Robbie twisted in her arms, turning away from her. “I won’t go,” he sniffed.
“But you must, we both must—we don’t have a choice,” Linnet said, taking his chin between her thumb and forefinger, forcing him to face her.
She drew a sharp breath at her first good look at him. Pale and drawn, his cheeks streaked with tears, his eyes filled with pain, the lad appeared to have aged years. His lower lip trembled, and the hands clutching his toy sword shook.
His usual hardy spirit was gone without a trace.
Thoroughly vanquished, the bold bravery he was always wont to display.
A fresh burst of tears spilled down his cheeks, and he tore away from her grasp, lowering his head to stare at the cave’s sandy floor.
“Robbie, lad, you mustn’t be afraid,” Linnet crooned, smoothing a hand over the warm silkiness of his bowed head. “I will not let aught happen to you.”
He looked up then and a spark of his old self flared in his dark blue eyes. “’Tisna for mesself I cry, lady,” he said, his voice breaking as if a world of sadness bore down on his small shoulders. “’Tis Mauger”—he sobbed then—“the bad men killed him.”
“Oh, Robbie.” Only then did she notice the old dog, barely discernible in the deep shadows behind Robbie. Silent and unmoving, naught more than a tangled heap of fur and bones, his dome-shaped head matted with blood, his ever-trusting eyes, closed. “Oh, laddie, nay. ’Tis so sorry I am,” she breathed, now spilling tears of her own.
“Uncle Kenneth kicked him.”
“Aye, and he deserved to be kicked,” Kenneth said, closing his fingers tightly around Linnet’s arm and yanking her to her feet. “The mangy beast meant to bite me.”
“I hate you, you’re bad!” Robbie sprang to his feet and began thwacking at Kenneth’s legs with his wooden sword.
Kenneth laughed. He grabbed the neck of Robbie’s tunic and hoisted the boy high above the ground so his spindly legs dangled loosely in midair. Robbie’s toy sword slipped from his hands as he thrashed about trying to strike his uncle with his balled fists.
“Take him—I grow weary of the pesky brat.” Kenneth fair tossed the child into Gilbert’s arms. “’Tis time we are on our way.”
The foul-reeking giant slung Robbie over one shoulder, crossed the cavern with a few long strides, then disappeared through the narrow opening.
Kenneth gave Linnet’s arm a sharp tug. “Your boat awaits you, milady.”
“You will not live to savor this foul deed. My husband will come for us.”
“Think you?” Kenneth shot her a wolfish grin, then shoved her through the mouth of the cave. “Did you not say the man is gravely wounded?” he asked with a wicked smile, stepping through the opening.
“That will not stop him,” Linnet swore, as Kenneth pulled her across the rocky shore toward one of the tiny coracles.
“We shall see, lady, we shall see.”
Then he shoved her into the small boat, climbed in after her, and began rowing them away from shore. Nearby, Gilbert practically flung the still-struggling Robbie into another of the round, little boats, whilst Kenneth’s remaining men followed suit close behind them.
Thick curtains of fog pressed in all around them, swallowing Robbie’s high-pitched squeals of protest and eventually closing in around the solid bulk of Eilean Creag’s thick gray walls.
Soon the forbidding MacKenzie stronghold vanished from view, slipping behind the enveloping swirls of mist, disappearing as thoroughly as if it’d never been there.
And all Linnet heard was Kenneth’s heavy breathing as he rowed them farther and farther away, the rhythmic slapping of the oars hitting the water, and the overly loud beating of her anxious heart.
“Can you hear me, laddie?”
Duncan opened his eyes a crack and glowered at his old goat of a seneschal. “Of course, I can hear you,” he groused, “the way you’ve been blaring in my ear, a deaf man would hear you, and I am not deaf.”
That said, he promptly shut his eyes again.
There wasn’t a single part of his body that didn’t ache, and his head throbbed as if he’d downed Eilean Creag’s entire store of spirits.
Nay, he did not want to be disturbed.
Not by Fergus, not by anyone… not even his sweet lady wife.
The way he felt, he wouldn’t even stir for the blessed St. Columba should the highly revered holy brother care to pay him a visit.
