Page 32 of Sins of the Highlander

“We’ll have it your way,” Rob said.

“’Tis no’ my way,” Angus said with a laugh. “’Tis the way of the loch, and ye gainsay that at your peril.”

***

“They’re getting away!” Lachlan fitted another bolt to his crossbow.

Stewart put a restraining hand on his shoulder.

“Dinna shoot, Lachlan. I understand how ye feel, but ye canna be sure ye’ll no’ strike my daughter.”

The stripe-sailed craft disappeared around a rocky point jutting into the narrow loch.

“But how can we catch them now?” Drummond gnashed his teeth in frustration. They’d been so close. “This loch flows into the River Earn and then to the Firth of Tay. We can’t outrun a river on its way to the sea.”

“My daughter’s alive,” Stewart said with a quick glance skyward that Lachlan recognized as a silent prayer of thanks. “That’s enough for now.”

“Is that what ye want to go back and tell your wife, Stewart? Our daughter’s still in the hands of a madman, my dearest, but she’s alive?”

“Beggin’ your pardons, my lords,” the Stewart retainer spoke up, “but do ye know for certain the MacLaren intended to sail east?”

“We saw him go that way, didn’t we?” Drummond said. Stewart’s man was altogether too outspoken. If the fellow answered to him, Lachlan would beat that out of him in short order.

“Aye, but will he keep going east?” the man asked.

“How can we know the mind of a madman?” Lachlan demanded. “Of all the stupid—”

“Wait, Lachlan.” Stewart held up a hand to signal quiet. “Calum here grew up on the loch. He may know a thing or two about the sailing of it. What are ye thinking, lad?”

“Just that we may wish to bide here a bit,” Calum said. “Mad Rob was delayed on the way here, what with the wolves and all. He may have intended to reach this place early enough to sail west.”

“Then why did he sail east?” Lachlan said with a sneer.

“This loch is like a little sea. It has a tide of its own that turns every half day or so,” Calum explained. “If the MacLaren means to make for Lochearnhead, they’ll have to sail past this point again tonight.”

“And why do ye think he means to make for Lochearnhead?” Lachlan demanded.

“The MacLaren told ye to collect yer bride at Caisteal Dubh, did he no’? It puzzles me that at every step he’s gone in the wrong direction,” Calum said, staring at the spot where the boat had disappeared around the point. “But if he means to sail the length of the loch, going west, he’ll reach his stronghold much sooner than we could, even if we headed that way this instant.”

The Stewart nodded thoughtfully. “That makes sense. Lochearnhead is just a day’s ride from Caisteal Dubh.”

“Even if they do sail past us again, what can we do about it except watch them go by?” Lachlan said. “Ye dinna want me to shoot at them for fear of hitting Elspeth.”

“Actually, my lord,” Calum said with a grin Lachlan would have loved to knock off his face. “I have a couple ideas we might try.”

***

Elspeth was weeping. She wasn’t being hysterical or obtrusive about it. She was trying to stifle her sobs, but Rob heard them in any case.

He couldn’t see her, since the cabin opened forward and he was standing near the bow, but he could imagine her with her hand covering her mouth to muffle a cry, her slim shoulders shaking.

It would have been easier to ignore wailing than those hitched breaths and soft moans.

They pounded at his heart as surely as an opposing army slams a battering ram into a castle gate.

Fingal pointed his nose to the sky and howled.

“Ach, I canna bear it either,” Angus said from his place at the tiller. “Can ye no’ make her stop, Rob?”