Amanda Scott (25 page)

By the time Hugo reached the woods to the south, the sky had lightened considerably and a golden halo over the hills to the east announced the sun’s imminent appearance. On his way, he had spied at least one man in the woods watching Fergus and the other horsemen, but the fellow had paused only long enough to get a good look at them before turning away. He showed no sign of having seen Hugo, Einar, or Tam Swanson making their way downhill on foot.

To his right, Hugo saw Tam flit like a wraith among the trees. To his left, barely visible in the shadows, Einar stood against the wide trunk of a tall beech. Even as Hugo watched him, the smaller man seemed to blend into the bark of the tree and disappear, and he reflected that Einar was almost as skilled as Michael was at moving silently on unfamiliar terrain.

Hearing a sound to his right, he looked back at Tam to see him stretch overhead and pull himself hand over hand into the spreading branches of an ancient oak. It was not Tam who had made the sound, though. Another man crept through nearby foliage, a long dirk in one hand, peering about as if he hunted game.

Slipping behind the nearest tree, Hugo caught Einar’s eye and gestured.

When Einar nodded and disappeared, Hugo turned back to see the hunter pass beneath Tam’s tree.

Tam dropped lightly behind him from the branches, caught him by the jaw with one hand, and slit his throat in a swift move with the dagger he held in the other before the man could lift his own weapon.

Hugo went to help Tam drag the body under a bush, and as they turned from that task, Einar appeared from the shadows, holding up a finger and pointing west with his other hand. When they joined him, he murmured, “I dealt wi’ one yonder, creeping about wi’ his pig sticker like that one, but others be set nearby to ambush our lads—near a score o’ them. Some ha’ bows already fixed with arrows.”

“And likely another score lining every side but the one from which they expect our approach,” Hugo muttered in reply.

“Aye, and they’d close that side behind our lads were they so foolish as to ride into such a trap,” Tam said.

“Did you catch sight of Waldron?” Hugo asked Einar.

“Nay, I did not. Likely, he’ll be conferring somewhere wi’ his captains.”

“Then let’s dispatch a few more strays before they miss these two,” Hugo said. He had no need to tell them to remember where they had stowed the bodies of any men they killed. They knew his ways and knew they’d not leave before giving each dead man a proper burial.

With any luck, they’d have more than two villains to put underground and could let whatever prisoners they took dig the graves.

No sooner did Adela step outside after restoring Waldron’s things to their proper places after his men had repositioned the tent a short distance inside the woods than he gestured sharply for her to go back. But with only her turbulent thoughts for company, she could not wait patiently in the tent.

She wanted to vent her feelings, to scream her fury, but she could not. And although the tent was larger than the one in which he had put Isobel, it was not large enough for pacing. Thoughts of his evil ways soon returned to haunt her.

If only Isobel were not pregnant! If only Waldron’s men had not found her! But Adela had long since learned the futility of “if only,” and found no comfort there.

As for Sorcha, what was that impetuous, disobedient child doing in such a place on her own? And how had she managed it? Waldron had made no attempt to conceal the fact that he had somehow induced Sir Hugo to follow them, but by no stretch of Adela’s imagination could she imagine Hugo saddling himself with Sorcha. Nor could she imagine Macleod or anyone else allowing her to set off on her own.

But she could easily imagine Sorcha defying them all and setting out to look for her without anyone’s permission. Such behavior would be just like her, so doubtless she deserved whatever happened to her now.

Adela said the same things to herself over and over, but no matter how many times she did, she could not feel anything but sorrow for what would doubtless happen to both Sorcha and Isobel. What Waldron was doing was
evil! No matter what his reasons or how thoroughly he believed in the rightness of his cause, to kill innocent women to further that cause could be naught
but
evil. She could not think straight from one minute to the next, could not predict her own behavior, and could not imagine how a holy mission could be evil, but she knew evil when she saw it.

But she could do nothing to prevent it. She was still standing there, staring bleakly at the fur pallet that served as her bed, when she heard a distant shout.

Thought ceased, and she darted to the entrance to peer outside.

The men near the tent had vanished, as had Waldron. But she saw movement at the clearing’s edge and knew that some of them must be there. Moving as warily as she knew how from one tree to the next, she sought a hiding place from which she could see the little tent where he had put Isobel and doubtless Sorcha, as well.

Adela had noted that he had not promised to move Isobel to safety but had said only that he would think about using Sorcha for bait. And doubtless he had forgotten those words as soon as he had left her. Even so, she kept glancing over her shoulder lest he return with Isobel and find her missing.

Under the circumstances, she knew that if he discovered her absence, no excuse would shield her from his anger. He would kill her without a second thought. After all, he would have Isobel, her baby, and Sorcha as his hostages. Moreover, he would believe killing her would teach them a lesson in how they must behave.

