“And you, sir, are without a conscience, without a soul. The punishment fits the crime, to my way of thinking.”
“You can petition for any manner of punishment you see fit … providing you give us the week we need.”
“Nothing you say or do could induce me to make such a rash promise.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing,” she declared flatly.
His eyes descended from the blaze of defiant violet down the slender curve of her throat to come to rest where the soft white flesh of her breasts plumped temptingly over the edge of her bodice.
“Have you forgotten, madam, our participation in a certain poignant ceremony last evening? I believe it gave me … shall we say … some rather specific rights and privileges.”
Catherine refused to acknowledge the cool shiver that rippled down her spine. “If you are referring to conjugal rights, sir, you could indeed claim them, but in doing so you would be adding the charge of rape to your already illustrious array of crimes, and I fail to see how doing so would win my silence. If anything, it would only increase my desire to see you crushed beneath the heels of justice.”
Cameron felt his temper rising, felt a desire of his own to crush something with his bare hands. “What if I said that to refuse your cooperation would mean you would never see your brother alive again?”
Some small part of her had been expecting the threat, yet it still took all of her strength to keep her expression clear of any emotion. “I do not believe you would kill him so easily,” she said quietly. “Damien befriended you.”
“I am required to befriend a good many people in my line of work.”
Her hands inched up toward her bodice, toward the concealed hilt of Deirdre’s knife. “He … invited you into our home. He defended you against Hamilton and the others.”
“He is a lawyer. He defends people for a living.”
“And you could kill him? Without suffering a single qualm?”
“If, as you say, I am without a conscience or a soul, what is one more murder? Or three, for that matter?”
Catherine clasped her hands over her breasts and stared into the bottomless black eyes. She saw the surprise register in their depths a moment before she drew the knife and sent it slashing toward his face. He sidestepped the attack and was able to catch her wrist with insolent ease, using more force than was necessary to twist her hand cruelly around and up into the small of her back. An expert pinch on the appropriate nerves produced such an excruciating flash of agony that her fingers sprang apart and her knees buckled beneath her. The knife fell to the floor and was instantly lost under the swirling confusion of her skirt.
Deirdre lunged after it, pushing aside the crush of velvet and lace, scrambling to find the hilt and rise to her mistress’s rescue. She saw the gleam of metal on the floorboards and was reaching for it when a second strong pair of arms went around her waist and lifted her bodily away from where Catherine still thrashed frantically to free herself from Cameron’s grip. Aluinn Mackail cursed aloud as Deirdre’s hard-soled shoes gouged his shins with several well-placed kicks. He flung the Irish virago aside and was reaching for the knife when the maid launched herself at him again. This time he swung his arm up to protect his face from the threat of clawing nails, but instead of deflecting the attack, his fist slammed solidly into Deirdre’s temple. The blow snapped her head to one side with enough force to send her sprawling to the floor.
She did not move again.
Catherine ceased her struggles instantly. “You’ve killed her! Oh, my God … you’ve killed her!”
Aluinn knelt quickly beside the maid’s prone form and pressed his fingers against her throat. He looked almost as relieved as Catherine when he found a pulse.
“She’s all right. She’s just out cold. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“Murderers!” Catherine screamed. “Traitors! Spies! I’ll see you both hung for this! If it is the last thing I do, I will see you hung! Hung and drawn and—”
“Oh, for the love of Christ.” Cameron leaned forward, scooping Catherine up and over his broad shoulder. He carried the shrieking, flailing bundle out into the hall and down the stairs, dumping her unceremoniously by the hearth.
Damien rushed to her side, a wild eye on Cameron as he helped his sister right herself. Instead of cringing into his arms, Catherine flung herself at the Highlander again, vilifying him with every curse and expletive she could recall hearing. Damien had to grab her around the waist and physically haul her back.
“Let me go!”
