Amanda Scott (28 page)

His fantasies came to an abrupt end when a clamor in the courtyard announced the arrival of riders. Balcardane and Duncan leapt to their feet at the sound, but before they reached the door, four men rushed in led by Bannatyne.

He cried, “They’ve attacked Dunraven, my lord! They set the outbuildings on fire.” Turning to Duncan, he added, “These lads say they used fire arrows, sir. They think it was most likely the MacCrichton.”

“Tell the men to saddle horses,” Duncan ordered. “We’ll ride at once.”

Serena exclaimed in dismay, “You cannot leave us now, Duncan. It is dark outside, there is snow everywhere, and there is undoubtedly a new storm brewing!”

Bannatyne said quietly, “The sky is clear, sir, and they say the pass is still accessible. It will be slow going in places, but if we don’t get to Dunraven—”

“You have your orders,” Duncan growled.

“Aye, sir.” Bannatyne left the hall at once.

Signing to the newcomers to help themselves to food, Duncan said to his father, “I don’t know how long I’ll be away, sir, but we cannot allow such a criminal act to go unpunished.” He looked at one of the men taking a place now at the table, and said, “Did you send elsewhere for help, as well?”

“Aye, sir. We sent riders to Inver House and to Castle Stalker. Like as not them from Stalker will get there long before Lord Caddell’s people do, though.”

“Good work.” He turned to Mary. “I’m sorry about this, lass, but you ought to be safe enough from MacCrichton if he is making mischief in Campbell country.”

“Aye, sir,” she said quietly. “Keep safe yourself.”

Her words warmed him. He kissed her forehead again, denying himself anything more; but as he rode into the night with his men, he found himself wishing he were not riding away from Balcardane.

The men had not exaggerated the state of the pass or that of the narrow trail winding down through Glen Creran, and it was nearly daybreak before they reached Dunraven. There Duncan found lingering chaos. Soldiers from the Campbell stronghold at Castle Stalker, strategically located on its islet near the confluence of Loch Creran, Loch Linnhe, and the Lynn of Lome, had reached Dunraven the previous evening. But although they had apparently prevented further damage to the castle and its occupants, they had not succeeded in laying the raiders by the heels.

Having eluded their pursuers only to find themselves blinded by snow and in danger of becoming lost as they attempted to make their way by a lengthy and devious route toward Balcardane, Ewan and Allan Breck and their followers took shelter at last with a cottager who had hidden Breck many times before.

Reassured though he was that their host would not betray them, Ewan was angry. “How the devil are we going to make Balcardane if this snow keeps up?”

“If we can’t get there, neither can Duncan,” Allan said calmly, taking a swig of whisky from a flask he carried with him, then offering it to Ewan. “Want some?”

Ewan accepted, growling, “Do you think the lass really married that devil?”

“I won’t be surprised,” Allan said with a grin. “My chap who told me said he heard she was doing it to protect herself from your suit. I won’t be surprised either, though, if Mary had refused to bed Duncan. She’s a stubborn lass, is our Mary, so if you can get to her before he loses patience and claims his rights, your suit may yet prosper, my lad. That’s why I agreed to assist with your Christmas temper tantrum at Dunraven. We’ll no doubt pay for such sacrilege in the next world, but it was bound to draw Duncan away from Balcardane no matter what enticed him to stay.”

“A fat lot of good that will do us if we cannot get there,” Ewan grumbled.

“I do not intend to let you fail,” Allan said grimly. “I’ve had the devil’s own time of it, trying to collect money owed to the exiled lairds, so I’ll find a sour welcome awaiting me in France if we cannot recover what you’ve lost.”

“What I’ve lost,” Ewan pointed out, “belongs to me, not to you or the lairds.”

“Aye, and you are welcome to what you need from it, but your anxiety told me long since that the treasure you misplaced must be a substantial one, and I expect a hefty share of it for helping you retrieve it, my lad.”

Depressed and feeling as if he had made a pact with the devil, Ewan said, “Even if we arrive ahead of Duncan, what makes you think we can get to the lass?”

“I know we can,” Allan retorted smugly. “My chap brought a message from her, agreeing to meet me. I need only tell her where and when.”

