Though he’d rendered three men out of action and two more were about to join the fray, it was the sight of Morgan striding toward him at the same moment he became aware of the warm stickiness coating his right hip and thigh that told him his wound was worse than he’d thought.
He shook off the dire thought and turned to face the two men eager to meet their fate. The two attacked him from the front as one. Cal swung his sword to deflect blow after slashing blow, the shorter blade of his dirk cutting the air in-between. He could hear each grunted breath the two men drew and hissed out between clenched teeth. He could also hear his own shuddering pants as he fought. A rush of tiredness swept over him, proving he was losing too much blood and losing it quickly. Cal completed a dirk-cutting slice through the air and was about to send the blade back the other way when a sharp burning pain bit into the flesh of his left upper arm.
Focusing on his physical state and his injury had made him careless and made him vulnerable to another. He spun on his heel to view the culprit who had stolen the use of left arm, knowing full well who it was before he turned. Morgan stood snarling an ugly smile at his handiwork and gesturing with his chin for his men to keep at it and finish Cal off.
He took several steps backward, trying to create distance between himself and the three men who now stalked him like a starving wolf stalked its prey. In that moment, Isla’s image came to him. Her chestnut locks draping her determined shoulders and masking much of the view of her long and graceful neck. Her chin often raised in defiance or lowered in a show of rare shyness. The softness of her bowed lips, lips he’d tasted but never had his fill. The red-brown lashes fanning the smooth creamy skin of her high cheekbones and surrounding the eyes she’d been given, eyes that could no longer see.
Stunning, beautiful, any who saw her would think the same, but she was more than physical. She had an inner beauty that had proven there was so much more beyond the eye could see. More reason or answers for things unknown than what someone saw or remembered. Along with a deeper beauty for everyday things and matters, if one only took the time to look harder, search further than simply skimming the surface of something or someone.
Cal stopped, and with the memory of her taste and the fearful yet brave look on her face as she’d ridden away with Dalziel, he sheathed his dirk at his waist and clutching the hilt of his sword with both hands, advanced toward his attackers. Wounded or nae, he would fight and defeat all three. As he strode forward, meeting each adversary’s gaze one at a time, two of the three began to retreat. He drew level with the tower entrance and the door opened inward.
He grit his teeth and dared to look away for a moment and implore the priests or whoever it was to return inside and bar the doors. The sight of two men, wearing robes and carrying swords, had him swallowing his words.
Father Beaton was one of the sword-wielding priests. He briefly met Cal’s eye and said, ‘Some of us weren’t always men of the cloth.’
Cal gave one brisk nod, and ignoring his fatigue he turned his full attention on Morgan, who stood snarling his displeasure mere feet away, while Cal’s two robed companions took on the remaining two attackers.
Morgan advanced and Cal deflected three swift strikes of his sword using his own. They broke apart and circled one another.
‘Isla will grow to enjoy my touch. She will have nae choice.’
Cal’s heart thudded inside his chest. He wanted to tell Morgan to keep his hands, along with the rest of him, away from Isla, but he needed to keep in control and reserve every tiny ounce of energy to ensure he defeated Morgan.
‘Isla is better off with anyone other than you.’
Morgan’s growl became a roar as he rushed toward Cal in another brutal attack. Cal withstood every arm-shuddering blow using his sword’s long blade, but each time he did, the closer Morgan’s weapon came to finding its mark. Cal’s strength was waning. He suffered its loss with each defensive action. His reaction slowing every time he made to lift his arms, his blade. But he must not let Morgan know or see.
Again they came together, swords clashing, muscles straining, arms and legs shaking. They burst apart, laboured breaths filled the morning. Tightening his grip, Cal lifted his weapon and with deliberate steps, closed the distance between them, swinging his sword down and across only to meet the jarring blade of Morgan’s steel. The move brought them closer than ever and as they each battled to win against the other’s shuddering strength, Cal clenched his jaw and stared at the bead of sweat hanging precariously from the tip of Morgan’s nose.
