Chapter 2

At first, Adela had struggled fiercely, angrily, but she had quickly realized that at the speed they were moving, she would be wiser not to fight him, lest she fall and injure herself. At such a pace, a fall could cause serious injury, even death.

He held her clamped to his side, his arm like an iron bar around her, so tight that it dug into her ribs and brought tears to her eyes. She could scarcely breathe, let alone scream her fury. But did he care? Not he. He and his men rode like the wind, although no one had stirred a step to follow them.

They pounded away from the stunned gathering back to the woods, paying little heed to the terrain even when they neared a swiftly flowing burn. Their horses barely checked before plunging into the icy water and out the other side.

When they did slow at last, she tried to pry his arm away enough to let her breathe freely, but he only gripped her tighter.

"You're hurting me!" She tried to scream the words at him, but the result was no more than a ragged croak.

He did not bother to respond or ease his hold. He did shift her so that she sat half on his thigh, half on his saddlebow, which was an improvement but scarcely a comfortable one. Nonetheless, she tried to force herself to relax, realizing that further exertion would only add more bruises to her sore ribs.

Despite her new position, their pace was still dangerous, even foolhardy. She doubted that anyone would follow them unless Ardelve wanted to reclaim his bride. He was a kind man, a gentle man, for all Sorcha thought him a pompous one. But he was of an age with Macleod, and lacked both Macleod's temperament and bluster.

She had thought all those qualities admirable when she had agreed to marry him. But she found it impossible to imagine Ardelve leaping into a saddle to pursue her abductors. Moreover, if he knew of Sorcha's attempts to inform Sir Hugo of her wedding, as so many others clearly did, and guessed that Hugo had taken her, perhaps Ardelve believed that she had wanted him to. If that were the case, then he, like Macleod, would be furious and do nothing.

She was angry herself, but if she had to be honest, she was also pleased that Sir Hugo had cared enough to come for her. Not that she would marry him, even so. Had he truly wanted her, he ought to have approached her father in the proper way, and then courted and wooed her. He had done none of that.

Indeed, Sir Hugo Robison had not struck her as a man who would lift a finger to pursue any woman. He seemed more the sort who expected women to pursue him, and to swoon at his feet if he so much as glanced in their direction.

Adela would not swoon for any man, ever. Nor did she admire men who thought more of themselves than of others. Sir Hugo was in for a surprise if he thought this outrageous abduction would impress her.

The four men continued to ride without speaking, their pace picking up when they reached the top of a ridge she recognized as the south boundary of Glenelg. To the southwest lay the Sound of Sleat and the sea. To the southeast lay Loch Hourn.

They were well away from Chalamine and from Glen Shiel, through which ran the main track for travelers heading inland. So where on earth was he taking her? How much longer did he think he could carry her in such a way before she succumbed in his arms from lack of air?

They wended their way down through dense woodland almost aimlessly, and she had no idea how long they rode. Nor did she recognize the clearing where at long last they stopped. Feeling only relief that the wild ride was over, she looked forward to letting Sir Hugo Robison know what she thought of his impudence.

He dismounted without releasing her, apparently little the worse for carrying her so far in such rough-and-ready fashion. When he put her down, she stumbled and nearly fell, but he did nothing to steady her. Despite her weariness, her temper stirred again as he put a hand to his mask and pulled it off.

Having fully expected to see Sir Hugo's impudent grin, she beheld instead the grim face of a barely remembered stranger—if, indeed, it were even he. What little she had thought she knew of that man had no meaning, however, as evidenced by his very presence among mortals. She opened her mouth to demand to know what demon had possessed him to abduct her, but the look he gave her chilled her to her soul and froze the words in her throat.

"Well?" he said, planting his hands on his hips and glowering at her, his head at least a foot above her own. His hair, she saw, was darker than Hugo's, his eyes a grayer blue. He probably weighed twice the eight stone she weighed, and his powerful shoulders were easily twice as wide as hers. She trembled when she recalled the small heed he had paid to her struggles despite using only one arm to hold her.

Still glowering, he said, "You clearly have something to say to me. I am not always so generous, but I will allow you to speak your mind to me now."

"I… I thought you were dead."

"Nay, not yet," he replied. "God kept me alive to finish the task He's set for me. But I'm pleased to hear that you remember me. Our acquaintance was so brief, I doubted you'd recall it at all."

"In truth, sir, I do not remember your name."

