The Warrior Laird (18 page)

And there would be no good reason to send Maura to Kildary. He could take her to Braemore and keep her with him.

Dugan hadn't met a woman he'd wanted to take to wife until now. He'd always known he wanted a braw lass who was steadfast and clever, one with a fire in her blood that could singe his soul. Maura aroused him like no other, and her lusty response to him when he'd taken her to bed was only part of it.

There were lairds who liked their women docile and obedient. Dugan could think of few things as dull. His own tenacious woman would stand with him before his clan, support and sustain him through good times as well as troubled.

He drew Maura close to his chest and rode on in the wake of his men. Once he had the gold in his possession, there would be no one to gainsay him. Dugan would escort Maura himself to Loch Camerochlan and collect her sister. Together they would take the wee lass to Braemore.

As the day wore on, a thick mist enveloped them and Dugan lost sight of his men. The only audible sounds were those of Glencoe's heavy breaths and the muffled sound of his hooves on the moist turf. Maura slept for a time, awakening when 'twas barely possible to see a foot ahead of them.

“It feels as though we're alone in the world,” she said drowsily.

“Aye.” If only it were so.

“I never saw such a thick mist at Aucharnie.”

Aucharnie?
Maura's body stiffened suddenly, and Dugan realized she'd divulged something she had not intended. His mind raced. He'd heard of the place . . .'Twas somewhere in the lowlands. He thought near Edinburgh.

Aye. Aucharnie Castle. Belonging to Alec Duncanson, Earl of Aucharnie, elder brother of the man who'd ordered the slaughter at Glencoe.

Dugan's blood ran cold.

“How do you know Aucharnie?” His voice sounded hoarse to his own ears.

“Dugan . . .”

“How, lass?”

She did not reply right away, but when she finally spoke, Dugan felt her shrink away from him. “I am Lord Aucharnie's daughter.”

 

Chapter 21

H
e stopped them in their tracks. “You are a Duncanson?”

Maura swallowed. Archie had told her of the events at Glencoe and what was known of the officers who had ordered the slaughter. Major Duncanson was her father's brother. And Captain Robert Campbell was her mother's uncle.

Her blood could not be more tainted.

Dugan dismounted and left her there atop Glencoe. The irony of it did not escape her.

“Dugan?”

She could not jump down and follow him because she was too far off the ground. But waiting while a hideous wave of guilt washed over her was not acceptable, either.

She took up Glencoe's reins and walked the horse through the mist in the direction Dugan had gone, aware that with one misstep, she could tumble over a cliff. She would massacre Glencoe all over again.

“Dugan?”

Dear God, he might have fallen.

Maura had been dreaming while they rode, of possibilities. Of finding gold and having the freedom to choose her own destiny . . . a future that included Dugan. And Rosie, of course. She knew Dugan would not deny her sister a safe refuge at his holding.

She'd hardly been awake when she mentioned Aucharnie, otherwise she never would have spoken the name of her home. She knew what her kin had done to Dugan, to his family.

Dear God, how he must despise her.

“Dugan?” She whispered his name this time, almost afraid to face him now that he knew.

He would soon make the connection between the Duncansons and the Duke of Argyll—yet another enemy.

She came upon him all at once. He was crouched down, yanking up bits of moss from the ground between his feet. His expression was one of anger as well as disbelief. “Yet another Duncanson has a MacIain at her mercy.”

“A MacIain?”

“I was born to clan MacIain. Do not pretend the name means naught to you.” He tossed away the moss and stood, taking the reins of the horse from her.

“No.” Maura felt shame and culpability by association. “Archie told me something of what happened at Glencoe. Dugan, I—”

“Damned MacLean mouth.” His blue eyes had turned to ice, and he looked away as though he could not stand the sight of her.

“No, don't be angry. I asked him.”

“About Glencoe?”

“I knew naught of it, Dugan.” She reached for him. “Help me down?”

“No.” His voice was harsh. “ 'Tis better to keep moving.”

