The Viper (5 page)

Lachlan sat on a low rock next to Gordon and MacKay, eating the simple meal of dried beef and oatcake with relish. The glare of the woman shooting daggers at his back from the rear of the cave didn't sour one bite.

He didn't give a shite what she thought. He did what he had to do to get her the hell out of there. Lying, cheating, stealing--they were all part of war. With what she was about to set in motion, she'd better damn well get used to it.

It wasn't as if she was in any position to judge. For Christ's sake, she'd just fled her husband to put a crown on his bitterest rival's head.

If Buchan wasn't such an insufferable arse, Lachlan might actually feel sorry for the bastard. He better than any man knew not to expect loyalty from anyone, especially a wife. If Lachlan needed any more reasons to never get married again--which he sure as hell didn't--this was yet another glowing example.

To hell with her. He'd done what he needed to do to salvage the mission. There had been no way to reach her daughter in time. They'd ridden barely a minute before they'd heard the thundering hooves of the approaching army. He had nothing to feel guilty about. He'd made a mission decision. Getting the job done was the only thing that mattered.

He'd do it again, damn it.

Though next time he wouldn't look at her face. Pride couldn't mask the look in her eyes when they were riding away, leaving her daughter behind ...

He'd seen enough men being tortured to recognize it. Agony. Pure, raw, and unadulterated agony.

He bit off another piece of beef to stave off the slight tightening in his chest, even though it was too high to be hunger.

Suddenly he grimaced and reached for his skin, taking a long swig of the
uisge-beatha
to wash it down.

Gordon was watching him "Something wrong with your food?"

"Damned beef is rancid."

"Mine tastes fine."

Lachlan shrugged, taking another long drink. The liquid fire of the whisky burned away the taste of everything.

He could feel MacKay's eyes on him, but the fierce Highlander didn't say anything. He didn't need to. His disapproval rang out loud and clear.

Magnus MacKay hailed from the mountains of Northern Scotland. Tall, heavily muscled, and almost as strong as Robbie Boyd, he was one of the toughest son-of-a-bitches Lachlan had ever met, able to survive in the most varied and extreme of conditions.

About the only place he didn't seem comfortable was on a horse. Not the most graceful of riders in the best of circumstances, in the worst he seemed to hold his seat by sheer force of will. After the harrowing night of riding they'd just had--the last half of which had been in heavy rain--the countess wasn't the only one who'd needed a rest.

MacKay didn't like him, but that was hardly unusual. As long as he didn't get in Lachlan's way, they'd be fine. He sure as hell hadn't been looking for camaraderie when he agreed to join Bruce's secret band of phantom warriors.

It was an intriguing concept, he had to admit. The best warriors in each discipline of warfare joined together in one elite force. He'd already seen what they could do. But they couldn't win the war alone, and he was skeptical that knights like Robert Bruce, engrained in the chivalric code, would embrace the furtive tactics of Highlanders.

Undoubtedly they were the best men Lachlan had ever fought with. But that didn't mean he wanted them to rely on him or that he would rely on them. His wife's betrayal had taught him a hard lesson in trust that had left the men who followed him dead, himself unjustly disgraced, and his holdings forfeited. He'd turned to what he had left: being a trained killer who lived by and for the sword.

"Something to say, Saint?" he challenged, using the name MacSorley had taken to calling the big man in jest. It wasn't because of his piety. Unlike the other men, MacKay never seemed to talk about the lasses. Whereas on missions, in battle, away from home and sitting by a campfire at night, most warriors talked about nothing else. Lachlan intended to find out why.

"The countess is right," MacKay said, putting down the strange implement he'd been working on. He was always trying to come up with ways to make weapons more efficient--in other words, deadly. "We were supposed to bring her
and
the lass."

"He explained what happened," Gordon interjected before Lachlan could tell him to bugger off. "There wouldn't have been time."

William Gordon possessed a unique skill--and it wasn't just that he was one of the few men who seemed to like Lachlan. He knew how to make thunder and flying fire with the secret recipe of black powder brought back from the holy lands by his grandfather.

"Maybe not," the stubborn Highlander conceded. "But if he'd told us his plan, we might have been able to help."

