Chapter 10
Callum didn’t make a habit of manhandling young ladies.
Freya MacLeod was the first he’d ever scooped into his arms and tossed over his shoulder like a sack of flour, and she would be the last.
She’d gone limp against him, her chest jerking with each of the labored breaths sawing in and out of her throat. If she hadn’t been gripping the back of his shirt in both her fists, he would have thought she’d fallen into a swoon.
For all her rumored timidity, she hadn’t yet succumbed to one.
The fiery stables burning to the ground right before her eyes, the mobs of villagers maddened with rage chasing her through the woods, and a flight through the dark night with a man she hardly knew and had no reason to trust?
She’d weathered it all with admirable bravery.
But she was frightened now. He was holding her close enough he could feel the tremors running through her. She was shaking in his arms, still but for the involuntary shudders wracking her body.
Clutching such a slender, fine-boned slip of a lady while she shivered with panic was like trapping a butterfly in his hands, the edges of its fluttering wings tickling his palms.
Wasn’t he behaving just like the barbarian she’d accused him of being? He didn’t like Freya MacLeod thinking of him as a brute, but it was a bit late for that. He hadn’t precisely endeared himself to her after that incident in the front drive of Castle Cairncross.
He didn’t regret what he’d done that day. Not exactly. No gentleman wanted to grab a lady as he’d grabbed her, but neither did he fancy a slit throat. Sorcha MacLeod hadn’t left him much choice, but he wasn’t proud of it, nor would he forget it anytime soon.
He’d done what he had to do, but the horror on Freya’s face when he’d grabbed her arm, the way her green eyes had gone wide, then darkened with terror …
It was shameful, a man of his size forcing a wee lass to do his bidding, but there was only one solution to the problem he and Freya now found themselves in, and that was for them both to get into the boat and leave Skye far behind them.
But she didn’t seem to recognize how much danger she was in, even after a mob of rabid villains had tried to drag her heels first out of her castle.
If Freya MacLeod had any idea how to keep herself safe, he hadn’t seen any evidence of it.
So, he’d have to see to her safety himself, just as he’d promised Hamish he would.
Of course, at the time he hadn’t had the least idea what he was promising, but a man didn’t go back on his word, no matter how troublesome it became to keep it.
God knew Freya MacLeod was proving troublesome enough. Whoever would have thought one small lady could wreak such havoc? One would never think it to look at her, but for all her daintiness, Freya MacLeod was chaos wrapped in green skirts and a dark blue cloak.
“You can put me down now, Mr. Ross. I give you my word that I won’t bolt.”
Put her down? He’d put her down, all right. Directly into the boat. He marched toward it, prepared to drop her into it and leave Skye before anything else could go awry, but once he’d dislodged her from his shoulder and was holding her against his chest, she stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“Wait, Mr. Ross. Just listen to me.”
She pleaded so prettily, but that was the problem. One glance into those guileless green eyes and a man could lose his wits. He’d made the mistake of listening to her when she approached him in the entryway yesterday with that tea tray, and this was where it had gotten them.
She’d already lied to him once. He wasn’t such a fool as to give her the chance to do it again. “There’s no point, Miss MacLeod. There’s nothing you can say that will make any difference.”
“Please, Mr. Ross.”
She’d been clutching at his arm, a sleeve of his shirt caught in a death grip, but she released it now, and after a brief pause, she rested her hand against the back of his. The weight of that small, warm palm against him, the plea in the gesture, the gentleness of it was his undoing.
Damn it. He was going to regret this.
He gave the boat one last glance, then lowered her to the ground with a heavy sigh. “Very well, Miss MacLeod. What is it?”
She stood before him, her skirts flapping against her legs in the brisk wind coming off the water. “I can’t get into that boat.”
“You can, and you will.” Did she still not see that she had no choice?
“No, I mean …” She avoided his gaze. “I—I’m afraid.”
“Of boats?” Freya MacLeod, who’d braved the dark woods, a scorching fire, and a mob of enraged villagers, was afraid to get into a boat? “There’s nothing to be afraid of, Miss MacLeod. The boat is perfectly safe.”
“It’s not the boat. It’s … I’m afraid to leave Skye.” She met his gaze for an instant, then her eyes darted away from his again. “I’m afraid if I leave Skye, I’ll never find my way back to it again.”
