Berwick.

  She remembered his last words to her at St. Peter’s Abbey as if he’d spoken them yesterday. He’d spoken them after she had refused his offer to leave the safety of the abbey with him.

  Julianna, I have loved you my whole life. I will never love anyone but you. Do not sentence me to such a lonely life.

  How different would her life have been if she’d gone with him? She had been a coward. Afraid of the savages he—and even Miss d’Argentan—had called friends. Afraid, still—madly—of the consequence of his being a servant. How would they have lived? Eaten? Where would they have slept?

  Instead of thinking of them lying in a bed together, she forced herself to think about how the Scots would have been outside her door. She’d been afraid, so she chose to wait for the man her father had promised her to. A “man of means” who never came once she lost lands and title.

  When there were no other offers for her but one, she took it, and almost paid with her life for it.

  William’s face had always remained, pushing its way to the front of her thoughts, to distract her, to make her doubt everything she wanted now, after two years of torture at the hands of a fiendish husband, and a year at the abbey. Freedom. A life of her own, answering to no one but herself and God.

  But she wanted to see William one more time first. Just one more time.

  She wanted to find Berengaria, too, and ask her why she left them.

  Her patron finished his letter, including giving Julianna instructions on finding his sister. After he paid her a small pouch of coins, she gathered her things and left the tavern, still in a state of unease. Lismoor. She knew from her messenger friends that the earl was a Scot. MacPherson, she’d been told. She guessed he was the brute who had come to the abbey with Miss d’Argentan. Well, MacPherson had to know where William was.

  She checked the small satchel hanging from a belt at her waist. She had enough coin to get to Rothbury. Even if William wasn’t there, to be paid handsomely and not have to pay for lodgings in the meantime would be glorious for a change. She could save plenty.

  She headed for the stable and paid the groom before she gained her saddle and left. She looked back at the lad, thinking, once again, about William. He had been her groom at Berwick. Behind a spray of dark waves, his eyes were always on her, glittering like silver-blue jewels, tempting her to go to him. When she finally did, his kiss nearly swept her right off her feet and into his arms. She’d loved him. She’d wanted to tell him that night, but what good would it have done them? She was the Governor of Berwick’s daughter. He was a servant. She led a very different life than William.

  But so much had changed for her.

  She pushed him out of her thoughts for now and turned her horse left, toward Margery Sommers’ village.

  The sun was going down. It was cold, but Julianna preferred traveling at night. It was harder for anyone who was out in the black of night to tell whether she was a he or not. She wore no skirts, but hose and a léine, doublet, boots and a dark green woolen mantle. Her hair was never loose while she traveled. If they didn’t know she was a woman, they usually left her alone.

  She thought about how much her life had changed since the attack on her home over four years ago…until she married a monster. She had once been doted on, given everything she wanted. She’d lived in luxury, with servants at her beck and call. She’d been taught to read and write, and to play the lute, and how to embroider by the best teachers. Though she hated sewing. She didn’t like sitting in one place too long to sew anything of beauty or interest.

  And then, in a moment, everything had changed. Everyone in her life was gone. At first, she pretended to be strong. Her father was dead. Her mother had died years earlier of an illness so Julianna had no one. Her home and her worth were gone. She had nothing left but a marriage proposal from the Governor of Alnwick, Phillip DeAvoy, a childhood friend whose family visited her parents at Berwick often, even before Julianna was born. Phillip was rich in land but poor in everything else. Soon into their marriage, he accused her of trying to seduce the men in the household. One night he struck her. After that, it became a common occurrence.

  For two years, she became more a servant than a wife. At night, after Phillip’s worst, she would think of William, the one she’d loved her whole life. She drew strength from him. She’d even stopped caring if he rode with Scots.

  She dreamed of his smile, heated, yet tender with affection for her. His quiet humility when Lord DeAvoy’s sons taunted him. William had given her the courage to run away. She ran to St. Peter’s. When Phillip came there looking for her, God, according to the abbess, smote him and Phillip was struck dead that very night.

