“Aye,” James said, “bloody indeed.”
And he sent up a silent word of thanks that Magda was somewhere safe from harm.
Chapter 19
Magda had been running for what felt like hours when she heard the muffled sounds.
The momentary bravado she’d felt had quickly turned back into terror as her side cramped from running, and she realized she had no way of knowing where she was headed. She’d fallen more times than she could remember, scrambling down hills of scree then through glens damp with night’s moisture. Her palms and feet throbbed with scrapes and embedded gravel.
She tuned her ear to the night, and attributed the sounds to a trick of her fatigue; fright and exhaustion morphed the noise of her huffing chest and the snapping of brush underfoot into something more sinister.
And then Magda heard it again, more clearly now, a sound like laughter. She froze, her heart pounding. The countryside was finally clothed in darkness, and her eyes strained to make out human shapes among the muted grays and blacks around her. Adrenalin poured into her, dizzying her with the horror that she was no more able to defend herself than a frightened deer.
And again the laughter, coming from all around now, the sound surrounding her as it shattered the night’s silence.
“Can I help you find somethin’?” a tentative voice shouted, and was met by titters that echoed around her.
A hand swiped at her arm, and the sensation of movement so close spurred her into action, as the hysteria of the initial adrenalin spike honed into instinctive flight.
Magda fled once again through the darkness, thighs straining as she slid down a hill, then feet slapping against the dewy grass yawning before her. Again she felt a slight stirring of air at her back as someone swung for her. Thrown off balance, she tripped and was momentarily airborne, then thudded hard to the ground.
Someone kicked at her shoulder. “Rise and shine, lassie.” She struggled to pull breath into her lungs, paralyzed from the impact of her dead weight falling to the unforgiving glen.
Two sets of hands grabbed her roughly under the arms and pulled her to standing. She saw them in the moonlight. Not much more than boys, they laughed nervously, stealing feels of her breasts and legs and sides.
“Campbell says we’re not to touch you overmuch.” She felt a hand grope hard between her legs.
“I reckon he wants the first taste for himself.” The stench of foul breath surrounded her as one of the boys opened his mouth wide and licked her neck with the flat of his tongue.
She shuddered.
“You like it!” He cackled and reached over to punch his friend’s shoulder. “She likes it, aye?”
Magda merely stood still, erect like a statue. She knew that fear could kill her, and she racked her brain for some plan.
“Lads.” The word was a threat cutting through the night, stern and deadly. The clutching hands at her arms loosened, but she still wasn’t free.
A horse chuffed in the darkness, and Magda heard someone approaching. Her heart leapt to think help had arrived, that James somehow, inexplicably, knew she was in danger. That he had come back for her.
Instead, the shadowy figure that emerged was shorter, stouter. He warned again, “In time, lads. In time.” Campbell’s features slowly materialized, and he brought his face close to hers, gray and spectral in the darkness.
“You pulled me from my bed, woman.”
Magda began to turn her face from him and he grabbed her, pinching her chin hard between strong fingers.
“I’ve no patience for insolent females.” He gave a quick shake to her chin. “I intend tomorrow to be a day of magnificent triumph for Clan Campbell. I already have big plans for you, but if your escapade tonight diminishes me or my men in any way, you’ll pay.”
He released her chin and stroked slowly down to her throat. Campbell’s hand twitched, gripping her in a sudden choke hold, and he leaned in to kiss her with exaggerated tenderness on each cheek. “And I will exact payment in ways you could never have imagined.”
They cut inland the next day, and the rocky coast gave way to yellow green glens and rolling hills. It had been impossible for Magda not to notice the massive forces gathering under Campbell. His ranks had swelled in their trek down the coast, and she now estimated they numbered in the hundreds. Some rode Highland ponies, stout, blunt-nosed creatures that looked absurdly diminutive beneath the lot of scowling, surly men. Most, however, were on foot, and the pace had slowed considerably. Campbell had let Magda continue to ride her own mount, and watching the ponies, she was grateful of the creaky old nag’s long gait. Though, why he’d chosen to grant her such a luxurious allowance as a horse baffled her. A now-familiar wave of revulsion curled through her, as she imagined what fate Campbell was preserving her for.
She could feel the battle hunger of all those men pressing at her back like a physical thing, and it made her jittery. She tried to distract herself with fantasies of what seemed to be increasingly improbable escape attempts.
The mood had shifted dramatically among the clansmen, and they no longer pretended to hide their lascivious glances. Someone mentioned they weren’t far from Montrose, and memories of James’s gracious home gutted her, her belly heavy with mourning, for the life she had in New York and even for a life in Scotland that could have been.
“Let’s pay a visit to the Ogilvys, shall we?” Campbell shouted to the masses as he reined in. “I hear our good earl has taken a little trip out of country. Seems he wants naught to do with the Covenant.”
“Aye, aye,” he said to the grumbling crowd, “Ogilvy thinks his best strategy is to ignore us. Let’s see if we can convince his sons otherwise.”
