He pulled her with the bairn forward into his arms. She came willingly. She was warm, the feel of her body soft against him, and he had the ridiculous notion that he wanted to stay up in the tree holding her for a bit. Up there away from the world, shrouded in fall leaves, there was no anger and betrayal, no loss of honor and family pride. Only he and a woman who was brave and skilled as a warrior, intelligent as a scholar, and the most curvy and bonny lass he’d ever met.
“Is Robert whole?” Alana asked, dropping her eyes toward the ground, but the dog was around the other side being rubbed down by Mungo.
Shaw’s lips came near her ear. “Robert is the hero of the day, I would say. He is quite vicious once he discovers who the enemy is.”
“And yet Robert did not chomp into you the first morning he found me,” she said, her brows furrowing the slightest. With the blood smeared across her smooth skin, she looked like his idea of the great warrior woman, Boudica.
His mouth turned up in a grin. “Ye did not scream then.” The bairn moved against her, reminding him that it wasn’t just Alana and him up in the tree.
“Hmmm…” she said as he helped her turn in the tree to step down to a lower limb. “So, all I need to do is scream now, and Robert will tear you all to bits so the bairn and I can escape.”
Shaw bent over so that his face came even with hers as she lowered. It had hardened with the thought of her trying to journey alone. Without his protection, she would be vulnerable to wolves, roughish Scots, and more of Major Dixon’s black-hearted assassins. He caught her gaze, his stare serious. “I think ye can see now why riding off alone would be foolish for ye, Alana, with or without the bairn.”
“I would have Robert,” she said, and he climbed down, keeping one hand wrapped around her arm even though Logan and Alistair stood below in case she fell.
“Robert might decide to stay with us,” he said.
“Never.”
He gave a nod toward Mungo who playfully wrestled with the huge dog, the two of them rolling around until Mungo sat up, leaves sticking haphazardly from his frizzy hair. He used both of his hands to scratch the dog’s upturned stomach with enthusiasm while Robert kicked playfully in the air. Alana huffed but didn’t respond to the portrait of betrayal.
Rabbie ran up, his sword drawn. All of them were soaked through from the river. “There were five more that we took down on the other side. All dispatched here?” the lad asked.
Logan stepped back from Alana when both of her feet touched the ground, his eyes growing wide as he took in her appearance. Shaw jumped from the limb he’d stood upon, landing in a crouch. “Aye,” he said, “and the bairn is well.”
“I hope so,” Alana said. “She was shaken while I ran even though I held her close. A newborn babe should be treated gently.”
“Lord Almighty,” Alistair said, his eyes round and hand grabbing the back of his neck as he looked at Alana’s face, coated in her bright red blood. “Alana Campbell?”
“She was shot in the head,” Shaw said, watching her pluck the blanket that encircled the bairn’s face.
“In the head?” Logan asked, mouth left open.
“After she skewered that bastard between his eyes,” Shaw said, nodding to the English soldier who had first aimed his musket at her.
“Bloody hell,” Alistair said, ducking his head to try to see her face better.
“Bet against me again,” she murmured, and Shaw heard numbness in her voice.
He stepped up quickly to steady her. “She was grazed. Very fortunate. We need to get her cleaned up before we move on.”
He glanced down at the bairn. Clear blue eyes, which looked too large in the bairn’s small face, stared up at Alana. Four more heads appeared on the other side, surrounding her as the Sinclairs all looked down, even Mungo.
“Is she truly well?” Alistair whispered, glancing between Alana and the bairn so that it wasn’t obvious which female he was asking about.
The bairn blinked, seeming to try to focus on the rough faces staring down at her. Her lips puckered into a tight circle and then stretched into the slightest smile.
“Look,” Logan said, bending even closer. “The little lass is smiling at me.”
“Nay,” Rabbie said. “She is smiling at me.” He brought his finger up as if to touch her cheek.
“Clean hands only,” Alana said, turning to the side.
“Says the lass with blood all over her,” Alistair shot back, a grin on his face as his gaze studied her, making Shaw want to block his view.
She wiped her hands on her trousers, but the blood on her hands had dried. “And she is too young to smile. It is probably intestinal vapors moving through.”
Rabbie pointed at the bairn, his young face open with excitement. “She is too smiling, and now it is aimed right at me.”
Alana rolled her eyes heavenward, which looked bizarre with her covered in blood. “Well so far, she seems to be whole and hearty without a ruined brain.”
She used her hand to shoo the men back, her gaze sliding behind her to Shaw. “Why were those Englishmen trying to kill Rose?”
