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SILENCED
SANTA CATALINA ISLAND BOOK 1
CRYSTAL NORTH
Copyright © 2021 by Crystal North, in the United Kingdom.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or
otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post
it on a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters, and incidents portrayed in it
are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
events or localities, is entirely coincidental.
Crystal North asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as
trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are
trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective
owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor
mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed
the book.
First Edition.
Cover Art by Dazed Designs.
Formatting by Bookish Author Services.
Editing by Charlotte Black at CB Editing Services
Life Organisation by Hannah Wenna Ass-Kicker PA at Bookish Author Services. I licked her,
she’s mine, and I’m not sharing.
For all the weirdos, oddballs and misfits…
You’re my people
xoxo
 CONTENTS

About Silenced
Silenced Playlist
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Acknowledgments
About the Author
About Hunting Grounds
Prologue
Chapter One
ABOUT SILENCED
Blurb
I’m not crazy.
My parents had me tested.
And much to their disappointment, my diagnosis set me free
from under their oppressive thumb.
Travelling across the world to attend Santa Catalina University
with my best – only – friend brings me freedom and happiness…To a
point.
What I don’t expect is a mountain of a man to bring silence and
calm to my otherwise chaotic brain. Or the love-hate attraction with
him and his two best friends. I certainly don’t expect one of my
professors to become obsessed with me.
I find myself wrapped up in a dangerous mystery, when girls on
campus are dying and my life is in danger because I’m – apparently
– not who I thought I was.
Suddenly, I have to rely on these four strangers for protection
and answers.
I came to SCU to find my voice, but instead I find myself
silenced.
Possibly, for good.

Silenced is a reverse harem romance, meaning our FMC will have

more than one love interest and won’t have to choose between them
at the end of the series. The SCU collection consists of 10
independent stories all set within the university and shared world.
Silenced ends on a cliff-hanger and starts a new series by this
author.
Author’s Note
No major trigger warnings in this one, but there are references to
the FMC’s abusive and traumatic childhood which will be explored
throughout the series. There’s some light bullying of Malia-Tarni from
a couple of the guys within the harem, and there’s some murders
casually thrown in.
This is book 1 in a brand new series which will get spicier as it
goes on…so yeah I guess it’s a slow burn for now. Once you meet
MT you’ll understand that the heat level is perfect in this book for
who she is right now though, and I think you’ll agree it’s worth the
wait.
 SILENCED PLAYLIST

Are You Gonna Go My Way - Lenny Kravitz

Jump Around - House of Pain
Tik Tok - Kesha
Something in Your Mouth - Nickelback
Last Resort - Papa Roach
She Hates Me - Puddle of Mudd
Crawling - Linkin Park
Zombie - The Cranberries
Good as Hell - Lizzo
Timber - Pitbull
Nothing Else Matters - Metallica
Tainted Love - Marilyn Manson
Sweet Child O’ Mine - Guns N’ Roses
My Way - Limp Bizkit
Let’s Go Home Together - Ella Henderson & Tom Grennan
It’s Been a While - Staind
Stellar - Incubus
No One Knows - Queens of the Stone Age
Better Days - Dermot Kennedy
Burden - Foy Vance
The Edge - Victoria
Waves - Dean Lewis
Divenire - Ludovico Einaudi
Mended Souls - Casey Hurt
Lost - Dermot Kennedy
PROLOGUE
VANCE
4 Weeks Prior
A voice that can only be described as raw sex on hot coals draws my
attention away from my scotch. I’ve been staring at it for so long,
my single cube of ice is virtually gone. But it’s okay. Because I have
a new thing to stare at: the owner of that seductive, husky voice. I
like it even more than the sound of Lenny Kravitz’s ‘Are You Gonna
Go My Way’ which is playing poignantly in the background.
“A gin and tonic, please.”
“Ice and slice, love?” the bartender asks in a lecherous tone that
immediately gets my back up.
There’s silence for so long that I risk a glance over at the
seductress to see if she’s left unexpectedly. But no, there she is.
She’s frowning intently at the barman, her head cocked slightly
to the side in confusion. It’s surprisingly cute. Surprising because I
like it, and I’m not one to enjoy ‘cute’ normally.
Though, of course the woman before me is far more than cute.
She’s a study of contradictions. Her short stature and petite facial
features juxtapose a body that was made for sin. Or at the very least
made to tempt others to sin. Her seductive voice refutes the overall
impression of innocence that her features come together to create,
but when said features are broken down into their individual parts
and studied closely, they’re far from innocent.
Her white blonde hair is long enough to wrap a couple of times
around my fist. Her own hand, drumming impatiently on the top of
the bar, is tiny in comparison to mine, despite long, slender fingers. I
can’t help but think how huge my dick will look with her dainty
hands wrapped around it.
Her lips are painted a seductive red but are so full and perfectly
formed, it’s like Cupid’s bow was modelled on her. Those lips were
made for kissing every part of my anatomy.
Huge brown doe eyes, framed by long thick lashes, have a
sharpness to them that is currently spearing the barman, much to
my amusement, even as my dick stirs to life inside my jeans.
 “A slice of what?” She eventually sighs, looking like the bartender
has simultaneously kicked her puppy and gravely disappointed her. I
stare in fascination, unable to tear my gaze away.
“You know.” The bartender shrugs. “A slice.”
“A slice of bread? Ham? Tomato?”
The bartender looks at her like she’s crazy. “Cake? Pie? Pizza? A
slice of life – whatever the hell that means.” She mutters the last bit
under her breath in disgust. An amused grin tugs at the corner of
my mouth, but I quickly conceal it. I’m not willing to be the subject
of her attention just yet.
“Look, I just want to know if you want some fruit or shit in your
drink.”
“I most certainly do not want excrement in my drink!” she gasps.
Despite my intention, a snort of amusement escapes me and she
whirls on me.
As the bartender moves away to make her drink, muttering about
crazy, uptight bitches, she gives me a slow, appraising look. She
actually scans me from head to toe and back up again, a hint of a
smile tugging at the corners of her full lips now as she takes in my
shoes. When her gaze returns to mine, her face is carefully blank.
It’s not the reaction I’m used to getting.
“I like your candour,” I tell her, raising my glass with a nod in her
direction.
“I like your laces,” she replies. I almost spit my drink out.
“Excuse me? My laces?”
“Yes. They’re very neat. For someone who’s lefthanded.”
“What makes you think I’m a leftie?” I ask, confused. I am, but
there’s no way she can know that.
“Your laces,” she repeats like it’s the most obvious answer in the
world. I chuckle but she doesn’t smile. Okay, so she’s not joking or
flirting with me then.
Disappointment lances through me, but I decide to just shake it
off and try again. It’s refreshing, having to put in an effort, but I’m
not opposed to it.
“Can I buy you a drink?”
“You want to buy me a drink?”
 I nod.
“Even though I just ordered one?” She raises a perfectly shaped
brow in what I hope is amusement.
“Can I pay for that one?” I offer.
“No.” That’s it. That’s all she says. I’m tempted to ask why not,
but her beautiful face is so closed off that I don’t dare.
Instead, I just gaze at her, drinking in every one of her features
and committing them to memory. She really is...arresting.
It’s more than just her looks. There’s something about her that
seems cold and standoffish, but there’s a glimmer of something
underneath that’s enticing me to break through her barriers to see
what’s real. She’s gorgeous, mysterious, alluring. I want to know her
better—and not just because the new academic year starts in four
weeks, and the island will soon be flooded with students. This isn’t
about getting laid. Well, it’s not just about getting laid, I should say.
There’s a connection there, I’m sure of it.
“I’ve not seen you in here before. Is this your first visit?” I cringe
a little, my words sound too similar to that clichéd ‘come here often’
line. Truth be told, I’m not used to doing the chatting up. Women
tend to fawn over me but for the first semester at least, until I get to
know new faces on campus, I have a no sex rule. The last thing I
need is to inadvertently invite a student into my bed. Tonight
though, I know I’m safe. The kids don’t start arriving from the
mainland until the weekend before class, which means that this
woman couldn’t possibly be a danger to me.
“It is.”
“Are you visiting the island?”
“No. I just moved here,” she replies stiffly. She looks a little
uncomfortable talking to me, but I can’t bring myself to let her go.
Excitement fills me when I realise that she isn’t a tourist and that I
could possibly see her again.
I’m wondering what to say next when the barman places her
drink on the countertop in front of her with a wink.
“On the house,” he tells her. Her brow creases in a frown.
“No thank you.” She tosses a note down on the bar and picks up
her glass. “Keep the change.”
 As she turns and walks away, a surge of panic rears up within
me.
“Wait! What’s your name?” I call desperately, but she disappears
into the crowd without a backwards glance.
“Another,” I demand, shaking my empty glass at the bartender
and sighing. I need to know who she is. The island isn’t huge, and
the new faces won’t arrive for a few weeks yet. I have time. I won’t
lose her in a crowd again.
ONE
MALIA-TARNI
Present Day
“Allow me to give you a very warm welcome.”
