Highland Enchantment (Highland Brides) (2 page)

There were murmurs among the crowd.

"Oh, come now. Surely you are not afraid to consort with the likes of me, even if I am an Irishman." He burred the words as he paced side to side, his back perfectly straight. With each step, his large, horsehide sporran swung, his cape swirled, and his plaid swished against his bare thighs.

The advantages to wearing a plaid in England were twofold. One, it drew attention to himself. And as a performer, that was imperative. Two, it fascinated women, and he was not one to disallow further education, even if it involved nothing more than the age-old question of undergarments.

Two adolescent boys had been robustly jostling each other throughout his entire routine, and were now working up their courage to volunteer, but they were not quite the sort of assistant Liam had in mind. "I assure you, tis quite safe," he said. "My assistants are never wounded. Well, not badly....

At the least, they've never lost any
noticeable
body parts." The boys' mouths fell open, and they stepped back in rapid unison.

Liam grinned and let his gaze rest momentarily on the woman with the dimples. She shrugged.

The amount of bosom forced into sight made the blood rush from his head.

"I could help you," she called out.

Liam's grin expanded. "Come forth," he said, and she did, sashaying through the crowd with a wiggle and a bounce. Snapping his hand over his shoulder, Liam sent the knife
thwapping
into the tree behind him. Then, reaching out, he took her hand to help her ascend the hill. "And what be your name, lass?"

"Mairi," she said, tilting her head at him.

"A bonny name." He bowed over her hand. "Almost as bonny as its mistress. And do you live here in the village?"

"Nay, I've come today to sell pigs with my husband and his brothers."

"Ahh." Liam straightened, one hand behind his back, his expression disappointed. "You have a... Pig"

The crowd laughed. He shrugged, nonplussed.

"You must have made a goodly sum selling your swine."

She gave him a quizzical look, and he drew his hand from hers to display the coin she apparently had given him.

"Still," he said. "I cannot accept this."

Her eyes widened in surprise.

"Here, I insist. You must take it back." Pressing the coin firmly into her palm, he folded her plump fingers over it, then let his jaw drop and proceeded to pull the same coin from her ear.

He set it back into her hand. It came out her nose, from behind her neck, out the bottom of her sleeve. He could barely move fast enough to keep up with the rain of money, and now the crowd was howling.

Finally, he placed the coin decisively back into her hand then turned to the crowd to bow. But just as he was about to do so, he did a double take. Pivoting back toward the maid, he stared in astonishment, for the large copper was pressed warm and firm between her bounteous breasts.

Her gaze followed his own but instead of shocked dismay, she grinned lasciviously as she spied the coin.

Liam cleared his throat and dramatically wiped his brow. "Mayhap you'd best retrieve that one yourself, lass," he said.

But she canted her head at him, her expression sly. "And why is that, Sir? I thought surely you had the... balls for it."

Far be it from him to pass up such an opportunity, if the lass was willing. Shrugging, he reached forward.

A bellow of outrage interrupted Liam's intent. He spun toward the noise, but he was already too late. A fist slammed into his ear. He careened sideways and hit the ground like a pounded stake, but Liam the Irishman was no babe in the woods. With the lithe fluidity of one who had angered husbands before, he rolled sideways, leapt to his feet, and bolted for cover. But an arm reached out from nowhere.

"You'll not mess with
my
brother's wife!" someone yelled.

Colors exploded in Liam's head, and from there on things only got worse.

There were shrieks and screams and fists like battering rams.

Bodies as big as small fortresses loomed over him, swinging wildly as he crouched, trying to protect himself. He grunted in pain and glanced up just long enough to see the drink-reddened faces of four angry brothers.

"I meant no offence," he rasped.

But the four were far beyond listening.

Bending his arm, Liam shielded his face. A fist glanced off his elbow, shooting his own hand toward the man's belt. He had only a moment to take advantage of that position before the next blow caught him in the belly, spilling him onto the grass. Darting his hand beneath his cape, he hid away the purloined pouch then curled into a ball to protect his vitals... and his privates. After all, a man had to preserve his best qualities.

