Traitor Or Temptress

by Helen Dickson

  Within seconds he had left the house, with the others close on his heels.

  Entering the alley and passing into the small court where Jenny had seen Lorne disappear with her abductor, with his heart pounding, Iain paused to take stock of his surroundings. There was no way out, so Kilpatrick had to be behind one of the doors facing into the court—but which one? It was Lorne’s scream coming from the upper storey that had him bounding up the long flight of slippery steps to the source of that noise, sharply instructing her brothers to wait in the alley. Reluctantly they obeyed, but all their senses were attuned to what was happening above, their bodies tensed, ready to go bounding up the steps after him at any second.

  Bursting in through the door, Iain stopped, taking in the flurry of his wife’s petticoats as she strained beneath the straddling Kilpatrick at a glance.

  Immediately alert by the opening of the door, Kilpatrick’s loss of control had not weakened the instincts bred during years of soldiering. His lust for ravishing the woman beneath him was overlaid by the ingrained habits of survival. Dragging Lorne with him, with the agility of a panther he sprang to his feet, looking towards the door.

  With superb control, sword in hand, Iain took in his surroundings, the sight that met his eyes sending cold, merciless fury charging through every pore in his body. His eyes were deadly, his face as if carved from marble, hard and ice cold, his utter contempt for Kilpatrick manifest in the lift of his arrogant head and the curl of his lip.

  ‘Take your hands off my wife, damn you.’

  At the sight of her husband Lorne almost collapsed with relief. Her nightmare was almost at an end.

  Kilpatrick gaped, his eyes fixed on the man who filled the doorway in awful recognition. The two men had met on occasion during their military years, but they had no particular liking for each other and had spent little time in each other’s company.

  ‘Your wife?’ His eyes went from one to the other, as though confronted by twin spectres. When realisation of what he had done sank in, pure madness flamed in his eyes. He became once more insane with hate and a lust for revenge. Still holding Lorne’s wrist, he jerked her brutally towards him, spinning her round so that she stood in front of him, facing her husband, tightening his iron-thewed arms as she kicked and struggled in an attempt to free herself.

  ‘Your wife and I have unfinished business, Monroe. All my life I have been a soldier first and foremost, and this bitch’s scheming finished me at Inveraray,’ he hissed, his lips drawn back over his teeth in a savage snarl. ‘So, you see, I have an account to settle with her.’

  ‘Any account to be settled will be settled by me. Now release her,’ Iain commanded, his voice cold and lethal and his eyes as penetrating as dagger thrusts.

  Kilpatrick had neither the means to hand nor the clarity of mind to challenge him. Against all expectations he threw his captive from him and glared at his adversary. Respectful of the threatening blade, he kept his distance.

  ‘It appears, Kilpatrick,’ Iain mocked, ‘that my arrival has cheated you out of the pleasure of ravishing my wife. It would also appear that your passions for her have quite upset your reason.’

  ‘She was not your wife when she whored herself at Inveraray—and she gave a fair impression of being one,’ he sneered. ‘In fact, her performance was so convincing that I suspect she has experience of that not-so-noble profession.’

  ‘And you would do well to consider what you say. I have excuses enough to kill you—it is vain to add another by bandying insults about her. This lady is my wife, rightful mistress of Norwood, and she is carrying my child. As for you, I won’t mind killing you.’ He took Lorne’s trembling hand and drew her towards him, seeing the strain of her ordeal showing on her face. ‘Are you all right?’

  She nodded, swallowing hard.

  ‘Then go below,’ he ordered her. ‘There you will find John Ferguson and your brothers.’

  Sick with worry and despair, Lorne protested, ‘No—not unless you come, too.’

  ‘This is a matter between me and Kilpatrick.’ There was a tensing of the muscles of Iain’s lean jaw and a feral gleam in his eyes when he looked once more at Kilpatrick. ‘You will answer for your attack on my wife. I see I find you at a disadvantage and that you do not carry your sword. Get it and prepare to defend yourself. We will settle this here and now.’

  Kilpatrick feared no man and was renowned for his swordsmanship, but Iain Monroe held a deadlier blade than most. Monroe’s reputation with both pistol and sword was an enviable and well-known fact. Kilpatrick’s face was drawn and waxen white, and the hiss that he emitted was more venomous and more fearful than any snake. ‘Aye, and it’s unlikely that you will emerge from this encounter alive. I’ll see you in hell before I’m finished with you.’

