The Campbell Trilogy

by Monica McCarty

  Her face was a mask of alabaster, devoid of expression and as fragile as glass. One tap and he feared she would crack. “Not so grateful that I will m-m-mar-r …” Her voice fell off as the word stuck in her mouth. She covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes round in horror. One of the men smothered a laugh, and Patrick could have killed him. Cheeks aflame, she spun on her heel and started to run up the path toward the barmkin gate. But she’d taken only a few steps before disaster struck.

  One foot skidded out from under her in the slippery mud and she lost her balance, falling backward on her rump and landing with an emphatic splash in a soupy brown puddle.

  One of the men muttered, “It seems her feet are as tangled as her tongue.”

  There were a few nervous chuckles, and Patrick prayed that she hadn’t heard but knew from the way her shoulders slumped that she had.

  It was the final straw. He’d had enough. The role of champion was unfamiliar to him, but he could stand aside no longer. He knew what he risked, but something compelled his feet forward. No lass—even a Campbell one—deserved such cruelty. And Patrick, perhaps more than anyone, understood being beaten down and left to flounder in the mud. He understood injustice.

  He closed the gap between them with a few long strides. Her hood had shifted with the fall to reveal a single heavy curl of flaxen hair, shimmering with light even in the gray mist. The simple beauty of it struck him. Though he couldn’t see her face, he could tell from the soft shake of her shoulders that she was crying. He felt a tight burning in his chest and something that he’d no longer thought himself capable of twisting deep in the bowels of his blackened soul: compassion and an inexplicable urge to protect.

  He’d gladly strangle those men with his bare hands for hurting her. Perhaps he would. “Here, lass,” he said softly, holding out his hand. “Take my hand.”

  At first, he didn’t think she’d heard him. But then she turned her head slightly so that he could see the sparkle of a single tear sliding down her pale cheek. The tiny bead ate like acid through the steel forged around his chest. Slowly, she raised her hand and slid it into his. It was so small and soft, he almost pulled back in shock—and then embarrassment when he thought of his hard, callused palms caked with dirt.

  But she didn’t seem to notice.

  Gently, he pulled her to her feet. She was such a wisp of a thing, he could have lifted her with a finger. He held her hand, feeling an odd reluctance to let her go, until she tugged it gently from his.

  She kept her gaze down, too embarrassed even to look at him. “Thank you,” she said so softly that he almost didn’t hear her.

  “They’re fools, you are well to be rid—” he started, but she was already hurrying away. From waist to hem, the back of her fine cloak was soggy and dripping with mud.

  He took a step after her, then stopped, setting his feet solidly in the mud. He let her walk away. Even if it were possible, comforting a lass wasn’t anything he knew how to do. The idea of a MacGregor outlaw consoling a Campbell heiress was so improbable, he would have laughed if the ability to do so hadn’t died in him long ago.

  He turned his gaze away from the solitary figure disappearing through the gates of the castle.

  Just in time to see Jamie Campbell, Argyll’s Henchman and the most dangerous man in the Highlands, headed right for him. The Henchman must have seen his sister stumble and had decided to investigate. And by helping her and drawing attention to himself, Patrick had made himself the center of that investigation.

  He cursed, and his gaze shot to Gregor. His brother was looking at him as if he were half-crazed, and in truth, Patrick had begun to wonder the same thing himself.

  What could he have been thinking?

  He knew they had to act fast. Campbell was closing the distance between them, recognition flaring in his eyes.

  Anticipation surged through his veins with the promise of a battle long overdue. There wasn’t a MacGregor alive who didn’t want to see Jamie Campbell dead, and Patrick would like nothing more than to have the honor of sending the Henchman straight home to the bloody devil.

  His hand flexed around the hilt of his dirk. One throw …

  God, he was tempted. More than tempted—eager, even. But reason interceded. It would be a death knell; three men against a hundred were odds he wasn’t inclined to test.

  His gaze shifted quickly to his cousin. Three contestants remained on the archery field, but there was only one thing he could do. The chief would have to wait to best the MacLeod, just as Patrick would have to wait to face Jamie Campbell.

