Highland Surrender (10 page)

W
ANDERING ABOUT IN
the darkness last night had been unduly miserable, yet this day was equal torment for Fiona. Riding astride in the rain, her legs chafed, her muscles burned in protest, and she could not fathom worse discomfort. Her finger, tied in the makeshift splint, throbbed relentlessly. Yet, despite thunder and rain, Myles insisted they press on. It was his aim, she’d heard him tell Tavish, to rejoin the other half of the Campbell traveling party and his father with all due haste.

Her desire was the opposite. Fate awaited her in the form of Cedric Campbell, a man she had blatantly defied. A man wicked enough to squeeze the life from her mother’s throat. Though Myles was magnanimous with his forgiveness, she was not so naive to imagine her father-in-law would be similarly swayed. She straightened in her saddle. But whatever punishment she faced, she would accept it. She’d not run again. Myles would only recapture her, and last night, in the cold and the dark, she’d come to a sobering realization.

She was not prepared to perish for the sake of family honor. She was no martyr, nor a hero.

Onward they rode, mile after wet, stretching mile, but as morning gave way to afternoon, the rain stopped and they came over a crest to behold a scene so devastating it shocked her to the core.

Fingers of black smoke clawed toward the sky, the acrid scent of spent flames lingering in the air. Carts lay singed and overturned, their charred cargo cascading into the muck. And bodies, a dozen or more, splayed open by brutal weapons, were strewn about in bloodstained heaps upon the road. A few men milled upright, tending to the wounded, though they themselves appeared injured and exhausted.

“Christ Almighty!” Myles spurred his horse to motion, and his men quickly followed. Commotion erupted as they entered the scene, and in that instant, Fiona realized this was what remained of the Campbell traveling party.

Heart thudding like a gong, she nudged her mount forward, not wanting to be any part of this, yet pulled inexorably onward. Somewhere in that horrible mayhem was Bess. A peculiar numbness flooded her limbs, and she felt as if she were trying to move underwater. Sounds muted in her ears, and the smell of blood created a foul taste in her mouth.

Myles took charge, and soon the air was filled with questions and shouts.

“Where is my father?”

“Who sees the chief?” another called out.

And the dazed answers from the men remaining.

“They came upon like hounds of hell, my lord.”

“We were outnumbered, my lord, but fought them off.”

The battle had ended, but recently. Flames still licked at one of the carts, and two men worked frantically to extinguish the last bit of fire. A few others searched among the fallen for their Campbell kin. Fiona heard Tavish call to Myles, but their voices
blended in the screeching discord of alarm and she knew not what they said.

Sliding from her saddle unassisted, Fiona called for her maid, but her voice was thin, lost amid the chaos. “Bess,” she shouted again, sweat prickling at her skin like bee stings. And then she saw her. A narrow form, twisted in a fearful fashion inside a green cloak. Her cloak.

Bile rising, Fiona ran to the spot and sank as if her limbs were made of water. A fervent prayer spilled from her lips, but for naught. Fiona eased the hood away from her nurse’s face and gasped. A foul gash cleaved along the side of her head, blood darkening her gray hair. Horror, hot and red, filled Fiona’s mind. What villain would do such a thing?

She looked up and around, and was surrounded by dead enemies, their blank eyes staring into a void of nothingness. None near could give her any answers. They were on their own dark journey. Looking back to Bess, she dabbed at the wound, trying to press the sides of flesh back together, but it made a sickening sound, and Fiona’s stomach rolled with nausea.

It was her fault Bess was in this mayhem. She should not have escaped and left her nurse to fend for herself. She should not have even allowed the old woman to leave Sinclair Hall in the first place. Were it not for Fiona, Bess would be safe at home, playing nursemaid to young Margaret.

Tears scalded her cheeks. All around, the view was a macabre painting, with colors too vivid to be real. But the smell was real enough. Death and fear had its own stench, and her head filled with it. The sounds began to separate, and she heard each voice more clearly now.

“Where is my father?” her husband called again.

“We’ve been searching, my lord! We cannot—”

The man’s words were cut off by a distant cry. “Here! I have found him. He is wounded.”

