His Judas Bride (31 page)

It was as if Kara had been handed a beautiful shiny bauble and shattered it irretrievably, because she did not know how to handle it.

“That’s how I know within himself, he must love you. To have been with you at all, he must.”

Kara gazed around the rocks standing like sentinels, barely able to breathe for what filled her. That was not possible. He didn’t. He wouldn’t. Or wasn’t it just too much to hear knowing just how fragmented that bauble was, when after all, there had been a chance of it being whole?

When even she was forced to admit, that while there had been every calculation in her seduction of him there had been absolutely none in her success, so even what she had thought of as lust… Oh God, it was hard to imagine that a man who seemed so confident was as afraid as he was. Easier to believe that he wasn’t, when it meant letting go of the things she held against him. Her biggest grievance next to being here even, when she thought of how she’d goaded him.

“What else am I meant to think but that he does? You’re here. Even Fallon and Dug are here. All on his say so. With him and Ewen gone, I am supposed to command this glen.”

Kara felt every drop of blood drain from her face.

“Gone?” Understanding hit her like an avalanche. What a damned stupid fool she was not to see it, what he’d done. She just couldn’t understand why he hadn’t told her.

No. Damn it, she could.

It was her choice, this.

Mistrust? Or sparing her facing her father? Her throat dried. How she stood there she didn’t know. “Arland.”

“Arland?”

“My son. Oh, my God, he’s gone for my son.”

* * *

“Well, here we are at last. Is this not cozy?”

Cozy was not the word Callm would have used to describe Wee Murdie’s breath on his cheek right now. Although he admitted it could have been worse. He might have been Eck, being squashed between Shug’s gross belly and the staircase wall.

“Can ye see?” Eck gasped.

Callm edged a breath. From long habit of moments like this, Callm didn’t want to answer. But Eck sounded as if he breathed his last, so was it any wonder he wanted to know how much longer he’d have to live?

“Hell. Shh. Do you think I’ve got eyes on sticks?”

“Do ye want me to have a look?”

Wee Murdie was almost as bad as Eck. Now, when it was vital they all held their tongues, it was as if none of them could do so. But then none of them had ever done anything quite like this. Callm glanced over his shoulder.

“No. What I want is you to shut up.”

“Aye. Shh. You get us ambushed and you’re dead. Miracles dinnae happen twice in a day.” Shug shifted his bulk, letting Eck snag a breath—a miracle for him.

What Shug said was certainly true though. Five days ago, this had seemed impossible, yet they’d just slipped in through the kitchen quarters, disguised as hunters. Who would have believed it? Were the tinker chief to know how badly his own people had turned against him, Callm knew he would still be living on his wits with Ewen and the eight men he’d chosen to accompany them on this fool’s errand.

Now here they were on the dimly lit staircase, right in the heart of the thinker chief’s castle.

“I still think we should have waited for word from the other McGurkies.”

Callm frowned. They could have.
Should
have. It was true. Wee Murdie’s assessment of the situation wasn’t far off the mark, but the opportunity was God given, the chance too good to pass up when he didn’t want to leave the boy in that dungeon any longer. A child of four, for Christ’s sake. While he admitted his judgment had been flawed lately, considered himself fortunate these men still followed him, he was still grateful for what Shug whispered next.

“What? And pass up the opportunity te be invited in here, looking furtive, by our new friends? Are ye daft? Anyway, the bastard’s hardly expecting to be set upon in his own castle.”

“Shh!”

“
Jeez.
”

They each of them froze in their boots as a loud clattering came from the floor beneath. So far as Callm knew the tinker chief’s chamber itself wasn’t heavily guarded, but the castle was crawling with men. He didn’t want to be ambushed on the tortuously twisted staircase.

The longer they stood here, the danger increased. Already he cursed the fact he’d dragged his men into what was essentially his business. Callm just didn’t want to think that maybe some of the resistance was fake, that this was a trap they had been led into like rats in the gutter.

“Ewen can’t be far either. Word should reach here any time now,” Shug’s whisper echoed in his ear. “What do ye think?”

Callm listened past the noise, to the click of a door shutting somewhere along the corridor, to the muffled growl of fury. He took a deep breath. “I think word just has. Let’s go.”

