Dangerous Pride (52 page)

The pair had taken the most direct route to the village, not wanting to delay the delivery of Caroline’s medicine.  As they entered the valley that was home to the handful of villagers, Catriona was surprised to see there was so little activity in the area.  It seemed odd that no one would be out working on such a bright, warm day, but it was not unusual for the clan members to travel to visit nearby kin when the weather permitted.

Drawing their horses up in front of the well at the center of the small community, Catriona and Kenneth dismounted from their horses, pausing to stretch their muscles.  Though she had felt invigorated by both the ride and the fresh air, Catriona knew she would be sore the next day, for it had been a long while since she had been astride a horse.  Handing the reigns to Kenneth, Catriona reached into her saddlebag to retrieve the medicine, inviting him to join them in Caroline’s crofthouse once the horses were tended to.

Pulling her cloak tighter to ward off the cooling breeze that swept through the valley, Catriona knocked on the door to Caroline’s cottage.  When she received no reply, she quietly pushed the door ajar, peering inside for any sign of the woman or her family.  It was possible Caroline was resting while Angus and the children were otherwise occupied, and she didn’t want to disturb the woman’s sleep.

The crofthouse was in darkness, and it was difficult for Catriona to see inside the tiny home.  Pushing the door open wider to allow more light inside, she quietly stepped into the cottage, giving her eyes time to adjust to the dimness.  Turning to her right, she could see that Caroline’s tidy little kitchen was in a state of disarray, with crockery, supplies and other items scattered about instead of being neatly stored in their proper places.  Taking a further step into the room to have a closer look, Catriona had no time to cry out as a cold, strong hand covered her mouth.  In an instant she was pulled tightly against a man’s broad chest, and held so fiercely that it was impossible for her to draw any air into her lungs.  As she was lifted off her feet by the strength of the man’s grip, she could do naught but struggle against the arms that bound her, kicking out with her boots in a desperate attempt to free herself.  The man groaned when her boot heel found its target, but his grip on her never lessened.  Finally, short of breath, Catriona ceased her struggles, her priorities shifting from her desire for freedom to her desperate need to breathe.

“Ye will no’ struggle any more, no’ if ye want tae live,” a threatening voice hissed in her ear.  The man’s breath was stale, and he reeked of horse and sweat. “If ye fight agin me, I will beat ye until yer senseless.  But if ye give me yer word ye will no’, I’ll let ye catch yer breath.”

Too exhausted to struggle further, Catriona simply nodded her head, drawing big, gulping breathes of air into her straining lungs when the man finally loosened his grip on her mouth.  The blackness that had threatened to engulf her eased, and she drew in another breathe, intending to call out to Kenneth.  The man sensed her intent, and again clamped his filthy hand across her mouth.  He loosened his grip on her waist only long enough to pull the dirk from his belt, striking its handle against her temple with a solid blow.

He didn’t trouble himself to break her fall as she slumped  to the dirt floor.  “Ye brung it upon yerself, lass,” he muttered as he put his dirk back in its sheath.  Stepping over her prone body, he turned to the door and set about dealing with her companion.

###

As she cautiously opened her eyes, Catriona was aware that every muscle in her body ached with an intensity she hadn’t before imagined was possible.  Her limp body had been slung carelessly over the back of a horse after her hands and feet had been bound together.  She had no idea how long she had ridden in this position, but like as not it had been several hours, for the night was dark, the air cool and humid as the rain drizzled upon her.  Her bones jarred with the pounding of the horse’s hooves, and she shivered uncontrollably from the cold rain that had plastered her clothes to her skin.

If there was a hell, she was surely in it.

Catriona tried to lift her head so she could get a better look at her surroundings, but she was quickly overcome with a wave of nausea.  The motion of the horse, combined with the fact that the ground beneath her rushed by in blur, was almost more than she could bear.  Stifling back the queasiness that threatened, she closed her eyes, concentrating on maintaining the contents of her stomach.

