Page 80 of Rogue with a Brogue
Stating that he wasn’t so easy to kill would have been supremely satisfying, but it also might remind the marquis of the conversation he’d had with Calder in the cottage. Arran wasn’t about to risk the Mallisters’ safety over a boast. “Ye tell him that his only grandchildren will be half MacLawry, and ask him if that’s reason enough to make peace.”
“I—”
Arran shoved a rag into Fergus’s mouth before the lad could finish his bleating and tied it in place. “Now. We’re going to haul ye up into that tree. I’ll…” He looked around as Peter ransacked the small camp. “I’ll throw that shirt of yers over ye so if ye’re lucky Fendarrow’s sister will see ye up here and come get ye doon. And ye remember what I said. And that I could’ve killed ye and I didnae.”
He tucked one of the lad’s spare shirts into the rope so the white material would flap about in the breeze, and then he and Peter hauled him a good fifteen feet into the air. “Can we spin ’im?” the footman asked. “He’s the reason I had to sleep with a sow and piglets fer three days.”
“Nae. If he spews sick he’ll likely choke to death on it.”
Once the rope was tied off around the trunk he and Peter gathered up the lad’s things and destroyed any items that would help him on his way. “Do we take his horse west with us?” Peter asked.
Arran stifled a smile. For a fellow who couldn’t read a word, the footman had a grand memory and quite a sense of the dramatic. “Nae. I’ll nae be called a horse thief on top of my other sins. Leave it here. But cut the cinches on the saddle. I dunnae want him deciding to ride us doon. If I shoot him, Mary’ll frown at me.”
The figure in the tree began making sobbing sounds. Saint Bridget, Fendarrow leaving him here had been like leaving lambs to guard for a wolf. It was a very good thing for young Fergus Campbell that this wolf was in love with his cousin.
He hoped the lies he’d spun would be enough to protect the Mallisters. There wasn’t much else he could do except force them to join his little troop, and that would hardly be doing them a favor. He found himself wishing he could talk to Ranulf to arrange a way to make their lives easier. His brother was no longer an ally, though, as mad as that notion even seemed.
The name MacLawry had made him enemies. It had also granted him power and respect. While he’d had the clan at his back, no one would have dared enter his house and destroy his possessions. Now, though, he had no clan. And except for the fact that he was bigger and younger and more physically imposing than Sean, he and Mary would be just as vulnerable as the Mallisters.
His dream of making a home in the Highlands with her lay directly before him now, nearly close enough to touch. He was strong and capable—he knew that. But no one man save perhaps William Wallace himself could stand against every Campbell and MacDonald and MacLawry and their allies. Was he leading Mary into nothing but a nightmare, then?
“M’laird?” Peter said, dropping the remains of Fergus Campbell’s saddle beneath the weeping tree.
“Aye.” He shook himself. “Let’s fetch Mary before the dog unties himself.”
They headed back down the hill and turned east up the road. This was the course he’d set. If it meant living a smaller, more cautious life, then he would adjust to that. Because with Mary at his side, he didn’tfeelsmaller. He felt ten feet tall on the inside. But that was feelings. What mattered was whether he could keep her safe. And happy.
A mile down the road he spotted the light wagon with its well-worn team, Duffy and Juno tethered behind it. Howard had pulled them off the road into the deep shadows of a stand of elm and pine. London hack driver or not, the man had a good instinct for survival.
As they approached, Mary climbed down from the wagon seat and ran toward him, her skirt hiked to her knees. Sweet Saint Bridget, she was lovely. And he wanted her to have a happy life. “Mary,” he breathed, and pulled her into his arms.
“Is everything well?” she asked, embracing him.
“Aye. Young Fergus Campbell is now a flag of surrender.”
“Fergus? What in the world was my father thinking, to bring a nineteen-year-old boy along for a murder?”
“I’d rather ask what yer father’s doing planning a murder with his daughter so close to danger.”
She looked up at him, her expression curious and her light green eyes silver in the starlight. “If you ask that, I would ask if you think his daughter is so simpleminded and weakhearted that she doesn’t realize what she’s doing and what the consequences are.”
And just like that she reminded him why he loved her. Mary Campbell wouldn’t be dragged anywhere against her will, even by him. They were here together. He would guard her and protect her and provide for her, but she was by no means helpless or naïve. She came from a clan, the same as he did, and she knew now what life outside of it could be like. What did she think of it, though?
“And if ye asked that, I would ask if ye could stand to live the life the Mallisters do.”
Mary pulled his face down and kissed him. “I could, but we won’t. Sean Mallister isn’t a Highlander. He’s civilized and mild. You’re a barbarian devil warrior. If you think my father would have the courage to threaten to burn us out without an army behind him, you—”
He stopped her words with another kiss. “I’d nae faceyewithoot an army at my back. Ye’re a fierce Highlands lass, ye are.”
“That I am. And don’t you forget it.”
Peter set his rifle on the driver’s seat and climbed up beside Howard. “Ye know, there’s a small chance that fella could wiggle free from those ropes. I’m only saying that because the two of ye seem to be too busy kissing to remember we’re fleeing someaught.”
“I’ve nae forgotten.” Arran helped Mary into the wagon, then climbed up after her. They could ride on horseback in the morning, but he didn’t care to risk one of their mounts breaking a leg in the dark. “Ye ready to see Scotland, Howard?”
“I’m ready to give those bloody Campbells a chase. Begging yer pardon, my lady.”
“No need, Howard,” Mary said, as they rocked back onto the narrow road. “I’m looking forward to escaping the Campbells, as well.”
