“Have you lost your mind?” he asked, rising up on hands and knees above her, his hair falling forward. He wore his shield on his back, his sword in the side scabbard, his axe tucked into his belt.
“Let me go!” she cried, more desperate than ever to escape and reach safety.
Her palm slammed down on a rock, and before she could form a single conscious thought, she had swung it through the air and struck Duncan in the side of the head.
He groaned and toppled over, cupping his temple in a hand. He fell onto his back. Blood oozed forth, between his fingers.
Horrified, Amelia scrambled to her feet.
He tried to move. He twisted and squirmed. Blood poured everywhere, dripping over his knuckles and down his arm.
God in heaven! What had she done?
She looked over her shoulder toward the edge of the forest, knowing the lake was not far beyond. There were English soldiers there. She could still reach them.
Indecision crippled her mind. She was shocked by what she had done to Duncan; she had not known she was capable of such violence. But what choice did she have?
He groaned again, then fell unconscious. Had she killed him?
Shaken, disoriented, and suddenly terrified that Angus would appear out of nowhere and make her pay for her defiance, she bolted for the woods.
She could not regret it. She had been abducted by enemy Highlanders. She’d had no choice but to save herself. At least now there was a chance she could survive and reach her own countrymen. She could see her uncle again and return to her home in England. Sleep in her own bed. Feel safe at last.
When she reached the trees, she skidded to a halt. It was pitch-black inside the forest. How would she ever find her way?
Her heart hammered in her chest; then suddenly she was racing blindly, whipping through the tangle of branches and leaves and sharp pine boughs that cut across her face. She fell so many times, she lost count, but each time she hit the ground she somehow managed to rise and keep going.
Panting, gasping for air, she refused to give up. She wrestled her way through the dark until she saw traces of moonlight through the trees. Mist on water. Sparkling ripples.
She flew out of the bush and collapsed onto her hands and knees on the grass. A campfire burned like a beacon on the beach. It was not far. There was a tent. There were horses and a wagon. Barrels. A mule. Sacks of grain …
Stil on her hands and knees, she touched her forehead to the ground. Sweet Lord, thank you.
Amelia rose to her feet. She limped across the grass to the pebbly beach. This was victory. She had reached safety.
Weak and exhausted, she strode toward the English camp and tried not to think of the man she had left behind, unconscious and bleeding to death in the glen. She would try not to think of his pain, or the shock in his eyes when he realized what she had done to him. She would purge all thoughts of him from her mind. He was her enemy. She would think of him no more.
Chapter Seven
Five soldiers were asleep in their bedrolls inside the tent, and Amelia—holding the flap open with one hand—had to clear her throat twice before three of them startled awake.
They leaped up in a disorderly fashion, and the next thing she knew she was staring from one pistol to another, three in total, all cocking simultaneously.
She gasped and shouted, “I’m English!”
The three on their feet took a wobbly moment to comprehend her words while the other two groaned in their beds.
“What’s going on?” one of them asked, squinting at Amelia, who stood at the tent door next to a lantern.
“I am in urgent need of your assistance and protection,”
she told them. “I am the fiancée of Richard Bennett, lieutenant-colonel of the Ninth Dragoons. I was abducted out of Fort William by the Butcher of the Highlands.”
“The Butcher?” The soldier at the far corner fought to untangle himself from his bedroll and groped around for a weapon he could not seem to find. “Bloody hell !”
God help them. God help them all.
“Please,” she said. “I think it would be best if we left here as quickly as possible. I see you have horses.…”
“Damn right we do,” one of them said, dashing for the door and shoving her out of the way. “Where the hell is my horse?”
The distinct odor of rum on his breath wafted to her nostrils as he staggered onto the moonlit beach.
This was not good. She had imagined a disciplined brigade of fearless English heroes, on guard with arms at the ready, who would rise to the challenge of rescuing an aristocratic lady from the clutches of a known Jacobite rebel and enemy of the Crown. What she appeared to have stumbled upon, however, was an incompetent group of cowards and drunkards.
“Quiet, you imbeciles,” another said from inside the tent as he lowered his weapon to his side. “The Butcher is a fairy tale. It’s just a story invented by the MacLeans to keep us off their lands, and everyone knows the MacLeans are nothing but sheep stealers.”
“I heard it was the MacDonalds.”
“Well, I heard it was all true,” said another. He was still lying in his bedroll but leaned up on an elbow to reach for a bottle behind his pillow. He tipped it upside down and shook it, but nothing came out. “My cousin saw him once. He was camped with the regulars outside of Edinburgh, and said the Butcher killed ten men single-handedly, then chopped off the head of the officer in charge and fed it to his horse.”
One of them scoffed while a second one ran out of the tent and nearly knocked Amelia over as he passed by. She followed him onto the beach, where the fire was still burning.
The first soldier was already galloping away.
“Wait!” she shouted, running after him.
“Oh, for the love of God,” another said, emerging from the tent and swinging his pistol around. “Gutless fool. He’ll ride straight into a tree.”
Amelia turned to face him. “Who’s in charge here?” she demanded to know. “Is it you, sir?”
