Chapter Sixteen
“WELL, WELL,” CAMPBELL said, lowering his sword, a smirk of amused triumph rippling across his expression.
He was a staunch-looking man with long black hair and a black beard, appearing every bit as dangerous as his reputation suggested.
He wore almost as much weaponry as my husband usually armed himself with—weapons that were, at present, well out of reach. “Isn’t this well timed?”
In a desperate attempt, I reached for the ties at Kade’s wrist before I even made a move to cover myself.
But Aleck was there, his arms wrapping themselves around my waist, pulling me away with a strength I could not begin to defy.
As my hands were dragged from my husband’s body, I was able to pull the wool of his kilt lower over him, covering him.
And I fumbled with my own garment, pulling it over my exposed breasts as I was carried some distance from my husband and placed on my feet. Aleck’s hold on me did not ease.
“Take me,” Kade said, his voice eerily calm. “Leave my wife. This has nothing to do with her.”
“In fact,” said Aleck, clear glee in his tone.
His eyes were bloodshot, perhaps from the effects of the drug he’d been given by the healer.
A drug that was regrettably weaker than I had been told.
“This has everything to do with her. Isn’t that right, Stella?
Shall I check you for blood? Because it doesn’t appear you were able to fully succeed in your quest. It appears, aye, that we arrived just in time. ”
Kade’s expression did not change. His face was a mask of composure, but his eyes were blazing with hatred, with rage and realization. And with regret.
“I’m going to kill you anyway, soldier,” Kade said evenly, his eyes locked on Aleck. “How painful your death is will depend on your willingness to take your hands off my wife this instant. And refrain from ever touching her again.”
Campbell laughed loudly. “These Mackenzies never fail to amaze. You’re as defenseless as you could possibly be, soldier. Yet you insist on tossing out threats that will only succeed in making your predicament all the worse.”
Aleck seemed to barely register Campbell’s remark.
He replied to my husband’s words with the confidence of a man whose opponent was at a distinct and pleasing disadvantage.
“On the contrary, Mackenzie, this lass no longer belongs to you. Your marriage is a sham. Unsealed and invalid. If I hadn’t just witnessed what appeared to be your willingness, I might have suspected that you found the lass displeasing, which is beyond my powers of comprehension.
I intend to wed her myself. And to give her what she is clearly crying out for.
You might as well witness at least part of the proceedings.
Since you don’t appear to have much of a choice.
” To his soldiers, he commanded, “Bring in Laird Morrison.”
My father was dragged into the room by Hugh and another guard.
And as I looked at the man who had raised me from a distance with tyranny, abuse and displaced grief, I could feel only pity.
His eyes had lost their spark entirely. Perhaps the storming of the keep by Campbell’s army had pushed him over the edge of his loosening grip on reality.
His madness had taken over. He seemed barely able to comprehend where he was or who he was.
Aleck loomed over his laird menacingly. “I’ve agreed that Campbell should be the one to kill your laird-in-waiting, Morrison.
I’ll take the pleasure of securing my title as laird with my own sword.
” With that, Aleck, without removing his hold on my arm, drew his weapon from its scabbard and drove it into my father’s heart with one quick, forceful thrust. “Your time has come, old man. ’Tis something I should have done long ago. ”
My father’s frail body slumped to the floor, blood spilling freely, inky black. He was dead before he even hit the cold stone floor.
I gasped, not with anguish over my father’s death—his cruelty had steadily eroded any affection I might once have felt for him—but with shock.
Not only was Campbell’s army within our walls, but my father was dead and my husband’s life would be the next to be taken.
Campbell, even now, was approaching Kade, his sword raised and a large knife clenched in his other hand.
Strangely, even amid the dire situation at hand, a pressing regret echoed insistently in my mind.
I have not yet made love to my husband. I wanted to, before we were both separated, imprisoned or worse.
Not because I was being forced to consummate our marriage under threat, but because the time I had spent in his company was the sweetest, most nourishing of my life.
I wanted a thousand more moments with him, learning him and treasuring his beauty and his comfort and his love.
That was what I wanted from him: love. In that tragic, terror-stricken moment, it was the only thing I could comprehend.