“Catherine, please—”
“Let me go! What difference does it make what we say or do, they’re going to kill us anyway. They’ve already tried to kill Deirdre!”
Damien glared at Cameron over the top of her head. “What is she talking about? What have you done to Deirdre?”
“Nothing. She was the one who pulled a knife and tried to settle accounts. The maid got in the way and was knocked out.”
“Murderer,” Catherine spat. “Traitor! Spy!”
“Damned nuisance,” Cameron muttered and searched his pockets for another cigar.
MacKail came back downstairs then, his face tight. “She’ll likely be out for a couple of hours, but she’s all right. Nothing is cracked or broken.”
“What happened?” Damien demanded.
“More to the point,” Cameron said, “what happens now? With or without a sugarcoating, your charming little sister is refusing to listen to reason.” He arched an eyebrow warningly as she opened her mouth to offer up a retort. “And if I hear one more word from you, madam, I won’t be responsible for what condition your hide will be in when and if you live to see daylight.” His gaze shifted back to Damien, “I’m open to any suggestions you might have. We need time. A couple of days at the very least.”
“Let Catherine and Deirdre leave. Keep me with you as a hostage to guarantee their silence.”
Catherine whirled around, horrified he could even propose such a thing. “Damien—no!”
“It is the only way, Kitty. They need assurances.”
“Or a stout shovel tae dig graves,” Iain remarked dryly.
Catherine twisted her hands around fistfuls of her brother’s jacket. “Even if they do take you as a hostage, how do you know they’ll let you go once they’re away from here?”
“You would have my word on it, for one thing,” Cameron said evenly.
“Your word as who—Raefer Montgomery or Alexander Cameron?” She flashed hot eyes in his direction. “And your word as what—a spy or a murderer?”
“I don’t know anything about any murders he may or may not have committed,” Damien said truthfully, “but I do know he could commit three here and now and no one would be any the wiser for weeks … months.”
“You want us to trust him? Even though he is neither the friend nor the gentleman you thought him to be?”
“A man can change his name and his appearance, but he cannot change who he is inside. If he says he will let us go free in exchange for a few days’ worth of silence, I have to damned well believe he will let us go free.”
She studied each of the three hostile faces, settling on Cameron. He in turn was watching the subtle changes in her expression with a thoughtful look that combined anger, impatience, and the conviction that even if they could frighten a promise of silence out of her, it would last only as long as it took her to find the nearest garrison of militia.
“Iain … how long do you estimate it will take us to reach the border?”
The younger man shrugged. “Four nights. Happens less, happens mair, dependin’ on how hard we push the horses an’ how thick the patrols might be.”
“How thick were they when you came south?”
“Thick as a sheep’s coat against the shears.”
“What of the roads? Are they passable?”
“Roads? Aye, the militia keep them well used.” He looked puzzled and glanced askance at Aluinn, whose smoky-gray eyes were int
ent upon Cameron’s face—as if he knew what the other man was thinking and didn’t believe it himself. “Wade’s roads are passable, aye, if ye have a cravin’ tae see a hangman’s gibbet up close.”
“Or if we wanted to travel by coach,” Cameron said quietly.
“By coach? Are ye daft? Why would we be after doin’ such a clarty thing?”
Aluinn offered the answer with a sigh. “Because three men—or four—on horseback, riding north, staying well off the main tracks and traveling mostly by night, would draw far more attention if they were stopped by a patrol of lobsterbacks than would a fine English coach carrying an English gentleman, his wife, and servants … traveling in broad daylight, of course, in plain view of anyone with eyes to see them. Have I about interpreted the gleam in your eye correctly, Alex?”
“You usually do,” Cameron acknowledged with a nod.
“But would it work? A coach will add anywhere from a week to ten days—assuming the weather cooperates.”
“I am still open to alternatives. But while you are trying to think of some, keep this in mind: Damien’s unscheduled absence would be certain to raise a question or two, whereas the newly wed Mrs. Montgomery has a very good reason to disappear for a several weeks during her … impassioned honeymoon trip.”
