“What persuaded her, then, his fine looks?” She was only half joking. If Rory took after his father, she could understand.
“Perhaps that was part of it,” Rory said with a chuckle. “But as she told the tale to me, it was what my father said to her when she stood on the wall.”
Sybil gripped his elbow. “Did he threaten her?”
“He told her she had stolen his heart and that he would love her until the end of his days.”
Sybil could not help but sigh. What woman would not be tempted to run off with the handsome young chieftain who would make that declaration in front of the warriors of two clans? But such bold gestures and extravagant promises bespoke of a passion that could leave as quickly as it came. Most likely he broke the poor lass’s heart and took a mistress within a year.
“’Tis a lovely story,” Sybil said. “Did she come to regret going with him?”
“My parents’ marriage was a happy one,” Rory said, but the jocular tone he used while telling the story was gone. “My mother drowned during a storm a month after my father died. Some say she slipped into the river. Others say she could not bear to live without him.”
***
Rory urged Curan into a canter as they followed the familiar path home. He was anxious to finally reach Killin and speak with his sister. Yet when he heard the sound of the waterfall, he slowed Curan to a walk and turned toward the river, as he always did.
The roar of the falls grew louder as they rode on the trail through the thick brush to the river. Rory brought Curan to a halt beside the large, flat rock ledge overlooking the top of the falls, where he always stopped, and watched the rushing river tumble over the falls to the jutting black rocks twenty feet below.
“What is this place?” Sybil asked.
“Rogie Falls,” he said. “This is where my mother died.”
The rock ledge was slick from spray even in good weather, and it had been storming all that day. Rory imagined the trail slippery with mud, the driving rain bouncing off the rocks, and the wind pummeling his mother’s cloak against her legs. It would have been easy for her to lose her footing.
And yet Rory could never quite accept that his mother had fallen. She was familiar with the path and the danger of the falls. He could think of only one reason for her to come here in the midst of a storm. Absorbed in her own pain over the loss of her husband, she chose to end her life and leave her children orphans.
At fifteen, Rory had been nearly a man, but he found it hard to forgive her for abandoning his younger brother and sister. Losing her had been hard, especially after their father’s death. At least Alex and Catriona did not know what she had done. Her parting gift to them was to make her death look like an accident.
“You and your mother were close?” Sybil asked.
“I thought we were.” He thought he knew her, but he never would have guessed she would abandon them.
Rory felt someone watching them and snapped his gaze across the river. The brush was too thick to see if anyone was hiding there, but it probably was his imagination. Ever since his mother’s death, the falls made him feel uneasy, as if there was a hidden evil here.
“What’s wrong?” Sybil asked.
“Nothing,” he said, and turned Curan around. But he did not relax until the sound of the falls faded behind them.
CHAPTER 21
Two miles after the falls, Rory’s spirits lifted when they crested a hill and he saw the familiar two-story stone house in the midst of green, fertile fields. He dismounted and lifted Sybil down to stand beside him.
“That’s Killin,” he said, pointing. “It was my father’s wedding gift to my mother. She always loved it, and they came here often when they wanted to get away from the castle.”
“I can see why.” Sybil tucked her hand into the crook of his arm and leaned her head against his shoulder. “’Tis so peaceful here.”
“My mother left it to me when she died,” he said. “Though I’m not able to spend much time here, I consider it my home.”
“Won’t Castle Leod be your home now?”
If he succeeded in becoming chieftain it would.
“Perhaps I should grant Killin to my sister,” he said. “Catriona likes a quiet life, and she has lived here since our mother moved out of Castle Leod after our father’s death.”
“That would be kind,” Sybil said. “I’m sure it would have pleased your mother.”
“Killin always reminds me of her.” He kissed Sybil’s hair. “I wish the two of ye could have met. She would have liked ye.”
“No mother would be pleased to see her son make such a poor match,” Sybil said with a laugh.
“If she had any qualms,” he said, “the first grandchild would have won her over, for certain.”
