The Scot and I (25 page)

“No. We were small fry. We knew nothing of that. I meant burning postboxes, cutting telephone lines, that sort of thing.” She gave a short, mirthless laugh. “Unfortunately, no one is allowed to resign from Demos. Bruce, however, found a way to escape. He joined the British Army and died in the Zulu War. He was only twenty years old.”

She left the window and took the chair opposite his. “Ironic, isn’t it? Bruce joined the British Army. In his letters home he told me that he didn’t like the army’s methods any more than he liked Demos’s methods.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and felt the inadequacy of those sterile words. How many times had he said them? How many times had he meant them? He wanted to comfort her, but if he tried, she was more likely to spit on him than thank him. He made do by simply shaking his head.

“Tell me about Murray,” he said. “You recognized him at the station, didn’t you?”

She nodded.

“Is he a member of Demos?”

“Until today, I’d only seen him from a distance, but I know that Demos employs him for special jobs.”

“Like what, for instance?”

“I don’t know. I was only a courier. But I’ll tell you one thing: the men who abducted me from the train are not like any of the members of Demos I’ve ever met. They don’t believe in causes. They are mercenaries.”

Alex was still thinking about Murray and his mercenaries when she stirred. Adjusting her wrap, she said, “Is the interrogation over?”

His jaw tensed. She always found a way to put him in the wrong! He said shortly, “How did you find out about the plot to assassinate the queen?”

She shrugged. “Since I was disillusioned with Demos, my conscience wasn’t troubled when I read the messages I was carrying. I’d done it before, but I’d never come across anything like that. I knew I had to stop it or make the attempt. I also knew that once I showed my hand, Demos would be on my trail like a pack of hounds. I had my escape route mapped out until”—she pinned him with a look—“until you stumbled across my path.”

A thought occurred to him, something he didn’t want to share with her in her overwrought state. If she knew too much, why hadn’t Murray killed her to silence her? Why abduct her? He stored the thought in his mind for further reflection.

“Who are they, Mahri? What are their names?”

Her laugh was brittle. “I don’t know. That’s the thing about secret societies, they’re so terribly secretive. We have code names. It’s safer that way. Ronald Ramsey doesn’t exist. Murray doesn’t exist. I don’t know their real names.”

“The leader of your cell must know who the members are. What do you call him, ‘the professor’? He is the leader, isn’t he?”

When he heard her quick intake of breath, he pressed his advantage. “Do you really want to fall into his hands? Give me his name, or tell me where I can find him, and you’ll never have to worry about him again.”

She got slowly to her feet and took a step toward him. Whether or not it was deliberately done, she had the advantage of looking down on him. “I’ll never have to worry about him again?” she queried. “Then why are we on the run? Why do we have two sets of villains after us, Demos and your incompetent secret service and its cohorts? Don’t you know by now, Demos has influence? Its members are everywhere. There are many cells.”

“That may be true, but if we kill the root, its branches will die.”

She gave a weary sigh. “I’ve said all I’m going to say. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to bed.”

She dropped her wrap and crawled into bed with all the indifference of a child in the presence of her father. And just as though he were her father, he tucked her in and drew the covers up to her chin.

Her dinner plate was on the floor beside the fire. He picked it up and shook his head. She’d hardly touched the food he’d brought for her. He should have waited until she’d eaten before he bombarded her with questions.

Sighing, he picked up her discarded wrap and sank into an upholstered chair, a lady’s chair, if his cramped legs were anything to go by. There was no question of sharing the bed with her. She might not know it, but he was well aware that they were like dry tinder. One spark could start a fire that he might not be able to put out.

The whiskey bottle was close at hand. He poured a healthy measure into a teacup and sipped absently. He was reflecting that he was pinning all his hopes on Durward to sort this mess out. He was a good man, a thorough man, but he would not make allowances for Mahri’s reluctance to disclose the names of her former comrades. Alex’s standing with his chief wouldn’t count for much then. He had no rights, no court he could turn to, to plead her cause.

He thought of Ariel again and shuddered.

It would never come to that. He’d keep Mahri out of harm’s way until everyone in that damn secret society was behind bars or scattered to the far corners of the earth. He would take care of it personally. And when he had finished with Demos, she’d no longer be of interest to British Intelligence.

He couldn’t keep her out of harm’s way, because she wouldn’t listen to reason. The moment his back was turned, she’d slip away. Where would she go? Who would look after her? And this woman badly needing looking after. If it were up to him, he would keep her under lock and key.

His legs were cramping. He got up and took a turn around the room.

Eighteen

He returned to the chair and spread his coat over himself to keep warm. In the Highlands, the temperature could plunge drastically when the sun set. He’d left the lamp burning in case Mahri wakened in the night and couldn’t get her bearings. The fire had burned low. He looked over at the bed. She was restless. He wished he could get inside that convoluted mind of hers and discover what she was thinking, plotting, feeling.

Sadly, that wasn’t how his gift worked. He couldn’t read minds, but he was sensitive to strong emotions. He had to be close to his subject or touch an object that belonged to them to get an impression. Impressions and visions, that was all he had to go on. And impressions and visions could be misleading.

Since meeting Mahri, his muse had become erratic. Or maybe he’d become erratic. He’d lost his focus. The trouble was, he had never quite managed to see her as a subject. She was a free spirit, a hummingbird that was tantalizingly out of reach.

He focused his thoughts on Mahri. His eyelids grew heavy; his breathing slowed. Images came fleetingly and faded away. The room gradually receded. The lamp flickered and went out. He was in a cold, desolate place. Mahri. He was reaching for her, reaching, straining every muscle. Suddenly, she was in his arms, and he went spiraling down into a nightmare.