  Revenge would hold for another day; the sands of ven geance never ran dry.

  Mouthing “Now” to his brother, he pushed hard on the pole. It wobbled and started to fall, slowly at first, swaying like a pendulum, then coming down hard with a mighty crash.

  The distraction worked as pandemonium exploded throughout the crowd. Patrick ran toward the forest, joining his brother and cousin, but something made him look back to the tower keep of Inveraray Castle.

  Regret, perhaps, for something that could never be his. For the life that had been stolen from him. A life where a MacGregor warrior and a Campbell lass were not separated by fortune and hatred.

  With one last glance at the mighty fortress, Patrick slipped into the trees and disappeared into the mist.

  Chapter 1

  O Castle Gloom! thy dark defile

  Throngs not with Scottish story;

  On other towers, O proud Argyle

  Sits crowned thine ancient glory.

  But little have we of the past,

  As up the dell we ramble,

  To figure, floating on the blast,

  Thy banners, Castle Campbell!

  “Castle Campbell,” by WILLIAM GIBSON

  Near Castle Campbell, Clackmannanshire, June 1608

  Elizabeth Campbell lowered the creased piece of parchment into her lap and looked out the small window, watching the hulking shadow of Castle Campbell fade into the distance with a heavy heart. No matter how many times she read the letter, it did not change the words. Her time, it seemed, was up.

  The carriage bounced along the uneven road, moving at a painstakingly slow pace. Recent rain had made the already rough road to the Highlands treacherous, but if they continued like this, it would take a week to reach Dunoon Castle.

  Lizzie glanced across the carriage and caught the furtive gaze of her maidservant, Alys, but the other woman quickly shifted her eyes back to her embroidery, feigning a concentration belied by the ill-formed stitches.

  Alys was worried about her, though trying not to show it. Hoping to divert her questions, Lizzie said, “I don’t know how you can sew with all this bumping—”

  But her words were cut off when, as if to make her point, her bottom rose off the seat for a long beat and then came down with a hard slam that rattled her teeth, as her shoulder careened into the wood-paneled wall of the carriage.

  “Ouch,” she moaned, rubbing her arm once she was able to right herself. She glanced at Alys, who’d suffered a similar fate. “Are you all right?”

  “Aye, my lady,” Alys replied, adjusting herself back on the velvet cushion. “Well enough. But if the roads do not improve, we’ll be a heap of broken bones and bruises before we arrive.”

  Lizzie smiled. “I suspect it will get much worse. Taking the carriage at all was probably a mistake.” They would have to switch to horses when they passed Stirlingshire, crossed into the Highland divide, and the roads narrowed—or, she should say, became more narrow, as they were barely wide enough for a carriage even in this part of the Lowlands.

  “At least we’re dry,” Alys pointed out, always one to see the positive side of a situation. Perhaps that was why Lizzie enjoyed her company so much. They were much alike in that regard. Alys reached down and picked up the letter that had fallen to the ground with the tumult. “You dropped your missive.”

  Resisting the urge to snatch it back, Lizzie took it casually and tucked it safely in h
er skirts. “Thank you.” She could sense Alys’s curiosity about the earl’s letter, about what was taking them to Dunoon Castle so suddenly, but she wasn’t ready to alleviate it. Alys, like everyone else, would find out the contents soon enough. It would be no secret that her cousin the Earl of Argyll intended to find Lizzie a husband.

  Again.

  Apparently, three broken engagements weren’t enough. It was her duty to marry, and marry she must.

  Her chest squeezed as the humiliating memory of her most recent broken betrothal returned to her in an unwelcome flash. The pain, even with the passage of two years, was still acute. “Elizabeth Monntach,” they’d called her. And she so eager for compliments that she’d “lapped them right up like a grateful pup.”

  The humiliation still burned. Worse, John was right. She’d been far too eager, far too ready to believe that a handsome man like him could care for her for reasons beyond clan alliances and wealth. Her best friend had found happiness; she’d desperately wanted it, too. Enough to ignore what her gut was telling her—that beneath the handsome exterior was a man of weak character and strong ambition.

