It didn’t seem to have any effect. “I am not employed by you,” she declared.
“I dunnae—”
Mary pushed past him. “What did you do, Crawford?” she demanded, snapping the missive against her palm. “When did you send the first letter, and what did you say?”
The maid didn’t alter her expression. “I am in the employ of the Marquis of Fendarrow. In his absence, I will do whatever is necessary to protect his reputation and that of his fam—”
“Arran, do you have two pounds?” Mary interrupted, turning her back on Crawford to hold a hand out to him.
Wordlessly he pulled two coins from his pocket and placed them into her palm. If she meant them to be set over the dead maid’s eyes he would have preferred that she use shillings, but he couldn’t disapprove the gesture.
Rather than throwing the blunt at Crawford, though, Mary turned and left the room. Immediately the maid started forward, but Arran took a step sideways to block her exit. “Ye’re nae going anywhere.”
“I will scream,” she retorted.
“Scream till crows fall from the sky, ye witch. Ye’ll still nae leave this room until we decide what to do with ye. And I favor putting ye in a hole in the ground and shoveling dirt over ye.”
“I am only doing my duty. How dare you!”
“Yer duty. Bah. Ye’ve set an angry group of men after us. What, ye think they’ll nae consider that Mary is ruined? Ye think she’ll return to London and everything will be as it was?”
“I think this entire venture is all your idea, and your fault.”
“Mayhap that’s so, but she’s in it now. And she’s here because she didnae want the life her father decided for her.”
“That is not her decision.”
Mary topped the stairs again, her expression even grimmer than before. “I think ye have the wrong of that, Crawford,” he returned, and faced his lass. “Is everything well, Mary?”
“Yes. Help me gather my things, will you, Arran?”
“Aye. We need to be oot of here before we’re caught.”
While Crawford, arms folded, continued glaring at them from one corner, they tossed Mary’s new clothes and toilette items into the small trunk he’d purchased for her. She held back one plain green muslin, and crossed into his room to shed her night rail and pull it on. However much he would have liked to follow her to watch, he wasn’t inclined to leave the maid unsupervised. Now was not the time for her to attempt again to convince Mary to return to London or to wait there at the inn for her father’s arrival.
Peter trotted up the stairs, and Arran set him to watch Crawford while he hastily packed his own trunk. He carried it into the hallway and set it down. “There ye go, Peter. Get them loaded as quick as ye can.”
“Aye, m’laird.”
Mary approached again, and he moved behind her to close the trio of buttons running up her back. “Do ye have a preference over what we do aboot the battle-axe?” he asked, sending Crawford another glare. If Mary still wanted the maid with them he would agree to it, but only if she traveled bound and gagged and tied to her bedpost each night. And that he wouldn’t compromise about.
“I’ve seen to it,” she said, a grim iron to her tone that he’d never heard before.
“If you continue on with him, my lady, you’ll be ruined beyond anyone’s ability to salvage. He’s not only an enemy of your family, but he’s a Highlander, for heaven’s sake. A barbarian. It is my duty to guard you and your rep—”
“Not any longer, Crawford. Consider your employment terminated.” She took a breath. “And you likely should have considered that I’m a Highlander as well, before you went about insulting all of us.”
The maid’s mouth opened and closed again, like a dying fish on a riverbank. “Your father hired me,” she finally gulped out. “You cannot hand me my papers.”
“I just did.” Mary turned as the blacksmith with whom she’d danced earlier came upstairs, a hammer and lumber in his hands. “If you please, Thomas.”
Crawford drew her hands up to her chest, an oddly girlish gesture for someone as severe as she was. Clearly she was mortified about being seen in her night rail by a stranger—though she hadn’t so much as flinched when Arran barged into the room. “This—what do you think you’re doing?”
“Making certain you cannot cause any more trouble.” The tavern maid appeared next, a tray holding a loaf of bread, a pitcher of water, and a glass in her hands. Mary took it with a nod and set it inside the doorway. “Goodbye, Mother Graves.”
The blacksmith started to close the door, but Arran stopped him with one hand. He wasn’t surprised that his logical lass had figured out a way to dispose of the woman, but he was impressed. “One moment,” he said, not bothering to disguise his brogue any longer. Fendarrow knew where they were.
