Page 15 of Highland Crown
“Who says I’m hiding?”
“You’re here in a hole too small for a pair of rabbits, curled around me like a worn wool blanket.”
Jean’s blow to the head obviously hadn’t done much damage to his astuteness. He was absolutely right. Her knees had moved, and were straddling his hips. Her skirts were pushed up.
“Who are you?” she asked, trying to distract him from questioning her or noticing her encroaching position.
“Cinaed Mackintosh, owner and ship’s master of theHighland Crown, the brig that’s now strewn all over that reef.”
Isabella had known from his clothing that he wasn’t an ordinary seaman.
“Move,” he ordered. “I won’t lie here like a…”
Suddenly, a hide covering a narrow gap on the outside wall flew open and light flooded in. Stunned that there was another opening, Isabella stared at the silhouette of a man filling the doorway.
“Well, what do ye know? Two castaways.”
Habbie. He was carrying a stout cudgel. Everything she’d feared was coming true.
“Auld Jean,” he shouted. “That wee knock ye took was but the first…”
Isabella felt Cinaed lean forward, and an instant later she gasped. A knife pulled from his boot flashed in the dim light as it flew across the enclosure.
CHAPTER5
Soldier, rest! thy warfare o’er,
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking;
Dream of battled fields no more,
Days of danger, nights of waking.
—Sir Walter Scott, “Lady of the Lake,” Canto I, stanza 31
Cinaed Mackintosh was not a murderer by trade or profession. He felt no obligation to fight for God or king or country. Long ago, he’d decided the Almighty had to be tired of all the killing, and no king had ever deserved his loyalty. When it came to fighting for Scotland, the place of his birth, he believed enough blood had already been spilled in a land that would never be free. Still, that didn’t stop him from causing trouble for the enemy when the need presented itself. He acted because he was fighting for the people. They were the only thing that mattered.
Cinaed had never served in any army. He’d narrowly avoided being impressed into the Royal Navy years ago. But he knew that many Highlanders had taken up the sword for the English who defeated them at Culloden. They’d fought and bled and died in a dozen wars for the glory of the Empire. They were fools, killing and laying down their lives for the aristocrats and the moneyed elite who scorned their very existence. These Highlandwarriors were lost men who allowed themselves to become nothing more than killers for hire.
Cinaed could kill if he needed to. He would kill to survive, and burying that knife in the heart of the blackguard had been an act of self-preservation. If he hadn’t acted, if he’d missed his mark, the two of them hiding in their wee rat hole would be dead, and he was certain it wouldn’t have gone too well for the old woman.
The doctor was quick to get around to the back of the cottage, and Jean was right on her heels. He heard their voices outside. The villager was dead. He knew that already.
As Cinaed tried to listen, his head still pounded, and the burning pain in his chest was not improving. He felt as weak as a newborn, but thankfully his mind was clear.
He could not imagine being in a worse situation. This brutish dolt had found them with very little difficulty. It was only a matter of time before others came looking as well.
Cinaed dragged himself out of the cramped space and slowly pulled himself to his feet. The table near the window had been smashed into kindling. He looked around the cottage for any weapon he could use. The doctor’s surgical knife was the sharpest and the most lethal thing he could find.
Moving from one window to the other was painful, but he had to ignore that. Outside, no other people were visible on the beach. Cinaed’s gaze immediately moved to the rocks out on the sea. A different kind of pain pierced his chest. Charred driftwood and torn pieces of the sail were all that was left of his brig. No longboats in sight and no bodies along the shore.
Raised voices drew him outside. Around back, the two women were arguing. The dead man lay on the ground between them. Their quarreling stopped as soon as they saw him. Feeling a bit light-headed, he leaned back against a stone wall of the cottage.
“Ye can just take this stubborn chit and go,” Jean ordered him. “And I meannow.”
“This man should not even be out of bed, never mind go anywhere,” the doctor asserted, eyeing him with concern before turning her frown back on the older woman. “But when wedogo, you need to come with us.”
“Yer sea dog is well enough to throw a knife and kill a man,” Jean grouched. She turned her back on the doctor and shuffled toward Cinaed. “At the top of the strand, down past these rocks, ye’ll find Habbie’s cart where he left it. Ye take it. And takeher. Follow this path up to the coast road. Less than half a day’s ride and ye’ll be in Inverness.”
