DARE THE WILD WIND (50 page)

She whirled, racing for the steps.  A strangely familiar figure stood at their foot, a smoking claw
handled pistol still braced on his forearm.  Trevor Sebastian stood where he had taken aim, then lowered the long silvered muzzle to wave the force of men that flanked him up the steps.  They surged onto the gallery, Brenna close behind them. 

The odds had changed, and
Cam's men turned tail and ran, only one or two exchanging brief fierce blows with the first of the
Trident’s
crew.  Brenna dodged past to Cam and Drake.

Cam
's massive body sprawled across Drake, his arm flung over Drake's head, pinning it at a twisted angle away from her.  Brenna could see nothing but Drake's ear and temple.  Both were smeared with blood, his shirt soaked in it.

"Drake!  Dear God. 
No
." 

She tried to haul
Cam's inert form to one side to get to Drake.  Even Cam's arm was unaccountably leaden.  She saw the round ragged hole in Cam's back.  From the blood that drenched them both, the shot must have passed cleanly through his body.  To strike Drake as well? 

Why didn't he move or speak? 

"Help me!" she screamed.  "Someone help me lift him."

There was an abrupt groan and a curse.  "I can do that well enough myself."

Wild with relief, Brenna recognized the half
suffocated voice as Drake's.  He groaned again. 

"The bloody lout must weigh fifteen stone."  With a grunt and a shove, he heaved
Cam's body off his.  And sat up, one hand going to the back of his head as if to test it.     

Forced to jump back when he rolled
Cam away, Brenna searched for any sign of a wound in the crimson flood that covered Drake's face and shirt.  And realized with a giddy sense of release that all of it must be Cam's.

Drake had come to himself enough to mark her searching gaze.  "I'm af
raid I have to disappoint you. Your freebooting lover didn't manage to shoot me after all."

Brenna fell back as he stood, robbed of words by his accusation. 

"And
I'm afraid you won't be able to help him now." 

Drake's glance slid to
Cam's limp upturned body.  Cam's face had contorted, his mouth gaping, eyes rolled blindly back in his head.  Brenna shook with a sudden chill, old as the race of man.  Bending over him, she could detect no rise of breath in Cam's chest, no quiver of a pulse at his throat.

Drake's voice sliced through her numb realization.

"Your fine
Highland outlaw is dead."

Chapter 28

Brenna stared down at Cam's sprawled form.
 

In death, he looked somehow smaller
, even the sinewy shell of flesh reduced and diminished.  Despite the careless scatter of his massive limbs, and the russet maned leonine head that had topped every other in a crowd and drawn every eye in it, his dangerous willful charm had been extinguished.  Once Brenna had followed wherever he led.  She had worshiped him like the child she was, and never seen the man.  Until  Penherion
.

It had been easy for
Cam to play the hero in the Highlands, where no clansman from Loch Rannoch to Moray Firth could match him for strength or skill with a sword.  Easy for Cam to charge an enemy cannon or stride boldly into a walled keep held by his enemies, confident in his ability to challenge any man, to land on his feet whatever the obstacle thrown up before him.  In his score of years, he had never tasted defeat.  Cam had never failed, never been bested, until Culloden Moor.
 

Never in truth confronted the implacable certainty of his own death.  When he was shackled and helpless, when his courage had been put to its greatest test, it had deserted him.  He had been willing to buy his life with any coin, even if the cost was Iain's.  Fenella had been right about him. 
Camscrupled at nothing, and nothing short of the shot Trevor Sebastian had fired would have prevented him from killing Drake
.

Brenna turned to find Drake gone.  Her heart constricted painfully, fearfully, in her chest.
How could he stalk away?  Had he come so far just to see Camdead?
 

Then, with irrational relief, she heard his voice around the corner of the gallery, issuing clipped orders to reinforcements from the ship, directing a search to rout out any stragglers from
Cam's crew still hidden in the house or on the plantation
.

Below the veranda, she saw Trevor Sebastian looming over Fenella, his tall angular frame half shadowing her diminutive figure in the grotesque dance of flames from the river
.

"He has no more claim on you now," he told Fenella, wrath and the blood heat of battle still in his voice.  He shot a grim glance toward
Cam's lifeless body.  "You're not his prisoner, or any other man's.
"

Before Fenella could gather her wits to speak, he went on.  "I know he bought you.  I know he brought you here like the spoils from one of his raids."
 

For an instant Fenella's expression was stricken.  "But how...?" she managed.
 

He took her hands in his, and his tone steadied.  "I tried to call on you after you disembarked in
London," he said in a lower, calmer voice.  "I wasn't certain what my welcome would be, but I couldn't leave Londonuntil I was sure you were safely settled
.

"The butler at the address you'd given had never seen you.  You'd vanished in a puff of smoke.  I cursed myself for not escorting you personally, for not asking more questions.
"

Thunderstruck, Fenella gazed up at him.  "You went to
Grosvenor Square?
"

"Before Lady Brenna was taken there.  None of the servants had any inkling who either of you were."  He paused.  "I'm ashamed to say I thought you'd made a fool of me.  I had business in
Northampton, and I spent a fortnight afterward with my brother's family on the Isle of Wight.  When I returned to London I saw the Earl's wedding procession.  Then I thought I understood—that Lady Brenna had been in some haste to leave the unrest in Scotlandbehind and felt safer not using her title, that you must have been in some way protecting her.
"

"What I told you wasn't a lie," Fenella said in a halting voice
.

