The Pride of Lions (15 page)

“Scotland! You
are
out of your mind! I’m not going to Scotland. I’m not going anywhere—especially with you! Tell him, Damien. Tell this madman he’s insane.”

Damien was at a loss for words. He was also fighting very hard to control the overwhelming desire to shake his sister until her bones rattled. Things were happening too quickly. The duel … the marriage.… Events had blown out of everyone’s control before either wit or prudence could arrive at a logical, rational way to stop them. Was there a way to stop them now? Should he just blurt out the truth? What would Catherine do if she knew he had been working for and with the Jacobites for several years? He had come close to telling her—telling them all—so many times over the past few months, and perhaps he should
have. He was certainly not alone in his disaffection for the Hanover government; many Englishmen were working both secretly and openly to hasten a change in the reigning powers. But to reveal his true intentions would have meant forsaking family and friends, abandoning his contacts in London, cutting his fellow dissidents off from vital sources of information that had taken months, years, to establish. No, he could not have done it then. He could not do it now, even though his own sister had become an unwitting pawn in a very dangerous game.

“Damien?” She was staring up at him, frowning. “
Tell
him.”

“I cannot allow it,” he said lamely. “You will have to think of another way.”

“There is no other way, short of binding her and gagging her and keeping her somewhere under lock and key for a week,” Cameron replied quietly. “If there was, don’t you think
I
would be the first to jump at it?”

“But … she’s my sister.”

“And I promise you, she will be treated exactly as if she were mine. Two weeks, three at the most, and she’ll be home again, safe and sound.” He paused and smiled tightly. “With her ‘husband’s’ death certificate clutched firmly in hand, along with a sweet enough financial settlement to remove any tarnish her reputation may have gathered over the whole affair.”

“You could give me every last gold sovereign in the
world
and it would not be enough to buy my silence,” Catherine insisted. “Damien, tell him. Tell him it isn’t enough.”

She waited for his outraged protest, but when it became horrifyingly apparent there was not going to be one, she stared at him again, her poise faltering under a wave of faintness.

“Damien?” Her voice was a mere whisper. “Surely you’re not thinking of agreeing to this … this madness?”

“You haven’t given him much of a choice.”

“Oh, but—” She whirled again to face Cameron, but found nothing in the cold black eyes that remotely resembled any emotion she could appeal to. A second wave of light-headedness swept through her, one that threatened to undermine what little composure she had left.

Cameron saw it and addressed Damien. “You have my word. No one will touch a hair on your sister’s head as long as she behaves herself and is willing to cooperate.”

“On your life, Alex,” he said, so softly Catherine could barely hear him over the pounding of her heart in her ears. “Swear it on your life.”

“You have my word” was the quiet response.

“And … if I still refuse?” Catherine gasped.

“If ye refuse,” Iain said impatiently, “it’ll be a quick skelp on the heid an’ a shallow grave by the roadside.”

Damien’s tolerance shattered on an explosive curse. He thrust Catherine to one side and clawed his hands into the front of Iain’s shirt with enough force to split the seams. The sound of the cloth tearing was followed instantly by the sound of a fist crunching into a jawbone. Aluinn sprang forward to pull them apart, but not before Damien landed two more solid punches, one of them smashing into and breaking the younger man’s nose.

“Let me go!” He wrenched his arms out of Aluinn’s grasp. “He went too far, goddammit! Too far!”

Iain, having staggered back against the wall, dragged his hand across his upper lip and stared at the slick red smear, the rest of which was sheeting down his chin and throat. He roared like an enraged bull and launched himself across the room, a dirk clutched purposefully in his outstretched fist. Aluinn saw the knife, and it was all he could do to shove Damien roughly out of the way and pivot clear himself.

“Iain!” Cameron’s shout halted the boy. “Put that thing away!”

“I dinna trust him,” Iain spat. “I told ye afore no’ tae trust him, but ye wouldna listen.”

“I said,
put the knife away!
”

“Aye.” He wiped more blood off his face. “I’ll put it away … clear through his guts, I’ll put it away!”

Iain hurled himself at Damien again, but Cameron was there. With an almost effortless grace he caught the outthrust wrist and snapped the knife free. The boy screamed with pain and hooked his left fist toward his cousin’s face, and again Cameron intercepted the punch, pulling the already bloodied jaw into a forceful meeting with his own fist. Iain hung there a moment, his eyes rolling, his body rippling with the stunning effects of the blow. He crumpled slowly, slumping with Cameron’s help into a dazed heap on the floor.

The Highlander straightened, clearly disgusted with this new turn of events. He stared at the blood smeared on his hand, then gazed coldly and meaningfully at Damien.

Catherine, fearing her brother was about to suffer some of the same violent treatment, dashed to his side and placed herself between him and Cameron.

“Don’t touch him! I’ll do it. I’ll do whatever you want me to do … only let Damien go. Right now, right this minute. Let him walk out that door and ride away.”

“Catherine!” It was Damien’s turn to react with horror as he gripped her by the shoulders. She shook off his intentions and continued to confront Cameron.

“I want to
see
him ride away, and if you refuse or if anyone tries to follow him, then … then you will have a good deal more blood on your hands, because you
will
have to kill us to keep us quiet.”

“Catherine!” Damien spun her around to face him. “Do you realize what you are saying? What you are agreeing to do?”

“I am agreeing to be their hostage,” she said calmly. “And I am agreeing to believe their promise that we will all live through this thing.”

“But, Kitty—”

“Damien,
please
. I won’t be able to go through with it
if you force me to think too long or too hard on the consequences. In fact, I don’t want to think about it at all. I intend to treat it like a holiday, like the one we took in
Plymouth
that summer when neither one of us wanted to go but Father insisted.
Do you remember?
”

“Catherine, this isn’t a game—”

Her eyes widened and the brightness in them was almost piercing.

