The Great Scottish Devil (17 page)

He finished his personal needs and adjusted his clothing. Picking up his specially made knife—a nice long, very sharp one—he quietly made his way closer to the campsite. Callum was crawling from beneath the wagon, stretching his old bones and Sarabeth scurried off toward the trees.
Prime pickings
. He’d take care of the old woman first and then the old man.

He slipped quietly through the trees toward the woman, smiling. As soon as he finished with the couple, he’d find Annabel. His cock was hard as stone already. He couldn’t wait to drive into her soft, unwilling body. Unwilling women, in his opinion, were the best. All that terror, their horrified protests, their screams… He shuddered with a fierce ache. It had been too long since he’d satisfied his sadistic lusts and killed a woman afterward.

A few minutes later, Angus scowled as he wiped the blood from his knife on Callum’s shirt. Slitting the couple’s throats had been too easy, not even enjoyable. What annoyed him now was that he still hadn’t heard any sounds coming from Annabel’s wagon. Surely she had heard Callum’s gasp of surprise when Angus had walked up beside him with knife drawn.

He strode toward her wagon, grinding his teeth, sensing his plan falling apart. He shoved aside the cloth curtain hanging down in the back. Finding the wagon bed empty except for piles of wooden boxes and rumpled bed linens down the floor’s center, he roared in fury.
Gone! Where the hell had she gone? When?
He cursed a blue streak, infuriated that she’d snuck away without him hearing her.

He stormed back toward his horse. He’d find her! And she’d pay dearly for causing him so much trouble.

* * *

Brodie and the others had ridden hard all day long. They’d only stopped twice out of necessity. Each stop had frayed his nerves more; his feeling of urgency had grown even stronger as the hours passed. Something was very wrong. But they had nearly caught up with the wagons. Any minute now…

The men he’d sent ahead to scout rode frantically toward them. Brodie motioned everyone to stop and waited breathlessly for the latest news. The MacKays, too, waited tensely beside him.

“The Campbells,” the first man gasped, sounding winded from his hard ride. “They are dead, my laird. Throats slit.”

Dead. The Campbells were dead, murdered. Annabel?
Brodie couldn’t find the strength to ask if they’d found her body as well, afraid to hear the worst.

Rose swayed in her saddle. “Annabel?” she questioned urgently.

The riders looked from Brodie to the MacKays. “We found no signs of her. The wagons and horses are still there, but Annabel isna.”

“Not there?” Brodie asked, relieved and even more worried. “Ye are sure?”

“Aye. We searched both wagons,” the second man said.

Unable to stay still any longer, Brodie urged his horse around the men. He had to check it out for himself. He had to find whatever clues he could as to what had happened to Annabel. He didn’t even take the time to deal with his men. They could follow along or not, he didn’t care.

But he hadn’t gone more than a few yards when he heard The MacKay take charge behind him. “A dozen of ye men come with us. The rest of ye wait here fer word of what to do.” Then he raced after Brodie.

The familiar sense of horror at the loss of life hit Brodie hard when they drew near the campsite. They rode straight into the midst of the two wagons. The four horses tied together close by were fidgeting around, no doubt anxious from the smell of blood. He wished Rose MacKay had stayed behind with the others, but she rode right next to her husband.

She gasped at the sight of Callum Campbell lying near where they had built a small fire the night before. His throat had been slit from ear-to-ear. Blood covered his neck and soaked the top half of his once-white shirt.

Brodie dismounted, as did the others. He didn’t bother to check for a pulse on the older man. There wouldn’t be one. It sickened him to see how he’d been murdered and he didn’t look forward to seeing Sarabeth’s body either. But there was nothing he could do for them. His thoughts were solely focused on Annabel.

Again, The MacKay took charge, for which Brodie was grateful. As he walked toward Annabel’s wagon, Braden said grimly, “Find the woman’s body and bring it here. Then some of ye men see to burying these poor people.”

Brodie had just reached the back of Annabel’s wagon when Rose joined him. She stretched up on her toes to peer inside, her breath hitching at the first sight of what had belonged to her daughter.

