“Aye, I see that. Ye were gey desperate to pay over the odds for this useless scrap of a lassie.”
Diarmid didn’t respond to the jibe. “Come with me, Christina. Your mother is waiting up in the trees on the hill.”
The girl made faltering progress across the field, but her eyes remained fixed on Allan. The thought of Fiona living in such fear made Diarmid want to smash something. Preferably something bearing the name of Grant. But so close to achieving what he wanted, he wasn’t going to shatter the fragile truce.
Allan jammed the notes into his coat pocket. “We can go on as planned.”
Then everything seemed to happen at once. Fiona shouted her daughter’s name as she broke clear of the trees and darted down the brae. Christina gave a broken cry and dashed forward past Diarmid. A loud sound from nearby set Diarmid’s ears ringing.
The pain took a few more seconds to hit him. When it did, he staggered and collapsed back against the edge of the bridge.
Chapter 33
The crack of a gunshot made Fiona stumble on her headlong race down the steep hillside toward the bridge. With sick horror, she saw Diarmid reel and collapse. Her vision narrowed to a long dark tunnel, with her husband lying quiet and still at the other end.
“Diarmid!” she screamed in despair, finding her balance and forcing her legs to move faster.
The shock of seeing him fall was so powerful that it took her a few seconds to realize that a small figure had pushed past him and now darted up the slope toward her.
As another shot rang out from the bridge below, she came face to face with the daughter she hadn’t seen in so long. “Christina…”
For a year, she’d spent every minute hungering to see her child again. Now, as the world turned to nightmare, she did.
The moment was so overwhelming that she hardly noticed Sir Quentin and the Douglas men thunder past her on their way to the bridge. From the other side of the burn, about a dozen men wearing the black and yellow Grant tartan streamed out of the trees behind the carriage that had brought Christina to this isolated brae.
“Mamma!” Christina flung herself at her mother with a force that left Fiona winded.
Fiona’s arms closed hard about the too-thin body. For the space of a second, she shut her eyes and breathed in the scent of her little girl who rested in her embrace at last. As she clutched her baby to her, her heart felt too big to fit inside her chest. The surge of love that flooded her made her shake. Love and relief and overmastering gratitude that she saw her child again, when there had been so many days when she’d been sure she never would.
But the reunion was bittersweet and at least for now, by necessity curtailed. Fiona drew back, wiping at her eyes. Christina needed her. She knew it. But Diarmid needed her more. She had to go to her husband, who lay shot at the base of the hill.
Pray God he was still alive. The thought of the rest of her days without Diarmid Mactavish was too cruel to endure.
“Sweetheart, I’m sorry. I’m so happy to see you, but I have to find out what’s happening down at the bridge,” she said urgently. “Quick. Go up to the trees at the top of the hill and wait there. Don’t come down again until I come and get you.”
Distress and bewilderment darkened the large blue eyes that peered up at her from a pale, drawn face. “But, Mamma…”
It was unfair to expect a child to understand that Fiona had obligations that outweighed her immediate duties as a mother. Yet she had no time for long explanations.
“Go, Christina. Don’t be afraid. I’ll come and find you, and I’ll make it up to you, I promise.” She didn’t wait for the inevitable protest, although pulling free from her daughter’s clinging arms felt like cutting off part of herself. “I’ll fetch you as soon as I can.”
Biting back a sob, she picked up her skirts and sprinted down the hill. Halfway down, she turned back to check that Christina obeyed her. The slumped shoulders spoke of defeat in a way that tore at Fiona’s heart, but at least the girl was heading toward the trees and safety.
With dogged determination, Fiona faced downhill again and headed toward Diarmid. When she skidded on the muddy track leading up to the bridge, she saw Hamish on his knees, supporting his terrifyingly still cousin and pressing a sodden red handkerchief to his shoulder. In the distance, bands of fighting men clashed near the carriage, but she had no attention to spare for anyone other than her husband.
“Oh, Diarmid, what have you done?” she cried, as she dropped onto the cold, wet stones at his side.
Her frantic gaze struggled to work out what his injuries were. Under the dark coat, it was hard to see exactly where the bullet had hit him.