Stepping into the room, one wary eye on the fuming maid, he opened the wardrobe and removed the severe black muslin gown that remained there. With a squawk she leaped at him, but he beat her to the door and pulled it shut. Still screeching, Crawford shoved at it from inside. Arran put his shoulder against the wood while Thomas hammered the planks into place across the door frame.
“Whatever are we to do with her?” the tavern maid asked, sending the rattling door a nervous glance.
“Naught,” Arran replied. “She has nae money to give ye and no clothes to wear. I imagine someone will come along tomorrow or the next day inquiring aboot us. They can let her oot, if they choose. We’ll be well into Wales by then.”
The misdirection was fairly obvious, but hopefully the maid and the blacksmith were too distracted to notice. Mary wrapped her hand around his arm, and together they descended the stairs and left the Fox and Grapes. He remained as tantalized as the fox in that tale, but in his story no one was keeping him from his prize.
Outside the carriage he caught Peter by the arm. “I know ye dunnae approve of this madness,” he said in a low voice, “but ye may have just saved us all. So thank ye, Peter Gilling.”
Mary released him and stepped forward to plant a kiss on Peter’s flushed cheek. “Thank you, Peter,” she seconded. “You’ve given us a chance.”
The footman doffed his floppy hat. “I couldnae have the Campbells riding us doon, begging yer pardon, m’lady.”
“I couldn’t have it, either,” she returned, and stepped up into the coach.
“Take us north, as fast as ye can,” Arran muttered. “We’ve nae the time to be subtle any longer.”
“I’ll see the two of ye to the Highlands or die trying, Lord Arran, curse me if I dunnae.”
So with Duffy and Juno tied off at the back of the coach, they rumbled into the night. Their few days of leisurely travel were over; if they couldn’t stay ahead of the Campbells they would lose their future together, and he would likely lose his life. And at this moment he honestly couldn’t say which fate would be worse.
“I’m so sorry,” Mary said from the darkness beside him.
He reached over and found her hand, drawing her up against his side. “Why are ye apologizing, my bonny Mary?”
Her hand trembled in his. “You didn’t want Crawford along in the first place. I … I suppose I wanted to keep hold of a chance to get my old life back. But I never thought she would go behind my back like that.”
“We didnae only upend our lives,” he returned, tucking her beneath his chin. Her still disheveled hair smelled of lemons, fragrant in the cold dark of the coach. “We upended hers, as well. She was trying to put things back to what most benefited her.”
“Will they catch us? My father and Charles, I mean?”
“I’m nae certain. It depends on whether and when they got that first letter, and how much Crawford knew aboot the road we meant to take.”
“I think she knew a great deal.” Mary squeezed his hand. “I don’t want you to be hurt, Arran.”
“I’ve nae wish fer that either, my lass. And nae wish to hurt any of yer kin.”
“You didn’t feel that way a
few weeks ago.”
Arran smiled grimly into the darkness. “A few weeks ago I only knew Campbells over the pointy end of a sword. And however I feel aboot most of yer kin, they are yer kin.” He had no doubt that he could better than hold his own if it came to a fight; his years in the army hadn’t gone to waste, after all. But the future he wanted for the two of them likely wouldn’t be able to withstand him putting a ball through her father. That circumstance, therefore, needed to be avoided.
“You took Crawford’s gown,” she said a moment later, her voice stronger and steadier.
“Aye. I figured it might make her think twice aboot trying to climb oot a window. That was clever of ye, to barricade her into the room.”
“I wanted to punch her in the nose.” She shifted, and he could more feel than see her gazing up at him. “I wonder now if your sister and I weren’t so different. I know you’ve always kept guards around her, and that your clan calls her the fairest flower of the Highlands. My father did hire Crawford, even though that would have been something my mother generally did. Perhaps she was meant to be my guard.”
He thought about that for a moment. “She didnae precisely act the way my sister’s maid, Mitchell, does,” he said slowly. Perhaps Crawford had been more of a threat than he realized. That was a thought to keep him awake nights.
