Chapter 3
Empty water pail in hand, Cait stepped out of her back door into the early-morning sunlight.
She was brought up short when she saw Campbell coming out of the woods behind the barn.
He was without the leather coat but wearing the same tight, worn breeches and white shirt, unbuttoned at the throat and spotted with Adair’s blood.
His short hair was mussed, sticking up in various places.
A piece of hay was perched atop his shoulder.
She looked past him, down the path he’d come from.
The same path that the seven fugitives had sneaked down in the middle of the night.
Her heart beat a little harder and her palms began to sweat.
Was it a coincidence? What had Campbell been doing in the woods?
After Campbell had bunked down in her barn, she’d decided it was far too risky to keep the fugitives in the safe room beneath her floor, so she’d sent one of the men to find Sutherland’s party.
She knew they weren’t far; she’d overheard one of them say they were going to make camp a mile or so away.
Sutherland warned her that more fugitives were coming tonight, so she needed to get rid of the Campbell men today. She wasn’t so sure that Adair would be leaving by tonight, but she would make certain that Campbell was gone. Somehow.
“Good morning, Cait.” Campbell ambled up to her, and she had to look up at him. He was tall and lean, not muscular, like Adair or John. “Wily” was the word that came to mind when she thought of Campbell. He was wily and unpredictable, and she never knew what he was thinking.
Cait was oftentimes referred to as a witch for her healing ways but also because she had an uncanny ability to read people.
It had more to do with observation than witchcraft, but some of her clansmen preferred to think she had superhuman abilities.
Though some avoided her because of it, it was mostly what drew people to her.
Long ago she’d tried to read Campbell, but he’d been far too good at hiding his thoughts. His body language was always loose, yet she knew he could spring to action immediately.
Today, as always, she had no idea what thoughts were going on behind those dark, nearly black eyes, but a feeling of foreboding shivered up her spine.
“What were ye doing in the woods?” she asked, trying to mimic his casual pose.
“Checking on my land.” His narrowed gaze traveled around the very small clearing between her home and her barn, taking in the trees that hugged her property. She didn’t trust him, and she didn’t believe for one moment that he was merely checking on his land.
That inscrutable gaze landed on her. She looked intently into his eyes but came up against a wall of darkness.
She glanced at the barn, then back at the piece of hay still stuck to his shoulder, and she suddenly had her answer. He’d been sleeping in the hayloft, perfectly positioned to witness everything through the small window.
Campbell was one of the best warriors in Scotland and was attuned to his surroundings. He had heard something and then seen the fugitives leaving her home.
She clutched her pail tighter. Had he gone in search of them?
She doubted that Sutherland had stayed in the area for long. She’d put him in a bind by handing them over to him in the middle of the night, but he always had a backup plan and hideouts in place.
It was common knowledge that Campbell was an English sympathizer.
One had only to look at his English style of hair and listen to his English way of speaking to know.
The rumor mill was rife with stories of Campbell’s clandestine and sometimes not so clandestine meetings with the English soldiers and his acquaintace with the Duke of Cumberland.
Or, as the Scottish called him, the Bloody Butcher.
Named because of the way he cut down any Scotsmen who opposed English rule.
If Campbell investigated the goings-on that she assumed he’d witnessed last night, then she could have put Sutherland and the secret movement in serious jeopardy.
Campbell’s gaze fell to the pail she was clutching. “Were you about to collect water?”
“Aye.”
“I’ll do it.” He held out his hand for the pail, but Cait was slow to give it to him, for her mind was swirling with possibilities.
Their gazes clashed, and she couldn’t be sure that she’d adequately hidden her fear. In fact, she knew she hadn’t adequately hidden it when Campbell’s eyes narrowed a wee bit.
She handed over the pail and folded her shaking hands in front of her.
“Where is the well?” he asked.
“On the other side of the barn, before you get to the trees. You would have seen it when you left the woods.”
He considered her for a long moment. She bit the inside of her cheek and waited to see if he would tell her what he’d been doing in the woods. But he merely nodded and left to gather the water. Cait stood there for a moment, trying to collect her scattered thoughts and calm her hammering heart.
Keep calm. Get a message to Sutherland to warn him that Campbell might be aware of the happenings of last night. Check on Adair. Act like nothing is wrong.
As long as Campbell was here, there was nothing he could do about Sutherland. But that also meant she couldn’t get a message to Sutherland.
She returned to her kitchen and stood at the rough-cut wooden counter, bracing herself against it with her hands and breathing deeply to control her racing thoughts.
First things first.
Both men would want to break their fast, so she reached for the half-loaf of bread and the crock of butter.
