Instead, Myra entered as the first flakes of snow drifted past the window. By this time Dougall and Montrose had joined them, and all five men glanced up and frowned at her unexpected appearance.
Nervously, she looked to Rory. “I need to talk to Lady Maclean. I thought perhaps she had joined you. I apologize for intruding.”
Rory’s anxieties immediately escalated. “I thought she was with you. Has she not returned to her room to dress for dinner?”
Myra shook her head. “I was just there. I thought her sleeping, but the bed has not been touched.”
Dougall paled and set aside his glass. “She went out earlier with Mary to visit one of the tenants, something about flowers, I believe. I thought she’d returned by now. She couldn’t have gone far.”
Rory was already striding across the massive hall. “Which tenant?”
Dougall hurried after him. “I don’t know. One who knows about flowers, they said.”
Rory cursed and grabbed his coat. “Who knows about flowers?” he asked Myra, who shook her head blankly.
“I’ll ask in the kitchen.” She hurried away.
“What is the meaning of this, Maclean?” Alex asked, swinging his glass in one hand. “Is Alyson kept prisoner here, and not allowed out without special permission?”
Dougall caught Rory’s shoulder before his fist could fly. With contempt, Rory swung away from Alyson’s cousin to pull on his boots.
Dougall was the one to explain. “There’s a storm moving in, and it will be dark before the half-hour is out. Alyson does not know her way around yet, and it is easy even for those familiar with the land to be lost when dark falls. Mary knows better than to allow her to stay this late.”
Rory knew that Mary understood the dangers of these hills even if Alyson did not. Dougall would not have sent her otherwise. If neither woman had returned, there was a good possibility something beyond tardiness was at hand.
The earl observed their troubled expressions and reached his own conclusions. “Is there anything we can do, Maclean? I’ve found the road in the dark before. I can do it again.”
Rory nodded. “Take that way, then. There are only two cottages between here and the river. She could not have gone farther than that. Come back here when you are done.” He looked up as Myra joined them, leading one of the kitchen scrub maids.
“Peg says there is someone by the name of Crandall living up one of the hollows, who grows flowers and herbs.” Myra held the nervous child by the shoulder as Rory’s dark gaze fell on her.
“Crandall?” He turned to Montrose. “One of our Crandalls? I thought you told me . . .”
The older man nodded. “’Tis the younger. The cottage was empty and in poor repair, but Drummond knows nothing of it, since it is across the boundary. She’s been hiding there since late last summer. Her sister went on to Glasgow, it is said. I don’t know how she survives.”
“You know where it is, then?” Rory stood and reached for his hat.
“Not far.” Montrose hesitated, took a deep breath and continued, “You know where this boundary meets Drummond’s along the cliff’s edge?”
Rory stiffened.
“There is a hollow,” Montrose reminded him, “barely more than a crevasse there. Do ye not remember it? That ancient but-and-ben built into the hill?”
Gaining a grip on his rioting emotions, Rory jerked on his hat and swung for the door. “You and Dougall send men out to the nearest cottages to make certain they did not stop elsewhere. Everyone report back here when you’re done.”
“Wait a minute, Maclean, what about me?” Hampton set his glass aside and grabbed a coat held out by one of the servants.
Rory gave him a look of disdain. “You can go visit Drummond and make certain she’s not found her way there.”
That put the fear in every heart that had already found its way into Rory’s. Without looking for his gloves, Hampton hurried out the door after his host.
***
Mary muffled a scream as the dark horseman appeared out of the cloud, his cape blowing in the icy wind off the mountains. They had waited late to leave, and their progress had been slow because of Alyson’s weary pace. There would have been light enough had the cloud not descended, obscuring the path and all familiar landmarks. Even now, she could find her way in the dark if she must, were it not for this obstacle rising up out of the mist. Mary knew that silhouette too well—and had reason to fear it.
Stepping in front of Alyson, she whispered hurriedly, “Go back, milady. Hide in the broom until he is gone. He won’t see you in this mist.”
