Taken by the Highlander

by Julianne MacLean

  She was unaware of her mother rising from her chair and sneaking off to bed. Mairi only realized it when she dragged Logan inside the house and turned around, expecting to see Isla rising from her chair to greet him as well.

  But Isla was gone. The kitchen was empty and quiet, except for the crackling fire in the hearth.

  “It is so good to see you,” Mairi whispered, facing him again. “Are you hungry? Can I fix you something to eat?”

  He shook his head. “I’m only hungry for the sight of you, lass.”

  It was a lovely compliment, but she felt a stirring of unease as he continued to stand just inside the doorway, as if he were a guest there, not the husband who had shared her bed for weeks.

  “Please, come in,” she urged, reaching for his hand and tugging him forward, leading him closer to the fire. “Tell me about your journey. Or better yet, hold me, Logan. I don’t think I can survive another day without the warmth of your body next to mine.”

  He joined her in front of the fire where she wrapped her arms around his waist, rested her cheek against his chest again. This time, however, he reached around, unfastened her clasped hands behind his back, and gently pushed her away. “I’m sorry, lass… I cannot stay.”

  She gazed up at him and frowned. “Why not? It’s past nightfall. Where must you go at this hour?”

  Logan continued to back away from her. Her stomach clenched tight with apprehension and dread for she knew in that moment that he had not truly come home to her. Nor did he have any intention of making love to her. Not tonight.

  “I only came because I thought you deserved to know what is taking place.”

  “And what is that?” she asked, feeling rejected by his unexpected response to her touch.

  Logan inhaled deeply. “There will be a battle at Leathan Castle in a few days’ time, and I will be leading the Kinloch army through the gates.”

  “The Kinloch army…” Mairi frowned. “But they are MacDonalds and we are Campbells. What are your intentions, Logan? To seize the castle for Angus the Lion? Does Tomas know of this?”

  “Of course he knows,” Logan replied. “The alliance was his idea, remember? And he is raising a Campbell army as we speak. We will join forces a few miles from Leathan and drive the English out together. In the meantime, the Duke of Moncrieffe has sent word to the King to inform him of what is transpiring. He will plead for our cause—and the duke is certain that the King will be pleased to know it has nothing to do with the Jacobite uprisings. All we want is freedom from the atrocities that have been taking place under the leadership of Colonel Gregory Chatham. He has proved himself to be a madman, lass, and if the King wants to keep the peace with Scotland, he will listen to the duke, give the Campbells back their castle, and remove Chatham from his commission here in the Highlands.”

  Mairi labored to listen to all of this with an open, objective mind. “Are you certain the duke will help us? How can you be sure?”

  “I am sure,” Logan explained, “because I met him. I dined with him ten days ago.”

  Mairi had thought she’d heard it all since Logan walked through the door, but this caused her eyebrows to fly up. “You dined with the Duke of Moncrieffe? My word.”

  “Aye.” Logan’s eyes glimmered with shared amazement, and for a few treasured seconds, Mairi forgot that he had just rejected her. As he spoke animatedly, she felt the old familiar connection to him and was thrilled to hear about his meeting with the duke.

  “You wouldn’t have believed it, Mairi, he said, speaking with enthusiasm. “The castle was like a palace, and the plates were trimmed in gold. There were servants with shiny buckled shoes and curly wigs, and the food was….” Suddenly he stopped himself and took a breath. “I’m sorry. Someday, I will tell you everything, but tonight I must return to my men. They are camped not far from here.”

  “But what about us?” Mairi asked, thinking selfishly. “Can’t you sleep here with me tonight and see Hamish in the morning? Must you leave so soon?”

  “No, Mairi.” He bowed his head and shook it. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have come. It only makes this harder.”

  “Makes what harder?” she asked with a sickening knot of apprehension in her belly.

  His eyes lifted. “The fact that I must say good-bye to you.”

  By that point, her heart was racing out of control with terror. “What are you saying? For how long?”