He watched it for a whisker of time before they both shoved apart, hands and weapons rising with the force behind their standoff as they staggered backward. A pain-filled cry from one of the men fighting a short distance away caught and held Cal’s attention. As he turned to see who the injured party was, hoping it was neither of the sword-wielding priests, praying it wasn’t Isla’s uncle, he saw one of the rebels fall to his knees, clutching his wounded arm.
Cal’s relief was interrupted by the cold tip of Morgan’s blade opening the gash on his right side wider and quickening the flow of blood streaming down over his hip and thigh. Cal clenched his jaw harder to silence the agony on his side. He doubled over, using his sword like a crutch to keep him upright, but managed to glare at Morgan, silently berating himself for looking away from his opponent and dropping his guard.
Morgan smiled a victorious smile that highlighted the shiny scar tissue on one side of his face. ‘Part of me wants to keep ye alive so ye can watch me tame Isla.’ Cal drew a painful, furious breath. ‘The rest of me longs to finish ye off for all the trouble ye caused the day ye stole Isla from me.’ Cal exhaled and braced his legs for Morgan’s decision. ‘I’ve sided with the rest of me.’ Morgan swung his sword high, but so sure Cal’s wound rendered him unable to fight, he never expected Cal to dart low and sink his dirk deep into the muscle between his shoulder and the right side of his chest.
Morgan’s sword and arm collapsed limp at his side as he howled in pain. Cal set his forearm across Morgan’s chest and forced the wounded man backward until his feet couldn’t keep up with his body and he fell onto the grass on his back, clutching his wound and struggling to breathe through clenched teeth.
Stepping forward, Cal set his booted foot on the centre of Morgan’s chest and pressed the sharp point of his sword at the man’s sweat-slicked throat as blood pumped from the wound. Several moments passed before the prone man finally turned his attention from his wound to Cal.
Cal stared down into grey flinty eyes of the man who’d been about to kill him. The man who threatened to tame Isla and force her to endure his touch. ‘Isla was never yours and never will be.’
‘Callum?’ The voice behind him belonged to Father Beaton, but Cal refused to make the mistake of looking away from Morgan again. ‘The fight is over. Father Lindsay and I are unharmed. Killing any of them, including the wretch beneath yer boot will only scar yer soul.’
As he stared down into eyes void of compassion, empty of light, for the first time in his life, Cal wasn’t concerned for his soul. ‘Dinnae worry, Father Beaton. Even if he deserves to die, I have nae intention of killing him today. I have other plans for Morgan.’
Chapter 16
Isla had no clue how long they’d been riding or how far they’d travelled since she’d left the priory with Dalziel and Conan. Thanks to her senses being on high alert, waiting to hear Callum’s low, deep voice telling her he’d come for her and her constant worry that something had happened to him, preventing him from rescuing her again, every part of her hurt.
When she’d stepped outside with her uncle to say goodbye to Callum, she’d known in an instant he wasn’t alone. Despite his calmly spoken words, the soothing tones in his voice were missing. And then he’d sent her off riding his beloved horse.
Something was terribly wrong. She tightened her hold about the pommel, hoping Callum was unharmed. He’d never part with Mungo unless he thought he had no choice. Isla knew the beast ben
eath her would protect her now, just as he had on the outskirts of Brechin. But without his horse, who would protect Callum?
In that moment she hated her blindness and loathed her wretched eyes more than ever before. If she could see she was certain she could help in some way. She’d have more choices instead of being the poor blind lass everyone pitied but no one believed in.
But Callum believed in her. He’d asked about her blindness and told her he was sorry for all that she’d lost, but not once had she heard pity in his voice. He’d praised her for simple things like hanging their wet clothes on the hooks she’d found high on the inn’s walls. Spoken in awe of how she’d moved freely about in the outbuilding the night he’d first come for her. Small things, but his praise made her feel as if she’d conquered so much more. He made her feel special and important rather than the burden she thought she’d become. He made her believe in herself.