“This is all she had in the world, isn’t it? So verra little.” Tears streamed down her face as she reached to touch the bed linen that still held Annabel’s scent.

Braden walked up beside her and pulled her gently into his arms. His voice was gruff with emotion as he, too, looked inside the wagon. “We will have some of the men take the wagon back to Urquhart. ‘Tis closer than our home.”

“I would have it destroyed,” Brodie grumbled, knowing it was foolish to blame the wagon for taking her away from him…for putting her life in danger.

“Nay!” Rose protested, glaring at him.

“He speaks in anger, in distress, my love,” Braden said and patted his wife’s back.

Brodie blew out a breath and apologized. “Aye, ‘twas only my anger speaking. My anger fer letting Annabel leave with these people. I sensed…” He shook his head and fisted his hands at his sides. “I sensed trouble ever since they showed up at Urquhart. But yer daughter is a most stubborn lass.” Still, it was his fault she’d left. His fault she was in trouble—or worse—now.

“Who could have done this?” Braden demanded, releasing his wife to sweep his gaze from the wagon to Callum’s body. “Why kill these tinkers and naught Roseanna…Annabel?”

He had no way of knowing for sure, but Brodie’s gut told him who was responsible. “Angus Gordon.” He could still see the anger in the other man’s gaze when Brodie had ordered him off Urquhart land. He knew the man was furious with Annabel for having refused his offer of marriage.

“The knight ye told us about? The one she distrusted? The one yer men disliked and ye sent away in anger?” Braden fairly growled the questions, growing angrier with each one.

“I canna be certain, but…”

Rose dashed at the tears on her face and looked as pale as clean linen. “He killed…” She swallowed hard. “He killed those poor people and kidnapped Annabel?”

Brodie and Braden exchanged looks. Both men knew she possibly faced horrors neither wanted to speak of let alone think about. Death would be far better. “We will find him. And I will…” Brodie stopped himself before saying he would draw and quarter the bastard, and then feed his cock to him before letting him die.

“There is no more to be done here,” Braden said abruptly. “’Tis time we found this Gordon’s trail and followed him.”

Chapter Nine

Annabel was lost, horribly lost in the forest that seemed to go on forever. She’d been walking, even running, as fast as she could for hours. She’d tried to be as quiet as possible as she’d slipped away from camp and then as she’d hurried back the way she’d thought they had come that day. But in the dark she had found herself basically circling. She thought she’d finally started in the right direction, yet she could be wrong.

For the last hour or so she’d thought she sensed someone following her. Yet no one had showed themself and the sounds remained the same all around her. The quiet of the forest was deafening. Or mayhap the pounding of her heart was overpowering the normal sounds, the occasional rushing of small animals in the underbrush, the faint hoot of an owl, and the whispers of wind through the high boughs in the pines. If she ever made it out of here, she would never…

What was that?

She froze, sucking in a breath, her knees going weak. She gripped the handle of the knife she’d brought with her tighter in one hand and a stout stick she’d tripped over and picked up in the other hand. As far as weapons went, they weren’t much but they were all she had.

“Ye’ve caused me a great deal of bother, lass,” a deep voice called to her from somewhere nearby.

Her heart thundered even louder in her chest. She recognized that voice: Angus Gordon. She eased carefully back, hoping to hide closer to the trees.

“Ye should have agreed to wed me, Annabel. I might have let ye live a while longer.” A large, shadowy form stepped from behind a tree about a dozen feet away. “Come here, lass. Ye dinna want to make me even madder.”

Instead, she stepped further in the other direction. She looked frantically around for a way to trap him or a way to escape. She searched for something bigger or better than the stick she carried. He was a true fool if he thought she’d simply obey him, simply go to him. Did he think she wanted a quick death at his hands? She doubted it would happen. And she definitely didn’t want him touching her, raping her…and she was almost certain that was what he had planned before he got around to taking her life.

“If ye think that worthless Callum Campbell or his decrepit wife is nearby to save ye, ye be wrong.” He strode into a patch of sunlight and snorted. “They willna be saving anyone. Couldna even save themselves.”

He had killed them. She knew it. She hadn’t really liked them or trusted them, even before overhearing them talking last night. But she wouldn’t have wished them dead. Still, there was nothing to be done about them now. She must save herself. Somehow.

