DARE THE WILD WIND (14 page)

Her words caught him off guard, and she went on before he could say more.  "I want to go to
Cam.  What does it profit you to stand in my way?"

His face went rigid.  "And what is it you suggest I do?" he asked in a low, tight voice.  His fingers still tangled in her hair, but their painful hold had relaxed. 

"Let me go."  She knew she was pleading now, but she didn't care.  "Malcolm can't call a man of your rank to account.  There won't be anything he can do."

His expression was harsh.  "I gave my word to your brother I'd bring you safely hom
e."

"How safe will I be under Malcolm's roof?" she burst out.  "He means to arrange a marriage for me as soon as the fighting is over
, to sell me in spite of everything he swore to our father."

Abruptly, the Earl released his grip.  "A fate more pleasant than the one you invite," he snapped.  "Have you thought about the danger you put yourself in?  Have you thought how many men will have you if you do reach Charles Stuart's camp?"    

Brenna recoiled.  "Cam will protect me," she said coldly. 

He let out a cynical sound.  "Not once we run the Rebels to ground.  The Duke's army will meet the Pretender's in a matter of days.  If he lives, your fine Scot will be running too fast to defend you.  You'll be left behind
, nothing but a camp follower, fair game for any man who claims you."

Fury boiled up in her at the suggestion
Cam would abandon her.

"
Cam would never run."  She struck out with all her strength at the Earl.  "Don't ever call him a coward."

Her hand cracked sharply against his face.  Immediately she drew back in shock at what she had done, at the glittering rage she saw in his eyes. 

He seized her by both arms.  "No woman strikes me."

Lifting her off her feet, he caught her mouth with his.  Brenna twisted in his grasp, struggling, but he only pulled her closer against the hard muscular length of his body.  The first pressure of his mouth was punishing, and Brenna fought not to yield.  Then, suddenly, his kiss changed, slow and searching and insistent.  A dark chord arrowed through her, and against her will, Brenna's lips parted under his, and she shivered at the hot probing of his tongue. 

At her reaction, he made an odd husky sound in his throat and kissed her more deeply.  Brenna's bones dissolved, and without thought she melted against him, her arms coiling around his neck.  The heat of his mouth scalded her and possessed her, and a strange madness overtook her, creeping through her blood like an exotic potion, destroying
all sanity and resistance. 

Then, abruptly, his mouth lifted from hers.  Drawing an unsteady breath, he put her away from him, setting her roughly back on her feet, so suddenly she stumbled.

"Your loyalty to your lover would warm his heart," he said in a caustic voice.

His hand closed on her wrist, and he jerked her toward his grazing stallion.

"Don't worry that I'll touch you again.  I don't fancy the leavings of other men." 

     
                              *****

Humiliated and defeated, held fast by the Earl's hard muscled arm, Brenna returned a captive to the English camp.  Riding double, they followed the ravine until it narrowed and grew shallow enough to cross.

Neither of them spoke.  Brenna could still taste his mouth on hers, and longed to wipe all trace of it away.  He had given her no choice but to yield.  It galled her that he had
taunted her for her faithless moment to Cam.  And incensed her that he had thrust her unceremoniously away from him and mocked her as damaged goods.

Fiercely she wished she had lain with
Cam before he rode off to join the Prince's army.  But they had expected the campaign to be short, to be wed before the first snows to blanket the Highlands.   Brenna wanted no man but Cam.  The skill of the Earl's kiss had been no more than that, damning evidence of an experience with women Brenna didn't care to contemplate.  The Duke of Cumberland had been right in calling him a rake. 

Tears blurred her vision, tangling her lashes and sliding down her face to dampen the gauzy stock at her throat.  But she wouldn't own them to the Earl by wiping them away.  All her plans had come to nothing.  If she had won free, the jewelry still sew
n in her petticoat would have bought all she needed to make her way to the Rebel camp.  Now her last hope of joining Cam was shattered.  Malcolm would give her no more chance to slip away.  She wouldn't see Cam until the last Englishman was driven from Scottish soil.