“Be you still awake, laddie?” Fergus shouted into his ear, bellowing as if he sought to rouse the dead.
Duncan’s hands curled into fists, and his eyes shot wide open. “If I was not, I am now, you dolt! Can you not let a man rest?”
“Someone’s come to see you,” Fergus, still leaned low over the trestle table, bellowed into Duncan’s ear.
“If it is not God the Father Himself, send him on his way,” Duncan ground out, each word, each movement of his lips, sheer agony.
He tried to close his eyes again, but Fergus, the persistent wretch, started rattling Duncan’s uninjured arm. “You canna keep sleeping. ’Tis nigh unto vespers, you’ve slept the day through and your visitor brings us grim tidings.”
With a great effort, Duncan pushed himself up on his elbows and tried to focus his hurting eyes… they burned as if someone had poured sand into them. “What tidings? Has my bastard half brother marched into the hall and laid claim to the high table?”
“It is grave news, sir.” This from Fergus’s lady, and Duncan did not care for her tone.
Following her voice, he squinted up at her. The expression on her face was worse than her tone. Her nose glowed bright red, and her eyelids were puffy. The woman had been crying.
Sobbing, from the look of her.
As he peered at her, she gasped, clapped her hands over her mouth, and wheeled away from him, her rounded shoulders heaving.
Duncan forgot his wounds and sat straight up. “What madness has befallen us whilst I’ve slumbered?” he wheezed, fire shards of pain shooting through him.
To a man, the kinsmen gathered around the trestle table avoided his gaze, each one suddenly shuffling about as if their feet were afire or plucking at their clothes as if they’d been beset by a horde of man-eating fleas.
Even Fergus. The grizzled old seneschal stood half-turned away from Duncan, scratching furiously at his elbow.
“What goes on here?” Duncan boomed, now fully awake and furious himself.
“’Tis your lady, Laird MacKenzie,” a great hulk of stranger said from the foot of the table. “Your brother has her.”
“You lie!” Duncan made to leap off the table but white-hot pain knifed through him. Black rage nigh blinding him and sheer terror squeezing the very air from his lungs, he doubled over in agony, tightly clutching his middle.
Fergus, his gnarled hands firm and strong, eased Duncan gently backwards until he was once more in a prone position on the table. “Becalm yourself, laddie, we dinna ken aught for certain. Not yet. Marmaduke’s gone abovestairs. We’ll soon hear if any harm has come to your lady or the wee lad.”
Inclining his head toward the stranger, the seneschal continued, “He be Murdo, of the MacLeod clan. Says he was on his way here with a message from his laird. The MacLeod would bid us to send men. They need help rebuilding their hall after a fire and—” Fergus paused to rest an arm about his weeping lady’s shoulders, “—on the way here, he came across some of Kenneth’s men. They boasted the whoreson had your lady and Robbie and meant to ransom them,” he finished in a rush.
For a long moment Duncan said naught. He couldn’t, for terror constricted his lungs, and each one of Fergus’s words had been like a nail hammered into his heart.
Lifting his head as best he could, he narrowed his eyes at the stranger. Something about the man struck him in a bad way, and it wasn’t just the grim tidings he brought. “I ken John MacLeod well. His men, too, but I dinna recall ever meeting you.”
Murdo nodded, then withdrew a gleaming golden brooch from a leathe
r pouch suspended from his belt. With grimy fingers, he held out the finely wrought piece of jewelry for Duncan’s inspection. A large red gemstone in its middle winked and sparkled in the reflection of a nearby rushlight.
’Twas a choice gem and a brooch of rare beauty.
Duncan knew it well… he’d seen it oft as the MacLeod laird wasn’t wont to go about without the brooch fastened to his cloak.
’Twas a charmed piece, John had sworn.
One he always wore.
Murdo must have seen the recognition in Duncan’s eyes, for he dropped the brooch back into his pouch and gave Duncan a broad smile.
Duncan didn’t return the smile. “I canna believe John would part with that brooch.”
The stranger’s smile dimmed, but only for a moment. “Oh, aye,” Murdo disagreed, bobbing his shaggy, unkempt head. “He knew you wouldn’t know me and sent along the brooch to vouchsafe for my identity.”