  Lorne gripped Iain’s arm in alarm. ‘Iain,’ she cried. ‘Please—you cannot do this.’

  Iain gave her an exasperated glare. ‘Stay out of this,’ he ordered harshly. ‘It is no longer your affair.’ He shoved her out of the door, telling her to hold on to the wooden rail and to tread with care on the slippery steps.

  Refusing to accept defeat, a guttural sound rumbled from deep in Kilpatrick’s chest and crimson hate filled his sight. He launched himself across the distance that separated him from the other man. Unable to avoid the forceful assault, Iain lunged out with his fist when his sword clattered to the floor. The two men grappled ferociously, becoming locked in a frenzied thrashing of mortal combat, strained in a battle of pure strength, hammering each other with blows that would have broken the bones of lesser men. In physique and strength Kilpatrick was an equal match for Iain, and the insane fury, combined with the fear that he was about to be thwarted yet again, only added to that strength. But then Iain’s fist landed beneath his jaw with a sickening crunch, jerking his head back.

  Picking her way carefully down the steps, when Lorne saw her brothers she begged them to assist Iain. Vaguely she wondered what they were doing there, but she was too distressed and worried about Iain to clutter her mind with further complications.

  Robert didn’t need any prompting. For a man so large he moved with incredible speed, taking the steps two at a time. On entering the room and seeing Kilpatrick stagger to his feet, surrendering to a rage that was about to become out of control, he behaved as he always did—with savage violence. Roughly he flung Iain aside.

  ‘Leave it,’ he hissed. ‘Kilpatrick’s mine.’

  Finding himself unexpectedly confronted by this rage-filled Highlander, recognising him and having further cause to fear for his life, Kilpatrick backed away.

  ‘What is it, Kilpatrick?’ Robert taunted, his fists bunched. ‘Don’t you have the guts to fight—unless it’s an old, ailing man hiding on the moor or a defenceless pregnant woman?’ He became like an enraged bull. Reaching out, he grasped Kilpatrick’s shirt at the neck and hauled him forward, shaking him like a dog. ‘Looks like the tables have turned, eh?’ he growled, and with a forward jerk of his head he butted the already beaten and weakened man in the face, watched in grinning satisfaction as he sank to his knees, clutching his busted nose.

  Realising that if he was to survive he would have to help himself, with a bellow of rage Kilpatrick launched himself in a soaring leap at the Highlander with a flailing of arms, only to find himself rendered incapable when Robert’s massive fist struck him squarely in the groin. Reeling backwards, he stumbled out of the open door on to the icy step. Slipping and losing his balance, he fell heavily against the wooden balustrade, which splintered and cracked beneath his weight. Unable to regain his footing, with a look of absolute astonishment registering in his eyes, he fell backwards. There was a moment’s shocked silence when he seemed to pause and clutch at the empty air, before plummeting to the yard three storeys below, his head hitting the cobblestones with a nauseating thud.

  Iain and Robert came down the steps and bent over Kilpatrick’s limp form, which was lying grotesquely with blood pouring from his head.

  ‘Seems I
’ve done for him,’ Robert said to Iain.

  ‘Aye, but he’s not worth hanging for.’

  Robert eyed him questioningly.

  ‘He fell,’ Iain said. ‘The broken rail speaks for itself.’ His lips twisted with irony. ‘But worry not, McBryde. This will be added to your other crimes and, in time, like the rest of us you’ll have to answer to the Almighty.’ His expression became hard when he looked down at Kilpatrick, and when he next spoke—almost as if he were speaking to himself—his voice was low and filled with loathing. ‘If you hadn’t killed him, I would have.’

  Taking a last look at the dead man and seeing that his eyes were already glazed over, Iain turned and looked at his wife standing beside Rory. Her face was deathly pale and she was shaking like a leaf, her hands clutching her torn cloak at her throat. Taking her in his arms, Iain felt a surge of deep compassion as she huddled against his breast like a child.

  ‘Don’t be frightened. It’s over. Kilpatrick is dead, my love.’

