She heard Eoin’s voice shout from behind her. “Shoot him, now, damn it. He’s getting away.”
Margaret’s face drained in horror. She turned around and saw Eoin and another man a few feet away.
The other man was holding a bow, with an arrow pointed at . . .
She didn’t think before she reacted. “No!” she screamed and lurched forward, putting herself between the arrow and her father’s fleeing form.
The archer couldn’t have stopped the shot if he wanted to. Her movement had been well timed. He was already releasing his fingers as she lurched.
By all rights the arrow should have slammed into her chest an instant later. But with a vile curse, Eoin knocked the bow to the side, causing the arrow to skid off harmlessly to the ground.
He was on her a moment later, lifting her up by her arm to shout at her furiously. “You little fool! I should have let him kill you. What the hell did you think you were doing?” He turned back to the archer before she could respond. “Fire again. Don’t worry about the others, get MacDowell before he disappears.”
“No!” She’d never seen Eoin so angry—and given the circumstances she probably should have shown more sensitivity. But her heart was still hammering with panic, and she felt her own temper rise. Her gaze blared right back at him. “What was I doing? I was stopping you from possibly shooting your son, that’s what I was doing!”
As a member of the most elite group of warriors ever assembled in Christendom, handpicked by the Bruce for the most dangerous and difficult missions, Eoin had suffered his share of devastating blows that had left him stunned and reeling—most of them on the practice yard at the hands of Chief and Raider. But no knock in the head or slam across the chest had ever left him so completely poleaxed.
He felt as if the mucky ground had just been pulled out from under his feet, as if the world had tilted, as if everything he knew—or what he thought he knew—had changed in an instant.
Your son.
The boy was his? He tried to recall what he’d looked like, but the memory was a blur. Eoin hadn’t paid much attention, never considering . . .
He stared down into those flashing, golden eyes, saw the challenging tilt of her chin and furious purse of her mouth, and felt such a wave of fury rise inside him he had to fight to keep his fingers from clenching harder around her arm. “Say it again,” he gritted out slowly.
If he’d thought to intimidate her, he’d forgotten to whom he was talking. Margaret MacDowell didn’t get intimidated—even when she should. She thrust that chin up higher and narrowed her gaze right back at his. “The boy your archer could have killed is our son, Eachann.”
Eachann. The boy was named after one of the greatest warriors of all time, Hector of Troy, who was also known as a tamer of horses. The perfect ode to . . . them?
He hauled her up to him, their faces only inches apart. “If you are lying to me, Maggie, I swear by all that is holy, I’ll make you regret it.”
She pushed away from him with a hard shove. “Of course I’m not lying to you. Eachann turned five last November. I assume that brilliant mind of yours can count back easily enough, but your visit that night left me with more than a broken heart. Ironic, isn’t it? All that trouble to avoid a child and one lapse was all it took.” She made a sharp scoffing sound. “It’s no secret who his father is. Ask anyone.”
She looked around, obviously realizing what he already knew: her brothers were gone. They’d left without her.
A son? Devil take it, a son who was five years old? How could she have done this to him?
If he could think rationally, he might realize that this was not a sin he could lay at her feet, but he was too angry to be rational. “Your father used my son as a shield so that he could get away? I’m going to tear the bastard apart with my own hands.”
Margaret looked outraged. “He wasn’t using him as a shield, he just wanted him with him to keep him safe.”
Eoin was so furious he didn’t realize he was bellowing at her. “Safe? By putting him in the way of my archer? He was counting on the fact that I would not shoot with the boy behind him.”
She shook her head. “He wouldn’t do that. He loves Eachann. He is his only grandchild. He would never hurt him. I know you have cause to hate my father, but whatever else you may say of him, he is no coward, and he would die before letting anything happen to that boy. I was there, I saw what happened. He wanted him with him, nothing more.”
Eoin heard the conviction in her voice and gritted his teeth. Even if she was correct in the estimation of her father’s actions this time, they would never see eye to eye on the subject. There was little of which Dugald MacDowell wasn’t capable, and Eoin wouldn’t put anything past him.
But he was done arguing with her. He needed to focus on salvaging the mission. Not only had he let MacDowell slip through his net—how the hell had they missed the back door to the church when they’d scouted the area last night?—he had a son who’d been stolen from him for five years.
Failure wasn’t an option. He’d get them both back, damn it.
Forgetting about Margaret, he told Douglas’s archer to follow him, and they returned to the churchyard, where Hunter and the rest of the men had just finished subduing the English.
They’d already overstayed their welcome. Eoin kept one eye on the castle that he knew at any moment could open to release a flood of more soldiers.
“What happened?” Hunter said.
“I’ll explain later,” Eoin said. “We need to get to the horses. MacDowell and his sons”—and my son—“rode into the forest.”
“They’re headed for the castle?”
Eoin shook his head. He’d prepared for that, posting a few men on the road in case MacDowell had managed to slip away from the churchyard. But he hadn’t planned on that back door. Eoin didn’t make mistakes like that. At least he hadn’t in about six years. “I suspect he’s heading for the coast.”
