Parris Afton Bonds (5 page)

A neat psychological trap he had prepared: surrender now and assure her own self-destruction; defy him and give him diversion.

Delay was the only prospect she had. "Then I proffer an apology." Her tone was flippant. Her brain raced. The words she next chose were of the King’s finest English. She would not betray her cowardice to her captor again. "But if it is entertaining you I must, I would hope the same from yourself, sir."

“
Ye are not in a position to hope for such."

Good. She heard the humor in his voice. "Alas. But you will feed me?”

"A pleasure.” His voice, as smooth and potent as Scotch whisky, made her grit her teeth.

Once again, the bed shifted beneath her. As he fed Enya the less-th
an-appetizing porridge, she could detect his easy breathing. Detect, too, a fresh scent about him. "You have bathed since last you entertained me with your presence, Highlander.”

He chuckled. "Not for your sake,
sassenach
,” he said, using the Gaelic term of contempt for all Saxons. "I had ridden hard and long to make the sailing of the sloop. I might add that ye could use a bath."

She couldn
’t help herself. Before she realized the costly gesture, she spat the mouthful of porridge at him. "You bloody oaf!”

"
And I had thought you a bright lass. Or perhaps you weren’t hungry after all. Tomorrow I shall bring you a bowl of leek soup. That may suit your palate better, eh?"

"Leave me, you cad!”

Again, that abominable laughter. "I look forward to your next apology, me lady. I trust your imagination will create a more amusing one on the morrow.”

The door closed on her and her imagination. The horror of what awaited her was more than she wanted to contemplate, and she sought once more the oblivion of sleep.

Chapter Three

S
unlight, though mist-shrouded, nevertheless blinded Enya. She put up her palm to shield her eyes. The
Pelican
was putting into what appeared to be a wide bay. Bulbous fishing boats clustered at the far end.

Glancing around the plank deck, she saw a score or more of common sailors. A handful had scaled one of the sloop
’s masts and were hauling down a sail billowed by roguish winds. Others worked the shrouds or coiled heavy ropes. They worked silently, quickly; diligence combined with rapid movement for a purpose. But what?

The brisk, early-morning breeze felt wonderful on her sticky skin and sweat-snarled hair. How many days had she been locked in the cabin? The closest she could calculate was three.

The last time Ranald Kincairn had come to her in the cabin was yesterday morning. Since the old officer had let her out this morning she had not seen her abductor.

Enya turned to the bushy, white-browed officer who had received her that first night. Gone was the old
man’s wig, as well as his naval uniform. In its place were breeches and a stained linsey-woolsey shirt beneath an equally stained leather jerkin.

"Where is Ranald Kincairn?"

"On Highland soil, me lady.” Beneath thinning white hair, his blue eyes beamed. "Aye, Highland soil and Highland sky. Nowhere the likes of them on all the earth.”

“
You aren’t prejudiced, are you?"

His bushy white brows waggled. “
Captain Knox is me tag. To be sure I’m prejudiced. I’ve yet to see the Indies and the American colonies. Watch yer step now. Yon hawser’ll trip ye sure."

“
My maidservants—and Duncan. Duncan Fraser. Where are they?”

"Oh, they will be brought topside to join ye shortly, Madam Murdock. Me laird has given his permission to ha
’ them wait on ye now.”

“
How gracious.”

“
I thought ye would enjoy yer first sight of the Highlands.” He pointed a gnarled and stubby finger toward the ship's foreward. On the distant opposite shore of the oblong lake appeared to be a town, and perched above it a fortress. "Yon is Fort William."

H
er heart jumped with joyous anticipation. "You are returning me to the English, then?"

"Ach, no.”
The white-fringed eyes looked sorely bedeviled. “Look ye, lass, this is the sealoch Linnhe. We’re putting about to travel up Loch Leven. There, on the leeward side."

She followed the direction of his jabbing finger and saw, closer, another wide inlet bound by innumerable rifts and crags of steep slopes still laced with a slowly drifting web of mist. Even though late-summer sunlight filtered through the murky mi
st to warm the morning, she felt a chill. “Exactly where are we going?”

Beneath the white brows, the eyes shifted. "I
’ll leave it to me laird to talk to ye of such matters. There be yer companions, Madam Mudock.”