At the sound of her voice, Diarmid’s dark eyelashes fluttered on his ashen cheeks. He slowly opened his eyes to focus with difficulty on her face.
“Fiona?” he asked groggily, reaching out for her with his uninjured arm. “What the devil are ye doing here?”
“Rescuing you, you gallant fool.” Catching his hand in a crushing grip, she tried to use her touch to instill every ounce of strength into him that she could.
She wouldn’t let him die. She wouldn’t. Everything he’d done since he’d found her on Canmara Beach had led to this appalling moment, and she wished she’d never been born. Her voice lowered to a cracked whisper. “Please, please stay alive. Please. I can’t bear it if I lose you…”
“I’m pretty sure the bullet missed any vital organs,” Hamish said. The misty rain plastered his blond hair to his head, and he looked serious but not frantic. “If we can stop the bleeding, he should be fine.”
For what felt like the first time since she’d seen Diarmid in his cousin’s arms, Fiona gulped in a full breath of cold, damp air. Uncaring of her audience, she bent to cover his face with kisses. She felt almost unhinged with relief that he wasn’t dead. “Thank God, you’re alive.”
“It seems so.” Diarmid moved his bad arm and groaned. “I certainly hurt enough. What in God’s name happened?”
“Allan pulled a gun out of his pocket and shot you,” Hamish said. “Don’t you remember?”
“Aye, that’s right.” Diarmid’s eyes sharpened on Fiona’s face as she leaned over him. “What in hell are ye doing here, lassie? I left ye safe in the trees. I remember turning when ye called out…”
“That saved your life,” Hamish said. “Otherwise, at that distance Grant could never have missed your heart.”
Awareness of lingering danger pierced Fiona’s panic over Diarmid’s welfare, and she glanced around her. “Where on earth is Allan?”
“He’s dead. I shot him,” Hamish said in a voice that conveyed deep satisfaction. “Bugger deserved it.”
That must have been the second gunshot she’d heard. She’d dreaded that Allan might have shot Diarmid twice to ensure his enemy really was dead.
“Good for ye, cuz,” Diarmid said in an unsteady whisper.
“He’s over there.” Hamish jerked his chin in the direction of an unmoving figure spread-eagled on the grass a few feet away. In death, the man who had tormented her for so long looked strangely small, almost insignificant. Thomas was on his knees beside his brother, his shoulders heaving as he cried in ugly, gasping sobs.
“What about Thomas?” Fiona asked. “Is he armed?”
“Not anymore.” This time, Hamish’s chin indicated an old-fashioned pistol lying on the bridge beside him. “Don’t worry, I emptied it.”
There was renewed shouting and scuffling over near the trees where the Grants offered what looked to be half-hearted resistance to the Douglases under Sir Quentin’s command. Even in her distraction, she noticed that without Allan to spur them on, his kin weren’t putting up much of a fight.
With a shiver, she whipped her plaid shawl from her shoulders. The bridge was cold and wet under her knees, and the wind had a bite to it. They needed to get Diarmid to somewhere dry and warm. “This might work better to stanch the blood.”
“Good idea.” Hamish lifted his red-stained hand away from
the wound.
Fiona pushed the coat to the side to reveal the pool of blood blooming over Diarmid’s shirt, turning the white linen a vivid scarlet. She sucked in a shuddering, horrified breath and fought dizziness.
It took her a few seconds to gather enough composure to notice that Hamish was right about the location of the wound. The blood seemed to be oozing from Diarmid’s shoulder, not his chest.
Steeling herself, she forced clumsy hands to bunch up the thick woolen shawl and press it hard to the wound. “Don’t you dare die, Diarmid. I’ll never forgive you if you die.”
“Willnae…die,” he whispered, his eyelids flickering as he struggled to stay conscious.
She’d known there would be treachery. Curse Diarmid and his honorable heart that he hadn’t taken her warnings seriously. She shifted against the paralyzing cold seeping up through her skirts from the bridge.
“Is yon bastard dead, then?”
Startled Fiona looked up from Diarmid’s dear, haggard features to see Thomas standing over her. He looked like he’d aged twenty years since they last met.