“Rose? Who is Rose?” Alistair asked.
“The bairn is Boudica,” Logan said.
“I thought she was Violet,” Rabbie said, still leaning close and clucking the bairn’s wee chin, followed quickly with a raise of his hand to show Alana. “See, clean from the river.”
She looked to Shaw. Did she wonder if the rose brand should be revealed to his men? She didn’t know them, but Shaw did. He trusted each one with his life. Without looking away, Shaw gave a brief nod to her and spoke. “The bairn was branded on her little toe. ’Tis a rose.”
“Branded?” Rabbie asked, his lips pulling back in a grimace. The lad looked like he was ready to throw down his life to see the brander dismembered.
“It is healing,” Alana said and turned in a circle, hugging her close, when Shaw began to untie the bindings holding Rose to her. “What are you doing?”
“Ye need to wash the blood from your face and hands, and your wound must be cleaned and checked,” he said. She lowered her arms as he took the bairn from her. The wee lass looked well enough, though he supposed it might be hard to tell. He just had to deliver her alive to St. Andrews to fulfill his mission. And winning back Girnigoe Castle was the priority. He frowned as the little bairn smiled up at him, her lips forming another tight circle to match her wide, innocent eyes. He handed the bairn to Rabbie, who was still hanging around, obviously smitten with the little lass.
Alana walked toward the river. Shaw followed, smacking Alistair’s arm as he walked by. “No gawking, leering, or even looking,” he said, his voice terse.
“Damn hard not to when she is wearing those tight-fitting trousers,” Alistair said and smiled. “And the blood… I like my lasses to have a solid stomach.”
Shaw pointed to the dead English soldiers scattered around the tree. “Start a hole for them and the ones on the other side of the river.”
He jogged to catch up to Alana as she reached the rushing water, her dog running along the bank, following a leaf shooting downstream with the current. Robert still had the soldier’s blood all over his muzzle, but it would wash in the river. She leaned over, scrubbing hard at her hands.
“Here,” he said, taking the bandage he’d given her away from the wound. He held an end and let it get swept in the fresh current, and then scrubbed it briskly and squeezed it out. “Ye look like ye’ve taken a bath in blood.”
She shook her hands free of water and dried them on her thighs. “The skin of my face and neck feels tight with it. Head wounds bleed profusely.”
Turning on his toes, Shaw crouched before her where she sat amongst the damp leaves. He gently dabbed the wet rag to her face, wiping down the side opposite the wound. “We need to get ye cleaned up and make sure the shot is free of taint. If it does not stop bleeding, Logan is talented with a needle and thread.”
“I have some salve in my bag,” she said, her eyes roll
ed upward to watch his hand wipe her clean.
He nodded. “We will all cross back over the river and retrieve it as soon as we bury the dead.”
Alana met his gaze, her brows drawing closer, which made her grimace, her fingers going up to the cut that seemed to have slowed bleeding.
“You will bury them?”
He continued to wash her face, noticing the light splay of freckles on her nose. “Aye. A warrior deserves a proper burial—else he’d be torn apart by animals. And we do not need anyone to find them right off and blame the Sinclairs.”
He pulled away to rinse the cloth clean. Logan and Mungo were already fording the river to drag the English that had attacked on the other side across to bury. It would delay their trip, but it must be done, and he wanted to give Alana time to recover before letting her ride a horse again.
“I think ye should ride with me the rest of the day,” he said, sliding the cloth along her hairline. “I do not want ye falling off your horse.” The thought of her snug up against him while they rode lightened his mood immensely.
She huffed. “I am not going to fall off my horse.”
“Maybe ye think that our mission is too dangerous and ye should attempt escape,” he said, trying to come up with a reason to make her ride with him. He ran the cloth down to her ear and gently stuffed it inside, making her tip her head to her shoulder.
She pulled the rag from his hands and wiped her own ear, looking at the blood coming out on the cloth. “I would not risk Rose by leaving her with men who know much more about dispatching lives than nurturing one.”
Green eyes, surrounded by thick lashes, turned to stare at Shaw. “Why did those men want to kill a little babe? Innocent to the world?” She had asked before, but none of them had answered. The cloth rested next to her, and he took it again to rinse the crimson in the water.
“You said that she came from England,” Alana continued. “Is she so hated there? And what of her mother? Is she dead?”
