To my immense relief, the hall was empty. I didn’t know what might have happened had we run into Brann with Collin barely able to breathe, let alone defend either of us. The trip up the stairs to the second floor seemed to take forever, as I split my attention between assisting Collin and keeping a wary eye on the front doors below.
But no one entered, and I could only suppose that Brann was as concerned with the potential loss of the distillery as Donaid and Hugh had been.
Collin dug in his pocket for the key to our room. After a few attempts I forced it to turn and we were safe inside. Collin collapsed in a chair as the requested bucket of water arrived. I sent the serving girl in search of Bridget and then secured the bar.
Collin drained two cupfuls of water, and at last his coughing ceased. He leaned his head back, eyes closed, and worked at breathing normally.
I had a dozen questions but forbade myself from asking them yet. He was safe, and that was what mattered. He was safe, and Edan’s body entombed in the burning pyre that had been his house.
With Collin out of immediate danger, I went to the window, peering down on the chaos below. Brann was at the forefront, seated on a horse and barking orders out to those scurrying about. The main fire of the distillery appeared to have been put out, but water was still being poured on it, and steam billowed from what had been the roof of the structure.
How long would it be before the fire Collin set was noticed?
Had it really been only mischievous lads who had set the first, and would they be blamed for ours as well? Or was something else afoot? Perhaps someone also trying to undermine Brann. Whoever it was, I owed them a debt of gratitude.
“Katie.” Collin held his hand out, and I hurried to his side. His face, not so red now, was streaked with ash and soot. The shirt that had been crisp and white this morning was soiled now, burnt through in places.
“Tsk,” I teased, touching one of the holes. “It appears that I cannot keep you clean or well dressed.”
“Hmpf.” From beneath his shirt Collin withdrew a packet of equally dirty papers— one of the copies of the deed entitling me to this castle— tossed them on the table, then pulled me onto his lap and held me tight, his face buried in the side of my hair. “Finlay was not in the other room. No one was.”
“Thank heavens.” I bent my head to his.
“He’ll make it to Edinburg,” Collin said. “And he has the other copy. I believe you’re right and we’ve heaven’s help.”
“We must,” I said. “Or someone else’s, at least.” I proceeded to tell him of the fire at the distillery.
Collin agreed that it had been fortuitous timing, especially considering his plan had taken him longer than he’d thought.
I listened— not because I particularly wished to hear it, but because I sensed he needed to tell me— as Collin described how he had cut a hole in the mattress and fitted Edan’s body inside. He’d been careful, he said, to remove the rope from the rafter and all the papers from the floor. After dousing the bed with a bottle of whisky found in a cupboard, Collin lit the bed on fire and left the room, closing the door behind him.
“How fortunate,” I said, in my best attempt at Scottish brogue and to keep from reverting to the state of hysteria I’d been in when we’d discovered the body. “That nary a house is to be found in all of Scotland without at least one bottle of whisky within its walls.”
“There was only the one,” Collin said. “So it took me longer than I thought to set the place ablaze. I had to keep returning to the room, carrying a book or chair leg or somewhat to catch that afire and then place it. It was on my last attempt— setting the books on the table to burn— that the smoke overcame me. The pile in the grate was blazing by then, but I’d shut up the chimney to keep the smoke in as long as possible. I didn’t realize how bad it had become until it almost had me.”
“I don’t like the sound of that at all.” I looped my arms around the back of Collin’s neck and sought his eyes. “We have been twice blessed today, but we cannot expect such fortune to continue. Let’s leave this place before it is too late.”
“Aye.” Collin turned his face to my arm and pressed a kiss there. “It will have to wait until tonight. We’ll have to appear at hall and tell our tale of the fire someone started while I was yet inside working— and how it almost killed me.”
“Quite a believable tale, given Brann’s history. It was very clever of you.” I kissed the top of Collin’s sooty nose. “Would you like me to order water brought up for a bath?”
