Page 19

After a sleepless night waiting for Patrick to come to her room and explain his sudden change of heart, only to be disappointed, Lizzie stood in the barmkin in the semidark-ness of dawn, shivering, watching a stranger ready their horses to leave.

Her heart squeezed as she wrestled with confusion. This should be the happiest moment of her life, but he wouldn't even look at her. She'd gotten what she wanted, but she would run away with him right now if only he would stop acting like this. Too late, she realized that it didn't matter how they married just as long as they were together.

Never had she seen him like this. Patrick seemed a cold, angry shell of the man she loved. His expression was hard and implacable, his eyes flat. All attempts to question him were rebuffed with stony curtness.

What had happened on their way back to the castle yesterday? Was he angry because of her refusal to run away with him or was there some other reason?

Nothing made sense.

She listened as he gave orders to his men and the handful of Campbell guardsmen who would accompany them, and before the sun had crested the horizon, they were on their way to Dunoon.

They rode along the edge of the Ochil hills, then crossed the bridge over the Forth at Stirling. Instead of taking the main road to Lennox, they kept north of the river, following narrow paths across the moors and through woodlands that were at times difficult to make out.

For a man who hadn't wanted to go in the first place, he couldn't seem to get there fast enough. But he was being careful—wary, it seemed, of another attack. She sensed his vigilance in the intensity of his gaze and the way he reacted to every sound distant or near. He had men scouting ahead and behind them as an added precaution.

He pushed them at a brutal pace, traveling for hours— with only short water breaks for the horses—before finally stopping to rest. Though it was only a few hours past noon, with winter creeping ever closer the sun was almost gone.

It wasn't only the horses that were exhausted. Lizzie was a good rider under normal circumstances, but she wasn't accustomed to riding at this gait over difficult terrain for so long. Her legs, not used to such abuse, shook as she tried to dismount. She would have fallen if Patrick hadn't caught her.

Just the sensation of his strong hands around her waist was enough to make her heart clench—and then drop when he released her all too suddenly.

Dear God, what was wrong? He wouldn't even touch her.

Her legs wobbled, but she managed to stay on her feet. “Thank you.”

He nodded curtly and started to turn away. She grabbed his arm, the leather of his jerkin cold and stiff under her fingertips. “Wait.”

His gaze met hers. He didn't bother to mask his impatience.

Her heart throbbed, not understanding his coldness. “Where are we?”

“East of Menteith.”

Her brows drew together. “So far north? Shouldn't we be heading south?”

Though it was possible to reach Dunoon over land by winding along the fingerlike coast, it was days faster to take a birlinn from Dumbarton across the Clyde. And this late in autumn, there was always weather to consider. They were fortunate thus far to have avoided rain, but the heaviness of the mist descending upon them did not bode well. Her cheeks were already numb from the cold.

“Aye. We'll turn south near Loch Lomond.”

Loch Lomond. A veritable oasis. “Is that where we will stop for the night?”

He shook his head. “We won't be stopping.”

She offered her protest with a groan.

Finally showing some sign of sympathy for her exhaustion, he explained, “I know you are tired, but as you well know, the roads can be dangerous.”

A shiver ran through her. She remembered all too well.

His voice softened. “You are well protected, Lizzie. But it's best if we keep moving. Besides, your cousin is expecting you.”

He hardened his jaw. “If that is all, I need to see to the horses.”

Dismissed. Lizzie suddenly felt her pulse spike with anger. She didn't know what was wrong, but whatever it was, she didn't deserve to be treated like this. “That is not all,”

she snapped. “I want to know why are you acting like this.”

His eyes sparked with warning. “Leave it be, Lizzie.”

She lifted her chin. “No, I will not leave it be. What have I done to earn your displeasure? I apologize for leaving the castle alone, but I honestly did not see the harm.”

He didn't say anything, just stared at her with that hard, implacable look in his emerald gaze. She took a step toward him and gazed up at him beseechingly, wanting to penetrate this mysterious barrier he'd erected between them. “I know you don't want to go to Dunoon, but if it means that much to you, I will go with you right now—wherever you want. It doesn't matter where we marry—”

He swore, cutting her off. Grabbing her by the shoulders, he shook her, his face tortured by conflicting emotions she couldn't even begin to comprehend. “Damn it, Lizzie! Don't you understand? There will be no marriage.”

