Which of the three missives had he drawn from the pouch? Was it the one that began, “Finn, I have met an angel,” in which Geordie poured out all the tender emotion in his heart? Was it that written after his marriage, that expressed his disappointment? Or the final outpouring of grief that held all Geordie’s pain and inability to comprehend why the woman he adored did not love him?
He could see enough words on the page to tell it for the last. Quickly, he folded the paper and tucked it away again.
The words filled his mind:
Why will she not love me? I would give anything—all the days I have left of my life—for her to take me even once to her bed. But she does not look at me the way I wish. She does not see me the way I wish.
It is some terrible punishment, Finn. Fate is repaying me for all the evil I have done: the men slain for silver, the homes burned at the direction of some vile chief. And Culloden. She sees all that when she looks at me. What we did at Culloden. That is why she breaks my heart.
Finnan closed his eyes and stopped trying to remember. Culloden. Aye, it always came back to that. No man who had been there could have come through that battle unchanged.
A thought stole into Finnan’s mind: maybe Jeannie was right in that Geordie had altered a bit in Dumfries. But the truth of him, the loyalty that made up Geordie’s heart, could not alter.
It was a sin to throw the love of such a man, unstinting and genuine, back in his face. But that Jeannie had done, hard-hearted woman that she was.
Did that make Finnan want her any less? Damned if it did.
****
Jeannie looked up from the doorstep where she sat spinning wool, and the spindle went still beneath her hands. After two days’ rain, this morning had dawned awash with heavenly blue, smeared like watery paint across the sky. She had taken her work outdoors, and Aggie had walked to Avrie House to see what she might learn.
As an agent, Aggie left much to be desired. Impulsive and voluble, she had little talent for deception. But she was Jeannie’s only choice, and Jeannie knew she would go mad without news.
She fumbled with the wool in her lap and tried to concentrate on the task at hand. In no fit state of mind for spinning, her usually competent fingers had gone all clumsy, and the yarn broke time after time. Yet winter would soon be at their door with cold and snow. They would need warm clothing.
Frustration caused her to mutter a word oft-spoken in the taverns from which she had coaxed or dragged her father. She wanted to lay the spindle aside, wanted to walk down the path and meet Aggie.
Or anyone else who might be on his way.
Why did he not come? He had said he would. Two nights since they had lain together, and both endless.
Her cheeks grew warm just thinking of what had passed between them there in the dark, all she had done and permitted him to do. It almost seemed like some wild dream, but the next morning at first light she had walked back to the rowan copse and found her drawers lying there abandoned, like cobwebs on the grass. He had taken them off her, slid them down her legs with those strong, clever fingers, and she had offered herself to him as a willing sacrifice.
How could she have done such a thing?
How could she live if she did not have him again?
Other evidence had marked her body that next morning, as well, signs she could not deny. Tenderness in places never before touched by any man. None of that kept her from wanting him.
The thread broke again as her fingers jerked, and she swore still more woefully. She laid the spindle aside as a bad bet, got up, and walked down the path.
Warm air poured over her skin like water. The glen was beautiful in this weather, but she could not imagine surviving here in winter. Lest it be in Finnan MacAllister’s arms.
What was the matter with her? Why could she think of nothing but him? But she remembered his hand sliding slowly up her leg, and her knees trembled beneath her.
Aggie had been gone most the afternoon. Surely she must come soon. They had agreed she should go for a gossip with her friends in the kitchen at Avrie House; Aggie seemed almost as hungry as Jeannie for news.
Upon that thought she caught movement along the path, and her heart leaped sickeningly, but it was only Aggie after all. She came with a hurried step, and when she drew near enough Jeannie saw the tension in her face.
“I wondered when you might come,” Jeannie greeted her.
Out of breath, Aggie said, “I hurried back. Dorcas and Marie kept me long and had much to say. This chase is all they want to talk about.”
“Come, sit and tell me over a cup of tea.”
It did not seem strange for Jeannie to swing the kettle over the fire and serve her maid, even less so when Aggie drew a handkerchief from her pocket and unfolded it.
“They plied me with cakes in plenty, mistress. I saved you some.”
The frosted dainties thus revealed looked a treat, but Jeannie set them aside, too hungry for news. “What did you learn?”
Aggie drew a deep breath and blew it out again. “Well, the Avries have not yet taken their quarry, but not for lack of trying. Dorcas says her masters have had men up and down the glen day and night—even in that filthy rain we had—but they have failed to catch him.”
Jeannie shivered. What if a troop of Avrie household guard had come upon her and MacAllister in the rowan copse? The pure humiliation of it heated her cheeks again.
“Where could the laird and Danny be?” she asked. “They have not returned here.”
Aggie widened her eyes. “That is the question on everyone’s lips. They do not call Master MacAllister ‘laird,’ of course. They refuse to acknowledge him as that. They have many other names for him, some I dare not repeat.”
Jeannie said nothing, watching the emotions flicker across Aggie’s face.
“And the things they say of him!” Aggie made a quick gesture, the sign against evil.
“Like what?”
“That he is not only a man and murderer of men but possessed of magic, as well. They say he uses the dark arts to conceal himself about the glen and performs pagan rites—even sacrifices—to protect himself.”