Maura felt tears spill from her eyes as he mounted the horse behind her and used some mysterious internal compass to turn the horse in the direction they had been going. At least, she thought 'twas the same direction. For all she knew, he might shove her off a nearby cliff in retaliation for what her family had done to his.

She shuddered. She knew next to naught about the events that had occurred at Glencoe. Only that Dugan's parents and brother had been killed by soldiers who'd been billeted with his clan. That her mother's uncle had carried out the atrocious orders, given by her father's brother.

“Dugan . . . This changes naught. I—”

“Your kin slaughtered my family. And you think naught has changed?”

“I cannot tell you how sorry I am,” Maura said. “I never knew such things happened.” She remembered Robert Duncanson as a stiff and unyielding man, and had never liked or felt comfortable with him. But that was no excuse. If he'd been a decent Christian—

“Do you know what it means to murder under trust, Lady Maura?” He said her name as though the very sound of it on his lips was abhorrent.

Maura swallowed tightly and nodded. Murder under trust was the worst possible offense—the killing of one's host after accepting his hospitality. She felt her joints turn to jelly.

“Aye. Major Duncanson gave the orders, and Robert Campbell of Glenlyon carried them out.”

“I never kn—”

He gave a harsh laugh. “Ah, right. You never knew that men like your Sassenach Lieutenant Baird merely follow orders given by bloody, fecking bastards like Major Robert Duncanson and the Earl of Stair.”

“No, I do know,” she said quietly. “I know they are despicable. And my father is one of the worst.”

D
ugan felt Maura take a deep, shuddering breath, but she said nothing more. What was there to say? That she was part of a lying, butchering clan of savages who'd slaughtered his family? Destroyed the life he had been meant to lead?

He'd vowed long ago to despise the name of Duncanson and to destroy every one of them if he ever got the chance.

He ought to pull her down from his horse and let her find her own way to . . . to wherever it was that she thought the gold was hidden. Or was that just a lie, too? A clever scheme to get him to take her to her sister? Because Monar was on a direct path toward Loch Camerochlan.

He didn't know what to believe anymore. His musings all morning about how perfect she was had been wholly mistaken. He would never take a Duncanson to wife.

Baron Kildary was welcome to her.

Dugan never spoke of the events at Glencoe to anyone. It had been the darkest, most vile day of his life, and it chilled his heart to know that Maura's kin had been part of it all.

He forced away the memory of that February morning. Twenty-five years had passed since that godforsaken day. He was a grown man now, and laird of his mother's clan, the MacMillans. He was responsible for the people there, and he would not let the damned duke's unreasonable demand end in disaster. The way Laird MacIain had done at Glencoe.

“It seems to me you owe me, Lady Maura.”

She turned to look at him then, her eyes wet with tears he chose to ignore. For what did she know of it? What did she know of the kind of betrayal and gruesome loss he'd suffered?

She averted her eyes. “I know.”

“The location of the gold is my price for your kin's offenses against mine.”

M
ayhap Dugan was right and Maura should just tell him what she'd seen on the back of the map.

But then he would send her to Braemore and turn her over to Baron Kildary, and Rosie would languish forever at Loch Camerochlan with Tillie Crane.

“I cannot tell you,” she said quietly. She'd felt this kind of desolation only once before—the day Lieutenant Baird had gleefully locked her inside her chamber at Aucharnie and they'd taken Rosie away.

“Damnation, woman!”

Maura bolstered her resolve. She was not guilty for what her kin had done, and she refused to pay for their heinous offenses. At least, not entirely. “You sent Bryce to your holding to delay Baron Kildary until your return. I refuse to go there. I will take you to the gold and then go on my way to Loch Camerochlan for Rosie.”

“ 'Tis not up to you to dictate the terms.”

“But it is,” Maura countered, brushing away her unwelcome tears. “I will not give you the means to be rid of me, Laird.”

Old Sorcha had said the Glencoe lad would not find the map's secret, and she'd been right. The old woman had spoken of an ally, too. That the map would be of no use to Maura without an ally.

'Twas clear Dugan was her ally, whether he liked it or not.

