The servant nodded, and Bear handed Lachlan off. “This is my fault, I reckon,” Rowena’s brother said darkly, touching Rowena’s shoe where Lachlan still clasped it. “I could have said someaught to Ran, and I didnae.”
“Just go. We’ll argue over whose fault this is when she’s safe.”
“Aye.” Bear trotted off.
Any of them could have said something, done something, to change the course of events, but Lachlan remained fairly certain he still would have found himself at the edge of the trees, kissing Rowena. But who else knew that? Who had taken her, and why had they chosen this moment?
Leaning more heavily on Ben than he cared to acknowledge, he made his way back to the thick of the gathering. With such close quarters everyone seemed to know already that Rowena had gone missing. Before four hundred men could go tramping off through the trees, he stepped up on a tree stump.
“Lads, let Glengask and his trackers see if they can find a trail,” he said with as much volume as he could manage. “The best any of ye can do right now is to look aboot ye. Is anyone missing? Did ye hear anything odd that makes some sense now?” He looked about the crowd—not for a friendly face, necessarily, but for one he could trust. Most of Ranulf’s closest allies and friends were already in the forest. And he didn’t know if he still qualified as one of those, or not.
“If ye ken someaught,” he continued, “even if ye think it may nae be important, speak to Lady Charlotte or Lady Mary MacLawry.”
Grim-faced and clearly worried, the two ladies nodded. “We’ll be at the Campbell tent,” Mary stated in a carrying voice. “Don’t delay; if you know something, please come forward.”
That done, Lachlan finally allowed the blackness at the edge of his vision to wash over him again and envelop him in darkness. Someone was looking for her. And they would find her—he would find her—because the alternative was simply unthinkable.
* * *
Rowena couldn’t catch her breath. She couldn’t feel her hands, either. When she forced her eyes open, all she could see was a brownish filtered glow too close for her to focus on. And she was being bounced about madly, her head aching with each thud.
Gradually she figured out she was facedown across someone’s saddle, her arms bound behind her, a sack over her head, and a cloth tied across her mouth. And then everything else flooded back—Lachlan trying to push her away, the blade emerging from his chest …
She drew in a rackety sob. No. Not his chest. It had been his shoulder. Squeezing her eyes closed, she forced herself to think logically before pain and grief could overwhelm her. She’d grown up with four men in her life. They’d taught her to shoot, and how to use a sword. Though they’d tried to make it a game, they’d taught her how to defend herself—though not against cowards who struck from behind. But she knew where to find a man’s heart, and she knew—she knew—that blade had been high.
Therefore, Lachlan was still alive. It was nonsense to consider anything else. And because he was still alive, he would be able to tell her brothers what had happened. All of them—all of the MacLawrys—could be following them even now. Rowena shifted a little, trying to ease the pressure of the saddle against her lungs.
“She’s awake,” a deep male voice said from close above her.
“Club ’er again. We dunnae want her giving us away. But nae so hard this time. Ye nearly killed her, before.”
She stifled the urge to flinch. Even if Lachlan … Even if he was unconscious, she forced her mind to amend, staying well away from any other possibility, Owen and his men had been close by. Ranulf would know she’d been taken. Bear and Arran would know. Lachlan knew. All she need do was slow her captors down and give her clan time to catch them.
She kicked out. Her feet were bound together, she realized belatedly, so she arched as best she could and then rammed her knees down. Hard. The horse beneath her sidestepped. Twisting onto her side while someone cursed and grabbed at her shoulder, Rowena kicked again. With a sickening slide she went down headfirst. Curling as tightly as she could, she landed hard on one shoulder. Thank God her brothers had also taught her how to fall.
Bouncing and rolling, she finally came to a stop. And then she made herself stay limp and still. The scent of heather mixed with the onion smell of the sack; they were in a meadow of some sort, she would guess. And it was still day, or she wouldn’t be seeing any light through the sack. What else did she know?
From the earlier discussion over clubbing her, there were at least two men, both with horses. On the tail of that thought hooves stopped just beyond her, and then bootsteps approached. Two? Or three pairs of feet? With her head still throbbing and her ears ringing, she couldn’t be certain.
