The Chieftain (24 page)

It was already dusk when Hector
returned. One glance in his direction told her that his mood was as dark and unyielding as when he had left. He said nothing, only went to his bed and began to wrap his plaid about him for the night. Clearly he had brought no food today.

‘We leave at dawn,’ he said curtly before lying down. ‘The country seems quiet enough to take the risk. I’ll go with you as far as I can.’

She was startled out of her immobility. She had not for a moment expected him to reach a decision so close to her own.

Then she had a sudden vision of the main Highland roads crowded with marching soldiers, of the long miles they must cover before she came within reach of her home. And she remembered the other rebels of whom he had spoken, waiting in the crowded fever-ridden jails for the cruel indignity of the gallows. She could not so certainly tie the noose about Hector’s own neck, for in spite of everything she loved him still.

‘I can go alone,’ she said proudly, matching the coldness of his tone with her own.

‘You’d never find your way,’ he told her, his contempt only too obvious. ‘And if you
didn’t die of starvation or exposure you’d walk into the first troop of soldiers on the road and suffer rape, or worse.’

Somehow that seemed supremely unimportant, even if it was true. ‘It is you who are the rebel. Perhaps I would be safer without you.’
 

He gave a snort of derisive laughter.
‘You
safer without me! When if it had not been for you I could be beyond the reach of the soldiers by now—’

‘Dead, you mean!’ she put in harshly. ‘If I’d not been with you, you’d have gone chasing after John Campbell, and his men would have cut you down where you stood. I’ve given you weeks more of life by staying with you—’

‘
Dhia
,
woman, but you flatter yourself!’ His voice was vibrant with scorn. ‘Do you think me so inept that I could not dirk a man in the dark and get away with it? I was bred to live like a hunter. If I hadn’t had to drag you after me I’d have been a
thousand times safer, believe me—’

‘Then why did you?’ she flung at him, angry tears flooding her eyes. ‘I never asked it of you.’

‘Why indeed? Well, I will tell you, woman.’ He came and stood over her, and even in the dark she could see his eyes glowing with bitter fire like his harsh hurried whispered words. ‘I drag you with me, Isobel, because I must. You are my fate and my punishment. Because of you John Campbell came again into my life. Because of you he came to Ardshee, and the women and children are left weeping and hungry on the shore. Because of you my brother lies dead. Because of you I cannot keep my solemn oath to end my enemy’s life. You brought all this on my head, and more, because I was weak enough to be tempted by your wealth and your beauty. And for that one moment of weakness I have paid every day since, and shall go on paying until you are gone and John Campbell is dead. But I cannot abandon you, because you are my punishment and I must endure it to the end—’ His face loomed close to hers, his voice low and sibilant. ‘Now do you see, Isobel? We are bound in pain together
until we have paid in full.’

She shrank back, shivering. There was a hint of madness in his words, and yet a cold and deadly logic that was more frightening still, and for a moment almost had her believing he spoke from some deep insight. But she shook her head in denial, though she could find no words to tell him that all he said was untrue, a ghastly nightmare brought on by living too long with horror and pain and grief.

After a moment he drew back, and returned in silence to his bed. She could only just see him in the dark, as he lay down on the heather and turned away from her to sleep.

‘We leave at dawn,’ was all he said, repeating his order as tonelessly as before. And then he lay still.

Isobel watched him for a long time, as the cave grew darker and his quiet shape merged into the blackness of the night. Slowly her trembling ceased and the bewildered horror his words had awoken in her brain faded, leaving only a lurking shadow tinged with pity. She loved him enough to understand, and to forgive. She could only hope that one day he would be able to put all those terrible things behind
him, the horrors of the battle and the attack on Ardshee, Hugh’s death and the long flight. Then perhaps he would be able to forgive her too.

She sat on her bed thinking and planning for perhaps an hour, until she was sure he was asleep. She could no longer see him, but she crossed the cave and gently, very softly, laid her mouth on his hair, warm and dense and springing under her lips. And then she turned away and crept beneath the grey roaring curtain of the fall and set out along the narrow ledge into the waiting darkness of the trees.

