Page 20 of Highland Fire

“Och, it’s his first time,” explained MacGregor. “The lad has never had a woman afore, and him a Gordon. Can ye believe it? He’s as nervous as a raw recruit on the eve o’ battle.”

The spectators, young blades all, crowded a little closer.

Though the corner was not well lit, Caitlin thought it prudent to avert her head.

She was nervous, but she was also fuming, putting names to faces, wishing mothers could see their sons now and box their ears for patronizing such a low place.

“Who’s goin’ tae do the honors?” asked one.

“Doris,” replied MacGregor, and gave a broad wink.

“Doris? That’s a good choice. She has the patience o’ Job. But are ye sure the laddie is up tae it?”

This was evidently a huge joke, Caitlin gathered from the guffaws which followed. She managed a weak smile.

“Doris,” said MacGregor, with all the wisdom of his eighteen years, “could revive a man on his deathbed without blinkin’ an eyelash. Where is she, by the bye? She was supposed to wait for us here.”

“I saw her on the stairs not a minute ago,” said one.

Another, a cut above the others, threw in, “Och, she’ll be getting the place ready, you know, iron shackles and leather whips, birch rods and pulleys and so on.” He nudged Caitlin with his elbow. “Or whatever your fancy happens to be.”

Caitlin’s complexion turned green.

“Now, now,” remonstrated MacGregor, “dinna tease the lad.” A thought struck him and his brows rose. “Iron shackles and leather whips, ye say? Good God! I had enough o’ those in His Majesty’s service. Tell me ye’re hoaxin’ me.”

The speaker’s voice dropped to a whisper. “They’re there all right, but you have to ask for them particularly. No one ever does, except the English. But then, they’re a queer lot.” On this last observation, there was unanimous agreement.

MacGregor removed the glass from Caitlin’s fingers and set it on the counter.

As he spoke, he straightened the set of her jacket and adjusted her plaid.

“This is my treat, so there’s no need for siller to change hands.

And if it’s any comfort tae ye, ye should know that I’ve told Doris she maun be gentle wi’ ye. ”

As the grinning men crowded around her and half pulled, half shoved her through the crush toward the stairs, Caitlin’s plan to sneak away when MacGregor’s attention was diverted drastically changed. These men were intent on seeing the thing through to its absurd conclusion.

She mounted the stairs in frozen silence, oblivious of the ribald advice and commentary of her newfound “friends.” She wasn’t panic-stricken, exactly.

Doris was only a woman, and one whose prime motivation, one hoped, was mercenary.

Caitlin’s pockets were bulging with silver—her share of the night’s work.

In her mind’s eye, she was forming a new plan.

She did not see why she could not bribe Doris to say that the deed had been consummated. Then they could all go home happy.

At the top of the stairs, her steps faltered.

Rough hands were laid on her, and she was shoved none too gently along a dark corridor to a door with a gleam of light peeping beneath it.

As her trembling fingers closed around the doorknob, she looked pleadingly over her shoulder.

Her grinning companions nodded and waved their encouragement.

Finally, when she made no move to push the door open, MacGregor said bracingly, “Now, lad, dinna turn craven on me. Just think on this. When ye leave that room, ye’ll no longer be a lad but a man, in very truth.” Then he opened the door and thrust her over the threshold.

As the door closed softly behind her, Caitlin’s eyes flew to the bed.

There was a half-naked woman in it, reclining against the pillows.

Her eyes were closed and she was breathing heavily, moving restlessly beneath the covers.

Her face was painted. Her mane of red hair was of a color that nature could never have simulated.

Yet, she was beautiful, alluring in an obvious way.

Caitlin could not drag her eyes away. So this was what men really wanted in a woman, she thought, and stood there staring.

The woman began to heave and pant, and Caitlin frowned.

When it came to her that Doris was in the throes of a respiratory attack, she took a quick step toward the bed, then froze in horror as a masculine head appeared from beneath the covers, a blond head with tousled locks, as though a woman had been combing her fingers through them.

Rand propped himself on one elbow and grinned sheepishly at the woman beside him. “It’s no use, Nellie. This isn’t going to work.” There was laughter in his voice. “I think old age must be taking its toll. This has never happened to me before.”

Suddenly his head whipped round, and his eyes flared at the sight of the intruder. Nellie said something in a commiserating tone, then sucked in her breath as she, too, became aware of the intruder.

“You!” exclaimed Rand and Caitlin simultaneously.

Caitlin felt as though someone had punched her in the stomach.

A score of confusing impressions flashed through her brain.

She wasn’t thinking of her peril. In that awful moment of electrified silence, she experienced a betrayal so profound that she might have been the personification of every wife who had ever caught her husband out in his infidelities.

She thought of Daroch and his ladybird tucked away in Aboyne, of MacGregor and his equally vile companions who thronged this cesspool of the devil.

She thought of the iniquity of the double standard, the injustice of the restrictions men imposed on her sex; and her outrage could not be contained.

Then the sight of the Randal and his alluring companion—something she could never be—made her want to weep.

Rand sat up straighter in the bed. Caitlin reacted instinctively.

Like lightning, her hand snaked to her hose and her fingers closed around her dirk.

At sight of the dagger in the boy’s hand, Nellie screamed and quickly disappeared under the covers.

