Cates, Kimberly (32 page)

"My tongue," Adam echoed. "Damn, Gav. That's the one part of me that isn't hurting like hell."

"There's a lady present." Sir Dunstan roared. "She's suffered enough at your hands without listening to your swearing."

"A lady?" Adam swiveled toward Rachel as Gavin turned. Rachel nearly cried out when she saw the bruises on Adam's face, but even those were not so terrible as the anguish in Gavin's eyes.

"Rachel." He choked out her name, made a move toward her, shackles binding his wrists, the clank of chains grating against her ears.

"Damn it, woman, where the blazes did you come from?" Adam swore.

"Surprised to see her safe?" Dunstan snarled. "You would have preferred her dead, wouldn't you?"

"No." Gavin's eyes drank her in with stark desolation. "I only wanted the ship to sail—freedom for the children."

"Freedom?" Dunstan scoffed. "Did you really believe that I could have let a ship filled with fugitives sail from Scotland, no matter what the personal cost to me? Then you're a fool! I had a duty to perform—a sworn duty. And I would have honored that duty, even if Rachel had to be sacrificed because of it."

She was worth ordering the destruction of a village in an attempt to get her back safely, Rachel thought bleakly, but not worth bending to the Glen Lyon's will, suffering a blow to Sir Dunstan Wells's fierce pride.

"You would have let her die rather than allow a shipful of orphans to sail?" Adam snarled.

"Yes. And what's more, Rachel would want me to make that choice. She would expect me to make it. She was raised from the cradle to understand a soldier's duty."

"But does she understand obsession?" Gavin asked. "Thirst for blood vengeance? Does she understand massacre disguised as some noble quest?"

"The Scots brought this down on themselves, Carstares, aided by thickheaded traitors like you. If you seek to blame someone for the carnage here, look to yourself. As for your nest of traitors, this much I can tell you. Every soldier within a hundred miles will be at Cairnleven, waiting when they attempt to board that ship."

Rachel felt as if the ground split and tilted, her senses spinning. "You mean... the ship... you're going to ambush the ship?"

"I'm going to stop Jacobite fugitives from escaping Scotland. The soldiers have orders to do so by any means necessary."

"You mean you're going to slaughter them," Adam bellowed, "you bloodthirsty son of a bitch!" He flung himself at Wells, but Gavin lunged between them.

"Adam, no! We should have known Wells would go back on his oath, just as he has every other one he's made. For an honorable man, Wells, you're a lying, scheming monster."

"Am I? Then why did I bring Rachel here so that I could honor my vow to you?"

"Your vow?" Gavin's gaze flashed to her.

"I promised to hang the Glen Lyon and release the other man. Rachel can identify which of you is the traitor scum." A slow smile spread over Wells's face, and Rachel was stunned by its cruelty. "I've given her the power of life and death. She is to choose—"

"You son of a bitch!" Adam snarled. "You can't do this—"

Gavin cut in. "Yes he can." Rachel could see him, trying to reach through Adam's haze of fury. "Adam, there's no time." The children. Mama Fee. Rachel could see the instant their danger once again registered in Adam's mind.

"Jesus Christ," Adam said, but it was more prayer than profanity, a hopeless prayer, one that wrenched at the big man's heart.

Rachel saw Gavin turn his eyes on hers, eyes filling with pain, with pleading so sharp it destroyed her. "Choose, Rachel. Choose."

Her gaze was locked to his in wrenching desperation. Her hands shook so badly she had to hide them in the folds of her skirt. She knew what he wanted, what he needed her to do. His desperation pulsed in her, becoming her own. Even in their deepest loving, Gavin had not invaded her soul so completely and with such devastating power.

Choose...
Her heart could hear the echoes of his.
Choose life for me, and you'll condemn me to something far worse than death...

Rachel's eyes swept over Gavin's stark face, the firm curve of that mouth that could turn up in the tenderest of smiles, the thick, dark lashes that rimmed eyes filled with the timeless magic captured in a hundred ancient illuminations—love, the rarest kind, more precious than any treasure. She memorized the stubborn jut of his chin, the dark-gold of his hair. Gavin—a hundred tiny nuances, angles and shadows, ridges and smudges of color, woven into something she'd dreamed about all her life—a hero.

