“Where’s Margaret?” Callum bellowed as he flew downstairs.
One of the footmen paused in the foyer. “In the garden, m’l—”
“Go put yer eyes on Rebecca and dunnae take them off her. Now!” Yanking tight the knot he’d put in his kilt, Callum ran for the rear of the house. He didn’t have a gun with him, but he yanked a claymore free of a suit of some ancestor’s armor as he tore past it.
He shoved through the garden door, his heart beating loudly enough that he could hear it in his own ears. If not for the scream he would have thought the gunshot a ruse, something to get him away from Rebecca. But men, armed men, remained in the house. She was safe. “Margaret?” he bellowed.
“Here, my lord.”
Agnes, Margaret’s nanny. A thousand curses pushing about in his chest, he found the woman, seated in the grass with Reginald in her lap. Waya lay a few feet away. With her black fur it took him a moment to see the splatters of blood around her.
Callum swallowed. “Where’s Margaret?” he asked.
“Five men took her,” the nanny managed around sobs, as she held on to the wriggling terrier. “One of them hit Andrew across the head, and then Waya—she was very fierce—she bit the man, nearly tore off his arm, and another of them shot her. I couldn’t—”
Spying Andrew lying halfway inside a hedge, Callum tossed aside the sword and pulled him free. The footman had a knot the size of a shilling on the back of his head, but he opened his eyes and groaned when Callum shook him by the shoulder. “Are ye alive?” he asked.
“Aye.” Andrew started to rub the back of his head, then flinched and changed his mind. “Where’s Lady Mags?”
“Gone!” Agnes sobbed again, burying her face in the mop’s fur.
“They wore Maxwell tartans,” the footman groaned, putting his head in his hands.
Callum ignored that. He already knew. Instead he walked back to where Waya lay, silent and still. Taking a hard breath, holding tightly onto the fury biting into him, he squatted down beside her. “Good lass,” he whispered, putting a hand gently on her head.
The wolf twitched. Jolting back into motion, he scooped the animal up in his arms and made for the house. “Water and light,” he snarled, heading down to the kitchen.
He laid her on the table there, grabbing up a lamp and trying to part her fur with his free fingers. Someone took the light from him, and he went to work with both hands, cursing as he followed the trail of the ball. It had dug into her chest, lodging into her shoulder. The force must have knocked the wind out of her, but she was whining now.
“Pogue, send for a doctor and get Waya and Andrew looked at,” he said, straightening as he pressed a cloth against the oozing wound. “And have Jupiter saddled.”
“Aye, m’laird.”
“Get out of my way, and stop following me!”
Rebecca shoved into the room, a collection of armed grooms and footmen dogging her. She stopped as she saw Waya, her hands going to her chest. With her loose blond hair and gray tone she looked more like a banshee of legend than a flesh-and-blood woman.
“Where’s Margaret?” she asked, her voice breaking.
“They’ve got her.”
“‘They?’ You mean Dunncraigh?”
It had to be Dunncraigh. No one else would dare. “Aye. He couldnae get close enough to ye to convince ye to cooperate, so he found something else that would. They wore tartans so there wouldnae be any question over who did it.”
A tear ran down her face as she clutched at his arms. “What do we do, Callum?”
He shrugged out of her grip, moving for the servants’ door. “I go back to my first plan,” he snapped, pulling open the door and heading for the stable.
“You can’t,” she protested, running after him. “If you kill Dunncraigh, I’ll never see her again. And I’ll never see you again. I know it!”
He heard her. He understood her frantic tone, and her worry. To him, though, one thing mattered at that moment—getting Margaret back. He’d wagered everything that the target would be Rebecca, and he’d been wrong. And Mags had paid for his mistake. Waya and Andrew had paid for it, the wolf perhaps with her life.
“I will fetch her for ye,” he snarled.
A horse trotted toward him, but it wasn’t Jupiter, and it already had a rider. Narrowing his eyes, he noted the shovel leaning against the side of the stable as he looked up. A young man, his expression a mix of haughtiness and nerves, danced a gray gelding toward him. He wore Maxwell plaid as well, Callum noted peripherally.
“I’ve a message, Geiry,” the lad called, keeping out of arm’s reach.
“Then deliver it.” Holding out his left hand, he flexed the right, ready to grab the shovel and swing.
