Page 8 of Beloved Enemy
So now, many hours later... well now, she had no choice but to assume she’d gone crazy.
This wasn’t—couldn’t possibly be!—real.
She was no longer hiking Ben Nevis’s famed trails, was not enjoying a nice dinner at the inn as she’d planned, was not at the whiskey bar a few doors down from her hotel as she’d meant to be at this time.
Nope, she was unfathomably, fantastically, sitting on the back of a horse with her hands tied in front of her, crushed between her and the man who drove the horse. Though the man smelled as if he’d died a week ago—or maybe it was the horse—Charlotte had no choice but to cling to him, her fingers gripping the back of his coarse shirt, fearful that she would tumble off the horse’s ass if she didn’t hang on.
Chapter Two
It was, even a year later, still inconceivable. He went again to Balla Àrd, hoping Marcus was there, but the hope was contrived. He’d seen it with his own eyes, the whole bloody thing. They’d simply vanished, Marcus and the woman.
The woman, Autumn, who surely must be—who was!—a witch. She had to be, for she and Marcus to have been whisked off the face of the earth in the blink of an eye.
Reid was hardly mollified by what seemed a fantastic and sudden concern for the witch, as Marcus had shown last year at Kingswood. Marcus had said upon his arrival that he did not recognize her, but hadn’t he changed his stance so swiftly? The witch had touched him, or rather had begged that Marcus take her hand. 'Twas a spell cast, was all that Reid could imagine. She’d cast a spell on Marcus that had then brought him agony when the air outside had changed. The wind had stopped blowing all at once even as clouds churned remarkably in the sky overhead, and Marcus had worn a look of horror, the witch had too, and they’d clung to one another, as if they’d known—they’d known, dammit!—that something was about to happen, something momentous.
And so it had. Reid still couldn’t make sense of it—not where they’d gone, or how it had been done.
Marcus simply...was no more.
More witchery, Reid supposed. The same that had tricked Marcus into believing he knew and loved that woman.
Reid had been several times to Balla Àrd, acting as Marcus’s agent as his friend had so desperately requested before he’d vanished. Thankfully, the steward there was a capable and efficient man, to whom Reid had suggested in the vaguest, broadest of terms that Marcus might have been lost to war,though possibly lived still. Reid had no inclination, not as of yet, to claim Balla Àrd as his own as Marcus had decreed. But Reid did keep in constant communication with the steward, ensuring that the McInnes keep and holdings were run effectively and were not in want or need.
For now that was all he could do.
Presently, he and two full units of Nicholsons, including his officers, were returning to Kingswood from Balla Àrd.
His cousin, Tavish, who was also his second-in-command, was the only one who knew the truth about Marcus McInnes, as inconceivable as it was. Tavish had stood in the doorway of Kingswood’s great hall that day, the only other witness to Marcus and Autumn’s disappearance. They’d decided together that the truth was simply too implausible to share with anyone else, even Reid’s trusted officers. They’d said instead that Marcus had gone, had taken the woman with him, and had then and since dismissed and discouraged any questions about the entire incident and Marcus’s whereabouts.
“I still ken we should absorb the bulk of the McInnes army,” Tavish had said before they’d departed Balla Àrd this morn. “Integrate them into our own.”
They’d had this discussion before. Reid was no more willing now to usurp what belonged to Marcus than he was a year ago. “They’re where they need to be—should be—for now. MacClellan and Cameron will bring them out when Wallace returns from France and calls up supporters.”
“We could be defending Scotland in Wallace’s absence,” Tavish had asserted.
“If we expect England and Edward to uphold the truce for all these nine months as they’ve vowed,” Reid was compelled to argue once more, “we must adhere to the same.”
God willing, Wallace’s diplomatic efforts in France and in Rome with the Pope would yield greater, more lasting results.
“Bugger me, it’s colder than a witch’s tit out here today,” said Eoin MacCoinnich now, from only a length and a half behind Reid as they navigated the rugged and wild landscape in the glen between two towering ranges of mountains. “Told ye, dinna I? Should have gone around the beinns.”
Snow-capped peaks glistened above in the morning sun and the sound of horses’ hooves striking against the rocky path echoed faintly. Patches of heather were scattered across the slopes and somehow flourished between the rocks. Indeed, the air was crisp, and carried a light scent of pine from the surrounding forests. Patches of mist clung to the trees and hovered just above the ground.
“Saving several hours,” Reid reminded him, his tone flat, his breath white in front of him.
“I’d rather preserve my bollocks and nae time,” Eoin grumbled.
“It’s nae like ye’re using 'em though,” Seumas MacGregor, the Nicholson engineer called from further back, “those wee bollocks. Are ye?”
“Least mine only shrivel in the cold, auld man,” Eoin responded. “'Tis said yer Mary has learnt to play dead when ye show yer fossils and yer wee spear.”
Laughter erupted among the men.
Reid rolled his eyes and exchanged an annoyed glance with Tavish, presently riding ahead of him.
“Quiet, ye fools!” Tavish admonished firmly. “Bring the whole mountain down on us with yer clamor,” he muttered to himself as he faced forward again.
Reid surveyed the glen, peering into the mist. The trail wound through a narrow pass flanked by steep cliffs on both sides. Ahead, the path curved sharply around a large outcrop of rock and trees, obscuring their view.
