She smiled shyly. “I do not know that I would ever get out of bed.”
“Aye, and what’s the harm in that?” He laughed and stroked a dampened tendril of hair behind her ear. “I love ye, lass. I’ve loved ye since afore I first kissed ye, but I dinnae want to frighten ye off by confessin’ straight away.”
Victoria’s eyes widened in surprise. “You love me?”
“Aye, and I am nae ashamed to say it.”
She lifted her hand to his face. “I love you, too. I have likely been in love with you since you collapsed at my gate, but… I did not want to say so, as I was not sure if that was what I was feeling. I have never been in love, you see, so I could not recognize the emotion.” She paused, tears welling in her eyes. “But now, I know. This is love. I love you.”
“Then I must be the luckiest lad in all of Christendom,” he replied softly.
Her forehead furrowed without warning. “You are not saying you love me in order to stop me from throwing away your sword, are you?”
“I’d never say them words if I dinnae mean ‘em. Truth be told, I’ve never said ‘em before to any lass. That’s how I know ye’re worth stayin’ alive for.” He did not look annoyed or upset by her question. If anything, he looked amused, or perhaps shy. “As for the sword… if it’ll give ye some peace of mind, then I’ll toss it somewhere for the soldiers to find. Ye were right, lass. Ye mean more to me than some piece of metal.”
Victoria breathed a secret sigh of relief. “Do you mean it?”
“Aye, lass, from the bottom of me heart.” He leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. “I were bein’ stubborn for naught. There’s naught but bad memories in that sword, if I’m honest with meself. Mayhap I’ll feel free when I get rid of it.”
“So, this means you will stay, and you will live, and we can be happy together here?” She had meant it as an enticing prospect, but the moment the words were out of her mouth, Camdyn’s expression crumpled.
“I dinnae want to be a kept man, lass.” He sighed and rolled onto his back. “That is nae how I were raised.”
Victoria shuffled closer to him and lay on his chest. “You would not be a kept man.”
“Aye, I ken ye wouldnae think of me like that, but… I dinnae want to just be yer lover. I want to be yer husband, so I can make an honest woman out of ye, and ye can make an honest man out of me.” He peered down at her. “If things were different, I’d have proposed marriage to ye just now, but I dinnae have any money of me own for ye, to give ye the security a husband should be able to give his wife.”
Victoria propped herself up on his chest, so she could see him better. “I hope you do not think me blunt, Camdyn, but that is ridiculous. I have more than enough wealth for both of us to live comfortably, and I do not need to be offered security. I have it, and it can be yours, too.” She hesitated. “And there would be nothing to prevent us from marrying in secret.”
Camdyn smiled up at her. “I dinnae want a secret union, lass. I’d want to be able to walk with ye and be proud to call ye me wife in public.” He lifted up so he could kiss her on the nose. “And I’d never feel right in meself if I couldn’ae work and earn me own coin.”
“So… what are you saying?” Victoria tried not to let the worry show in her voice. If they could not marry, and he did not want to share in her wealth, and he did not just want to be her lover, then where did that leave them?
“I’m sayin’ we’re goin’ to have to put our heads together and come up with a solution,” he replied. “Dinnae worry, lass, I am nae intendin’ to leave ye. I told ye, I love ye, and that means ye’re stuck with me. But we’ve got some business to figure out, so we can properly be together, in a way we’ll both be happy with.”
Victoria nodded, somewhat relieved. “I can do that.”
But first, we must make sure you do not get captured for being a Jacobite.
For they could plan and dream and love all they liked, but if the English soldiers came calling, and managed to find Camdyn, then all of that would be for nothing. And Victoria would become a widow twice over, before she had even become Camdyn’s wife.
Chapter 17
Later that night, under cover of darkness, Camdyn stood by the front gate of Desiglow Manor with Victoria at his side. A tension lingered in the air between them, for they had been arguing for the last hour about Camdyn’s intentions.
“I do not understand why you will not allow me to dispose of the sword. Surely, there is less chance of alerting suspicion if I were the one to throw it away?” Victoria repeated the same complaint. “If any soldier should spot you on the road to Culloden Moor, I will not even know if anything has befallen you.”
Camdyn glanced up at the front-facing windows of the house, to make sure none of the staff were watching in secret, and kissed Victoria tenderly on the forehead. “It has to be me, lass. I know ye’re a brave soul, but it is nae safe out there so late at night. I will nae be long, I promise.”
“I will not change your mind, will I?” Her features softened into a resigned smile, as she reached out to take his hand.
He shook his head. “Nay, lass, ye will nae.”
“Then… swear to me that you will be cautious. If you see any soldiers at all, you must hide yourself away, and find your way back to me.” She blinked, as though trying to fend off tears.
He tilted her chin up and kissed her lips. “I swear.”
“I will not sleep until you return safely,” she warned, giving his hand a squeeze.
