“She’s headed south, you say?”
“Yes, sir.”
Was it possible she thought to return home?
“Saddle the men up. We’ll find her and follow along to give her time to distance herself from Dun Ard before we take her. No point to provoke a battle we’ve no time for.”
Not that his men weren’t more than a match for the pitiful Scots he’d met at Dun Ard. Oh, there were a few who had worthy skills, but his men were well trained to take them first.
And why risk his men when the prize he sought was his for the taking with only the smallest exercise of patience?
He was a man who understood the virtue and the rewards of patience well. He’d had years to practice the art.
Leah MacQuarrie would be his by noon tomorrow and he’d be that much closer in his campaign to become the next Lord Moreland.
Twenty-nine
Leah dipped her hand into the shallow water, bringing it up to her dry lips. She’d gone out of her way to find a safe spot exactly like this. No deep running water for her this time. She was taking no chances.
Drowning wouldn’t do much to help Grandpa Hugh. Assuming she was still in time to save him, that is.
Her thirst quenched, she crawled back from the water’s edge to the tree where she’d left her bundle. After the hike she’d had, that bread and cheese was calling her name.
Two bites later, she could deny no more that exhaustion was as much her enemy as hunger. Though it might have been smarter to have made her escape after a good night’s sleep, her chances of getting out in the daylight would have been next to nonexistent.
Still, traveling at night was just plain stupid. If she kept that up, she’d end up so lost she’d never find her way to MacQuarrie Keep. She had to be smart about this. What she needed to do was get herself straightened out. Just keep moving through today and then she could have herself a good rest tonight, waking up fresh to start off tomorrow.
She could do that. It would only be staying awake for something like, what? Thirty-six hours, maybe? She could do that.
Like hell she could.
Her legs felt like wet noodles already. She had to be smart, yes, but she had to be reasonable, too. A short rest here, maybe an hour or two, and then she’d be on her way. Just a short nap and she’d be good to go.
Her eyes had barely closed when somewhere out in the surrounding forest, she heard a crackle, like a stick breaking.
Oh, that was just dandy. She searched her memory for any mention her grandpa Hugh had ever made about wild animals. She felt pretty safe ruling out lions, tigers, and bears, but that still left more than enough to worry about.
She pulled the stone hanging at her neck outside her shift, running her thumb over it for comfort. Wolves, maybe? Or wild boar?
Dropping the stone, she rummaged in the pocket hanging from her belt and pulled out the little dirk Maisey had given her and held it up in front of her.
Might not stop a full-grown animal, but that animal would soon find out it hadn’t gotten hold of something completely defenseless if it attacked.
She leaned her head back against the tree, knowing as soon as she closed her eyes she wouldn’t be able to sleep. Not now that she’d gotten her imagination all worked up.
Rest, then. Just until she felt she could get back up and start moving again.
Another noise and she her eyes flew open in time to have a stray whiff of wind blow her hair across them, blocking her vision until she pushed her curls back behind her ears.
Of course. That was probably it. The wind was blowing through the trees, making the limbs rustle. Nature at its best.
Another reason she wasn’t particularly fond of nature. Give her a nice, safe castle any day. One with high walls and archers to keep the predators at bay.
Noises rationalized, she closed her eyes a third time, hoping it would be the charm her mom used to proclaim it only to hear the noise again, closer now.
This time she sat bolt upright, eyes opened, dirk at the ready.
“Did I wake you, Lady MacAlister?”
“Crapola,” she breathed, barely aware she’d said the word aloud.
Moreland. Apparently her fears about a predator were well founded.
“Or should I say, Mistress MacQuarrie?”
Double crapola.
She pushed up to her feet, holding the little dagger in front of her. “Be on your way, Sir Peter. I won’t hesitate to protect myself if I have to.”
He strode toward her, not appearing the least intimidated by the dirk she brandished. Not even when he grabbed her wrist and twirled her around, slamming her back into his hard chest as he knocked the dirk from her hand.
“None of that, my lady,” he cautioned, his breath skirting over her cheek as he leaned in to speak into her ear.
No, she had no intentions of making this easy for him.
She threw her head forward, then slammed backward into his chin with all the force she could muster, at the same time stomping her foot onto his ankle.
He grunted, letting go his hold on her and she took off at a run, praying she’d actually hurt, not just startled him.
Barely two steps and the ribbon at her neck yanked tight, sliding around her throat, cutting into her skin. Her head wrenched back and tears filled her eyes as she choked, the whole of it bringing her to her knees in a coughing fit.
Moreland stood over her, the stone and ribbon she’d worn around her neck dangling back and forth from his hand a second before he tossed it to the ground. His fingers tightened on her upper arm and he dragged her to her feet, her face ending up inches from his as she teetered on her tiptoes.
“Don’t ever try anything like that again. I’d not enjoy hurting a woman, but taking your body back to Lord Moreland serves my purpose equally as well as delivering you healthy and sound.” He released her, stepping back as she dropped to her knees. “Do we understand each other?”
She nodded, the pain at her throat intensifying as she touched it.
