Donaldson slowed down and looked around. “Where the hell are we?” he demanded. When she didn’t answer, he shook her and her head wobbled. She cried out. By now everything on her hurt. Her scalp, her face, her head. She was bruised and battered everywhere. “Tell me where we are, damn it!”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t see to look around.”
He pulled her up until she was somewhat standing on her feet, her head still bent forward because of the hold he had on her hair.
“Look,” he demanded, shaking her head again.
“I…don’t know where we are. This doesn’t look familiar.” They were closer to her cottage; if he kept in this direction, he would miss it entirely and delve deeper into the forest. She wanted him far from the cottage. She wanted him lost, but she needed to know where she was.
“You’re lying,” he said with a deadly calm that made her heart race even more.
“I’m no’. I swear.”
“Dirty Scots. Can’t trust any of them.” He looked around again, and she wondered what his plan had been. Had he come to her cottage to kill her? Take advantage of her?
“Go that way.”
“Which way?” He looked back at her.
“That way.” She pointed a little to his right.
“And where will that take me? To a warrior’s home? Do you think I’m a fool?”
“Where do ye want to go, and I’ll tell ye how to get there.”
He pressed his lips together, and she was certain he had no idea where he wanted to go. She’d ruined his plans by running from her home, and now he was floundering.
“I don’t trust you.” He headed to the left, opposite of where she’d pointed. She suppressed a triumphant grin. He’d played right into her hands, leading them away from her cottage but in a direction she was familiar with.
He dragged her for what seemed like eternity, and she continued to stumble behind him, waiting for her opportunity.
It came when he stopped again and looked around. He unwound his hand from her hair, and the pain in her scalp instantly lessened. Tears sprang to her eyes, and she resisted the urge to rub her head.
Free of her hair, Donaldson pointed at her. “Run and I will shoot you.”
She nodded.
He looked around again and she realized they were in a clearing where no foliage grew. She knew what was going to happen next. As if to prove her right, he began unbuttoning his fly. Already there was a bulge there. But it was the large branch just behind him that she was eyeing.
“Scream,” he said.
Her gaze flew to his dark eyes, alight with excitement. His face was flushed and he was breathing rapidly. “Scream,” he demanded again.
Her breath was stuck in her throat. He wanted her to scream. He wanted her to fight him off because it excited him.
He punched her in the stomach. She gasped and a strangled sound emerged, it was so unexpected and brutal. Her arm automatically came forward to cover her stomach.
“Scream,” he said again as he fumbled with his breeches.
“I…can’t.” The breath was slowly coming back to her.
He grabbed her shoulders and she cried out, more from surprise than anything. His fingers dug in to her, harder and harder. She opened her mouth to scream. At this point she would do anything he asked if only he would stop the pain. Only a gurgled moan came out of her.
He shook her and her head wobbled. “I will make you scream,” he said with deadly calm. “You will scream for me.”
She fell forward, her eyes on the thick branch just a few feet away. Holding her by the shoulders with one hand, he reached for his fly again. “I wish I’d thought to bring a shovel,” he said mostly to himself.
A tremor raced through her. He was going to beat her, rape her, and kill her. She wasn’t ready to die. She wanted to spend the rest of her life with Iain. She’d been so foolish, pushing him away.
With a cry, she rushed forward and grabbed the branch. Not expecting her sudden lunge, Donaldson cursed and tried to grab for the makeshift club, but she was already swinging.
It landed with a hollow thud against his head. The vibration of the blow traveled up her arm and numbed her fingers.
His knees gave out, and she was surprised by how slowly he sank to the ground. She’d thought he would just collapse, but it was a slow sinking that seemed to take forever.
He looked at her in shock as blood trailed down his temple. His eyes rolled to the back of his head and he slumped to the side.
Using her anger as the impetus, Cait lifted the branch high above her head and swung down, smashing it into the front of his skull. His body twitched and then stilled.
She stood there, breathing hard, whimpering, her fingers almost numb because she was holding the branch so tightly. She watched, waiting for him to move, ready to club him again. But he didn’t stir.
The club fell from her fingers with a soft thud. A fly landed on the corner of his partially opened lips and crawled along his cheek. Something in the underbrush to her right moved. A small rabbit emerged, its nose twitching, then hopped away.
The fly was now crawling on his forehead.
Cait picked up her skirts and ran.
She didn’t remember how she got home or how long it took. She stumbled into the clearing behind her cottage and dropped to her knees, leaning over until her forehead touched the ground. She sobbed, her arms clenched over her stomach.
Eventually, the sobs lessened and she stood on legs that were shaking so hard that if anyone saw her, they would think she had been drinking. Her cottage was just as she had left it, the back door wide open. The front door wide open. It was eerily silent, and she thought of the refugees hiding beneath the floor. Had they heard anything? Were they too frightened to move? She should check on them but couldn’t face them at the moment. She slowly made her way up the steps to her bedroom, where the sheets were still rumpled from her and Iain’s lovemaking the night before.
Everything was the same, and yet everything had changed in just a short time.