Mary sighed, her breath soft and warm against his cheek. “What are we going to do, Arran?”
“We stay together. That’s what we do.”
“That’s a nice sentiment, but rather nebulous for a plan, don’t you think?”
With a chuckle he found her mouth for a soft, slow kiss. He could live on those kisses, he was beginning to think. “Nae,” he murmured. “It’s the only thing that matters.”
Chapter Thirteen
Munro MacLawry dismounted from his big gray gelding, Saturn. He didn’t need a view of the sky to know the weather was turning, because the hair on his arms was lifting. Even so, from the front drive of Glengask Manor the black, roiling clouds were clear to see all the way across the valley.
“Storm by sunset, do ye think?” the lean man standing beside him asked, his gaze on the same view.
“Before that. Are ye staying fer dinner then, Lachlan?”
Lord Gray nodded. “Might as well. Cannae have ye roaming the halls alone like a great weepy ghoul.”
“I’m nae weepy.”
“Ranulf and Winnie have been away from here fer better than seven weeks, and Arran fer four. Have ye even heard from them?”
“Aye, here and there.” Arran was the only one who wrote regularly, and even he’d been silent for better than a week. “Ye know more than I, dunnae? Isnae Winnie sending ye those fancy perfumed letters every day?”
Lachlan frowned, turning for the front door as grooms appeared to lead away the pair of mounts. “Ye know she stopped writing me.”
“I’d fergotten. Likely she’s found a handsome Sasannach lord to occupy her. Ranulf has—a pretty lass, from what I hear.”
“Ranulf would never permit Winnie to marry a Sasannach who’d take her oot of the Highlands.”
“A few weeks ago I’d have agreed with ye. But then I also would’ve wagered ye a hundred quid that Glengask wouldnae lose his heart to an English lass. They say being in England changes a soul.” He didn’t know any such thing, but it did serve to explain his oldest brother’s actions. And if it gave Lachlan pause, so much the better. Because so far the viscount hadn’t shown any sign of viewing Winnie as anything other than the pigtail-wearing sister of his good friends. But Ranulf seemed to want them together, so Munro meant to do what he could to help.
The door opened as they reached it, but rather than standing back to allow them entry, Cooper and his shock of red hair came out to meet them. “Ye’ve a note, m’laird,” the butler said, holding it out. “Came by special courier. The lad said it was urgent. I was aboot to send William oot to look fer ye.”
Munro took the missive. “We rode oot to see Duncan Lenox and his new bride.”
“And his sisters,” Lachlan added. “The oldest one, Sorcha, nearly fainted when Bear smiled at her.”
“She didnae. And she’s naught but sixteen. Now shut up so I can read this.”
The address was in Ranulf’s dark, spare handwriting. He broke Glengask’s wax seal and unfolded it. At the first few words, though, he stopped, his blood freezing. “Ran’s office, Lach. Now.”
Lachlan fell in behind him as he strode down the wide hallway with its portraits of ancient MacLawrys, clan chiefs and warriors and statesmen, all of them with thick black hair and steely eyes, all of them sworn to fight to the death to protect Glengask and her people. Campbell haters, all of them.
“What is it, Bear?” Lachlan asked, closing the door to shut them inside Ranulf’s spare, neat office. “Ye look green aboot the gills.”
“I feel greenish. Listen to this. ‘Bear, the Campbell truce is likely broken past repair. I—’”
“That didnae last long,” Lachlan commented. “But ye cannae be surprised.”
“It’s worse than that. ‘I need ye to gather riders and head south to the border. Arran’s on his way north in the company of Mary Campbell, Alkirk’s granddaughter. Ye need to keep him from being slaughtered by the Campbells chasing after him, and ye need to keep him from marrying that woman AT ALL COSTS.’ He capitalized that last bit.”
“Sweet Jasus,” Lachlan muttered, looking more than a little off color, himself. “A Campbell? Arran?”
It was the word “marrying” that caught Munro’s attention. He could see Arran bedding the Campbell’s granddaughter to thumb his nose at old Alkirk and his kin. But marriage? That didn’t make even a madman’s sense. Moving around Lachlan, he pulled open the door again. “Cooper! Fetch me William! And Andrew and Connor. And have horses saddled fer ’em.”
