by Aileen Adams
All that mattered was the warm, inviting body beside hers. His arm tightened just a bit, pulling her closer, and his cheek rested against the top of her head. She was certain nothing could ever be more wonderful, and she regretted the fatigue which tugged at her. To sleep would mean to miss being aware of his nearness…
Her eyes slid shut nonetheless.
It was the anxious movement of the horses which woke her.
She wasn’t alone. When she looked around, foggy-headed and rubbing sleep from her eyes, she saw Hugh and his men crouching by the fire, muttering to each other before each of them went their separate ways.
“What’s happening?” she asked, turning to Derek.
He was wide awake, sharp, eyes darting in all directions. It seemed the sounds of the woods had quieted—the hooting of owls, the croaking of frogs down by the pond they’d settled near for the night. All was silent except for the anxious horses.
He turned to her, his arm like a band of iron around her shoulders, pressing his mouth to her ear.
“There’s something or someone nearby,” he whispered. “I want you to stay with me now. Do not leave my side. Understand?”
She turned her face toward his neck and felt the throbbing of his pulse under the skin. He was just as afraid as she was. “Yes.”
“If I tell you to do something, you do it quickly and without question.”
“I understand.”
He rose, pulling her with him, then stood in front of her while her back was pressed to the tree trunk.
She reached behind her, running her fingers over the rough bark, needing something to focus her attention on while she waited to find out just what had upset the horses so. She heard their soft whinnying, the way their hooves pawed at the dirt.
She had come to love her little mare during the course of the day and welcomed the rush of fierce fury at the thought of anyone harming her.
Minutes stretched past, agonizingly slow, the two of them waiting with all muscles tensed and alert.
Broc waited, too, crouched by the fire with what looked like a small knife in one hand. Ready to spring into action at the first sign of trouble.
That trouble was not to make itself known, at least, not just then.
Hugh announced himself in a low voice before stepping back through the last cluster of trees at the edge of their camp. “It appears as though the noise from the horses frightened them off,” he muttered.
“Who?” Margery whispered, her question lost against Derek’s back.
“Someone from the clans?” Derek asked. “Would they be this far away from home?”
“There’s no telling,” Hugh admitted as his men returned, one by one. “I wouldn’t put it past any of them. But it could be they were just passing through and were interested in our camp—whoever they were. If they’d wished us harm, they could’ve attacked.”
There was something in his voice which told Margery he was softening the blow—likely for her sake, at that. If she had been a man, he would’ve been honest about the danger they could all be in.
The sky was still full dark, the stars having shifted their position since the last time she’d looked up through the crossing branches. How much time had passed? She’d never learned to tell time using the passage of the stars.
“There’s no sense in attempting to start out before first light,” Derek decided. “We should sit up in shifts until then.”
“I’ll take the first watch,” Broc offered.
“Fine, and I’ll take second,” Hugh agreed, with Derek taking third.
Though something told Margery he wouldn’t be sleeping, regardless of whether or not he was supposed to be.
Hadn’t she always wanted adventure?
29
The tracks were everywhere.
“They didn’t even bother to hide their trail,” Hugh marveled, scratching his head. “See? Here, here, here.” Each time, he pointed to a new set of footprints in the soil.
“You’re certain you and your men didn’t leave these?” The look Hugh shot Derek told him what he needed to know. They were far too experienced to make such foolish mistakes, choosing instead to walk over pine needles and other silent ground cover rather than announcing their presence by way of deep footprints.
“They aren’t experienced at tracking,” Hugh mused.
“Which means…”
“It’s unlikely they were from a rival clan.” He shrugged. “From what we know of the McGregors, the Orkneys and such, they’re far too skilled to be this sloppy.”
“Could they have been passing through, the way we are?” Broc suggested.
Derek and Hugh exchanged a look. It was easy to forget that his first mate was so greatly out of his depth in matters such as these, especially since he was so capable in many other ways.
To his credit, Hugh at least pretended to give this theory some credence. “Aye, they could have been—but why were they so interested in our camp, then? Why invite the possibility of trouble?”
“A band of thieves, then?” he suggested.
“Like as not,” Derek agreed through clenched teeth. He’d allowed himself to forget how dangerous traveling through the woods could be, since he’d only ever had to worry about himself up to that point.
Margery changed everything.
“Come on,” he grunted. “We’d better put distance between us and this camp. We’ll have to keep close watch on any further tracking which goes on throughout the day.”
“That’s what my men are best at,” Hugh reminded him, going off to speak with the four horsemen who were awaiting instruction.
Broc turned to Derek. “How is Margery with this?”
It was the first time he’d asked after her since their departure, and perhaps the first time Derek had ever heard him use her proper name.
“You know her by now. Even if she were terrified to the point of pissing herself, she’d pretend all was well.”
“Aye. Sometimes bravery can be foolishness,” he agreed, a wry smile playing along his features.