"I discovered that much when I heard the..." he hesitated, "talk...in
London.  I knew then you must have followed the man you were promised to marry to England, just as Lady Brenna did.  With all the executions and Scottish rebels being transported to the Colonies, I felt you might be in need of a friend.  If nothing else, someone who could offer you passage home to Scotland.
"

His windburned face darkened even in the uncertain light.  "Perhaps my concern wasn't entirely unselfish.  But when I learned no one of your description was in the
Stratfordhousehold, I knew something was very wrong."  He paused.  "And when Lady Wittworth told me where and how you'd disappeared, I was determined to find you."    
 

Fenella's soft face set.  "I was a long way from
Londonby then.  You shouldn't have bothered to look.
"

He took both her hands in his.
  "Where they took you doesn't matter, Fenella.  What mattered to me was not to let you stay there.
"

She twisted away.  "I'm not that girl any longer.  If you knew how to find me here, you must know what I've been, what I am.  You've gone to a great deal of effort for nothing.
"

Misery was written on Fenella's face, and Brenna knew she had no right to witness her shame and pain.  But Trevor Sebastian's eyes lifted to where she stood, appealing to her to stay
.

"It was a great deal of trouble," he affirmed, "and I think the Countess would agree you
should hear me out.  It isn't my ordinary habit to frequent houses of ill repute in every port from Tripoli to Maracaibo, but I made it my business to ask after any fair haired girls who might be fresh from Scotland.
 

"On my last voyage, I tracked you to Saint Kitts.  But I arrived too late."  His tone had gone bitter and harsh.  "With a certain amount of encouragement, I persuaded the proprietor of the establishment to tell me the name of the man who bought you
.

"It struck an oddly familiar note," he said with a grim glance at
Cam's lifeless body.  "The
Red Witch
had an unpleasant reputation in the Caribbean, and I realized I'd heard MacCavan's name before, in London.  I couldn't credit that you'd gone with the likes of MacCavan by choice, and I swore I'd do whatever I had to do to set you free.
"

Fenella's face was a study in disbelief.  She was clearly amazed a man she had known a matter of days on their voyage from
Scotlandhad crossed an ocean and risked his life to find her.  And, if Brenna was any judge, not a little pleased and awed by the tenacity Trevor Sebastian had shown.
 

Abruptly, Drake's voice made Brenna whirl.
 

"Madame, if you care to wash before we speak, I'll take the liberty of doing the same.
"

Brenna glanced down at the blood and dirt that smeared her hands and skirt, and up again at his face.  But his look was as glacial as his tone.  Brenna swallowed.  Had she expected him to rush to her, and sweep her into his arms?
 

"As you wish," she said with a formality that matched his, calling on all the control she could muster to keep her voice steady.  He gestured with ironic gallantry to the gallery stairs and stood aside to let her pass.
 

"I imagine you'd prefer to discuss the matter at hand in private.  When you've sufficiently recovered, you'll find me the drawing room.
"

Brenna gathered the last shred of her dignity to step around him, careful not to so much as brush his sleeve with her skirt.
 

Upstairs in the room Fenella had occupied before her, she fumbled to light a candle.  Then, hands shaking, she spilled water from a china ewer into the basin on the washstand.  Blindly, she splashed her face and arms until the water turned pink in the basin.  Sickened, she closed her eyes for a second.  At the pier glass mirror, she smoothed back the tangle of hair from her face.  She had no heart to change her stained and torn dress.
 

Better to face Drake now, before her dread paralyzed her.  Brenna knew she had no defense to offer. 
Cam had kidnapped her, but she had taunted Drake with her love for Camfrom the first day they met.  He had every right to despise her.  She deserved his contempt, and her own.  She had thrown away everything Drake offered, denying that a marriage of convenience could ever be more.  She had found dizzying ecstasy in his arms, and told herself there was nothing more than physical passion between them, to learn too late she had been wrong.
 

Brenna paused on the threshold of the drawing room.  Candles flickered on the walls, and she saw Drake waited for her.  One long arm flung atop the mantel, head bent, he looked almost unendurably weary, but he straightened when he heard her step
.

"I always forget how little store you set on vanity," he said in a strange low voice.
 

She saw he had done no more than she had to repair his appearance.  He had sluiced his face and the bright gilt of his hair clean, and, open at the neck, his shirt clung wetly to the deep muscles of his chest, the wiry springing curls that matted it clearly visible through the thin damp lawn
.

"I see no point in delay," she answered with an attempt at a composure she didn't feel
.

"No."  He expelled the word on a long, reluctant breath.  "I can guess you want this over as quickly as I do.
"

Brenna couldn't bring herself to meet indifference in his eyes.  "As quickly as possible," she said, looking down at her hands
.

"I did rather expect a more extravagant show of grief,  given your last performance in
London," he continued with an edge to his voice.  "In spite of the circumstances, you have my word your Scot will have a decent burial.
"

Brenna's gaze shot up.  "He isn't my Scot."  Then
she knew how hollow her denial must sound.
 

"
Camwould have killed you if he could," she said more quietly.  "It's generous of you to treat him with that much respect.
"

Drake's hazel eyes sharpened suddenly, and he examined her face.  "Now that my swaggering rival is dead, does it suit you to pretend your affections for him had cooled?
"

"Would you believe me if I said they had?" she countered.  She shut her own eyes tightly for a second.  "There's only one thin
g I can ask you to believe.  I never  meant to sail with Cam on the
Red Witch
, I never  meant to leave Penherion.
"