A Perfect Knight For Love (10 page)

“I’ll return. You ken?”

Amalie nodded. She didn’t trust her voice.

“At dawn. And naught has changed a-tween us.”

She nodded again, trembled for a moment, and ignored the impulse to sniff.

“Amalie?”

He was forcing her and he didn’t even use touch. Amalie looked up slowly and had the exact same heart-dive feeling happen, despite moisture that made his image swim. The next moment she was pulled forward, felt a blanket wrapped about her shoulders where the instant itch of wool against her bare skin accompanied what felt like a kiss at her ear. Amalie stiffened as Thayne swiveled them as one, placing her before him. And then she scrunched a shoulder as he yelled a name.

“Gregor! Gregor MacPherson!”

“Aye?”

The man who shoved through the others looked Thayne’s equal in size and bulk, but hadn’t much that could be described as handsome. When he stepped around Jamie, Amalie could tell he hadn’t anything devoted to eye-pleasing. And she was wrong. He was larger than either brother.

“You’ll stay. Guard the wife. And bairn.”

“Now . . . wait a bit there,” Jamie protested. “I never said—”

“MacPherson stays.”

The big fellow nodded. He not only looked akin to bear size but about as bright.

“You’re to fetch for the laird, and then sit. With the wife. You dinna’ move. You let none touch her.”

“You sound as if this were a love match. You? Ha.” Jamie snorted after he’d finished.

Hearing it spoken aloud, and in a snide tone, gave the newly awakened emotion value. And truth. And complete thrill combined with such a level of fear, Amalie was dizzy with the combination. Then Thayne moved from behind her, taking warmth and security away. She swayed for a moment before catching against the wall. Nobody said anything as Thayne departed, taking most of the light and all the humanity with him.

She didn’t love him. She refused. Ever. No. Please . . . no.

Chapter 7

It took less time to return to Dunn-Fyne’s camp than it took to leave it. Thayne suspected it was due to freedom from Amalie and the babe in his arms. Or perhaps it was the steady pump of excitement that built with each step he pounded into the sod at the threat he’d soon face, the leadership he was about to demonstrate, or perhaps it was the nearness of the fight. He told himself it had nothing to do with the fear he felt at leaving Amalie, or the effect of his brother’s words. He didn’t love her.
By all the Saints!
He didn’t love anyone. Love emotion made one weak. He’d had it beaten into him that a MacGowan didn’t have a weak bone in his body. Besides . . . even if he’d had the capacity for love emotion, it had died with Mary.

And that was that.

Harsh cries filtered through the mist-strewn copse of trees, adding impetus to Thayne’s feet. The sounds heightened his senses to near-perfect pitch, making it easy to separate the wet-nurse’s cries from Sean’s low-pitched moan. Thayne slowed a step and then another until Jamie’s archer passed him. Thayne tapped the man’s shoulder before filching his extra bow. Another man’s brush garnered a handful of arrows and then Thayne was pointing five men in one direction while the others stayed with him. Circuiting the camp had risk involved. A turned ankle could send a man down one side of the hill, while a false step could send him rolling right into camp.

Wet sod slid beneath boots with each step along the ridge soaked and loose with rainfall. Thayne went with each slide, bouncing from tree to tree to keep his footing, accompanying each movement with a hissed breath that almost drowned out sounds of torment. And then came Dunn-Fyne’s voice as if he stood beside them.

“Tell the direction or I’ll take flesh next!”

A whip cracked as the mist parted, giving a glimpse of firelight. It was a far span, but not impossible. Thayne went to a knee, flexing and pulling the bowstring into its fullest position with an arrow aimed at the sky. He couldn’t stop the grunt of effort as he brought it down into firing position. The others hadn’t seen or stopped, making his shot riskier. From between two of Jamie’s Honor Guard, Thayne aimed and released. He was on his feet and running before Dunn-Fyne’s man dropped, his fingers around the arrow in his chest, while another clansman fell at the other side of him.

That’s when the loud cry came from the opposite side, staining the scene with confusion and a loud crash of something heavy as it lumbered through the trees. Thayne was on a knee again, targeting the man holding the wet-nurse, ignoring the thrash of bodies that charged a large log MacGowan men were using for a ram. Bodies were felled by the log, a claymore, or hand-axe from an attack on either side. Thayne ignored it; focused on the woman and her attacker; and then shot. Bow string glanced off his cheek as the arrow left it, finding its path directly to the man’s eye.