It’s strange when you think about it. The English language. And I
mean proper English – I’m not even counting how strange it’s been
made by those overseas wankers who bastardised it. No offence, I
quickly, mentally add, just in case anyone can somehow hear my
thoughts.
How can the dean of students be giving me a warm welcome?
The way she says it is like she’s physically handing me a gift, one
which has somehow been heated to be warm. It’s both odd and
weird. It makes me uncomfortable.
My nose crinkles in distaste. I don’t like it at all. I hate the way
people never say what they mean, or mean what they say. Not me.
What you see is what you get. Or rather, what comes out of my
mouth is exactly what I’m thinking. I have very little filter,
apparently. But even being told that rankles me. I’m not a water jug
or an extractor fan or even a car. No filter.
“Let it go, MT,” Summer, my bestie, whispers to me. She knows
me too well. My quirks. My eccentricities. My ‘condition’. She’s the
only one who gets away with giving me a nickname, shortening my
name to MT. I’ve learned to tolerate it. From her at least.
She digs me in the ribs, and I shake my head in exasperation at
her. We’re chalk and cheese – another phrase I hate. What does it
even mean? But somehow our friendship has worked for the last
fourteen years, so I guess it will survive a few more.
It was a big decision, choosing to go to university together. I will
always worry that secretly Summer may have wanted to go her own
way and get some distance from me, but she’d never admit it.
Hence how we’re sitting here together at Santa Catalina University,
being ‘warmly welcomed’ by the dean of students, who has in fact
given me no welcome gift whatsoever.
We’re a long way from our home in the U.K., but Summer’s
parents were SCU alumni and they desperately wanted their one and
only child to follow in their footsteps. I just sort of tagged along for
the ride. My parents don’t give enough of a fuck about me to care
about letting me move more than 5,000 miles across the globe. I
guess when they decided to name me Malia, some of the many
meanings being ‘wished for child’, ‘beloved’, ‘exalted one’ they hadn’t
anticipated that I would be such a massive disappointment. I guess
‘sea of bitterness’ ended up being much more fitting.
I’m drawn back into the room by the noise, the buzz of everyone
around me. It’s all very distracting. I shoot Summer a pained
expression, and she gives me a sympathetic nod in response.
Relieved to have her blessing, I slip my earbuds in and use my
smartwatch to start my relaxation playlist. Although, I have to
seriously debate just how smart my watch is. I have an IQ of over
130, and a piece of metal and plastic on my wrist is somehow
considered ‘smart’? I’m not convinced.
The second the opening bars of House of Pain’s ‘Jump Around’
pounds into my skull, the tension begins to bleed from my knotted
muscles.
I can’t abide crowds. Or new places. New people. Strangers.
Noise. Touching...a lot of stuff really. Even as the room falls silent,
everyone avidly listening to the dean, I cannot tune everyone’s noise
out. It’s like an internal itch that’s just out of reach.
Now, metaphors and idioms I may hate. But I love a good simile.
When I struggle to express my thoughts or interpret the world
around me, drawing comparisons really helps.
My parents had me tested and labelled, before promptly
discarding me as less than the perfection they demanded.
Autistic.
Some people like to say that everyone is a little bit autistic –
maybe that’s true, it is a spectrum after all – but I don’t think I am.
My brain just works incredibly differently to everyone else. It
manifests itself in a similar way to a lot of autistic traits. But that
doesn’t explain the rest of it.
The hearing voices in my head.
No, I’m not Schizophrenic (my mother had me tested, many
times). Actually, I’m not sure if that particular negative verdict was a
blessing or a curse. I’m sure she would have loved to have an official
excuse to lock me away somewhere, but unfortunately my actual
diagnosis would just label her a monster if she did.
I guess I don’t hear voices in my head per se...more, I can hear
the thoughts of everyone around me.
And it fucking sucks.
Yes, I know that sounds crazy.
And that also fucking sucks.
Nervously, I bite my thumb nail. It’s so distracting. I want to
concentrate on the dean’s words – annoying metaphors and
platitudes aside – but I can’t.
Sighing audibly, Summer reaches over and slips her hand into
mine, giving me a reassuring squeeze. Again, she’s about the only
person in the world whose touch I will tolerate. It helps a little, but
not a lot. It’s always hard in new places, around new people, but it’ll
get easier with time and familiarity. I hope.
I switch my music to white noise to try and drown out the
shuffling sounds surrounding me and attempt to focus on the dean’s
false platitudes.
I really do try.
But someone arrives late and kicks the back of my chair as they
take the seat behind me. Unamused, I turn to glare at the person
who’s just catapulted me forwards. I’m met with a hard ‘zero fucks
given’ stare. He doesn’t apologise or even look embarrassed. His
unashamed arrogance severely detracts from the beauty of his
perfect bloody face.
“What?” he snaps when I fail to turn around from my twisted
position so that I can stare at him.
“You kicked me.”
“No I didn’t.”
I frown. Is this guy for real?
I mean sure, he’s built like a wall so I probably shouldn’t be
picking fights with him. I don’t mean he looks like a small garden
wall either. He’s built like the great freaking wall of China or
something, because this guy is so huge he’s blocking the light from
the door, which he left open. And he’s got me thinking in similes and
metaphors. Ugh. I’m all kinds of messed up now.
“Erm, yes. You did,” I tell him. Just apologise already. Even if he
doesn’t mean it. It’s the polite thing to do. It’s a societal construct,
and I have a love hate relationship with those. Just do the right
thing!
“No. I kicked your chair. Not you.” He smirks at me, slate grey
eyes twinkling, and I instantly hate him. Because he’s right.
My mouth gapes like a gasping fish as I try desperately to form
some kind of comeback when he smirks at me again – holy crap he
is sexy when he does that – and reaches out to tug a lock of my
white blonde hair.
His huge busted up knuckles graze my jawline. I freeze. A
stranger is touching me.
A. Stranger. Is. Touching. Me.
Summer turns and gives me a look of concern, knowing that this
is the time I’d normally start freaking the fuck out. I was suspended
from primary school on my very first day for punching a boy who
touched me. I was four.
But…the only thing worse than being touched by a total stranger,
no matter how handsome, is unexpectedly liking it.
Silence envelopes me in a warming embrace, more comforting
than any weighted blanket or white noise machine. I know. I’ve tried
them all. My eyes widen in wonder and my lips form an ‘O’ of
surprise. When this guy...this sexy, intimidating, maddening
stranger...when he touches me, all the noise stops. Disappears, like
it was never there to begin with.
I don’t remember the last time I sat in a crowd and heard total
silence. I sigh in sheer bliss, melting down into my seat as I sink
deeper into peace.
The arrogant asshole looks insufferably smug. Does he think my
contented sigh is from his touch?
Disgusted, I huff and turn my back on him, but that still doesn’t
stop him leaning forward once more to tug on my hair again. I grit
my teeth and growl but don’t give him the dignity of a response.
 Especially when he stretches out in the row behind me, crossing
his legs underneath my seat so that his foot knocks against mine. I
feel like I should stamp on his toes, or at the very least ask him to
move, but with the press of his ankle against mine, the silence
remains. And I’m too weak, too intoxicated by it, too selfish to give it
up. So I sit there, with my playlist on pause, able to actually listen to
the dean. Able to breathe. Able to think.
It’s heaven.
But all too soon it’s over and everyone is packing up, making
noise, and moving out. Summer waits until the worst of the crowds
are gone, knowing that I’ll be upset if we get caught in the press of
strangers, before helping me to my feet. Arrogant asshole lack-of-
personal-foot-space-guy is already gone, and I’m distracted by his
absence. So much so that when Summer suggests we go and get a
drink, I automatically agree without even trying to think of an
excuse.
TWO
 MALIA-TARNI

“Come on already, MT!” Summer moans, tugging me through way

too many people. Strangers bump my arm, barge my shoulder,
elbow my boobs and I’m sure some creep even touches my ass. He’s
damn lucky to still be breathing, and Summer knows it. It’s probably
why she’s leading me through the crowd so quickly. It would be
awful to be kicked out before school’s even begun because I stabbed
someone in the throat with a HB pencil. A sharp one.
“I really don’t want to do this, Sum,” I complain.
“Hush. When you decided to come here with me, you agreed to
give everything a go so that we could have an authentic college
experience!”
“Ugh. We’re at uni, not college,” I grumble, completely ignoring
the promise I made to placate her into letting me tag along to SCU.
“Not here. The Americans call university ‘college’ so suck it up
buttercup and start collecting freebies.”
“But I don’t want what they’re offering.” I frown as an overly
preppy blonde thrusts pamphlets and condoms right in my face. I
turn my nose up in disgust. No thank you.
“But it’s free! So you take it. Load up.” Summer reaches out and
takes the STI pamphlet and the condoms, stashing them in the SCU
tote we were all given as part of our welcome pack.
