She nodded, happy he was finally beginning to believe her.

  “After he rescued me from death, he rescued me again from twelve men who sought to have their way with me. He overcame every one of them like a savage whirlwind.” She gave him a slow smile. “You can kill me or let me live. It will not change the fact that he is going to kill all of you. Only I can stop him. And do not think I will ask anything of him under compulsion. I will not. Unless I am free when he comes, you die. Rather gruesomely, I might add.”

  “I have thirteen men,” Neill mocked. “Can he fight that many?”

  “As long as you are dead, who cares who else he kills?”

  He laughed but turned and walked away. Fighting no more.

  “Why do you keep looking up at the treetops?”

  She lowered her head and her gaze and smiled at him. “I’m praying.”

  “Ask Him why He let my Mary die.”

  Her smile faded and then her attention was captured by Neill shouting for seven of his men to camp somewhere else—and to take the captain with them. “If MacPherson is coming,” he told them, “I want half of us to protect the other half.”

  Rose was to stay with Neill and the other six.

  Poor William fought to keep them from taking him from her. He was beaten and kicked until he had nothing left in him and they dragged him away.

  Rose wept openly for him but clenched her jaw and stopped when Neill came closer to her. He walked around her and loosened her tether enough for her to slide down the tree and sit.

  “Are you hungry, Rose?”

  “Does it make you happy knowing that you destroyed a man’s life?” she spat at him.

  He looked around and shrugged. “I do not trouble myself with such things.”

  “You are evil.”

  He sighed as if he were bored and walked away, leaving her alone as his men lit torches but waited for her to continue.

  “No. I am not hungry.” She looked away and then closed her eyes to keep them off the treetops.

  Where was Tristan?

  They drew up along the western outskirts of Thornhill about four hours after the sun went down. Tristan had had to dismount and hold his torch to the ground, so tracking had been slow. Still, he’d found their marks in the rustled autumn leaves and snapped bramble—he’d never lost them in the first place. They appeared to lead toward the trees in the distance. Good. The man who’d taken Rose and Captain Harper had gone around the large village instead of through it, appearing to lead east along the Lowther Hills.

  Thanks to the two men Tristan and Jones had kept alive, they knew the bastard’s name who had done this and why. Neill de Caleone. Tristan remembered Rose talking about her friend, Neill. He had gone off six years ago with everyone else in her life. Was it the same man? If so, would he harm her, or not?

  There was only one person with them who knew.

  When they stopped to rest their horses, Jones built a fire and sat before it. There was very little food left from Nel. Tristan hadn’t thought of stopping anywhere to get some. No one had said a word to him about it. He looked around at them and wanted to smile. They wanted to find her, too. His gaze fell to Mary—and find her husband, too.

  He had questions for her father and called him over to where he stood in the shadows. But Tristan wanted light to see the earl’s reactions to his questions.

  “Lord,” Tristan said, leaning against a tree and holding up his flaming torch. “I wanted to speak to ye aboot Neill de Caleone. Is he the same Neill of yer daughter’s youth?”

  The earl began to shake his head, but then likely thought better of deceit and nodded. “I fear so.”

  “Why did ye keep this from me?” Tristan demanded quietly. He wanted to shout that he’d been a fool and this man was somehow guilty—guilty as a fox caught in a henhouse.

  “I was afraid,” her father confessed.

  “Only men who are guilty are afraid of justice,” Tristan said through clenched teeth.

  “Then please,” her father offered with a smile that stretched his mouth into an almost macabre grin that slowly faded as he spoke. “Neill’s mother was a servant who perished when the boy was seven or eight. I made certain he had a place in my service and a sturdy roof over his head in the servants’ quarters. For years, he was welcome to everything at Callanach Castle, including his friendship to my Rose. He was extremely protective of her. From the day she was born, he was captivated by her.”

  Tristan hated that Rose’s childhood friend had been mad and was responsible for everything. She likely knew it by now. Who comforted her? He prayed she was still with the captain.

