The Scot and I (35 page)

She stifled a panicked laugh. If she truly wanted to stop Demos, all she needed to do was give Alex the information that could send Demos and its sympathizers to the gallows or to prison for a long, long time.

No one should have to face the choices she had to make.

After tonight, she wouldn’t have a friend in the world. She’d duped Dugald, knowing that Alex had set him to spy on her. She’d duped Alex. She’d duped her father. Of the three, Dugald was the only one who would forgive her.

She could not remember a time before him.

It had not been easy getting away from him. Even in sleep, he could detect any furtive sound. So she’d pretended to be delirious with a fever. And while he had gone to fetch Miss Napier, she had picked herself up and left the house, overriding Juliet’s wringing hands and warnings of dire consequences.

She hadn’t had everything her own way. As a precaution, either Alex or Dugald had hidden her boy’s clothes so that she was forced to wear her voluminous skirts. She wore a beret on her head and pinned to her cloak was her precious cairngorm brooch.

She wasn’t alone. Macduff had appeared out of nowhere and was trotting ahead of her as though he knew the way. She was glad of his company. Dogs didn’t ask questions or suspect motives. They gave their love unconditionally. Now, why did that make her go all teary?

All was quiet. Nothing stirred. But that was a false impression. When one was raised in the Highlands, as she had been, one listened with a different ear. Stoats and weasels were creeping out of their burrows to hunt the hare. Foxes were slinking into farmyards for easy pickings. Macduff knew it. She could hear the soft growl that vibrated deep in his throat.

“No,” she said, and the growling stopped.

She thought of Alex, and something inside her pulsed to life. She would make a bargain with the devil if it would save him.

She’d come to the ruined foundation of what had once been a chapel of the Knights Templar. A snatch of memory flitted through her mind. She and Bruce, as very young children, pretending to be postulants of the knightly order. They’d had tests of valor to undertake and acts of charity to perform.

Their future had stretched out before them like a golden ribbon of light.

She shivered and raised the hood of her borrowed cloak to shield her from the cold, but a cloak was useless against the kind of cold that gripped her.

Not far to go now.

The house was up ahead, but even in daylight, it was hard to see for the stands of Scots pines that screened it. It was a children’s paradise, no secret tunnels or passages, but with rooms running together and staircases that came out at brick walls, the result of succeeding generations of her family adding to or remodeling the interior to suit their individual tastes.

It really was an ugly house, but she loved it anyway.

“Watch out for adders,” she told Macduff.

She was attuned to the sounds around her, and Macduff’s lack of a response gave her pause. “Macduff?” she whispered. Her eyes searched the dark, but she saw little beyond shadows moving within shadows. “Macduff?” she prompted, a breath of a sound.

Noise erupted around her—a lion roaring, a gun going off, a man cursing. The silence that followed filled her with dread. Every muscle tensed for action. She slipped her hand into the pocket of her cloak and withdrew her revolver. Eyes peeled, ears straining, she slowly dismounted and stood there waiting, hesitating, undecided. Her finger curled around the trigger. “If you have hurt my dog,” she said, “there will be hell to pay.”

A shadow moved in front of her. She pulled the trigger just as someone hit her from behind.

 

 

Alex and Gavin were about a mile from Ballater when the sound of a dog barking made them rein in. Gavin knew the sound of his own dog and quickly dismounted. Alex took a moment to look around him. They hadn’t run into any patrols. There were no guards on the bridges, because Foster wasn’t expecting trouble. Durward had not told the colonel of his meeting with Alex in Aboyne. The commander thought that everything was going to plan. He would soon have a rude awakening. The question was—where in hell’s name was he? No one seemed to know.

“Macduff, where are you?” Gavin called softly. “Where are you, pup?”

It sounded like a baby crying, but it was Macduff who crept out of the underbrush. Gavin went down on his haunches. “What is it, boy?”

He ran his hands over Macduff’s coat. “There’s blood on him,” he said. “And there’s a hole, here, on the tip of his ear, a slice really. A bullet or some predator has taken a bite out of him.”

Macduff licked his face. “Where is Mahri?” To Alex, he said, “I told him to watch over her just in case.”

Alex said, “Your dog understands English now?”

“No! He understands my thoughts! I’m a seer, for God’s sake! Alex, this is serious. If Macduff is here, he must have followed Mahri.”

“Christ Jesu! Where is Dugald? He would never have allowed her to leave the house.”

“It’s possible that she was abducted at gunpoint. Maybe they both were.”

This did not resonate with Alex. “I’d bet my last farthing,” he said, “that she has been waiting for the right moment to make her bid for freedom, and tonight I gave it to her.”

“But where will she go?”

“Foster told us when he told us where to find Ramsey. He’s visiting Professor Scot, who has leased Mile-End House for the summer months.”

This bitter response was followed by a long silence. Finally, Gavin said, “It would explain a lot.”

This time there was no response from Alex, and Gavin went on, “Do you think Foster will do as he promised?”

“I’m counting on it.”

“And Durward?”

“I don’t underestimate him. I think that he may be one step ahead of us.”

“Sounds as though it’s going to be quite a party.”

“It’s going to be a hell of a party,” Alex said savagely.

Twenty-four

Where are the lists you were supposed to deliver?”

Mahri gurgled and choked and coughed, and came to herself with the taste of whiskey in her mouth. She didn’t open her eyes right away but took her bearings through her senses. The windows were closed. A fire was burning in the grate. The lamps were lit. The not unpleasant odor of old books filled her nostrils. She was in the library, and she was not alone.

