by Paula Quinn
“I am going to remove the cloth from your mouth, but if you scream I will cover it again.” He looked up at the low stone ceiling. “I don’t think anyone would hear you anyway, but I am no longer a risky man.”
He pulled the gag to her chin. She didn’t scream. No one would hear her. No one would find her.
Nae! She took hold of her wits and made herself concentrate on getting out, not staying in. What had they been speaking about? How had he managed to knock her out cold without laying a fist to her?
“What is the purpose of this, Henry?”
“You were kind to me, Mairi.” He moved his fingertip down her eye, her cheek, her chin. “If not for that, I would have killed you sooner.”
“Why?” she demanded, pulling away from him. “If ye are going to kill me now, then be man enough to tell me why? Is it fer yer sister? Do ye do her bidding?”
He laughed and let his wig fall to the floor. “Mine is a more personal motive.” While he spoke, he moved closer still, until his chest touched hers. His hand touched her next. He roved it up the slit in her skirts, over her bare thigh. She remained still, promising to cut him down the middle if she got out of this.
It was over before it became too much to bear. Impotent sot. His hand reappeared before her face, along with the gleam of her dagger.
“I could have forgiven you,” he said softly, running the tip of her blade down her face with the tenderest of care. “If you hadn’t chosen him.”
God in heaven, she was about to be killed by a madman. “Forgiven me fer what? I never told ye I loved ye, Henry. In fact, I—”
“Glen Garry, Mairi.” His words silenced her. “You and your friends raided the home of Archibald Frazier and then stopped a coach trying to flee the carnage. Do you remember killing the coachman and then my glove hard across your cheek?”
Mairi stared at him, unable, mayhap unwilling, to believe what had just fallen from his lips. He couldn’t be that man. She remembered. She hadn’t killed as many as she’d boasted to Connor. But she had killed that one.
Hadn’t she?
But as the truth settled over her, so did another. If he was that man, then he had been attending a meeting with the Cameronians. That was how he knew what to tell her to lure her away from Connor’s sickbed. All this time he knew who she was. He couldn’t go to the king with charges without having to explain how he found himself in attendance at a secret meeting of the king’s enemies.
None of it mattered presently. Her blade had done that to his face, changed him into the solitary man he had become. He was going to kill her for certain.
She closed her eyes, praying silently for God to get her out of this somehow and she would be content to be nothing but a lass for the remainder of her days.
Something occurred to her and she opened her eyes and frowned at him. He’d deceived her this entire time? Impossible. Hell.
“Excellent work, my lord,” she conceded gracefully. After all, the charade was over. “Ye had me perfectly fooled. I truly believed ye were sincere in yer kindness to me.”
“I was,” he grew serious instantly. “I fell in love with you. After I learned who you were, I loved you still.”
“Then ye’re not going to kill me?”
“I didn’t say that.” He turned on his heel and disappeared into the shadows.
“Henry?” Hell. Mairi twisted her fingers around the rope, trying desperately to work out the thick knot. She had to free herself. It was her only hope. She remembered the thin knife in her hair. Pulling herself up, she curled her fingers around the small hilt.
“I would have liked a life with you for a time. But then, your attraction to my brother-in-law would begin to make me hate you. Ultimately, I would kill you. I am saving myself the trouble.”
“How did ye know I would never have fallen in love with ye?” It was something. A fragile, pathetic tether, but if it made him doubt his intentions, then let it be so. “Are ye so certain in yer failure at everything that ye do, that ye dinna’ even bother to try?”
He came out of the shadows wearing what Mairi prayed was a hopeful look.
Another voice in the darkness, shrill and irritating as hell, halted his advance.
“Are you not finished with her yet?” Elizabeth de Vere stomped her way into the light. “They are looking for her above stairs! Can you not do anything right?”
The colors painting Henry’s face faded to ghostly white. “Why have you come down here? Someone could have followed you!” He pushed her out of the way and held one of his candles outward.
“No one followed me, Henry. I am not the bumbling idiot you are.”
Och, but Mairi hated this beast of a woman. There was no way in hell she was going to die and let her have Connor.
She worked the knife around in her fingers until the sharp edge cut across the rope. Hope filled her soul. She worked harder, until the fibers began to tear.
“Did you tell her who you are?” Elizabeth asked her brother when he reappeared. “Then,” she said after he nodded his head, “you must kill her. Mustn’t you.”
Her brother nodded again.
Mairi continued her frantic work on the rope until finally, she managed to free one hand.
“You don’t want to disappoint Father again, do you? You know it is too soon to lose the king’s favor. If you leave her alive and the king hears of your activities…”
“It speaks much about ye, Elizabeth,” Mairi said, drawing both sets of eyes to her, “that ye know the only way to beat me is to kill me.”
“Beat you?” Henry’s sister laughed. “I am not a savage Highlander. And besides, there is nothing I need to beat you at.”
“Ye would never have Connor while I lived—or after I die. His heart is mine.”
Elizabeth’s lips tightened and her ringlets trembled as she moved toward Mairi. “Henry, give me your knife. I will kill this bitch myself.”
Mairi’s blade flashed in the candlelight as it swooped down on Elizabeth’s cheek, slicing it clean open.
