Page 33 of Highland Crown
Isabella tried to stay calm, but a frantic fear was edging into her. “They’ve taken him to Fort George. What happens if he breaks down and tells these monsters where my family is?”
“He is a Scot. And a Highlander.” He addressed Jean. “Is he not?”
The old woman’s face lit with a glimmer of hope.
“I’ve sailed past Fort George a dozen times. With a few good men, we can rescue him. But the three of us can do nothing right now.”
She crouched before Cinaed. The fever chills had taken full hold of him. It took great effort for him to talk. His face was covered with sweat. She wiped the perspiration from his brow.
“I need only a few minutes to ask questions. I have some money. The innkeeper helped you. If I pay him, he might do the same for me.”
He took hold of her arm and brought her face close to his. She could see nothing but the blue of his eyes.
“Listen to me. They’ll kill you. There isn’t a man in this inn who doesn’t know by now that the British want you. And there’s a cloth manufactory not five miles from here. The weavers are the reform leaders here as well as in the south. Any one of them in that taproom could haveheard that you’re wanted. They’ll turn you over to one side or the other to collect the bounty. Do you understand?”
She did. The innkeeper and his wife had already betrayed them to the British. But they’d cooperated with Cinaed. Of course, from the way the man acted just now, she guessed he’d given them no choice.
She mustered all her courage. What would it matter if she lived and her family was taken? She would never forgive herself if someone like Hudson got his hands on them. “I cannot just run away.”
His hold loosened. His fingers trailed along the line of her jaw before his hand dropped away. She sat back on her heels.
“Take me to Searc Mackintosh. In Maggot Green in Inverness. Near the Black Bridge. He’s kin. He’ll shelter us. It’s near enough.”
Isabella looked over her shoulder at Jean, wondering if she could make any sense of this direction.
“We’ll find it.” The old woman stuffed a pistol in each of the bags. “He’s right, mistress. We can do no good here for my John nor for yer lasses. And there’s no point staying and letting these lowlife curs at ye.”
Here, two strangers were coming to her rescue. Continuing to risk their lives to help her.
“I owe you so much,” she whispered, mopping the beads of sweat from his face. “You could have gone, and you’d have been better off for it. But you stayed. You saved my life. I can never repay you for what you did today.”
He opened his mouth to answer, but she recognized how quickly he was sinking. She put her fingers to his lips.
“You are a fighter.”
Of all the people she’d cared for over the years, of all the sickbeds she’d been called to, no situation matched this moment. She was desperate to get him through this, but her education and her years of training were meaningless. Everything told her he needed to lie quiet in a clean bed. He needed fluids and medicine. But she could give him none of that. He was right; the soldiers would be back, and they had no time.
“You’re going to live.” The assurance was as much for herself as for him.
Resigned to their plan, Isabella was trying to decide how she’d get him into the cart when the innkeeper arrived. The stable boy was on his heels.
“He’s not strong enough to make it out of here on his own. You’ll need to help us. We’ll use the chair as a litter.”
A moment later, they were making their way out into the corridor and through a back door. It took all four of them to lift Cinaed from the chair into the waiting cart. His eyes opened as she climbed in beside him, while Jean took the reins.
“They’ll be back here looking for ye.” The innkeeper’s eyes were scanning the fields to the north. “What should I be telling them? I don’t care to hang for helping ye.”
“You didn’t help,” Cinaed murmured hoarsely. “Say a handful of men you didn’t know came in with me. One of them went to the kirkyard and started ringing the bell. They held a knife to your wife’s throat. We forced you.”
“But where should I say ye all came from?”
“Duff Head,” Cinaed muttered, looking up at Jean.
The old woman shrugged.
“Duff Head,” the innkeeper said, stepping back.
Jean flicked the reins, and a moment later, they were on the road to Inverness.