U
PON HIS ARRIVAL, DUNCAN
ordered breakfast for himself in his book room, and a like meal for his men to be served in the hall. Learning that Stalker’s captain had led the soldiers himself, he told Bannatyne to rouse the man from his bed. When his henchman hesitated, diffidently reminding him that Patrick Campbell had been up most of the night, Duncan said, “He can sleep when I do. Fetch him.”

His food arrived before Patrick did, but he had eaten less than half of it when the other man entered without ceremony. He had clearly come from his bed, for his light brown hair was tousled and his hazel eyes red-rimmed and bleary. He had not had himself shaved, and he rubbed his bristly jaw as he glowered at Duncan.

“Have some ale,” Duncan said, “and felicitate me on my marriage.”

“I’d rather have coffee if you’ve got any. As to felicitations … you?”

“Aye.” Duncan gestured to Bannatyne to fetch coffee. “Sit down, Patrick, and take that foolish smirk off your face. I’ll tell you all about it if you insist, but first, tell me what you know about the damned raid. Your lads tell me they cannot be certain the raiders were MacCrichton’s men.”

“We don’t know anything for certain,” Patrick said, pulling a stool up to the table and breaking a chunk of bread from the loaf as he sat down. “I heard of your visit to Shian a few weeks ago. I hope you haven’t stirred up a hornets’ nest. We’ve enjoyed peace in these parts for more than a year. I’d hate to see it end.”

Duncan shrugged. “It seems to have ended already. What makes you think it could have been anyone but MacCrichton?”

“I don’t say it’s likely to have been anyone else, but we’ve seen no sign of trouble at Shian. It’s one place we keep an eye on, after all, and we will until he’s paid the fine demanded as part of his pardon. We know Allan Breck is in the area, however, and it’s odd that he’s still here, because he usually returns to France before the snow comes. Perhaps he’s been brewing mischief, but he’d have to be mad to tweak your tail.”

“He would,” Duncan agreed, not bothering to hide his antipathy. “Breck couldn’t organize a raid like this alone, though, and I don’t know many who would help him. He made more enemies than friends when he murdered my brother.”

“MacCrichton may have linked up with him, though I can’t think why he would,” Patrick said, nodding thanks to Bannatyne when the man put a cup of coffee in front of him. “He’s got reason to stay clear of a felon like Breck if he wants to keep his peace with the government.”

“They may both think they have a common enemy, however,” Duncan said. While they ate, he told Patrick about Mary, and then the two men retired to sleep for a few hours. When they awoke, the snow was still falling heavily. During the next few days, Duncan’s men made makeshift repairs with the help of the soldiers from Stalker, and tended the injured. By Monday the weather had cleared enough to travel, and Patrick announced that he and his men would return to Stalker.

“Perhaps,” Duncan said mildly, “you won’t mind if I ride with you.”

“Not at all,” Patrick said. “I think it wise of you to go the long way, up the Loch Linnhe shore road, rather than trying to make it over the hill pass.”

“Oh, we’ll make it over the pass,” Duncan replied with a slight smile.

Patrick met his gaze and sighed. “I suppose you want me and my men to ride round the end of Loch Creran with you to pay a visit to Shian Towers.”

Duncan grinned.

He was no longer grinning, however, when they reached Shian Towers and found that its master was not in residence. The guards at the gates could not say where he was. Suddenly Duncan felt an urgent need to get back to Balcardane. “What if the raid on Dunraven was but a ruse to draw me away?” he demanded.

Patrick frowned, “Do you think he would dare attack Balcardane?”

“Why not?” Then, thinking more sensibly, he said, “even with my men gone, he won’t think he can take the castle, and he must know he could never hold it. It’s Mary he wants, Patrick. I must ride, and swiftly. Thank you.”

“Do you want us to go with you?”

“I’ll welcome your help if I have to search for her.”

“Then so be it.”

Duncan gave spur to his horse, leaving the others to follow. Snow almost obliterated the path up the glen, but he forced his way as much by instinct as by any other means, plunging on at a reckless pace. Pushing hard, giving quarter neither to himself nor to his mount, he pressed on. Thus it was that when he approached Balcardane at last, riding down the wind-swept hill toward the main gates, and saw a man who looked suspiciously like Allan Breck disappear into the woods west of the castle, and a woman in a gray cloak with a fur-trimmed hood waving to him from the ramparts, fury exploded within him.

Recognizing Duncan, the castle guards threw the gates wide, and he barely waited to turn his horse over to a lad before striding angrily across an unusually busy courtyard to the entrance. Pushing open the door, he entered the hall.

