The Great Scottish Devil

by Starla Kaye

  Tomorrow. They would all die on the morrow and he would finish collecting the fine fee he’d been promised. It would be enough for him to disappear from these parts for a good long while. Mayhap he’d head toward Ireland. He’d heard a good mercenary was always being sought by someone.

  He scratched at his crotch, thinking of the beauty sleeping in the wagon. He’d slit the Campbells’ throats sometime around dawn. Mayhap he’d catch them either still sleeping or separately as they took care of their personal needs.

  He grinned and rubbed his aching erection. As soon as the Campbells were taken care of, he’d have some alone time with Annabel. She’d pay for turning him down, thinking she was better than he was. He’d let her see just how powerful and commanding he could be. He’d strip her bare and force her to all fours right there in the middle of the forest. He’d shove her face to the ground and make that butt of hers thrust up for him. Then he’d…

  The horses shifted restlessly and he forced his plans aside. It was time to seek his pallet for the night. He needed to be well rested for all he intended to do on the morrow.

  * * *

  Annabel had almost drifted into sleep when she heard loud whisperings. She blinked fully awake at the mention of her name. Her heart pounded. She strained to hear better as Callum and Sarabeth seemed to argue from their places beneath their nearby wagon.

  “I am not sure aboot this, Callum,” Sarabeth said, sounding concerned. “Annabel is such a sweet lass. Mayhap…”

  Callum’s voice rose to more than a whisper in his frustration. “’Tis more money then we have made in a verra long time. We need it. We canna keep traveling like we have. We are getting too old.”

  Sarabeth gave a sigh loud enough that Annabel heard it. “Ye’re right. Me bones are weary of sleeping on the hard ground and the wagon bed is even worse now.” She heaved another sigh. “Still…”

  “We made a deal with Gordon. I dunna think getting out of it would be easy…or wise. He is a verra hard mon.” Callum hesitated before adding, “Alastair Sutherland isna a mon to go against either, wife. Ye ken his reputation as being merciless as much as I do. He wants Annabel Henderson enough to hire Gordon to bring her to him. We canna change our minds now.”

  “I am naught sure Gordon means to take her to Sutherland. I think he means to kill her.”

  Callum took several seconds to respond and when he did, he sounded sad but helpless. “I hope ye’re wrong aboot that. But ‘tis nothing we can do. I am naught strong enough to take on such a mon.” He blew out a deep breath. “Best naught to worry aboot it any more. We should reach our meeting place on the morrow. Then what will be, will be.”

  Annabel’s heart raced so loudly at what she’d overheard that she worried they would hear it. She should have listened to her instincts about not trusting this couple. At first they’d seemed somewhat friendly, but then she’d seen a calculating look in Callum’s expression from time to time. Now she understood it. He’d been thinking about how much money he would get by enticing her away from Urquhart and taking her to Gordon. Angus Gordon! Somehow she knew Angus was the Gordon that Callum was talking about. In her last couple of encounters with him, she had seen a hard side to him…a cruel side.

  She pulled in a much-needed strengthening breath. As if dealing with Angus wouldn’t be difficult enough, someone possibly even worse than him wanted her: Alastair Sutherland. The words her father had spoken before he’d died came back to her. Ala…vow to kill Anna… Then the cryptic words in her mother’s note came back as well: evil man gave you to us…no choice.

  She shivered, not as much because she was cold, but because someone horrible wanted her dead. But why? And what had Dougal and Katherine Henderson had to do with this man?

  …on the morrow. The Campbells planned to meet up with Angus on the morrow. They would turn her over to him and collect whatever money he’d promised them. Then he would take her to this Alastair Sutherland. Mayhap. Or mayhap—just as Sarabeth suspected—he would kill her.

  Another shiver raced through her. Aye, the man could easily kill her. She’d seen it in his eyes when he’d recoiled after she’d refused to marry him. He hadn’t liked being thwarted. Shivering even more, she knew that he would do far worse than simply killing her. He would rape her first, brutally…and then he would take her life.

