Amanda Scott (4 page)

He shrugged. “Kintail mentioned it, and I have long had an abiding interest in caves, mistress. I’ve had recurring dreams about one in particular since childhood.”

“But if Mackenzie knows you came here, surely he’ll miss you and send . . .”

He was shaking his head.

She sighed. “You did not tell him you were coming here, did you?”

“No, and he mentioned the cave two days ago, so he may not recall that conversation. I awoke early and could not sleep, so I decided to see if I could find it. My . . . my man will eventually realize that I’m missing, but it may be a while before he does. Can you think of a good place hereabouts for us to hide until help comes?”

She narrowed her eyes. “I think you had better tell me just who you are, sir. Or should I be addressing you as ‘my lord’?”

“My name is Michael, lass, and so you should call me. The less you know about me, about all of this, the safer you will be.”

“Don’t be daft,” she said sharply. “I am anything but safe in your company, and as you say, you have small knowledge of this countryside, so you need my help. I suggest—nay, I demand—that you tell me the whole truth without further delay!”

Chapter 3

O
nly years of experience at concealing his emotions made it possible for Michael to keep from revealing his amusement. She was so fierce and even more beautiful than he remembered from his first impression of her, clouded as that had been by his pain and his deep gratitude for her intervention.

Her flaxen hair, loosely plaited and bereft of a proper headdress, shone brightly in the sunlight. His mother would disapprove of its informal style, but he liked it. Her beautifully shaped eyes with their unusual soft-gray irises outlined in black fascinated him. Her lashes were likewise unusual, astonishingly lush and dark for so fair a wench. But it was her animation, the way her expression altered so swiftly from curiosity to interest, then to suspicion and stern determination that most strongly attracted him. Doubtless, however, next would come fury.

That last thought stirred a hope that she was not one quick to slap men.

Her eyes flashed, and he knew his silence had increased her displeasure with him, but any reply he could make to her demand was unlikely to please her.

“Well?” she said.

“I’m at a loss, mistress, and can only say, as I said before, that ’tis best you ken no more until you are safely out of this business. Indeed, I’ll be unable to tell you much then, for as yet I ken little about it myself.”

She met his gaze, her eyes narrow with skepticism.

He continued to gaze calmly back, and after a long moment, she nodded.

“Very well,” she said. “I will trust you for a short time longer. I know a herdsman with a summer shieling not far from here. Once we’re over the ridge, we’ll come to a brook and can find his place easily if we follow it. He’ll grant us shelter, and if those villains should chance upon him, his favorite doltish expression will persuade them that he speaks the truth when he declares he’s seen naught of us.”

“We will hope he never meets them,” Michael said, knowing that few men could long withstand Waldron’s methods.

They climbed out of the steep ravine quietly and with caution. However, noting no indication of pursuit, they increased their pace and ten minutes later crossed over the ridge. The high glen they entered boasted grassy, rock-strewn slopes, and Michael could hear the burn she had mentioned rushing downhill.

“That aspen thicket follows the course of the burn and will shield us from view if your friends look for us from the ridge top,” she said.

He noted a pair of sheep grazing nearby but decided that even Waldron would recognize them for strays and pay them no heed.

“How far?” he asked.

“Perhaps a half mile,” she said, giving him a searching look.

“Good,” he said and headed doggedly toward the aspens.

Concealing his increasing fatigue required more exertion now, and despite exercise and sunlight he was growing chilly, so whatever miraculous power had kept him going was rapidly waning. The dizziness he had felt earlier had returned in full measure, and what he had dismissed as sweat running down his back, he realized, was more likely blood from the deep whip cuts Waldron had given him. He feared he was near collapse and did not want to disgrace himself before the lass.

She walked a step or two behind him, and he knew from the measuring look she cast now and again that she recognized his fatigue. But she had said nothing about his wounds, although she had been able to see them plainly since leaving the darkness of the cave.

He glanced at her and saw that she had fixed her attention firmly on the ground at her feet. Her movements remained confident and graceful, making it easy to imagine her in courtly dress, and stirring a strong desire in him to see her so.

She looked up and met his gaze, raising an eyebrow.

“My back is bleeding again, is it not?” he said quietly.

“Aye, your wounds have been oozing or dripping blood all along,” she replied in the same tone. “I’ll tend them when we reach MacCaig’s shieling.”

“So your herdsman is a MacCaig then, not a Macleod?”