The first person he saw was Mary, looking composed and serene in the dark blue wool gown that she had worn to the kirk the day he had left Balcardane. She stepped forward, and before her expression changed to wariness, he would have sworn that she looked glad to see him.

He did not pause to wonder at that, however, or to note that she was not alone in the hall. Closing the distance between them in a few long strides, he grabbed her by the shoulders, intending to shake her until her bones rattled.

She continued to look at him, still wary but unafraid and with that damnable serenity radiating from her silver eyes. He paused then, his fingers clutching spasmodically at her shoulders. “I cannot believe you are not even breathing hard, madam,” he said curtly. “You must have run downstairs from the ramparts, but I don’t doubt that fear of my anger lent wings to your feet.”

“I have been in the hall since my cousin arrived, sir,” she said calmly. “What makes you think I had any cause to run downstairs?”

“Your cousin?” Fighting rage, he snapped, “How dare you speak so casually of that villain to me! Aye,” he added when her eyes widened, “I saw him haring toward the woods, and it is a measure of my fury at
your
betrayal that I came to find you rather than chase him. Two of my men were close enough behind me to see him, however, and no doubt will have trapped him by now.”

“But my cousin is right here, sir. You have met Neil before, of course, but perhaps you did not notice him just now when you came in.”

Caught up sharply, Duncan looked at the other men standing nearby, and realized for the first time that several were strangers. One was not, however. He had indeed met Sir Neil Maclean before, but he remembered him as a boy about Ian’s age, and the dark-haired young man standing before him was no stripling. Maclean was lean and lanky, and as Duncan recalled when he looked into his stormy dark eyes, possessed of a temper almost as quick as his own.

Duncan stood his ground but watched Maclean as he said to Mary, “I would have a word with you in private, madam. At once, if you please.”

“I have no secrets from Neil, sir. He rode all the way from Perthshire to be certain of my safety—and my sanity, I believe,” she added with a wry smile for her cousin. “It would be most discourteous to leave him to his own devices so soon, particularly since he is our first visitor of the new year. Is it not fortunate that his having dark hair means this house will enjoy good luck all year?”

“You will not want anyone else to hear what I have to say to you.”

“I can think of nothing that I have done, sir, to warrant your anger. Whom did you mean, if not Neil, when you referred to my cousin?”

Frowning, he wondered for the first time if his eyes could have deceived him, but he said bluntly, “Did you not receive Allan Breck here in my absence?”

She looked astonished. “I would not do such a thing even if the men would allow him inside these walls, sir. Whatever made you think I had?”

“You cannot deny that he has twice sought a meeting with you.”

“You know he has, but you know I did not meet him. Nor have I invited him to visit me. I have not heard from him since you suggested setting a trap, sir.”

“Look here, Duncan,” Neil said, his tone as curt as Duncan’s had been, “you must know that Mary does not tell lies. If she says she has not laid eyes on that scoundrel, then she has not.”

“But I saw her, and him. That is,” he amended, “I saw a man who looked like him running toward the woods on the hill between here and Ballachulish village.”

“You saw someone who looked like me?” Mary’s gaze, meeting his, was still as calm as it had ever been. “Where?”

He felt his temper ebbing quickly. Realizing that his hands still gripped her shoulders, he relaxed them, letting one fall away but moving the other just a little, unwilling to step away from her calming influence just yet. He drew a deep, steadying breath, grateful that no one else spoke. Everyone was watching him.

His father had entered the hall from somewhere in the nether regions, and stood just inside the door beneath the stairs. Two other men, apparently servants or companions, stood near Maclean, their demeanor wary but unthreatening.

Footsteps and a rustle of skirts drew Duncan’s attention upward. Serena stood poised on the stair landing, looking down.

Turning back to Mary, Duncan grimaced ruefully and said, “Aye, lass, she looked like you. She stood at the wall, on the battlement, waving at the fellow. She wore your gray cloak, the one with fur round the hood.”

“The only cloak I have, in fact,” she said, “but I was not wearing it, sir. If you saw it within the past half hour—”

“Here now,” Neil said, interrupting with a frown. “I saw that wench hurrying toward the postern gate when we rode up, and I saw some chap walking away from her toward the hill. I wondered what the devil they were doing, for it seemed like a dashed odd place for them to have parted company, I thought.”