He heard the bar being lifted on the other side of the door. Cavanaugh pulled the heavy gate opened.

  Harper rode his mount inside without any hesitation. When he reached the bailey, he leaped from his saddle and called for one of the men.

  “Where is he? Where’s the earl?”

  “In the great hall,” George Watley called out from the battlement wall.

  Cavanaugh grew closer. “A letter arrived from Hamilton after you left last eve. What is it?” he asked when the captain paused at the news. “What do you know?”

  “Get Jones and Watley and meet me in the great hall,” he ordered. Without waiting for any reply, he strode to the great hall. So, the Governor of Hamilton had written about Rose, his niece, had he? The captain wondered what he said. That she had run away with the killer MacPherson? Was it better that Thomas heard it from his brother rather than him?

  He found his old friend sitting alone at the long table in the great hall. He’d been crying. He was crying still! The captain went to him. On his way, he noticed a letter in the earl’s hand.

  “My lord?” the captain asked softly, “Thomas, what is it?”

  But his friend couldn’t say, for his tears choked him. Sorrow overwhelmed him. Instead, he handed the letter to Harper.

  My brother, Thomas,

  It is with a broken, shattered heart that I must inform you that your…men are dead, victims of the Black Death.

  No! No, they couldn’t all be dead! They were his friends, brothers. The captain held on to the back of a chair—there was more. Something that broke and shattered Thomas Callanach’s heart.

  With them also, I regret to say, was your daughter. Rose is dead.

  I know you have lost everyone, Tom. I cannot express—

  What? No. Rose was not dead. “She is not dead, Thomas.” He dropped the letter to the floor and went to his friend. “I saw her! I saw Rose. She is not dead!”

  The earl’s eyes opened wide. Hope sparked to life as he took the captain by the arms. “What are you saying? Where is she?”

  The captain swallowed and closed his eyes for a moment. He had to tell him the truth. “Rose is alive, my lord. She travels with…with—”

  “Aye? Who?”

  “MacPherson. She travels with Tristan Mac—”

  “No!” the earl lamented and pulled on his hair. “No! Tell me he does not have my Rose!”

  “She was not his prisoner.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” the earl roared.

  “She wore no binds. She even laughed with him. When I shot him, she was screaming as if I had hit her with my arrow, which I did not.”

  The earl looked about to faint. “But you shot him?”

  “Aye, my lord,” Harper hadn’t meant to say so much, but he couldn’t seem to stop the words from spilling from his mouth. “I shot him in the heart, but the bastard came after me as if nothing had happened. His horse was faster than mine. He could have caught me, but…he let me go.”

  The earl waited a moment, as if to let the shock of it sink in then shook him. “You fled?”

  “He would have killed me. And you would not know your daughter lives.”

  “You will take me to where you saw her immediately!” The earl gave him no thanks.

  “No,” the captain refused stubbornly. “If you die, who will protect her?”

  Her father stopped arguing and let his shoulders sag with defeat, but only for a moment. “Take everyone. Find him before he gets here. Bring my daughter back to me alive and I will forgive you for letting her go and for letting the man who has come to kill me, live! Remedy this!”

  The captain nodded and turned away. Jones, Watley, and Cavanaugh were there listening, watching. He had to tell them about the others. Ten of their brothers wiped out by the pestilence. Or were they? A spark of hope went through him. The earl’s brother was wrong about Rose. She was alive. Perhaps the men were alive, as well. He would find out, but first, he would find Rose and bring her home. This time, he would kill MacPherson.

  He would bring Jones with him so they could cover more ground and leave Watley and Cav here to protect the earl.

  This time, he would do what he had been told to do and kill one whom many considered a hero for bringing justice to silent victims (mostly women). He had to do it to save his friend.

  And what of Rose? Had she become friends with a man on his way to kill her father? Unless she didn’t know who he was. Why would she? She was as innocent as a babe, kept hidden and safe from the cruel world outside. What was the killer doing with someone like her? Unless he was planning on using her to get to the earl.

  Whatever the hell was going on, Rose was coming home, and MacPherson was finally going to die.

  Chapter Eleven

  Rose sat in a chair close to the side of Tristan’s bed. He’d been lost to a fever for the last pair of days. Eleanor, or Nel as her friends called her, assured Rose that he was not suffering from the plague, but rather, from an infection from his wound. Rose helped Nel in every way she could. She crushed leaves and boiled leaves and sat by his bed wetting his lips and his forehead and praying.

  Most of the time, he didn’t wake up, save when he was suffering some delusion. Twice, he whispered her name, as if he were stuck somewhere and was trying to pull himself out by speaking her name.

  She held his hand and stroked his cheek and jaw. She cleaned his wound and dressed it. She didn’t leave his side.

  When he’d been shot, she thought she would lose her mind. The terror of him dying threatened to overtake her. She knew for certain that she loved him then. She also knew she could never stay with him if he killed her father. She couldn’t let him do it.

  If she wasn’t in love with him, she could leave him and let him die. It would solve the problem for her father.

  But she was in love with him. She would do everything in her power to see that he lived, and then she would talk him out of what he thought he needed to do.

