The Raider (A Highland Guard Novel) Read online

  She turned back to answer him. “I assume at Berwick Castle by now. She and Sir Alex rode out not long after you left.”

  Though part of him had known it, the news still shook him. How could she be gone, damn it? He had to explain. He had to apologize. He had to tell her how wrong he’d been.

  You drove her away.

  Douglas swore. “And you just let them leave?”

  Joanna’s sweet blue eyes turned glacial as her gaze leveled on her husband’s. “I did.”

  From her tone, she seemed to daring him to say something more.

  Douglas clamped his mouth shut. Apparently, after the mistake they’d narrowly averted, he’d decided to cut his losses with his wife. Joanna had been right. Rosalin and Seton had been right. And they all knew it.

  Robbie clenched his fists, the raw emotion lashing around inside him like a whip. Anger. Disbelief. Despair. It needed a place to go, and he struck out against the only other person he could blame besides himself. How could the man who’d been his partner for seven years betray him like this? “I’m going to kill him.”

  Joanna lifted a delicate brow. “Sir Alex?” She shook her head. “I fear that might be difficult.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He left you something.” She pointed to the small solar off the Hall that Douglas used to conduct estate business. “It’s in there.”

  Robbie closed the door behind him as he entered the room, grateful a moment later for the privacy when he opened the plain burlap sack to see the darkened nasal helm and plaid.

  He flinched. For the second time in the space of a few minutes, he felt the hard slap of shock. And it stung—bitterly.

  Seton had finally done it. He’d left the Guard and defected to the English. Robbie didn’t know why he was surprised. Hadn’t he expected Seton to betray them for years? He was a bloody Englishman. How could Robbie have trusted him, even a little?

  Ah hell. Barely before he’d finished the thought, the truth hit him hard. That was exactly what had driven her away. She told him that he would always see her as English—as Clifford’s sister—and never be able to fully trust her. She’d accused him of being blinded by vengeance. She was right. His inability to see the sweet, caring woman who was offering him her heart had made him lose the best thing that had ever happened to him.

  I thought you needed me.

  He did need her. He hadn’t realized how much until now. She’d seen something in him that he’d almost forgotten was there. He thought her fierce sense of justice had reminded him of someone once, and now he realized who it was: him. Once he’d fought for the right reasons. Once he’d stopped to ask whether something was right or wrong. Winning didn’t have to come at the expense of honor, and somehow along the way, he’d forgotten that. But she’d brought it back to him.

  Of course she’d left. He’d given her no reason to stay. When he thought of how many times she’d offered him her heart and he’d offered her nothing in return, he wanted to empty his stomach. She’d been willing to give up everything for him, and the only thing she’d asked for in return—his trust—he’d been unwilling to give her.

  She loved him, and…

  He dropped to a bench as the sickening truth crashed down on him.

  He loved her. Of course he did. He’d known it and hadn’t wanted to accept it. He’d been too scared of what it might mean and too scared of having to send her back. And by refusing to admit it, he’d achieved the very thing he’d feared: he’d lost her.

  He would never have given her back. If her brother didn’t agree he would have found another way. He knew that now. But she didn’t. And he’d lost the chance to tell her.

  Seton had accused him once of being dead inside. He wished it were true so he didn’t have to feel the black emptiness opening up within him.

  He put his head in his hands and tried to think, tried to hold on to the edge of the cliff to prevent himself from slipping into the chasm of darkness that was his future.

  How in the hell was he going to get her back?

  Twenty-six

  Rosalin and Sir Alex’s sudden appearance at the castle gate had caused something of an uproar—to put it mildly. She had been crushed in her sleep-roused brother’s overcome embrace, while Sir Alex had been surrounded by soldiers and very nearly tossed in the pit prison until she’d threatened to jump in there with him. Instead, he’d been taken to the guardhouse. After days of questioning, he had been ordered to London to make his case to the king in person.

  Saying goodbye to him, and then watching him ride out with a small army of her brother’s men, was the hardest thing she’d done since leaving Douglas. Sir Alex was her last link to Robbie, and seeing him go felt like the final break. The sense of loss was profound, though God knew, Robbie didn’t deserve her heartbreak or her tears. She should hate him for what he’d done. Each morning she expected her brother to call for her, to give her the horrible news that would all but ensure it.

  But two days passed, and then three. Plenty of time for a messenger to have arrived from Brougham, bringing news of the attack. It wasn’t until the fifth day, when the soldier her brother sent after she’d told him of the attack returned, that she was called to Cliff’s solar to hear the hideous truth.

  Her brother had his back to the door and was staring into the small fireplace as she entered. He appeared to be deep in thought.

  She braced herself, expecting the worst.

  He turned, his hands clasped behind his back. “There has been no attack.”

  He might have toppled her to the floor. She swayed, flinched, or did some odd combination of the two. “What?”

  Cliff met her gaze, and she could see the worry in the green eyes that were so like her own. Since she’d returned, her brother had treated her as something akin to a delicate piece of porcelain, assiduously avoiding any mention of subjects that might cause her distress, such as her abduction, Robbie Boyd, or the letter she’d written him. He knew something was terribly wrong but was waiting for her to explain.

  “Brougham has not been attacked. Boyd must have discovered what really happened at the village in time.”

  Cliff had explained everything about the attack, validating her trust in him. Not that it mattered. Or did it? Why had Robbie changed his mind? What had turned him from his course? And most important, what did it mean?

  She must have paled or looked as if she were going to faint, because Cliff crossed the room, took her by the elbow, and helped her sit on one of the cushioned benches before the fire.

  She couldn’t seem to think. “You’re sure?”

  He nodded.

  “But why?”

  Her brother gave her a long look. “I suspect you can answer that question better than I.”

  Before bringing Sir Henry and the other prisoners back to Berwick, Cliff had sent a message to Robbie explaining what had happened in the village and agreeing to meet in one week’s time (to discuss the contents of her missive and the exchange of coin), but it would have arrived after they both left.

  “I’m not sure I can. Robbie was so determined. I tried—begged him—to turn from his course, but he refused.” Tears swam before her eyes as she stared up into her brother’s grim face. “It was horrible.”

  He swore and sat down beside her, tucking her under his arm while she sobbed, the way he used to when she was a child. “The bastard doesn’t deserve your tears, little one. And he sure as hell doesn’t deserve you.”

  That only made her sob harder.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  And she did. Well, most of it at least, leaving out the more intimate details, although she suspected Cliff filled in the gaps well enough. When she was done, his mouth was pulled in a hard, angry line. “I’ll kill him.”

  “No! Please. I just want to forget any of this ever happened.”

  She took the folded square of linen he handed her and dabbed her nose and eyes.

  Cliff’s expression was no less fierce, but his voice