by Paula Quinn
“You’re cleaner looking than I expected.”
Edmund looked him over. “Ye’re shorter.”
The duke glanced at Pierce and nodded. Edmund doubled over from a fist to his belly. Amelia screamed as three more people entered the tent.
“Which one is he?” A man whom Edmund recognized as the chancellor gawked at him and then narrowed his eyes on Amelia. “Is this the one who kissed my lady? Grant is it?”
“Walter,” Amelia’s mother fawned, “we don’t know that she kissed any of them. Ennis Buchanan wasn’t telling the truth. Isn’t that correct, Amelia?”
“Aye, Mother.”
Edmund looked at Amelia while she denied him. He didn’t want to think about why she was doing it. He hoped it was to protect herself.
“I’m a MacGregor,” he told the chancellor. “And I can tell ye fer certain that she didn’t kiss any Grants.”
The chancellor glared at him, then at the duke. “Did I invite this uncivilized criminal to speak to me directly?” When the duke shook his head, Seafield rounded on the captain. “Teach this savage his place.”
The captain hit Edmund in the belly a second time and then in the jaw.
This time, Amelia shouted at him and grasped his arm to stop him from striking Edmund again. Someone shoved her out of the way and sent her sprawling onto the floor. Millicent Bell shrieked at the sight and John, Amelia’s father, turned a deadly glare on the man who had struck his daughter.
But it was too late.
They all watched in disbelief as Edmund, bound at the wrists, spun on his heel and faced the soldier who had put his hand to Amelia for a second time. Before anyone could stop him, he reeled back his head then brought it forward into the soldier’s forehead with a resounding crack. The soldier sank to the ground. His body twitched once, twice, and then ceased moving.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Amelia had never seen a man go down so fast. Even Captain Pierce took an involuntary step back when Edmund turned to face them. Everyone in the tent, including Amelia, shifted his or her gaze from the duke’s prisoner to the lifeless soldier on the floor. Amelia thought she might just faint with terror for poor Edmund. If her uncle wasn’t going to kill him for kidnapping her, Edmund would surely hang for killing one of his soldiers. She wanted to beg him to plead for his life. She would beg her uncle to spare him.
Surprisingly, it was her father who stepped forward first and spoke. “Mr. MacGregor, why have ye come here? Ye understand, ye are an outlaw.”
Something passed between them that only Amelia noticed because she knew and loved them both so much. Her father knew about her and Edmund. She had told him everything. He’d reminded her then, as he did Edmund now, of the consequences that befell anyone who sympathized with the proscribed clan. He was afraid for her.
“After I let yer daughter go,” Edmund informed him, sensing the reason behind her father’s words, “I realized she had stolen my dog.”
Her heart plummeted to the ground, knowing that if Edmund lived, he would never forgive her.
“Gaza,” he supplied and turned to cast his heavy blue gaze on her.
“Well,” her father asked her, “are ye in possession of his dog?”
“Nae,” she told them delicately, hating to have to inflict more pain on Edmund. “She ran away.”
He caught and held her gaze, speaking to her as clearly without words as if he’d uttered them. Same as ye.
“MacGregor,” the chancellor spoke up, not getting too close. Amelia hadn’t realized how short Walter was—not as short as her uncle, but short. Neither had she noted how skinny his calves were in his hose. “I’m not surprised at seeing you murder one of the duke’s soldiers, but I question your reason for killing him. Do you care for Miss Bell?”
Walter might be short and frail in comparison to Edmund, but he was clever. He moved closer to her, close enough to warm her cheek with his breath. “Did this sweet innocent slay your heart, Highlander?” He smiled at her, then smoothed a tendril of hair away from her cheek. He slid his dark gaze to Edmund and with a satisfying quirk of his mouth, turned to Amelia’s uncle. “He grows angry. It’s clear to see in his eyes that he didn’t follow her here for a dog. I want the truth before I take her to my bed. I won’t go where a savage has already been.”
Amelia paled and slipped her gaze to Edmund. Please, please say nothing, she silently begged him.