Already the snow was falling, tiny pellets that cut like razors against unprotected flesh. Alyson hugged her cloak closer against the whistling wind and gazed at the apparition forming out of the snow and cold. She had learned better than to run when fate arrived. This time, she had not strength left for running. The wordless terror she felt nearly exceeded the ache shooting through her spine and legs.
“What have we here? Fair maidens lost in the storm?” The voice was filled with good humor as the man led his horse closer.
“Not lost, nearly home,” Mary spat out between clenched teeth, keeping herself between the laird’s lady and the devil.
“I think not,” the man mused, coming closer to observe the two women huddled against the boulders. “This is a long way from any habitation on a night like this. I think I better escort you. It is a good thing for you I am late returning from my ride.”
Alyson scarcely heard his words. She had no need to. She could feel them, and they felt like the terror of her vision. She backed closer to the rocks, wishing she could disappear into their grayness.
“There’s someone coming for us. We don’t need you.” Mary let her cloak blow like wings away from her, concealing Alyson.
His grin appeared in his reply. “I beg to differ with you. If I remember rightly, I have a score to settle with you. I can think of a pleasant way of making it even. Bring your friend along. We’ll be warm, and the night outside promises to be an unpleasant one.”
As he reached for her, Mary grasped the hilt of the sgian dubh hidden in her waistband. “Go now, milady,” she whispered.
The man dodged as Mary threw herself at him, but his shout of anger was sufficient to send Alyson fleeing down the hillside in search of Rory. She had no weapon and no strength. Only her fleetness of foot could save Mary.
She had known she never had a chance, but she could not have done otherwise. Just as she knew the child was coming, and she could not stop it, so did she have to run, even though she knew she could gain only a few steps.
She heard Mary’s cry as the man slammed his fist into her. She did not turn to see Mary crumple to the ground. She could hear his footsteps, and then her toe hit upon a rock and she slid in the already deepening snow. As she fell, a hard arm caught her, and the evil in his laughter filled her senses as much as the pain washing over her. Blackness descended.
The cold woke Alyson sometime later. Her toes were numb with cold, shooting icy prickles up her leg to meet the fiery pains shooting through her midsection. She groaned and tried to lean back to ease the ache in her middle, but a hard obstacle prevented movement. The obstacle shifted, and she realized the binding beneath her breasts was an arm. Fear accompanied her discomfort as she realized her wrists were bound in front of her.
She tried to move away from the shoulder behind her head, but the arm tightened and an impatient voice spoke. “One move, and I’ll fling you over the cliff. My side hurts like hell, and I’m in no humor to consider your delicate condition.”
She didn’t know the voice, but she knew to whom it had to belong. Few men out here owned horses as immense as the one they were seated on. Even Rory favored a sturdy pony on these hills. And no other man would have attacked Mary and then held the laird’s wife in this blizzard. They weren’t moving, so he must be waiting for someone or something.
With amazing clarity, Alyson realized for whom he was waiting for and why. “He
doesn’t know I’m here. Take me home, and my father will see that you are rewarded handsomely.”
That drew a muffled laugh. “Save that for your knight-errant coming up the path. I’m no fool.” Drawing a handkerchief from his pocket, he pushed it against her lips. “Open up like a good girl. I don’t need any screams distracting his attention.”
Alyson resisted, clamping her teeth shut and struggling. She tried to scream through clenched teeth, tried to warn whoever was approaching, but the sound emerged muffled. When he finally pried her lips open, she bit his hand and hung on with a death grip, but the cloth went down her throat and she gagged.
His curses silenced as the hoofbeats approached. He reached for a rifle hung beside his saddle. Alyson screamed in earnest then, attempting to bring her bound hands to her mouth to remove the cloth. Drummond’s arm held hers in place, and she couldn’t lift them, couldn’t scream loud enough or long enough to reach the ears of the rider below.