"How?" Lachlan challenged. "Nothing you could have done would have changed anything. My job was to sneak us in the castle and find the lass. You and Gordon provided the distraction. I don't need you or anyone else looking over my shoulder." They would have only gotten in the way. They knew that as well as he did. "I got her out, didn't I?"

MacKay stared back at him. "Aye, you got her. But if I were you I'd watch my back for a while."

On that, at least, they could agree.

Gordon had taken off the plaid that he wore around his shoulders to blend into the night and twisted it into a thick rope between his hands, squeezing the water from the rain onto the dirt floor at his feet. "You were right about something else," he said to Lachlan in a low voice. "This is no place for a child." He shivered. "Damn, I wish we could light a fire."

They couldn't risk it. Though Lachlan hoped they'd put distance between them and Buchan, they couldn't be sure how long it would take for him to discover his wife had fled.

Realizing he no longer felt two holes burning in his back, Lachlan stole a glance toward the back of the cave and saw that the countess had taken his advice to rest while she could. They wouldn't be staying for long.

Gordon followed his eyes. "She's got a lot of courage," he said with obvious admiration. "I wonder why she's doing it?" Lachlan had wondered the same thing. "A remarkable woman."

Lachlan scoffed sharply. "I think her husband might disagree with you."

"Buchan's a belligerent arse. Almost as much of a spiteful tyrant as Edward. He's old enough to be her father, and she's ..." His voice drifted off and Lachlan felt an irrational twinge of annoyance, knowing exactly where Gordon's mind was headed. The same place it did every time Lachlan looked at her: to his cock. Which was why he avoided looking at her. "There's something about her that's hard to put into words."

Sensual. Seductive. Cock-hardening.

Gordon shrugged, giving up. "Seems a waste on an old man. Buchan doesn't deserve such a boon."

Lachlan quirked his brow. "So youth and beauty are an excuse for betrayal?" Time to test his theory. "I hope you are as forgiving of your wife." Though he was speaking to Gordon, he was watching MacKay and saw the big Highlander still. "It's not too late to reconsider those vows, you know. You won't be married for ..."

"No date has been set," Gordon filled in. "We were betrothed just before I left for training on Skye."

MacKay hadn't moved. Usually when the subject of Gordon's impending nuptials arose, he immediately got up and walked away.

Maybe Lachlan had guessed wrong.

"Then you have plenty of time to get out of it," Lachlan said. "Take my word for it, marriage is a black plague on the soul; a wife will only make you miserable."

Gordon was impossible to rile. He only smiled. "One bad grape doesn't sour the whole barrel of wine. Not all women are like your wife."

"Thank God," Lachlan said with a shudder. Gordon was right. Bad shite happened to everyone. He didn't dwell on Juliana's betrayal, but it had cost too much for him to forget. And it sure as hell didn't mean he ever wanted to jump back in the cesspit again.

Gordon smiled, shaking his head. "Besides, I couldn't get out of it even if I wanted to. The betrothal contract is as binding as a marriage contract. I'm honor bound to go through with it."

Lachlan made a harsh sound that was supposed to be a laugh. "Honor has nothing to do with marriage." He fixed his gaze on MacKay again. "What's she like, your betrothed? Ugly as a sow or fair like the little countess over there?"

Gordon shrugged. "I don't know."

That surprised him. "You've never met her?"

Gordon shook his head. "It was arranged by our fathers." Both of whom, Lachlan knew, opposed Bruce. "I fostered with her brother," he added by way of explanation.

Perhaps Lachlan hadn't been wrong after all. MacKay started to get up. But Lachlan stopped him. "The Sutherlands are friends of yours, aren't they, Saint?" he said sarcastically. Gordon's betrothed was Helen of Moray, the daughter of the Earl of Sutherland, and there were few feuds longer or more intense than that between the MacKays and the Sutherlands. "Have you ever seen the bride?"

MacKay's hand tightened around the hilt of the eating knife he still held in his hand.
Interesting
.

"Aye," he said with all the enthusiasm of pulling teeth.

Gordon didn't hide his surprise. "You never said anything."

