Beloved Imposter (14 page)

But Lachlan said nothing. Instead, he picked up a young girl from a litter and carried her inside. Moira was occupied with a villager who had a huge gash in his shoulder.

Felicia followed Lachlan into the great hall. Lachlan gently lowered the girl onto a table, and Felicia leaned over to look at her.

The child could have been no more than eight years old. Her leg was bloody and crooked. She regarded Felicia with pain-filled eyes, yet did not utter a word.

“Her name is Alina,” a woman who had followed them inside said. A small dog whined and tried to jump up on the table.

“How was she injured?” Felicia asked.

“A Campbell on horseback ran ‘er down when she ran out to get the dog. Did it on purpose, he did. I would have left the cur, but Alina would no’ hear of it.”

A Campbell deliberately ran her down.

Pain twisted inside Felicia. Was it a man she knew?

She looked at the ugly wound. The bone had obviously been broken.

Moira joined her and stooped down to look as well. “Ye are a brave lass,” she told the child softly.

“Will I lose … my leg?” Alina asked in a quavering voice.

Felicia looked at Moira. If there was no infection, there was a chance the leg could be saved, but that was unlikely. At the very least, she doubted the lass would ever walk properly again.

“I do not know,” she said honestly.

Approval flickered on Moira’s face. “There are herbs for poultices in the kitchen,” she said.

“I can mix poultices, if Robina will show me where they are.”

Moira looked unsure. “Why do you no’ stay with the young lass while I go and show Robina what to do?” Before Felicia could protest, Moira was out the door, pushing Robina ahead of her.

The dog whined and tried to move closer to his young mistress.

“What is your dog’s name?” Felicia asked, trying to divert the lass from her pain.

“Baron.”

“A noble name.”

Alina’s mother snorted. “He is nothing but trouble, that one.”

“Nay, he is the best dog in the world,” the child said.

“Then we must take good care of him,” Felicia said. “I will see that he is fed.”

The child’s face brightened despite her pain. “Mither blames him, but it was no’ his fault.”

“I will get him some food and take him to my chamber so he will not be underfoot,” she said. “Is that acceptable?”

“Aye, milady,” Alina said uncertainly.

“You will have him back. I swear.” Felicia looked at the mother.

She picked up the dog and went into the kitchen. Moira had put Robina to boiling water on the fire. Several knives lay in the fire as well, the steel glowing red. Felicia shuddered, knowing what was coming.

“I thought I should get the dog out of the way,” she said. “I will take him to my chamber and be back down to help.”

“We will have to seal the wounds,” Moira said.

Felicia struggled to keep the bile from rising into her throat. She had performed the task once before when the healer was elsewhere, attending a birth. It was a task she had hoped never to repeat.

“I know,” she said. “She can use my chamber,” she said. “She will be more comfortable, and I would like to look after her.”

Moira’s lips spread into a smile. “Nay, milady,” she said. “She can have the chamber next to yours. No one is there.”

“Lord Rory?”

“I dinna think he will object,” Moira replied. “I dinna know what to think when he returned, but he is a mon who cares about his clan, I think.”

Felicia grabbed several large chunks of bread and filled a bowl with water from a pitcher and took the dog upstairs to her chamber. He attacked the bread as if he’d had no food in days.

Felicia closed the door and hurried back to the great hall. Lachlan stood next to Alina, murmuring something to her and getting a pained smile in return. The hall was filling with the injured. One man was moaning, but the other injured crofters were stoic as fellow clansmen tended to their injuries. Moira moved from one to another, with a pail of poultices.

“Your Baron is fed and happy,” Felicia told Alina, who tried to smile. Her face twisted in agony when she moved her leg. Felicia found a clean piece of linen, dampened it, and cleaned around the wound. When she finished, Moira had returned.

“I must try to set the leg,” she said. “Lachlan, carry the child up to the laird’s chamber next to milady’s.”

Lachlan looked startled but nodded. He picked the child up with obvious tenderness, wincing as he heard a small smothered moan. Felicia, Moira, and the child’s mother followed him up to the laird’s chamber.