Despite her impatience for the fighting to end, the thought of the coming battle chilled her.  Until now the Prince's forces had bested George the Second's whenever they met, but
Cam was certain to be in the forefront of any battle.  Would his luck hold?

Ribald bursts of laughter greeted them as they rode into the camp.  Brenna's hair, tumbled wildly around her shoulders, and her disheveled riding habit testified to a struggle, and her face flamed at the remarks made as they passed. 

"Tossed 'er skirts, he did.  And right well, too, from the look of 'er."

"I'd take a bit of that, if
'is lordship's 'ad 'is fill."

Brenna longed to aim her booted foot at their faces, but Drake Seton's arm tightened around her ribs, and he urged the stallion to a canter.  Pinned ruthlessly against him in the saddle, Brenna could do nothing but pretend she was deaf to the barrage of indecencies that followed them.  The Earl didn't draw rein till they reached the quartermaster's tent.  Then he swung down from the gray and pulled her after him.  With cold aplomb, he summoned a nervous corporal.

"See Ares has a good rubdown.  He's had a run."  He wheeled to a young lieutenant emerging from his superior officer's tent. "Tell the quartermaster we'll require a fresh mount suitable for a lady.  Her own animal unfortunately proved too much for her to handle."

Brenna almost choked at the last.  When he turned back to her, his smile told her he knew how his words maddened her. 

"I shouldn't worry overmuch about your horse, Lady Brenna," he said in a smooth, infuriating voice.  "A runaway usually finds its way back to its own stable."

She sputtered at his patronizing advice.   "Concern for my horse is a trifle tardy."

"I can see you're still ou
t of sorts," he said, offering her a hand in a courtly parody of gallantry.  "After your misadventure, I'm certain you'll benefit from some rest and refreshment in the quartermaster's tent.  I'll see that the colonel's striker brews you a cup of Ceylon tea."

She had no other choice but to join in his charade.  She placed her hand in the Earl's and turned toward the open flap of the tent.  But as she did, Brenna caught sight of a figure on horseback poised like a crow a few yards beyond the tent.  With a small unpleasant shock, she recognized Charles Godwin.  And from the expression on his bony pinched face, she knew her attempt at escape would be reported to Malcolm without a detail omitted.

When Brenna and the Earl rode back into the castle courtyard, Malcolm waited.  Legs braced stiffly apart, he stood on the steps below the castle's great hall, wearing an expression between anger and a strange malicious pleasure.  And Charles Godwin hovered at his elbow.

Gypsy had found her way home before them.  Still saddled, cross
tied between two posts outside the castle smithy, the mare shied skittishly at the sound of shod hooves striking the stones behind her.  Dried mud still spattered her legs and thistles snagged in her mane and tail.  No groom had rubbed her down.  She could see no sign Gypsy had been given so much as a cooling drink of water.  Malcolm said nothing until Drake Seton handed Brenna down from the tame, aging mount the quartermaster had found for her. 

"Nothing would satisfy you until you disgraced me in front of the Duk
e," he said in a venomous voice.

The Earl broke in before Brenna could answer.  "Your sister suffered a small mishap.  Her horse threw her, but the Duke was elsewhere at the time."

For once, Malcolm was far too angry to defer to the Earl.  "My lord, don't trouble to put a harmless face on the situation.  I'd know well enough what happened, even if Lord MacBeal hadn't witnessed my sister's conduct."     

Charles Godwin's look challenged Brenna's, secretly gratified and black with hostility.

"What did Charles tell you?" Brenna demanded, the salacious remarks of the soldiers still burning in her ears. 

Malcolm hesitated for a second, as if he was tempted to heap like insults on her.  But he feared the Earl too much to make any accusation directed at him.

"That you behaved like a whore," he hissed, his fury barely in check.  "That you abused the Earl's generosity and tried to ride for the Rebel camp."

