The Highlander's Promise Read online

  Hargrave waved a hand with an annoyed frown, but he didn’t turn around to regard Harrell Blair.

  “Hargrave,” Lachlan said. “You’re Vaughn Hargrave.”

  The man’s smile widened, and he pressed a palm to his chest. “You’ve heard of me? Well, I shouldn’t be surprised, I suppose, although I am flattered.”

  Lachlan looked to Dand. “Where’s Finley and Kirsten?”

  Harrell stepped closer. “What are you goin’ on about, ye bastard? Where’s me own gel? Where’s Searrach?”

  Lachlan glared at the traitor. “Searrach didn’t come for me.”

  “Yer a liar,” Harrell stammered. “She had ta. You wouldna’ve come, otherwise.”

  “It matters not,” Hargrave interjected in a magnanimous tone, holding up his palms and looking around at everyone with his broad, false smile. “Thomas Annesley’s son is here now. And as soon as he tells me where I can find his father, we will leave you good people to enjoy the remainder of your feast.” He looked back at Lachlan again. “If he does not share the whereabouts of his murdering, lying, cowardly sire, I fear my original intentions must remain in place, with all of you dying. So—” He clapped his hands together and bent slightly forward at the waist.

  “Which shall it be, Lachlan Blair? Either way, you will die this night.”

  * * * *

  Finley’s throat and lungs burned by the time she and Kirsten ran up the sloping path to the old house, although the air felt icy cold on her cheeks and in her ears. Finley dashed past the dead bonfire and into the cavernous room.

  “Lachlan!” Her voice echoed in the chamber. “Lachlan!” She caught herself on the doorway of the storeroom: empty, though the fire in the small ring smoldered. She looked behind her to make sure Kirsten hadn’t followed her in before moving to the opening of the shaft and calling out in a hoarse whisper.

  “Geordie! Geordie Blair, it’s Finley. Are you here?” But there was no answer.

  Finley turned and ran back to the yard, past Kirsten, who was doubled over with one hand on a knee, the other pressed to her ribs.

  “Maybe still at the beach,” Finley said in explanation.

  “Fin,” Kirsten gasped.

  Finley stopped and turned impatiently, panting.

  “I canna,” Kirsten gulped. “My side.”

  “Wait here; this is where they’ll gather,” Finley said, already trotting backward. “I’ll meet you.”

  It would take several more minutes to reach the beach, and she didn’t know if Lachlan or Murdoch would even be there. As long as Lachlan didn’t know Town Blair—Dand and Marcas—were in danger, he was safe. Carsons must be alerted to the danger first, so that Lachlan didn’t go to Town Blair alone. And so she dashed up the path around the town instead, pushing her legs as hard as she had the energy left to do so. Her da would know what to do.

  The low longhouse came into shape out of the night shadows, and Finley felt a catch in her chest that had little to do with her physical exertion. Her eyes blurred with tears and her next inhalation was a sob.

  “Da,” she called, even before her hand was on the door latch. “Da! Mam!” She pushed inside and ran to the bedchamber door.

  It opened before she could reach it, and then Ina Carson was there.

  “Finley? What is it? Is Kirsten ill?”

  Finley threw her arms around her mother and squeezed her tight for only a moment, but it was enough to reset her heading. “I’ve nae been at Kirsten’s, Mam. I need Da.” She left her mother in the doorway and went to her knees at the side of the bed, where her father was already leaning up on an elbow.

  “Da, you must get up,” Finley gasped. “Town Blair is under attack.”

  Ina gave a soft cry from the doorway. “What?”

  Rory threw off the covers and swung his legs out of bed. “Who?”

  Finley stood and moved back as her father alighted, reaching for his shawl, stepping into his unlaced boots.

  “It’s the Englishman who burned Carson Town.”

  Rory stilled and turned to face her, his expression blank in the sudden light of the lamp Ina had returned with.

  “He’s asking for Lachlan. And…and for Thomas Annesley,” Finley said. “He’s horses and soldiers, and it looked as though they’ve taken all the Blairs’ weapons in the town. Kirsten and I saw two Blairs shot dead on the green. I…I think he’s going to kill them all, Da. Lachlan, too, if he can lay hands on him.”

