Amanda Scott (44 page)

“Then the boy can stay with her.”

“Don’t be horrid. You would never take back your promise to him, and I do not believe you mean to take back your promise to me, either.”

He sighed, reaching out to take her hand. “Keeping it is proving more difficult than I thought. Somehow I guess I thought the choices you’d make would be ones I would make anyway. I keep forgetting you have notions of your own.”

“You will learn.”

“Will I?” He set his wineglass on the floor and drew her closer.

“Aye, sir, you will.” Taking care not to spill her wine, she sat on his lap and leaned against his shoulder, pulling her hand free to stroke his cheek. Demurely, she said, “Would you like to put my glass down by yours?”

“You can give me a sip instead,” he said, adjusting his arm to make her more comfortable. His hand moved up under her hair, and his fingers tickled her neck.

A stirring of warmth spread through her. “Then Pinkie can go?”

“Aye, if you want her. I don’t want to hear any complaints from you about a lack of proper service, however,” he added sternly.

She chuckled. “I’ll have more service than without her,” she pointed out. “Are you taking Hardwick?”

“No. He looks after my gear well enough, but Coulter and Bannatyne are far better with sword or pistol.”

“Does no one ever remind you that arms are forbidden to Highlanders, sir?”

“Only one sharp-tongued lass dares say such things to me. A Campbell going unarmed in Stewart country would have to be a fool, sweetheart. I am no fool.”

“Well, I confess that I shall feel better knowing you are armed,” she said. “I still don’t like your traveling. That dream was so horribly real.”

“It can have nothing to do with this journey, however. As I recall your description, the sun was shining while diamonds fell from the sky. If we see any sun tomorrow, I shall own myself greatly surprised. As to diamonds …” He chuckled.

She sighed. “I’ll say no more about it then. I daresay you are right.”

Taking the wineglass from her unresisting hand, he swallowed the rest of its contents and set it down by his. After that she soon forgot her nightmare. Half an hour later, when she snuggled against him in bed and closed her eyes to sleep, she felt replete and utterly relaxed. Thus it seemed most unfair that she endured the awful dream again just before she awoke early the next morning.

“It wasn’t diamonds,” she exclaimed, shaking Duncan urgently. “It must be rain, Duncan, because there is a rainbow!”

He muttered grimly, “You had better hope the hour is later than I think it is.”

“The clock says half past five,” she said, turning the one on the bed table so it caught the glow from the embers. “You said you wanted to start early, sir, and it will begin to grow light in an hour. Did you hear me. It wasn’t—”

“Aye, I heard you,” he growled, “and I don’t want to hear it again. It was a dream, Mary, that’s all. Have you found yourself in any caves lately?”

“I know that one was a nightmare brought on by my fear of small places,” she said, “but it wasn’t like this. This is the second time I’ve had this dream.”

“You’ve had the other more than once, too, have you not?”

“Aye, several times, but this is—”

“Different. I know you think it is, but you are wrong. You fretted about me when I rode out looking for MacCrichton, and I came to no harm. This time you are doubtless disturbed because you know I have concerns about the weather. That’s all, Mary. You’ve said yourself that your visions don’t come like this.”

“That’s true, they don’t,” she admitted, “but still—”

“That’s enough,” he said curtly. “I don’t want to hear another word. I have enough on my plate today, as it is, and that’s Hardwick’s step at the door now.”

Duncan was glad he had heard the footsteps, because Ailis was with Hardwick when he entered the room. Hardwick carried the tray with their breakfast, and the wench pulled the side table out so he could set it down.

Glancing at Mary, Duncan saw that she had composed herself, but she did not look at him, and he knew that she was both annoyed and disappointed. Though he felt a stab of remorse, he consoled himself with the thought that she would get over it, and that he did, indeed, have too many other things to worry about.

She ate little and did not speak, so when she and Ailis retired to her dressing room, he finished his meal quickly and dressed himself, then went to hurry the others along. He need not have worried about his men, however, for Bannatyne assured him that they were all well along with their tasks.

