Claimed by the Highlander (30 page)

Angus shook his head, and the next thing he knew, he was being slung onto the other man’s wide shoulders. He was vaguely aware of a terrible smell, and the world spinning in circles, as Murdoch tied the other end of the rope around the stonework.

Angus wanted to fight. His fury screamed inside his head. Where was his sword? He needed to cut this man in half!

He remembered Gwendolen removing his weapons and setting them on the bench by the window. He was naked with her … in bed, in her arms … but he was wearing his kilt now. Someone had dressed him.

Where was his sword?

Oh yes …

A moment later, he was pushed from the battlements. He rolled limply over the side. Falling, falling … The rope would soon tighten around his neck, perhaps snap his spine. His heart exploded with fear, and then his mind finally jolted awake.

Chapter Twenty-six

The rope went taut, the falling stopped abruptly, and Angus bounced rigidly in the noose. He swung back and forth against the exterior stone wall, kicking and fighting, while all air was cut off.

He could hear the sound of the rope creaking while he writhed against the force that was pulling him down. Veins bulged in his forehead. He felt as if his eyes were going to blow out of his head. The rope chafed and burned his skin as it strangled his neck, but he never stopped kicking and bucking, until suddenly, there was a loud
snap
!

The pressure let go, and he sucked in a breath as he splashed into the darkness below.

Water filled his nose and ears, frigid and deafening. He kicked his legs, while fiery adrenaline coursed through his body, obliterating the effects of the poison. His awareness of life and reality returned, and the will to live infused him with strength. He tugged and pulled against the rope binding his wrists, and shredded his skin in order to slide his hands free. Then he broke the surface and sucked in a vital gulp of air. He bobbed below again, still weak and disoriented, while the sound of bubbles engulfed his ears.

*   *   *

“What the devil just happened?”

Murdoch leaned out over the battlements and looked down at the inky water below. He could hear the sounds of splashing, but could see nothing through the darkness.

“The rope broke!” Slevyn explained.

“Ropes don’t break, you bluidy fool!”

“There was a knot in it. I had to tie two lengths together.”

Murdoch regarded him furiously. “What are you standing here for? Get down there, pull him out, and kill him.”

Slevyn ran to the stairs and descended to the bailey. He hurried to the gate, lifted the iron bar, then pushed the heavy oak doors open.

He turned around, deciding it would be best if he was mounted, for he might have to chase the invincible Lion down. Murdoch’s horse was saddled and tethered a few feet away, so he climbed onto his back and rode hell-bent across the bridge, drawing his sword, but wondering uneasily how he was going to kill a man who could only die by the noose.

*   *   *

Angus crawled out of the moat and coughed up muck and slime. Shivering uncontrollably, he glanced up to see a horse and rider thundering toward him like a phantom through the mist.

He thought of Gwendolen suddenly and wondered if this was to be the end of his life. If it was, he could at least say that he had discovered joy—and yet, at the same time, he was filled with bitter, raging anger.

Had she truly poisoned him? Had it all been a corrupt affair? A false dream?

He knelt breathless on the muddy bank, his mouth hanging open, watching the rider grow closer and closer. His enemy drew his sword and held it high. Angus felt a chill in his guts, then scrambled out of the moat. He roared like a vicious animal, waved his arms about, and dashed toward the oncoming beast.

The horse spooked and reared up. The rider fell to the ground in a pounding heap of flesh that thumped hard on the ground.

The instinct to survive bashed about in Angus’s muddled brain. Mad with shock, he bolted forward before the bald-headed warrior had a chance to recover. He kicked him in the chest, grabbed the sword from his hands, and leaped onto the horse.

“Yah! Yah!”

Wildly and recklessly, Angus galloped across the dark field toward the forest. Leaning low into the wind, he heard the warrior cry out in fury and knew that his pursuers would not be far behind.

*   *   *

Angus crashed through the underbrush while sharp stinging branches whipped at his cheeks and arms. He knew these woods like the back of his hand. He knew where the footpaths and cart roads were, and which ones to avoid. He galloped insanely until the horse grew winded, then he wheeled him into a thick sheltering copse to rest for a moment.

Tilting his head back, he looked up at the canopy of leaves above. It seemed as if all the birds and creatures of the wood knew he was here and had gone silent.

Suddenly the poison in his system stirred anew. He dismounted and staggered toward a tree trunk, where he retched into a patch of ferns.

Dizzy and sick, he leaned his forehead against the tree and shut his eyes. He didn’t want to believe it—that Gwendolen had given him the poisoned wine—but he had watched her pour it, hand it to him, and drink tea instead.

Part of him clung to the possibility that she had not known of its foul component, but then he thought of Raonaid’s predictions and how she had tried to warn him.

But she had not been right about everything, he told himself. He was not dead this morning. He had swung by the neck in a noose, but had somehow survived. Raonaid had been wrong about that, unless Murdoch caught up with him in the next few minutes and affected the future.

He had to keep moving.

Pushing away from the tree, Angus returned to the horse—
but God, oh God …
Gwendolen was still back there. He had left her and all the members of his clan behind.

And what about Lachlan? In all likelihood, he was dead. Murdoch wouldn’t allow Angus’s cousin and Laird of War to survive, only to later rise up and plot against him …

He rested his head against the horse’s neck, while every desperate quaking impulse in his body compelled him to go back. He needed to know that Gwendolen was safe. He couldn’t just leave her there.