“Not yet,” Collin said. “I want everyone at dinner to see me like this. It will strengthen my story.”
“You should rest at least. I expect Bridget will be bringing up some herbs or other concoction for you shortly, and then I want you to lie in that bed and get your strength back.” I attempted to rise from Collin’s lap, but he kept his arms firmly around my waist.
“There’s still the other matter to discuss.”
“Yes.” I sighed, conceding defeat already. Given the choice between Collin remaining here and in danger or my having to stay with Mhairi and her family while he dealt with Ian, I had to choose the latter. No matter how much it struck a spear of jealousy deep inside of me.
“I’ll not bring you with me to see Ian. And there’s only the one place I’ll feel you are safe.” Collin’s rasping voice and labored breathing gave me little option but to agree.
“I’ll go. I’ll stay there,” I agreed coolly. That didn’t mean I had to like it.
Chapter Fourteen
Air. I cannot breathe. I could not see. Arms flailing helplessly in front of me, I stumbled around the small room, banging my shins on a chair and low table before I found the wood frame of a door set into the wall. My hands dropped lower, found the latch, and pulled. Air, still stale with smoke, but fresher than that I’d been confined in, poured into the space, and I gulped at it as I ran blindly.
Wait. Come back. Something was drawing me in, bidding me to stay in the burning cottage just a little longer. I hesitated. There was something I was supposed to learn, but I could see nothing, and to turn back would mean certain death. I fled.
Pitch black surrounded me as I bolted upright in bed, gasping, feeling suffocated by the tendrils of smoke circling my head.
“What is it?” Collin jumped up from his place on the floor. “What’s wrong?” The bed creaked beneath his weight as he sat beside me.
Instead of answering I sucked in a mouthful of air and realized it was not smoky at all. My heart pounded as my eyes drank in the shapes in the shadowed room. I’m not burning. I’m not blind.
“Are you all right, Katie?” He found my hands and held them. “Was it a nightmare?”
“Yes. I think so.”
Collin released me and leaned over to the bedside table and the candle there. When he had it lit, I saw that all was as it should be. We were safely ensconced in my mother’s old room, a barred door and presumably two guards between us and immediate danger.
“Better?” He brushed the hair back from my face with one hand and rubbed at his bleary eyes with another.
“You’ve done this before,” I said.
A corner of his mouth lifted. “Aye. You were given to nightmares often as a lass.” Collin stood and stretched then surprised me when he peeled the quilt back from the bed. “The difference is that now I can do something about it other than to pat your head and send you back to bed alone.” He slid between the sheets beside me and pulled me down into his arms. “We’ll not do anything but sleep, but I hope to be a comfort to you in that at least. Judging by the moon, we’ve an hour or so more before we need to leave.”
“I think I shall have nightmares more often,” I teased as I snuggled up against him. Collin’s arm wrapped around me, and his hand came to rest over my stomach.
Someday. One day not too terribly far off, I hoped, we would lie together like this often. We would have only normal concerns then— of caring for our home and family. Not the weight
of so many others and the constant threat to our lives. There would be no more nightmares. Only dreams fulfilled.
I closed my eyes, not particularly eager for sleep now that my husband was beside me. This was what I had wanted from him, the closeness I had missed since our arrival on Campbell lands. If I had only an hour, I wanted to savor every minute.
There was no smoke and no fire. We were safe. No one was burning.
Here.
But elsewhere—
“Liusaidh!” I threw back the covers as the details of my nightmare returned. “Brann is going to set her house on fire. I’ve seen it.” I’d lived it, as if I had been Liusaidh, stumbling around in that smoke-filled room.
“Are you certain?” Collin’s hand on my arm stopped me.
“Yes,” I cried, twisting away from him, as eager to be gone from the bed as I had been to remain in it with him a moment earlier. “It wasn’t a nightmare, but a vision.”
I jumped up and ran to my mother’s trunk. “Brann has learned we stayed there our first night back. He is furious about what happened at Edan’s, that you foiled his plan. This is his revenge. I see it, Collin. Just as I saw him that day at the moor.”