“Is she dead?”
“She’d better nae be dead, or we’ll be hanged fer certain. Why didnae ye tie her doon?”
“Because she was oot cold,” the deeper, slower voice answered. “If she’s dead, I’ll nae get her dowry.”
Her dowry? Whoever this man was, he thought to marry her? And stabbing men and kidnapping women didn’t trouble him in the slightest, evidently. It occurred to her that she should likely be afraid—a young lady dragged off by at least two strangers to God knew where—but she wasn’t. She was angry. No, she hadn’t liked what Ranulf was forcing her into, and yes, she’d been weighing the consequences of fleeing the country to be with Lachlan. But they’d hurt the man she loved, and they’d dragged her away from her family. That would not be allowed to stand.
Lachlan had called her his fierce lass. While she hadn’t felt terribly fierce, being pushed into a marriage she didn’t want and not doing anything more than pouting about it, at this moment and until she stopped these men, she was fury in the flesh. No one took a MacLawry and got away with it. No one.
A foot pushed her onto her back, hurting both her wrists. The sack jerked off her head, but she kept her eyes closed. Even when her head bounced painfully back to the ground, she didn’t flinch. She felt someone kneeling heavily on the edge of her dress. And she kept still.
“She’s nae moving,” the slow voice said.
“Well, poke her or someaught. See if she’s breathing.”
The cloth binding her mouth was pulled down to her neck. Breath touched her cheek as he leaned over her. He smelled of beer and haggis. Someone from the gathering? Well, she would see to it that he couldn’t return there. Not without being known. Snapping her eyes open, at the same instant she pushed up with her hands and bent her knees, shooting into a sitting position. The side of his face directly in front of her, she stretched out and bit down as hard as she could.
With a howl he stumbled onto his backside, holding his left cheek as blood spurted from between his fingers. Rowena spat the sick taste of blood out of her mouth. “I know ye,” she snarled, lurching at the red-haired behemoth again. “Dermid Gerdens. I know ye.” She turned her attention to the thinner man holding the horses. “And I know ye, Arnold Haws. Ye’re damned Campbells, and I’ll see ye hung fer this!”
A third pair of boots with a slight limp came into view. When she looked up, for the first time a wisp of fear tangled in with her anger. Oh, no.
“And ye know me, don’t ye, Winnie MacLawry?” he said, gazing at her with black eyes, his accent faded from a life spent mostly away from the Highlands. Not far enough away for her taste, though.
“Aye, I know ye,” she returned, working to keep her voice steady. She tugged at her wrists, but the knots didn’t budge. “Ye’re Charles Calder. Ye shot my brother Arran.”
“Aye.” He nodded, his black eyes and his slicked-back black hair lending him the appearance of something … evil. And she hadn’t heard anything about him to dispute that description.
“Ye werenae invited to the gathering. And ye’ve no right to be on MacLawry land.”
He smiled. “Well, it seems I’ve a taste now for spilling MacLawry blood.” Calder lunged at her, grabbing her by the back of the neck before she could twist enough to find him with her teeth. He yank
ed the gag back into place, then tightened it so she could only breathe through her nose. “Stop bleating and give me the sack, Dermid.”
“She bit me.”
“It’ll heal.”
“She said she’ll see us hanged,” the big man stated in his ponderous voice. “But she cannae if she’s dead.”
“Dermid, don’t ye know a thing about the law?” Calder returned, shoving the onion-smelling sack back over her head. “A wife cannot testify against her husband. Not even if she wants to. And since I stuck Gray in the heart, she’s our only witness.”
Rowena shuddered. In the shoulder. The blade had missed his heart. Silently she repeated it to herself, over and over, willing it to be true. Lachlan was alive. And he would come for her.
“Is that true, Arnold?” the big man asked. “She cannae say anything against us?”
“I reckon it is.”
A large hand grabbed her by the front of the dress and hauled her to her feet with no noticeable effort. “Ye cannae say a word against us, Lady Winnie. Because we’ll be married.”