In terror she watched as a horseman rounded the curve, and Drummond raised the rifle bore to take casual aim. Surely he couldn’t aim with any accuracy like that, she told herself wildly, struggling to overset his grip. But as she realized their position and the direction of the road, she knew he didn’t have to aim closely. The rocky ledge beyond would take care of whatever the rifle missed. Hysterically, she screamed again and again as the rider appeared out of the snow, just as in her nightmare.
35
The shot echoed through the howling wind. The recoil jerked Alyson back against Drummond, but her gaze followed the lone figure riding down the path. Through the blinding snow she could see the horse rear in eerie silence. The rider pitched sideways, and the pair disappeared over the edge of the cliff. Her screams died in her throat.
Without another sound, she gave herself over to the pain and numbness. As the man behind her triumphantly sent his mount into a canter, the pain became her only knowledge that she still lived. Her soul had gone over the cliff with Rory.
***
Alex reined in his horse in a rare moment of indecision. He didn’t doubt that it was madman Drummond’s weapon that had fired the shot, but he could not see the shooter from this angle.
What he could see was the laird flying over a cliff and disappearing into the blizzard.
He halted his horse instead of chasing after retreating hoofbeats. If there were any chance the Maclean could be saved, he must take it. He always knew where to find Drummond.
Cautiously he approached the rocky edge where the horse had gone over. The hillside swept down to the coast below, but unlike in his Cornwall home, this cliff was covered in ragged bunches of stiff gorse sprouting from between sloping layers of rock. Man or animal caught off-balance would tumble and crash and be dead of injuries before reaching the bottom.
Daylight had not entirely faded. If his eyes were not deceived, the horse was standing upright, if anything could be said to stand upright in these damned hills. That did not mean the rider had survived the fall.
Before he could crawl over the edge, a specter staggered down the road in his direction. Not given to superstitious fears, he still had to look twice before recognizing the ghostly black wings as the flaps of an old cloak. Then, remembering that Alyson had been with the tall maid, his heart lodged in his throat.
“Milord, he’s got her, he’s got the lady. Help her, please, help her.”
The gaunt woman caught at his arm for support, and he could see that she was injured. “Drummond?” he inquired, as if he needed to be told.
“Aye, milord. I tried to stop him. The dirk went in, but he’s a devil and willna die. I’ve tried to tell them, but they willna listen. You need stakes and fires for that one. Save her, milord. Angels know nothing of such.”
Behind the spectral maid, the horse Alex had just seen go off the cliff now climbed over the rocky edge, led by a man he had feared to be dead. In this damned Highland landscape, anything seemed possible.
The Maclean’s response made as much sense as anything else that had happened. “Devils can’t touch angels, Mary. We’ll have her back, you’ll see. Now, come along. We’ll be back to the keep now.”
The soft burr of Rory’s voice calmed the hysterical woman, and she silently accepted his assistance into the saddle. Hampton stared at his host as if he were the one crazed.
“You’re going back? That bastard has just ridden off with your wife, and you’re going back to the comforts of home? I never liked you, Maclean, but I never thought you a coward.” Alex swung onto his horse and turned it in the direction Drummond had taken.
“Suit yourself.” Rory shrugged. “Just don’t get in the way when my men arrive. They’ll not know you from your friend.”
Spitting expletives at this threat, Alex reared his horse and followed the damned laird back to his keep. His men, indeed! Alex had been told the Highlands clung to primitive customs, but he felt as if he had just been flung back into feudal times, when lords called their tenants to war. He wished he had a suit of armor.
The scene in the great hall a little later was as medieval as anything Alex could imagine. Men poured in from the blinding blizzard, summoned by a series of signals. As they arrived, the servants passed out torches. Outlawed swords, halberds, and hatchets were removed from the walls.
Here and there a man could be seen wrapped in his tattered tartan. Even Rory, once his injuries had been seen to, emerged sporting the plaid of war instead of a frock coat. Alex shuddered at the ferocity firing his dark face.
