Dreamer (Highland Treasure Trilogy) (34 page)

The earl had not once, though,
named her as Adam’s mother. But what else could he have meant?

When he had been freed from the Tower of London, spirited onto the sleek sailing vessel waiting in the Thames, he had been
fully aware that there were still other Scots languishing in the English
prison. For the past six months, Adam had puzzled over the identity of his
benefactor. Now he knew.

Now it was time to meet Lady Agnes
MacInnes.

When Huntly had told him about John
Stewart’s complete lack of knowledge of everything that had befallen Adam over
the years, his ignorance even of having a half-brother, Adam had felt the
breath knocked out of his chest. It had always been so much easier for him to
focus on Athol as the object of his hate--so much simpler to plan his revenge
against someone that he knew would feel the cutting edge of his rage.

But now, learning that his
half-brother was innocent, that he himself had been unjustly tormenting Athol
and his people without cause--without Athol even knowing what lay at the bottom
of it all--Adam felt more like a petty thief than an avenging crusader.

So he had sent his men on their
way.

What he needed now was to find and
speak to Lady MacInnes.  Deep in his heart, he could feel that hope that had
never died, pinching and clawing and gnawing at him. Perhaps she was indeed his
mother. He would never know until he could see her, speak to her, look into her
eyes.

Beyond that, he could not think.
Perhaps once inside Ironcross Castle, his days would be numbered. He didn’t
care. Perhaps spending so many years in prison had preserved the sentimental
child in him, rather than crushing it out of him. Whatever it was, he would
have his answers.  Whatever it was, he would know why both his parents had
rejected him.

He was no fool, though. Adam knew
that, if and when he received the answers he sought, they would probably be
more condemning than any he might have imagined himself.  But he still needed to see some purpose, some end to the searching of these past six months.

  And then, guiding his steed
through a grove of pines lining the steep hillside, Adam realized what his next
move had to be. That is, after he was done speaking to Lady MacInnes.

He had no future in the Highlands. He had no kin and no interests in the Lowlands. But Ambrose Macpherson, the
diplomat who had negotiated his freedom, had ships. If Adam wanted to try his
hand at that, he’d said...

He had no training as a sailor on a
ship, but there was no task that he could not learn. Aye, that was it. He’d
sail the seas--perhaps even fight his old jailers.

As his mount worked his way along
the hill, Adam cast a glance far down the steep hillside to the loch lying
wreathed in mist. At the mere thought of leaving the Highlands again, he felt
the tightness in his chest.

But it was not the land that pulled
at him. It was the love he felt for Susan.

He had warned her to stay away. He
knew from the first day that they would never have a chance together. But then, his own untrustworthy heart and her stubborn persistence had won out. There had been
no turning back for either of them from that first day in the stand of trees
beneath the village.

When he’d gathered his men together
and ordered them to go their own way, there had been only one thing he’d asked
of them to keep silent on if they were ever caught. And that had been Susan.

They both had been cheated that
last night when he’d allowed his brother’s wife to return to the castle. He had
not known then that his parting with Susan would be their last. Adam slowed his
horse and looked up into the iron gray sky. Suddenly, he wanted to cry out!

The thought flickered through his
brain that so much had changed since that night when he’d been rowed out
through the river gate of the Tower of London. How much had changed!

Having to leave Susan and never see
her again was by far the greatest loss of his life. He would mourn that more
than the twelve years he’d lost in prison. More than the parents that he’d
never known. More, perhaps, than life itself.

Suddenly, reining his horse to a
halt, Adam saw everything in a different light. Suddenly, his past no longer
seemed as important part as his future.

Suddenly, he knew--above all
else--that Susan must be by his side.

The rain was falling hard by the
time Adam descended out of the Ladder Hills, and he could barely see the
rounded peaks of Carn Mor to the south with the weather rolling in from the
west. Reaching the crest of a heather-covered hill, the warrior stopped
abruptly, peering curiously through the downpour into the glen where the
Crombie Water flowed.