Sybil’s hand went to her flat belly, then she looked up at him with wide eyes.
“Aye, ye could already carry our child.” His heart swelled at the thought, and he leaned down to kiss the sweet spot below her ear. “If ye aren’t with child soon, it will not be for lack of trying.”
When they rode down the hill and he saw no one in the fields, his cheerful mood turned to unease. The farm was eerily quiet. No dog barked to warn the household of their coming, and no one moved about the yard and outbuildings.
“Wait here,” he told Sybil when they reached the house and no one came out to greet them.
He dismounted and unsheathed his sword. Slowly, he opened the front door. No fire burned in the hearth, and the house was so still that his footsteps echoed as he crossed the floor.
Sweat broke out on his palms. Where was Catriona? He kept watch on the doorway to the kitchen and upstairs as he leaned down to touch the stone floor of the hearth. It was cold. Catriona had been gone for at least a couple of days.
Upstairs, he found open drawers and chests, as if someone had packed to leave in a hurry—or had come looking for something. Alarm rose in his throat, and he hurried back outside.
When Sybil saw him, she started to dismount, but he held up his hand.
“Stay put,” he ordered. “I’m going to have a look around the back of the house and the outbuildings.”
He heard movement and spun around brandishing his claymore. When a lad and a dog appeared around the corner of the cowshed, he took a deep breath to calm the battle fever pulsing through his body.
“Ewan Òg,” Rory called to the boy.
“Good day to ye, Master Rory,” the lad said. “Have ye brought mistress Catriona home?”
“Nay,” Rory said. “Do ye know where she’s gone?”
Ewan shook his head. “She said it was best we didn’t know.”
O shluagh, Rory silently called on the faeries for help. “When was this?”
“Before that big storm we had,” Ewan said. “Thought I’d lost some of the sheep in it, but I found—”
“Catriona left on her own?” Rory pressed. “No one took her?”
“Aye.”
“How long has she been gone?” Rory asked. “And don’t tell me after the storm.”
Ewan scrunched his face up. Apparently, calculating the passage of time was a difficult task for him, and Rory struggled to be patient.
“’Twas two days ago, right after we heard that the MacKenzie had been killed.” The lad crossed himself. “She took off on her horse.”
“Did she take any of the men with her?”
“Nay.” Ewan shook his head. “She told us to take the cattle to the next farm and stay in the village, but I couldn’t leave the sheep, now could I?”
Rory could strangle Catriona for going alone. He turned to glare at the horizon. Where in the hell was she? And why would she send the servants away?
His worry over his sister spilled over into anger when Sybil appeared beside him. “I told ye to stay put.”
Sybil merely raised an eyebrow.
“Catriona left ye a message,” Ewan said.
“A message?”
“She said that if ye came, I’m to tell ye n
ot to worry, that she’s gone somewhere safe.” The lad scrunched his face up again with the effort to recite the message. “She’ll come find ye at Castle Leod once she hears you’ve returned.”
“Somewhere safe,” Rory bit out. “What kind of message is that?”
“Ye did a fine job remembering all that,” Sybil said to Ewan, then she took Rory’s arm and started walking him back toward Curan. “Your sister has lived here most of her life, has she not?”
“Aye,” he snapped.
“Then she would know where she would be safe,” Sybil said. “Or would ye say she’s prone to foolishness?”
“Not before this,” he said. “She’s always seemed a sensible lass. Wise beyond her years.”
“Then try to have some faith in her judgment,” Sybil said, patting his arm. “I doubt she’s changed since ye last saw her.”
“She’s my responsibility,” he said. “Brian is dead because I failed him. I cannot fail my sister as well.”
“Ye didn’t fail your brother.”
“I did.” He paused and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry to take my anger out on you.”
“You’re a good man to care so much for your sister,” she said. “Not all brothers do.”
“I wish I knew what made Catriona so afraid to be at Killin that she would send the servants away and flee,” he said. “It was always safe here.”
