Claimed by the Highlander (31 page)

Gwendolen considered all of this. “As Angus will despise me.” She returned to the broken window and looked out at the hazy morning light. “I was the one who poisoned him. He will never believe it was not deliberate. Not after everything that has happened. Raonaid’s predictions have come true, and I was the one who pushed him to ignore them and send her away.”

Onora crossed to her. “Aye, but she’s the one who made it come true. She was the one who told Murdoch how Angus would die, and Murdoch believed her. He acted in a way that would be true to her prophecy, while she encouraged him and manipulated him in order to exact her own revenge and prove herself right.”

“But it did not work,” Gwendolen said. “Angus still lives.”

She sat down on the bed and said a silent prayer of gratitude.

“We all choose our own destinies,” Onora said, moving forward. “I realize that now. We all have the power to affect the future. We make it what we want. Angus did not want to die. He fought against Slevyn and he escaped.”

Gwendolen faced her. “What do
you
want from the future, Mother?”

She pondered that question. “I want you to be happy. I want my grandchild to have a father, and I want Lachlan and the rest of the MacDonalds to forgive me.” She lowered her gaze. “But it’s not that simple. I don’t want my son to die or suffer.”

“Sometimes we all have to make difficult choices.”

“But how do we choose?” Her eyes filled with anguish.

Gwendolen strode forward. “It’s very simple, Mother. Sometimes we must put aside what we want, and do the right thing instead.”

Chapter Twenty-seven

It had been a long day in the saddle, and another long night traveling through dark glens and silent forests, stopping only briefly to rest and sleep for no more than an hour at a time. Under normal circumstances, it was a two-day ride to Moncrieffe Castle, but Angus had done it in twenty-four hours. A new day was dawning, but with the gray morning light came a chilly wind and heavy rain. By the time he arrived at the gate tower, he was drenched to the bone, shivering and numb, weak from hunger and the lingering effects of the poison still moving through his body.

Teeth chattering, his tartan draped over his head like a hood, he walked his tired horse across the bridge where he was met by a broad-shouldered, ruddy-faced MacLean.

The clansman drew his sword and stepped into his path. “What business do ye have with the earl on this wet mornin’, stranger? He’s not expecting visitors.”

Angus pulled the hood off his head and raised his arms to indicate that he was unarmed. “I am Angus MacDonald, chief of the MacDonalds of Kinloch.”

The guard’s bushy eyebrows pulled together with concern as he looked Angus up and down and observed his battered appearance.

“Come this way.” The guard stalked quickly through the arched gateway, then waved to two other guards who came running across the bailey. “The Laird of Kinloch Castle is here. Get him inside and see to his horse. Quickly now. And inform the earl straightaway.”

The two clansmen looked up at Angus in horror.

He was not surprised. He suspected he looked like a corpse.

*   *   *

Angus woke many hours later in a warm, fresh-scented bedchamber, under silk sheets and heavy covers. His eyes fluttered open, but he was too weak to move much else.

A damp cool cloth touched his forehead, and he found himself gazing up at a flame-haired beauty with striking green eyes, leaning over him curiously.

“Lady Moncrieffe…” He could barely speak. His voice was raspy and low.

“My word. A miracle, to be sure. Welcome back to the world of the living.” She gazed down at him with kindness in her eyes, which made no sense to him. He had once threatened to kill this woman. He had terrorized her with malice and violence, and gone on to betray her husband, the famous Butcher of the Highlands. Was he hallucinating?

“How long have I been here?”

“Since early this morning,” she replied. “You slept all day after collapsing in the bridge corridor, but you’re all right now. You just need to rest.”

“I was poisoned,” he tried to explain, wetting his dry, cracked lips.

“Yes, you told us that. The surgeon has already been here. He said you will survive.” She leaned back and regarded him with some concern. “You also said that your brother-in-law tried to murder you—that you were hanged by the neck from the battlements at Kinloch. Is that true?”

“Aye.” He closed his eyes. “I can’t seem to stay out of trouble, can I?”

“No, you were always very good at riding straight into it, just like Duncan.”

Angus lay very still and quiet, contemplating the strangeness of this situation. “God was watching over me for some odd reason this morning,” he said. “I’ll never know why. I hardly deserve His mercy.”

Gwendolen entered his thoughts suddenly, and the loss of her made his chest ache. He took a deep breath and felt a heated rush of urgency rise up inside him.

He tried to sit up. “Where is Duncan? Will he see me? I must speak to him.”

“Please be patient.” Gently, the countess pushed him back down. “He’ll be here soon.” She turned from the bed and rinsed the cloth in a porcelain bowl.

Angus noticed immediately that her belly was round. “You’re expecting a child.”

“Yes, our second.”

“And your first…?”

“A healthy son.” There was a gleam of happiness in her eyes as she answered the question.

“The boy’s name?”

“Charles,” she replied, “after my father.” Lady Moncrieffe returned to the bedside and dabbed at Angus’s forehead with the cloth again.

“Aye, the great English colonel,” he said. “A good friend to the Scots. Duncan always thought well of your father.”

“Yes, he did, and the feeling was mutual.”

But Angus knew that her father was dead now. It was a significant loss for the Union of Great Britain.

“Can I get you anything?” she asked, heading for the door with the basin in her hands. Angus tried again to sit up, but she set the bowl down on a table and hurried back to his side. “Please rest, Angus. I will go and fetch Duncan right away. I promise.”

He studied the softness of her face, the compassion in her eyes, and said with bewilderment, “Why are you treating me with such kindness? Two years ago, I did everything I could to destroy you, and then I tried to destroy Duncan.”

“Things were complicated back then,” she replied.

