by Sondra Grey
“You’re going to kill yourself before he has the pleasure, love,” came a voice so soft I thought I’d imagined it. But I wasn’t imagining the hand on my hair, or the sudden pair of dark eyes appearing before my vision. Brandon.
He put a finger to his lips and said, hurriedly. “Are you all right, has he hurt you?”
I tried to breath, tried to calm the sudden hope that threatened to send me into a greater paroxysm of sobs. I shook my head. He hadn’t hurt me in any way from which I couldn’t recover.
Brandon’s expression was black at my hesitation and I watched him take a calming breath. “Here’s what we’re going to do Meg,” said Brandon. “I’m going to retie you, but loosely, and I’m going to unbind your hands. Don’t move.”
He set out to do as he promised and blood flowed back into my fingers so suddenly that I gasped with the pain of it. Brandon rubbed my hands in his for a moment and then untied me from the tree. “Sit up,” he said. “I can’t free you yet, and I can’t kill Angus. The King wants him alive.”
The King? I tried to say but my mouth was still covered.
“When he comes back to the clearing – I need you to be brave now, can you be brave for me?” I almost rolled my eyes at him.
“When Angus returns, I need you to distract him. Wound him if you must, I know you keep a knife in your boot,” he grinned at me a moment, sliding the knife from my boot and placing it in my still useless hands. “Make him come close, and when he does…” Brandon made a stabbing motion. “In the thigh if you can, right here,” he jabbed the top of his leg. “I’ll do the rest.”
I didn’t want to. I wanted to leave. I shook my head.
“Meg, darling, do this for me,” said Brandon. “And I’ll explain all after. I promise.”
But I wasn’t buying it. Brandon was a liar. He was working for the King. Or he was a bounty hunter. And if he was a bounty hunter, then he would turn me in…
“Maighread Anstruther,” he said, his voice soft. “I promise I won’t let harm come to you. Trust me.” His eyes pinned mine, his hand came up and cupped my cheek. “Trust me.”
I felt another tear slide down my face and I shook my head. I didn’t trust him.
He sighed and tried again. “Trust, at least, that I love you. That I’ve been hunting this bastard since that night we met at Edinburgh. I never wanted to lie to you, I never wanted to fall in love with you. But I did both, and I can’t take that back. All I can do is make it better. And capturing Angus the Black will make it better. I promise. Will you help me, Meg?”
There was no time to answer his question. Angus cheerful whistle was just audible over the rise. And before I could blink, Brandon was gone, disappearing behind me and into the woods. How had he done it without making a sound!?
Moments later, Angus appeared, arms full of firewood, and he set out making a small fire, his back to me.
For a moment ,fear controlled me. I forgot what I was supposed to do. Then I realized it. I began to struggle realizing, as I did, that Brandon had, in fact, tied the rope loosely. I stopped struggling so hard. I didn’t want the rope to give too soon.
But my commotion had worked and Angus straightened from his work and turned, looking amused. “I suppose I could take that gag off. We’re miles away from where anyone might hear us.”
He strode forward and bent down. I begged my fingers to work, to flex around the knife. Angus hands were on the back of my head, untying the scarf. And when he pulled it back I hauled in a deep breath, and struck.
My movements were clumsy, hampered by the rope and my still-throbbing hands. But the rope gave, and my heavy arms shot upward. Adrenaline did the rest, propelling my blade down.
Angus had sensed the movement and had terrific reflexes. He’d lept backward so that my knife caught him in the side of the shin. But I’d put all my strength behind it, and it had stuck in.
Angus cried out in pain. “You rotten little bitch!” he hollered. The knife still in his calf, he charged forward and I screamed as his hands came for my face, wrapped around my throat. He was gone in an instant, thrown backwards and away from me, as Brandon appeared from out of thin air.
I didn’t expect Angus to rise so quickly, but he did, my knife in his hand and Brandon reared back from his attack as Angus swung the knife wide.
