“I’m here to take ye to your mother.”
The girl didn’t show any immediate pleasure at the announcement.
“Ye see she’s here,” Allan snarled. “Give me my money, and let’s finish this. There’s a stench in the air that is making me ill.”
Now Christina was finally within reach—the lassie was the image of her mother, so there was no doubting her identity—Diarmid could ignore the puerile insult. He stepped forward, the wad of notes extended. “Here. My cousin will stay to see ye sign the paper, while I take the bairn back to Fiona.”
Allan snatched at the money and counted it quickly. “Aye, all seems above board.”
Diarmid’s lips tightened. He wanted this over. “I’m a man of my word. That’s the full amount I promised for the girl. Now ye just have to fulfill your half of the bargain, and we’re square.”
A lie, when Fergus already made progress on the legal issues of Fiona’s dowry, but true enough at the moment.
“Aye, I see that. Ye were gey desperate to pay over the odds for this useless scrap of a lassie.”
Diarmid didn’t respond to the jibe. “Come with me, Christina. Your mother is waiting up in the trees on the hill.”
The girl made faltering progress across the field, but her eyes remained fixed on Allan. The thought of Fiona living in such fear made Diarmid want to smash something. Preferably something bearing the name of Grant. But so close to achieving what he wanted, he wasn’t going to shatter the fragile truce.
Allan jammed the notes into his coat pocket. “We can go on as planned.”
Then everything seemed to happen at once. Fiona shouted her daughter’s name as she broke clear of the trees and darted down the brae. Christina gave a broken cry and dashed forward past Diarmid. A loud sound from nearby set Diarmid’s ears ringing.
The pain took a few more seconds to hit him. When it did, he staggered and collapsed back against the edge of the bridge.
Chapter 33
The crack of a gunshot made Fiona stumble on her headlong race down the steep hillside toward the bridge. With sick horror, she saw Diarmid reel and collapse. Her vision narrowed to a long dark tunnel, with her husband lying quiet and still at the other end.
“Diarmid!” she screamed in despair, finding her balance and forcing her legs to move faster.
The shock of seeing him fall was so powerful that it took her a few seconds to realize that a small figure had pushed past him and now darted up the slope toward her.
As another shot rang out from the bridge below, she came face to face with the daughter she hadn’t seen in so long. “Christina…”
For a year, she’d spent every minute hungering to see her child again. Now, as the world turned to nightmare, she did.
The moment was so overwhelming that she hardly noticed Sir Quentin and the Douglas men thunder past her on their way to the bridge. From the other side of the burn, about a dozen men wearing the black and yellow Grant tartan streamed out of the trees behind the carriage that had brought Christina to this isolated brae.
“Mamma!” Christina flung herself at her mother with a force that left Fiona winded.
Fiona’s arms closed hard about the too-thin body. For the space of a second, she shut her eyes and breathed in the scent of her little girl who rested in her embrace at last. As she clutched her baby to her, her heart felt too big to fit inside her chest. The surge of love that flooded her made her shake. Love and relief and overmastering gratitude that she saw her child again, when there had been so many days when she’d been sure she never would.
But the reunion was bittersweet and at least for now, by necessity curtailed. Fiona drew back, wiping at her eyes. Christina needed her. She knew it. But Diarmid needed her more. She had to go to her husband, who lay shot at the base of the hill.
Pray God he was still alive. The thought of the rest of her days without Diarmid Mactavish was too cruel to endure.
“Sweetheart, I’m sorry. I’m so happy to see you, but I have to find out what’s happening down at the bridge,” she said urgently. “Quick. Go up to the trees at the top of the hill and wait there. Don’t come down again until I come and get you.”
Distress and bewilderment darkened the large blue eyes that peered up at her from a pale, drawn face. “But, Mamma…”
It was unfair to expect a child to understand that Fiona had obligations that outweighed her immediate duties as a mother. Yet she had no time for long explanations.
“Go, Christina. Don’t be afraid. I’ll come and find you, and I’ll make it up to you, I promise.” She didn’t wait for the inevitable protest, although pulling free from her daughter’s clinging arms felt like cutting off part of herself. “I’ll fetch you as soon as I can.”
Biting back a sob, she picked up her skirts and sprinted down the hill. Halfway down, she turned back to check that Christina obeyed her. The slumped shoulders spoke of defeat in a way that tore at Fiona’s heart, but at least the girl was heading toward the trees and safety.
With dogged determination, Fiona faced downhill again and headed toward Diarmid. When she skidded on the muddy track leading up to the bridge, she saw Hamish on his knees, supporting his terrifyingly still cousin and pressing a sodden red handkerchief to his shoulder. In the distance, bands of fighting men clashed near the carriage, but she had no attention to spare for anyone other than her husband.