Not find her way back to Skye? What did that mean? Did she imagine he was going to keep her forever? “I’m not kidnapping you, Freya. You are aware of that, aren’t you?”
“It’s not … you don’t understand. My sisters and I … ever since my father died, I—I keep losing things …” She trailed off, biting her lip.
It wasn’t much of an explanation. It would have been easy enough to dismiss her fears—to scoop her up and deposit her in the boat, yet he hesitated. Her words resonated deep inside him, like a chord vibrating after the string was plucked.
The trouble was, there was a part of him that understood how losing things could make a person desperate. If you lost enough of what mattered to you, you’d cling to whatever you had left with raw, bloody hands.
But that didn’t change anything. Not this time. It was on the tip of his tongue to say so, but then …
Her chin wobbled.
It was just a tiny wobble, there and then gone again in a heartbeat. Had he missed it, he would have bundled her into the boat without a qualm, but as fate would have it, he saw it, and once he saw it, he couldn’t help but see her.
A small, pale lass in a damp, bedraggled dress, her hair a tangled mess with a leaf or two from her run through the woods caught among the heavy tresses.
There was a long, shallow cut on her right cheek where a branch had struck her, the hems of her skirts were caked with mud, and she smelled of smoke and scorched wood.
Her cloak was stained with blood. His blood, from when she’d stabbed him with the dirk.
He glanced down at his knuckles, at the grubby bandage wrapped around his hand, the smeared blood like streaks of dark rust on his handkerchief.
The sight of it should have been enough to dull any sympathy he had for her, but he must have lost his wits somewhere between Dunvegan and Kyleakin, because all he could see was her hunched shoulders, and the dark violet circles under her eyes.
None of this was her fault. She and her sister should never have left the castle in the first place, yes. It had been foolish and reckless, but aside from that, neither of them had done anything wrong. Certainly nothing that justified the villagers’ hostility toward them.
The MacLeod sisters were a bit odd, yes.
They were as clever and cunning as their father had been, and utterly devoted to each other and their castle, but there was no crime in any of that.
There was no crime in anything they’d done—not that he could see.
There was no proof that either Freya or Sorcha had anything to do with that fire.
That mob of villagers from Dunvegan had come after them for who they were, not for anything they’d done.
Freya had been through a nightmare last night.
The fire, the village men chasing her, her sister’s disappearance—in the space of single night, her every fear had come true.
Yet she hadn’t given up or dissolved into hysterics.
He hadn’t seen a single tear or so much as a wobble of her chin, until now.
I’m afraid. It couldn’t have been easy for her to admit that to him. Her reluctance to admit to fear, to even dare to feel it was … well, he understood that, as well. Damn bad luck, that, as it made it much harder for him to dismiss her.
He could hear her out. He couldn’t do much for her, but he could do that.
“You can’t return to Dunvegan right now. You realize that, don’t you?” That mob would have her head on a platter as soon as she set foot inside the village limits. “There’s likely someone watching Castle Cairncross even now.”
“Yes. I expect there is.”
She bit her lip again, and he knew she was thinking about her sister. “There’s no reason for you to think you won’t ever be able to return home again. Once your eldest sister and Lord Ballantyne are back in Dunvegan—”
She shook her head. “It may be too late by then.”
Too late for Sorcha, she meant, though from what he’d seen of Sorcha MacLeod, if she didn’t wish to be found, she wouldn’t be. “I’m not sure what else we can do.”
She drew in a deep breath. “My father died four months ago, Mr. Ross. Do you know how many luggers have come to Castle Cairncross since then?”
“Ballantyne mentioned three.”
“Yes, that’s right. Three luggers, each of them loaded with smugglers. It would have made sense for us to leave the castle and save our skins, but we didn’t do that. Do you know why?”
“No.” If it had been him, he’d have been relieved to have an excuse to abandon the old pile, and good riddance to it. “Why?”
“Because Castle Cairncross is our home. We knew if we left it, we might never be able to return to it again. We didn’t want that.” She paused, watching him, then added softly, “Don’t you see? It’s still my home. Nothing has changed.”
“I beg your pardon, but everything has changed.” The villagers had made up their minds that Freya and Sorcha MacLeod were going to be held responsible for that fire.
That they hadn’t set it didn’t matter at all.
With so many voices raised against them, they were almost certain to be found guilty of arson.
What better way to rid Dunvegan of its witches?