“There’s something I’m concerned with,” Derek confided, hoping this would help close the gap which had opened between the two of them.
“What’s that?”
“MacBride.”
Broc’s eyes narrowed, his face darkened. “What makes you think of him?”
“These footprints.” He pointed to them. “They’re deeper than the others. I’d guess there were four men about us last night.”
A shudder of disgust, revulsion, and rage raced through him at the thought of men creeping about their camp with none of them realizing it until it was nearly too late. How could they have slept through so much of it, when the tracks all around the camp made it clear there were few pains taken to hide?
“Deeper. You mean, made by a larger man.”
“Correct,” Derek muttered. “I believe that, for once, MacBride is involved in his own dirty work. Instead of merely sending his men after us to see where we’d headed, he wanted to see for himself.”
The two of them looked around, as though they could make out the shapes of four men lingering in the trees. While the fact that so few of them had produced leaves so early in the season worked in their favor, allowing them to keep eyes on the woods around them, it also made them that much more easily visible to their enemies.
“Why didn’t you share this with Hugh?” Broc asked.
“Because I was uncertain until now. I’m still uncertain. But I wanted to discuss it with you first, since you’re the only other one who has met the man. Do you think he’s capable of this?”
Broc grimaced. “I think he’s capable of much more than this.”
“What do you mean?”
Derek watched as his first mate shifted uncomfortably, crossing and uncrossing his arms, moving his weight from one foot to the other as his eyes constantly scanned the trees.
Had he misread Broc’s behavior all along? Had he…
“He found me two days ago—or, ra
ther, a few of his men did,” Broc murmured, his eyes still moving about.
“Found you? What do you mean? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t wish to bring any further danger on either of us. Or upon her,” he added. “They didn’t know about her, but of course I did, and I knew you would try to bring her with us.”
“I don’t understand any of this. What happened?”
“I had stepped out for a walk while you were meeting with MacBride. I was more than a little angry at the way we left things, to be honest with you, and I wanted to get the air and clear my thoughts a bit. I thought I’d walk along the harbor and that perhaps I would meet up with you and we could smooth things over.”
Derek waited for Broc to continue.
“It could be that you had already finished your meeting. I don’t know. I walked for a long time without ever seeing you. But I did cross paths with three sailors who cornered me and demanded I press you into signing the ships over to MacBride.”
“And you didn’t tell me they’d made these demands?”
“One of them said their boss—MacBride, of course—knew you would refuse if you heard they had pressed me. If you flat-out refused, he’d know I had something to do with it. And he would get your ships, one way or another.”
“How could you not at least tell me what they’d done?”
“Because we decided that night that we were going to leave. You had a bad feeling about MacBride during your meeting, and you wanted to go. I thought that would be the end of it, that we would leave Kirkcaldy and everything else behind. Only when we reached the safety of Duncan land would I have told you this.”
“In case I needed assistance from Phillip.”
“Just that, yes.” Broc’s eyes went wide, pleading. “They didn’t come right out and say it, but you know what he had in mind. That he’d kill you if he had to. And then, I thought, Margery will be with us—or, you would want to stay with her. One or the other. It was best for us all to get out of there while we still could and decide what to do with him later.”
Derek wanted to be angry. He wanted to be furious. In some ways, he was, but not with the man standing in front of him.
“I can’t pretend I wouldn’t have done just as you have,” he admitted. “If it were just the two of us, I would’ve fought that bastard to the death, if necessary. But there’s Margery now.”
“We should move,” Broc urged. “Let’s get to the manor house as quickly as we can, eh? The sooner we’re there, the sooner I’ll no longer have to feel like a right coward for not being straightforward with you.”
Derek clapped him on the back, shaking his head. “I would never call you a coward. You’re anything but. A coward might have fled to me and told everything and begged me to run. You didn’t. You kept this to yourself because you wanted to protect me from it. Not that I need protection, you know.”
“I can’t help but feel you do, at times,” Broc grumbled. “You don’t always think things through before you make a decision.”
“Life on the sea, my friend.”
The two of them shared a knowing chuckle as they made their way back to where Hugh was waiting.
There was no time to weigh one’s options when navigating a ship through rough, choppy waters. Decisions had to be made quickly, on the spur of the moment, using what little time and information one had at hand. All a man could do in that situation was hope he was correct.
He’d known nothing of MacBride when he went in to meet with him, so certain of his experience and reputation that he assumed he’d come out successful. He should have asked about him, gotten a feel for the man’s character before striding into his warehouse.
Instead, he’d left himself open to threats.
“Stay with Margery for the moment,” he murmured to Broc. “I’ll let Hugh know, so he’ll have an idea of who we’re looking for.”
MacBride wouldn’t be difficult to miss, that was for certain. With his size and heft, he would make a tremendous noise. MacBride considered himself a man of the sea—he had no experience with tracking in the woods.
Or was that merely another incorrect assumption on Derek’s part?
Hugh’s expression grew more and more grave as Derek relayed Broc’s story.
