Murder was written on the visage of every man in the hall as
the tale of the lady’s kidnapping was told. Knives bristled from boot tops and
belts. To Alex’s amazement, the idle old man who claimed the title of Cranville
fastened on a broadsword beneath his English-tailored redingote. Never had he
seen a more incongruous sight, but his own blood boiled for the combat. Fury,
he could understand, and he willingly joined them.
They marched or rode according to their means, spreading out
across the hills with torches flaring. As they walked, others joined them,
signaled by the flaring lamps in the watchtower. Alex gazed over his shoulder
at the strategic location of the keep. Even through the blinding snow those
lanterns could be seen beaming through the darkness, a feudal call to arms.
The laird led his ragtag army boldly, oblivious of the
impossibility of his task. Men couldn’t ride out of the hills to storm castles
anymore. His Majesty had forbidden wars and weapons, and his wrath would be
great.
But Rory sat his steed like a medieval warrior, a wool hat
pulled down over his forehead to protect his face, the vivid tartan acting as a
flag. His square, stern face revealed no fear, although his stiff stance hinted
at the extent of his injuries. Alex studied the fierce men around him and
decided he was glad he wouldn’t be with Drummond when this mob knocked at the
door.
Not that anybody intended to knock, he eventually realized. The
Maclean led the both the tenants of Alyson’s estate and his own. The servants
inside Stagshead slipped from the mansion to join the army marching over the
once manicured lawns. Men took up pitchforks and hoes, and women held kitchen
knives and pokers. For centuries the Macleans had followed their laird at his
call. They did not fail him now.
***
Inside the mansion, Drummond grew restless at the
deepening silence of his household. He paced, attempting to bind his wound on
his own when his shouts brought no one. The servants had been increasingly lax,
but not to the extent of ignoring him.
He shivered and kicked at the peat in the dying fire. His
side ached, and he didn’t have the desire to hunt more fuel. After Cranville
left, he should have returned to London. But he hated to leave unfinished
business, and London was so devilish expensive. Now that the Maclean was dead,
leaving this desolate ruin should be safer.
In the silence of the empty rooms, he heard a muffled
whimper from above, and he scowled. He should have left her gagged. At the
time, it had seemed amusing to take her hostage to prevent reprisal, but she
was comely enough, and her fortune wasn’t to be laughed at. She might serve
other purposes.
All he had to do was wait for her to rid herself of the babe,
then carry her off to Gretna.
Drummond fidgeted at the escalating caterwauling above stairs.
It seemed the babe might appear at any time. He knew nothing of women giving
birth, but she had looked pretty pale when he’d dropped her on the bed.
He didn’t have to worry about her trying to escape, at
least. If he could find one of the wretched maids, he’d send one up to her. Or
mayhap the female was just mad and making those sounds for naught. Who could
tell?
Annoyed, Drummond threw his empty bottle at the blackened
fireplace and set out to find the servants. If he whipped a few of them, they
wouldn’t dare desert him like this again.
He stalked down the spacious marble-tiled hall, past the
gilded drawing room, the chandeliered dining hall, the book-lined study, and
the paneled game room. The Maclean mansion was of recent vintage, built after
the end of the border wars, and still unfinished in many places. The rebellion
had interrupted the construction, and only Drummond’s intervention had
prevented it from destruction along with the homes of so many other Jacobites.
He’d never had the wealth to complete the work.
Only now did he see the practical function of the old stone fortress.
This new manor was vulnerable from the inside as well as out.
Although the fire still burned in the kitchen grate, not a
servant was in sight. The bedrooms and servants’ hall behind the kitchen were
equally deserted. His footsteps echoed hollow against the wooden floors as he
retraced his path to the front of the house. On instinct, he pulled back the
heavy draperies concealing the wide bank of windows overlooking what once would
have been the park. What he saw made him wish again for the narrow barred
windows of a keep.
Torches illuminated the silhouettes of men streaming up the
hillside. Some had already reached the house and were following the road to the
stables. Others approached along the carriage drive. It did not take long to detect
the shapes of pitchforks and muskets.
