Page 19 of Highland Crown
Sharp objects poked him in the back. They were right behind him. A gun fired and a bullet whizzed past his ear. The hill was steep, but the gate was there. Cinaed clutched the invisible hand. He couldn’t let go. His home, his people were just beyond the door, waiting for him. They’d be safe.
His feet barely touched the wooden bridge crossing the wide ditch outside the wall. The massive portal began to swing shut. He wasn’t going to make it. He cried out, but his plea was drowned by the shouts and curses behind him. The entrance was moving away.
Then, at the last moment, with a burst of speed, Cinaed clutched the hand of his unseen companion and slipped through. The great door slammed shut.
Standing with the high wall and the door at his back,he stared uncomprehendingly at the sight before him. No family awaited to greet him or enfold him in their arms. No castle yard surrounded him.
Cinaed was standing at the edge of a jagged cliff. Mountain peaks spread out in the distance, their tops covered with snow that sparkled in the blinding sunlight. And a thousand feet below, a river raged, white-capped and deadly, through a rock-strewn valley.
The cliff edge began to crumble beneath his feet, and as he scrambled backward, he banged up against the wall.
Cinaed struck his head hard, but it wasn’t against any stone wall. Cautiously, he lifted his head off the planks of the cart as it lurched forward. He opened his eyes. The cart had turned onto the coach road from the rutted coastal track.
He raised an arm to block the golden afternoon sun. No one was holding his hand. But his breathing was ragged, and his body was soaked with sweat. He threw the cloak off him. The fiery pain in his chest was a sharp indicator that he was no longer asleep, but the dream wouldn’t leave him right away.
The thick curtain wall, the wide ditch, the gorse-covered hills lining the river valley. He knew them. The Highland fortress in his dream was Dalmigavie Castle.
Cinaed thought of the letter he’d received from Lachlan Mackintosh before sailing for Scotland. The laird of Dalmigavie had invited him to visit.
The Mackintosh clan had cast him out as a child, however, and he wouldn’t be going back to them now. The dream had simply been a reflection of his thoughts. He’d destroyed the letter after reading it, but it still angered him. Cinaed needed no one.
He ran a weary hand over his face, forcing himself to focus on the business at hand.
Inverness. His men. It would be a massive relief to find they were alive. They had wives and children who were waiting for them. Able-bodied sailors were always in demand. They would get back to Halifax. As for himself, he had kin here. Searc Mackintosh would help him find a way of getting back.
Jean’s voice broke into his thoughts. “We’re almost there. It’s time ye told me the rest of it.”
He raised his head to look around. The grassy land on either side of the road stretched out flat as a table, glistening from the rain. Not a stone’s throw away, Moray Firth sparkled in the sunlight. They must have passed the road to Fort George a while back, for up ahead he could see a large merchant brig and two schooners busily taking in sail. The ships had to be getting close to the mouth of the River Ness and the port.
Jean was keeping after Isabella. “Ye might as well tell me. I’m already an accomplice in whatever heinous crime ye’ve committed.”
Cinaed’s attention was drawn to the doctor. He wanted to know this as well.
“You must trust me when I say, the less you know about me, the better.”
He stared at Isabella Murray’s dark green travel dress and her ramrod straight back. She’d loosened her bonnet strings, and the hat now hung back between her shoulder blades. She was rubbing her long, slender neck. Wisps of hair were loose and danced in the wind. The woman had to be dog-tired. TheHighland Crownhad run up on the reef early last night. He expected the villagers probably witnessed every stage of his ship’s demise. Later, when he’d washed ashore, she’d been on the beach and had cared for him straight on until morning.
He recalled the hand he was holding in the dream. He owed Isabella his life, and he wondered if she was the companion he’d pulled along at his side.
“Ye must’ve committed a terrible, terrible crime, I’m thinking,” Jean pressed, unwilling to give up. “Or ye wouldn’t be running away and hiding, as ye are.”
“I’ve committed no crime.”
“Ye must’ve. Out with it, lass. Passing counterfeit coins? Selling bad oysters to innkeepers? Did ye murder the Lord Mayor’s cat?”
“I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Then what? Ye admit they’re after ye. So ye must have done something. Ye must, at least, have a long, sad tale of how yer being wrongfully accused.”
The younger woman’s shoulders lifted in a shrug.
“Ye wouldn’t be the first or the last, I expect. Especially ye being a woman and all. And my John wouldn’t have come all the way from Edinburgh with ye unless there’s a story to it. He’s told me many a time he works on the trials of some tough folk, but I know him. The lad also has a soft heart for those the world has tramped on.”
The doctor’s lips remained sealed. Isabella simply stared straight ahead, offering nothing.
Cinaed couldn’t imagine what kind of trouble Isabella Murray would be in. She was a rarity as a woman doctor. Of course, her chosen profession alone could draw the law down on her, depending on where she decided to practice medicine. But why would she need to travel all the way to the Highlands?
“At least tell mewhoit is that’s after ye, so I don’t say the wrong bloody thing to the wrong bloody folk.”