He seemed to have heard her and let Walter pass him unharmed when he left the tent.
“Walter.” Millicent Bell moved to follow the chancellor outside. “You can be assured that despite my daughter’s faults, she would never share a bed with one of them.”
Amelia dipped her gaze to her shoes. It amazed her how much worse her mother could always make her feel. Just when she thought nothing could get any worse, her mother proved her wrong. Amelia realized now that Millicent Bell would never change. She loved Amelia, in her way. But Amelia was too much like her father to ever gain her mother’s respect. She didn’t care anymore.
“My lord,” her father spoke to her uncle, dragging her attention back up. “My daughter is fully aware of the impossibility of a union between herself and a man who has opposing beliefs.”
“Is this true, niece?”
She felt all the men’s eyes on her. Everyone waited for an answer. She wanted to look at Edmund, but she was afraid that if she did, she might fall to his feet and prove herself a liar.
“Aye, Uncle,” she said, hoping that it wasn’t too late to save Edmund. Her father knew she loved Edmund, but this wasn’t the time to confess it. “I am fully aware. What the chancellor fails to remember is that I escaped and came straight to ye.”
“I thought Mr. MacGregor let you go.”
“I lowered myself from the lowest window,” Amelia said, controlling the quaver in her voice. “He saw me making a run fer it and let me go without chase.”
“Until he discovered his dog missing,” her uncle reminded her.
Amelia nodded and turned to look at Edmund. She couldn’t keep her eyes off him, but she had to. She ached to run to him, touch him, free him. And then run away from him. Leaving him was the only way to ensure his safety. Or so she had thought. She’d run away and he’d followed her and now he was in more danger than before. What could she do to help him? How could she save him?
“You have caused my family a great deal of trouble, MacGregor.”
“Uncle, if I may—”
“You may not!” The duke didn’t shout. He cut her off like a blade coming down. Clean, precise, final. He turned to his captain. “If she makes another sound, remove her.”
Amelia didn’t break eye contact with her uncle right away. She’d grown up watching him intimidating everyone around him. She’d had enough of it. She would not defy him as long as he didn’t threaten Edmund’s life. No one, especially Edmund, would lose his life because of her, again.
“You do realize”—Walter returned and set his attention from her mother to Edmund—“that you could be tried for treason?”
“Treason against whom?” Edmund asked. “Queen Anne?” He shook his head. “She favors moderate Tory politicians, as do I. Or d’ye mean to charge me against our Parliament, which is soon to be dissolved?”
“England’s Parliament will be dissolved as well.” Walter smirked at him, as if Edmund were too ignorant to know. “The two kingdoms will finally stand on equal footing.”
Edmund’s smile was just as mocking. “And we have reason to trust England because they’ve upheld every promise made in the past?” No one spoke, but they all knew the answer. “Ye will all lose yer power, and then yer rights, just as the purer Scots before ye will have already discovered. Chancellor,” he said, returning to him, “’tis not too late to change yer mind. If ye decide in these coming days to fight fer yer country’s independence from subjugators, ye would have the support of many.”
Walter narrowed his eyes on him, and then laughed. “A zealot. Now I understand why your kind are a
lways the first to die. You cannot control your passions. Tell me, Amelia.” Unexpectedly he turned to her, catching her off guard. “How often did he speak to you about his opinions, and was he always this passionate about them?”
“Leave her, Seafield,” her father warned. “It isn’t too late fer me to refuse my blessing.”
Amelia cast her father a proud, slightly surprised smile.
She knew what Walter was trying to insinuate and so did the others. She hardened her jaw against him. Would he charge her with treason as well? Threaten to beat her? She took her time speaking, wanting to show him how little he intimidated her.
“Mr. MacGregor has many opinions and is passionate about all of them. But he forced none of his beliefs on me.”
“What did he force on you, dear?” the chancellor asked.
Edmund moved toward him but was stopped by Captain Pierce, who, upon a second order from Walter, punched Edmund in the kidney. Amelia fought desperately against the tears welling up in her eyes when Edmund doubled over. She glared at Pierce first, and then at Walter.
