The Pride of Lions (23 page)

“Of course not—”

“Or should I ignore the fact that one of the animals who killed her is still sending his puny assassins after me to make sure I know
he
is still alive and well?”

“Is that why you have come back? To finish what you started with Malcolm Campbell fifteen years ago?”

Alex glared down at Gordon Ross Campbell. “The God’s truth—whether you choose to believe it or not—is that I bled Malcolm Campbell out of my system long ago. He bought his passage to hell fifteen years ago; my hastening him on the way won’t make the flames any
hotter.” He paused and examined the scraped skin of his knuckles. “Mind you, I’m not saying I wouldn’t oblige the bastard if he crawled out of his rat hole long enough for me to catch a whiff of him, but as for my going out and actively hunting him down … no. That isn’t why I’ve come back.”

“You may catch more than just a whiff,” Aluinn sighed, “if what Iain—I mean, Campbell—said is true. That there are twenty men waiting in ambush for us on the other side of the Spean.” He turned a grim eye on the bodies. “I guess this more or less cancels any detour to Fort William?”

Alex cursed freely by way of an answer and fetched a pouch containing powder and shot from beneath the driver’s seat of the coach. He collected the muskets and pistols from the scattered bodies and handed the best of the lot to Aluinn while he threw the others over the edge of the precipice.

When he returned, Aluinn was leaning against the door, his face gray and shiny with sweat, his last reserves of strength drained from the effort of reloading and priming the guns.

“We will have to risk all of us riding the coach down into the glen,” Alex decided as the two women came back from the stream. He saw Catherine eye the discarded trunks, but she said nothing. She was still so pale, there were fine blue lines visible beneath the smooth porcelain surface of her skin. “We will take it as slowly as we dare, but I have to warn you, it will not get any easier when we reach the bottom.”

“Are you worried about the man who got away?” Deirdre asked.

Alex hesitated, debating whether or not to elaborate on the potential dangers they faced, not only from the Watchman, but from Gordon Ross’s men. A glance into the maid’s expressive brown eyes reminded him that she had been present when Campbell had told him about the trap;
they also made clear that there would be no need to frighten Catherine any more than was absolutely necessary.

He acknowledged her unspoken request with a slight nod. “He is probably halfway to Fort William by now and debating how large a troop to return with.”

“Help me up into the driver’s box,” Aluinn said, setting his teeth against the pain as he tried to pull himself to his feet. “You’ll need someone with you to ride the brake.”

“Surely
dead
weight will be of no help whatsoever,” Deirdre said calmly. She squared her shoulders and reinforced her silent pact with Cameron. “I am not unfamiliar with driving a team, Mr. Cameron, and I think your strength would be put to better use holding the brake.”

One look at Aluinn’s waxen face told Alex he had few options. “Very well, Mistress O’Shea. If you are willing to take the reins, I will do my best to keep us from spilling over.”

“Indeed, sir, I would be more than willing to do whatever I can to speed my mistress and myself away from this accursed country and away from the likes of you.” She looked Alex directly in the eye. “You, sir, ride with death on your shoulder, and it does not make for pleasant company.”

11

T
he descent from the bluff was hair-raising and slow. As the wheels slipped and skidded on the steep, broken sandstone road, the passengers were forced to cling to the seats and brace themselves as best they could while being tossed and tilted from one side of the coach to the other. Catherine had the gruesome task of trying to keep Aluinn MacKail as steady as possible. Cameron had strapped thick pads of cloth over his wounds and belted them tightly to staunch the flow of blood, but there was no help for the pain caused by the constant jolting. MacKail lapsed into a state of semiconsciousness almost immediately, adding to Catherine’s anxiety. She had never had a man die in her arms, never been witness to the dreadful deterioration she saw as his complexion changed from simply pale to an ominous, ashen gray.

She could hear Cameron’s husky baritone overhead, alternately shouting words of encouragement at Deirdre and barking orders at the horses. The maid was obviously terrified, for the voice she used to respond was shrill and brittle, as cutting on Catherine’s nerves as broken glass.

When they arrived in the basin of the valley, Cameron stopped only long enough to check on MacKail—he was fully unconscious by then—and to allow Deirdre to relinquish the reins and join Catherine inside. Cameron whipped the horses into high speed, veering east off the main course and traversing the grassy floor of the glen.

Aluinn’s worsening condition was Alex’s foremost concern. He had lost more blood than Alex thought was possible for a body to lose and still maintain a heartbeat.

Taking the High Bridge that spanned the River Spean would have seen them on Cameron land within the hour, but if Campbell’s men were waiting and watching, they would have to circle far to the east and cross the river where it met the tributaries to Loch Lochy—a ten-to-twenty-mile detour over trails that were not meant for elegantly spoked carriage wheels. The condition of the coach itself was his next priority. At the bottom of the steep grade he had noticed a crack in the rear axle. They carried no spare parts, and if the crack deepened or broke through entirely, they would be in even worse straits.

The hours wore on with Alex calling infrequent halts to rest and water the flagging horses. They appeared to be suffering as much as their human counterparts; their glossy brown coats were crusted in a salty foam, their flanks quivered, and their mouths were worried raw around the bits. Only Shadow seemed unaffected. He cantered easily behind the coach, his coal-black head held high, his tail arched in a silken fan.

“You are ruining these poor animals,” Catherine murmured dispiritedly as she watched Alex water the loudly blowing team. “They were not intended to pull this coach ten hours, much less ten days without rest. Must you drive them so hard?”

