Tyler, Lynn - For Her Honor [For Her] (Siren Publishing Classic) (3 page)

Robbie rolled his eyes heavenward and prayed for patience. This was the same argument he had been hearing for days. “It is but a rumor, nothing more,” he said.

Truth be told, he had been concerned when he had first heard tell of his potential bride’s inability to bear children. A quick but thorough investigation into her actions revealed the rumor to be false. Jocelyn’s chastity was quite well known among the men he had questioned. In fact, most men were afraid she would poison them with her knowledge of herbs and plants. One man even claimed to know the accuracy of her foot, going so far as to cup himself protectively as he told the story. Since she was very likely chaste, her supposed issue with sterility was just a rumor.

Robbie wrenched himself from his thoughts as Will began speaking again. “Aye, well, since no man has ever been near her, she must have started the rumor herself. Now I ask you, what sort of lass would spread such lies about herself?”

“I know the reason!” their younger brother, who had evidently been listening to their conversation, said over his shoulder. “It is so she will not have to marry our great, ugly oaf of a brother.”

Robbie’s jaw tightened, and his already grim mood turned blacker still. He knew Jamie was just teasing him, but he also knew he was ugly. He had once been a handsome lad, the lasses falling all over themselves to find their way into his bed. But one tiny stumble in his first battle thirteen years ago, when he was but sixteen years old, had left him with a gruesome scar that ran from his temple, across his jaw and down his neck, trailing to an end along his collar bone. A last burst of energy had seen him drive his sword into the man’s belly before he surrendered to the blessed blackness.

Robbie had awoken to the news the man was dead and his betrothed was disgusted by his wound. He hadn’t blamed his betrothed in the least. Not when nary a single one of the men could look him in the face without cringing. Not when the women would faint dead away or gag when he looked their way. Not when even his own mother couldn’t look at him without her eyes welling with tears.

Still, he had tried to stay positive. The fact he had survived was a testament to his strength, a worthy trait in both a laird, to which he was heir, and husband, or so he thought. Robbie’s betrothed, Eileen, had sworn she loved another and had cried through their whole wedding ceremony while he forced his jaw to move enough to speak his vows. She had left to prepare for their wedding night while he had scowled into his ale.

When he finally gathered the motivation to face his weeping bride, he’d had quite the shock when he found her hanging from a wooden beam in the ceiling. A chair had been kicked away from her feet and their wedding linens had served as her noose with a note claiming she could not stomach waking up to his scarred, disfigured face for the rest of her life. The note also claimed she had fallen in love and given herself to another.

Robbie still remembered feeling so utterly horrified that the young woman had taken her life rather than remain married to him. The only people who knew the truth behind his first wife’s death were his brothers, his now deceased father, and his father-in-law, who had been so appalled at what his own daughter had done he had never spoken of her again.

Now, at twenty-nine years old, he had only had sex a handful of times and always in complete darkness. He couldn’t stand to see a lass flinch from his scar, though his brothers swore they looked away because of his reputation as a cold-hearted, quick-tempered bastard.

The pervasive belief he had murdered his wife insulted him, but he had never bothered to correct anyone. The truth was just too humiliating. He’d rather take care of his own needs than turn to a frightened woman. The good Lord had given him hands, and he figured he could use them.

So, in reality, the issue was not one of legitimate heirs but one of any heirs at all. And if Jocelyn MacKenna followed the path of her sisters, she would be pregnant before the month was out. If he ever got there to wed the lass.

Besides, he was convinced that all his bride needed was a strong male to curtail her reckless behavior. And though he would never admit it to either of his brothers or any of his men, Jocelyn MacKenna’s behavior intrigued him. When all the other lasses talked of nothing save marriage, this lass did everything to dissuade a suitor. He was also impressed with her cleverness. The tale of her “infertility” was really quite brilliant.