“No, he’s not,” she snapped. “And he won’t be, if I have anything to say about it.”
“For God’s sake, if you try anything now…” With impressive speed, Hamish disentangled himself from Diarmid and stood to counter any threat from Thomas. Even that small amount of jiggling had Fiona flinching on her husband’s behalf. She heard Diarmid bite back a long groan of agony.
Gently she took his head onto her lap, cradling his cheeks in her shaking hands. He was as pale as paper, and the heavy black lashes lay still on his cheeks. Despite Hamish’s reassurances, she was sick with anxiety. There was so much blood, and nothing she did seemed to stop the flow. Her gown was sticky with it.
“This is all your fault, ye troublesome bitch,” Thomas said bitterly. “Why the hell couldn’t ye stay at Bancavan and do your duty by your kin?”
Hamish saved her from answering. “What in blazes were you and Allan thinking of, shooting Diarmid? You couldn’t hope to get away with murder when I was here to report what happened.”
“Och, we had a dozen clansmen to swear that Mactavish produced his gun first. You’re the mongrel’s cousin. Nobody would believe you’re an unbiased witness.”
“You should have just taken your thousand pounds and left,” Fiona said in a broken voice, looking up at the man whose weakness had encouraged his brother’s evil to thrive. “That’s more money than any Grant has seen in twenty years.”
“A thousand?” Thomas’s voice was snide. “A Mactavish cannae buy a Grant so cheap, ye wee besom. Allan got ten thousand out of the devil, and he’d started to wish he’d asked for more.”
Ten thousand pounds? It was a mad amount of money. She wanted to give Diarmid a good shake. Or she would, if she wasn’t worried sick about him.
“You great, wonderful idiot, Diarmid,” she muttered, stroking the damp black hair back from his brow. He felt so cold beneath her touch. The weather became as large a threat as his blood loss.
She wondered if he’d drifted into unconsciousness again, but a ghost of a smile stretched his lips. “Had to. Worth it.” His voice faded. “To see ye happy.”
Oh, Diarmid…
She lifted her head to watch through tears as Sir Quentin approached them. Behind him near the trees, the Grant clansmen now stood in a disconsolate bunch under Douglas guard. “Lady Invertavey, how fares Mr. Mactavish?”
Fiona stared misty-eyed down at the man she’d married so unwillingly and now couldn’t imagine living without. “He’s lost a lot of blood, but I pray he’ll survive.”
“Let’s hope so.” After all the violence, his polite bow to Thomas struck Fiona as incongruous. “Mr. Grant, I’m Sir Quentin Avery. I own this land we’re standing on, and I’m also the local magistrate.”
“You’ll want to take me into custody for shooting that bastard, I suppose,” Hamish said in a grim tone. “I’d like it on record that Allan Grant had a second pistol. I knew if I didn’t do something, he’d finish the job of killing Diarmid after he failed with the first attempt.”
“It was cold-blooded murder, what ye did to my brother,” Thomas said. “You’ll hang for this, Douglas.”
Sir Quentin shook his head. “Not if I have anything to say about it. I already saw there was a second gun. Mr. Douglas shot Allan Grant in self-defense and to save his cousin. When we get back to Glen Lyon, I’ll take statements from you all, but I can’t see that this matter needs to proceed to any sort of charge.”
“Bloody corruption and collusion. I’ll carry this further,” Thomas snarled, his hands closing into fists at his sides. “Ye see if I don’t.”
“Your prerogative, Mr. Grant,” Sir Quentin said in a cool voice. “But any publicity about this incident is only going to tarnish what little reputation your brother has left.”
Fiona hardly cared that Thomas blustered about setting the law on them all. At last, Diarmid’s blood loss seemed to be slowing. A faint trace of color seeped into his ashen face. Perhaps there was a chance he might come through this after all.
“We expected trouble. Hamish and I were both armed,” Diarmid said in a failing voice. “Fiona warned me.”
“You’re going to have a dashed uncomfortable trip back to Lyon Castle, and the sooner, the better,” Sir Quentin said. “I’ve got one of our men bringing the Grants’ carriage over for you.”
A timorous voice spoke from the end of the bridge. “Mamma?”