Jeannie remembered Finnan MacAllister leaning over the injured Danny and whispering a prayer—or had it been an invocation? She said, “Who knows what goes on in this uncivilized place? Yet how long can he and the lad hide themselves? They will have to go to ground eventually.”
“Not at Dun Mhor. The Avries have men keeping watch over the ruins. If the laird and Danny set one foot there, they are snared.”
Despair flooded Jeannie’s heart. “But how can such a thing end?”
“In death, I fear,” Aggie pronounced, her usually benign expression hard and tight. “You mark my words, mistress, for they mean to slay the laird if they find him—and no hero’s death, but by blood and by flame.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
As soon as he heard approaching horses, Finnan MacAllister swung down from the tree in which he perched and alighted on the path. The long twilight had just descended, that time when shadows competed with the half-light of gloaming and men’s nerves stretched tight. A perfect time for a surprise attack.
He recited a silent charm for protection as he leaped, and felt the familiar confidence return. His dirk, clenched between his teeth, tasted of metal, and even before his feet hit the ground his sword came to his hand.
He had been in one-sided fights before. And he had faced four-to-one already in his own glen; these odds did not really seem so bad.
The first man went down without even knowing whom he faced; Finnan’s sword took him in a fell swoop, and he tumbled from his horse into the path. The other three men—none Trent or Stuart Avrie—quickly tried to maneuver their mounts in the narrow space. Finnan had chosen his place of ambush well, trees on one side and hard granite on the other.
“’Tis he!” Finnan heard one of them yell. “The demon!”
Demon, was it? Finnan grimaced even as he leaped for his second man. It
would be easy to disable the fellow’s mount, but Finnan did not like harming horses; he had served in far too many campaigns when they were hired, same as he. And he could think of no better way to bring himself ill fortune than to bleed one.
The gods knew he had ill fortune enough.
That thought became his last before he switched off his mind and took on the warrior’s mien. Years spent serving as a mercenary had taught him the necessity of it: complete and intense concentration kept a man alive, and no room for pity.
Save for the horses.
Two more men went down in quick succession, one to his sword and one to his dirk—dead or severely wounded; he did not have time to tell. The fourth man decided quite wisely to make a break for it, but Finnan hauled him from his mount and threw him to the ground, with the point of the dirk at his throat.
“Now, then,” he said as he crouched above the fellow and tried to catch his breath. “You will give me some information before you die.”
In the gloom beneath the trees, he could barely see the fellow’s expression. Wide eyes caught what light there was and reflected it in a slick shine.
Finnan let the dirk bite a bit deeper. “You will be a hired sword.” Not so different from him, then. “And with no real investment in this fight. Is it worth the dying?”
The man made a spasmodic movement but did not speak.
“How many hired men do the Avries have on hand?” Finnan demanded. It seemed like a small army. Finnan did not understand how they could afford it.
“A score,” the man croaked out.
Finnan’s brows jerked up. “Fewer now,” he returned seriously. “This will not end well for any of you. If I let you go, will you tell the others to clear off?” He bared his teeth. “This glen belongs to me. It will always be mine. Trent and Stuart Avrie—”
A flicker in the man’s eyes, or perhaps pure instinct, warned him just in time. He bounded to his feet and whirled even as the sword of his first opponent, not dead after all, swooped past his head. Finnan swore to himself and rued the fact that he had not made sure and slit the man’s throat. Now he would have to face both of them.
But nay, for he heard the man behind him get up onto his horse and away—going for help, most like. Avrie House lay not far off. Reinforcements would come soon, which meant Finnan needed to end this fight swiftly.
His opponent streamed blood from the wound at the side of his neck that Finnan had already inflicted, but he had a firm grip on his sword and a terrible grimace on his face. Finnan, with his sword in one hand and the dirk in the other, whirled like a dancer and attacked the man from behind, making the most of the limited space.
A deadly and desperate fight ensued over the bodies of the two fallen men, while the dark increased by the moment. Like fighting a shadow, Finnan told himself, one with a deadly blade. He could hear his opponent grunting and gasping with every blow rather than see him, and the breath began to heave in his own lungs.
End it, he told himself, but at that moment his opponent leaped.
Finnan felt the man’s blade make contact with his left arm. The dirk fell from his hand.
Anger ignited inside him then: it had always been so, on the field. Had not Geordie said Finnan fought like a boar, and like a maddened boar once blooded?
He swung his sword in a blur that caught the last of the light and, speaking another charm, completed a wide sweep that parted his opponent’s head and body.
The corpse fell with two separate thuds that he heard rather than saw. He stood with his heart pounding, alone.
But not for long.
He had to get away from this place, as the fox leaves the hunt. He needed to find Danny, get the lad up and moving. Not easy with the fever that beset the boy every time night came.
Swiftly he took stock of himself and swore bitterly. Another scar to add to the number; for his left arm had been laid open in a long cut. He could not go dripping blood in a trail.
He fumbled on the ground, recovered his dirk by feel, and then wrapped his arm with his plaid.
A score of men, so his opponent had said. Only seventeen now. But this time he had not come out of it unscathed.
