The Viper (17 page)

The little boy beamed with pleasure. "You found it!"

"Aye," William said. "I hope you will not lose it again."

Wide-eyed, the lad shook his head. "I won't. Thank you, Sir William." He turned to Lachlan. "And you, Sir Lachlan."

The lad looked so solemn, none of them had the heart to correct him. They weren't knights.

But they weren't regular soldiers, either. Bella's brows furrowed, looking back and forth between Lachlan, MacKay, and Gordon. None of them were. Which begged the question, just what were they?

There was something between these three men. Some kind of bond strong enough to send Lachlan into a burning building after one of them.

Magnus helped William to his feet, and Bella turned to find Lachlan extending his hand toward her. She slid her fingers into his, feeling the unmistakable rush of warmth at the contact. Her gaze found his.

He must have felt it, too, because his mouth was set in a grim line as he helped her to her feet.

"Ready the women," he said, looking away. "We need to go quickly. If anyone is nearby they will come to investigate."

He turned to leave, but she stopped him with a hand on his arm. He stilled at her touch; she could feel the rigid muscles flexing under her fingertips.

"Why did you do it?" she asked. "Why did you go after him? You could have died."

He looked down at her, and Bella felt her chest squeeze. A corner of his mouth lifted in a wry smile. "You won't get rid of me so easily, Countess. I'm not so easy to kill."

She suspected he was very hard to kill, but he was evading her question. "Why are you really here? Why are you fighting for Bruce?"

His gaze held hers, piercing. "I already told you why."

"Aye, money and land, but I think there is more to it. What is between you and William and Magnus? And Boyd and Seton, for that matter?" His expression didn't flicker, but she sensed a steel curtain go down. "Who are those men to you?"

His eyes were hard and his voice flat. "Warriors under my temporary command." He pulled his arm away from her grip and started to move toward the other men. "Do not invent noble purposes for my actions, my lady. You will only be disappointed."

"You make it difficult to trust you."

He gave her a long look. "Trusting me is the last thing you should do."

He walked away, his none-too-subtle warning ringing in her ears. She sensed he spoke the truth, but she also knew it was more complicated than that.

Something had changed. She could no longer see him as the mean, opportunistic brigand, working completely for his own ends. Selfish men didn't race into burning buildings to rescue a man who should have been dead. A heartless man wouldn't have taken it upon himself to take a message to her daughter.

There was good in him, whether he wanted to admit it or not. He wanted everyone to think that he was mean and heartless, a hardened mercenary who didn't care about anything, but it was only a mask. Beneath the mask of mockery and indifference, she sensed the pain and restless energy teeming inside him, ready to explode.

Something deep inside her made her want to trust him--despite what he said. And if her reaction to the thought of his death was any indication, she was no longer indifferent. Sometime in the past few months, Lachlan MacRuairi, the scourge of the West, had come to matter to her. Matter to her quite a lot. And no matter what he wanted her to think, she knew he was not indifferent to her.

He wasn't noble, damn it. And Lachlan didn't need the countess looking at him as if he were.

He didn't leave men behind; it was as simple as that. He wasn't going to let William die, not if he could do something to prevent it.

If the face of his foster brother had flashed before his eyes, he'd pushed it aside. He'd done everything then, too, but it hadn't been enough. This time it had.

But if the countess's newfound belief in his nobility had made him uneasy, he didn't have time to think about it. After securing horses--which hadn't been easy in the war-torn area--they were on the move. And moving is exactly what they did for the next two days. The women and children doubled up on the horses, while the men kept pace beside them. Sometimes at a fast march, more often at a slow run.

He drove them relentlessly, mercilessly, stopping only for brief periods to rest. The men slept for a few hours at a time; the women took turns sleeping in the saddle.

On the third day it started to rain. A nonstop heavy rain with swirling wind that lashed and flailed like a whip, sapping their strength and demoralizing their spirits. As they neared the Moray coast that night, he sent Gordon ahead to scout. He returned with bad news. Not only were the rough seas too perilous to attempt a journey, galleys patrolled the coastline.