Rand, mother-naked, dived for the floor, but not before the hilt of Caitlin’s dagger had caught him a glancing blow to the shoulder.

As he let out a roar of rage, Caitlin threw the door wide.

“Murder!” she screamed. “The Randal has murdered the poor wee lassie!” And she took off along the dark strip of corridor like a hare with the hounds at her heels. At her back, all hell broke loose. Caitlin’s steps did not falter. She bolted down the stairs and flung herself out the front doors.

It took a moment or two for Rand to haul on his breeches, and more precious moments to calm the enraged spectators and reveal that Nellie was not murdered but suffering nothing worse than a fit of the vapors.

By the time he sprinted out the front doors in only his shirt and breeches, he was practically breathing fire.

There was no sign of young Gordon. “Fifty guineas to the man who captures the lad,” Rand roared out.

Word spread like wildfire. Before long, like cattle in a thunderstorm, men stampeded out of the building and rushed off in every direction. A few of the more prudent ones had snatched lanterns from tables to light their steps.

“He meant to kill me,” Rand said furiously, addressing MacGregor as he came up to him.

MacGregor looked stricken. “Ye maun be mistaken, Lord Randal. He’s no’ a bad lad. He didna even ken ye were there. The error was mine. It was Doris who was supposed to be waitin’ for him. Aye, and she still is, for all I ken.”

“Do you know him?” asked Rand sharply.

“In a manner o’ speaking,” MacGregor responded cautiously.

Before this promising line of questioning could be pursued, a shout went up. “He’s in the river. The lad is in the river!”

Men quickly converged on the stone bridge and looked down into the murky depths of the Muick. All that could be seen from the light of their lanterns were the boy’s bonnet and plaid floating on the surface.

“Poor wee wretch. He’s surely downed,” said someone.

Rand did not hesitate. He leapt onto the parapet. Hands reached for him to draw him back, but before they could grasp him, he had dived into the icy water.

Time was of the essence. The waters were too frigid for a man to survive for long.

Ignoring the pleas of the spectators to save himself, Rand swam in ever-widening circles, gritting his teeth against cold and pain in his desperate search for the boy.

Again and again he dived, but his hands encountered nothing but submerged branches and flotsam and jetsam.

Time slipped away from him. So obsessed was he that even when he was foundering and men had jumped into the river to come to his aid, he tried to fight them off.

John Murray was the first to reach Rand. He had arrived late on the scene and was only mildly interested in what was going on until he discovered it was Rand who was in the water.

“For God’s sake!” he said, evading a weak blow. “You’ll have us both drowned if you don’t give this up. No! I’ll not leave you here to find a watery grave.”

It was MacGregor who persuaded him. The young Highlander was thrashing about wildly. “I didna ken I couldna swim,” he sputtered, and his head disappeared below the surface of the water.

There was nothing for it but to go to MacGregor’s assistance. When they were hauled onto the bank, like fish gasping for air, Rand closed his eyes in torment. He would never find the boy alive now.

If anyone had spoken to him, he would have cried like a baby. No one did. The silence was fathoms deep. Men did not know where to look.

With legs drawn up to his chin and head bowed, Rand sat hunched over, trying to get a hold of his emotions.

Inwardly, he was damning himself for giving chase.

The boy was no coward. He should have known that young Gordon would take appalling risks to evade capture.

By offering a reward, he had made escape for the boy virtually impossible. The boy’s blood was on his head.

His teeth began to chatter and shudders wracked his body.

Someone threw a plaid over his shoulders.

Long minutes passed. He was not sure what made him raise his head, unless it was some sixth sense he had developed in his years of soldiering.

His eyes scanned the opposite bank. Across the bridge, silhouetted against the lights streaming into the inn’s courtyard, was a lone rider, a boy on his pony, poised for flight.

As Rand watched, the boy raised one hand in salute.

Joy burst through Rand in waves, and he staggered to his feet.

He had almost raised his hand to return the boy’s greeting when an icy rage possessed him.

Twice in one night, the boy had damn near been the death of him, first when he had thrown the dagger, and second when he, Rand, had dived into the icy river to save him.

Worse by far, however, were the agonies he had been made to suffer in the last few minutes, believing that the boy had drowned.

His fingers flexed, and he itched to feel them curled around young Gordon’s throat.

Others turned to stare at what had caught the Randal’s interest. When they saw the boy, a thunderous cheer went up, and somber faces broke into broad smiles. The harrowing drama that had just taken place had made them forget, momentarily, that the Randal had put a price on the boy’s head.

When the boy wheeled his pony and rode off into the shadows, men looked to Rand for direction.

For a moment, he stood there as if oblivious of his surroundings, then, shaking his head, smiling, he said, “The boy deserves his victory. He outwitted me fair and square. Shall we repair to The Fair whatever-it-is and console ourselves with a wee dram? Gentlemen, don’t stint yourselves. Lord Randal is paying the shot.”

As the crush of eager men moved en masse to cross the stone bridge, Rand hung back and brought MacGregor to his side with a look. “This is not the end of it,” he said. “I want that boy, and no one and nothing is going to stand in my way.”

MacGregor’s heart sank. This was going to be a long night, and at the end of it, he was sure there would not even be a pony harnessed to his cart to drag him home to his weary bed.