“All right.” Collin had both boots on and was at the door by the time I’d jammed my feet into slippers and thrown a cloak over my nightrail.
“You should stay here,” he said.
I shook my head and pushed past him into the hall. “We’ll go together. I promise not to slow you down.”
“A bit early yet, isn’t it?” Alistair asked in a whisper as we left our room.
“Katie’s had a vision.” Collin took my hand as we headed toward the stairs. “Brann is going after Liusaidh.”
“He’s going to set fire to her house,” I said.
“We’ll come too,” Quinn added from the other side of the doorway.
Together we thumped down the main staircase, not caring if anyone heard. Brann and those working with him had all gone to start the fire. No one here would bother us.
The waning moon provided little light as we left the hall and ran across the courtyard. While Collin and Quinn retrieved the horses, I shivered beneath my cloak and studied the sky. It must be nearing midnight. We had retired to our room early, giving the excuse that Collin was still recovering from his ordeal at Edan’s house.
That much was true, though we had used the time to prepare for taking our leave in the middle of the night. We had planned to leave a little later than this, when Collin felt all but a few outside guards would be asleep. And now here we were, rushing toward yet another fire. Please let us be in time.
Quinn and Collin returned. Collin helped me up behind him, and we were off, racing toward the front gates which were, not surprisingly, open. The same old man who had called a warning to us upon our arrival stepped out from behind the wall as we thundered past. He waved and called to us as before, but his words were lost beneath the sound of hoof beats across the wooden bridge.
Quinn and Alistair edged ahead. We caught the road and started down it without interruption. It had taken the better part of an hour from Liusaidh’s doorstep to the castle gates the morning we arrived. We were moving much faster now. I hoped it would be enough.
I bent my head against Collin’s back and closed my eyes as the minutes passed, trying to picture her tiny home, but it wouldn’t appear, almost as if it was already gone.
Why Luisaidh? I thought with anguish.
“Look.” Still holding the reins, Collin inclined his head toward a plume of dark smoke rising in the distance.
“Oh no.” My chest constricted, and I remembered the panic of my dream. “Wake up, Liusaidh. Wake up,” I begged. Either way, Brann would have her. I saw it clearly now, saw her burning home, and saw that she had known this was to happen. Grandfather had told her as much when he’d brought her my mother’s trunk years ago.
God speed, she and Edan had said to one another. They’d understood. They had each been told what helping me would cost, yet they had done it anyway.
I felt suddenly, violently ill. “Stop, Collin. We’re too late.” The back of my throat burned. Liusaidh, dead. Because of me. I placed my hands on Collin’s arms. “Please. We must go back.”
He didn’t slow our pace. “We might be in time. Brann might have set fire to her shed first. Or she might not be home—”
“She’s dead.” I tugged on Collin’s arms again. “Turn around. Please,” I begged. “Brann has a bigger target here. He knew we would come.”
Collin slowed the horse at this. “Has he an extra sense as well?”
I shook my head. “He guessed that we would come,” I clarified. “He hoped for it, and again we have fallen neatly into his trap.”
“Not yet, we haven’t.” Collin pulled hard to the left and turned us around just as the distant flames of Liusaidh’s burning croft came into view. The orange glow reached skyward, stretching beyond the thatched roof. A cluster of men on horseback surrounded the house from a distance. In case she had tried to get out.
“Redcoats,” Collin muttered. We broke into a gallop, heading back in the direction we had come.
“How can you tell from so far away and in the dark?”
“A particular talent of mine.” Collin dug in his heels, urging Ian’s horse to go faster. “I can spot one five furlongs away.”
Alistair and Quinn were too far ahead for us to call back, but I had no time to worry for them.
I dared a look over my shoulder and saw that the circle had disbanded and appeared to be moving as one body toward us. I thought we could outride them. But I couldn’t be sure.