"You've no need to remember it. You will call me ‘master' or ‘my lord.' "

She would call no man master, but he did not look as if he would respond well to a declaration of that fact, so she made none. Having endured a brief encounter with him at Orkney, she remembered only that he was somehow kin to the Sinclairs. He had been menacing even then, but surely, he was not implying that God had restored him to life after he had died. Only a madman could believe that.

"I did hear that you'd died last summer," she said. "In a tragic fall."

"I told you how it was. God spared me because He has further use for me."

"But He cannot have sent you to abduct me. Why did you?"

"I dislike ingratitude," he said, his eyes glittering so that she trembled again, beginning to think he was mad. "I was told that you sought rescue from an unwanted marriage," he added. "If my informant misled me, I'll hang him."

He made the threat so casually that she could not believe he meant it.

"If I say that he misinformed you, will you take me home?"

Instead of answering, he roared, "Fin Wylie, come hither to me!"

One of the three other men wheeled his horse and galloped it toward them. Reining in hard enough to make the animal rear, he faced his leader. "Aye, master?"

"Did you not tell me the lady Adela was unhappy with her father's choice of a husband for her and wanted the wedding stopped?"

"I did, my lord."

"She says you lie."

"Nay, master!" The man's face lost color, but he did not look at Adela.

Much as she would have liked to deny having called him a liar, she feared that to do so would further anger her captor. Still, the henchman's visible terror reinforced her earlier assessment of his master's mental state, and she feared he really would hang the poor fellow if she insisted he had lied.

The master said to the man, "I warrant her ladyship would like to hear how you came to know her thoughts, Fin Wylie."

" 'Twas the messages, my lord, two o' them, both the same and meant for Sir Hugo Robison. But ye ken that, sir, since ye set us to watch for such messages. Ye ken, too, what we learned—and that the matter were gey urgent."

"So did those messages lie, lass?"

She wanted to tell him he should refer to her properly, not be so familiar. She was certain that, in the same situation, Sorcha or Isobel would have said he should, because neither had ever lacked courage. But Adela's courage had deserted her.

She would not call Sorcha a liar, though, even if her messages to Sir Hugo had caused the whole horrifying situation.

With forced calm, she said, "I did not send those messages."

He slapped her face so hard that she bit the inside of her lip and tasted blood. Equal amounts of shock and cold terror swept through her.

"When I ask you a question, you will answer it," he said harshly. "When I give you a command, you will obey it—instantly. In other words, you will do exactly as I say, when I say. Do you understand me?"

She nodded, licking blood from her lip.

"Do you understand me?" he repeated.

"Yes," she murmured.

"Yes, what?"

"Yes, sir." When his eyes narrowed, she remembered what he had told her to call him earlier and swiftly corrected herself. "Yes, my lord."

"Good lass," he said, patting her shoulder and sending cold tremors through her. "I'm sure we shall get on splendidly."

Tears pricked her eyes, but she told herself he could not get away with what he had done. The Highlands teemed with her father's allies, not to mention those of his even more powerful son-in-law, Hector Reaganach Maclean, and Hector's twin brother, Lachlan Lubanach, Lord High Admiral of the Isles.

Someone would come for her soon—surely.

As if he had heard her thoughts, he said in that same unnaturally casual tone, "Lest you hope for rescue, you should know that if anyone comes for you, I will kill you after I've killed them. And lest you think they can defeat me, I assure you they cannot. Whatever allies they may collect, my support will always be stronger."

His eyes gleamed, and she knew he wanted her to ask the question and knew just as surely that he would force her to ask it if she did not do so voluntarily.

"Who is stronger than the allies of the Lord of the Isles?" she asked quietly.

"God is. I told you, He snatched me from death. I am His warrior, so my cause is just. He will forgive all I do in His name, so I will prevail in all I do."

"Faith, then what is your cause?"

"I seek vengeance for a wrong done to His holy Kirk. So you see, lass, with God on my side, your very life depends on me. You would do well to remember that, because I'll severely punish any disobedience."

Adela fought to find words but could think of none.

He said quietly, "Highland women who boast of their independent natures could learn much from Frenchwomen, who are properly submissive to their men. But I mean to turn you into a good woman, so heed my lessons well, because if you put me to any trouble, I'll cut off your head and send it to your father in a sack."

Adela stared at him in horror, scarcely aware of a dizzying blackness until it overpowered her and she swooned at his feet.