  “Any change?” Nel asked and smiled at her after knocking and stepping inside.

  Rose shook her head. “I fear not.”

  “I have been thinkin’,” the healer said, coming inside. “I once heard of a remedy for infection that might just work. It canna hurt to try.”

  “Why did we not try it already?” Rose asked.

  “Because I dinna have any bullocks gall, or cropleek.”

  “Bullocks gall?” Rose asked, turning a little green. “Is that what I think—”

  “Aye. After equal parts of cropleek and garlic are pounded together, the leek must be added to a mixture of wine and the gall. It must be left alone in a brass vessel for nine days.”

  Rose stood up. “Nel. Where can we find such a remedy?” Oh, how would she do this? How would she save him?

  “Thankfully, I know a man…an old apothecary. He lives three miles south of here. My husband canna make such a trip. And yer friend mightna even need it, but—”

  “I shall go,” Rose said without further hesitation. “Just give me better directions than three miles south of here.”

  “But, my dear,” Nel laughed, “’tis just that. Three miles south. Ye willna miss it.”

  All right then. She was going. She bent to press a kiss to his hot mouth. “I shall be back to you in no time, Tristan.”

  She saddled up and took a folded cloth from the innkeeper as payment for the concoction. The man who possessed this cloth would have a hot meal and a bed for ten days or ten uses throughout a year.

  Rose promised to repay the innkeeper and his wife for all their trouble and set out without further ado, south.

  It didn’t take her long to find the old apothecary, though his house wasn’t overly large. It looked like something out of one of her books. Old, with a magical quality to it—and a deer standing on the narrow, pebble-covered path.

  Rose took a moment to let the beauty of this place sink in. She smiled at the dragonflies paused in a shaft of sunlight by the door.

  She didn’t want to hurry but she had to. She would return another day to enjoy this place. Now, she had to get that concoction.

  She knocked at the door. “Hello?” she called out when no one came to the door. She knocked again. Finally, she turned the doorknob. The door opened. She went inside.

  “Hello?” she called out again. Oh, she didn’t know what to do if the apothecary wasn’t here. She would have to wait and pray he wasn’t dead and was coming back.

  She shouldn’t wait inside his home though. She was wrong to come inside although she couldn’t help but note that the inside was as charming as the outside. She went to the door and opened it.

  “You there!” A male voice stopped her from leaving. “What are you doing?”

  “Oh! Forgive me, sir.” Rose repented. “I—”

  “What did you rob from me?” he demanded.

  “I took nothing. See?” She held out her hand to show him nothing in them.

  “You were alone and you stole nothing?”

  “I came inside hoping to find you.”

  “Mhmm.” He looked her over with his chin in his hand. “You need medicine for someone.”

  “Aye.” Rose told him what it was and gave him the cloth from the innkeeper and, thankfully, he nodded, knowing of the remedy. In fact, he stepped away from her and asked her to follow him to the other side of the house, which was a few feet away. On a table in a shady corner, sat eleven brass canisters. The apothecary picked one up and handed it to her, along with a small parchment with directions on what to do with it.

  She didn’t wait around but hurried out and quickly gained her horse. She liked how she was able to do things alone. How—

  “Lady Rose?”

  She turned at the sound of a male’s voice. A familiar voice.

  “Captain Harper!” Rose was glad to see him and then her smile faded as she remembered Tristan—and her father’s men who had escorted her and had died from the pestilence. “What are you doing here?”

  He looked a bit pale. Was he ill?

  “Looking for you, Lady.

  What? How? “Did my uncle pen a missive to my father?”

  “Aye,” the captain nodded. “He wrote that you were dead—you and the men.” He looked around her. “I hoped that they were with you.”

  She shook her head and looked down at the ground. “No, I’m deeply saddened to say that they all succumbed to the pestilence.”

  He looked so grieved and she was sorry she told him.

  “But you,” he said with a slight smile of relief, “you lived. Your father will be so thrilled. He wept when he received your uncle’s missive.”

  “My uncle had me dead before my first cough,” she muttered and then looked down at the vessel in her hands. “I must go. Someone awaits me.”

  “My lady, I cannot let you go. Your father grieves for you. I must bring you home.”

  No! Not yet! Oh, but he grieved for her. “Captain, I vow to you that I will return home in just a few days.”

  He shook his head. “I cannot.”

  “Tell him that you saw me. That I am alive and safe. I will explain everything to him when I return. Please, I must go.”

  “I’m afraid I cannot.”

  “Why not?” she demanded, irritated now. Tristan needed her. “Captain, I—” She stopped speaking and narrowed her eyes on him. “How did you know I was here to be found? My uncle said I was dead. Why are you here searching for me?”

  “Because I already knew you were alive.”

  She held her palm to her head and closed her eyes for a moment with impatience. “What are you talking about, Captain?”

  “We received two missives, Lady. One from your uncle and one from the Baron of Ayr informing your father that a very dangerous killer has been paid to murder him.”

  Rose felt the air leaving her body. She thought she might faint. She hoped she would. For then she wouldn’t have to hear Tristan’s name come from the captain’s mouth. She wouldn’t have to explain why she was traveling with him.

