The Raider (Highland Guard #8)(117)

His mouth lifted. “Hell, if I thought it would work, I would have. But I suspect that battle was lost years ago.”

“What do you mean?” He cocked a brow and held her stare. The blood slowly drained from her face as the truth dawned. “You knew?”

He shrugged. “Not right away. It was the guards who gave it away. I knew there had to be a reason Boyd didn’t kill them. God knew, he had every reason to, so I suspected someone had helped him. From the way your breath stopped and face paled every time he was mentioned, it didn’t take me long to realize who that might be.”

“Why did you never say anything? You must have been so angry with me for betraying you.”

“In truth, I was rather relieved.” His jaw hardened as if from something unpleasant. “It evened the score.”

Rosalin was shocked when she realized what he was saying. “Did you trick them into surrendering, Cliff? I refused to believe it of you.”

“I didn’t—at least not intentionally. The king didn’t tell me what he had planned. I gave my word the meeting would be held under truce not knowing they would be arrested. They wouldn’t have been able to hold out much longer and the result would have been the same, but I didn’t like that it had been done at the expense of my honor. I was ashamed of what had been done, but had to do my duty.” He smiled crookedly. “You saved me from having to make a decision I didn’t want to make.”

Rosalin was stunned. “I can’t believe you knew all these years and never said anything.”

“I suspected why you did it and hoped you’d forget.” He smiled ruefully. “I guess that didn’t work very well, did it?”

She shook her head, emotion balling up in her throat again. “What am I going to do, Cliff?”

“I don’t know, little one, but we’ll figure something out. It will get better.”

If only she could believe him.

When the two thousand pounds arrived from Clifford a week after Rosalin and Seton left, Robbie wondered if his desperate plan might actually have a chance of working. Clifford could have reneged on the truce, but he hadn’t. That and the letter agreeing to meet that had arrived a day too late had to mean something.

Robbie rode north to Dundee with Fraser and a handful of other men to bring Bruce the much needed coin, but also to speak with MacLeod. If his plan was going to work, he was going to need the help of his brethren.

He didn’t inform the king of his intentions, suspecting Bruce wouldn’t agree. But unsanctioned missions involving wives (or God willing, future wives) were hardly unusual for the Guardsmen. MacLeod himself had ordered one to rescue his wife at the beginning of the war, so Robbie expected a sympathetic ear.

Still, it had taken him a few days to persuade the leader of the Highland Guard to agree. But a week after he’d arrived in Dundee, Robbie and the nine other Guardsmen were standing in the forest near Berwick Castle going over the final details of his plan. Actually, he was going over the details, and they were doing their damndest to talk him out of it.

“It’s bloody suicide, Raider,” Lachlan MacRuairi said. “Just because we’ve managed to get out of there before doesn’t mean we’ll be able to do so again. It took me over two years to free my wife from that hellhole—with a failure that nearly got us captured. If you are imprisoned there is no guarantee of a rescue. I’ve been in that pit prison, and believe me, you don’t want to spend much time there.”

Robbie remembered, and if there was anyone in the Guard who knew about getting in and out of dangerous places it was MacRuairi.

“It won’t come to that.”

I hope.

Eoin MacLean, the tactician of the group, stared him down. “So this is your plan: walk into Berwick Castle, ask to see Clifford, tell him you want to marry his sister, and hope he doesn’t toss you in the pit prison or hang you with the nearest rope?”

“Sounds about right.”

“You must be bloody crazed,” MacLean said with disgust.

“So you’ve said before,” Robbie said. “All of you. But I know what I’m doing.”

He was doing the only thing he could think of to try to get Rosalin back. He was going to prove to her that he trusted her. My brother loves me and will do anything to see to my happiness. Robbie hoped to hell she hadn’t been exaggerating, because he suspected this was going to put that “anything” to the test. For the second time, his life was going to be in Clifford’s hands. Although this time he was putting it there himself.

Hell, maybe he was crazed.

Erik MacSorley, who’d been prodding him for the better part of the week, grinned. “I didn’t take you for the grand gesture type, Raider. But if this doesn’t work out, I’ll sail you down to London. I hear King Edward has a couple of sisters, and with your penchant for Englishwomen…”

Robbie told him what he could do with his ship, and the big West Island chieftain—who looked more Viking than Scot—laughed. But for once, Robbie didn’t mind being the butt of his jokes. MacSorley’s lighthearted jesting relieved some of the heaviness weighing over them all at Seton’s betrayal.

Unlike Robbie, the other Guardsmen had been stunned. Hell, he’d been stunned, too, but just hadn’t wanted to admit it. They all knew Seton struggled at times with the secret warfare and the less knightly aspects of this war. They also knew that he and Robbie had never gotten along, but no one had realized how bad it had become.