“But youstillhaven’t answered my question,” she said, “about Angus’s sister. How close were you?”
His voice was quiet. “Muira was to be my wife.”
Amelia had already suspected there was more to his vengeance than mere loyalty to a friend, but to hear him admit it openly was like a punch in the chest. She could not explain it. It shouldn’t matter, but it did, especial y now when she was relaxing into the warmth of his body and feeling safe and secure in his arms.
She looked up at the low cloud cover moving across the sky and suspected it would soon blot out the sun. A blackbird soared in and out of the vapor, and again she felt as if she had entered a different world, a place of complexity and sorrow. There was so much pain here—she felt it herself in so many confusing ways—yet at the same time there was divine beauty in these majestic faraway mountains. The air was fresh and clean; the rivers and streams ran clear as glass. Everything was so drastically, oddly contradictory and profoundly stirring to her blood.
For the rest of the morning after their conversation about Muira, Amelia and Duncan said very little to each other. He seemed to withdraw into a secluded mood of disinterest, which she tried to see as a blessing, for he was her captor and she was a fool to let herself feel sympathy for his circumstances, or worse—to believe that she was becoming attracted to him. It was best if they did not talk.
Later he left her alone for a short while. They stopped by a river to water the horse and eat a few bites of stale bread and cheese. Duncan did not eat with her, and in those fleeting seconds of freedom she glanced around and considered a hasty escape, but was hindered by the fact that she knew nothing of their position on a map, or what was over the next rise.
Better the devil you know,she told herself in the end, when she imagined darting into the mountains and finding a place to hide. What if she met up with a less hospitable band of savages? A different bunch of hooligans who might abuse her immediately? Or a vicious, hungry animal with fangs?
And so, she did not run away that afternoon. She merely sat quietly on a rock, waited for Duncan to return, and was greatly relieved to see him when he did.
* * *
That night after supper—in another glen that was very similar to the last—as Amelia lay down on the bed of fur by the slowly dying fire, she strove to stay calm bycallingto mind happier thoughts. She remembered the raspberry tarts Cook used to make in their London house, the soft feather-downpillowshe liked best, and the sound of her maid tiptoeing into her room early in the morning with breakfast on a tray.
She thought also of her father’s gentle, soothing voice, his deep, merry laughter in the evenings when he smoked a pipe by the fire.
A painful lump of longing rose up in her throat, but she pushed it back down, for she could notfallapart now. She had made it this far. She would make it the rest of the way.
Pulling the blanket up to her chin, she closed her eyes and tried to get some rest. At least Angus was not present that night. He was scouting the forest on the far side of the glen.
As for Duncan, he was seated on a stony outcropping above, just as he had been the night before, keeping an eye out for danger. Though it was far more likely that he was simply making sure she didn’t rise up in the night and bludgeon themallto death with a stone.
But could she actual ykilla man if the opportunity presented itself?
Yes,she decided.Yes, I could.
With that morbid idea bobbing around inside her brain, shefellinto a restless sleep, and woke in the night to the sound of quick footsteps and whispering.
Fear ignited in her breast. Instantly alert, she lay motionless, petrified with alarm.
“We’llbe heading south in the morning,” Fergus said, stretching out on the ground andpullinghis tartan over his shoulders. “Back toward Moncrieffe.”
Moncrieffe? The earl’s residence?
She strained hard to listen.…
“But I thought Duncan wanted to bide his time,” Gawyn whispered in reply.
“He did, but Angus spotted some redcoats at the loch. We need to turn back.”
She heard Gawyn sit up. “Loch Fannich is less than half a mile away. Duncan didn’t think we should pack up right away?”
Fergus sat up, too. “Nay, Angus said there were only five of them and their bellies werefullof rum, and they wereallasleep.”
Gawyn lay back down.«Well, that’s a relief.”
“Maybe to you. But you didn’t hear Angus and Duncan fighting over what to do with the lady.” His whisper grew more hushed, and he leaned forward on an elbow. “I thought they were going to take each other’s heads off,” he said.
“Angus wants tokillher tonight and leave her corpse outside the English camp.”
Fear exploded in Amelia’s stomach.
Gawyn sat up again. “But she’s the daughter of a duke.”