  As for her father, Tristan could do nothing but continue to listen. He felt it was important to do so now more than ever.

  “When our home burned down—and I thank the good Lord that I arrived home when I did—it never occurred to me that Neill started the fire. Never. He would never hurt Rose. He was almost burned to death trying to find her. But he became more volatile over the years, and after he returned from a post in Wales, I began to fear him. In truth, he terrified me. He still does.”

  “Why?” Tristan asked, though he knew what her father was going to say.

  “Because I believe he killed my wife and her handmaiden.”

  Aye. “More ye didna tell me,” Tristan growled.

  “’Tis damning, I understand.”

  “Aye,” Tristan agreed. “Whose idea was it to keep Rose from traveling that day with her mother?”

  “Neill told me my wife loved another and was meeting him in Lockerbie. If she had Rose with her, nothing would stop her from never coming back. I did not want to lose them, so I kept Rose. My wife did not want to travel alone and asked for Jonetta instead. I…I asked Neill to follow Christina and find out who her lover was. I never told him to kill her!” He covered his face in his hands. “I live with this every day. I live with fear and guilt.”

  Tristan did not comfort him and shook his head at Jones when he began to rise from his place. Jones sat back down.

  “When I learned of what had befallen Christina, I was afraid Neill had done it. And because he burned them, I feared he had also set my home on fire and burned Rose. I was blind with rage and terror and shut the gates against him.

  “Now, he has returned, and he has my daughter.”

  “I will get her back,” Tristan said without hesitation.

  “And Neill?”

  “He will die by my hand.”

  “What will you do with me?” her father asked.

  Tristan kept his gaze on the flames of the fire. “Yer story seems believable, but there is one more thing. Why did ye want the world to think she had died?”

  “That was not my plan. Neill knew she lived so why would I start such rumors that she had perished. When I learned that everyone outside the walls thought her dead, it did not matter to me. In fact, it made keeping her safe easier, so I used it. Besides, what was I to tell her, that her dearest friend was the monster she had always feared? ’Twas always about Neill.”

  Tristan thought about it and nodded.

  “So, you believe that I am innocent then?” the earl asked.

  Mary had joined them with Jones. They were ready to leave.

  “I dinna remember sayin’ that,” Tristan told him, going to the fire to help put it out.

  “You would have killed me already if you did not believe it.”

  Would he have? Tristan truly did not know. He didn’t think Dumfries killed his wife or set fire to his first house, but that didn’t mean Tristan trusted him.

  “You could have tried to kill her to get to me,” her father told him, trying to strike up some awkward kind of conversation with him. Tristan went along for Rose’s sake.

  “I dinna work that way,” Tristan replied.

  “My daughter told me as much. She thinks very highly of you.”

  Tristan had the mad urge to smile while he rolled up his blanket and shoved it into his saddlebag. His shoulder pained him as did the wound Captain Harper, whose wife he’d saved, had inflicted on him. But he liked that Rose had spoken highly of him.

  “Tell me aboot yer captain. Jones tells me there is no one ye trust more than him with Rose’s life.”

  “No one. He will protect her to the death and if he could do more he would.”

  Tristan remembered Rose telling him a little about the captain. He was loyal to the earl more than to Rose.

  “Why was Captain Harper not among the ten men who escorted Rose to Hamilton with yer brother?”

  “Mary has recently suffered their third miscarried child. He wanted to remain with his wife.”

  Tristan turned back and found Mary, readying to ride with Jones and looking out at the hills. He was glad he had saved her. He shook his head in sheer amazement. What was he becoming?

  “And ye?” Tristan asked soberly, trying to think clearly and not about what was happening to him because of a lass. “Why did ye not go?”

  The earl turned away and hung his head. “I was afraid of being found by Neill. I forbade him from coming home and took him from my daughter. I fear him now. I fear that when we find him, he will kill me.”

  “’Tis all right. I willna let him kill my future father-in-law.”