His heavy footsteps grew louder. Panic threatened to overwhelm her, but she couldn’t let it. Her parents hadn’t raised a weakling. Her parents? The Hendersons hadn’t been her parents. She knew that now and wondered what the truth of her life really was. But that was for another time. If she survived this encounter with the dangerous man wishing to kill her, she would try to get some answers.

“I be growing weary of chasing after ye, lass. I should have killed ye when I first had the chance, just as I was hired to do.” He sounded angry with himself as well as with her.

“Why would someone want me dead? What have I ever done to anyone?” She asked the questions even as she dropped the stick. She couldn’t run away and carry so much. The stick would surely slow her down; all she needed was the knife.

He stopped and seemed to look harder through the trees in his effort to spot her. “I dinna ken the reasons why. And I dinna care. My only concern is getting the rest of the money promised me by Sutherland’s men.”

Sutherland, again. Alastair Sutherland. Clearly he must be a very vile man.

Glancing around once more, she spotted what could possibly be an escape route. There was a slender path through the trees not far from her. Surely Angus with his great bulk would have a difficult time following. Pulse racing, she dashed toward the path, catching him off-guard.

She sped as fast as she could between the skinny trees mixed in with the towering pines. Branches snagged at her breeches, tore a piece off her shirt, and scratched her cheeks. She raced on and on for what seemed like forever. Her breaths came in rapid spurts; her sides hurt. But she couldn’t stop.

The crushing of needles on the forest floor and vivid curses told her Angus was hot in pursuit. It sounded as if he were gaining ground now.

“Ye willna get away, lass,” he bellowed, panting at the same time. “I always get me mon…woman, in this case.”

He was almost on top of her. She wasn’t going to be able to outrun him. Stand and fight. Her mind screamed the words at her. She didn’t want to obey, but what other choice did she really have.

Surprising him, she stopped abruptly, holding her long, sharp knife behind her. She tried to appear helpless and resigned to her fate. “I canna run any further,” she gasped, holding one of her sides with the hand not wielding the knife.

The arrogant fool strode directly in front of her. Even in the near dark she could see the smugness on his beard-stubbled face. His eyes danced with the promise of horrible things she didn’t want to contemplate.

“Ye might enjoy what I plan to do with ye, lass. Doubtful. But ye might be one of those women who likes a bit of pain.” He sneered at her and reached down with one hand to cup himself. “At least ye’ll die having been with a real man.”

She shuddered in disgust. After being made love to by Brodie, she wanted no other man touching her. Especially not this nasty, smelly Scot who would abuse her and then kill her. Still, she might only have one chance to save herself. She had to make him believe she had truly given up all hope.

He stepped even closer, confident that he had intimidated her. “Ye’re such a wee bit of a thing. I doubt ye’ll give me much pleasure.”

Think of Brodie. Think of his child you carry. The thoughts gave her strength. She allowed tears to shine in her eyes, allowed her expression to show her fear—which wasn’t all that hard to do. All the while she held tightly to the knife behind her back.

Angus gave her a snarl of a smile and reached to touch her face.

Annabel called on every bit of her determination to live and whipped the knife from behind her back. His hand had barely touched her cheek when she thrust the blade deep into his gut with all her might.

He gave a fierce howl of outrage threaded with agonizing pain. His eyes fired with hatred and he reached for his own knife in a sheath at his waist. “Ye’ll die for this!”

But she hadn’t released her hold on her knife and managed to twist it, even to drag it upward a few inches.

With his faltering strength, he shoved her away and jerked the knife from his body. Blood poured from the jagged wound. He tried to staunch the flow with one splayed hand and glowered murderously at her. “Ye damn bitch! Ye’ve killed me.”

The smell of blood made her nauseous, knowing she probably had killed him made her tremble with horror. She watched him sink to his knees unable to stop the flow of blood, weakening more with each second.

Then he raised his own knife with a shaking hand and threw it toward her.

She reacted too slowly and the knife passed by the side of her left leg, slicing through the braies and grazing her thigh. She gasped in shock.