She halted in her tracks, and her blood froze in her veins; she felt as if she were outside her body, watching from afar.
“Jane, where have you been?” Lord Reginald demanded thunderously, slowing his destrier and his retinue as he approached.
Jane swallowed thickly. Her panic intensified as she took in his murderous expression. The noblemen and soldiers who rode with him glanced at each other furtively, their suspicion as clear as Lord Reginald’s.
“I-I could not sleep my Lord. I left a short while ago only to walk and to take in some air.”
“You left to walk in the dark, and none of the tower guards saw you?” he accused.
He did not believe her, nor did his accompanying riders. She would be a fool to think otherwise. Her stomach plummeted as he bent down from his destrier, speaking low so that he would not be heard by the others.
“I will deal with you later, girl. But for now, get you to the castle and stay there. MacGillivray has been about. A scrap of his plaid has been found—in your room, no less. I’ve an inkling that he’s broken into the castle intending to do you harm in order to strike his revenge at me.”
“The chief of clan Gillivray? H-How can you be sure it was he? Could it not have been a MacGillivray clansman?” Jane was wild with desperation, and her voice shook as she spoke.
“It was him,” Lord Reginald said, nodding his head in his conviction. “And he left his plaid as a warning to me. Now I’ll have no more from you; get yourself back to the castle. I’ll have my turn at you when I’ve caught the beast and hanged him from the castle walls.”
Jane felt as if her knees had turned to liquid. She watched, stunned and horrified, as the party rode off in search of Robbie. Her Robbie—the Robbie that she loved beyond any doubt or reason. They knew he was close. It would only be a matter of time before they found him.
And killed him.
She had to stop that from happening. She had to warn him. A surge of adrenaline shot through her body, jolting her muscles into action. She turned to the castle and ran like she had not run since she was a child, since she’d chased after Hugg in the open fields of her father’s estate, determined to catch him. Her legs pumped over the dirt road as Hugg’s would have, with blinding speed of which no man was capable.
Breathless and cold with fear, she tore through the main gatehouse, and through the bailey. Sprinting through the castle hallways and passages she burst through the door of her room where Ruth was there waiting for her, frantically pacing the floor and wringing her hands.
“Oh, my Lady,” she exclaimed upon beholding her mistress. “Thank the heavens you are safe. I’d thought for sure that MacGillivray beast had stolen you and harmed you. Oh, thank the Lord you are alright.”
Tears shone in the woman’s eyes as she embraced Jane, holding her close. Frantically, she pushed Ruth away.
“Ruth, what has happened?” she demanded. “How did his Lordship find the MacGillivray plaid in my chamber?”
“It was I who found it,” Ruth corrected, a note of triumph colouring her tone. “I saw it—it had been tucked into the bed frame with the corner sticking out. Lord Reginald believes it was a warning, and I daresay I think he’s right. That devil Scot wanted Dunloch to know he’d been here. He wished to frighten us.”
Ruth’s words were like a splash of ice water over her body as Jane realized what had happened. She’d been too hasty. She’d shoved Robbie’s plaid into its hiding place and had rushed from the room without ensuring it was properly concealed.
Oh dear God, it was her fault. Robbie would be found and killed for her carelessness.
“No,” she wailed in despair, and covered her face with her hands.
“My Lady, it is alright. You are safe now.”
“You do not understand,” she protested, shaking her head vehemently. “You were right about me, about where I go at night. That scrap of fabric being in my chamber was no accident. It was I that hid it here because it was he who gave it to me.”
Ruth gasped, shaking her head in disbelief. “My Lady, what are you saying? Do you mean—”
“Yes, my Ruth. It was I who found Robbie MacGillivray, chief of clan Gillivray and true Laird of Dunloch. I healed a nasty wound that he suffered at the hands of Lord Reginald’s soldiers and I saved his life. Oh Ruth, there is so much about this conflict we don’t understand, but I speak true when I say that he is not a savage or a devil.”
Ruth hands were clasped to her cheeks as Jane spoke, and her eyes were wide with shock. “Oh, my Lady, how was I to know? Why did you not tell me any of this? Had I but known, I would not have brought what I found to Lord Reginald.”
“I did not want to involve you,” she answered vaguely. “Oh Ruth, I am a wretched creature, for I love Robbie. If they find him, they will surely kill him, and I cannot let that happen.”
