by Aileen Adams
The thought of listening to nonstop talking made his skin crawl.
“We need to move,” he reminded Drew, who stepped out of the tavern with bags loaded over both arms.
“Do ye fancy the notion of riding out with no food, lad? Or drink?” Drew chuckled as he hung the bags from the saddle of his gelding, whose hooves pawed impatiently at the ground.
“Dinna pretend it’s the food ye care about,” Rufus smirked. “And it isn’t as if we canna hunt.”
“Perhaps ye can,” Drew shrugged, swinging his compact body up onto the gelding’s back. “Ye know I was never much with a bow. And this is only a day’s worth, perhaps two. I didna see reason for us to start with nothing. A few extra minutes will not make a bit of difference.”
Rufus bit back a sharp reply. Perhaps it meant nothing to his cousin, but he had all but counted the minutes since he’d received word of his parents’ death and his brother’s removal from his rightful place. Every minute more was like an eternity.
What must it look like to Drew, and especially to the others? They were not of his blood, they had no reason outside of the gold which Rufus had promised in return for their services to endanger their lives. And their lives would indeed be in danger if Ian MacFarland had a chance to make it so.
The pitiful excuse for a man would murder a pair of old people in their very home. He was capable of any sort of devilry.
Yet none of them seemed concerned in the least about the possible danger. In fact, they welcomed it.
“Come on, then.” Alec’s obsidian eyes sparkled with excitement. “I’m longing to sink my dirk into the flesh of a murderous bastard or two.”
“Aye,” Tyrone agreed as he hauled his considerably powerful body onto the back of an equally powerful horse. Nothing compared to Clyde’s draft horse, but still impressive.
His eyes widened when he took note of the tartan half-hidden beneath Rufus’s cloak, wrapped across his chest and torso and tucked into his kilt. The dim lighting inside the tavern accounted for his not having noticed earlier. Now, in full daylight, the sun nearly overhead, it was plain to see. “Ye believe it’s wise to wear that?” he murmured.
Rufus looked down at the colorful sash. His family’s tartan, green on a field of red. “Aye. I do. Let any man challenge my right to do so.”
“Ye know it’s against the law now. Unless a man’s a member of the army.”
“I know it.” Rufus met his gaze with an equally steady eye. “And as I said, let any man challenge me.”
“I merely wished to be certain,” Tyrone shrugged. “Ye know such matters have never mattered much to me.”
Rufus looked around at the other men. “If any of ye have a concern over my wearing the MacIntosh tartan, speak now. I would not wish to put any of ye in danger against your wishes.”
Drew snorted, bringing his gelding about. “Come on, then. I thought ye were in a rush to get moving.”
“I’m selling my sword in your service,” Alec reminded him. “Do ye think it matters to me what ye wear?”
Clyde spoke not a word. He merely grunted, nodded, and took the reins in hand.
“All right, then.” They started off northwest, where Brodric reported that the MacFarlands would ride after returning to their ancestral land to gather supplies. They’d ridden straight back to Moray Firth, back to the home in which Rufus had spent his earliest days.
It would be where the MacFarlands spent their last.
It was near dark, only the faintest beams of struggling sunlight sliding through overhanging birch branches, when Rufus spotted something in the woods to his right.
He’d been riding at the front of the group for half the day by that point, clutching his cloak closed against the chill which grew more pronounced the lower the sun sank. It would be a damp, cool night, with a fire necessary to keep the men warm while they slept.
He was considering this while Alec and Tyrone compared tales of the various lasses they’d bedded between battles and was just about to bring up the fact that they’d need to make camp before long when another, different noise caught his attention.
His head snapped around in that direction in time to catch sight of a moving lump against a gnarled old trunk.
Rufus brought the horse to a halt and held up a hand to stop the others, his gaze trained on the spot where he’d observed the movement.
“Ye saw something?” Drew murmured when he reached his side.