Hours ago she and Iain had been talking about marriage, and now she had killed a man. An English soldier.
She may have escaped death this afternoon, but she had surely put the noose around her neck now. The English would not take Donaldson’s death lightly, and she had no doubt that Palmer would not be able to help her.
She took a cloth and dipped it in the ewer of water to bathe her face. The cloth came away streaked with blood. Her face burned from the scratches and cuts, and she could feel several bruises forming. Her gown was torn in so many different places that it appeared a shredded rag. She peeled it off and washed herself completely as tears streamed down her face. She didn’t think past washing away the dirt and the feel of Donaldson’s hands.
“Cait?”
She stilled, her heart leaping. Why was Rory here? She pulled an old gown out of the bureau. “I’ll be down in a moment,” she called, her voice slurred from a swollen lip.
She looked in the basin of water, the only looking glass she had. Her reflection wavered, but she could easily see the swollen lip, the cut on her cheek, and the large bruise on her jaw.There was no hiding the damage that Donaldson had done. She took a deep breath and went downstairs.
Rory was rummaging through her cupboard and came away with half a loaf of bread. He turned to her, smiling, but the smile instantly disappeared. “What in the hell happened to ye?”
She put a hand to her cut cheek, and to her surprise, tears leaked from her eyes. “Donaldson returned,” she said.
“Good God.” Rory took a step toward her and then stopped as if afraid to come closer. His expression turned dark. “Where is he?”
“I think I killed him, Rory.” She looked up at him, her terror nearly overwhelming.
“What?” he whispered, his face going slack with shock.
“I killed an English officer.”
Chapter 30
“Where is he?” Rory asked with deadly calm.
“I ran,” she whispered, not wanting the men in her cellar to hear her. “Out the back door. I took him out to the woods.”
“Why the hell would ye do that?” he nearly yelled.
“Shhh.” She looked toward the corner. Rory didn’t know about the refugees, and she couldn’t tell him now.
He lowered his voice anyway. “Why did ye lead him into the woods?”
“I wasn’t thinking. I just ran.” Her heart was racing as she thought about what had just happened. A different sort of fear settled into her. She was going to die. She hadn’t cheated death today; she’d merely postponed it.
“So he’s in the woods? Where in the woods?”
She waved her hand vaguely in the direction where she’d left his body. “Over that way. About a ten-minute walk. They’re going to come for me, Rory. The English will arrest me.”
Rory had a sick expression and she knew he was thinking the same thing. The English would put the entire might of their country behind them for the death of a soldier who was a man of nobility as well. No one could help her now.
“Maybe not,” Rory said.
She looked at him through blurry eyes. Her head pounded and her bruises ached. Her lip was swelling more, and she was suddenly so exhausted that she didn’t even know if she could keep standing.
“The others think he was sent to the north, right? I doubt he told anyone that he’d doubled back. I’m sure his plan was to…” Rory flushed and looked away, and Cait shuddered, well aware of what his plan had been. “Most likely no one knows he was here. I’ll go looking for him. Do ye have a shovel?”
A tremor ran through her body as she remembered Donaldson rambling about wishing he’d brought a shovel. “In the barn.”
Rory nodded and headed toward the back door before pausing. “The horse is still out front. Bring him into the barn and I’ll figure out what to do with him later.”
She nodded, relieved to have something to do. She guided Donaldson’s horse into her paddock, finding it strange that she was taking care of his beast after she’d just killed him. Soon she found herself back in the cottage, looking around, feeling lost, and hurting all over.
Her mind was curiously blank, and the panic she should be feeling wasn’t there. She vaguely wondered what Rory was doing, but her mind couldn’t hold that thought for long before it floated away.
She didn’t want to hope, but she couldn’t help herself. What if Rory was right? Could she get away with killing an English soldier? Could she live with herself, knowing what she had done?
It was evening when Black Cat alerted her that someone was approaching. It had to be Rory. He hadn’t returned and she was becoming nervous. She peered out of the front window, and her heart did a little flip to see Iain riding up. She’d been anticipating and dreading this moment and stood in the middle of her sitting room, waiting for him. She’d come up with and discarded so many stories of what she could tell him. In the end she knew she couldn’t lie to him; she also knew that telling him would seal her fate.
He strode in. “Cait!” he called. He stopped short and stared at her, the light in his eyes fading to fury. “My God.”
Tears ran down her face, burning her cuts, her body shaking as she tried to hold in her sobs. She hadn’t realized just how much she needed him until she saw him.
“Who did this to you?”
Her lip trembled and she bit it, forgetting that it was cut. Pain shot through her face and she winced.
He approached her slowly, his gaze landing on every bruise, every cut. Gently, he lifted her hands and turned the palms up to look at the shredded skin. Tenderly, he kissed each palm. The look in his eyes was anything but gentle.
“Who did this?” he asked again.
“Donaldson.”
He stood there for a moment as if digesting that information. “I will kill him.”
“I already did.”
His eyes widened. “What?”
Her tears came faster. A sob escaped and she held out her arms. He quickly gathered her in and she collapsed against him, sobbing silently, well aware that there were four men in her cellar who could hear.