  Rory was a blur of motion once again, pulling his old blue bonnet from the hook, fastening the ends of his shawl tightly. He went to the end of the bed and reached beneath it, pulling out an old wooden trunk.

  “Have you told the Blair?”

  “Nay. I didna find Lachlan at the old house. I came straight here after.”

  Rory Carson opened the trunk and pulled out a short, wide sword in a leather sheath. He laid it aside and removed a pair of matching daggers, and began attaching them side by side on his belt.

  “Ina, Fin, go on and wake everyone. Call the fine and all to the old house, with whatever weapons they can carry.” Finley’s mother disappeared from the doorway while Rory stood and tied on the sword. “I’ll find Murdoch meself.”

  Finley was struck for a moment by the change that had occurred before her eyes. Her gentle, elderly father, the farmer, was gone, and in his place stood an armed Highlander, ready to go to war. He glanced up at her. “Go, Fin. Find yer husband before he can hear from somewhere else.”

  The quiet command broke the spell, and Finley dashed through the main room and the open door, running down the path toward the bobbing light of the lamp ahead of her.

  Ina stopped at the first house and banged on the door. “The fine is being called! All men and weapons to the old house.” She rapped again, harder, on the door, and then turned her face toward Finley, who was just nearing the end of the path. “Check the beach and work your way back.” The door opened, and Ina repeated her message, then turned and disappeared around the corner of the house.

  Finley ran. She encountered a handful of people on her way through the town and set them to task, adding, “Have you seen Lachlan?” At their quizzical looks, she clarified, “The Blair—where is the Blair?”

  No one knew.

  Carson Town became pricked with torchlight, and the sounds of anxious voices swelled, as did the river of bobbing light that flowed up the path to the cliff house. Finley sidled and pushed her way through the throng to reach the clearing where the bonfire had been lit, and she saw her father and the other elders with their heads bowed together.

  “Da!” Finley called and grabbed at his sleeve.

  Rory looked at her and then around, his expression grim. “The Blair?”

  Finley shook her head, the fear catching in her chest with a sharp pain. “Da, where’s Murdoch?”

  * * * *

  Geordie heard the unmasked crunching of the underbrush, someone approaching who cared not that their arrival was heard. But Geordie was not afraid. He was familiar with the sounds of those footsteps coming closer in the night, when guilt and drink and lonely memories demanded company.

  “Murdoch,” Geordie said as the big man sat at his side. “Why’d ye come?”

  “Same reason you came, I reckon.” There was a soft pop, and Geordie felt a nudge on his arm.

  He looked down at the flask of fiery water Murdoch was offering him, then turned back to the view of Town Blair.

  “You know I doona drink that stuff. Would have fallen to me death years ago, had I started.”

  Murdoch took a noisy swig and then sighed. “You had to think on it, though. At times. Would have been easy, from the top of the shaft. Never feel a thing.”

  “Aye. I thought on it, time to time.”

  “Me too.” Murdoch was quiet for several moments. “You brought the Blair, didn’t ye?”

&n
bsp; “Aye.”

  “Godammit, Geordie. I told ye what I did for your own good. To stay away.”

  Geordie stiffened. “He’s got family there, Murdoch. Friends. He had a right to know.”

  “Aye, family maybe. But doona no one got a friend in Town Blair, eh? And you’ve got family down there, too.”

  “Nae only Blairs he come for,” Geordie clarified. “His lass, as well.”

  “Rory’s gel?”

  Geordie only stared at the town.

  “Jesus,” Murdoch whispered. “Jesus, why the—”he broke off, and the Irish in the flask sloshed again.

  Geordie heard a sniffle, then a gasp, and a moment later Murdoch Carson was sobbing into his elbow. Loud, pain-filled bawling, choking.

  “I just…I just want it to be over,” he cried hoarsely. “I just want it to be over, Geordie.”

  Geordie continued to stare at the town, although from the west through the woods—along the falls path—he could hear the faint, ghostly sounds of many feet approaching, the slithering, sliding noises of metal and leather, the jingle of chained weaponry.