“Perhaps the two of you would stop trying to convince me to back out of my agreement,” he growled. “I know no lass will lie with me willingly because of the great scar on my face. This is my only course of action.” Robbie fought the urge to sink his sword into the nearest tree in his temper. It would do him no good and trying to yank it back out of the tree would put them later still.

Will tossed Jamie a dirty look before speaking. “’Tis not your scar the lassies fear, Robbie,” he said in a voice he would use to placate to a toddler. “Truly, ’tis not that bad, just a thin white line, really. The lassies are intimidated by your countenance. Do you have to act as if you would rather beat the next man to approach you than talk to him?”

Robbie didn’t know how to reply. Both of his brothers had said the same thing over and over again. He just couldn’t figure out why the women had been throwing themselves at him before his face was scarred and why they scuttled away from him now.

His stallion began prancing nervously. Robbie signaled for quiet while he listened carefully for whatever had spooked the beast. Whinnying fretfully, his horse twitched suddenly, mere moments before a bloodcurdling scream rent the air. The scream, originating from somewhere in front of them, was cut off abruptly by the clang of metal meeting metal. Resigned to the fact he would have to rescue whatever fool would travel at night, present company excluded, he turned his horse in the direction of the noise. “Have care, lads, it could be a trap!” he called.

They quickly found the cause of all the commotion. Five men, presumably horse thieves, surrounded one slim lad. The boy was putting up a vicious struggle, hacking away at the men without pause.

He heard Jamie swear as they took stock of the situation. It was evident from the lad’s stance and the way he held his sword, he was extremely skilled. The lad ducked and dodged with an agility most men would envy. But even the most skilled swordsman couldn’t outmaneuver five men.

Robbie drew his sword and dismounted, confident that his well-trained horse would not stray. He strode toward the closest man, jamming his sword as hard as he could between the thief’s shoulder blades. Blood ran down to the hilt, making it hard to grip, but he held on, jerking up on the handle to quicken the death.

He quickly dispatched another one of the men, managing to split him from stem to stern before the warning cry went up. The lad took one slash to the shoulder and a nasty knock on the head before the men took off. The boy stared at Robbie as if the devil had come calling. The young man took one look at the thief’s insides spilling out and promptly fainted dead away.

Robbie quickly wiped off the blade and sheathed his sword before hurrying to the fallen boy’s side. He felt rather than saw one of his men kneel beside him.

“Christ, the lad is barely sixteen, not even old enough to shave. What the hell is he doing out here alone?” Will muttered.

“He did well, though,” Colin mused from behind them. “Not many men could take on five thieves at once, let alone one only half grown.”

Robbie merely grunted in response. While he was irritated at yet another interruption, he had to admire the lad’s skill. He briefly wondered if he should offer to foster him when a growing stain of blood darkening the lad’s tunic caught his eye. He unstrapped the satchel attached to his back and flung it to Will. “Put that in my saddlebag for safe keeping. I’m sure he’ll want it when he wakes up.” Unpinning the boy’s tartan, he threw the excess to one side, and leaving the plaid to cover the lad from waist to knee, he sliced the tunic away from his body.

“What the Devil?” Robbie exclaimed as he saw the boy’s chest. His chest was bound tightly with several strips of linen from his armpits to halfway down his ribs. Wanting to ease the lad’s breathing, he cut through the bindings.

The strips of material fell open to reveal the most magnificent pair of breasts he had ever seen. Though they were badly marked and reddened from the constraints, he could see they were high and flawlessly round, not overly large but big enough to fit perfectly into his palms. The moonlight made it difficult to discern the color of her nipples, but he could see well enough to watch as they stiffened rapidly in the cool night breeze.

Suppressing his sudden urge to lower his head and suckle one into his mouth, Robbie tore his gaze from her chest and met his brother’s shocked eyes.

“Sweet Heaven,” Will breathed reverently. “A lass.”

“Aye,” Robbie agreed grimly. He gripped his tunic and pulled it over his head, pressing it over her wound to stem the bleeding. “Put your eyes back in your head, lad, and fetch me my spare plaid.”