He rubbed her back, holding her firmly but not tightly enough to hurt. It felt so good to lean in to his strength and cry. She wasn’t sure what she was crying the most about—killing a man or the loss of the life she could have had with Iain.
“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed.
He pulled away enough to look down on her and wiped at her tears with the pads of his thumbs. “What are you apologizing for?”
“I killed a man,” she whispered. “An English soldier. They’re going to take me away.”
“No, they won’t. I won’t allow it.”
“Ye can’t stop it.” Iain might think he was above reproach with the English, but this was beyond his sphere of influence. The feeling of doom that had been building inside her blossomed. “I’m so sorry. I truly wanted us to have a life together.”
“Hush,” he said. “Stop talking like that. We’ll have our life together.”
She grabbed his hand and squeezed even though it pained her raw palm. “I killed an English soldier.”
“He attacked you. You were defending yourself.”
“Ye think that matters to them? Ye have no idea what the English are really like.”
He searched her face but didn’t argue. “Tell me what happened.”
She told him as best she could, in disjointed sentences, between hiccups and tears. The more she talked, the more the mask fell across his features. His eyes darkened, and even though his touch was tender, his body was wound tight.
A soft knock on the door had both of them jumping. Cait put a hand to her mouth to keep from crying out. Their gazes locked. She was shaking so hard that she was sure her knees were knocking.
“I won’t let them take you,” he said fiercely.
There was another knock, followed by three quick raps.
“It’s Sutherland,” she said, her relief so enormous that she had to clutch Iain’s arm to keep from falling over. “That’s his knock. I don’t want him to see me like this. I don’t want him to know about…what happened.”
“Go upstairs,” Iain said. “I’ll help him get the people out.”
She fled up the stairs, pulling herself up as fast as she could, and collapsed on her bed, feeling sick.
Downstairs there were quiet voices and shuffling, then silence. Cait closed her eyes and wished she could go to sleep and wake up to start the day all over again. She would take Iain up on his offer of marriage right away, instead of wasting precious time arguing, and she would help him clear the north field. She wouldn’t feel ashamed that she was in a relationship with Iain. She would be proud.
However, she couldn’t relive any of that, and she couldn’t change what had happened and what was going to happen. Her only hope was that Rory would find the body and hide it, but then she would live her entire life afraid that someone would discover her secret.
Strong arms came around her and she leaned in to Iain’s shoulder, too weary and numb to cry.
“They’re gone,” he said. “I told Sutherland you weren’t feeling well and to leave you be for a bit.”
She nodded.
“When was the last time you ate?”
“I can’t,” she said.
“You should eat something or you’ll be sick.”
“I’ll be sick either way.”
He helped her lie down and quickly rounded the bed to lie behind her and take her in his arms. Her eyes drifted closed and exhaustion took over. But her sleep wasn’t peaceful. She dreamed of being chased through the forest. She dreamed of Donaldson’s confused eyes right after she clubbed him on the head.
Whenever the dreams got too bad, Iain woke her and held her and rubbed her back until she fell asleep again.
They were startled by a pounding on the front door, and Cait came awake with a jolt, sitting up straight and hissing at the pain and stiffness. She felt l
ike she’d been dragged by a horse.
“Open up, Iain Campbell!”
Iain cursed and swung his legs off the bed. “It’s Palmer.”
“Oh, God,” she whimpered.
“You don’t know why he’s here. He could just be looking for me.”
“Ye know that’s not true.” They’d found Donaldson’s body and somehow figured out that she’d caused his death.
“Stay here,” Iain commanded.
She crept to the top of the stairs so she could listen. They were talking quietly, but she could clearly hear them. “Donaldson has been killed,” Palmer was saying in a grave voice.
“Good,” Iain said. “He threatened Cait, and I’m not sorry that he met his end.”
There was a short silence during which Cait held her breath. Was this what her life was to be like? Hiding whenever Palmer came around, terrified that he would discover her secret?
“This is the third soldier killed, two of them near your land and now Donaldson on your land,” Palmer said.
“What are you saying?” Iain asked.
“I find it suspicious.”
“You think I killed them?”
“Of course not.”
“Then why confront me with this? What do you want?”
“Captain?”
A new voice entered the conversation, younger and unsure. There was silence. Cait thought she heard whispering but wasn’t certain.
“Where is Mrs. Campbell?” Palmer asked sharply.
“Unavailable,” Iain snapped back.
“We need to speak to her.”
“No.”
Cait walked down the steps. “I’m here,” she said.
“Cait—” Iain warned, but she kept her gaze on Palmer. He looked severe, but his look turned to shock when he saw her face.
“Good Lord,” he said, but then seemed to shake himself from his shock. “Donaldson was found dead, Mrs. Campbell. And I’ve just been informed that his horse is in your paddock.”
She blanched, having completely forgotten about his horse.
“Do you care to explain to me why my dead lieutenant’s horse is in your paddock?”
“Don’t say a thing, Cait,” Iain said.
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