A Kind of Magic (26 page)

Rowan pointed to the top of rocks that overlooked the cove. “The six of you ladies go up there, show yourselves and lead the Norsemen down here.” He pointed to a scattered group of boulders on the other side of the trickling stream. “The rest of us will wait behind those.”

Maddie nodded. “Okay, girls,” she said. “Let’s go.” She turned and set off briskly, without waiting to see if the men would follow. The White Lady laughed and hurried after her.

Rowan didn’t know if his heart was ready to burst with pride or fear as his wife walked away. Her magnificent hips swayed tantalizingly beneath her full skirts. He 148

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found himself watching her movements longingly for a moment. Then he noticed all the other men were watching her as well, some with the same rapt eagerness in their expressions that he felt. He growled a warning and waved the decoys forward with his sword.

“Anything happens to her and you’re all dead,” he told them.

At his words the men picked up their skirts and ran to catch up so they could surround and protect his lady. Rowan gave a satisfied nod, refused to let his worry for either Maddie or Micaela’s safety prey on his mind and hurried to hide himself behind the nearest boulder.

Maddie tried not to worry as she, the White Lady, Aidan, Burke, Walter and Andrew stationed themselves on the flat top of the spit of rock. She mentally braced herself against the coming bloodshed with the knowledge that there was no other way to rid the people of the Scottish coast of the immediate danger of the Norse raiders.

“Negotiations aren’t going to get prisoners back from slave traders,” she said as the camp and beached boats came into view.

Burke Harboth put a hand on her shoulder. “That’s true. To try to ransom the prisoners would only cause the Orkney men to return and try the same trick of stealing then selling back our own people next season.”

Maddie nodded and glanced at Micaela’s handsome boyfriend. She suspected he and Aidan looked better in a dress than she did. A jeweled sword belt rode low on his hips over a costume of lavender and purple, his silvery blond hair flowed magnificently around his face and down his back. Except for his broad shoulders, from a distance he probably looked tall and willowy and gorgeous. They had to count that from a distance the Norse wouldn’t notice anyone’s broad shoulders or beards. She and the White Lady were here to stand in the front and look like real girls. The White Lady might be a charlatan but she was certainly attractive enough. She and Burke, with their pale good looks, could easily pass for sisters. It also turned out that the White Lady had a great wardrobe, which certainly came in handy for this little adventure.

A guard down on the shore saw them pointed and called out a warning. When faces turned toward them, Maddie took a few steps closer to the camp. “Hey!” she called out as she waved her arms. “We’re the women of Clan Murray!”

She’d been told during the planning of this operation that everybody, including the raiders from up in the Orkney Islands, knew how bossy and brash the Murray women were. It was one of the reasons Rowan had gone along with the idea. He’d said that if any females were fool enough to march off to rescue one of their own, it would be the women in his family. Down on the shore, men grabbed their weapons but the sound of rude laughter mixed with the clang of drawn steel.

Maddie moved closer to the camp while the other woman and the warriors stayed on the top of the hill. She straightened her spine then leaned forward a bit to give the men at the bottom of the hill a better view of her cleavage. She wasn’t sure whether to be terrified or gratified by the lewd shouts that greeted her movement. She felt herself 149

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blushing hotly as she called out, “We’ve come for Micaela Murray. Let her go and no one gets hurt!”

The plan hadn’t been to do any talking but Maddie didn’t think it could harm anything but her conscience if she didn’t at least offer to negotiate.

It didn’t do any good of course.

“Women!” someone called from down below. “Get them!”

The raiders came howling up the hillside like a small swarm of wasps. Maddie lifted her skirts, turned and fled. So did the White Lady. The men waited a few seconds longer, to put themselves between the women and the raiders, then they ran themselves before the Norsemen could see that they were being led into a trap. Maddie sprinted down the hill and jumped the stream. She was looking for a big rock to hide behind when Rowan darted out from in back of a boulder and pulled her down to the spot where he’d been waiting.

“Stay here,” he ordered as Burke and Aidan hurtled past in a flurry of pastel skirts.

They were followed closely by a hairy, shouting Norseman. Rowan gave her a hard, quick kiss then ran after the raider.

