“Are you hungry, Lady Amelia?” Gawyn asked. It was the same question he had asked earlier, with the same proper address.
“Yes, I am. It smell s very good.”
He set about poking at the meat. He sniffed it like a dog might sniff the air, and she suspected his nose was as practiced as that of any famous French chef in Paris or London.
Soon they were all crowded around the fire, gulping down the tasty meat and sipping full -bodied cups of wine. Amelia was relieved to have a cup, a plate, and a rock to sit upon.
She was not squatting, as she’d imagined she would have to do. She was quite comfortable, in fact, despite her stiff muscles and numerous anxieties. She could not deny that the tender rabbit meat was the best thing she’d ever tasted.
Duncan was the first to finish eating. He rose to his feet and tossed his plate and cup into a cauldron of hot water over the fire.
“I’ll take the first watch.” He pulled his sword from the scabbard with a wide, sweeping arc and left the fireside.
Amelia stopped chewing and watched him go. She was still trying to make sense of what had happened between them earlier, and why he had kissed her when he seemed to despise everything she stood for and thought her a fool for agreeing to marry Richard Bennett.
What surprised her most, perhaps, was how gentle he had been in that moment, which contradicted everything she knew and thought about him. She could not have been mistaken about the compassion she saw in his eyes, and she was grateful for that.
Returning her attention to the others, she found herself suddenly caught in the ice storm of Angus’s frigid gaze. He had finished his meal and was leaning back on an elbow, cleaning his teeth with a small bone.
“I’m sorry about your sister,” she said, summoning every shred of courtesy she possessed just to get the words out.
He frowned at her, then rose to his feet. “I did not ask for your condolences, woman, so you’d best keep your thoughts to yourself.”
Like Duncan, he pulled his broadsword from the scabbard with an audible scrape of metal against leather, then stalked off in the opposite direction. The chill of the dark Highland night surrounded her like a cold fog.
“Pay him no mind, milady,” Gawyn said. “He’s just not over it yet.”
“You mean his sister,” she replied.
“Aye.”
She finished her meal and set the plate aside. “No, I cannot imagine one would ever get over such a thing. What was her name again?”
“Muira.”
Amelia turned her gaze in the other direction to the place where Duncan had gone. He was watching them from a rocky outcropping above.
«Will he come back before nightfall ?” she asked.
“Hard to say,” Gawyn replied. “He spends a lot of time alone these days.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s not over Muira’s death, either.”
Something shuddered inside Amelia as she digested the obvious suggestion that Duncan been involved with Muira, perhaps in love with her.
That would explain a great deal, she thought with a disturbing pang of discomfort when she imagined him loving a woman so deeply and devotedly that he was compelled to avenge her death by killing the man responsible.
Amelia’s very own fiancé.
She took a deep breath and forced herself to concentrate on the simple task of wetting her lips while she watched Duncan on the outcropping above.
Almost instantly she chastised herself for caring one way or another about the circumstances of his life or his romantic involvements in the past. He was her captor and her enemy, and the fact that he’d kissed her and been understanding about her feelings changed nothing. It was a single moment that should not obliterate all the others.
She could not afford to become distracted by an attraction to him, no matter how confusing it was. She had to remain focused on survival and escape.
She took another sip of her wine and did not permit herself to look in his direction again.
Chapter Six
“I’m sorry, Lady Amelia,” Gawyn said, “but Duncan says I have to bind your wrists for the night.”
“You’re going to tie me up again?” she asked. “Is that real y necessary?” Her chafe wounds were only just beginning to heal.
“He says it’s for your own good, because if you tried to run off you’d get lost and might get into trouble.”
“I promise I won’t run off,” she insisted while she watched him pull the rough twine from a saddlebag, and winced at the recollection of being tied up that morning. “Where in the world would I go? We haven’t seen a single soul for miles.
I’m not stupid, Gawyn.”
“Aye, but you might panic in the night,” Fergus said, “or try to slit our throats while we sleep.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not a murderous savage.”
Fergus smiled crookedly. “But you’re in the company of savages, lassie, and don’t you know our wicked ways are contagious?”
She watched his ruddy face while he wrapped the twine around her wrists, still raw and sore from the trials of the morning. “I am not sure, Fergus, whether you are serious or jesting.”
He grinned again. “It’ll give you something to think about, lassie, while you’re floatin’ off to dreamland.”
* * *
The morning sun woke Amelia from a restless slumber, and she sat up on the bed of fur to discover the fire was already snapping and blazing in the pit. Eggs were frying on a pan. “Gawyn, do you have chickens in your saddlebags?” she asked, looking down at her wrists and noticing that they were no longer bound. Someone had cut the ropes while she slept and she had not even been aware.
Gawyn threw his head back and laughed. “Chickens! Ah, Lady Amelia, you’re a silly one.”
She blinked a few times; then suddenly Duncan was standing over her, holding out a banged-up pewter mug. The sleep was not yet out of her eyes, and she had to crane her neck and squint to look up from his finely muscled legs and the folds of green tartan to his face, illuminated by the sun.