"M
’lady," Mary Laurie cried out. Tangled brown hair straggled from her mob cap, askew on her head. Her cheeks, normally apple red, were pale, and her bow-shaped mouth trembled. "We’ve been kept—’’

“
Take yer hands off me, ye knave," Elspeth told a startled Captain Knox, "or else ye’ll sing like a choir boy!" Indignant, she tried to straighten shoulders that time would never permit to straighten again. After having been confined in the small cabin, she wobbled.

Immediately, he dropped the supporting hand he had offered. “
A pox on ye, then, hag.”

Her h
ooded eyes squinted at her charge's face, as if searching for some sign from heaven. "Ye are unhurt, me bairn?”

“
I am unhurt. And you and Mary Laurie?”

"It would take more than Highland dolts to do me in. Yer breast knot is torn.”

She avoided the sharp old eyes. The lace knot had been tom the fourth or fifth time—she couldn’t remember—that the Cameron chieftain had come to her. He had proffered peas to her on his dirk.

Foolishly, he had cautioned her before her lips had touched its sharp edge.

Foolishly, she had seized the opportunity to drive the dirk into his chest.

With the ease of a man swatting a pesky fly, he had deflected the attempted stabbing. In the tussle for the dirk, he had won, and her breast knot had suffered.

"How close do you think I can come to cutting the knot before I prick your soft skin?" he had taunted.

She had dared not breathe. Without light to guide him, he might have done just that. The breast knot had yielded on his first attempt. Next, he had drawn off her lace handke
rchief, and she had felt the knifepoint feathering the hollow of her throat. She had only to swallow to feel its painful prick.

She hadn
’t, and the seconds strung out into what seemed hours. She had heard his measured breathing. What had he been thinking? At last he had arisen and left the cabin without another word. She had almost welcomed his anger rather than a return to the maddening isolation in which he kept her.

"Where is your laird?”
she demanded of Captain Knox.

“
Gone ashore, he has." Once again the blue eyes twinkled. "Paying an unexpected visit on the English garrison quartered at Fort William."

Swiftly, her gaze inventoried her chances at escape. The sloop
’s seamen were busy enough. No weapons were in evidence. A nearby dinghy would provide the means to reach shore. The canny old captain should give her and Duncan little resistance.

"My escort, Duncan?"

"Below, me lady."

"Bring him to my cabin.”
Enya pointed a negligent finger in that direction and turned to her serving ladies. The fretful wind was teasing her skirts, revealing more of her ankles than was proper. For all she knew, the sloop’s sailors could have been a’sea for months and sex-crazed, like their chief. "We’ll repair inside.”

Such was her habit at giving orders, so sure of her command
was she, that Captain Knox almost tugged at his wispy forelock in acknowledgment, before he remembered himself. "The laird has forbidden that, madam."

She turned back. "Forbidden what?"

"Forbidden ye to be alone with a man. Any man but himself, that is.”

S
he felt her color rising—and felt Elspeth’s obelisk glance.

Mary Laurie whispered, “
Oh, mistress!”

She collected herself. "Very well. Send Duncan to me here
—on deck. Very little can happen before the eyes of these charming . . . gentlemen . . . can it now?" She made a sweeping motion to take in the sailors who looked more like the dregs of a dock impressment.

Why had she not noticed earlier their untrimmed beards and flowing mustaches? Anyone with two eyes could see that they had not exhibited the spruced a
ppearance of seasoned British seaman.

Captain Knox rubbed his stubbled chin. "Weel, I don
’t see how that could hurt anything."

Waiting for Duncan, Enya watched the passing countryside closely. She would need to know as much as possible about this far-flung
land when the time for escape came. She saw a savage monotony of mountains. They rose steeply from the shores of the reed-rimmed loch and appeared to be crossed only by daredevil single-track roads.

She found the craggy Highlands disturbing, lacking the h
armony and proportion of the rolling, lush hills of the Lowlands. Here in the Highlands, the air was crisper, the light paler.

The surrounding countryside she viewed was a wild, timeless land where, no matter which direction she turned, she seemed to be lo
st. She knew that no cities and only a few towns managed to survive in the murderous mountain-shaped Highlands. Words like desolate and inhospitable came to her mind.

"M
’lady, yon is Duncan,” said Mary Laurie.

"Handcuffing is too lenient for a slick scound
rel like him," Elspeth said.

He was blinking. A scraggly growth of blond beard stubbled his lantern jaw. If possible, his clothing was even more rumpled and dirty than usual.

