“She disappeared the same night his father was murdered. He never did discover whence. Try as he might, he has not been able to glean word of her, and he fears her dead.”
“The Avries,” Aggie breathed, caught by the tale despite herself.
Danny’s expression softened as his eyes found her face. “No doubt.”
“But why?” Jeannie wondered.
“Why did the Avries commit such foul deeds against their sworn lairds?” Danny shrugged. “For years they were ghillies to the MacAllisters, both favored and protected by the chief’s house. But a strain of madness, so I think, entered the mind of Gregor Avrie, he who was father to yon Stuart and Trent, and turned his heart and mind. He decided he had some claim to the position of laird. And he took control, murdered my laird’s father, and drove Master Finnan from the glen.”
“Someone must know what’s happened to the sister,” Aggie insisted.
“And,” Jeannie objected, “wouldn’t the former laird’s men stand with him?” She had heard tales of how these highland clans were ready always for a fight or vengeance.
“Aye, and so they did. My master says this glen was a far different place then, full of clansfolk both MacAllister and Avrie, many joined by ties of blood. Most are gone now, chased away or dead, for Gregor Avrie brought in a hired army, and after the old laird’s death blood flowed right well.”
Aggie voiced the question Jeannie longed to ask. “But Laird Finnan came back and murdered Gregor Avrie?”
“Aye—after ten years away serving as a mercenary, and after Culloden broke the backs of the clans.”
“Those at Avrie House,” Jeannie said softly, “claim Finnan MacAllister fought on the wrong side at Culloden—stood against the clans.”
Danny’s face closed abruptly. “Anyone who can say that does not know him. His heart is all for loyalty—though not necessarily to any prince.”
And that did not make an answer, Jeannie thought ruefully, even as Danny buried his face in his cup and went suddenly silent.
It seemed she would have to get the rest of the story from the man himself—if she ever saw him again.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Breath came hot and painful in Finnan MacAllister’s lungs, and he wondered with pitiless honesty how much farther he could run. He had been over the glen like a hart since leaving Jeannie MacWherter’s door—a hart well-hunted. Now night gathered over the mountains to the east, and he could not imagine where he would find the strength to go on. Hunted on his own lands, but not defeated—not just yet.
His left arm hurt like fire and would be damn near useless in another fight. His sword—already well-wetted with blood in not one but two encounters—had barely been out of his right hand. He ached for food and rest.
He ached for Jeannie MacWherter.
A wonder he could spare a thought for the woman, in his present straits, yet his mind returned to her again and again. He remembered the feel of her silken tongue gliding over his skin and the heat of it when she accepted him. She was like a fever in his blood.
But he did not see how he would get back to her cottage this night. Certainly he could not lead the hounds that pursued him there, if only for Danny’s sake.
For Jeannie’s sake.
He watched a line of torches, held by men on horseback, go by below him, and his tension eased a bit. He bent to a rivulet, a mere trickle of sound in the descending dark, and drank his fill. That answered one need. He eased down beneath a tree and, for the first time in hours, laid his sword aside.
Free, for the moment. Free to think on Jeannie.
What was it about the woman? Aye, well, he knew fine what it was—not only beautiful, with that air of impossible innocence, but she tasted like heaven on his tongue. No wonder Geordie had tortured himself over her.
Nay, but he had to keep his eye on the truth: ’twas she who had tortured Geordie.
He remembered again the way she had felt when he slid into her for the first time, searing with heat and so tight. And the way she had moved beneath him last night, in breathless invitation.
He shifted where he crouched, in an effort to ease the sudden tightness in his groin. Oh, aye, he wanted her again, would have her again. But probably not tonight.
And when he had her, he promised himself—when next he splayed her hot and quivering beneath him—would he break her heart then? Would he have his pleasure and then his revenge?
“All for you, Geordie,” he whispered into the darkness, and knew he lied.
****
