The Warrior Read online

  “It matters not,” Agnes said. “All that matters is keeping ye hidden.” She jabbed a finger at Marta. “Tell Himself we’ve settled in to survive this and will do whatever it takes. Now off wi’ ye!”

  “Aye.” Marta dipped with a quick curtsey, then scurried away.

  With a gathering of sheer determination, Tilda pushed herself to the edge of the bed, then swung her feet to the floor. A dizzying queasiness made her pause. She sat for a moment, pulling in deep breaths. She could do this. Or at least she thought so until a hand clutched hold of the back of her night rail.

  “Ye are in no condition,” Duncan said, sounding weaker than Tilda had ever heard him.

  She turned and glared at him, fueling her look with every deadly bit of stubbornness she could muster. “They will not take ye from me.” She forced herself to stand. Thank goodness he had gotten the craftsman to attach a sole of leather to the bottom of her wooden foot to enable walking without her boots when the need arose.

  She ignored the heartbreaking ache deep in her womb, ignored the discomfort of the damp wadded padding tied between her legs, ignored the weakness threatening to pull her back down and render her helpless. Tilda pushed forward. If a bloody Sassenach dared break through those doors, he would soon find himself kneeling before God. With a yank of the bedside table’s drawer, she drew out a pistol and handed it to him. “There’s another in the table on yer side. Take the both of them whilst I gather the rest.”

  Agnes returned from the sitting room. It appeared to have gone quite dark behind her. “I’ve doused the lampstands, locked the door, and braced it shut with the liquor cabinet. I also staunched the crack beneath the door with the table runner for good measure.” She entered the bedchamber, closed the door behind her, and locked it. Her hurried steps set to a fast waddle, she pushed through the chamber door connecting Tilda’s room to Duncan’s. She paused and stuck her head back through the archway. “I shall do the same in Master Duncan’s room, then I’ll return.”

  “There are weapons in all the drawers,” Tilda said. “Fetch them, will ye?”

  Agnes nodded and hurried into the other room.

  Duncan’s weak chuckle made Tilda pause in her rummaging through the drawers of her bureau and look back at him. “I canna believe ye are so amused at a time like this. Did Agnes add too many herbs to yer whiskey?”

  His lopsided smile deepened the dimple in his cheek. “I laugh because I’m proud to have married such a warrior woman. Ye have more weapons in yer chambers than most commanders keep in their personal tents.” His voice softened. “Ye are fierce and braw, and I love ye all the more for it.”

  Duncan’s praise warmed her heart and renewed her fervent prayers for his healing. She would never find the likes of such a man ever again. A man not intimidated by her strength and independence. A man who treated her as an equal. A man who forgave her many mistakes and poor choices.

  “I love ye more,” she said, then returned to shoving aside petticoats and chemises. Relief filled her as her fingers brushed across cold hard metal. She pulled the rifle from the depths of the dresser, hefting it in her hands as she turned. “When ye are the daughter of the greatest smuggling lord Scotland has ever seen, ye learn to be ready.”

  Agnes returned, dumping Duncan’s jacket and boots on the floor beside the bed. With two pistols and another flintlock rifle hugged in one arm, she closed and locked the door behind her. After depositing the weapons on the bench at the foot of the bed, she snatched a linen from the cabinet, twisted it into a long thin strip, and stuffed it against the crack at the bottom of the door.

  “Why do ye do such?” Tilda perched on the corner of the bench.

  “Two reasons,” Agnes said with a huffing grunt as she pushed herself up from the floor. “It keeps the light from this room hidden from prying eyes, and if they decide to burn us out, it will block the smoke long enough for us to escape through the tunnels.

  “Ye know of the tunnels?” Quite the surprise. Da kept the system of tunnels running within the walls of Wrath Keep a secret. They riddled the fortress, honeycombing every level.

  “Aye.” Agnes moved the weapons to the bed within Duncan’s reach, then pulled the small bags of additional ammunition out of her apron pockets and placed them beside the guns. “The Mackenzie felt it proper I know them—just in case.” She hurried back to Duncan’s garments and scooped them up. “I thought to bring ye clothes in case we have to run. There’s nay a shirt, but a jacket will do ye for now.”

