The Great Scottish Devil (20 page)

“Aye, I worry, too. Yet I ken in my heart they will be back soon. And they will be fine.” Rose cocked her head and studied Annabel again. “I fear there is more worrying ye than the men being gone all this time. I wish ye would tell me. Mayhap I could help.”

It took her a second before she found something else to focus the conversation on. Annabel wasn't ready to confide in this newly found mother what truly bothered her. “I would like to know what happened all those years ago. Everyone has skirted around the matter, but I need to know.” She finally realized she did need to know the circumstances and the consequences of her being taken away.

Rose's expression filled with pain and she paled. Slowly she crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed. It took her several strained minutes before she raised her chin and looked directly at Annabel. “'Twas my fault. I have had to live with the knowledge all these years. Had to bear seeing Braden's pain and disappointment in me all this time.” She gave a quiet sob. “He has never come out and said I failed ye or failed him…but I see it in his eyes from time to time.”

Annabel shoved aside the fur and hurried over to Rose. She sat down beside the distraught woman and put an arm around her trembling shoulders. “I do not for a second believe you failed me.”

“But I—” Rose looked miserably at Annabel. “I did.”

“Tell me exactly what happened.” Annabel could feel the heavy burden of guilt this woman—her birth mother—had carried for far too long. Something went wrong that particular day, but Rose was not guilty of anything more than losing her daughter due to some circumstance she couldn't have prevented. Annabel was certain of that. “I need to know…and you need to talk about it.”

Rose continued to tremble and quietly sob for several minutes. Finally she straightened and looked determined. “Ye are right. 'Tis time.” She stared across the room, as if reliving the time. “Ye were barely six months old. It was such a pretty spring day and I wanted to take ye to my favorite spot. Down by the lake.”

She twisted her hands together in her lap. “Braden was busy with training, as always. He wanted me to wait another day or so, but I ken he would never find the time to go with me.”

Her mother glanced sadly at Annabel and away again. “So I took ye and only two guards down to the lake. Ye were such a sweet babe. Even so young, yer eyes glowed with delight at being there, at hearing the birds singing nearby, at…”

She crumpled into herself and once more Annabel put her comforting arms around the broken-hearted woman. “You do not have to say any more.”

But Rose straightened and found some inner strength. “Nay. I need to tell ye how careless I was, how I lost ye.” She wriggled out from Annabel's hold. “Fer a while all was fine. We played in the tall grass. I tickled ye with flowers. Ye laughed. I laughed. Even the men laughed and all seemed fine.”

Her body tensed and she paled even more. “The guards went down by the lake to water the horses before we would leave agin. I spotted a butterfly in the field and ye babbled in excitement aboot it. So I took ye to see it.”

A shudder went through her and she pulled back into that moment again. “I put ye down fer jist a second. The next thing I ken, I awoke lying in the grass with my head throbbing. And ye…ye were gone.”

Annabel's heart raced as if in terror. She had been too young, would not have known what was happening to her, but somehow she realized that she'd always felt as if something horrible had happened to her. She gasped, “The guards?”

Rose looked at her and tears swam in her eyes, slid down her cheeks. “Dead. Shot in the back with arrows. I dinna ken why I was left alive, except mayhap to suffer all these years. I caused those men's deaths. I let ye be taken from us.”

“Nay!” Annabel snapped, unwilling to let this gentle woman continue believing she was at fault. She couldn't have known what would happen. “The only person guilty here is whoever arranged for the kidnapping! You were trying to give your daughter—me—a happy time. You had guards with you; they should have protected you and me. For some reason they could not. But the reason had naught to do with you.”

Rose gaped at her, appearing to disbelieve that Annabel didn't find her at fault for all of what happened. Then she wiped away her tears and nodded. “Ye are right. I had gone off other times to the lake with but a couple of guards and nothing had ever happened. I had no reason to suspect this time would be any different. But Braden blamed me—”

“He was wrong to do so!” Annabel would speak to her father when he returned. “Mayhap it was guilt of his own that he felt. The guilt for having not gone with you on that day, as you had asked him to do.”

Again Rose looked surprised. “Such a wise daughter, ye are. I think mayhap ye are right aboot that.”