“I see.” Duncan didn’t believe a word of the man’s story. He slanted a glance at Fergus, but the bristly old fool was still scratching his elbow.
Looking back at the stranger, Duncan hissed out a sharp breath before he opened his mouth to speak. Saints alive, just turning his neck sent sizzling bolts of pain shooting down his spine. Wincing, he forced his lips to move. “What of a fire? How many men does John need?”
“So many as you can spare. All but the bare stone walls are ash and soot. Oh, aye, ’twas a fierce fire,” Murdo said, rocking back on his heels. “You’ll be wanting to send a party after your lady first, though. My lord willna begrudge you looking after your own afore you send help.”
Apprehension, cold and disturbing, slithered over Duncan’s skin as the man spoke, but his thinking was too fogged from pain to place what bothered him.
“And you will tell us where to look?” Alexander, one of Duncan’s kinsmen, spoke up. Duncan glanced sharply at him. His brows were furrowed, and he stood rubbing his chin, peering suspiciously at the tall man called Murdo.
“Aye, I can. Way I done heard, Laird MacKenzie’s brother means to head by galley to one o’ the northern isles.” Murdo’s barrel-like chest swelled with importance. “Whilst I’m here, I can ride north with you. I have some kin on the coast and can help secure a boat.”
Despite his aching bones and suffering, Duncan pushed himself up on his elbows. “I think not,” he wheezed. “My men will ride out if my lady and the child have been taken, but you will not go with them. You and John’s brooch shall remain here. In my safekeeping, if you will.”
Murdo’s face suffused a deep red. “You canna keep me prisoner here.”
Duncan only lifted a brow.
“’Tis a breach o’ hospitality!” Murdo sputtered. “My lord is a trusted ally of—”
“If John is your lord, he will understa—” Duncan cut into the man’s speech, then snapped his own mouth shut at the sound of pounding footsteps. He turned toward the noise just in time to see Sir Marmaduke burst into the hall from the tower stairs.
The Sassunach plowed his way through the men standing about, not stopping until he reached Duncan’s side. “Mother of God preserve us, ’tis true,” he panted. “The lady Linnet and Robbie are gone.”
A loud roar sounded in Duncan’s ears, increasing in volume until he could scarce hear aught else. “Nay! It canna be.” His words were barely audible, drowned out by the noise he now recognized as the rush of his own hot blood coursing through him.
The sound of his world crashing down around him.
“It canna be,” he repeated. “Thomas wouldn’t have left his post.”
“He didn’t. The door was bolted from within, we had to break it down,” Marmaduke said, dashing Duncan’s last hope. “They were taken by stealth.” His gaze flickered briefly over Murdo. “I do not know how the deed was done, but they are gone.”
Duncan pushed himself to a sitting position, easing his legs off the table and clutching its edge for support. He didn’t know what whirled faster, the sickening dread spinning through him, or the hall itself. Both spun madly, out of control. And through it all, he kept hearing the Sassunach’s terrible words.
They are gone, they are gone… .
And Duncan knew how they’d been taken.
Aye, he knew.
Damnation but he’d been a fool. He should have known. Kenneth was clever. He would’ve known he could ne’er have taken Eilean Creag, was well aware its walls couldn’t be breached.
His attack had been a ruse.
A clever stratagem so his men could clear the rocks blocking the entrance to the sea cave. Somehow the bastard had discovered the secret Duncan thought only he knew. And once they’d gained access to the hidden passage, they’d stolen his lady and Robbie.
Darkness closed in on him in dizzying waves, washing over him, pulling at him from the outside, whilst his insides twisted in unspeakable agony.
As if from a great distance, he heard a woman’s high-pitched wail, then Fergus grousing at him to lie back down. Other voices, shouts and murmurs, merged with theirs until his aching head was filled with naught but confusion.
Someone… Marmaduke?… pushed him down, pinning him onto the trestle table with hands as unyielding as steel. He struggled to break free, but couldn’t. He was too weak. The pain, his anguish, his rage, was nigh onto unbearable.
It lamed him, was too formidable an opponent to fight.