A slight nod of his head before dismounting, eyes still directed to the place where someone or something watched them. One hand on the hilt of his claymore, he took a few steps in the direction of the moving mass, nothing about it giving him the impression of it being human.
Until it coughed.
“Who are ye?” Rufus leveled his steel at the hunched figure while he was still several steps away. “Speak. Tell me who ye are and what ye happen to be doing here.”
The figure moved. “That’s two questions. Which of the two would ye prefer I answer first?”
The voice was not that of a man.
“Who is it?” Alec shouted behind him.
“I canna say as yet,” Rufus called back.
“I can say.” The figure shifted again, the hood of the brown cloak sliding down to reveal a mass of loose-hanging auburn curls just visible in the dim light. “Though I won’t, because it happens to be no business of yours.”
A woman. She would not be alone. Rufus looked around, sword still at the ready—the lass could easily conceal a weapon beneath that cloak of hers, and it would hardly be the first time a group of cutthroats used a woman as a lure to attract foolish men.
The woods appeared empty and sounded that way, too, but it meant nothing for a group of skilled thieves or murderers to remain silent and still.
“Who are ye with?” he demanded, still speaking to the back of her head.
“Myself. No one else.” She turned, glaring at him with what looked like two blazing coals set in a face devoid of color. “And I’ll thank ye to get that sword out of my face. Do I look like I’m in any position to attack ye? Or are ye just that afraid of a woman, on her own and injured, in the middle of the woods with no horse or food or anything to sustain her that ye feel the need to threaten her? Is that it?”
He stared in frank, open-mouthed surprise. Yes, she appeared to be weak, in spite of the fire in her voice. Hungry—those blazing eyes of hers were sunk deep into her face, ringed in what looked like bruises but was likely the result of starvation.
It mattered little. Not at all, in fact. What mattered was keeping his men safe. Not to mention himself.
“I’ll lower the sword when I’m certain ye have no weapons, lass, and not a minute sooner. Can ye walk?”
“What is it to ye?” she challenged. “Unless ye intend to help me, I have little cause to work my way to my feet and prove myself to ye.”
“For one who looks as though she is in need of help, ye have a wicked tongue. If I were to offer ye assistance, ye would need to get up. I don’t much fancy the notion of crouching alongside ye.”
Two bright red spots of color flamed on her cheeks. “It’s just as well, as I don’t recall asking for assistance.”
“Ye obviously prefer to starve, then,” he sneered, growing more confident by the moment that the woman was indeed on her own and indeed no sort of threat to him. This hardly meant that he would fall before her and offer her his protection—especially when she had such a nasty manner.
“Perhaps I do, if my other choice is to spend so much as a minute with the likes of ye,” she snarled in return, going so far as to bare her teeth.
“Enjoy starvation, then.” He backed away rather than turning his back on her, still wary of what she might be concealing. She scoffed, seeming to curl in on herself, tucked inside the cradle of gnarled roots.
Alec still waited for him. “Who is it?”
“A beast from hell, if ye want the truth of it,” Rufus growled. “A woman.”
Wide eyes beneath
the brim of his tam. “A woman? Alone?”
“She appeared to be. Also appeared to be injured. Would not rise from her position and wouldn’t accept assistance when I offered.”
“Ye offered? Truly?” Alec fixed him with a gaze that could only be described as skeptical. “From where I stood and what I overheard, ye hardly sounded helpful. Ye sounded threatening.”
“Was I supposed to carry her to safety?” Rufus scoffed as he sheathed his sword. “That’s not going to happen, my friend.”
Alec looked over his shoulder, a frown creasing his forehead. “I dinna much like the thought of leaving an unarmed woman to the mercy of whatever comes along. I know ye dinna, either. Tis going to be a cold night, and that’s a fact. I don’t much like the thought of my conscience plaguing me.”
“Nay, but there’s nothing to be done for her if she’s too daft to get up and come along.”