  “I don’t know,” he replied. “It depends what happens on the day of the invasion. Surely I don’t need to tell you how dangerous it will be. Men will die.”

  Mairi fought to keep her worries in check and not fall apart completely. “I don’t want to lose you.”

  His eyes darkened with purpose. “Believe me, all I want is to survive so that I can return here and hold you in my arms again. Love you properly.”

  The mere mention of being held in his arms filled her with anguish and longing. “Please, Logan. Can’t someone else lead the charge? Why must it be you?”

  “Because the men believe in me,” he said flatly, gripping the handle of his sword.

  Her gaze dipped to his hand upon the large, unfamiliar weapon at his side. She had never seen anything so extravagant before. “Where did you get that? Did the duke give it to you?”

  “Nay,” he said. “I found it, and it’s a special sword, Mairi.”

  “How so?”

  He spoke quietly, almost somberly. “It once belonged to the Butcher of the Highlands.”

  Mairi’s breath caught in her throat. She couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing.

  “It’s part of the reason the men have put their faith in me,” Logan continued in a low voice. “Maybe it’s superstitious nonsense, but word has spread throughout the Highlands that I am destined to lead this army and drive the English out of Leathan Castle. That I am somehow blessed with the Butcher’s strength.”

  Mairi shook her head frantically. “If the Butcher were blessed, he would still be alive today, but he is not here. He is dead, which is exactly where you will end up if you believe you are somehow exalted. You are just a man, Logan—a great man—but I have a bad feeling about this. Please do not go. Stay here with me.”

  She reached out to him, but he quickly moved away. “I have to go.”

  “No, wait….” She followed him.

  “I don’t know what will occur when we invade,” he said as he made his way around the kitchen table to the door. “If we are successful, I will have avenged my father’s death and made things right for the Campbells. Then I will come back for you.”

  “If you are successful…?” Her blood turned to ice in her veins as he opened the door and walked out. She followed him out to the yard where he returned to his horse and gathered up the reins.

  “Why did you even bother coming back here?” she asked in a sudden, heated rage. “Clearly all you’ve ever wanted is vengeance. Why did you let me fall in love with you if you always intended to leave? Did I mean that little to you? Am I not enough?”

  He was about to place his boot in the stirrup, but stopped and frowned. He faced her angrily. “You were everything to me, Mairi, and you still are. I came here tonight because I love you and I couldn’t go into battle without seeing you one last time.”

  One last time… “You’re breaking my heart, Logan. I cannot do this. I cannot say good-bye to you.” She turned to go back into the house, but stopped abruptly on the threshold when he called out to her.

  “Please lass, I must have your blessing!”

  Oh, God…

  The pain in her heart became a fierce, impregnable torment. Tears blinded her eyes. She grabbed hold of the doorjamb to steady herself.

  “It will be a bloody battle and many men will perish,” he continued. “I do not wish to be one of them, but if that is God’s will, I must accept it and hope that I have proved myself worthy.” She heard his footfalls across the ground, approaching. “You are the closest thing to an angel I’ve ever known. Please offer me something, Mairi. Tel
l me I am doing the right thing.”

  She covered her face with trembling hands and forced herself to turn around. He was so rugged and handsome in the dim light spilling out from the open door. A suffocating sensation tightened her throat. She had no words. All she could do was run toward him, throw her arms around his neck and hug him tightly. “You must follow your heart, Logan, and if this is what you believe you must do, then do it. Fight, and win. But live!”

  A tear fell across her cheek. She quickly wiped it away.

  Logan cupped her face in his hands and touched his forehead to hers. “Please believe that this is not just about me and my vengeance. It is about you, too, and all the other innocent Scots who suffer at the hands of the English. We must stand up to them, show them that we will not tolerate such brutality—that it’s their only hope for a peaceful future.”

  In that moment, Mairi felt a surge of pride and a love so deep, she could barely keep it from bubbling out of her heart. Rising up on her toes, she pressed her mouth urgently to his. The kiss sent the pit of her stomach into a wild swirl of desperation, for she knew she must make the most of this kiss. Sear it into her memory forever, for it could be their last.