"Duncan,” Enya called.

He hesitated, then lurched in the women
’s direction. Obviously, his quarters of confinement had been even smaller than hers. Two sailors guarding him did nothing to impede his detour, but merely looked on. Apparently, duty called Captain Knox elsewhere.

Hands held awkwardly before him, Duncan as
ked, "Ye fare well, Enya?"

“
Aye. And you?" She reached up to touch his high forehead, where a fresh cut was haloed with a prominent purple bruise.

"Ach, got that from tussling with the crew here, I did.”

"Took on all of them, did you now?”

With a judicious
squint, Elspeth intervened to finger the wound. "A compress of lichen, egg, and spider web shouldna hurt ye too much.”

Enya drew closer. "Duncan, what think you our chances of escape?"

His eyes, the brown of acorns, narrowed to scan the rifts and crags of the brooding massifs, dominated now by the sight of the hefty humpback of Ben Nevis, the highest mountain of the British Isles. Loch Leven’s sandy shores were empty of human habitation. He looked down at his bound wrists and wiggled their chains. "Swimming is not what I had in me mind."

She chewed on her lower lip. "The longer we wait, the less chance we may have."

The warm wind whipped his butter-yellow hair. "The four of us be in no condition for flight. Do ye know if a ransom price has been asked?"

Enya
shook her head, and her straggling hair brushed her shoulders. Doubtlessly, she looked like the slattern that the laird of the Cameron clan wanted her to be. "Not ransom, retribution. It seems that our illustrious captor has a distaste for Lowlanders and English alike, especially Simon Murdock."

Duncan
’s straw-colored brows lowered in a scowl. "If not already, then soon, Simon Murdock will have discovered his escort, guards, and sailors were replaced by brigands. Help will be on the way. Better to wait it out.”

He was right. But how long could she postpone what Ranald Kincairn had in mind for her? As if she could do anything about it!

As the day wore on, the sloop traveled farther up Leven, one of many glacier-gouged lochs. The capricious wind lapped the cold and haunted waters. Below the mountain peaks, capped in mist, was spread a rugged, heather-splashed glen. It was here that the sloop put in.

The dinghy was lowered, and Duncan was put ashore with half a dozen of the scruffy-looking crew. She didn
’t like being separated from him. As it turned out, she, Elspeth, and Mary Laurie were next rowed ashore, along with Captain Knox and three more of Ranald Kincarn’s Highlanders.

Skirts lifted over the reeds, she picked her way to drier land. Beyond, an expanse of
bog and dark pools and ocher grass stretched into the wildest of empty moorlands. “My trunks and baggage, Captain Knox?’’

His expression was one of regret. “
To be forwarded later, madam. If you will accompany me. . .”

Armed with dirks, matchlocks, and swo
rds, her escort didn’t appear likely to grant her leave. She nodded, as if this was but the anticipated last stretch of her bridal journey. "Of course.”

The sun seemed about to break through the clouds between the distant peaks as her bridal party set out
. It had traveled no farther than a short distance over the soggy moors when a group of mounted men could be seen cantering toward them.

Hope took light within her. Even if it wasn't Simon Murdock and his men, the riders might be someone she could appeal t
o for help.

Closer, she could see the lead rider wore a kilt and tartan, the symbol of Scots pride. She felt like sobbing. These had to be more of the Cameron clan.

The man in the lead swung down from his bay mare and approached her captors. About her age, he was tall and handsome, with long, glossy auburn locks. Fear leaped anew in her heart. Was this her tormentor, Ranald?

He stopped to confer with Captain Knox. Almost immediately, she could see that this kilted man was not as brawny as the one who had co
me to her in the dark of the sloop’s cabin. That man had to weigh close to twenty stone. Twenty stone of might and muscle.

This slighter man advanced toward her, his intelligent, dark blue eyes surveying her with minute curiosity. "Lady Murdock?”

Her gaze ran the length of him with the accustomed ease of a mistress to a minion. Closer, she could detect his plaid and kilt colors, interwoven red and hunter’s green, with narrow yellow bands. She surmised the colors blended well for hiding in the heather. "Aye?”

He surprised her with a bow. "I am Jamie Cameron, here to welcome you." He waved a careless hand behind him. "I have brought mounts for you and your
—"

"Fellow prisoners?" she suggested caustically.