Isla sat straighter in the saddle, her heart pounding just thinking of how good Callum made her feel about herself. She missed him. She wanted to feel him behind her, around her. As if he sensed what she was thinking, Mungo snorted and tossed his head. Isla clung to the pommel with one hand and shifted the other down onto the side of Mungo’s neck to offer him soothing strokes. He quieted at her touch, but she understood how much he was missing Callum, for she missed him too.
Isla decided she would keep alert and when the chance to escape presented itself, with Mungo’s help, they would find a way to return to Callum’s side.
* * *
Cal stared across the stone floor of the priory’s infirmary as Father Beaton finished tending to his wounds. The gash on his right side had been stitched closed and covered using a thick bandage around his waist. The flow of blood had eased, but within moments a dark stain coloured the dressing.
Across the chamber, an injured Morgan lay bound by hands and feet on a pallet while another priest patched up his wounds. Cal had bitten down on his tongue to prevent himself from suggesting they let the cur bleed. The thought, only one of several to cross Cal’s mind this day since he’d held his sword at Morgan’s neck. The sun hadn’t yet reached its peak.
‘’Tis done.’ Father Beaton released a long sigh before speaking again. ‘You need to rest and give your injuries time to heal.’
‘My thanks,’ Cal said and stood. He looked at the priest and then down at the patch of red slowly seeping and spreading to cover more of the dressing on his side. ‘We’ll be leaving as soon as Morgan’s wounds have been seen to.’
‘If you wait a day or two, I can accompany you,’ Father Beaton said as he stood beside Cal. Two of Morgan’s men had fled after they’d been wounded at the start of the fight. The other three were being held and tended in a chamber across the hall. They were the priory’s responsibility now.
Cal looked into Isla’s uncle’s eyes. ‘I’ve delayed too long already.’
‘Do you know where—’
‘Nae,’ Cal said cutting the priest’s question short. He didn’t know precisely where Dalziel was taking Isla and the uncertainty cut like a blade. ‘But I will find them.’ Before his mind could form images of how he would find them, he continued. ‘I’ll need rope and your help to secure Morgan.’
With a resigned look in his gaze, Father Beaton nodded. ‘I’ll fetch the rope.’
* * *
‘Ye got lucky today.’
The unfamiliar bay Cal rode, which belonged to one of the wounded men, took several more steps before Cal slowly turned his head to acknowledge the man riding beside him had spoken. The first words either of them had said since they’d ridden away from the priory at noon.
Afternoon sunlight pierced the clouded sky and glinted on the sweat beading Morgan’s forehead, cheeks and upper lip. The hue of his skin reminded Cal of ashes swept from a hearth. The rigid set of his lips pulled back, revealing his teeth, spoke of the pain his wounds were causing and his frustration at Cal’s supposed luck this day.
Luck had nothing to do with anything. If luck had played a part, Dalziel wouldn’t have found them and Morgan and his band wouldn’t have been lurking in the small wood. Cal wouldn’t have a wound that bled into his shirt and plaid, despite having been stitched and tended.
Luck had naught to do with the outcome of the swordfight either. Morgan had lost the battle before Cal’s dirk found its mark. Morgan lost the fight the moment he told himself he’d won, but hadn’t yet delivered the winning stroke. Cal had won before the fight had even begun. Isla needed him. So did Mungo.
Cal tightened his hold about the coarse length of rope in his left hand and flexed the fingers of his right hand about the hilt of his sword resting across his thighs. He kept their horses at a steady pace and though they’d attracted confused and then fearful looks, no one interrupted their journey or deigned to speak to them. But still the length of time it was taking them grated on Cal’s soul. If they were heading in the right direction was another.
Cal continued to hold his silence while his mind screamed imagined horrors Isla was suffering and conjured images to heighten her terror. He needed to find her before Dalziel had the chance to make any of them real.
The next time Morgan spoke, the silver-grey sky had darkened to charcoal.
‘Naught ye do will stop him from having her.’
Part of Cal welcomed the interruption to his repeated unsavoury thoughts and the accompanying pictures that swarmed inside his head as if they were real. Part of him wanted to knock Morgan off his horse. But bound as he was, the fall would kill him and Cal needed him alive. He also needed to believe Dalziel’s obsession with Isla, or rather with her mother, could be swayed.