She hoped she'd judged him correctly. True, he belonged to a breed she did not know or understand, but she did not think he would resort to violent means to elicit the clue from her. She'd seen his kindness with the crippled serving girl at Caillich, and she hoped his principles would prohibit him from treating her with brutality.

In a tense silence, they rode up a sloping hillside, and when they reached its peak, Maura looked down into a glen where the mist was not as thick as what they'd left behind. She saw Dugan's men ahead, riding toward a large, thatched cottage. It was clearly a prosperous holding, with a shed and a modest barn, although they all appeared to be abandoned. There were cattle grazing on the grasses as far as the eye could see, and a lone horse standing beside the old stone shed. Chickens were out free and pecking in the dirt.

Conall paused to look back, and when he saw Dugan's horse emerge out of the mist, he spoke to the other men. They stopped to wait.

Maura welcomed the sight of the cottage. She hoped the presence of others would help to mitigate the tension that flared between her and Dugan, and there might even be an opportunity for her to gain access to the maps again. Alone.

Exactly the way she'd expected this journey to be. Yet she'd been anything but alone. When she'd have struck off on her own after Fort William, she'd resented and feared Dugan at first. Now she believed he was a fair man who was only trying to do what he must for his clan.

The atrocity her kin had committed against his family was so profound, Maura could not blame his disgust with her for being part of their clan. If she could have changed her name and her origins, she would have done so years before.

 

Chapter 22

A
s they rode toward the cottage, Dugan knew he could rely on highlanders to offer their hospitality. He intended to take it. While Maura spent the night inside with the occupants, he would have a chance to put some much needed distance between them. Mayhap he would even leave her there.

He did not relish the thought of telling Lachann who Maura was. His brother did not trust her as it was. Once he knew she was a Duncanson . . . Dugan was not sure how he would react. With violence, perhaps.

In spite of the damage her clan had done to his family, Dugan's jaw clenched tightly at the thought of Maura coming to harm. She was as delicate as she was fierce . . .

Clearly, 'twas better to keep her name to himself, at least until he uncovered the clue she'd seen on the map.

Dugan thought about the ways he could coerce her into telling him what she'd seen and where. But all he could think of was taking her to his bed and kissing her into submission.

Gesu
, what could he possibly be thinking? She was a Duncanson.

He rode ahead of the men and dismounted at the front of the cottage, leaving Maura in the saddle. Why had no one come out to see who had arrived? 'Twas unusual at the least.

He approached the cottage with Lachann at his side while the others remained on horseback, waiting.

Lachann knocked, but there was no stirring inside the house.

“Dugan,” Maura called out, “the chickens are all loose.”

Aye, he'd noticed.

“And the cows . . . look. They've come up to the fence to be let in. They need milking.”

Dugan drew his sword and nodded to Lachann. “Open it.”

Lachann pushed the door open and waited. No one appeared, but the smell of death surrounded them. Dugan stepped inside, covering his mouth and nose with his arm, and found a dead man sitting in a chair near the cold hearth. He was gray-bearded, and it looked as though he'd died in his sleep.

“Have the lads look for something to wrap him in,” Dugan said. “Then they can come in and carry the poor blighter out.”

Lachann turned to do his brother's bidding while Dugan remained in the cottage, looking for some indication of who the dead man was. He was prosperous, judging by the outbuildings and the furnishings in the house. The main room was large, with a sitting and cooking area as well as a separate bedroom with its own fireplace.

The man would be missed eventually, and Dugan did not want to encounter anyone who might question what the MacMillan laird was doing there in a dead man's house, so far south of his own territory. The fewer people who suspected any truth to the rumor of gold, the better.

The man had not been dead long. Dugan guessed he'd died either last night before retiring to bed, or sometime that morn, after rising.

He noticed some documents on a desk as he opened the windows to cleanse the air inside the cottage. Glancing through them quickly, he concluded that the dead man was Kennan Murray. On further exploration, Dugan found no indication that the man had family. There were no letters, no records of any wife or children. The only framed pictures were a map of the highlands, and a holy portrait of the Lord God.