He covered her with her plaid as best he could before cautiously raising the linen to check on her wound. It appeared to be fairly shallow and was bleeding only sluggishly now but even the smallest of wounds could become infected. He poured water over it, cleaning it as well as he could with his limited supplies.

The lass twitched as the cold water hit her skin, and her eyes fluttered open. Robbie saw a moment’s worth of confusion flit across her face before it bloomed into full-blown panic. She scrambled away from him, pushing herself up into a sitting position. Grabbing for the knife that was strapped to her thigh, she held it aloft threateningly. “Do not come any closer,” she warned.

Wanting to reassure of his intentions, he raised his hands. “Easy. I will not hurt you, lass,” he said quietly, as he would to a skittish horse.

Her eyes widened when she realized he knew her true sex, and she glanced down at her bared chest. She sucked in a great gulp of air and jumped to her feet, her loosened tartan slipping to pool on the ground at her feet. She ignored the falling plaid and took up a fighting stance.

She stood fiercely, her chin tilted defiantly, ready to fight. With the moonlight shimmering eerily off her pale skin, the girl reminded Robbie of some sort of warrior goddess of old. She hissed another warning at him, seemingly oblivious to the fact she was naked as the day she was born.

Robbie eyed the knife in her hand warily. Even an unskilled child could inflict a lot of damage with it, and he had seen enough to know she was far from unskilled. He took a step toward her, speaking softly as he moved. “Put the knife down, lass. You are safe with us. The highwaymen have fled.”

Robbie saw the indecision flicker in her eyes, and that was all he needed. Taking advantage of the opportunity her momentary hesitation provided, he leapt forward. He caught her wrist, forcing her to drop the knife. She screeched like a wild cat and clawed at him with her free hand. “You will wake the dead, woman!” he roared, yanking her against his body to prevent her from twisting out of his grasp and gripping her other hand.

He yelped when he felt her teeth sink into his chest and managed to swing his hips to the side just before her rising knee could connect with a very sensitive place. “Damn it, lass! Would you stop?” he shouted, jerking away from her as she swooped in to bite him again. “You are going to further damage your wound!”

She froze against him at his words. “My wound?” she whispered, her breath puffing, warm and moist, across the skin on his chest. She seemed to melt into him as his words sank in. She dropped her forehead to rest against his chest as she began to gasp for breath.

He tensed for an entirely different reason. He had been far too long without a woman if this little hellcat could drag a response out of him so easily. “Aye,” he said roughly. “The bastard got a slice in before he met his maker. It is just a small wound really, but we should have a care of it nonetheless.”

Her breasts were heaving against him as she fought to catch her breath, their softness emphasized by his hard chest. He could feel her nipples scraping across his skin, forcefully reminding him he was holding a gloriously nude woman in his arms.

She turned her head slightly to look at her shoulder, her short dark hair brushing against his collarbone. Robbie barely swallowed the groan the tiny, unintentional caress caused, his hands switching from restraining to stroking.

She stood passively in his arms, allowing him to soothe her. All the fight seemed to have drained out of her, and he knew it was only a matter of time before fear and exhaustion caught up with her.

Sometime during their struggle, Will had delivered the requested plaid and a tunic he recognized as Jamie’s. Robbie glanced down at her as she began to shiver, concerned to see her complexion pale so completely, she looked almost like a specter in the moonlight. He needed to treat her shoulder and get her warm. “If I let you go to see to your shoulder, will you behave?”

Her nostrils flared briefly with a spark of temper, making him wonder what they would look like heated with passion as she rode him with abandon. Her sigh broke into his fantasy, and he looked at her to find her nodding. God’s blood, he was disgusting. The lass was frightened and injured and here he was lusting after her. Shaking his head at his behavior, he reached for the little bundle of clothing, relieved to find a pile of relatively clean linen strips he could use as a bandage.

Robbie treated her shoulder quickly and helped her don the clothing, wincing sympathetically at the faint lines of pain creasing her face.