Highland Surrender

by Dawn Halliday

  “Over there,” Bowie said in a low voice, gesturing with his chin to the bushes beyond the grassy area.

  “Aye.” Some of the branches were broken, as if men had stomped through them without regard.

  Ceana jumped from the bench, and Bowie followed. She turned a slow circle, studying the area.

  Bowie whistled out a breath. “Come look at this, Ceana.”

  She went to where he stood looking down at the ground, an expression of disgust on his face. “Blood, isn’t it?”

  “Aye.” Kneeling down, she lifted a red-stained leaf and sniffed at it to make sure. Fresh blood, and it looked like whoever had been bleeding had been dragged a short distance before he had either stopped bleeding or someone had picked him up to carry him away.

  Lifting her skirts, she hurried over the trampled terrain. It wasn’t difficult to follow their path. She paused in a small clearing, where they must have stopped for a time near a thin-trunked pine, for multiple boot heels had churned the earth here.

  “There.” She pointed to a trail of trampled grass leading toward a large copse of trees. From this clearing, the party had plunged even deeper into the forest. Ceana retraced their steps, pushing through the shrubbery, heedless of the branches scratching at her hands and tearing her arisaid.

  The brush grew thicker and the trampling more obvious. Then, all of a sudden, the disruption to the environment simply stopped. Ceana reeled to a halt, with Bowie just behind her.

  She turned in a slow circle, eyes narrowed. A dense screen of bushes and trees surrounded them, innocuously fluttering in the evening breeze. All she could hear were Bowie’s harsh exhalations.

  “Something’s not right,” she murmured. “Why would they come so deep in the forest, just to turn around and return?” Since they’d left the clearing, she’d seen no signs of blood or struggle.

  A flash of red caught her eye, deep in the brush. She squinted at it, then pushed through the bushes.

  It was a man, half buried in forest debris and mud. She knelt beside him, her knees cracking branches, and pushed leaves from his face.

  “Rob!”

  He looked dead. God in heaven, he was so pale. But his skin was pliant, and, pressing her fingers to his neck, she detected a faint pulse.

  “Rob MacLean?” Bowie whispered.

  “Aye.”

  She transformed into her healer persona seamlessly—she could virtually feel the impassivity of her trade flooding through her, and she welcomed it with open arms. If she held on to her humanity at this moment, there would be too many questions, too much emotion. But there was no time for any of that now. She had to save Rob.

  She checked his pulse again. Thready and rapid. She checked his eyes—dilated.

  Poison. It had to be. Rob was too healthy for this to be anything else.

  His lips and mouth were completely dry, and when she pulled open his shirt, she saw that his skin was also dry, and a red rash covered his chest.

  Belladonna.

  She turned to Bowie. “I must go back to the cart for my medicines.”

  Bowie nodded.

  “Try to rouse him while I’m gone. He might seem deranged, but he’ll be too sick to hurt you.”

  “Aye, Ceana,” Bowie said gravely. As with all the residents of the Glen, his trust in her capability was absolute.

  She sprinted back to the cart, even more heedless to the damage to her skin and clothes wrought by twigs and branches. Time was of the essence in cases of poisoning. Belladonna was utterly lethal. If she got to him too late—and dear God, she knew just from looking at him that she was close to that point—he was no better than dead.

  She reached the cart and climbed into it, tossing aside the plaids that covered her belongings. She threw clothes and small items of furniture over the side. Her medicines were toward the front of the cart, and she stumbled her way to them. The first items she needed, emetic wine, coffee, and plain water, were common enough, and easily found.

  Piling the items on the bench, she focused on her packed medicines, sifting through them in rising frustration and fear. She’d used the jaborandi that she’d acquired from one of the ships that had come from the Americas only as an experimental medication, but she and Brian had theorized that jaborandi might be effective against nightshade poisons.

  She released a sob when she caught sight of the tiny glass container containing the jaborandi tincture. Dropping the other items into her sleeve pockets, she grabbed the vial, leaped out of the cart, and ran back through the brush. By now they’d created quite a clearing, and she reached Bowie and Rob in moments.