“Then I’ll have to do somethin’ to help ye sleep when I get back. Unless Genevieve decides to be a sentry at yer door all night, that is. She gave us more than fifteen minutes—I’d say she’s suspicious of somethin’.” He opened the gate and re-shouldered the wrapped broadsword he carried with him.
Victoria shook her head defiantly. “If she was, she would not have given us more than fifteen minutes.”
“Dinnae fret while I’m gone.” He dipped his head to plant one last kiss upon her lips, before he slipped out between the gates and into the misty night.
Now more or less fully recovered from his injuries, Camdyn kept a brisk pace as he retraced the journey he had made from Culloden Moor, that fateful night.
What if someone does give me name?
Everyone in his regiment knew about the broadsword, and the tale behind it—Camdyn McKay, the ever watchful raven of Castle Venruit, right-hand man to Laird Donnan Young.
He shuddered at the thought of one of his comrades being tortured to the point where they had no choice but to give up his identity, in order to save themselves from being made into eunuchs. He had heard the terrible stories of the English and their torture devices: stretching racks, spiked cages, tongue-trapping helmets, dulled knives to make emasculating a warrior all the more painful—a thousand ways to destroy a man before they killed him.
“I should just take Victoria and get out of here, like Laird Young did with Bernadine. But where would we go?” he whispered to himself for comfort, trying to ignore the furtive creep of the shadows and the fog that swirled around him. Black and gray phantoms that slunk behind the emaciated trunks of the stark trees that bordered the road and slithered along the churned-up ground toward him.
Before long, the tree-lined road gave way to the vast expanse of Culloden Moor. Nature had already begun to reclaim the scarred ground, though a few rogue crows hopped about like spirits of the underworld, pecking foully at the dirt.
They will nae raise monuments to us, that’s for sure. I doubt anyone will ever remember the Jacobites and their cause…
“What did I get meself into, eh?” he muttered, walking toward a small cluster of thorny bushes away to his left.
There, he discovered a nasty surprise, entangled in the barbed foliage. A Jacobite warrior in his telltale kilt, his vacant face bloated and misshapen, and two hollow eye sockets staring up at him with a blank, accusatory stare. The sight saddened Camdyn, for he knew no one would come to bury this man properly.
/> Mayhap I should do it…
He quickly shrugged off the idea, knowing that this might actually work in his favor. If he left his sword with the fallen warrior, it could be enough to fool the English soldiers into thinking that this was the supposed ‘Devil of Culloden Moor.’ A Scot who had limped away, mortally wounded, and died before he managed to escape the scene of his ultimate fate.
“I suppose I should get rid of this then, eh?” He did not know who he was talking to. The crows, probably. One of them even cawed back in that ominous rattle, though Camdyn did not heed the feathered creature’s warning.
He had just swung the wrapped broadsword off his shoulder, when he heard a sound that made him freeze. Heavy footsteps approaching from up the road he had just taken. Hushed whispers bounced back and forth between the unseen threat, revealing one terrible truth—Camdyn had been followed.
“Are you sure you saw someone?” a voice hissed, clearly annoyed about traipsing through the cold, bitter night to catch an evasive quarry.
“Yes, I’m sure!” another voice muttered in reply. “I swear it’s him. He had a sword on his back.”
A third cleared his throat. “Do you think we’ll get a medal if we catch him?”
“Surely you jest?” The first voice snickered bitterly. “The officers and the generals, all those that sit at the high table, will just take the glory for themselves. If you think you’re going to be remembered in the history books for capturing Bastard Prince Charlie’s second-in-command, then you should be in the mad house. You were born too lowly for any kind of gratitude.”
The second harrumphed. “I’m not doing it for the accolades. I’m doing it because it’s my duty. That’s what the rest of you should be thinking.”
Camdyn’s head whipped from side to side as he searched for an escape route, but these encroachers were walking up the only path that offered any cover. If he tried to make a run for it across the moor, they would surely see him in the glare of the moonlight. If he tried to hide behind this bush, they might discover him. And if he tried to edge back toward the sparse trees, he might walk straight into them.
Think, think, think, think!
He became aware of the weight of the broadsword in his hand and knew what he had to do. If he acted cleverly, he would be able to take them down before they even knew what had happened. If he hesitated a moment longer, he would lose the element of surprise.
Forgive me, Victoria. This might cause us more trouble, but if ye want me back at the house alive, this is the only thing I can do to protect meself.
Crouching down, he took the dirk out of his boot and cut the leather thongs that lashed the sackcloth around the broadsword. The fabric fell away, and his trusty blade glinted in the silvery moonlight.
Shuffling as far back into the decomposing corpse and the barbed bush as space would allow, he lay in wait for the trio of assailants, and hoped that his time at the manor had not made him soft. The smell of death stung at his nostrils, but he had not lost his immunity to the foul stench.
He gripped the hilt tighter and lay the blade over his thighs, tilting it onto one of its sharpened sides so the moonlight would not be able to catch on the metal and alert the attackers to his position.