Blood smeared her fingers when she pulled them away.
“Here, take this.” Moreland held out a long strip of cloth he’d dipped in water.
Whether or not he’d torn it from his clothing she couldn’t say. No more than she could account for how long his men had been gathered around. She’d been too distracted by the realization that she was actually injured. Injured and bleeding.
An injury that would be gone in the next day, leaving her no earthly way to explain its disappearance.
Thirty
Dreams so fitful they’d felt real plagued his sleep, culminating at last in the all-too-real sensation he was drowning.
Drew awoke sputtering, soaked, to his brother’s laughter. He wiped at the water dripping into his eyes, realizing as he did so, the bucket in Colin’s hand was the source of the water running down his face.
“What in the name of the Fae has taken yer good sense that you’d think to do such as this?” he demanded of his younger brother.
“My good sense? I’m no the one sleeping in a pile of hay when I’ve a perfectly good wife waiting in my bed.” Colin prodded at Drew’s shoulder with the toe of his boot. “A wife, by the by, that I’d no had the decency to tell my own flesh and blood about. You couldna tell me you planned to wed? You let me go off with no a word of warning so that I missed yer wedding celebration?”
“It’s no like that,” Drew groaned, pushing himself up to sit. He could now say for a fact that sleeping on the floor of the stable was definitely harder on his body than anything else he’d tried. “It was more sudden than what you might think.”
“I suppose it must have been. Else I’d have to think you’d no wanted me here for it.”
“As if my marrying would have kept you from yer determination to seek our ancestor in the glen? Did you find him, by the way?”
Anger sparked briefly in Colin’s eyes, turning them the blue of a frozen lake before he spit on the floor at his feet, a clear indication of his disgust.
“Neither the great prince himself nor any of his blighted underlings deigned to answer my call. Foul bastard Faeries.”
Not surprising. Had the Fae ever responded to a male descendant in the glen? Drew thought not.
“You could always speak to Mother. Perhaps she’d be willing to travel to the glen with you and—”
“No. I’ve no desire to drag her into this. Besides, you ken she always tells us the Fae have no interest in the minor concerns of men.”
“True.” Drew leaned his head against the stall behind him. “You look like hell. When was the last time you slept properly?”
“I’d intended to be sleeping now. But once Caden told me all you’d done over these last days, I decided to drag yer troublesome arse back up to the keep where you belong.”
“My troublesome arse? I’m no the one parading about in the glen, shouting to the heavens to demand the attention of the Fae.”
“Aye? Maybe no, but you were the one dragged home a new wife and an entire English army. Of the two of us, which would you say was stirring a more worrisome pot?”
Most times it was impossible to get more than five words in a row from Colin. Drew was beginning to think that just might be for the best.
He took the hand his brother offered and struggled to his feet, relying more than he’d wanted on Colin’s strength.
“Come on.” Colin slapped his back, urging him forward. “Let’s go have a look at this new wife you felt the need to keep as such a great secret.”
At last his brother had said something that he could agree with. Leah was the very person he needed to see. As he’d resolved the night before, there were things he’d left unsaid between them for too long.
She wasn’t in their bedchamber when he pushed open the door. He’d guessed as much when she didn’t answer to him calling her name. The bed had been straightened and the frocks his sister and Ellie had given her lay in a neatly folded stack in its center.
“Like as not, she’s out in the bathhouse. And, no!” One look at his brother’s quirked eyebrow was all he needed to put an end to the question he saw in Colin’s eyes. “You’ll no be having yer first meeting with my wife in the bathhouse. What say we spend an hour or two in the lists? She’ll be back and presentable by then.”
Colin’s smile evaporated. “I dinna believe that’s for the best, Drew. I’m worn down and I couldna guarantee to hold back my weapon.”
“Yer no to blame for that.” Damn the Fates! Even after all these years, Colin still held himself responsible for the accident that accounted for the scar running the length of Drew’s chest. “No more than I am.”
Colin shrugged as if he didn’t care, but Drew knew him too well to accept that. Still, there would be no discussing it. There never was.
“Caden and Sim were headed down there earlier. You’ll find the match you need with them. For myself, I’ve no desire to do anything but lay my head down for a bit.”
Drew watched his brother’s retreating back with sorrow. They’d been so close growing up, best friends who’d shared everything including their deepest secrets. Perhaps more than anything, he hated the distance between them now. A distance grown larger thanks to their own personal demons.
Faulty perceptions and doubts that they had allowed to rule their lives for far too long.
While he could do nothing to change the way Colin dealt with his demons, he for one intended to put his own to rest, one blasted demon at a time, starting this very day.
With a last glance to the bed, he left the room and closed the door behind him.
First he’d work the stiffness from his leg and then he’d seek out Leah. He’d start by slaying the demon of fear that had prevented him from telling her what he should have when she’d asked.
She was indeed his Soulmate and he’d never let her go.
“Leah?”
Drew pounded on their bedchamber door. After an entire day of having missed her at every turn, he wouldn’t have waited for her to answer at all if his brother weren’t standing there with him.
“Whatever you did that bought you a night in the stables must still have her angry with you.”
