Amanda Scott (13 page)

The sense of urgency increased, and he set a fast pace, for he could not resist its pull. If he found nothing bothersome at the end of the trail, he would tell his men he had been testing them, if he chose to tell them anything at all.

With a deepening chill in the air, he had expected snow to follow the heavy sleet of the day before, but although the sky remained overcast and the air icy cold, there had been no more precipitation. Mist had risen from Loch Leven all morning, but it had not drifted far from the loch, nor did it appear likely now that they would meet with any from Loch Linnhe. The water there was clearly visible now and calm for once, slate grey beneath the dismal grey sky.

Still, the pace was exhilarating. His cheeks stung, and he could see his breath in a cloud when he exhaled. Clouds of steam wafted from his mount’s nostrils, too.

When they passed the Kentallen Inn, and the northern end of Cuil Bay came into sight, he spurred his mount to an even faster pace. The dirt track was hard-packed, and the other horses pounded behind. Since he had not yet pressed the big black horse he rode, the others kept up with him easily and without incident.

Fifteen minutes later, near the south end of the bay, he turned uphill onto the track leading to Maclean House. The house sat at the back of a large meadow overlooking the loch. A dry stone dike surrounded house and grounds, and before he and his men reached the timbered gate, Duncan knew he had been right to come. A number of men and horses occupied the stable yard.

He slowed his pace, allowing his own men to bunch up behind him.

Bannatyne drew in alongside to ask, “How many, sir?”

“Five, maybe six,” Duncan said. “I don’t see their master.”

“D’ ye ken who he is, then?”

“Aye, it’s MacCrichton. Look at those saddle blankets. Though they are stripes, not plaids, the colors are his. Tell the others to await my signal here. They are to cause no trouble until they hear me whistle for them.”

“Aye, sir.”

Hearing doubt in the man’s tone, Duncan looked at him. “Do you doubt my ability to look after myself, Bannatyne?”

“Nay, sir, I ken fine that ye can look after yourself, but that MacCrichton is no man to trust.”

“Just do as I bid you. If you see them rush the house, or if more join them, you may consider that as good as my signal—and if they attack you, of course.”

Grinning, Bannatyne said, “Aye, sir, we’ll take them then, right enough.”

Duncan rode into the yard. He could see now that there were five men and seven horses. Either MacCrichton had taken a bodyguard in with him, or someone had seen them and carried warning to the house. In the latter case, it did not seem as if MacCrichton had responded.

The others stood silently, watching Duncan. He was certain they would not have remained passive had he ridden up with his entire company, however.

Riding right to the front step, he dismounted and dropped his reins, knowing the horse would stand where he left it until commanded to move. Without pausing, he strode to the door and thrust it open.

“Good day to you, MacCrichton,” he said from the threshold with a false cheerfulness that did nothing to soothe his fury at the sight that met his gaze.

MacCrichton scrambled hastily to his feet, leaving Mary Maclaine in a tumbled heap on the floor.

Movement from the left caught Duncan’s eye, and flicking a glance that way, he saw the man who had been missing from the courtyard. Meeting his gaze briefly, Duncan shifted his sword belt, then swiftly returned his gaze to MacCrichton.

“What brings you to Maclean House?” he asked him. “Something tells me that Mistress Maclaine did not invite you.”

“Nay, then, she certainly did not,” declared a childish voice that Duncan recognized as Chuff’s.

He did not look to see where it came from, but without taking his eyes from MacCrichton, he noted obliquely that Mary was getting slowly to her feet.

“You shut your mouth, brat,” MacCrichton snapped at the boy. “You’ve just earned yourself a few more strokes of my whip across your backside, is what you’ve done.” Still bristling, he took a step toward Duncan. “Your memory must be failing, Duncan. Campbell. I told you yesterday, the lass has promised to marry me.”

“That would explain why she risked her life to get away from you, I suppose,” Duncan said sardonically.

“Aye, then, explain that part o’ the tale, laird,” Chuff said, chuckling.

“She left because of a misunderstanding, that’s all,” MacCrichton said grimly, shooting a ominous sidelong look in the direction of Chuff’s voice. “I’ve come to take her home again, and the brats as well.”