Elizabeth de Vere screamed, mayhap loud enough for anyone high above to hear.
Henry rushed forward and then went down with such force, the passageway echoed with the sound of bones crunching against the floor.
Someone was on top of his back. It was Connor. Connor!
And Colin! She saw an instant later when he appeared so naturally out of the shadows and took hold of Elizabeth while she continued to scream.
Mairi used her knife to cut her other hand loose, and then her ankles, while Connor hauled Henry to his feet. He drew back his fist and punched Henry hard in the guts, and then once more just behind his back. Henry went down again, this time more quietly.
Mairi practically leaped into his arms when Connor reached her. She held on to him, her arms coiled around his neck, never wanting to let go. He’d found her. She thanked God, remembering the promise she’d made with Him.
“Are ye hurt, Mairi?”
“Nae.” She breathed against him, then tilted her face up to kiss him.
“Mayhap that can wait until after we have brought these two to the king?” Colin suggested with a motion to Henry rising to his knees.
Connor winked at her before he turned to take up Henry. Mairi’s heart fluttered about in her chest. How was it possible that she could love one man so much?
“Henry, say nothing…!”
“Lizzy,” Henry said softly, seeing her full on for the first time since Mairi struck her. “Your face.”
Elizabeth began to cry, and then shriek and wail. Mairi almost felt pity for her, that is, until Henry caught her eye. What did she see in his gaze? Not anger. Not hatred, but something more like satisfaction. Mayhap now, the score would be a bit more evenly matched between him and his sister. Whatever it was disappeared when he looked at Connor.
“If you release us both, my father will see to it that you don’t have to wed Elizabeth.”
Connor didn’t reply but yanked Henry forward. Mairi followed him in
to the shadows with Colin and Elizabeth close behind.
“There is no reason he needs to know that Miss MacGregor runs with a band of murderers.”
“Henry, whatever are ye speaking about?” Mairi said, carrying a candle out before them to light their path. “The king is my kinsmen. He willna’ believe yer accusations against me without proof.”
“Then we will not speak of the Cameronian issue to His Majesty?” Henry asked, glancing behind him to look at his sister.
Mairi knew that if Connor hadn’t arrived Henry would have killed her whether he claimed to love her or not. He had no choice after he told her who he was. She knew too much about him and his family now. She could have fought with one hand, but for how long? She shivered and moved closer to Connor.
“She won’t be speaking of them,” Connor told him, “but ye will.”
Henry chuckled but the sound was void of any mirth. “You’re mad if you think I would implicate my father in—”
“You will if ye want yer sister to live.” Connor cut him off. “She will be taken to my rooms and guarded while I bring ye to James. If ye don’t confess all, she will not leave my rooms alive.”
Henry made a tight little sound that blended with Elizabeth’s gasp. At first, Mairi thought Connor had chosen the wrong hostage, but Henry did love his sister, poor, pitiful man that he was.
Safe now, Mairi had time to consider that it was likely she who made Henry what he had become. She had liked Henry. She was sorry she had sliced his handsome face and robbed him of his self-worth.
Hell, she’d never been repentant of harming a Cameronian—or a friend of one. She felt like weeping a little. Damnation, it had to be because of all she’d endured in one day. She wasn’t some soft, weak-willed lass who fell to pieces in the face of danger.
But, she thought, swiping a tear from her eye, she was a lass, and looking up at her beloved Highlander, she was thankful to be one.
Chapter Forty
Thanks to a golden curl laid upon his lap by Colin, Henry de Vere confessed everything to the king. Not only did he tell James about his father’s request that he have dealings with Cameronians, but also his plans to travel to Dorset in the spring to meet with the exiled Duke of Monmouth. Under the threat of hanging for treason, Henry’s father, the Earl of Oxford, later supplied the king with vital information about the duke’s arrival. He was to land in Lyme Regis with three ships, four light field guns, and fifteen hundred muskets.
James arrested the earl, along with his son and fifteen other noblemen, including Lords Oddington and Hollingsworth. He then sent word to his admirals to change their course and sail for Dorset. War would be avoided, at least for now. Unfortunately, the earl knew nothing of the attack on St. Christopher’s Abbey, unable to prove or disprove the duke’s innocence… Or the prince’s guilt.
Walking the long upper gallery with Mairi under his arm shortly after they left the king, Connor pondered James’s continued reluctance to believe the worst in William of Orange. A reluctance that could eventually cost him his kingdom.
“Sedley would not have tried to kill me if the order had been issued by anyone other than the prince.”
“Aye, I know,” Mairi said softly against him while he walked her to their door.
“There are so many facts staring the king in the face, yet he refuses to acknowledge any of them.”
“He is no fool, Connor. He knows what is in front of him, but remember whatever action he takes, he takes against his daughter, as well.”
They walked the rest of the way to her door in silence. When they reached it, she looked up at him again and lifted her hand to his jaw. “I would stay with ye anywhere, Connor. If ye want to remain here I will stay with ye. I love ye more than Camlochlin.”
