* * *
Just before dawn, Amelia woke to the sound of birds chirping on the rooftop outside Duncan’s window. A few stars
still
lingered in the violet sky. She was lying on her side, nude but warm beneath the heavy coverlet. Duncan lay behind her, also nude, his knees tucked into the backs of hers, his strong arms wrapped around her waist. She listened to the steady pace of his breathing and wished
all
moments could be like this— intimate and quiet, without the immediate threat of war, revenge, or prisoners in dungeons.
They had made love with great tenderness the night before, and it was unlike any other previous sexual encounter. Perhaps it was the release of Duncan’s goal to
kill
Richard. Perhaps now that he had faced him at last and resisted the urge, and Richard would be brought to justice, Duncan would find some peace within himself. She hoped he would be able to lay the pain of Muira’s death to rest and
allow
himself to love again.
How quickly the world could change, Amelia thought. It was difficult to believe that not long ago she had imagined a happy future for herself as Richard’s wife. It was frightful to imagine where she might be right now if things had not unfolded as they had. Would she be lying naked in Richard’s arms?
Knowing what she now knew about his crimes against women and children, the thought made her skin crawl.
There was an eruption of noise just then. Voices shouting in the bailey. Someone blew a horn.
Duncan was out of bed in an instant, looking out the window. It was
still
dark outside, except for the faint pink glow of the sunrise on the horizon.
She sat up and hugged the covers to her chest. “What’s happening?”
Without answering, he disappeared into the dressing room and returned in a loose shirt with his tartan wrapped around his waist. He belted it and pinned it over his shoulder.
It was the first time she’d seen him in his kilt since her arrival at the castle. His thick s
able hair was long and dishevel
ed, just as it had been that first night when he stood over her bed, wielding an axe. He had not yet shaved; his jaw was stubbled.
Rugged and wild-looking, he dressed with deft speed, his hands working over buckles and brooches, his athletic legs taking him around the room with efficiency and purpose.
Amelia couldn’t seem to make her lips work in order to speak through her alarm. He was the Butcher again.
Transformed in an instant.
A knock rapped at the door as he
pulled
on his boots. He crossed to answer it. A kilted clansman stood outside, breathing heavily. “Bennett’s escaped.”
“When?” Duncan hardly seemed surprised. It was as if he viewed this as a natural consequence, typical of any rebel ion.
“Ten minutes ago.”
“Mounted?”
“Nay, on foot.”
“Go. Saddle my horse and wake Fergus and Gawyn in the garrison.”
The clansman departed at a run, and Duncan returned to the bed. He knelt and
pulled
a long wooden chest out from under it.
“Get dressed,” he said, “and you are not to leave this room, do you understand? Lock the door behind me, and don’t open it for anyone.
Anyone.
”
He removed his weapons from the chest—his claymore in a scabbard, which he belted around his waist, his axe and pistol, which he loaded in front of her. Last, he withdrew his shield and slung it over his shoulder to hang at his back.
“That incriminates you,” she said. “The stone—the Mul
l
agate. There are tales about it.”
He frowned, then set it back in the chest. “I
’ll
find another.”
He handed her a dirk. “Take this.” He pushed the chest back under the bed and made for the door.
“I
’ll
send guards,” he added, in a belated attempt to reassure her that
all
would be
well
; then he was gone.
Amelia scrambled out of bed and hastily locked the door behind him.
* * *
A key had been used in the escape. Someone in the castle had set Bennett free.
Duncan crossed over the bridge at a
full
gal op. The wind in his hair and the sound of Turner’s hooves clattering noisily upon the stones sharpened his senses, focused his resolve.
The Moncrieffe militia was assembling and would soon
follow
and spread out across the fields. Others were searching inside the castle
wall
s, some guarding the English soldiers, but Duncan knew that Bennett was gone and had escaped alone. The guard at the gate had confirmed it. He had looked Bennett in the eye as a knife plunged into his
belly
and twisted savagely.
That guard was now dead, and Duncan was no longer calm. Nor conflicted. He felt only one pure, unambiguous emotion.…
The sun was rising in the sky, and he had the advantage of both speed and knowledge of the terrain. He thundered across a dewy meadow toward the forest—any soldier’s clear choice for cover—and charged into the shadowed growth. Once inside, he cantered through the wood, leaped over a
fall
en log, then reined his horse to a halt. He paused and listened.