As his men came into the house, Dugan went back to his horse and reached up for Maura, not sure what he was going to do with her. “The owner is dead.”

A look of true sadness came over her. “Oh no.”

“Probably happened last night or this morn.”

Her body felt supple against his, but he ignored the jolt of sensation that surged through him at her touch. 'Twas not what he needed right now. Or ever, with this woman.

The only thing that mattered was finding a way to coerce the clue from the map out of her, or figuring out the clue himself. If she had found it, he could, too.

“He died all alone?”

A muscle in his jaw tensed. “Aye. There was no sign of anyone else belonging to the household.”

“What are you going to do? With the dead man, I mean?”

“Bury him,” Dugan replied.

“Without a service?”

“We can say a few words. We don't have time for anything more.”

Leading his horse, he took Maura 'round to the opposite side of the door, for there was no need for her to see the dead man when his men carried him out. Not that he should care about her tender sensibilities. She was kin to some of the most bloodthirsty Scots he could imagine. He ought to allow her to witness the gruesome reality of death.

But he told her to wait there, in spite of himself.

M
aura seized her chance. As soon as she was alone, she took Dugan's bag down from his saddle, and when she pulled it open, found the three quarters of the map wrapped in an oilcloth. She glanced up to be sure Dugan was not coming 'round to get her. But it seemed the men were otherwise occupied, so she worked quickly, pulling the documents from their protective wrap. She unrolled the first one and looked at its back.

Sous le gros rocher—
The word starting with
ro
was illegible, so she took a handful of dirt and rubbed it against the etching. It still did not become clear.
Sous le gros rocher ro—
was all she could see.

It meant “under some kind of large rock,” but what was the descriptive word? Surely there were going to be many rocks at the loch. 'Twould take forever to search under every one.

Maura felt a twinge of despair. She
had
to find the treasure for Dugan—and for herself. Mayhap there were more clues.

She rolled up the first document and carefully put it back into Dugan's bag. Taking the second piece, she opened it and looked for wax etchings on its back. She found
À la rive
—

“At the shore—” she muttered. It had to mean the shore of Loch Aveboyne, the clue she'd seen the night before.

Maura quickly determined that there were no other words on that section of parchment, so she hurried to replace it under the oil cloth in Dugan's bag, then checked the third piece. The only word on this section was
Ouest
.

Clearly, all four sections were meant to come together in order to show the way to the treasure. Maura closed Dugan's bag and swung it up onto Glencoe's back while she mentally arranged the clues until she had something that made sense.

Sous le gros rocher ro—
and
à la rive ouest du Lac Aveboyne.

She felt a mad sense of elation. Surely the missing section bore the words
L'or
est,
or some other indication of what the rest of the clues were about.

Except for the beginning clue, Maura had all but one word, and she hoped that with a bit more thought, she could figure out what
ro
meant. “The gold is under a large rock of some sort,” she said quietly to herself, “at the west shore of Loch Aveboyne.”

This was how she was going to ameliorate the wrongs Maura's family had done to Dugan's. She would lead him directly to the treasure, and he would become a wealthy laird, beholden to no one, not even the Duke of Argyll.

And he would let her go to Loch Camerochlan for Rosie. On her own.

Maura suddenly felt shaky—all at once ecstatic but miserable. Within a day or two, she would hand over to Dugan exactly what he needed, then he would have no further use for her. From the first moment he'd seen her at the waterfall, she had been more trouble than he wanted. Certainly more than he needed.

And now that he knew who she was, Maura was certain he could not wait to be rid of her. The attraction between them . . . their kisses and all that had occurred in her bedchamber at Caillich meant naught. It couldn't—not to the likes of them.

She tied the horse to a fence post and returned to the front of the cottage where the men were carrying out the body, wrapped in canvas. Maura felt a deep sadness as she watched, pity for the poor man who had been alone at the end. She wondered if he'd had a wife or any children—and where they might be now.

She crossed her arms over her chest to ward off a sudden chill and her own pervasive sense of isolation. Soon, 'twould be just her and Rosie. There would be no one else—no one like Deirdre Elliott or Dugan MacMillan. No one to help her. No one to love her.

