It was an idea that had never occurred to him.
Iain scooted up to get a better look and was stunned to find Cait speaking to none other than Brice Sutherland. If there was one clan leader whom Iain would consider a friendly acquaintance—who didn’t hate him—it would be Sutherland.
Since Sutherland had just wed the beautiful Eleanor and was madly in love, Iain knew that Brice and Cait wouldn’t be lovers. So what the hell was Sutherland doing here in the middle of the night?
Cait’s hands fluttered about in agitated, jerky motions.
Sutherland glanced at the barn, then nodded to Cait and drifted back into the shadows of the forest. With determined strides, Cait made her way into the cottage and closed the door behind her.
Iain rolled over and sat up, contemplating what he’d just witnessed, when he heard more noises. Quickly, he rolled back over to see what was happening.
Cait was outside again, standing halfway between the cottage and the forest, when, to Iain’s amazement, people began filing out of her house. He counted seven, walking in a line. Cait was hurrying them along, giving each a comforting touch on the shoulder. Occasionally, she would glance at the barn, but she never looked up at the window.
Iain couldn’t be sure, but he thought he counted four men and three women, although one of the women could have been a young boy. They crossed the clearing silently and were swallowed up by the trees so quickly that he almost doubted he had seen them. In a gesture that he was getting to know well, Cait swiped at the hair hanging in her face. Her shoulders slumped, and she walked with nearly dragging steps back into her house.
What the hell had he just witnessed?
He’d been in her house. It was a small cottage with a sitting room and kitchen on the ground level and one bedroom on the top level. There was nowhere to hide seven people. Hell, he doubted seven people would fit comfortably inside her home.
Which meant that they hadn’t been in the house.
Or…
They’d been hiding.
Chapter 3
Empty water pail in hand, Cait stepped out of her back door into the early-morning sunlight. She was brought up short when she saw Campbell coming out of the woods behind the barn. He was without the leather coat but wearing the same tight, worn breeches and white shirt, unbuttoned at the throat and spotted with Adair’s blood.
His short hair was mussed, sticking up in various places. A piece of hay was perched atop his shoulder. She looked past him, down the path he’d come from. The same path that the seven fugitives had sneaked down in the middle of the night. Her heart beat a little harder and her palms began to sweat. Was it a coincidence? What had Campbell been doing in the woods?
After Campbell had bunked down in her barn, she’d decided it was far too risky to keep the fugitives in the safe room beneath her floor, so she’d sent one of the men to find Sutherland’s party. She knew they weren’t far; she’d overheard one of them say they were going to make camp a mile or so away.
Sutherland warned her that more fugitives were coming tonight, so she needed to get rid of the Campbell men today. She wasn’t so sure that Adair would be leaving by tonight, but she would make certain that Campbell was gone. Somehow.
“Good morning, Cait.” Campbell ambled up to her, and she had to look up at him. He was tall and lean, not muscular, like Adair or John. “Wily” was the word that came to mind when she thought of Campbell. He was wily and unpredictable, and she never knew what he was thinking.
Cait was oftentimes referred to as a witch for her healing ways but also because she had an uncanny ability to read people. It had more to do with observation than witchcraft, but some of her clansmen preferred to think she had superhuman abilities. Though some avoided her because of it, it was mostly what drew people to her.
Long ago she’d tried to read Campbell, but he’d been far too good at hiding his thoughts. His body language was always loose, yet she knew he could spring to action immediately.
Today, as always, she had no idea what thoughts were going on behind those dark, nearly black eyes, but a feeling of foreboding shivered up her spine.
“What were ye doing in the woods?” she asked, trying to mimic his casual pose.
“Checking on my land.” His narrowed gaze traveled around the very small clearing between her home and her barn, taking in the trees that hugged her property. She didn’t trust him, and she didn’t believe for one moment that he was merely checking on his land.
That inscrutable gaze landed on her. She looked intently into his eyes but came up against a wall of darkness.
She glanced at the barn, then back at the piece of hay still stuck to his shoulder, and she suddenly had her answer. He’d been sleeping in the hayloft, perfectly positioned to witness everything through the small window.
Campbell was one of the best warriors in Scotland and was attuned to his surroundings. He had heard something and then seen the fugitives leaving her home.
She clutched her pail tighter. Had he gone in search of them?
She doubted that Sutherland had stayed in the area for long. She’d put him in a bind by handing them over to him in the middle of the night, but he always had a backup plan and hideouts in place.
It was common knowledge that Campbell was an English sympathizer. One had only to look at his English style of hair and listen to his English way of speaking to know. The rumor mill was rife with stories of Campbell’s clandestine and sometimes not so clandestine meetings with the English soldiers and his acquaintace with the Duke of Cumberland. Or, as the Scottish called him, the Bloody Butcher. Named because of the way he cut down any Scotsmen who opposed English rule.
