Chapter Twenty-Two

Steady rain dripped off the branches of the trees, struck the plaid Finnan wore over his head, and seeped through the wool to trickle down his neck. He sat huddled in a stand of pine, safe from the hounds, or so he hoped. Danny, exhausted and once more pricked by fever, slept behind him, under cover. Even the wet would not rouse the lad now.

The moments spent at Jeannie MacWherter’s cottage had been the last rest either of them had known. All day yesterday the Avries’ men had chased them about the glen, keeping them always on the move. Two groups of hunters combed the hillsides, one led by Stuart and one by Trent Avrie. Trent’s group had almost had them this afternoon, half way up the slope above Dun Mhor. Danny had stumbled and gone down; Finnan had climbed the rest of the hillside with the lad slung over his shoulder.

And got away. But for how long? He could move like a deer, but it could not be denied Danny hampered him. And with the return of the lad’s fever, Finnan could only ask so much. Danny needed rest and had been on fire when Finnan tucked him away among the trees.

Surely they were safe for a time. On a night so filthy wet, even his pursuers must be loath to venture out. Danny would catch his breath and be stronger in the morning.

But Finnan did not like keeping still; he never had, and now, surrounded by danger, he felt as if he had a prod at his back. Inactivity gave him too much time to think, and while he could unquestionably use an opportunity to figure how he would get out of this tangle, he could concentrate on only one thing.

Jeannie MacWherter.

She had haunted him ever since he walked away from her door. The feel of her flesh seemed to linger in the tips of his fingers, and his cock had been up more than down. Even now, beset by damp and exhaustion, the very idea of her had him stirring.

If ever a woman had been made for plundering, it was she. He relived again the moment he had plunged into her: her heat and tightness, that telling moment of resistance. And then the way she had clung to him with arms, lips, and those inner muscles. She fitted him the way a finely made sheath fit a sword.

By all that was holy, he had to stop thinking about it or he would embarrass himself here in the darkness, and he had not done that since he was a green lad. He had to stop thinking of her. Or if he did he must focus on his revenge, because this was all about Geordie. Jeannie had denied Geordie everything Finnan had enjoyed yestere’en. Remember that, my lad, he told his cock.

It refused to listen and bade him instead remember the scent of her, filling his senses when she became aroused. Her desire had beat at him like a wall of fire.

Perhaps, his maddened brain whispered at him, taking up the demand started lower down, he should punish her again soon. Now. He might walk to her door and—

Nay, but Jeannie MacWherter’s cottage lay down a rocky slope at the other end of the glen. He and Danny should remain safe here.

Curse it.

For she would be so warm on a wet night. He imagined how she might strip the dripping plaid from him, and then all the clothing beneath. He thought on how her narrow white hands might move over his body, collecting moisture, followed by her lips and then her tongue.

What was it about the woman? She exerted a powerful attraction. He pictured the men of Dumfries lining up behind her like dogs behind a bitch in heat.

But that line of men included Geordie.

In truth, she had been fortunate it was Geordie she had wed, else she never would have remained unplucked. Any other husband would have pressed his suit, claimed his rights, and had her. Geordie, beneath all his muscle and brawn, had been a gentle soul and almost ridiculously courteous to women.

As two young, wandering mercenaries, they had both received more than their share of female attention wherever they went. He could remember many a time a woman had been drawn to the big, sandy-haired highlander, like a bee to honey.

Why not this time?

Jeannie hinted that Geordie had changed since Finnan last saw him. But Finnan knew that for a lie. He had the letters, after all.

Upon the thought, he reached into his leather pouch, wherein he kept his treasures, and extracted a folded piece of paper. Only three letters remained, and he kept them with him at all times. The others Geordie had sent were all destroyed, some to wet and one to fire. He should not expose one to the rain now. But he needed to remind himself just what Jeannie MacWherter truly was.

He smoothed the oft-folded paper open on his knee. Barely enough light remained for him to catch the words scrawled there. In truth, he had no need to. Everything Geordie had written was more or less inscribed on his memory.

Unlike him, Geordie had not received a decent education while young. When they met, Geordie had barely been able to write his name. Finnan had taught him that and enough to let him get by, in their quiet moments and over the long winters when time weighed heavily upon them. As a consequence, he knew Geordie’s hand as well as his own.

Which of the three missives had he drawn from the pouch? Was it the one that began, “Finn, I have met an angel,” in which Geordie poured out all the tender emotion in his heart? Was it that written after his marriage, that expressed his disappointment? Or the final outpouring of grief that held all Geordie’s pain and inability to comprehend why the woman he adored did not love him?

He could see enough words on the page to tell it for the last. Quickly, he folded the paper and tucked it away again.

The words filled his mind:

Why will she not love me? I would give anything—all the days I have left of my life—for her to take me even once to her bed. But she does not look at me the way I wish. She does not see me the way I wish.

It is some terrible punishment, Finn. Fate is repaying me for all the evil I have done: the men slain for silver, the homes burned at the direction of some vile chief. And Culloden. She sees all that when she looks at me. What we did at Culloden. That is why she breaks my heart.