  Bowie looked up at her. Fear shone in his blue eyes. “He’s awake, but . . . And he’s shaking badly.”

  Ceana sank to her knees beside him. “Rob? Rob, do you hear me?” “Elizabeth?” he asked, his voice slurred.

  “No, Rob, it’s Ceana.”

  “Elizabeth?”

  She ground her teeth. Confusion was a common symptom of belladonna poisoning. “You must sit up,” she said sternly. “I’m going to give you something to drink, and you must drink it all.”

  “Thirsty,” he agreed. His muscles weakened from the poison, he couldn’t lift himself, so Bowie helped him to a seated position.

  Kneeling at his side, Ceana held the emetic to Rob’s lips. “You must drink all of it. It will help you, I promise.”

  “Ceana?” A muscle worked in his jaw, and he squinted at her. “I can’t see you.”

  “Aye, it’s all right. It’ll go away once we get some medicine into you. Drink.”

  He opened his mouth, and Ceana tilted the jar. He gulped it all down, and she met Bowie’s eyes. “Hold him to the side,” she said quietly.

  Bowie did as he was told, and within moments Rob was retching violently onto a pile of twigs. Bowie and Ceana held him until he’d expelled all of the emetic wine and the remaining contents of his stomach, of which there was very little.

  This didn’t bode well. It meant he’d been given the belladonna on an empty stomach, and his body had probably already absorbed much of the poison.

  Bowie continued to hold him as he retched, and Ceana drew back to mix the jaborandi tincture into the coffee.

  Rob leaned back, shaking even harder. “I see Elizabeth,” he murmured. “Elizabeth?”

  “Spectral illusion, Rob. It’s one of the effects of the poison. Elizabeth is not here.”

  He continued to rave about Elizabeth and the duke and Cam, half of his mutterings unintelligible.

  “Now, Rob,” Ceana said, holding up the cup, “this medicine you must keep down. It’s coffee with some other medicines added, and it should not taste as horrible as the last. You must keep it down, Rob—do you understand?”

  “Will it cure the headache?” he slurred. “My head’s about to burst.”

  “Aye, it’ll clear your headache in time.” Either it would cure his headache or he would die, she thought grimly. Either way, he’d no longer feel the pain.

  He took the cup from her. He shook so badly she feared he would spill all her precious exotic tincture, so she held her hands over his, keeping them steady. “Good, then. Drink it.”

  Dutifully, he brought the cup to his lips and took a drink.

  And retched, bringing every drop of the fluid up.

  “Damn it, Rob,” she ground out. “You must keep it down. You must! It is your only chance, do you understand? Don’t be such a man. Be strong, like a woman. Swallow it, and don’t allow it to come up or you will die, do you hear me?”

  He blinked in confusion, then muttered, “Witch.” He pushed her hands away from the cup, and under his own power, he drank it down in one gulp. Then he leaned forward, face flushed, panting heavily. He squeezed his eyes shut. “Holy hell. I’m going to vomit.”

  “No. You are not. You will not.”

  He groaned. “Uh, I am, Ceana. I am . . .”

  “No.” She took a deep breath, leaned forward, and spoke into his ear. “Elizabeth needs you, Rob. If you die, she will
suffer under her uncle’s hand. I know she will. Is that what you wish?”

  Rob swallowed hard. Bowie exchanged an alarmed glance with Ceana, and she didn’t know whether it was because of what he’d just learned about the earl’s betrothed or if he was worried Rob wouldn’t be able to hold the medicine down.

  Rob did hold it down, however. He began to tremble harder, and then his eyes rolled back in his head, and he slumped. Bowie caught him halfway to the ground and lowered him gently upon the dirt.

  The young man stared down at him. “Is he going to die?”

  “I don’t know, Bowie.”

  “What do we do now?”

  “Now we wait.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “I should like to confer with Lady Elizabeth,” Cam said flatly. For two days, Elizabeth had sequestered herself in her bedchamber pleading illness, and Cam hadn’t pestered her. He hadn’t had the strength.