Freshers’ Fair – or god only knows what they call it over here – is
my idea of hell. There’s stalls set up everywhere advertising clubs,
societies and sororities. I’m absolutely one hundred percent not
interested in joining any—
“Oooooh, look MT! There’s a surfing club!” Summer grabs my
arm and does an excited little jump. Damn, she’s found my
weakness. “Let’s just check it out real quick!”
Before I can say a word, she’s pulling me over to a stall that’s
been set up from a longboard instead of the standard issue tables
that all the other clubs are using. I kinda like it, but I’m not telling
Summer that. She drags me right over to the stall and stares
expectantly at the guy behind the board, obviously waiting for some
sort of sales pitch or something.
The blond guy behind the table grins at Summer, looking every
bit a surf god – just without that awful, clichéd long hair. No, this
guy’s hair is short on the sides but just long enough on top to run
your fingers through. And it glistens like gold in the sun in a way
which is quite mesmerising.
“Well?” she demands. He raises a brow but doesn’t reply. He has
the most striking ocean blue eyes I’ve ever seen, and they’re
currently sparkling with mirth. “Aren’t you going to pitch your little
club to us?”
She pops her right hip and rests her hand on it like a true diva. I
internally cringe at her behaviour. We’re just so...different.
“May I take a leaflet please?” I say, pointing to where the tide
times are printed. It’s always useful to have a copy.
I’ve surfed since I could stand, although admittedly I did start on
a bodyboard. Once I could handle that though, I shifted to a
longboard and have never looked back. Since I was a pre-teen, I hit
the waves at least four times a week. My parents didn’t care, so long
as I was gone and out of their way. I’ve ridden everything from a
five foot two fish to a ten foot two gun, but my nine foot six, single
fin, custom made woody will always be my favourite. It’s perfect.
The ocean calls to me, bringing peace I’ve never really known.
Until today. Out there, with the roar of the waves, it’s too loud to
hear anything but my own thoughts. And sometimes I can’t even
hear them, which is a bonus. No, a blessing.
 I had to save like crazy to have my woody shipped out here from
back home. It’s due to arrive anytime now and in the meantime I’ve
been renting a mini mal from one of the local beach hut places, but
it’s not the same as having my own.
The blond surfer club guy gives me an appraising look but
doesn’t hand the leaflet over.
“You surf?” He raises a skeptical brow.
“Obviously. Why else would I be at your stand?”
“Does your friend surf?”
“No,” I say, just as Summer tries to flirt and claim she surfs ‘a
little’. Which is total crap. She can’t surf to save her life. She doesn’t
even like getting wet. Beaches are for lying on to tan in Summer’s
opinion.
“Well, why is she at my stall?”
“She’s with me.”
“Is she? It looked like she pulled you over here.”
“Whatever,” I scoff, annoyed. “Are you giving me the tide times or
not?”
“Don't you want to sign up for the club?”
“I can surf without belonging to some little club. What’re you
gonna do? Stop me using the whole ocean?”
“That may be true, but if you want the tide times, you’ll have to
leave your details.” He grins at me mischievously like he has some
ulterior motive, but I don’t have the energy to try to figure out what
that might be. I shake my head and huff at him.
“Fine,” I snap, grabbing the clipboard and pen, and scribbling
down my details. Done, I thrust the clipboard back at his chest,
snatch up my leaflet at long last, grab Summer’s hand and stomp
away.
“Catch ya in the water, Malia-Tarni,” the guy shouts playfully as
we walk away. I wish I’d left false details now. I’m meant to be
smart.
“I think he likes you,” Summer says excitedly.
I don’t reply. There’s really no need because she’s wrong. And
even if she wasn’t wrong, I’m not interested in some gorgeous, sexy
surfer with eyes like blue tourmaline and a smile which warms my
insides. I’m not.
“Ooooh, you like him too! You should totally join the surf club.”
“Why?”
“Because then you’ll see him again.”
“I don’t want to see him again.”
“Well, at least join the club to go surfing,” she counters.
“I can surf without a club keyring or bumper sticker or whatever
free crap they give you for signing up. I don’t need to pay dues to
surf. I have an entire ocean that lets me ride for free. Besides, the
ocean doesn’t discriminate.”
“MT, I think you’re missing the point.”
“Which is?”
“To make friends.”
“I have a friend. It’s you.”
“But these people will have things in common with you.”
“Like what?”
“Well, they’ll like surfing too. So you can hang out with like-
minded people.”
“I don’t want to hang out with like-minded people. People suck,
generally. If they have minds like mine, they’ll be unbearable.”
Summer shakes her head like she always does when I say
anything remotely negative – true – about myself. I ignore her, not
wanting a lecture on loving your best self or living your life or
whatever hippy touchy feely crap she wants to spout at me today.
“Okay. But we’re going to the party tonight, and you’re not
getting out of it.”
“Fine.”
“And you have to let me do your hair and makeup and choose
your outfit.”
“Hair, yes. Makeup, if I have to. Clothing? Absolutely not.”
“Fine.” She sighs. “Let’s go.”
“Go where?”
“To get ready of course!”
I look at her like she’s the crazy one.
“The party isn’t for hours,” I point out.
 “How long do you think getting ready will take?”
I know there’s a right and a wrong answer to this. I would go as
I am so the answer should be zero amount of time, but Summer
won’t like that. Quickly, I work out timings in my head. Taking into
account a shower, putting on clean clothes and doing hair and – yuk
– makeup, I estimate a generous half an hour. I round it up a little to
make Summer happy.
“Forty minutes?” I ask hopefully. She scoffs, and my face falls. “I
want to go for a surf. Please. It clears my head, and I need it after
all the chaos of today.” Summer isn’t buying my excuses. “The more
relaxed I am, the longer I’ll stay out later?”
“Fine. But you have to do shots with me. And we’re dying your
hair.”
“Okay,” I sigh. Summer grins triumphantly. She’s wanted to get
her hands on a box of dye and my long, white locks for years.
Suddenly I feel like I didn’t win this negotiation. “I’ll see you later,
yeah?”
“Two hours, MT. I mean it. It’s going to take ages to get you
ready for tonight, but I promise it’ll be epic.”
I grumble as I walk away, dodging excited freshers left, right and
centre. I don’t want tonight to be epic. The only epic things I like are
waves and naps.
THREE
 COVE

I stare at the quirky chick and her friend as they walk away. That
was the strangest Freshers’ Fair experience I’ve ever had, and there
have been plenty of weird moments to compete. This isn’t my first
rodeo.
I glance down again at the newest name scrawled on the
clipboard. Malia-Tarni. Unusual name for an unusual girl. I wonder if
the number she left was a dud. I program it into my phone for later,
then send a quick message to Reef that I’m taking off. He can come
down here and man the sign-up stall. Or not. I don’t care. We only
oversee the surf club for extra credit and to keep Vance off our
backs.
I grab my board, which is propped against a tree behind the
stand, and head off in the direction of Avalon Bay. If the new girl is
that eager to surf, she’s going to hit the nearest beach to be in the
water as quickly as possible. It’ll be a disaster; all the locals and surf
enthusiasts know that Shark Harbour and Ben Weston are the best
locations on the island to catch a decent wave.
New girl doesn’t know that though, so I’m pretty sure cutting her
off at the bay is the best bet. May as well see if she’s any good,
before I go sharing insider secrets about the best locations and
secret coves. Last thing anyone wants is a total rookie dropping in
on them or getting into trouble out there.
That said, she was pretty unlike most of the other girls I’ve had
visit the stall before. Sure, some are genuinely interested in the
sport, but most are only interested in my buddies and me. Spending
most of our time half naked, working out in the sun, sure gives the
ladies something to look at, but the new girl wasn’t looking at
anything I had on offer. Well, not beyond my surf times at least. She
seemed completely immune to my charms – which I’m not used to
at all. Did she not realise I was flirting with her? Or did she just not
care?
There’s a direct path from campus down into town and it cuts so
much time off taking the road route, even if it’s a bitch to walk back
up the steep slope with your board afterwards. Another reason why
I never surf down here. I wasn’t about to leave my beloved Betsy
behind though. My board goes everywhere with me.
Avalon Bay beach isn’t too crowded when I arrive. Tourist season
is dwindling out, most of the newbies are at the Freshers’ fair, and
the older students will already be hitting the bars lining the streets
of Avalon. Well, I know that’s where I’d be if I hadn't drawn the
short straw to man the sign-up desk this year.
A quick scan tells me my girl hasn’t arrived yet, so I walk a short
way down the beach, plant my board in the sand, and flop down to
watch the ocean.
I wait about twenty minutes, and I’m not gonna lie, I’m fairly
sure I dozed off for a minute or two, but when a shrill whistle brings
me round, I spot her. She’s snuck past me and is already out riding
the waves, and watching her move kinda makes me want to join her.
I’m not going to though. I have a much better view to check out her
talent – if she has any – from where I’m sitting.
The surf here is pretty shit, but she’s still managing to catch what
little there is easily enough, and within a couple of minutes of
watching her, two things are confirmed. First, she really can surf.
And she’s damn good at it too. Second, that means she really did
just want the tide times from me and not my number.
Which I’m oddly bummed out about.