They had to go farther north.

Waiting for the weather to break, Lachlan drove them on. He couldn't escape the feeling that their enemies were closing in on them. The ships in Moray had bothered him. It was almost as if their enemies knew where they were headed.

At dusk the following day, they stopped to water the horses just outside of Tain. He was bent over a crude map with MacKay and Gordon discussing their route. He wanted to get out of the area quickly. They were in Ross, and to say that he and the earl weren't friendly was to put it mildly. Ross was every bit as much a threat as the English hunting them.

"We'll take the road north into Sutherland." He indicated the route on the map. "And then into Caithness. Hopefully by the time we reach Wick, the weather will have calmed enough to make the crossing to Orkney."

It was MacKay country. Saint would be able to get them through it.

He sensed her presence before she spoke. His skin prickled with awareness, every nerve ending flaring to life.

"We can't go any farther tonight; we need to rest."

He turned slowly to face her. "Not yet."

An angry flush rose to her cheeks. "We have to. The children can't go on like this, and some of the women are so weak they are about ready to fall off their horses. We are soaked to the bone, hungry, and need to sleep for longer than a few hours."

Lachlan's mouth fell in a hard, unrelenting line. "It can't be helped. You can sleep on the galley when we reach Wick."

"They won't make it to the galley. Not at this pace." Her eyes bored into his. "Why are you doing this? Why are you pushing us so hard?"

He didn't want to alarm her unnecessarily. All he had was a bad feeling. "We won't be safe until we reach Norway."

"Please, Lachlan." The sound of his name on her tongue made something in this chest tighten. "Just look at them. They can't go on."

He did what he'd purposefully avoided. His gaze scanned the once fine ladies who now looked as scraggly as beggar women collapsed against the trees or rocks for support. The young earl was curled up in a ball in his mother's lap, Mary Bruce lay with her cheek resting against a moss-covered log asleep, and Marjory, the young princess, was asleep in the queen's arms.

"There's sanctuary in Tain," she said. "We could take shelter at St. Duthac's Chapel for the night."

She'd obviously thought about this. She was right; King Malcolm had granted Tain the status of sanctuary by charter over two hundred years ago. By law and tradition, it was a place where fugitives could take refuge.

His mouth fell in a hard line. He knew he'd pushed them as far as he could. "Very well. We'll stay the night in Tain." He looked up to the sky; the rain had turned into a fine mist. "If the weather breaks, we can try to secure a galley from there."

Even before they reached the church, Lachlan regretted going against his instincts and acceding to the countess's demands. What the hell was happening to him? Once again he was letting a woman control his actions.

He couldn't let her get to him like this. This fierce attraction, this ... whatever it was that was making him feel like this, had to end. He wouldn't let a woman hold that kind of power over him again. All his men had been killed because his cock was hard for a woman. The same weakness was biting him in the arse again.

But Bella was nothing like his wife ... was she?

He couldn't get that image of her and Bruce out of his mind. It gnawed at him, festering, like a sore under his skin.

He was in a foul temper by the time they reached the old chapel nestled on a rise overlooking the sea. No more than thirty by twenty feet, the stone building with a vaulted wood roof held a few benches, a stone altar, and little else. Fortunately, as it was late, it was also deserted. The priest probably slept in the nearby rectory.

He made sure the women were settled before heading out to scout the area to ensure they hadn't been followed. Since the rain had stopped, he would also look for a galley. The sooner they were on the way, the better.

He'd just closed the wooden door behind him when Bella turned the corner, nearly running into him.

"Where are you going?" she asked. Her eyes raked his face. "Is something wrong? You seem angry."

He doubted she realized she'd taken a step toward him, but he did. Every muscle in his body pulled taut as her soft scent rose to play havoc with his senses--and his sense.

"To look around and see about finding a galley," he said in a tight, clipped voice.