Maddie had no intention of doing anything but staying put. As a battle began around her, she closed her eyes, covered her ears and prayed for it to be over swiftly.

She agreed this had to be done, she’d helped plan it. She didn’t have the stomach to witness it. Besides, she was too frightened for Rowan’s safety to actually watch him fighting. Or so she thought. After a few moments, worry drove her to raise her head.

She heard the clang and clash of weapons, shouts and heavy breathing, but she couldn’t see anything from the shelter where she crouched.

“Rowan,” she whispered, and shivered in fear.

Not for herself but for him. She had to see that he was all right. Her stomach churned at the thought that he wasn’t. Maddie got to her knees and looked cautiously around the side of the boulder to where the noise of fighting was coming from. Rowan was in the thick of it of course, unwounded and swinging his sword at a pair of opponents. She couldn’t take her eyes off of him. She wanted to call out to him but wasn’t foolish enough to try to distract him in the middle of a battle.

When he killed both men, she was actually glad. Glad he was alive and that they weren’t. She didn’t know if she had become as barbaric as the people she lived among and for the moment she didn’t care. All that mattered was running to throw her arms around the vibrantly alive Rowan Murray the instant the fighting was over.

Rowan’s heart sang with joy when he saw Maddie rushing toward him, a smile on her lips and unshed tears gleaming in her eyes. The battle was done, he was victorious, and he shouted with triumph as he took his woman into a tight embrace. Her lips were soft and pliant beneath the demand of his kiss. Her body was soft as well, perfectly fitted against his hardness as he pulled her closer.

He might have had her then and there, he might have forgotten his duty and that his sister and others were still prisoners if Allen Harboth hadn’t slapped him hard on 150

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the back and said, “The ruse worked, Rowan! And not a man or lassie of ours wounded!

And have you a kiss for me, Maddie Murray?” the laird of the Harboths added as Rowan lifted his lips from his wife’s.

“She does not,” Rowan informed the lecherously smiling Harboth.

He wanted to put his arm possessively, protectively, around Maddie’s waist. He was so proud of her. Proud of her courage, her cleverness, her beauty. He was very nearly blinded by the things he felt for her.

The one thing Rowan knew he could not allow himself was to be so drawn to a woman that she became his entire world.

The world around him went cold and dead at this thought. His happiness turned to ashes. He had no right to feel the things he wanted to feel, dared not take more than a small taste of the joy Maddie offered. He’d had two days with her. That would have to be enough for now.

He moved a pace away from her instead of drawing her closer. It was the hardest thing he’d done today, far harder than fighting a skirmish to the death with a band of Norsemen. What he wanted and what needed to be done were separate things. What had to be done must always come first. Love was a trap. He didn’t blame Maddie but she was a danger to his resolve. Just having her by his side out in the light of day was a lure away from performing his duty to his people.

It was hard to do, the hardest thing he’d ever done, as he wanted to share the triumph of the victory with her as much as she’d shared the danger with him, but he turned away from Maddie. “We’ll burn the dead raiders in their boats after we’ve freed the prisoners,” he told Harboth as they walked together toward the camp.

Rowan pretended not to see Allen Harboth glance back and give Maddie long, appreciative look.

* * * * *

“Yes, I am!”

“No you’re not!”

Variations of this conversation could be heard on both ends of the camp. Maddie sat by the fire in the middle of the clearing and shamelessly eavesdropped on both arguments. Actually, it was impossible to do anything but overhear the fighting as both the Murray and Harboth contingents were shouting at the tops of their lungs. As she sat alone among the Murrays gathered by the larger of two campfires, she fervently wished they’d gone on to Cape Wrath rather than settling down for the night in this rain-soaked glen. She found it a wonder and a marvel that the men had managed to make fires, albeit smoky ones, out of wet wood. She was absolutely delighted that a hunting party brought down a deer, which had gotten cooked over the big fire for dinner. She was really glad that the White Lady had gathered up her extensive wardrobe with the exception of the black dress that Maddie had reluctantly accepted as a present and 151

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headed back to her isolated cottage. Maddie was convinced that the less she had to do with that woman the better.

