The Viper (Highland Guard #4)(80)

He immediately stirred, and she gave a little cry.

“Reward?” she asked their captor, while keeping her eyes fixed on Lachlan.

“Aye, three hundred marks.”

She gasped, turning her full attention to the leader. It was a fortune. “But why?”

His eyes narrowed, under a heavy brow. “Who are you?”

“Isabella,” she said, uncertain whether they’d heard her name. “Maxwell,” she added, picking the first lowland clan that came to mind.

“And who are you to Lachlan MacRuairi?”

“Who?” she said, recalling Lachlan’s instructions.

But she’d taken an instant too long to answer. The big man grinned, not fooled. “Obviously no regular whore if he was willing to surrender to save you.” He shook his head, tugging on the tangled strands of his long, frizzy beard. “I couldn’t believe my luck when I realized it was he at the fair this morning. ‘What in the hell is Lachlan MacRuairi doing in Roxburgh?’ I asked myself, with all of England hunting him—and half of Scotland, for that matter.”

Bella bit her lip. Dear God, what had Lachlan done to draw such a bounty? And why hadn’t he told her he was being hunted? No wonder he’d been so reluctant to go to Roxburgh.

“Leave her alone, Comyn,” a voice rasped from below her. “She doesn’t know anything.”

Bella felt the blood drain from her face. Good God, Comyn! The brute must be one of her brother-in-law’s men. Though she’d rarely crossed paths with Buchan’s youngest brother, Sir William, it was a miracle none of the men had recognized her.

Yet.

The big, bearded man walked over to Lachlan and kicked him in the ribs like a dog. He winced but didn’t make a sound. “So, you remember me, do you? I’ll never forget you.” He pulled off his helm. Bella smothered a gasp. Half his ear was missing. “As to whether the lass knows anything, we’ll find out as soon as Sir William gets here. He won’t be far behind. It took me a few minutes to convince him of whom I’d seen, but once I did … well, let’s just say he’s very anxious to see you. And wait until King Edward finds out he finally has one of the members of Bruce’s secret army in his hands.”

What was he talking about?

Suddenly, she stilled. Her gaze fell on Lachlan in wide-eyed shock. Margaret had told her some of the wild stories circling through the countryside about a pack of phantom warriors who fought for Bruce. Warriors who seemed to come out of nowhere, who dressed in black and blended into the night, with their faces hidden by ghastly blackened nasal helms. A highly skilled, elite group of warriors who were said to use war names to hide their identities.

Bella had dismissed the stories as fantastic. A product of some villagers’ overactive imaginations.

Viper.

Suddenly the name came back to her. She’d barely noticed it at the time, but she distinctly recalled Sir Alex referring to him as Viper.

My God, was it true? Was he part of Robert’s elite army?

He was. My God, he was. And he’d never said a word.

Bella stared at him. She’d taken him in her body, fallen apart in his arms, and felt closer to him than any man she’d ever known, but did she really know him at all?

He shot her a warning glance, and she lowered her gaze before anyone noticed her shock. But her heart was pounding in her throat.

Lachlan lifted his head from the ground and pinned Comyn with his piercing gaze. “Let us go now, and I won’t kill you.”

Given his position—trussed up in chains like a yuletide goose and lying on the floor with blood streaming down his face—the cold, matter-of-fact proclamation should have sounded ridiculous. But the malevolent gleam in his eye seemed to momentarily startle them.

It startled even her. This was the man reviled and feared across the seas. The pirate. The brigand. The heartless, predatory mercenary. If Viper was indeed his war name, it wasn’t hard to guess why: He could be as mean and heartless as a snake.

Comyn recovered first. He laughed and kicked him again in the ribs—harder this time—but still Lachlan barely flinched. “You aren’t in any position to be making threats. Not even you can kill four armed warriors with your hands chained behind your back.”

Lachlan sat up quickly, and the other man instinctively moved back. Lachlan laughed, his mouth curved in a dangerous sneer. “You don’t know what I can do.”

Embarrassed to have betrayed his fear to the other men, Comyn laughed and kicked Lachlan again, this time under the chin. His head snapped back with a sickly thud against the stone wall. “Where you’re going, the only thing you’re going to kill is rats.”

If Bella hadn’t been watching Lachlan so closely, she would have missed the slight paling of his skin and the flash of fear in his steely gaze. They were gone so quickly, she almost wondered whether she’d imagined them. But then she recalled the same look two years ago, when they’d entered the tunnel at Kildrummy Castle, and knew she hadn’t.

Unfortunately, their captor had picked up on it as well. His eyes gleamed with malicious intent. “Don’t like dark holes much, do you?” To one of his men, he said, “Toss him in while we wait. Maybe some time down in the hole with the rats will loosen his tongue for Sir William.”

The man started to pull Lachlan toward the door she’d noticed before. Past it, she suspected, was a hole in the floor secured by a wooden door or steel bars through which prisoners would be dropped to the pit prison below. But even chained, Lachlan put up a struggle. “I’m not going in there.”