Yanking the steed’s head around,
Adam quickly withdrew behind the hill, and tied the animal to a small, twisted
pine. Yanking his sword from the scabbard tied to his back, he trotted back to
the crest of the hill and, dropping to the ground, crawled up until he could
see the activity below.

Twenty to thirty men, some
obviously Highlanders by their gear and some not, were gathered by the rushing
waters of the Crombie. The river, usually an easy thing to ford, had turned
into a wild torrent, and the men were clearly in some disagreement about their
next move.

Adam stared. What kind of renegade
band was this? he wondered. Aside from his own, he’d heard of no other group of
outlaws in this region. He tried to pick out any familiar faces. None of his
own men were visible, and the two Highlanders who seemed to be arguing the most
heatedly, seemed to be in command. The rest, for the most part, were just
looking on. From the gesturing and pointing, Adam decided it was an argument
about whether to try to camp for the night, or to continue to the south along
the river.

He was thinking that there were
still several hours of daylight left when he saw that, beyond the assembly of
warriors, beside the raging river, a handful of men lay either dead, injured,
or bound on the ground. There had been a fight here, no doubt, and Adam was
wondering what could have been the cause.

Then he spotted them and froze.

The two women appeared to be
unhurt. Susan and his brother’s wife sat in the midst of the throng, two
warriors holding the reins of their steeds. His anger flared and he half rose.

What could he do against twenty
armed warriors? Panic gnawed at the edge of his brain, and the sickly heat of
helplessness washed down his back.

He needed to get help. Adam looked
around at the mountains and wracked his brain. There was a chance, of course,
that he might find a few of his men to the north, but only a chance. Why the
devil had he released them? he cursed. Those who’d followed his directions were
by now, no doubt, spread far and wide. It would take too long to go back to Huntly Castle. But he could not let these blackguards simply take the woman he loved.

Athol.

What choice did he have? His
brother would hang him, to be sure, but if Athol would at least act and send
his forces after these brigands--after Susan and his own wife--it would be
worth it.

Seeing that the decision had been
made to camp, Adam watched as the band of men rode to a stand of trees by a
bluff on some higher ground a bit to the east of the river. They obviously
thought they would have some protection there.

Running back to his horse, Adam
leaped into the saddle and spurred the animal to the north, toward Balvenie Castle.

*****

The warriors had kept up their
brisk pace without regard to the driving rain. They had just passed the village of Bakebare, an hour or so from Balvenie Castle, when the two messengers galloped up
with the news.

Athol, trying to preserve his calm
as the rain streamed down through his long red hair, listened to the men’s
account of an urgent letter arriving from Ironcross Castle. Of how the countess
and Mistress Susan had ordered that Tosh and a group of the laird’s men
accompany them immediately to Ironcross. Hesitantly, one of them conveyed the
message that the countess insisted on the earl following them there as soon as
he could.

“Oh, the countess insisted, did
she?”

“Aye, m’lord,” the man said,
handing him a leather pouch containing a letter.

Well, this was an improvement,
Athol thought wryly. To have Catherine actually tell him where she was going
and want him to join her there!

Although he didn’t have to read the
letter to guess at its contents, he pulled the message from the pouch while one
of his warriors held up a shield to ward off the rain.  As he thought, the
message from Ironcross Castle had indicated that Lady MacInnes was dying. The
old woman had been in poor health for some time now. It was curious, though,
that Catherine and Susan had felt compelled to head south in such terrible
weather and not wait for him.

He wondered what else the message
from Ironcross had contained.

Even if she were, once again,
withholding information from him, at least this time she had taken Tosh and an
escort. At least, with Susan and Tosh and the rest accompanying her, Catherine
should be able to stay out of trouble during the short trip.