Lamont swore, knowing as well as Eoin did that if MacDowell made it to a ship they wouldn’t be able to catch him. If they were in Scotland with Hawk, they might have a chance of slipping through the heart of the English naval forces, but without the famed seafarer it would be suicide.
“Don’t worry,” Lamont said. “We’ll get him.”
Eoin didn’t need to nod, his grim look said it all. Damn right, they would get him.
Lamont whistled and motioned for the men to follow.
He would have gone after them, but Margaret stopped him.
“Wait,” she said, grabbing his arm.
He looked down at it and told himself the coiling and twisting in his chest, the feeling that he was coming out of his own skin, was because he was angry. Her touch had lost the power to affect him years ago. But there was no denying the heavy drum of his heart.
Perhaps sensing the dangerous emotions boiling inside him, she dropped her hand. “I’m going with you.”
He almost laughed. Glancing over, he noticed Sir John starting to stir. “I don’t think your fiancé will like that very much. Besides, I lost the taste for treacherous redheads six years ago.”
She flushed angrily but refused to be baited. “This has nothing to do with you. My son needs me.”
His gaze turned as wintry as his blood. “My son will have his father.”
“He doesn’t know you, Eoin. He’ll be scared. I know you hate me, but don’t take your feelings for me out on our son. He’s only little boy. Please, he needs me. I swear I won’t get in the way.”
He gave a harsh laugh. As if that were possible. She’d been in his way since the first day he’d met her.
“You need not worry that I won’t be able to keep up,” she persisted. “I know how to ride.”
He gave her a long look. “I remember.”
And bloody hell, it infuriated him.
She flushed again, realizing to what he was alluding.
His jaw hardened, refusing to let her sway him. “The boy will be fine. Though the same c
annot be said of your father when I catch up with him.”
“I can help you find him.”
Now that caught his attention. His eyes narrowed on her, assessing. If she was lying to him . . . “You know where he is going?”
“Not exactly, but—”
He cut her off with a harsh sound. “I didn’t think so. I don’t need your kind of help. I’ll find him on my own.”
Lamont was the best tracker in Scotland.
“And what if you don’t? Think about it, Eoin. If you want to catch my father, are you better off taking me with you or leaving me here? I have knowledge you may need.”
She was right. But that didn’t mean he thought she’d give it to him . . . willingly. Torture, now that was tempting. His mouth curled. “You offer to betray your father so easily? Why am I not surprised?”
Her cheeks went hot with anger, but she didn’t attempt to defend herself. How could she? They both knew what she’d done. She lifted her chin. “There is nothing I wouldn’t do to see my son safe—nothing.”
She might be a liar, but she wasn’t lying about that.
He might be able to use her. To hold over her father’s head if nothing else. Would MacDowell trade his foul life for that of his daughter’s? He should be so damned lucky.
He turned to one of his men. “Find the lady a horse. She may be of some use to us.” He turned back to his deceitful wife, making sure she understood the stakes. “But lie or do anything to make me regret this, Margaret, and I swear I’ll do everything in my power to ensure that you never see the boy again.”
17
THE CHILL OF his words followed her hours later. He hadn’t meant it, Margaret told herself. Eoin was angry. He wouldn’t try to take her son away from her . . . would he?
Years ago, she would have said it was impossible. The man she’d married would not be so cruel—no matter how angry he was with her. But Eoin was no longer the man she married, and guessing what this cold, imposing stranger might do seemed a fool’s gambit. The serious young man she’d fallen in love with had become a grim, caustic stranger.
But maybe that had been the problem all along. She had never really known him—not really. It had all happened too quickly. Love, marriage, passion—and not even in that order. The physical closeness they’d shared had given an illusion of more. They hadn’t had time to learn to trust one another before war had separated them.
Looking back with the perspective of time and maturity, she could see that they’d never really had a chance. They’d been too young. Too passionate. Too unsure of one another. It had been all fiery emotion and attraction, with a few precious moments of something deeper. Something that might have blossomed if given the chance to grow. Maybe if the war hadn’t come, it would have been different. But the war had come, and the fragile bonds between them had been strained to the breaking point. Love like everything else needed nourishment. Without it, it had died.
In so many ways, their marriage had been a mistake. They’d been too different. He’d wanted her to be something she was not. But it had also been right. She’d never felt about another man the way she did about Eoin. She’d tried—God knows, she’d tried—but he’d made her feel things she’d never felt before. Passion she’d never felt before. When they’d been together, she’d been unbearably happy. Which made their separation almost harder to take.
Mistake or not, she regretted the way they’d parted the last time. She never should have sent him away like that—with ultimatums and demands—but he should have given her something.
Words and promises had not been enough. The fierce lovemaking had not been enough. She’d needed tenderness and love, not lust. She’d needed trust and faith, not doubt and suspicion. She’d needed to know that she was important to him. That she mattered. That she wasn’t merely a bedtime distraction for the war that had always defined him.
She couldn’t believe he was alive. But the initial jump of hope in her heart for what this might mean had been swiftly crushed by the knowledge that he’d returned for her father, not her. Of course, he wanted nothing to do with her. And she . . . she didn’t know what to think. She’d accepted Eoin’s death, and put her love for him behind her. But seeing him again had brought it all back.
