Arsenic and Old Armor (12 page)

“
No company,” she finally
said.

Lady Elizabeth let out a deep breath and sat
back. For the first time since the two sisters had arrived, she
actually smiled. “Excellent. This is going so far better than I had
ever hoped.”

Margaret and Judith looked at each other
first before turning their attention to their host.

“
Far better,” Margaret
agreed.

“
Far better,” Judith
repeated.

“
I believe this is all
we’ll need to discuss, then.” The Armstrong dowager shifted in her
chair. The servant was quick to adjust the shawl again. “I shall
take care of everything and make sure you are informed of each
arrangement. The wedding guests should begin arriving within a
week’s time. Hopefully, we shall see our future bride and groom
arrive back at Blackthorn Hall before then.” She waved
reassuringly. “In the meantime, I shall station servants on the
east and south roads to direct our guests here rather than to Fleet
Tower.”

“
Sir William doesn’t do
well with guests,” Margaret added.

“
No guests,” Judith
agreed.

Their host nodded. “I agree wholeheartedly.
We don’t want anyone causing Sir William any undue distress.”

“
Excellent,” Margaret
said.

“
Excellent, indeed,” Judith
repeated.

There was no room left on her plate for more
cakes and her cup was full to the brim, so Judith placed both of
them on the table and stood up. Her sister followed suit.

Lady Elizabeth seemed to have far more
pleasantries to share than when they had come in, but Judith was
impatient to leave. The manservant opened the door and led them
through the clusters of servants down a circular stairway out
through the great hall. The younger sister waited until she and
Margaret were out in the stone-paved courtyard before she asked the
question that was hanging on the tip of her tongue.

“
Margaret, did you
understand what all of this was about?”

“
Indeed, Judith.” Her older
sister nodded and leaned down to whisper in her ear. “The English
are coming.”

It was almost more than she could bear not
to run out or shout a warning to Iain. Before Marion broke her
promise, though, she saw him start down the hill he’d climbed
before. He had spotted the new arrivals before she had. There were
a dozen of them. All on horseback. Marion didn’t like the way some
of the men immediately looked toward the cottage.

She rushed toward the old straw mattress,
pushed it up against the wall. She was happily surprised to see a
space hollowed out beneath it. She was even more surprised to see a
slab of rock partially blocking a hole at the base of the wall.
Marion could see light filtering in around the edges. Climbing into
the hollow, she pulled the rock back. There was a hole large enough
for her to wriggle through. She could crawl through it, come up
behind the cottage, and stay out of the intruders’ sight.

Twelve to one. Iain was badly outnumbered.
Never mind having to fight with a bruised shoulder. She looked
around and picked up a small, rusted iron pot with a hole in the
bottom. She rushed back toward the doorway. Peering out, she could
see Iain had stopped some half dozen steps up from the bottom of
the hill, talking to the leader of the group. She couldn’t hear
anything that was being said, but there had been no weapons drawn,
and there was no shouting or sign of an argument.

Marion knew there was no way these men would
mistake Iain for a crofter. She tried to decide if that was good or
bad. They were dressed in a variety of plaids—most unrecognizable
to her. She recalled the stories she’d heard of bands of men who
got together and robbed travelers. She hadn’t run into any of those
on the Isle of Skye. But on the mainland, Highlanders were very
different.

She didn’t stand still and contemplate the
situation for too long. Two of the men near the back of the group
dismounted and started toward the cottage.

Just then, Iain shouted something at the
leader and a dozen short swords appeared. Marion stared at what
looked like the broken end of a hoe in her husband’s hand. Totally
insufficient to do battle with a gang of outlaws.

Panic at what they were going to do to Iain
stunned her momentarily, but relief came as a rush when she
recognized the McCall tartan on one of the two men coming toward
her. The rogues had stopped halfway between Iain and the
cottage.

“
McCall,” she cried. She
pushed the leather flap aside and rushed out. “We are of the same
clan. I am Marion McCall, daughter of the late Earl of Fleet. I am
on my way back to—”

Iain shouted a warning, and
Marion bent to the side just in time to hear the
ffffitt
and feel the
rush of air on her neck as an arrow passed. She turned to see the
arrow quivering where it had lodged deep in a crevice between two
stones in the cottage wall.

“
You shot at me!” she
gasped in shock. She had no doubt that the shot had come from one
of those on horseback. She turned around and found that pandemonium
had broken loose on the field. Iain had pulled two men to the
ground. One was lying still amid the stones, and one was staggering
groggily. Against three others, Iain was battling heroically. Two
men remained on their horses, obviously willing to get involved in
the fray only if needed. Several others had dismounted and were
approaching the fighting warily. The two heading toward the cottage
turned and rushed toward her.

Marion stepped forward to meet them, holding
the pot behind her.

“
It is about time someone
taught you some manners,” she shouted. “This is no way you greet
your own kin.”

She swung the pot at the head of the man
wearing the McCall plaid, and connected with a thud, sending him to
the earth with a surprised look on his face. Before she could swing
the pot again, though, the second outlaw, a filthy cur with the
round face of a pig, grabbed her by the hair and threw her to the
ground.

Marion saw the drawn sword in his hand and
didn’t waste any time. As he went to grab her hair again, she
delivered a sharp kick to his groin. The villain bent over with a
grunt, and Marion jumped to her feet, swinging the iron pot at his
head.

There was great satisfaction in hearing the
resounding crunch the metal made as it struck his thick skull. The
man’s short sword fell to the ground as he sank to his knees.
Marion picked it up and turned to the first brute. He was holding a
hand to his bloody head and backing away, not toward the horses,
but toward another line of trees.

