The Scot and I (2 page)

Gavin nodded and pushed his way through the crowd.

Muttering a furious curse, Alex went down on bended knee to tend to the wounded man. He was younger than Gavin by a year or two, and his face was vivid with color. “Did you see that?” the young man demanded. “Someone tried to murder me!”

The bullet had lodged in his arm, just below the elbow, and though the wound was bleeding profusely, he did not appear to be in any danger. After fishing in his pocket for his handkerchief, Alex folded it into a pad and told the young man to use it to stem the flow of blood.

He was beside himself with fury. He’d misjudged the scheming bitch. He’d been confident that, even if she were the assassin—and it didn’t seem likely that a woman would be up to the job—she wasn’t in a position to get off a clear shot at the queen. It had never occurred to him that he would be her target. And he had no doubt that her object was he and not the man whom she’d accidentally shot. With him out of the way, she’d have a clear shot at her real target. That bullet had missed him by a hair. It was a miracle he was still breathing.

A moment or two later, breathless from his exertions, Gavin returned. In his hand, he held a blond wig. “I found this on the terrace,” he said. “It’s possible that she’s one of the guests the footmen are rounding up for questioning, or she may be panicked and making for the river.”

“She won’t be.” She was too cool and too clever not to have a well-thought-out escape route in place. He got up, helped the wounded man to rise, and taking the wig from Gavin, stuffed it into his pocket. “Get this gentleman—what is your name, by the way?”

“Ramsey.” The young man grimaced in pain. “Ronald Ramsey.”

“Get Mr. Ramsey medical attention, then meet me in the courtyard.”

“Lean on my arm, Mr. Ramsey,” said Gavin soothingly. “I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Gavin Hepburn, and the gentleman you just met—he of few words, and all of them orders—is my brother, Alex. We are the Hepburns of Feughside. Are you visiting in the area? I ask because I don’t recognize your face.”

As Gavin led Ramsey away, Alex strode for the exit. He admired his brother’s tactics. Gavin might appear to be engaged in a casual conversation, but he was, in effect, getting the man’s statement. There would be many statements taken tonight and many frayed tempers before these exalted guests could get to their beds.

On the terrace, he cleared his mind and took a moment to study the lie of the land. In the Highlands, the sun set early. Off to his left, he could see the sun’s rosy rim as it disappeared behind the peaks of the Cairngorms. In front of him was the path to the river. A forest of trees obscured the view as did the forest of guests who were now being herded back into the castle.

He closed his eyes and shut off the active part of his brain.

All his senses were humming, but the one sense that might be of use to him, his sixth sense, had obviously dozed off.

His sixth sense. It wasn’t a joke. It was a legacy from his granny, the celebrated Witch of Drumore, as the superstitious country folk called her. Much good it had done him. He couldn’t read minds or hear voices. The best he could say about it was that it sometimes pointed him in the right direction. But when he needed it most, such as now, it would desert him like a fickle woman.

Where was the wench? How did she know that he was the one to take down before trying for the queen? He was supposed to be a secret service agent, for God’s sake. He was supposed to blend in with the crowd. But more important than any of that was, where was the woman now?

He dug in his coat pocket, produced the blond wig, and crushed it between his fingers. He felt it again, a ripple of recognition, like a tiny electric current, passing through his brain. He rubbed it against his cheek, and the current became stronger, more compelling.

His dark brows snapped together as he tried to recall every small detail of the woman who had bested him at his own game.

Average height. Delicately sculpted features. A slender figure set off by a gown that wasn’t showy but was suitable for the occasion, a gray blue silk, as he remembered. Her eyes were blue . . . no, not blue, but gray, as gray and clear as the waters of the river Dee on a fine day. She baffled him and intrigued him. Why had he singled her out? Was it his training as an agent? Was it his sixth sense? Or was it something else? And why hadn’t he acted on his first impression that this woman was going to be trouble?

He put the wig to his face and inhaled.

A picture formed in his mind. He saw a young man, a boy really, in tartan trews and bonnet, kneeling beside a spring of crystal-clear water. The boy scooped some water into his cupped hands and drank greedily. Behind him rose the peaks of the Cairngorms.

That was better. His sixth sense was working just as it should. He couldn’t read minds or get premonitions from his dreams as others with his gift were able to do. His gift was most potent when he touched objects that belonged to his quarry. And that was what the blond woman was now: his quarry. The boy in his vision was surely her accomplice.

“So there you are.” Gavin’s voice came to him as though from a great distance. “Didn’t you hear me calling you?”

The picture in Alex’s mind instantly dissolved. He thrust the wig into his pocket. “I was lost in thought. Did you find anything out from Mr. Ramsey?”

“Damn little. He says that he didn’t see anything. He’s quite shaken up. Well, he would be, wouldn’t he? All he wants is to go home and forget the whole thing.”

“He must have seen the woman with the gun.”

“He insists that he didn’t see anything. One moment he was looking at the queen, and the next, a bullet slammed into his arm.” Gavin propped one elbow on the parapet and peered up at Alex. “Are you sure it was a woman?” When Alex turned his head and gave his brother a straight look, Gavin shrugged. “Sorry I asked. Of course you’re sure. It’s just that it seems criminal to me to involve a woman in this kind of dirty work.”

“Gavin,” Alex’s voice was pleasantly modulated, “they
are
criminals, traitors, in fact, and the woman must be one of their prime operators. She is bold, brave, and resourceful. I’ll tell you something else. She meant to kill me, not Mr. Ramsey. With me out of the way, she’d have a clear shot at the queen.”

Gavin stood stock-still. Finally, he said irritably, “What’s going on, Alex? You’ve told me very little. I’m picking things up in dribs and drabs.”

