The Viper (Highland Guard #4)(9)

Clearly it made no difference to him.

Bella had never despised anyone as much as she did at that moment. She heard the subtle taunt in his voice. He knew she was trapped. Even if she could ignore her duty and turn her back on Bruce and her country, she couldn’t go back. If her husband got hold of her …

She wouldn’t be able to protect her daughter from the grave.

Emotion rose inside her, burning her throat. Her eyes. Her chest. She’d been a fool to believe one word out of Lachlan MacRuairi’s deceitful mouth. She wanted to curse him. To strike him. To rage at him like a madwoman.

She wanted to collapse in a ball and weep with despair.

But years of controlling her emotions were not without effect. Never show weakness. Never give him the power to hurt you.

As Bella forced her anger to cool, she swore that one day she would wipe that sneer from Lachlan MacRuairi’s cruelly handsome I-don’t-care-about-anything face.

Without another word, she took the proffered reins and allowed him to help her mount the horse.

As they rode away, Bella’s back was a rigid wall of steel, giving no hint of the shattering emotions tearing her apart inside.

It won’t be long, she told herself. Once Robert was king he would find a way into the people’s hearts. Just as he had into hers.

But she wouldn’t rest until her daughter was safely in her arms again.

Two

Lachlan sat on a low rock next to Gordon and MacKay, eating the simple meal of dried beef and oatcake with relish. The glare of the woman shooting daggers at his back from the rear of the cave didn’t sour one bite.

He didn’t give a shite what she thought. He did what he had to do to get her the hell out of there. Lying, cheating, stealing—they were all part of war. With what she was about to set in motion, she’d better damn well get used to it.

It wasn’t as if she was in any position to judge. For Christ’s sake, she’d just fled her husband to put a crown on his bitterest rival’s head.

If Buchan wasn’t such an insufferable arse, Lachlan might actually feel sorry for the bastard. He better than any man knew not to expect loyalty from anyone, especially a wife. If Lachlan needed any more reasons to never get married again—which he sure as hell didn’t—this was yet another glowing example.

To hell with her. He’d done what he needed to do to salvage the mission. There had been no way to reach her daughter in time. They’d ridden barely a minute before they’d heard the thundering hooves of the approaching army. He had nothing to feel guilty about. He’d made a mission decision. Getting the job done was the only thing that mattered.

He’d do it again, damn it.

Though next time he wouldn’t look at her face. Pride couldn’t mask the look in her eyes when they were riding away, leaving her daughter behind …

He’d seen enough men being tortured to recognize it. Agony. Pure, raw, and unadulterated agony.

He bit off another piece of beef to stave off the slight tightening in his chest, even though it was too high to be hunger.

Suddenly he grimaced and reached for his skin, taking a long swig of the uisge-beatha to wash it down.

Gordon was watching him “Something wrong with your food?”

“Damned beef is rancid.”

“Mine tastes fine.”

Lachlan shrugged, taking another long drink. The liquid fire of the whisky burned away the taste of everything.

He could feel MacKay’s eyes on him, but the fierce Highlander didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. His disapproval rang out loud and clear.

Magnus MacKay hailed from the mountains of Northern Scotland. Tall, heavily muscled, and almost as strong as Robbie Boyd, he was one of the toughest son-of-a-bitches Lachlan had ever met, able to survive in the most varied and extreme of conditions.

About the only place he didn’t seem comfortable was on a horse. Not the most graceful of riders in the best of circumstances, in the worst he seemed to hold his seat by sheer force of will. After the harrowing night of riding they’d just had—the last half of which had been in heavy rain—the countess wasn’t the only one who’d needed a rest.

MacKay didn’t like him, but that was hardly unusual. As long as he didn’t get in Lachlan’s way, they’d be fine. He sure as hell hadn’t been looking for camaraderie when he agreed to join Bruce’s secret band of phantom warriors.

It was an intriguing concept, he had to admit. The best warriors in each discipline of warfare joined together in one elite force. He’d already seen what they could do. But they couldn’t win the war alone, and he was skeptical that knights like Robert Bruce, engrained in the chivalric code, would embrace the furtive tactics of Highlanders.

Undoubtedly they were the best men Lachlan had ever fought with. But that didn’t mean he wanted them to rely on him or that he would rely on them. His wife’s betrayal had taught him a hard lesson in trust that had left the men who followed him dead, himself unjustly disgraced, and his holdings forfeited. He’d turned to what he had left: being a trained killer who lived by and for the sword.

“Something to say, Saint?” he challenged, using the name MacSorley had taken to calling the big man in jest. It wasn’t because of his piety. Unlike the other men, MacKay never seemed to talk about the lasses. Whereas on missions, in battle, away from home and sitting by a campfire at night, most warriors talked about nothing else. Lachlan intended to find out why.