She recoiled as if he'd slapped her. A bolt of searing white-hot pain shot through her, cutting off her breath. If he'd turned around and shot her with a musket, she couldn't have been more surprised.

Her heart rejected his words even as her eyes confirmed them. One look at him left no doubt. Her eyes burned with dry tears of disbelief as she gazed up into the fierce, handsome face of the man to whom she'd given her heart, the man who now thought to crush it under his heel with all the significance of a bug.

She didn't beg, didn't plead, didn't burst into tears— though she wanted to. Instead, she drew up her shoulders and swallowed the thick ball of hurt, too outraged to let her emotions reign. She wasn't insignificant, and she deserved to be treated better than this. “Am I to be told the reason for this decision, or did you think to just drop me at my cousin's gate and leave with no explanation?”

The expression on his face made her step back in horror.

“My God,”

she breathed, gazing up at him as if she'd never seen him before. “That's exactly what you intend to do.”

Her throat was so hot and tight, she could barely get the words out. “Do I mean so little to you? I thought you …”

Her heart caught, the burning in her chest excruciating. Cared for me—maybe even loved me.

His eyes bored into her with brutal intensity. She thought she saw a flicker of regret before it was quickly shrouded behind the steely veil.

Once she'd admired his control; now she hated it.

“Circumstances have changed, making a marriage between us impossible.”

“Circumstances?”

she repeated. Her voice was be ginning to rise, and the other men were glaring in their direction uneasily, but Lizzie didn't care. How could he stand there so calmly—with all the emotion of a rock— when her heart was breaking apart? His coldness infuriated her, making her lash out with haughty sarcasm. “Could you perhaps be any more specific?”

She saw the flash of anger in his gaze. “No, I can't. I told you before that there are things about me—”

“I'm tired of your secrets,”

she exploded, her voice shaking with outrage. “Whatever it is, just tell me. Don't I deserve the truth?”

She gave him a look full of scorn. “Or do you often seduce women with promises of marriage and discard them when they no longer have use to you?”

“That's not the way it happened,”

he clipped, reminding her that she'd been the one foolish enough to seduce him. His eyes blared with something she'd never seen before— recklessness. He started to say something, but his words were cut off. If he'd meant to tell her his secret, she wouldn't hear it now.

“Chie—Captain.”

Lizzie jerked around at the sound of Robbie's harried voice, breaking above the din of stomping hooves. The young warrior had been scouting behind them, and from the anxious look on his face, there was a problem.

Chief. He'd been about to call Patrick chief. That was a strange mistake to make. Her gaze shot back to Patrick, but he'd already turned away from her.

Robbie dismounted by jumping from the saddle and strode quickly to Patrick's side to confer with him. He spoke in a low voice, but she was able to make out one word. A word that sent chills sweeping across her already cold skin: followed.

Patrick knew it was useless to rail against the injustice, against the capricious fates that seemed intent on forcing them apart, but he couldn't prevent the anger. At her for being a Campbell, for being so damn sweet and trusting. And at himself for allowing himself to care.

And God, he cared about her. More than he'd imagined possible. Just looking at her, knowing that he couldn't have her, made him want to lash out wildly. Cruelly. What limited possibilities they'd had for a future had been all but extinguished by the executions of his kinsmen at the hands of her cousin and the rape of his sister.

He knew that she was confused, that she didn't understand his frustration, but it would be better for her to hate him. It would make leaving her easier.

There was one way he could ensure her hatred. And for one reckless moment—despite the danger presented by the handful of Campbell guardsmen that accompanied them— he contemplated telling her. I'm a MacGregor. An outlaw. Chief of a broken clan since your cousin murdered mine.

There was no reason to hide his identity any longer— only the need to get her to the safety of Dunoon without getting his men killed stayed his tongue.

Then Robbie arrived and the impulse was gone, his attention focused immediately on the threat at hand. The only question was who it was from.

“What is it?” he asked.

Robbie's voice was hard and succinct. “We're being followed.”

Patrick's gaze darted meaningfully to Elizabeth, who was making no effort to hide her interest in their conversation. Robbie lowered his voice. “Campbells, Chief. The guardsman Finlay and ten other men, not two miles behind. I wanted to be sure, but they are definitely tracking us.”