Chapter Nineteen

For a moment, when she opened her eyes, Isobel expected to see the warm rose-coloured hangings of her bed at home, lit by the firelight glowing in the dusk. Those had been the soothing familiar surroundings that had met her gaze when she had woken after that last illness—

Or was this perhaps the same illness, and she had only dozed to wake again after a succession of hideous nightmares?

But then her eyes rested on rough-hewn stones, moss-covered, an earth floor, a crudely-made door, and she felt a moment of bewildered panic. Where in God’s name was she? What had happened to bring her here?

And then, slowly, painfully, she remembered. Not that remembering answered her questions, for there was nothing remotely familiar about the rough stone hut in which she lay, lulled by the distant sound of running water - a small burn perhaps.

And there was nothing to tell her what had brought her here.

But she did remember her return to Ardshee, the long flight, the fear of discovery. And Hector, angry, hate-filled, accusing: Hector who would never love her now. And so she had run from him, though without him she could never hope for happiness or completion; and wandered lost in the mountains until sickness and exhaustion had overcome her at last.

He had haunted her fever. She had seen his face constantly in those nightmarish visions: the face of Hector the arrogant young chieftain in her garden, assured and proud; the face of Hector as she had seen him last, wild, bearded, desperate. That face had come to her most, and sometimes it had seemed full of an unaccustomed tenderness, and she had thought his voice spoke caressingly, calling her name. But always there was an unbridgeable gulf between them, and she could not reach him. And now even that vision had gone, with the fever and pain that had left her weak and weary and wondering where she was.

It was clear, she realised, as she turned her head to look about the room, that she had not come here by herself; that
someone—perhaps whoever had brought her here—had been caring for her. She wore only her petticoat, and the plaid was wrapped about her, to keep her warm and protect her thin body from the harshness of the heather and bracken that formed her bed. Nearby, on the floor, lay a small wooden bowl, half-filled with water, and further off the embers of a fire still held a red glow in the dim light. She could see her blue gown, torn and faded now, folded carefully on a rock set like a stool beside the wall.

The hut was low-ceilinged, scarcely high enough to allow a man to stand upright, and it had no windows. What light there was slid between the uneven boulders of which it was made, or around the ill-fitting door. The daylight seemed very bright, but that must be because of the dimness or her own weak state, for she could hear rain pattering on the decaying thatch, and in one place the water dripped steadily through and spread a muddy puddle on the floor.

Perhaps it was because of the rain that she did not know anyone was coming until the door was dragged open—clearly it would not open any other way—and a
dark figure appeared outlined against the grey daylight. Not tall—his head only bent a little under the broad lintel—but slender, graceful, barefooted and dressed in the everyday belted plaid of the Highlander, his hair a wild silhouette about his head—
 

With eyes closed,
she thought,
I would know him, for however little he feels for me he is in my blood and my bones for ever.
Her heart quickened painfully.

‘Hector—?’ she whispered, and it was at once a statement, question, a plea.

In a moment the door was pushed to and he was at her side, kneeling in the dust, and his long cool fingers were smoothing her forehead, stroking her hair with unmistakable tenderness.

‘So you have woken, my heart.’ His voice came to her soft as a breeze, warm and caressing as the voice in her dreams.

This is a dream,
she thought.
I am not awake after all.
 

She dared not speak, for fear that she might break the spell, or wake in earnest to find that it had indeed been a dream. So she smiled and lay quietly, wrapped in unutterable contentment, feeling his hands lingeringly gentle as he brought her water or broth or milk, as he smoothed the plaid about her
or brushed the hair from her eyes or bathed her face and hands. He said little, but his dark eyes held a light she had never seen in them before, warm yet untroubled, full of tender concern.

For two days she slept and woke and slept again and always he was there, watching over her, caring for her, demanding nothing from her but that she should grow well. She began, very slowly, almost as if holding her breath in fear, to believe that this new Hector was neither a dream nor a feverish delusion, but the man she loved grown suddenly, inexplicably, loving.
 