“It’s nae in writing. We’re nae fools.”
“Ye took the bairn. Ye’re dead fools.”
The horse fidgeted beneath its rider before the young man brought it back under control. “We’ll give her back to ye. Bring the things ye took—all of ’em—and the lass to Maxwell Hall tonight at eight o’clock.” He pointed at Rebecca, close behind Callum. “And the lass has but to say one word. I’m to tell ye it’s ‘aye.’”
Dunncraigh’s home, Dunncraigh’s men. “Nae,” Callum countered. “I’ll meet ye out in the open, where ye willnae be able to put a ball through me and bury me in the garden. On the dock. Sanderson’s dock. If the wee lass has so much as a scratch on her, I’ll murder the lot of ye. Ye’ll nae see me coming. But I’ll start with ye.” Callum gazed at the man levelly, daring him to retort.
Instead the lad nodded. “She’ll nae be harmed. But ye might want to put some more clothes on before ye meet with yer betters, Geiry.”
Callum didn’t move. “Eight o’clock. Sanderson’s dock. They’d best be there, boy.”
“They will be.” With that the lad wheeled the gray and galloped down the drive again.
The groom led Jupiter out of the stable. With every muscle and bone in his body Callum wanted to seize the stallion and ride Dunncraigh’s man down, beat him until he told them precisely where they’d taken Margaret. This lad would be a cousin at best, though, someone the duke didn’t value too highly. No one with any sense sent a potential hostage to negotiate a hostage exchange.
Even so, he took a long step forward, until a muffled sob behind him stopped him cold. “Rebecca,” he said, turning around and pulling her into his arms.
She sagged against him. “They took her. They took Margaret.”
Wrapping his arms close around her, he lowered his face to her long, loose hair. His anger he could manage. Hell, he’d been coiled with it for ten years. She’d lost a husband and a father over the last fourteen months. Now the same bastards had snatched her daughter. He couldn’t even imagine her pain. “They’ll nae harm her, lass. Without her, they’ve nae leverage against ye.”
“What do I do? I can’t—”
“Nae out here.” Callum swept her up into his arms and carried her back into the house. The last thing they needed was someone overhearing them and reporting the conversation to Dunncraigh or Stapp. He set her down on one of the chairs they’d dragged away from the kitchen table. Waya lifted her head to look at him woefully, then dropped it again.
Most of the servants had gathered in the large kitchen, and from the sniffling and hand-wringing and quiet cursing going on around him, each and every one of them had given young Mags a piece of his or her heart. He wasn’t the least bit surprised. She owned a good half of his.
The other half of his heart sat rocking in a hard wooden chair, refusing all offers of tea or water or a blanket or whatever else they could think to give her. He took a hard breath, pushing back at his fury. Fury didn’t allow him to think. And he needed to think.
Then he knelt at her feet, taking both her hands in his, becoming conscious again of the fact that he was shirtless and barefoot, with nothing between him and the weather but a knotted kilt. “Lass, listen to me. I’ve a plan. But I need ye to help me with it. Can ye do that?”
“I don’t want a plan. I want my daughter back.”
With his mind still spinning through possible twists and turns and figuring the odds for their success—and by the devil, the odds needed to be a one hundred percent certainty—he nodded. “Margaret and ye safe is all I care about. I reckon ye know that. But I need ye to trust me.”
The glazed look cleared a little from her eyes. “I trust you. And I know how angry you are. We can’t—”
“We’ll meet them on that pier, and ye’ll agree to whatever they ask. That’s all I need ye to do. Nae a lie or a trick, or any subterfuge. The truth.”
Blue eyes studied his. “You’d let them win? You’d have me marry Donnach?”
“Nae.” His scowl would have proven any other response a lie. “But that’s my part. I know the bastards. I know their finances, their dreams, and their nightmares.”
She grabbed his shoulder. “Do not attempt anything that might get Margaret hurt.” Her voice broke. “Promise me.”
He felt her pain all the way to his bones. “I would die first,” he whispered.
Abruptly she released him. “Then go do what you need to do. I’ll be here.”
Straightening, he leaned in and kissed her. “I’ll be gone two hours. Three at the most. Keep lads with ye every moment.”