Finlay. And ten men? Hell. With the five Campbells he'd brought with him, that would leave him and his five men vastly outnumbered. Under normal circumstances, it wouldn't worry him, but he had Lizzie to consider. The threat he'd expected was from his brother, not from the Campbell guardsman. Patrick's mind went to work with the possible explanations for Finlay's sudden arrival hard on their heels, but none of them boded well. “Tell the men to ready the horses.”

“We will attempt to outrun them?”

Patrick shook his head. If it was just him and his men, it would be different. But Lizzie was already about to fall off her horse. “Nay, but I would like to be closer to the hills before we find out what they want.”

Though he'd picked a relatively protected area in which to rest, they were still in the valley of the river Forth—and a few leagues away from the forested hills and glens that separated the Lowlands from the Highlands.

If necessary, they could disappear into those hills.

Robbie nodded. “What about the lass?”

he asked, broaching the question Patrick didn't want to contemplate.

What about Lizzie?

Though he'd wanted to see her to Dunoon himself, if Finlay had discovered who he was, they would part much sooner than that.

His chest pinched. Perhaps it was for the best. “She'll be safe enough with her clansmen.”

And if his fool brother was tempted to attack almost a score of Campbell guardsmen with only a handful of ragtag outlaws, Patrick would keep him at bay.

Surprisingly, Lizzie made no complaint when their re spite was curtailed and once again they were riding at a hard—if not breakneck—pace across the moors. But her eyes haunted him, wounded and full of silent recrimination. Recrimination he could not answer for.

In spite of the circumstances, with each mile that brought them closer to the lush border of hills, forests, and secluded lochs that separated the Lowlands from the Highlands, Patrick felt his excitement grow. This was MacGre-gor land. His land.

And he'd been gone too long.

After an hour of hard riding, they reached the easternmost edge of the forest just south of Aberfoyle and the great shadow of the mountain of Beinnmheadhonaidh; at last, they slowed. It didn't take long for Finlay and the other Campbell guardsmen to come into view behind them.

Lizzie, who'd been looking over her shoulder with enough frequency to tell him that she'd heard at least part of Robbie's report, saw them and pulled up. “Wait. They're Campbells.”

Patrick made eye contact with Robbie and Hamish, giving them silent communication to be ready.

Lizzie was studying him suspiciously, as were a few of the Campbell guardsmen they'd brought with them. “Why are we running from my cousin's men?”

she asked pointedly.

“We weren't running,”

Patrick replied. It wasn't an answer and she knew it, but the arrival of Finlay and his men prevented any further questions.

If Patrick's suspicions proved correct, her question would be answered soon enough.

“Finlay,”

she said, swinging her horse around and moving toward him, “what are you doing here? Why are you following us?”

“Move away, my lady,”

Finlay said.

Patrick and his men readied. One look at the triumphant expression on the Campbell guardsman's face was enough for him to know that they'd been compromised. But if Finlay thought he'd won, he was mistaken. They might be outnumbered, but they were MacGregors—and the Campbells were on his terrain now. If there was a fight, the only thing that worried him was ensuring that Lizzie stayed out of harm's way.

“Move away from what?”

Lizzie asked, clearly confused.

“From me,”

Patrick said flatly, his gaze never once leaving the guardsman.

Lizzie looked back and forth between them. “What is this about, Finlay?”

“Aye,”

Patrick taunted, cocking a brow in a manner designed to get a rise out of the other man. “What is this about?”

Anger turned Finlay's already red and sweaty face scarlet. “This man is not who he says he is.”

The pronouncement was met with dead silence. Lizzie didn't gasp or make any other sound of surprise, nor did she look at him, but Patrick saw the slight stiffening of her shoulders. “Then who is he?”

Her voice sounded hollow—empty.

Finlay scowled. “I don't know. But the Laird of Tullibar-dine has never heard of Patrick Murray.”

Like a musket shot, the sound of a horse tearing through trees from the forest to the west was greeted with the steely sound of blades being drawn from scabbards.

“Wait,”

Patrick said. “It's my man.”

It was Tormod, the man he'd sent scouting ahead of them. “What is it, Tor-mod?”

The warrior looked around, grasping the situation. “MacGregors,”

he said. “Coming fast.”

