When the Laird Returns (28 page)

The chaos was overwhelming. The shouts of men, the clash of pikes, the occasional sound of a pistol being fired, rang in Iseabal’s ears.

How a man could tell a friend from foe, she didn’t know. But it seemed that killing was not the aim as much as was survival. A man fought back when he was struck, and fought
again to prevent yet another blow. From the look of the combatants in the courtyard, she was as well armed as the others.

Searching the crowd, she couldn’t see Alisdair, but she spotted Fergus easily enough. He was plowing through the men, brandishing a cane as a weapon and using it expertly from the bodies in his path.

Suddenly she saw him. Alisdair was encircled by men, each of them intent upon striking him. She watched, panicked, as he turned, his reaction slowed by surprise when he saw her.

Someone struck him on the shoulder and he went down to his knees, one hand flailing against his attacker. She saw his mouth open, knew he called her name. Too many men moved between them, separating him from her sight.

She wanted to rail and fight and weep and scream, scratch each face with her fingernails and dig in the ground with her hands in order to reach him. Dropping her store of rocks, she jerked a staff from a man lying still on the ground, and began to make her way to her husband’s side.

Swinging blindly, she made a path through the men. At one point, a man stepped in front of her, determined to stop her. He gripped her pike and wrenched it from her grasp, only to fall to his knees a second later. She and Brian stared at each other over the other man’s body. He’d struck the man over the head with the butt of his pistol and now stood watching her as if she were a ghost.

Retrieving her weapon, Iseabal stood facing the young man who’d once been her friend.

She would have spoken had the noise not been so great. Her lips tightened as she widened her stance, gripping the pike in front of her at an angle. Whether the obstacle was Brian or an enemy, it didn’t matter; she was going to be at Alisdair’s side.

For a moment she thought he was going to block her way, but he only stood aside. The moment, slowed and silent, lasted just that, until Brian was caught up in the melee and she was free to reach Alisdair.

Whatever happened today, she was not going to lose him again.

He should have known she wouldn’t stay safe, Alisdair thought, standing. She’d never done anything he’d expected. Another blow struck him, and he fought back, using his dirk, his feet, his balled-up fist.

The fight reminded Alisdair of another war, one his father had described out of hearing of his mother. Culloden had been fought by Scots armed the same, with clubs and hoes, and with pikes created from the upper branches of saplings.

They had cried aloud in the same rage, yet their enemy this time was not the English, but a man so greedy that he saw the cost of a single sheep, and not the damage done to innocent people.

Drummond’s men didn’t seem as enraged as the villagers of Lonvight and the crewmen surrounding him. Although they fought well, they did so more defensively than aggressively.

Alisdair spun around, fighting off another attack, a wound on his cheek bleeding, his arm aching from where he’d been struck by a pike. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Iseabal now armed with a wooden spar. But before he could consider her inopportune bouts of courage, a shadow fell over him, and he heard Iseabal’s shouts of warning.

Looking up, Alisdair realized that one of Drummond’s mounted men was nearly on top of him. He saw the man’s
face, thinking instantly that he had been here before, had viewed that sharp-toothed, feral grin. The day had been the same, with a warm breeze in the air and the sun in the exact position in the sky.

But here there was no smoke.

Yet the pistol in the other man’s hand was steady, just as before, and the look in his eyes was the same, as if the granting of death were a pleasure.

Alisdair rushed his horse, surprising him. Drummond’s man held onto his pistol with a tenacious grip as Alisdair pulled him from the saddle, but he lost his hold on it when Alisdair smashed a fist into his face.

“That’s for the villagers,” he spat out, feeling the man’s nose soften beneath his fists. “And that’s for me,” he added, hearing the crack of a jaw.

“Give
us
a chance,” someone called out. Alisdair turned, recognizing him as one of the men he’d seen in the village. Now he was holding a club the size of a small tree trunk and grinning at him.

Alisdair tossed Drummond’s flunky in his direction, thinking that when the villagers were finished, he’d send the man off with the
Molly Brown
. The British navy could use a person of his dubious worth.

“Fergus.”

He turned at the sound of his name, as if able to hear her voice over the cacophony of battle. In the midst of the fighting, the two them stared at each other, the seconds lengthening until it seemed an eternity.

Her mother would have stood there forever, Iseabal thought, had not Fergus moved, limping through the fighting
men, easily pushing those aside who would have separated him from Leah.

Iseabal felt like an interloper in this poignant scene, but she was not alone, she abruptly realized. Her father sat so still on his horse that he might have been carved from stone. His eyes were slits, his face twisted by rage. With a roar, he suddenly spurred his horse on, lifting his pistol and aiming not at Fergus, Iseabal realized with horror, but at her mother.

All of it happened so swiftly that Iseabal was hard pressed to recite the details later.