Turning his men to the south in
order to follow the well-traveled paths of Glen Fiddich, John Stewart again
allowed his thoughts to return to his brother and the possible ways he could at
least arrange a meeting between the two of them. Considering the absolute
happiness he’d found in marrying Catherine, and knowing now that she was with
child, he would not rest until he had found a way to mend the rift between
himself and Adam.

It was true. If there were one
thing that would make his life complete now, it would be the chance to find a
way to recompense Adam of the Glen for even half of all he had been deprived
of.

At this stage of his life,
resolving their differences would be worth any price.

*****

The small overhang of rock over the
patch of wet, sandy ground did little to hold back the stinging lash of the
icy rain.

With their backs against the cold,
wet rock of the bluff, Catherine quietly shifted her position a bit closer to
Susan’s side and motioned toward the unconscious Tosh.

“Can you tell how badly he is
hurt?”

Dragged through the mud to the
hillside, the Highlander had been knocked cold during the attack when one of
the brutes had given him a blow to the head from behind. As far as the
condition of the rest of the men who had accompanied them, Catherine knew that
they all had been wounded, if not killed. There had been considerable
discussion among the attackers whether the warriors had any ransom value or
not. The two leaders, seemingly unable to agree on almost anything, had argued
about that, as well. One of them, a fierce-looking man missing most of the
fingers on his left hand, wanted to go south as quickly as possible, but the
other’s apparent greed seemed to have met with the approval of many in the
outlaw band. 

“I cannot say for certain. But I think he is breathing.” Susan’s voice was a hushed whisper. “I believe they knew that he
was in charge of our warriors.”

“And so, all the more valuable to
them!”

Catherine wearily looked at Tosh’s
unmoving body sprawled on the ground. The attack had been unexpected. It had
come all too suddenly. The outlaws had been many and had seemed to descend on
them from all directions. It had almost seemed as if they were waiting in
ambush. And unfortunately, having Susan and herself in the party had proved to
be the great disadvantage to Tosh and his warriors. Rather than taking the
fight to the renegades, her escort had been forced to fall back and try to
defend the two women. And for that, Catherine blamed herself bitterly.

She had promised her husband that
she’d never do anything to bring harm to his people. And here, warriors from Balvenie Castle lay wounded--perhaps even dead or dying--and all of it because these roughs
had come in search of her.

“You called me by the name of Laura
and told them I was your sister,” Susan whispered, keeping an eye on the
warrior standing guard nearby. “What reason did you have for doing that?”

Catherine leaned her face closer to
Susan’s ear. “When the attack came, I heard the fingerless one shout my name
and point at me with his sword. They’ve been sent to bring me back to England.”

“But they’re Highlanders, mostly!”

“Aye, but the leaders referred to
the name Percy.”

“That’s true, I heard that.”

“They wouldn’t come all this way
just to kill me. They want...they want something. I know that these brutes had
to have orders not to allow any harm to come to me or to my sisters for the
fear of us taking a secret we keep--a secret they want--to our graves.”

“So you saved my life.”

“I think all I did was to confuse
them enough so they wouldn’t bring--” Catherine quieted down as one of their
captors carried a horse blanket up the slight rise to the base of the bluff and
dumped it on the ground at their feet. She returned the man’s leer with a
frown, but he moved off to their guard.

Silently, the two women watched the
two outlaws mumble complaints to one another about spending “another night in
the cursed wet.” After a while, though, the man headed back down the hill at
the same direction where he’d come from. It was nearly dark now, and men were
scrounging around for dry tinder to start the night’s fires. She eyed a ragged,
filthy young fellow who was wandering their way.

“So you think their plan is to drag
us all the way to England?” Susan asked hurriedly.

“Aye. So, ‘tis up to us--”
Catherine stopped abruptly as the young man bent down a few paces from her feet
and yanked a yellowed shrub out of the ground. As he turned away, a ribbon of
gray, an adder half again as long as her arm, slithered with incredible speed
out of the disturbed ground and up the sandy heath bed toward the bluff. She
stared at the dark V-shaped mark behind the head and the dark zigzagging line
down the back.