It’s not like she’s the hottest chick I’ve ever laid eyes on or
anything ridiculous like that. More like, she’s perhaps the first to
show zero interest in me. I don’t like it one bit.
 Still, as pissed off as realising I’m not quite the god’s gift to
women that I thought I was should make me, I find myself
hypnotised watching the disinterested girl surf. She has an appeal I
can’t quite pinpoint, and it’s not just because her lack of attraction
towards me simply poses a challenge.
“Yo! Bro! Whatcha doin’ down here? Skiving?”
The arrival of my loud, obnoxious friend Bhodi disturbs me from
my thoughts.
“Piss off.”
“Oooh, someone’s tetchy today.” He sniggers.
I don’t bother to reply, but as he flops down on the sand beside
me, I lazily flick my arm out and backhand him in the balls. He
crashes down with an ‘ooof’ that makes me grin.
“What are you doing here?” I ask when I eventually manage to
drag my eyes from the chick surfing.
“The boss send you down here?” Bhodi asks, completely ignoring
my question.
“Nope. You?”
“Nah, came to see you.”
I turn to face him, and he grins at me. I don’t bother asking how
he knew where to find me, he’ll have just traced my phone. It’s only
supposed to be used for emergencies, but Bhodi is a law unto
himself. Fucker.
“What do you want, Bho?” I sigh.
“Nothin’.”
“But you just said—”
“Jeez, alright calm ya tits! Boss said to join you, Reef an’ him will
be here faster than blowing sprinkles off a cupcake.”
Great. So I’m stuck with Bhodi and his annoying-as-fuck
mannerisms and speech until Vance arrives and shuts him up.
I turn back to the ocean and locate my little surfer chick a bit
further out to sea. Her mistake, she won’t catch anything on this
side of the island that far out.
“What’s she doin’ surfin’ here? Surely the lack of other riders
would tell her it’s no good,” Bhodi asks, spying the girl I’m watching.
It gets my back up. I don’t want him looking at her.
 “Dunno. Seems to be doing alright though,” I reply dismissively.
If Bhodi gets wind that I’m interested in this chick, he’ll go after her
just to piss me off. And if I’m not her type, Bhodi just might well be.
Stupid big fucker. I might be a tanned, blond haired and blue eyed
surfer boy, but Bhodi is stacked. And – according to Bhodi at least –
chicks dig that.
“Nice to see you’re both working hard and strategising.”
“Fuck off.” I grin at Reef and flip him the bird, and he smirks right
back.
“You know,” the prof adds, standing over us with folded arms and
an unamused expression on his face. “He does have a point, Cove.
Have you even shortlisted potential marks?”
“Didn’t know that was my job.” I shrug.
“It’s all of our jobs until we have the target identified, and then
protecting her will become a full time job for all of us.”
“We know this. We’ve been over it a thousand times already. Find
the Star, protect the Star, save the world. Yadda yadda ya da,” Bhodi
complains.
“Well at least you listen in some classes,” the prof snipes.
“Oh fuck off. The only reason I’m resitting the year is so we have
a better chance of finding the Star this year.”
“You really reckon she’s gonna be a fresher?” I ask.
“Has to be. This is the final window of opportunity for her to
enrol. Unless she transfers in. It’s time.”
“And this is based on some...what, prophecy or sixth sense or
somethin’?” Bhodi questions.
“Something like that.” The prof is always evasive when it comes
to asking about his tip offs. We’ve learnt by now to just go with it.
“Right, so, where are we at?” Reef claps his hands together and
rubs them, eager to be getting on with things. I want to smack him
for being overly eager. As much as Bhodi annoys me, at least he’s
down for some fun. Reef and the prof are too uptight. All they care
about is work.
“There’s a party tonight—” the prof begins. Bhodi whoops as
Reef groans.
“There’s always a party,” he complains.
 “This is the first party of the year. All the freshmen will be there.
As will you guys. I want a list of potential targets on my desk first
thing tomorrow morning. Names, descriptions, photos if you can.”
“And how exactly are we supposed to get these details and
pictures at a damn party?” I grumble. I mean, I’m always down to
party, but this is work. School just started and I already want a
break.
“By any means necessary. Just don’t sleep with the damn mark,”
the prof snaps. Bhodi sniggers. He couldn’t keep his dick in his pants
if his life depended on it. And, like me, he’s probably wondering
when the prof last got some if he’s already this uptight.
“Gonna be a long semester,” Bhodi teases.
“Glad he’s not my professor,” I mutter back. That wipes the smug
smile off Bho’s face. I grin. Winding him up always makes me feel
better.
“What exactly are we looking for, boss?” Reef asks. “Can you give
us anything to go off?”
The prof sighs.
“She’ll be striking. Beautiful, of course. Different from all the
others. You’ll probably find yourself drawn to her, but unable to
explain why. It might even seem like fate keeps drawing you
together.”
“So why do we have to look for her? You make it sound like she’ll
come to us,” Bhodi complains. I mean, he has a point.
“Because the matter is time sensitive, you fool. We don’t have
months to waste with this. We need to identify the Star as soon as
possible so that we can do our job properly.”
“Jeez, chill out,” Bho grumbles under his breath. The prof shoots
him a pissed off glare but lets it slide. For once.
“Right, well, if we’re done here, I have a party to get ready for,” I
say.
“Strategise,” the prof barks, turning and walking away.
“Huh?”
“He means, we need to make a plan. For how we’re going to
tackle this tonight,” Reef explains. “You think he’s tetchy now?
Imagine how he’ll be if we present matching files tomorrow. We
need a strategy for how we’re going to approach these girls tonight.”
“Let them come to us,” Bhodi chuckles and waves a hand
dismissively.
“Bho, you take the redheads, yeah,” I propose. “Reef you can
take the brunettes.”
“And you?”
“I’ll take the blondes,” I reply, my eyes glued to the surfer chick
with the brightest, whitest blonde hair I’ve ever seen.
“What about the weirdos?” Bhodi asks.
“Weirdos?”
“Yeah, you know, the ones with no hair or funny coloured hair
and that?”
“Free range,” I mumble back, not really paying attention until
what he said sinks in a moment later. “And you can’t say that shit.”
“Whatever. Snowflakes are too easily offended these days
anyway.”
“Show some fucking respect,” I snap before immediately
returning my gaze to the ocean.
“You know, if you’re that desperate for a surf, you have time. Just
go out there,” Reef says, watching me carefully. He’s always
watching, observing closely and taking everything in. Reef’s a man
of very few words unless he’s talking business. I never really know
what’s going on in his head.
“Nah, it’s a shit location. Everyone knows that.”
“Except her.”
“Yeah, well, she’s got lucky today. Won’t make a habit of it.” I
shrug dismissively and attempt to look away, but I can see an epic
wave building behind her.
Has she seen it? Will she be safe? I hold my breath and only just
manage to stop myself from getting to my feet to watch her better.
She glances over her shoulder and quickly, smoothly paddles into
place. And not a moment too soon, because the wave begins to
break in an A-frame around her, larger than any of the others she’s
caught today. Larger than anything we usually get in the bay.
 I blink and she’s on her feet, riding the break through the tube,
towards the face of the wave on the right. She’s twisting and curling
her board effortlessly, reading the wave like an absolute pro. It takes
years of practice to be able to do that, and even then many don’t
manage it.
She looks at home, at one with the ocean, and I can’t tear my
eyes away. Colour me intrigued. Captivated.
Reef whistles appreciatively.
“She’s good. I’d be impressed with moves like that out at Ben
West’s, but here in the bay?” He whistles again. “Wow.”
“You should recruit her to the club,” Bhodi tells me.
“Yeah…I might,” I reply evasively. I don’t like them looking at my
girl, so I’m certainly not about to tell them that my girl’s already
signed up to surf with us.
I mean, she’s not my girl yet. Technically. But I plan to make her
my girl sooner than she knows. And tonight’s party is the perfect
place to start.
Who said I can’t mix business with pleasure?
FOUR
 MALIA-TARNI

“Do you like it?” Summer asks hopefully over the sound of Kesha’s
‘Tik Tok’ pounding from my stereo. Not my choice of music, but
catchy nonetheless. Summer declared that as she’s the artist
tonight, she gets to control the music. I didn’t argue with her. I
never do.
She gives me a nervous grin in the mirror over the top of my
head, but I can tell she’s secretly smug. After badgering me to dye
my hair for years, I finally caved and let her win, and she knows I
look good. I thought she was going to put some highlights in or
something, not spend hours turning it even lighter so that she could
then turn it into a bright, vibrant rainbow.
Well, okay, maybe it’s not a rainbow rainbow because it’s not
seven different colours, but I do now resemble a mermaid. A
seductive mermaid, with my makeup also done dramatically by
Summer.
Hence the sort of speechlessness now. I don’t look like me. But I
don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. I continue to stare at
myself in the mirror, entranced by my new look.
My roots are a bright teal, fading to electric blue and purple, with
pink ends. I love it. It looks badass, makes me feel stronger. Like I’m
giving a giant middle finger to my mother who would never let me
cut or dye it.
