Chapter 33
Cait wrenched away from his grasp. “No,” she whispered. Then, louder, “No!”
She understood with sickening clarity what he was trying to tell her.
They’d already tried him and found him guilty, and she and Iain were never going to have the life he’d promised her.
She glanced at the unknown soldier beside him and instinctively knew that he’d been the one to condemn Iain to death. He was watching her with a cold gaze.
“We haven’t much time,” Iain implored. “We need to speak quickly. They’ve found me guilty of killing Donaldson but—”
“This is wrong,” she muttered.
He grabbed her hands to keep her from backing away farther. “Listen to me,” he said with urgency. “They want to blame me for the other murders. I’m afraid they will after I’m…after my…”
She shook her head. “Don’t even say it. That’s no’ what’s going to happen. I’ve brought Sutherland and MacLean. Graham and MacGregor said they would help. They’ll send more men if we need them.”
“It’s too late for that. I’m to be hanged tomorrow.”
She wrenched her hands from his and spun around. Iain lunged for her, but she grabbed the lapels of the unknown officer’s red coat and shook him.
“Now see here!” the man exclaimed in shock, attempting to step back.
“No, you see here. Iain Campbell did no’ kill Donaldson. I did.”
“Cait, no.” Iain pulled on her from behind, but she shook him off. “Stop it, Cait.”
“I killed Donaldson. He came for me in my cottage, and I ran. He chased me into the woods and beat me.” She pointed to her face, keeping a tight hold on the officer’s coat with her other hand.
“Look at my face. Your soldier did that to me. He beat me and told me he was going to kill me. He dragged me around by my hair, and it was terrifying. But I found a large stick, and I hit him on the head, and when he fell I hit him again. He died by my hands, no’ by Iain Campbell’s hands. ”
She took a shuddering breath but didn’t release him. He stared down at her in shock. “I’m afraid you are mistaken, madam,” he said. “Donaldson was found on the side of the road with his throat slit and stab wounds about his body.”
Cait released him and stepped back, her breath leaving her. “Nay. I killed him. I know I did. He was dead when I left him there.”
“Did you stab him and cut his throat?”
“I hit him over the head with a tree branch.” It was as if the anger had consumed everything left inside of her.
She was a battered husk with barely enough strength to keep standing.
She turned to Iain. “He’s lying. He’s trying to blame ye for something ye didn’t do.
I killed Donaldson by hitting him over the head.
I had no knife to slit his throat nor the constitution to do such a thing. ”
“Because Campbell did it,” the man said. “Campbell found him and killed him. He already admitted as much. He’s also suspected of killing the other English soldiers.”
“Nay,” she whispered. “He’d never do such a thing. It was me. I killed Donaldson.”
“Stop it,” Iain hissed behind her.
She looked at Iain in sadness. They were never meant to be, the two of them together. It had been a far-fetched dream. “It’s far better they know the truth. I will die for it if I have to, but it’s better that ye live and I die. Scotland needs ye.”
Iain groaned and his shoulders slumped forward. “Don’t do this. Please.”
“I would do anything for ye.”
“Even admit to something you did not do?” the soldier asked.
She eyed the man in disdain. “I would never allow him to take the blame for something I did. I don’t know who told ye that Donaldson was found on the road, but he wasn’t. He died in the middle of the forest by my hand.”
“But he was found on the side of the road,” Palmer said. “My men found him there with his throat cut and stab wounds about him.”
Cait looked at Palmer in surprise. “That’s impossible.”
“Maybe he wasn’t dead after you hit him,” Palmer said.
“I’ve seen enough dead people to know if one is dead or not. He was dead,” she said with a conviction she didn’t feel, because to portray otherwise would seal Iain’s fate. “I know it.”
“No,” Palmer said with regret. “He wasn’t.”
“I killed him.”
Cait swung around to see who had said that.
Rory stepped forward, looking scared and pale but standing his ground.
“I found Cait after Donaldson beat her, and when she told me where she had left Donaldson, I searched for him to bury his body, but he wasn’t where she’d said she’d left him.
I found him wandering down the road. His head was bleeding, and he was talking nonsense and could barely stand up. I slit his throat and stabbed him.”
“Ah, lad,” Iain said on a breath.
Rory squared up against the officer. “I killed the others, too.”
“Rory, no!” Cait cried out.
“Is that true, lad?” Iain asked.
“Aye.”
