The Viper Page 3

  But it wasn’t his job to ask questions.

  For three years he would do whatever task Bruce put before him—pleasant or unpleasant, it didn’t matter. Though he suspected it was the latter that had helped to earn him his place among the elite warriors of Bruce’s secret guard. There were other qualities—he was ruthless in battle, skilled with a blade, and unusually adept at getting in and out of places—but a man with few qualms was prized highly in war.

  He did whatever it took to get the job done.

  War was a cesspit. Everyone got dirty. Everyone. The only difference between him and other people was that he didn’t pretend otherwise or cloak his excuses in noble causes or patriotism.

  Lachlan didn’t give a damn about politics. Hired swords didn’t have room for convictions. It was easier that way.

  He’d agreed to fight for Bruce for one reason: he had debts to pay, both personal and financial. His agreement with Bruce would satisfy both.

  He was tired of doing other people’s dirty work. If all went well, he wouldn’t have to again. He’d collect his reward, pay back his debts, and have enough money left to go someplace and disappear. A remote isle in the west would do fine. He would answer to no one but himself.

  But for that to happen, Bruce had to be king. If Isabella MacDuff could help make that happen, Lachlan would damned well get her there. And her daughter.

  “Where is she?” he asked.

  The countess bit her lip. An innocent gesture that with a mouth like hers became distinctly erotic. Christ. Not the time to think about that soft pink mouth wrapped tightly around …

  He felt a heavy swell in his loins and quickly shifted his gaze, annoyed by the rare lapse.

  “I left her in the Hall.” He could hear the anxiety rising in her voice as she sought to explain. “She was still finishing her meal. I didn’t know …” Her voice drifted off. “I thought we had until tomorrow.”

  She grabbed his arm. His body leapt to attention, every muscle jumping at the contact. It felt as if he’d been hit with a lightning bolt. It was the first time she’d voluntarily touched him, but he doubted she even realized what she was doing. Her fear for her daughter had taken over.

  “We can’t leave without her,” she pleaded, anticipating his argument. The appeal in her beautiful upturned face wasn’t without effect. Big blue eyes framed by dark winged brows and sooty long lashes, a straight nose, flawless, creamy skin, a sensually curved mouth a whore would envy … most men would be hard pressed to resist.

  But he wasn’t most men.

  Lachlan’s mouth tightened. He wasn’t one to mince words. He should tell her that the distraction that would enable their escape was between them and the Hall and was set to go at any minute. That there was one chance in twenty that they’d be able to reach the girl before all hell broke lose.

  But the desperation in her voice stopped him.

  Isabella MacDuff might be about to betray her husband to crown his rival, but she obviously loved her child. Since he was the last man in the world to be moved by sentiment or a pretty face and a fantastic pair of breasts, he knew there must be another reason he held his tongue: the mission. Instinctively, he realized that if he told her the truth she would put up a fight. And they couldn’t afford the delay. Any delay. They’d be riding out with a perilously small head start as it was.

  “One of my men will get her,” he said, remembering how anxious she’d been to find someone—anyone—else lurking in the shadows to escort her. He wondered what she’d say when she discovered there were only three of them.

  He even might have meant what he said … for a minute. But they’d barely made it outside before a blast of booming thunder shattered the evening air.

  Time had just run out.

  Bella cursed herself for leaving Joan behind in the Hall while she returned to their rooms to ready their belongings for the morrow. She couldn’t have known, she told herself. But it didn’t help ease the tide of anxiety and fear rising in her chest.

  She hadn’t wanted her too-curious daughter to start asking questions. It was safer for Joan—for them both—if her daughter didn’t know what she planned. A stray slip of the tongue could have been disastrous.

  But disaster had come anyway. How had her husband found out?

  It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he had. Buchan’s rage would know no bounds. After all those years of baseless accusation and suspicion that she’d betrayed him, she’d finally done something to warrant his anger.

  Shuddering from the sudden chill in her blood, she followed Robert’s hired sword of disrepute down the torchlit corridor, into the donjon stairwell, and out into the courtyard. She didn’t ask what he’d done to the guardsmen her husband left to watch her, not wanting to know, but was grateful when they made it out of the tower without incident.

  But she’d barely stepped onto the cobbled stone of the courtyard when a boom shattered her ears and shook the ground under her feet. A moment later a second boom followed and an inferno of flames lit the darkening sky.

  Pandemonium broke out. People flooded out of the buildings lining the castle walls into the courtyard. She could hear women’s screams. Men’s shouts. The thunder of …

  “Watch out!” MacRuairi yelled, pulling her to the side as a stampede of terrified horses tore by them.

  … hooves. Her heart thumped at the narrow miss.

  The stables, she realized. They’d set fire to the stables, and the wooden building stuffed with hay was going up like kindling.

  The fire seemed to consume the night. Smoke filled the air.

  Joan! Dear God, her daughter!

  She lurched toward the Hall, but Lachlan anticipated her movement and held her back.

  “The lass will be taken care of. We have to go. The guards won’t be distracted for long.”

  The cold grip of panic clenched her heart in its icy fist. She pulled against him, but his hand was clamped down on her so tightly she didn’t move. “I can’t leave without my daughter.”

  He jerked her around harshly, his mouth pulled in a thin white line. She sucked in her breath, for the first time realizing just how dangerous this man could be. He looked every bit as mean and menacing as his reputation warned.

  She should be terrified, but her skin prickled with a strange flush. In the midst of chaos, she felt the unwelcome shock of awareness. Her breath stilled. She could smell the leather of his cotun, the wind on his skin, and the warm spiciness of his breath. But most of all she was distinctly aware of the heat and rock-hard strength of the body against hers. A warrior’s body.