“It was that Chuff,” his henchman said with a grin. “He woke everyone an hour ago, my lord, and he’s been dashing around like a collie with a feckless herd of sheep. I thought Coulter was going to give him a clout when he told him to stir his stumps. But when he threatened to, the lad just snapped back at him that he could do so if he pleased but that Himself would no be happy if the men were not saddled and ready to ride when he wanted to leave. That silenced Coulter, I can tell you.”

Duncan grinned, his spirits lifting at once, and when he discovered that Chuff had also seen to it that his sister was ready to leave, he clapped the boy on the shoulder. “It seems I should make you my second in command,” he said.

Chuff flashed a smile. “I’d like that fine in a year or two.”

“Would you like to ride with me?”

The rapturous look on the lad’s face was answer enough. When the others were ready, Duncan swung him up behind, seeing without surprise that Mary carried Pinkie before her.

She still did not look at him, nor had she spoken to him since their exchange earlier, but he could not afford to let his thoughts dwell on it. He nearly told her to give the child to one of his men, but knowing she would resist, he held his tongue. He did not want the men to suspect that all was not well between them.

“Bannatyne,” he said abruptly. “Tell her ladyship that she and Lady Serena are to stay in the midst of the men. I know she would prefer to ride up here with me, but it will be safer if others ride ahead of her to clear her path.”

“Aye, my lord.”

Duncan did not wait to see if Mary would obey. He knew she would. Looking up at the still-dark sky, he saw not a single star. As the herds had predicted, colder night temperatures had turned the rain to a light snowfall. He sent a pair of men with torches on ahead to lead them, and fell in behind them. The rest followed in twos, some leading pack animals with their supplies. He was taking as much as he could afford to take. He did not want to be beholden to Caddell.

Wind soon extinguished the torches, but it grew significantly lighter by the time they reached the pass. Just the other side, however, snowdrifts slowed them down, and although men soon cleared the way, the delay chilled them all.

“This is madness, Duncan,” Serena said pettishly. “I’m freezing, and we are not likely to grow warmer. What if this snowfall turns into a blizzard?”

“Then we will take shelter,” he said, striving to keep his temper. He knew he was not really angry with Serena. She was acting as he had expected her to act.

He was prickly because Mary still had not spoken to him. He wanted to go to her and shake her, tell her she was behaving badly and to stop it. But even as the thought formed in his mind, he knew it was untrue. He wanted to go her and hold her, to feel her holding him, to know she was not angry with him. Her good opinion of him had somehow, over the past weeks, become not just important but vital.

The little party continued down through the glen, their progress steady but slow, hampered as they were by the new, light snow atop ice that had formed after the previous day’s rain. Footing, even for Highland ponies accustomed to the worst, was treacherous, and twice his horse slipped, nearly casting him to the ground.

“Hold tight,” he warned Chuff.

“Aye, my lord, I will. D’ ye think Pinkie will be warm enough?”

“The mistress will see that she is.”

“Aye, sure, she will. She is kind, the mistress.”

Duncan felt a knot tighten in his throat.

Lost in his thoughts, he scarcely noted the warming temperature. They had been riding for several hours when the snow turned to sleet. Little wind touched them in the glen, and though he could see that it still blew above them in the treetops, the roar of the river Creran drowned out any sound it made. Indeed, the river’s roar was so loud now that he could scarcely hear anything else.

Not until they had passed the trail leading into Glen Duror, near where he had first met Mary and the children, did Duncan notice that the sky had lightened. Suddenly, the sleet ahead of him began to sparkle as an errant ray of sunlight pierced the clouds to create a path of diamonds against a rainbow.

In a flash, he remembered Mary’s dream, and turned his head in time to see a surge of movement from the woods. As he swept Chuff from the saddle behind him, Duncan felt a stab of sharp pain and fell into darkness.

Hearing the gunshot and seeing Duncan and Chuff fall, Mary screamed, but it was too late. Men leapt from nearby trees and shrubbery to surround the party and drag the men from their saddles. Not one managed to draw his weapon, and they soon found themselves trussed together like so many bales of hay.

To Mary’s astonishment, Serena slipped at once from her saddle, caught up her skirts, and ran to Duncan, who had tumbled downhill toward the river. When Mary moved to follow, a hand caught her horse’s bridle, and Ewan MacCrichton said harshly, “Stay where you are, lass. You’re coming with me.”

