Lord of the Highlands

Saltpeter did have the irksome tendency to explode when kept in large quantities.

“Understood,” Ormonde said. “I create a distraction. You plant your wee smoke candles. So, tell me how is it we avoid alerting every guardsman this side of the Tay? The smoke will be silent, but your pistol shots won’t be.”

“No pistols. You leave the guards to me. I can be as silent as death.”

“So dire, he is.” Ormonde chuckled.

Ignoring him, Rollo studied the moon in the sky. “It’s closing in on dawn. We act now, or not at all.”

“Aye, aye.” Ormonde heaved himself up to standing. He brushed the leaves and dirt from the rough brown cassock that was his disguise.

“Leave yourself be,” Will ordered. “It’s more realistic that way.”

“Please tell me, why is it I have to portray the religious lunatic, when you get to be dressed as . . . let’s see . . . a high-born lord?”

“I promise”—Will stood and clapped his friend on the shoulder—“you can play the lordling next time. And Ormonde?” he asked, growing serious. He opened his sporran to retrieve the velvet-wrapped bundle. “I’d have you give this to Felicity, in case I’m . . . unable.”

“Och, lad.” Ormonde put his hand up to stop him. “Put your wee pouch away already. Give it to the woman yourself. You survived how many campaigns riding by Graham’s side in the wars? I think we can handle a few provincials.”

A brief nod and a tense quarter hour later, Will heard the beginnings of his friend’s “distraction.”

It began with a distant howl. And then, in an absurd turn that only Ormonde would think of, the redheaded man crowed like a rooster.

Shaking his head, Will gathered his makeshift smoke candles. The cock’s crow was a nice touch. He was certain the guardsmen would leave their post once Ormonde unleashed his mad babble of scripture.

There was a door in the rear of the building. Not wanting to leave the safety of Keltie, the guards would surely at least peer through it. Rollo hoped they’d keep it unlatched, for it would serve as Ormonde’s route back in. He’d not have his friend tangled in the inevitable scuffle that’d be occupying Rollo by the front entrance.

“I come to see the witch!” his friend screeched.

Will began to light each strand of touchpaper, thinking the tattered brown mendicant’s cassock had been just the thing to accent Ormonde’s simulated madness. Any moment now, he thought, urging the guardsmen to move. The impromptu wicks smoldered already, giving him a lungful of smoke.

“Death to the witch! ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!’ ” Ormonde’s voice grew louder as he approached the rear of the castle. “Burn her! Maggie Wall was a witch who haunts me still! Burn this evil woman as you burned Maggie Wall!”

Enough, Will thought, glowering. Enough with the damned burning.

Apparently his friend decided the same, for he altered his approach. “Deuteronomy saith . . .” Ormonde paused, and Rollo tensed, hoping that his friend hadn’t already exhausted his battery of scripture.

“Deuteronomy saith!” he shouted again suddenly, and Will braced for what might be in store.

His friend was close now, and his dramatically lowered voice resounded through the trees. “He that is wounded in the testicles, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord. Deuteronomy saith it is so!”

Trust his friend to devote the finite resources of his mind to quotes pertaining to the male member.

“Woe betide him and his stones who turn a deaf ear!”

Will fought a smile, thinking that should get the guardsmen to move. And indeed he saw the first musket shift. A flash of moonlight on the barrel. And then it slid from the loop. And then another.

Rollo stood, pounding life into his legs. The gesture brought the image of Felicity to his mind, like a sudden blinding flare of light, so acute he flinched from it. Flinched from the memory of her scolding him about that very movement. In the carriage so long ago, when she’d first touched him, truly touched him, and changed his life forever.

With a shake to his head, he made his way to the front of Keltie Castle. For once it was the need for silence that slowed his pace, and he cursed every second that kept Felicity in that dungeon.

He stood by the first musket loop, waited a moment. Though the stone was thick, Rollo didn’t sense another body on the other side, and so he leaned down. Looked in.

The glimpse through such a small hole was piecemeal, but he could see a torch sputtering on the wall. Two abandoned stools. The room, empty. Does that mean there were two guards? he wondered distantly, certain he’d not be so lucky.

No matter their number, the guardsmen had all gone to investigate, and Will had but a moment to deposit his wee ruse into the empty guardroom. The paraffin was hot to the touch, and he’d have it out of his hands before the saltpeter began to smoke in earnest.