“
Coward!” she shouted. “You
are no McCall. Hear me? You are a cheat, a villain, spawn of the
devil. I dare you to come back here.” Turning around to face her
other foe, she found him, too, on his feet and dragging himself
back toward the horses.

She remembered Iain and looked past the two
brutes. The reason for the two men’s escape immediately became
apparent. The Armstrong warriors had arrived and were quickly
subduing the attackers. Marion didn’t remember a time when she’d
been happier seeing anyone. She searched the group for her
husband.

Iain was holding one hand to a bloody
shoulder—his same bruised shoulder—and shouting orders to his men.
The outlaws were all on the ground now, and their hands were being
lashed with leather cords. Only the two who had run off into the
woods had escaped.

Iain turned around and looked at her from
head to toe. She looked down and realized she was still holding a
sword in one hand and the iron pot in the other. She threw both of
them aside and walked toward him.

His shirt was bloody. She wondered how deep
the wound was and if he was hurt anywhere else. He had been
practically unarmed, taking on all of those villains. Despite his
injury, she thought, Iain looked magnificent. Dirt or blood,
nothing lessened the force with which he ruled the situation.

His eyes swept over her again, and Marion
felt the tightness deep in her belly. Something primitive,
something beyond her understanding and control, made her move more
quickly to him. She wanted him, needed him. She had to touch him
and assure herself that all was well. The intensity of the feeling
made her want to run.

“
Lady Marion.” Brother Luke
made the mistake of stepping in her path. “I am so relieved
you’re—”

“
One moment, Brother,” she
said, pushing past him and running toward Iain.

He left the throng of men and came toward
her. Marion didn’t care how many people watched. She didn’t care
what opinion these people might have of her after the foolish way
she’d acted. She stepped into her husband’s arms and buried her
face into his chest.

“
I told you to stay inside
the cottage.”

“
It was easier to fight
them outside.”

“
My little warrior,” he
whispered into her ear.

The tone of approval warmed her. He wasn’t
angry at Marion for not hiding or running away. She pulled back to
tell him just that, but his bloody shirt caught her eye. “You are
bleeding from the same shoulder you bruised before.”

“
It’s nothing. A slight
wound.”

He was lying. She saw him wince when she
tried to touch his shoulder through the shirt. “Let me see it. I
know how to clean and mend wounds. I was taught by the prioress
herself.”

“
In a wee bit. Let me
finish here first.”

Patience wasn’t one of her virtues, but she
looked at the group that now sat bound on the field of stones, and
understood. He wanted some answers and she did, too. Marion wanted
to believe that the arrow coming at her had been a mistake. She
wanted to believe the McCall tartan the rogue was wearing was
stolen…that the man had no ties to her clan. She didn’t for a
moment think she was going to get what she wanted.

She nodded. “How long will it be before you
come? We should bind your shoulder soon.”

Her insides turned to molten liquid when he
bent down and brushed a kiss across her lips. He smiled. “I’ll have
someone bring your trunks inside the cottage. You need to change.
After all this, I think it would be best if we had a roof over our
head for the night.”

She nodded. “Who will be sleeping
inside?”

“
Only you and I,” he
growled in a low voice. “And don’t plan on doing any
sleeping.”

Three large trunks. Twelve years of
collectibles. Treasures that she could not live without, the laird
had been told.

Iain stared in disbelief at the opened
trunks lining the three inside walls of the cottage. A hodgepodge
of rubbish had been haphazardly pulled out of each one of them.
Broken furniture. Tattered wool cloth. Broken china. He bent down
to touch something large wrapped in a blanket. It was a rock.

He looked up when Marion, carrying a pitcher
of water, walked inside the cottage. She was all cleaned up. Her
dress was changed. Her hair was gathered on top of her head, held
by a pair of combs. He missed the wild woman warrior of a couple of
hours ago.

“
These are your trunks?” he
asked.

She nodded.

“
You call these
treasures?”

She nodded. “What else would you expect a
person to collect living inside the walls of an abbey?”

“
We had to bring a cart
along just to carry all this. Do you know how slow and dangerous
that made our travels?”

“
You only had to carry them
for a day. Fine, two days,” she corrected as he gave her an
incredulous look. Marion walked inside to a blanket she’d laid on
the floor. She knelt on it and put the pitcher down. “I had the
option of hiding all of this from you until we were at Fleet Tower.
You would never have known.”

He heard the note of vulnerability in her
voice. “Maybe you should have.”

She shook her head. “I wanted to punish you
before. I don’t anymore. Now, come and sit here so I can poke you
with these needles.”

He couldn’t even pretend to stay angry with
her. “Didn’t you just say you were done punishing me?”

She patted the blanket next to her. “Stop
acting so frightened. It won’t hurt much.”

For the first time he looked around the
room. She had pushed into a dark corner what little the cottars had
left. The blanket she was kneeling on was clean, and she also had
started a fire with wood that Iain had seen one of the men carrying
in for her.

“
I guess not everything in
those trunks is rubbish,” he said, motioning toward the clean dress
she’d changed into. “Black wool and twice your size. Was that one
of the chaplain’s?”

“
Keep it up if you like,
but it really doesn’t matter. I’m not forgetting about that
shoulder of yours.” She reached for his hand, tugging him down
beside her.

Iain sat on the blanket. “This scratch has
already stopped bleeding.”

Marion apparently didn’t
believe him, for she immediately began peeling the shirt off of
him. It was true that his shoulder hurt like hell, but Iain had
weathered enough battles and carried enough scars to know
this
was
a minor
wound.

He let her have her way. He liked watching
her. He liked the feel of her hands on his skin. He also would have
liked to do anything right now rather than tell her what he’d
learned from the group of thugs who’d attacked them.

“
So, what did you find out
from those wandering curs?” she asked, as if reading his
mind.