The spacious chamber was still covered with dust but it had a great bed, which was certainly far superior than using the floor in the great hall.

Lachlan put the lass on the bed, then stepped aside.

“Lord Rory said he had something to help dull pain,”

Moira said, “but we canna wait. We donna know when he will be back, and I must try to set the leg.” She leaned down. ” ‘Tis going to hurt, lass.”

Alina tried to look brave.

Moira gave her a piece of wood to bite down on and knelt beside her. “Hold her tight,” she said to Lachlan.

Felicia clamped her lips together, as Lachlan held the child’s slight body down, and she took Alina’s right hand. “Squeeze,” she said. “As hard as you can.” Alina’s mother hovered at the other end of the bed, obviously intimidated by the room and those working to save her daughter.

Moira pulled on the leg, and Alina bit down hard on the piece of wood, but Felicia saw the silent scream in her eyes, then the child went limp.

“She is unconscious,” she said.

“Thank God for small mercies,” Moira said. “Hurry and get me a knife. Mayhap we can finish this before she wakes up.”

Felicia ran back to the kitchen and took one of the knives from the coals in the fireplace. There had been six. Now there were three. Others were performing the same task.

When she returned, the child was still unconscious. Moira took the knife while Lachlan pressed down on the shoulders again in the event Alina regained consciousness. After the slightest pause, Moira touched the knife against the child’s wound. The skin sizzled. Felicia held her grip on Alina’s hand until Moira finished the grim duty, then tied the leg to a length of wood.

“I have others to attend to,” Moira said, her usually pleasant face drawn and angry. “The demmed Campbells,” she hissed. “May they all rot in hell.”

Felicia saw the same rage in Lachlan’s face.

She swallowed hard, not wanting them to see her own outrage and despair. “I will stay with her,” she said. “Alina’s mother and I.” She motioned to the woman to sit beside the bed.

“She can stay here,” Lachlan said. “I will arrange for pallets for the others.” Lachlan stood. His face was pale. His hands trembled slightly.

He left the room and Felicia sat on the side of the bed next to Alina. She wanted to be there when she woke. She wanted to reassure her. Alina had been so afraid. And so brave.

“Your husband?” she asked the woman sitting on the other side of the lad.

“He stayed back at the village with my lord,” she said. “My son … we have not seen him since the raid. He was watching the cattle.”

“I am sorry,” Felicia said. More than sorry. She was ravaged by guilt that her own people would do this. These people were not warriors. They were simple farmers, trying only to survive. Then she remembered the raid many years ago when the Macleans had done the same. How many times since had this been done to one or the other of the clans?

Would it never stop?

She sat next to the lass, uncaring that her gown was stained with blood. She reached over and took the mother’s hand, clasped it tightly as the two women united in their vigil.

Rory blessed the sun. The rain had stopped, and dawn came with few clouds. The sun followed, a glorious golden ball that dried the hills.

He and ten men from the village had searched during the rain-drenched night for the missing lads, though it had been a fool’s effort. He could not see anything much farther than the tip of his horse’s head. Still they had tried, covering the common area where the cattle had grazed just before the raid.

That they had found no bodies had been a hopeful sign.

Once the rain stopped and dawn broke, Rory and the others expanded their search. The boys had been missing a day and a half now. His heart ached. He should have returned home earlier. He should have known this could happen when he raided the Campbell cattle days earlier.

There were four small villages in the countryside around the main Maclean keep. Why had he not sent out forces to protect them?

He knew the reasons, but they did not comfort him. He had wanted to make peace in order to leave again. He had placed his needs above those of the Macleans, and others had suffered for it.

It did not help to know that Douglas bore blame, as did Lachlan. Neither were suited to lead the clan. Douglas’s job was to ensure that crofters paid their rents. And Lachlan? Lachlan had no faith in himself, nor did the clan have faith in him. No one had said anything to him, but he sensed something had happened while he was gone, something that had tainted the clan even more than the Campbell curse.

He had not been home long enough to extract that piece of information. There had been too many other problems.

Home
. It was the first time he had acknowledged Inverleith as home in many years.