“Someone else came looking for her right after she left,” Ewan piped up behind them.
Rory spun around to face him. “Who was it?”
“I didn’t know him, so I stayed hidden behind the cowshed.”
“That was wise.” Rory rested his hand on the lad’s shoulder. “Did ye get a look at him?”
“Aye. He was huge,” Ewan said, rising on his toes and stretching his arm up. “And he was marked by the devil.”
“Marked by the devil?” A wave of cold fear for his sister ran through Rory, but he kept his voice even. “Ye mean he was pockmarked?”
“Aye,” Ewan said.
“That was Duncan of the Axe.” Praise God Catriona was gone before he came. What was Hector’s henchman searching for? “Has anyone else come?”
“I’ve kept watch on the house,” Ewan said. “No one’s come since him, except for you.”
“I appreciate ye keeping watch, but I don’t want ye here alone,” Rory said, leaning down to look Ewan in the eye. “Take the sheep into the hills and stay there until the others return to the farm.”
“Can we still stay here tonight?” Sybil asked. “I admit I was looking forward to sleeping in a real bed.”
“Duncan did a thorough search, so I don’t believe he’ll come back.” And Rory sure as hell was not going to be chased from his own home by one man.
Dusk, the shadowy time between day and night, had fallen. Rory scanned the fields in the valley and hills that surrounded the farm and saw nothing to worry him.
***
Whoosh. Whoosh.
Rory held his shield up to protect himself from English arrows flying at him. The smell of smoke filled his nose, and he heard the crackle and snap of flames. Good God, the English had set the field on fire.
He was back in the Battle of Flodden, but through the fog of his dream something nagged at him. There had been no fire in the battle… Curan’s frantic neighs pierced the air, and Rory bolted upright, wide awake to find the bedchamber filled with smoke.
“Sybil!” Rory shook her by the shoulders, but she would not wake up.
He pulled her to the floor where the smoke was not as thick. He reached for the basin of water and drying cloth on the side table and splashed water on her face.
“Is that fire?” she asked in a weak voice.
“Aye, we must get out quickly.” Praise God she was awake. He soaked the cloth in the water and pressed it to her face. “Keep this over your mouth.”
Sybil attempted to rise, but she was too groggy from the smoke. He pulled his boots on, slung his sword over his shoulder, and picked her up. When he opened the chamber door, the blast of heat knocked him backward.
As he lay sprawled on his back still holding Sybil, the thatched roof overhead exploded into a fireball, dropping flames to the wooden floor. He got to his feet again.
“We’ll have to jump.” The smoke was growing thicker by the moment, and the heat from the floor burned the soles of his feet.
Sybil was limp in his arms as he carried her to the window. He had no time to lose. Coughing against the smoke filling his lungs, he unhooked the shutters with one hand and rammed his shoulder against them. They did not budge. He rammed them again.
God damn it, the shutters were nailed shut from the outside. Someone was trying to burn them alive.
Fury blazed inside him brighter than the flames. Coughing and hacking and blinded by tears from the smoke, he kicked at the shutters again and again and again.
With a crack, they finally broke. Rory grabbed Sybil’s cloak from the floor and wrapped it around her for what little protection that would offer from the fall. Holding her across his chest, he flung one leg over the windowsill. Flames shot up through the floor as he pivoted on the sill and brought his other leg through.
He hoped to hell whoever was trying to kill them was not waiting below.
O shluagh, it was a long drop. With the fire scorching his back, his instincts screamed jump, jump! He shifted Sybil to one arm so that he could hang from the window to ease their fall.
As he reached for the windowsill with his free hand, the fire burst through the chamber door with a force that sent him flying through the night sky in a spray of sparks.
CHAPTER 22
Sybil awoke falling into a night lit by fire.
“Oof!” She landed with a hard thump, her fall cushioned by Rory’s body beneath her. Rory scrambled to his feet while she remained on the ground, coughing and hacking, trying to clear her burning lungs.