  Salty tears trickled down her cheeks as he scooped her into his arms and ravished her mouth with his, ran his hands through her hair and down her back, leaving her mouth and body burning with fire. He planted kisses on her cheeks, neck, and shoulders, crushing her to him while she was forced to endure the unbearable agony of his good-bye.

  “I will live,” he whispered in her ear, and she shivered with a prayer for the same.

  It nearly killed her when he drew himself away. Mairi wiped her tears and steeled herself against the fear and heartache, for there was nothing she could do now but send him off to fight with her blessing, and bear their separation with every ounce of strength she possessed in her soul.

  He mounted his horse and sat high in the saddle, gazing down at her in the dark, rolling mist. She strode forward, laid her hand on his muscular thigh, and spoke with passion. “Go and get your castle back, Logan. Avenge your father’s death and drive those Redcoats back to England.”

  Something flashed in Logan’s eyes—a mixture of surprise and triumphant exhilaration. His horse took a few restless, impatient steps, and Mairi backed away to give them room to pass.

  “Wait for me, Mairi,” Logan said. “I will come back for you.”

  As she watched him gallop away, vanishing like a specter into the mist, she turned her eyes to the overcast night sky and listened to the fading sound of hooves in the distance.

  Then there was only silence.

  Please, Lord, bring him back to me.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Pray God we don’t get buried alive, Logan thought as he wormed his way through the narrow, subterranean passageway that would take him inside the castle walls. He had thought he knew the tunnel like the back of his hand. He had been the one to dig it out, after all—a lifetime ago with his brothers as a punishment for picking on other lads who were smaller and younger than they were. They had been sworn to secrecy about the tunnel, and Logan had never told a living soul. Until now.

  But tonight, the tunnel seemed far longer and narrower than he remembered. Though he supposed it was a matter of perspective. He was no longer the lean, willowy lad he had been at the age of ten when he could shimmy through it in twenty seconds flat.

  Particles of dirt fell from the earthen ceiling over his head, and he paused with the torch in front of him, squinting upwards to make sure the whole structure wasn’t about to collapse on top of him and his men. Damn, that would be a sorry conclusion to this campaign. It would spoil their entire battle plan—which involved Logan, Tomas, Fergus and Gawyn making their way through the castle undetected and opening the main gate.

  “Are you all right back there?” Logan asked, unable to look over his shoulder.

  “I feel like I’m crawling back into my mother’s womb,” Tomas grunted. “How much further?”

  “Not much. It should be just ahead.” Sure enough, the narrow tunnel grew wider and Logan was finally able to stand up in a hunched-over position. He held the torch aloft and helped Tomas climb out of the hole. Fergus and Gawyn—two of Angus’s most trusted warriors—brought up the rear.

  “This is where we will enter,” he whispered. “We must remove these stone blocks as quietly as possible, which will bring us into the storage closet in the surgery.”

  “There should be no one in the closet at this hour,” Tomas said, “but we must be very quiet.”

  “Aye. Let’s get busy.” Logan passed the torch to Tomas and began to pry the blocks away with his bare hands.

  * * *

  After that, it was a swift and straightforward expedition through the castle in the dead of night. They paused only to silence a few Redcoats who had the bad luck to encounter them in a dark passageway, and tried to sound an alarm.

  In relatively short order—thanks to Tomas’s excellent sketches of the castle interior, which was vague in Logan’s memory—he and the others reached the roof, slayed the guards posted at the battlements, and signaled with waving torches to the surrounding armies in the forest to make their way to the main gate. As soon as they were within view, Logan and his men raised the heavy iron portcullis, which rattled on its chains and finally woke the British soldiers from their slumber.

  * * *

  By the time the British realized that the enemy was charging through the gates, the Campbell and MacDonald armies had reached the barracks with their claymores held high. Terrifying battle cries filled the night, followed by the sounds of musket fire and the clang of steel against steel.