  A thin rivulet of perspiration formed above the earl’s grey brow when he turned back to narrow his eyes on Tristan.

  “I did not give you my consent to marry my daughter.”

  Tristan bit his tongue to keep from hurling back that if he killed him, he wouldn’t need his consent! He didn’t say it because the earl was used to being protective of Callanach’s Rose. How could Tristan expect him to simply stop now? He didn’t.

  “She is going to hate me for not telling her,” her father lamented.

  Tristan felt a wave of dreaded compassion wash over him toward Thomas Callanach. The earl had lost much in his war with his servant—or had he? He had another enemy.

  “A governor paid me four years’ worth of wages to see ye dead. I never fail. Who d’ye know that hates ye that much?”

  In the torchlight, her father’s face drained a little of color. He shook his head. “I do not know.”

  “Is yer brother not a governor?”

  The earl softly nodded. “One of very many.”

  “That is true,” Tristan acknowledged with a subtle smile. “And yer own brother would never have a reason to want ye dead.”

  The earl searched himself for another forced smile. “Never.”

  “When I get Rose back,” Tristan told him, “we shall sit and speak of these things and then put them away fer good.”

  The earl smiled and Tristan saw his resemblance to his daughter. “My Rose believes you love her.”

  Tristan swallowed. He did love her. He didn’t know how it happened. He didn’t care. He’d never given his heart to anyone before. He wouldn’t lose her. “I do.”

  “She told me what you did for her. Carrying her away from the flames, helping her through the plague, killing a dozen men alone after they tried to take her. Thank you.”

  Tristan nodded and glanced at Jones. He shook his head when the husky guard looked ecstatic that the earl seemed to like Tristan. Mary looked just as hopeful. She smiled at him behind Jones. She’d been the only one left alive at the castle. She reminded him of Rose, defiant toward death, living through the flames.

  Who was the man she loved enough for her to stay here with no one and nothing but the tall, gray walls? Captain William Harper, whom they all admired? Who could have shot his arrow into Tristan’s heart but had lowered his aim to make the wound mostly harmless?

  And what about Neill? The earl’s story made sense but there were still unanswered questions about Neill. Why had he been taken in by the earl, given a bed, and the freedom to grow so attached to the earl’s daughter? If the earl was so afraid of him, why send him out to spy on his wife? Neill had been exiled. Is that why he returned to Callanach Castle and burned it down, and whoever the hell was in it? He was thankful her friend hadn’t killed her.

  And why had he taken the captain? Why did he need him alive? Was Harper just someone else de Caleone could kill? Was he still alive? Tristan hoped so. For Mary’s sake.

  They passed one another a look of hopelessness when the first raindrops began to fall.

  Tristan didn’t allow the weather to stop him from finding Rose. He didn’t need tracks. He knew de Caleone was headed north according to the two soldiers they had captured.

  They hadn’t left them alive.

  Tristan and the others would keep moving. Everyone agreed. No stopping until they found them. Tristan refused to sleep until he found Rose. That was it. It was his single purpose. Nothing could stop him, not fatigue, or pain, or hunger, or fear of what was being done to her.

  He went on ahead and scouted the area about fives leagues in. He’d promised the others he’d return if he found anything. But when he heard the sound of male laughter in the distance, he knew he’d found them. And he knew he was not going back to tell the others.

  Mary needed to stay away, and the earl was mayhap in his fifties. His stamina wouldn’t hold up. Tristan was better off alone.

  But he wasn’t alone. He turned with his sword ready to kill and a stern look on his face when he saw Jones coming up behind him.

  “Are you fool enough to try to do this without any help?”

  “I’m simply lookin’ everythin’ over. There are less than a dozen men here. I can handle this.”

  Jones laughed silently. “Sure. All right then, what is the plan?”

  “Rescue Rose and the captain,” Tristan told him, reaching into his boots for his last two daggers. “Kill everyone else.”

