Amanda Scott (42 page)

“I’m sorry about that. I was afraid to use anyone else’s.”

“Wise of you.” He paused, then said sardonically, “A cobbler, Diana?”

“It would have worked if you had not been here,” she muttered, still not daring to look at him.

“Perhaps, but Neil’s escape would damn him, you know. Even those who think him innocent would change their minds.”

“No one thinks him innocent.”

“Not even his sister?”

“I know he is, but no one will heed what I say. If he was at James’s farm, he went there to see Katherine Maccoll.”

“Ah, yes, his dairymaid. Daughter of the man we caught with the guns.”

“Aye, but Neil took no part in Red Colin’s murder, Rory. He told me so, and I can always tell when he is lying.”

“I believe you,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “I have been doing some investigating myself. At best he’s been no more than an innocent pawn.”

Surprised, she said nothing.

“Will you trust me to handle this, Diana?”

He had not left her much choice, but instinct still warred with nature and experience. “Your uncle and Black Duncan are set on blaming the Macleans and the Stewarts for Red Colin’s murder.”

“I know they are.”

She looked at him. “They will stop at nothing.”

“I know that, too. I am a man of law, however, and so is Stonefield. The lord advocate will be guided by us.”

“And Argyll?”

“I’ll worry about him when I must.”

“Can you set Neil free, Rory?”

“I think so, but first we must get you out of here. Who came with you?”

She hesitated, but when her gaze met his, she said, “Bardie and Gordy MacArthur, Morag’s brother. Did Thomas not tell you?”

He smiled. “He knows Bardie, but he did not know the other man.”

“Gordy is waiting for Neil near the main gate. Bardie is at the boat. He is terrified of the water, but he came.”

“You are fortunate in your friends, sweetheart, but they ought to have kept you safe at home.”

“Are you still angry with me?” The words jumped out before she knew she was going to speak them.

“I am. We are going to have a very long, very serious talk about this.”

“We can’t,” she said sadly. “Neil has forbidden both Mary and me to have a thing to do with any Campbell, and we must obey him.”

“Do you really think that Ian will stop visiting Mary, or that she will tell him he must stay away?”

“She has not seen him since Red Colin’s murder.”

“Are you certain? I know Duncan ordered him to keep away, but Ian nearly defied him, and I think the lad means to go his own road. If he has to stand up to Duncan to do it, he will.”

“Well, I hope he succeeds. Duncan deserves to be bested.”

He shook his head but said only, “Come, we must get you out of here.” When he put a hand on her shoulder, she began to turn toward the door. He pulled her to him and kissed her hard on the mouth.

Caught by surprise, she gave no thought to his motives, responding instinctively and with a passion that must have astonished him, for he smiled against her mouth. A hand slipped beneath her coat to pull her closer.

She felt his heartbeat and his arousal, and her body tingled in response. At that moment, if he had swept her into his arms and ridden off with her on his trusty steed in the manner of all the best heroes, she would have counted the world well lost. If lust were all one needed for a lifetime of happiness, she thought, she would have done anything he asked of her.

The moment was over too soon. Setting her back away from him and regarding her with a wry grin, he said, “We’d better stop this before someone comes in and wants to know why the devil I’m making love to a cobbler.”

She smiled, but the threat of discovery included the possibility that she might be unmasked and held for punishment, so the smile felt weak.

“Cheer up, sweetheart,” he said, evidently not misled by it. “I haven’t eaten you yet, and I won’t let anyone else do so, because I have quite made up my mind to marry you. Therefore, you had better give some thought to changing your ways, and that includes allowing your husband to protect you. There will be no more of these little adventures once you become my wife.”

“I have not said that I will marry you, sir,” she reminded him, as desire and temper vied to command her emotions. “What you want is a Dulcinea who will mold herself to your quixotic fantasies. I am not that woman, and I never shall be.”

“You are certainly no Dulcinea, sweetheart. If you resemble any of Cervantes’s women, it is Dorothea, for she is the one with wit and wisdom. However, I am not nearly as quixotic as you are, you know.”

“Nonsense. In any event, our families still won’t allow us to marry.”

“We can get round them.”

“I doubt that our promise to wed, let alone a consummation, would shift any Campbell or Maclean from his position even if I were daft enough to agree.”

