Hannah Howell

by Highland Hearts

  “Just give me a moment or two to wash this dirt off.” She started toward the keep but paused to look back at Dermott. “ ’Tis just ye and I who shall ride out to meet Revan?”

  “Nay. The curs sniffing around Donnbraigh may have been run to ground, but ’tis still not safe for ye to go beyond these walls so lightly guarded. Another man waits with the horses.”

  She nodded and hurried toward the keep. A small part of her still pressed for caution, but she forced it aside. To spend some time with Revan was a temptation too strong to resist, and she was sure he would not have sent for her unless he felt it was safe.

  “Where is she?” MacKinnon hissed when Dermott walked over to where he stood with three saddled horses.

  “She needed to tidy herself. She will be along in a few moments.” Dermott glanced around to be sure that no one was near enough to overhear anything he and MacKinnon said.

  “A few moments? Curse ye for a witless fool. She is a woman. They canna tidy themselves in but a moment or two. We shall be standing here for hours.”

  “Nay, for if she doesna appear soon, I shall go and fetch her. I can tell her that her man will worry if she isna there soon or some such thing as that. She willna be long. She isna one to spend long hours on her gown or her hair. Dinna be so fretful. ’Twill draw attention to us, and this isna the cleverest ploy ever devised.”

  “Did someone doubt it?”

  “Nay, for they are all feeling secure now. This would be a very costly place to attack, and most of our compatriots are now gone—dead or returned to the Douglas or Thurkettle.”

  “I hadna considered that. We will have no allies in our flight.”

  “Our greatest ally will be time. We will be hours ahead of them if all goes well. Then there is the lass herself. They will tread warily in their pursuit, for they will fear for her. I hope your friend Thurkettle can harbor us as safely as I ken the Douglas would. There is where I foresee the greatest risk.”

  “There is little, but if ye worry on it, ye can take your reward and leave. No one will stop you.”

  “Except, mayhaps, the ones who will be after the lass,” Dermott murmured. “Here she comes. Mount and say nothing.”

  Tess frowned as she walked up to Dermott, and he immediately helped her mount her mare. Try as she would, she could not fully conquer her sense of uneasiness. The other man, his helmet hiding his features, said nothing nor did he glance at her. That seemed a little odd to her, but she shrugged and turned to Dermott, who had just finished mounting.

  “Must we ride very far?” she asked him as they started out of Donnbraigh.

  “Nay, ye willna be riding far.”

  A tingle of wariness slipped down Tess’s spine, but she fought to ignore it. She began to think that she was becoming a foolish woman frightened of empty shadows. Such unsubstantiated fear was not something she wanted to suffer from. She forced herself to concentrate only on the beautiful late spring day and how nice it was going to be to share it with Revan.

  They rode in silence, which she did not really mind but did find a little strange, for the men of Donnbraigh tended to be a garrulous lot. Donnbraigh faded from sight soon after they entered the forest. Tess began to wonder just where Revan had chosen for them to meet. She turned to ask Dermott where they were headed and gasped as he suddenly rode up close beside her and yanked the reins from her hands. He brought them all to an abrupt halt.

  Tess cursed herself for a fool. She should never have ignored her own inner alarms. Before she could act to save herself, however, the other man had a tight hold on her wrists and was looping a rope securely around them. There were traitors within Donnbraigh. Tess found that almost impossible to believe despite being a captive.

  “Why are ye doing this?” she demanded.

  “For revenge,” said the guard, who had remained silent until now.

  When the man took off his helmet, Tess felt momentarily light-headed. The familiarity of that cold voice had warned her, but she was still stunned to see MacKinnon at her side. Fear caused a bitter taste in her mouth. This man wanted her dead, and she could foresee no immediate hope of rescue. It would be hours before the people of Donnbraigh realized the danger she was in. She opened her mouth to scream in the weak hope that someone was near enough to hear her, thus come to her aid, but Dermott was quick to gag her. She glared at both men in a fury born of her helplessness and fear.

