The Pride of Lions Page 18

  “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.”

  “Oh.” Deirdre sank back onto her seat. “Well then, we must believe him, mustn’t we? In the meantime I do not mind going and looking for water if you would prefer to remain here with Mr. MacKail.”

  Catherine declined the advice and the offer with a scowl. She would scream if she had to sit inside that stuffy coach a minute longer than necessary, gagging on the cloying stench of blood and sweat.

  “No. I’ll go. There must be a spring nearby; I can hear it.”

  Deirdre handed her the canvas bucket. She also handed her one of the loaded Highland dags Cameron had appropriated from the dead Watchmen, and Catherine bit her lip so hard she tasted the rusty taint of blood.

  “Perhaps you’ll see a hare, or a quail,” Deirdre said lightly. “I’m ever so hungry.”

  Catherine smiled wanly at the maid’s attempts to lessen her fears. “I shan’t be long. If that wretched bounder returns in t
he meantime, tell him we should like a fire. I shall try to find some marigold or purslane for tea; something hot would do us all a world of good.”

  She set off in a direct line due west from the coach and followed the slope upward, picking her way carefully through the tangled growth of saplings. She stopped every few paces to look over her shoulder at the coach, reassuring herself that no mysterious hand had lifted it off the road and banished her to the horror of her fantasies. She also tried to listen for the source of the running water, which she could hear quite clearly the higher she climbed. Cameron had not seemed overly concerned about their water supply—probably with good reason, for these hills seemed to be riddled with creeks and natural springs.

  Higher she climbed, and the stillness of the woods enfolded her like a shroud. As chilly as the air was becoming, she could feel dampness across her brow and steaming between her breasts. This time when she stopped to catch her breath, she could no longer see the coach, which was hidden behind a wall of mist-soaked green. She was tempted to turn around and scurry back down, but a distinctly liquid blip drew her attention to the right. She tramped quickly through the last knee-deep wall of ferns, and there it was: a tiny crack between two boulders from which spouted a thin, clear ribbon of water. Resembling a man-made fountain, the water collected in a shallow basin worn into the granite before spilling over the edge and running off and soaking into the black, spongy earth.

  Catherine knelt wearily beside the small pool and set the gun and bucket on the moss. She cupped her hands and splashed some of the cool water on her face and throat, letting it run down the front of her bodice. She pushed back the soiled and limp lace of her cuffs and washed the grime from her hands and arms, then debated peeling down her stockings and soaking her aching feet. It was her conscience that gently reminded her of the weak and feverish man waiting below, but it was her heart that ground to a thudding, horrified halt as she turned to retrieve the bucket.

  A pair of coarsely shod feet stood mere inches from her outstretched fingers. Above the feet were thick-hewn calves clad in diamond-patterned wool stockings that ended just below the bony knee. There was a span of a hand’s width before the hairy, muscular thighs were concealed beneath the folds of a tartan kilt. A voluminous garment, it was wrapped about the man’s waist and girted in pleats, with several yards left at the end to fling up and over the shoulder. Beneath the draped tartan was a sleeveless leather jerkin, which seemed at once too small and tight to fit the boldly muscular arms where they were crossed over the burly chest. Higher still, a beard as black as coal, as grizzled as frayed wire, framed a face more harsh and forbidding than a chunk of ice-clad rock. Surmounting the nest of hair that crowned his head was a woolen bonnet incongruously tilted at a jaunty angle, a bit of weed tucked in the cockade.

  Catherine’s hands flew to her mouth and a scream rose in her throat. It was a rebel! She had not been imagining the phony birdcalls or the feeling that she had been watched every step of the way from the road! And watched by—her shocked, frozen gaze locked on the woods behind the rebel’s shoulder—the four … five … six more Highlanders who were melting slowly out of the trees.

  For the second time that day, the second time in her young life, Catherine Augustine Ashbrooke slumped over in a dead faint.

  When Alex had ridden away from the coach, his mind had not been on the forest or on the possible dangers that could be concealed behind the thick walls of greenery. Instead, his thoughts remained back on the road, and more specifically on the pair of violet eyes that had watched him until he had ridden out of sight.

  It was no wonder he did not see the score of armed men crouched on either side of the track until Shadow had passed into their midst. When he did notice a flicker of movement, it was already far too late. A gleaming circle of muskets had moved swiftly to block the road ahead of and behind him, and more than one eager thumb reacted instantly to cock their weapons as he tried to reach for his own pistol.

  “I wouldna do that, i’an’ I were ye,” a harsh voice grated from the shadows.

  Alex traced the source and saw a giant of a Highlander leaning casually against a gnarled tree trunk. The tree was fully grown and wide as a barrel, but the breadth of the man’s shoulders dwarfed it by comparison. He stood well above six feet, his height aggrandized by a lion’s mane of straw-colored hair that, combined with the magnificent froth of a beard, flowed around his brawny shoulders like a regal mantle. His eyes were small and hawklike, missing nothing as they shrewdly assessed the worth of both man and beast.

  Alex was careful to keep his hands in plain sight and, after his initial reaction, made no more sudden moves. Shadow stood as still as a black marble statue, his ears pricked forward, his flesh shivering as he awaited a command.