  Julianna knew better. She wasn’t about to say a word.

  Her life had changed again, thanks to the abbess. She’d stayed at the abbey for almost a year and had been on her own for four months now.

  She reached Margery Sommers’ home the next morning, after a few hours of light sleep under a tree. She delivered her letter, read it to Margery, and left.

  She mounted her horse and headed north, toward Rothbury, but she soon noticed her mount was limping. It wouldn’t make it to Rothbury. Had she ridden him too long? Oh, poor thing! She would have to walk him back to Margery’s door.

  After Margery told her where to find the nearest public stable, Julianna boldly asked her if she would be going to Rothbury.

  Margery held the letter to her chest and smiled. “I do not wish to go to Rothbury, Miss,” she said. She looked a few years younger than Julianna, perhaps ten and eight. She had pretty, pale yellow hair tamed neatly in a crown of intricate braids and the rest falling like dappled water down her shoulders.

  Julianna scowled a little thinking of her own untamable hair, which was beginning to feel like the weight of a damned kingdom on her head. She should cut it all off and scatter it to the four winds. She should have done it years ago.

  But it gave her something to hide behind.

  “If you see my brother again,” said Miss Sommers, “you can tell him I have found work caring for someone. ’Tis not a child, but ’tis close by.” She smiled and began to close the door, but she paused and stepped out again. “But if I wanted to go and I had a lame horse, there is a carriage that leaves for supplies from Rothbury every few days. They take passengers for a price. A price too high for me to pay!” she laughed and then shrugged her petite shoulders. “We accept our lot, aye?” Before Julianna could answer, she shut the door.

  Julianna stared at it instead. No, not all of us do.

  What was her lot? To be an esteemed nobleman’s wife, as her parents had always demanded—and she had insisted just as hard that she was not ready for? She had her way until she was nineteen years old. For him. For William. Though she realized now that she had been caught in a young girl’s fancies. She and William would not have been happy together having to scrape by and hoping to eat each day. Would the Scots have taken them in? Would she have agreed to live with them?

  Oh, why was it always the same? Why did she always end up thinking about what kind of life she could have had with William? He was a traitor! She should not want to see him! But, oh, she did.

  She walked her horse to the stable Margery had directed her to and left her horse with a groom. She paid him to see to her animal and then asked him about the carriage going to Rothbury. If William was there, or
if she could find out something about him, it would be worth the coin.

  Two days later, she found herself sitting in a cramped carriage with a young man and an old woman he was apparently chaperoning.

  Margery Sommers had been correct. The price of passage was high. Too high, in fact, for Julianna to brush off. The way she once had. She had to fill the position as governess or she wouldn’t be eating for a while.

  How had William found anything beautiful in her back then? For he had called her beautiful often.

  She shook her head to clear her unwanted thoughts. She missed basking in the innocence of a carefree life, but she had grown up. She was starting over—and she wanted to find the man who had helped her.

  She had spent two days at an inn, (that cost her more coin) deciding what to do. She wanted him and only him to see the woman she had become. She was not the cowardly girl he knew. She wanted him to know it. Perhaps because he was the only person in her life who really mattered in her heart, him and the woman who became William’s mother.

  She’d spent much coin on trying to find them. Even now she had merchants and fellow messengers helping her.

  The ride in the carriage was bumpy, and twice during the trip Julianna was certain the old woman released her gases.

  ’Twas a frigid day, so opening the wooden shutter and sticking her head out the small window for relief was a great help. She turned and offered her poor companion, who looked about to fall faint from holding his breath, a space at the window.

  He removed his hat and came close. But he breathed in Julianna’s hair instead of the brisk winter air. Aye, she thought, her hair did smell nice. She’d used her last few drops of honeysuckle and jasmine oil on it. After sleeping in a bed where many others had slept before her, ’twas worth it. She pulled out another bunch of her tresses from under her hood, unraveling it from a long, loose braid. They both sank their noses in. After a moment of breathing, he looked up and smiled at her. So close, his breath became hers.