Fingering his blade, he zigzagged into the shadows. Instinct told him there’d be one man at the tinker chief’s door. Maybe two inside. And none, certainly not the one at the door, could be allowed to utter a sound. The knife throw needed to be swift. Needed to be one of his best if they stood any chance here, not just of rescuing the boy, but getting out of here alive.

Even before he hurled it down the length of corridor, watching it spin tortuously through the air, he knew it was. Hurrying forward, he caught his victim as the man’s knees sagged. It wasn’t all clean. But he couldn’t afford to think it as he maneuvered the sagging body onto the floor and prized the knife free. He dragged a breath to calm his hammering heart.

Christ, for that matter, the man may have been one who had beaten and raped Kara.

“Quickly.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Drag him over there. Out the—”

“They’re nuttin’ but sheep!” a guttural Irish voice bellowed inside the room itself. Do ye hear me? Round them up. Man. Woman. Child. Their dogs if you have to.”

He froze. In fact, they all did. Well, at least they hadn’t been betrayed. At least the resistance was real.

“Black Wolf McDunnagh’ll raise no standards in my glen. And he’ll not be setting foot in this castle to save his supporters either. Find them. Find them, before they get here.”

Callm had no trouble knowing who the bellow belonged to. Especially as the door creaked open. Fortunately Eck, Shug, and Snosh had edged up the corridor because he and Wee Murdie still had the body of the man they’d dragged out of the way to lower to the ground. He waited till the two men exited the chamber, and he heard choked gasps and thuds behind him before stepping into the doorway.

“Don’t you think it’s a bit late for that?” Then he stepped over the threshold.

As soon as he did, a bulky figure turned from the table before the blazing fire.

The tinker chief wasn’t exactly what he expected. He’d be lying if he didn’t admit wherever Kara came by her extraordinary looks, it wasn’t from her father. The bulbous nose and tangled shock of greasy, gray hair were nothing like her for a start.

The man wasn’t exactly frightened of him, though was he, he thought with a sudden pang.

“And who the fuck are you?” The tinker chief arched unimpressed eyebrows. “Coming in here like this.”

“Your son-in-law.”

“
My
son-in-law?”

“Although this isn’t exactly a social call.”

Had Callm said it was, and to break open the whiskey bottle, the tinker chief could not have looked more accommodating. Ewen McDunnagh somehow here in his fortress—that day Callm had stood on the castle doorstep and cut what throats remained of Morven’s murderers, he had been unrecognizable. Plainly, for Ewen McDunnagh to be here, Kara had spilled everything.

Not like her father? In that second Kara became his double. So much so, Callm felt he examined a well-thumbed book.

“Ewen McDunnagh, here in my castle.”

“Hell, no. Do you want me cutting your head off for the cheek of it, old man?”

It was probably unwise to give that much away, when Ewen actually still wasn’t anywhere in sight, that Callm knew of anyway. These feelings about Ewen were probably something he needed a lesson in governing. But so long as the corridor was still empty of McGurkies—unless of course, they were dead ones—he’d be all right.

“No. I’m Callm.”

“Callm? Callm McDunnagh? But…but she was told…”

Truth to tell, Callm was a little astonished by the outcome of this himself. Was it really roughly three short weeks ago he had been free of such encumbrances as a wife? So the perplexed manner the tinker chief ran his tongue over his mouth, the knitting of his brows, were things he not only understood, they were things he might even say they had in common. He frowned.

“Are you thinking the same as me here? Obedience isn’t exactly that girl’s strong point, is it?”

“But Callm McDunnagh is—”

“Busy raising standards? You should know better than me how this goes. But in case you somehow don’t, let me tell you. Ewen takes my place, leading your people up to your door, putting you at ease, thinking you can take him, while I, well, I lie my way in here. Does that sound in any way familiar?”

If it did, the tinker chief was quick to refute it. “Callm McDunnagh, eh?” He strolled to the other end of the table. “Well, well, well.”

Callm had a prescience of what was coming next. But he’d lived with the thought long enough to know it wasn’t worth responding. At least, he hoped he had. The old bastard was clever though.

There was no doubt he’d guessed the most men Callm could have in the castle itself, could be counted on the fingers of one hand, hence the leisurely stroll, the even slower sloshing of two golden drams into the cups from the decanter that stood there.

