Chapter 42
Patrick
fended off Gilbert McGhee Fergusson’s attack and tried to clear his mind of distractions. His life depended on that. Well, he supposed if he truly began to look feeble, Jamie and Ian might come rescue him, but he would have to look damned feeble before they would offer aid.
And it wasn’t as if he had any desire for aid. This was his problem, his trouble, his responsibility. It wasn’t for his brother or his cousin to see to. Though he was tempted to tell them if they didn’t shut up, they would be next in line after he finished with the whoreson in front of him.
“I think Pat’s suspicions were spot on, don’t you?” Ian said idly.
“Of Gilbert being Simon Fergusson’s older brother?” Jamie asked. “Aye. He looks just like every other bloody Fergusson I’ve ever seen.”
“Careful,” Ian growled.
“I’m convinced that there is little Fergusson blood running through your lady’s veins,” Jamie said easily. “She actually has the look of a Campbell about her. Surely there’s one in her family tree somewhere.”
As if Jamie would recognize a Campbell if one clubbed him over the head with a picture of himself, Patrick thought with a snort.
“Have you looked into her roots?” Jamie continued.
“We’ve been a bit busy,” Ian said dryly. “You know, watching after a pair of bairns, seeing to her weaving, running my school, keeping me fed.”
“Well,” Alex said with a laugh, “the last is a full-time job, no doubt.”
Patrick cursed. “Will you all shut up?” he demanded. “I’m busy here.”
“He’s touchy,” Jamie said, in only slightly softer tones. “That doesn’t bode well for his concentration—”
Patrick threw his brother a look. He would have thrown something else as well, but he didn’t dare.
Gilbert seemed to have no trouble ignoring the inane conversations going on not twenty feet away from him.
Patrick turned his attentions back to where they should have been.
Gilbert not only owned a broadsword, he knew how to use it.
Patrick would have tried to determine where and when the man trained, but he found that the swordplay demanded the whole of his attention.
Well, except for that small part of his mind that was accustomed, after so many years, to listening to Jamie continue to blather on.
“Patrick should train harder,” Jamie said blandly. “I keep telling him, but he never listens. The folly of youth.”
Patrick promised himself several months of grinding his brother into the dust as reward for doing in the ruthless bastard in front of him.
That was assuming he managed that.
He looked at his former father-in-law and wondered how he could have missed the obvious. There was something about the man, something wild, something quite uncivilized.
Something so appallingly similar to Simon Fergusson.
“Met your brother a couple of months back,” Patrick said casually.
Gilbert’s sword dipped, but he recovered quickly. “Don’t have a brother.”
“Don’t you? I think you actually have two. Simon and Neil, if memory serves.”
Gilbert’s sword definitely faltered in its arc. He looked at Patrick narrowly for a moment, then put his sword point-down into the dirt at his feet. He breathed heavily.
“So,” he said flatly, “you know.”
“I know,” Patrick said. “What I don’t know is why you hide it.”
Gilbert rolled his eyes. “You bloody fool, why would I show it?”
“Is that why you took your mother’s name?”
Gilbert tightened his lips. “I took her name to honor her. And to escape my sire.”
Patrick had no trouble understanding the last of that. “Then what is your quarrel with me?”
“You fool, you killed my daughter!”
“You know I didn’t—”
“And you’re a MacLeod,” Gilbert continued, wrenching his sword free of the ground and taking up a fighting stance. “Isn’t that reason enough?”
“Eight centuries ago, maybe. Today? I wonder.”
“’Tis reason enough for me,” Gilbert said. “Now, are you going to talk me to death, or lift your sword and show me something more impressive than the womanly swings you’ve mustered up so far?”
Womanly swings? Patrick almost responded to that, but didn’t have the chance before he was interrupted by something else. Robert MacLeod appeared suddenly on the wall, filling his pipes with air and beginning the strains of a battle dirge that would have inspired the most faint-hearted of men.
Then the walls were suddenly covered with Highlanders—probably the same ones who had guarded Madelyn that one afternoon. They were all facing in, staring at him with fierce expressions that bespoke their determination to see him preserved at all costs.
Wonderful.
Sunny groaned loudly enough that Patrick heard her. He chanced a look in time to see her slip down behind the wall, likely in a dead faint.
Gilbert fared no better. He almost dropped his sword. He turned around in a circle, gaping at what he saw.
He stopped, looked at Patrick, and swallowed very hard.
“What evil is this?” he rasped.
“No evil,” Patrick said pleasantly. “Just ghosts.”