  Duncan pushed upright and leaned back against the headboard. “I’m getting a mite tired of running,” he said while tapping a finger atop the pistol in his lap. “I’m also getting a mite tired of being betrayed. How did the British learn we were here? It’s as though all our enemies receive alerts to our every step.”

  “Someone had to have sent them the news.” Tilda rose, the cool heft of the gun between her hands lending a bit of comfort. “Reckon it was one of the servants? They’re loyal to Fennella.”

  “Why would they do such?” Agnes paced around the room as though searching for more ways to ready for battle.

  “I have no idea.” Tilda tried to reason out that very answer for herself. The Mackenzie was reputed to be a firm, fair employer as long as ye didn’t make the mistake of triggering his temper. If ye dared do that, after the Mackenzie finished with ye, there wouldn’t be enough of ye left to pray over. But if they had merely been following orders—Fennella’s orders?

  “Tell me true, Agnes. Think ye Fennella would do such?” Deep within, the painful truth had shaped her feelings for her mother. But she needed to hear it spoken by someone else.

  “Aye, child. I fear so.” Agnes hurried to wrap an arm about Tilda’s shoulders and gave her a quick hug. “She’s a bitter woman. Always has been. And when she’s angry, she goes blind with her fury like a warrior beset with bloodlust. She would do anything for revenge with no regard to who it might hurt.”

  “Then she’ll have told them of Tilda’s suite of rooms and to be sure and check them.” Duncan forced himself to his feet with a huffing groan, holding out a hand. “My clothes.”

  Agnes shoved them into his hands.

  A hard pounding shook the door to the outer sitting room. “Open this door by order of His Majesty’s guard!”

  Tilda itched to fire the rifle at the door, blowing away all and sundry in its path. She put it to her shoulder, but Duncan forced the barrel downward.

  “Nay, love. Not yet.” Pistols in his belt, he took the rifle out of her hands and motioned toward the bed. “Get ye abed and act the grieving widow. Yer mother would have no way of knowing if I survived the wound Sern managed to inflict. They’re not after ye. They want me.”

  The role of the helpless woman. The thought galled her. “I’d rather kill the lot of them. Dead men canna report back to their superiors.” She grabbed hold of the gun and tried to take it back, but Duncan held fast.

  “They’ll demand to the see the body if we claim ye dead,” Agnes warned.

  “Open this door now!” The pounding on the outer door grew louder.

  Tilda couldn’t bear it any longer. She went to the panel beside her bed and triggered the mechanism to open the hidden door to the tunnels. “We’ll suss it out if they ask. Get in here now afore they break down the door.” As ill as she felt at the moment, she still had the strength to kill every last one of them with her bare hands.

  The door shook with hard steady hits, bouncing the bureau shoved up against it.

  Duncan stumbled forward a few steps, then halted, weaving from side to side as though about to collapse. He closed his eyes, then forced them open wide. Tilda rushed to steady him. Agnes joined her, grabbing hold of his other side. They got him into the tunnel, seating him just inside the passage.

  The liquor cabinet against the door rattled the alarm as the force hitting it strengthened.

  “I dinna like hiding like a coward.” Duncan bared his teeth, pain furrowing his brow as he sagged back again
st the wall.

  “Ye are not a coward. Ye are my love, and I need ye safe and alive.” Taking hold of his chin, Tilda brushed a kiss across his mouth. “If ye die on me, I swear I’ll cross over and nag ye like a banshee for all eternity, ye hear?”

  Duncan weakly brushed his fingers to her cheek. “I willna go anywhere, love. I swear it.”

  “Hurry, child. They’re about to break down the door.” Agnes pulled at the back of her night rail.

  Tilda backed out of the tunnel and closed the hidden panel. She pressed a hand against the wall and sent up a silent prayer. Duncan had to live. She couldn’t bear to think otherwise. Hurrying to the bed, she settled in and made herself look as helpless and frail as possible. With a pistol tucked on each side of her hips, she pulled the covers to her chin. There’d be no chances taken here. If those bloody Sassenachs decided to take her, at least two of them would die in the trying. She signaled Agnes who stood beside the liquor cabinet in the sitting room.

