CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Rabbie Bain lay in the heather and watched the glen below him. He rubbed the thick scars on his neck, some old, some new, gotten when Davy MacKenzie’s men tried to hang him for a second time and failed.
The MacLeod lass had outwitted them and left them all to die. The wee bitch and her man must have run straight to Davy MacKenzie.
Rabbie had told Duncan they had to run, that there’d be trouble, but Duncan had insisted on waiting until his young brother breathed his last. It was probably Hugh’s moans and his cries that led the MacKenzies to them.
Davy’s men had entered the clearing with their swords drawn. They grabbed Duncan, Alan, Rabbie, and even poor, half-dead Hugh, though Duncan raged at them, fought them as they hauled his brother up, put the noose around his neck. The MacKenzies looked at the lass’s scattered, bloody clothing, at the weapons and gear they’d taken from the men on the road, and demanded answers.
But there weren’t any. The lass had fled, and they had no proof that she still lived, that they hadn’t raped her and cut her throat. Rabbie wished they had.
The MacKenzies laughed as they tied the nooses and threw them over a tree branch. They hanged Alan first, then Hugh, while Duncan cursed them. Then they’d hanged Duncan and himself, and laughed while the pair of them kicked, fighting for breath. The MacKenzies hadn’t bothered to wait for the end. They mounted up and rode out to search for the lass and get home to Kinfell in time for breakfast.
But Rabbie refused to die so easily. After the MacKenzies rode out, he’d hooked his legs around the Duncan’s corpse.
He’d managed to hold on long enough to free his hands, choking, his vision swimming with black spots. He had no doubt the thick scars from his first hanging helped. He’d lain on the ground, laughing like a loon as he stared at the bodies swinging above him. They couldn’t kill him. They’d tried twice, and he’d survived. He’d risen to his feet and vowed revenge. He blamed the woman, the wicked MacLeod bitch, as much as he blamed the Mackenzies.
Then Davy MacKenzie, had announced to his clan and anyone else who’d listen that he intended to travel to Glen Iolair and make the fearless warrior lass his wife. All Rabbie had to do was follow him to Glen Iolair, and her.
He rubbed the scars again and looked for Davy MacKenzie among the crowd of men that camped beside the clear loch before the fine MacLeod castle.
At last he’d have revenge on the damned MacKenzies, the ones who’d driven his family from their home, forced them all to outlawry. And the lass—he’d have her, too. He’d heard the lies about how she’d killed a dozen outlaws single handedly. He spit into the heather. It was a good thing Rabbie enjoyed a jest. He hoped Davy did too, especially when he killed him with his bride. “How’s that for a wedding present, Davy lad?” Rabbie touched the dirk strapped to his thigh—her dirk, the one with the ruby in the hilt. She’d beg him for mercy the next time she saw it.
But he wouldn’t give her any.
* * *
When Fia Sinclair heard that John Erly had left for Glen Iolair to see her sister, she’d shoved her dirk into her sleeve, strapped her newborn daughter to her chest, and insisted on taking ship at once to her family home. “So I can kill him,” she said.
“He says he loves her,” Dair said.
“Then my father will kill him.”
Dair grinned. “Aye, probably. D’ye suppose Gillian loves John as well?”
Fia began to take clothing from trunks and wardrobes and fold it into neat piles.
“What are ye doing, Fia?” he’d asked her.
“We’re going to sail to Glen Iolair on the very next tide, Dair Sinclair.”
He gaped at her. “Why?”
She sent him a glare as sharp as her dirk. “To prevent a murder—or to attend a wedding. Whichever it is, I don’t intend to miss it.”
Before Dair could object, or even reply, a Sinclair clansman appeared in doorway. “There’s a man below to see ye, chief. An Englishman.”
* * *
Ewan escorted Gillian down to the hall the next morning, but avoided her eyes, and said nothing at all.
In the hall, John stood in the middle of the room with Keir and Tam guarding him.
Gillian glanced at her father, but his expression gave nothing away. He simply indicated a chair next to his own and waited for her to sit down.
The lairds were there with their men, and her sisters were waiting, and so were a good number of MacLeod clansmen and women. She met John’s eyes before her father rose to his feet.
“There are—several—good men who wish to marry my daughter Gillian,” he said, looking at the lairds and frowning at John. “I have decided the fairest way to decide which man she’ll wed is to hold a contest.”
