Claimed by the Highlander (32 page)

“Do you truly believe she wanted you dead?”

Needing to test his strength, he stood up and went to refill his glass from the decanter by the fire. “I don’t know. It kills me to think it, but it also kills me to think that if she is innocent, I’ve left her behind.”

Duncan watched Angus return to the bed. “I cannot tell you one way or another if your wife is innocent. I don’t know what’s in her mind, but I can tell you what I know of the MacEwens—for I’ve had spies at Kinloch ever since they invaded and killed your father two years ago.”

Angus nearly fell over. “Are you jesting?”

“Nay, I’m completely serious.”

“Do you have spies there now? And how did I not know this? Who are these watchers?”

Duncan shook his head. “I can’t reveal that, but don’t worry, they’re on your side. It’s the MacEwens I like to keep an eye on. After your father’s death, I needed to know what to expect from my new neighbors. And I learned a few things you ought to know.”

“Such as?”

“Sit down, and I’ll tell you about your late father-in-law’s politics.”

They both moved to the two wing chairs in front of the fire.

“Was he a Jacobite?” Angus asked as he seated himself on the thick, upholstered cushion.

Duncan rested his elbows on his knees. “Nay, but his son was. It’s why he left Kinloch a year ago—to reorganize the Jacobite forces and plan another uprising. He and his father quarreled about it, but his father chose to keep his son’s politics a secret.”

“Which makes sense,” Angus replied. “Kinloch was awarded to him for being a Whig and a Hanoverian.” He gazed into the fire. “So I have lost Kinloch to a Jacobite. How ironic.”

His own father had been a staunch Jacobite, and Angus had fought for the cause in countless battles during the rebellion, both large and small. Since his banishment, however, he had desired only peace. Though he could not call himself a Hanoverian—he still resented the English too much—he had hoped to remain neutral. But it seemed there was no right side to choose, no guarantee of peace either way. There would always be warmongers. He used to be one himself. All he’d ever wanted was to fight. He knew no other purpose, no other way to satisfy his voracious hunger for revenge upon the whole goddamned world.

“What about Gwendolen?” he asked, looking down at the whisky in his glass. “Did you ever learn anything about her politics? She always claimed to be in support of the Union, but now I don’t know what to believe. It may have all been lies. Every last bit of everything.”

Angus took a drink to drown out the noise inside his head, but realized it wasn’t helping, so he set it aside. Nothing but the truth could help him now.

Duncan shook his head. “As far as I have been able to tell, she has supported the Hanovers. There was never any evidence to suggest she even knew about her brother’s politics. But she could simply be a good liar. Her mother, evidently, can seduce a grown man back into the cradle.”

“Aye, she’s been attempting that very thing with my cousin.”

“Lachlan MacDonald?” Duncan said with surprise. He took another drink. “He’s a solid warrior, from what I know of him. Not the type to be ensnared by a seductive woman. It’s usually the other way around, isn’t it?”

Angus nodded. “Aye, he’s a notorious heartbreaker. And I don’t know if he’s dead or alive.”

They both sat in silence for a moment.

Duncan reached for the iron poker and stirred up the flames in the grate.

Angus tipped his head back against the chair and closed his eyes. “What if my wife is guilty of this deceit?” he asked. “She’s carrying my child.”

Duncan hung the poker on the peg. “If she tried to poison you and was truly behind this plot to see you hanged, then the choice is simple. Arrest her, divorce her, and take custody of your child.”

Angus lifted his head. “And if she is innocent?”

Duncan reclined back in the chair, and considered the dilemma carefully. “If you believe there is a chance she was a pawn to her brother’s treachery, then you ought to drag your sorry arse back there straightaway and get your wife and castle back.”

Angus considered his friend’s forthright advice. “But how do I know the truth? Raonaid always said that Gwendolen would choose her family over me.”

“The oracle?” Duncan scoffed. “
Och,
she may be a fine thing to look at, but she’s a conniving witch, that one. Do not listen to her. Listen to your own heart, nothing else.”

Angus stared into the flames. “That’s the problem. I don’t know much about my heart. It’s been numb for too long. And even if Gwendolen is innocent in all this, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to care for her again, for she has done the one thing I did not want her to do.”

“What is that?”

“She has made me weak.”

Duncan frowned. “How so?”

He wasn’t sure how to articulate it exactly, because it was all so new. “I never felt fear before this,” he said. “Now I know exactly what it is, and I hesitate to do what must be done quickly and instinctively. I’m distracted all the time. Part of me hates her for that, and wants very much to go on hating her for the rest of my days. Life would be so much simpler, I think, without love to complicate it.”

“Simpler perhaps,” Duncan replied, “but far less meaningful. And did I actually hear you speak of ‘love’?”

Ignoring the last part of the question, Angus stood up and crossed to the window, where he looked out at the moon on the water. “Like I said, this wretched heart of mine has been numb for a long time. It might not want to be revived.”

“Be that as it may, you have a castle to reclaim, and a clan that needs you.”

“Aye, and I have every intention of fulfilling my responsibilities in that area, but I have no army at present.”

Duncan stood up. “You don’t need an army, Angus. There’s another way to do this.”

“Is there?” Angus was not so sure.

“Aye, but you’d have to lay your old vendettas to rest, once and for all. Bury them deep, and say good-bye to them forever.”

Angus frowned uneasily. “What is it you’d have me do, Duncan?”

His friend regarded him with shrewd eyes. “I’d have you form an alliance with the English. Go to Fort William and tell Colonel Worthington of Murdoch’s plans to raise another rebellion. They’ll come down on him like a hammer.”

Angus sat down and stared into the flames in the hearth. “Betray another Scot to the English army?” He shook his head. “I couldn’t do it, Duncan. You know how I feel about the English.”