“My Lady, I am truly sorry,” Ruth said firmly, taking hold of Jane’s arm, “but you are going nowhere. You have risked your life enough; indeed I cannot bear the fact that you’ve risked it at all. I will not allow you to involve yourself any further than you already are. You could be hanged as a traitor if your involvement is discovered, do you know that?”
“Yes. I do know, and I do not care, Ruth. Robbie will be hanged as a traitor if I do not warn him, and that thought terrifies me far more. I love you, my Ruth, truly, I do. But I must go. I must warn him.”
She wrenched her arm from Ruth’s grip, and followed by the woman’s cries for her to come back, she darted out the door and fled the castle in the direction of the stables.
Reaching them, she scared the wits out of the groomsmen on duty when she burst through the doors and mounted the nearest gelding, though he was not saddled. With a cry and a heel to the gelding’s side, she rode him bareback out of the stables and through the gates of Dunloch.
If the situation had not been so desperate, she would have been terrified of the animal moving beneath her and of the rough, hard ground beneath them both. But as the Scottish countryside flew past her at death-defying speed, she was so determined to get to Robbie first that she hardly noticed. Her heart pounded against her ribs as she scanned the landscape for Lord Reginald and his party. And when finally she reached the hut, she fully expected to be met by horses, their riders having discovered Robbie’s hiding place before she could reach it.
But there were none.
“Robbie,” she cried, bursting through the door of the hut.
Startled, he stood from where he sat by the fire, wincing in pain and gripping his side at having moved so hastily.
“They know you’re close,” she exclaimed, panting. “They’re out looking for you, and will surely find you if you do not make your escape now.”
Robbie’s eyes grew dark, and his visage hardened. “I want ye to tell me, Jane—do they ken ye’ve helped me? Do I put ye in danger if I leave ye here and dinna take ye wi’ me? Because I will, if ye are.”
“I am in no danger,” she lied. “But you are, so you must go now. I’ve a horse for you. Take him and make good your escape.”
Robbie needed no further prodding. With a nod, he limped awkwardly out of the hut, but before he mounted the gelding, he stopped and turned to Jane. Pulling her close, he kissed her. It was a swift kiss, rough and urgent. But in it, she felt a world of unspoken words, of unspoken emotion.
“I promise ye, as long as I live—which may not be very long at all—I’ll never forget ye.”
Then he mounted the gelding, and with a fierce, warrior’s cry and one tortured, backwards glance at her, he spurred the animal forward, hunched over awkwardly for his wound.
“Nor I you,” Jane echoed as she watched him ride away.
Alone, she breathed in the fragrant scent of the pine and of the wood smoke that still rose from the chimney of the hut. Their hut—hers and Robbie’s. She felt hollow, a shell of herself; a dull ache throbbed in the pit of her stomach. It begged her to cry, to wail, to scream in anguish. But she could not. She was numb everywhere.
She could not return to the castle—she would eventually, but not yet. Instead, she turned from the hut, from the scene of so much happiness and love that would be forever seared into the tissues of her brain, and walked in the direction of the plateau where they had buried Connall just the day before.
The grave was just as they’d left it, the body covered with fresh dirt. The small toy that had been clutched in little Connall’s hand when he’d stood by his father’s grave had been placed atop the dirt as a token.
Jane sank to the ground and picked the toy up. Clutching it to her throbbing heart she gazed, dry-eyed, over the landscape below.
Dunloch stretched endlessly before her, a carpet of rolling emerald hills. It was the land that Robbie loved. That Tearlach loved. That Connall had loved enough to die for. And now it was hers—whether rightly or wrongly, it was hers.
As she gazed at the distant castle, she knew. She knew that, just as Tearlach had done, she would protect it in whatever way she could, even if it meant she had to sell her soul to do so. She would happily bargain it away for Robbie not only because she loved him, but because it was right. She knew it was unlikely the MacGillivrays would ever return to rule it, but that did not matter.
If ever, by some miracle, they did return—if Robbie ever returned—Dunloch would be here, unchanged, waiting.
Jane made him a silent promise there on that plateau, beside the grave of his loyal clansman and cousin ... Dunloch would always be ready to welcome the return of its true laird.
She would make sure of it.
To be continued in Volume II of the Highland Loyalties trilogy: Uniting the Clans.
Bride of Dunloch (Highland Loyalties) Page 14