Knowing even without Bannatyne’s warning that MacCrichton was capable of mischief, Duncan studied him carefully. If the man was armed, however, he was not advertising the fact. Duncan glanced swiftly around the rest of the room.

“Good day, mistress,” he said when his gaze came to rest upon Mary.

She did not reply. She had backed into the shadows near the most distant corner of the room, and at first he thought she was alone. Then he saw the children close beside her. Both returned his look solemnly, but neither said a word. When Mary stayed where she was, he wondered if he had missed something.

He remembered from certain earlier visits that Lady Maclean employed at least one servant, but there was no sign of the woman now. From what he remembered of her, he was sure that if she were on the premises, she would be here with Mary and the children.

Mary still did not speak, but MacCrichton moved then, drawing Duncan’s attention sharply back to him.

“You’ve seen all you need to see,” MacCrichton said gruffly, “so leave us be. This is no affair of yours.”

“Perhaps it is not,” Duncan said, “if the lass does want to marry you. The fact is, however, that she told me only yesterday that she has no such wish.”

MacCrichton chuckled, shaking his head. “If you had as much experience with wenches as I’ve got, you’d know you cannot trust their word on such matters.”

“Can I not?”

“Nay then, for they’ll always tell you the thing you least want to hear. The plain fact is she was wroth with me yesterday, because I’d made her obey me. She had expected, after a year of keeping me on her string, that she could rule the roast in my house, as well. When she found that was not so, she tried to teach me a wee lesson by running off. It was a quarrel between lovers, that’s all it was.”

“A quarrel?”

“Aye, the sort any man and lass have from time to time. I warrant you’ve had a share of them yourself. But she’s come about now, so I’m taking her home.”

“She has not,” Chuff said stoutly, “and we don’t want to go home with you.”

“No, we don’t,” Pinkie echoed in a small voice.

“They don’t want to go,” Duncan said.

“They have nothing to say about it,” MacCrichton snapped. “They are only tenant’s brats bound to work at Shian. They’ll go back with me, in any event, and they will swiftly learn what a mistake they made in running away.”

“I don’t think so,” Duncan said evenly.

“What? You’ve got nothing to say to any of this, damn you.”

“We’ll see about that. First I want to hear from Mistress Maclaine that she has truly agreed to marry you.”

“Then ask her. I doubt that she will lie about having given her promise.”

“Mistress, what say you?” When she was silent and did not step forward, he had a sudden fear that MacCrichton had done worse this time than give her a stripe across the backside. “Come out here where I can see you,” he commanded harshly.

To his relief she stepped forward at once, and her clothing, although mussed, appeared to be generally intact. As his gaze moved upward to her lovely serene eyes, it stopped at a livid red mark on her cheek, already darkening to a bruise.

A surge of rage threatened to overcome his common sense before she said calmly, “I did promise to marry him, I’m afraid, sir.”

“There,” MacCrichton said triumphantly, “you see?”

“Good God, mistress, were you mad?”

“I think I must have been,” she said with a sigh.

“No such a thing,” Chuff declared loyally. “Laird took ye for a gowk, is all.”

“Aye, gowked,” Pinkie said.

The small interruptions helped Duncan regain uncertain control of his temper. He said as gently as he knew how,
“Did
he mislead you, mistress?”

“Aye, for he pretended to feel tenderness toward me, and I believed him.”

“What blithering nonsense,” MacCrichton snapped. “It is always the same. If you upset them, they say you don’t love them. If you say you love them and then correct their behavior, they say you misled them. I tell you to your head, Campbell, if you would just take yourself off, I could settle this in the blink of an eye.”

Duncan was watching Mary, and he saw her eyes widen with fear. Until then, a voice deep inside him had been suggesting that he had overstepped his mark, that MacCrichton’s argument made sense and the man had every right to try to sort things out with her. But that look of fear decided Duncan’s course.

Grimly, he said, “What say you, mistress? Would you return with him?”

Mary swallowed hard. After the way they had parted the day before, Duncan’s appearance on the scene had shocked her, and she could scarcely believe, even now, that he was here in her house. Still, she would accept help from the devil himself if it would enable her to escape Ewan and protect the children from him.

She glanced at Ewan, seeing frustrated anger in his eyes and furious tension in his posture. She turned back to meet Duncan’s stern gaze.