“He forced nothing on me,” Amelia answered, glaring at both of them. She was telling them the truth. What she had done with Edmund, she had done of her own free will.
“Then you remain pure for our marriage bed?”
“Seafield!” Amelia’s father intercepted. “This interrogation of my daughter has gone far enough. I will not stand here and listen to ye dishonor her with such questions. Have me removed. I don’t care. In fact, throw us out of Queensberry—”
“John!” his wife snapped at him.
He ignored her and continued—or tried to. The duke’s subtle nod to Captain Pierce ended John Bell’s uncharacteristic tirade.
Amelia watched her father being escorted out of the tent and wanted to follow. But she wasn’t about to leave when Edmund’s fate rested in her uncle’s hands.
“For my sister’s sake, I will not allow you to be questioned further tonight, Amelia.”
Amelia didn’t thank her uncle.
“Let us turn our attention to the prisoner. Shall we? Mr. MacGregor, let me assure you that the union between Scotland and England will take place. Kidnapping my niece wouldn’t have stopped it. The only thing you accomplished was wasting my time and the time of my army by forcing us to come here. You distressed my sister until I had to pay four more physicians to examine her and confine her to her bed.”
Amelia looked at her mother across the tent and shook her head, answering her silent questions when her mother severed their gaze and turned away.
“And most important,” her uncle continued, “you incurred my wrath by stealing from me. I don’t care about your cause or your beliefs, MacGregor. There are hundreds like you whose voices will be silenced eventually, just as yours will be when we return to Edinburgh. You will become their example.”
“Uncle—”
He held up his hand to quiet her. “Defend him and his death will be slower. Captain!” He shouted for Pierce, then ordered that Edmund be taken away. “We leave at first light,” he announced to his men when he left the tent.
Amelia watched Captain Pierce lead Edmund away. She had to do something to help him.
She refused to speak to her mother and returned to her tent unescorted. When she entered it, a hand over her mouth silenced her scream.
“There now, lass, ’tis only us.” Malcolm’s hoarse whisper fell across her ear.
“Let her go, Cal,” Lucan said, leaving the shadows. “She’s not goin’ to scream, are ye, Amelia?”
She shook her head no, so relieved to see them that she felt a little woozy. They would help him. They would save Edmund.
“Why did ye come back here?” Malcolm let her go and moved to stand before her, his eyes hard on hers. “Ye had to know he’d follow ye.”
“I had to return for many reasons,” she began, hoping they would understand. “I thought I was keeping destruction from Edmund and complete ruin from my father.”
“How are ye keepin’ destruction from Edmund?” Malcolm asked quietly and more meaningfully than she’d heard him sound since she’d known him. “We could have escaped the duke’s army, lass. No harm would have come to any of us.”
She shook her head and wiped her eyes, determined to keep her wits about her after such a terrible night. “Ye don’t understand. Grendel. I…I bring disaster…I—” Nothing was coming out right and it didn’t help that she had begun to sob. Lucan was staring at her with pity shining in his topaz eyes and Malcolm stared at her as if her head just rolled off her shoulders and hit the ground. “My father…he has been my source of strength fer so long. No matter how much I love Edmund, no matter how badly I want to live my life with him, I cannot simply abandon my father to—”
The tent flap opened again. The Highlanders drew their claymores, ready to fight. Amelia’s father paled at the size and height of them but held up his palms and shifted his gaze to his daughter.
“Are ye in danger from them?”
She would have smiled at him if she weren’t afraid for his life. She shook her head and placed her hands on the edges of Luke’s and Malcolm’s swords to lower them.
“Nae, Papa, and neither are ye.”
“Well, we will see—”
“Malcolm!” she hushed him with a dark look. When they were quiet, she peeked outside to make certain no one else was coming. She turned back to the men and met her father’s sorrowful gaze. He looked away before she did and her heart ached to run to him.
“We know ye loved Grendel, lass. What happened to him wasn’t yer fault.”