Fighting back her rising panic, Catriona forced herself to gauge her circumstances.  Her head throbbed from the blow the man had struck against her temple, but it didn’t appear he had done any permanent damage.  She could think clearly enough, and the confusion she had felt when she had first regained consciousness was gradually lessening as she became more alert.  Other than the headache, and the cuts and bruises from the ropes that bound her, she was mostly unharmed.

Opening her eyes slowly, she tried to take stock of her surroundings.  The man had thrown her face down on the back of her own horse, and had then tied a rope under the mare’s belly and around her hands and feet so that she was held to the animal.  The rope was loose enough that she shifted considerably with each of the horse’s strides.  To lessen the battering her body was taking, Catriona concentrated on hugging the animal with her arms and legs.  This helped ease the pounding a bit, and she relaxed as the pain receded.

Catriona had no way of knowing the direction they traveled, nor how much distance they had covered.  The sky was dark and grey with rain, the clouds too thick to give any indication of either sun or moon.  The pace they traveled was not too fierce, which led her to believe that the distance they had to cover was not too great.  It also made her think that the man who had abducted her was confident that he wasn’t being followed, and that he need not make haste.  A shudder passed through Catriona’s body as she considered what might have happened to Kenneth after she had been knocked unconscious.  She said a silent prayer for the man’s safety.

None of the landscape that rushed by was familiar to her.  They could be anywhere within a mile to a hundred from Tolquhon, she realized with a groan of frustration.  Catriona twisted her head cautiously to see if she could catch a glimpse of her captor.  Wincing with the pain the effort cost her, she was able to push herself far enough from the mare’s side to make out a horse and rider in front of her, to which her mount was tethered.  There seemed to be no other riders nor horses in sight.

Though Catriona had not seen the man’s face, she had little doubt that he had been hired by Calum Leslie.  That the short-lived truce between Leslie and her husband seemed to be over was clear enough.  But what Leslie planned to do with her now that she was his hostage was another matter entirely.

Catriona doubted he would hold her for ransom.  It was a common enough practice in Scotland, but it seemed highly unlikely in this case.  More often than not, men were held as hostages – not women – and though Lachlan was a successful enough man, there were fair richer lairds in the area who had much deeper pockets.

Regardless of the reasons behind her abduction, it wouldn’t be long before the dowager and others noticed her missing.  When she and Kenneth failed to return from their outing, Forbes men would be sent in pursuit.  Though there was no question that they would come looking for her, Catriona wished desperately that her husband were nearby.  For now, it looked like this was one battle she would have to fight without him.

All she could do was pray that her captor continued to believe she was worth more to him alive than dead.

###

Dunnotar was everything Lachlan had known it would be – and more.  This, unfortunately, was not a good thing.

Lachlan and his men had made excellent time on the journey from Tolquhon, and arrived well ahead of most of the other clans.  The Baron had shown the foresight to set aside an area close to his own camp for the men from Tolquhon, and much of the first day had been spent establishing their encampment.  A large tent had been erected where Lachlan and the Baron would hold meetings with the other leaders attending the Duke.  That mission accomplished, the men were set to work finding game to feed themselves, and providing support, as needed, to Queen Anne’s troops.

Lachlan had presented himself to the Duke of Marlborough soon after he arrived, but he saw little of the man in the days that followed.  As he had expected, Lachlan found the effort in a huge state of disarray.  The Duke had ignored the advice of his advisors, and was determined to lay siege to Dunnotar until the Jacobites inside capitulated.  Despite the efforts of the Baron and other clan chiefs, he refused to recognize the futility of the effort, instead choosing to spend most of his time in his elaborate camp, completing correspondence and consulting with his own staff, whom he promptly ignored.  Given the Duke’s disorganized approach, the Scots who had answered his call to arms provided little service, other than to bolster the size of his army.

What the Duke didn’t fully appreciate was that the men who had answered his call to arms had done so because they knew the importance of demonstrating their loyalty to Queen Anne, regardless of their own political leanings.  Too many clans had lost too many men fighting over Scotland’s crown, and those chiefs who complied with the Duke’s order were loathe to sacrifice any more of their kinsmen.  The fact that fellow Scots – whose politics many of them shared – held Dunnotar further diminished the likelihood that the Highlanders would go to battle willingly.

