“Blessed Lord!” Cora pointed a shaking finger. Beads of sweat had finally broken out on Fraser’s brow.

Martha returned, many hours later, to her own room after she was sure that Fraser was finally sleeping peacefully and the fever was gone. Alone at last, she allowed herself to dwell on the words he had spoken.

“You fool,” she murmured, as part of her insisted on trying to reason away what she had heard. Because she so desperately wanted it not to be true, her mind snatched wildly at excuses for his words. Perhaps he had mistaken her for someone else? But no, he had called her “Englishwoman”. Did his words hide another meaning? She could almost have laughed aloud at that. There could be only one interpretation of what he had said.

Martha reached for the tinderbox, only to find that her hand was trembling so pitifully she could not light her candle. In spite of everything she had told herself, she realised now that she had permitted a glimmer of hope to peep through. The tenderness she had seen in Fraser’s eyes had fooled her into believing they might have a future. That she could have let herself, however briefly, cherish such an absurd dream added to her humiliation. She knew she was unlovable. How had she managed to persuade herself otherwise?

Resolution gave her the strength to do what was necessary. With a hand that was steadier, she lit her candle and gathered her belongings together. It was when she groped blindly for her bag and began to throw these items into it that she finally allowed the tears to fall.

“No, you tell him.”

“I’ll not tell him. I prefer to keep my skin attached to my back, thank you.”

The whispers just outside his bedchamber door were starting to annoy him.

“For the love of God, somebody tell me!” Fraser roared. “Is she sick, is that what it is? Is that why she’s not been near me these last two days or more?”

He had been asking for her. Over and over, but she had not come to him. The excuses had reached a level that was pitiful, and this morning, he had threatened to leave his bed and drag her from hers if someone did not provide him with a satisfactory answer to the simple question “Where is Martha Wantage?”

Several pairs of nervous eyes regarded him from the doorway. It was Cora who spoke up at last. “She is gone, my laird.”

“Gone? What the devil do you mean, woman? How can she just be gone?” He sat up straighter, wincing at the pain in his side.

“You should’nae—”

“Answer me, damn you!”

“She left three days since. It was just after the fever was high upon you.”

“No.” He shook his head. He knew Martha better than that. Didn’t he? “She would not leave me. And certainly not while I was still in danger. Not unless something very bad happened when I was in the grip of the fever. Did she get bad news from Derbyshire?” He glared around him. There was an anxious shuffling of feet. “What was it?”

Rab and Cora exchanged glances again. Once more Cora took on the role of bearer of bad tidings. “Well, she did seem woeful upset at something you said to her, my laird.”

“What did I say?” Fraser’s voice was dangerously quiet now.

“Something about the kiss of hate and how it was repaid in full at last.”

“Go on.” His eyes were fixed on her face.

“You said that she had finally admitted she loved a Scotsman and that you were her master. Oh, and that vengeance had been worth the wait. When you said those words to her, my lady looked as if her world had come to an end. She made sure you were comfortable and left me detailed instructions about how to care for you. She said on no account was I to use the leeches even if the fever came back. Then she went.”

“Went? How did she go?”

“She took the horse she came here on.” Cora twisted her hands together nervously.

“So she rode out all alone. Into the wilds of the Great Glen. With wild beasts and Cumberland’s men on the prowl. And not one of you tried to stop her?” Suddenly, his servants found it even more difficult to meet his eyes. “Did she say where she was going?”

Cora shook her head. “My lady thanked us for taking good care of her while she was here and said she would’nae be back. She did say that she would’nae be going to Derbyshire either.”

“Aye.” Fraser’s face was a picture of fury as he threw aside the bed covers. “Because she knew fine well that’s the first place I would go looking for her!”

Chapter Eighteen

Blue-grey fingers of mist trailed through the damp bracken, reminding Fraser of the smoke that had spread over the field at Culloden when he had drifted in and out of consciousness. A combination of sweat and light rain made his garments cling to his body like a second skin. The sea air smelled of England. He had thought never to return to this land, but now he welcomed the sight of Northumberland as if it were a long-lost friend. He murmured to his horse, urging it onward. The ride had been hard on man and beast alike. Fraser had been unwilling to pause for rest, stopping only when one or both of them were in danger of collapse. Now a new sense of urgency seized him, and as he leaned low over his mount, the horse surged forward. The wind blowing straight off the North Sea and over the cliffs was brutally cold, adding to the ache from his still-fresh wounds and the days of nonstop riding. Wild gusts tugged at Fraser’s hair, and his cloak flew out behind him like a pennant. His eyes scanned the horizon until at last the vast shape they sought came into view. Even from this distance, Bamburgh Castle was unmistakable.

What if he was wrong? But he could not allow himself to think that. Not yet. The thought had intruded over and over during the lonely ride, usually when he was most tired, but each time he had determinedly pushed it away. If she was not here, he would keep going until he did find her. Losing her was not an option.

He cursed the fact that he hadn’t told her what was in his heart. Not because he wasn’t sure he loved her. No, he had never been more sure of anything in his life. But he had felt he had no right to tell her, not with a bloody battle looming and the future so uncertain. What would he have been asking of her? He had been on the verge of calling for the priest a dozen times in the days before Culloden and asking him to make Martha his bride. Each time he had stopped short. If he died at Culloden, what sort of legacy would his widow have? Martha was strong, it was true, but there had been no way of knowing in what sort of disarray a defeat would leave the clans. He could not ask that of her. Even worse would have been his capture by the English. He could not ask to tarnish her good name by allying herself to a man who might be incarcerated in an English prison for the rest of his life.

“I should have told her,” he muttered as the horse’s hooves rang out on the cobbles of the convent yard.

“She is here?” Fraser’s eyes were hard with anxiety. The little nun who had come to greet him nodded and indicated for him to follow her. He felt a sliver of the tension that had held his heart in an iron grip begin to loosen. Now for the hard part.

Martha was seated on a stone bench in the kitchen garden. A group of children were clustered around her feet as she told them a story, and she was smiling at something one of them had said. She would never be a beauty, his Martha, but when she smiled like that his heart did a dance of pure pleasure. It was something he had never experienced until he met her. Not in ten years of marriage, when he had believed himself happy. Now he knew he had mistaken contentment for happiness. Martha looked up and saw him. The smile froze in place on her lips.

“How did you find me?” she asked, when the children had gone.

“Did you think I would not?”

“I didn’t think about it because I didn’t believe you would try. So let me ask you another question, perhaps the most important one. Why did you want to find me?” She turned to face him, holding his gaze bravely. Looking him in the eye was something she had not been able to do when they first met, he remembered. Martha had come a long way since then. “Is it because I am carrying your child?”