“Iain had a message for ye. He said to gather you and MacLean, that he’s calling in the favor ye both owe him.”
Sutherland grinned. “The limey bastard,” he said in affection. “I knew he’d call that favor in soon. MacLean is no’ far from here. He’s been helping me some.”
“What do you need from us?” Eleanor asked her. “Have you tended to your wounds?”
“I just need Sutherland and MacLean to ride with me to Fort Augustus, but I fear we won’t be able to free Iain. What can the three of us possibly do?” Despair washed over Cait, but she refused to give up. Iain wouldn’t give up on her, and she wouldn’t do that to him.
“Let me have someone fetch MacLean and we’ll talk then,” Sutherland said.
“I’ll no’ be left out of this,” Cait warned Sutherland’s retreating back. “I want to be a part of it.”
“Did I say I was leaving ye out of it, lass?”
—
“It’s near impossible to escape that place,” Colin MacLean said once he’d heard Cait’s story. She’d never met MacLean but had heard plenty about him. For a long while he was ridiculed as the reluctant chief who’d abandoned his people to the English soldiers who had taken over his home. He’d also been imprisoned where Iain was being taken, which gave her a wee bit of hope that he would know what to do to free Iain. His declaration chipped away at the hope.
“But ye escaped,” she said.
“Aye. With Campbell’s help.”
“So ye’re saying that we should just leave him there?”
Colin MacLean was a dark-haired, compact man with wide shoulders and glittering dark eyes that held a touch of humor. He was wed to the Sinclair lass who walked, talked, and dressed like a man, although Cait had heard that Maggie Sinclair was a changed woman since wedding MacLean.
“Did I say that?” MacLean said irritably. “Stop putting words into my mouth. I said it wasnearimpossible to escape, not completely impossible. When Iain helped me they allowed him into the prison because he was friends with Cumberland.” MacLean’s lips twisted when mentioning the Bloody Butcher, and Cait didn’t blame him. She had no love for the man who had marched into Scotland and killed every Scotsman in his path. “We don’t have that powerful a calling card,” MacLean went on. “But I’m certain we can think of something.”
“If Maggie were here, she’d get them all drunk,” Sutherland said, and the two men chuckled. Cait was sure she was missing out on some private joke, but she didn’t care at the moment.
“So what do ye suggest?” she asked.
“I suggest we go in and ask Cumberland what we can do to help our friend,” MacLean said.
They all looked at him as if he were daft.
“Just walk in?” Cait asked.
“And demand to speak to Cumberland,” Sutherland added in more of a statement.
“We can’t break him out of prison,” MacLean said. “He’d be hunted, and he’d have to leave Scotland if he ever wanted to live in peace, and let’s face it, Scotland needs Campbell and the connections he has if we want to survive as a nation.”
Sutherland lifted a brow.
“I know that sounds odd coming from me,” MacLean said. “But it’s the truth. Anyway, Campbell has no heirs, so the English will more than likely take his land. The last thing we want is England owning more land in Scotland, and Campbell has quite a bit of it.”
He had a very good point. Cait had been so focused on what it would mean for her to lose Iain that she’d not thought about what it would mean for Scotland to lose Iain. She thought of the times when she and Iain had spoken of the English and Scottish disagreements. Iain was certain that Scotland would lose the battle of being an independent nation and felt that what they needed was a good balance that would benefit both sides. Who would fight for Scotland now? No one straddled the English-Scottish line like Iain did.
“Then we should walk in and ask for a meeting with Cumberland,” she said. “Is he even in Scotland?”
They all looked at one another and shrugged. No one knew, but they were about to find out.
—
Sutherland refused to leave for Fort Augustus until the next morning, and Cait was beyond frustrated. Eleanor gave her a beautiful bedchamber, but Cait didn’t sleep. She was sitting at the window and looking out at the night sky, thinking of Iain, wondering if he was well, if he was alive, and why she’d wasted so much time with her trivial fears and worries, when someone knocked softly on her door. Before she could bid the person to enter, the door opened and a shadow scooted in and quickly shut it.
Cait remained in her seat and watched the shadow flit toward her, wondering if she’d finally lost all good sense and was either dreaming or seeing things. Strangely, she wasn’t frightened. It was as if she’d lost that ability by this point.
The shadow stopped before her, forming into the visage of a young girl, or an effeminate lad, or a woman, Cait couldn’t tell which.