Like those heroes of a hundred different tales, he was going to die—a hero's death. God, in all the years she'd dreamed, a headstrong, idiot girl, she'd never realized the cost of such a brave quest to the one who loved that hero, who was left behind to mourn.

"Rachel? Which of these men is the villain?" Dunstan put one arm about her waist. She wanted to wrench away from him. She wanted to claw his eyes out for the torment he was putting her through, for what he'd done to Adam, to Gavin. The price Dunstan was about to make her pay for the perfection of one night in a croft, the soft wonder of a heather-stuffed bed, was hellishly high.

Her heart was ripping itself apart. Her lungs were sacks of scorching flame. She reached one hand toward Gavin, certain she would sacrifice every last minute of her life just to be able to touch him one more time, but she didn't dare. If Dunstan even began to suspect her bond with these two men, he might change his mind and kill them both. Someone had to go free—not just to stop the hideous waste of his own life, but also to warn the children, Mama Fee, and the others that they were wandering blindly into a massacre.

"He's the Glen Lyon." The words tore like jagged glass at Rachel's throat. "Lord Gavin Carstares."

She saw Gavin's eyes widen in fierce gratitude and a love so intense it nearly destroyed her.

Adam roared a protest, then ground into terrible silence, and Rachel knew that almost nothing would have induced him to leave his brother—not torture, not starvation, not the gallows that awaited them. The only power that could have driven Adam from Gavin's side was the need to snatch the children and Mama Fee from the jaws of the trap Dunstan had forged for them.

"Release the other," Dunstan commanded Private Cribbits. The youth stepped forward, his eyes wary, obviously scared of Adam's brute strength, the wild light in his eyes.

Rachel sensed that the big man was in a mammoth struggle against the need to fling himself at the soldier to somehow free Gavin and escape. It would be a hopeless quest, but one she knew Adam wanted to try desperately—one that at the same time, the big man knew he dared not risk.

The shackles fell away, clattering to the cell floor, but Rachel knew that she had forged new chains, agonizing chains about Adam's heart, chains he would never be free of.

"Gavin, I—" he started to say.

"Get the devil out of here," Gavin shouted. "Damn it,
go!"

"Provide the man with his horse," Sir Dunstan said, "but not any weapon."

Cribbits grasped Adam by the arm, guiding him through the door. As Adam's dark head disappeared beyond it, Rachel saw Gavin's lips tug into a heartbreaking smile of relief, his eyes shining with hope. Rachel knew that if he was forced to face death on that new-made gallows, the greatest gift he could be given was the knowledge that Adam was free.

Dunstan's voice singed her nerves, made her bite back the stinging lump of tears lodged in her throat.

"You see, Rachel, my love, I do honor my promises—to you, even to traitorous fiends like the Glen Lyon."

"Yes." Rachel struggled to fill the words with meaning only Gavin would understand. "I see it all so clearly now."

Sir Dunstan looped an arm possessively about her waist, as if Gavin was beneath his notice. "Rachel was a most reckless miss, wandering about a garden all alone after dark. She made it easy to scoop her away, didn't she, my cowardly traitor?"

"You're blaming her for being abducted? Suggesting it was her fault? You pompous bastard! She was innocent. She had every right to roam that garden without fear. If you want to lay blame, Wells, blame me. Or blame your own villainy. It was the accursed savagery of your troops that drove me to take her captive in an effort to stop the bloodshed."

"Rushing to her defense, Glen Lyon? How droll. You're a picture of righteous indignation because I, Rachel's betrothed, question her rash behavior. And yet, you abducted her. You took her hostage. You threatened to kill her if I did not bow to your wishes. You dare preach? play her defender?"

"She needs someone to defend her from you!"

"Rachel, it's possible your traitor is bedazzled by you. But then, you always were able to twist men about your little finger. You've been doing it with entire regiments since you were in short skirts." Sir Dunstan turned to Gavin, his lip curled in a derisive sneer. "I assure you, that once she is my wife, the type of headstrong behavior that landed her in your clutches will cease. Of course, I daresay she has learned her lesson already, haven't you, my love?"