“What’s wrong with me?”

She wanted to tell him the truth, that nothing was wrong, but she could not see daylight through the darkness ahead, so she said simply, “You’re a Campbell.”

The words rang false even to her ears, but he said solemnly, “I’m rapidly discovering that some Campbells are a bit too villainous for anyone’s taste, but all of them are not. I’ll wager you know a Maclean or two you don’t much fancy.”

She knew several, but she said, “That changes nothing. I am—”

A rap at the door startled them both, and Rory snatched up her floppy hat and jammed it onto her head. Hastily, she tucked in the few stray curls that had escaped it, and looked down at the floor.

“Not a word,” he muttered. “I’ll do the talking. Enter!”

A guard stepped in. “Begging your pardon, my lord, but another of the new lot’s got a visitor. His mam, this one is.”

“I’ll come straightaway,” Rory said. “No need to drag the woman back here. As soon as I’ve seen this cobbler on his way, I’ll be with you.”

“I’ll take him, sir, and I’ll show you where I’ve put the auld woman, too.”

Rory hesitated briefly, then said, “Excellent.” Then to Diana, he added, “I’ll see that these shoes get to Sir Neil, my man. Off you go now.”

She tugged the front of her hat and jerked a little bow, then turned silently to follow the guard. Five minutes later, she was outside the gate, looking for Gordy.

Rory dealt with the other prison visitor quickly, then made his way to the governor’s spartan office.

John Crawfurd, the lieutenant colonel who commanded Fort William, stood to greet him when he entered. A year older than Rory, he took himself and his duty very seriously. “I trust you have found everything in order, my lord.”

“I have, indeed. Has Stonefield arrived yet?”

“Aye, they’ve put him in the wee chamber I set aside so he can question such prisoners as we’ve got for him.”

“I’ll go to him, if you’ll have someone show me the way.”

“I’ll take you myself,” Crawfurd said. “That was a fine bit of work we did, was it not, putting our hands on James Stewart’s weapons?”

“Only if one was the murder weapon,” Rory said, glancing at him.”

“We ken fine that one’s the wee musket.”

“Do we? The servant you threatened and then bribed never said James shot Glenure, only that they had moved some of James’s weapons for him.”

Crawfurd shot him another puzzled look, but Rory said no more. A moment later, the governor stepped past him to open a door.

“Ah, there you are, lad,” the sheriff said when they entered the small room. It contained a desk, a chair, and a pair of wooden stools. Stonefield stood to shake Rory’s hand, saying, “I’ve been told you want me to question young Maclean first.” Glancing at the governor, he added, “Ah … are we all three to question the lad?”

Hastily, Crawfurd said, “I’ll leave you to it. I’ve much to attend to, myself.”

When the door had shut, Rory said, “I’ve been asking questions of my own, Stonefield, and I’m of the opinion that Sir Neil has done no more than try to help certain members of his clan and the clan of his widowed mother.”

“I’m told he was present when they found yon suspect weapons.”

“He’s been seeing the Maccoll wench. Just a flirtation, of course, and it was her father they caught with the weapons, not Maclean. There is no love lost between those two men. Maccoll thinks the lad’s been trifling with Katherine.”

“As he has,” Stonefield said, twinkling. “He’ll certainly not marry a dairymaid. But they do say the small gun must be the one, sir, do they not?”

“Stewart’s people say it was part of a cache such as many folk hereabouts keep and that they moved the weapons when James was arrested so a search would not turn them up. That is quite a reasonable explanation, don’t you agree?”

“Every man was supposed to turn in his weapons—all of them—at Castle Stalker by the summer of forty-seven,” Stonefield said with a wry grimace.

“Most of the weapons turned in were damaged or broken. Can you doubt that most folks managed to keep their good ones hidden away?”

The sheriff’s eyes twinkled again, but he said, “They should not have done that, and so they should know. Ah, but here’s our man now. Come in, lad, and sit down. I’ve questions to ask you, and I’d advise you to answer them fully and truthfully. This chap who brought you in will write down everything you say.”

Unusually subdued, Neil nodded, glancing uncomfortably at Rory before giving his attention to Stonefield.