“Yes.” He staggered slightly and seemed to have trouble focusing on her face.
“What is your name and rank?”
He slowly blinked. “I am Major Curtis, at your service.”
“I never took you for a poet, Jack,” one of them said, tossing a handful of pebbles at him.
Frustrated beyond measure, Amelia spoke harshly. “I assure you, sir, the Butcher is true flesh and blood, and I believe…” She paused, looking back in the other direction. “I believe I may have killed him.”
Saying it aloud made her feel sick to her stomach.
Another soldier emerged from the tent, drinking straight from a bottle. “This is a joke,” he said. “Someone is having it on with us. Look at the dirty wench. She’s no officer’s bride.
She’s as grimy as a fishwife. I say we have some fun with her.”
“It’s no joke,” she declared. “I was abducted out of Fort William. I am engaged to Richard Bennett, lieutenant-colonel of the Ninth Dragoons, and the Butcher and his band of rebels are not far from here. We must make haste to escape and report what has occurred.”
The one with the bottle staggered repulsively toward her.
“Come here, darlin’. Give me a kiss.”
“Keep your putrid hands off me!” She backed up and stole a glance over her shoulder, looking for a way to escape. It occurred to her only then that she should have stolen the axe out of Duncan’s belt. Why hadn’t she? “Stay where you are, sir.”
He charged fast, however, before she could even brace herself. His hands closed roughly around her upper arms, and his mushy lips attached themselves to her cheek. He sucked on her face, his wet tongue probing and licking. The smell of his breath and body was sickeningly foul, and she grew wild with anger.
She swung her arms and tried to punch at him, but his grip was uncompromising. He was a large, heavyset man who could easily overpower her, even while intoxicated.
The others came out of the tent and began to whoop and c
heer and applaud, entertained and goaded by Amelia’s kicking and scratching.
“Let me go!” she ground out, but the next thing she knew she was flat on her back, struggling and shoving with all her might, while the vile, disgusting creature pressed his heavy body to hers.
“I’m next,” she heard one of the others say, and then there was a dizzying, high-pitched ringing in her ears, drowning out everything but the sound of her own frantic heartbeats and the ferocity of her screams as she fought.
There were noises all around her, groans and crashes and terrible thudding sounds, and then the flabby heap of flesh on top of her took to the air. She watched him fly upward in an arc and land in the lake with a resounding splash.
She sat up, and there was Duncan, standing over her, feet braced apart, axe in hand, his broad chest heaving, his teeth bared like an animal. Their eyes met and locked, and he stared down at her in a crazed frenzy of murderous rage.
His hair was matted with blood, and his face was drenched with it, like a hideous mask of war paint. all she saw was the whites of his eyes, and her insides seized with shock.
The sound of splashing water drew her attention toward the lake.
With his claymore swinging in the side scabbard, Duncan strode to the water’s edge. He waded into the dark moonlit waves, stalking after the soldier who had attacked her.
The man began to sob. “No, please, no!” He tripped backwards and plunged beneath the surface, then scrambled up and started swimming in the other direction, away from shore, kicking and flailing desperately in the waves.
Duncan pushed his way in deeper, not held back in the slightest by the resistance of the water. He raised his axe over his head.
Amelia rose to her feet in horror. She could not watch. She couldn’t bear to witness the vicious slaughter of a man in cold blood, right there in front of her eyes, despite what he’d almost done to her just now.
“No, Duncan!” she shouted, taking an anxious step forward.
Her voice seemed to arrest him on the spot, and he looked down at his kilt floating in the water all around him. It was as if she had pulled him out of a trance.
He turned around, waded out of the lake, and whistled for his horse. Turner came trotting out of the trees without saddle or reins. Duncan slipped the axe into his belt and mounted the great black beast. He rode bareback to where Amelia stood in front of the tent, surrounded by three dead soldiers.
He looked down at her and held out his hand.
She hesitated.
Then one of the soldiers moaned and rolled over behind her. She jumped and turned. Another began to drag himself across the beach, away from the camp, as if he were crawling toward safety in the bushes.
So they were not dead after all —although their leader, Major Curtis, was still thrashing about in the lake and would probably drown in the next few minutes.
“Come with me now,” Duncan growled, “or take your chances with these men.”
The one closest to her was rising up on his hands and knees, and the next thing she knew she had taken hold of Duncan’s arm and was bounding up onto the back of his horse.
Duncan pulled the shield off over his head and handed it to her. “Put this on. Strap it to your back.”
She did as he instructed, wrapped her arms around his waist, and they galloped out of the English camp toward the trees.
* * *
The precise moment they entered the forest, Amelia glanced over her shoulder and saw something speed by on the beach. It was Angus on his pale gray horse, his golden hair flying on the wind, his broadsword swinging over his head. He was galloping after the cowardly soldier who had been the first to flee the camp.
God help that wretched man now.
Then suddenly darkness laid siege to all that was visible, and they were whipping past branches and leaping over logs. It was quiet in the woods, except for the fast pounding of hooves on the ground and the snapping of twigs and dried leaves. The wind blew into Amelia’s face, and she clung more tightly to Duncan’s solid frame.