He smiled, closing his arms around her. “I don’t want to stay. The king doesn’t believe William will try to depose him anytime soon and risk a war with France, and I agree. But if I told ye that we’ll be sailing off to France in the morn instead of going home, ye wouldn’t protest?”
“I wouldna’ protest because we are not going to France.” She pushed herself up on her toes, kissed him quick on the mouth, then broke away from him. “We are going home, and ’tis already the morn, so ye had best get to packing.”
Aye, he wanted to make love to her in the hills, on a bed of heather and the vast blue sky above them. The sooner they left England, the quicker they could get to it.
“No traipsing off with any more men after I leave.” He gave her rump a pat before he walked off. “I’ll leave without ye.”
“Not without a blade in yer back, ye won’t.”
He grinned listening to the door closing softly behind her. He could melt her body, win her staunch warrior heart, but he’d never tame that tongue.
When he came to his door, he remembered that Lady Elizabeth was still inside with his lieutenant and likely one of the queen’s physicians he’d told Edward to fetch for her face. He’d looked at the wound when they had returned to the light. It was but a scratch. She would not suffer from it, but how would she take the news of her father’s arrest?
He let out a gusty sigh, happy that this would be the end of traitors and betrayal and the courtly life for him.
He opened the door then moved aside.
“Ye’re free to go, Lady Elizabeth.”
She leaped from the chair she’d been sitting in, one curl springing across her bandaged cheek. “My father? Henry? What of them?”
She wasn’t happy with the news, nor was he in giving it. When she left in tears, he knew hers were only the first to be shed by England’s daughters. William might not be coming soon, but he was coming. Wars made widows out of wives. But Mairi would not be one of them.
James had lost much support and an entire regiment tonight. But he’d insisted that Connor go home. There would be no war with Monmouth or Argyll once James caught them and had them both hanged. Connor had served the throne long enough and his cousin wouldn’t have him waste away his days here when he wasn’t needed. Besides, the king had sat back in his chair and pointed at Colin. That one could likely fight three battles on his own and win.
Connor pulled off his shirt and tossed it over a chair. He stripped out of his breeches and military boots next, bidding them farewell for the last time. He was going home.
Finally.
“Are you certain you will not change your mind and wed your beloved here?” The queen took Mairi’s hand and walked with her to where Graham and Claire waited with their horses in the early morning light. “I would so love to see the ceremony. I feel as if I am partly responsible for it, you know.” She graced Mairi with her most tender smile. “I knew Captain Grant loved you from the moment I saw him feast his eyes on you. You were both just too stubborn to do anything about it.”
“Without yer aid.”
The queen giggled behind her small hand. Mairi would always like her.
“I wish to wed Connor in the presence of my kin, in the place of my birth. But I too wish that ye and the king would travel to Camlochlin fer the ceremony. Ye could meet his daughter. I am told she is nothing like Mary or Anne.”
“Alas, we cannot. It is too dangerous at present. If we are followed…” She let the rest of her words trail off.
Mairi nodded, knowing she was correct. “Then I will tell Davina what a wonderful and gracious stepmother she has.”
“That is kind of you, Mairi. Tell her also…” And at this, the queen’s luminous inky eyes sparkled from within. “… that I am trying diligently to give the king a son. Hopefully, it will not be too long before she is not the king’s only Catholic heir.”
Mairi wished her God’s blessings in her endeavors and thanked her for her part in convincing the king to let Connor leave his service. Aye, there were more battles to be fought in the future, but those would be fought without Connor. She was not that generous.
She looked across the yard to where her brother stood talking with Judith. In truth, Judith was doing most
of the talking. Colin looked a tad bit bored. Mairi would thank him before she left for showing his attention to the queen’s sweet handmaiden, even for one day. Judith would discover on her own that Colin was not right for her. Likely, he was not right for anyone or anything but battle… either on the field or off it. Mairi preferred him off it, since there were too many pistols and muskets in England. That was why she had gone out of her way to point out to the king how clever and devious her brother was, how perfectly capable he was of stopping battles before they were fought.
He caught her eye and winked at her and she hoped with all her heart that he would forgive her.
The queen tapped her on the arm, pulling her attention away from Colin, and motioned for her to look toward the palace doors. Mairi’s heart stalled at the sight of Connor coming toward her.
It wasn’t the way his eyes shone on hers, like clear blue oceans swelling with love and adoration that made her heart rejoice and ache at the same time. Nor was it the vitality in his smile, always confident, a wee bit arrogant, and at times so warm she wanted to lose herself in it and forget the rest of the battle-hardened world. Nae, her knees nearly gave out beneath her at the sight of his Highland plaid draped about his broad shoulder, swinging about his shapely legs. When he reached her, he pushed his bonnet up over his forehead and leaned down to kiss her.
“Walk with me.” He took her hand and said something to the queen that made her blush. Mairi was not sure what it was. She only saw the flash of his white smile, the flicker of his deep, irresistible dimples. Hell, he was the finest-looking man in all of Scotland and England combined, and he was hers. Nothing else mattered but that.
“Do ye remember the summer of my twelfth year,” he asked her, gazing into her eyes, “when I returned with Tristan from our summer at Campbell Keep?”
“Aye, ’twas the year I had the fever and could not go with you.”