For the first time in his life, Drummond felt true,
gut-wrenching fear.
He had not believed the tenants capable of this kind of
organized retaliation to the Maclean’s death. How could they even know of it? Besides,
he had made it look like an accident. No court of law could prove anything else.
Drummond blanched at realizing the fools didn’t intend to go
through proper courts. For centuries, the lairds had been judge and jury. But
he had killed the laird, hadn’t he? All of them. The old man and his favored
son and now the younger.
He
was the laird now.
His mother had been a Maclean. There was precedence for the
title to pass through the female line. He was laird now. They couldn’t march
against his orders.
The large public chambers on the first floor with their wide
windows would provide no protection at all. The moans from above reminded him
of his best source of safety. Grabbing rifle and rapier from the game room,
Drummond ran for the stairs to the upper chambers.
He had dumped Maclean’s wife in the first guest room at the
top of the stairs. The windows there would provide better observation.
Holding his weapons, Drummond slammed into the room where he
held his hostage.
***
Alyson winced at the slamming door. Wrapped in a haze of
pain, she frowned at seeing her captor shove a small sofa in front of her door.
That seemed an odd thing to do, but when he looked up, she saw the wild-eyed
fear in his eyes.
Drummond strode toward the draperies at the far end of the
room. Alyson struggled to sit up against the pillows. She had never met Rory’s
cousin, but she had no doubt as to his identity. His hair was fair and not Rory’s
rich auburn. He was of much the same height as Rory, but he was slender where
Rory was sturdy. Despite the differences, she could still find the resemblance
in the hollowed planes and square jaw.
She had been thinking of Rory as alive, denying the reality
that he could not have survived both gunshot and fall. She felt Rory as surely
as she felt this man’s fear. Something was terribly wrong out there.
She groaned as the pain returned.
Drummond didn’t even look at her but stayed frozen at the
window.
Alyson dug her fingers into the folds of her gown and tried
to stifle her cries. Moisture broke out on her forehead as the pain rolled endlessly.
Rory’s son had obviously decided he wished to join the
battle. She was almost relieved at the notion. A son like Rory would be a
mother’s joy.
In the flicker of the room’s one candle, Drummond turned and
snarled at her smile.
“Are you expecting visitors, sir?” Alyson inquired,
indicating his anxious placement at the window.
***
Demented
.
Cranville had said his wealthy cousin was a trifle odd, but that was scarcely
the word for it. Instead of railing and screaming at him, calling for midwives
or maids, the Maclean’s woman was talking to him as if they were downstairs in
the drawing room. She wouldn’t be a major loss.
Drummond turned back to watch the activity below, seeking
the leaders.
They weren’t hard to find. Three men on horses had taken
strategic positions near the main paths to the house. Their coats blew in the
wind, and he could tell by their bearing that they weren’t common laborers. One
of the fools even wore a tartan. He would have them all hanged for treason.
Even as he watched, they gestured in unison, sending their mob storming toward
the house.
It was now or never. Drummond threw open the casement just
as his captive stifled another moan. He needed screams to catch their
attention. He crossed the room and grabbed her shoulder, dragging her from the
bed.
Alyson fought him, but he forced her to her feet. She screamed
as he shoved her toward the window, and he grinned in the darkness.
She collapsed against him, breathing heavily, and he
half-carried, half-dragged her to the window. He hated to waste his ammunition
firing a warning shot. He waited until his prisoner could stand again. Then,
grabbing her hair, he shoved her halfway through the open window.
***
Gasping in agony, Alyson gazed in astonishment at the
sight of an army of Scots marching on the mansion. Far from being terrified,
she was exultant. The wrongs against Rory’s family would finally be avenged!
Without sense or logic, she scanned the milling crowd. With
exultation, she found what she sought almost at once. Although she had seen the
horror of her vision come true, she had felt Rory with her, always.
She had no way of knowing whether the man out there in the
belted plaid was vision or reality, but she still rejoiced. His face was pale as
he stared up at her. Perhaps this was a specter returned to haunt the enemy,
but Alyson still thrilled at the hope that his spirit was with her to see his
son born.