“And they are less complicated now?” He did not think they were.

“You are my husband’s oldest friend,” she explained, then proceeded to straighten the bedcoverings. Almost as an afterthought, she added, “And I read your letter.”

He relaxed back down onto the pillows. “So you received it. I was not sure. There was no return message.”

“Duncan was going to come and see you in person,” she explained, “but he couldn’t leave yet. He wished to wait until after our child was born.”

Angus regarded her steadily in the iridescent firelight. “I understand.”

As it happened, he understood it all too well, and his guts were churning at the thought of his own unborn child back at Kinloch Castle, without his protection, in the care of his enemies.

And Gwendolen. His wife. His love—who had fed him the poisoned wine …

His heart throbbed painfully in his chest. His emotions confused him. He didn’t know what to think, how to feel, what to do. Not that he was capable of doing much of anything. He was still very weak. He had to get his strength back. And he needed to see Duncan. There was much to be said.

*   *   *

With no idea how much time had passed, Angus woke with a start. He sat up and clutched at his neck, gasping for air while battling a violent urge to fight and kick.

The bedchamber was quiet, except for the snapping of the fire in the grate. A log shifted and dropped, and he stared into the hellish dancing flames, willing his heart to slow its harried pace. He took a few slow, deep breaths.

“I reckon you will be dreaming about it for a while,” a voice said.

Angus squinted through the blur of the night and saw Duncan lean forward into view. He was seated in a wing chair in front of the fire, rolling a glass of whisky back and forth between his palms.

Angus had not seen his friend in two years, and his first response was joy—incredible joy—but that emotion was immediately smothered by his own sense of guilt and the certain expectation of Duncan’s loathing. Perhaps even some kind of aggressive retribution. God knew he deserved it.

Angus tried to relax onto the thick feather pillows, while he braced himself for whatever was about to come his way. “I thought I was dying,” he explained, while keeping his eyes fixed on Duncan’s.

“Well, you’re not dead. You were just dreaming.”

“And you weren’t inclined to wake me?”

“Nay.” Duncan rose from the chair and walked to a window seat adjacent to the bed. He sat down again and watched Angus intently.

Duncan MacLean. Earl of Moncrieffe. Known to a select few as the Butcher of the Highlands. He deserved every bit of fame and notoriety that had turned him into a Scottish legend, for he was an imposing figure at all times—a fierce and brave warrior with more honor and integrity in his little finger than most men could ever dream of achieving in their lifetimes.

Tonight he was dressed in the MacLean tartan with a loose linen shirt. His jet-black hair was tied back in a queue. Other times he wore a different style of dress—silk jackets, shirts with lace collars and cuffs, brocade waistcoats with brass buttons, and often a curly black wig on his head. It was part of his dual identity. Part of his disguise.

Sometimes, in the eyes of the English, he was a gentleman.

Other times, a savage.

What was he tonight? Angus wondered uneasily. A little of both, he supposed.

“I’m surprised you let me pass through the gates after what I did to you two years ago,” Angus said, sitting up to meet Duncan’s blue-eyed gaze. “You have every right to hate me. I know that. I should burn in hell for what I did to you.”

He had told the English soldiers exactly where to find the Butcher, and as a result, Duncan had been captured, beaten, imprisoned, and sentenced to death. He would not be alive today if not for the courage of his English wife who risked everything to save him.

And today, that same flame-haired woman had nursed Angus gently and tenderly. Sometimes he was astounded by the charity and forgiveness of the human heart. His own especially—for he had never imagined he had much of one to begin with. Yet he was feeling a deep, profound pain in that area tonight. He regretted his past actions, his disloyalty and treachery, and he longed for the woman he loved, even when he doubted her integrity.

“Aye,” Duncan said. “You were a bastard and a tyrant two years ago. I ought to shoot you through the heart right now.”

“Most men would do that very thing, in your position.”

A moment of tense silence ensued while Angus wondered anxiously if Duncan was hiding a pistol in the room. How he must have dreamed of this moment, when he was lying in that prison cell, knowing he had been betrayed by his most trusted friend …

Duncan tipped back his glass of whisky and finished it. “I have a bottle of my finest over there,” he said, tossing his head toward the table by the fire. “You ought to take some. It might ease the furor in your gut.”

Angus scoffed. “I don’t think there’s any drink in existence that can accomplish that.”

“But it’s the finest whisky around.” Duncan leaned back. “You need to relax, Angus. I read your letter. I remember the pressures we were both under two years ago. They were hard times.”

Duncan rose to his feet, poured a drink, and carried it across the room. Angus sat up in bed to accept it.

“All I wanted was to see Richard Bennett’s head on a spike.”

Bennett was the English officer who had raped and murdered his sister, and Angus understood now that he had been so consumed by grief and rage, he had become obsessed to the point of madness. When Duncan had decided to let Bennett live, Angus had lost his mind.

“But I was wrong to do what I did,” Angus said, “and I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to do the same thing to me now.”

Duncan’s broad shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath. “I might not have let you in here two years ago, but time has a way of tempering one’s rage and healing old wounds. And when you find a way to live that makes you happy, it gets easier to let go of the things that once tormented you.”

Angus nodded. “I have begun to see that for myself. Ever since I returned to Kinloch, I’ve thought of other things besides the past. I took a wife, and for a short time, I thought God might be giving me a second chance.”

“But let me guess. You don’t think so now,” Duncan put forward, “because of what just happened to you. When you collapsed this morning, you told us that your wife poisoned you. That’s hard to swallow.”

Angus finished his drink and set it on the table, then tossed the covers aside and swung his legs to the floor. “Aye.”