His sister had been murdered by a redcoat. His mother’s death at Glencoe was the result of an English order.

Angus shook his head again and sat forward. “Nay, I cannot do it. I must handle this myself.”

“How?” Duncan asked. “As you said, you have no army. Any warriors who are loyal to you are either dead or imprisoned inside Kinloch. How do you suppose you’ll be able to conquer your brother-in-law, who has already brought in his own forces?”

Angus rested his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands together. “By asking a favor of you. I know I have no right to expect any generosity after what I did two years ago, and you certainly don’t owe me anything, but I must ask.”

Duncan regarded him knowingly, then pinched the bridge of his nose. “Bluidy hell. You want to borrow my army.”

“Aye.”

Duncan sat back in the chair and thought about it. “I cannot go with you,” he said. “Not when I have a child on the way.”

“I understand. I’ll lead them myself, if they’d be willing to follow me.”

Duncan sat forward and nodded. “I’ll make it so.”

Angus felt a strange, hesitant joy inside himself. He supposed he was afraid to feel anything that invited hope.

They clinked glasses and drank in a sober, wary silence until Angus realized that hope had very little to do with anything at the moment. He had an army to lead and a castle to invade. That was all that mattered.

He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees again. “I don’t suppose, in addition to the men, that you have a battering ram I could borrow?”

Duncan chuckled and downed the rest of his whisky.

Chapter Twenty-eight

Gwendolen’s bedchamber felt like a cold tomb in the deepest, darkest hour of the night, as she lay in bed unable to sleep, staring tensely at the silk canopy above.

It had been four days since Angus escaped the noose and vanished like a ghost into the forest, and four days of heavy, soul-crushing agony, for she did not know if he was dead or alive. After his escape, her brother’s men had returned from a fourteen-hour search that had yielded no results. There was no sign of Angus in any direction—north, south, east, or west. For all she knew, he could be dead from the poison she had given him. He might have fallen off his horse somewhere and rolled down the side of a ravine. Or he could have drowned in a river or loch, and no one would ever know what had become of him.

Morbid thoughts, all of them, but it was impossible not to imagine the worst. Her entire existence was tightly coiled around the fear that she might never see him again. And even if she did, would he believe she had not, from the beginning, set out to betray him? She had done nothing here for the last four days except play the part of a sister who had accepted her brother’s rule, and had therefore earned her freedom from imprisonment.

A successful reunion with her husband, therefore, would depend on the unfolding of events over the next few days. If everything went according to plan, there would be a great deal of activity at Kinloch, and her allegiance to her husband would be revealed.

She rolled to her side and rested her cheek on her hands. Perhaps that would be proof enough to convince him that she loved him, and that Raonaid had always been wrong with her prophecies.

Perhaps there was still hope, as long as her brother didn’t kill her first—which he might very well do, once he learned what she had done.

*   *   *

Three hours later, a faint gray light from the dawn sky spilled across the floor of Gwendolen’s bedchamber. She sat up in bed, startled awake by the sound of a horn blaring in the bailey.

They’re here.

She tossed the covers aside and rose quickly, hurried to her dressing room and pulled on a plain woolen skirt, stockings, and stays. With fast fingers, she tied the ribbons in front, then slipped her feet into shoes. A moment later, she was racing up the tower stairs to the rooftop, where the pink sun was just striking out from beyond the horizon.

A few MacEwen clansmen were leaning over the battlements and arguing with each other. Dissension and fistfights were breaking out in all directions. Men were shouting at each other, while the ground beneath her feet shook with the deafening crash of a ram at the gate.

It was all so familiar, and yet none of it was the same. Last time, nothing could have stopped her from picking up a weapon and joining in the fight to defend her home.

This time, the castle was divided, and she felt no such inclination. Her heart drummed wildly against her rib cage. God help her. She was responsible for this.

Her mind swarmed with dread, for a battle was about to begin. The violence was already exploding all around her. Pray God it would be over quickly and end justly with as few casualties as possible.

Boom!
The ram crashed into the gate, and
crack!
The sound of wood splitting compelled her to the edge, where she looked out over the side.

What she saw made her breath catch in her throat. This was not the invasion she had expected. This was not Colonel Worthington’s army!

“Who is that?”
she asked the clansman who stood beside her. “Who is attacking us?”

She had expected the English army, but these were Highlanders. Was this some other clan bent on possession of Kinloch? Was this a completely different vendetta she knew nothing about?

“It’s the Moncrieffe army!” the clansman shouted over the deafening sounds of gunfire. His cheeks were white with fear as he loaded his musket.

Moncrieffe?

Gwendolen rose up on her tiptoes to lean over the battlements again, just as the heavy battering ram pushed through the thick gate and shook the foundations below.

“Is the earl with them?” she asked.

“We don’t know, madam! All we could make out were the Moncrieffe banners and the MacLean tartan!”

Indeed, from this high vantage point, Gwendolen could make out no one’s face. But she would know Angus from any angle or distance. Was he among them? Was he invading again, just as he had done before? Had he found sanctuary with his old friend, Duncan, the Butcher of the Highlands, and enlisted his help? Many times she had wondered if that was where he had gone, but she had shared her hopes with no one, for it was information her brother would have used against him.

The clansman beside her fired his musket, and she jumped at the thunderous noise, while down below, the Moncrieffe army was pouring through the gate into the bailey. Gwendolen raced to the other side of the roof and watched the invaders enter the heart of Kinlcoh, where they met little resistance. No one seemed willing to defend the castle or fight for Murdoch. Both the MacEwens and MacDonalds were laying down their weapons or fleeing altogether. Some were fighting among themselves, arguing over conflicting loyalties.