Patrick swore. Could this get any worse? Damn his brother to hell. He thought quickly and turned to Finlay. “Take the lady and make for the road to Lennox. I'll hold them off.”

Finlay scoffed. “Think you I'm an idiot? This is just a ploy for you to make your escape.”

Patrick wanted to grab him by the throat and shake him. He didn't bother to hide his rage. “This isn't a ploy, and if you don't leave right now, you'll find out soon enough that I'm telling the truth. But by then it will be too late. We can settle this later, but right now your duty is to the lady.”

The Campbell guardsman was unmoved. Instead he said, “Arrest these men.”

The man at his side moved quickly to do as he commanded.

“No,”

Lizzie said, stopping him. “On what charge?”

Finlay frowned. “That will be for your cousin to decide when we reach Dunoon.”

“And what if he's telling the truth? About the attack,”

she added to clarify. Lizzie looked at Patrick, and for the first time he could see the hurt in her eyes. The knowledge that he'd deceived her. She knew he was not the man he claimed to be.

But he wasn't deceiving her about this. “I'm telling the truth. I swear it on the souls of my parents. These men seek you harm.”

There was so much more he wanted to say, so much he wanted to explain, but he would never get the chance. He stared deep into her eyes, saying a silent apology, begging her to forgive him, and then he broke the connection and turned back to Finlay. He would protect her with his life, but the idea of her getting caught in the middle of a battle— where he could not control the chaos—sent chills running down his spine. A stray arrow. A misfired hagbut. A wide slash of a sword.

“You bloody fool!”

he shouted to Finlay. “Listen!”

The unmistakable sound of horses resonated in the cold night air. “Get her out of here before it's too late.”

Finally the truth seemed to have penetrated. Finlay's confidence was shaken, and he looked at Patrick uncertainly. “Maybe you're right—”

“Just go,”

Patrick said. And with one last look at Lizzie, a look that would have to hold him for a lifetime, he turned to face his brother.

But it was too late.

A hail of arrows broke through the canopy of trees and landed with deadly precision behind him. Patrick turned in time to see the stunned look on Finlay's face before he slid from his saddle and dropped like a rock to the ground, an arrow pinned right between his eyes. Two of the Campbell guardsmen he'd brought with him fell at his side.

Gregor and at least ten MacGregor warriors broke through the trees. In addition to the men with his brother yesterday, he recognized the others as some of the most dangerous, bloodthirsty, and savage of the lot—men who'd earned the MacGregors their outlaw name.

The Campbells under Patrick's command looked to him uncertainly—Finlay's pronouncement had not been without effect—wondering what to think.

Patrick was caught between two worlds—one real and one invented. He was a MacGregor, the blood enemy of Campbells. A few months ago, he would never have hesitated to lift a sword on a Campbell, but he'd lived among these Campbell guardsmen for months. Knew them. Ate with them. Drank with them.

He'd hoped to get Lizzie to safety without bloodshed, but Gregor had made it impossible.

When a Campbell guardsman next to him lifted a hagbut from his pack and took aim at his brother, the hesitation was gone. In one seamless movement, Patrick reached behind his head, grabbed the horn hilt of his claidheamhmór, and swung. The long steel blade slammed into the mail chest plate of the Campbell, knocking the gun from his hand and the man from his horse.

The battle lines were drawn.

He was a MacGregor. The MacGregor. For better—or worse—these were his men.

There was only one reality. All it took was one look at Lizzie's horrified expression to remind him of that.

Her face had drained of color. “My God, what are you doing?”

Patrick didn't have time to explain; he needed to get her the hell out of here.

The battle erupted around them like wildfire as his men joined Gregor's in battling Campbells—only the four Camp bells he'd brought with him had yet to join the fray, momentarily stunned by his actions. Before they could turn on him, he stopped them. “Take the lady and go. Ride south for Dunoon as fast as you can.”

One of the men reached for his gun, but Patrick was faster. The guardsman pulled his hand back in pain, cut from thumb to wrist by the swiping edge of Patrick's sword.

One of the other men called him a foul name and lifted his blade, but Patrick easily blocked the attempt.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the Campbells falling under the MacGregor blades—the fight inching closer.

“You can kill me later. Go. Protect the lady.”