  Hearing the man she’d given her heart to speak so cruelly of her would have been bad enough, but then it got worse. Much worse. She closed her eyes but could not shut out the memories of stammering. Of slipping in the mud. Of their mockery. “Her feet are as tangled as her tongue.” The sounds of their laughter still echoed in her head. She could almost taste the hot, salty tears that had burned in her throat and eyes. She’d wanted to crawl under her bed and never come out.

  Only one man had helped her. She’d been too embarrassed to look at him, but she remembered the kindness—not pity—in his voice and the comforting strength of his callused hand. She frowned. Strange to think that her gallant knight had been a MacGregor.

  She’d missed the chaos that had followed her departure from the pavilion, but later her brother had told her what had happened. Alasdair Roy MacGregor and his men had escaped right out from under his nose, and Jamie had been none too happy about it. What Jamie couldn’t understand was why the outlaw had risked discovery to come to her assistance in the first place. She didn’t know, either, but she would be forever grateful for his act of kindness.

  She sensed that Jamie knew more about the man who’d helped her than he’d let on, but perhaps because he could sense her interest, he’d held his tongue, refusing to satisfy her curiosity about the gallant outlaw.

  She’d put an end to the betrothal with John Montgomery immediately, too ashamed to tell her family the particulars. But when he’d been maimed in an attack not long afterward, losing an ear and part of his sword arm, Lizzie wondered if her family had discovered something on their own. She had not wished him ill but knew that nothing she could have said would have stopped her family from exacting retribution. They were much too protective of her. Perhaps that was part of the problem—the Campbells were an intimidating lot.

  Lizzie had put the unpleasantness behind her and tried to forget, but sometimes, like now, it would come back to her in a vivid wave as if it had been yesterday. And when word spread that once again the Earl of Argyll was seeking an alliance for his oft-betrothed cousin, the whispering would start all over again.

  She dreaded the conversation with her cousin, knowing that she would no longer be able to keep secret the extent of her foolishness with John.

  Though her cousin Archie hadn’t come out and said marriage was his intent, Lizzie had read between the lines of his letter. She lifted the parchment to the window once again, the bold black scratches of ink revealing far more than what was written.

  My dear cousin,

  Summer is fast upon us. I request the pleasure of your company at Dunoon as soon as possible to discuss a matter of some import. As we discussed last winter, for your kindness following the death of the countess last year and your attention to little Archie and the girls, I’ve gifted you with a sizeable parcel of land.

  Archibald, 7th Earl of Argyll

  More land. How humiliating. Despite her cousin’s claim, Lizzie knew that her help following the death of the countess wasn’t the real reason for the gift. Archie obviously thought he needed to sweeten the pot to get someone to marry her. No doubt he was only trying to help, but her tocher was already one of the richest in the land; wasn’t that enough?

  Her shoulders sagged. Apparently not.

  Part of this was her own fault. Summer, she’d promised. Could it be June already? When her cousin had broached the subject of another betrothal all those months ago during the Yule celebration, the days were still short and the snow blanketing the moors of Inveraray Castle still comfortably deep. Summer had seemed so far away. There had seemed plenty of time to find a suitable man on her own. Plenty of time in which to fall in love.

  After the travesty of her last betrothal, she’d vowed to marry only for love—what she thought she’d found with John. But it had been a foolish girl’s vow. A vow made when her emotions were still raw and tender from his cruelty.

  Now, two years later, Lizzie had to be practical. At six and twenty, love probably wasn’t for her.

  Probably.

  She sighed at her own foolishness. Even with reality staring her in the face, she could not completely shed the possibility from her mind. But it was well past time to give up that particular fantasy. She didn’t want to live her life alone. Taking care of her cousin’s and brother’s households would not be enough forever, and as much as she loved little Archie and the girls, the children were not hers. She wanted a home and family of her own—enough to accept a new betrothal brokered by her cousin.