“Come on, MT. It’s party time.”
 “I mean, isn’t it kinda late? My makeover took longer than
expected, so it’s probably not worth bothering now. I bet it’s winding
down.” I eye my bed hopefully.
No chance.
“It’s not even eleven. We’ll still be classed as early!” Summer
cries. I grumble as she pulls on her stilettos, but quiet when she
tosses a leather jacket at me.
“I like this.”
“Keep it,” she says dismissively. “And get your ass to the party.”
I scowl at her, but I’m definitely keeping the jacket. I may love
the jacket, and the hair, but the outfit makes me squirm. It’s so…
short. And fitted. And not like anything I would ever wear in a
million years.
Summer links her arm through mine and pulls me out of our
shared dorm room. We join the queue of students waiting to catch
the shuttle bus into town, and I can’t help but notice how
overdressed everyone seems to be for a beach party. Although,
judging by the skimpy garments draped over the girls surrounding
me, I should probably use the term underdressed. There’s a bubble
of excited chatter and I just know that I’m surrounded by first years.
I can’t imagine second or third years being this excited by a party.
The ride to the bay doesn’t take long – thankfully because the
chatter is unbearable – and the bus drops us off right beside
Descanso Beach Club where Summer tells me the party’s taking
place.
“Club? I thought you were taking me to a beach party?” I ask
Summer, frowning.
“It is. The club owns the beach, it’s private. But someone hired it
for tonight’s event.”
“Whoa. Sounds posh.”
“You’re going to love it,” she assures me.
I’m sceptical, but follow her through the club to the cabana-lined
golden sands. Tiki torches and fairy lights decorate the space, giving
it a calming vibe. She’s right…I do like it. Maybe I should get some
fairy lights for my room. Summer was moaning at me because I was
‘jammy’ – Summer speak for lucky – enough to snag one of the few
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 “I do not seem to be in very good trim for doing that,” said Ewen,
and again he gave the shadow of a smile. “But, since we speak so
frankly, I cannot think that our cause is lost while the Prince and
Lochiel remain at large. We may be scattered, but—— The Prince
has not been captured, has he?” he asked sharply, having evidently
seen the change which the mention, not of the Prince but of Lochiel,
had brought to Keith’s face.
“No, no, nor is it known where he is.”
“Thank God! And Lochiel?”
Keith shrank inwardly. Now it was coming. His momentary
hesitation had a cruel effect on Ewen, who dragged himself to his
elbow. “Windham,” he said hoarsely and imploringly, “surely he’s not
. . . what have you heard? . . . My God, don’t keep me in suspense
like this! If he’s captured tell me!”
“You mistake me,” said Keith, nearly as hoarsely. “He has not
been captured. . . . I am sorry if I misled you.”
Ewen had relapsed again, and put a hand over his eyes. It was
fairly clear that his Chief’s fate was even more to him than that of his
Prince. And now that odious information must be imparted.
Keith tried to gain a little time first. “But Lochiel was wounded in
the battle. Did you know that?”
Ewen removed his hand. “Yes, and have thanked God for it,
since it caused him to be early carried off the field.”
“You saw him fall?”
“No, but afterwards we met with some of the clan, and got news
of him.”
“That must have been a great relief to you,” murmured the
Englishman. Suddenly he was possessed with a desire to find out
how much Ewen knew about Lochiel. Half of him hoped that he knew
very little—why, he could not have said—but the other half thought: If
he knows a certain amount, Guthrie will take better care of him. “But
you can have had no news of your Chief since then?” he hazarded.
“No,” answered the Highlander. “There has been no opportunity.”
Keith looked at him nervously. Ardroy was lying gazing upwards;
perhaps he could see that peering star. Would it be possible to
advise him, if he found himself in Major Guthrie’s custody, to pretend
to have definite knowledge of Lochiel’s whereabouts, even though
that were not the case? Dare he suggest such a thing? It was not
one-half as offensive as what he had already suggested to Guthrie!
Ewen himself broke the silence. “Since we speak as friends,” he
said, his eyes travelling to the open doorway “—and how could I
regard you as an enemy after this?—I may tell you that I have, none
the less, the consolation of knowing where Lochiel is at this moment
—God bless him and keep him safe!”
Keith’s mouth felt suddenly dry. His unspoken question was
answered, and the frankness of the acknowledgment rather took his
breath away. Yet certainly, if Ardroy was as frank with Guthrie it might
serve him well.
“You know where Lochiel is?” he half stammered.
Ewen shut his eyes and smiled, an almost happy smile. “I think
he is where (please God) he will never be found by any redcoat.”
“You mean that he has gone overseas?” asked Keith, almost
without thinking.
Ardroy’s eyes opened quickly, and for a second, as he looked up
at the speaker, there was a startled expression in them. “You are not
expecting me to tell you——”
“No, no,” broke in Keith, very hastily indeed. “Of course not! But I
should be glad if he were so gone, for on my soul there is none of
your leaders whom I should be so sorry to see captured.”
Yet with the words he got up and went to the doorway. Yes,
Ardroy had the secret; and he wished, somehow, that he had not.
The moment could no longer be postponed when he must tell him of
his conversation with Guthrie, were it only to put him on his guard.
Bitterly as he was ashamed, it must be done.
He stood in the doorway a moment, choosing the words in which
he should do it, and they were hatefully hard to choose. Hateful, too,
was it to leave Ardroy here helpless, but there was no alternative,
since he could not possibly take him with him. Yet if Lachlan
returned, and in time, and especially if he returned with assistance,
he might be able to get his foster-brother away somewhere. Then
Ewen Cameron would never fall into Guthrie’s hands. In that case
what use to torment him with prospects of an interrogatory which
might never take place, and which could only be very short?
 No; it was mere cowardice to invent excuses for silence; he must
do it. He came back very slowly to the pallet.
“I must tell you——” he began in a low voice, and then stopped.
Ewen’s lashes were lying on his sunken cheek, and did not lift at the
address. It was plain that he had fallen anew into one of those
sudden exhausted little slumbers, and had not heard even the
sentence which was to herald Keith’s confession. It would be
unnecessarily cruel to rouse him in order to make it. One must wait
until he woke naturally, as he had done from the last of these dozes.
Keith took the lantern off the stool and sat down there. And soon
the wounded man’s sleep became full of disjointed scraps of talk,
mostly incoherent; at one time he seemed to think that he was out
after the deer on the hills with Lachlan; then he half woke up and
muttered, “But it’s we that are the deer now,” and immediately fell
into another doze in which he murmured the name of Alison.
Gradually, however, his slumber grew more sound; he ceased to
mutter and to make little restless movements, and in about five
minutes he was in the deep sleep of real repose, which he had not
known, perhaps, for many nights—a sleep to make a watcher
thankful.
But Keith Windham, frowning, sat watching it with his chin on his
hand, conscious that his time was growing very short, that it was
light outside, and almost light in this dusky hovel, and that the pool of
lantern-shine on the uneven earth floor looked strange and sickly
there. He glanced at his watch. No, indeed, he ought not to delay
any longer. He took up and blew out the lantern, went outside and
roused Mackay, washed the bowl and, filling it with water, placed it
and the rest of the food and wine within reach.
His movements had not roused the sleeper in the least. For the
last time Keith stooped over him and slipped a hand round his wrist.
He knew nothing of medicine, but undoubtedly the beat there was
stronger. It would be criminal to wake Ardroy merely in order to tell
him something unpleasant. There came to the soldier a momentary
idea of scribbling a warning on a page of his pocket-book and
leaving this on the sleeper’s breast; but it was quite possible that the
first person to read such a document would be Guthrie himself.
 He rearranged the plaid carefully, and stood for a moment longer
looking at the fugitive where he lay at his feet, his head sunk in the
dried fern. And he remembered the hut at Kinlochiel last summer,
where he had done much the same thing. He had talked somewhat
earlier on that occasion, had he not, of obligation and repayment;
well, he had more than repaid. Ewen Cameron owed him his life—
owed it him, very likely, twice over. Yet Keith was conscious again
that no thought of obligation had drawn him to dash in front of those
muskets yesterday, nor had the idea of a debt really brought him
back now. What then? . . . Absurd! He was a man who prided himself
on being unencumbered with friends. Moreover, Ewen Cameron was
an enemy.
It was strange, then, with what reluctance, with what half-hopes,
half-apprehensions, he got into the saddle and rode away under the
paling stars, leaving his enemy to rescue or capture; very strange,
since that enemy was likewise a rebel, that he should so greatly
have desired the former.
 IV
‘YOUR DEBTOR, EWEN CAMERON’
“So, in this snare which holds me and appals me,
Where honour hardly lives nor loves remain . . .”
—H. Belloc. On Battersea Bridge.
 CHAPTER I

The mist shrouded every mountain-top, sagging downwards in some

places like the roof of a tent, and in others, where a perpetual
draught blew down a corrie, streaming out like smoke. How different
from last week, when, cold as it was up there, the top of the
Corryarrick Pass had presented to Major Windham’s eyes a view
from Badenoch to the hills of Skye. To-day, recrossing it, and looking
back, he could hardly distinguish through the greyish-white blanket
more than three or four of its many traverses winding away below
him.