  Lorne could hardly hear him as she clung to him convulsively. The terror of the short time she had been Kilpatrick’s prisoner seemed to have eaten into her. She opened her lips to speak, but they were trembling too much for her to utter a word.

  Suddenly she burst into tears and Iain sighed with relief. She was safe now that the terror and spectre of Kilpatrick was drawing away from her, and he rocked her as tenderly as he would a babe. ‘Weep, weep, my love, if it helps,’ he murmured gently, his lips against her hair. ‘He can’t hurt you now.’

  All the rancour seemed to have disappeared from the McBryde brothers’ faces. It had happened the moment they learned of Lorne’s disappearance, when the three of them had been brought together by mutual concern. They moved closer, feeling oddly helpless and clumsy when confronted by this outpouring of their sister’s terror. Her husband’s face was white, and for a moment they felt a remarkable kinship with him. Kinship and sympathy, too, and they understood the agony he must have gone through when he’d realised she was missing.

  The first thing Lorne did on reaching the house was to go and see Jenny.

  Her eyes were closed, but she was not asleep. When she saw her mistress bending over her, she gasped and clutched her hand. ‘Oh, Miss Lorne! Thank God! I was so worried about you when that man took you away.’

  Lorne smiled down at her and gently took her hand. ‘He didn’t hurt me. It’s thanks to you Iain found me before he could do me any harm. But don’t you worry your head about that. You took a nasty knock when you fell, so try to sleep.’

  Lorne returned to the others. However, before she entered the room, she heard heated words being exchanged, and she was sure it was Rory’s voice that was raised in anger. Pushing open the door, she went inside. Her brothers were standing together by the hearth, while her extremely irate husband was striding up and down with his hands clasped behind his back and with no hint of softness in the marble severity of his face. He was clearly furious at something Rory must have said, and when Rory spoke she knew what it was that had so angered him. In her absence, one of her brothers or Rory had mentioned that fateful day in Kinlochalen when Iain’s brother had died. She felt her heart contract, for the moment she had dreaded had come.

  ‘I remember the circumstances of my meeting with your brother all too well,’ Rory said forcefully, undaunted by the Earl of Norwood’s wrath.

  Moving further into the room, Lorne shrank with horror and put her hands to her face. ‘For pity’s sake, Rory—say no more,’ she cried.

  Rory turned to look at her in surprise. ‘Why not? Your husband talks of all Highlanders as barbarians. He has the misguided opinion that we’re all the same—that we steal each other’s cattle and kill our neighbours and burn their homes indiscriminately.’ His voice suddenly changed as he added, quite calmly, as though making a simple statement of fact, ‘It is time he learned there are some of us who are not so vicious, that we don’t all bear grudges, and that there are people who are farmers, innkeepers and blacksmiths—ordinary, simple folk, who wish to go about their business and be left in peace.’

  ‘I know, but please—please stop,’ she begged. ‘We don’t speak of what happened—Iain won’t—’

  ‘What? Listen? No, Lorne,’ Rory said firmly, knowing that what he had to say would open up many painful wounds in all those present, but he plunged recklessly on through this madcap folly with all the gift of youth.

  ‘Out of stubbornness, perhaps, despite being his wife, your husband still harbours the belief that you are the irreconcilable enemy of his family and of the person he once held most dear—his brother. It is clear to me that the misunderstanding of the day he died has grown to such an extent that the time has come to put the record straight.’ Disregarding the Earl’s icy, murderous expression, Rory boldly stood his ground as the older man bore down on him, eyeing him relentlessly, a look of indescribable disgust twisting his face.

  ‘I haven’t lost my memory of that day, Galbraith, and I would thank you to keep your mouth shut.’

  Tears sprang to Lorne’s eyes. Iain’s scorn was more that she could stand. ‘Please, Rory,’ she pleaded softly, her eyes appealing to him in humble supplication. ‘Say no more. This is not the time for memories or regrets.’

  ‘I will not be silent, Lorne—not when I can see how this thing is still tearing you apart. It has to be said—and by my reckoning, it is long over due.’ A gleam of anger and determination lit up his eyes and, unafraid, he moved to stand close to the towering, glowering presence of the Earl of Norwood. ‘I, more than anyone else, know what happened on the day your brother died. I was there, and for the short time Lorne knew him she was devoted to him.’