They’d been riding hard for about three hours, slowing only when they were forced to veer from the road near one of the larger castles, or, like now, when they had to pause to determine which fork in the road her father had taken. Although it was clear her father was heading for the Cumbrian coast, there were many different roads to get him there.
Out of the corner of her eye, she took advantage of the rare pause in their chase to observe her husband, who’d ridden up ahead of her to speak with the handsome, if stoic-looking, warrior who appeared to be leading the tracking of her father.
Her husband might have changed—the overly muscled scary-looking brigand was not the young warrior she remembered—but he was still undeniably handsome. Maybe even more so, time and battle having put a few more hard edges on his fiercely wrought features.
But that had never been what had attracted her. It had been something deeper—something far more elemental. It was the razor-sharpness of his mind, the aura of strength around him, and the way he looked at her. All that brooding intensity that had been impossible to resist. She’d wanted it for herself. She’d wanted to know what he was thinking. She’d wanted to be what he was thinking. And like a moth to the flame she’d been drawn in until they’d both gone up in flames.
Him in that pyre, and her in the pits of hell that she’d trudged through in the days after. She’d cried for days, unable to sleep or eat. She’d blamed herself and wanted to die—thought she deserved to die. If it hadn’t been for the discovery of her pregnancy, she might have done just that.
Eachann had given her a reason to live, and she’d be damned if she’d let the husband that had let her think he was dead for six years take him from her.
No matter what she’d done.
She’d made a mistake—a horrible one—but it hadn’t been intentional. She hadn’t thought she’d had a choice. But he had. Eoin had chosen to let her think he was dead, and in doing so, had cost her son a father for five years. If Eoin did not know his son, it wasn’t because of her.
Almost as if he knew what she was thinking, his eyes shifted to hers. Their gazes held for a long heartbeat, before his expression darkened and he resumed the conversation—if the brusque exchange of words could be considered a conversation—with the other warrior at what seemed a harsher clip.
Eoin hadn’t spoken to her since they left the church, and it appeared he was doing his best to pretend she didn’t exist. He should be good at it, with six years of practice. Now that the shock of his survival had waned, Margaret felt herself growing angry. How could he have done this?
Her anger only grew worse as the chase resumed. Despite the grueling pace, her father was eluding them. Margaret didn’t know whether to be sad or glad. Even with her father’s increased bitterness over the past few years, she still loved him and didn’t want to see him captured. After the slaughter at Loch Ryan and the execution of Bruce’s two brothers in the aftermath, she didn’t want to think about what kind of vengeance the king would take from the man responsible. Although “the Bruce,” as the people called him, had been remarkably conciliatory toward some of the men who’d stood against him—including the Earl of Ross, who’d violated sanctuary to capture his wife, daughter, sister, and the formidable Countess of Buchan—would he do the same for the man who’d turned over his two brothers to King Edward for certain execution?
He might. Which was one more sin her husband could lay at her feet. The Bruce had lived up to Eoin’s faith in him; the king and his “lost cause” had been good for Scotland. Margaret should have had more faith in her husband. But it had seemed so hopeless, and she’d been terrified of what would happen to him if King Edward caught up with them.
It wasn’t unlike the fear she felt now. Her fear for her f
ather warred with her fear for her son. The boy must be terrified and exhausted—her father must be holding him up in the saddle by now.
As the sky grew dark, her fear worsened. Where were they? Surely they should have caught up to them by now? If they continued like this through the darkness someone would get hurt.
The next time they paused for one of their painfully short breaks to water the horses, Margaret could hold her tongue no longer. She found Eoin, talking to that same warrior again. Both men fell silent as she drew near. She looked back and forth between them, thinking that there was something similar about them. They were both tall, broad-shouldered, and built like a couple of King Edward’s siege engines, but it was something more than that. It was the way they held themselves, the aura of invincibility, and the granite stillness of their expressions.
If she’d hoped to find sympathy from one of these men, however, it would not be from the tracker. The hostility in Eoin’s dark-blue eyes was only marginally less in the tracker’s.
From their continued silence, it seemed the other man also shared her husband’s gruffness of manners and propensity for silence. They must be grand friends.
She pursed her lips and tipped her head to the unknown warrior. “My lord. I assume you know who I am. But as ‘Lazarus’ here has decided to dispense with the pleasantries, I’m afraid I don’t know whom I am addressing.”
He arched a brow and shot a look to Eoin before turning back to her. “Ewen Lamont, my lady.”
She smiled as if to say, Now that wasn’t too hard, was it?
Eoin must have objected to the smile because he bit out, “What do you want, Margaret?”
Aside from this scintillating conversation? Aside from an explanation of where in Hades he’d been for almost six years? She gritted her teeth so the bitter words wouldn’t fly out and forced moderation to her tone. “We have to stop.”
“There are plenty of castles in the area. If you are too tired to go on, I’m sure they will open their gates to Dugald MacDowell’s daughter.”
The Striker Page 22