She had lost something precious, and no one and nothing could console her. Alex could feel her terror, her disbelief, her denial. Her emotions buffeted him as though he were one of the principal actors in the drama. Panic wrapped around his throat, almost choking him.

“No,” she moaned, “no.” Then, deerlike, she bounded away on an invisible path that only she could see. Alex felt the constriction in his own chest as he fought to keep up with her. Why wouldn’t she slow down?

It came to him that they were going downhill, that Mahri was no longer running in circles but had a destination in mind. He could hear water cascading over rocks. They’d come to one of those small waterfalls that was common in the foothills of the Highlands.

And he recognized the spot. He’d seen it in his vision of Mahri when he’d palmed the dirk he’d taken from her the night he captured her. She was on her knees, and a young man was presenting her with a dagger. She kissed its hilt. She was now a fully fledged member of Demos.

That was where Alex’s vision had ended, but Mahri’s dream wasn’t over yet. The young man disintegrated, leaving her alone. She got up and, with a cry of mingled rage and despair, flung the dirk into the river.

The scene suddenly changed. He saw blazing-hot skies and scorched scrubland that seemed to go on forever. He felt Mahri’s anguish. She was looking for someone, but there was nothing to see. The landscape was empty. There was no one there.

A thin, high wailing sound jerked him out of her dream. Mahri was trying to fight herself free of the covers. He bounded from the chair and reached the bed in two strides. When he laid his hands on her, she came awake on a panicked cry. Frozen with fear, her face chalk white, she stared unseeingly into his face.

“Mahri!” he said. “Mahri! It’s all right. I’m here.”

There was a moment when he thought she might resist him; then, with a little cry, she kicked off the covers and launched herself into his arms. He could never afterward remember what he said in those first few moments when he tried to comfort her. He vaguely remembered soothing words that a father might say to a child. It was a bad dream, only a bad dream, and he was there to fend off anything that might try to hurt her. Truth to tell, he was as shaken as she. Her heart was beating frantically against his ribs, and she was sucking air into her lungs in great, sobbing gulps.

The minutes passed, and he did nothing more than brush his hands over her back, calmly, ceaselessly, as the shudders that racked her slender body gradually died away.

“Feeling better now?” he asked softly.

“This isn’t like me,” she mumbled into his shoulder. “I’m sorry I woke you.”

“I wasn’t asleep.”

He tried to adjust his position and smiled when her arms tightened around his neck, keeping him close. When she came to herself, he thought wryly, she’d be sorry that she’d let down her guard even for a moment. She liked to think that she was self-sufficient and didn’t need anyone. He amended his opinion almost at once. Dugald was the exception. She was close to Dugald. Alex wondered how much she had confided in her stalwart deerstalker and was glad that she’d had him there to take care of her.

“Tell me about your dream,” he said.

He expected an evasive answer and was staggered when she nestled her head in the crook of his shoulder. It seemed natural to do what he’d wanted to do for a long, long time. He feathered her hair with his fingers, absorbing its silky texture, savoring the faint fragrance of lavender that clung to each strand.

“I was dreaming about my brother,” she said. “I suppose it was talking about him tonight that brought the dream on—the trick he taught me with snakes, the time he recruited me to Demos, and losing him in a senseless war he didn’t really want to be involved in.”

He made a soothing sound but kept his opinions to himself, believing that any interruption at this point might distract her from sharing something that obviously weighed heavily on her mind.

She gave a shivery sigh. “After he was killed in action, I used to dream about him all the time. I don’t think I ever believed that anything bad could happen to him. He was so full of life. I’m not saying that he was perfect, but he had a sunny disposition. Everyone liked him.”

“Especially his little sister,” he added when she paused.

She looked up and smiled. “He teased me unmercifully, but yes, I adored him. You might say that he was my champion. He might give me a swat, but he wouldn’t allow anyone else to do it.” Her smile gradually faded, and she blinked back tears. “He shouldn’t have enlisted,” she said, then more fiercely, “I shouldn’t have encouraged him. I should have tried to talk him out of it. He would have listened to me.”

She looked up at him, waiting for him to respond. He felt as though his next few words would seal his fate. Treading carefully, he said, “He chose to enlist. You can’t be blamed for what happened to him. Look, Mahri, I know about young men, and I can tell you categorically that when they make up their minds to do something, a little sister’s persuasions count for nothing. Think of Gavin and me. Would I listen to him? Of course I wouldn’t, because I’m the elder.”

She shook her head. “It was so senseless! He’d only been in Southern Africa for a few weeks. We heard that it was a slaughter. The Zulus slaughtered over twelve hundred men that day, and my brother was one of them.”

He was tempted to take her guilt and put it where it belonged—on the members of Demos. It was to escape their clutches that her brother had enlisted, or so she’d told him. He let it go. He didn’t want anything to disturb this newfound harmony between them.

“Do you know,” she said, “this is the first time our conversation hasn’t deteriorated into an interrogation?”

“If I seem hard on you sometimes,” he said, “it’s only because I want what’s best for you.”

She made a scoffing sound. “You can’t help yourself, can you? You always know best. Well, you said it yourself just a moment ago, didn’t you? You’re the elder. You make all the decisions.”

She was in a playful mood, and the change in her was captivating.

And alluring. And seductive. And, above all, dangerous.

He had to get out of that bed.

Her hand briefly touched his. “It was a joke,” she said. “I wasn’t serious. I didn’t mean anything by it.”