The men appeared to be reconsidering when Lizzie, who'd been conspicuously quiet, spoke. “Why should anyone listen to you—”

“If you want to live, you will do exactly what I say,”

he said fiercely. “I told you the truth, these men mean you harm.”

“Then why did you …”

Her voice dropped off as his brother drew close enough for her to make out his face. She gasped with recognition.

Her gaze shot to his. Confusion. Disbelief. Hurt. None of which he could explain or excuse.

A lifetime lost stretched between them in that one look. Of her eyes sparkling with merriment, of a smile no longer tentative, of holding her in his arms, of looking deep into her eyes as he slid inside her, of her cheeks pink with rapture as she came apart around him, of her sitting before the fire, her belly softly rounded.

Of everything that could not be. His chest cinched with pain, wishing …

Hell. “Go,”

he said roughly. Coldness was the only mask he could don to smother the pain.

If he'd wanted her hatred, he had it. The last look she gave him before turning her mount and heading south along the path through the trees left him no doubt. The accusation and betrayal pierced like a dirk in his chest.

His gaze lingered on her back, on the flaxen strands of hair loosened by the day's events and now flying behind her like a silken veil. Farewell. The heaviness pressing against his chest cut off his breath.

But before Lizzie and her guardsmen could pass out of sight, two arrows fired in quick succession hit the backs of two men riding behind her. One slumped forward, the other one fell to the side. His foot caught in the stirrup, and he was dragged for a few feet beside his horse before coming loose.

Gregor's voice rose above the din of battle. “Don't let them get away. I want the Campbell bitch.”

The last guardsman with her had slowed to see what had happened to his companions, and it proved to be his death. Another MacGregor arrow fired and hit him in the neck.

Lizzie's cry was all that Patrick heard. He swore, knowing that his last-ditch effort to send her to safety with her cousin's men was not going to work. It would be up to him to keep her safe, but his options were running out.

Before he could go to her, two Campbell guardsmen rushed him on foot. He shouted at her to stay back— hoping that she would listen to him—and met them full force, wielding his sword with deadly precision and knocking them back long enough for him to dismount. His horse was only an encumbrance in the dense trees. They attacked him from both sides, but Patrick used his sword with one hand to hold one back as he dispatched the second with his dirk in the other. A few swings later, the second man lay beside the first.

A quick glance around told him that the day was almost done. Only a few Campbell guardsmen remained. His fury at Gregor rose as he noted that four MacGregors had fallen—including two of the men with him at Castle Campbell—shot before they could reach the Campbells with their swords.

Gregor had stretched Patrick to the end of his brotherly compassion. He understood his brother's rage—his need for revenge and the hatred that blackened his soul that matched his own—but the challenge to Patrick's authority as chief could not be ignored. And the blind rage lashing around inside him was rooted in something far more elemental. Gregor had threatened his woman, and right now Patrick could kill him for it.

He glanced over his shoulder, relieved to see that Lizzie had followed his direction and stayed back, partially hidden in the trees. When he turned back around, his gaze met his brother's. Slowly they walked toward each other until they stood face-to-face a few feet apart.

Through the rage, Patrick felt sadness that it had come to this.

“I should kill you for what you've done,”

he said flatly. “You think you can be chief?”

Gregor's face was as hard and unyielding as his own. “A better one than you. I wouldn't put a lass before my clan. Before my own sister.”

Patrick gritted his teeth, forcing himself to bite back the swell of rage. Gregor was just trying to make him lose control. There was only one way to settle this once and for all.

“If you want to challenge my authority, brother, do it as a man.”

He swung his sword around, holding it before him. “By right of sword.”

If he lost, he'd be leaving Lizzie unprotected, at the nonexistent mercy of his brother.

But he wouldn't lose.

Gregor snarled, his mouth pulling back in a cruel imitation of a grin. “To the winner goes the spoils?”

he taunted, glancing over at Lizzie.

When Patrick followed his gaze, Gregor swung his sword around in a violent slash that Patrick barely blocked. It was his answer to Patrick's challenge—a dirty move that would have made Arthur and his knights of the Round Table shudder in shame, but it set the stage for how this battle would be fought. Chivalry and the knightly code of honor had no place among hunted men. The MacGre-gors survived by ignoring the rules. It was one of the reasons they were prized by other clans as fierce warriors.

