My Fierce Highlander (6 page)

They yelled curses, taunts and threats meant
to undermine his courage. He oft used the same tactic himself.

Alasdair peered back and found one of the
horses breaking away from the others, surging forward like an
Arabian. The bearded, yodeling devil of a rider waved his
broadsword overhead.

The fog thinned and the distant hills of his
own land came into view. But he wasn’t there yet. The MacIrwin
knave bore down on him. Alasdair easily understood the other man’s
murderous threats, called out from a few paces away. The breath of
his mount huffed within earshot.

His pursuer drew almost even with him on the
left. Alasdair thrust his sword at the man’s abdomen in a quick,
precise stab. The pressure on the blade’s point told him he’d
struck his mark. The other man growled an oath and lashed out with
his own sword.

Alasdair dodged away, guiding his mount to
the right.

“
A mhic an uilc!
” the man bellowed,
dropping back.

The renewed thunder of hooves approached.
Alasdair glanced back to find the other four MacIrwins at twenty
paces and gaining ground.

A hill lay before him. The horse beneath him
would be hard-pressed to climb it. One thing stood in his favor—it
was his hill on his lands.

Up ahead, battle cries rang out through the
dusk. Through the drifting clouds, the faint light of the moon
glowed off the pale shirts of a half-dozen of his clansmen
descending the hill, some on foot and others on horseback.

He called out to them, slowed his horse and
turned about to face the nearest MacIrwin. Alasdair raised his
blade to deflect the enemy’s first blow. Metal clanged against
metal. He struck out again and again at the other man with thrusts
and slices.

“Alasdair!” His kinsmen joined in the
skirmish. They unseated two of the MacIrwins and sent their mounts
galloping. The remaining two swung their horses about and raced
away, back down the hillside. The two on foot fled.

He’d made it. He released a shout of victory
in the wake of the retreating MacIrwins.

His clansmen surrounded him and called out
greetings. “Chief! You live!”

“We thought you dead for certain sure,” his
cousin, Fergus, said.

He laughed. “I would’ve been without your
help.”

At the hilltop lookout, he dismounted and
slapped his borrowed horse on the haunch, sending it back to its
owners. He would not be accused of horse thievery. A lone torch
revealed a dozen of his clansmen gathered here, but some were
missing. “Who died in the skirmish yesterday?” he asked, thankful
to see his cousins Fergus and Angus hale and hearty.

Fergus named five men. Good, strong, noble
men, the lot of them. Men he had grown up with and fought beside
many times.

“
Muire Mhàthair!
” Alasdair felt
responsible, for he should never have trusted the enemy’s word on
anything. Tomorrow, he would visit their families and offer what
help he could. But nothing would replace a husband and father gone
forever. One way or another, he would see the MacIrwin pay.

“Glad we are that you made it back.” Fergus
slapped him on the shoulder.

“No more glad than I. My skull was near
bashed in.” Alasdair limped forward. “And I broke a toe. Smarts
like the very devil.”

Despite the gloominess of the situation, they
chuckled at him. Two hoisted him atop another horse.

He smiled at their good-natured ribbing about
their formidable chief being brought down by his toe.

“Where’s Lachlan?”

“At the tower,” Angus said. “Hatching up a
plan of attack on the craven MacIrwins. He’s madder than hell
itself, thinking you dead. We all were. But I’ve never seen the lad
so intent on revenge.”

Lachlan was the merry sort, and Alasdair
hated to see him fash himself so. As second in command, he would be
next in line to inherit the titles of chief and earl if something
happened to Alasdair. Lachlan hated responsibility or being tied
down and would likely find the position difficult to grow
accustomed to.

“I must see him. I thank you for coming to my
rescue.”

The men laughed and slapped the rump of his
mount. The horse trotted forward, carrying him toward his tower,
Kintalon Castle. Mist had risen from the loch and now cloaked the
castle.

Inside the high-walled barmkin, he dismounted
and handed the reins to a stable lad who gaped at him
slack-jawed.

Shouts of “Alasdair!” and “Laird MacGrath!”
rang out around him. He smiled and greeted his clan.

Several of his overjoyed clansmen lifted and
carried him up the spiral stone staircase in the attached round
tower.

