The Heiress Bride - Catherine Coulter [150]
She was breathing hard, her face hitting his shoulder. She wanted to be sick but she had no intention of succumbing. She swallowed hard. She had to do something. She’d wanted only to run away from him. Damnation, all for naught.
Then, quite suddenly, she was flying off MacDuff’s back, striking the ground and rolling onto her stomach. She heard Colin’s voice and it was cold and furious. “All right, you damned bastard, it’s all over.”
Sinjun turned over quickly. She saw Colin holding a pistol on MacDuff. Thank God he hadn’t tried to fight him. MacDuff would have broken him in half. Then there were her two brothers and Sophie and Alex, all of them there in a half circle, watching, silent as stones. All of them holding pistols.
Colin dropped to his knees and gathered her up. “Sinjun, are you all right?”
She stared up at her husband. “What did you call me?”
“I asked you if you were all right, damn you. You’re filthier than a Loch Ard goat.”
“Yes, certainly. Colin, you called me Sinjun.”
“It was a slip of the tongue, done in my excitement. Now, MacDuff, we will all go to that dismal little croft and I want some answers from you.”
“Go to the devil, you filthy devil’s spawn! How did you manage this? Damn you, I saw you riding Gulliver to Edinburgh and coming back to Vere Castle. I saw you! It isn’t possible that you knew I was there!”
Douglas spoke for the first time. “It was me you saw. As for discovering your hidey-hole, we had a dozen or so lads stationed all about the perimeter on the lookout. Jamie spotted you. It was quite easy after that.”
MacDuff just stared at Douglas. Then he turned back to Colin. “I wouldn’t have killed either you or Sinjun. I just wanted to leave. My father left me little money, Colin. You could afford fifty thousand pounds since you married her. I just wanted a little bit of her fortune. It was all Aunt Arleth’s fault.”
“You killed her,” Colin said, his voice shaking with fury, with betrayal. “God, I trusted you. All my life I trusted you, believed you were my friend.”
“Yes, was. Only, things change. We became men.” He looked down at his feet, then, with a fierce cry, he rushed at Colin, grabbed his gun arm, jerking it upward, and crushed his cousin to him, his massive arms tightening around his back, cracking his ribs.
Sinjun was on her feet in an instant. She froze in midstride. The gun went off.
Sinjun screamed.
Slowly, so very slowly, Colin pushed free of MacDuff. He crumpled to the ground. He didn’t move.
There was utter silence. The night sounds became louder. Sinjun fancied she heard one of the rats shriek.
“He knew he couldn’t get away from all of us,” Douglas said slowly, looking at the pistol he held in his own hand. “He saw that Ryder and I were armed.”
“We were, as well,” Alex said.
Colin stared down at his cousin, the man he’d loved as a boy and respected as a man. He was dead. He looked over at his wife. A look of intense pain crossed his face. “So many people lost to me, so many. Did he tell you why, Sinjun?”
She felt his pain, his wrenching betrayal. No more, she thought, no more. She looked at him straight in his beautiful eyes. “He told me that he murdered Fiona because she rejected him. He killed Aunt Arleth because she had proof that he’d killed Fiona. He was in financial difficulties, as he told you. He wanted to leave Scotland and he had to have money. We were the likely source. That’s all there was to it, Colin. Nothing more.”
Colin’s head was bowed. “Nothing more?” he asked, not looking at her.
“No, nothing more. He didn’t want to kill either of us, Colin. I think he was sorry for all the tragedy he’d caused. Thank you for saving me.”
“Ah,” said Douglas, “then you’re not going to claim that it was the damned Virgin Bride or the absurd Pearlin’ Jane who sent us here to save your white hide?”
“Not this time, brother dear.” She smiled up at her husband. He looked at her closely. He lightly ran his fingertips over the bruise on her jaw.