Page 116 of A Scot on the Rocks

Robertson advanced. “Then you won’t object to my looking.”

“I object to ye being a fool with men under yer command.”

Robertson swung the crop. Jamie caught the blow on his forearm, then closed his hand around the officer’s wrist before he could strike again. They collided with the edge of the old trestle, and the wood cracked beneath them. Jamie could smell wet leather and the sharp powdery dust shaken from the masonry.

Morag struck her iron pan behind the wall.

The sound thundered through the ruined hall. It was a glorious noise, utterly disproportionate to the kitchen implement responsible, and Jamie would have admired it more if the men around him hadn’t already been frightened half out of their senses.

“Sanctimonious codfish!” Ewan bellowed from the chapel passage.

Jamie had told Olivia that no respectable Highlander would ever take to her grandmother’s curses. Evidently he’d been wrong. He might have laughed, too, if the young soldier hadn’t swung his musket toward the last white shape stirring above the gallery.

“Lower it!” Jamie shouted, releasing Robertson’s wrist.

The shot struck the stone above them with a crack that hurt his ears as mortar burst from the gallery, and the soldier ducked as a chunk the size of a paving stone broke free and shattered on the floor. Robertson staggered away from the trestle. Through the smoke Jamie saw another officer bring his weapon up toward the same opening, directly below the place where Olivia had been working the lantern.

“For God’s sake, no!”

Jamie hit the man hard enough to send them both down. The musket discharged as they fell, and a line of fire tore across his upper arm. His shoulder struck the edge of the stair. The stone was cold and unforgiving, and the water collecting beneath the broken roof soaked through his coat before he managed to draw a full breath.

He could hear Ewan shouting, though the words came as if through a wall. Above the ringing in his ears someone was crying his name. Jamie tried to push himself onto his sound arm, saw blood running over the back of his hand, and wondered irritably how a man could lose so much of the stuff from a wound that was plainly nowhere near his heart.

Then Olivia was beside him, her skirts dark with water at the hem and her face so pale he wanted to reassure her before she’d spoken a word.

“Jamie.” Her hands came to his arm, pressing the shawl against the wound. “Look at me.”

“I’m looking, lass.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“So it would seem.” He tried a smile and saw it make no difference at all. Across the hall an officer was fumbling with his powder horn, and Jamie caught her wrist. “Olivia. Get them out before they shoot the rest of the roof down.”

She followed his gaze. Whatever she’d been about to say stayed behind her teeth. She pressed his hand over the shawl, made sure he’d hold it there, then rose to her feet. Jamie watched her straighten the blue cloak, its embroidered hem dripping onto the stones, as she turned to Robertson with the steady look she’d worn when Lord Crawley had believed he could best her at cards.

“Gentlemen,” she said. “I think you’ve done quite enough.”

Robertson opened his mouth, but she raised a hand. Jamie had seen that gesture across a hundred village tables and had never known it fail when a woman had truly had enough of a man’s foolishness.

“You searched an empty ruin, frightened your own men, fired two muskets at shadows, and shot the only person who tried to stop you from getting somebody killed. If that doesn’t trouble you, perhaps explaining it to a magistrate will.”

“You are in no position—” Robertson began.

“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure.” Olivia pointed toward the open gate, where voices were rising along the path. “Half the glen heard the shots. They’ll be up here in a minute, and they’ll find you standing over an injured man while your soldiers load their muskets for another attempt at a bedsheet. You can tell them why.”

The youngest officer looked down at his weapon then slowly lowered it. Another stepped away from the tower arch as more dust sifted from the crack overhead. No one seemed eager to follow Robertson deeper into the ruins now, and Jamie thought the officer knew it. The determination in his face had become something uglier, but there was calculation there as well.

Ewan came through the chapel passage with Alasdair and two villagers who’d been watching the road. Outside, Kirsty’s brother was calling for news, and the hooves of the officers’ horses clattered against the courtyard stones as the animals grew restless.

Robertson glanced once toward the empty cart. He’d found Jamie, certainly, but not a drop of whisky, and the one man he’d managed to injure was now sitting on a wet floor bleeding and witnesses gathering around him. Jamie had faced Robertson often enough to know he would remember the humiliation. He would also remember that another shot inside these walls might bring down a piece of the castle upon his own men.

“This isn’t over, Campbell,” Robertson said. “I know what you are and I know that woman isn’t the innocent widow she claims to be.”

Jamie accepted Ewan’s offered hand and got unsteadily to his feet. The movement sent hot pain through his shoulder, but he was damned if he’d let Robertson see his knees give way.

“She’s the lass who kept ye from making a worse fool of yourself,” he said. “I’d be grateful, were I in yer place.”

Robertson’s face turned a mottled red. For a moment Jamie thought the man might strike him again, though he had sense enough to keep his hand away from the crop. Then he called his men out, and the heavy boots retreated through the archway toward the waiting horses.