“Leah?” he called again, louder this time, ignoring Colin’s smirk.
This was unlike her.
“Leah!” he demanded once more. Deciding her rights to privacy were now forfeit, he slammed open the door and stormed inside.
The room was unchanged from his first visit this morning. Nothing had been touched. No candle lit, not even a fire burned in the hearth.
She was gone.
He knew it, deep in the empty spot in his soul, he knew it, even as he raced from the room to question every person he could lay hands on.
She was gone.
“Calm down, Drew,” Caden ordered for the hundredth time.
As if he had the ability to be calm with Leah missing. He had to find her. Now. The sick feeling in his stomach urged him on.
Next to him, Ellie jumped to her feet, her head cocked to the side as she listened to the voices only she could hear. “Missy’s found her scent. Out at the bathhouse.”
“She’s no there. I looked.”
Ellie shrugged, shaking her head as she made for the door. “I’m telling you, Missy is saying out at the bathhouse.”
Though he no longer doubted his sister-in-law’s ability to communicate with animals, he did doubt her mangy dog’s ability to track. He’d checked the place himself, as he’d said, twice at least.
But hope ran deeper than doubt and he found himself rushing along with the others, hurrying out to spot where the dog waited.
“It’s empty,” Caden announced, popping his head out of the bathhouse.
“I told you I’d checked there before. Yer damn dog canna smell for shit. I knew she’d be no be found inside.”
And yet he’d hoped. Hoped he’d somehow been wrong about her being gone. He had to be wrong. There was no way she could have gotten through the gates to leave Dun Ard. They were too well guarded.
“Missy says not inside. Under.” Ellie pointed to the place where the stream ran under the bathhouse.
“Under” led to outside the walls of Dun Ard. That was how she’d managed it.
Colin touched his palm to Drew’s chest and then walked a short distance away. When he turned his face upward to the moon, Drew could almost swear he saw light shining from his brother’s face, not down onto it.
The illusion lasted for less than a heartbeat and then it was gone.
Gone like Leah.
“South,” Colin announced. “She travels south.”
“Then I travel south as well.” South? It could mean only one thing. She headed for MacQuarrie Keep. Damnation! What did the foolish woman think to do against a castle full of English soldiers?
He broke into a full run, headed toward the stables, unaware of the men who followed him until he led his horse from its stall.
The three of them, Colin, Simeon, and Alasdair, all readying their own animals as quickly as he.
He caught Colin’s eye and his brother smiled. “You dinna think we’d let you go alone to yer fun with the English, did you?”
Thirty-one
Leah stiffened her back, refusing to allow the men’s laughter to deter her.
“I’d have the courtesy of your answer, if you please.” She lifted her voice to be heard over their noise. “It’s a perfectly reasonable barter I offer.”
“If you had any ground from which to barter it might well be,” Richard offered. “But you haven’t any.”
They’d been at MacQuarrie Keep less than half an hour and already she wished everyone in the room dead. Well, almost everyone. She felt almost grateful to Sir Peter, in spite of his having captured her. He, at least, did not laugh.
Immediately upon their arrival he had brought her here, delivering her to these buffoons, where she’d offered up her bargain. She’d marry Lord Moreland so that he might have his precious sons and in return Richard would leave Scot
land and never come back again.
The knight had warned her it wouldn’t work when she’d informed him of her plan on their return journey. Still, it was the only hope she had for helping Grandpa Hugh and Grandma Mac.
The sound coming from Lord Moreland at the moment was more of a wheeze than a laugh, culminating in a fit of dry hacking coughs before he could add his thoughts on the matter. “You’ve no say in the matter, girl. What’s to become of you is your uncle’s determination, none of your own.” He waved a shaking hand toward the door. “Get my page! I need my potion.”
Sir Peter stepped outside the room and returned shortly accompanied by a young boy carrying a flask, which he handed over to the old lord after removing the stopper.
The old man sipped from the flask before handing it back to the boy to replace the stopper.
The knight had mentioned his uncle’s dependence on the “potion.” From the looks of the old man, she might well be saved the trouble of marrying him if she could only drag things out for a week or two.
“So she wed herself a native barbarian, did she?” the old man asked once he’d managed to catch his breath again. His voice was as crackly as his skin and he spoke at great volume, as those whose hearing had deserted them often did.
“An annulment should be no problem, my lord.”
Obsequious, kiss-ass toady. Dick.
“Peter!” Lord Moreland wiggled his thin fingers in his nephew’s direction, urging him to approach. “Find the man. That Scot. Kill him. I’ve no time to waste on an annulment. A widow will serve my purpose as well as a maiden.”
“No!” The protest burst from her, beyond her control, but no one really seemed to notice she’d even spoken, though Sir Peter had moved to her side.
“Rather than rushing into this, Uncle, perhaps we should take the time to make her husband’s death appear an accident. No point in rousing a landed family to battle. We’ve no idea who in the court they might have alliances with. You’ll want a waiting period before you take the woman anyway. To make sure any offspring of your union are from your seed.”
Healing the Highlander Page 22