  “Seven to two,” Jones muttered, peering through the trees. “You are confident.”

  “Or a fool,” Tristan smiled, seeing who he was looking for. “Mary said yellow hair, aye?”

  Jones nodded.

  Tristan didn’t want to kill him. No, that privilege belonged to Dumfries. Tristan would wound de Caleone so that he could not fight or run while Tristan and Jones killed the rest.

  He took the dagger by the blade and pulled back his arm. He didn’t wait to make sure the blade struck the man between his arm and shoulder. He hurled the second blade end over end into de Caleone’s groin.

  The men around the camp came alive.

  Tristan tore his sword from its sheath and charged the camp with Jones at his side.

  Some of the men cried out or screamed begging for their lives. Tristan gave them no mercy. Jones hesitated once, after he released his captain from the tree to which he was tied. Passing them, Tristan pushed his blade into the last man’s belly then turned to the captain.

  “Where is Rose?”

  Captain Harper was covered in blood. Tristan didn’t know if it was the captain’s or someone else’s. His face was purple and swollen everywhere. “Jones told me you saved Mary—”

  “Aye, she lives. Where is Rose?” Tristan wanted to shake him. “Did he kill her?” He pointed to the blond man he’d injured.

  The captain glanced at the man still squirming on the ground. “Who is he?”

  “de Caleone,” Tristan supplied halfheartedly, realizing he’d wasted two daggers on the wrong man.

  “He is not de Caleone,” the captain validated. “De Caleone is in the other camp with—”

  “Tristan!” Her voice broke through the trees.

  “I’m coming with you,” the captain said and took off when Tristan began to run.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Rose didn’t close her eyes or relax. She was tied to a tree, helpless against seven men. What would they do when Neill fell asleep? She could kick and bite. They would have to kill her.

  She heard a sound in the distance. A man screaming? Had Tristan come? Where? Where was he? She looked around. Neill was on his feet, so were most of the men. They had all heard it. The other camp! It had to be Tristan! He was in the other camp! If she could hear then—

  “Tristan!” she screamed. Her voice carried, echoing through the trees.

  A knife landed in the tree trunk above her head with a loud thunk.

  “Shut your mouth, Woman!” one of the men hissed at her. “De Caleone, I swear if she calls him and brings him here, I will cut her open from her mouth to her cu—”

  “Be quiet.” It was a curt command spoken by Neill with authority and warning.

  She looked for him. She couldn’t see him. Moonlight fell in slivers through the thick treetops casting shadows everywhere.

  She wanted to scream for Tristan again and get him here quick, but she was afraid the next knife would not miss.

  Had Tristan heard her? What if the man screamed because he had been bitten by a snake or something? What if Tristan wasn’t here?

  No. She heard someone else cry out from beyond the darkness. Her heart beat like thunder booming through her ears, making her tremble where she sat.

  Tristan. Oh, please be Tristan.

  Silence fell. She waited. They all did.

  “Neill?” she called out softly. She wanted to hear the fear in his voice. Why wasn’t he giving quiet orders to his men?

  He did not reply. The men took notice and began calling out to him.

  Someone suddenly arrived behind her tree. He cut the rope around her wrists, setting her free.

  “Oh, Tristan, I knew you would come.”

  “’Tis not Tristan.”

  Her heart froze. Neill! No!

  “Tristan!” she screamed again.

  She knew he heard her. Her captor knew it, too. He yanked her by the arm, pulling her around the tree. She opened her mouth to scream again but he pulled back his arm and struck her, almost knocking her out. She went sprawling, saved from flying through the air by his hand around her wrist.

  He dragged her to his horse, swearing that next time he would break every bone in her face. “Let us see how your Tristan will like you then.”

  Rose didn’t want to give in. She wanted Tristan to hurry. She wanted to lead him to her. But she also didn’t want her bones broken even more. She remained quiet, letting him practically toss her over his horse. He leaped up next and kicked his mount into a full run.