A sensation, like steam rising, thin and indistinct, built inside Fiona’s chest. Cedric Campbell was wounded. She should be glad, and yet she felt nothing but morbid curiosity and the faint hope that she’d awaken from this nightmare. An odd stillness overtook her senses, as if she watched from a faraway place.

Overhead, the birds twittered gaily, the wind whispered its love song to the budding trees, and the sun shone bright as Mother Nature, perfidious once more, ignored the horrors of men.

Myles rushed to his father’s side and dropped to his knees next to him. Cedric’s ashen face, marked with mud and worse, bore no expression, and Myles’s heart ripped asunder.

“He lives, but barely,” his man Benson said, his voice husky with concern.

Blood, dark and sticky, covered the earl and the ground around him. Myles could taste its metallic sourness on his tongue.

A series of wounds shredded his father’s garments, along with the fragile flesh beneath. White bone protruded from a broken arm, stark in contrast to the puddle of burgundy blood it rested in. On one side, a gash, deep and jagged, tore through from rib to hip, and another small gash laid open a gouge on his temple.

Tavish joined them, intoning a fast prayer.

“Father,” Myles called softly, grasping his father’s unbroken arm, “can you hear me?”

Cedric gave no flicker of response, but a telltale pulse thrummed on the side of his neck. He was alive, and for that, Myles must have hope of saving him still.

He and Tavish went to work, cleaning the wounds and setting his father’s arm as well and as gently as they could manage.

“What happened here?” Myles asked Benson as they scrambled to bind cloth around Cedric’s midsection.

“’Twas an ambush, my lord. About an hour ago, we came over that rise and into the valley, and suddenly, they were all around us, screeching like banshees. A dozen, I’d say. We fought as best we could. We killed many, but a few escaped.”

“You did well. I counted eight of theirs among the dead,” said Tavish.

“Yes, my lord, but one more thing. They knew who we were.”

Unease twisted Myles’s gut.

Tavish’s hands clenched into fists. “What makes you think that?”

“In the thick of it, I heard one shout, ’We need the Campbell, dead or alive.’ They nearly got him too, but for Seamus, God rest his soul. He fought alongside your father, my lord, and took down three of them before he fell.”

Such news as this was worse than bad. If they had been a simple band of thugs out for whatever they might steal from travelers, then the marauders would be far away by now. But if they had a purpose, if they sought to harm the Campbells in particular, then his father and the rest of them were in more peril every moment they tarried. They needed to leave and be away from here as fast as possible.

“I thought you’d be in Inverness by now. Why are you still this far north?” Myles asked, frustration scratching in his voice.

“We lost a cart wheel, and the rain left so much mud we moved at a slug’s pace. I think your father might have pushed harder too, but he was waiting for you.”

Myles looked to Tavish, anger washing over him like burning oil. Had he not dallied in the hut last night with Fiona, or
lost her in the first place, if he’d pushed his men back into the saddle, they might have reached his father sooner and prevented this attack.

Tavish shook his head, guessing at his nephew’s expression. “’Twas not your fault, lad. We had no choice but to retrieve your wife.”

His wife? Indeed! His wife! ’Twas she who forced a separation in the traveling parties. Had they been at their full number of twenty men, no brigands would have dared to attack. Yet they’d been split, and his father sprawled near death’s door because of Fiona’s reckless selfishness. And his failure to keep track of her. A twig cracked, and garments rustled behind him. Like a silent demon, his wife appeared. Her dress, already torn and filthy from the night before, bore fresh blood, and her pale face, streaked with grime, displayed no hint of emotion, as if this day’s events meant nothing.

“Is he dead?” she asked, her voice flat.

Her indifference lit the cannon of his temper. He reached out, like a falcon snatching at a rat, and grasped her shoulders. He pushed her to her knees next to Cedric. “He lives, no thanks to you. But do you see what has been done? Because you led us astray and divided our forces! Was that your Sinclair plan all along?”

She made no sound, only stared at his father’s inert form.

Myles leaned low and growled into her ear. “This is your doing, woman. If he dies, it will be your soul he torments.”

He released her shoulder, and she crumpled, pressing her palms into the muck and staring at Cedric with blank eyes.