“Where did he go? I don’t see anyone. Vickers, you better not have brought us on a hopeless chase, or I’ll give you a medal you won’t forget in a hurry,” one of the men hissed. “Both of your ears on a string around your neck!”
As Camdyn continued to crouch there in the gloom, his muscular legs taut and ready to spring forward, he felt the familiar slowing down of his heart. The calm before the storm. He did not know why it happened, but he had experienced an eerie sense of serenity before every battle, aside from Culloden. It was as though he were a predator, and his senses were all attuning to the environment around him, turning him into the ultimate fighter.
“He’s probably out on the moor, searching for his dead friends,” one of the men mocked. “Anyway, the moon’s out, so we should be able to see him. But we’re probably going to have to do some running.”
“For King and country, fellas,” another added, sounding nervous.
Meanwhile, Camdyn leveled his gaze at the road. After a few moments, shadows appeared, moving warily along the dirt path. They probably did not realize it, but they were anything but discreet, with the thud of their boots pounding like war drums with every step they took.
It took less than a minute for them to draw level with Camdyn’s position against the bush. Still, he waited, hoping they were as foolish as he thought. And when they took another couple of steps forward, he saw his opportunity.
Got ye…
Springing up out of his hiding place, he brought the weight back of his sword hilt down on the skull of the nearest man. The target dropped to the dirt with a grunt of pain, his eyes rolling back into his head as he crumpled.
Without hesitation, Camdyn grabbed the second man by the shoulder and drove his blade through his back, just underneath his last rib. This time, the man toppled forward and crashed into the mud, as the third slowly began to notice what was going on.
I cannae let ye see me, I’m sorry.
Camdyn leapt on the third man like a hellish beast and wrapped a strong arm around the fellow’s neck. Pushing up with his free hand so the strangling crook of his elbow constricted his target’s windpipe faster, he held on tight until the Englishman’s knees buckled underneath his weight, and unconsciousness overwhelmed him. With barely an attempt at retaliation, the Englishman collapsed in a heap, prompting Camdyn to jump off him at the last second.
With all three men on the ground, unmoving, Camdyn swiped up the fallen sackcloth and turned on his heel. Still gripping the broadsword, he sprinted away down the tree-bordered road, and did not stop until he reached the manor.
“I should’ve killed ‘em,” he scolded himself as he finally approached the front gate. “They dinnae see me face, but ye can bet they’ll come searchin’ for me with a vengeance now.”
What’s happened to me, eh? Before I met Victoria, I wouldnae have thought twice about endin’ their sorry lives.
But spending time with her and seeing the way she cared for so many people, had made him remember the value of life. It was easy to forget as a soldier. And just as she had said that she would treat anyone, regardless of where they were from or whose side they were on, he had spared those three men despite them being English, for similar reason.
I am nae a soldier nay more. If I’d killed ‘em, I’d be the monster the English have made me out to be. The monster that Victoria saw past, even though I grabbed her wrists so hard they bruised.
And yet, he knew, more than ever, that he could not get rid of this sword. A day might come when he would still need it. Instead, he would have to find somewhere else to stash it temporarily. In the gardens, perhaps, where no English would find it, even if they came looking.
Entering the manor, he just prayed that turning over a new leaf when it came to killing would not come back to bite him.
Chapter 18
The sound of Genevieve singing out of tune awoke Victoria in her personal study. Her eyes snapped open, her mind taking a moment or two to catch up, for she was not in her bedchamber and she did not remember falling asleep.
Did Camdyn come home?!
She could have slapped herself for drifting off before he returned safely. Immediately, her heart began to race in panic, fearing the worst. Surely, he would have awoken her if he had come back? And yet, here she was, curled up on the chaise-lounge with a woolen blanket tucked up to her chin.
“I’m here, lass,” his voice cut through her alarm.
Her head turned and relief washed over her, as she found him standing by the study window.
“Why did you not wake me?” She unfurled like a cat, stretching out her stiff muscles. “I might have screamed the house down for no reason.”
He chuckled. “Ye looked too peaceful to disturb, so I just sat with ye through the night. Fe
ll asleep in me favorite armchair, so I’ve a few aches and pains of me own.”
“Did you manage to dispose of the broadsword?” She peeked over the back of the chaise, but he had not yet turned to face her. It concerned her, making her wonder if there might be bruises or cuts on his handsome features that she would have to tend to before her morning patients.
Genevieve had tried to insist on her taking a few more days to rest, but Victoria had refused. She had already spent enough time on herself, and she would not let her patients suffer because she had a lingering scratch in her throat and the slightest headache. Besides, she figured if she was well enough to indulge in carnal pleasures with Camdyn, then she was more than well enough to contend with the ailments of the locals.
Camdyn nodded stiffly. “Aye, ye will nae be seein’ it again if I can help it.”
Highlander's Fallen Angel : A Steamy Scottish Historical Romance Novel Page 15
