Highland Obsession (37 page)

They scaled a short rise a few hours before dawn. Sorcha gripped Bowie’s waist from behind, Mrs. Farquarson’s dirk still in hand. The temperature had fallen below freezing, and Sorcha clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering.

“Sherrifmuir’s just over this ridge,” Bowie murmured.

At the top, they hid behind a copse of thick brush and gazed down at the battlefield. It looked like the whole area had been burned, but in fact most of the blackness was only churned earth. Debris from the battle was scattered everywhere—overturned carts, abandoned plaids and weapons, sacks of grain, even crates of ammunition.

A few men wielding lanterns—English and Lowland Scots, Sorcha realized from their accents—searched the area, shouting to one another whenever they found a spoil. She, Malcolm, and Bowie watched as they dragged a near-dead rebel to a wagon filled with prisoners.

How could a Campbell, the Duke of Argyll, have done this to his own people? It seemed so wrong.

Beside her, Bowie shuddered.

“You can’t go down there,” Sorcha forced herself to say. “You’ll be arrested. I must go by myself.”

“No, Sorcha.”

“Likely to be some sights down there not fit for a lady’s eyes,” Malcolm muttered.

Ultimately, neither man possessed the power to stop her, not like Cam did. “I’ll pretend to be the wife of one of the governmentals from Stirling. My English is good enough. And if I find Cam—” She swallowed. “The fact of the matter is that I’ll be in far less danger than the two of you. You wait here. I’ll bring them back.”

Bowie and Malcolm provided no further argument as she broke from the bushes and stepped onto the road leading down the rise.

A hand closed over her arm. Malcolm. She looked up into his fleshy face. “Go to the southernmost corner of the field,” he advised. “’Twas where we were fighting.”

She nodded, and he disappeared back into the brush after helping her to light the lantern they’d brought. Keeping her back straight, the lantern in one hand and Mrs. Farquarson’s dirk in the other, she headed down the hill. She told herself to be systematic. She’d scour the field from the southern corner fanning outward. She’d keep her already-cramping stomach and breaking heart out of it. Until she found one of her men.

A group of soldiers pointed at her, discussing her, but she stared daggers at them until they looked away, apparently deeming her unworthy of further attention.

She blinked back tears when she found the first body. Clearly an English soldier, with his red coat and black hat lying on the ground nearby. She tried not to stare at the blood drying on the back of his coat.

Her breaths began to stutter in her chest as she passed more carnage. Finally, after long minutes of striding through hell, she saw a familiar body splayed awkwardly on the ground. Silky black hair under a blue bonnet.

She stopped, frozen, and then she dropped both lantern and dirk as she lunged forward, falling to her knees beside the body. A wail of despair broke from her chest.

James stared up at her, his blue eyes cloudy in death.

CHAPTER TWENTY

A
lan awoke to a low groan. Not his own, he realized as he clutched his aching head. His fingers grazed a sensitive, plum-sized goose egg on the side of his skull.

He opened his eyes and blinked away the fog to stare at a frigid, star-studded sky. Hell, he didn’t think he’d ever been this cold.

He turned with effort toward the source of the groan.

Cam!
Alan’s eyes widened as he took in the other man. Cam knelt on his knees, clutching his head in a similar fashion as Alan, his teeth chattering. Blood caked his coat, pasting the wool to his side.

“Cam,” Alan murmured through his scratchy throat and a mouth that felt coated in thick velvet. “Are you all right, man?”

Slowly, Cam swiveled to face him. A faint smile twitched his pale lips. “Thank God you’re alive. I thought the bastard broke your neck and then I finished the job by fainting on top of you.”

“Hell if my neck doesn’t feel broken.” Wrapping his arms around himself, Alan forced himself into a seated position. A discarded plaid lay within reach, thick with icy mud, and he pulled it over his shoulders. “Though we probably kept each other from freezing to death.”

He turned his head to scan the area. The battle was over. Darkness blanketed the field. A woman sobbed nearby and men shouted in English. He stared at a clump of red coats moving along the ridge above them. Did this mean the Jacobites had lost?

He glanced back at Cam, frowning. “What in the hell are you doing here?”

“Came . . . for you,” Cam said tightly. One hand moved to his injured waist.

“Why?”

“Sorcha.”

Alan’s heart surged against his chest. “Sorcha . . . what?”

“She wanted to tell you . . .” Cam rubbed his brow as Alan scrambled to his knees. Cam’s face was white and his shoulders trembled. “She wanted to tell you she loves you.”

“We need to get you some help,” Alan murmured. “But only the English and Argyll’s men are about.”

“Yes . . . well, Argyll’s a friend of mine, you know.” Cam smiled faintly.

“Aye.” Alan struggled to his feet and reached down to help Cam up. But beyond his friend’s kneeling body and just down the rise, he saw a sight that made his hand go limp. His wife, her arms flung around a man lying on his back in the muck.

What in God’s name was she doing here?

“Sorcha?” he whispered. Then louder. “Sorcha!”

Alan scrambled to her, fighting back nausea and dizziness.

Sorcha blinked at him. Her face was as pale as if she’d just seen a ghost. Her near-invisible freckles stood out in relief across the bridge of her nose.