Annabel drew in a steadying breath, knowing later she would play all that she'd learned over in her mind. “What does Alastair Sutherland have to do with this? And the Hendersons?”

Now Rose stiffened, her lovely face darkened with fury. “Alastair and yer father have known each other fer years, once even were nearly friends. Until Alastair tried to cause trouble within the clan. Braden was furious and cut Alastair out of all dealings with the MacKays.” She pursed her lips for a second. “Alastair began making even more trouble, tried to cause a rift between Braden and King Edward. But the king kens Braden is a good and honorable man, and powerful among the clans, too.”

“Brodie respects him, I've seen as much.”

Rose smiled again. “And Braden respects yer Brodie.”

Annabel shook her head and protested, “He is naught my Brodie. We are … we are friends, of a sort. He saved me. Twice now. But that is all.”

Rose gave her a look that said she thought Annabel protested too much. Thankfully, she didn't press the subject. Instead she grew serious once more and continued with the explanations. “Time went along and the tension between Alastair and Braden grew worse. Then Alastair attempted, again, to make yer father look bad to the king. He failed. And Edward took away one of his largest holdings in punishment and awarded it to yer father. At that point Alastair had lost the respect of many Highlanders, many lowlanders, too. He swore vengeance against the MacKays, promised to make Braden suffer greatly.”

“So he stole me?”

“We believed he hired men to take ye, but we never could prove it.” Rose slumped. “Even Edward tried to get proof, but could find none. In anger and distrust, Edward took the rest of Alastair's holdings.” She looked pointedly at Annabel. “But ken this, my daughter, we searched long and hard fer ye. All of the MacKays did.”

Annabel saw the pain in her mother's face, felt it in her own heart. “I am sure you did.” Then she thought of the people who had raised her, who she had believed until recently were her blood parents. “What about the Hendersons? How did I end up with them?”

Rose shrugged. “I dinna ken.”

Annabel thought of the note she'd found that Katherine had written and stood to retrieve it from the trunk. “I found a note my mother…Katherine…had written long ago.”

Rose sat stiffly, warily on the bed's edge as Annabel handed her the faded piece of parchment. She read the words aloud in a shaky voice, “…always her beloved daughter…couldn't have children…special gift from an evil man…had no choice but to take her…wanted her from the moment she looked at her sweet, innocent face…”

While her real mother sobbed quietly, Annabel took back the note. Her voice was rough as she said, “I was always loved. Whatever the story behind how they ended up with me, the Hendersons always loved me.”

“For that I am truly grateful,” Rose said on an emotional whisper. “But they gave ye no home.”

“They gave me the world. Our home travelled with us, our home was in being together. It was enough.” And yet Annabel had always wanted one special place to stay. She'd wanted to feel as if she belonged somewhere. She'd found such a place after all those years: Urquhart. The people here had taken her into their hearts and she hated the thought of leaving them again. But she had to. For Brodie's sake.

Brodie. Her heart pinched with terrible pain. She walked back to the window, stood there and tears streamed down her face. She couldn't look at Rose. She desperately wanted to be alone and grieve for all that couldn't be in private.

Gentle hands smoothed the hair that was starting to grow out and now nearly reached Annabel's shoulders. “They do naught love one another.”

“It doesna matter,” Annabel said in a trembling whisper. She sniffled and squeezed her eyes shut against the pain tearing through her. “Both are duty bound.”

* * *

It had taken them over three long weeks of hard riding through the mountains, stopping in towns, talking to anyone they came across, but, finally, they had caught up with Sutherland. Now on this cold and windy day that threatened to turn bitter and drizzly their prey stood bound to a towering pine at the edge of a clearing. Death hung in the air, as did the smell of blood. But this would all soon be over and Brodie was grateful for that. He longed to return to Urquhart, longed to see Annabel. Before he had to let her go one final time.

For months now Brodie had wanted this man hunted down and wanted to kill him for what he'd done to Annabel. He still wanted the man dead, but it was Braden MacKay that deserved the right to take Sutherland's last breath. After the two men had their final argument.

Brodie and twenty of his men stood a dozen feet away from where a wounded, bloodied, and furious Alastair Sutherland was bound to a tree. Nearby lie the dead bodies of two rough-cut mercenaries who had tried in vain to protect Sutherland. He had done little to defend himself, nothing to defend them. In the end, the men had been shown no mercy. Sutherland would be shown none either.