Angus spat dirt from his mouth, eyes wild as they landed on Brandon. “You!” he said, after a moment’s confusion crossed his face. “Cameron!” Recognition contorted his face in silent fury. “What the hell are you doing here?”
But the knife was wavering. Cameron. Brandon Cameron? The name sounded familiar. I’d heard it somewhere before. There’s always a bad one in the bunch. Black Brandon Cameron. I gasped. I could hear the Cameron clansmen boasting as if he were standing right next to me. Black Brandon Cameron. Who’d killed his brothers and then disappeared into the highlands. Black Brandon Cameron, who’d turned up at the King’s palace in Edinburgh and rode through the highlands with a troupe of musicians.
It wasn’t Brandon Sorely who’d taken my virginity, who’d made love to me, whom I’d given my heart to. I wasn’t carrying Brandon Sorely’s baby. I was carrying Black Brandon Cameron’s bairn. And it was Black Brandon Cameron now facing down Black Angus MacDonald.
“Last I heard,” Angus was saying, “You were trapped on an island somewhere, rotting away.”
“And yet here I am now,” said Brandon.
“The question is: why?” Snarled Angus. “Did you make a deal with her father too?” He eyed me a moment before his gaze went back to Brandon.
“The deal I made was with James Stewart,” said Brandon, calmly.
“To bring me in!?” Angus was incredulous. “In exchange for what?”
“My freedom,” said Brandon, smoothly. “Knighthood. An estate.”
Angus snarled. “So, you’re just like your bloody father. You’d sell out your own people…”
“My own people have done little enough for me,” Brandon cut him off. “And James has promised me something worth having. A life that is my own.”
“You’re a fool,” Angus retorted. “If you work for James your life is never your own. We are not our own men anymore! We are subjects!”
Brandon shrugged. “Better be subject to James than to men like you and Lochiel Cameron,” he said. “Enough talking. Drop your knife. You’re coming back to Edinburgh with me.”
Angus sneered. “Over my dead body,” he said, cooly, knife coming up.
I realized I had to do something. Brandon had a knife as well, but if I didn’t act, they’d kill each other. I’d managed to get Angus in the calf, but it wouldn’t slow him down, I knew.
I lunged sideways, with absolutely no intention on following through, but the movement worked. Angus’ instincts took over and he moved to face me down. Which is how Brandon caught him right in the side of the head.
Angus fell back a few steps, but Brandon wasn’t giving him the room to recover. He repeated the blows, hitting Angus in the side of the head with a closed fist until he crumpled onto the ground in an unconscious heap.
I didn’t dare breath. Even Brandon seemed still while he cradled his hand and waited to see if Angus would rise. When he didn’t Brandon grunted, turned, and strode towards me. For a second I thought he was coming to comfort me, but no. He grabbed the rope and the scarf that Angus had used to tie me up and gag me. He trussed Angus hand and foot, wadding the scarf into his mouth and securing it. He did it with such efficiency that I knew he’d done this before – captured someone. Tied them up.
He killed his brothers. Black Brandon Cameron.
When we was through with Angus he turned towards me, eyes intense. “Can you stand lass?” he asked. I realized that I was frozen where I’d fallen from the lunge, still on my hands and knees.
I picked myself up, my hand going instinctively to my stomach. I watched Brandon note the gesture and then dismiss it. “All right. You can stand, can you ride?”
I nodded.
&nb
sp; “Good, then let’s get out of here.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head and backing up a step. Black Brandon Cameron. Kin killer. “Weren’t you supposed to be rotting on an island somewhere.”
Brandon frowned and took a step forward. I instinctively took one back.
“Meg,” he said, voice soothing, but I wasn’t falling for it. Not this time. He was an actor. He’d charmed me utterly, and I’d fallen for it. I’d seen what I wanted to see in him. But no more.
“Meg what’s this about?” he said, holding his hands out to show me he wouldn’t harm me.
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I told him.
He shook his head. “Meg,” he said. “I can’t take you back to Balrig. I can’t go back there with Angus. You’ll come with me to Edinburgh…”
“I will not come with you to Edinburgh,” I said, fiercely. “I’ll go back to the castle!”
