Page 11 of Rebellion's Fire

She felt him nod, as if that actually made sense to him. He said, “It doesn’t always matter what you do but what the world thinks you do. Sometimes that works for you, sometimes against.”

She twisted around to stare at him. No one in the months since the incident in Perth had voiced any belief in her innocence whatsoever. Including those who doubted her attractions, even masked. Perhaps it was this which made her blurt, “Is it true, then, what the world says of the MacHeths?”

His face was unreadable. “I don’t know. I don’t hear much of what the world says.” He shrugged as if emphasizing the fact that he didn’t much care either, and lifted his gaze from hers to scan the landscape on either side. “But probably.”

She shivered, straightening in the saddle between his arms to face the way ahead. Daylight had broken on rough, green country that seemed to have the same strange familiarity as her captor. Small goats and sheep grazed on the green hillsides on either side of her, watching the cavalcade without interest.

Knowledge seeped in slowly, insidiously. She wouldn’t even let herself suspect until they rounded the curve of the hill and came in sight of the house, and the salt sea air blew against her face.

A huge span of gently rolling, green land spread down to the sea, its distinctive earth ridges declaring its cultivation. More sheep and a few small bullocks were scattered on the two hills behind. But for Christian, the scene was dominated by a big, wooden hall behind a stockade. The gates stood wide open. Several smaller buildings surrounded the hall. Chickens clucked around the enclosure. Cattle lowed close by.

Recognition numbed her. She couldn’t ask, couldn’t speak. As the horse slowed beneath her, she stared and stared, deluged by a thousand forgotten memories. She didn’t notice when the horse stopped. She barely felt herself being lifted to the ground. She stood alone and spun around, letting in the hills and the house, the smell of the sea and the animals and baking bread…and remembered.

Playing justthere, with a boy about her own size, and a dog. Swinging high on the shoulders of a man she trusted. Not her father, though he was there, too. And her mother, smiling, laughing at something Christian had said just to make her smile. To make them all smile.

The child she’d been choked her. She remembered the faces, the people, but what destroyed her was thefeeling. She remembered happiness.

Her knees gave way. She knelt on the earth that had once been her home. She thought it was raining until she realized the dampness was trickling under her mask as well as over her cold, bare cheek.

She gasped, unable to control anything at all. Somewhere, she was aware of shame, of being seen by her captors in so much weakness, and yet, just for a moment, she could do nothing about it.

Home. She’d come home.

Adam MacHeth’s dark face swam before her. Fingertips touched her wet cheek like the passing skim of a butterfly wing.

“Cairistiona ingen Rhuadri,” he said.

The name of her birth. Christian, daughter of Roderick.

He’d said they were going home, and she hadn’t understood. But he had.

Some report had reached him of her supposed claim to Tirebeck. He’d been finding out the truth without asking, plunging her without warning into her childhood home to see what, if any, recognition she might betray. And Christian had given away far more than she’d ever meant to. Instead of returning as the gracious Lady of Tirebeck, she’d come home a sniveling captive. Adam MacHeth at least, would guess the unhappiness of her life. Her pride and her plans were in ruins.

“I’ll never forgive you for this,” she whispered.

His lips quirked. “There will be more to forgive.”

Chapter Four

He rose tohis feet. Only then did Christian fully realize he’d crouched on the ground in front of her. He was the strangest man she’d ever met.

They were surrounded on all sides, the MacHeth men on the outside and people emerging from the main house behind her.

Adam MacHeth said in Gaelic, “We’ll give them Tirebeck and Lanson’s lady. It will seem like a victory.”

“Itwillbe a victory!” exclaimed a woman close to Christian. She didn’t sound pleased. Presumably, she lived here.

“We need Donald back,” Adam said with a shrug. “I sent word to the foreigners to bring him here, where Lanson will find his lady. And so, we live to fight another day.”

Christian brushed her sleeve across her face. It didn’t make her skin feel much drier, but at least it gave her the illusion of recovery.

She rose to her feet, staring straight ahead.

Adam MacHeth said, “I’ll be back for you.”

She turned her head, regarding him with hostility. “Is that meant to frighten me?”

His black eyebrows rose. “No.”

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