“How many men are ye taking with ye, Bear?” Lachlan asked.
“Enough.”
“I’ll ride home and get my kit, then.”
Munro blocked his friend from the door. “Nae. Ye know the words on the coat of arms. ‘Always a MacLawry at Glengask.’ Ye’ll be staying here.”
Lach frowned. “I’m nae a MacLawry.”
“Yer grandmother was. And the clan knows it. I need ye here, especially if we’re stirring up trouble.”
After a moment the viscount nodded. “I’ll agree to it only because of what this could set in motion, Bear. Because ye ken if ye run across any Campbells, it’ll mean a fight.”
“Aye. That’s my hurry. If anyone’s to murder Arran, it’ll be Ranulf. Or me. Damned fool.”
Perhaps he wasn’t as razor-witted as Arran, but he knew well enough that if his brother had truly run off with Mary Campbell, they’d begun a disaster. He couldn’t see a way through it that didn’t include bloodshed. And more than likely the blood would be Arran’s.
“Damned fool,” he repeated.
* * *
Mary awoke from a dream in which her father became a great bear and slashed his claws through Arran’s chest as she and Arran slept together in a cozy bed in a cozy cottage up in the Highlands. She sat upright, startled, and banged the back of her head on something.
“Ouch,” Arran said mildly, rubbing his chin. “What woke ye, lass?”
They weren’t in a cozy cottage in the Highlands. They were still in the badly sprung carriage fleeing north. And evidently she’d fallen asleep on Arran’s shoulder, with his arms wrapped around her. Still, though, the terror of that moment, the horror of the … loss she’d felt, lingered. “It was just a dream,” she said aloud, though it felt like far more than that.
No one in her family was a witch or a warlock, however—as far as she knew. No one could portend the future in dreams or tea leaves or tarot cards. And she seriously doubted her father could become a bear. An angry dog, perhaps, barking and howling at the moon, but if she had anyone as fierce as a bear in her family it would be her grandfather.
“Was I in this dream of yers?” he asked slyly
, tucking a strand of her red-brown hair behind one ear. “Were we naked?”
“Yes, you were in my dream,” she returned, still trying to banish the lingering cobwebs, “and no, we weren’t naked. At least I don’t think we were. We were in a bed with blankets over us.”
“Together? Then I’m certain we were naked.”
“Arran.”
“What disturbed ye aboot it, then? It seems a fine dream to me.”
“It was, until my father found us, turned into a bear, and clawed you to death.”
“Well, then. That would be upsetting. Except that yer father’s nae a bear and there are nae bears in Scotland, anyway. Nae any longer.” He grinned. “Ye snore, ye know.”
With an indignant laugh and truly grateful for the distraction, she slapped him on the knee. “I do not!”
“Ye do,” he insisted. “It’s a wee, delicate sound, like a lamb bleating.”
“Well, you sound like an elephant trumpeting when you snore,” she countered, because it seemed plausible.
“I didnae snore, because I didnae sleep.”
Mary shifted into the far corner of the coach so she could take a look at Arran. Really, truly see him. His lean expression remained easy and amused, his sunrise-blue eyes darker but sharp in the dimmer light inside the coach. Beyond that, though, shadows swooped at the edges of his jaw and beneath his eyes, and she abruptly wondered when he’d last managed a good night’s sleep. Likely not since they’d left London.
“Sleep now,” she said, reaching out to run a finger along his jaw. “I’ll keep watch.”
He studied her face as intently as she’d been looking at his. “Do ye regret this, Mary Campbell? Do ye wish we’d nae met?”
Vulnerable. That was how he looked. And if she chose to, she could wound him badly. “I’ve wondered about that,” she admitted. “And I’m not so sure my circumstances would have altered all that much. The moment the truce began, my father went looking for Roderick—at my grandfather’s behest, I assume. And if the truce had lasted long enough, I would have married him. If it hadn’t, well, Charles practically sleeps on our front porch. Neither of them … light a spark in my heart.” Not the way Arran did. “And I would have had no one to ride to my rescue.”
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