  She shoved it aside and yanked the door open just as two soldiers were about to ram into it. Instead, they floundered their way across the room, stumbling over furniture before landing on the floor. Agnes took the offensive, not giving the soldiers time to recover. “How dare ye treat my mistress with such disrespect! A grieving woman, so ill and failing after the loss of both her child and husband. How dare ye!”

  A short, broody sort of man marched through the door, his long nose stuck high in the air. He cast a glance about the room, then turned and scowled at Agnes. “I am Captain Montrose Fitzgibbons, and I have orders to retrieve one Duncan MacCoinnich. A convicted criminal set to hang. You will surrender him to us at once, madam.”

  “My husband is dead.” Tilda did her best to give the words a weak squeaking sound, while holding tight to the pistols. She eased the hammers back with her thumbs, rendering both weapons cocked and ready to fire.

  Captain Fitzgibbons strode into her bedchamber, waving for his men to follow. “Carson. Dobbs. Edmunds. I want every inch of these rooms searched. I do not return from such missions empty-handed.” He pointed to the door leading to Duncan’s adjoining room. “Davis. Tear those rooms apart and thoroughly search them. I want the man found.” He stopped at the foot of the bed and scowled down at Tilda as though he smelled a stench. “We know he is here. If we had the witnesses, we would also take your father for helping your husband escape the gallows.”

  Davis burst back into the bedchamber. He jerked a thumb toward Duncan’s rooms. “Lots a blood in there, sir. Soiled bandages and even lead shot in a bowl on a table.”

  Agnes hurried to stand at Tilda’s bedside. Fire flashed in her eyes. “I tried in vain to save Master MacCoinnich.” She bowed her head, and her voice took on a reverent tone. “Blood loss was too great. The dear man died whilst I was removing the lead from his chest.”

  The captain’s eyes narrowed, and he pursed his lips. Without a word, he stormed into Duncan’s room and remained in there for several moments.

  Tilda resettled the pistols in her hands, shifting with a pitiful moan to hide the movement.

  Agnes positioned herself almost nose to nose with the young foot soldier the captain had called Davis. “Can ye not see the woman’s near to dying herself? Can ye not leave her in peace? Would ye treat yer own mother in such a way?”

  The lad, more boy than man, swallowed hard and shifted with a barely discernible shrug. “Sorry, ma’am. Orders and such.”

  Captain Fitzgibbons returned from Duncan’s room and pinned his glare on Agnes. “Show us the body, and we shall leave you in peace.”

  “From the sea he came and to the sea I have returned him.” Tilda rustled in the bed as though wrought with a rising fever. “He wished it. Feared tombs or cairns. I honored his last wish, I did.”

  “Aye,” Agnes said, taking Tilda’s unspoken cue. “We sent him to the sea.” She paused as though struggling to find her words, then brightened like a fresh-trimmed candle. “Did ye not pass the wagon on yer way here? It held his body.”

  “We passed that old man with the covered wagon, sir,” Davis said in a hushed tone, one hand shielding his mouth.

  Captain Fitzgibbons’s staunch manner faltered. He frowned, then turned to Davis. “Was the wagon headed for the cove?”

  “I believe so, sir,” Davis replied.

  Fitzgibbons drew closer to the side of Tilda’s bed, glaring down at her as though trying to decide whether to shoot her or let her live. She would love it if he tried. It would give her an excuse for soiling her rugs with the stinking Sassenach’s blood. The man held his hands in front of his chest in an odd manner, fluttering his fingers and thumbs together with a nervous tic. He reminded Tilda of a large bug she had once found as a child. A beetle. Lying on its back, stroking its antenna with its front legs.

  “Gone to the sea. The sea he loved,” she mumbled, eyes closed to mere slits, but open just wide enough to fire off a shot and make it count.

  “Very well,” the captain said. “We shall report Duncan MacCoinnich deceased and standing before the one true judge of us all. May God have mercy on his soul.”

  Tilda eased the hammers of the pistols back in place, disarming them as she tucked them tighter against her legs. Keeping her eyelids low and fluttering, she rustled again with a weak thrashing and added a pitiful moan for good measure. “My husband. My bairn. Both lost to me.” She hiccupped out a real sob. “May they find each other on the other side.”