He tossed one through, listening intently to the soft splat the softened wax made on the stone floor. Oxygen hit the saltpeter, and a tentative wisp of dark smoke coiled into the room.

Will smiled. I’m coming, Felicity.

He tossed the rest of the makeshift candles through, hearing the approaching voices of the guardsmen echo on the stone.

That meant Ormonde would be racing back into the woods by now. Safely, he hoped. For his friend needed to double back and whisk Felicity from the dungeon while Rollo occupied the guards.

He heard shouting and looked to see smoke drifting from the musket loops. Gray fingers turning a ghostly white before disappearing on the night’s gentle breeze.

The guardsmen began to curse. To cough.

How many are there?

Will sidled up to the front entrance, just out of view.

The first guard burst through and was caught at once by Rollo’s cane, waiting leveled at his neck. The man gagged, a hideously ragged sound, as if he choked on a bone. He stumbled forward and fell writhing, hands clutching at his throat.

The second guard was an even easier mark, for he paused just beyond the doorway, watching his fellow with a mixture of confusion and fear. Will gave a grim smile, wondering if the men might actually believe some avenging force had come to smite them.

The guard stood, and Rollo slid his cane through his lightly flexed fist, knocking the man’s temple as he would a billiard ball. The man fell hard and at once.

Will didn’t wait for the third and, he now knew, final man. He couldn’t chance the guard’s sounding an alarm. And so Rollo pivoted to face the doorway, swinging his cane as he moved, plowing up into the man’s groin. The guard doubled over, and Will batted down, catching him neatly on the back of the head.

Rollo stood, panting. Waiting to hear footfalls that didn’t come. Safe.

Ormonde should be appearing, bringing Felicity out safe at any moment. Where are you? Rollo allowed a few hard pounds of his heart.

And that was when he heard her scream.

Chapter 23

The feel of the minister’s hands repulsed her. Where was Will? Felicity knew he’d come, she just didn’t understand what was taking him so long.

Robertson had scooted closer and closer, until she found herself hanging off the edge of the bench. One more inch and she’d be on the floor, so instead she was forced to suffer the feel of his thigh along hers.

The man had gotten braver. The touch on her chin had migrated to her shoulder. Then to lingering strokes along her back.

His hand slinked lower.

“Why,” she blurted suddenly, feeling his fingertips graze the curve of her bottom, “don’t you take me upstairs?” She looked around at the dank dungeon. A rickety ladder led down to where she was being held. The room was claustrophobic, with low stone walls and a curved ceiling.

“I will take you upstairs when you give your word you’ll come to your senses.” He chucked her chin as if she were a wayward child.

She studied that ladder. Her only way out. She knew without hesitation that her Viking would find a way to manage it. He’d swoop down and save her like some seventeenth-century superhero.

“Hm?” Robertson tweaked her cheek. “I’d have your answer, sweet.”

“Uh . . .” Felicity didn’t tell him no, nor would she ever tell him yes, hoping that her feigned indecision bought her more time. “I need to hear more about you. Your good works.” You narcissistic wacko.

She prayed her chatter distracted him from a fact that, to her, seemed chillingly clear: Alexander Robertson could simply take what he wanted at any time.

“Oh no, this is familiar ground, and I’m ready to”—he traced a single finger down her spine—“explore new territory.” He cocked a brow, looking self-satisfied.

“Territory . . . yeah . . .” She fumbled, struggling to think of new material. “Speaking of territory, what is this place? It’s gross. And cold. I’m really cold, you know.”

She sniffed. “And it stinks.”

“So you’ve said. Now it’s time to stop your—”

“Wait,” she said, sniffing again. “I mean, it really stinks. Like smoke. Do you smell smoke?”

“Enough,” Robertson snapped. “I’m finished with your prattling. You merely postpone the inevitable.”

“No, really,” she said, panicked now. She actually did smell smoke, and the primitive animal instinct tucked away in the back of her brain began to sound alarm bells in response.

A man dropped to the floor, and she yelped in surprise. Relief swept her. Her Rollo had come.

And then she registered the soiled cloak and dark hood. The man approached, walking smoothly, with no limp, and she screamed. He pulled a long dagger from one of his loose sleeves.

She toppled from the bench in her terror, still screaming. Robertson had been taken off guard, and she skittered backward along the floor watching as the intruder overtook him, stabbing him in the neck. The minister dropped at once, his gushing wound making a gruesome gurgling sound at her feet.

Cold stone cut into her back as she slammed against the wall in a frantic effort to scramble away. ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">