“But I must get to Duncan,” Mary cried. “He hasn’t moved! He must be badly injured.”

“He’s dead, Mary,” Serena cried. “Duncan’s dead!”

“No! Oh, Serena, you must be mistaken.” Looking into the girl’s anguished face, Mary felt overwhelming grief. Tears poured down her cheeks, burning when they froze. She wanted to shriek and wail. More than that, she wanted to run to Duncan and gather him into her arms. Not until now had she realized how much she loved him. But when she tried again to free herself, Ewan held her.

Pinkie whimpered, and just then Chuff ran at Ewan with a knife held at the ready. But another man, bundled in a hood and warm jacket, caught him up by his jacket from behind and wrenched the knife from his hand.

“Bring him,” Ewan said curtly. “I’ve a wee score to settle with that laddie.”

As the second fellow tucked the squirming, struggling boy under his arm, he glanced up at Ewan, and Mary recognized Allan Breck.

A
FTER THAT SINGLE BREAK
in the clouds, they snapped back together again, blacker than ever. The temperature plunged, and the storm increased with a vengeance. Wind howled, the day darkened to evening, and thick snow swirled around the riders long before the walls of Shian Towers loomed into sight, but not long after that the gates swung wide to receive them.

The children had not spoken, and after one attempt to talk her captors into letting her say a proper farewell to Duncan, Mary, too, had fallen silent. Neither Allan nor Ewan tried to engage her in conversation.

Although with Allan leading her horse, she had little to do but stay on her saddle and hold onto Pinkie, she had found it difficult to think. Tears trickled down her cheeks, freezing before they had run their course. Her face stung from the cold, and the hairs in her nose crackled when she rubbed it. Snow-flakes clung to her lashes, and dusted the little girl’s hair.

When Pinkie coughed, she murmured, “I hope you are not coming down with a cold now, darling.”

“Nay, ma’am, the breath just caught in my throat. I’ve got my scarf up now.”

Chuff remained stoically silent.

The men talked in low tones, saying nothing that she wanted to hear, but she forced herself to listen, hoping to keep at bay the image of Duncan as he had fallen. The attempt was useless. No matter what she did, no matter what she tried to think about, all she could see in her mind’s eye was his figure, sternly upright in the saddle one moment, falling dead the next.

She felt numb, as if it had all happened to someone else, as if she were a spectator, except when that image filled her mind’s eye. Then she wanted to burst into tears and wail like a banshee. The ancient custom of howling for the dead had always seemed overdramatic to her. Now it seemed like a natural reaction.

She could not cry. She had to think of the children. Even more, she had to think of the child she believed she was carrying, Duncan’s child, the child she had not even told him about, for fear that he would forbid her to attend the christening.

By keeping the news from him, she had kept him forever from knowing that he was to be a father, and she might have jeopardized the Balcardane succession, as well. Indeed, she might be solely responsible for the line’s end. The thought that she might easily bear a daughter occurred to her only to be rejected. Fate could not be so cruel as to let her survive and then give her a daughter who could not inherit the Balcardane title. God could not think her small act of omission so horrendous as to punish her by cutting off the Balcardane branch of the clan Campbell tree.

As the riders passed through Shian’s gates, she looked dully at the tall tower house and knew that she might not even live long enough for Fate to decide if she should bear boy or girl. Allan and Ewan were bent on finding the treasure, and since they both believed that she could somehow divine its whereabouts, she was under no illusions about what they would do when she could not.

Ewan had not hesitated before to use his strength against her. He would not hesitate now, and she doubted that Allan would try to stop him. They might even kill her, for Ewan could not risk her testimony against him in a courtroom. Neither he nor Allan would want to leave witnesses, and while Duncan’s men and Serena could not know their attackers’ identities for certain, Chuff and Pinkie did.

That thought chilled her to the bone.

They drew to a halt. Looking over her shoulder, she saw that the huge iron gates had swung shut again, and armed men stood guard beside them. Others moved about in the courtyard, their heavy boots crunching in the icy snow.