“Aye, but the MacCaigs are close kinsmen of Mackenzie’s, and I know Matthias well. We can trust him.”

“Then we will,” he agreed.

The aspens grew thicker, and he feared they had made a mistake in seeking their shelter until he noted a barely discernible track near the water. No more than an occasional deer trail, it followed the burn and would therefore serve their purpose well enough.

He had little energy and knew he needed food and rest. He wondered if Waldron had coated the lash with one of his devilish potions, then decided the man would take no chance of killing him until he was sure he could not provide the information he sought.

Michael’s foot slipped off a wet rock, and although he caught himself easily enough by grabbing a stout aspen branch, he did not allow his thoughts to wander from the trail again until the lass said quietly, “There, sir, just ahead.”

He saw the low roof of a hut then, no larger than one of his sheds at Roslin. It looked much like the crofts one saw throughout the Highlands but smaller, with a grassy-looking thatched roof that drooped so low that he would not have been surprised to see rabbits and deer, even sheep, contentedly grazing on it.

“Do not call out,” he warned in an undertone.

“Nay, I know how far sound travels up here,” she said. “It seems empty, though, and the animals are gone. Matthias may have taken them up the glen to fresh pasturing.”

Just then, a lanky, red-haired lad of twelve or thirteen emerged from the hut and looked around. When his gaze discovered them, a wide, toothy grin split his face and he hurried forward.

“Lady Isobel, welcome!” he exclaimed. “If ye’re looking for me dad, he’s taken the beasts off t’ the high pasture and willna be back till tomorrow.”

Isobel glanced at Michael, but he remained silent, apparently content to let her take charge of the situation.

To give herself a moment to think, she smiled at Ian MacCaig, whom she had known since his birth, and said, “’Twill doubtless seem strange to you, but we have come to request your hospitality.”

His eyes widened, and he glanced doubtfully at the hut behind him. Then, straightening, he nodded in a grown-up way and said, “Ye’re welcome t’ what we have, m’lady, but there be sma’ space inside for the two o’ ye.”

Isobel looked again at Michael. His face was ashen, his eyes glassy, and she knew his strength was nearly gone. He had not said a word, and if Ian looked askance at him, she could not blame the lad. Doubtless he thought Michael a servant of some sort, garbed as he was in breeches, boots, and little else. Doubtless, too, Ian wondered why they sought shelter so near Chalamine on so sunny a day.

The air had grown chilly, though, and that became the deciding factor.

“I will trust you with the truth, Ian,” she said, “but you must repeat it to no one. Outlanders are hunting us in Glen Mòr and elsewhere, so we need help from Chalamine, but the strangers know who I am and may seek us there. This gentleman is”—Michael made an almost inaudible sound of warning—“is ill and must have food and rest before we can go farther. So I want you to take a message to my father, telling him of our plight and requesting a sizeable escort of armed men to take us safely home. Will you do that for me?”

“Aye, m’lady, o’ course,” Ian said. “I could go t’ me own laird, too, if ye’d rather. He has men aplenty and can raise them in a twink.”

That was true, but she remembered that the men had followed Michael from Eilean Donan, and this time when she looked at him, he gave a slight headshake. She recalled, too, that the track to Eilean Donan, hemmed by Loch Duich on one side and steep banks on the other, would be easier to block than the track to Chalamine. The latter route would be safer until they knew more.

To Ian, she said, “The men after us are less likely to seek us at Chalamine than at Eilean Donan, but since they do know of Chalamine, there is at least a chance that they may go there and may even reach the castle before you. If they do, you must not let them guess that you carry a message from me.”

“I can say I’m looking for me cousin Angus from Skye,” Ian said. “If I make me way round about and approach Glenelg from Kyle Rhea way, they’ll no think aught o’ my being there than that I followed him from the Isle.”

“An excellent notion,” Isobel said. “But before you go, have you food to spare? My friend needs to recover his strength as quickly as he can.”

“Aye, we ha’ cheese and bread inside—ale, too. Take what ye want. I’ll be as quick as I can,” the boy added, casting another curious look at Michael.

“Just be careful,” Isobel warned him. “We know of six men looking for us, but there may be more and they may have separated into smaller groups. Trust no stranger, and keep clear of any you see. Your safety is more important than speed.”

“Then they’ll no see me at all, m’lady. Ye can depend on that. Will ye come inside now?” He gestured toward the entrance to the hut. “I should shut the door, lest the critters get in and eat our food.”