  Logan ran across the rooftop to the stairs, burning to join the fight, his blood racing with vigor.

  Below, the soldiers scrambled to assemble themselves, but they had no chance in the unexpected frenzy of the attack.

  “Wake up, ye bloody bastards!” a MacDonald warrior shouted through the window of the barracks as Logan dashed down the steps and reached the bailey floor. He drew his sword from its scabbard with a tremendous scraping sound that filled him with fiery determination.

  “Go back to England where you belong!” he roared as he charged into a disorganized cluster of Redcoats who were fumbling with their muskets. He plunged his blade into the belly of one who was about to fire his pistol into Logan’s face. The pistol fired into the air instead, and the soldier fell back.

  With a powerful surge of bloodlust, Logan turned just in time to defend himself against an unarmed soldier dressed in nothing but his unmentionables. The soldier cried out with panic and desperation as he lunged at Logan and knocked him onto his back. The wind sailed out of Logan’s lungs and his sword fell from his grip. The soldier wrapped his hands around Logan’s throat and squeezed. Logan kicked and struggled and gasped for breath. Then suddenly the soldier’s expression turned cold, his grip loosened, and he fell forward.

  Logan pushed him back, rolled him to the side and saw a knife in his back. Tomas arrived to pull it out. He wiped the bloody blade on the dead man’s unmentionables, and re-sheathed it in his boot.

  Holding a hand out to Logan, he said, “Get up, ye lazy arse.”

  Logan picked up his sword and rose to his feet. He was still fighting to catch his breath as another Redcoat came charging toward him with a bayonet.

  * * *

  Stomach burning with anxiety, Colonel Gregory Chatham sat down on a chair in his quarters and struggled to pull on his boot. “Where the bloody hell is my pistol?” he shouted over his shoulder as Lieutenant Roberts loaded it and handed it to him.

  “Thank you…. Dammit! Just set it right there, on the table!” he shouted irritably. “What is wrong with you? Can you not see I don’t have a free hand to take it from you?”

  Without a word, Roberts set the loaded pistol on the table and returned to the wardrobe to fetch Gregory’s jacket. Seconds later, he returned with the garment held out, ready for Gregory to slip his arms
into the sleeves.

  “This is madness,” Gregory said, rising to stand. “What was my father thinking, sending me here to a Scottish castle in the middle of nowhere to fight the Scots? Clearly we are outnumbered here! We are surrounded and out of our depth!”

  “It was a surprise attack,” Roberts replied as he slid the jacket onto Gregory’s shoulders and quickly brushed a hand over the polished epaulettes to wipe away a fleck of dust. “How in the world did they get through the gates? They must have scaled the walls.”

  “There is no imagining what these savages are capable of. They are like apes.”

  A sudden pounding at the door caused Gregory to jump. He hurried to button his jacket while Roberts moved to answer the knocking.

  “Who is there?”

  “It’s Captain Jones, sir. There has been an attack!”

  Gregory glanced at Roberts with disbelief. “As if we didn’t know?”

  “A Scottish army has entered through the main gate,” Jones continued from outside the door, “and they are fighting our men as we speak! They are Campbells and MacDonalds together!”

  “Open the door you fool, and let him in,” Gregory said to Roberts.

  The next second, Jones was saluting and speaking in a rush of words, almost incoherently, describing gruesome details of what was transpiring in the bailey below. His eyes grew wide with panic. “It’s the Butcher!”

  Gregory frowned. “What are you talking about? The Butcher is dead!”

  “No, sir, he lives!” Jones explained. “He has broken through the gates—he lifted the portcullis with his bare hands!—and he means to kill every last Englishman who crosses his path. He has amassed a giant army, sir, bigger than you can ever imagine, and they outnumber us at least twenty to one. The men need you in the bailey to lead them! There is no time to spare!”

  “To lead them in battle?” Gregory replied with horror. “Against the Butcher of the Highlands? Are you mad? It’s a lost cause.”

  Jones’s eyebrows pulled together with bewilderment. “It may be sir, but….”