It would be a meager breakfast for them, but it was all she had at the moment.
She needed to make more bread today. She also needed to purchase some meat, but she couldn’t do that with Adair in residence, and there was no way in hell she was leaving these two men alone in her cottage.
A loud crash from above had her racing up the narrow stairs.
The bed was empty, the bedclothes and blankets trailing off the side and onto the floor, where Adair was struggling to stand.
“Ye big numpty.” She struggled to help him up.
“I tried to get out of bed,” he said a bit sheepishly.
“And ye found ye couldn’t.”
“Why are my legs weak when it was my stomach that took the pistol ball?”
“Because ye lost a fair amount of blood, and it makes ye weak.”
He scoffed as if healing were beneath him.
“What the hell happened?”
Cait and Adair looked up to find Campbell standing in the doorway, a fierce scowl on his face.
“He thought he could walk right out of here,” Cait said.
Campbell helped Adair back in bed, muttering, “You damn hardheaded fool.” Cait was surprised to see the care Campbell showed toward Adair.
With Adair settled back in bed, clearly exhausted and hurting from his tumble, Cait took the opportunity to inspect his wound and re-dress it.
She left Adair with Campbell, the bread and butter between them, to start a new batch of bread.
Just because she had two unwanted visitors didn’t mean the chores completed themselves.
Cooking for the fugitives took many hours.
She tried to be frugal by growing her own vegetables.
But meat was a different matter. She couldn’t purchase a large amount of meat from the butcher.
A lone woman consuming an entire cow would raise suspicion.
She tended to make hearty soups with a lot of vegetables, little meat, and thick slabs of bread.
She could make the bread herself, although she had to be mindful of the amount of flour she purchased from the mill.
Hers was one of the few hideouts where the fugitives received adequate food.
Usually, they ate berries if they were in season and the dry oak cakes called bannocks if they were able to start a fire.
Dried meat was their staple, and while that was suitable for a day or so, it was inadequate for the long journey they were taking, particularly for the women and children.
Today Cait made two loaves of bread and put a pot of water on for vegetable stew. She was cutting up vegetables when Campbell appeared from upstairs. Instantly, she felt the spiny fingers of anxiety tiptoe up her spine.
“You should move closer to the big house,” he said, referring to the white stone castle-turned-manor that he lived in.
“I’m perfectly happy here.”
“Are you?”
Her kitchen was a cheery place, and the cottage was plenty big enough for her needs. She didn’t have visitors often, but her privacy was a relief.
Campbell moved closer, and she decided that yes, being alone was definitely a relief. She heard him pull out a chair and settle into it. Why didn’t he just go away.
“Don’t ye have business up at yer big house? Englishmen to meet with?”
“I’m here for as long as Adair needs me.”
She noticed he ignored the jab about the English. He was such an even-keeled fellow that it was unnerving.
“And what is he doing now?” She scooped up the chopped carrots and dropped them into the pot of boiling water.
“Sleeping like a babe,” he admitted after a pause.
“So he needs ye at the moment?”
“Sit down, Cait.”
She reached for a fat white onion. “If the two of ye are going to stay, then ye’ll want to be eating. I need to get dinner in the pot if it’s to be ready in time.”
“You don’t have to feed us.”
She laughed. “And what will ye do? Send for food from the big house?”
A long silence fell over them as her knife easily cut through the onion. The sharp, pungent scent made her nose and eyes water.
“Do you need me to do anything?” he asked.
“Are ye partial to cutting onions?”
“Not particularly.”
She gathered up the onion and dropped it in the pot with the carrots, then reached for a potato as she glanced at the bread to make sure it was rising properly.
“I noticed your firewood is running low,” Iain said.
She turned to face him. His gaze went a little nervously to the knife she was wielding.
“What is this all about?” she asked.
“Adair and I barged into your home, and it seems we’re here until he heals enough to travel. I thought I’d help.”
“Ye live not an hour away. Ye can go home and ease yer guilt of leaving yer commander in my care. I’ll take good care of him.”
“I know you will.”
“Then why are ye staying?”
He looked around her home and his jaw worked back and forth.
There had been a time long, long ago when Campbell would sit in her kitchen as she made dinner.
She would listen as he and John talked strategy or about crops or a particularly difficult clansman.
They would drink their whiskey, their voices low and comforting, while she bustled about the kitchen, Christina fast asleep in the cradle beside the stove.
Now John and Christina were gone, and Cait didn’t cook for anyone but herself and the fugitives. Campbell’s presence brought too many sad memories to her door.
“I want to help you,” he finally said.
She turned back to the potato and chopped it in half with a violent flick of her wrist. “I don’t need yer help.”