Devil in a Kilt (45 page)

Apprehension,
cold and disturbing, slithered over Duncan's skin as the man spoke, but his
thinking was too fogged from pain to place what bothered him.

"And
you will tell us where to look?" Alexander, one of Duncan's kinsmen, spoke
up. Duncan glanced sharply at him. His brows were furrowed, and he stood
rubbing his chin, peering suspiciously at the tall man called Murdo.

"Aye,
I can. Way I done heard, Laird MacKenzie's brother means to head by galley to
one o' the northern isles." Murdo's barrel-like chest swelled with
importance. "Whilst I'm here, I can ride north with you. I have some kin
on the coast and can help secure a boat."

Despite
his aching bones and suffering, Duncan pushed himself up on his elbows. "I
think not," he wheezed. "My men will ride out
if
my lady
and the child have been taken, but you will not go with them. You and John's
brooch shall remain here. In my safekeeping, if you will."

Murdo's
face suffused a deep red. "You canna keep me prisoner here."

Duncan
only lifted a brow.

"‘Tis
a breach o' hospitality!" Murdo sputtered. "My lord is a trusted ally
of—"

"If
John is your lord, he will understa—" Duncan cut into the man's speech,
then snapped his own mouth shut at the sound of pounding footsteps. He turned
toward the noise just in time to see Sir Marmaduke burst into the hall from the
tower stairs.

The
Sassunach plowed his way through the men standing about, not stopping until he
reached Duncan's side. "Mother of God preserve us, ‘tis true," he
panted. "The lady Linnet and Robbie are gone."

A
loud roar sounded in Duncan's ears, increasing in volume until he could scarce
hear aught else. "Nay! It canna be." His words were barely audible,
drowned out by the noise he now recognized as the rush of his own hot blood
coursing through him.

The
sound of his world crashing down around him.

"It
canna be," he repeated. "Thomas wouldn't have left his post."

"He
didn't. The door was bolted from within, we had to break it down,"
Marmaduke said, dashing Duncan's last hope. "They were taken by
stealth." His gaze flickered briefly over Murdo. "I do not know how
the deed was done, but they are gone."

Duncan
pushed himself to a sitting position, easing his legs off the table and
clutching its edge for support. He didn't know what whirled faster, the
sickening dread spinning through him, or the hall itself. Both spun madly, out
of control. And through it all, he kept hearing the Sassunach's terrible words.

They
are gone, they are gone....

And
Duncan knew how they'd been taken.

Aye,
he knew.

Damnation
but he'd been a fool. He should have known. Kenneth was clever. He would've
known he could ne'er have taken Eilean Creag, was well aware its walls couldn't
be breached.

His
attack had been a ruse.

A
clever stratagem so his men could clear the rocks blocking the entrance to the
sea cave. Somehow the bastard had discovered the secret Duncan thought only he
knew. And once they'd gained access to the hidden passage, they'd stolen his
lady and Robbie.

Darkness
closed in on him in dizzying waves, washing over him, pulling at him from the
outside, whilst his insides twisted in unspeakable agony.

As
if from a great distance, he heard a woman's high-pitched wail, then Fergus
grousing at him to lie back down. Other voices, shouts and murmurs, merged with
theirs until his aching head was filled with naught but confusion.

Someone
... Marmaduke? ... pushed him down, pinning him onto the trestle table with
hands as unyielding as steel. He struggled to break free, but couldn't. He was
too weak. The pain, his anguish, his
rage,
was nigh onto unbearable.

It
lamed him, was too formidable an opponent to fight.

And
naught hurt as fiercely as the gaping, bleeding wound Kenneth's evildoing had
left in his chest.

For
along with his lady and the lad, they'd stolen that which he hadn't truly
believed he possessed till now.

His
heart.

They'd
ripped it, bleeding and raw, from his breast, leaving him bereft... empty.

Clarity
dawned even as blackness claimed him, the weight of its truth almost crushing
him, pressing the life from him, robbing him of his very breath.

They'd
taken his lady and his son, for suddenly it mattered naught whether the lad was
truly his or nay.

All
that mattered was their safe return.

He
had to get them back.

Both
of them.

He'd
never be whole again until he did.

Your
brother has her.

Laird
MacKenzie's brother. . .

The
stranger's words drifted in and out of the darkness swirling around Duncan,
cleverly weaving themselves into the confounding whirl of raised voices so he
couldn't decipher aught what made sense.

Gritting
his teeth, he pressed the flats of his hands against the cold wooden planks of
the trestle table and strained to concentrate.

Strained,
too, against the iron-hard grip holding him down.

But
his efforts were of no avail.

The
din only increased, becoming a cacophony of discord irritating enough to drive
the wits from a saint, blurring the elusive words dancing in and out of the
shadows on the very edges of his consciousness.

And
whoever held him to the table possessed the strength of ten men and dinna
appear willing to loosen their grip.

Duncan
drew in a breath through clenched teeth and willed his agitation aside. He'd
deal with the lout and his steely fingers soon enough.

After
he'd made sense of the garbled jumble of words careening in and out of
his aching head.

Keeping
his eyes tightly shut, he fought to ignore the shouts of his men, the chaotic
sounds of a hall filled with confusion, and focus on Murdo's words.

He
had to. They were important.

Vital.

He
pressed his hands harder against the table, so hard his forearms shook with the
effort. But, devil be damned, the words and their meaning kept eluding him.

His
eyes still shut, he tried to swallow but couldn't. His lips were dry, split and
parched, and his tongue felt thick, swollen. More annoying still, the inside of
his mouth tasted foul, as bitter as soured wine.

Duncan's
lips compressed into a tight grimace.

He
was
sour.