No. This couldn’t be happening. Rory hadn’t killed those men. He wasn’t capable of such a thing. Not Rory, who always had a smile for her and a ready laugh. Cait moved closer and put her palm against his rough cheek. He looked at her with tears in his eyes.
“I had to,” he said, sounding more like the little boy she knew than the man he had become. “They wouldn’t go away. They needed to go away. Scotland is ours, not theirs. And the things they were doing to our people. It’s not right, Cait.”
“Killing them isn’t the answer,” Cait said. “Just like the English soldiers killing our people isn’t the answer. We all need to work together to find a solution.”
One of Rory’s tears rolled onto the back of her hand. “Forgive me,” he whispered.
The officer stepped up next to him. “Rory Graham, you are under arrest for the death of five English soldiers, including Lieutenant Donaldson.”
Rory nodded but didn’t take his gaze off Cait. “Tell Grandfather that I’m sorry.”
“No,” she choked out.
“Please, Cait. Tell him.”
She nodded, unable to speak through such a tight throat. There were no words, anyway.
Rory was stripped of his weapons, then Palmer and the officer walked him away, each holding one of his arms. Iain put his arm around Cait and hugged her to his side.
—
They spent the night at a local inn because none of them wanted to leave Rory, even though there was no hope for him. He was too well guarded, according to Palmer, who wouldn’t agree to help break him out of prison but was supplying necessary information. Rory was all alone and heavily guarded.
Cait tended to Iain’s wounds, setting his broken finger and cleaning his various scrapes and cuts. “We’re a matching pair,” she said.
He huffed out a laugh, then grimaced when it pulled on his split lip. “Come here, mo gradh.” He pulled her toward him and wrapped his arms around her. They remained that way, he sitting, his arms around her waist, while she ran her hands through his hair.
“I missed ye,” she said. “Don’t ever go and do such a thing again.”
“When I was sentenced, all I could think about was you and how I’d let you down after I convinced you to start living again and how horrible it was that we were going to be separated forever.”
She drew in a deep breath, overcome by the despair in his voice.
“I didn’t think I was going to get out of that,” he whispered. “And I didn’t want to die without seeing you one more time. And then there you were, running toward me, and I thought I was seeing things.”
“Oh, Iain. I was so afraid of what I was going to find when I saw ye. I’ll admit that I thought yer injuries would be much worse.
But one thing I didn’t think about was leaving that place without ye.
I was damned if ye were going to tell me about the light after the dark and then ye not be there in the light. ”
He chuckled, his breath warm on her stomach. “I want to make love to you, Cait, but I’m afraid I don’t have it in me tonight.”
“Just hold me,” she said softly. “Just hold me.”
Iain held Cait through the night while she alternately cried and slept.
It felt good to be in his arms again. They spoke little of what had happened to Iain and none of what had happened to Rory.
It was too fresh, too raw, and still too unbelievable.
There was a tiny spark of hope inside Cait that this was unreal and they would fetch Rory in the morning.
That wasn’t what happened, although they did receive a bit of good news. Palmer told them that instead of being hanged, Rory was to travel to England, where he would be put on trial for the killing of five English soldiers.
Iain seemed to be heartened by that news. “As soon as we get home, I will send a message to my solicitor in England to find the best possible person to represent Rory,” he said.
“Ye would do that?” she asked.
He hugged her tight. “Of course I will do that.”
Not able to help Rory now, they rode home, the five of them, in grim silence. Cait didn’t want to believe that her cousin had been the one to kill those soldiers. She knew him. Yes, they’d been estranged for the past eight years, but he’d not changed that dramatically.
“You just don’t know about people,” Iain said. “Circumstances drive them to do horrible things.”
“I won’t believe it,” she said defiantly. “I’ll never believe it.”
“Cait, he admitted it. He confessed. I don’t know what other proof you need.”
“Then something drove him to it.”
“The English drove him to it. He said as much.”
She shook her head as tears fell from her eyes.
“Ah, Cait. I’m so sorry.”
“He didn’t do it. I know he didn’t.”
“Then the person I hire to represent him will make certain he isn’t convicted of it.”
She drew in a shuddering breath. “What am I to tell my grandfather?” she whispered.
“We’ll tell him together, and we’ll make certain he understands that Rory will be well represented.”
If not for Iain’s arrest, they never would have known Rory’s secret, and he would have continued killing.