“Christina?” Fiona said, turning her head in her daughter’s direction.
Her grip on Diarmid tightened, as she struggled to contain the turbulent oceans of emotion swelling inside her. Fear for her husband. Fear for her child. Relief at Allan’s death. A mother’s powerful yearning to clutch her daughter close and reassure her that the danger had passed.
“Go to Christina.” Hamish smiled at her with compassion and understanding in his blue eyes. “She’s frightened and bewildered, and we’ve left her alone too long.”
“But Diarmid…”
“Don’t worry about my cousin. I’ll look after him.” With competent hands, Hamish kneeled down and transferred Diarmid into his hold with a minimum of painful fuss. “Can you stand, old man?”
“Aye, I think so,” Diarmid said unsteadily. “But ye might need to lend me your brawny shoulder.”
Fiona’s arms felt empty without him. But she trusted Hamish’s opinion about Diarmid’s chances. Right now, she had to look after Christina.
She stumbled to her feet on the damp, slippery stones. “Darling…”
The first time she saw Christina, she’d been too frantic about Diarmid to take in many details. Now the sight of her daughter made her heart cramp with an agonizing mixture of regret and love and longing.
In the last year, Christina had grown so much. When her daughter left Bancavan for Trahair House, she’d been a child. Now her thin, serious face hinted at the beautiful woman she’d become.
Christina looked aghast at the mud and red gore staining Fiona’s clothes and hands. “You’re covered in blood.”
“It will wash out, sweetheart.”
“Aye, that it will.” To her surprise, Christina managed a nervous smile. “Can I come away with you now?”
Fiona swallowed to shift the painful lump of emotion blocking her throat. Her hands itched to grab her daughter and hug the life out of her. But the child had been isolated and afraid for the last year, and today had been crammed with confusion and danger that must scare her even more. Fiona didn’t want to do anything likely to worsen her fear.
Did Christina know her loathsome uncle was dead? Fiona hadn’t seen her cast a single glance toward Allan’s unmoving body on the other side of the bridge.
“Indeed you can come with me.” Tears thickened her voice, but she refused to give in to them. Christina needed her to be strong now. She couldn’t let her daughter down.
It gradually sank in that she and Diarmid had won against the Grants. Allan cou
ldn’t hurt them anymore. Nobody had any reason to keep Christina away from her.
She should be happy. She was. Or she would be if Diarmid hadn’t been hurt.
“I’m glad.” The wariness in Christina’s eyes threatened to break Fiona’s heart. “Who is that man you were hugging?”
“He helped me find you. His name is Diarmid.”
“Is he going to die?”
Not if I can damn well help it.
“I hope not.”
Fiona swallowed again. So many times, she’d imagined this reunion. In her mind, it had been bright and joyous, unmarred by the shadows of the past. Laughter and smiles. Not this awkward encounter where she dreaded that every word she spoke widened the distance yawning between them.
She reminded herself that for a nine-year-old, a year was an eternity. To Christina, she must seem like a stranger. Finding one another again would take time and patience. Now, thanks to Diarmid, they had an opportunity to rebuild their closeness and give Christina the childhood she’d never had.
“What about Uncle Allan?” Christina asked, still without looking at Allan’s body. “Is he dead?”
“Yes, sweetheart.”
“That’s good. I didn’t like him.”
“I didn’t either.” Fiona ventured a step closer. “I know I’m all mucky, but is it all right if I give you another hug?”
This time there was no mistaking the misgivings in Christina’s expression. “Do you want to?”
Fiona frowned. What on earth was this? “Very much.”
“Then why did you send me away to Cousin William? Was I naughty? Don’t you love me anymore?”
For the first time, Christina’s unnatural composure showed signs of cracking. Her face was drawn, and her mouth trembled. Shock kept Fiona silent a moment too long, and Christina retreated a pace.
“Your mother loves you more than ye ken, Christina,” a deep, wonderfully familiar voice said from behind Fiona. “She risked her life over and over to save ye and bring you back to her, where ye belong. You’re verra lucky to have such a brave, clever mamma, who wanted to find you so much, that she’s been running all over Scotland facing untold dangers while she looked for ye.”
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