He seemed more attractive than ever, masculine and almost mythical, with one thick finger hooked through the handle of the dented mug, his other hand gripping the handle of his axe, his hair blowing lightly in the breeze.
“Must you always carry that thing?” she asked, tired of staring at the morbid weapon.
He tossed his head to flip his disheveled hair off his shoulder. “Aye, I must. Take this and drink up.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“Coffee.”
Sitting up groggily, she accepted the steaming cup.
Duncan sat down beside her.
Gawyn was busy flipping the eggs, and Fergus was some distance away, swinging his broadsword through the air, lunging forward mightily.
“Is he practicing for something?” she asked, sipping the coffee.
“Nothing in particular.”
“Just the usual, everyday deadly skirmish, I suppose.”
Duncan glanced sideways at her but made no comment.
“Was it you who untied me?” she asked. “I must have been sleeping very deeply not to have noticed.”
“Aye, you slept soundly all night.”
She kept her eyes on Fergus, still swinging his sword around. “And you could tell this from halfway up the mountain?”
“I came down when all was quiet,” he told her.
“So you were skulking around the camp, watching me sleep?”
“Aye.” He accepted another mug of coffee from Gawyn and blew the steam away. “I watched you all night, lass, and it’s my duty to inform you that you snore like a bull .”
“I most certainly do not!”
“Gawyn heard it as clearly as I.” He raised his voice:
“Didn’t you, Gawyn? You heard Lady Amelia snoring like a bull last night?”
“Aye, you kept me awake, lass.”
Amelia shifted uncomfortably on the soft fur and took another sip of coffee
. «Well, I am not going to sit here and argue with the two of you about it.”
Duncan crossed his long, muscled legs at the ankles.
“Wise decision, lass. Sometimes you’re better off just to yield at the outset.”
She chuckled bitterly. “Mm, I learned that yesterday, didn’t I? When you had me pinned to the ground in the rain.”
Gawyn, who was busy cracking two more eggs into the pan, lifted his eyes briefly.
“At least you learned your lesson,” Duncan said. “It’s important to know when you’ve been bested.”
Amelia shook her head at him, refusing to be provoked.
“And what plan does the mighty conqueror have for his prisoner today?” she asked, determined to change the subject. “I suppose you’re going to drag me higher up into the mountains? Although I don’t real y see the point in it, if you want Richard to find us. Which maybe you don’t.”
He glanced sideways again. “Oh, I do, lass. I just want him to suffer a bit longer with the angst of not knowing what’s happening to you. I like to imagine him tossing and turning in his bed, night after night, wondering if you’re dead or alive.
Or thinking about how my axe is slicing your dress in two, and how you must be trembling and cowering at my touch, begging for mercy, and final y pleading with me to pleasure you senseless, again and again, night after night.”
She shot him a disparaging look. “You’re having delusions, Duncan, if you think that’s ever going to happen.”
He took a sip of coffee and kept his eyes fixed on Fergus, who was still practicing with his sword. “I’ll be sending Bennett a message soon enough.”
“A message? How? When? I haven’t seen any goose quills within reach, or paper or inkwells for that matter. There are no desks in the immediate area, or post runners to deliver the dispatch.”
He still did not meet her eyes. “As if I’d reveal any of that to you.”
She accepted the plate Gawyn held out. “Fill your belly, lass,” Gawyn said with an encouraging smile. “We’ve got a long day ahead of us.”
She picked up the spoon and ate.
* * *
“How close were you to Angus’s sister?” she asked Duncan later that morning, after they had packed their supplies and left the glen, the rebels spreading out on horseback in all directions like spokes on a fan. “Gawyn told me that—” “Gawyn talks too much.” Duncan’s reply came down like a hammer.
Recognizing the note of impatience in his voice, Amelia cleared her throat and began again. “Perhaps he does, but we’re alone now, Duncan, and I would like to know more about what happened. Was Muira’s death what started this bloody rampage? Or were you known as the Butcher before that?”
He said nothing for a long time, so Amelia simply waited.
And waited.
“I don’t know who invented that name,” he said at last. “It wasn’t us. It was probably some adolescent English soldier who cowered behind a barrel when we attacked his camp.”
“Someone who lived to tell about it,” she added.
“And thought it clever to exaggerate.”
Feeling a swift surge of hope, she turned in the saddle to search his eyes. “Exaggerate? So it’s not all true?”
He paused. “More than enough of it is based on fact, lass, so don’t get your hopes up.”
They rode on. The horse’s hooves plodded leisurely over the grass while a thick mist shifted and rolled across the mountaintops.
“But you still haven’t answered my question,” she said, “about Angus’s sister. How close were you?”
His voice was quiet. “Muira was to be my wife.”
Amelia had already suspected there was more to his vengeance than mere loyalty to a friend, but to hear him admit it openly was like a punch in the chest. She could not explain it. It shouldn’t matter, but it did, especial y now when she was relaxing into the warmth of his body and feeling safe and secure in his arms.