  Iain’s expression was thunderously black. ‘If you know what’s good for you, you will shut your mouth,’ he hissed.

  Rory stiffened, his temper roused, his resolve unshaken. ‘I will speak, and you will have the courtesy to listen. You will not silence me as you have your wife. Have you any idea what she did for your brother when she was but a child? It is not too long ago for me to still remember how she imperilled her life and showed a courage way beyond her years.’

  Iain continued to glower at him in silence.

  ‘I was there,’ Rory went on, ‘when we found your brother on the morning following the affray on the moor. Lorne, Duncan and myself were in the glen awaiting our fathers’ and brothers’ return. When we found David he was wounded, badly, and in a lot of pain. It shames me to say that Duncan would have left him to die—had it not been for Lorne. We all knew what would happen to him when the men came down from the moor and found him, and Lorne was determined to hide him to prevent that happening. She made us help her. Somehow we managed to get him to a cave high up in the rocks. When Duncan discovered who he was, he would have nothing further to do with him, but Lorne took him food and tended his wound as conscientiously as any physician, knowing the risks she took—knowing her father and brothers would flay her alive if they found out.’

  Rory moved closer to the man towering above him. ‘She wept at her ignorance and her inability to understand why she couldn’t make your brother well. When he became delirious and shivering with cold, she lay beside him and held him in her arms in an attempt to keep him warm with her own body.’

  Standing close to Iain, blank faced, John stammered, ‘But I—I don’t understand. I saw—’

  Rory turned his blazing eyes on him. ‘What you saw? I know what you must have seen in the glen that day, John Ferguson—and what you assumed when you saw my father speak to Lorne. But she did not betray David. She merely told my father she was awaiting her own father and brothers to come down from the moor, and then she went on her way to await David’s brother’s arrival from the south, hoping and praying he would be in time to save him.’

  Rory spoke with such unaffected nobility and simplicity that John could find nothing to say. He looked Lorne in the eyes until his gaze faltered and fell. Then he stepped back, shaking his head in bewilderment as he tried to comprehend all
Rory had said.

  Rory turned his gaze back to Iain, who was watching him, his face expressionless, as though stunned. For what seemed like an age, the most eloquent, handsome man in Scotland could find no words.

  ‘It was Duncan who betrayed David’s presence. Yes, my brother!’ Rory went on quietly, and with much heartfelt bitterness. ‘And may God forgive me, but in that moment I hated him for it. When you failed to arrive, Lorne returned to the cave and found David had gone. Can you imagine how she must have felt?’

  Iain looked at Lorne as he had never looked at her before, and with a fast-beating heart she returned his look, a wave of joy sweeping over her. The silent exchange of their eyes spoke volumes, bringing them closer than all their embraces had ever done. The moment was unforgettable, for it was the moment when the last obstacle to their love was overthrown.

  ‘I know how she felt,’ Iain murmured hoarsely, self-loathing and shame pouring through him like molten lava. ‘I saw her. She tried to tell me, but I was so absorbed in my own rage and grief that I would not listen. May she find it in her heart to forgive me for being so blind and so proud and so stupid—while I search for a way to forgive myself.’

  ‘I have nothing to forgive you,’ Lorne whispered, her emerald eyes aglow with tears of happiness as she walked into his arms, which wrapped round her with stunning force. ‘I count myself fortunate that I am your wife and that I will share your life until my dying day.’

  Tortured by the pain he had caused her, Iain clasped her tighter. Believing she had played a major part in David’s death, in the beginning he had publicly scorned and humiliated her, and like a stubborn fool he had refused to listen to her when she had confronted him and protested her innocence. Dear Lord, how she must have been hurting.

  His voice was a raw ache as he humbly whispered, ‘I am sorry. I am not proud of what I’ve done to you—but there is something I should tell you. When our father lay dying, it was I who instructed John to bring Davie home by the shorter route through Kinlochalen, and one of the reasons why I could not bear to speak of what happened that day was because of my own failure to reach Davie in time. I am still tormented with that knowledge—that I failed him. I can’t tell you how many times I have blamed myself. It has tortured me ever since.’