  “He is called Tristan MacPherson,” the captain said, stilling Rose’s heart. She felt faint. She went to her horse and leaned against it.

  “I know that you travel with him.”

  Her knees almost buckled beneath her. She may as well have been speaking to her father, for whatever she told the captain, he would tell the earl. “I did not know he was coming to kill my father until recently. He also did not know who I was, for I never told him. He was escorting me home because he wanted me safe.” She looked him in the eyes, hoping he could sense that she was no longer going to wait. “He saved my life, and more than once. He saved me from being set on fire after I was thrown atop a pile of the dead.”

  His expression had collapsed, and his light blue eyes filled with tears as she told him what had happened to her and his ten comrades.

  “I should have gone,” he lamented.

  “Then you, too, would be dead,” she told him. He was her friend, one of the only friends she had ever had. She’d taught him how to read and he taught her how to shoot an arrow. He was the husband of a woman whom Rose loved and admired. He was loyal to the death to her father—which could be a very big problem for her now.

  “I must get this medicine to him or he could die.”

  Something terrible seemed to dawn on him and his eyes widened with…regret?

  “I will escort you to him and then I must take you home to your father.”

  “Do you think I am a fool, Captain? The moment you see him, you will kill him. You think he is a threat to my father.”

  “He is not?”

  She shook her head then stopped. “I will explain it all when I return to you. Please, give me—”

  “Lady, I’m not leaving you again,” he told her. “Let us proceed to wherever ’tis you are going. The sooner we get there, the sooner—”

  “Just a moment,” she cut him off and held up her palm. “How do you know I travel with him?” She stared at him for a moment and then brought her hand to her head. “’Twas you who shot him!”

  When he didn’t deny her charge, she clenched her jaw. “’Tis your fault he is sick right now.”

  If he didn’t move out of her way, she would stab him.

  “Does that please you, Captain?”

  He shook his head. “No, it does not, but I’m still coming with you.”

  She mounted her horse and rode away. He followed her. She couldn’t get rid of him. When they finally reached the village…the inn, she stopped and dismounted.

  When he did the same, she held her hand up in front of him to stop him. She hated what she was about to say, for she loved the captain. She spent more time with him and Mary than with anyone else besides her father since she was fourteen. But she had no choice. She wouldn’t let him finish what he started. “If you so much as come near the door, I will tell my father that you raped me, and that is why you did not bring me back sooner. Do you understand, Captain?”

  She thought he looked quite stunned at her threat. A fortnight ago, she would never have been so bold, but she’d changed. She had almost died. She had watched ten of her father’s men die, unable to do anything to help them. She had been rescued by a man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. And though the captain’s expression soon changed from surprise to sorrow at her terrible threat, he was making her leave Tristan. She was not about to bring more danger to Tristan.

  He nodded and she hurried inside the inn.

  She saw Nel first and handed her the vessel. “Take care of him, please. You have done so much already, but please do not let him die.”

  Nel graced her with a motherly smile that almost made Rose burst into uncontrollable tears. But no. She had to remain strong.

  “I know how to keep him alive, dear gel. I have done it before.”

  Rose smiled back and rushed into the room where Tristan lay, still unresponsive. She didn’t want to leave him. Not now. Not ever. “Oh, my love, I must go. I must go.” She kissed his mouth then ran from the room.

  She didn’t stop to bid Nel or the innkeeper farewell. She was afraid Captain Harper would come looking for her…for him.

  She stepped outside and walked toward him. “Let us depart,” she demanded. She quickly stepped around him, afraid that he could hear her heart crashing against her ribs.

  “Do not tarry, Captain,” she called out when he turned to look toward the inn, as if he were still deciding whether or not to go inside. She mounted her saddle and flicked her reins, heading south.

  She knew he would follow her instead of going inside. If he lost her, he could never return to her father. If he lost her, her father wouldn’t care if Tristan came for him or not. The captain would never let that happen.

  He leaped into his saddle and followed behind her, closing the gap at a quick trot.

  If she weren’t so miserable, she might smile that she knew him so well.

  She thanked God for Nel, but could she keep Tristan alive this time? She wanted to weep until there was nothing left of her because she wouldn’t be there to know.

  “What are his plans?” he asked, catching up to her.

  “To live, I suppose.”

  “Did he tell you why he was hired to kill your father?”

  She slowed her horse and looked at him. “There are some who believe he killed my mother and…me. Or had us killed.”

  He shook his head. His handsome, scarred face contorted as he muttered something about ridiculous.

  “That is what I told Tristan. Why would Father hide me from the world if he were the killer? Why are you smiling, Captain?”

  “Do you realize who ’tis you speak of as if he were just anyone?”

  “He is just anyone,” she replied and picked up her pace again, wanting to get him as far away from the helpless Tristan as she could.

  “No, you are incorrect,” he said, catching up. “In one year, he has become almost legendary to some. He is like a dark warning to the evil-hearted. Everyone in power is a bit more upright in their dealings with the peasants because of him.”

  Rose studied him a little more closely. “You agree with what he is doing.”