“Keep your head down,” he commanded, and she buried her face in the soft wool of his tartan, which was draped over his shoulder, across his strong muscled back. She squeezed her eyes shut and willed her body to stop shaking, but it was no use. It was a delayed reaction to the terror of what had just occurred when that despicable man was on top of her, tearing at her clothes and slobbering all over her.
She clung more tightly to Duncan, overwhelmed by gratitude and relief— thank God he arrived when he did—but at the same time she was disoriented by the dizzying about-face of her emotions.
He was her captor. It was his fault she was here to begin with, and it was not so long ago that he had pinned her to the ground while she struggled and fought against him.
Somehow, however, what had occurred with the English soldier had felt very different, and she was hard-pressed to understand it in her panic-stricken mind. She had been both infuriated and alarmed when Duncan threw her to the ground in the field that first morning, but she had always felt as if she were being toyed with. She’d sensed that he was just biding his time, all owing her to fight and claw at him until she was depleted of strength. It had been his intention to wait for her to give up. To surrender when she was ready to surrender.
It had not been like that with the drunken soldier. He most definitely would have violated her. He would be doing so at this very moment if Duncan had not arrived and thrown him into the lake.
So what was she feeling now, exactly? Was Duncan her rescuer? Her protector?
No, that was not correct. He had stolen her from the safety of her bed in a guarded English fortress. He wanted to kill her fiancé. He had killed hundreds of men. He was a brutal, vengeful warrior and she was still not entirely certain she would not end up dead. He may have saved her tonight only because she was his bait. He still needed her to lure Richard into his trap.
Even so, she was not yet ready to loosen her grip, and if someone tried to separate her from him now, they would not succeed. She was holding on as if her life depended on it, and she didn’t think she could pry her own fingers off him if she tried. She felt more safe here than she had back there on the beach—even in this wild, out-of-control moment while she was hurtling through the dark forest as fast as a musket ball .
She had no idea how long they galloped through the trees.
She didn’t want to stop. She wanted to keep going, as far away as possible, but then she felt Duncan lean back and slow the horse to a trot. She opened her eyes.
“Whoa,” Duncan said in that quietly commanding, authoritative voice.
They stopped in a moonlit glade, not far from a babbling brook.
Duncan was breathing hard. She could feel his chest heaving beneath her arms.
“Get off,” he snarled.
She swung a leg over the side, dropped to the ground, and straightened the strap that held the shield on her back.
He landed beside her and slapped his horse on the rear flank. The animal trotted to the water to drink.
Duncan faced her wildly. “Don’t ever do that again!”
“I won’t,” she replied, not sure, exactly, what he was referring to. The escape in general? Or the moment when she bashed him in the head with the rock?
He put a hand over his stomach. “Ah, Christ.…”
He turned away from her and strode to a tree, where he bent forward and retched. Amelia watched him in horror.
Was it because of what she’d done to him?
At least he was alive. She hadn’t killed him. Thank God for that.
“I’m sorry,” she said when he recovered himself.
He strode toward the rushing water in the stream, knelt down, and splashed water onto his face. After he washed the blood away, he cleaned his hands as well , scrubbing them together vigorously, violently, scraping at the skin with his fingernails.
“God help me, Amelia,” he said in a low, dangerous voice.
“I want to th
rash you senseless. What were you thinking?”
She frowned at his broad back, for he was still crouching over the water. “What do you think I was thinking? I was trying to escape from my enemy and reach an all y—my own countrymen. It was hardly an outrageous plan, and you shouldn’t be surprised. Angus wanted to kill me tonight. What did you expect?”
He glared at her over his shoulder. “I’ll not let anyone kill you. I told you that already.”
“But Angus seems to be at odds with your decision making in that regard.”
“He’ll do as I say.”
“How can I be sure of that? I know nothing of him, or you for that matter. all I know is that you abducted me, and that you want to kill my fiancé, and that the entire English army is quivering in their boots right now because you are a wild, brutal savage with impossible strength who carries a big axe and wants to slay every last one of them in their sleep!”
He rose to his feet and stalked toward her.
She backed up in fright.
“Those men,” he said in a low and threatening voice,
“wanted to dishonor you. You shouldn’t have gone there.”
“I didn’t know that when I left you! all I wanted was to feel safe again.”
“You’re safe with me.”
Something inside her shifted and tipped over onto its side. “I find that difficult to believe.”
«Well, believe it.” He turned away to fetch his horse. “And I hope you learned your lesson tonight.”
“I did,” she admitted grudgingly. “I think.”
He whirled around to face her again. “You think? Do you have rocks in your head where your brain should be?”
“What do you expect, Duncan? You’re the Butcher, and you brought me here against my will . You abducted me and made me your prisoner!”
He stared at her in frustration. Animosity seethed in his voice. “Aye, because I couldn’t just leave you there.” He raked a hand through his blood-soaked hair and spoke in a low growl. “If only you knew how badly I wanted to kill that soldier tonight. Seeing him on top of you like that, groping at you like some kind of animal, when clearly you did not want it.
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