“If you ever want to see her alive again, you will all go
home and to your beds,” Drummond shouted, reminding her of her predicament.
Alyson felt the pain building again. The mob hesitated, muttering
and gesturing at the window. Bent partially over the sill, Alyson felt as if
the babe must fall on its head at any minute, and she fought the urge to scream
her pain. She didn’t want Rory— or his people— to do anything foolish.
She sought his approaching shadow. The blizzard had lessened
to a heavy, wet snow so she could see him more clearly now. He held himself
stiffly—unlike a specter. He was hurt, then,
not dead
.
Rory was alive!
When she refused to scream, Drummond twisted her hair,
forcing her to face him as he drew his rapier and held it across her throat.
Alyson knew nothing of the difference between rapiers and
swords, but she felt no pain but the one in her abdomen. She spit in his face.
***
Rory watched his beautiful wife hanging half out the
window with a rage and anguish he had no intention of controlling much longer.
He had to bite his tongue to keep from yelling at her when she spit in
Drummond’s face. She was as mad as he.
His men had secured the house against any escape. Rory had
only to reach Alyson before her wayward behavior enraged Drummond to murder. If
his cousin had expected a docile and weeping prisoner, he had chosen the wrong
woman.
Rory drew his sword to catch his cousin’s eye. Here was the
enemy who had destroyed his family. He had wanted to fight Drummond
face-to-face for years. But the past was not what whipped him with blind fury now.
That any man could be so spineless as to harm a pregnant woman enraged him
beyond all remaining reason.
He shouted plainly against the dying wind. “Come down and we
will fight this man-to-man, Drummond. If you win, you walk away. That is the
only choice I give you.”
Above, the fair-haired man laughed. “I’ll not duel with
phantoms. You’re dead, Maclean. The house and this woman are mine, and there is
nothing you can do about it. Go away, and I let her live. Stay, and she will
die.”
Boldly Alyson grasped the window ledge and called out in her
usual melodic tones, “I do believe he’s wet his breeches, Rory. When you come
up, bring Myra with you, would you, love?”
He couldn’t help it. Tears of rage and laughter poured down
Rory’s cheeks as he reared his horse and rode straight for the garden door. No
one would keep him from Alyson. It was madness—he could read it on the faces of
her father and cousin as he rushed by—but he was going to her now. For once,
logic failed him and passion ruled.
A servant shoved the wide French doors open as Rory galloped
his sturdy horse across the terrace and through the doorway, shouting the rebel
cry of
“Tha tighinn fodher eiridh!”
with triumph as he finally returned
to his home.
Behind him, his men took up his cry. They surged forward to
reclaim what had been stolen.
***
As the mob rushed the house, Drummond drew back from the
window, slamming it shut against the cold. Already he could see men running
from the stables with ladders. Fools! Couldn’t they see he held a hostage here?
Shoving his worthless prisoner toward the bed, he sought
other escape. Fire! That would delay them awhile. Even if Rory cared little
about his bastard wife, he would never stand and watch his precious home burn.
Drummond yanked down the bed curtains. The wound in his side
reopened and he grimaced. Blood seeped through the makeshift bandage, but he
ruthlessly worked on his next plan. He had not come this far to be defeated by
a phantom. He had the heiress. He didn’t need the vast cold house any longer.
His prisoner struggled to stand as he opened the bedroom
door. He ignored her while piling the heavy curtains at the head of the stairs,
then found an unlit lamp.
Drummond emptied the oil from the lamp on the pyre. The
damned female tried to launch herself at him when he returned for the candle,
but she could barely stand. He smiled at her horror as he flung the flame to
the explosive oil.
Magnificent! He could hear Rory’s heavy boots running up the
stairs, but the flames were spreading too quickly for him to fight his way
through. Drummond turned back to his prisoner. Her hair tumbled in thick black
ringlets about her shoulders, and her face appeared pale, but her well-being wasn’t
of importance now. Even as she groaned and bent in half, he jerked her toward
the dressing-room door. They would go out the servants’ stairs.