Finnan closed his eyes and stopped trying to remember. Culloden. Aye, it always came back to that. No man who had been there could have come through that battle unchanged.

A thought stole into Finnan’s mind: maybe Jeannie was right in that Geordie had altered a bit in Dumfries. But the truth of him, the loyalty that made up Geordie’s heart, could not alter.

It was a sin to throw the love of such a man, unstinting and genuine, back in his face. But that Jeannie had done, hard-hearted woman that she was.

Did that make Finnan want her any less? Damned if it did.

****

Jeannie looked up from the doorstep where she sat spinning wool, and the spindle went still beneath her hands. After two days’ rain, this morning had dawned awash with heavenly blue, smeared like watery paint across the sky. She had taken her work outdoors, and Aggie had walked to Avrie House to see what she might learn.

As an agent, Aggie left much to be desired. Impulsive and voluble, she had little talent for deception. But she was Jeannie’s only choice, and Jeannie knew she would go mad without news.

She fumbled with the wool in her lap and tried to concentrate on the task at hand. In no fit state of mind for spinning, her usually competent fingers had gone all clumsy, and the yarn broke time after time. Yet winter would soon be at their door with cold and snow. They would need warm clothing.

Frustration caused her to mutter a word oft-spoken in the taverns from which she had coaxed or dragged her father. She wanted to lay the spindle aside, wanted to walk down the path and meet Aggie.

Or anyone else who might be on his way.

Why did he not come? He had said he would. Two nights since they had lain together, and both endless.

Her cheeks grew warm just thinking of what had passed between them there in the dark, all she had done and permitted him to do. It almost seemed like some wild dream, but the next morning at first light she had walked back to the rowan copse and found her drawers lying there abandoned, like cobwebs on the grass. He had taken them off her, slid them down her legs with those strong, clever fingers, and she had offered herself to him as a willing sacrifice.

How could she have done such a thing?

How could she live if she did not have him again?

Other evidence had marked her body that next morning, as well, signs she could not deny. Tenderness in places never before touched by any man. None of that kept her from wanting him.

The thread broke again as her fingers jerked, and she swore still more woefully. She laid the spindle aside as a bad bet, got up, and walked down the path.

Warm air poured over her skin like water. The glen was beautiful in this weather, but she could not imagine surviving here in winter. Lest it be in Finnan MacAllister’s arms.

What was the matter with her? Why could she think of nothing but him? But she remembered his hand sliding slowly up her leg, and her knees trembled beneath her.

Aggie had been gone most the afternoon. Surely she must come soon. They had agreed she should go for a gossip with her friends in the kitchen at Avrie House; Aggie seemed almost as hungry as Jeannie for news.

Upon that thought she caught movement along the path, and her heart leaped sickeningly, but it was only Aggie after all. She came with a hurried step, and when she drew near enough Jeannie saw the tension in her face.

“I wondered when you might come,” Jeannie greeted her.

Out of breath, Aggie said, “I hurried back. Dorcas and Marie kept me long and had much to say. This chase is all they want to talk about.”

“Come, sit and tell me over a cup of tea.”

It did not seem strange for Jeannie to swing the kettle over the fire and serve her maid, even less so when Aggie drew a handkerchief from her pocket and unfolded it.

“They plied me with cakes in plenty, mistress. I saved you some.”

The frosted dainties thus revealed looked a treat, but Jeannie set them aside, too hungry for news. “What did you learn?”

Aggie drew a deep breath and blew it out again. “Well, the Avries have not yet taken their quarry, but not for lack of trying. Dorcas says her masters have had men up and down the glen day and night—even in that filthy rain we had—but they have failed to catch him.”

Jeannie shivered. What if a troop of Avrie household guard had come upon her and MacAllister in the rowan copse? The pure humiliation of it heated her cheeks again.

“Where could the laird and Danny be?” she asked. “They have not returned here.”

Aggie widened her eyes. “That is the question on everyone’s lips. They do not call Master MacAllister ‘laird,’ of course. They refuse to acknowledge him as that. They have many other names for him, some I dare not repeat.”

Jeannie said nothing, watching the emotions flicker across Aggie’s face.

“And the things they say of him!” Aggie made a quick gesture, the sign against evil.

“Like what?”

“That he is not only a man and murderer of men but possessed of magic, as well. They say he uses the dark arts to conceal himself about the glen and performs pagan rites—even sacrifices—to protect himself.”

Jeannie remembered Finnan MacAllister leaning over the injured Danny and whispering a prayer—or had it been an invocation? She said, “Who knows what goes on in this uncivilized place? Yet how long can he and the lad hide themselves? They will have to go to ground eventually.”

“Not at Dun Mhor. The Avries have men keeping watch over the ruins. If the laird and Danny set one foot there, they are snared.”

Despair flooded Jeannie’s heart. “But how can such a thing end?”

“In death, I fear,” Aggie pronounced, her usually benign expression hard and tight. “You mark my words, mistress, for they mean to slay the laird if they find him—and no hero’s death, but by blood and by flame.”