“The rule is we wait for everyone, divide the takings evenly,” the younger man said.
Rabbie held up her jeweled dirk. “Then I’ll start by taking this.”
The younger man’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll tell Duncan, Rabbie. Ye’ll not keep it.”
Rabbie grinned at his fellow thief. “Aye? Ye think not?”
“It’s Duncan’s turn to pick first. He’ll want that dirk. And if he doesn’t, I do. I choose second.”
Rabbie smiled, and Gillian noted the danger in that grin before the younger thief did. “Then you must have it, lad.” A warning gathered itself in her throat, stuck there as the knife flew.
The dirk caught him under the chin. For a moment he stood still, staring at Rabbie. Then the blood gushed, and he fell to the ground. He landed close to Gillian, his eyes wide with surprise, and she could see the reflection of the treetops and the sky in the darkening depths. She felt her gorge rise.
“Seen many dead men, mistress?” Rabbie asked. “When my friends get here, I’ll tell them your man killed him. They’ll cut his throat for it.” He crouched to take the knife back, putting his foot against his friend’s shoulder to pull it free. Gillian stared into Rabbie’s eyes, silently defiant, bold.
“You’re a queer one. No screams? No pleas for mercy, not even a tear?” He reached down and dipped his fingers into his comrade’s blood, then drew lines across her forehead and cheeks. She felt her belly contract with revulsion, but she stayed still, held his gaze.
The sound of a clear whistle, human, not birdsong, interrupted his game, and he rose to his feet. Two men stumbled into the clearing carrying a third between them, badly wounded and barely conscious.
“One of the bastards got Hugh,” the tallest man said. He lowered the injured man to the ground and knelt beside him. Gillian took in the blood-soaked plaid, the gory hand clamped over the hole in his belly, and knew he wouldn’t last the night.
So much death, so much pain. And for what? There was little enough of value in her packs—a few jewels, her clothes. She shut her eyes for a moment, sent up a prayer for the men in her escort, good men she’d known since childhood, friends and kinsmen. She looked at the dead man beside her. His eyes were still wide, but they no longer reflected anything at all.
John hadn’t moved. He was in the shadows now, and the firelight barely touched his pallid face. Had he slipped away? Left her here alone? She willed him to move, to give some sign he lived.
He twitched, his foot flexing against the frilly bonds made from her petticoat, and she nearly cried out with relief.
“The bastard Sinclair killed Sim,” Rabbie said, pointing at the body next to Gillian. The man tending his wounded comrade paid no attention. He was trying to bandage the dying one’s wounds, give him water, soothe his pain. She looked on, felt pity, despite the circumstances. The dying man thrashed and moaned in agony, and she saw tears in the other’s eyes.
Rabbie regarded the scene without a drop of compassion in his hard, dark eyes. “Where are the others?”
“Dead, or as good as,” said the last man. “The men we attacked were fine fighters.”
Gillian’s belly tensed. She watched as he opened a sack and dropped a collection of dirks and brooches in a pile next to the fire. She recognized a MacLeod badge, and a dirk with the cairngorm on the hilt that Keir prized. Her chest tightened with grief and rage. She watched Rabbie squat next to the pile, examining the items they’d taken from the bodies of her clansmen. Most of the weapons were bloody. He left them and rose to his feet.
“Then no one else is coming back?”
“We’re all that’s left.”
Rabbie merely nodded. “Then there’s a bigger share for us,” he said. “Let’s see what we have.”
He untied the pack that held her belongings. Frothy lace and filmy shifts spilled out onto the dirty ground. Rabbie tossed the garments aside, searching for valuables.
The man beside the dying lad turned just long enough to grab a linen gown. He tore it for bandages, used the cloth to soak up his friend’s blood.
The other man picked up a shift, as sheer as a spider web, meant for her wedding night, and peered at her through the filmy material, chuckling. “Yours?” he asked. She blushed and didn’t reply.
Rabbie whistled and unfurled the pink and gold silk gown—her masquerade gown—and held it up. “Now that’s the finest thing I’ve ever seen.”
All three men looked at Gillian, assessing her anew, their eyes roaming over her, growing hot. She clenched her fists, felt her throat closing.
Rabbie stepped over the pile of torn petticoats and bloody weapons, and threw the gown on the ground in front of Gillian. “Put it on.”
She stared at him. Surely he was joking. “I—I’m tied.”
He cut her bonds, dragged her to her feet, and shoved the gown into her hands. “Now put it on,” he commanded again. Gillian stood with the silk in her arms, arms that tingled, bloodless and nearly useless from being bound. She looked at the men watching her, their expressions hard and cruel and lustful.Not now, not in this gown, the gown she’d worn when John kissed her, the one meant to be her wedding dress.
She dared not glance at John or take her eyes off the man in front of her. Her cheek still burned from his blow, and if he hit her now . . . She would not allow him to strike her again, to rape her while she was unconscious, to draw his dirk across her throat and John’s.
