Highland Avenger

by Hannah Howell

  “Nay, I couldnae ...”

  “Brian!” Simon ran up to him and grabbed him by the arm. “I think we may have trouble soon. When I saw that ye and Ned had found others alive, I decided to wander farther down the shore to see if there were others who had pulled themselves up into the rocks. There are a lot of armed men headed our way.”

  Out of the corner of his eyes, Brian saw Arianna and the two boys grow deathly pale. “I think there is yet something ye need to tell me.” He looked back at Simon. “How close?”

  “They move verra slowly, searching, and have only just begun to do so. Half an hour, mayhap more, and they will be upon us. Fifteen men, I think. I cannae be certain for there is a chance a few have already moved from my sight or are still making their way in from the ship. I didnae linger to make sure of my count.”

  “Get the horses packed.” As soon as Ned and Simon ran off to see to that chore, Brian stood up and pulled Arianna to her feet. “Are ye being hunted for some crime, m’lady?”

  “Nay!” Adelar moved to Arianna’s side and glared at Sir Brian. “’Tis me and Michel the men hunt for. They want us dead so that they can claim all that our father left to us.”

  “This is true?” Brian demanded, fighting the urge to steady Arianna when she swayed, still too weak to be on her feet for long.

  “Aye,” she replied. “They dinnae want to wait to see if my husband’s family can get the boys declared illegitimate.” When he just scowled at her, she added, “’Tis a long, sordid tale, Sir Brian, and I dinnae think there is time to tell it all right now. All that is important now is that those men want these boys dead so badly that they rammed Captain Tillet’s ship, not hesitating to condemn us all just to kill the boys.”

  Silently cursing, Brian swung her up into his arms, ignoring her protests. As he hurried to the horses, he made and tossed aside several plans before reaching the one he believed would work best. It was a risky one, but he was certain it would succeed in confusing and dividing the men who would soon be hunting them. He was also certain that Lady Arianna Murray Lucette was not going to like it.

  He was pleased to see Simon standing ready with the clothes Lady Arianna had stuffed into the keg, and set her down so that she could put hers on. She had a quick, clever mind, he decided as he thought on how she had saved herself and the boys. It would serve them well in the days ahead.

  “Simon, Ned, ye take this wee lad with ye and the captain and his men. Ride straight for Scarglas.” He pushed Adelar toward Simon even as the boy was still struggling to put his cloak on.

  “Nay! The lads should stay with me,” protested Arianna, pausing in her struggle to put her boots on.

  “So that the three of ye can be an easier target for your enemies?” Ignoring her muttered arguments, he looked at his brother Nathan and quickly explained why they needed to get the boys away from the shore. “Nat, ye take the others and the goods we have salvaged and make your way home in as twisted a way as ye can.” He nudged Michel toward Nathan. “Ye will guard this lad.”

  “And what will ye do?” asked Nathan as he helped Michel get his cloak on straight.

  “The lady and I will take three of the horses and head out as if we are racing for the Murray lands.”

  “As if? Where are ye truly headed then?”

  “To Scarglas, of course, but by way of Dubheidland. I believe it may be time to visit our cousins the Camerons. Sigimor has become too tame. Leading this trouble to his door should get his blood flowing again.”

  Arianna watched the two men grin at each other and nearly cursed as she hastily laced up her gown, trying to ignore how uncomfortable it was to put anything over her wet, torn shift. She was tempted to curse at the men, too. They were obviously intoxicated by the idea of thwarting some foe, just like men everywhere. She had seen that expression far too often to mistake it. The fact that they would take up the challenge to protect a woman and two children as well as avenge Captain Tillet’s drowned men only added to the sweetness of the battle. It was fortunate that she had seen another side to men as she had grown or she could easily think they were all bloodthirsty idiots.

  She looked at Adelar and Michel. The boys looked as frightened and uncertain as she felt. She did not need to ask if they were as terrified of being taken from her as she was of letting them go. It was written all over their pale faces, causing tears to shine in their wide gray eyes. Although her legs protested the movement, she went over to where the boys huddled together as the men moved quickly to finish the preparations to leave. Arianna knew she had very little time to soothe the children, or herself.