Nausea poured through him, and he surrendered to the fact that he was in no condition to fight for his clan or rescue his wife—if in fact, she even
needed
rescuing, which he was not entirely sure she did. He didn’t know what to believe. Part of him hated her, and he hated himself, too, for becoming so entranced, so trusting and vulnerable, that he did not realize he was drinking poisoned wine.

The other part of him wanted to fall to his knees and weep for the loss of her, whatever the cause.

Only one thing he knew for sure: Kinloch did not belong to the MacEwens. It belonged to the MacDonalds, and this was not over. He just had to get his strength back.

A crack of light pierced through the treetops. Feeling more determined than ever to stay alive and see this through to the end, he mounted the horse and melted deeper into the forest. There was only one place left for him to go now. It was time to revisit an old friend—and say a prayer that this particular friend wouldn’t also be inclined to tie a rope around his neck and toss him off a roof.

Because he certainly had good reason to.

*   *   *

It was a fate worse than death.

Gwendolen pounded with both fists on the locked door, shouting and screaming—first at her brother who had given the order to lock her away in Angus’s chamber, and then at anyone who might hear her and come to her aid.

When no one came and she confronted the possibility that Angus was, at that moment, being executed, she resorted to smashing furniture against the door and breaking the window. She was too high up in the tower to jump out, but she screamed her lungs out, hoping someone,
anyone
, would hear her. But minute after agonizing minute passed, and she was left alone, powerless to save her husband, and blaming herself for his untimely doom.

She had been the one to poison him.

Because he had trusted her not to betray him.

Gwendolen collapsed to her knees on the braided rug. What if he was dying now, at this very moment? What if Murdoch and his army of Jacobite rebels were cheering and applauding, while the life was draining out of her husband’s body?

She had never hated her brother more. She was seething inside with a hellish rage she had not known she was capable of. She now understood Angus’s hatred toward the English after the violent deaths of his mother and sister. She felt that same darkening of her own soul, and a powerful need to fight and protect. She remembered the feel of his claymore in her hands and wished she had it now, so she could use it against her husband’s executioners.

Indeed, Murdoch was going to have to kill her if he expected to succeed as Laird of Kinloch, because when she was released from this room, she would have her vengeance. By God, she would have it. She would never forgive him for this—for the complete and utter obliteration of her happiness.

And all for the unlikely dream of a dukedom.

A key slipped into the lock just then, and Gwendolen rose to her feet. Her mother swept into the room and locked the door behind her. She barely had a chance to turn around before Gwendolen was upon her, wrestling with her for the key.

“Give it to me!” she demanded. “I need to save him!”

She had to do something. She did not know what. All she knew and felt was a wild desperation that plagued her like a demon. She could not lose him. He could not die.

“Wait!” Onora cried. “Listen to me, Gwendolen. He escaped. He got away.”

Every nerve in her body went still, then sparked anew with hope. Yet she was afraid to believe it. What if it was a lie?

“Are you certain?”

“Aye. They tried to hang him from the battlements, but Slevyn tied two ropes together and the knot didn’t hold. Angus fell into the moat and escaped on horseback. They’ve gone after him of course, but I thought you should know.”

Gwendolen turned away from her mother and covered her face with her hands. “Thank God.”

Onora waited quietly, while Gwendolen strove to calm herself and think clearly. She needed to decide how to proceed from here, and there was no point in smashing furniture. She must be levelheaded from this point on.

Swallowing hard, she faced her mother. “Where is Lachlan?”

The color drained from Onora’s face. She rested one hand on her hip and cupped her forehead with the other. “He’s in the dungeon and they have released Gordon. Lachlan is alive, but just barely.”

“Why? What did they do to him?”

“Slevyn clubbed him in the head, which is my fault entirely. I led him to that slaughter, and I will never forgive myself. Just now the gates were opened and Murdoch’s army has seized control. I am sorry, Gwendolen. I thought this was what I wanted before, but now I am filled with such remorse, I cannot bear it.”

Gwendolen eyed her with derision. “You deserve your pain, Mother, and do not bother to come to me for sympathy or absolution, because you will find none. You alone will have to live with what you did.” She laid a hand on her belly and fought back the tears she had not been able to shed through the wall of her anger, but now everything inside her seemed to be a tumbling avalanche of emotion. “He is the father of my child. Your own grandchild. How
could
you?”

Onora sank into a chair. “I agreed to this plan before all of that. You, yourself, resisted Angus at first. You despised him. I was only trying to help and protect you. I told Murdoch I would assist him in any way I could, but I didn’t expect that we would both grow to love our enemies.”

“You are referring to Lachlan? You think you
love
him? You don’t know what love is.” Gwendolen walked to the window and looked through the broken glass. “Why didn’t you at least tell me what was happening? You let me believe my brother was dead. You kept me in the dark the entire time.”

“I knew you would never be able to keep the secret. You’re not like me, Gwendolen. You’re not capable of lying and manipulating. The truth always shines out of your eyes, and Angus would have recognized your treachery. He is very careful of such things. Murdoch suggested that we both distract Angus and Lachlan from the defense of Kinloch while he gathered his forces. I knew I could accomplish that quite easily, but you had to do it …
genuinely
.”

Gwendolen whirled around. “And I most certainly did that.” She hated herself for being so naïve and gullible, that she could be used as a pawn by those she trusted most. “I am such a fool.”

Her mother stood. “No, you are not. Your heart is pure, and you trust those you love. You see goodness in people.”

“But you used that against me.”

“Aye, which makes
me
the fool, not you, because I have lost my only chance at happiness. Lachlan has witnessed my deceit with his own eyes. He will never look at me after this. He will despise me.”