Highland Scoundrel (Campbell Trilogy #3)(48)
Chapter 10
Ten Years Later, Present Day
She'd actually shot him.
Duncan would laugh if he could manage anything other than a grimace. The greatest warrior from Ireland to cross the continent brought down by a lass—and a naked one at that. There was irony in it, he supposed, but he was in too much damned pain to appreciate it.
Had he actually thought he could convince her to help him? That she might be willing to atone for the injustice she'd done him all those years ago? He'd held out a small ray of hope.
But this woman who stared at him with hatred in her eyes was not the girl he remembered. She'd changed. All the vivacity and spirit seemed to have been leached right out of her, replaced by calm, cool resolve. Bold green eyes that had once sparkled with excitement now glittered as hard as cold emeralds. A mouth once turned in a perpetual smile and inclined to excited chatter was pursed in a flat line.
What had changed her? Had life been so unkind?
He shouldn't—didn't—care. Hell, perhaps he should even think it fitting revenge for the life she'd stolen from him. But he found he could not muster the enthusiasm for the revenge that had once been his only solace in the long, lonely nights when the unwanted memories struck. Revenge was the province of bitterness, and he'd relinquished that long ago. Now all Duncan wanted was the truth.
If he lived long enough to find it. Not only had Jeannie put a hole in his stomach, she was also apparently eager to put a noose around his neck. Before he wouldn't have thought her capable of such vindictive-ness, but he did not doubt the resolve of the woman standing before him. He was glad the pistol she carried only had one shot or he had no doubt he'd find himself riddled with holes.
He heard the sound of footsteps running toward him, his men responding to the gunfire. Summoning what was left of the strength that had not bled out of him, he gritted his teeth, held his hand to his stomach just below the edge of his leather plated cuirass to staunch the bleeding, and fought to a stand.
He staggered. For a moment the pain engulfed him and his mind went black. He tensed, bracing against the firestorm raging inside him, and managed to stave off unconsciousness.
She stood stone still, making no move to help him.
Conall tore through the trees. “Captain, we heard—” He stopped in his tracks, stunned to see Duncan's condition. “What in Hades …?”
Duncan motioned to Jeannie. “Conall. Leif. Meet Lady Gordon.” The name curdled in his mouth.
There was a long pause as his men absorbed—none too easily—the significance.
It was Leif who spoke first. “The lass shot you?”
“I'm afraid so,” Duncan said wryly, finding the patent incredulity in his captain's voice somewhat of a salve to his skewered pride.
Conall whistled and shook his head, crossing thick arms across a chest that would make a bear envious. “The men won't believe this. No one has ever gotten the jump on you.”
“Well, she did.” Twice, in fact, if you counted her stealing the map while he slept in sated bliss. It was a lesson well learned. He'd never lost control like that again, never allowed himself to succumb to such connubial stupor.
Leif recovered first, removing a square of dirty linen from his sporran and handing it to Duncan. The Norseman had been quick to adopt the practical and convenient leather pouch worn around the waist, in addition to the breacan feile, the belted plaid, of the Highlands.
Duncan took the cloth, though it wasn't going to do much good. It was like trying to dam a rushing burn with a scrap of parchment. “There's no time to tarry. We must go before the entire garrison rains down upon us to investigate.”
Conall frowned. “But I thought the lass—”
“I was mistaken.” Duncan eyed Jeannie, seeing nothing but hardness. “The woman will be of no help to me.”
Perhaps he'd been a fool to think she ever would. She'd chosen her side years ago, supporting—nay, aiding—her treacherous father.
For weeks after he'd left Scotland, Duncan had done something he never did: second-guessed himself. He'd racked his head to find another explanation. But either he'd lost the map on the battlefield and it had miraculously ended up in Grant's hands, someone had taken it while he slept the few hours in his tent, or the far more logical explanation that Jeannie had taken it. Her oddly worded note, her determination that he not leave, the rearrangement of his belongings all pointed to her. Still, something ate at him. He couldn't forget how she'd looked that night he'd surprised her in her chamber—the last time he'd seen her. She'd appeared, she'd sounded, she'd seemed … innocent.
Unable to reconcile the sweet girl he knew with the manipulative schemer anger had created in his mind, he'd decided to return. Then, right before he was to set sail, word reached him of her marriage to Francis Gordon.
She hadn't even waited a month. Three weeks after he'd left, barely escaping with his life, she'd married. While he'd been agonizing about whether he'd committed a grave injustice against her, she'd been lying in the arms of another man.
The swift marriage confirmed his worst fears. It begat the darkest period of his life, the time when he'd earned his fearsome reputation. Eventually the gut-wrenching betrayal had given way to the faint pinch of discomfort he felt now. But even that tiny remnant of weakness infuriated him.