Fergus moved quickly, pushing Leah behind him, squaring his shoulders, and bracing his legs. Before her father could shoot, Fergus, brandishing his crutch like a weapon, knocked the gun from Drummond’s hand, sending him flying from the saddle.

“What kind of man tries to kill a woman?” Fergus shouted, standing over him. “Are you that much of a coward?”

Drummond kicked at Fergus’s good leg, the larger man toppling to the ground like a felled oak. Scrambling on his hands and knees for his pistol, Magnus reached it, turning and once again aiming for Leah.

A shot rang out, as loud as a clap of thunder. Her father arched back, a blossom of red appearing on the front of his shirt. His face seemed to change, to relax in the instant before he crumpled to the ground.

Her mother collapsed as well, falling to her knees beside Fergus.

Iseabal glanced toward Alisdair. He stood there, his pistol leveled in her father’s direction. On his face was a look of steely determination, his eyes fixed and wintry. But James
stood beside him, holding a similar weapon, smoke still wafting from the barrel.

“He didn’t pay me enough to die with him,” a man unexpectedly said, throwing his pike to the ground.

“We’ll never see the rest of our money,” another man said, doing the same. He began walking toward the land bridge. A mumbling assent followed him as one man after another dropped his weapon and began to leave Gilmuir.

James walked to where Iseabal’s father lay, kneeling at his side. Stretching out a hand, he held it against Drummond’s throat as if hoping the other man still lived.

“Merciful God,” James said dully. “I meant to strike his shoulder, not kill him.” He bent his head and closed his eyes, visibly shaken.

“We’ll work on the God part, but I, for one, thank you,” Fergus said, rising to one knee with the aid of his crutch and Leah. “He would have killed Leah if not for you.”

Alisdair strode to Iseabal’s side. She stood motionless, her gaze blank and fixed on the body of her father. For an instant she’d felt a killing rage, the same emotion mirrored on his face an instant before he died.

“God forgive me,” she whispered.

Alisdair enfolded her in his arms, and when she remained straight and unbendable, he remedied that by picking her up and carrying her some distance away. “What sin have you committed, Iseabal?” he asked tenderly, rubbing her arms.

“Too many,” she confessed. “I wanted to hate him with all my heart, but instead, I find myself too much like him.”

He said nothing, simply wrapped his arms around her again. “How are you like him?”

She leaned into his chest, pressing against him to feel his warmth. “I would have killed to protect you.”

“And I you,” he said, holding her close. “Are we both to be condemned, then?”

She didn’t know. The question was beyond her at this moment.

“I’m sorry,” he said gently. “For his death.”

Iseabal nodded.

He was her father, and for that alone, he would be mourned. Not for who he was, perhaps, but who he might have been. And when she buried him, Iseabal thought, she also would put to rest any hope. Only the living can change.

Together they stood, man and wife, in a joint embrace. One not simply of lovers, she realized, nor only of friends. Companions, perhaps, but that word did not quite suit, either. They were partners, and thinking that, she smiled and closed her eyes, feeling him place a kiss on the crown of her windblown hair.

“Is that why you never came home to me, you daft idiot?” Leah shouted, pointing to his missing limb.

Fergus frowned at her. “I never came home to you, Leah, so that you might have a whole life with a whole man.”

“With him?” she asked in disgust, glancing at the corpse of her husband. “He beat me, Fergus.”

“I’d no way of knowing that, Leah, and sorry I am for it. By the time I realized how bullish I’d been,” Fergus said, cautiously walking toward her, “it was too late. You had already married. It would’ve been worse to see you and know that you loved another.”

“It would have made me miserable,” she conceded, “to be married to one man and love another.”

Despite her words, however, she took one step away from him, her hands clenched into fists and resting on her hips.

“And now, Fergus? What will you do now?”

“I’ve nothing to offer you, Leah,” he said gently. “Unless”—he glanced behind him at Gilmuir—“you count one ancient fortress and a man as badly beaten.”

“Leave Gilmuir to Alisdair,” she said firmly. “I’ve Fernleigh as my dowry. And you shall be lord there.”

She began to smile, stretching out her hand to him. Since he had no wish to tumble to the ground again, Fergus kept one hand wrapped around his crutch, the other gripping hers.

“I’ll be a rich widow, Fergus MacRae, and I intend to spend every coin Drummond ever hoarded.”

“You’re testing my pride, Leah,” he told her softly. “I’m to let you support me?”

Once more she glanced at Drummond. “I’ll take him home, Fergus, and give him a proper mourning. Not because he deserves it, but because I’m a good wife. I’ll be expecting you after that time.”

They stared at each other, Fergus thinking that it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to have a wealthy wife. Besides, he’d already discovered that pride was a foolish thing when compared to love.

“I’ll be there, Leah, money or no.”

“Good,” she said, standing on tiptoe to kiss him. He bent his head, and this moment, yearned for all these decades long, seemed perfect and just right.