She nodded, and as they went inside, he carefully shut the lower half of the door, leaving the upper half latched back against the wall to let in the light. The tiny hut boasted no windows.

He was off as soon as he had shown them the larder—little more than a large straw basket—and had cut bread and cheese for himself.

The rest of the hut’s contents consisted of only a thin straw pallet, a rickety stool, and an equally rickety table, on which sat a tinderbox and several loose tallow candles. The pallet had a thick wool blanket folded on top, and a pile of wood lay nearby to provide a small fire when evening came, but Isobel saw nothing that she could use to tend Michael’s wounds.

“How long will it take him to go and come back?” Michael asked.

Surprised by his grim tone, Isobel said, “Why, I do not know, sir. On horseback and without concern for who might see me, I could be home in an hour. Afoot as Ian is, and on the watch for strangers, I warrant it will take him a good bit longer. The track to Glenelg from Glen Mòr is narrow and steep, and there are many places where one can overlook much of it. Had the men I saw this morning chanced to look my way, they most likely would have seen me. Fortunately, though, I expect they had their attention fixed on following you, and I had paused to enjoy the sunshine, and thus was still for a time. I only caught sight of them because of their movement as they entered the wee glen.”

“You saw just the tail of Waldron’s party,” he said. “I’m only guessing they followed me from Eilean Donan, because I don’t think they can have known about the cave before they discovered me on the point of entering it. They seemed surprised to see it, and Waldron sent two men into it straightaway whilst the others strung me up and ripped my shirt from me.”

“I should tend your wounds,” she said. “Would you prefer to lie down on that pallet now whilst I do it, or do you want something to eat first?”

“I’d better eat something,” he said. “I don’t know what you can do for them anyway, so mayhap after I eat, I’ll just sleep until the lad returns.”

“You’ll do no such thing unless you want your injuries to putrefy,” she said as she sliced bread and cheese with her dirk. “After you eat, we’ll go to the stream. I see no cloths here that I want to use, but my shift is clean enough. I can rip strips of it to tend the worst of them, and I saw herbs near the streambed from which I can make a plaster to ease your pain. Then you may sleep until Ian returns.”

His wan smile revealed his exhaustion more than anything else had, making him look more like a weary child than a grown man. “I am yours to command, my lady,” he said. “After a few bites of food, I’ll be in fine fettle again.”

“Sit on that pallet then, sir, and eat what I’ve cut for you,” she said.

“You should not call me ‘sir,’ you know,” he said as he lowered himself to the pallet. “I warrant that lad thought me your servant until you identified me as a gentleman and friend. That may prove a costly error if he is caught and questioned.”

“They won’t catch him,” she said confidently.

“Still, it would be easier if you could bring yourself to call me Michael.”

“I do not know you well enough for such familiarity, sir.”

“Aye, well, at least now I ken you to be more properly called Lady Isobel.”

“But so I told you from the outset,” she said, watching as he bit off a large chunk of the bread at last and chewed. “My name is no secret.”

“At the cavern you identified yourself only as Macleod of Glenelg’s daughter. If memory serves me, the man has many daughters.”

“That is true,” she admitted. “There were eight of us, but only Adela, Sorcha, and Sidony remain at home. The others are all married or dead.”

“I see,” he said, his tone harsh again. “Tell me something of your husband then, madam. Who is he and what manner of man is he that he allows his lady wife to ride about the countryside without anyone to guard her from evil assailants?”

“Sakes, sir, I don’t have a husband!”

“You said that all but those three of your father’s daughters were married or dead,” he reminded her. “You are certainly not dead.”

“No, but as I’m sure I told you earlier, I have lived with Hector Reaganach and my sister Cristina at Lochbuie since I turned thirteen. I was not counting myself as part of the group that remained at Chalamine but merely describing the others. I do see, though, that I did not make myself clear when I said that about my sisters.”

“Your denial was most vehement, lass. Do you dislike men so much?”

“I don’t dislike them at all, most of the time, for they can be quite useful creatures,” she said, chuckling. “Indeed, they are indispensable at court if one wants to dance or to flirt. ’Tis not men I have no use for, sir, only husbands.”

“I see.”

That reply being more encouragement than usual to express her point of view on the subject, she said, “Marriage is forever and ever, sir, and in my experience, it is the nature of husbands to be tyrants.” When he frowned, she added with a sigh, “Should I cut more bread and cheese for you, or may we go out to the burn now?”

“We’d better go now if we’re going to go at all,” he said.