  “We should stay with you,” said Adelar. “All of us together.”

  “We will be together again soon.” She kissed each boy on the forehead.

  “Do ye trust these men?”

  “Aye, I think I do. Ye heard. They are my kinsmen through marriage and I have heard about them. The captain trusts them as weel. Go, my fine brave laddies. We will meet again verra soon and, mayhap, this will prove the safest way for us to get to my family. Heed weel the men who take ye with them.”

  Tears stung her eyes when both boys hugged her tightly. She stroked their hair and then clenched her hands into tight fists to stop herself from snatching them back when they joined the men. Arianna ignored the pain and weakness wracking her body and stood watching until they were out of sight. Doubts and fears churned her stomach but she struggled against them. In the end the decision to let the boys go rested upon one hard, cold fact. She was in no condition to keep them safe and would not be for a while.

  “Come,” said Sir Brian as he tossed her cloak over her shoulders, grasped her by the arm, and tugged her toward the three horses waiting for them. “We need to leave now.”

  “Why three horses?” she asked, placing a hand on the flank of the white mare he led her to.

  “I want to be certain the men hunting those boys think they have three choices to make, that they need to break into three groups to track us all down.” He looked at her. “Are ye strong enough to ride?”

  Arianna nodded, praying she was not fooling herself. The very last thing she wished to do right now was get on a horse, riding hard in an attempt to pull some of her enemies away from the trails the boys had taken. She wanted a bath, clean clothes, a hot meal, and a soft bed. She even wanted to cease having to be so strong, having to silently endure all her fear, pain, and weariness. It would be so lovely, she mused as she pulled herself up into the saddle, if she could just fall to the ground and give in to her misery, perhaps cry loudly and messily like a child for a little while.

  Brian mounted, checked the lead to the third horse loaded with several packs to mask the fact that it was riderless, and then glanced at Lady Arianna, who was securing her cloak more firmly around her body. She did not look as if she would stay in the saddle for long, but he had the suspicion that there was a core of stubborn, hard steel in the woman. All he needed was a few hours of hard riding out of her. As he kicked his horse into a steady gallop, he found himself hoping he could offer her a few comforts when they had to stop for the night.

  After an hour of hard riding, Brian slowed their pace a little. The trail they followed was wide enough that Arianna moved up to ride at his side. He caught her glancing behind them several times.

  “They wouldnae have reached the place we left for a while, and deciding what to do when confronted with three trails will hold them back for a time as weel,” he assured her. “They willnae follow the whole way at such a hard pace, either. They are unfamiliar with the area and will need to keep a closer eye on their route to be sure they stay on our trail. Nor will they wish to ride their horses to death, if they e’en have them.”

  “I suspect they brought horses with them,” she said. “The ship was verra large, much larger than Captain Tillet’s, and they wouldnae have wished to chase me and the boys on foot if they thought we had escaped drowning. Your mon Simon may have left ere they were able to bring their horses to shore.”

&
nbsp; “Which will take more time. Good for us.”

  “True. The DeVeaux and Amiel may e’en have held back on bringing the horses to shore until they were certain a search or chase would be needed for ’tis a lot of work to do. They were looking for our bodies.” She winced. “When they find the dead we had to leave behind they will ken that Michel and Adelar survived. I am so sorry those poor men died only to be left to the carrion.”

  “’Tis nay your fault. And I dinnae think the men hunting you and those boys would act verra kindly toward us once we said they couldnae have ye, so ’tis best we didnae wait there to confront them.”

  Arianna sighed and rubbed her forehead, but it did little to ease the pounding in her head. “Nay, ’tis why I ceased to seek any help. That and the fact that Claud’s family didnae wish to believe that Amiel was doing any wrong. They certainly refused to believe that he would ever deal with the DeVeaux.”

  “Who is Amiel?”

  “My husband’s brother.”

  “Ah. So the boys inherit something he wants.”