A tear trembled on her lower lash, then tumbled over, forging a path down her smudged cheek.

“You’re alive, praise the Lord.” She stared down at the body beside her, and Alan saw, with a lurch of his heart, that the man lying there was James Stewart.

“But my brother . . . my brother is dead.”

By the time the battlefield lightened with dawn, Cam had received medical attention. Not Mary MacNab-quality—they’d have to wait until they arrived home to the glen for her cruel yet competent care—but English quality. The wound in his side had reopened, and a medic wrapped it with a dirty rag. His bound head was a twin to Alan’s, and by the pained look in his eyes, Cam didn’t doubt that Alan’s head screamed just as loudly as his own.

Cam’s worst injury, however, was the cut to his small toe. The “scratch” was in actually a deep slice to the bone, nearly severing his toe. The busy medic had finished the job quickly, cauterized it, and gave Cam a stick to use as a crutch.

During this time, Cam engaged in a cursory conversation with the Duke of Argyll, who arrived at dawn to survey the field. Despite knowing Alan and the two men who’d joined him were rebels, Argyll told Cam to return “his men” and the body of James Stewart to the glen and assured him that they wouldn’t be harassed. Argyll even offered them lodgings and said they could borrow a servant, a team of horses, and a wagon for the journey back to the Highlands.

Cam wanted nothing more than to leave this cursed place and return home at once. To the serene beauty of Loch Shiel and the comfort of Camdonn Castle.

Leaning heavily on his crutch, Cam limped toward Sorcha and Alan. They’d sent the two Glenfinnan men back to Mar’s encampment, but neither Sorcha nor Alan had left James Stewart’s side. They sat close together with their hands clasped, murmuring quietly to each other.

They turned their attention to him as he approached. He told them about his agreement with Argyll, and Alan nodded. “You didn’t have to protect—”

“Yes, I did,” Cam said quietly. “You know I did.”

“Thank you.” Sorcha looked up at him, and his chest tightened at the grayness of her complexion and the lines of grief at the edges of her mouth and eyes. “I’ve never met anyone more selfless or honorable than you have been these past days.”

He shook his head. “No. I’m none of those things.”

“You are. You are a true, dear friend.”

In a rush of contentment, he realized if that was all he could ever be to Alan and Sorcha, it would be enough. When he smiled at them, his relief and gratitude were genuine.

Alan rose, helping Sorcha to her feet beside him. He glanced over the field of battle, where the English were still gathering the spoils, including the Earl of Mar’s rebel supply wagons, and he sighed heavily.

“Let us leave this place,” Alan said. “It’s time to take James home.”

 

To Alan, the long trip home was like an extended nightmare. Cam’s toe developed an infection. Every step the horses took pained him. Sorcha was mentally exhausted, distressed by what she’d seen, and devastated by the loss of her brother. It seemed the matter of their marriage was the least of their worries.

Alan felt like the rope holding everything together—a rope that was rapidly fraying and in danger of coming apart. His minor head injury had healed quickly, but he was exhausted, worried for his wife and friend, and frustrated by the uncertain outcome of the battle. Why had Mar chosen to withdraw when he had?

The rebels vastly outnumbered the English, and Alan was convinced if they’d continued fighting, they would have won. Instead, Mar had withdrawn, using the darkness as an excuse, leaving the field in the hands of Argyll. Though Mar claimed victory, Argyll had taken most of the spoils, including scores of prisoners who would be tried for treason.

There was nothing Alan could do about it, however. All he could do was focus on keeping his family together and his friend from falling into a fever yet again.

Days later, they reached Glenfinnan at dusk. Men ceremoniously took James’s body from the cart and moved him to a shelter to be prepared for his funeral. Sorcha dismounted and huddled with her family.

Hell. Stewart’s grief was so palpable, Alan couldn’t even look him in the eye. He prayed he’d never have to experience the loss of one of his own children.

He stepped up to Sorcha, whose arms were flung round both Charles and Moira. “Sorcha?”

“Aye?” She turned to him, but her glazed green eyes hardly seemed to register his presence.

He knew what she needed, though it pained him to be separated from her in her fragile state. “I’m taking Cam home. Will you remain with your family until I return?”

She nodded and turned back to her loved ones. Moira, especially, seemed to have taken the loss of her brother hard. Sobs racked her frame, and without Charles propping her upright, she surely would have fallen to her knees.

Alan plodded back to the horses. He was bone weary, and by the drawn expression on his pale face, Cam fared no better.

 

They hardly spoke on the road to Camdonn Castle. When they reached the path leading to the castle gates, Cam inhaled what felt like the first clean breath he’d taken in a week.

“Why are you riding with me?” he asked Alan. “Why not stay with Sorcha?”

“She needs her family now.” Alan kept his gaze focused straight ahead. “They need one another. I’d merely interfere.”

Cam shook his head, too tired to argue. They reached Camdonn Castle in a slow walk, and after the groomsmen came to take their horses, they dragged their weary bodies into the living quarters. Cam ordered up a bath for both of them, and Alan raised a brow. “Should you be bathing your injuries?”

“I don’t care,” Cam said. “I have to wash that place off my skin.” Alan didn’t respond, and Cam knew he understood. There was no need to discuss it further.