Only Rosie.

She walked away abruptly, fighting the horrible emptiness that threatened to swallow her whole. She had not thought past saving her sister, had not considered the life she would lead after she found Rosie and took her away.

Until now, Maura had believed Rosie's uncomplicated affections would be enough. But the life she would embark upon once she reached Loch Camerochlan rang hollow. She'd felt the highlander's touch and knew the intensity of desire. For him. She'd learned the shape of his jaw and the rough rasp of his whiskers against her face and between her legs.

A wave of pure longing skittered down her spine. The man she would choose for herself was not about to feel the least fondness for anyone belonging to the Campbell clan. Maura's father and cousins were bad enough.

She wondered if Dugan had yet made the connection between her family and Argyll's.

D
ugan kept his mind on his task as they buried Kennan Murray. He did not want to think about all the foolish notions he'd entertained about Maura before discovering her identity.

He could not comprehend how it was possible that his blood had not recognized her for the enemy that she was.

Everyone in the highlands knew the connection between the Campbells and Duncansons. As soon as he'd heard Maura's father's name, he'd known exactly who her kin was.

Dugan remembered Captain Campbell, an uncle on Lady Aucharnie's side, as clearly as if he'd stood before him only yesterday. How could Dugan forget seeing the man laughing and drinking at his father's table? He'd held Dugan's infant sister, Alexandra, on his lap and chucked the bairn under her chin, making her giggle in that sweet way she'd always had. Campbell had spent time in every croft at Glencoe. And then he'd given the order to put everyone under the age of seventy to the sword. The brutal order that had come from Robert Duncanson.

His stomach roiled.

The killings at Glencoe had been a plot hatched by a number of powerful lowland lairds—the Earl of Breadalbane, the Earl of Stair. Even the English king himself had sanctioned the massacre. 'Twas possible Maura's father had been in on the scheme to strike at the highlanders, but his involvement had not been exposed. These men acted in order to curry the favor of their king as well as to destroy the clan system of the highlands.

Instead, there had been a parliamentary investigation into the events at Glencoe on the morning of February 13, 1692. Blame had been laid at Lord Stair's feet, but the earl had received no punishment. King William had been exonerated, of course, and the Earl of Breadalbane had spent a measly few days imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle for speaking with the highland lairds—men considered to be Jacobite rebels—before the fatal events took place at Glencoe.

In Dugan's eyes, justice had never been done.

He carried his shovel to Murray's shed and searched the building for more tools they could use when they reached the site only Maura knew. He dearly hoped she was not lying.

“Laird,” said Conall, “there is a small wagon back here.”

They were going to need something in which to carry the gold, if they ever found it. “Leave it there, Conall. We'll take it with us when we leave in the morning.”

Lachann came into the shed and took note of the tools. He put his hands on his hips. “Do you really think we'll need any of this, Dugan?”

Dugan shook his head. “I don't know, Lachann. What I
do
know is that something struck Maura last night as she was looking at the map.”

“Aye. The realization that this wee journey of ours is the only way to keep us from taking her to Braemore to be ransomed by Kildary.”

“I don't think so. There was something about the map. Something she saw that the rest of us have missed. I'm sure of it.”

Lachann cocked one leg, and his posture, with his hands on his hips, clearly spoke of his annoyance. “I hope you're right, Dugan.”

Aye, Dugan hoped he was, too.

He left the shed and went to the back of the house where he'd left Maura, and found her sitting near the fence, milking one of the cows.

“I would not have thought you knew how to do such a menial task, Lady Maura.”

She glanced over her shoulder at him. “There is much you do not know about me, Laird MacMillan.”

Dugan knew all he needed to know. She was a Duncanson and he had never forgotten their treachery.

“My father cast me out when he learned I'd saved Rosie. I was but fifteen then.”

Dugan made no reply, but he found it incomprehensible. First, to give orders for his own bairn to be taken away to die. And then to punish the daughter who'd saved her.