A rustling noise caused him to spin in place, and his surprise at finding himself face-to-face with the thin, pale, fierce woman with eyes the color of steel that somehow burned into him, saw through him, and did not like what they found. “I can stand. Here I am.”
Yet she leaned against the nearest tree, and her left leg was slightly bent to allow her foot to hover over the ground. The soft leather boot she wore on her right foot was not present on her left.
“What happened to ye?” Alec asked, nudging his way past Rufus that he might have a better view.
“Fell from the saddle,” she grunted. “Something spooked the mare. She threw me.”
“She ran, then?”
“Aye.” In that single word was a world of disappointment, frustration, exhaustion.
“And ye were alone out here?” Rufus asked.
She shifted her weight somewhat, that she was standing upright—if still only on one foot. “What is it to ye whether or not I was alone? Why must ye keep asking? I’m alone now. That’s what matters, is it not?”
He opened his mouth, ready to challenge her, but Alec spoke first. “It’s right ye are, lass. Dinna worry. I suppose ye have not been able to tend to your injury, then.”
She softened, shaking her head with a resigned sigh. “I dinna think it’s broken, as I can move my toes, but it swelled so, I had to remove my boot, and there’s no chance of getting it back on.”
Alec glanced at Rufus. The two of them held an entire silent conversation over the course of a few moments.
Rufus sighed his frustration, then looked about in all directions. “I suppose this is as good a place as any to make camp for the night, though I would prefer we work our way further from the road.”
“I’ll tell the others,” Alec announced, leaving Rufus with the woman.
Exactly where he didn’t wish to be.
3
Davina hung her head, allowing a wall of hair to cover the side of her face. Better for them not to know how interested she was in their discussions.
And she was interested. For the more she listened, the clearer it became that they were in the business of hunting her brother.
The image of her brother’s sneering face, twisted as always in its selfish, self-serving manner, was still clear in her mind’s eye. The bastard. He’d barely given a moment’s thought to leaving her there in the woods. We have no time to waste on injury.
She might as well have been a stranger. One of the diseased harlots on whom he spent his ill-gotten gains. That he hadn’t yet rotted below the waist was quite the feat, a testament to the notion that the truly immoral never got what they richly deserved.
She’d only cried once, and only when she’d struggled to pull the boot from her swollen ankle. It had been a lengthy process, full of muttered oaths and hot, bitter tears.
The pain was worse than the betrayal. But only marginally so.
That anyone had come along at all was a miracle. The road was not a well-traveled one, chosen purposely by her brother that he might avoid being overtaken by the man he’d guessed would soon come to exact vengeance.
He’d guessed correctly, though even he in all his shrewdness had underestimated how close he’d come to being overtaken. This man who could only be Rufus MacIntosh was indeed on Ian’s trail and possibly much closer than he knew.
He would have little more than a day to take shelter at what was once the MacIntosh home and prepare for what was to come. It might be quite simple for the MacIntosh and his men to overwhelm her brothers.
She spoke of none of this. Yes, Ian deserved every miserable, wretched thing which could possibly befall a person, but she would not betray him so easily.
This did not mean she would speak up on his behalf, either. She would merely hold her tongue and allow what was meant to be to unfold.
“Brodric swore this was the road he planned to take. Said MacFarland spoke of it in the tavern before leaving, wishing to remain away from the main road,” she heard Rufus mutter to his men, the group of them around the fire. The moment his eyes lifted, his gaze training on her, she turned her attention to her ankle.
He was asking himself if she’d seen Ian and the rest, then. After all, if she had not moved far from the place where he’d found her, she would have noticed a group of men on horseback. She had been near enough to the road.
But should he ask? And would she tell the truth if he did?
Not for nothing had she spent untold hours lingering on the outside of her brother’s meetings—if they could be referred to as such. He fancied himself quite the leader, the type to hold meetings around a fire and speak of his plans and stir his men to action.