A mourning dove gave a plaintive
call
, and a gentle breeze whispered through the leafy treetops. He closed his eyes and sat very
still
in the saddle, alert and focused. A twig snapped. Footsteps pounded over the ground. A hundred yards away perhaps?
His eyes flew open. Digging his heels into Turner’s thick flanks, Duncan vaulted forward, deeper into the bush.
Seconds later, he saw a flash of red to his left and wheeled Turner hard over.
Duncan ducked forward, keeping his head low to avoid the slash of branches while he nimbly
pulled
his axe from the saddle scabbard.
Bennett was running hard. He was out of breath.
Panicked. He glanced over his shoulder.
Duncan gave a savage roar as Turner’s heavy hooves pounded over the mossy ground. Then everything went dark and
still
inside Duncan’s head as he leaned back and swung his axe through the quiet morning air.
Duncan reined in his horse and dismounted. He strode back to where Bennett was huddled in a
ball
on the ground, hiding his face in the cradle of his arms. He was without his hat—for it had been sliced in two.
Duncan roughly shook him by the shoulder, as if to wake him from slumber, and Bennett responded by lying back in the moss and raising his hands over his head. It was a total, clear message of submission.
Duncan searched Bennett’s belt and pockets for the knife he had used to
kill
the guard, located it, then wiped the blood off on the moss and slipped it into his own boot.
“You’re the Butcher, aren’t you?” Bennett asked.
“I am the Earl of Moncrieffe,” Duncan replied. “Now get up.”
Duncan paced back and forth, axe in hand, while Bennett rose on unsteady legs.
“I wouldn’t have recognized you,” Bennett said shakily.
“You look different in the costume of a savage. That’s why I thought you were the Butcher.”
Duncan ignored the insult. “How did you escape?” he asked. “Who released you?”
“One of my own men. He had a key.”
“Where did he get it?”
“I don’t know that. I didn’t bother to ask.” The panic in his voice slowly began to subside.
Duncan continued to pace back and forth like a caged tiger. “You have to pay for your crimes,” he said. “You cannot get away with the murder of innocent women and children.
You cannot escape from it.”
“I have done nothing but my duty,” Bennett replied.
“Your duty to whom?” Duncan could feel his impatience mounting. “Your country? Your King? What about God?”
“God, King, country—it’s
all
the same.”
“Is that a fact?” Duncan stopped and fixed his eyes on Bennett. “Tel me something. You’ve fought in battles, as have I. You’ve
killed
many men, as have I. You’ve even saved the life of your commander, Amelia’s father. But why do you hurt women and children? Why do you burn them out of their homes?”
“My duty is to crush this rebel ion,” he replied. “If that means I must wipe this country clean of
all
Jacobites, then that is what I
will
do.”
Duncan took a deep breath, searching for calm. “Do you ever regret the things you’ve done?”
Do you wake up at night drenched in sweat, dreaming of
your victims staring at you, watching you sleep? Do you
see and feel the scorching flames of hell at your heels, and
agonize over the blood you cannot wash off your hands?
“Never,” Bennett replied. “As I said, it is my duty as an officer to serve the King, and I do so without hesitation. Or remorse.”
Duncan looked away. He thought of his father’s iron fist and the pain of that punishing, unrelenting hand as it struck bone—Duncan’s own bones—in far too many lessons about discipline.
“Have you ever been wounded?” Duncan asked, thinking for a moment that Bennett simply did not understand the pain he inflicted upon others. “Have you ever felt real physical agony? Have you been shot, or cut, or beaten? Have you ever been a victim of another man’s wrath?”
Bennett laughed. “Why
all
these questions, Moncrieffe?”
“I just need to understand.…”
“Would you like to see my scars?” Bennett asked. “I can show them to you, if you like. You can see where I’ve been wounded on the battlefield, and how I was once flogged to within an inch of my life.”
Duncan eyed him with mistrust. “The British army does not flog its officers.”
“No, but a father
will
flog a son to make a good soldier out of him.”
Duncan pondered this. “You were whipped by your father?”
“Yes,” Bennett replied. “Many times. But I cannot imagine it was any worse than what you endured, Moncrieffe. Let us not forget the bishop. Your father was not a man many people would defy. I’m sure you had a very stern and rigorous education as
well
, and did what you were told.
Nothing to be ashamed of. I, too, was an obedient son.”