Murder was written on the visage of every man in the hall as the tale of the lady’s kidnapping was told. Knives bristled from boot tops and belts. To Alex’s amazement, the idle old man who claimed the title of Cranville fastened on a broadsword beneath his English-tailored redingote. Never had he seen a more incongruous sight, but his own blood boiled for the combat. Fury, he could understand, and he willingly joined them.
They marched or rode according to their means, spreading out across the hills with torches flaring. As they walked, others joined them, signaled by the flaring lamps in the watchtower. Alex gazed over his shoulder at the strategic location of the keep. Even through the blinding snow those lanterns could be seen beaming through the darkness, a feudal call to arms.
The laird led his ragtag army boldly, oblivious of the impossibility of his task. Men couldn’t ride out of the hills to storm castles anymore. His Majesty had forbidden wars and weapons, and his wrath would be great.
But Rory sat his steed like a medieval warrior, a wool hat pulled down over his forehead to protect his face, the vivid tartan acting as a flag. His square, stern face revealed no fear, although his stiff stance hinted at the extent of his injuries. Alex studied the fierce men around him and decided he was glad he wouldn’t be with Drummond when this mob knocked at the door.
Not that anybody intended to knock, he eventually realized. The Maclean led the both the tenants of Alyson’s estate and his own. The servants inside Stagshead slipped from the mansion to join the army marching over the once manicured lawns. Men took up pitchforks and hoes, and women held kitchen knives and pokers. For centuries the Macleans had followed their laird at his call. They did not fail him now.
***
Inside the mansion, Drummond grew restless at the deepening silence of his household. He paced, attempting to bind his wound on his own when his shouts brought no one. The servants had been increasingly lax, but not to the extent of ignoring him.
He shivered and kicked at the peat in the dying fire. His side ached, and he didn’t have the desire to hunt more fuel. After Cranville left, he should have returned to London. But he hated to leave unfinished business, and London was so devilish expensive. Now that the Maclean was dead, leaving this desolate ruin should be safer.
In the silence of the empty rooms, he heard a muffled whimper from above, and he scowled. He should have left her gagged. At the time, it had seemed amusing to take her hostage to prevent reprisal, but she was comely enough, and her fortune wasn’t to
be laughed at. She might serve other purposes.
All he had to do was wait for her to rid herself of the babe, then carry her off to Gretna.
Drummond fidgeted at the escalating caterwauling above stairs. It seemed the babe might appear at any time. He knew nothing of women giving birth, but she had looked pretty pale when he’d dropped her on the bed.
He didn’t have to worry about her trying to escape, at least. If he could find one of the wretched maids, he’d send one up to her. Or mayhap the female was just mad and making those sounds for naught. Who could tell?
Annoyed, Drummond threw his empty bottle at the blackened fireplace and set out to find the servants. If he whipped a few of them, they wouldn’t dare desert him like this again.
He stalked down the spacious marble-tiled hall, past the gilded drawing room, the chandeliered dining hall, the book-lined study, and the paneled game room. The Maclean mansion was of recent vintage, built after the end of the border wars, and still unfinished in many places. The rebellion had interrupted the construction, and only Drummond’s intervention had prevented it from destruction along with the homes of so many other Jacobites. He’d never had the wealth to complete the work.
Only now did he see the practical function of the old stone fortress. This new manor was vulnerable from the inside as well as out.
Although the fire still burned in the kitchen grate, not a servant was in sight. The bedrooms and servants’ hall behind the kitchen were equally deserted. His footsteps echoed hollow against the wooden floors as he retraced his path to the front of the house. On instinct, he pulled back the heavy draperies concealing the wide bank of windows overlooking what once would have been the park. What he saw made him wish again for the narrow barred windows of a keep.
Torches illuminated the silhouettes of men streaming up the hillside. Some had already reached the house and were following the road to the stables. Others approached along the carriage drive. It did not take long to detect the shapes of pitchforks and muskets.
Moon Dreams Page 36