MacKay shrugged indifferently, though Lachlan suspected he was anything but. "It didn't seem important."

Lachlan sensed the weak spot and went in for the kill. "So what do you think, Saint? Is Gordon here going to need a few tankards of whisky to stomach fucking his bride, or is he going to be eager to plunge his cock between her soft, velvety thighs?"

For a moment Lachlan wondered if he'd gone too far. MacKay looked as if he might kill him. But the look was gone so quickly, he could have imagined it.

He hadn't, though.

"You're a crude bastard, MacRuairi. I don't know why the hell Bruce thought you could be a part of this team. You're poison."

Lachlan smiled. "That's exactly why he wanted me." Silent and deadly. The perfect weapon.

He would have said more, but Lachlan saw the troubled look on Gordon's face and let the subject drop.

Bella woke with a start. She looked around, seeing the unfamiliar stone walls, and for a moment didn't know where she was.

Then suddenly the memories returned, and all the despair and heartache of the night before crashed over her in a fresh, heavy wave.

Keep her safe. Please keep my daughter safe
.

Buchan wouldn't hurt her. Not physically at least. Joan was the one good thing that was between them. Her husband's angry tirades, his jealousy, his irrational suspicions had never spilled over to their daughter.

Buchan cared for the quiet girl with the big, soulful eyes as much as he could care for anyone. Joan bore the mark of her father in her dark hair, blue eyes, and classically shaped features.

Thank God.

Her husband had accused her of many horrible things over the years, but bearing a bastard wasn't one of them.

Bella had just turned sixteen when she'd had Joan--a child still herself. She could remember sitting up in the big wooden bed, holding her babe, and waiting for her husband to come see the tiny miracle bundled in her arms.

She might have forgiven him everything at that moment. Even the brutal way he'd taken her virginity on the first night of their marriage. At fifteen she'd been too young to bed. But he was like a dog in heat and couldn't wait to rip off her clothes, to throw her down on the bed, to force her legs apart and plunge his hardened member inside her with no care for her innocence or youth.

To think before they married, she'd thought him so handsome with his dark hair and light eyes. Older, yes, but still in the prime of his manhood. He wasn't particularly tall, but he'd been a knight for over twenty years. Knighted by King Alexander himself when he was only one-and-twenty. And he was strong, with a warrior's thick, muscular body.

But she'd come to hate the physical strength that initially had attracted her. Hate the way he could dominate her so completely.

Still, she might have put aside the disappointment of her first year of marriage on the birth of their daughter if he'd shown one smidgen of kindness toward her. If he'd given one word of praise. If he'd looked at her with one hint of affection rather than possession and lust.

Instead he'd taken one look at her and said, "Perhaps I shall keep you with child. You're as fat as an old cow. No one will want you like this."

His words had killed any thoughts of happiness. From that moment on, Bella knew exactly what her marriage was: She was his whore and he was her jealous master.

She'd fought back the only way she could, by submitting to his demands with stoic indifference, as was her duty. The more he tried to humiliate her--tried to provoke a response from her--the colder she became, until she stopped feeling anything.

But the hardest part was the jealousy and suspicion. It wasn't her fault men looked at her. She dressed modestly, even severely. Arranged her hair in unflattering styles. But still he accused her of flirting. Of enticing men with her eyes and her smile.

She stopped going with him to court. Retreated to the background when other men came to visit. Kept her eyes downcast and never smiled. But he saw her efforts as furtive, accusing her then of sneaking off to meet imagined lovers.

No matter what she did, he accused. She grew tired of defending herself, and eventually stopped trying.

She dressed the way she wanted, wore her hair the way she wanted, and talked to other men if she wanted to. She grew deaf to his accusations and learned to live in a prison of suspicion, dreaming of the day she would be free of him.

But she'd never dreamed it would come to this.

She took what solace she could from the situation in the knowledge that no matter how much her husband would hate her for what she'd done, he wouldn't take it out on their daughter.

She hoped. But what would Joan think when she learned her mother had gone without a word? Buchan could be so cruel and calculating. So vengeful. She feared her husband would try to poison the girl's mind against her. If only she'd told Joan her plans, she would know she hadn't intended to leave her.