A rock broke loose from beneath his foot, sending him scrambling and another trail of debris clattering downward. “Look out below!” he called, digging the toe of his boot into a narrow crack and twisting to watch the miniature slide. It picked up some loose earth and a few smaller rocks, but nothing to match the size of the one he’d knocked loose. Something big would have had to dislodge at the top, then. Something that had been there for a long while in rough conditions.
Finally he reached the steep section above the slide. Edging sideways, he moved across it, looking for signs that anything other than nature had caused the fall.
Three quarters of the way across, he found it. A trio of straight-edged gouges marked the center section at the top of the slide. He ran his fingers along the remaining side, feeling smoothed earth that would have dug at least a foot into the ground. Any footprints would have been washed away, but nothing in nature had ever made a cut so straight that even after a month he could make it out. Shovel marks. They couldn’t be anything else that he could conjure.
“What the devil are ye doing perched up there like a great owl?” Fiona’s familiar voice called from below.
The sound nearly had him losing his balance again. Turning his head, he dug his fingertips into the rock face. “Inspecting,” he returned.
She stood almost directly below him, her hands on her hips and her face lifted to see him. “I told ye aboot the sheep so ye’d stop badgering me aboot hiding things from ye. Nae so ye could go clambering up the mountainside like a great goat.”
He’d been called far worse than that. And by her. “Your rock slide was no accident,” he called down. “How long did it keep you from getting to the far side of the pasture?”
“Aboot a fortnight, I reckon. With the ill weather it took some time to settle, and then we had to bring in the heavy horse and wagons to clear a safe path.”
In two weeks he could have moved Wellington’s entire army a good hundred miles, set up camp, and fought a battle or two. A hundred sheep could be anywhere—with or without help. The information left him with more questions, but shouting them down the side of the gorge didn’t make much sense. Leaping sideways to reach a handhold over a smoother section of the collapse, Gabriel began a controlled backslide all the way down to the valley floor.
“—allow the damned Laird of MacKittrick Castle to go off and break his bloody neck?”
“I didn’t ‘allow’ a damned thing, Miss Blackstock,” Sergeant Kelgrove grunted. “I learned a long time ago that Major Forrester—the Duke of Lattimer to you—will see a problem solved in the most expedient way possible. Even if that means putting himself in harm’s way.”
“Bollocks,” Fiona retorted, and Gabriel grinned. She and the landslide had some things in common. At the least they were both unstoppable once they got started.
“Say ‘bollocks’ all you like,” Adam returned, “but I was given an order. In the king’s army we follow orders, whether we approve of them, or not.”
“Then I do say ‘bollocks’ again, English. He isnae yer commanding officer any longer. He’s yer liege lord. Ye dunnae merely agree to die with him leading ye into bloody battle. Ye make certain ye keep him from harm, even at the cost of yer own blood.”
Gabriel scowled. No. That was wrong. He wasn’t some precious… thing. He didn’t lead his men from some safe hill far away from the battlefield. And he was no one’s liege lord, and certainly not the Laird of MacKittrick Castle. He was the Duke of Lattimer, and he only required his tenants and servants to do the work to which they’d agreed. His duty was to see Lattimer safe and well managed, and then to return to a war that needed to be won.
“I can keep myself from harm,” he stated, jumping the last few feet to the valley floor. “And I recall you saying that while I might have been named the Duke of Lattimer, I would never be the Laird of MacKittrick.” He lifted an eyebrow for emphasis.
“Ye arenae,” Fiona retorted. “But if ye die stupidly, ye’ll have everyone worried aboot the MacKittrick curse rearing its blasted head again. I’ve enough to manage withoot ye doing that.”
“Youhave enough to manage, do you?”
Her shoulders squared. “Ye’ve nae tried to send me away, so aye,Ihave enough to manage.”
“If you’re in my employ, then, and if you don’t like the way I’ve done something, Fiona, tellme.Don’t blather on about it to any fool who’ll listen.”
“Sir!” Kelgrove protested.
“Not you,” Gabriel amended.
“That’s one command I’m pleased to follow,” Fiona put in.
“I don’t doubt that. Now. I found shovel marks up there. Was that from your men cleaning up the slide?”
She looked toward the top of the gorge. “Nae. Are ye certain?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes narrowed, her gaze moving from the slide to the far field. “Well, now. That would be a handy way to separate half the flock and do away with them, wouldnae?”
“I thought so. But it doesn’t tell me who did it. As for why, how much would a hundred sheep be worth?”
Fiona shrugged. “They were all ewes, so I’d say aboot two pounds each. Two hundred pounds. That’s a fine profit fer the effort of a rock slide.”
“Where might they sell a hundred head all at once?”