  Explanations were needed but Arianna heartily wished she did not have to give them. It meant revealing her humiliation, her shame. Unfortunately, the man not only deserved the answers he wanted, he might need them to better protect her and the children. She had learned enough from her family, and from ruling over her husband’s lands as he spent much of his time dallying with another woman, to know that even the smallest piece of information could make a difference between life and death.

  “At the moment the boys are my husband’s heirs.”

  “At the moment? I assumed they are his heirs because he was wed before he married you.”

  “He was and he remained married even as he took vows with me.” She could feel the heat of embarrassment color her cheeks and almost welcomed it for it chased away some of the chill lingering in her body. “No one kenned it, but he had married a girl in the village nearly six years before he married me. He did not annul that first marriage, which gave him the boys. Instead, he allowed all of us to believe Marie Anne was his mistress and had me train his boys. I kenned they were his sons, but I had thought they were his bastard children, ones he wished trained to a better life.”

  Brian bit back the curses stinging his tongue. He could only guess at the depth of the humiliation she had suffered. It was all too easy to recall the anger and bitterness suffered by his father’s wives over the man’s unfaithfulness. For this woman to discover that she was a mistress and not the wife she had thought herself must have been a hard blow indeed.

  Then he thought on how she treated the two boys his family now rushed to a safe haven. Brian had no doubts that she cared for them and they for her. It said a lot about the woman that she did not turn her anger or heartache onto the boys. Few women he had known would be so kind and loving toward the children of a man who had so cruelly betrayed them.

  “Yet you still call yourself Lady Lucette?”

  “To do otherwise would only shame both our families. I may be angry with Claud for his deception, but he is dead now, as is his wife. Murdered by his own brother, I believe. And his family? They may have nearly cost the boys their lives by refusing to heed my warnings, but they were grieving the loss of their eldest son and still reeling from learning how many lies he had told everyone. My family had naught to do with it all save to offer me what they all thought would be an excellent match. There is naught to gain in letting Claud’s lies be kenned save to shame all the ones who have done no real wrong.”

  “Including you and those laddies.”

  “Aye, including us. All I demanded of them was that, if they got the boys disinherited, that they gift them with the property held here and leave them with me. Then I left the problem of trying to sort out Claud’s deceptions to the Lucettes and brought the boys here. It was foolish of me to believe, even for a moment, that that would be enough to end the threat to them.”

  “Your Claud was a coward.”

  “Why do ye say that?”

  “He didnae have the stomach to tell his kin the truth. He probably feared he would lose his place as the heir because he wed a woman he kenned his family wouldnae approve of. Instead of fighting for the marriage he wanted, fighting for his sons, he lied and dragged ye into his life of lies without a thought as to how it would affect you. And ye were right to bring those laddies here. They will get the protection they deserve now.”

  That sounded very much like a vow but, before Arianna could respond to Sir Brian’s somewhat impassioned speech, he kicked his horse into a gallop. She hurried to get her own mount moving to keep up with him. It was not easy but she forced herself to ignore the exhaustion and pain battering at her body. She just prayed that it would not be too much longer before he claimed it safe enough to stop for a rest.

  She fixed her mind on what he had said about her late husband, Claud, and had to agree. Claud had been a coward, too spineless to stand firm on what he wanted honestly and openly. He had also been selfish, thinking only of himself. It embarrassed her to think of how hard she had tried to make their marriage a good one before she had discovered Marie Anne, the woman she had thought was his mistress. Discovering that Marie Anne had actually been his true wife had made her feel, briefly, relieved that she had not indulged in many of her grand plans to seduce him away from his mistress.

  Arianna just wished the sense of failure she still carried would ease. She had not failed for there had never been any chance for her to succeed. Claud was the one who had failed them all and was still failing them. Instead of being there to help protect his sons, it was the woman he had lied to and betrayed who was fighting to keep the boys alive. Arianna fixed her gaze on Sir Brian’s broad back and promised herself that she would win this fight. She also promised herself that she would never be so trusting and painfully naive again.