But Patrick could play just as dirty as his brother, and his next move proved it. He spun and snaked his foot around Gregor's ankle, knocking him to the ground. Gregor just managed to roll out of the way of the blow from Patrick's sword that followed.

Gregor righted himself, and the battle continued. They circled each other like gladiators of old, sizing each other up, exchanging swings of the swords, trying to find the weakness that would let them go in for the kill. Though Patrick had the advantage of height and build, Gregor was quick. They were well matched—always had been—but Patrick had one thing Gregor did not: Lizzie's life in his hands.

The battle continued, blow after blow, swing after swing, until sweat poured off his skin, and the muscles in his arms and stomach burned from exertion. He was tiring, but so was his brother. The violence of the blows increased as exhaustion and the urgency to see it done overrode patience.

Patrick blocked another blow to his head; steel clashed against steel, reverberating in his ears and the force of the blow shuddering through his body. He responded with one of his own, grunting as he swung his blade with two hands across his body in a wide arc. This time his brother was a fraction of a second slow, and Patrick's blow knocked him back.

It was the opening he'd been waiting for. With a fierce cry, Patrick swung his sword again and again, raining down on his brother blow after blow of powerful strikes. Gregor couldn't withstand the force and started to fall back, blocking rather than fighting.

Patrick had him, and they both knew it.

One final blow brought Gregor to the ground. Patrick had the point of his sword at his neck before Gregor could recover. Patrick's heart was hammering from exhaustion and the rush of blood from the fight. He wanted to kill him, and the force of it shook him. He could see the rage he was feeling returned in his brother's gaze. And something else—hatred. Gregor wanted him to do it.

God, he was tempted. But this was his brother, the only brother he had left. Other than Annie, the last of his family. He'd won; that was enough. “Yield,”

he said softly.

Hatred blazed back at him, and Patrick knew that Gregor would not have shown him the same mercy. He pushed the blade a little deeper, drawing blood. “Do you yield?”

“Aye,”

Gregor grunted through clenched teeth.

“Say it,”

Patrick demanded.

“I yield, damn it.”

After a moment, Patrick pulled back his sword, leaving Gregor seething in the dirt and mud. Gregor was furious, but he would get over it. His challenge had failed.

Patrick mounted his horse and swung it around, closing the short distance to Lizzie in a few moments. He dropped to the ground and approached her cautiously—walking past one of the men who'd fallen trying to protect her. The one who'd been dragged by his horse hung at a grotesque angle only a few feet ahead. She was watching Patrick with wide, terrified eyes, staring at his face as if she'd never seen it before.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She took a few steps back. “W-who are you? W-w-what do you m-mean to do with me?”

Her stammer made something in his chest twist. She's scared of me. “I won't hurt you.”

She gave a sharp cry of disbelief. The hurt swimming in her eyes made his heart wrench. “God, how can you say that?”

Patrick was so focused on soothing her, he didn't notice the movement until it was too late. He heard Robbie's cry of warning behind him and looked up just in time to see the barrel of a pistol pointed directly at him.

The Campbell dragged from his horse was not dead.

Everything seemed to move in slow motion. He heard the blast. Saw the smoke. Then the force of the shot knocked him back. White hot fire seared through his thigh.

Robbie rode by and with the MacGregor battle cry ended the Campbell's life, this time for good. But the damage had been done. Only ill aim had saved Patrick's life.

His head cleared and the impact of his injury hit him hard—not just the lead ball, but the import. In showing his brother mercy, he'd allowed him an opportunity. One that Gregor would not hesitate to use. Patrick could not risk Lizzie's life on his brother's honor.

With a bullet lodged in his thigh, he would be no match for Gregor. And with only four of his own men against Gregor's ten ruffians, they would not be able to defend Lizzie should he die.

Gritting his teeth to bite back the cry of pain, he got to his feet.

“Hold them off,”

he said to Robbie, mounting his horse. The pain that shot through his leg almost made him keel over—only the knowledge of the ugly death that awaited Lizzie kept him seated.

Robbie nodded. “Aye, Chief.”

“The cave,”

Patrick answered the silent question. “If you can get there tonight without being followed. Otherwise rally the men at Balquhidder Kirk as planned.”

Robbie gave him a short nod, and before the others realized what he was going to do, Patrick snatched Lizzie off her horse, set her before him, and plunged into the trees.