Page 71 of Sweet Home Highlander
“Bad timing, this,” he replied, though a grin was working its way over his lips. Though it was not one of good humor. The smile and his face both seemed harder somehow.
Fenella dismounted and rounded on Dougal. “Is that a keg of gunpowder?”
The length of thin rope Dougal held ran straight through the open tower-house door, and Aisla suddenly realized what it truly was. A length of fuse. Fenella didn’t wait for Dougal to answer. She charged toward him.
“How dare ye? Yehavebeen using me all along—”
“Piss off, ye shrew. Ye used me right back.”
Aisla stayed atop her mount. “Think about what you’re doing, Dougal. You’re going to start a war between the Maclarens and the Campbells.”
He laughed. “That’s my intention, lass. It has been, for six long years. That crippled bastard cost me my alliance with the Montgomerys. He cost meye.” He spat on the ground. “The only reason I courted an alliance with the Campbells was to get close to the Maclaren.”
Aisla began to comprehend, and it terrified her. “To help spark a feud.”
A hardness wiped the mirth from Dougal’s face. “To destroy that sniveling, one-handed laird and everything he cares for.”
Fenella made a croaking sound as she looked between Aisla and Dougal. “Harming Niall wasnae part of our agreement. Ye lied to me!”
“Do ye think I care? Ye’re nothing but a desperate whore anyhow.”
At that, Fenella screeched a battle cry and ran toward Dougal, fists up and ready.
“Fenella!” Aisla cried, knowing the woman was making a mistake.
Her eyes were still on the charging housekeeper when Aisla heard the report of a pistol. Her mount jerked and skittered back, and it was seconds more before she saw the weapon in Dougal’s hand—and Fenella sprawled face down on the ground.
“No!” she screamed. Her horse, still agitated and jumpy, backed away. “Ye bloody bastard!”
The man was insane. He’d shot a defenseless woman, and once sparked by flame, the black gunpowder line he’d set would likely touch off an explosion.
“Ye shouldnae speak to yer future husband in such a manner.”
Husband? He was most definitely insane. What in the world would ever compel her to marry this man, especially after all he’d confessed.
Aisla jerked the reins and her mount turned and galloped away. A second pistol shot, however, had the animal lifting both front hooves from the ground as she reared up. Aisla tried to grip the reins, but she fumbled, and when her horse reared again, Aisla fell back, out of the saddle. She landed hard on the ground, but knew she could not lie there, stunned.
A hasty check of her body told her that she had no broken bones, but her head still spun when she lurched unsteadily to her feet. At the same time, she reached into the pocket of her skirt. Her fingers closed around the cool handle of the topaz dagger as she turned and sank back into a crouch. Dougal was running toward her when she pulled the dagger free, and with breathless control, threw it.
Aisla only stayed long enough to see him stumble back and reach for his shoulder where the topaz hilt winked in the rising sunlight.Blast it.She’d been aiming for his chest, but both her vision and balance felt off. She must have hit her head harder than she’d thought. She turned and ran, her horse having spooked and disappeared. She had but a minute at the most before Dougal came after her. The wound would not be a fatal one, and Dougal was a strong man.
He shot Fenella.
Panic wound through Aisla at the thought. She couldn’t go back to help her, but she could find a place to hide for the moment, and perhaps Dougal had been right. The sound of the pistol shots might have carried, and someone might come to investigate.
Or not. It was Sunday, after all.
Breathing heavily, her feet feeling clumsy and her head and elbow aching from being tossed from the horse, Aisla wove dizzily between the stone tower houses and wooden huts that dotted the mine site. She spied a smaller tower house and dashed inside. It was dark and cool, and there was a hole in the ground with a ladder leading down. Quickly, she descended, and when the rungs ended, she felt the soles of her boots touch down on creaky wooden boards. There wasn’t much light at all filtering down this far, and she prayed Dougal wouldn’t look for her here. Perhaps he’d rush back to the Campbells to treat his wound.
Or set off the explosion in the mine.
Aisla was breathing rapidly when the boards beneath her feet groaned. And then snapped. They caved beneath her, and she plummeted down into the shaft. She didn’t even have time to scream before the hard ground broke her fall with agonizing impact, shoveling the breath from her lungs.
And then everything winked out of focus, and went black.
Chapter Eighteen
A chunk of topaz crumbled beneath the sharp carving tool for the third time, and Niall swore loudly, nearing throwing both gem and tool against the wall. Normally, carving the smaller pieces of cairngorm calmed him. Being able to focus on something so small and detailed took all of his concentration. However today, he simply could not focus. And not just because he’d sent his faithless wife on her way, though that contributed to a large portion of it. No, he couldn’t focus because every other moment his mind flipped wildly between memories of the last night, when he and Aisla had come together in such honest passion and lust, and then of that morning, when he’d found her and Leclerc at the folly.