Rory had brought the shoes with him, and as Neil drew up a stool and sat down, he set them on the corner of the table nearby.

Neil’s eyes widened, but he said nothing, for which piece of good sense Rory gave him full marks.

“The cobbler whom you asked to mend these traveled a long way to deliver them,” he said mildly. “I told him I would give them to you.”

Neil’s eyes narrowed. “Did you? That was kind of you, sir, but the cobbler ought never to have gone to so much trouble.”

“You must take that up with him,” Rory said, meeting his gaze directly.

With a grim look of understanding, Neil said, “Be sure I will, sir.”

“In the meantime, I advise you to be candid with Sheriff Stonefield.”

“Do you?”

Rory caught his gaze again and held it. “I do,” he said sternly.

“That is excellent advice, Sir Neil,” the sheriff said. “To begin, just tell me what your relationship is to James of the Glen.”

“He is my mother’s natural brother,” Neil said, “just as he is to the Laird of Ardsheal. Therefore, he is by way of being my uncle.”

“What were you doing at Aucharn the night before last?”

Neil hesitated, glanced at Rory again and reddened, then said, “The dairymaid, Katherine, is my friend. We were out walking together.”

“Where had you been since the murder of Colin Glenure?”

Again Neil glanced at Rory, who leaned a shoulder against the wall and folded his arms across his chest, gazing steadily back.

Turning back to Stonefield, Neil said, “I have heard men speak of you, sheriff, and they call you a fair man. They do not say the same of the Campbells hereabouts, however. When I learned that a number of them were watching my house, looking for me, I stayed in the hills. Not through any sense of guilt, mind, merely for self preservation.”

“Where were you when Glenure was shot?” Stonefield asked.

“If I understand the time correctly, I was with Katherine Maccoll on the ridge above Glen Creran, helping her move a herd to the high pasture. I was with her from half past two till well past six, when we walked back to Aucharn. Bardie Gillonie saw us at about half past three.”

“He and Katherine will say the same, you believe?”

Before Neil could speak, Rory said, “They will.”

Stonefield’s eyebrows shot upward. “Have you spoken with them, sir?”

“I have. They said the same, and I have found no one who claims to have seen Sir Neil elsewhere.”

The questions did not end there, but Neil showed no hesitation after that, even when the sheriff asked if he knew the whereabouts of his cousin Allan.

“I do not,” he said.

Rory observed from the outset that Neil answered no more than the exact question put to him, but he was not surprised. After the ravages of Cumberland and his men throughout Appin country and the rest of the Highlands, even children fresh from the cradle knew better than to volunteer information to anyone.

Neil’s attitude was open and frank, so Rory was no more surprised some twenty minutes later when Stonefield said abruptly, “I’ll keep your precognition after you sign it, sir. But unless I meet with facts contradicting what you’ve told me, I do not think we have cause to keep you locked up any longer.”

Straightening, Rory said, “I agree, sheriff. You should release him at once.”

“Aye, well, but it’s growing dark, sir. Better to release him in the morning.”

“I share your concern, but I mean to return tonight, and Maclean House is but a step away from Balcardane. If Sir Neil has no objection, and if we can find him a horse to ride, he can make one of my party.”

The sheriff shot him a speculative look. “Do you think that wise, my lord?”

“I do. The lad has some few enemies, sheriff, who would like nothing better than to make mischief for him. They will leave him alone whilst he’s with me, and I want no more killing if we can avoid it.”

“Aye, well, I’m in agreement with you there, sir.”

“Then I’ll leave you to arrange for his horse.”

Twenty minutes later, as the main gate clanged shut behind them, Neil said quietly, “It’s a damned good thing no one asked me to put on those shoes, sir. My feet never did grow as large as my father’s.”

“It’s as well, too, that Stonefield never asked how many were in my party,” Rory told him. “You’ll do, lad. I don’t doubt you could tell us more if you wanted to, but I admire a man who can keep his counsel when it behooves him to do so.”

Neil shot him a look from under his brows. “Admire away,” he said. “Did she really try to get to me dressed as a cobbler?”

“She did.” Rory made no secret of his displeasure. “I think she intended to pull the same stunt she pulled at Edinburgh Castle.”

“I will throttle her,” Neil said grimly.

“Nay, lad.”

“Nay?”