Page 68 of Somewhere Along The Way (Mackinnon #3)

Chapter Twenty-Four

She knew they had sentenced him to hang the moment she opened the door and saw his grandfather’s face. Never had she seen a man go downhill so fast. He had aged ten years since that day she had met him a year ago.

Percy helped him inside.

“It’s bad,” she said to Percy, “isn’t it?”

“Yes. As bad as can be. They’ve found him guilty,” Percy said.

“They’ll hang him?” she asked.

“In two weeks.”

First Gavin, and now Ross. It couldn’t be happening to her.

Not again. Not a second time. Surely she couldn’t be losing another so dear to her.

She wanted to scream and smash things, she wanted to run out the door and keep running until the heath swallowed her up and ended her misery.

But she looked at the old duke, and she knew she couldn’t break down.

“I haven’t given up,” the Mackinnon said.

“Help me upstairs, Percy.” Then to Annabella he said, “I’m too travel-weary to think clearly tonight, lass, but tomorrow we’ll set to work, you and I.

” With his old, wrinkled hand he squeezed her arm, a gesture all the more dear to her because she knew how much the old duke suffered, how much that one act of comfort had cost him.

She stepped into his arms, feeling this old man was a part of Ross.

“Dinna fret,” he said, patting her back.

“We’ll free our lad. We’ll free him if I have to sell my soul to the devil to do it. ”

Percy came back downstairs after the Mackinnon had been put to bed. Annabella shared a glass of Drambuie with him in the library and listened for two hours as Percy told her about the trial.

“Was Huntly there? Did he testify?”

“Yes, briefly.” Percy paused a moment, deep in thought. “Something struck me as strange.”

“What was that?”

“I talked to Huntly for a moment. He told me he went to England and talked with your father. He still plans on going through with the marriage, after the period of mourning, of course. He said the circumstances of your brother’s death were unfortunate, but nothing more than a temporary setback.”

“I know,” she said. “My father wrote me.” She turned her head away and stared into the empty fireplace.

“I won’t marry him. I would rather be dead like Gavin than go through with that marriage, but I don’t want to deal with that now.

I need my wits and my strength for the Mackinnon, and Ross.

For now, I’m safe—safe from that man’s clutches for as long as I mourn. ”

“If you marry Huntly, that mourning period may go on indefinitely.”

“I know that too,” she said softly. “Percy, why do you think he is so obsessed with having this marriage?”

“It’s reported—nothing proven, mind you, just hearsay—that Huntly has grossly mismanaged his lands and his fortune since receiving his title and inheritance.

I’ve heard from a few reliable sources that he squandered his first wife’s fortune as well.

If this is true, that in itself could drive a man to obsessive lengths to marry a rich woman. ”

“My father knew nothing of this. I’m sure of that.”

“Then tell him.”

“I shall, but it won’t do any good. My father is a proud, stubborn man, a man of honor, a man of his word.

He would stand by his word. And he would, more than likely, tell me that men have had good, strong marriages for hundreds of years, even when they have married for the very same reason.

” She shook her head “He would probably find it even honorable—that a man would put his obligations before his own personal feelings.” She sighed and turned a weary face to Percy. “What should I do?”

Percy stood. “I wouldn’t want to answer that now.

I’m afraid I’m not capable of making much sense right now.

I’m tired as a gamecock after the fight.

” He started from the room but paused beside a leather satchel on the Mackinnon’s desk, then placed his hand on the satchel and said, “These are the records from the trial, if you’d like to see them.

The Mackinnon hired scribes to record as much of the proceedings as possible. ”

Annabella carried the stack of papers to her room and stayed up for the rest of the night reading.

It was half-past six when she read something that struck her memory, but she didn’t know why.

She backed up and read the sentence again.

“Deceased was stabbed in the upper quadrant of his back, near the right shoulder blade.” She shook her head, not understanding why this sentence jogged her memory.

I’m too tired to think right now. Tomorrow, she thought. I’ll read it again tomorrow.