But here, on the lower levels of the mountain road, where it
prepared to debouch into that which ran along the Great Glen, this
clogging mist had become a fine and most penetrating rain,
bedewing every inch of the rider’s cloak and uniform, his hat, the
edges of his wig, his very eyebrows and lashes, and insinuating itself
down his collar. Major Windham did not know which was the more
objectionable form of moisture, and wished it were late enough in the
day to cease exposing himself to either, and to put up for the night at
Fort Augustus, which he should reach in another twenty minutes or
so. But it was still too early for that, and, bearer as he was of a
despatch from Lord Albemarle to the Duke of Cumberland, he must
push on beyond Fort Augustus before nightfall; must, indeed, reach
the only halting-place between that spot and Inverness, the tiny inn
known, from Wade’s occupation of it when he was making the road,
as the General’s Hut. However, he intended to stop at Fort Augustus
to bait the horses—and to make an enquiry.
It was six days since he had left Guthrie’s camp, and he was not
altogether surprised to-day to find it gone, but, to judge from the litter
lying about, only recently gone. There was, therefore, no one to give
him news of Ardroy, but he was sure that, if the Jacobite had been
made prisoner, he would have been sent or taken to Fort Augustus,
and he could get news of him there.
That night in the shieling, just a week ago, seemed to Keith much
farther off than that, and the emotions he had known then to have
lost their edge. ‘Gad, what a fit of philanthropy I had on me that day!’
he reflected. If ‘Hangman Hawley’ came to know of it how he would
sneer at him, and the rest of the staff, too. Luckily they would not
know. So consoling himself, and cursing the rain anew, he came to
Fort Augustus, or rather to what remained of it. Its Highland captors
who, during their attack upon it, had partially demolished the new
fort, had, on the summons to face Cumberland, blown up and fired
most of the residue. A small temporary garrison had been sent there
after the victory to secure the abandoned stronghold for the
Government; but it had now been taken possession of by a larger
force in the shape of the Earl of Loudoun’s regiment, under the Earl
himself, and eighteen ‘independent companies’. These had only
marched in a few hours before, in consequence of which influx the
whole place was in a state of great turmoil.
There was so little accommodation in the ruined fort that a small
village of tents was being erected in the meadows by the mouth of
the Tarff, and between the confusion of camp-pitching and the fact
that nearly everyone whom he encountered was a new-comer, Keith
found it difficult to discover who was or had been responsible for
prisoners sent in before Lord Loudoun’s arrival. He did, however,
elicit the information that Major Guthrie’s detachment was now
somewhere on the road between Fort Augustus and Inverness. And
at last, though he did not succeed in seeing anybody directly
responsible, he was told that a wounded Cameron, said to be the
head of one of the cadet branches of the clan, had been captured
the previous week and sent in by that very detachment, and that he
had been given proper care and was progressing favourably.
That was all Keith wanted to know for the moment, and he
delayed no longer. A certain vague disquiet which had teased him
during the past week about Guthrie’s possible treatment of his
prisoner was allayed. For the rest, he had already made his plans
about Ardroy. It was at Inverness, with Cumberland, that he could
really do Ewen service, especially if the Duke did take him on to his
personal staff. To His Royal Highness he could then represent what
he owed to the captured rebel, and, before he himself returned with
the Commander-in-Chief to Flanders, he might very well have the
satisfaction of knowing that the object of his ‘philanthropy’ had been
set at liberty.
As he turned away from Fort Augustus, where the vista of Loch
Ness was completely blotted out in rain, and addressed himself to
the long steep climb up the Inverness road, Keith’s thoughts went
back to the Earl of Albemarle in Perth, craving like himself to get
overseas once more—whence, though colonel of the Coldstream
Guards, he had come to serve as a volunteer under Cumberland.
His lordship, who had, moreover, greatly preferred commanding the
front line in the recent battle to his present post with the Hessian
troops in Perth, had lamented his situation quite openly to
Cumberland’s messenger; he detested Scotland, he announced, and
had fears, from a sentence in the despatch which that messenger
had delivered to him, that he might be appointed to succeed Hawley
in this uncongenial country. Having thus, somewhat unwisely,
betrayed his sentiments to Major Windham, he was more or less
obliged to beg his discretion, in promising which Keith had revealed
his own fellow-feeling about the North. When they parted, therefore,
Lord Albemarle had observed with much graciousness that if this
horrid fate of succeeding General Hawley should overtake him, he
would not forget Major Windham, though he supposed that the latter
might not then be in Scotland for him to remember. No; Keith, though
grateful for his lordship’s goodwill, distinctly hoped that he would not.
He trusted to be by then in a dryer climate and a country less
afflicted with steep roads . . . less afflicted also with punitive
measures, though, since Perth was not Inverness, he was not so
much dominated by those painful impressions of brutality as he had
been a week ago.
The greater part of the lengthy and tiresome ascent from the level
of Loch Ness was now over, and Keith and Dougal Mackay found
themselves again more or less in the region of mist, but on a flat
stretch of road with a strip of moorland on one hand. Water
glimmered ahead on the left; it was little Loch Tarff, its charms
dimmed by the weather. Keith just noticed its presence, tightened his
reins, and, trotting forward on the welcome level, continued his
dreams about the future.
 Twenty-five yards farther, and these were brought abruptly to a
close. Without the slightest warning there came a sharp report on his
right, and a bullet sped in front of him, so close that it frightened his
horse. Himself considerably startled too, he tried simultaneously to
soothe the beast and to tug out a pistol from his holster. Meanwhile,
Dougal Mackay, with great promptitude and loud Gaelic cries, was
urging his more docile steed over the heather towards a boulder
which he evidently suspected of harbouring the marksman.
As soon as he could get his horse under control Keith also made
over the strip of moorland, and arrived in time to see a wild, tattered,
tartan-clad figure, with a musket in its hands, slide down from the top
of the boulder, drop on to hands and knees among the heather and
bogmyrtle, and begin to wriggle away like a snake. Major Windham
levelled his pistol and fired, somewhat at random, for his horse was
still plunging; and the Highlander collapsed and lay still. Keith trotted
towards him; the man had already abandoned his musket and lay in
a heap on his side. The Englishman was just going to dismount
when shouts from Dougal Mackay, who had ridden round the
boulder, stayed him. “Do not pe going near him, sir; the man will not
pe hit whateffer!” And as this statement coincided with Keith’s own
impression that his bullet had gone wide, he stayed in the saddle
and covered the would-be assassin with his other pistol, while
Mackay, who certainly did not lack courage, slid off his own horse
and came running.
And it was even as Mackay had said. At the sound of the feet
swishing through the heather the heap of dirty tartan lying there was
suddenly, with one bound, a living figure which, leaping up dirk in
hand, rushed straight, not at the dismounted orderly, but at the
officer on the horse. Had Keith not had his pistol ready he could
hardly have saved himself, mounted though he was, from a deadly
thrust. The man was at his horse’s head when he fired. . . . This time
he did not miss; he could not. . . .
“I suppose I have blown his head to pieces,” he said next
moment, with a slightly shaken laugh.
“Inteet, I will pe thinking so,” replied Mackay, on his knees in the
heather. “But it will pe pest to make sure.” And he put his hand to his
own dirk.
 “No, no!” commanded Keith, as he bent from the saddle, for
somehow the idea of stabbing a dead man, even a potential
murderer, was repugnant to him. “It is not necessary; he was killed
instantly.”
There could be small doubt of that. One side of the Highlander’s
bearded face was all blackened by the explosion, and as he lay
there, his eyes wide and fixed, the blood ran backwards through his
scorched and tangled hair like a brook among waterweeds. The ball
had struck high up on the brow. It came to Keith with a sense of
shock that the very torn and faded philabeg which he wore was of
the Cameron tartan. He was sorry. . . .
Deterred, unwillingly, from the use of his dirk, the zealous Mackay
next enquired whether he should not put the cateran’s body over his
horse and bring him to Inverness, so that, dead or alive, he could be
hanged at the Cross there as a warning.
“No, leave him, poor devil,” said Keith, turning his horse. “No
need for that; he has paid the price already. Let him lie.” He felt
curiously little resentment, and wondered at the fact.
Dougal Mackay, however, was not going to leave the musket
lying too.
“Ta gunna—she is Sassenach,” he announced, examining it.
“Take it, then,” said Keith. “Come, we must get on to the
General’s Hut before this mist grows thicker.”
So they rode away, leaving the baffled assailant staring into
vacancy, his dirk still gripped in his hand, and under his head the
heather in flower before its time.
Once more the road mounted; then fell by a long steep gradient.
The General’s Hut, a small and very unpretentious hostelry, of the
kind known as a ‘creel house’, was at Boleskine, down on its lower
levels, and before Keith reached it he could see that its outbuildings
were occupied by soldiers. They were probably Major Guthrie’s
detachment. Indeed, as he dismounted, a uniformed figure which he
knew came round the corner of the inn, but it stopped dead on
seeing him, then, with no further sign of recognition, turned abruptly
and disappeared again. It was Lieutenant Paton.
