The Viper (Highland Guard #4)(64)

The eye that wasn’t resting against the coverlet popped open. Her coverlet was of silk, not of leather, and it smelled of lavender, not spice. And she hadn’t slept with a coverlet and been warm since …

She startled, but his arms tightened immediately around her. Lachlan. Sensing her disorientation, he soothed, “It’s all right, Bella, you’re safe.”

Safe. A wave of relief flooded her, followed immediately by one of gratitude. She was out of prison. It wasn’t a dream. He wasn’t a dream.

She leaned her head back to look up at him. “You came for me.” She hadn’t been awake long enough to form her defenses, and the wonder and emotion rang clearly in her voice. “Not just this time but before also. The rescue. That was you.”

Her heart stabbed at the memory. She remembered looking down into the darkness at the two men racing out of the tower after the explosion had woken her. One of the men had looked up. For a moment she’d known, but then she’d told herself it couldn’t be. He’d betrayed her.

But now she knew differently. He hadn’t knowingly betrayed her. She believed him. Part of her had always known.

His jaw tightened. A strange emotion crossed his face. If she didn’t know him so well, she would think it was pain. “I vowed the moment I saw you being loaded in that cart that I would get you out. I just wish it could have been sooner.”

“What happened that day?” He’d given her a brief explanation, but she wanted to hear it all.

He stiffened. She could see from the hardness of his jaw that the subject was a distasteful one. He looked angry, but she knew it was at himself, not her. “I told you most of it. I was angry and not paying as close attention to my surroundings as I should have been. One of Ross’s men saw me near the docks while I was trying to arrange a birlinn. While I drowned my sorrows in a flagon of the local ale, he had time to warn Ross. They followed me from the alehouse, and once they realized where I was going they surrounded me. I put up a fight, but there were too many of them and the drink dulled my reactions. They knocked me out and put me in manacles. I regained consciousness right before you and the rest of the women walked out of the chapel.”

“Chains,” she said. “That’s what William was trying to tell me. He saw the chains.”

Lachlan nodded. “I tried to go after you. Even managed to slip out of one of my manacles before someone noticed. But Ross was watching me too closely. He had reason not to trust me. We’d had dealings before.”

“You were imprisoned?”

“For a few months.”

“But you managed to escape?”

He nodded. “But by that time you were already imprisoned, and I’d learned Bruce was on his way back to Scotland.”

She frowned. “How did you learn that?”

“Bruce had a spy in the English camp. A man I knew. I also learned that Gordon and MacKay were being held at Urquhart. I went south to get some help, caught up with Bruce and the rest of the Guard—”

He stopped. “The army,” he corrected. His jaw clenched even tighter. “It took nearly a year longer for the king to solidify his position enough to risk a rescue. And then when we finally got there, we failed,” he said bitterly, shaking his head. “God, we were so close. I was halfway up the tower with Seton, but a soldier had been using the garderobe and heard us go by. He raised the alarm. Gordon was forced to set off his explosion early. Seton and I barely made it out in time.”

Part of her was glad she hadn’t known how close they’d come. It would have made the disappointment all the more difficult to bear.

“I saw you.” There was a strange hollowness in his voice that she didn’t recognize.

The realization that he’d seen her at such a moment made her feel oddly vulnerable. “I thought I saw you, too.”

Clearly, she’d shocked him. “You did?”

“When you exited the tower and looked up. Another man was pulling you.”

He held her gaze. “Seton,” he said flatly. “I didn’t want to leave.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for coming for me twice.”

His mouth fell in a hard line. “I would have come for you a thousand times.” He looked away, as if he’d said too much.

“Why, Lachlan? Why was it so important to you?” She held her breath. It felt as though they were on some kind of precipice.

But he didn’t leap. “I always finish the mission. No matter what it takes.”

The mission. Finishing the job. Of course that was why he’d come. Not for her. He would have done so for anyone. If her heart squeezed with disappointment, Bella quickly smothered it.

They rode in silence for a while. She was content to lean against him and let his warmth encompass her. The thought of being cold …

Some memories would be harder to forget than others.

The closer they drew to Roxburgh, the more her excitement grew, and the more she started to wonder whether she could rely on Lachlan to keep his word. She knew he wasn’t happy about their detour to Roxburgh—that he regretted giving in to her—and she couldn’t help but wonder whether he’d done so merely to appease her.

Could she trust him? Would he really attempt to take a message to her daughter, or was he only trying to placate her?