Sapphire Dream (22 page)
Authors: Pamela Montgomerie
A small bell tinkled as he pushed through the door. Memories assailed him with the familiar scents of new linen, tangy cinnamon, and spun wool. His gaze took in the shelves stocked high with fabrics in every weight and hue. Everything from ribbons and buttons to caps and spectacles lined the shelves. A glass case in the back was filled with sweet candies as it always had been.
He had a sudden vivid memory of walking into this shop, his father beside him—the viscount and his whelp. The shopkeep had treated them like royalty, offering Rourke a piece of candy—a cinnamon drop, his favorite.
The memory was painful, but strangely pleasing, for he’d long ago banished such thoughts from his mind. The good years. The happy years. Long, long gone.
The shopkeep of his memory stepped out of the back, wiping his hands on his apron. He’d aged much over the intervening years. His once dark hair was now white and thinning. But as he adjusted his spectacles and peered at Rourke, he somehow seemed the same as he’d always been.
“Can I help ye?”
“Mr. McBean.”
“Aye.” The man squinted, eyeing him with faint recognition. “Do I know ye?”
Rourke suddenly regretted speaking the name aloud. “Nay. I’m looking for a man. He’s—”
“Rourke,” the man said suddenly, a grin blooming on his weathered face, revealing large gaps in the rows of his teeth. “It’s ye, isn’t it? All growed up. We heard ye was alive.”
Before he could answer, he heard the sound of footfalls on the steps outside. Grabbing his sword, he turned as a matronly woman entered the shop behind him.
“Maggie!” McBean exclaimed. “Ye’ll ne’er guess—”
Rourke shoved his sword back in its scabbard and hooked his arm around the old proprietor’s shoulders. “I have need of a word with ye.” He led the man into the back of the shop.
When they were out of earshot of the store, he turned the man to face him. “No one must know I’m here.”
“Are ye in trouble, lad?”
“Aye, in a manner of speaking. I’m looking for a man. A dwarf, about this high.” He held his hand even with the bottom of his rib cage. “Red hair. You’d know if you’d seen him, aye?”
The proprietor scratched his chin. “I havena seen such a creature, but I’ll ask around for ye, if ye’d like.”
“I havena much time.”
“Yer sure he’s here?”
Rourke sighed. “He told me to meet him here, but nay. I’m sure of nothing.”
The shopkeep started toward the front, motioning Rourke. “Maggie will know. Maggie McCloud knows everything that goes on in this town, oft before it happens.”
With reluctance, Rourke followed him back to the front where the wide-girthed woman admired a collection of ribbon. She looked at Rourke with great interest as McBean approached her.
“Have ye seen any strange little men in town in the past days, Maggie? This lord is searching for a redheaded dwarf, if ye can be believing such a creature exists.”
The woman eyed Rourke with interest. “A lord, are ye? Och, and ye have the Douglas eyes.” She peered at him suspiciously. “Are ye of the castle then?”
“Nay,” Rourke said curtly. If he was not careful, the entire village would soon know of his arrival. “The dwarf, mistress. I would know if you’ve seen him.”
“Well, now, I’ve seen no such creature.” Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Though ’tis said there’s something strange going on at the Wellerby cottage. For two nights now, passersby have heard laughter and cackling, and strange, eerie singing, but when they’ve knocked, Old Inghinn refuses them in. Says she’s entertaining none but herself.”
Rourke turned to the merchant. He remembered the cottage. “Is hers still on the north road?”
“Aye. Ye’ll know it by the red door.”
Rourke thanked him and leaned close. “Say naught, I beg of you.”
Mr. McBean nodded unhappily. “ ’ Tis time you came home, laddie.”
Rourke shook his head. “I cannot.” He turned, and with a polite nod to the matron, left the shop, the bell tinkling after him. Keenly alert for signs of Cutter or the soldiers, he mounted and kept to the side streets as he made his way through the town.
The Wellerby cottage stood much as he remembered. As a lad, he’d heard it said a witch lived there. A fitting place to find Hegarty, to be sure.
The red door stood open. A toothless old crone perched on a stool out front, beneath a large elm, plucking a hen. Two cats played at her feet.
“Excuse me,” Rourke said when he reached the low, gated wall. “Are ye Inghinn, perchance?”
The woman eyed him balefully. “And who would be askin’?”
“I’m looking for a friend. A man by the name of Hegarty. About this high, red hair.”
“I havena seen anyone.” She went back to her plucking.
“Old mistress, if ye do meet such a man, will ye tell him Rourke got his missive and awaits him? ’Tis most urgent I find him.”
To his surprise, she met his gaze. “What stone does yer lass wear?”
“My lass?”
“Aye.”
Stone?
Of course.
Hegarty
had
been here. “A sapphire, mistress.”
Of course.
Hegarty
had
been here. “A sapphire, mistress.”
The woman nodded. “’Tis time that one returned, though I’ll have Hegarty’s hide if’n he doesna get me my amethyst. You’ll be coming inside, then, to await his return.”
Rourke went through the gate. “He’s not here?”
“Nay. He’ll return this eve.” She eyed him sharply. “Where is the lass?”
“Safe.”
Before the red door she stopped and looked at him with shrewd eyes, a touch of pity in their depths. “Nay, lad. She’s not.”
“I assure you . . .” But even as he said the words, cold seeped into his veins. The woman before him was a friend of Hegarty’s with all his unnatural ways. A witch.
“You know she’s not safe.”
“Aye.”
His blood turned to ice.
Without a word he turned and ran for his mount. Cutter and the soldiers weren’t awaiting him as he’d expected. They must have been trailing them.