“I’ve told you as much as you need to know and only because you’re my brother and I trust you implicitly.”

“You’re not acting as though you trust me.”

Their eyes met, one seer of Grampian to another. Gavin’s gift was to put ideas into his subjects’ minds. Alex knew that if he wasn’t careful, he would be blabbing like a baby, telling Gavin all his secrets.

Smiling a little, Alex replied, “I’m up to all your tricks, Brother, so don’t even think of meddling with my mind. I trust you more than I trust anyone. Let that suffice.”

“Don’t you trust your colleagues?”

“Up to a point.” He was becoming irritable, and when Gavin opened his mouth to say more, Alex cut him off. “Look, I shouldn’t be telling you anything. You’re not in the game. All I’ll say is that someone took a potshot at me tonight, and I mean to find her.”

These somber words were followed by a long, reflective silence. At length, Gavin said, “I don’t suppose that erratic muse of yours can show us which way she went?”

“That depends.” Alex looked toward the peaks. “Tell me, Gavin, where are we most likely to find a spring of ice-cold water?”

“In the mountains.” Gavin took one look at Alex’s expression and said slowly, “Where did that idea come from? Your muse?”

“Where else would I get a damn fool idea like that? We’d best get a move on.”

“Are you joking? It will soon be as black as pitch out there, and it gets damn cold in these mountains. Why can’t we wait till morning?”

“And give her a head start? Not on your life.”

A slow grin creased Gavin’s face.

“What?” Alex demanded.

“In spite of your words, Brother, I think I’ve just been invited into the game.”

Alex grunted.

A little later, Gavin observed, “The castle is locked up like a prison. They’re not likely to give us horses. We’re supposed to be guests, remember? They’ll want to question us.”

“They’ll give us horses,” said Alex, “or Her Majesty will want to know the reason why.” He held up his hand. “Watch me, little brother, and see how it’s done.”

“The last time you said that to me,” replied Gavin moodily, “I broke my arm when I fell out of our tree house.”

Alex’s only response was a grin, but it soon faded. As they struck out toward the stable, he was thinking of the woman, remembering another time and place, when another pretty woman, a blond, no less, had led him and three of his agents into a deadly trap.

Two

Mahri hitched up her skirts and ran like a hare, weaving in and out of the trees as though the hounds were snapping at her heels. Though she’d chosen the route that gave her the best chance of escaping detection, she did not count on it. There was always one agent sharper than the others, one who would put two and two together and realize that she’d outwitted them. While agents had followed the guests who swarmed onto the lawn, she had stayed close to the castle walls and disappeared round the corner and into the shadows.

She’d lost her wig and reticule in the panicked stampede, but that didn’t worry her. They couldn’t be traced back to her. She was sure that many ladies had lost more costly items.

It was the thought of the dark-haired man who worried her most. A flicker of recognition had crossed his face. She hoped he wasn’t an agent. An agent with a good memory for faces was more trouble than she could handle right now.

The odd thing was, she had no memory of him, and he was the kind of man a woman would remember, not because he was tall, dark, and handsome, but because he seemed . . . remote . . . untouchable. A challenge, in fact. But not for her. She’d had enough challenges in the last little while to last her a lifetime.

If she didn’t get a move on, her lifetime would be numbered in hours. She couldn’t turn back the clock, nor did she want to. She had foiled the plot to assassinate the queen. Now she’d have two sets of killers after her: Her Majesty’s Secret Service and the members of her own cell.

Up, up she went until she reached the dry stone dike that marked the boundary of the old estate. Here she paused to drag air into her lungs and look back the way she had come. It was darker in the valley than it was on the slopes, and lights were winking in and out of the trees that surrounded the castle. She assumed that groundsmen were beating the bushes to flush her out. If her ruse worked, they would find the blond wig and think she was making for the river. If. . . if . . . if . . .

She lifted her head as she listened for sounds of pursuit. There was nothing, only the sound of the wind playing a restless game with the leaves of nearby trees.

Her revolver was still clutched in her hand. She set it on top of the dike and pulled on one of the stones until it fell with a soft thud to the ground. In the gap left by the stone, she found a satchel that she’d hidden there the night before. It took her only a few minutes to strip out of her own things and dress in the boy’s clothes she’d packed in the satchel. Having replaced the satchel and stone, she took a step back and examined her handiwork. Perfect.

“I’ll be back for you,” she promised her satchel. She was almost tempted to take the dress with her, but caution prevailed. If she were captured, it would give her away.

She picked up her pistol and was off and running again.

There were great cairns of stones dotted around the estate, monuments to the queen’s joys and sorrows during her long reign. One of those cairns was close to the tree line. She hauled herself up to the top of the incline and slumped against the hard granite face. Her arms and legs ached, and her lungs burned. She could hear her breath whistling painfully between her parted lips. She was once a crack courier and was used to pushing herself to the limit, but those days were over. She could no longer race up and down hills like a fleet-footed athlete. Nor could she sustain the role of a boy except in exceptional circumstances and only when the lights were dim. Nature had done its work, softening her hard edges, adding curves. But when her life was in the balance, it was amazing how she slipped into her old skin.

Having ascertained that she was in the clear, she put two fingers to her mouth and emitted a shrill whistle. A moment later, a rider emerged from the trees leading a pony. Dugald was a deerstalker in the hunting season and a man of all trades in the summer. He was also her staunchest ally, and she had sore need of an ally after tonight’s work. He’d known her since she was a babe in swaddling clothes, when he was gamekeeper on her grandfather’s estate near Gairnshiel on the other side of the river. Their relationship was not that of master and mistress. Dugald was not only her mentor but also her closest friend.