  “We intend to take you to Thurkettle,” MacKinnon continued. “Dermott will gather the bounty offered for you, and I shall have the pleasure of watching you die. The Douglas is closer, though not by very much, but I believe Thurkettle will more satisfactorily appease my hunger for revenge. He is a man inspired to cruelty and excess when he is angered.”

  A cold shiver rippled through Tess. The man was correct in his judgment of her uncle Fergus. Thurkettle was well known and rightfully feared for his vicious furies. She had thwarted the man too often to believe that he would feel any kindness toward her or exhibit any mercy. Kinship meant little to him. By managing to stay alive and keep her fortune out of his hands, she had earned Thurkettle’s enmity, and that could well mean a very painful death.

  “MacKinnon,” snapped Dermott. “Enough of this talk. Ye can play your foolish games with the lass another time. We had best be on our way.”

  “There is time. Hours yet.”

  “Hours we will need to outdistance Delgado and the lass’s lover. And ye canna be sure that we will have hours. The guard could be found or Delgado and Halyard could return to Donnbraigh earlier than expected. Come on.”

  Tess was roughly jerked in the saddle when Dermott, still holding her reins, spurred his gelding onward. She grabbed the saddle horn to keep from falling. Only briefly did she consider tumbling from her saddle. It was no means of escape. She would probably injure herself and her captors would simply halt and put her back in the saddle, securing her more firmly and, undoubtedly, more painfully. She would have to wait and pray for some other, better, opportunity.

  As they rode, she glanced, once, back at Donnbraigh. If the guard Dermott had subdued had only just taken up his post, then it could be hours before MacKinnon’s escape was discovered. It would be at least as long before her uncle Silvio and Revan rode back into Donnbraigh. Her captors could easily put enough distance between her and Donnbraigh to make rescue extremely difficult if not impossible. She could not simply wait to be saved.

  The problem of rescuing herself was not going to be an easy one to solve. She was bound and gagged, there were two men who would be keeping a very close watch on her, she had no weapons, and she had an appallingly poor sense of direction. As they made their swift, precarious way through the thickening forest, Tess tried not to give into hopelessness.

  Revan frowned, his good humor fading as he entered the bailey of Donnbraigh with the Comyns. Tess was always right there to meet him, yet today she was nowhere to be seen. Then he noticed the agitation of the people who were waiting in the bailey. He felt the pinch of alarm as he nudged his mount closer to Silvio’s, hoping to overhear what his men hurried over to report.

  “MacKinnon has fled,” reported Silvio’s sergeant-at-arms, Calum. “Dermott helped him. He must be a Douglas man. The traitorous cur has been slinking about here for months. I dare not consider all he might have learned.”

  “How could MacKinnon have escaped?” Silvio demanded as, with Tomas’s help, he dismounted.

  “Dermott let him out. He killed poor Seumus, who was on guard. We didna discover it until ’twas time to change the guard. Young Norman went down. He didna see Seumus but thought that MacKinnon was still secure, for there was a body on the cot. It took Norman a few moments to grow suspicious and go into the cell. ’Twas poor Seumus on the cot, his throat slit and the blanket pulled about him to hide his features.”

  “That tells me how MacKinnon got out of his cell, but how did the bastard escape from Donnbraigh itself?”

  “By a very clever ruse. Dermott told us that Sir Halyard had sent h
im to fetch the lass, that Sir Halyard wished a wee tryst with her. Since the Douglas men in the area are now all dead or gone, we didna question it.”

  “Ye let them leave with Tessa?” Revan cried as he dismounted and grabbed Calum by the arm.

  “We had no reason not to,” protested Calum. “Dermott has been here, one of us, for months. There were a few doubters, but ’twas mostly ye yourself whom they wondered on.” Calum gave Revan an apologetic look. “They thought your request a wee bit strange and suspicious. We dinna ken who ye are. We thought we kenned Dermott and could trust him.”

  “When was all this discovered?” Silvio asked.

  “But a few moments ago,” Calum replied. “We were just about to send someone out to find you and another to try and pick up their trail, if he could. I fear they have been gone for four hours, mayhaps a wee bit longer.”