  “I reckon it will be, soon,” Geordie said.

  Murdoch quieted suddenly and raised his tear-streaked face from his arms to listen. “Oh God,” he breathed. “What have I done? What have I done?”

  Chapter 16

  Lachlan ignored the Englishman’s threat, the identities of the two wrapped bodies lying on the green behind making everything else unimportant.

  “Finley Carson,” he said again.

  “She’s nae here, Lachlan,” his brother answered with a worried frown. “Nor Kirsten. Why would they be?”

  “Are you certain, Dand?” Lachlan pressed. “You must be certain.”

  Dand looked over the crowded, nervous green. “Has anyone had sign o’ Lachlan’s bride?”

  No one answered.

  Hargrave’s face was darkening. “Do you think this some sort of commemoration where you are master of ceremonies?” He brought both his hands to his chest with a loud thump. “I am the master. Of ceremonies. Of this night. Of it all. And you are running out of time, Lachlan Blair.”

  Lachlan stared into the man’s flat, gray gaze for a long moment, considering his options. If he turned and walked away, it was possible an arrow would find its way into his back. But if one of the bodies on the green was Finley’s, if they’d killed his wife and no one here had tried to stop it, did it really matter what happened to him then?

  But Lachlan didn’t think Hargrave would kill him just yet. The man wanted to talk, wanted to find out any information about Thomas Annesley that Lachlan could provide. And so Lachlan turned his back on Vaughn Hargrave and began crossing the green toward the closest of the wrapped forms.

  No one stopped him. No one spoke.

  He knelt at the side of the body. Already he knew it was too large to be Finley or Kirsten. But blood had soaked through the wrapping. He had to know who it was. Lachlan lifted the top edge of the sheet and pulled it down, and his teeth clacked together as his jaw involuntarily clenched.

  Cordon Blair.

  We will raise a cup together, you and I, when you are chief, Lach.

  Lachlan replaced the cover and took a moment, still kneeling, before he rose. He went directly to the other body. Smaller, this one, but he didn’t think by its shape it could be Finley’s. And yet his mind was so twisted with fear and anger, he couldn’t be sure. He knelt again, pulled back the cover.

  Another townsman, a husband, a father. He’d never come out against Lachlan, but neither had he spoken for him. It didn’t matter now; he was just as dead.

  Lachlan returned the man to the privacy of his shroud and stood once more, turning to face Hargrave across the green.

  The man held his arms away from his sides. “Satisfied?”

  “Nay.” Lachlan looked around at the frightened townsfolk gathered on the green, and it was toward them he directed his words. “How could you allow this to happen? Again?” He swung his gaze to Marcas, and his heart clenched with pain and bitterness. “Where is your chief? Who was it that allowed you to be stripped of not only your weapons, but your pride? Again,” he added with a wince.

  Hargrave gave a chuckle. “Methinks you are investing these simple folk with too high ambition. All they ever wanted was a little trinket. To be told they were mighty Highland Scots!” He shook his fists in the air and laughed again, as if it was a great, pathetic joke. “So common. So small-minded. They could have asked for anything. Instead, they wanted a few baskets of fish. Some trees. A chance to trade Lowland. And several of them even begged me to take them with me to be my servants.”

  “They didn’t beg you to take them,” Lachlan clarified, and then he looked to Harrell Blair. “They were sold. By that man right there.”

  Harrell glared at him. “That’s a lie.”

  “You convinced your own people to leave their town as this Englishman’s slaves. But it was you he paid for each of their heads, and then you split the money with the chief. With my grandfather, Archibald Blair.”

  A murmur slithered through the crowd like an invisible snake.

  Lachlan addressed the green again. “Thomas Annesley was trying to reach Carson Town when he was captured by Harrell and taken as prisoner by the Blair fine. He was kept against his will with the intention of ransoming him to the Carsons. Because Thomas Annesley was the son of Myra, daughter of the old Carson chief.” He looked to Harrell, then to Marcas. “And the Blair fine knew it.”

  Again shock rippled over the captive audience.