Through watering eyes, she saw him, backlit by the flames, standing between her and the darkness. He was naked except for his boots and brandishing his sword as if he expected demons from hell to emerge from the darkness. When none immediately appeared to challenge him, he dropped to one knee.
“We must move now,” he said, his eyes darting back and forth between her and the darkness. “Can ye walk?”
“Aye,” she said, though she felt woozy, her eyes were streaming, and she could not stop coughing.
All at once she understood that someone had intentionally set the house on fire and that they could still be in danger. When Rory lifted her to her feet and took her hand, she held on for dear life and ran.
He helped her over a stone fence, and they crouched behind it. The entire roof of the house was ablaze now, and flames were shooting out the upstairs windows. She wiped her eyes and held her cloak over her mouth to stifle the sound of her coughing.
Rory was still for a long time, his gaze sweeping the house and the field surrounding them. “He’s gone.”
“Are ye certain?” she whispered.
"Aye,” Rory said. “If Duncan of the Axe was here, he would have attacked us the moment we hit the ground.”
***
“You’re the finest horse in all of Scotland,” Rory said, rubbing Curan’s nose after the horse trotted out of the darkness. “Ye saved us tonight.”
Rory retrieved their saddle, rolled blankets, and extra oats for Curan from the barn, and they slept in the open field.
At least Sybil slept, showing more trust than Rory deserved. He lay awake, furious with himself for putting Sybil in danger. In his pride, he’d been confident he could protect her, but he had misjudged the risk. They had survived the fire only because Duncan had also made a misjudgment by not staying to make certain they died in the fire.
He pondered Duncan’s lapse as he stared at the black sky. Most people assumed Duncan was dimwitted because of his size and reputation for brute force, but Hector’s henchman was clever and excruciatingly thorough in the execution of his dark deeds.
&nbs
p; Perhaps Duncan had searched elsewhere, still not found what he was looking for, and returned to torch the house on the chance it was hidden there. If he came in the night, he might not even have realized they were there.
Whether Duncan meant to murder them or not, the fire brought home to Rory that his pursuit of the chieftainship put Sybil in danger. The one thing she needed from him after what her brothers had done was to feel safe, and he’d failed her.
Dawn was just breaking when he saw the silhouettes of a dozen Highland warriors—and one priest—riding toward them. He kissed Sybil’s brow to wake her.
“Mo Leannain,” my sweetheart, he said, and kissed Sybil’s brow. “Malcolm and the others are here.”
After some ribbing about his state of undress, one of the men lent him some extra clothes, and Rory told them about the fire.
“Is sleamhainn leac doras an taigh mhòir,” the chief’s house has a slippery doorstep, one of the older men said with a nod toward the smoldering house. “So long as Hector wants to take your place, ye must watch your back.”
There was a general murmur of agreement.
They moved into the barn, leaving two men outside to keep watch. Though the hour was early, someone had brought whisky to facilitate the discussion.
“Tonight the fires will be lit on hilltops all across MacKenzie lands to call the clan to the gathering at Castle Leod,” Malcolm said. “My sons have seen to that, and they’ll arrive over the next few days with many clansmen to support you.”
“Good,” Rory said, nodding his thanks.
“The clan has a week to travel to the gathering to select the new chieftain,” Malcolm continued. “If we’re lucky, Hector won’t learn of Brian’s death until he sees the fires, but I expect he already knows.”
“Then he’s on his way to Castle Leod to make his claim for the chieftainship.” Rory lifted his cup. “But I’ll be there first. I’ll not have him bar the damned gates to me as he did at Eilean Donan.”
The men clanked their cups together and drank.
“I know I’ll have my supporters, but our clansmen are accustomed to following Hector,” Rory said. “He’s led the clan in my brother’s name for many years.”
CLAIMED BY A HIGHLANDER (THE DOUGLAS LEGACY Book 2) Page 15