“The rightful chief of clan McDunnagh. Tell me, sir, have you never felt the least bit irked that your father passed you over?”

“That he passed over? Yes. But that’s all. Because I was a good son that way. I knew it was men like you who left him no choice in the other matter.”

“Hmm. Because, see your brother now, well, drunken fool’s the term for him. That much the lasses did not want to marry him. While all I hear of you now, sir—”

Callm eyed him carefully. It wouldn’t pay to let this bastard out his sight. Or to take that drink from him either. The one he now casually extended. He tightened his jaw.

“Well, fool or not, drunk or not, you sent your daughter to marry him.”

“That trollop sent herself. Begged me. Though I can’t say the outcome displeases me. Aye.” He downed his whiskey in one gulp.

Callm could see that it didn’t. His heart was cold though. If the tinker chief thought he could smooth his way out of this, he couldn’t. Raking over ashes in the matter of the succession was bad enough. This slice to his underbelly with talk of Kara merely strengthened his determination to end this with only one of them alive in this chamber.

After all, her father had done that to Kara. What the hell had she been like before? Before she’d had to connive her way out of every given situation to survive?

The woman he’d glimpsed in the cave in those moments when they were right together? The one who’d beguiled him that day of the hand-fasting? The one he’d had to set apart from his heart, his soul, his bed, his body? He was utterly clear on it. Or had been these last few miserable days skulking in caves and gullies, expecting a knife at any moment in his back, while yet feeling half his life had been torn away.

Because all she damn well wanted, all she had done it for, was her son.

Well, he got her that. So she never had to do these things again. But Christ, the level of the deceit, the fact she was what she was, the odd damned childish way she could be, as if her whole progression from girl to woman had been thrown into another universe completely by this apology for a father, a man, was too much to bear.

Callm gritted his teeth. “Maybe so. I don’t hear you asking if she’s still alive.”

“The lass can take care of herself. Always could. Do you mind me asking you how the hell it happened that she ended up with you, though? Even allowing she’s not exactly what you’d call obedient, never has been, it’s a hell of a leap from being sent to marry your brother. What did she do? Throw herself at you one dark night?”

“I’d tell you, but this side of hell there’s some things a man keeps private.” Having just gritted his teeth, Callm tried not to do again. Determining on all he had, he didn’t need the distraction of that memory. But obviously the tinker chief had a fairly good idea or he’d not have said it. It was more evidence, as if any was needed, she’d do anything to get what she wanted.

This man hadn’t just done that to her. He’d brutally and calmly ordered Morven’s murder to ensure some other deal by proxy. Christ. Imagine that.

For a second the tinker chief toyed with the remaining whiskey glass.

“True. Just think of all you could have, if we stood together on this though. You, my son-in-law. The two glens united as one, so when I die, you and her, you’d rule, wouldn’t you? Our people would be one at last. They would be your people. And every other clan would fear you more than ever. Just think of that.”

“I am. I’ve been thinking all the way here.” He had. It was no lie. “But we’re not going to rule anything.”

For all there were times when he abhorred himself for his ability to take lives, what swirled in his brain was such that he knew this wasn’t going to be one of them. “Now draw.” He clutched cold steel.

“Draw?” Bemusement glinted beneath the gray brows. “Do you have brains only a mother could love?”

In the curtain of red silk, suddenly swirling in his mind, Callm walked around the table. Perhaps he did. But he’d stood here long enough. It was fight or retreat. He wasn’t going to retreat. “You heard.”

“Son, I—”

Keeping his sword trained, he grasped the tinker chief’s sword hilt, drew it from the scabbard. “I’m not your son. This ends with one of us alive.”

“These stakes are high you’re talking of.”

“You killed my wife.”

“Is that what that girl of mine told you?”

Cold fury iced Callm’s brain. No. He was not going to rise to that. Not going to do this any other way than man-to-man either. An enemy was worth that much, even one like this, although the temptation was strong, as he stood there, feeling rage swirl around him and the breath stilling the back of his throat, to slice this bastard’s. “She told me lots. Take it.” Anyway he didn’t think it would be as simple as that. “I said—”