“It’s Lady Campbell and your son—they’ve been taken!Three of the bastards were slain outside the fortress and I sent men after the riders that disappeared into the woods skirting the sea.One with your wife and the other with Colin.They must have come by ship—”
“Ride, man, we must ride!”His gut twisting, his own face flushed hot with fury, Conall urged his stallion into a wild gallop that left the others thundering after him.
The warriors that had left the castle with him only a short while ago.
Finlay and his men.
A vengeful roar breaking from sixty throats.
From Conall’s throat, too, the wind whistling in his ears and his heart pounding.
An overwhelming thought torturing him that he hadn’t taken a moment to kiss Lisette before he had left the bailey.
One moment!
He hated himself then almost as much as whoever had taken them—God protect his wife and child, please let him not be too late!
Lisette stood shivering against the railing, Isabeau wrenching the sodden cloak from her shoulders as soon as her feet touched the deck.
Colin hugged her knees and wept inconsolably, the poor child soaked and shivering, too.
Their captors had driven their wheezing horses straight into the waves and ridden out to the ships, Lisette and Colin hauled aboard by black-clad men that appeared more brigands than sailors—and within another moment, she knew why.
A fearsome-looking man who stood taller than anyone else appeared to be in command.His feet spread wide and his hand clenching a sword as he roared out orders to what must be his own men and Euan MacCulloch’s as well.
Lisette had never seen a raider before, but she had heard anxious talk of them on the voyage with Isabeau from Normandy to Dumfries—and she believed she was looking at one now.
His dark red hair blowing wild in the wind, his eyes an intense brown instead of the blue or green that she’d seen before with such coloring.His voice as harsh as his expression that made Lisette shiver even more violently.
“Lash the ships together!”
Men scrambled to obey him using thick ropes while Euan and Isabeau watched silently, the dripping burgundy cloak clutched by both of them.Lisette had never known her half-sister to look fearful, but if she’d been smiling moments before as if with triumph, now Isabeau glanced with uncertainty from the red-haired giant back to her husband’s ashen face.
“Raise the anchors!Man the oars!My men tae starboard and MacCulloch’s tae port—aye, and put your backs into it!Row!”
Again the men nearly fell over themselves to oblige him without question.The two ships moving together as one vessel away from shore and into deep water where no riders could hope to reach them without risk of drowning.
Helpless tears filled Lisette’s eyes as behind them, the pounding of hooves grew louder until a host of men burst from the trees and onto the beach where they reined in their snorting mounts.
Roars of frustration laced with curses carried to them and made the raider smile grimly at the success of his strategy, but it faded when he turned his hard gaze upon Isabeau.
“You said you sought a cloak, Lady MacCulloch…not a woman and child.”
Isabeau’s nonchalant shrug only made his face grow ruddy with anger, Lisette standing closest to him and seeing a tic working along his clenched jaw.
“She’s nothing…only my bastard half-sister.She stole the cloak from me—”
“I did not steal it!”Lisette hugged Colin more tightly, his sobs muffled as he had buried his face in her skirt.More thundering hooves could be heard and she glanced at the shoreline, but she didn’t see Conall—ah, God, did he even know what had happened to her?
She was so focused upon scanning the men who sat infuriated atop their wheeling horses that she didn’t realize the raider had approached her until she felt Colin flinch.
The man had cupped the boy’s shoulder with a massive hand and turned him around as if to see him better, his own curse rending the air.
“Raven-black hair and blue eyes…a Campbell if ever I’ve seen one.”
Lisette knew true fear then at the bitterness in his voice, but she threw her arm protectively around Colin to draw him back against her legs.
“Oui, he’s Conall Campbell’s son!King Robert awarded him that castle you see and made him a baron!He’ll be here soon and he’ll fight you—”