Tall grasses and bracken lined each side of the path they followed. A path he’d only ridden once, in the opposite direction, with a woman he hadn’t wanted to know, but who had found a way to make him feel things he’d long believed he never could. Do things he’d never thought he would. Learn things he thought he already knew. See things he’d missed, or in a different light.
All his life he’d done his best to do what was right, with the knowledge he’d had at the time. But one kiss from Isla had left his heart soaring while the rest of him sank deep in a sea of questions. What was right and who made it so? What was right for Cal didn’t mean it was right for Duff or Adair. Right or best? Right or different?
He believed certain things were either right or wrong, no matter who you were. But Isla and her kiss had shown him that what he’d thought was right for him was only one of the many choices he had. In his mind he’d believed kissing Isla was wrong, before his mouth had even touched her lips. But kissing her had been a need he couldn’t stop, a want he hadn’t been prepared to pass up. Kissing Isla was the best wrong choice he’d ever made. His heart told him so. But would he reach her in time to convince her? Would she even listen to what he had to say?
The trail dipped, and then on the shallow rise Cal caught a glimpse of the inn where he and Isla had pretended to be married and had taken shelter after the storm. Was she in there now? In the same room they’d shared for a short time? Was she safe and unharmed?
Cal drew the bay and Morgan’s horse to a halt beneath one large tree branch that spanned from one side of the trail over to the other. He studied the landscape each side, and satisfied with the clump of trees on the right, a good distance from the road, Cal headed in that direction.
‘It’s about time ye let us stop.’
Cal had no clue as to why Morgan believed they were finally stopping, but he ignored the comment and led them across the small clearing that hosted the odd shrub and on through the long grasses and wildflowers sprouting from the rocky ground. None of the trees they were heading toward were tall, but their limbs were heavy with leaves and the thick foliage would keep Morgan out of sight until Cal returned. If he returned.
He steered them to the side of the copse of trees and stopped to sheath his sword. He then pulled two strips of linen Father Beaton had given him from his sack. It was a waste of good dressings
, but necessary. With a nudge of his knee, the bay he rode shifted directly beside the other horse.
‘What are ye doing?’ Morgan’s dark brows slashed down to form a vee.
Cal levelled a direct look into his eyes. ‘I have something I need to do. I could ask you to remain still and quiet,’ Cal said drawing the rope in his left hand tight. ‘But you have proven beyond a doubt you and your word cannae be trusted.’
Clenching his fist, Cal tugged on the rope. With the other end looped around Morgan’s neck, the man had no choice but to lean toward Cal. But as Cal suspected, Morgan turned his head away. ‘You can make this easy or difficult,’ Cal said holding the coarse length taut. ‘I suggest you save your strength for surviving your wounds and everything that comes next.’
Morgan released the breath he was holding on a grunt that shouted his displeasure. He slowly turned back to face Cal and spoke through gritted teeth. ‘My father won’t give Isla up. Yer a fool ta think anything ye say or do will change his mind.’
Cal stared into Morgan’s eyes. ‘I aim to prove you wrong.’ He prayed to God he succeeded.
Once Morgan was gagged and the rope about his neck was tied to a higher branch on the same tree his horse was tethered to, Cal dismounted and rechecked all was in place. Bound in his saddle in the middle of the copse, Cal left Morgan with a final warning to stay still and quiet and walked to where his horse waited. Swallowing a painful grunt, he mounted and returned to the trail. He used the short time it took him to reach the inn to catch his breath and cast the fatigue that slowly threatened his plans aside by thinking of Isla.
Beautiful Isla, inside and out. She’d lost so much. She deserved to choose what she wanted to do and where she wanted to go. And with whom. She needed to be free to make her choice. Cal had already kept his promise to deliver her to Restenneth Priory, but she’d become so much more to him than a promise needing to be fulfilled. He only hoped his plan worked. But first he needed to find out if Dalziel had brought her to the inn.
The Saint Page 16