Fury encased Rachel, all but raging out of control. She dared not give in to it, let it make her vulnerable to Dunstan. She could not let him see that it was driving her mad to see Gavin this way, his wrists raw from the harsh rasp of shackles, his face bruised, the dank cell shutting away the sunlight from his face.

"Now, Rachel," Dunstan purred, "my darling, I'll take you abovestairs and have one of the maids attend you. You've been through a brutal ordeal, though you're too much a soldier's daughter to admit it, even to yourself. Then, as soon as you're dressed in something suitable, my love, I'll come to comfort you."

He turned her toward the door, and Rachel cast one last look at Gavin. His face was a battlefield of emotions—rage that Dunstan dared to touch her, hopeless longing for a future that would never be, fierce pride in her, and love that flowed through her veins as certainly as his hands had skimmed over her body the one enchanted night they had spent together.

Was it possible to squeeze a lifetime's worth of love into one single aching glance? Gavin did so, his gaze piercing her.

Rachel felt Dunstan's arm press against her, forcing her go places she didn't want to go, to leave behind the only thing she wanted—one more moment in Gavin's arms.

Gavin would face the noose and the knife because of her. She stumbled as Dunstan guided her through the cell door. She bit the inside of her lip until it bled in an effort to stifle a keening cry as the guard shut Gavin inside, blocked away from light and hope and children's laughter.

She closed her eyes, tormented by the image of a golden-haired boy of ten, wandering about a grand house, attempting to please a father who could never understand him; a boy in a portrait full of giggling, wrestling children, a beaming father, a laughing lady with babies in her arms; a boy who stood, solemn eyed, alone despite the people all around him.

Alone.

God, how could she bear knowing that he was alone now, with death swirling in the shadows?

No. Rachel stiffened her shoulders. She wouldn't let him make this sacrifice, walking into the arms of death with that calm acceptance, as if it had been the fate that awaited him all along. Adam was gone, free to warn those for whom Gavin would willingly have sacrificed his life. The children would be safe. Adam was safe.

There were no more hero quests for which Gavin would bleed. She would fight, find a way—some way—to free him, even if it cost her her own life.

She looked about as Dunstan led her through the maze of soldiers who lounged about, polishing weapons, boasting of dangerous raids, pulse-stirring victories, victories that Rachel had seen stripped of their luster. Once, such tales had been all she'd lived for, but Gavin had opened the door to a different world.

A new life... a gift that had been given to her in the chill confines of a cave buried in the Scottish hills, like some Celtic treasure of old, a life placed into her hands by a soul-weary warrior, a lost dreamer called the Glen Lyon.

But could she give him the gift of life in return? How could she open a prison door? Spirit Gavin past so many guards? How... She swallowed hard, recalling the devotion on the face of the soldiers, their delight that she had returned safe. Was it possible that their devotion could be the very weapon Rachel could use against them?

She winced inwardly at the thought of betraying Augustus Cribbits and Bertram Townsend, but she bolstered her determination by focusing on the evil she had seen in Dunstan's features, in the viciousness with which the soldiers had stormed the village days ago. Could she use their loyalty against them? Distract the soldiers, by having them pay her tribute? If she could arrange such a thing, was it possible she could pull enough of the guards from their posts to allow Gavin a chance at escape? The thought made her heart race, her palms sweat, yet it was her only hope.

"Dunstan, this whole disaster
has
been an ordeal." Rachel's voice sounded like a stranger's, overbright. "I'm so relieved it's all over. But, I can't help thinking what would have happened to me if I hadn't escaped."

"Surely you don't fault me for my position," Dunstan said, his voice taking on that sudden chill it did when anyone dared even hint at criticizing him. "I had no choice. Remember what I had engraved on the miniature I gave you?
I
could not love you half so well, loved I not honor more."

The quote rang hollow and empty, and Rachel let her lashes drift down over her eyes to veil her disgust. "I understand why you made the choice you did."

Because a human life is less important to you than personal glory...

"It's just... Dunstan, I want to celebrate—celebrate my return to you. Do you think we could hold some sort of a dinner party for the officers and their wives? Nothing fancy, just... it would be so good to see familiar faces again."

"It would please you?" He looked like a thwarted boy wanting to wheedle his way back into her good graces.

Rachel managed a smile and nodded.