  Chapter 3

  “M’lady? M’lady! Wheesht, I didnae ken someone could sleep sitting up and with their eyes open.”

  “G’way.” Arianna swatted weakly at the hands grasping her waist.

  It was not until she was dangling in the air, those big warm hands at her waist all that kept her safe from falling, that Arianna became aware of where she was, who she was with, and that he was simply lifting her off the back of the horse. She breathed deeply, pushing away a sudden surge of fear. When he set her on her feet, gripping her shoulders when she swayed, she looked up at the sky. When had the sun sunk so low? she wondered.

  “Are ye awake now?” Brian thought she looked so enchantingly befuddled despite the tangled hair and bruises, he had to fight down the urge to kiss her.

  “I wasnae asleep,” she muttered.

  “Nay? I had to stop your mount, unclench your hands from the reins, and call to ye near to a dozen times ere ye spoke. Appeared much akin to sleep to me.”

  It certainly sounded so to her, too, but she was not about to admit to it. Arianna could recall a few embarrassing tales her family loved to tell about her doing such a thing when she was a child, exhausted yet unwilling to stop whatever she was doing. She had obviously not outgrown the strange habit. The fact that Sir Brian had had to do so much before she had even become aware of his presence was proof enough of that. Sir Brian MacFingal was not a man any woman could easily ignore.

  “Where are we?” she asked, praying he would not press her on her strange behavior.

  Brian grinned, doing nothing to hide his amusement even when she gave him a narrow-eyed glare of warning. “We are where we can safely rest for the night.”

  She could not stop herself from glancing behind them. “Are ye certain?”

  “As certain as one can be. Your enemy cannae ride in the dark any better or more safely than we can. The horses can be hidden by the trees and we can rest in a wee cave set behind those rocks.”

  Arianna grabbed the reins of her mount and followed him as he moved toward a large collection of stones set between the side of a rocky hill and a thick growth of trees and brush. They moved off the narrow, ro
ugh, drover’s trail far enough that she suspected it would be very difficult for anyone on that trail to see the horses. The moon was on the wane so, even if the night remained clear, it would not shed enough light to make anything lurking in the trees visible unless someone rode very close or the horses made some noise that drew attention to them.

  She inwardly shook her head. It did not matter. They needed to rest and so did the horses. Without sufficient rest the horses would falter and she and Sir Brian would be hard-pressed to elude her enemies on foot. Arianna began to change her mind about that, however, when Sir Brian ducked into a small opening in the side of the hill only to return to her side a moment later and gesture for her to go in.

  “Ye first,” she said, hoping that she would soon gain enough courage to enter that hole in the earth.

  “There are no animals in there,” Brian said.

  “Ye were nay in there for verra long. Mayhap ye should look again.”

  “’Tis but a wee shelter. There wasnae much looking I needed to do.”

  “Oh.” It was not only a hole in the earth; it was a small hole, she thought with a shudder.

  Brian studied her as she stared at the entrance to the small cave as if she expected some fierce, slavering beastie to leap out at any moment and go for her throat. He could sympathize with her reluctance to enter the shelter he had found for them. He was not too fond of such places, either. Unfortunately, she was not in any condition to travel any farther without some rest. He needed some rest, too, as did the horses. Then he studied her sad state in the fading daylight and nearly smiled. There was something he could tempt her inside with.

  “There is water within, enough for ye to clean yourself,” he said, and hid his sense of victory at the interest she immediately revealed, even though that interest was tainted with doubt.

  “Inside that wee cave?”

  “Aye. To the back of it. Runs in through some opening in the rock when it rains and collects in a pool, a hollowed-out spot that was probably made by the constant wear of the water. ’Tis one reason I marked this as a resting place when I travel.” He grabbed a pack from his saddle. “Come. I will start a fire and there should be something in here ye can wear so that ye can e’en clean your clothes. While ye clean up, I will settle the horses. That will give ye a wee bit of privacy,” he continued as he grasped her by the hand and tugged her inside the small cave.