And naught hurt as fiercely as the gaping, bleeding wound Kenneth’s evildoing had left in his chest.
For along with his lady and the lad, they’d stolen that which he hadn’t truly believed he possessed till now.
His heart.
They’d ripped it, bleeding and raw, from his breast, leaving him bereft… empty.
Clarity dawned even as blackness claimed him, the weight of its truth almost crushing him, pressing the life from him, robbing him of his very breath.
They’d taken his lady and his son, for suddenly it mattered naught whether the lad was truly his or nay.
All that mattered was their safe return.
He had to get them back.
Both of them.
He’d never be whole again until he did.
18
Your brother has her.
Laird MacKenzie’s brother…
The stranger’s words drifted in and out of the darkness swirling around Duncan, cleverly weaving themselves into the confounding whirl of raised voices so he couldn’t decipher aught what made sense.
Gritting his teeth, he pressed the flats of his hands against the cold wooden planks of the trestle table and strained to concentrate.
Strained, too, against the iron-hard grip holding him down.
But his efforts were of no avail.
The din only increased, becoming a cacophony of discord irritating enough to drive the wits from a saint, blurring the elusive words dancing in and out of the shadows on the very edges of his consciousness.
And whoever held him to the table possessed the strength of ten men and dinna appear willing to loosen their grip.
Duncan drew in a breath through clenched teeth and willed his agitation aside. He’d deal with the lout and his steely fingers soon enough.
After he’d made sense of the garbled jumble of words careening in and out of his aching head.
Keeping his eyes tightly shut, he fought to ignore the shouts of his men, the chaotic sounds of a hall filled with confusion, and focus on Murdo’s words.
He had to. They were important.
Vital.
He pressed his hands harder against the table, so hard his forearms shook with the effort. But, devil be damned, the words and their meaning kept eluding him.
His eyes still shut, he tried to swallow but couldn’t. His lips were dry, split and parched, and his tongue felt thick, swollen. More annoying still, the inside of his mouth tasted foul, as bitter as soured wine.
Duncan’s lips compressed into a tight grimace.
He was sour.
And he intended to st
ay that way until he could figure out what vexed him so, unravel the clue lurking in the outer fringes of his mind, tantalizingly close one moment, distant as the moon the next.
Your brother…
Murdo’s words penetrated the blackness again, repeating themselves like a monk’s morning chant, growing ever louder until the other voices and sounds receded into nothingness.
The two words pelted him like icy, needle-sharp rain, taunting him, pushing him to the brink of madness.
Then another voice chimed in, soft and gentle, sweet, but insistent in its urgency. His lady wife’s voice. Clear and bright as a ray of sun on a fine spring morn. Strong enough to dispel the other voices, powerful enough to chase away the fog clouding his befuddled senses.
’Tis of a future evil I must warn you…
It was not Kenneth…
Someone speaks with two tongues…
As quickly as they’d come, Linnet’s prophetic words faded, but he’d heard enough.
Suddenly he knew.
And with the knowledge came sanity.
Sanity and determination.
His eyes shot open. His grimace deepened. As he’d suspected, the hands holding him down were English hands. Those of his all-knowing one-eyed brother-in-law.
He fixed the lout with a fierce stare, one that would send most men scurrying for their mothers, but Sir Marmaduke merely stared back, his one good eye as unblinking as Duncan’s two.
“Release me at once.” Duncan pushed the words through his teeth, refusing to acknowledge the agony it cost him to move his lips. “I am well.”
The Sassunach quirked his brow and said naught.
“I am,” Duncan insisted, temper giving him the strength to break free of Marmaduke’s grasp and sit straight up.
Nausea rose high in his throat at the sudden movement. By sheer force of will, Duncan quelched the hot waves of dizziness threatening to pull him back into a sea of grayness and pain.
“Can you not see I am fit?” he snapped, flexing his fingers, defiantly wiggling his bare toes.
“I see an unfit man borne on the wings of anger,” the Englishman said, folding his arms. “Naught else.”
Duncan scowled darkly and eased his legs off the table. Doing his best not to wince, he stood, then leaned against the table’s edge.
Devil in a Kilt Page 31