He wondered if she knew how much effort it took not to touch her. Not to push her up against the door and give in to the maelstrom raging inside him. Maybe then he would rid himself of this ache of need that seemed to be consuming him. She'd shredded years of control to ribbons. He didn't want to feel like this, damn it.

He gritted his teeth.
Get the job done
. But he didn't know how much more of this he could take.

She had her head tilted back to look up at him, and he could see the mark of sadness in her eyes. "Must we leave Scotland? Is there no place else we can hide?"

He knew she was tired. That she wasn't thinking rationally. That the thought of leaving her daughter was tearing her apart. But he felt the anger flare inside him.

He'd warned her what she risked, but she hadn't wanted to listen to him. Part of her still didn't realize the magnitude of what she'd done. Whether in Norway or in Scotland, the truth was the same. "Don't you understand, Countess?"

His darkly mocking tone caused her to draw back a little. "Understand what?"

"Your daughter was lost to you the moment you put the crown on Bruce's head. Buchan will never let you take the lass. For all you know, he's probably already hidden her away in England."

She gasped, but he forced himself not to react to the stricken look on her face.

"Why are you saying this? Why are you being so cruel?"

"Because it's the truth, whether you want to see it or not."

"You're wrong. I will
never
stop fighting to get my daughter back. I'll find a way. When Robert--"

The mention of the king's name made something inside him snap. He grabbed her by the arm, wanting to shake her as badly as he wanted to pull her up against him. "Robert?" he scoffed. "Bruce is done, Bella. He'll be lucky to make it out of the country alive." He hated himself for asking the question, knowing the weak emotion that was driving it. "Why did you do it? Why did you risk so much?"

Her eyes scanned his face; it was clear she didn't understand the intensity behind his question. "Because I believe in him, and things you believe in are worth fighting for." She waited, hoping for him to say something--probably to agree with her--and seemed disappointed when he didn't. "I couldn't stand by and do nothing when I had a chance to help. Robert is Scotland's best chance for freedom. He sees what the men who came before him did not: that to win we must not only defeat the English on the battlefield, we must also not defeat ourselves. He will do whatever it takes to unify Scotland behind him, even if it means forgiving old enemies. And you're wrong. He isn't done. Done is how legends are born."

Her endless idealism where Bruce was concerned only fueled his suspicions. "And that's the only reason?"

Her eyes narrowed. "What other reason could there be?"

He didn't say anything, but merely held her gaze.

Suddenly, shock transformed her features. Her eyes widened and her lips parted with a harsh gasp.

If he was in his right mind, he would have understood the flicker of pain in her eyes, would have realized that his accusation had hurt her. That he'd hit a nerve and found another vulnerability beneath the proud mask. And if he could think about anything other than crushing her mouth to his, he would have seen that he was wrong. That once again jealousy had made him act like an arse.

But he wasn't in his right mind. He was consumed by feelings he didn't understand. Anger, jealousy, lust, and something he rejected with every fiber of his being.

All he could think about was pulling her against him, covering her mouth with his, and kissing her until she stopped making him feel this way. Until she denied the unspoken accusations. But one look in her eye told him she wasn't going to do that.

If he'd stabbed her with a knife, the wound would have been no less painful. Bella couldn't believe it. Were all men the same? He was no better than her husband, jealous and suspicious, believing that large breasts and a wide mouth left her without honor.

Lachlan thought she was doing all this because she was carrying on some illicit liaison with Robert. How could he think such a thing? How could he believe the rumors?

He didn't know her at all. She couldn't believe she'd let herself be deceived into thinking he was different, that he might actually care for her, if only for a moment.

If he thought her a whore, she would not disabuse him of the idea. She lifted her chin defiantly and met his angry gaze with a gleam of pure wickedness. She tossed her shoulders back and stuck out her chest to better vantage.

He made a sharp sound and his face went white.

A deep feminine instinct rose inside her. She slid her tongue across her bottom lip, as if she were a hungry spider waiting to trap her next meal. Her eyes slitted and her voice deepened seductively. "What do you think?"