  “Ye seem tae have strayed a ways from home, Sassenach,” the Highlander spat. His gaze raked derisively over the rich brown velvet frock coat, the ruffled linen shirt, the expensively worked satin waistcoat and fitted breeches. “Ye look as though ye mout have a coin or two tae spare f’ae the insult. But were ye no’ warned against ridin’ in these hills alone?”

  “The only warning I received,” Alex replied calmly, “was to guard my back against a rebel ambush. I was told a particularly amateurish clan raids these hills, a godless coven by the name of Cameron.”

  The distinctly metallic rasp of several more hammers locking into full cock brought the huge Highlander’s hand up in a staying gesture. “Ye’ve a strange lackin’ in common sense, Sassenach, Ye should ha’ heeded the advice ye were given.”

  Moving cautiously, deliberately, Alex swung a leg over the cantle of his saddle and dismounted. “I rarely heed advice I don’t ask for, and certainly not from any bastard named Campbell.”

  The Highlander straightened from the tree. His eyes flicked along Alex’s clothing again, this time alerted to the stains of dried blood.

  “Who are ye, Sassenach? An’ what quarrel do ye have wi’ the Campbells?”

  Alex smoothed a hand along Shadow’s muzzle to set him at ease. “If you don’t know the answer to either of those questions, Struan MacSorley, you deserve to spend the rest of your miserable life digging acorns in the forest.”

  The gigantic Scot took an ominous step forward. “Ye’ve a tongue like a wasp as well. The sound o’ it brings tae mind a wee surly pup I were fond o’ thrashin’ now an’ then f’ae bein’ too damned big f’ae his breeks. He used tae give as good as he got, but that were a long time ago, an’ I hear tell he’s grown soft an’ sweet-smellin’ now. An’ pretty as a wee lassie.”

  Alex advanced another step. “Not too soft to bring a sour-breathed Lochaber boar to his knees … and whistle a merry tune while doing it.”

  “Mayhap I’ll let him try,” MacSorley said on a grin. In the next breath he had spread his arms wide and clamped them around Alex’s shoulders, pulling the willing man into a fearsome bear hug. “Alasdair! Alasdair, by the Christ, it’s bonnie tae see ye! Where the devil have ye been? Lochiel’s half mad wi’ worry. He has our lads scourin’ every glen an’ glade from Loch Lochy tae Glencoe!”

  “We met some trouble on the road near the Spean. We were planning to come straight through, but … it’s a long story, and I’ve left a wounded man and two women a ways back along the road.”

  The bushy eyebrows crushed together and the death grip relaxed. “God’s truth, why did ye no’ say so instead o’ standin’ here blatherin’ like a fishwife? Who’s the wounded mon?”

  “Aluinn MacKail. He took a shot in the chest—”

  “Angus! Fetch up the ponies, then take three men an’ ride on ahead tae Achnacarry; let them know we’ve a wounded mon. Madach—keep half the men here wi’ ye, the rest’ll come wi’ me. An’ f’ae pity’s sake, shy those guns awa’ afore the Camshroinaich Dubh takes it in his heid as an insult an’ scatters the lot o’ ye across the road!” He paused and peered closely at Alex. “Two lassies, did ye say?”

  “A very long story,” Alex murmured. He mounted Shadow aga
in as a shaggy-haired garron was led up to MacSorley. “But what news from Achnacarry? Other than my brother’s lack of faith in me, is everyone well? Is it true what I’ve heard—has there been a landing in the Hebrides?”

  “Aye, laddie.” MacSorley nodded somberly. “Wee Bonnie Tearlach has come home, or so he says.”

  Alex wheeled Shadow around and rode in silence, alarmed by the confirmation that Prince Charles had returned to Scotland. There was no time to ponder the consequences, however. Around the next bend in the road they came upon the coach and only two of its three passengers. The whereabouts of the third were marked by a long, ear-piercing scream.

  The tartan-clad Highlander bent over quickly, almost, but not quite, catching Catherine before she struck the ground.

  He swore in Gaelic, then swore again as he heard footsteps pounding up the hill behind him.

  “The lassie’s fainted,” he said, swinging around. “I ne’er touched her, she just fainted.”

  Alex hurried forward and went down on one knee. “I wouldn’t worry, she’s becoming quite proficient at it. Catherine?” He stroked her cheek and chafed a limp wrist. “Catherine, can you hear me? You are all right. You are among friends. Catherine …”

  Her head lolled and she came swimming back to consciousness. Her eyelids slitted open, but it took her a moment or two to focus, to recognize the handsome features of the man leaning over her. Her eyes widened, and her lips parted. A gasp found her flinging herself up and into his arms.

  “Alex! Oh, Alex, you came back!”

  “Of course I came back,” he said gently. “Didn’t I promise you I would?”

  “Oh, yes, but—” She stopped and gaped over his shoulder at the dozen or more bearded rebels standing around, staring at them. “Alex! Alex, have they caught you too?”

  “Caught me?” He looked puzzled a moment, then smiled. “These are Cameron men, Catherine. My brother’s men. They have been looking for us for a couple of days now. Are you feeling stronger? Do you think you can stand?”