Brandon shook his head. “Meg…” his eyes fixed on my stomach. “I know Meg, I know you carry my child.”
I blanched. How could he know!?
“It’s what you wanted to talk to me about when we were riding toward Balrig, isn’t it? We weren’t careful. You’re with child, and its mine.”
“I’m not!” I lied. “I wanted to talk to you about… about… something else entirely.”
Brandon raised his brow at me. “Come back to Edinburgh with me Meg. I work for the King. I’ve been on the King’s business since we’ve met, hunting down Angus. When I return him to James, I’ll be granted knighthood and an estate. We can live away from your father, we can…”
“I’m not going back with you!” I said. “You’re a liar! You are who he said you were! Black Brandon Cameron! You killed your brothers…You…” He raped Sorcha Campbell.
Brandon blanched. “You don’t believe that,” he said.
“Don’t tell me what I do and don’t believe. What I know is that you lied to me!” I was screaming now, pain and anger and exhaustion from the last few hours making me hysterical.
“And I’m telling you the truth now,” said Brandon, hand still up, voice still calm. “I did not directly kill my brothers, though I was responsible for their deaths. I did not rape Sorcha Campbell though I take responsibility for her too.” He looked sick. “For I did not stop her rape at my brother’s hands. And for my sins, I spent three years on the Isle of Ruim, only to trade one prison for another when my father gave me to the King as a hostage…”
“Am I supposed to feel sorry for you!?” I demanded, still hysterical. “You lied to me…”
“You lied to me!?” Brandon shot back. “You told me you were married to an abusive husband, that you were a village lass from…”
“And that was why it was all right to use me like a common…”
“I tried to push you away. I never gave you any indication that was anything more than…”
“I know that!” I screamed into the clearing, silencing him. I took a deep breath and tried to control my anger. “I know that!” I said. “I know that I gave myself to you, that I made myself believe you felt the same for me as I felt for you, that we were somehow similar. I know it’s my own fault. I thought you were different. I thought there was something in you that spoke to something in me. I should have listened to Babette and to Glenna when they said you were just like any other man…”
“Meg,” Brandon interrupted, my words had found their mark and he looked pained. “Meg this is moot. You are gently bred, you are pregnant with my child. I may be base-born but I come from a wealthy house. Once I deliver Angus to the King I’ll be a knight of the realm. We can wed, Meg, and I can take care of you. No more sleeping in lofts. No more travelling through the rain and the snow, dependent on the kindness of strangers…”
“I would rather depend on the kindness of strangers than the lies of a Cameron,” I said.
That hit him hard. He stiffened. “Meg. Our child…”
“There’s no child,” I said again.
“I spoke to Babette…”
“Who knows nothing about anything. There’s no child. End of story. And I won’t go with you.”
“Meg, you are making a mistake and I won’t force you.”
“Leave,” I said, hotly. “Leave. You have what you came for. You did not come here for me.” He may have said he loved me. He may have said that he fell for me, but I know he was lying. He was saying what he had to in order to get me to help him.
Brandon opened his mouth as if to argue, but Angus groaned on the ground. Brandon looked at him a tense moment, but Angus was tied tight. Cursing Brandon bent down and hauled him up, slinging him over the horse the same way Angus had slung me.
I closed my eyes.
“Meg.” When I opened them, Brandon was standing before me. “Meg. I have to deliver him to King James. I wasn’t lying when I said I loved you. But I had to do this Meg. I’d have had nothing to offer you otherwise.”
“No,” I said. “You could have stayed with us. You could have played…”
“Don’t be naïve. I’m the king’s man now, Meg. Come with me.”
“No.” I was trembling with the need to say yes. With the need to accept what small reason and apology he’d given me, but I couldn’t. He wasn’t who he said he was. He’d lied to me, he’d used me. And what would he have done if I wasn’t Maighread Anstruther? I never would have seen him again. No. I was shaking my head vehemently.