Rory and Ian, the rider who had accompanied him from the keep, searched in a pattern of ever-widening circles. The villagers, armed with bows and arrows and several pikes, followed on foot, combing each dip in the land, discouraged yet not giving up.

He stood up in his stirrups and looked around. To the left was a steep, wooded hill and a waterfall tumbling over rocks, making its way between clumps of gorse.

He thought he saw movement in the gorse. When he looked again, all was still.

A tingle ran down his spine.

His legs signaled his horse into a trot. Ian, some distance away, followed.

Another movement ahead.

He shouted out, “Macleans.”

A small movement again.

Rory tightened his knees around his mount, and the horse went into full gallop. He looked back. Villagers, armed with pikes and bows, followed at a full run.

He approached the gorse carefully. He did not want to frighten whomever was there.

A stone hit him, making a gouge in his arm. Another hit the horse. The startled gelding shied, but Rory quickly regained control. “A Maclean,” he shouted again.

“Donna come closer,” a youthful voice shouted back.

“I am a Maclean. I am here to help. Your father is behind me.”

Slowly, a slender lad stood, a slingshot ready in his hand. He was obviously not going to go down without a fight, even with such an inadequate weapon.

Rory dismounted and walked toward the lad, his hands in plain sight. “You are John … or Alex?”

“Alex,” the lad said, his pale blue eyes suspicious.

“I am Rory Maclean. What of the other lad?”

“My lord?” The boy looked suddenly frightened as he saw blood drip from Rory’s arm.

” ‘Tis nothing, lad,” he said. “Where is the other lad?”

“He is hidden above,” Alex said. “He was wounded. A pike through his shoulder. He tried to stop them. I hid.” Self-contempt was in his voice.

“You brought him here?”

“Aye,” the lad said, his eyes downcast. “I saw the fires. I feared they would slay everyone, so I carried him here. Then I could no’ leave him alone.”

“You did the right thing.”

“The village. My fa? My mither?”

“Your father has been looking for you. He should be with us soon. Your mother and sister went to Inverleith with my men.” He did not say the lad’s younger sister was sorely wounded.

The boy’s eyes filled with tears. Angrily, he wiped them away. “Are the Campbells gone?”

“Aye?”

“Did ye kill them?”

“They were gone when we arrived here,” Rory said.

Shouts of joy interrupted them, as three of the villagers, one of them Alex’s father, reached him. The villager stood in front of his son, stunned at his good fortune. He reached out a hand and placed it on his son’s shoulder.

The boy did not look at him. “I hid,” he said with shame.

“Thank God, ye did,” his father said. “John?”

“He is above.”

Minutes later, Rory examined John’s shoulder. The boy was weak from loss of blood, but Alex had bound it tightly enough to stanch the flow.

John tried to struggle to his feet, but fell back. Rory prayed the wound would not become infected. It needed to be stitched, but he had nothing with which to do it, nor was any needle or thread left in the village. Everything was gone.

He would help make a temporary shelter for those few villagers who refused to leave, then return to Inverleith with those who wanted the safety of the Maclean keep. He would send men back with them later, along with carpenters and a blacksmith. He leaned down and took John in his arms, then looked at Alex. “You saved his life,” Rory said. “You used your head. Be proud.”

He looked at his father, who gave him the slightest of nods.

Rory knew it would be a long ride for tired horses, but he was anxious to get back.

He had reason to live again, and that reason was the lives and fortunes of the clan, which had been entrusted to him. He hadn’t wanted war with the Campbells. He had meant to do everything to avoid it.

But if war was what they wanted, he was prepared to meet them.

He only hoped that Janet Cameron, as the intended bride of a Campbell, would not be caught in the middle.

She would be on her way home now, if she had not already arrived back at the Camerons’ keep.

It was best for everyone.

He wished he really believed that.

Jamie Campbell neared Dunstaffnage. He had finished his errand in London far quicker than he’d thought. He had gone to reassure King Henry’s court that James had no hostile intent toward England and hoped the two countries could live in peace.

At the same time, he knew James had no intention of keeping a peace with England, not with the constant raids between the borders. But that was not his concern. He had relayed the message.