The Viper (Highland Guard #4)(45)

Changed? Was that what he was trying to say? Bella realized it no longer mattered. What difference did it make, when they’d been caught?

Mary Bruce cried on her shoulder as the cart bumped along the road to Auldern, and Bella tried to soothe her.

The girl who reminded her so much of her daughter looked up at her with terrified, tear-filled eyes. “What will become of us, my lady?”

“I don’t know, my love. I suspect some time in the tower. It won’t be so bad. Some of the rooms I hear are quite nice.”

Neither of them could have imagined just how wrong she would be.

Eight

Where’s Nigel Bruce? And de la Haye,

And valiant Seton—where are they?

Where Somerville, the kind and free?

And Fraser, flower of chivalry?

Have they not been on gibbet bound,

Their quarters flung to hawk and hound,

And hold we here a cold debate,

To yield more victims to their fate?

Sir Walter Scott, Lord of the Isles, Canto II, XXVI

Dunstaffnage Castle, Lorn, October 10, 1308

This was it—the information Lachlan had been waiting for. The king wasn’t going to put him off again. For over two years Lachlan had been forced to bide his time. No more. He was going after Bella and no one was going to stop him. Not Bruce, not MacLeod—hell, not the entire blasted English army.

The sounds of revelry that followed him into the solar were proof enough the time had come. It wasn’t just the wedding of Arthur Campbell and Anna MacDougall that they celebrated, but also the capitulation of Ross—the last of Scotland’s great magnates to hold out against King Robert. The bastard who’d turned Bella and the other women over to Edward had made his peace.

From the jaws of almost certain defeat, Bruce had risen again like a phoenix from the ashes, first defeating the English, and then the powerful Scottish nobles who’d stood against him. Bella had been right: Bruce’s near miraculous comeback was the way legends were made. Her faith in the king had not been misplaced.

It was they who’d failed her. Bruce. Himself. Everyone.

But no longer. With MacDougall and Ross tamed, there were no more excuses. No more enemies to defeat before he could go after her again.

Lachlan paced the small room with all the calm of a caged lion while he waited, trying to tamp down the excitement coursing through him. God knew there’d been too many disappointments in the past. Bad intelligence. Rumors of release. Negotiations that went nowhere. And even a failed rescue attempt.

He’d been so damned close. But one guard had managed to raise the alarm before Lachlan had gotten halfway up the tower where Edward’s barbarous prison cage hung. He and the other members of the Highland Guard who’d accompanied him had barely escaped with their lives.

Seeing her in that abomination was something that would haunt him the rest of his life. She’d seemed so thin and pale. Her big, round eyes dominated her face, as she stared into the distance with a look of desolation that cut to the bone. He’d never felt so damned helpless in his life. Seeing her and not being able to reach her had driven him half-mad.

He’d taken some comfort that she’d been released from the cage not long afterward, but the failure ate at him.

But not this time. He wouldn’t fail again.

A few minutes passed before he heard the door open. The king entered, followed by Tor MacLeod, the captain of the Highland Guard—or Chief, as his war name proclaimed him. Neither man appeared pleased to have been pulled away from the wedding festivities.

The king sat down in the thronelike chair recently occupied by John MacDougall, Lord of Lorn, and gave him a hard look. “I assume since this couldn’t wait the few hours until morning it must be about the countess?”

Lachlan stared across the table at the man who’d spoken so calmly. But like him, Lachlan knew that Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland, was anything but calm. These past two years since the women had been taken in Tain had been almost as hard on Bruce as they’d been on Lachlan. Almost. But not quite.

Bruce wasn’t the one responsible for their capture.

“She’s to be moved—Mary as well.”

The king sat forward; clearly Lachlan had surprised him. “And how did you learn of this?”

Lachlan shrugged. “I have my sources.”

Bruce’s eyes narrowed. “Bribing spies? Damn it, Viper, why was I not told of this? Is that where all the money I pay you is going?”

Lachlan’s mouth fell in a hard line. He didn’t explain himself—even to a king.

MacLeod stepped in to defuse the tension. “Where are they to be moved?”

Lachlan shook his head. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. This is the opportunity we’ve been waiting for. With Bella leaving the castle, there won’t be a better time for a rescue.”

The king and MacLeod exchanged a glance, but neither man disagreed.

“I’m not surprised that they’ve decided to do something about Bella,” Bruce said after a moment. “With Buchan dead and no longer calling for her head, De Monthermer was able to persuade the new English king to release her from the cage, but since then no one knows what to do with her. No one wants her around. She’s a black mark on the first Edward and on England, and too powerful a symbol of the rebellion to simply let go free. They want her to disappear. My guess would be a convent or a castle in a remote part of England. But that doesn’t explain why they’re moving Mary.”