  She felt a twinge of regret, thinking of her friends’ happiness, then quickly pushed it aside. Her two closest friends, Meg Mackinnon and Flora MacLeod, had both been fortunate enough to find love with their husbands. Ironically, Meg had married Flora’s brother Alex. Meg had two young sons, and Flora had recently given birth to twins. Lizzie was happy for them, but it made her deeply aware of all that she was missing.

  But as much as she wanted what her friends had found, she had to accept that she could not wait any longer for something that might never happen.

  It doesn’t matter, she told herself, determined as always to make the best of every situation. I will make my own happiness. Arranged marriage or not.

  “Is something wrong, mistress?”

  Lost in thought, Lizzie hadn’t realized that Alys had been watching her again. She lifted a brow. “I thought you were embroidering?”

  This time Alys would not be put off. Curiosity, it seemed, had finally overridden discretion. “You keep staring at that letter as if it’s an execution warrant.”

  A wry smile curved Lizzie’s mouth. “Nothing as dramatic as that, I’m afraid.” The earl would be angry, but not with her.

  “Are you worried about the travel with all those horrid MacGregors scurrying about the countryside?” Alys leaned across and patted her knee. “There’s nothing to worry about. My Donnan will see that we come to no harm.”

  Alys’s husband was captain of the earl’s guardsmen at Castle Campbell, and she was fiercely proud of the formidable warrior.

  “No, it’s not the travel,” Lizzie assured her. They were well protected by a dozen guardsmen, and not even the outlawed MacGregors would dare attack the Earl of Argyll’s carriage. Besides, they were still in the Lowlands, well away from the Lomond Hills, where the proscribed clan was reputed to have fled following the battle of Glenfruin.

  Even as news of the atrocities committed by the MacGregors at Glenfruin spread through the Highlands, it was hard for Lizzie to reconcile the man who’d come to her aid with the band of ruthless outlaws who’d perpetrated a massacre on the field of Glenfruin. In this, however, she was alone in her family. Her cousin had been charged by King James to bring the MacGregors to justice for their crimes and for the past few years had made it his mission. A mission in which her brothers Jamie and Colin had joined. It was only a matter of time before the outlaws we
re all hunted down.

  What would happen to her warrior? Knowing the answer, she tried not to think about it.

  Lizzie met the other woman’s gaze, seeing the concern brimming in her warm brown eyes. She sighed, knowing that Alys was truly worried about her.

  She would have handed her the note, but Alys, a Highlander to the core, did not read Scots, only a smattering of the Highland tongue. Lizzie read the words aloud as the coach bumped along a particularly rocky patch of road, her voice reverberating with each jolt.

  When she was finished, Alys frowned. “Why would you be upset about getting more land?”

  “Don’t you see? The land is only the bait. My cousin intends to find me another husband.”

  Alys snorted. “ ’Tis about time, if you ask me.”

  Having suspected that this would be the older woman’s reaction, Lizzie had hoped to avoid the subject altogether. A wry smile turned her mouth. “Your sympathy is overwhelming.”

  “Bah,” said the other woman with disgust. “ ’Tis not sympathy you need but a husband and bairns. You’re a beautiful lass with a loving heart, and you’ve locked yourself away because of some arse …”

  Lizzie gave her a sharp look.

  “Because of some overstuffed peacock,” Alys continued. “I don’t know what that man did to you, but he wasn’t worth a halfpenny of the tears you spent on him.”

  Lizzie knew it was useless to try to make her loyal maidservant understand. By no stretch of the word could Lizzie possibly be considered beautiful, but try explaining that to anyone in her family and they looked at her as if she were addled.

  Her family just didn’t see her the way other people did. To them she was a prize. A woman any man would be proud to have by his side.

  They loved her too much to view her stammering as anything other than a minor inconvenience. Usually, they were right. Lizzie stammered only in large groups or when she was nervous or anxious, and now almost not at all. She supposed there was one reason to be grateful to John. The past two years, she’d devoted endless hours to speaking softly and slowly in the effort to further control her stammer, determined never to allow herself to be made the butt of anyone’s mockery again.