That I loved him. The very real possibility that he might be taken from me before I would truly know him, in every sense of the word, felt tragically unjust. I loved him and he might never know it.
“I now pronounce myself laird of the Morrison clan,” Aleck said, “since the previously appointed laird-in-waiting’s time has just run out. And I am the rightful second in line for the title. If any man present has any reason to dispute this claim, speak your piece now.”
My mind was reeling. How could I save him? Fighting them would be foolish. I remembered the small knife strapped to my thigh, but there were at least twelve hostile warriors in this room, every one of them armed to the teeth, and with an endless army huddled outside the door.
Campbell held his sword so the very tip of it hovered near Kade’s chest. Right over his heart. “This almost seems too easy,” he taunted. “I’ve been looking forward to this moment for quite some time. Yet I never envisioned it quite like this.”
My husband’s chest rose slightly with his breath, putting the sword’s blade that much closer to contact.
“Fight me like a true warrior, Campbell,” Kade said.
“Wouldn’t you rather live out your days knowing you bested me with your skill and not your underhanded deceit?
Fight me in a duel and kill me if you will. But do it with honor.”
Campbell was not at all conflicted. “Ah, but I’ve already bested you with cunning and strategy, Mackenzie.
I can live with that. Honor, I believe, is overrated.
The ends justify the means, so they say, and this end—your death—will be the sweetest revenge of all.
’Tis your own sheer misfortune that the lass was able to assist us so thoroughly with our plan.
She could not have been more helpful if she’d been given explicit instructions. ”
Kade’s gaze found mine, and in that flashing, quick intensity I could read there a fleeting question, one that stemmed from our history: my fear of him, my unwillingness to wed him, my long list of hesitations.
It was that question that gave me an idea.
I had just watched one of my father’s senior officers kill him in cold blood. And now I was about to watch this ruthless rebel kill my husband. I could see the anticipation and the bloodlust written across Campbell’s face as his sword’s tip drew ever closer to my husband’s heart.
My plan was risky, aye, and would have dire consequences for us both. But it might keep him alive. It was the only priority: I needed him to live. So I could tell him and show him how much I had grown to need him.
“Nay! You cannot kill him,” I said too loudly.
It took everything I had to steady my voice, but I continued.
I directed my gaze at Campbell, avoiding Kade’s eyes, knowing the questions there, the hurt and the anger, would very likely cause me to falter.
“He’s too valuable. If we use him as a hostage, we’re safe from attack from both the Mackenzie and the Stuart armies, as well as their allies. ”
The room fell entirely silent. All eyes were on me, and my skin felt hot and awash with anxiety under the scrutiny.
I could practically feel Kade’s disappointment, his sorrow and his remorse, piercing into me like a sword of steely despair.
But if I was to be at all convincing, I would need to show no fear.
I condemned myself as I spoke, and I resolved to spend the rest of my life making it up to him—if we survived.
I needed now to be stronger than I ever had been in my life.
And so I drew on the memories. The secret garden.
My husband’s face as he slept in the moonlight.
The astounding pleasure of his kiss and his touch.
I would hold those memories close to me as I endured what I must to keep him alive.
I squared my shoulders and continued, leaning closer to Aleck, allowing his hold instead of struggling against it.
“’Tis true. I’ve met them, and I believe both his brothers will agree to virtually any request you make of them if they knew Kade’s life depended on it.
With that in mind, and with the Morrison and Campbell armies newly allied, your rebellion could go far. Further than it ever has.”
Aleck, whose hands were somewhat indecently placed in his eager acceptance of my sudden acquiescence, said, “She’s right, Campbell. Consider it. I know your ultimate prize is revenge, and I agreed you could claim his life—but think on it. There’s no telling what they’d agree to.”
Campbell paused, and his eyes found mine. He was wary and skeptical. “What is this? The lass supports your coup, Aleck, against her own husband?”
“My husband is a brute and savage,” I said, impressing myself with the cold brittleness of my delivery. I sounded almost convincing. “’Tis well known this was an arranged marriage I wanted nothing to do with. Aleck here knows it to be true.”