Damien stiffened. “You cannot seriously be suggesting that Catherine accompany you?”
“Accompany him?” she asked. “Accompany him where?”
“You could consider it a vacation,” Cameron said dryly, tapping ash from his cigar. “Scotland is beautiful in July.”
“Scotland! You are out of your mind! I’m not going to Scotland. I’m not going anywhere—especially with you! Tell him, Damien. Tell this madman he’s insane.”
Damien was at a loss for words. He was also fighting very hard to control the overwhelming desire to shake his sister until her bones rattled. Things were happening too quickly. The duel … the marriage.… Events had blown out of everyone’s control before either wit or prudence could arrive at a logical, rational way to stop them. Was there a way to stop them now? Should he just blurt out the truth? What would Catherine do if she knew he had been working for and with the Jacobites for several years? He had come close to telling her—telling them all—so many times over the past few months, and perhaps he should have. He was certainly not alone in his disaffection for the Hanover government; many Englishmen were working both secretly and openly to hasten a change in the reigning powers. But to reveal his true intentions would have meant forsaking family and friends, abandoning his contacts in London, cutting his fellow dissidents off from vital sources of information that had taken months, years, to establish. No, he could not have done it then. He could not do it now, even though his own sister had become an unwitting pawn in a very dangerous game.
“Damien?” She was staring up at him, frowning. “Tell him.”
“I cannot allow it,” he said lamely. “You will have to think of another way.”
“There is no other way, short of binding her and gagging her and keeping her somewhere under lock and key for a week,” Cameron replied quietly. “If there was, don’t you think I would be the first to jump at it?”
“But … she’s my sister.”
“And I promise you, she will be treated exactly as if she were mine. Two weeks, three at the most, and she’ll be home again, safe and sound.” He paused and smiled tightly. “With her ‘husband’s’ death certificate clutched firmly in hand, along with a sweet enough financial settlement to remove any tarnish her reputation may have gathered over the whole affair.”
“You could give me every last gold sovereign in the world and it would not be enough to buy my silence,” Catherine insisted. “Damien, tell him. Tell him it isn’t enough.”
She waited for his outraged protest, but when it became horrifyingly apparent there was not going to be one, she stared at him again, her poise faltering under a wave of faintness.
“Damien?” Her voice was a mere whisper. “Surely you’re not thinking of agreeing to this … this madness?”
“You haven’t given him much of a choice.”
“Oh, but—” She whirled again to face Cameron, but found nothing in the cold black eyes that remotely resembled any emotion she could appeal to. A second wave of light-headedness swept through her, one that threatened to undermine what little composure she had left.
Cameron saw it and addressed Damien. “You have my word. No one will touch a hair on your sister’s head as long as she behaves herself and is willing to cooperate.”
“On your life, Alex,” he said, so softly Catherine could barely hear him over the pounding of her heart in her ears. “Swear it on your life.”
“You have my word” was the quiet response.
“And … if I still refuse?” Catherine gasped.
“If ye refuse,” Iain said impatiently, “it’ll be a quick skelp on the heid an’ a shallow grave by the roadside.”
Damien’s tolerance shattered on an explosive curse. He thrust Catherine to one side and clawed his hands into the front of Iain’s shirt with enough force to split the seams. The sound of the cloth tearing was followed instantly by the sound of a fist crunching into a jawbone. Aluinn sprang forward to pull them apart, but not before Damien landed two more solid punches, one of them smashing into and breaking the younger man’s nose.
“Let me go!” He wrenched his arms out of Aluinn’s grasp. “He went too far, goddammit! Too far!”
Iain, having staggered back against the wall, dragged his hand across his upper lip and stared at the slick red smear, the rest of which was sheeting down his chin and throat. He roared like an enraged bull and launched himself across the room, a dirk clutched purposefully in his outstretched fist. Aluinn saw the knife, and it was all he could do to shove Damien roughly out of the way and pivot clear himself.