Thayne marked the man’s fall, which took the woman down, too. Then Thayne was moving again, leaping bodies and debris, barely avoiding a thrown dirk as he landed, aiming as he slid. That missile speared a Dunn-Fyne man’s face right alongside his nose. The next arrow speared a belly. Thayne’s last arrow found the space between one man’s shoulder blades, turning him into a crashing projectile right to where Dunn-Fyne had gathered the last of his clansmen into a prickly, armed circle.

“I’ve returned, Dunn-Fyne!”

Thayne was at a full yell as he reached the clearing, diving into a roll that sent an enemy dirk landing on empty space. It earned the attacker a knife through his neck, sent the moment Thayne finished the roll and had room to toss. The man garbled liquid-filled words as he sagged in place and then fell forward, ramming the blade in fully. His death was followed by four more of them dropping to their knees as MacGowan Honor Guard knives filled the scene, sent from the same amount of hands.

Seven
. That left seven to fight.

A quick glance showed the wet-nurse lived, putting woman-sobs into the scene from her rolled-up position. Thayne shoved the instant relief aside and rose from his crouch. Then he had to shoulder through three of Jamie’s Honor Guard who’d filled in the space before him, protecting him with their bodies. He was shouting more words as he went.

“Drop the weapons or reap death, Dunn-Fyne. Your choice.”

They heard steel hitting ground about the Dunn-Fyne men, and then cursing, but it was instantly muffled. Thayne waited, and got joined by the rest of Jamie’s Honor Guard, with little more than scrapes and muck covering them. And then Sean limped into place beside him.

“Pellin?” Thayne mouthed.

Sean jerked with his head. A MacGowan man immediately took off in that direction.

“Iain?”

Sean shook his head. Thayne sobered completely.

“Dunn-Fyne! Show yourself!”

The grouping of men opened, allowing Mary’s husband to limp forward. He’d taken a deathblow to his side, if the amount of blood dripping through his fingers was an indicator. They all knew it. Thayne’s eyes flicked there before moving back to the man’s face.

“I returned,” Thayne told him.

“So . . . I see.”

“You ken why?”

“You want . . . what’s mine,” the man replied. He took a breath mid-sentence and sagged slightly.

“Nae.” Thayne pulled to his full height, sheathed his claymore, and stared down at the smaller man.

“You always wanted . . . my Mary. So . . . you took her.”

“Nae,” Thayne replied again.

“She dinna’ want you. You ken?”

“Is that why you beat her?”

A shadow of a smile graced Dunn-Fyne’s face, before it turned to a wince, and a stumble of movement. Judging by the blackish liquid oozing through his fingers and to the ground, he was on borrowed time. Thayne waited.

“She chose . . . me. You were . . . there. You . . . heard her.”

“Aye.” Thayne licked his lips. “That I did.”

“She was . . . ever fine, MacGowan. Lush. Ripe. Woman . . . ly.”

Thayne’s back clenched and his hand tightened on the hilt of his sword. Beyond that, nothing moved.

“Tell it to your maker,” he replied finally, and turned around.

“You just recollect that . . . each time you look at . . . the bairn’s face. You ken? I had her. And you dinna’!”

A burst of fervor touched the words, alerting Thayne. He dodged sideways, and that sent the knife into his upper left buttock, rather than mid-back. It was a coward’s throw. Thayne clenched his jaw to ignore it, but agony went clear through his leg from where the knife speared him, sticking his kilt with it. And when he tried to walk, the injury took him to the ground, much to his own disgust. Dunn-Fyne had worse. Thayne heard the man’s death warble through a slashed throat even before he saw it. They all looked at the Dunn-Fyne man who’d killed his laird. And then Thayne nodded.

“Any man wishing to disavow Dunn-Fyne and join MacGowan, he’s welcome!” Thayne struggled up from the ground to say it, but one of Jamie’s men yelled it again for him anyway.

“I’ve a wife. Family!”

One of the Dunn-Fyne men answered it. It appeared he was speaking for others, as well.

“Those claiming such are free to go! Leave your weapons and go. Nae MacGowan will stay you.”

Even leaning onto his uninjured leg, the knife wound burned. Thayne was forced back to the ground, ordering them to fetch Pellin. He had to hope the man was healthy enough to see him. He was still prone, on his front, when four of them hefted him to the fire, snickering and teasing about injuries to asses. Thayne was forced to lay still and listen. Every time he tried to move, the blade sent him back to the ground.