“Father,” she said, and opened her eyes.

Only three weeks had passed since she’d last seen him, and she thought the change in him was alarming. He seemed smaller, older, and as far removed from the pleasant, absentminded professor as night from day. She could see that he was in the grip of some strong emotion, but that came as no surprise. By his lights, she was a traitor.

He slammed the half-drunk glass of whiskey on his desk and turned back to loom over her. His breathing was audible; his eyes were bulging. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? This isn’t a game, Mahri. You’ve put our lives in danger. You never intended to bring those lists to me, did you?”

“No.” She put a hand up to rub the back of her head, but it did nothing to ease the blazing pain. Her words were slow and precise. “You lost my loyalty and sympathy when you decided to murder the queen. I never thought you would go through with it, but I was wrong.”

“You shot Ramsey.” It was a statement, not a question.

“You left me no choice. Where is everyone?”

“Men are patrolling the area, so there is no escape. They’re waiting for the commander to arrive. Someone has gone to fetch him. Now that you are here, they’ll be expecting trouble. You should have stayed away. Why did you come back?”

“To stop you from making another attempt on the queen’s life and to warn you. I think Hepburn is on to you. And who is the commander? You’ve never mentioned him before.”

He took the chair behind his desk and linked his fingers. “The commander has several cells under his oversight. We are just one of them. Mahri”—he shook his head—“don’t you understand anything? They’ll kill you, and they’ll kill me. We’ve failed in our mission. No, it’s worse than that. They’ll think we’re in this together, so they’ll kill us both, but not before they’ve tortured you into giving them the information they want. So, I’ll ask you again. Where are the lists you were supposed to bring? It’s the only thing that can save us.”

The confidence that had fueled Mahri’s actions was beginning to founder. Her father wasn’t afraid. He was terrified. And who was the commander? As far as she knew, her father was the leader of this section of Demos. She hadn’t come this far to give in now. If her father couldn’t help her, she’d bargain with the commander.

The professor said, “We can make up a story to explain the delay. We’ll say that Hepburn forced you to go with him, and when you finally made your escape, you came straight here to me. Only tell me where you’ve hidden the lists, and we may yet scrape through this disaster.”

“Listen to me, Father.” Her voice shook with emotion. “I came to make a bargain with you. Forget about the commander. Leave Deeside at once. Take your cohorts with you, and these lists will never come to light.”

He sat back in his chair and looked at her as though she were mad. “Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said? There is no going back. Even if I could do what you say, we’re only one cell. There are others who will take our place. And Demos has a long memory. They’ll hunt us down like vermin.”

“If anything happens to me,” she replied coolly, “those lists will be passed to British Intelligence. Let Demos try to make a bargain with them.”

He began to laugh, but it was a mirthless laugh bordering on panic, and that threw her off balance. “My dear child,” he said, “you have nothing to bargain with.”

He was afraid, mortally afraid, and she’d never seen him like this, not even when Bruce went off to war. His fear made her own nerves stretch to the breaking point.

A board creaked on the other side of the library door. The professor straightened then gulped in a great draught of air. He put a finger to his lips, warning Mahri to be silent. His words were so soft, she had to strain to hear them.

“It’s too late for me, but not for you. If you get out of this alive, don’t go to the authorities. They can’t be trusted. Find your deerstalker—”

When another floorboard creaked just outside the door, he got up. He had a gun in his hand. “Hide, Mahri,” he whispered urgently. “The jib door!”

Mahri was paralyzed with indecision. The jib door was on the other side of the room and was made to look like the paneled wall. No one could tell it was there if it hadn’t been pointed out to them. It wasn’t a secret passage, but a door to the old servants’ staircase. No one had used it in years.

She’d waited too long. The door was opening. Her father yanked her down and pushed her under the desk. All she could see from her vantage point was feet. But she could feel the tension in her father. Two men had entered the room. Her father moved in front of the desk, shielding her from view.

“Commander,” he said, as calm as she had ever heard him. “Ah, you here, too, Ramsey? This is a surprise. I understood, Commander, that you wanted to cut yourself off from all contact with Demos until our mission is complete.”

“We know she is here,” said a voice that Mahri did not recognize.

“I suppose you got that from Murray. Yes, she was here, but I let her go.”

“That wasn’t very wise of you,” said the stranger gently. “Ramsey?”

Ramsey was obviously looking around the room, searching for her, but it was a cursory search. There was nowhere to hide except under the desk, and Ramsey didn’t think to look there.

“She’s not here,” he said.

“I’m sorry it has to end like this, Professor,” the commander said.

A volley of shots rang out. Mahri jerked then cowered underneath the desk. Her father’s body had fallen in a boneless heap in front of her. She put a hand over her mouth to stifle her whimpers.

“Torch the place,” said the stranger. “Let Colonel Foster make what he likes of it. No doubt he’ll blame it on the Hepburn brothers, and that will play right into our hands.”

Ramsey said, “She didn’t get away, sir. Murray would have known if she had. I think she is still hiding somewhere in the house.”

“Find her. But don’t waste too much time on the search. I want all evidence of our presence here obliterated. And the fire may drive her into the open.”

“What about the lists, sir?”

“If they are found, they’ll come to my desk. Let me worry about the lists.”

Trembling with terror and with her skirts bunched around her, she tried to choke back tears. Her father was dead, and she was to blame. How could it have come to this?

The footsteps retreated, and she heard the click of the door as it closed. She was still numb from the horror of seeing her father executed before her eyes, and that was what it was, an execution.