A booted foot caught him in the back. He grunted in agony and fought for lucidness, but darkness was descending. From somewhere in another dimension he heard a woman ordering them to halt. So plump Mairi cared for him a little, he thought hazily and slid toward oblivion. But in that instant, oblivion drew back a hair. He lay still and realized with dim relief that no new pains were being vented on his body.

Instead, a gentle hand touched his shoulder. A soothing voice reached his ears.

He concentrated on the softness of it, on the wonderful cessation of violence.

"Are you all right?" A woman's voice, melodious and sweet. So the lovely Mairi had finally gained control of her husband.

"Aye. I am well." His own voice sounded
less
than melodious, rather resembling the scrunch of metal wheels on gravel, while every inch of him ached with screaming intensity. It seemed as good a reason as any to come up with a likely insult. "They hit like babes."

"A babe am I?" someone roared. From the edge of his swimming eyesight, Liam saw a mountain of a man lunge forward.

But in an instant a fellow in a blue doublet intercepted him. The husband crumpled like a pile of dry chaff. A woman screamed then launched from the crowd to crouch by the fallen man. It was Mairi.

If Liam weren't quite so battered, he might wonder how she could be in two places at once. But as it was, he only accepted the situation.

"What have you done?" Mairi shrieked, her expression tortured as she turned toward Liam.

"Get them out of here." Twas the woman who crouched beside him that gave the order. The woman whose voice, Liam noticed was not as high-pitched, nor as coarse as that of the bonny Mairi.

A voice that spoke with authority and confidence. A voice that tugged at some distant memories that he could not quite...

No! It couldn't be. Not here. Not hundreds of miles from her homeland, logic insisted.

Still, logic seemed a dim thing, whereas her presence seemed very real.

He turned to her slowly, but there was really no need for him to see her face. He already knew it was she. Knew it by the feel of the air around him, knew by the electrical jolt he could now distinguish from his other pains.

Still, he couldn't very well simply lie there and pretend she hadn't just saved his life. Twould be rather like refusing to accept the end of the world. So he twisted about slightly, gazed at her through the blood and hair that smeared his vision and said, "I wasn't expecting you this far to the south, Rachel. Is someone ill?"

He watched her eyes widen in surprise. They were fascinating eyes. Otherworldly eyes. And if he felt like being fair, he could understand why, long ago, she had been dubbed the Lady Saint.

Liam was silent as he waited with a certain amount of desperation for the saintly expression to fade. He was not disappointed. Saintliness fled; disapproval set in. He could tell by the slight stiffening of her back, the narrowing of her eyes.

"I would ask what you're doing here, Liam, but the truth seems quite apparent," she said.

"I'll kill 'im! I'll kill 'im!" the husband bellowed.

"I am but spreading peace and goodwill as is my wont," Liam said. He attempted, for one mind-spinning second, to sit up then decided he was quite comfortable where he was.

"Spreading your seed like dust in the wind more like," she countered.

He tried a grin and found to his everlasting gratification and not unwarranted surprise that his face didn't split in two with the effort. "We cannot all be saints, Rachel," he said.

She snorted. The sound wasn't quite as ladylike as her dress and demeanor suggested and prompted a thousand hot memories in Liam's battered head.

"Do you think you could at least try for
sanity?"
she asked.

"Are you suggesting I'm insane?"

"I'll tear his heart from his chest!" came a distant roar.

"Tell me, Liam, couldn't you have found a smaller man whose wife you might proposition? Or one with fewer brothers, at the least?"

"I didn't proposition her." Not yet, he thought.

"Not yet," she said.

He scowled at her. Twas said that Rachel Forbes had a nasty habit of mucking about in people's brains. He'd never believed a word of it. Still, she did at times give him an eerie feeling. It was one of the many things he'd never liked about her. Dabbing at his lip with the back of his hand, he managed to sit up.

"She wasn't my type," he said.

"Truly?" She gave him a look of surprise, the raising of ebony brows beneath her immaculate white coif. "It looked as if she was breathing to me. And not grotesquely fat."

He tried another grin. It hurt like hell. "Not fat at all," he corrected and rose valiantly to his feet. Unfortunately, the world tilted strangely with the movement, and the earth pitched beneath him like a recalcitrant steed. His knees buckled without warning.