Once inside the candlelit great hall, they
set him down. The familiar smells of baking bread and spiced ale
calmed him. Home. He limped to a chair and stood behind it. The
room of thirty or more people fell silent. He scanned the pleased
faces of his kinsmen and women before him. Gratitude and pride in
his clan tightened his chest.

“I’m thankful to be home this day. I have a
few minor injuries, but I’m alive.”

Their boisterous cheer resounded off the
two-story high ceiling.

His brother, Lachlan, descended the stone
steps. His gaze lit on Alasdair, and his face paled. “By heaven!
Alasdair? You live!” He rushed forward and pulled Alasdair into a
rough hug. Lachlan, the same size as him but two years younger, did
not realize his own strength.

Pain shot through Alasdair’s chest and
abdomen, but he didn’t even grunt. “Aye
, mo bhràthar.
”

Lachlan pulled back. “Thanks be to God. We
thought you dead and buried in a bog, or sunk in the loch.”

Alasdair grinned. “A bonny MacIrwin fairy
saved my life.”

The men’s laughter bounced off the stone
walls. But concern for Gwyneth weighed heavily in Alasdair’s
mind.

Would Donald MacIrwin find out she’d saved
his life? He’d been nowhere near the cottage when he’d been
spotted, so surely they wouldn’t make the connection.

Unless they backtracked him.

***

The entry door of Irwin Castle burst open.
Chief Donald MacIrwin glanced up from his wooden bowl containing
his meager supper of bland porridge, annoyed they were near out of
oats and ale or anything else to eat. He hesitated to have more of
the cattle or sheep butchered, else they’d have none. They’d need
to raid a nearby clan soon.

“What is it?” he demanded of his four
clansmen striding forward, their wild hair windblown as if they’d
ridden hard, and their plaids askew. He’d set them to guard the
border betwixt his land and MacGrath’s. “And more importantly, what
the devil are you doing away from your posts?”

“Alasdair MacGrath was here, m’laird,”
Burgin, one of his best guards, said.

Donald bolted up from his chair, rage blazing
through him. “Alasdair! The chief? Where?” He reached for his sword
at his side, then realized the weapon was in the armory, being
cleaned and sharpened.

“Aye,” Burgin said. “He knocked Charlie out
and stole his horse. Then he fled across the moor onto his own
lands. We tried to stop him but Charlie’s horse is fast. He had
reinforcements waiting at the border.”

“Damnation! What was he doing here? The chief
would not come alone.”

“He must have been here since the other
skirmish. He’d been hiding in the wood, waiting to attack one of us
and make good his escape.”

“That whoreson.” Donald felt like overturning
the whole table, but held his temper. How could MacGrath have
hidden in the wood that well for almost two days? “Was he
injured?”

“He did not appear to be injured as he fled
but mayhap he was. We thought we’d seen him fall during the first
skirmish. Red John remembered striking him, but then we couldn’t
find his body.”

Something strange was going on. Had a member
of the MacIrwin clan helped this MacGrath bastard?

“At first light, find out where he was hiding
in the wood. Edward is a good tracker.”

***

The next day, Gwyneth set down her herb
basket at the crest of a hill and once again murmured a prayer that
Rory’s little friend would not mention the enemy warrior to anyone.
Rory assured her he hadn’t said the MacGrath name to the other lad
or that the man had been hiding in their byre. Still, Gwyneth’s
stomach had been upset all night and she had gotten little
sleep.

She inhaled the calming scents of the pungent
herbs from her basket and the clean breeze as she gazed out over
the rolling brownish Cairngorms toward the east. The sheep and
cattle dotting the lower green hills were not MacGrath livestock.
Their holdings lay beyond the meager wood and beside the loch in
the distance reflecting the blue late afternoon sky. Apparently the
high mountain blocked her view of their castle.

Though she did not want to admit it, she’d
spent the day missing the big, teasing Scot. His devilish smile and
lingering midnight gaze had disrupted her mundane life. Now, her
only entertainment was her memories.

And the memories did crowd in on her. He’d
said she was lovely as a spring morn, and he’d looked at her as no
man had in years. As if…had he not been injured and they had been
at a banquet, he might have asked for a dance, or a walk in the
garden. Or a kiss.