Game
. Dear God, that was what she was trying to tell him. They had played a game on the crumbling walls of a castle near Plymouth, something to do with knights rescuing a lost princess from her wicked uncle, the king. Damien had pretended to ride away to collect the ransom to pay off the Black Prince, but instead had circled around the castle walls and stormed her imaginary captors by surprise.

Was that what she was asking him to do now? To agree to their terms and ride away … straight to the garrison in Wakefield to bring back help? Of course it was, and the conspiratorial glitter in her eyes almost made him groan out loud.

“Kitty, I don’t know …”

“I will be all right,” she insisted. “Everything will be all right. Please, just go while you have the chance, before this
gentleman
”—she cast a scorching glance in Alexander Cameron’s direction—“decides to change his mind.”

“But—”

“Damien, you only make it harder by delaying. Please, go now.”

He drew her into his arms and held her tight. He had no choice but to do exactly what she was ordering him to do—to go, to ride away before any of them changed their minds. His gaze locked with Cameron’s over the top of her head.

The dark eyes acknowledged the unspoken threat, then turned to Aluinn. “There are two coachmen out in the stable. Tell them you have been hired to relieve them of
their duties and they will be returning with Mr. Ashbrooke to Derby.”

He saw Catherine’s head turn toward him and he smiled wryly. “Will that help satisfy your concerns, madam, for your brother’s safe departure?”

“My only satisfaction, sir, will come on the day I see you walk up the steps to the gibbet.”

8

D
eirdre was stretched out on the bed, her eyes closed, her head lolled to one side, and for a terrible, heart-stopping moment, Catherine thought she
was
dead.

“Deirdre?” She leaned over the prone figure and touched a hand gingerly to the maid’s cheek. There was a flutter of movement behind the closed eyelids and a soft groan escaped the pale lips.

“Thank God,” Catherine murmured, and focused her concern on the swollen, purpling bruise high on Deirdre’s cheekbone. The skin was cut, and she remembered seeing a flash of gold on Aluinn MacKail’s finger.

“The beast,” she hissed. “All three of them deserve whatever fate awaits them. Oh, Deirdre, wake up. Wake up! I can’t bear any of this alone.”

She straightened at the sound of a heavy footstep in the outer hall. The door, with its shattered latch, swung open easily at a nudge from MacKail’s elbow and he entered balancing a tray laden with steaming meat pasties, bread, and cheese.

“You can take that right back where it came from,” Catherine announced archly. “We want no more samples of your hospitality this night.”

Ignoring Catherine’s command, he deposited the tray on the nightstand and checked again for the pulsebeat throbbing gently in Deirdre’s throat.

“I did not mean to hit her. It
was
an accident.”

“Tell that to Deirdre when she wakens.
If
she ever wakens.”

The soft gray eyes lifted and held Catherine’s for a
brief moment before he turned away and, wordlessly, left the room. She followed, slamming the broken door shut behind him, and after a few seconds of thought dragged the chair over and propped it firmly against the broken latch. Satisfied the makeshift lock would discourage any more unannounced visitors, she backed away and glared bravely at the warped planks of the floor, as if she could see clear through them to the room below.

Fools! Dolts! Did they honestly think Damien would simply ride away and abandon her to their clutches? He had understood perfectly the oblique reference to their summer in Plymouth and was probably even now spilling his story to the garrison commander in Wakefield. An hour, no more, and the cottage and the surrounding woods would be swarming with soldiers. Cameron and his fellow renegades would have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. They would …

They would what?

Catherine’s heart thudded dully in her ears as she stared at the door.

They would undoubtedly try to use her and Deirdre as hostages, that was what they would do. They would hold a gun or a knife to her head and use the threat of instant death to buy a safe passage out of the trap. Unless …

Her gaze flew to the window.

 … unless she and Deirdre could somehow sneak clear of the cottage without their gaolers knowing it. They had been on the verge of escaping when Damien had interrupted them. They could still do it now.

“Deirdre!” She leaned over and shook the girl’s shoulder. “Deirdre, wake up. Wake
up
.”

She patted the maid’s face—slapped it rather hard, truth be known—and rubbed her wrists. She ran to the washstand and soaked a towel in cool water, then draped it across the pale brow. A groan was the only result, that and a slight shifting of head and shoulders as Deirdre tried to avoid the cold, dripping wetness of the compress.

It was unthinkable to leave an unconscious woman to
the mercy of brigands and criminals, and Catherine rebuked herself for even entertaining the thought. On the other hand, if she could get away and find help, and if help arrived soon enough, she could insist that someone shinny up the tree and remove Deirdre before the trap was sprung.

“Deirdre … wake up,” she cried urgently. “Please wake up.”

The unfocused brown eyes opened briefly, but the effort proved too much and she slipped into unconsciousness once again. There was nothing more Catherine could do. Even if she could have roused the maid, she doubted if Deirdre would have the strength to make the descent from the window.

 … Simple as climbing down a ladder …

Chewing her lower lip, Catherine approached the window and contemplated the darkness outside. The moon hung swollen and glistening above the crust of trees, its rays bathing the open ground in a blue-white light, almost as bright as sunlight. The branches of the oak were etched against the light like the bones of a skeleton, ancient and gnarled; there were few leaves or shoots of new growth at window level to hamper her on the way down.

She gathered the folds of her skirt and tucked the hem into her waistband. On a further thought, she removed two of the bulkiest layers of petticoat, reducing the volume of material she would have to control, not for a moment stopping to actually think about what she was preparing to do. Nor did she spare a thought for the repercussions if she was caught in the act of trying to escape.