“I told you the truth, sir. I have no wish to marry him. The misunderstanding to which he refers took place when I believed he cared for me and wanted to provide a home for me. Over and over, he professed to love me, and for a year he pressed me to respond, although I told him repeatedly that I could not return his regard, that any passionate sentiments I might have possessed died with your brother Ian.” Seeing Duncan’s flinch of pain, she fell silent.

Ewan said sharply, “Damn it, I do care for you, lass. You’ve only to come home with me and keep to your part of our bargain to see how much I care.”

“Indeed, mistress,” Duncan said with obvious reluctance, “if you are betrothed to him, there is—”

“There was no formal betrothal,” Mary hastened to tell him. “I think the truth is that I missed my cousin Diana dreadfully when she married your cousin and went to live in Perthshire. After my aunt and Sir Neil went to join her for the birth of her child, I was terribly lonely, although I had urged them to go without me, thinking I would be glad to have the time to myself. Thus I was particularly vulnerable, I think, to the promises he—”

She broke off, seeing by his expression that he was no longer really listening. This was no time to try to explain the myriad of emotions through which she had struggled, or that the pain of the struggle itself had finally led her to accept Ewan’s offer. Black Duncan would not want to hear that pride could make one vulnerable. Indeed, even she was not ready yet to admit that to anyone but herself.

He was looking at Ewan now. “It sounds to me, MacCrichton, as if you took advantage of Mistress Maclaine the moment her protectors left her alone. If you never arranged for a formal betrothal—”

“Man, there was no need,” Ewan protested. “She has no dowry, no one to act for her, and she’s well past the age of consent. I promised I’d take care of her and I will, so damn it, Campbell, get out of it. She gave her word, and I mean to hold her to it if I have to take her to court. Breach of promise works two ways, you know.”

“Did you promise, lass?”

Mary hesitated, but the truth was the truth. She nodded.

“There, you see,” Ewan exclaimed. He turned to his henchman. “You heard her, MacSteele. You’re a witness, man. There are others who heard her make that first promise, too,” he told Duncan earnestly. “Don’t be thinking there are not.”

“Then take your case to court,” Duncan said abruptly, astonishing Mary, who was certain her case was lost. “Perhaps you’ll convince a magistrate that she has no right to change her mind, but until you do, she remains under my protection.”

“What about us, then?” Chuff demanded.

“Aye,” Pinkie said, her blue eyes wide in her thin little face as she watched Black Duncan anxiously. “What of us, then?”

Mary kept silent, hardly daring to breathe, not even certain that something good had just happened.

Duncan looked at the children. “The children, too,” he said.

“You have no right,” Ewan cried. “By God, I won’t let you, either. You come strutting in like the lord of the manor, but you are no such thing. You’ve got no right here, no power over her or me. So get out, or I’ll have you thrown out.”

“If you think you can, go ahead,” Duncan said calmly.

“You talk big, but it’s only talk. Oh, I see your great sword, too, but it won’t do you much good in its sheath now, will it?” Snatching a pistol from his pocket, Ewan aimed it at Duncan with a shaking hand.

Mary gasped, grabbing Pinkie and Chuff and shoving them behind her.

“I ain’t afraid of ’im,” Chuff muttered, clutching her hand.

“Hush,” Mary warned, watching Duncan while her heart pounded.

He had not moved. As calmly as if he were standing in a meadow watching clouds roll by instead of looking down the muzzle of an illegal, undoubtedly loaded pistol, he said, “Before you pull that trigger, MacCrichton, perhaps you should tell your man here to look out in the meadow in front of the house.”

Ewan gave a curt nod, and his man rushed to a window. “I dinna see—Ay-de-mi, laird, there be nigh onto a score of armed men out there!”

“You have five men in the yard, MacCrichton, plus this lout here. From the look of them, however, I doubt they are foolish enough to be carrying much in the way of illegal arms.”

“I’m carrying a weapon. Why would not they?”

“Castle Stalker lies not far from here, at the south end of the loch,” Duncan said, referring to a famous Campbell military stronghold. “Coming here, you were too likely to run into the odd patrol of soldiers for your men to take the chance.”

“Do you think I’m more foolhardy than my men, then?”