She did read it the next morning, but the words didn’t seem all that unusual, so she went on.

Once she had finished reading, she had lunch with Percy and the duke.

After lunch they met in the library and began combing through the reports from the trial.

Over and over they read and reread, each time coming up with nothing.

Over the passage of time, she had begun to realize that having her thoughts occupied with securing Ross’ freedom had enabled her to go on after Gavin’s death.

It had become a reason to keep living, a reason to get up and face each morning, a reason to step into the dark unknown.

She still grieved for her brother, and not a day went by that she didn’t think of him more than once.

But she was able to put things in perspective.

Gavin was dead, and one couldn’t live with the dead, or change the finality of that circumstance.

She could let his death destroy her, or give her the strength to go on. She chose the latter.

Thinking about Ross brought her only pain, but even the pain could not keep his memory away.

It was all she had now. Many times she found herself staring off into space, reliving the times she had been with him, the times he had molded her to the long, hard length of his body, the times he had held her as if he wanted to absorb the very substance of her.

Thoughts such as this made her clench her fists in anguish, for she knew and feared what they would do to him in a matter of days.

And as always, the distress of thinking that she would never see him again made her yearn to see him one more time, to feel his strength and patience plunging into her, to feel the strong assurance of his arms, to know that he was.

Nights were the worst; they were the times she missed him most. Often she would awaken in a cold sweat, the need inside her like a bright, spreading flame sharply edged with desperation.

She would roll to her side, her hands clutching her middle as she rocked back and forth.

Don’t let him die. Please don’t let him die.

It reverberated in her head like a litany, until the tears burned and blurred her vision, and she would cry until her throat ached and her mind was fogged with remembered passion.

A week before Ross was scheduled to hang, Annabella walked up the trail with the Mackinnon as she had done that day so long ago. They walked for over two hours before returning to Dunford.

Seeing how tired the old duke was, almost to the point of exhaustion, she went with him into the library, asking Robert to build a fire for them.

As Robert laid the fire, they discussed the hanging, both of them deciding not to go.

“It’s strange,” the Mackinnon said, “how I seem to be outliving them all—my children and my grandchildren.”

“Don’t give up now,” she said. “Remember what you told me. We have to keep the faith, keep on hoping and praying.”

“I’m all prayed out, lass. If God won’t give me the lad back, then I pray he will give me the strength to live with his loss.

” He shook his white head and she thought he looked like an old shaggy lion.

“You know, I think Ross knew he wouldn’t come out of this thing alive.

I remember the day we left, when Percy and I went to talk to him that last time.

He had been in another fight. His right hand was bandaged.

When I asked about it, he laughed and said, ‘Well, I guess that’s one good thing about my hanging.

It’s a cinch this hand won’t be bothering me for long.

’ He told me not to worry for him, that he had always gotten by.

After we left him and started out of town, I glanced up to see him watching us from the window, his face smiling down at me from behind those bars.

He lifted his hand and waved at us. The sun glared off of that bandage as if it was a mirror… ”

“My God!” Annabella sprang to her feet. “Oh, my God!” Her hands clamped over her mouth. Tears were streaming down her face. She opened her arms wide and looked heavenward and dropped to her knees in thanks. “Oh, dear, sweet, loving God! Thank you! Thank you!” she said.

Turning to the Mackinnon, she rose to her feet. “Prayer changes things. It does! It does!” She grabbed the Mackinnon on each side of his face and kissed him. “You did it! You did it! You wonderful, adorable, beautiful man. You did it! With the help of God, you did it!”

“What’s going on in here?” Percy said, running into the room. “Are you all right?”

“I am,” the Mackinnon said, “but I dinna think I can say the same about her.”

When Annabella calmed down, she rushed to the table and began shuffling through the papers from the trial. “Here it is,” she said. “Listen to this. ‘Deceased was stabbed in the upper quadrant of his back, near the right shoulder blade.’”

“We’ve all read that, Annabella,” Percy said. “And it was brought out at the trial.”