It helped greatly that his men were mainly his brothers and cousins. Naturally, they would take his part, especially when he spoke of family pride and blood and loyalty. In that respect, if in no other, he was a natural leader. He knew how to twist the minds of men, to turn them to his bidding.
A shame, then, that he happened to be greedy and selfish and interested in little more than his pleasure, comfort, and gain.
She had learned quite a lot after listening to the men during those meetings. The way their minds worked, the way they viewed themselves. Yet never had she been permitted to come near them. Never had Ian seen her as anything more than a pair of hands which cooked his food and washed his garments when the time came.
Would he have abandoned her if she were Fergus? Malcolm? Ronald? Seamus or Niall or the other cousins? If she were a man?
You’re only with us to keep MacIntosh from havin’ his way with ye, Ian had been certain to inform her time and again as they rode from their home on the eastern shores of Scotland. While he wouldn’t have much concerned himself if it were any other man but Rufus MacIntosh, Ian would not allow an enemy to defile her and therefore the clan.
Because he would most certainly have raped any woman left behind, he assumed Rufus would do the same.
Would he have? She couldn’t yet say for certain, could not get a proper sense of the man. So far, he seemed like the sort she’d known her entire life, foolish, headstrong, full of his own magnificence. Rude.
But he did not seem cruel. Even when he’d been on the verge of leaving her to die, he’d not done it out of cruelty. Perhaps she could have been a bit kinder. Or at least less cold and dismissive.
Then again, men had never done her a good turn in her life. How was she to imagine a strange man would come to her aid?
This one had, and did again when he approached the place she’d chosen for herself, away from the fire but not so far that she could not feel its warmth. A welcome change from the cold she had suffered alone, after being deserted.
“How is it?” he asked, nodding to the ankle she’d balanced on a fallen log, raised somewhat in order to bring the swelling down. So far it seemed to be working, though only a small bit.
“Still attached,” she muttered, keeping her gaze averted.
“What of the bandages? Not too tight?”
She shook her head. “If anything, they’ll need to be tightened now that the swelling is going down.”
/>
“Do ye mind?” He motioned to the swollen mass.
What was this? She studied him, trying to understand why he would take this seemingly kind attitude when he’d been so nasty earlier, and she had certainly not done much to earn his trust or concern since then. “Are ye a healer, then?”
He scoffed. “Hardly, but I know something about injury.”
“The army?”
“Aye.” Clenched teeth. He did not enjoy thinking back on it, clearly. “The least I can do is make use of what I learned.”
She nodded to her ankle, silent permission granted. He lowered himself to one knee and bent over her, slowly unwinding the linen strips.
“Are ye riding far, then?” she couldn’t help but ask. She knew he was. He would undoubtedly ride to the ends of the earth if it meant tasting revenge.
Could she blame him? It was difficult to say.
If her question stirred anything in him, he did not show it. His movements did not falter, still slow and smooth as if to avoid jarring the injured ankle. “Not certain as of yet.” A quick glance, the fire’s flickering light showing off the green in his eyes. Nice eyes, really. “Why do ye ask?”
She shrugged. “Ye had the bandages at the ready. Did not even need to tear anything apart to make them. I thought it meant that perhaps ye plan to be traveling for a long time.”
“A sharp wit to go along with a sharp tongue,” he muttered, shaking his head. The fact that he provided no answer to her question told her he had no intention of doing so. This was not a surprise. He would hardly brag or boast, especially not to a woman.
More likely, he wished for his mission to remain a secret. Or as much of a secret as it could be.
She decided not to press him, as the fact of his gentle hands on her leg and foot was not unpleasant. No one had touched her with care or concern since her mother’s passing, and certainly, no man ever had.
Stop it. Do not let this go to your head. A little kindness meant nothing. This was still a MacIntosh, still the man whose parents her brother had murdered—according to rumor, as she’d never been able to get him nor her other brothers to be honest about it. They’d lied and evaded and avoided her gaze.