“Murder me and be done with it!” Sutherland snarled and spit blood from his cut lip in Braden's direction.

“When I take yer life—and I will, it willna be murder. It will be justice.” Braden stood tall and powerful in front of a man nearly as tall as he was but a good fifty pounds lighter. “Ye have much to pay fer, ye bastard.”

Sutherland snorted. “Because of yer lies I lost my lands, my holdings…respect.”

“Even now, facing yer last minutes of life, ye canna own up to what ye did? What happened to ye, Alastair? What made ye hate me?” Braden remained stiff and determined, yet there was sadness in his tone.

Brodie watched Sutherland's brown eyes grow darker, flash with true hatred. “Ye took Rose from me.”

“Rose?” Braden appeared shocked.

“I wanted her from the first time I saw her. If ye hadna convinced Edward that she should be yer wife, I would have won her.” His eyes narrowed. “She lusted after me. Always has, ye fool.”

Braden just shook his head at the idiocy of the statement. As all around him waited in silence, he finally said, “Because ye loved her so much, ye stole her babe?”

Sutherland struggled within his bindings. Brodie could see how the man battled with insanity and was losing.

“The fools I sent were to take Rose,” Sutherland bit out. “They brought me yer bairn instead. I should have slit the babe's throat right then. But I decided to force the Henderson's—who owed me—to take yer get and raise it as their own. They were to keep her hidden, make sure ye never got so much as a look at her.”

Brodie stepped next to Braden, troubled by the way the older man had growled low in his throat, how he'd looked ready to tear the bound man apart with his bare hands. Not that he blamed Braden. He was tempted to do so himself.

Braden spared Brodie a look and seemed to gain control of his temper. He faced Sutherland again. “Now that the Hendersons are dead, ye decided to come after my daughter. Ye feared we would cross each other's paths someday.”

“Aye. I wanted her dead. I wanted her raped and mercilessly killed.” He fisted his bloodied hands and curled his lip. “I wasted a lot of money on worthless men who couldna get the job done. I was going to find her myself this time.”

The men behind them grew tense and Brodie felt their wave of fury wash over him. With her sweet nature and gentle ways, Annabel had won over his people. Not that any of his men would have stood for someone raping and slaughtering a woman. He might not have all of his memories back yet, but this much he knew. Sutherland had admitted his vengeful deeds, caused the deaths of too many people, nearly had Annabel killed. It was time to end this matter.

“I canna even ask the Good Lord to have mercy on yer soul, Alastair. Ye deserve none. Have given none.” Braden raised the sword held at his side and pointed it at the bound man.

“I will see ye one day in Hell,” Sutherland hissed and glared in challenge at his long-time foe.

Braden gave a curt nod and ended it.

A second later, he turned and said sadly, “Cut him down. We willna bury him, but I wish him cut down.”

* * *

Agatha stood on the parapet of the tower house, overlooking Loch Ness. Her thoughts were in as much turmoil as the weather. Thick gray clouds roiled overhead; confusion roiled within her. All of her life she'd done as expected of her. She'd been the perfect—well, nearly perfect—daughter of a baron. She'd learned all the courtly ways and attended ball after ball at King Edward's court. She had ignored the dreams and longings held deep inside her. But everything had changed in this month that Brodie and his men had been gone.

Lord Jonathan Leeward was now a widow. She had received this sad-but-wonderful news by messenger two days ago from her cousin. A trusted cousin who knew Agatha's deepest secret, that she'd loved Jonathan since the day they had met at court nearly three years ago. Oh, how she'd loved him. How many times had she cried herself to sleep knowing she could never hope to have him? How many times had she replayed their last stolen moments together in the royal garden? Even after all this time, she could still recall how his lips had felt against hers. She could still remember how he had spoken of having fallen in love with her, too.

Tears fell down her cheeks. Her heart pinched at the unfairness of it all. Her beloved was finally free of the woman he hadn't loved, the woman who had been bed-bound for five long years and he couldn't abandon. He had sent word to her cousin in the hope of finding her. He had told her that one day he would seek her out and hope they could have a future together. He was keeping that long ago promise.