  He’d drowned himself in work, avoided thoughts of Elizabeth, tried—and failed—to push the loss of Ceana from his mind.

  But his time was running short. He was to be married in two days, yet he still hadn’t determined what he was going to do about his betrothal to Lady Elizabeth Grant. He needed to make a decision—today, damn it—about his upcoming nuptials.

  The compulsion to go after Ceana, to find her and force her to succumb to his will, was still powerful—in fact, it had driven everything else in his life to a screeching halt as he struggled to combat it—but he wouldn’t be a fool this time. He would not repeat his mistake by dragging her away and risking her hatred.

  He also knew, from speaking with Sorcha, that Ceana wouldn’t allow him to find her. It was over between them. Finished. He’d lost her forever.

  With that fact tearing at his heart, his marriage loomed ever closer, and a decision needed to be made. He’d put this dreaded conversation off long enough.

  Duncan was across the room, folding one of Cam’s shirts. “Aye, milord. She’s been unwell, however . . .”

  “Ask her to come to me,” Cam said shortly. “If she’s not able, I’ll see her in her bedchamber.”

  “Yes, milord.” With that, Duncan bowed and withdrew.

  Elizabeth stared at Cam’s study door, blinking hard in a futile attempt to push away the grief clawing through her.

  Two nightmare days had passed. Unaware of the events occurring around her, she’d lain curled up into a ball in her bed, overcome by black, dark grief. It covered her like a shroud pierced by hundreds of tacks that sliced beneath her skin, releasing all the poison that had accumulated since Uncle Walter had killed her parents and her brother.

  Again, she was responsible for the death of someone she loved. Again, she’d failed.

  She’d lost Rob. She’d caused him to suffer. She couldn’t rid her mind of the look of pain on his face after he’d ingested the deadly nightshade. He was already dead, and he knew it. She knew it.

  She’d drift off into a hard sleep, and nightmares plagued her. Watching him die. Watching him endure the effects of the poison as she stood by, helpless, tied to that damned tree. Unable to move. Unable to do anything but watch the man she loved succumb to death.

  This morning, Duncan had come into her room and said the earl had demanded to see her. He’d mentioned that Bitsy was gone, that she’d disappeared three nights ago, and that he’d send a maid to help her dress.

  When he left, Elizabeth forced herself off the bed and dragged herself over to the drawer where she kept the diamonds she’d offered to her maid.

  They were gone. Bitsy had finally come to her senses. She’d taken Elizabeth’s diamonds and fled, hopefully to Gràinne and the other women on the mountain.

  The maid arrived and helped her dress, and now she was at Cam’s door. Somehow standing, though the grief made her as heavy as granite, made motion so difficult, she had to grit her teeth with every straining step forward. With power she didn’t know she possessed, she raised her hand to knock on Cam’s door.

  Marry Cam.

  Those were the last words Rob had mouthed to her as they’d dragged him away.

  She would do it. If she succeeded at nothing else, she would fulfill Rob’s dying wish and marry his brother. In this, she would not fail.

  She was a master at deception, at pretending she was something she was not. At pretending she loved her doting uncle. At pretending she was happy, even when grief darkened her soul and made her heavy as stone.

  She didn’t know when—whether it was day or night, whether it was this morning or when they’d first returned to Camdonn Castle—Uncle Walter had come to her. He’d threatened that if she revealed anything of what had happened, he’d abandon his idea of marrying her to a Scotsman. He’d use the belladonna on Cam and then take her home.

  She didn’t doubt him. Uncle Walter always came through on his threats. He would kill the Earl of Camdonn.

  Uncle Walter knew, he knew, that she had given up. If it was just Elizabeth he threatened, she would have bared her chest to his sword. But he threatened Cam now, and he knew she’d do whatever she could to save him from her uncle’s poison.

  So she would somehow find a way to hide her grief. Pretend that nothing had happened, that she knew nothing of Rob’s disappearance, and that she was ready—and eager—to marry the Earl of Camdonn.

  She needed to endure only two more days of pretending, and then she’d be free. Uncle Walter would go back to England, and Cam would be safe.