Gilbert crossed himself against Patrick, then lifted his sword. “I knew you couldn’t fight me by yourself. No MacLeod has honor enough to rely on his own skill. Always looking for some kind of aid—”
“Ach,” Jamie said in disgust, “fight, you fools, and let us be done with this. I’ve a mind for a decent lunch.”
Patrick turned and looked at his brother. “Is it possible you might find it in yourself to be silent? If you offer your opinion one more time—”
“Patrick!” Madelyn screamed.
Patrick leaped aside in time for Gilbert’s sword to make a great rip in his shirt. He looked down. No blood spurting, at least. He flashed his wife a look, then turned back to Lisa’s sire.
“We could end this peaceably,” Patrick said, fending off a parry or two. “I did not kill Lisa. She killed herself.”
“Liar!” Gilbert spat. “You’re a MacLeod. You’re a liar by blood.”
“I did not kill your daughter,” Patrick said. “And I don’t have to kill you. Not if you vow to walk away from this. Leave my land, leave my woman, go in peace.”
Gilbert flung himself at him with a never spewing out of his mouth along with a goodly bit of spittle.
Patrick jumped aside, then found that words were no longer going to be a part of the afternoon’s activities.
Gilbert came at him with a ferocity that left him calling upon reserves of skill and courage he hadn’t tapped in a very long time.
If ever.
But while Gilbert fought for hate’s sake, Patrick fought for his wife, his future children, his own family’s honor.
He was, after all, a MacLeod.
And a MacLeod did not cower.
A MacLeod also didn’t trot out his black belt during a duel with medieval weapons, but he was damn tempted.
He could have disarmed Gilbert and plunged him into unconsciousness with but a handful of well-placed blows.
But that would have left the man alive, likely quite free of any long-term jail cell, and shamed enough to attack again with redoubled destructiveness.
Nay, ’twas better he finish this with a blade.
The morning wore on. He was vaguely aware of the addition of one Dorcas, first lady of Benmore, who had come to complain about them turning her garden into a muddy field.
Robert continued to play songs that Patrick had heard in his own day on the field of battle, songs that stirred his blood as they were meant to.
His brother was, mercifully, silent.
He grew weary. Maybe Gilbert trained more often than he let on; maybe he was determined to spill MacLeod blood that morn or perish in the attempt. Whatever the case, Gilbert seemed to draw on an inexhaustible supply of fury.
Patrick pushed Gilbert back, his chest heaving.
Gilbert regrouped and went on the offensive.
Patrick stumbled. He fell. He rolled just before he lost his head. And in the process of rolling, he caught Gilbert’s feet with his own and felled him with a modern move that he should have used an hour earlier.
He was tired. He just couldn’t help himself.
Gilbert fell backward into the compost pile.
And he disappeared.
Patrick sat up and gaped. Even Robert the piper faltered in his music. Patrick struggled to his feet, stared a bit more at the mound of dirt piled up against the back wall, then looked over to his right to see if anyone else was as surprised as he was.
Madelyn was leaning against the wall, her eyes wide. The rest of his family merely stared at the heap with expressions of disbelief. All but Jamie, who peered with great interest at the spot.
“Well,” Jamie said enthusiastically, “another place for travel. Though,” he continued, sounding as if he regretted the idea quite thoroughly, “perhaps you should plant something feisty there. Nettles. That no one travels through that gate lightly. This is your garden, after all.”
“Good idea,” Patrick said. He walked across the ruined garden and heaved himself over the wall. He set his sword atop the wall, then pulled Madelyn into his arms. “Are you all right?”
“Perfect. You?”
“Never better.”
“Where did he go?”
“I have no idea,” Patrick said, “and I’ve no mind to go investigating.” He looked at Lady Dorcas, who was tapping her fan on top of the wall thoughtfully. “You said there was something in that heap, but it escapes me what.”
“Gold,” she said archly. “And a goodly amount thereof.”
“Well,” Patrick said, dragging his sleeve across his brow, “I’ve no mind to investigate that either.”
“I will,” Jamie said, jumping spryly over the wall. He took Patrick’s sword and poked about in the heap. He found nothing but dirt for some time, then came the sound of sword against something solid.
“Rake,” Jamie commanded.
A rake was fetched. Then a shovel. The dirt was dug and a trunk uncovered.
“Hold on to something of me,” Jamie commanded.
Patrick swung himself back over the wall with a sigh and deigned to hold on to the back of Jamie’s shirt while his brother bent and heaved out a medium-sized trunk. He set it on the ground and opened it up.
“Doubloons!” Jamie exclaimed happily. “I’d recognize them anywhere.”