Pellin wasn’t injured badly, although he had a slash on his cheek and more hidden beneath his shirt and kilt band somewhere. He winced occasionally, but otherwise lived. He looked to have taken the worst of the whipping . . . and Dunn-Fyne had been an expert marksman. Thayne didn’t ask and Pellin didn’t offer. The man simply took one look at Thayne’s injury, moved to the fire to stir it, and then placed two wide-blade knives into the coals.

Thayne concentrated on watching the knives go to a bluish-red shade atop the bonfire tended by Pellin, whose shirt darkened in blood-glazed stripes. It helped mute the pain when whiskey was sloshed onto Thayne’s backside, but did nothing against the removal of Dunn-Fyne’s dirk. The flood of blood stayed the men’s teasing. And then Thayne was arching in a silent scream of agony as Pellin burned him, although it took three of them to hold him for the chore.

Tears blurred the ground at his nose, despite every effort to stay them. Blinking sent them down his face. And nothing stayed the absolute agony. Thayne leaned his forehead into the ground . . . yanking in and shoving out breath after breath, and then he got angry. Curt. Foul-tempered and nasty toned. That made the shove to his feet possible, where he slashed an arm across his eyes and then limped to his horse. And if he could have mounted it without an assist, he would have. Thayne spent countless moments standing at his Clydesdale’s side, willing strength into his arms, before he had to ask for help. That just started the teasing again, especially his sideways lean to elevate his injury from any contact. Thayne sneered more than once at Jamie’s men and called his own taunts, before they were finally heading toward the hut, the wet-nurse somewhere in the line behind him. Thayne didn’t look to verify it. He didn’t think he could. It took every bit of concentration to absorb the throb centering at the bottom of his spine and radiating through every portion of him. There wasn’t room for any other sensation.

Dawn infused the clouds with rose-shaded light before they cleared the forest fringe. It sent a fairy-tale look over the treeless landscape and probably did the same to the macabre scene that had been Dunn-Fyne’s camp. Every step of the horse brought pain, every flex of any kind in his leg brought worse, and he knew they needed speed. They needed to reach the woodcutter hut and Jamie. Thayne would’ve commanded it, but he’d locked his jaw and set his teeth. It was the only way to stop the woman-cries from sounding.

The shepherd hut was a hovel of impossible description. It got worse the more she studied it as the torch slowly faded and then dawn started slipping in through the cracks. Amalie looked down at the babe in her arms and begged her to stay quiet. Just a little longer . . . until Thayne returned.

The babe hadn’t spent an easy night. She’d been screaming with hunger and anger when MacPherson fetched her down. She’d continued her cries as Amalie juggled her, crooning and rocking and even dipping her smallest finger in the whiskey flagon-thing MacPherson held out for her before trying to give that to the baby. It hadn’t worked. Nothing worked until the infant used up her strength and slept exhausted, her face red and covered with tears. Amalie hugged the babe close, defensively, especially when Jamie threatened to use a fist to stop the noise. She was terrified of what would happen if the wet-nurse wasn’t there when the babe woke again. And what Jamie would do.

That’s when she got a complete dose of reality and how unprepared and useless she was about any of it. Whatever happened, Amalie was powerless to prevent it. It preyed on her mind and filled her imagination until she panted with emotion. She hadn’t known freedom came with fear . . . or that independence came with risk and peril. She didn’t feel free. She felt small and insignificant and helpless and powerless. She fought tears more than once with the realization.

Everything Jamie MacGowan said to her made it all worse. Once the babe quieted, he wouldn’t cease the words; cajoling, bragging, and occasionally getting angry from his side of the hut.

He’d been drinking. He’d gone through all of Thayne’s supply and then MacPherson’s. It made the MacGowan laird bold, crude, vulgar. Completely uncivilized. And then he got talkative. Jamie spoke on all kinds of things. Most of it meant to put his little brother in a bad light. He seemed to enjoy demeaning, mocking, and embarrassing Thayne. Jamie spoke of times when he’d done something especially odious and set it up so Thayne took the blame. Thayne was soft; weak; foolish. Jamie had even gone past those words to tell her of times he and Thayne had been keen on the same lass, and then both had her by fooling her with how alike they were. He claimed to be interchangeable with his “bairn brother” once the lights were dimmed enough. One man was as good as another, he told her more than once. Sometimes one man was better, if she knew what he spoke of.