Brenna.
He vaulted into the saddle and urged the horse into a run. Dirt flew out behind as they shot down the lane. Brenna was well hidden. Cutter wouldn’t find her.
Please don’t let them find her.
Please don’t let them find her.
Villagers ran for safety as he rode at a full gallop back through the center of town. Never had the miles passed so slowly as they did as he raced back toward the hills. Finally, he reached the track leading to the cave and noted the recent marks of multiple horses. His heart plummeted.
Rourke drew his sword, rode up the path, and dismounted, approaching silently. No sound met his ears. He swung into the cave. Empty.
“Wildcat!”
But even as the word echoed off the walls, he saw it. The large pool of fresh blood lying on the floor.
“
Nay.
” They had not killed her. He would not let it be so.
Nay.
” They had not killed her. He would not let it be so.
She had a knife. Maybe she had sorely injured one of her attackers before being dragged away. It was her attacker’s blood he saw. Not hers.
It cannot be hers.
But as he scanned the cave, he caught sight of her knife lying discarded, clean and unused. He could not even hope she’d gone after him, for not far from the knife lay the food he’d left with her. And her soap.
His throat ached with despair. His fingers closed around the soap and he lifted it to his nose to drink in the clean scent of heather that had enveloped her that day. The joy in her eyes at the simple gift swam in his memory, mocking him.
Fury, raw and primitive, rose up to choke him. He’d been a fool to leave her alone. Unprotected. In a fit of self-loathing, he threw the soap against the wall, shattering it, then strode from the cave.
Cutter would die this day. They all would, every last man.
He leaped onto his mount and took off in a spray of dust, vowing to find her. He’d not give up until she was back in his arms.
Even if there was naught left to be done but bury her.
ELEVEN
The wind slashed at Rourke’s face, whipping his hair into his eyes, driving stinging rain across his cheeks as he rode his mount hard over the moors. The tracks that led from the cave had skirted the main road and cut toward the northeast. He continued in the direction the tracks had begun, though now the rain obscured any sign of the horses. All he could do was pray he followed correctly, for the alternative was not worth thinking about.
His hands clenched the reins tighter, his palms sore from the bite of the leather. His jaw ached. His heart thudded, pounding a desperate beat in rhythm with the racing horse.
Brenna. Brenna. Brenna.
He had to find her before the soldiers reached the Earl of Slains. Before they killed her.
If she wasn’t dead already.
Guilt devoured him. He deserved to hang, to be drawn and quartered, his entrails shoved down his throat. Brenna’s cry would haunt him for the rest of his days.
Rourke, don’t do this! Please don’t leave me here like this.
He’d seen the fear in her eyes just before it dissolved into a warrior’s promise of vengeance. But he’d ignored her demand as he had her plea, arrogantly sure of the rightness of his actions. He’d left her tied and helpless.
Rourke, don’t do this! Please don’t leave me here like this.
He’d seen the fear in her eyes just before it dissolved into a warrior’s promise of vengeance. But he’d ignored her demand as he had her plea, arrogantly sure of the rightness of his actions. He’d left her tied and helpless.
No, not helpless. The wildcat had taken down half his crew with her bare hands. She was never helpless.
He clung to that thought like a drowning sailor to a useless splinter of driftwood. He’d seen the blood. Blood her knife had not drawn.
As the landscape before him rose in a gradual slope, he rode on. Cresting the hill, he saw movement far below.
Blue-coated riders.
Soldiers.
Soldiers.
The rain grew stronger, slashing sideways as if even the wind sought to punish him. Drops obscured his vision.
He swiped the water from his eyes as he urged his mount faster. Three horses. Only two riders, and neither of them Brenna. Or Cutter.
It was not them. He’d not found them after all.
Despair crashed over him like a storm wave.
Where is she?
He was soaked to the skin and chilled from the inside out. These were not the soldiers he sought. But even as the thought went through his head, he noticed something curious. The third horse was not riderless. Across the saddle hung a third, blue-coated figure.
Lifeless.
Hope flickered within him. Could the blood in the cave belong to the dead soldier? The hope was doused moments later as he caught sight of a flash of white bobbing near the knee of one of the riders. A lady’s cap still upon the head of the lady.
Brenna.
He was sure of it. But she was as limp and lifeless as the dead soldier draping the third horse.
He was sure of it. But she was as limp and lifeless as the dead soldier draping the third horse.
Blood pounded in his head. Denial flashed quick and hot through his brain. She was not dead.
But even as the denial sliced through him, so did the rage, white-hot, liquid fire.
He urged his mount into a full gallop and raced down the hillside, the wind lifting the edges of his sodden plaid, sending the last remnants of the stinging rain over his thighs. He pulled his sword and lifted it high as bloodlust raced savagely through him, making him feel as wild and barbarous as his Highland ancestors.
One of the soldiers must have heard him for he turned, spotted him, then called to his companion. As the soldier holding Brenna urged his mount into a run, to escape, the other turned to fight.
Rourke gave free rein to the war cry that had been building in his chest since he saw them. His enemy pulled his gun and fired, but the shot went wide. The soldier drew his sword instead.
Rourke could ill afford to fight the man. Not with Brenna’s captor disappearing with her over the next rise. He shoved his sword into his scabbard and pulled his gun.
He had one chance, one shot.
He aimed at the soldier who’d tried to kill him, and fired. Rourke did not miss. The man flew from the saddle and plummeted to the ground. His now riderless horse danced skittishly into the mount carrying the dead soldier.
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