  Nay! She would not allow it! Nor would she be here on the morrow to be led by the Campbells to her slaughter. She’d give them an hour or so to fall asleep. Then she would steal away into the forest on foot. She would change into her boy’s clothing once more and take every weapon she could find with her. Somehow she would find her way back to Urquhart. Back to Brodie.

  Tears slid down her face. She had no right to go back to Urquhart and to Brodie. His life was complicated enough without her adding to his burdens again. But she had nowhere else to go. She would only stay there until he could find her a husband, just as he’d promised the king he would do. This time she’d make sure he really made a good effort at it.

  * * *

  Morning had barely begun when Brodie and Braden MacKay led a combination of his men and MacKay men out of the bailey. The air was cool and thick gray clouds swirled above them with the promise of rain. While the noise of the many hoofbeats was thunderous as they crossed over the wooden drawbridge, no one spoke. He imagined the MacKays were thinking about finally seeing their daughter after all these years. Rose had questioned him endlessly last night while they had shared sup. Braden, too, had voiced many questions and listened avidly to every piece of information about Annabel that Brodie had provided. She would be well loved.

  He shifted in the saddle and felt once more the curl of frustrated longing twisting his heart. He loved Annabel. But he could not have her. He was honor-bound to wed Agatha and a Durward always stood behind his word. He would take her to wife upon his return from this trip to find Annabel and reunite her with her true parents. There was no other choice.

  They had just started going around the village when a pair of riders sent ahead to track the two tinker wagons rode toward them. Brodie immediately raised a hand to stop the advance of the men behind him. He stiffened and his gut tightened as he waited for the riders. Even from here he could see their expressions were grim.

  Reining in a few feet from Brodie, the newest of his soldiers said quickly, “The wagons dinna turn north as ye expected, my laird. They turned south, heading into the forest.”

  “I thought ye said…” Braden began, stopping when Brodie scowled at him.

  “Something isna right,” Brodie said. The feelings of urgency he’d experienced almost from the moment Annabel had left Urquhart two days ago grew stronger. He might not remember much about himself, but he knew to trust his instincts. A warrior didn’t live long if he didn’t. “We need to ride hard this day. As hard and as fast as the horses can handle. Is yer wife up to it, MacKay?”

  Rose rode up beside her husband and looked pale now. “She’s in danger, isna she?”

  “I do not know this fer a fact, only a suspicion.” He leveled a worried look on both the MacKays. “Do ye trust me in this?”

  “Aye.” Braden turned back toward the curious men. “We will ride hard this day. Stop when ye must, and then catch up with us. We will nay rest until we catch up with the wagons.”

  Brodie faced the scouts again. “Lead the way.”

  They took off and Brodie urged his mount after the men, as did all behind him. It had been a long time since he’d prayed, but he did now. God, keep Annabel safe.

  * * *

  Angus had slept longer than he’d planned, dreaming about all of the ways he would take Annabel’s body. The sun was already rising and light slipped in through the heavy pine branches around him. It soured his mood even more. At least he hadn’t heard sounds of the wagons leaving the campsite. Actually, he’d heard very little sounds of movement around the wagons yet. He was grateful for that. Mayhap he could still accomplish all that he’d planned this day.

  He finis
hed his personal needs and adjusted his clothing. Picking up his specially made knife—a nice long, very sharp one—he quietly made his way closer to the campsite. Callum was crawling from beneath the wagon, stretching his old bones and Sarabeth scurried off toward the trees. Prime pickings. He’d take care of the old woman first and then the old man.

  He slipped quietly through the trees toward the woman, smiling. As soon as he finished with the couple, he’d find Annabel. His cock was hard as stone already. He couldn’t wait to drive into her soft, unwilling body. Unwilling women, in his opinion, were the best. All that terror, their horrified protests, their screams… He shuddered with a fierce ache. It had been too long since he’d satisfied his sadistic lusts and killed a woman afterward.