He slapped her. The blow stunned her, mostly because she couldn’t see it coming, the coward. She staggered and would have fallen, but he still held her up by the neck of her gown. And then he laughed and threw her back over someone’s saddle.
It was likely a good thing they’d gagged her again. Otherwise they might have done more than hit her. They could say whatever they wished, and hit her if they chose. Rowena meant to remember all of it. She would testify against them, because she would be marrying Lachlan MacTier—not Dermid Gerdens. Only Lachlan would do for her, no matter who wanted a mill or ships or merchants or anything else. She meant to survive this, and when she did, no one had best get in her way.
This time they tied her to the saddle. Rather than waste her strength fighting to move she lay still—as still as she could with the horse pushing the breath out of her with every step—and listened. From her glimpse at the sky before they’d covered her eyes again, it had been nearly evening, which meant they’d dragged her off hours before she’d regained her senses enough to know what had happened. From the direction of the sun they were headed roughly south and east—toward the wildest parts of the Highlands.
Lachlan had taught her to know and notice those things. Lachlan and her brothers. And he’d also taught her other things that were much more pleasurable. He’d told her that at heart she was a Highlands lass with a Highlands heart, and at this moment that was precisely who she was. She was not some well-read, theater-loving, sophisticated debutante. She was a MacLawry of the clan MacLawry, and someone was trying to drag her away from her family and her love.
They would not succeed, no matter who they were. She had a wedding to attend in two days. And she had a man to apologize to, because she’d very nearly given up on the two of them. She would not do so again.
Chapter Fifteen
Downing another swallow of whisky, Lachlan strode toward the Campbell tent. Three MacTier men followed a yard or two behind him; however certain he was that Rowena had been the one and only aim of whoever took her, he wasn’t about to allow someone else to finish the job they’d started. Not until Rowena was safely back at Glengask again.
“Have ye learned anything, lasses?” he asked in a low voice, stopping in front of Charlotte and Mary.
“Everyone suspects everyone else,” Charlotte said, her mouth tight. For someone who’d only recently become familiar with clan politics, the deep-seated suspicions and old grudges were likely bloody aggravating.
Mary nodded. “Even your septs are accusing each other. The Camerons think the Mackles might be angling for more power by a marriage to the MacLawry’s sister, and the Stewarts are angry because Arran married me instead of Deirdre Stewart.” She scowled. “I heard that one quite a bit.”
“I’m sorry to put all this on ye, lasses,” he said, not surprised to hear any of it—or that no true suspects had been uncovered. Clan was clan, no matter what a cousin or cousin’s cousin might have done.
“Don’t apologize, for heaven’s sake, Lachlan,” Charlotte stated, grabbing his hand. “If I knew this territory any better, I would be out there looking for her myself.”
“Ranulf wouldnae like that, my lady.” He had his own quarrel with Glengask, but the marquis’s main goal had always been to keep his family safe. He couldn’t forget that, no matter how angry, furious, he was. “I’ve nae heard anything from any of the lads. Have ye?”
“No. Not a word. Just torches in the trees.”
They were still looking for tracks, then. That didn’t bode well. He inclined his head. “If ye’ll excuse me then, I have something I need to see to.”
Charlotte tightened her hold on his hand. “Whatever is between you and Winnie, you—”
“I love her, Charlotte. That’s what’s between us. So dunnae tell me I need to sit doon or rest or let Ranulf see to it.” He glanced beyond her to see Lord Robert Cranach sitting with his cousin, both of them dining on prime venison. “And keep that amadan,” he muttered, jabbing his finger in Rob’s direction, “well away from me and mine.”
She released his hand. “Go find her, Lachlan.”
Turning away, he nodded. “I mean to.”
One of the grooms brought Beowulf down to the edge of the meadow, and stiffly he swung up on the big bay. The motion pulled at the fresh stitches in his shoulder, and he winced. Once he reached the forest he didn’t know which way to go, and that bothered him more than a stab wound. If he had any idea who’d taken her he would have a clue where to begin looking, but as hard as he tried all he could remember was a pair of boots. And trousers. No kilt. That meant no clan colors.