Imagining what his lips might feel like on
hers—warm, firm and smooth, she realized she had taken too close a
notice of his mouth.

She pressed her eyes closed.
I’m a wanton.
No wonder I’m stuck here in the godforsaken Highlands.

But it wasn’t just his dark good looks that
appealed to her. He appeared to have a good and compassionate
heart.

She had to believe he’d made it home, where
he would be safe from Donald and his men. Home, where he would heal
and live to fight another day.

Yes, it was best he’d gone. She hated war,
but that was his life.

From the small pouch attached to her belt,
she withdrew her only remaining memento from England—her mother’s
pelican-in-her-piety pendant.

Just before Gwyneth had left her father’s
house, over six years ago, her mother had slipped this piece of
jewelry into her hand as she’d embraced her the last time. The
pendant was pewter and not very valuable except for the small ruby
at the pelican’s breast. Legend said that if the pelican was unable
to find food for her young, she would peck at her own breast and
draw forth blood with which to feed them.

At first Gwyneth had thought her mother had
given it to her as a reminder of her faith, the pelican
representing Christ. But years later, she came to realize that
perhaps her mother’s message meant something else—that as a mother,
Gwyneth must be willing to sacrifice all for the sake of her
son.

And if she had to, she would.

She closed her fingers over the worn surface
of the pelican and her three chicks. She missed her mother
terribly, but her father would not allow them contact. What would
her mother think of Rory? Surely she would love her grandson, born
in shame or not.

Gwyneth returned the pelican to her pouch and
picked up her herb basket.
I will not dream of things I cannot
have.

“Come, Rory,” she called to her dawdling son.
“Tell me, what is this herb?” She bent and fingered the rough green
leaves.

He frowned. “I do nay ken,” he said in a
strong accent like MacGrath’s.

“Where did that Scots brogue come from?”

Rory shrugged.

“I think you spent too much time with Master
MacGrath.”

“You mean Angus?”

“You are not to call him by his first name.
’Tis not respectful.”

“He said I could.”

“I do not care what he said.”

Rory pouted. “I wish he would come back.”

She knelt before Rory. “Listen, son, you are
not to mention Angus MacGrath’s name to anyone else. Do you
understand? Donald will kill Master MacGrath if you do.”

Rory’s eyes widened.

So she’d told a little fib. In truth, Donald
would kill Gwyneth and Rory if he knew.

“I can keep a secret,” Rory said with a
solemn expression.

“Good.” She hugged him, kissed his forehead
and straightened. “Time to go home. Evening will be upon us soon,
and we must milk.”

He found a short stick and, as if it were a
pistol, pretended to shoot at birds with it.

She shook her head. The boy would make
anything into a weapon.

When they rounded the hillside, the stench of
smoke met her nose. She grasped Rory’s hand and pulled him along
with her. Shouts and a scream in the distance chilled her.

Forcing herself to move forward, she cut
through the trees above the cottage. Flames devoured the thatched
roof.

Mora!

“Where is Mora?” she whispered, ran several
paces, then halted. Her dear friend lay face down in the dirt yard,
a sword protruding from her back. “Dear God.” She felt as if a
dagger had struck her own heart.

Donald’s men milled about around Mora.

Murdering fiends!

Horror crumpled Gwyneth’s body and she fell
to her knees among the rocks. “Oh, dear heaven, Mora, what have I
done?” she sobbed, pressing a hand to her mouth to hold in a
scream.

“Ma, I’m scared,” Rory whimpered.

“Shh. You must be quiet.” She turned Rory
away from the carnage and held him tight in her trembling arms.

Donald must have found out about Angus
MacGrath. Was it because of Rory’s friend, or had MacGrath been
captured when he was trying to escape?

Either way, Mora was dead and Gwyneth took
full blame because she’d insisted on helping him. Mora had
cautioned her against it.

I’m so sorry, Mora. I will never forgive
myself.

Gwyneth wiped her eyes and stood. “Come. We
must hide.” She shoved her herb basket under a short bush, grabbed
Rory’s hand and they ran through the wood, slipping on leaves and
pine needles.