“Collin, stop. Let me off. I’ll hide, and you can ride faster. Get back to the castle, and I’ll wait in the woods until you are able to get away again.”
“Stop trying to have me leave you.” Collin leaned forward, practically flattening himself over Ian’s horse. I did the same. “I’ll not do it, so quit asking.”
Behind us I heard shouting and imagined that I felt the ground tremble as they gave chase. “Why are there soldiers here?”
“I don’t know.”
I stopped asking questions and began praying instead. And thinking. The castle was the safest place for us, wasn’t it? If we darted off to a path in the woods, how easily could we be tracked? I didn’t look behind to see how close the others were. The castle towers were visible in the distance above the treetops. It would be at least another fifteen minutes before we reached the gate. Forever. And Ian’s horse seemed to be slowing. He’d carried us swiftly going out already, with no relief before we’d turned back. The Redcoats were rested from waiting for us.
As we rode I silently cursed my vision, my gift. It was worthless. Dangerous. I had been too late to help Liusaidh and had only put our lives in danger. I wanted nothing more to do with it.
“Almost there,” Collin said.
I lifted my head just enough to see the gate was still open. Another quick glance behind, and I saw that the soldiers were a fair distance behind.
“We should be able to close the gates before they reach us,” Collin said.
Burying my head again, I shut my eyes and clung to him, waiting to feel the change when we left the packed dirt to cross the weathered wood of the bridge.
“I’m going to dismount as soon as we pass through,” Collin said. “Ride straight to the front doors. Leave the horse, go to the room, and lock yourself in.”
“You can’t secure the gate yourself,” I argued, having no intention of leaving him. It had to take at least two grown men to move each of the two immense panels. And there was the matter of securing the doors once they were closed.
“I’ll find help,” Collin said. We hit the bridge at full speed, not slowing until we were within the wall’s protection. He slid quickly from Ian’s horse and thrust the reins at me.
“Not so fast.” Brann emerged from the shadows on my other side, tugging them from my hand.
“You!” I kicked at his chest, and he grabbed my fo
ot.
“Surprised to see me?” An evil grin split his face as he grasped my leg, pulling me toward him.
Behind me Collin shouted. I looked back to see three soldiers surrounding him. Brann yanked me from the horse, and I fell to the ground, legs spread painfully.
“What do you mean by this?” Ignoring the throbbing in my knee, I attempted to stand.
Brann’s fingers tightened over my arm, biting into the skin as he jerked me to my feet. “What did the MacDonald mean by showing up here with an illegal weapon?” Brann marched me toward Collin and the soldiers— more Redcoats.
“He was holding it for me,” I said loud enough that the soldier who had just removed Collin’s pistol might hear. “It was a gift from my father before I left England. English citizens are still allowed arms, are they not?” I directed my question to the same soldier.
He gave me a look filled with disdain. “You’re not even strong enough to lift this, let alone shoot it.”
“You are mistaken, and if you will hand it to me, I will gladly prove it.”
He laughed. “You take me for a fool.”
“She’s not lying.” Collin spoke softly, in a tone I guessed was meant to diffuse the situation. “She shot my brother.”
Now it was Brann who chuckled. He bent close, his hot, foul breath in my ear. “Is that true?”
“Yes.” Would that you were next. If that opportunity was ever granted to me, I would make certain to aim better.
“Doesn’t matter whose it was. It’s mine now.” The soldier tucked the pistol in the belt at his waist. “And as it was found in possession of a Scot, we’ll be taking him.”
“Where?” My eyes met Collin’s. His gaze revealed nothing. Act as if you do not care, I imagined him saying.
I strained against Brann’s hold and asked again. “Where are you taking him?”
“He’ll have a short stay at prison. Then onto the Colonies with that lot.” The soldier inclined his head toward the still-open gate, outside of which a line of downtrodden men, women, and children were being herded by a group of soldiers on horseback. The old man who’d tried to call out a warning to us was among them.
A Promise for Tomorrow Page 11