The increasing confidence she had developed in her ability to manage him vanished at the thought, but as it
did, her fear for herself seemed to ease as well. She soon found a place that would conceal her from the few men she could see, yet provide a view of the tent. As she cautiously took her position, she saw Waldron stride to the little tent and peer inside. Perhaps he did mean to protect Isobel.

He seemed to be speaking to someone inside, and hope leaped that he was telling Isobel she could come out. Poised to run to her own tent, even if it meant casting caution to the wind, Adela waited to see what he would do next.

To her disappointment and frustration, he straightened and walked back amid the trees. When she lost sight of him, she stopped breathing, fearing he might walk straight to her. Then she saw him again, moving away along the perimeter, murmuring to men who waited there for their quarry to appear.

Nothing had explained the shout she’d heard, but when she looked toward the tent again, she saw horsemen approaching from the west, perhaps a dozen, riding slowly. They paused where the clearing widened before them, and she saw that they carried no banner. The few of Waldron’s men that she could see grew more alert, drawing swords and fitting arrows to bowstrings.

The little tent sat right in the line of fire, and the big-sister part of Adela, the part that had taken care of her family for years, wanted to run and snatch Isobel and Sorcha to safety. The rest of her, the small, still-terrified part, wanted to run to her own tent and curl up tight with her hands over her ears.

As she stood hesitating, a large hand clamped over her mouth and an arm snapped around her waist. Terrified to
her bones that Waldron had sneaked up behind her and meant to throttle her for her disobedience, or cut off her head and fling it into the path of the approaching horsemen, she fainted dead away.

When Waldron had walked away from the tent, Sorcha watched him go, then went back inside, where she knelt at the rear and lifted the tent’s edge to look out.

“He’s right, Isobel,” she said. “Horsemen are coming, but barely half of Hugo’s force. Although Waldron said he’s leading them, I don’t see him.”

“Well, they wouldn’t be here without him,” Isobel said.

She lay awkwardly on the fur pallet that had served them as a bed. Her face was too pale for Sorcha’s liking, and she was clearly in great discomfort, although she steadfastly insisted that she was fine, that the babe was merely restless, as it had been all through the night.

Sorcha squinted, trying to see more clearly. “They are still a good distance away,” she said. “But I’m sure Hugo is not with them. For one thing, he nearly always rides Hector’s Black Thunder, and I don’t see a single black horse.”

A muffled groan was the only answer.

Turning her head, she saw that Isobel had curled onto her side and was clearly trying to find a more comfortable position.

“Can I help?” she asked, moving swiftly to her side.

Isobel managed a smile. “Nay, I’m just—” Breaking off, she gasped to choke off another cry of pain, then
closed her eyes for a long moment before she said, “Mercy, that was the strongest yet, and they’re coming closer and closer together.”

A jolt of fear surged through Sorcha. “It’s too soon!”

“Aye, it is, but I think this babe wants to be born.”

Taking a deep breath to calm herself, Sorcha said, “Then, pray, tell me quickly what I must do if it does come, for I haven’t a notion.”

“Sakes, do you think I know?” Isobel demanded. “I was two when you were born, three for Sidony. I thought Cristina would be at hand when he came, and Mairi. Between them they have borne eight children, but I hadn’t even been at Lochbuie long enough to discuss it with them before those men caught m—”

Again her words ended in a cry of pain. This time the episode lasted longer.

“Isobel, what’s happening? Tell me! Tell me what to do!”

“Don’t do anything,” Isobel gasped. “You might do something wrong. If this babe is coming, he’s coming, and we’ll just have to figure out what to do when he does.” She gasped again, then seemed to find it easier to breathe normally. She eased herself back to her earlier, supine position on the pallet of furs.

“Maybe Adela knows,” Sorcha said. “I’ll ask someone to send for her.”

“Has she ever attended a birthing?”

“I don’t think so, but she is older. She must know more than we do.”

She stood and turned toward the tent entrance, but before she got there, Isobel cried out, “Wait, something’s wrong! Something horrible is happening!”

She tugged her skirt up, and even before she pulled it past her knees, Sorcha saw blood mixed with other fluids and did the only thing she could think to do.

She screamed as loudly as she could.

Hugo heard Sorcha scream as he was trying to cope with Adela’s dead weight in his arms. He had stolen up behind her and taken the precaution of silencing her, because he could not count on her to keep quiet if she saw him or he startled her. But the wretched lass had swooned in his arms.

Lowering her to the ground and signing to Einar to watch her, he ran toward the tent from which the scream had come. In the distance, he saw his men urging their ponies to a faster pace and wondered if Waldron had somehow forced the scream to draw them into his trap.

Experience warned him that he should move cautiously, but his feet wouldn’t listen. She was screaming for help, and now he could hear Isobel’s cries as well. He was running as fast as he could, so when Waldron leaped from the woods in front of him, sword drawn, Hugo nearly impaled himself before he managed to leap back and snatch out his own sword.