Bride of Dunloch (Highland Loyalties) (19 page)

Ruth’s words were like a splash of ice water over her body as Jane realized what had happened. She’d been too hasty. She’d shoved Robbie’s plaid into its hiding place and had rushed from the room without ensuring it was properly concealed.

Oh dear God, it was
her
fault. Robbie would be found and killed for her carelessness.

“No,” she wailed in despair, and covered her face with her hands.

“My Lady, it is alright. You are safe now.”

“You do not understand,” she protested, shaking her head vehemently. “You were right about me, about where I go at night. That scrap of fabric being in
my
chamber was no accident. It was
I
that hid it here because it was
he
who gave it to me.”

Ruth gasped, shaking her head in disbelief. “My Lady, what are you saying? Do you mean—”

“Yes, my Ruth. It was I who found Robbie MacGillivray, chief of clan Gillivray and true Laird of Dunloch. I healed a nasty wound that he suffered at the hands of Lord Reginald’s soldiers and I saved his life. Oh Ruth, there is so much about this conflict we don’t understand, but I speak true when I say that he is not a savage or a devil.”

Ruth hands were clasped to her cheeks as Jane spoke, and her eyes were wide with shock. “Oh, my Lady, how was I to know? Why did you not tell me any of this? Had I but known, I would not have brought what I found to Lord Reginald.”

“I did not want to involve you,” she answered vaguely. “Oh Ruth, I am a wretched creature, for I
love
Robbie. If they find him, they will surely kill him, and I cannot let that happen.”

“My Lady, I am truly sorry,” Ruth said firmly, taking hold of Jane’s arm, “but you are going nowhere. You have risked your life enough; indeed I cannot bear the fact that you’ve risked it at all. I will not allow you to involve yourself any further than you already are. You could be
hanged
as a traitor if your involvement is discovered, do you know that?”

“Yes. I do know, and I do not care, Ruth.
Robbie
will be hanged as a traitor if I do not warn him, and that thought terrifies me far more. I love you, my Ruth, truly, I do. But I must go. I must
warn
him.”

She wrenched her arm from Ruth’s grip, and followed by the woman’s cries for her to come back, she darted out the door and fled the castle in the direction of the stables.

Reaching them, she scared the wits out of the groomsmen on duty when she burst through the doors and mounted the nearest gelding, though he was not saddled. With a cry and a heel to the gelding’s side, she rode him bareback out of the stables and through the gates of Dunloch.

If the situation had not been so desperate, she would have been terrified of the animal moving beneath her and of the rough, hard ground beneath them both. But as the Scottish countryside flew past her at death-defying speed, she was so determined to get to Robbie first that she hardly noticed. Her heart pounded against her ribs as she scanned the landscape for Lord Reginald and his party. And when finally she reached the hut, she fully expected to be met by horses, their riders having discovered Robbie’s hiding place before she could reach it.

But there were none.

“Robbie,” she cried, bursting through the door of the hut.

Startled, he stood from where he sat by the fire, wincing in pain and gripping his side at having moved so hastily.

“They know you’re close,” she exclaimed, panting. “They’re out looking for you, and will surely find you if you do not make your escape
now
.”

Robbie’s eyes grew dark, and his visage hardened. “I want ye to tell me, Jane—do they ken ye’ve helped me? Do I put ye in danger if I leave ye here and dinna take ye wi’ me? Because I will, if ye are.”

“I am in no danger,” she lied. “But
you are
, so you must go now. I’ve a horse for you. Take him and make good your escape.”

Robbie needed no further prodding. With a nod, he limped awkwardly out of the hut, but before he mounted the gelding, he stopped and turned to Jane. Pulling her close, he kissed her. It was a swift kiss, rough and urgent. But in it, she felt a world of unspoken words, of unspoken emotion.

“I promise ye, as long as I live—which may not be very long at all—I’ll never forget ye.”

Then he mounted the gelding, and with a fierce, warrior’s cry and one tortured, backwards glance at her, he spurred the animal forward, hunched over awkwardly for his wound.

“Nor I you,” Jane echoed as she watched him ride away.

Alone, she breathed in the fragrant scent of the pine and of the wood smoke that still rose from the chimney of the hut.
Their
hut—hers and Robbie’s. She felt hollow, a shell of herself; a dull ache throbbed in the pit of her stomach. It begged her to cry, to wail, to scream in anguish. But she could not. She was numb everywhere.

She could not return to the castle—she would eventually, but not yet. Instead, she turned from the hut, from the scene of so much happiness and love that would be forever seared into the tissues of her brain, and walked in the direction of the plateau where they had buried Connall just the day before.

The grave was just as they’d left it, the body covered with fresh dirt. The small toy that had been clutched in little Connall’s hand when he’d stood by his father’s grave had been placed atop the dirt as a token.

Jane sank to the ground and picked the toy up. Clutching it to her throbbing heart she gazed, dry-eyed, over the landscape below.

Dunloch stretched endlessly before her, a carpet of rolling emerald hills. It was the land that Robbie loved. That Tearlach loved. That Connall had loved enough to die for. And now it was hers—whether rightly or wrongly, it was
hers
.

As she gazed at the distant castle, she knew. She knew that, just as Tearlach had done, she would protect it in whatever way she could, even if it meant she had to sell her soul to do so. She would happily bargain it away for Robbie not only because she loved him, but because it was
right
. She knew it was unlikely the MacGillivrays would ever return to rule it, but that did not matter.

If ever, by some miracle, they did return—if
Robbie
ever returned—Dunloch would be here, unchanged, waiting.

Jane made him a silent promise there on that plateau, beside the grave of his loyal clansman and cousin ... Dunloch would always be ready to welcome the return of its
true
laird.

She would make sure of it.

To be continued in Volume II of the
Highland Loyalties
trilogy:
Uniting the Clans
.