Page 56 of The Return of the Heir

“I would rather die than surrender to you,” Garrick hissed.

The crack of a gun cut through the darkness. Garrick howled in pain, the sound an animalistic mixture of rage, fury, and frustration. He released his grip on her waist. Gwendolyn twisted away to see Alastair astride a big grey horse with twenty men all armed with pistols.

Garrick staggered backwards but didn’t get far as Graeme took him to the ground. Gwendolyn looked from the MacLeods to the MacDonalds, then back again. Both sides were armed and ready to fire upon each other.

“Graeme, take Gwendolyn. Get her out of here.” Alastair’s voice was hard.

Graeme got to his feet. “Come, Gwendolyn.” He waved her back towards the depths of the woodlands.

“Not without Marcus.” An image of what would happen once she left this scene pierced Gwendolyn’s brain. She would not return to Dunvegan without Marcus, not after all he and Rowena had done to help her.

“What about me?” Beatrice cried. “I am the true victim here. Dragged from my sleep by this horrid woman so she could murder me and make it appear as if the MacDonalds had done me in.”

“Spare us your lies, Beatrice,” Alastair said as ten more guards joined the others on the MacDonalds’ side. He turned to Gwendolyn, and she could see the intensity of his gaze even in the moonlight. “If you won’t leave any other way, then take Marcus and get out of here.”

“And Beatrice?”

“I will take care of her. Go now.”

Gwendolyn nodded. She turned and followed Graeme for a moment before she stepped back to the bush under which she’d hidden the wooden chest. She cast one more glance at Alastair before turning away. “He has to survive this conflict. Tell me he will survive, Graeme.” Her throat was thick with emotion.

“Alastair knows better than most how to defuse a conflict without it coming to war. Trust that he will do so now.” He lifted her up onto his horse and swung into the saddle behind her. Gwendolyn was grateful Graeme didn’t ask her about the wooden chest. She clung to it, praying that the magic of the Fairy Flag would remain with Alastair even as they rode back towards Dunvegan with Marcus following close behind.

*

The very airaround them hung in breathless anticipation as the sound of the horses carrying Gwendolyn, Graeme, and Marcus faded behind them. Alastair did not want to battle this out—not here, not now. But he would if given no other option. Before that happened he had one more female to contend with.

He shifted his gaze from the men aiming their pistols at him to Beatrice. “It’s time to pick a side, Beatrice. I know you’ve been spying on me for the MacDonalds. Despite that fact, you would still be welcome in my castle until things are settled between your father and myself. Only say the word and one of my men will escort you back to Dunvegan.”

Her face was colourless in the moonlight as she staggered towards him. “We could have had a nice life together. We could have had it all—wealth, power, prestige. Instead, you chose her.” Beatrice’s gaze shifted to the darkness into which Gwendolyn had vanished. “She is no one. She has nothing. So why choose her?”

“She will never betray me. I cannot say the same about you. It was you who set Garrick free from the dungeon, wasn’t it?”

“I had help from one of your own guards.” Her eyes narrowed and a smile of satisfaction came to her lips. “How does that make you feel, MacLeod? To know there is someone willing to betray you amongst your men. The lad has more guts than I originally anticipated.”

An alarm went off in his brain. Of the guards who were doused with laudanum, only Emery Howden could be considered young enough to be called a ‘lad.’ Alastair frowned. “How long has Emery been spying for you?”

Beatrice stared at him in surprise. “I named no one.”

“You didn’t have to. I know my men, but I also know you do not have to continue down this path the MacDonalds have laid for you. Come back to Dunvegan with me. Return to your father. I could forgive you for releasing Garrick if that is where this madness ends.”

“I do not need, nor do I want your forgiveness.” Beatrice took a step back, then another until she stood beside Garrick. She reached up and grasped him by both cheeks, bringing his lips to hers in a kiss that was at first a surprise, and then exuberantly returned. The MacDonald men behind them chuckled at the sight. When she broke the kiss, she turned back to Alastair. “I’ve chosen my bed. As you will have when you feel the wrath of the MacDonalds.”

Alastair held up his hand and sent a signal to his men to come forward. The twenty lined up beside Alastair, then beside him came twenty more, and behind them another twenty. Their weapons all shimmered in the moonlight.

A low murmur started amongst the MacDonalds, no doubt weighing their odds of prevailing in this conflict with their twenty men against his mounted sixty. Most of his men carried both a pistol and a sword, whereas the MacDonalds had only four powdered weapons. It wasn’t much of a match, and clearly the MacDonalds sensed that and started moving back towards their gate, until Beatrice and Garrick stood alone.

“This isn’t over,” Garrick growled, his eyes sparking for a moment before he slipped his arm around Beatrice’s waist and led her back behind the protective walls.

Nay. Alastair very much regretted that this conflict between the MacDonalds and the MacLeods wasn’t over. When Laird Lamont discovered his daughter had left Alastair’s care to consort with Garrick MacDonald, the MacLeods would have a new enemy in the Lamonts. All of Alastair’s efforts to establish peace amongst the clans of the isle were falling down around him. He hadn’t made anything better. He’d only made things worse.

There would be hell to pay when the lairds of the council found out what had happened this night. Even so, Alastair would have done nothing different. When his mother had come to him and told him Gwendolyn was in danger, he hadn’t hesitated in gathering his men for battle. Still, a feeling of anxiety and unease chased him all the way back to the castle.

The battle between the MacDonalds and the MacLeods was not over. Perhaps it never would be.