It was true. Duncan had been raised with a firm hand, but he had also defied his father. At the age of thirteen, Duncan had walked in on his mother being slapped around the gal ery. He had quickly sliced his father’s arm open with a broken bottle, and it was a year before the man raised a hand to Duncan’s mother again.
When it did happen, his father came away from that beating with a black eye. After the third, more violent confrontation with a bold son of seventeen, his father gave up the abuse completely.
“I
’ll
be taking you back to the castle now,” Duncan said, returning to his horse and digging through his saddlebags for a rope, “where you
’ll
wait for Colonel Worthington.”
Bennett scowled. “Give me a sword, Moncrieffe, and let me fight you. It’s only fair, after you stole my fiancée—no doubt gaining her hand by force, just as I gained the upper hand with your former fiancée. What was her name again?
Mary? Megan?”
Duncan spoke in a low voice. “Her name was Muira.”
«Well
, Muira was a very pretty Scottish lass, and I made sure her last moments were exciting and memorable. She quite enjoyed herself, I believe. Pity you weren’t there to see it.”
Duncan faced Bennett and palmed the handle of his axe.
“If I’d been there, Bennett, you’d be dead.”
“Is that right? Then why aren’t I dead now? Perhaps you don’t truly have the guts for war. From what I understand, you like to negotiate in flowery drawing rooms, using your whisky to bribe for what you want. What happened to you? Your father was a fierce warrior. He must have been very disappointed with how you turned out. I’m
still
not sure why Amelia has taken a fancy to you when you are nothing but a weak and cowardly Scot and, I am quite sure, a dirty Jacobite as
well
.”
Duncan voiced a warning. “You should shut your mouth.”
He thought of Angus suddenly and heard the low sound of his friend’s voice:
That woman has made you weak.…
Bennett smiled. “Why? Does the truth grate upon your delicate sensibilities? Here’s another bit of grating truth for you, Moncrieffe.” He took a step forward. “When these charges against me are dismissed—which they most certainly
will
be—the first thing I’m going to do is return to the Highlands. I
will
rape every woman along the way, burn every cottage, and then I
will kill
you,
and every member of your household. I
will
take Amelia back to England with me where she belongs and make her my wife. I
’ll
take her straight to bed on our wedding night and show her how a real man does it. At least then she
will
be an English whore. You might even hear her screams from your grave—but you won’t be able to do a single bloody thing about it, because you
’ll
be dead.”
Rage detonated in Duncan’s brain. There were flashes of light, an ungodly roar from somewhere over the treetops, and the next thing he knew he was staring down at Richard Bennett’s head at his feet.
The body tipped forward and
fell
into him. He shoved it away, then stumbled backwards onto a tree. He dropped his axe to the ground, stared intently at the head and its headless body …
He quickly bent over to expel the contents of his stomach.
A few minutes later, he was standing on the other side of the clearing with his back to the red-coated corpse, looking up at the trees. He had no idea how long he stood there before Fergus and Gawyn came
galloping
along. He heard the vague sound of their voices, then felt a hand on his shoulder.
“What happened here?”
He met Gawyn’s eyes. “Bennett’s dead.”
“Aye, we noticed.”
Fergus was kneeling over the body. “Nice work, Duncan.
But how’d he escape in the first place? You don’t think it was Lady Amelia who set him free?”
Duncan pointed at Fergus from across the distance. “Say that again, Fergus, and you
’ll
wish you were never born.”
“I
’ll
not say another word about it!” He raised his hands in surrender.
“What are we going to do with him?” Gawyn casual y asked.
Duncan returned to the body and looked down at it, and felt as if he were spinning into the
hell
ish storm of his recent life—a storm that had never real y moved out. Part of him was disgusted by what he had done, but another part felt satisfied. Deeply satisfied. He was drunk with the
fulfill
ment of his vengeance.
What did that make him?
Stalking to his horse, he removed the empty saddlebag and handed it to Gawyn. “Put the head in this bag and take it to Kinloch Castle. Deliver it to the Laird MacDonald with a note saying that this is the English soldier who
killed
his daughter. Don’t let anyone see your face.”
“But who
will
I say did this?”
Duncan stared at him and experienced a moment of great clarity.
“The Butcher.” He scooped up his axe and swung himself into the saddle. “Get rid of the body. He cannot be found on Moncrieffe land.”
With that final order, Duncan kicked in his heels and
galloped
deeper into the forest, in a direction that took him farther away from the castle.