  “But when Hargrave attacked Carson Town, besieged it for days and found no Thomas Annesley, he ordered his men to move up the ben toward Town Blair. Archibald freed Thomas and charged him with the task of protecting my mother from the invading horde, because he knew in his coward’s heart that, despite what he’d told you all, it wasn’t Carsons attacking Town Blair. It was Hargrave’s hired men, looking for Thomas Annesley.” Lachlan made sure his gaze bored into Marcas’s. “Looking for my father.”

  “You are surprisingly well-informed for one who has never laid eyes on Thomas Annesley,” Hargrave accused with a sly smile. “I wonder, though, how Archibald learned of my intention that night? Hmm. It’s as though…I don’t know…perhaps someone from Carson Town was complicit in the events of that time. And perhaps this person had an attack of conscience when it was discovered you were not only the grandson of Archibald Blair, but also descended from the Carson chief. Perhaps blood really is thicker than water.”

  Lachlan froze, confusion tangling his thoughts. It had been Geordie who’d told Lachlan of Harrell’s evil deeds, of course, but everyone here thought Geordie Blair was dead. Who could Hargrave be speaking of?

  Who was the only other Carson who had known Geordie Blair had been alive all these years, hiding in the old cliff house?

  ’Twas Andrew who would have been chief. Andrew what was Da’s pet, the one he confided in. The man barely looked at me.

  Our wealth gained our clan powerful friends in Edinburgh.

  I have no heir, Lachlan.

  “Murdoch,” Lachlan said aloud.

  “Murdoch,” Hargrave repeated with a satisfied smile as he beckoned to a soldier to approach. “He was to travel back to England with me; did you know that as well? He and his woman and their brat. He didn’t give a damn what happened in this hellish little shit stain on the upturned arse of Scotland. He hated them all. Not just the Blairs.”

  The summoned soldier approached Hargrave with a chalice and placed it in his hand, and Hargrave took a deep drink and then turned and raised his cup toward the people behind him. “Ah! This mead is quite good. Really. It simply dances on the tongue. Well done.”

  He looked back to Lachlan. “You must have made an impression on the bullish, bitter Murdoch, who couldn’t come along after all his hard work because his stupid c
ow of a wife didn’t have the sense to be where he’d told her to be. Then the Carson ships we confiscated got set alight, along with my own hired vessels by none other than Murdoch’s brother. Deliciously ironic, isn’t it? Was he ever found, by the way?”

  Lachlan wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of an answer.

  “Then, lo and behold,” Hargrave went on, “it was discovered that Thomas Annesley escaped death that day. You, as his son, are banished”—here Hargrave gestured around with his cup again—“from this lovely burg just short of seizing the mighty scepter, married off to the enemy town that is ruled by none other than the very man who no one ever suspected gave me the veritable key to his city! If it was a city. That required a key.” He flapped a hand. “Any matter. It was Murdoch, you understand.”

  “And Harrell,” Lachlan added, looking over at the man who appeared to have gone rather pale.

  “Yes, and him, too, I suppose,” Hargrave ceded. “Although he isn’t really very smart, is he, so you’ll understand that I think him to have a lesser part in the whole thing. I actually thought everyone would have figured it out for themselves by now, but I suppose your stupidity only worked to my advantage. So—”

  He handed the chalice back to the soldier-cum-servant. “Now that everything is out in the open, and you have yet to provide me with the information I desire, I would request that my men begin forming orderly rows of the masses so that we might get on with it. I have every intention of getting a thorough night’s sleep after we march on to Carson Town. Traveling tires me so and I lose that verve after so long in the saddle. Not good for one’s humors.”

  He wiggled his fingers at Marcas and Dand. “Two rows; those two at the fore.”

  “Wait,” Lachlan shouted, drawing Hargrave’s attention with an exaggerated expression of curiosity.

  “Yes, Lachlan?”

  “I know where he is.”

  Hargrave’s smile turned indulgent. “No. Really?”

  “You’ll call off your men, though. Send them from the town first.”

  “So you can have time to fabricate a likely sounding story? I think not. I promised myself that I would not leave anyone on this mountain alive this time, and I really must keep my word. It’s a matter of self-discipline, you see.”