Brandon cursed and raked his hand through his hair. “I have to go, Meg. I don’t know who might be looking for him.”
I said nothing. I didn’t need his excuses.
Brandon took a step back and cursed. It was swift, hard, and broken. And for a moment, my heart splintered in the vehemence of the curse. But Brandon turned his back on me, swung into the saddle, and rode off on Angus’ horse, leaving me alone in the woods.
In the end, I should have followed Brandon out of the woods at least. I wasn’t sure how we’d gotten to where we were going, and I wasn’t sure how to get home. I climbed on the horse’s back and let him have his head. He seemed to remember how we’d entered the woods and so we ended up on a road heading South east. It was hours before Balrig rose up in the distance.
When I appeared riding Brandon’s horse, my friends tried to ask me what had happened, but I wouldn’t say. After I dismissed their persistence enough times, they stopped asking me. And while they brought it up a few times in the weeks that past, I wouldn’t say a thing. And Brandon never returned.
Chapter 9
B randon stood for before the King, Argyll, and Huntley. The King looked even more tired than when last Brandon had seen him. Argyll and Huntley both looked worn as well. The evening was late. It was a week after Brandon had arrived with Angus in tow. It was a week that Brandon needed to recover from the journey. There were many men who’d be out looking for Angus, and the world didn’t need to know that it was Black Brandon Cameron who’d captured him. Brandon had used the drugs he’d picked up from the apothecary to keep Angus sedated. He’d travelled only at night and stuck to the forests. He’d slept for almost two days after and then waited, impatiently, to be summoned to James.
“He’s told us next to nothing,” said James, as Brandon took his seat in front of the King and the Earls.
“And the King won’t let us torture him,” said Huntley with a grim smile that suggested he’d like to do just that.
“Why don’t you tell us what you learned?”
Brandon took a deep breath and started at the beginning. The MacDonalds on Skye knew nothing. And he’d learned nothing much from the Macleods of Harris, who had sheltered Angus Dubh for two years. “Three years ago, it seems as if Angus MacDonald was looking to make a move against your Majesty. He’d managed to unite a good many highland clans, but he needed more ships, and access to the ports in the east. So, he sought to make an alliance with the Baron Anstruther…”
“Anstruther?” interrupted the king, surprised. “What on earth…”
“The Baro
n Anstruther has access to western ports, and some of the most lucrative trading contracts in Scotland. Angus promised he’d regain control of the Eastern Ports once we reclaimed the isles, and would offer Anstruther sole rights to the ports. To seal the deal, MacDonald would marry Anstruther’s daughter. But the daughter disappeared the day before the wedding. Without her, there were no guarantees that either party would commit to his word, so Anstruther broke with MacDonald. I’m still working on confirming the details, but I imagine that MacDonald had promised his highland lords ships and access to the west. Without being able to commit ships or access, the highlanders backed out as well. And sold out MacDonald to you, lest you learn about their involvement in the scheme.”
James’ mouth was a grim line and he tapped his finger on a piece of parchment before him. “Do you have the names of these Lords?”
“I have the names of the Lords who sheltered MacDonald,” Brandon said. But who originally pledged to aid him, I’m uncertain.” Brandon rattled off a list of the castles he’d been to, all of whom had housed MacDonald. He made sure to list those he thought were doing so only for family’s sake, and those who’d housed him only for a night before sending him on his way.
“He ended up at Balrig. I have a feeling that it was not the Laird of Balrig who was sheltering him, but his brother-in-law, Doran, who was second cousin – I believe – to the old Lord of Isles.”
“I know the man,” Huntley grunted.
“Best as I could tell, Doran MacDonald is working with his kinsmen and the Lords of Harris to try and rebuild an army for MacDonald.”
“And as he’s residing here now, it doesn’t look as if they’ll be able to,” said Argyll, smugly.
James nodded, staring at the list in front of him. “I’ll need to know more about the Mackenzies, McCleries, and the Macleods of Claire.” He looked up and pinned Brandon with a knowing gaze. “And the Camerons?”