The Isle of Eigg

Sorcha gaped at the frowning Sir Hugo in dismay. "But you said you'd received my message!" she exclaimed. "Surely, it was you who took h—"

Suddenly aware of their very large, very interested audience, she stopped, flushing hotly.

"I who took what?" Sir Hugo demanded, still frowning.

"Perhaps we should find a quieter place to talk," she said belatedly.

Sidony, who had been listening with visibly rising alarm, said in bewilderment, "Faith, sir, do you mean to say that Adela is not with you?"

"No, of course she is not. What could make you think such a thing?"

"Why, we thought you were the one who carried her off from the kirk, of course," Sidony said, wholly oblivious to the rapidly quieting crowd around them.

Sorcha groaned but fixed her fierce gaze on Sir Hugo. If Sidony had spoken unwisely, the fault was his.

"Carried her off?" His frown deepening, he said, "Faith, my lady, do you think me such a villain that I would abduct a woman from her own wedding?"

"Do not snap at my sister," Sorcha said, angry enough now that she no longer cared a rap about their audience. "It is not her fault if she believes that, sir. It is no great leap to believe a villain capable of allowing an innocent young woman and her family to think he means to marry her, then of letting a lesser man lure her from him, might change his mind yet again and snatch her from the altar. In any event," she added, tossing her head, "if you know naught of the matter, we are wasting our time talking to you."

With that, she turned her back on him and would have left him standing with his mouth agape had he been content to allow it. However, the man dared to lay his great hands on her—one of them, anyway—and to spin her around with a snap to face him again.

"I do not understand your fury with me, Lady Sorcha," he said sternly. "Your sister and I had no formal understanding."

"Peace, Hugo," Sir Michael said. "Pray, tell us plainly what you mean, Lady Sorcha. Are we to understand that someone abducted your sister from her wedding?"

"Aye, sir, four men. And if their leader was not Sir Hugo—"

"It certainly was not," that gentleman declared.

"Well, it should have been," she retorted, turning on him again. Striving to keep her voice down, she said, "Adela talked of you for weeks after her return from Orkney last summer, making it plain that you had encouraged her to think you cared for her. Believing that, it was natural for me to assume you would want to know about the plan for her to marry so that you could do something!"

"So I could stop the ceremony, you mean. Of all the—"

"I thought you cared," Sorcha cried, oblivious of their audience again. "I did all I could do to help you and to keep poor Adela from marrying just to be marrying and moving away from Chalamine. I expected you to rush to her aid. Instead, you ignored my messages. She said you were mutton-headed and thought of no one but yourself, but I thought she was trying to keep us from teasing her. I never thought she meant it. But she did, because you are all she said you are, and now your selfish, arrogant indifference has ruined her!"

"Don't talk twaddle," he snapped. "There was no understanding between us, and since I was fully involved in preparations for today's ceremony—"

"A very important occasion, to be sure," Sorcha said, forcing her voice down again. "Nevertheless, I'm certain others could have arranged it all perfectly well without you, had you only told them you had pressing personal business to attend."

"But I didn't!" His eyes flashed blue fire. "Even if I'd had any, once it became clear that not every Islesman supported Ranald's decision to install Donald as Lord of the Isles, I gave them my word I'd support him. My word," he added grimly, "is as good as Ranald's own, my lady. I assure you that when my duty is clear, even important personal matters must await its performance."

"What of your duty to Adela?"

"Do you mean to tell me that Lady Adela herself expected me to rescue her?" he interjected, looking sternly into her eyes.

Sorcha flushed and would have looked away had she not feared he would dare to think less of her if she failed to meet that gimlet glare of his.

Stiffly, she said, "Adela would not have admitted such a thing, nor would she say it now, but since everyone at the kirk believed you and your men had abducted her and that she cared for you, no one followed them. Heaven knows where she is now and what may have happened to her! Surely, you must see that at the least you ought to have replied to my message if you could not come for her. Thanks to your failure to act, she is ruined now and no respectable man will want her."

"Don't be foolish. If her ruination is anyone's fault, it is your own, my lass, for meddling in a matter that was no concern of yours."

"How dare you!" Slapping him as hard as she could, she snapped, "I am not your lass, you conceited jackanapes! You should think shame to yourself for trying to cast your blame on someone else, but I doubt you have any shame in you. Indeed, I begin to understand at last why Adela, who is ever the soul of propriety, cast a basin of holy water in your face!"