Chapter Sixteen

Abby threw on her earasaid and beat Daniel out of the room before he could ask her any questions. Her kin were here. They weren’t supposed to be and Daniel, the queen’s general, likely wouldn’t be pleased that they’d disobeyed his sovereign’s commands. She would protect them from Daniel. After all, they’d come to find her and make certain she wasn’t harmed.

She slowed when MacPherson appeared in the hall as the great doors were unlocked. She moved aside so that she wouldn’t be the first one her kin saw. The less reaction they all had to one another, the better. She felt someone move along her back and turned to see Daniel behind her.

“What d’ye suppose they want here, Miss Campbell?” MacPherson asked her.

“Ye mentioned beds fer the night, Mr. MacPherson. I assume since that’s what they asked fer, that’s what they want.”

Her host grinned and then turned toward the doors as they were opened.

Abby’s heart raced and her mouth went dry when she saw her father standing just outside the entrance, his plaid belted low on his waist and hooded over his head.

“My lords!” MacPherson called out. “Enter! Enter! Welcome to Tarveness Keep.” He stepped back as the group of Highlanders accepted his invitation.

From somewhere to Abby’s right, she heard Nora enter the hall and gasp at the sight of them. Aye, they were a sight to behold, in their pelts and plaids, commanding and fearsome with four large, gangly mongrel dogs at their boots.

It was hard for Abby to keep her eyes from meeting her father’s, her brother’s, her uncle’s, as they filled the Grand Hall. She missed them. She wanted to bask in their presence. But another time. She needed to keep her true identity hidden for now. She couldn’t keep such a secret if she gave in to running into her father’s arms. She wanted to be chief and she would do whatever it took to keep her clan safe.

But once, when her strength wore thin, she looked up to find her father’s eyes on Daniel behind her.

No. She didn’t want her kin to think he’d been careless with her. His men had been ambushed, massacred, and he had the chance to save one of them. He’d made the correct decision in coming here. She would tell them the first chance she got.

“Cameron MacPherson at yer service, most honored guests.”

Abby wondered if his reverence was genuine. These men before him were more than Jacobites. They were fighting wars long before King James and Mary of Modena had their first living son.

“Allow me to present Miss Abigail Campbell—”

MacPherson’s introduction drew all eyes to her. Abby grazed her eyes over each of them and somehow managed to appear subservient and ladylike. She noted her brother’s smirk and vowed to hit him for it later. She flicked her gaze to Gaza, her cousin Edmund’s dog, and then to Gaza’s offspring, almost twice Gaza’s size.

“—and her escort, General Marlow, Earl of Darlington.”

Abby looked up at her father again and this time his gaze met hers, but just briefly before it returned to MacPherson. “Word reached us aboot an attack,” Rob MacGregor told them. “We were just checkin’ to see if all was well with ye.”

She smiled ever so slightly to prove that she was indeed well and then returned her gaze to the ground while he fixed his eyes on MacPherson.

No wonder her father looked so relieved. They’d heard about the attack in the woods. Perhaps they’d stumbled upon all the dead soldiers, including one of Abby’s escorts.

“We need beds fer a night,” her father announced to his host without giving her any further notice. “But I dinna’ know if I can stand sleepin’ under the same roof as General Marlow.”

“The stables,” Daniel said in a steady voice, still standing behind her, “are large enough to fit you and your companions, and, I’d imagine, are more suited to what you’re accustomed to.”

Abby’s heart felt like it was echoing throughout her chest. For an instant its frantic pounding was all she heard. Would her father lop off his head for his insult? No, Daniel was merely keeping to the plan of her being a Campbell. The insult was clever, if not a bit dangerous. MacGregors and Grants didn’t like being insulted, even if it was only for show. Her cousin Will looked like he wanted to punch Daniel’s face back to London. Hands moved to hilts and shoulders squared with pride. MacPherson paled in his boots just a bit. Insulting Highlanders was a risky endeavor.

Abby kept her expression serious when her uncle Tristan stepped forward with his hound, Ettarre, at his side.

“General,” he said with his soft, swaying voice, one hand resting on the top of his dog’s large head. If anyone could get them out of a fight, or a pretend one, it was Tristan. “ ’Tis true, many of us have slept in stables once or twice. Darach there”—he motioned to Abby’s cousin, standing at the far end of the hall, his sharp green gaze on MacPherson’s men—“was a prisoner in one, chained to a stall while he recovered from a vicious beating by the Buchanans.”

Abby knew that only Darach would have the boldness to marry one of the Lowlanders. But Abby was fond of his wife, Janet, and Darach looked happy enough, save for right now.

“While it might be true,” Tristan continued, making a good enough show of pretending to know neither Daniel nor Abby, “that the smell of horse manure and moldy hay may be preferable to yer presence, I came here fer a bed, and a bed I shall have.” He turned to MacPherson when he finished the sentence and waited to be shown to their rooms. Ettarre, sitting patiently at her master’s side, growled from someplace deep in her throat.

Their host didn’t hesitate. “Right this way, my lords.”

Abby watched her kinsmen follow MacPherson upstairs, her heart still racing at how close they’d come to a fight. She thanked God for Tristan’s intercession and her eyes softened on her kin, loving them for risking life and limb in coming here, not knowing what kind of men or how many awaited them at MacPherson’s keep.

“How long have they been following us?” Daniel’s cool voice grazed her ear as he came to stand at her side as everyone emptied the hall.

“Since we left Skye,” she admitted. “They’ve stayed a day behind. The queen doesna’ know them, nor will she see them anywhere near me once we get to England. No one will be more careful to keep me safe than my faither. They followed because they love me, sir.”

For a moment, he simply stared at her; those big, beautiful, piercing green eyes made her want to fall into his arms or run for her life.

