Page 84 of A Highland Rogue to Ruin

I’m making the same mistake as Owen.

Owen left Brodie no choice but to attack and quell his mission to the Crown.

They ride into a trap today.

He picked up a pebble and rubbed his thumb contemplatively, flung his arm, skipping the stone across the glassy surface, watching the ripples but not really, rubbed his stubble still caked with soot. Ghost was counting on James dragging his sister home in anger, to be ambushed. But they should have picked up Ghost’s trail again by now. There was a reason he was named such, for he was an expert at using stealth to evade his adversary. But Tormund knew the clues to look for.

And he was no longer seeing them. Rustling sounded. He turned to see James approaching.

“He didna’ come this way,” Tormund concluded.

God, how he wished he had Brighde here now, for her sire had been right. The way she’d put all these clues together about the MacNicols and kept her wits about her enough to remember every word threatened in her ear, she really did have the mind of a strategist. And the way she’d beseeched him to be proud of her for using his blade… The best of men under pressure buckled and froze, and yet his wee woman had heeded his advice. And he’d dismissed her. Denied her the praise she’d needed so badly in that moment, to feel assured that the web they’d woven wasn’t unraveling.

He shook his head and skipped another pebble. “What am I missing?”

“Dunno. We oughts continue, for he might have taken a different route,” James replied.

Tormund shook his head again. “He needed to get there before ye do, and so this is the fastest route.” He picked up another stone.

“Then we continue. And sneak up on him as we planned this morn. Ye ken the site of the ambush. And I want to sink my knife into him for what Brighde told me he did to her.”

Tormund’s eyes darted to James and his arm, mid-swing, froze. “What else happened?”

“He tried to suffocate her.” Tormund buckled forth, bracing his knees as James continued. “Said that ‘The Great Peace will be dead soon enough.’ I took it to mean a threat on her, that he’d target her on our journey.”

The missing clue. He shoved upright as James’s words sank in. Dread flooded Tormund’s gut. He dropped the stone. Fear like he’d never known assailed his limbs as the truth hit him, the clue slapping him like Brighde’s scolding had.

“So The Great Peace truly will nay have a chance in our lifetimes.” Tormund’s eyes met James’s, which were furrowing. “He doesna’ mean to ambush ye at all. Nay anymore… Jesu! We ride into his trap!” he roared.

Cursing, he ran for his horse as horror assailed him.

“Mount up! Mount up! Christ, I ken where he is!”

“Where?” demanded James as accoutrements clattered.

“He’s after the peace!” Tormund launched himself into his saddle, wheeling Nykr around. “‘Sometimes the queen must be sacrificed to corner the king!’” The chess lesson she’d schooled him on during their first night together. A feint to lure Tormund down the wrong path, and then a strike. Divide Brighde from him.

“What?” James pleated his brow, horse hooves galloping to keep up.

“He didna mean yer contingent rides into a trap. He meant us! He’s after her, wherever she goes, now that he kens she has my favor. Ye’ve kept her cloistered for seven years, and he’s never known what happened to her until now! He and MacNicol have been the ones spying on her! And now he kens about Goraidh! He kens that the babe lived and he means to wipe out every possibility! Merde!” he growled. “He’s going to Inverness!”

God, he’d not seen the clues. They thundered north toward Inverness, the time creeping by like a slow form of torture, and all the while guilt at turning Brighde away gnawed at him. Had he kept her close, he would have had his sword at the ready. Had he told her about Inverness, she wouldn’t have gone seeking answers behind everyone’s backs and led Ghost directly to the lad. And now he’d gone on the fool’s errand Ghost had hoped he would.

Pray he wasn’t too late. Pray. He’d stopped praying at age four and ten, but he prayed now, as sickness festered with anger. That he couldn’t protect the ones he loved threatened the contents of his belly. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing her, right after finding her. Everything he’d sacrificed in the last day had been to protect her. He couldn’t stomach the thought of his lad being dragged from the only home he’d ever known, being subjected to the cruelties that Tormund had once only barely survived. Everything he’d ever done for seven long years had been to protect Goraidh—now Owen—from the enemies who’d wished his birth parents harm. The only lasting vestige of his brother on God’s green earth.

The thought of them perishing and him not being there to protect them… He never should have pushed her away. They were stronger together, not divided. Her wit, his brawn—their union.

And when he and James finally thundered across the shaky pylons of the long bridge into Inverness beneath the late morning sun, kicking up dust streaking beneath the grand castle, an army of red and gold tartans united, nothing prepared him for the sight in the distance of acrid smoke curling up in sickening tendrils toward the heavens.

“Go and fetch Laird Gordon in the castle!” Tormund demanded of a nearby peasant. “Tell him St. Bartholomew’s burns and enemies attack it!”

“Tell him the Lairds MacLeod and MacDonald request his aid. Together,” James added as they spurred their mounts forward.

They thundered toward St. Bartholomew’s as its bell pealed and the grounds swarmed with MacNicol’s men, Ghost, and his deflectors. The doors to the monastery were barred on the outside. Just as the abbey in France had burned and sent him fleeing with Owen and his mother so long ago. Just as his crops had burned. And his grains had burned.

“Where are they?” Tormund thundered.

Ghost turned to see him from within the gardens—the utopia trampled and destroyed in sacrilegious ruin.