"What of it?" Brenna spat back.  She had tired of hiding behind the Earl.  She felt his fingers tighten in warning on her arm and shook off his restraining hand.  "The tale the Earl concocted in the camp scarcely serves here.  I see no need to lie.  No one who knows me would believe Gypsy threw me. "    

"Commendable, dear sister, when you can gain nothing by it," Malcolm told her.  He turned back to Drake Seton.  "Your efforts to preserve the Dalmoral name are appreciated, my lord.  But my sister is far more bent on destroying it."

He lifted a hand to a pair of men lounging by the smithy. 

"Only one measure seems likely to have any effect."  He favor
ed Brenna with a tight, malevolent smile.  "When a spoiled child misuses a dangerous plaything, it's best to remove it from reach."

He nodded to the waiting men.  In sudden alarm she saw one of them move to Gypsy's head, the other to hobble the mare's hind feet.       

"Malcolm, no!"  Brenna dived toward the two men, but her brother caught her and held her in a cruel grip. 

"I fear, sweet Brenna, that our father gave you far too fast a horse," he said in a low almost honeyed voice.  She felt him give another sharp jerk of his head.  And saw the dirk's blade catch the sun and glitter as it arced down toward the mare's hind legs.

The Earl lunged forward.  "Good God, Dalmoral.  Are you mad?"

Gypsy screamed in terrible animal pain as the vicious edge of the dagger sliced through the tendons in her fetlocks.  Blood spurted as her trussed hindquarters gave way under her, and she sank to the stones beneath her.  Shrieks Brenna didn't hear tore at her throat as the mare writhed in agony on the cobbles of the courtyard, her head still suspended between the two posts as she thrashed helpless and bleeding below the ropes that tied her. 

The Earl's hand caught roughly at Malcolm's shoulder, and Malcolm's grip on Brenna broke.  The Earl all but pulled Malcolm off his feet, and through dazed eyes Brenna saw Malcolm abruptly quail at the murderous look in Drake Seton's eyes.

"You cowardly fool."  He raised his hand, and for a heartbeat, Brenna thought he would smash it into her brother's face.  Then, with an effort, he lowered it and let Malcolm go.

"Every word about the Scots is true.  You're savages, every one."  His face had set, and he spoke in an icy voice.  "Give me a musket.  And get your sister inside.  She's seen enough as it is."

      
  *****    

  The shot echoed in Brenna's ears.  Behind the heavy oaken door, Brenna heard her beloved Gypsy give one last scream, and then there was silence in the courtyard outside.

Brenna collapsed on a carved bench against the wall.  Stunned tears blinded her.  How could Malcolm take this kind of revenge?  How could he destroy an animal with Gypsy's spirit and beauty and brave willing heart?  For the first time, Brenna hated him as implacably as he hated her.

Slowly she became aware the elderly tacksman who had guided her inside was speaking to her.

"M'lady, you mustn'a linger here."  He sent an anxious glance over his shoulder toward the door.  "The dear only knows what the Laird will do next.  He's fair gone in the head, he is."

"Dennis has the right of it," Morag pleaded.  “You're best off out of his sight till he comes to his senses again."

"My brother is in perfect command of his senses," Brenna said in a dead voice.  He was exactly what he'd always been, monstrously cruel and envious, bent on destroying anything he couldn't have.

"You're as daft as he is," Morag
said bluntly.  "Come away with me, and now."

Brenna rose numbly and allowed Morag to lead her to the curving staircase and up the steps to her room.  Stripping off her riding habit, Brenna wadded it in a ball and threw it to the floor.  Morag rushed to retrieve and smooth the crumpled green velvet, and Brenna stopped her with a look.       

"Burn it."  Careless of the mud that still caked her face and hands, she fell prone across the bed.  "I never want to see it again."

Brenna neither ate nor drank that day or the next.  With the dawn, the English army broke camp.  Despite Morag's coaxing to watch them go, Brenna had no desire leave her bed, no heart to take even a sip of barley broth.  A brief formal note of condolence for Gypsy's loss had arrived from the Earl.  Numbly, Brenna scanned it, then let it drop indifferently to the floor.  She couldn't hold him to account for Malcolm's butchery.  But Drake Seton's interference had brought Gypsy, and her, back to
Lochmarnoch Castle.