“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.