  She’d do this for Cam. And because Rob had asked it of her.

  From inside, Cam called, “Yes?”

  She took a moment to harden herself. Breathing deeply, she closed her eyes and pictured the numbness she knew so well coating her—mind, body, and spirit. Then she lifted her head, cleared her throat, and spoke in a clear voice.

  “It is me, Elizabeth. You called, my lord?”

  “Come in, please.”

  She smoothed her buttercream satin skirts, so different from the rough wool of the arisaid Rob had given her on the morning of their marriage, and entered Cam’s domain.

  “Good afternoon, Elizabeth.”

  Clenching her fists so her hands wouldn’t shake, she curtsied. She twisted her lips into a semblance of a smile. “Good afternoon, my lord.”

  When she raised her head, his eyes widened. She knew how awful she looked. Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy, and her face was lined with grief.

  She breathed deeply, imagining the air entering her body and strengthening her. Today her act of self-possession was more difficult than it had ever been before.

  Cam spoke gently. “There are a few things we must discuss.”

  Pressing her lips together, she nodded.

  “Please sit down.” He gestured to one of the silk-covered chairs, and she walked over to it and lowered herself onto it, smoothing her skirts to keep her hands busy.

  Panic.

  She couldn’t do this. She didn’t want to do this. Why not fall at his feet and explain everything? Beg, plead? Cam had always been kind and understanding. He’d help her.

  No. No, she couldn’t. This wasn’t about her or her grief. This was about Cam, his safety. She must keep him safe. She must pretend. Just for two more days. Just until Uncle Walter was gone.

  She swallowed her fear and, battling the never-ending crush of grief in her chest, raised her eyes to his.

  He took the chair across from her after pushing it a few feet closer. Their knees nearly touching, he leaned forward. “Are you still unwell? What plagues you?”

  For a long moment, her lower lip quivered. Then she gathered herself yet again, battling off the threatening tears. She straightened. “Just a . . . woman’s complaint, my lord. I am feeling much better this afternoon.”

  “Please call me Cam.”

  She nodded.

  “There is something very serious I wish to speak with you about, Elizabeth.” He paused, then said, “It is about Robert MacLean.”

  The world spun around her, and she clutched the ca
rved chair arms, battling to maintain her equilibrium. She sat very still so she wouldn’t betray herself. Yet her grief threatened to erupt with every second that passed.

  Cam leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers under his chin and watching her. “Elizabeth, it is time to stop pretending. You’ve engaged in carnal relations with my half brother. More than once.”

  Panic overtook her. She couldn’t stop it, couldn’t prevent it from flaring in her eyes and over her skin. He knew. He knew at least part of the story. Her mind struggled to regroup, to assess, to calculate the changes she must make to her plan.

  Save him. Save Cam from Uncle Walter’s belladonna. Nothing else matters anymore.

  She must lie to Cam about Rob—there was no other choice. It was too late for Rob, for happiness, for love, but it wasn’t too late for Cam. He was a good man. She must see her uncle gone from Scotland without him hurt.

  She blinked, then blinked harder. Again she composed herself.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she whispered.

  “Stop,” he said gently. “I saw the two of you, out by the loch. You’ve left your room at night several times since to meet with him.”

  She sat very still, and the solution came to her in a rush. With relief, she released the stopper she’d stuck behind her eyes and allowed the tears to brim and then spill over.

  “Will you turn me away?” She still clutched the chair arms, the carved ridges digging into her fingertips. “Please don’t turn me away.”

  He leaned forward. “Listen to me. If you love Robert MacLean, you cannot marry me. I’ve no wish to be second in your estimation.”

  “No!” She shook her head emphatically. “That . . . that could never happen.”

  She sobbed wholeheartedly now, and Cam leaned back, a stunned expression on his face.

  “Rob has gone,” she lied through her honest tears. “He hates me, hates what he’s done to you. It was my fault, every bit of it. He said he couldn’t stay, knowing how he betrayed you. So he left. He’s gone. He left me, and he left you. Forever. He’ll never return. Please, my lord. Please . . .”