Amelia loved Lucan for trying to comfort her. He just didn’t understand. “And ye should know how much I love Edmund. But what happens to him is indeed my fault. My uncle wants to bring him to justice in Edinburgh. We must save him.”
“We will,” they assured her. “Darach has…” They paused and looked at her father.
“My loyalties belong solely to my daughter,” John Bell told them. “Ye may speak freely.”
Malcolm waited another moment, eyeing the baron carefully, then said, “Darach has returned to Ravenglade to get William and bring more men here. We’ll get Edmund away from where they’re holdin’ him but I fear he may no’ leave here withoot ye.”
“I cannot go with ye,” she wept.
“Of course ye can,” Lucan corrected her.
“Lass.” Malcolm took on a more serious tone. “He already lost Grendel. Dinna’ put him through more fer some reason ye think is noble.”
“Are ye suggesting,” her father finally spoke up, narrowing his eyes on them, “that my daughter give up her life with the lord chancellor and run off with an outlaw?”
Amelia looked away. Here was her biggest obstacle. Even if fate wasn’t against her, her father would suffer if she chose Edmund.
“Papa, I…”
“Because I think ’tis the best idea I’ve heard in a month.”
Amelia blinked and let her jaw go slack at what she heard. “Papa, what are ye saying?”
His eyes fell on her, a loving, sacrificial gaze that pulled a small sob from her throat. “I heard what ye said before, Mellie. I’ve lived my whole life miserable because I wanted to please my father. I don’t regret wedding yer mother because she gave me you, but my years…If I had to do them over again, I would. I saw how yer Highlander looked at ye, how he was willing to fight for ye. Ye didn’t have to tell me ye loved him because I can see it clearly in yer eyes. Ye don’t need to worry about me. I don’t care about power and prestige. I want ye to be happy and if that means ye living in a hovel—”
“A hovel?” Luke laughed. “She’ll be living in a misty paradise guarded by two hundred warriors.”
“Papa, what about Walter? Mother will make yer life miserable if I don’t marry him.”
“I don’t care.” He went to her and took her in his arms. “I will be fine knowing my gel is happy.”
“Papa.” Her tears came harder now. “I don’t want to marry Walt
er. I don’t love him. But how can I leave ye to the duke’s mercy?”
“Och, hell,” Malcolm said, growing impatient and a wee bit sentimental, if the glimmer in his eyes spoke true. “He can come with us. But let’s decide already and get the hell oot of here!”
Her father at Camlochlin? Living among hundreds of warriors? She looked at him, hoping he would consent. He shook his head and she covered her face against his chest.
“There now, my sweet daughter, I cannot leave yer mother, though…” He shook his head. “I’ll be fine. Ye have my blessing to go.”
She had her father’s blessing but she still wasn’t sure what to do. Did she dare put Edmund’s life in jeopardy by remaining with him?
She listened while Luke and Malcolm discussed rescuing Edmund and then hurried them all out of her tent. What would she do? She knew one thing only. She missed Edmund already. Lord help them both, she needed to see him.
An hour before dawn Amelia left her tent and headed to the place where Captain Pierce had taken Edmund. She stepped across the grass and over sleeping bodies without crushing any fingers under her shoes or even snapping a twig. Fate, it seemed, was on her side tonight.
She spotted Edmund lying among a group of sleeping men and moved toward him. When he saw her, he came slowly to his feet, his body lean and tense in the firelight. She wanted to run to him and beg his forgiveness.
“My lady,” a voice in the darkness stopped her instantly, only inches from Edmund. “I was correct then.”
She spun around and faced Captain Pierce behind the flames. “Correct about what?” she whispered, hating him for being there and herself for being so predictable.
“You”—he turned toward Edmund—“and him.”
“Please, Captain.” Her voice remained controlled, save for a hint of breathlessness. “Please remain quiet.” Please, she mouthed, praying that he would grant her wish as he had earlier.
He said nothing. She almost smiled when she caught sight of a shadow behind him.