When she opened her eyes one morning and felt new strength in her limbs, she turned to where he lay stretched on the heather at her side, deeply asleep, and dared to put out a hand to touch his hair.

He stirred, as if even in sleep he was alert to her every need, and his eyes opened to meet hers. For a long moment they gazed at her, those long-fringed eyes, dark and deep and full of some emotion she could not read. Or dared not, for fear she might be wrong. Instead she smiled, but there was no answering smile.

‘Can you ever bring yourself to forgive me for what I have done to you?’ he asked
suddenly in a whisper.
 

She saw that he feared her answer, and laid her hand over his.

‘What do you want me to forgive?’ she returned gently, but teasing a little. Yet so much had come between them that she had to know.

‘Everything,’ he said simply. He turned his hand beneath hers and imprisoned it, carrying it to his lips. He was not looking at her. ‘I do not think I could forgive anyone for using me as I used you,’ he went on, deeply serious. ‘I can only hope that you are more forgiving than I am myself.
 

‘You see, Isobel, I blamed you for all the things that had happened, because I could not bear to blame myself. It was I who brought disaster on my people, by leading them to a war that was not of their choosing. Oh, I know they would have come all the same, for love of the fight; but I should have known where it would end. And because I did not count the cost, nearly a hundred men will never go home to Ardshee, and nothing will ever be the same again. You had only a small part to play in that, and even then I was to blame that you came into the story at
all—’ Suddenly he looked at her again. ‘Though I still do not know why you came back.’

‘Because I love you, of course,’ she told him after a little pause.

She heard the sharp astonished intake of breath, saw the colour drain from his face and then flood it again, felt his fingers tighten about hers.

‘You... you love...
me
...?’ he breathed, and she nodded, smiling a little, holding her breath as an incredible realisation began to grow within her. ‘After all I did to you—all I said—?’
 

‘Before,’ she corrected him. ‘Long before. Always, I think, if I had only known it. From the day I saw you in the garden. That is why there is no need to forgive, because I understand.’

He bent his head again, and she could no longer see his face. She gazed at the top of his head, the dark springing hair, and tried to guess what he was thinking.

‘Then,’ he broke out at last, his voice muffled because his lips were pressed hard against her hand, ‘then I am blessed beyond words—’

And all at once he had her in his arms and was kissing her with all the sweetness
and tenderness of which she had dreamed, but with passion held in check, because she had been so ill.

‘Oh, my heart,’ he murmured, as she nestled close, her head against his shoulder. ‘I feared I was too late—that I’d lost all hope of you for ever. For I think, like you, I have loved from the first and only knew it when you had gone. God knows I do not deserve—!’
 

She silenced him with a kiss.

There was no need for words for a long time after that. When at last they did draw apart to gaze at one another, laughing gently with joy and wonder, he told her, in fragmented phrases lost between kisses, how he had woken in the cave to find her gone, and how remorse had swept him that he had driven her to this. And then he had set out to find her.

She had covered her tracks well, and he had wandered helplessly, asking at cottages if she had been seen, searching every glen, every settlement for signs of her. And only come on her at last, collapsed in delirium, when he had almost given up hope of finding her. And then, of course, he had feared that she would die before he could
tell her how he loved her, and beg her forgiveness.

‘Where are we now?’ she asked him. ‘Had I walked far?’

He shook his head.

‘We are in Ardnamurchan, where we began. I think you had been wandering in circles for days.’ A sparkle of excitement lit his eyes. ‘I was forgetting, Isobel—the news—I thought it could mean nothing to us, with you so ill, but now—! There are French ships, not far from here, so they say. If we can make our way to Moidart—But it must be soon, in the next day or two—’ He broke off, suddenly doubtful. ‘But perhaps you wish to go back to your parents. You said so once.’

‘Only because you wanted it,’ she replied. ‘Where you go, my love, then I will go too. I shall be well enough to come. I think I am so happy I could do anything—’ And he drew her closer to kiss her again.