  “Sweet Mary, there are miles ahead of us already.” Revan stared at the open gates, fear for Tess making it difficult for him to think of any plan. “Even if we rode at full gallop, we could never hope to catch them before they reached the Douglas.” He suddenly recalled the threats MacKinnon had made as he had been dragged from the great hall of Donnbraigh. “If she isna killed before then. MacKinnon wants her dead.”

  “Aye,” agreed Silvio. “He can have that done without bloodying his own hands if he has taken her to the Douglas. He can also collect the bounty offered for her. I believe he will keep her alive and hand her over to that traitor.”

  “And once she is in that man’s hands, we have no hope of getting her back.”

  “Probably not, but I am a stubborn man. I dinna mean to give up. Calum, we need fresh mounts and some supplies,” he ordered, then turned to another man. “Martin, ye get out there and find us their trail.”

  Revan, calmed a little by the action being taken, looked up at the dusk-clouded sky. “We have but an hour, mayhaps a wee bit longer, ere nightfall hinders us.”

  “All we need to ken is where they are going. Once we are sure of that, darkness will slow us down, but it need not stop us. Also, there will be a nearly full moon tonight. ’Twill help.”

  “ ’Twill help them as well,” murmured Revan.

  “I ken it, but mayhaps luck will be with us and ’twill slow them more than it does us or, better, stop them.”

  It was on the tip of Revan’s tongue to say that luck had not followed him and Tess too closely since they had fled from Thurkettle, but he bit back the words. He was sure that Silvio knew that and that the man knew how heavily the odds were weighted against them. The man would not appreciate being reminded of that fact. Revan wished he could borrow some of Silvio’s stubborn optimism. He was chilled by fear and concerned that it would hold him back or steal his wits just when he needed them the most.

  Only a few moments passed before they had fresh horses, some supplies, and weapons and were riding out of Donnbraigh. Revan wondered how well he would hold himself in check if such a small passage of time could feel like an eternity. He needed to regain his stern discipline, the alert calm he had always valued as a knight. The thought of what was happening to Tess or what might happen to her was making that control difficult to grasp. He struggled to set his mind on one thing and one thing only—the job of finding Tess.

  “Is this fellow—Martin—good at finding a trail?” he asked Silvio as he edged his horse up next to the man’s.

  “Aye. Very good. We sometimes jest that we should be rid of our hounds and just keep Martin. He doesna eat as much, and we dinna have to clean up after him as often.” Silvio’s smile was a little weak.

  “Do ye think they would have even left a trail?”

  “The chance of it is good. Aye, better than good. Their greatest concern will have been to put as many miles between us and them as is possible. They wouldna use that precious time to be careful or to pause to try and hide their trail. They would also ken that we would guess where they were hieing to anyway.”

  “Then why do we waste time even hunting for a trail? Why not just set out after them?”

  Silvio shrugged. “There are a few different ways they could go. The Douglas has several keeps. I fear I am not very sure which one he might be in. Also, there is ever the slim chance that they arena headed where we think they are. I just feel that ’tis to our benefit to learn as much as we can ere we charge off across the countryside.”

  Revan nodded, agreeing with Silvio yet hating to lose any time. “I pray a trail is all we will find.”

  “ ’Tis my prayer as well, Revan. I believe, truly believe, that she is still alive. MacKinnon has betrayed the king for gain, turned his back on a man who has done him naught but good because someone offered him more—more land, more coin. Who can say? That hints at a deep greed. He will want that bounty. If not him, then Dermott will.” He turned to Tomas, who rode on the other side of him. “Call for Martin. He needs to let us ken where he is.”

  When Tomas lifted a hunting horn to his lips and blew on it twice, Revan inwardly shook his head. Tess’s kinsmen had a rather odd sense of humor. Then he tensed as the faint reply of another hunting horn broke the expectant silence.

  “Does that mean he has found something?” he asked Silvio.