  Alarm flared through her like a bell. Her cheeks flushed with mortified heat. What was wrong with her? After years of feeling dead to sensation, her body decides to come alive now? To react to such a man was beyond shameful.

  The hard clip of his voice brought her harshly back to reality.

  “Look, Countess. If you want to get out of here before your husband arrives, we have to go now. Your daughter isn’t in any danger. The flames are nowhere near the Hall. I signaled to my men as we left the tower; they are fetching the gel now.”

  “But—”

  He cut off her protest. “Decide now. If you are getting out of here it’s right now. Are you going to do this or not?”

  Helplessly, she gazed back across the courtyard, wishing that her daughter would somehow materialize out of the smoke. Every instinct urged her to race into the chaos to find her. But now that the initial panic had passed, she could see that he was right. The fire was not as big as it had originally seemed and wasn’t near the Hall.

  She turned back to him. “You’re sure your men understood? Someone will get her? They won’t leave without her?”

  His face hardened, but he met her gaze unflinchingly. “Aye.”

  Bella held his gaze, knowing that she had no reason to trust him. Indeed from what she knew of him, she had every reason not to.

  But she didn’t have a choice. Her decision had been made when she’d
agreed to crown Robert.

  She nodded. God help her, she nodded, hoping she hadn’t made the worst decision of her life.

  She allowed him to drag her out of the castle gate and be herded with the stream of other terrified onlookers. The guards didn’t look at them twice, too busy trying to put out the fire and catch her husband’s valuable horses before they disappeared into the countryside.

  The brigand pulled her along beside him toward the trees. She kept looking behind them, trying to catch a glimpse of her daughter in the crowd. Joan had been wearing red. A deep garnet gown embroidered in gold thread and pearls.

  “Where is she?” she asked at one point. “I don’t see her.”

  He didn’t answer, pulling her deeper and deeper into the forest. Soon she wouldn’t be able to see the castle at all.

  “Stop,” she said, jerking back and digging her heels into the ground. “Where are your men? Where is my—”

  The sharp sounds of a whistle behind them stopped her. Lachlan returned the sound and a few moments later two men rode up behind them, leading two additional horses—one of which she recognized as her husband’s.

  “You have her?” one of the riders asked.

  Like Lachlan, the two men were not dressed as knights and wore darkened nasal helms, padded black leather war coats studded with pieces of steel, and strangely fashioned dark plaids.

  “Aye,” Lachlan responded.

  “Any trouble?” the other man asked.

  “Nothing I couldn’t handle,” Lachlan said, taking the reins of one of the horses.

  Bella looked around, expecting to see more men joining them. “Where are the rest of your men?”

  The smaller of the men on horseback—the one who’d spoken first—grinned. “We are the rest, my lady.”

  Her gaze shot to Lachlan. “Then who is getting my daughter?”

  His expression didn’t flicker. Nothing betrayed even the barest hint of discomfort. He looked like exactly what he was: a mean, ruthless brigand.

  He shrugged indifferently. “It was impossible. We didn’t have time. Look,” he said, pointing back toward the castle, “they’ve already gotten things under control. The guards are back at the gates.”

  But she didn’t want to look. Bella felt the horror rise inside her as she realized what he was saying. What he’d done. Her eyes bit into his, and her voice shook with anger. “You lied to me.”

  Her anger had no effect on him. “I did what I had to do to get us out of there.” No apology, no regret, just a calm take-it-or-leave-it explanation. “The girl is better off at the castle. Where we are going is no place for a child.”

  Anger surged within her like a maelstrom. How dare he! She was the one who decided how to keep her daughter safe. “That wasn’t your choice to make.”

  “Aye, it was. It’s my duty to get you to Scone.”

  “It’s your duty to get me and my daughter to Scone.”

  His mouth tightened infinitesimally, but he seemed otherwise unmoved. While her heart was tearing apart into a thousand tiny pieces.

  She glanced back at the castle, seeing the guardsmen swarming the gate. Every bone, every fiber of her being urged her to go back in there. No matter how foolish.

  Joan was the most important person in the world to her. She needed her. How could she possibly leave her behind? It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. She’d never intended …

  She looked at the two other men for help but saw only pity in their eyes.

  The brigand had tired of waiting. “What’s it to be, Countess? Will you ride with us to Scone and keep your promise to Bruce, or will you return to your daughter and husband?”

  Clearly it made no difference to him.

  Bella had never despised anyone as much as she did at that moment. She heard the subtle taunt in his voice. He knew she was trapped. Even if she could ignore her duty and turn her back on Bruce and her country, she couldn’t go back. If her husband got hold of her …

  She wouldn’t be able to protect her daughter from the grave.

  Emotion rose inside her, burning her throat. Her eyes. Her chest. She’d been a fool to believe one word out of Lachlan MacRuairi’s deceitful mouth. She wanted to curse him. To strike him. To rage at him like a madwoman.

  She wanted to collapse in a ball and weep with despair.

  But years of controlling her emotions were not without effect. Never show weakness. Never give him the power to hurt you.

  As Bella forced her anger to cool, she swore that one day she would wipe that sneer from Lachlan MacRuairi’s cruelly handsome I-don’t-care-about-anything face.

  Without another word, she took the proffered reins and allowed him to help her mount the horse.

  As they rode away, Bella’s back was a rigid wall of steel, giving no hint of the shattering emotions tearing her apart inside.

  It won’t be long, she told herself. Once Robert was king he would find a way into the people’s hearts. Just as he had into hers.

  But she wouldn’t rest until her daughter was safely in her arms again.

  Two

  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?”