  “Men!” Captain Fitzgibbons bellowed. “We are finished here.”

  Carson, Davis, Dobbs, and Edmunds fell in line and followed Captain Fitzgibbons out the door.

  Agnes slammed it shut behind them and locked it. With a hand pressed to her chest, she blew out a relieved breath. “Praise God Almighty.”

  “Aye, and praise yerself for thinking of old Doughal and his daily trip to the cove to help the fisherwomen.” Tilda was impressed. Agnes was the perfect ally.

  “Think nothing of it,” Agnes said. She motioned toward the hidden panel beside the bed. “We’d best get Master MacCoinnich back in the bed now.

  Tilda triggered the hidden doorway, and it swung open, revealing Duncan, lying on his side, curled around his weapons. “Dear Lord in heaven, he’s dead.” Terror filled Tilda. He couldn’t leave her. He couldn’t desert her like this.

  “He’s nay dead, child,” Agnes said with a smile. She shifted with a strained grunt as she hefted herself up from the floor. With a pat to Tilda’s hand, she paused and looked down at Duncan. “His weakness finally overcame him. He’s sleeping. ’Tis the best tonic in the world. Fetch a pillow for his head and a blanket for his body. We’ll leave him be for a bit.”

  Tilda pulled pillows and blankets from the bed. After situating Duncan, she settled down beside him and pulled his head to her breast. “Rest easy, dear love. Rest easy and heal to fight another day.”

  A force hit the bedroom door, rattling it on the hinges. “Open this door! I would see my daughter!”

  Tilda rose as Agnes rushed to grant the Mackenzie entry. Poor Da. She’d caused him so much worry.

  He stormed across the room and pulled her into a hug. “My precious lass,” he whispered, his voice breaking. “My poor, precious lass.” Still holding her shoulders, he eased a step back, glanced down at her wooden foot, then across the room at Duncan. “I’ll find the traitors. I swear I will. I’ll hunt them down and rip the hearts from every last bastard responsible for all this pain.”

  Tilda had no doubt he would. She squeezed his arms. “I know ye will, Da, but I’ve a favor to ask.”

  “Name it, daughter. Anything.”

  She looked back at Duncan, then returned her gaze to her father. “Allow Duncan and me to help.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Tilda found comfort in the darkness. The bed-curtains drawn on all sides, meant to protect her from the chill of the room, sheltered her from so much more. The absence of light eased her fears, gave her the courage to utter the words too fearsome to speak in the cruel
light of day. She curled tighter against Duncan’s side.

  “Think ye we shall ever find ourselves blessed with another bairn?” she whispered, none too certain whether she wished for Duncan to hear the words much less answer them.

  His arm tightened around her. “The both of us have just now grown strong enough for loving again, dear one. Less than two months have passed since that terrible day. We must be patient.”

  Patient. She had never done well with patience. She’d healed physically from losing her child, but now she needed another bairn to heal the painful emptiness that remained in her soul. She kissed Duncan’s chest, still heated and damp with a sheen of sweat from their most recent joining. Perhaps a bairn had taken seed this time. She closed her eyes and sent up a silent prayer, begging God to bless her womb once more.

  Shifting to his side to face her, Duncan trailed his fingertips along her jaw. “If we are blessed with a bairn, I’ll shout with joy, but if we should never have children, my love for ye will never diminish one whit. I swear it.”

  She pressed a finger to his lips. ’Twas folly to say such. A challenge to the gods and the demons spiteful enough to weave their wicked curses through their lives. “We shall have many bairns. I just know it.” Tilda swallowed hard and blinked against the threat of tears, wishing her words would convince herself. “I canna bear to think otherwise.”

  He stroked his fingertips down her throat, along her collarbone, then cupped her breast. “We have all winter to continue our healing and grow stronger. Perhaps, come spring, new life will come as well.”

  She felt his smile shift beneath her fingertips before he pulled her close and covered her mouth with his.

  Yes. Another round of loving even though he still tired so easily after his near-fatal wound. Tilda arched against him, hooking a leg around Duncan’s hips as his mouth moved down her neck, then her shoulder, then even lower. A groan escaped her as he rolled her to her back and buried himself inside her.

  She stroked his buttocks as he settled into a slow, languorous thrusting.