  “Quite possibly. When Martin goes searching for a trail he is often deaf and blind to all else until he has found it. The fact that he has answered our call is nearly a confirmation of a find. Ah, and there is another call. He marks his place for us. Let us not leave him waiting for too long.”

  Silvio spurred his mount into a gallop, and Revan quickly did the same. He paid little heed to the dozen or so other men riding with them except to note that they followed. His sole interest was in finding out which way MacKinnon had taken Tess and getting after the pair.

  Martin stood at the spot where the forest began to grow more densely and calmly waited as Revan, Silvio, and Tomas reined in, then dismounted and joined him. “Three riders went this way,” he reported to Silvio.

  “This veers farther to the east than I would have guessed it to go,” murmured Silvio as he studied the trail Martin pointed out to him. “Have ye followed it past this point?”

  “Aye and it continues in this direction. I was on my way back to tell you.” He ran a hand through his thick black hair and scowled at the tracks he had uncovered. “They go far out of their way. ’Twill add many miles to their flight to the Douglas.”

  “But none at all to a journey toward Thurkettle’s keep,” said Revan.

  “I was just thinking the same,” muttered Silvio.

  “But why?” asked Tomas. “The Douglas is closer by several miles, and he is also offering a bounty for Tess.”

  “Thurkettle may be offering a bigger one. Tess’s death can gain him two things—her silence and her fortune.” Silvio grimaced. “MacKinnon has chosen Thurkettle to be Tess’s executioner. I believe I ken the why of that choice.”

  “Because Thurkettle willna kill her quickly or cleanly,” Revan said, fear tightening its grip on his heart.

  “Aye, I fear so. Thurkettle has the reputation of being vicious when he is angry, and he must be very angry at our wee countess by now. His cruelty when enraged was one reason I hesitated to send her to live with him.”

  “Yet ye did send her.” Revan’s fear turned to anger, and he directed it at Silvio, blaming the man for placing Tess within Thurkettle’s reach to begin with. “Even if he hadna been trying to kill her for five years, he was still a poor choice.”

  “He was her mother’s choice. I think she believed it would be good for Tess to grow up with Brenda, a lass her own age. Eileen might not have liked her brother, but she had no reason to believe he would ever try to harm the lass. There was also the matter of Tess’s inheritance. Thurkettle held control of that. If he had decided to push the matter, the courts and the king would have decided in his favor anyway. We were but the reluctant tools of the law.”

  “I ask your pardon.” Revan sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “I but ache to blame someone for al
l of this, and ye were close at hand.”

  “No need to apologize. I, too, ache to blame someone, but I was never too fond of chastising myself.” He looked at Martin. “I ken how ye hate long rides, Martin, but we need you to join us. This is too important a hunt.”

  “I ken it. I dinna mind riding along, not if it will help the wee lass.” He shook his head as he moved toward his horse. “I just wish I could have taught the lass how to find her way. It might have helped her now.”

  “Ye were doomed to failure in that, Martin. That lass was born lost,” Silvio said as he hurried to remount. “Come on, we need to cover as many miles as we can ere darkness slows our pace.” He looked at Revan. “We will get her back. ’Tis not a pleasant thought, but Thurkettle’s taste for cruelty could work for us.”

  “How could it possibly be in our favor?”

  “Because he willna kill her immediately. He will want to savor what he thinks is his victory. And he will want to plan the best way to make her pay for the trouble she has caused him. That will take time, and time is what we need.”

  Revan did not really wish to think about what Tess would suffer at Thurkettle’s hands. “Then let us ride, Silvio, and waste no more of that precious time here.” He spurred his mount to a gallop straight toward Thurkettle’s keep, straight back to the place he and Tess had so narrowly escaped once before.

  “Now, there will be no screaming, wench, or the gag will be stuffed back in your mouth, and ye willna taste a drop of this water.” Dermott cautiously eased the gag from Tess’s mouth.

  Tess made no attempt to scream. Her mouth and throat were so dry she doubted she could have made much noise even if she had wanted to. For the moment the water Dermott was clumsily tipping into her mouth was far more important than making some undoubtedly vain attempt to call for help.