Rachel reached out with instinctual speed, and suddenly her arms were around him.

"Liam!" Her voice was raspy in his ear as she struggled to keep him upright, and in that moment he made the dreadful mistake of glancing at her lips. Damn it all. She may have the eyes of a saint and the skin of a princess, but her lips were the devil's own.

A hundred unwanted feelings washed through him, feelings of need and desire so painful it all but stopped his heart. But reality came quickly, so he pressed more firmly into her and said, "Why, Rachel, I didn't think you cared."

"You've always been wiser than you look," she said, her mouth hardening. "Davin." Her tone was chill as she pulled away her support and turned to a huge blue-garbed fellow who hovered nearby. "Take the Irishman to an inn. See that he has a decent meal and a room for the night."

"I'll rip his balls off!" The threat was distant, but still quite impressive.

"I think the woman's husband may be holding a grudge," Davin said. Liam watched his face for some sign of sarcasm, but his Scandinavian features were no more expressive than a mason's trowel.

"What are you suggesting?" Rachel asked.

"You wish the Irishman to survive the night?"

She remained silent for a moment, her devil's mouth pursed. "My family is rather fond of him."

"Then we'd best see him beyond the husband's reach," Davin suggested.

Rachel scowled, first at her guard then at Liam.

"Very well." Her concession was grudging. "Help him gather his things and see him mounted.

But do not let him tarry. We've no time to squander on the likes of him."

Evening lay about them in a dense sheet of gray. Night prodded the gloaming aside, but night could not come soon enough for Liam, for he felt as if he'd been pounded with a battering ram then tumbled down the road in a wine barrel.

He'd insisted that he would be fine if left in Rainich, but Rachel had been determined to torture him with this ride. And Davin, it seemed, was not the sort to listen to an Irishman's arguments when his mistress' mind was made up.

Beneath him, his gelding stumbled for the fifth time.

"God's balls, horse," Liam gritted. "I don't care if I did pay five times your value. Once more, and I'll trade your hide for a poor pair of boots."

Bocan stumbled again. Liam stifled a groan.

"There's a place just ahead, Lady," Davin reported, riding back to Rachel's side. The company of twelve or so blue-clad soldiers stopped to listen. "Water and forage for the horses. Twill be easily guarded."

"Very well. Set up camp."

Dropping his head, Bocan spread his legs and shook himself violently.

Liam grabbed for the pommel and tried to remain lucid as spasms of pain rolled over him. The gelding straightened, bobbed his elegant head, and snorted. Liam considered passing out.

"But first," Rachel said, never turning her gaze from Davin, "you'd best help the Irishman from his steed."

"You're too kind," Liam mumbled.

"Tis a well-known fact," Rachel agreed.

Davin dismounted and crossed the distance that separated them. Liam dragged one leg over the cantle of his saddle, determined to show some fortitude, but just as he was about to step off, the Norseman grabbed him by the back of the tunic and hauled him down. Pain pounded like running hooves across Liam's trammeled body, but he refused to faint.

Davin, seemingly oblivious to Liam's gallant battle, dragged him across the grass.

Pain kicked up in earnest.

"Will this do, my lady?" asked the huge Norseman.

"That will be fine."

With a nod, Davin loosened his grip and tumbled his cargo to the earth.

"Holy bones!" Liam gasped, grasping for consciousness as pain slammed through him. "Why not just have him take a club to me?"

"I considered it," Rachel said. She stood only a few yards away and turned her mare over to one of her men. "But I thought this might be more satisfying."

Liam groaned as he shifted to a sitting position. "Prefer a slow death, do you, Rachel?"

"I doubt you're going to die."

"You might be surprised."

"I rarely am," she said, stepping toward him.

He snorted and forced his gaze away.

"Where does it hurt?"

Liam jerked his attention back to her with a start. "Nay! You'll not use your witchy potions on me."

"Where do you hurt?" she asked again.

She had the perfect diction afforded her by a fine education. Maybe it was that education that made her so difficult, Liam thought. But no, she'd been a pain in the ass since the day he'd met her over a decade earlier. Even now he could remember how she had looked—with her dark hair bound up in scarlet ribbons and her face so...