“Ye’ll nae be going anywhere alone either, m’laird,” Pogue spoke up, his low voice rough.
He wanted to; the day he couldn’t see to himself … Callum stopped the thought before he finished it. He wouldn’t have Waya with him. And without him, Margaret and Rebecca would both be lost. With a curt nod he headed for the side door. “I’ll take Malcolm and Johns,” he agreed, naming the two grooms.
Outside he ordered two more mounts saddled. He had several stops to make, beginning with Crosby and Hallifax and ending with Judge MacMurchie, and a few more visits in between. No matter the cost, nothing was permitted to harm his two lasses. Aye, he had plans, but none of them would be what damned Dunncraigh expected.
* * *
If she’d ever had a doubt about who now commanded the household, the two footmen still dogging her heels despite nearly three hours of demanding they give her room to breathe would have answered that question. Rebecca almost appreciated her growing annoyance, though—it gave her something to think about aside from Margaret and how frightened her daughter must be. And how angry and murderous Callum must be feeling.
He’d given his word not to do anything to endanger Mags, and that was the only reason she’d meant it when she’d said she trusted him. Because she could otherwise quite easily imagine him charging through the Maxwell Hall front door and shooting the first person who challenged him. If there’d been a way to be certain they could secure Margaret, she might well have urged him to do just that.
The nerve of these men. Business she could understand, but firstly they’d seized on her father’s good fortune and murdered to make it their own. His hard work, his dream, his trust in Ian MacCreath, and they’d stolen it and taken advantage and then killed when they didn’t like the percentage they’d earned. And now … Now they’d taken a six-year-old girl, willing to threaten her, to trade her for their own blasted greed. She hated them.
And if Callum hadn’t returned from Kentucky, she would have been marrying one of them, fooled, lulled into thinking them friends who had her and Margaret’s best interests at heart. But she knew better now. Once he had her hand in marriage and her property in his name, Donnach wouldn’t have needed her any longer. Would he have been willing to risk her eventually discovering what he’d done to her father and previous husband? Or would she have died of some mysterious ailment as soon as he could be rid of her without causing undo suspicion? And then what would have happened to Margaret?
She shuddered, wrapping the shawl she’d finally donned more tightly around her shoulders. Just the idea of that spirited little girl alone in the world with no one to look after her but Stapp and Dunncraigh made her ill. And she was with them now.
But in this instance Margaret wasn’t alone. As Callum had said, Dunncraigh needed to keep her safe, because at this moment Mags was the only thing between the Maxwells and a bloodbath. And by his words to Dunncraigh’s messenger, he’d made certain they knew it.
She heard the front door open, and rushed to the balcony that overlooked the foyer. Callum stood in the entryway, his shirt collar open beneath the heavy black coat he’d donned, and his kilt … He wore different colors, she realized abruptly. The Maxwell green and black and red was altered to show more red and thicker bands of black, the green reduced to thin lines and darkened. That was the MacCreath tartan, from before the time they’d joined clan Maxwell. She’d seen it in some of the oldest portraits at Geiry Hall, but she hadn’t known any examples of the pattern still existed.
He looked up at her, all sign of humor or anything at all but anger and worry gone from his two-colored eyes. “Are ye well?”
“No, I’m not. Did you do what you needed to do?”
“Aye. How’s Waya?”
She tried to be angry that he would ask after his wolf in the middle of much larger worries, but for heaven’s sake, Waya had tried to protect Margaret. “Better,” she returned, squaring her shoulders as she descended the stairs. “Are you going to tell me what you were off doing?”
He tilted his head at her. “Come to the kitchen with me.”
Without waiting for her reply, he headed toward the servants’ area at the rear of the house. Her two footmen guards in tow, she followed him. Yes, anger seared through her, anger and frustration at what had happened and at not knowing what to do about it. Blaming him for stirring up this mess might make her feel better for the moment, but logic demanded that she acknowledge how much more dire her—and Margaret’s—predicament would have been without his presence.
They’d moved the big wolf to a corner, cushioned by pillows and covered with blankets, a bowl of water and a plate of raw beef on the floor directly in front of her. The uneaten meat didn’t seem a good sign, but she opened her yellow eyes as Callum squatted down in front of her.
