The Raider (Highland Guard #8)(118)

They’d all taken the blow personally. The loss of William Gordon was still an open wound. Though the circumstances were vastly different (Gordon had died in an explosion while on a mission), the sense of loss was the same. Circumstances had made them as close as brothers—closer—and they were all feeling the absence of one of their own.

No one had said anything, but Robbie sensed that some of the others—Sutherland, MacKay, MacLean, and Lamont, who were closest to Seton—put some of the blame on him. Probably rightly so. But it didn’t change the fact that Seton had betrayed them.

“What if she’s not there?” Sutherland asked.

Robbie didn’t want to think about that. It was one (of many) of the weak points of his plan. There was every likelihood Clifford had put her on the first ship bound for London.

“She will be,” Robbie said with more certainty than he felt. “And if she’s not, I hope you have plenty of powder.”

Though not as experienced as Gordon had been with black powder, Sutherland had become proficient enough to provide distractions when the Guard needed them.

The newest member of the Highland Guard gave him a sharp glance. “Aye, though I’d rather not have to use it.”

“Me, too,” Robbie said dryly.

It was time to go.

“We’ll give you twenty-four hours, Raider,” MacLeod said. “If you aren’t out by vespers tomorrow night, we’re coming for you.”

Robbie nodded. He’d tried to talk them out of a rescue, but it was the condition upon which MacLeod had agreed.

MacRuairi, who’d had nearly as many problems with Seton as Robbie, gave him a hard look. “If you see Seton tell him to go to hell, before you stick one of his damned daggers in his back like he did to us.”

Robbie didn’t know what he would do if he came face-to-face with his former partner, but it wouldn’t be pretty. “I’ll pass on the message.”

He left the forest on foot and without his armor and weapons, hoping he would need them to fight his way out of here later.

Thirty minutes later, after he gave his name to the guard at the gate, Robbie’s trust in Rosalin was put to the test.

Twenty-seven

Irony worked in mysterious ways. Two days after her conversation with Cliff in his solar, Rosalin had decided to keep herself busy by helping the nuns at the hospital at St. Mary’s Priory. On the first day, she met not one but two young women who were heavy with child. One had been abandoned by the man she thought intended to marry her, the other had been raped when rebels raided her village.

Rosalin discussed with the abbess the possibility of setting up a special home for women who found themselves in such circumstances. The abbess was immediately amenable to the idea. The need was great, but the hospital was equipped for travelers and the infirm, not as a sanctuary for women with child. With Rosalin’s patronage and financial support from her brother, the priory would have a place to send them.

The irony arose a few days later, when Rosalin realized she had missed her menses for the first time in the eight years since she’d begun them. Were it not for her brother, she might have needed one of those beds. Not that she relished informing Cliff of her condition. There would no longer be any question—if he had any—of what had happened between her and Robbie.

Once she got over the immediate shock and fear of what it meant—she would be disgraced and a harlot in the eyes of the Church—she felt a small glimmer of happiness kindling in the darkness of her despair over losing Robbie. A babe. His child. He had given her a family after all. Someone who needed her for love and protection. It might not be the family she’d dreamed of, but she knew better than anyone that they could make do. She was going to love this babe with all of her heart and be happy.

Nearly two weeks after she’d arrived at Berwick, Rosalin was at the hospital, finalizing the details with the abbess and trying to figure out how she was going to tell Cliff about her predicament without having him send an army to kill Robbie, when she heard the first whisper.

“Captured.”

She paid it no mind until about an hour later, she heard another. “Devil’s Enforcer,” one of the nurses said.

Rosalin froze. Trying to maintain as much dignity as she could—even though she’d clearly been eavesdropping—she asked the woman, “Did you say something about the Devil’s Enforcer?”

“Did you not hear, m’lady?” the young novice said. “They’ve captured Robbie Boyd.”

Her heart stopped and sank at the same time. “Who has captured him?”

The girl gave her an odd look. “Why, your brother, my lady.”

Rosalin barely heard the last word. She was already out the door on her way back to the castle. By the time she burst into her brother’s solar, she was out of breath, flushed, and her brow damp with perspiration. “Tell me it isn’t true.”

Cliff lifted his head from the document he was studying and sighed. “I guess you’ve heard.”

“So it is true? You’ve captured him?”

“Not exactly.”

“What do you mean, not exactly? Is he here or isn’t he?”

“He’s here, but I didn’t capture him. The bast—man,” he corrected, “walked in here of his own accord.”

“He did what?” she screeched incredulously.