The men who’d grabbed her might not even have been at the gathering. They could be anyone, though given who they’d come after and the timing of the attack, he would have been willing to wager that they were Scotsmen.
“Gray.”
He pulled Beowulf up by the last of the tents. The man who stepped partway out of the shadows surprised him to his bones. Short-cropped steel-gray hair, a straight spine, and piercing gray eyes. He was one of those men in the Highlands who could never be mistaken for anyone but himself—the Campbell. “Yer Grace.”
The Duke of Alkirk inclined his head. “I wasnae aboot to tell two lasses, even my own granddaughter, aboot clan affairs,” he said, his voice low. For once the half-dozen men who generally accompanied him were nowhere to be seen.
“I’m nae a lass.”
“Ye’re a MacLawry chieftain, though. This doesnae sit well with me. A clan settles its own business.”
“I’m looking fer Rowena MacLawry,” Lachlan replied. “I dunnae care if it was the devil himself who took her. She’s mine, and I’ll have her back by my side.”
“That, I like,” Alkirk commented. “It means the MacLawry willnae have his alliance with the Buchanans.”
“Then what can ye do to help me with it?” Unexpected or not, he wasn’t about to turn down any help that could get him pointed toward Rowena.
“I sent Berling to Canada,” the duke said after a moment. “After that mess in London I didnae want him stirring up more trouble.”
“So it wasnae Berling.” He glanced toward the trees and the widely scattered torches. “Thank ye, then.”
“I brought his brother to Alkirk. The lad’s nae fit to chew his own food, but I thought … to help him stay clear of trouble. If a man’s born a fool, then ye have to expect him to be foolish.”
“Yer Grace, I’ve nae time fer family tales aboot people I dunnae care fer.”
“I brought him here, one of the lads to keep a watch over me and mine. I’ve nae seen him since luncheon.”
Dread settled into Lachlan’s gut. He didn’t know Dermid Gerdens—he didn’t make a habit of becoming acquainted with any men of clan Campbell. But he’d heard a few things. Mostly they concerned Dermid playing the muscle for his rat of a brother, and that he liked brawling even more than Bear did. That didn’t sound like a man who c
ould arrange a kidnapping in the middle of a clan gathering and two days before the MacLawry’s marriage. “Is anyone else missing?” he asked, reining Beowulf back in when the bay tried to sidestep.
“That sounded somewhat accusatory, lad,” the duke returned coolly. “I’m nae in the habit of being doubted. I told ye what I know. I’ve nae involvement in it. As far as I’m concerned, do whatever ye will with Gerdens. I’ve had my fill of that damned part of the clan.”
“If that’s so, then I reckon ye’d be happy to tell me where Dermid would most likely go to ground if he knew a set of angry MacLawrys was on his heels,” Lachlan pressed.
The Campbell sent him a speculative look. “I dunnae make a habit of charting bolt-holes, lad.”
“It wouldnae be Sholbray, I would guess,” Lachlan continued, mentally reviewing the map of the territory. Sholbray was the Earl of Berling’s closest estate, but it was only two hours from Glengask, south along the river Dee. It was likely too obvious a risk for a slow-witted man fleeing with a woman who wasn’t his.
“Berling has another estate, half a day northwest of Fort William,” Alkirk said after a moment. “Denune Castle. It’s hardly more than an old ruin and a pond, but there’s nae much around it. Except fer the parish church and a handful of drovers’ huts and cottages.”
Lachlan nodded, his heart wrenching again. Glengask was two days from Fort William, and there was a large space of nothing in between. Rowena would be on her own, with at least one brute who’d already struck her. He wanted to go. Now. But the more information he had, the more successful he was likely to be. “I have the feeling Dermid would nae do this on his own. What’s yer opinion on that?”
“Ye ask too many questions, lad. We may nae be fighting, but I’m nae yer ally.”
“This isnae aboot me, Alkirk. And if ye know someaught that could help me find Rowena MacLawry, the odds of ye and the MacLawry becoming allies would be a mite improved.”
Mad, Bad, and Dangerous in Plaid Page 23