And
he intended to stay that way until he could figure out what vexed him so,
unravel the clue lurking in the outer fringes of his mind, tantalizingly close
one moment, distant as the moon the next.

Your
brother...

Murdo's
words penetrated the blackness again, repeating themselves like a monk's
morning chant, growing ever louder until the other voices and sounds receded
into nothingness.

The
two words pelted him like icy, needle-sharp rain, taunting him, pushing him to
the brink of madness.

Then
another voice chimed in, soft and gentle, sweet, but insistent in its urgency.
His lady wife's voice. Clear and bright as a ray of sun on a fine spring morn.
Strong enough to dispel the other voices, powerful enough to chase away the fog
clouding his befuddled senses.

‘Tis
of a future evil I must warn you...

It
was not Kenneth
...

Someone
speaks with two tongues...

As
quickly as they'd come, Linnet's prophetic words faded, but he'd heard enough.

Suddenly
he knew.

And
with the knowledge came sanity.

Sanity
and determination.

His
eyes shot open. His grimace deepened. As he'd suspected, the hands holding him
down were English hands. Those of his all-knowing one-eyed brother-in-law.

He
fixed the lout with a fierce stare, one that would send most men scurrying for
their mothers, but Sir Marmaduke merely stared back, his one good eye as unblinking
as Duncan's two.

"Release
me at once." Duncan pushed the words through his teeth, refusing to
acknowledge the agony it cost him to move his lips. "I am well."

The
Sassunach quirked his brow and said naught.

"I
am," Duncan insisted, temper giving him the strength to break free of
Marmaduke's grasp and sit straight up.

Nausea
rose high in his throat at the sudden movement. By sheer force of will, Duncan
quelched the hot waves of dizziness threatening to pull him back into a sea of
grayness and pain.

"Can
you not see I am fit?" he snapped, flexing his fingers, defiantly wiggling
his bare toes.

"I
see an unfit man borne on the wings of anger," the Englishman said, folding
his arms. "Naught else."

Duncan
scowled darkly and eased his legs off the table. Doing his best not to wince,
he stood, then leaned against the table's edge.

Every
muscle, every
bone,
in his body hurt. His head would surely burst
asunder any moment, and his hall seemed wont to spin and dip around him.

But
for naught in the world would he admit it.

Blinking
to clear his vision, he searched the throng, looking for Murdo. To his relief,
he didn't need to search long. The accursed mucker still stood near the foot of
the trestle table.

And
he had the effrontery to bestow another of his yellow-toothed smiles on Duncan.
"Be you hurting, Laird MacKenzie?" he wanted to know.

"Nay,
but you will be," Duncan fair growled. "Soon."

Murdo's
nostrils flared.
"Yer makin' a grave error.
The MacLeo—"

"Is
not your laird," Duncan finished for him. "‘Tis Kenneth's man you
are."

The
stranger's coarse features hardened, and his hand stole beneath the gathered
folds of his grungy tunic. His blade flashed and gleamed for but an instant
before Malcolm wrested it from him, then pressed the wicked-looking blade
against the man's throat.

Marmaduke
positioned himself at Malcolm's side, his own sword drawn and at the ready, the
look on his scarred face, feral.

"If
you harm me, Kenneth will slit yer lady wife's throat... after he's had his way
with her," Murdo swore. "You'll never see—"

Duncan
slammed his fist on the trestle table. "‘Tis you who'll ne'er see aught
again lest you answer my questions, and dinna ask what'll happen if I don't
care for your answers."

"I'll
tell you naught," Murdo sneered.

"Think
you?" Duncan's lips curled in a sneer of his own.

He
pushed away from the table and made straight for Murdo. One grueling step at a
time. Only the heat of his fury enabled him to cross the short distance without
his knees buckling, without giving voice to his pain.

Leaning
so close to the officious cur's face, the man's hot, foul-reeking breath meshed
with Duncan's own, Duncan snarled, "There wasn't a fire at John MacLeod's
keep, was there?"

Murdo
clamped his mouth shut and stared fixedly at a point somewhere beyond Duncan's
shoulder.

"The
fire was a ploy, a rase to make me send my men on a fool's errand," Duncan
breathed, his tone icy, his deep voice calm, without a trace of the raw anger
coursing through him. Nor of the bone-jarring pain each movement, each word
cost him. "Do not lie if you value your life."

Murdo
remained silent.

"Very
well," Duncan said, his voice low, his every nerve taut. "I grow
impatient with you. Admit you lie."

Murdo
spat on the floor.

Duncan's
anger surged anew. "You are a brave man," he said simply, then nodded
once to Malcolm, who still held the loathsome churl's own dagger to his throat.

The
tall kinsman obliged, pricking Murdo's throat with the sharp tip of the dagger.
A dollop of bright red blood appeared, another followed, turning into a slow,
steady trickle.

Duncan
nodded again and Malcolm pressed the blade deeper.

Murdo's
eyes bugged and he wet his lips.

"Where
did Kenneth take my wife and the boy?" Duncan asked coldly.

Murdo
fidgeted, but when Duncan's gaze slid back toward Malcolm the miscreant lost
his nerve. "I dinna mean you no harm," he said in a rush. "‘Tis
following orders, I was, dinna you see?"

"I
see more than you ken. Where is my wife?"

"To
... to the south," Murdo stammered, trying to lean away from the knife.
"To the south."

Duncan
feigned a look of mock surprise. "Did you not say 'by galley to the
northern isles'?"

Beads
of sweat dotted Murdo's forehead. "‘Twas as you say, a ruse. I was to escort
you north, some of your men were to go to MacLeod's, and whilst your men were
scattered elsewhere, Kenneth meant to ride south without you on his
trail."