Page 2 of Blood of the Thistle

“MacCailin,” the sergeant said.

Bram met his gaze. “Aye.”

“You’re to York.”

He showed no surprise. It was the summons he had been waiting for. The English had apparently tired of asking questions he would not answer. York meant royal judgment, and royal judgment for a Scottish laird taken in rebellion meant only one thing. They were finished with ropes around his wrists—soon they would put one around his neck.

Chapter Two

“I want you to promise me something.”

Anna flattened the last wrinkle from her neatly folded blouse, then rolled it with surgical precision. The stack of clothes in her suitcase formed tidy, color-coded columns—whites together, pastels together, darks at the bottom. She snapped the suitcase shut and glanced at her sister. “And what would that be?”

“Well, actually, two things,” Mallory said, looking quite serious. “First that you don’t once ask ‘what’s the point’ while on vacation—”

“Ugh!” Anna gasped, feigning offense. “I would never!”

Anna grinned while Mallory rolled her eyes, a familiar spark of loving exasperation in them. It was their usual dance.

“Yeah, but what is the point of me filling out my medical history online only to have the receptionist hand me the same forms when I get to my appointment?” Anna asked her sister, the first what’s-the-point example she could think of, since she’d just had that discussion with another teacher at school yesterday.

“Exactly! Just stop—don’t do that,” Mallory said, not amused by Anna making light of it. “I want you to enjoy yourself—let your hair down, be adventurous, have fun—”

“I will have fun,” Anna insisted, and then couldn’t help herself and had to ask, “What’s the point of a vacation if you don’t plan to have fun?”

“Oh, my God,” Mallory groaned, dramatically slapping her hands over her cheeks. “Okay, never mind. You’re not going to change in that regard at this stage in life. But can you promise me that you actually will allow yourself to have fun?”

Anna’s brows crinkled at this. “What does that mean?”

“Eat dessert. Buy the souvenir. Take all the pictures you want rather than conserving film to save money,” Mallory explained. “Flirt with a handsome Englishman.”

Anna resisted the urge to wonder what the point was of flirting with someone who lived across an ocean.

But she understood Mallory’s point. Anna wasn’t timid or shy; she was simply careful. Order and predictability were her armor against disappointment and anxiety, and she rarely took it off.

“I will try,” she said, and then clarified, “Not flirting, though, because what’s the poi—because I’m not going to England to find a guy. I just want to travel, to people watch from outdoor cafes, and see four different walls than my own house.”

In truth, she’d put off traveling over the years, despite being perfectly able to afford it. She knew, deep in her heart, that she wanted to travel, but that it would be better with a partner. She’d always imagined her first visit to Europe would be with someone beside her—a husband, perhaps, or at least someone she loved enough and wanted to share the memories with. She was twenty-eight now and had decided a year ago when she’d started planning her 11-day trip to England, Rome, and Paris, that if she waited any longer—waiting for the phantom someone—she might never go at all.

“You’re just placating me,” Mallory accused, almost with dejection, as if she suspected her advice was being ignored.

“I’m not,” Anna said, plopping down on the edge of her bed. “I know how I am—and FYI, I’m okay with it. But you’re right, it is my first solo trip, my first Europe trip, and I should enjoy myself. I have every intention of doing just that.”

“Good. Now, I’m not saying you should go nuts and hook up with strange men or max out your credit cards,” Mallory qualified, “but Anna, who knows when you’ll ever get to Europe again, or take a vacation that isn’t with the family, where you think you have to be the perfect daughter or sister or aunt.”

Mallory wasn’t trying to change her, Anna knew that.

They were as different as day and night. Where Anna paid her credit cards off monthly and never missed a dental appointment, Mallory collected tattoos and unpaid parking tickets. She’d made a life out of rolling with the punches, even the self-inflicted ones, and had somehow emerged as one of the few genuinely happy people Anna knew. And Anna, whose life was a fortress built to avoid mistakes, couldn’t deny a sliver of envy.

“I will try my best to make you proud,” Anna said with mock severity. “I’ll make it my goal to be more Mallory than Anna in Europe.”

“Okay, don’t go that far,” Mallory was quick to caution. “I don’t want you coming back with tattoos and pregnant by some uptight Brit.” She tilted her head and grinned. “Knocked up by a swarthy Italian? Now that might be okay.”

Presently sitting inside a bistro on Museum Street in York, England, Anna smiled now, recalling that conversation with her sister from several days earlier.

So far, so good, she thought as she lifted her phone over the late-morning breakfast just delivered to her table.

Lemon meringue cheesecake brioche French toast sat before her, a dish that seemed to be daring someone to order it. Thick slices of brioche layered with lemon cheesecake, toasted Swiss meringue, raspberry coulis, and shortbread crumble, all dusted lightly with powdered sugar. It was the sort of breakfast Practical Anna would have dismissed as unnecessary without a pang of regret.