So these were Guthrie’s men, and he could hear more of Ardroy.
But he would have preferred to hear it from Paton rather than from
Guthrie, and wished that he had been quick enough to stop that
young man.
The first person whom Keith saw when he entered the dirty little
parlour was Guthrie himself—or rather, the back of him—just sitting
down to table.
“Come awa’, Foster, is that you?” he called out. “Quick noo; the
brose is getting cauld.” Receiving no response he turned round.
“Dod! ’tis Major Windham!”
Keith came forward perforce. “Good evening, Major Guthrie. Yes,
I am on my way back to Inverness.”
“Back frae Perth, eh?” commented Guthrie. “By the high road this
time, then, I’m thinkin’. Sit ye doun, Major, and Luckie whate’er she
ca’s hersel’ shall bring anither cover. Ah, here comes Foster—let me
present Captain Foster of ma regiment tae ye, Major Windham.
Whaur’s yon lang-leggit birkie of a Paton?”
“Not coming to supper, sir,” replied Captain Foster, saluting the
new arrival. “He begs you to excuse him; he has a letter to write, or
he is feeling indisposed—I forget which.”
“Indeed!” said Guthrie, raising his sandy eyebrows. “He was weel
eneugh and free o’ correspondence a while syne. However, it’s an ill
wind—— Ye ken the rest. Major Windham can hae his place and his
meat.”
Keith sat down, with as good a grace as he could command, at
the rough, clothless table. This Foster was presumably the officer
whose bed he had occupied in the camp, a man more of Guthrie’s
stamp than of Paton’s, but better mannered. Lieutenant Paton’s
excuse for absence, coupled with his abrupt disappearance, was
significant, but why should the young man not wish to meet Major
Keith Windham? Perhaps because the latter had got him into trouble
after all over his ‘philanthropy’.
Between the three the talk ran on general topics, and it was not
until the meal was half over that Guthrie suddenly said:
“Weel, Major, I brocht in yer Cameron frien’ after ye left.”
Keith murmured that he was glad to hear it.
“But I got little for ma pains,” continued Guthrie, pouring himself
out a glass of wine—only his second, for, to Keith’s surprise, he
appeared to be an abstemious man. He set down the bottle and
looked hard at the Englishman. “But ye yersel’ were nae luckier, it
seems.”
Keith returned his look. “I am afraid that I do not understand.”
“Ye see, I ken ye went back tae the shieling yon nicht.”
“Yes, I imagined that you would discover it,” said Keith coolly. “I
trust that you received my message of apology for departing without
taking leave of you?”
“Yer message of apology!” repeated Major Guthrie. “Ha, ha!
Unfortunately ye didna apologise for the richt offence! Ye suld hae
apologised for stealing a march on me ahint ma back. ’Twas a pawky
notion, yon, was it no’, Captain Foster?”
“I must repeat that I am completely in the dark as to your
meaning, Major Guthrie!” said Keith in growing irritation.
“Isna he the innocent man! But I forgie ye, Major—since ye
gained naething by gangin’ back.”
“Gained!” ejaculated Keith. “What do you mean, sir? I did not go
back to the shieling to gain anything. I went——”
“Aye, I ken what ye said ye gaed for,” interrupted Guthrie with a
wink. “’Twas devilish canny, as I said, and deceived the rebel himsel’
for a while. All yon ride in the nicht juist tae tak’ him food and dress
his wounds! And when ye were there tendin’ him sae kindly ye never
speired aboot Lochiel and what he kennt o’ him, and whaur the chief
micht be hidin’, did ye?—Never deny it, Major, for the rebel didna
when I pit it tae him!”
“You devil!” exclaimed Keith, springing up. “What did you say to
him about me?”
Guthrie kept his seat, and pulled down Captain Foster, who,
murmuring “Gentlemen, gentlemen!” had risen too. “Nae need tae be
sae distrubel’d, Captain Foster; I’m na. That’s for them that hae
uneasy consciences. What did I say tae him? Why, I tellt him the
truth, Major Windham: why ye set such store on saving his life, and
how ye thocht he micht be persuaded tae ‘drap a hint’ aboot Lochiel.
Forbye he didna believe that at first.”
Keith caught his breath. “You told him those lies . . . to his face . .
. and he believed . . .” He could get no farther.
“Lies, were they?” asked Guthrie, leaning over the table. “Ye
ne’er advised me tae bring him into camp tae ‘complete ma
knowledge’? Eh, I hae ye there fine! Aweel, I did ma best, Major
Windham; nane can dae mair. But I doot he has the laugh of us, the
callant, for he tellt me naething, either by hints or ony ither gait, a’
the time I had him in ma care. So I e’en sent him wi’ a bit report tae
Fort Augustus, and there he is the noo, as ye may have heard, if ye
speired news o’ him when ye came by.”
Keith had turned very white. “I might have known that you would
play some dirty trick or other!” he said, and flung straight out of the
room.
Fool, unspeakable fool that he was not to have foreseen
something of this kind with a man of Guthrie’s stamp! He had had
moments of uneasiness at the thought of Ardroy’s probable interview
with him, but he had never anticipated anything quite so base as
this. “Take me to Lieutenant Paton at once!” he said peremptorily to
the first soldier he came across.
The man led him towards a barn looming through the mist at a
little distance. The door was ajar, and Keith went in, to see a dimly lit
space with trusses of straw laid down in rows for the men, and at
one end three horses, his own among them, with a soldier watering
them. The young lieutenant, his hands behind his back, was
watching the process. Keith went straight up to him.
“Can I have a word with you alone, Mr. Paton?”
The young man stiffened and flushed; then, with obvious
reluctance, ordered the soldier out. And when the man with his
clanging buckets had left the building, Paton stood rather nervously
smoothing the flank of one of the horses—not at all anxious to talk.
“Mr. Paton,” said Keith without preamble, “what devil’s work went
on in your camp over the prisoner from Ben Loy?” And then, at sight
of the look on Paton’s face, he cried out, “Good God, man, do you
think that I had a hand in it, and is that why you would not break
bread with me?”
Lieutenant Paton looked at the ground. “I . . . indeed I found it
hard to believe that you could act so, when you seemed so
concerned for the prisoner, but——”
“In Heaven’s name, let us have this out!” cried Keith. “What did
Major Guthrie say to Mr. Cameron? He appears to have tried to
make him believe an infamous thing of me—that I went back to the
shieling that night merely in order to get information out of him!
Surely he did not succeed in making him think so—even if he
succeeded with you? . . . Answer me, if you please!”
The younger man seemed very ill at ease. “I cannot say, sir, what
Mr. Cameron believed about you in the end. He certainly refused,
and indignantly, to believe it at first.”
“He cannot have believed it!” said Keith passionately. “‘In the
end’? How long, then, did Major Guthrie have him in his custody?”
“He kept him for twenty-four hours, sir—in order to see if he
would make any disclosures about Lochiel.” And Lieutenant Paton
added, in a very dry tone, turning away and busying himself with a
horse’s headstall, “A course which it seems that you yourself
advised.”
Keith gave a sound like a groan. “Did the Major tell Mr. Cameron
that also?”
Paton nodded. “Yes, he did—and more, too: whether true or not I
have no means of judging.”
Keith had the sensation that the barn, or something less material,
was closing in round him. This honest boy, too—— “Look here, Mr.
Paton, I will be frank with you. I was so desperately afraid that
Ardroy would be left to die there in the shieling that I did suggest to
Major Guthrie that it might be of advantage to bring him into camp,
though I knew that he would have his trouble for nothing. Though I
unfortunately recommended that course I was perfectly certain that
Mr. Cameron would not give the slightest inkling of any knowledge
that he might have.”
“No, it was plain from the beginning that he would not,” said the
young man, “and that was why . . .” He broke off. “If Mr. Cameron is
a friend of yours it is a good thing that you were not in our camp that
morning . . . or no, perhaps a misfortune, because you might have
succeeded in stopping it sooner. I could not.”
“Succeeded in stopping what?” asked Keith. Then the inner
flavour of some of Guthrie’s recent words began to be apparent to
him. He caught Paton by the arm. “You surely do not mean that
Major Guthrie resorted to—violent measures? It’s impossible!”
Thus captured, the young soldier turned and faced him.
“Reassure yourself, sir,” he said quickly, seeing the horror and
disgust on his companion’s face. “He could not carry them out; the
prisoner was in no state for it. He could only threaten, and . . .
question.”
“He threatened to shoot him after all?”
“No, not to shoot him, to flog him.” And as Keith gave an
exclamation and loosed his hold, Paton added, “And he went very
near doing it, too.”
“Threatened to flog him! Mr. Paton, you are jesting!” said Keith
incredulously. “Flog a badly wounded prisoner, and a gentleman—a
chieftain—to boot!”