“The doctor was scared he’d be mauled if he tried to dig out the bullet,” Pogue said from beside the big stove, “so we all held her down and I saw to it, myself.”
For the first time she looked over at him, to see his right hand swathed in bandages. “She bit you?” Rebecca asked, more guilt digging at her.
“More like she tried to eat me whole,” the butler said, a grim smile touching his mouth. “But we got the damned thing out, and poured yer best whisky on the wound. She lapped up a glass of it, too, and I reckon that quieted her down some.”
“I’m sorry I wasnae here to help,” Callum said, scratching behind her big black ears.
“Nae. Ye had to see to getting the bairn back,” the butler returned stoutly. “And as I wasnae outside to look after her myself, I reckon a bite or two is nae more than I deserved.”
Rebecca strode up to the butler. Despite his startled expression she gave him a sound embrace. “Do not blame yourself because evil men do things we could not fathom,” she stated.
“Aye,” Callum agreed, straightening. “Rebecca has the right of it. The lot of ye give us a moment, will ye?”
With a nod Pogue extricated himself from Rebecca’s hug and motioned the other half-dozen servants present to vacate the kitchen. In a moment the two of them were alone but for the wolf and the low whistle of a boiling kettle of water.
“It’s nearly time, lass,” he said, gazing at her as he offered Waya a small piece of meat.
The wolf sniffed it, looked up at Callum, then delicately took it from his fingers. The same wolf that had nearly cost two men their arms today. And the Maxwell still thought him a drunken boy. They had no idea what they’d done. The thought comforted Rebecca a little. They had no idea who Callum MacCreath was.
“I’d be obliged,” he went on, “if ye’d dress in something light-colored. White, or yellow. I ken ye dunnae like doing that yet, but it would—”
“Why the devil do you care what I wear to meet the men who stole my daughter?” she broke in. “I certainly don’t.”
“Because the rest of us, the men, will likely be wearing dark colors. I want ye to stand out.”
She studied his face closely as he straightened. “So I don’t get shot by accident,” she said slowly.
Silence. “Aye.”
Rebecca strode up and dug a finger into his chest. “You promised me that you wouldn’t do anything—anything—to put Margaret at risk! Do not—”
He grabbed her hand. “Do ye think I mean for the two of us to walk onto that pier with nae a soul to see what happens? Of course I’ll have men about. So will Dunncraigh. And if someaught happens, I’ll nae see ye shot by accident. Put on a damned light-colored gown.”
If it hadn’t been her daughter, if the stakes hadn’t been so very high, she likely would have run to do as he bade. Instead she yanked her fingers free and put her fists on her hips and lifted her chin. “Not until you tell me what you’ve planned.”
Callum continued to look at her, something very like admiration crossing his lean face. “So ye’re nae the lass who’ll do as she’s told any longer, are ye?”
“No, I am not.”
“Good.” He pulled several folded sheets of paper from an inside pocket of his black coat. “Then I’ll ask ye to sign this.”
That wasn’t at all what she’d expected. “What is it?”
“Yer shares of Sanderson’s. I need ye to sell them to me.”
Her heart thudded. With the subsequent ringing in her ears she couldn’t be certain she’d actually heard what she thought she’d heard, but even as she tried to fathom why in the world he would bother with that when she meant to marry him and he could have it as her dowry, she understood. He was trying to take her out of the equation again, to remove her from danger.
“Tell me why.”
“Lass, ye—”
“I trust you,” she stated, over whatever he’d been saying. “I trust you to have mine and Margaret’s best interests in mind. What I do not trust is for you to have your own best interests in mind. Tell me why you want me to sign my company over to you. Other than to redirect Dunncraigh’s attention to you, and to force his hand.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Isnae that enough?”
This was who Callum MacCreath was, she realized. A man who would always put himself, his own safety and well-being, behind that of her, Margaret, and everyone else who’d earned a place in his heart. His mind, his being, simply didn’t function any other way. Taking the papers from his hand, she went to the small table in the corner of the kitchen, found a quill and ink, and signed her name to the bottom of the last page. Turning, she handed it back to him. “I would risk everything for you,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “I can’t fault you for feeling the same way about me. That is why I signed this.”
With a swift kiss he took her hand again and pulled her toward the main part of the house. “Then let’s get ye dressed and see this finished.”