In truth, the Baron and many of the other chiefs recognized that Dunnotar was little more than a pawn between Queen Anne and those still loyal to the Jacobite cause.  Though the men inside the castle knew they had little chance of victory, they had taken Dunnotar more as an act of open defiance than out of any real hope of dethroning Anne.

The man who had laid siege to Dunnotar had been the laird of the keep at one time, as had his father, and his father before him.  Because the man was an acknowledged Jacobite, the family had lost its holdings when Queen Anne had been crowned.  The English lord who had been given the castle had won little favor with the clanspeople, whom he had treated, alternately, with cruelty and disinterest.  It had taken little effort, then, for the original laird to invade the castle and toss the Sassenach on his ear.

The situation put everyone – Scots and English alike – in a difficult position.  After spending a fortnight camped outside the castle, Lachlan no longer cared much about the outcome; he simply wanted to have the matter over and done with.  The days dragged on as the men busied themselves as best they could.  Other than completing their shifts guarding the outskirts of the castle, there was little for them to do.  Many prepared their weapons and armor for a battle they thought unlikely to happen, while others practiced their swordsmanship outside the camp.  Lachlan had quickly grown tired of watching time march by when his energy could be put to better use in his own keep.

Thoughts of Catriona occupied much of his day, but he schooled himself to distance himself from the worry he felt for his wife.  She was a strong lass, he knew, and she would cope well enough without him.  He’d left her well guarded, he told himself, dismissing his worries for her safety as ill-founded.  In the fortnight he had been at Dunnotar, several other clans had answered the Queen’s call, and Lachlan hoped to persuade his uncle to allow the Forbes men to return to Tolquhon.  After all, they were close enough that they could return easily enough if their services were actually required.

The Baron was more accustomed to political maneuverings than his nephew, and he did his best to counsel Lachlan to have patience with the situation.  The older man traveled in far greater luxury, and Lachlan spent most afternoons in the Baron’s comfortable tent, playing chess and discussing politics.

“Check,” Lachlan’s uncle warned, a triumphant look on his weathered features as he surveyed the board in front of them.  “You best be careful, lad, for I have you in my sights.”  There was little in the world that pleased the hardened diplomat more than a capable chess partner, and though his skills were rusty, Lachlan was quick-witted enough to hold his own.

Lachlan studied the board intently, a serious expression on his handsome features as he struggled to find an escape from the trap his uncle had created.  He was on the verge on conceding the game when one of his serving lads came racing into the tent.  “Laird,” he cried, out of breath and flushed from exertion.  “Riders just came into the camp with a message for ye.  They said it was verra important tae get it tae ye straight away.”

Lachlan sat frozen in his chair for a long instant, reeling at the prospect of the possible messages that might be contained in the missive.  With a sense of foreboding he took the document from the boy, dismissing him with a curt nod.  Quickly he scanned the words, a furious scowl etched on his face as he leapt to his feet, his agitation overtaking him like a dark storm.  “The bastard has Catriona,” he cried, kicking his chair across the tent in his temper.  “I should have kent better than to leave her alone to come here for this ridiculousness.  Now Leslie has my wife – has had her for the past two days in truth while I’ve sat here doing naught of value.  God’s bones, but I will strangle that bastard with my bare hands when I find him!”

John walked calmly over to his nephew, motioning for one of the lads to fetch the chair upon which Lachlan had vented his temper.  “There’s naught we can change in the past, lad.  We best concentrate on getting yer wife back now, instead of debating what might have been.”

Seated again, Lachlan leaned forward, his elbows braced on his knees as he held his head in his hands.  Despair, anger and self-loathing warred within him as he considered where his wife might have been taken.  “I thought Leslie had moved on.  We’d heard naught from him for many weeks, and I thought her father had talked some sense into the son of a bitch.”  When Lachlan looked up to meet his uncle’s concerned gaze, his eyes were flashing with anger.  Silently, he handed the note to the older man, waiting impatiently while he scanned the page.