She was also ecstatic that neither Micaela nor the other three women they’d rescued proved to be physically harmed by their captors. In fact, Micaela seemed to be having a much more traumatic experience dealing with Rowan than she’d had being held prisoner by slavers. The other women had returned to the White Lady’s house to spend the night before returning to their own homes.

As for Rowan—Maddie wasn’t sure what to think about Rowan. The man hadn’t said a word to her since the rescue. He hadn’t ridden by her side as they headed toward Cape Wrath. She didn’t know what to think so she tried not to. She tried to concentrate on eating her share of roast deer but all the shouting got in the way of even that. Finally, she got up and marched to the edge of the campsite where Rowan and Micaela stood belligerently toe-to-toe.

She stepped between them, stepping on Rowan’s foot to do so. She gave her sister-in-law a sympathetic look. “Let me talk to him,” she suggested to Micaela. “You get some supper. That girl’s been through a lot,” she angrily reminded Rowan. “This is no time to badger her.”

He looked after his sister, sighed and turned his annoyed expression on Maddie.

“I’m no badgering the lass, I’m laying down the law to her. She’ll not marry a Harboth and that’s final. If she wants to go south,” he added darkly, “it’ll be to join a Sassenach convent.”

Maddie couldn’t keep from laughing. “The girl practices magic and claims to be half fairy. I don’t think a convent’s the place for her.”

“Married to a Harboth’s no place for her.”

“She doesn’t want to marry a Harboth. She wants to marry Burke.”

Rowan put his hands on her shoulders. His touch sent warmth through her.

Maddie tried to ignore the longing to have him draw her close. His touch was gentle enough, but his features were hard. “This is a family matter,” he told her.

Maddie held very tightly onto her own temper. Somebody had to remain reasonable in this bunch. Her tone was still sharp when she reminded him, “I may not have asked for it but I am family.”

Rowan ducked his head. He looked a bit contrite when he looked at her again. “I’m sorry. Of course you are family, Maddie.”

He glanced anxiously once more toward Micaela. Maddie followed his gaze and sighed when she saw that Burke was trying to reach her side but Father Andrew, Aidan and Walter had formed a protective circle around the girl. It didn’t help that Allen Harboth was clinging tenaciously to Burke’s sleeve.

Maddie’s frustration at the situation boiled out of her. “This thing is so incredibly stupid! I do not believe the way you people are acting. Let’s discuss this like civilized people, shall we?”

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Rowan nodded then drew her farther into the darkness beyond the firelight. When they found a nearby bench-high boulder, they sat down on it. Rowan put his arm around her shoulders. He sighed. “My mind’s made up but you’ll say what you have to whether I give you leave or not. So talk to your heart’s content, Maddie, but mind that I’d like to get some sleep tonight.”

Maddie was annoyed with what Rowan said but drew hope from the weariness she heard in his tone. He talked as if he was adamant and completely unswayable, but his voice betrayed misgivings she knew he wouldn’t outwardly admit to. She put her arm around his waist and leaned her head against his shoulder.

From this seemingly relaxed position, she said, “How did this feud start anyway?

Some Harboth steal some Murray cattle?”

He sighed again and conceded, “Or some Murray stole some Harboth cattle.

Whoever started it, people died. Until then our clans were friends and allies.”

“And how long ago was this?”

“In my grandfather’s time.”

“Which makes it your grandfather’s fight, if you ask me.”

“Which I did not.”

“No, but you said you’d listen to what I have to say.”

Rowan couldn’t help but admire the calm way she spoke. Her determination, her sheer stubbornness, the way she constantly bedeviled him with her ways ought to infuriate him—and sometimes it did. For some fool reason what he should have found inexcusable behavior from a woman, he often found commendable in his wife. She stood up for herself and what she believed in no matter how wrong she might be.

“And here I wanted a meek and mild little wife,” he said as he gave her a quick hug. “Go on then, say what you will.”

Maddie appreciated the hug but she wasn’t sure what Rowan’s words meant. Did he really want a mealy-mouthed yes-woman or was he saying he liked her the way she was? This wasn’t the time to ask, not when she was being given the chance to discuss solutions to the Murray-Harboth feud. She’d have to put the questions concerning her and Rowan’s relationship on hold for the sake of helping find peace.