“Iain!” Cameron’s shout halted the boy. “Put that thing away!”
“I dinna trust him,” Iain spat. “I told ye afore no’ tae trust him, but ye wouldna listen.”
“I said, put the knife away!”
“Aye.” He wiped more blood off his face. “I’ll put it away … clear through his guts, I’ll put it away!”
Iain hurled himself at Damien again, but Cameron was there. With an almost effortless grace he caught the outthrust wrist and snapped the knife free. The boy screamed with pain and hooked his left fist toward his cousin’s face, and again Cameron intercepted the punch, pulling the already bloodied jaw into a forceful meeting with his own fist. Iain hung there a moment, his eyes rolling, his body rippling with the stunning effects of the blow. He crumpled slowly, slumping with Cameron’s help into a dazed heap on the floor.
The Highlander straightened, clearly disgusted with this new turn of events. He stared at the blood smeared on his hand, then gazed coldly and meaningfully at Damien.
Catherine, fearing her brother was about to suffer some of the same violent treatment, dashed to his side and placed herself between him and Cameron.
“Don’t touch him! I’ll do it. I’ll do whatever you want me to do … only let Damien go. Right now, right this minute. Let him walk out that door and ride away.”
“Catherine!” It was Damien’s turn to react with horror as he gripped her by the shoulders. She shook off his intentions and continued to confront Cameron.
“I want to see him ride away, and if you refuse or if anyone tries to follow him, then … then you will have a good deal more blood on your hands, because you will have to kill us to keep us quiet.”
“Catherine!” Damien spun her around to face him. “Do you realize what you are saying? What you are agreeing to do?”
“I am agreeing to be their hostage,” she said calmly. “And I am agreeing to believe their promise that we will all live through this thing.”
“But, Kitty—”
“Damien, please. I won’t be able to go through with it if you force me to think too long or too hard on the consequences. In fact, I don’t want to th
ink about it at all. I intend to treat it like a holiday, like the one we took in Plymouth that summer when neither one of us wanted to go but Father insisted. Do you remember?”
“Catherine, this isn’t a game—”
Her eyes widened and the brightness in them was almost piercing.
Game. Dear God, that was what she was trying to tell him. They had played a game on the crumbling walls of a castle near Plymouth, something to do with knights rescuing a lost princess from her wicked uncle, the king. Damien had pretended to ride away to collect the ransom to pay off the Black Prince, but instead had circled around the castle walls and stormed her imaginary captors by surprise.
Was that what she was asking him to do now? To agree to their terms and ride away … straight to the garrison in Wakefield to bring back help? Of course it was, and the conspiratorial glitter in her eyes almost made him groan out loud.
“Kitty, I don’t know …”
“I will be all right,” she insisted. “Everything will be all right. Please, just go while you have the chance, before this gentleman”—she cast a scorching glance in Alexander Cameron’s direction—“decides to change his mind.”
“But—”
“Damien, you only make it harder by delaying. Please, go now.”
He drew her into his arms and held her tight. He had no choice but to do exactly what she was ordering him to do—to go, to ride away before any of them changed their minds. His gaze locked with Cameron’s over the top of her head.
The dark eyes acknowledged the unspoken threat, then turned to Aluinn. “There are two coachmen out in the stable. Tell them you have been hired to relieve them of their duties and they will be returning with Mr. Ashbrooke to Derby.”
He saw Catherine’s head turn toward him and he smiled wryly. “Will that help satisfy your concerns, madam, for your brother’s safe departure?”
“My only satisfaction, sir, will come on the day I see you walk up the steps to the gibbet.”
8
Deirdre was stretched out on the bed, her eyes closed, her head lolled to one side, and for a terrible, heart-stopping moment, Catherine thought she was dead.
The Pride of Lions Page 11