Alex stroked each velvet snout as he let them drink sparingly from a canvas bucket. She was right, of course. He was pushing the horses too hard. He was pushing everyone too hard. But the only alternative creased the frown deeper into his forehead as he contemplated the eerie stillness of the forest that was now closing them in on all sides. They had been climbing over or winding their way around high hillocks for the past hour, and the shadows were thickening, the air becoming heavier with mist.

“We only have about an hour or so of daylight left. Maybe it would be best for me to take Shadow and ride on ahead to find out exactly how far it is to the river. Do you think you could manage here on your own for a while?”

“On my own?” She looked up with a start, never thinking he would take her criticism of the horses seriously.

“It wouldn’t be for long. Just until I find the river.”

“Find it? You mean you don’t know where it is? You don’t know where
we
are?” She clasped her hands together and drew a steadying breath. “Are you trying to tell me we are lost?”

“Temporarily misplaced. It has, after all, been a long time since I hunted in these woods.”

The indignation and contempt he expected to see flash across her features did not appear. Instead, she seemed to take the admission calmly, almost with a touch of wry humor.

“You cannot find your way out of a forest, yet you have the nerve to call yourself a spy?”

“The term was affixed by you, not me.”

“What else would you call a man who poses as someone he is not just to gain information for the enemy?”

“You still think of me as your enemy?”

She trod lightly around the question. “I certainly do not consider you a friend.”

The corner of Cameron’s mouth pulled into a grin, and his admiration for her spirit soared a few degrees higher. “Come on, you must admit your situation has been enlivened considerably since we met. Think of the experiences you will have to tell your grandchildren.”

“Being frightened half to death every other minute of the day,” she recounted dryly, “being involved in a confrontation with armed soldiers and nearly being killed … not exactly bedtime stories. A further presumption is to suggest I will even live long enough to have
children
.”

“Madam: sheer obstinacy on your part will no doubt ensure you live to a very ripe old age.”

Catherine did not share his optimism. “If you have no idea where we are, pray tell how do you presume to know where to look for the river?”

He whistled for Shadow, and when the stallion danced up beside him he swung his broad frame into the saddle.
“If I am not back within the hour, you will know I presumed wrong.”

“You’re just leaving me … us … all alone?”

Alex studied her and felt his heart give a peculiar thud against his breastbone. Her hair was half out of its steel pins and trailed carelessly over her shoulders like spilled gold. Her skin was pale, but against the deep green of the forest and blue-white hint of mist, she looked luminous, radiant, all eyes and soft, pouting mouth. Her skirt was torn, stained with blood and mud, and he was unable to stop himself from comparing the bedraggled waif who stood before him now with the haughty, imperious vixen who had commanded him to vacate her father’s forest before she had him arrested for poaching.

And instead of answering her question, he leaned over and cupped his hand under her chin, tilting her mouth up to his. He kissed her deeply, thoroughly, and when he released her, the confusion shimmering in her eyes was not there solely because he was leaving.

“I won’t be long,” he promised.

“On your honor?” she gasped.

The faint, distant grin returned, “On my honor.”

He urged the stallion to a quick trot and within moments had vanished around a bend in the overgrown track. Catherine remained where she was, listening to the sounds of the fading hoofbeats until they had blended into the rustling of the wind overhead and the sounds of the forest breathing around her. She raised her hand and pressed her fingertips to her lips, imagining they were still warm from his caress. Her whole body, in fact, felt warm, her blood stirred by a confused array of emotions.

On the one hand she was coming to appreciate his strength, his confidence, the self-assuredness that had at first made him seem arrogant and cynical. Conversely, the more she came to know him, the more reasons there were to guard against his intruding any more upon her life. He was dangerous and unpredictable. He seemed able to quickly rationalize the charge of spying; had he
just as easily dismissed in his own mind the fact that he had kidnapped her and forced her to accompany him to Scotland against her will? That he was capable of taking another life was no longer a question in her mind … but was he a murderer? He may well have beaten Gordon Ross Campbell to death in the heat of the moment had she not stepped between them … but wouldn’t any man in his position do the same? Betrayal, deceit, and the specter of death at the hands of the Black Watch had set everyone’s blood running hot and fast. Good heavens, she might well have killed Campbell herself had the musket been loaded.

Catherine sighed and gave the empty forest path a final glance before she returned to the coach. He had said they were on Cameron land now and there wasn’t anything to fear from the militia, but her skin prickled nonetheless at the encroaching shadows.

“Mistress Catherine?”

Deirdre’s whisper brought Catherine whirling around with a sharp gasp.

“Oh. I’m sorry, mistress, but I fear Mr. MacKail is taking a turn for the worse. His brow is growing warmer by the hour, and there is no more water in the bucket to bathe him. Do you suppose we might be near a brook or a stream?”

Catherine scanned the fearsome woods once again, convinced there was an army of filthy, bearded faces peering out from behind the sea of ferns. Despite the lack of any real breeze, twigs were snapping, birds were arguing, branches were shaking all around them. The thought of leaving the relative safety of the trail to forage for water was as appealing as the notion of picnicking in a crypt.

How could Cameron have left them like this? His best—and probably only—friend in the world was slowly bleeding to death. Didn’t the Highlander care?

Furthermore, she had seen no fences or hedgerows, no posts to mark the edge of Cameron land. What if someone
had
followed them into the forest? Two English-speaking women in a fancy English coach, lost in the heart of mountains that were supposedly overrun with blood-thirsty Jacobite rebels …

“Sweet merciful heaven,” she muttered. “Could he not even have checked the water supply before he deserted us?”

Deirdre poked her head out of the coach window. “Deserted us? Mr. Cameron has deserted us?”

“He as much as admitted we are hopelessly lost. He
thinks
he can find the river, which he
thinks
will lead us to safety.”