She looked up at the low cloud cover moving across the sky and suspected it would soon blot out the sun. A blackbird soared in and out of the vapor, and again she felt as if she had entered a different world, a place of complexity and sorrow. There was so much pain here—she felt it herself in so many confusing ways—yet at the same time there was divine beauty in these majestic faraway mountains. The air was fresh and clean; the rivers and streams ran clear as glass. Everything was so drastically, oddly contradictory and profoundly stirring to her blood.
For the rest of the morning after their conversation about Muira, Amelia and Duncan said very little to each other. He seemed to withdraw into a secluded mood of disinterest, which she tried to see as a blessing, for he was her captor and she was a fool to let herself feel sympathy for his circumstances, or worse—to believe that she was becoming attracted to him. It was best if they did not talk.
Later he left her alone for a short while. They stopped by a river to water the horse and eat a few bites of stale bread and cheese. Duncan did not eat with her, and in those fleeting seconds of freedom she glanced around and considered a hasty escape, but was hindered by the fact that she knew nothing of their position on a map, or what was over the next rise.
Better the devil you know, she told herself in the end, when she imagined darting into the mountains and finding a place to hide. What if she met up with a less hospitable band of savages? A different bunch of hooligans who might abuse her immediately? Or a vicious, hungry animal with fangs?
And so, she did not run away that afternoon. She merely sat quietly on a rock, waited for Duncan to return, and was greatly relieved to see him when he did.
* * *
That night after supper—in another glen that was very similar to the last—as Amelia lay down on the bed of fur by the slowly dying fire, she strove to stay calm by calling to mind happier thoughts. She remembered the raspberry tarts Cook used to make in their London house, the soft feather-down pillow she liked best, and the sound of her maid tiptoeing into her room early in the morning with breakfast on a tray.
She thought also of her father’s gentle, soothing voice, his deep, merry laughter in the evenings when he smoked a pipe by the fire.
A painful lump of longing rose up in her throat, but she pushed it back down, for she could not fall apart now. She had made it this far. She would make it the rest of the way.
Pulling the blanket up to her chin, she closed her eyes and tried to get some rest. At least Angus was not present that night. He was scouting the forest on the far side of the glen.
As for Duncan, he was seated on a stony outcropping above, just as he had been the night before, keeping an eye out for danger. Though it was far more likely that he was simply making sure she didn’t rise up in the night and bludgeon them all to death with a stone.
But could she actual y kill a man if the opportunity presented itself?
Yes, she decided. Yes, I could.
With that morbid idea bobbing around inside her brain, she fell into a restless sleep, and woke in the night to the sound of quick footsteps and whispering.
Fear ignited in her breast. Instantly alert, she lay motionless, petrified with alarm.
“We’ll be heading south in the morning,” Fergus said, stretching out on the ground and pulling his tartan over his shoulders. “Back toward Moncrieffe.”
Moncrieffe? The earl’s residence?
She strained hard to listen.…
“But I thought Duncan wanted to bide his time,” Gawyn whispered in reply.
“He did, but Angus spotted some redcoats at the loch. We need to turn back.”
She heard Gawyn sit up. “Loch Fannich is less than half a mile away. Duncan didn’t think we should pack up right away?”
Fergus sat up, too. “Nay, Angus said there were only five of them and their bellies were full of rum, and they were all asleep.”
Gawyn lay back down. «Well, that’s a relief.”
“Maybe to you. But you didn’t hear Angus and Duncan fighting over what to do with
the lady.” His whisper grew more hushed, and he leaned forward on an elbow. “I thought they were going to take each other’s heads off,” he said.
“Angus wants to kill her tonight and leave her corpse outside the English camp.”
Fear exploded in Amelia’s stomach.
Gawyn sat up again. “But she’s the daughter of a duke.”
“Shh.” Fergus paused. “We shouldn’t be talking about it.”
“What did they decide?”
“I don’t know.”
They were quiet for a moment; then Fergus settled down and drew his tartan over his head. “Either way, it’s not up to us, so stop your blathering, you cockeyed nag. I need my sleep.”
“As do I, you smelly arse. And it was you who started it.”
* * *
An hour later, Amelia ran through the darkness, panting heavily, stumbling over rocks, and leaping over patchy hollows. Her skirts whipped back and forth with each harried stride, and her heart burned with wild, crippling panic.
She prayed that Duncan had not yet noticed her absence, or that she would not bash headlong into Angus, who was scouting the woods just ahead and wanted to deliver her corpse to the English camp. It was a terrible risk she had taken, for if her captors discovered her flight before she reached the English soldiers, there was no telling what they might do.
Please, God, let me find the camp. I cannot die here.
Then she felt a presence.…
The sound of footsteps across the glen, stealthily approaching, swift and fluid in the night, like some kind of phantom animal. They were coming at her from behind.
Or from the side … Or at a diagonal … Perhaps they were in front of her!
Dashing forward as fast as she could, she glanced over her shoulder.
“Stop!” the voice commanded.
“No, I will not!”
Before she could recognize anything in the heavy gloom, something smacked sidelong into her.
Thump! S he hit the ground and her breath sailed out of her lungs. Fire lit in her veins as she comprehended what was happening. She was trapped again beneath Duncan’s heavy body. Where had he come from? She was sure she had gotten away. Did he have eyes in the back of his head?
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