****
Danny tossed in a restless sleep as Finnan reached him, burning with fever and difficult to rouse. Their hidey hole lay high above the glen. From here, by day, Finnan could look out and assess Avrie’s movements, but now he saw only darkness and little pricks of light—torches, perhaps—heading out from Avrie House to the place he had just fought his battle.
He unwound his plaid from his arm and rewrapped the wound in a shirt that would never again see service, and once more assessed himself. Only minor cuts, besides this one. He had to get moving, and Danny with him.
But the lad made a nearly dead weight and mumbled fretfully when Finnan got him up.
“Come, lad,” he said grimly. “We must find a better hiding place until morning.”
He had in mind a stony copse at the south end of the glen, where they had concealed themselves before. Half way there he knew Danny would never make it so far—nor, to be honest, would he. He paused to gulp a great lungful of air and saw that Jeannie’s cottage lay almost directly below.
Refuge. But why should he think of her that way? She had no real reason to help him, and her cottage, this night, could prove more trap than haven.
Yet if he might leave Danny there once more he could move far more swiftly, lead the hunters on a true fox’s chase.
Danny made the decision for him—he went down and would not rise again. Finnan carried him the rest of the way and bore him, like an oversized child, to Jeannie’s door.
The maid Aggie, and not Jeannie, answered his knock, and the blood drained from her face in horror.
“Oh, mistress!”
And then Jeannie stood there, her gaze reaching for Finnan like welcome. “Come in.”
“They are after us, or soon will be.” It seemed only fair to warn her.
Her only answer, a gesture, swept them in. Aggie shut the door behind them and barred it carefully.
“Lay him down beside the fire,” Jeannie instructed. “Aggie, run and fetch the blankets we used before.”
Tenderly, Finnan placed the lad where indicated and then stood back, watching Aggie fuss. He realized belatedly that both women stood in their nightclothes; he must have flushed them from their beds. To be sure, the night was now well advanced.
“His fever has returned,” he told them unnecessarily. A hectic flush mottled Danny’s cheeks, and Aggie had already placed a soft hand on his head. “If I might just leave him here a wee while, I would be most grateful. I ken fine ’tis not your fight, this. And I will no’ stay to endanger you.”
Jeannie turned her head to look at him. Her hair, loose down her back, tumbled like a river of golden silk; she looked impossibly beautiful. Did she know that when she stood so, before the fire, her gown became damned near transparent? He glimpsed everything he had already touched, and his throat went dry with longing.
This was no’ the time for such thoughts.
Her face paled. “You are bleeding. Your arm—”
He looked down at himself in rueful acknowledgement. Not only did the wound on his arm bleed, it now dripped through the wrappings and onto her clean floor.
“I am that sorry.” He tried unsuccessfully to stanch the wound. “There was a fight back down the glen.”
She spoke a word no respectable woman should know. “Sit down. You can go nowhere like that.”
“But—”
She fixed him with a fierce, blue gaze. “Sit.” She planted a hand in the center of his chest and pushed him down onto a stool. To his surprise, his legs collapsed and he sat. “Someone must see to that wound. Aggie?”
But the little maid, completely occupied with Danny, did not so much as turn her head.
“And it seems,” said Jeannie MacWherter through stiff lips, “it must be me.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
So God did answer
prayers, Jeannie thought, but not always in the way one wished. She had asked most ardently to see Finnan MacAllister again. Just now, lying in her bed, she had longed for it in a decidedly impious fashion. And so he came, but so sorely hurt her hands shook and her heart quailed as she surveyed the wound.
His left arm had been laid open from the shoulder nearly all the way to the wrist. She could not see how deep the wound went for the welling blood. How had he ever managed to carry Danny, so? And how did he remain upright on the stool now?
She looked into his face and was caught by the light that simmered in his eyes—bright, wicked light. She knew in that moment what filled his mind, and it was not his wounded arm.
Heat raced up her body and engulfed her face. She turned from that look and asked Aggie sharply, “Is that water hot yet?”
“Almost, mistress.”
“Bring me bandages—tear up the last of that sheet. And fetch a cloth to hang over that window.” She wanted no one peering in from the dark upon this well lit tableau.
Finnan spoke as Aggie hurried to obey. “I do not wish to endanger you.”
“You are here now,” she answered shortly. “Do you think you have been dripping blood on the ground all the way here?”
“I hope not. They will track me like hounds. ’Tis why I must leave. Be a merciful angel and wrap that, but then I will away.”
“This needs more than wrapping. Do you want to end up like him?” She gestured at Danny. “How easy would you make it for them?”
“’Tis not your battle,” he said again.
Jeannie did not argue it further. She accepted the cloths Aggie fetched and did her best to stanch the wound. But just touching Finnan, even in so rudimentary a manner, started up a steady hum of desire. She bit her lip and did her best to avoid his gaze.
What was she to do with these feelings, with the impulse even now to lean down and cover his mouth with hers?
Aggie brought the basin of hot water, and Jeannie set about cleaning the wound while Finnan sat quietly beneath her touch, as if he felt no pain. The man might be made of granite for all the reaction he showed.
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