Madeleine did not answer, her gaze falling on the man lying crumpled at the base of the tree. His dark blond hair was matted with blood.
“Garrett,” she whispered, tears spilling down her cheeks.
His face was turned toward her, battered and bruised, one eye swollen shut. She could tell he had been severely beaten. He was stripped to the waist, his broad back marred by bloodied strap marks. His breathing was shallow, precious evidence that he was alive. Then she saw the noose dangling six feet above him. It was hovering, waiting.
Madeleine pushed away from Angus and staggered toward Garrett, her legs wooden yet gradually regaining strength. She was stayed suddenly by a massive hand on her elbow. She wheeled on her huge captor, her blue eyes ablaze.
“Take yer hands from me!” she railed at Dougald, who towered above her. “Ye’ve done this deed, haven’t ye?”
“Someone take her. Let’s be on with this hanging,” he said, shoving her back into Angus’s outstretched arms. “She’s been so bewitched by this bastard she no longer knows what she says.”
“Be still, lass, there’s nothing ye can do,” Angus whispered in her ear. “‘Tis been decided by one and all. Yer love winna save a king’s spy, Maddie.”
“He’s not a spy, Angus, ye must believe me!” she said frantically. Her words spilled forth in a wild torrent, loud enough so everyone could hear. “I asked Meg and Kitty to fill yer heads with false accusations, thinking ‘twas the truth. But I was wrong, just as ye’re wrong now. ‘Twas Glenis who set me to rights yesterday, when she came to Mhor Manor. She swore Garrett loved me. ‘Twas so plain, but I couldna see it m’self. ‘Tis why he won a pardon for me. He bargained away his estate in England for it! ‘Tis why he saved my life and yers as well! ‘Tis why he’s been trying to help us. He loves me, Angus, as I love him. I tell ye he’s not a spy!”
Angus’s hands gripped her arms tightly, his expression grim. “Ye would swear to this, Maddie?”
“Aye, on my life. I swear it. ‘Tis the truth, and I’ve never lied to ye, Angus,” she declared vehemently. “Ye once told me ye’d misjudged him. Ye saw for yerself what Garrett did to help our kin. He’s been trying to help us since we got back from Edinburgh, but I turned against him with my foolish charges.”
Madeleine wrenched free my grasp, her gaze settling on one somber-faced villager after the other. “Major Marshall’s a good man,” she said, her voice pleading for reason. “A man ye can trust, no matter that he’s English and a redcoat. None of ye would be alive today if not for him! He wants to live among us in peace, as I want to live in peace. I canna bear any more senseless bloodshed and warring.”
“Aye, he wants his peace so badly he took my brother’s life to have it!” Allan Fraser exclaimed, pushing forward from the crowd.
“Ye know ‘twas Hawley’s surgeon who caused Kenneth’s death,” Madeleine objected. “Ye canna blame Major Marshall for that.”
“Aye, ‘tis true,” Angus added, silencing him. “Kenneth was felled by the surgeon’s knife, and well ye know it, Allan.”
“Dinna ye see?” Madeleine continued desperately, lancing gratefully at Angus and then back to the villagers. “If ye hang him, or go through with yer barbaric plan to burn Mhor Manor, ‘twill only bring more horrors down upon us. Ye’re fools if ye think the Crown authorities will believe ‘twas an accident! And Dougald here,” she flung at her scowling kinsman, “will be safe in France where the redcoats canna find him. Ye’ll be suffering while he enjoys his freedom and dreams of a Stuart conquest that might never come.”
This declaration elicited a low buzz of discussion among the villagers, some casting suspicious looks at Dougald.
Madeleine approached him, her eyes flashing angrily. “Ye’ve not given much thought to what will surely happen to yer kinsmen, have ye, Dougald? All ye care about is venting yer rage and yer hatred on this one man because he has been given what fate decreed ye’ll never have. Ye’re only concerned for yer own selfish desires!”
“I will have ye for my wife by sunset, Maddie,” Dougald growled, “and yer land one day.”
“Never,” she said fiercely. “I’ll never be yers, Dougald. I’d die first.”
“Enough with such talk!” he roared, striding over to Garrett and roughly pulling him to his feet. “‘Twas decided this redcoat should hang, and by God, he will!” Two of the other renegade Highlanders grabbed Garrett by the shoulders while Dougald began to settle the noose around his neck.
“No!” Madeleine screamed, rushing forward. She pulled her dirk from its sheath and brandished it at Dougald. “Ye’ll have to kill me first, Dougald Fraser. I’ll die before I see my husband hang!”
A stunned silence fell over the villagers, broken suddenly by Dougald’s uproarious laughter.
“Ye threaten me, ye slip of a lass?” he mocked her, baring his wide chest to her dirk and advancing on her. “Go on with ye, then. See what damage ye can do before I wrest yer knife away and stick it between yer fine husband’s ribs,” he spat derisively. “When he’s dead and ye’re my wife, ye’ll ne’er raise yer voice to me again, Maddie. That I promise ye.”
“Garrett Marshall is the only husband I will ever know,” she countered defiantly, shifting her feet to better her stance.
“Aye, and ye’ll have to fight me, too,” Angus said suddenly, walking up beside her. “Next to ye, Dougald, I’m an old man, but I’ll fight ye to the death for my Maddie Fraser. We’ll have no more bloodshed in this valley, not if I can help it—unless ‘tis yer own that is spilled.”
Madeleine glanced at him, tears brimming in her eyes, but she quickly wiped them away and faced Dougald once more.
“And me, Dougald,” Ewen Burke said quietly, flanking her other side. “Ye must fight me as well. I stand with the mistress of Farraline, and her husband.”
“Aye, and me!” Duncan cried, joining them. He was followed by more villagers, men, women, and wide-eyed children, until there was no one left standing behind them but Allan Fraser.
“I’ll not join with ye, Maddie,” he said, walking over to Dougald’s side. “But I’ll not fight against ye.”
“‘Tis been decided, Dougald, and well ye can see it,” Angus stated clearly. “Garrett Marshall shall go free. Take yer hands from him now—or forever know the scorn of yer clan.”