“I’m certain we’re looking for him, and he’s looking for us. He’s just large enough to have made the deepest tracks. And clumsy enough to have alerted the horses to his presence.”
“I should’ve seen to the bastard when you told me you’d made an enemy,” Hugh snarled.
“I’ve made my fair share of enemies over the years, and I’ve never needed my brother to do my fighting for me in the past,” Derek reminded him. “I wish Broc had told me. I would’ve cleared this up tidily.”
His lip curled into a sneer when he imagined what he would’ve done, what he could’ve done. What he would do to MacBride if he were foolish enough to show his fleshy face.
Two of Hugh’s men trotted up from the east, the other two from the west. All four wore looks of confusion.
“What is it?” he asked. “We’ll be on our way shortly, if you’re feeling impatient.”
“Nay,” one of them replied. “We’d expected to find Broc and the lass with you.”
“Aye, as did we,” one of the other pair agreed.
Derek’s heart stopped beating for one sickening moment. At that moment, no longer than the length of time it took to blink an eye, he saw the way it had all happened.
“Why did you leave her alone in the camp?” he demanded, running for the place where they’d set up for the night.
“Derek! Wait!”
He barely heard the sound of his brother’s voice as he darted between the trees, smashing his way through the brush.
She wasn’t there. They hadn’t seen her there.
His foot hit something large and softer than a tree root, but more solid than brush, and he went sprawling into the trunk of a large birch. Only sharp reflexes kept him from hitting it headfirst, his arms and hands breaking his fall.
He looked at what he’d stumbled over and found Broc lying facedown in the dirt, the back of his head a bloody mess.
“Here!” he shouted when he heard his brother approach. “Broc is injured!”
That didn’t stop Derek from continuing on to the camp, only a few dozen feet away.
He knew better than to think she would be there, waiting patiently for him, but that didn’t stop the pressure in his chest from building until he was certain it would kill him. There was no way a man could live through something like it.
“Margery?” he shouted, turning in a circle, eyes trained for any sign of her.
There was no blood on the ground, no torn cloth, nothing to show what had happened.
It was as if she’d disappeared.
30
“They’re either very smart or very lucky,” Hugh muttered as he studied the fresh tracks through the camp. “They crisscross each other so many times over, it’s difficult to tell who is who and which way they went.”
“They could’ve done this to confuse us,” one of his men agreed.
“Aye, which worries me.”
Derek nearly pulsed with hatred and rage. He shot a glance in Broc’s direction, where he was being treated by another one of the men. He hadn’t yet opened his eyes, but it seemed as though the wound on the back of his head had stopped bleeding.
“I have to go after her,” he growled, glaring at his brother.
“We can’t go off in a panic,” Hugh reminded him.
“What if—”
“From what you’ve told me of the man, he’s only doing this to push you into selling your ships to him. He ought to know that harming Margery wouldn’t lead you to do what he wants; it would only lead you to hate him, perhaps kill him. So, he’ll keep her for a little while, try to frighten you, then bring her back when he feels you’ve suffered enough.”
“I refuse to stand here and allow him to do this. I won’t wait fo
r him to decide when I have her back. He doesn’t decide this.” Derek felt panic rising in his chest, into his throat, his heart beating dangerously fast and his lungs unable to pull in enough air.
Hugh took him by the shoulders, giving him a brutal shake. “Get a hold of yourself. She needs you to keep a cool head right now.”
Derek flung his hands away.
“He’s… right…”
They both turned to find Broc fighting to sit up. His eyes looked unfocused, glassy, and he appeared to have a difficult time keeping steady.
“Don’t overtire yourself,” Derek urged, kneeling in the pine needles.
“Where are they?”
“Who are they?” Hugh asked, standing behind his kneeling brother.
“Did you see them?” Derek asked.
He shook his head. “I heard his voice. That was all.”
“Who?” Hugh asked.
Derek didn’t need to ask. “MacBride.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement, a snarl. As far as he was concerned, a death sentence.
Broc nodded, reaching around to touch his fingers to the back of his head. He stared in amazement at his own blood. “He was off to the side, I was just about to turn and face him. And… that’s all I remember.”
Derek clenched his fists, squeezing hard in a desperate attempt to calm his fury. “Was she here? Could you see her through the trees?”
Broc closed his eyes.
For a moment, Derek thought he might be slipping out of consciousness again.
“I don’t remember. I want to remember, but I can’t.”
“It’s just as well,” Hugh said.
Derek’s head snapped up. “That’s easy for you to say,” he spat, glaring at his brother.
“Because it’s true. It doesn’t matter who hit him, or where she was at the time. They could very well have been watching all along, waiting for the moment when she’d be alone. My men should’ve stayed with her,” he admitted, throwing withering looks their way, “but they were following the tracks around the campsite, too. Margery was… lost in all of it, I’m sorry to say.”
He was right, and the truth of it gnawed at Derek’s conscience.