  A few minutes later, Angus scowled as he wiped the blood from his knife on Callum’s shirt. Slitting the couple’s throats had been too easy, not even enjoyable. What annoyed him now was that he still hadn’t heard any sounds coming from Annabel’s wagon. Surely she had heard Callum’s gasp of surprise when Angus had walked up beside him with knife drawn.

  He strode toward her wagon, grinding his teeth, sensing his plan falling apart. He shoved aside the cloth curtain hanging down in the back. Finding the wagon bed empty except for piles of wooden boxes and rumpled bed linens down the floor’s center, he roared in fury. Gone! Where the hell had she gone? When? He cursed a blue streak, infuriated that she’d snuck away without him hearing her.

  He stormed back toward his horse. He’d find her! And she’d pay dearly for causing him so much trouble.

  * * *

  Brodie and the others had ridden hard all day long. They’d only stopped twice out of necessity. Each stop had frayed his nerves more; his feeling of urgency had grown even stronger as the hours passed. Something was very wrong. But they had nearly caught up with the wagons. Any minute now…

  The men he’d sent ahead to scout rode frantically toward them. Brodie motioned everyone to stop and waited breathlessly for the latest news. The MacKays, too, waited tensely beside him.

  “The Campbells,” the first man gasped, sounding winded from his hard ride. “They are dead, my laird. Throats slit.”

  Dead. The Campbells were dead, murdered. Annabel? Brodie couldn’t find the strength to ask if they’d found her body as well, afraid to hear the worst.

  Rose swayed in her saddle. “Annabel?” she questioned urgently.

  The riders looked from Brodie to the MacKays. “We found no signs of her. The wagons and horses are still there, but Annabel isna.”

  “Not there?” Brodie asked, relieved and even more worried. “Ye are sure?”

  “Aye. We searched both wagons,” the second man said.

  Unable to stay still any longer, Brodie urged his horse around the men. He had to check it out for himself. He had to find whatever clues he could as to what had happened to Annabel. He didn’t even take the time to deal with his men. They could follow along or not, he didn’t care.

  But he hadn’t gone more than a few yards when he heard The MacKay take charge behind him. “A dozen of ye men come with us. The rest of ye wait here fer word of what to do.” Then he raced after Brodie.

  The familiar sense of horror at the loss of life hit Brodie hard when they drew near the campsite. They rode straight into the midst of the two wagons. The four horses tied together close by were fidgeting around, no doubt anxious from the smell of blood. He wished Rose MacKay had stayed behind with the others, but she rode right next to her husband.

  She gasped at the sight of Callum Campbell lying near where they had built a small fire the night before. His throat had been slit from ear-to-ear. Blood covered his neck and soaked the top half of his once-white shirt.

  Brodie dismounted, as did the others. He didn’t bother to check for a pulse on the older man. There wouldn’t be one. It sickened him to see how he’d been murdered and he didn’t look forward to seeing Sarabeth’s body either. But there was nothing he could do for them. His thoughts were solely focused on Annabel.

  Again, The MacKay took charge, for which Brodie was grateful. As he walked toward Annabel’s wagon, Braden said grimly, “Find the woman’s body and bring it here. Then some of ye men see to burying these poor people.”

  Brodie had just reached the back of Annabel’s wagon when Rose joined him. She stretched up on her toes to peer inside, her breath hitching at the first sight of what had belonged to her daughter.

  “This is all she had in the world, isn’t it? So verra little.” Tears streamed down her face as she reached to touch the bed linen that still held Annabel’s scent.

  Braden walked up beside her and pulled her gently into his arms. His voice was gruff with emotion as he, too, looked inside the wagon. “We will have some of the men take the wagon back to Urquhart. ‘Tis closer than our home.”

  “I would have it destroyed,” Brodie grumbled, knowing it was foolish to blame the wagon for taking her away from him…for putting her life in danger.

  “Nay!” Rose protested, glaring at him.

  “He speaks in anger, in distress, my love,” Braden said and patted his wife’s back.

  Brodie blew out a breath and apologized. “Aye, ‘twas only my anger speaking. My anger fer letting Annabel leave with these people. I sensed…” He shook his head and fisted his hands at his sides. “I sensed trouble ever since they showed up at Urquhart. But yer daughter is a most stubborn lass.” Still, it was his fault she’d left. His fault she was in trouble—or worse—now.