“I am not jesting, sir; I wish I were. But I am thankful to say that it
was not carried out.—Now, if you will excuse me, Major Windham, I
must be about my duties.” His tone indicated that he would be glad
to leave a distasteful subject.
But Keith made a movement to bar his passage. “Mr. Paton,
forgive my insistence, but your duties must wait a little. You cannot
leave the matter there! For my own sake I must know what was said
to Mr. Cameron. You see how nearly it concerns my honour. I
implore you to try to recall everything that passed!”
Reluctantly the young man yielded. “Very well, sir; but I had best
speak to the sergeant to ensure that we are not disturbed, for this
barn is the men’s quarters.”
He went out to give an order. Hardly knowing what he did, Keith
turned to his horse, busy pulling hay from the rack, and looked him
over to see that Mackay had rubbed him down properly. Threatened
with flogging—Ewen Cameron!
Paton came back, closed the door and brought up a couple of
pails, which he inverted and suggested as seats. “You must be tired,
Major, after your long ride, and I am afraid that this will be a bit of a
sederunt.” So Keith sat down in the stall to hear what his ill-omened
suggestion had brought on the man whom he had saved.
 CHAPTER II

It appeared that Major Guthrie, on learning next morning of Major

Windham’s departure on his errand of mercy, had been not only
exceedingly angry, but suspicious as well—“or at least,” said Paton,
“he declared that he was suspicious”—and sent off a party almost
immediately to fetch in the wounded rebel from the shieling. About a
couple of hours later they returned, carrying him on a litter, which
they deposited outside their commander’s tent, where Paton
happened to be at the moment. Guthrie immediately went out to him,
and said—the narrator remembered his first words exactly—‘Well,
my fine fellow, and so you know where Lochiel is like to be skulking!’
The prisoner replied by asking whether Major Guthrie thought he
should tell him if he did? Major Guthrie retorted, with a grin, that he
knew it was the thing to begin with a little bluster of the sort, but that
they had better get to business without wasting time. “And he added,
sir,” said the young soldier, looking away, “‘I know that you know;
Major Windham says so.’”
Keith had put his hand over his eyes. “Yes; go on,” he said after a
moment.
“This was plainly rather a blow to Mr. Cameron,” continued Paton.
“I saw the blood rush to his face. ‘What did you say?’ he asked. The
Major replied that you, sir, being a loyal subject of King George, were
just as eager to secure Lochiel as himself, which was the reason
why you had very properly stopped him from having the prisoner
shot. To that Mr. Cameron replied, short and sharp, ‘I don’t believe it!’
The Major affected to misunderstand this, and . . . well, sir, he said a
good many things incriminating you in the affair, twisting what you
had, perhaps, said . . .”
“Try, for God’s sake, to remember what those things were,”
begged Keith miserably, without looking up.
The young man paused a moment, evidently trying to remember
accurately.
“First, I think, he told Mr. Cameron that you had said he was
Cameron of Ardroy, Lochiel’s cousin, and had had you as his
prisoner after the affair at High Bridge, and he added, ‘I doubt he
wanted to get even with you for that!’ And to make his assertion
more credible he asked Mr. Cameron how otherwise he should have
known who he was, since he took him for a gillie when he had him
up against the shieling wall. And the Major went on to say that for the
news of Mr. Cameron’s identity he was grateful to you, but not so
grateful when he found that you had stolen a march on him by
sneaking back to the shieling by night in order to get information out
of the prisoner before he could. But at that Mr. Cameron tried to raise
himself on the litter, and burst out, ‘That’s a lie!’ And then the Major
silenced him by what I can only suppose was an arrow drawn at a
venture, since you . . . I don’t suppose that you . . .” Paton began to
stumble.
“Let me have it!” said Keith, looking up this time.
“He said, ‘And so he never speired about Lochiel . . . where he
was . . . if you kenned where he was?’”
Keith stared at the narrator half dazed. “How did he know that . . .
he could not have known it!”
“As I say, it seemed to silence Mr. Cameron altogether,”
continued Paton, glancing at him with a sort of pity. “He looked quite
dizzy as he dropped back on the litter. But the Major laughed. And
he went on, in that bantering way he has: ‘I hope you did not tell him,
for I want you to tell me. Did you tell him?’ The rebel took no notice
of this question; he had shut his eyes. It was as I looked at him then,
sir, and saw the effect which that question had had on him, that I first
began, I confess, to have doubts of your good faith.”
“You had cause,” answered Keith with a groan. “I did ask him
about Lochiel—in all innocence. My God, what he must think of me!”
He took his head between his hands. “Go on!”
“Finding that Mr. Cameron was silent,” resumed Paton, “Major
Guthrie went nearer and said something, I do not exactly remember
what, about dropping a hint inadvertently with regard to Lochiel’s
hiding-place, which it was easy to do, he said, and which he should
give the prisoner every opportunity of doing, keeping him there,
indeed, until he did. He kept harping for awhile on this question of
dropping a hint, and he brought you even into that, for he said that it
was your suggestion, that you had advised him to bring the rebel into
camp and watch him well for that purpose. . . . And from what you
have just told me, sir, it seems that that was true.”
Paton paused; but Keith, his head between his hands, said
nothing; he was beyond it. This was what came of doing evil in order
to accomplish good!
“Still Mr. Cameron took no notice,” pursued Paton, “even when
the Major went on to say in so many words that you had betrayed
him—Mr. Cameron—and had then ridden off, leaving him the dirty
work to do. Then he changed his tone, and said, ‘But I shall not flinch
from it; ’tis my duty. Do you know, Mr. Cameron of Ardroy, how we
deal with folk that have valuable information and will not part with it?’
At that the prisoner did open his eyes, and said with a good deal of
contempt that, from what he had seen of the Major, he could very
well guess.
“The Major at that bent over him and gripped him by the nearer
arm. He may not have observed that it was bandaged—I cannot say
—and repeated, ‘Ah, you can quite imagine, can you? D’you think
you’ll like it?’ Mr. Cameron did not answer; perhaps he could not, for
he was biting his lip, and I saw the sweat come out on his brow.
Major Guthrie let go and stood up again, and said that a flogging with
belts would soon loosen his tongue; and that did rouse Mr. Cameron,
for he coloured hotly and said he thought the Major forgot that he
was a gentleman. But the Major replied with a chuckle that he looked
so little like one at present that it was easy to assume that he was
not. Then he asked him whether he intended to save himself from
this unpleasant experience, as he easily could do; Mr. Cameron’s
look was sufficient answer to that. So, to my horror, the Major sent
for the drummers and ordered a tent to be struck, in order to have
the pole available to tie him up to.”
“This is intolerable!” exclaimed Keith, starting up. “Stop! I had
rather not——” He pulled himself together. “No, I have got to hear it.
Go on!”
“I assure you that I did not enjoy it,” said the young officer, “for I
thought that the matter was going through. They lifted Mr. Cameron
off the litter; he could not stand, it appeared, owing to the wound in
his thigh, and the men were obliged to support him. But the Major
said to him that he would not be able to fall this time, as he had done
yesterday, because we had ropes here. . . . I myself, who would
willingly have interfered before, sir, had there been any chance of
being listened to, now took the Major by the arm and told him plainly
that he would kill the prisoner if he was so barbarous as to have him
flogged in his present condition. But he shook me off, and said, when
everything was ready (except Mr. Cameron himself, who was still
held up there, facing him, as white as you please, but perfectly
unyielding and defiant): ‘Now, before you make acquaintance with
His Majesty’s leather, will you tell me what you know about Lochiel?’
And the rebel, with his eyes blazing, said, in a sudden access of fury,
‘Not if you cut me to pieces!’
“Well, sir, though I am convinced that the Major was not acting a
part and merely threatening, but that he really meant to go through
with the horrid business, I think it must have come to him then that, if
he did, he would have Mr. Cameron dead on his hands, as I had
warned him, and there would be an end to that source of information.
(It is possible, too, that he thought he might be called to account for it
afterwards.) And even the men were looking uneasy and murmuring
a little. So he said that he would postpone the flogging until the
afternoon. He had the prisoner carried into his own tent, not much, I
fear, the better for this scene; and in his tent Mr. Cameron was all the
rest of the day and the night. I do not know what passed in there, for
whenever I made an effort to go in, I was stopped; but I am sure the
Major questioned him pretty continuously. He still spoke of the
flogging taking place, but it never did. Next morning I was not
surprised to hear that the prisoner seemed worse, and in a fever, so
that the Major resolved to be rid of him, and sent him to Fort
Augustus. I was heartily glad, for his own sake, to see Mr. Cameron
taken away. And at Fort Augustus he must have had care, or he
would not be alive now, which he is, for I asked news of him
yesterday, as we came by. But that I should be ashamed to meet
him, I would fain have seen him to ask his pardon.”
Paton’s voice ceased; in the silence one of the horses near them
stamped and blew out its nostrils. Keith, standing there very still,
released his own tightly gripped elbows.
“Mr. Paton, I thank you most heartily for your frankness. I, too, am
ashamed—with much more cause than you, I think—yet I am going