Myles’s fury fell with her. She was his wife. She was his burden. He should help her. But he stood upright and turned away.

Tavish caught his arm and whispered, “Go easy, Myles. She’s had a time of it, and now her maid is dead.”

“So are six of our clansmen, Tavish. Our sacrifice was greater than hers.”

He had no ill will toward the nurse. She was as loyal to her lady as he would expect from one of his own servants. But he’d not offer words of concession to his wife, though they burned in his throat. Sinclair devils or no, his men had been attacked, and had they not divided forces to search for Fiona, his father might now be safe and whole. Still, he was not without heart.

He motioned to young Darby and spoke quietly. “See to my lady. Keep her from my sight, but be sure to keep her in yours.”

Darby nodded and helped Fiona up from the mud, leading her away.

The men finished bandaging Cedric and moved him into the only cart not smashed or burned. Someone had lined it with the blankets. The wounded were tended to, while others set about digging graves for their dead.

“Who do you suppose did this?” Myles whispered to Tavish moments later as they readied the horses for travel.

Tavish spit in the dirt and scratched at his beard. “Hard to say. We’re past Fraser land here, but they could’ve come this far south.”

Myles nodded. “Perhaps. This is MacDougall territory, and they’ve no quarrel with us. But only the Sinclairs knew when we traveled.”

Tavish shook his head. “We were within their grasp for days, both to and from Sinclair Hall. Attacking us here makes no sense.”

He walked to one of the dead assailants, rolling him over with a booted foot and peering at the silent shell as if it might yield some clue. “I don’t recognize any of them. They’ve no clan markers, nothing to distinguish them or who they belong to.”

“My lords!” called out a man-at-arms from twenty paces away. “This one’s alive!”

Myles and Tavish rushed over, kneeling on either side of the injured enemy. Myles grabbed the front of his jacket, hauling him up to a sitting position, and noticed a fierce wound on the man’s leg.

“Who are you?” Myles growled.

The man’s clouded gaze cleared for a moment; then he laughed, a horrid, gurgling sound. “Kiss my arse, Campbell.”

In an instant, Myles ground his elbow into the open leg wound, and the man’s laugh turned into a cry, until he clamped his lips together. Sweat and blood mingled on his brow.

“Who sent you, and what did they want with my father? Answer, and I’ll show you mercy. Refuse, and I’ll slice you open and leave you to the vultures.”

The man said nothing. His head turned. His gaze drifted away from Myles and caught on Fiona. She was leaning against the cart’s wheel, her arms wound around her knees, her dress in tatters.

“My lady is worse for wear by your hand, I see.”

Myles’s gut churned.
His lady? What game is this?
He flung the man back to the dirt and strode over to his wife. A more pathetic sight he had never seen. But he pushed aside those gentle thoughts and grasped her by the wrist, hauling her up and over to the wounded man.

“Is this your lady?” Myles demanded.

Her expression remained blank.

“Aye,” the man murmured, “my lady.”

His wife blinked, like one coming awake after long, deep sleep, looking to Myles and then to the man on ground. She shook her head and frowned.

“He lies,” she said. “I don’t know him. But whoever he is, his men killed my maid.” She leaned forward and spit in the man’s face.

Myles’s grasp on her arm tightened. More than anything, he wanted to believe his wife had played no deliberate role in this day’s events. Yet why would the man claim false allegiance to her? Unconvinced, he prodded the man with his foot.

“Tell me her name, you wretched cur, and I’ll show you mercy yet.”

The man wiped the spittle from his cheek, glaring. “She was the Lady Fiona Sinclair. Now she’s nothing but a Campbell whore.”

The words burned his ears, engulfing Myles in anger. He pressed his boot against the man’s throat, for the bastard insulted both his clan and his wife with such a statement.

“Myles,” his uncle spoke softly, “have a care. We can gain information from him yet.”

Myles looked at the man writhing on the ground beneath his heel. He could squash the life from this wastrel like a bug. Enjoy it, even. But his wife had seen enough of death this day.

He pressed a moment longer to make his point, then stepped away.

“He’ll last a day or more with such an injury. That leg is sure to fester. But that gives him time enough to tell us all he knows. Bind his wound and put him on a horse.”

CHAPTER 11