While she continued to stare at the pitch-black entrance to the cave, hepulledthe axe from the scabbard, slipped it into his belt, and held his arms out to her. “Come, lass, I’llmake a fire for us, and you can curl up in a warm bed of fur, and then I’llmake a necklace for you out ofallthe pretty bones from the soldiers I murdered tonight.”
She looked down at him in horror, not entirely sure he was jesting.
Just then, the golden-haired lion of a Scot who wanted to slit her throat camegallopingtoward them from the other direction.
The Butcher watched him approach with narrowed eyes, then spoke to Amelia with a firm tone of command. “Get off the horse, lass. My friend wants tokillyou, so it’d be best if you waited in the cave while he and I talk it over.”
The necessity of escape burned in her mind as she slid off the horse and hurried to the cave entrance. She stood for a moment just inside, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the reduced light, while the other Highlander arrived behind her and dismounted. She looked around for anything she might use as a weapon and began to tugfranticallyat her bonds.
Chapter Three
Angus MacDonald swung out of the saddle and landed with a heavy thud on the ground. His golden mane of hair,disheveledand wet,fellforward over his brow, and his horse trotted away towardtallergrasses.
“Damn you, Duncan,” Angus said. “What was going through your bluidy brain? We’ve been tracking Bennett for the better part of a year. I thought we were of the same mind.”
“We are.” Duncan led his horse to a bucket of water outside the cave entrance.
He was not in the mood for this. He’d justkilledfive men and his clothes reeked of blood and filth and death. He wanted to go to the river and wash his hands and weapons, and clean the sweat and grime from his body. Aboveall, he wanted to lie down somewhere and sleep. For many, many hours.
“I didn’t abandon the plan,” he explained to Angus, his closest friend, the fearless warrior who had saved his life in battle more times than he could count. “But Bennett wasn’t where he was supposed to be. That’s the only reason hestilllives.” Duncan turned and faced Angus. “But if you cross me one more time in front of the others, I swear to God andallthat is holy, I’llthrash you to within an inch of your life.”
Angus stared at him for a long, hard moment before he turned toward the rock face of thehilland laid a scarred hand on the granite. He spoke quietly, his voice heavy with frustration. “I wanted his head tonight.”
“And you think I didn’t?” Duncan replied. “How do you think I felt when I raised my axe and found myself looking down at an innocent woman?”
Angus pushed away from the stone. “She’s not so innocent, if she’s engaged to that swine.”
“Perhaps.”
Duncan suddenly felt a pointed stab of irritation at the mere mention of her engagement, which disturbed his equilibrium. The woman had stirred something in him from the first moment. He’d been struck dumb by her penetrating green eyes and her bold and foolish bravery. He’d spent far too much time studying the lush curve of her breasts and her fiery red hair. She had thrown him off balance, and that sort of weakness was not an option. Not now, when they had come so far. He simply could not afford to become distracted.
“Perhaps? She’sEnglish,Duncan. She looked down at me like I was pond scum and she was the fookin’ Queen of England.”
“She’s a proud one,” Duncan replied. He lifted the heavy saddle off his horse and set it on the ground, then removed the bridle. “That’s because she’s the daughter of a great man. You’d know him as the Duke of Winslowe.” He glanced knowingly at Angus. “Surely you remember him. He led a battalion at Sherrifmuir.”
Angus’s eyes widened. “The duke? The one my father almostkilledon the battlefield?”
“The same.” Duncan rubbed the flats of his hands over the sinewed flanks of his horse, wiping away the cool, moist lather while trying not to think about the famous colonel’s daughter, who was waiting for him inside the cave.
Angus whistled. “Now I see why you let her live—at least for the time being.” He frowned in confusion. “But she plans to marry Bennett?”
“Aye. That’s why she was at FortWilliam—evidently dreaming of her future nuptials when I nearly lobbed off her head.”
Angus paced back and forth in front of the cave entrance.
“Is it a love match between them? Surely not.”
“She claims it is.”
“Has she fookin’ met him?”
Duncan breathed deeply with frustration. He had no answer to that question, because any woman’s betrothal to that animal Richard Bennett made no sense to him.
Angus faced Duncan squarely. “Do you think she knows what her fiancé did to our Muira? You don’t think she might have put him up to it, do you? Because of what my father tried to do to hers on the battlefield?”
It was a troubling thought—surely not possible—but Duncan nevertheless gave it fair consideration before he shook his head. “Nay, I don’t think so. She doesn’t strike me as the ruthless type.”
“What’s the attraction, then?” Angus asked. “Why is she with Bennett?”