“I don’t like being deceived,” he said with steely steadiness in his voice.

“I’m under nae obligation to tell ye everything, General. Besides, I wouldna’ endanger them by telling ye.”

“What did you think I would do to them?” All at once, his gaze on her went soft and warm, searing her blood, melting her bones.

“I dinna’ know,” she managed. “I dinna’ want ye to fight with them again. Even fer show.”

“You fear for their lives. I understand.”

“I fear fer all yer lives.” She moved away from him before she ended up in his arms, in his bed. Wherever he wanted her. “ ’Tis all verra’ distressing to me,” she told him and started up the stairs.

“Very well.” He followed her, making her feel giddy and ridiculous with titillating tremors that shook her belly. “I will not fight with them.”

“Even fer show?” she pressed, offering him a repentant smile.

He smiled in return. “Even for show. We do have a slight dilemma, though.”

“And what is that, my lord?” Was he going to confess that he had lost his heart to her? That he still wanted to kiss her senseless even though thirteen of her deadly Highland kin had just arrived? Was he mad? Was she?

“We must sleep in separate quarters tonight.”

Aye, he was correct. If he was discovered in her bedchamber…

“I will miss your company, Miss MacGregor.”

Her muscles went weak. Her cheeks blazed red, like she’d been caught in a blizzard. His declaration took her by complete surprise, as did her reaction to it. “Elation” was a fair word.

It wasn’t because she was unfamiliar with fond, eloquent confessions. She’d had many suitors over the last few years. There were many men who sought her hand in marriage, but at her sweet mother’s request, her father was allowing her to decide her own fate. Not one of those suitors had made her feel the way Daniel did—safe, and yet terrified of falling over a precipice and dying for everything she held dear. Daniel hunted people with her beliefs and killed them as traitors to the throne. What would stop him from turning his blade on her father? He said he wouldn’t. Could she trust him?

“Daniel.” She stopped on a step and turned to him. She wanted to know now instead of staying awake all night with the burden of it. “Would ye harm my faither? He is a Jacobite, lest ye ferget.” And my mother, she ached to add but didn’t dare. Would he kill her mother if he found out who Davina MacGregor truly was?

The last remnant of his smile disappeared as he looked down into her eyes and shook his head. “Would you have me vow it?”

“Aye,” she said softy. Heaven help her, if they were any other two people with two different lives, she would fling her arms around him and drag him in for a kiss. But she was a Jacobite and, moreover, the niece of King James III. Perhaps if she could tell him the truth, he would leave Anne and fight for the true king. But she couldn’t tell him her secret without putting her mother’s life in more jeopardy.

“Give me yer word and I will trust it without question.”

His smile returned. Slightly, but enough to make his eyes grow more vivid. “You honor me.” He bowed his head to her and made her breath quicken. “You have my word, then. No harm will I bring to your father.”

“Or the others.”

He closed his eyes and tilted his head toward heaven. “Or the others,” he agreed with a sigh.

She thanked him and continued on up the stairs. There was no use in regretting what could never be, but that’s just what Abby did while she ascended with him. She was sorry she wouldn’t get to feel his mouth on hers again. It was just too dangerous. She wanted to kick something at the thought of returning to Camlochlin and someday marrying a man she didn’t love. A man who would never measure up to her knight.

When they reached her chamber door, her father was waiting for her.

“Faither.” She looked around the hall nervously. “If MacPherson—”

“I dinna’ give a damn aboot him or anyone else, Abby. I would have more assurances that ye’re unharmed. We saw the clearin’.” His eyes shifted to Daniel. “What happened?”

Daniel told him everything quickly and then answered the queries her father put to him.

When the chief seemed satisfied with all he’d heard, he drew his daughter into his crushing embrace and bid her good night.

“We will speak more in the mornin’,” her father promised Daniel before turning to leave. “Ye have questions nae doubt aboot what we’re doin’ here.” He paused, as if something just occurred to him, and turned back to Daniel. “Are ye no’ comin’?”

Daniel shook his head. “I’ll be sleeping outside her door.”

Her father set his piercing eyes on her and seemed to see beyond her flesh, mayhap to the little girl sitting at her grandmother’s knee, listening to tales of King Arthur. “A true knight then?”

“ ’Twould seem so, Faither,” she answered softly, then lowered her gaze to the floor. He knew her too well. “He’s kept me safe and has treated me with integrity.”

The clan chief of the MacGregors nodded his head and grunted in Daniel’s direction. “He’d better.”

After another brief kiss good night, her father left her alone again with Daniel. Abby looked at him against the soft glow of the candlelight that lit the hall. Her knight. She was mad, but she didn’t care. Shadows danced over the strong cut of his jaw while he tightened it, seeming suddenly awkward in her presence.

“It’ll be morning soon. You’d best get to bed.” His voice fell like luxurious silk across her ears, quickening her heart, making her wish he would speak other, more intimate words to her.

“Aye.” She nodded, not wanting to leave him. If only they were different people. “I’ll bring ye yer blanket.”

She needed to go before she couldn’t. “Sleep well, my lord.”

He smiled at her, bowed elegantly, and then brought her hand to his lips. “And you, my lady.”

Later that night, while Abby sat propped against her chamber door, lost in the sounds of her English escort on the other side, she knew things had gone very awry. She was in trouble, deep, deep trouble. The kind of trouble that makes a heart groan with the hopelessness of it all. It would have been better for her entire clan if she had never come.

She feared she was losing her heart to an English enemy. She fought it as best she could, but her attempts failed. It made her weep softly into the night knowing that masking her emotions would be even more difficult… more necessary. She had come on this journey to save her mother, her entire clan, to do what any chief would.

She pushed the sadness and regret out of her voice as they talked, sharing their lives through the cold slab of wood, and fell asleep as the sun came up.