  “Who could have done this?” Braden demanded, releasing his wife to sweep his gaze from the wagon to Callum’s body. “Why kill these tinkers and naught Roseanna…Annabel?”

  He had no way of knowing for sure, but Brodie’s gut told him who was responsible. “Angus Gordon.” He could still see the anger in the other man’s gaze when Brodie had ordered him off Urquhart land. He knew the man was furious with Annabel for having refused his offer of marriage.

  “The knight ye told us about? The one she distrusted? The one yer men disliked and ye sent away in anger?” Braden fairly growled the questions, growing angrier with each one.

  “I canna be certain, but…”

  Rose dashed at the tears on her face and looked as pale as clean linen. “He killed…” She swallowed hard. “He killed those poor people and kidnapped Annabel?”

  Brodie and Braden exchanged looks. Both men knew she possibly faced horrors neither wanted to speak of let alone think about. Death would be far better. “We will find him. And I will…” Brodie stopped himself before saying he would draw and quarter the bastard, and then feed his cock to him before letting him die.

  “There is no more to be done here,” Braden said abruptly. “’Tis time we found this Gordon’s trail and followed him.”

  Chapter Nine

  Annabel was lost, horribly lost in the forest that seemed to go on forever. She’d been walking, even running, as fast as she could for hours. She’d tried to be as quiet as possible as she’d slipped away from camp and then as she’d hurried back the way she’d thought they had come that day. But in the dark she had found herself basically circling. She thought she’d finally started in the right direction, yet she could be wrong.

  For the last hour or so she’d thought she sensed someone following her. Yet no one had showed themself and the sounds remained the same all around her. The quiet of the forest was deafening. Or mayhap the pounding of her heart was overpowering the normal sounds, the occasional rushing of small animals in the underbrush, the faint hoot of an owl, and the whispers of wind through the high boughs in the pines. If she ever made it out of here, she would never…

  What was that?

  She froze, sucking in a breath, her knees going weak. She gripped the handle of the knife she’d brought with her tighter in one hand and a stout stick she’d tripped over and picked up in the other hand. As far as weapons went, they weren’t much but they were all she had.

  “Ye’ve caused me a great deal of bother, lass,” a deep voice
called to her from somewhere nearby.

  Her heart thundered even louder in her chest. She recognized that voice: Angus Gordon. She eased carefully back, hoping to hide closer to the trees.

  “Ye should have agreed to wed me, Annabel. I might have let ye live a while longer.” A large, shadowy form stepped from behind a tree about a dozen feet away. “Come here, lass. Ye dinna want to make me even madder.”

  Instead, she stepped further in the other direction. She looked frantically around for a way to trap him or a way to escape. She searched for something bigger or better than the stick she carried. He was a true fool if he thought she’d simply obey him, simply go to him. Did he think she wanted a quick death at his hands? She doubted it would happen. And she definitely didn’t want him touching her, raping her…and she was almost certain that was what he had planned before he got around to taking her life.

  “If ye think that worthless Callum Campbell or his decrepit wife is nearby to save ye, ye be wrong.” He strode into a patch of sunlight and snorted. “They willna be saving anyone. Couldna even save themselves.”

  He had killed them. She knew it. She hadn’t really liked them or trusted them, even before overhearing them talking last night. But she wouldn’t have wished them dead. Still, there was nothing to be done about them now. She must save herself. Somehow.

  His heavy footsteps grew louder. Panic threatened to overwhelm her, but she couldn’t let it. Her parents hadn’t raised a weakling. Her parents? The Hendersons hadn’t been her parents. She knew that now and wondered what the truth of her life really was. But that was for another time. If she survived this encounter with the dangerous man wishing to kill her, she would try to get some answers.

  “I be growing weary of chasing after ye, lass. I should have killed ye when I first had the chance, just as I was hired to do.” He sounded angry with himself as well as with her.