The woman wanted answers, and after being attacked today, risking her life to save the bairn, she deserved some. Shaw leaned forward, his fingers brushing aside the wet hair near the streak of raw skin that the bullet had flayed open near Alana’s temple. “’Tis possible that Rose’s mother does not know for certain that she is alive. Her life is safer that way.”
Alana grabbed his sleeve, pulling him down to stare at him. “Whose life is safer, the mother’s or Rose’s?”
“Both of them.”
Alana shook her head. “Who would care so much about a mother and child unless…” She held his gaze, her eyes widening slightly before she looked back where Rabbie was making funny faces at the bairn. Aye, the lass was quick.
Alana turned back to Shaw. “The soldier had called her a bloody Catholic.” Her lips hung open for a moment. “She is of royal blood, isn’t she? She came north…from London.” Alana’s palm flattened against her chest. “Good God. Her mother is Queen Mary, wife to King James of England.”
Chapter Six
Alana held Rose tied before her and felt the massive form of Shaw Sinclair riding behind her. She was in the middle of wee and helpless and huge and lethal as she sat on Shaw’s war stallion. After she’d wobbled several times when washing her face and applying the salve to her head, he’d stopped arguing with her about riding with him and just scooped her and the baby up onto his horse.
Her own horse, Rainy, trailed behind Logan, tethered loosely like four of the English soldiers’ horses that followed behind each of the Sinclairs. The regiment had been made up of nine traitors to the king, but they couldn’t lead nine extra horses to St. Andrews without pulling a lot of attention to themselves. So, the other five were stripped of their saddles and bridles and left.
“I hate to leave them,” Logan said, glancing over his shoulder where the horses grazed.
“There is plenty of water and fresh grasses,” Shaw said. “Mungo and ye can head back to Sinclair land along this route. If they haven’t been taken in by a lucky farmer nearby, ye can lead them back to Caithness.”
Shaw’s heat warmed Alana from behind, especially after she’d finally relaxed into him. He threw a blanket over Rose and her to create a nest-like enclosure. “Rest,” he whispered near her ear, his voice sending shivers along her. “I will not let ye fall.”
It was another kindness. She frowned, then surrendered to a small yawn. She still hated him, but damnation, the man was proving to be more honorable than a scoundrel should be. Not that she was complaining. By now she could have been raped and left for dead had she been captured by true monsters. Yet the Sinclairs had shown real concern for the baby when they thought she was ill and concern for herself when they saw the blood from the shot.
Although that worry could have been about losing a nursemaid for the royal baby. She sighed softly, glancing down where Rose slept against her. Would she still be alive if the Sinclairs hadn’t abducted her from the Samhain festival?
Alana slid a finger around the sweet face, feeling the softness of the light hair growing from her head. Hopefully everything inside her skull was well. The baby needed to sleep without moving. Shaw had planned for them to stay in the valley for the night, but after the soldiers had found them, he ordered some distance before stopping.
“Just a bit farther, Rose,” Alana whispered and wondered if she should call her Princess Rose.
A princess? Of England, Scotland, and Ireland. King James had taken over the British crown when his brother, Charles II, died. Where Charles was a secretive Catholic while ruling his very Protestant realm, James was much more open about his popish practices, even building a Catholic chapel inside Whitehall Palace for his Italian queen and himself to worship together. The English people, meanwhile, swore beneath their breaths about the king’s turn against the Church of England. The king spoke of religious tolerance, yet his people feared that he would lead the country back to the Pope’s religion, persecuting the Protestant masses.
The fear grew from mere whispers into assassination plots. Some said that the five babies Queen Mary had borne, all of them dying, had been killed by those ensuring that the Catholic rule would go no further than James. His very Protestant adult daughter Mary, wife of William of Orange, would follow James in the royal succession if James had no surviving son. Apparently, the assassins weren’t taking any chances with him wanting to raise a Catholic daughter, either.
Alana shifted and felt Shaw’s strong arms tighten around her, supporting her. Straight and easy in the saddle, he rode with the confidence of a leader. Beside them, Robert trotted onward without complaint. The poor pup must be exhausted.
“Is the bairn well?” Shaw’s whispered question startled her. “Sorry. I could tell ye were awake. Does the bairn look to be well?”
She nodded. “She should sleep without being jostled, and we need more milk, but she shows no signs of a rattled brain.”
“And ye?” His voice was deep, the rough softness of it sliding along her skin like a caress. “Is your brain rattled?”
Alana cleared her throat. “I…I am well, just tired. A slight headache.”
“We will stop soon for the night,” he said close to her ear, sending chill bumps up and down her arms. Wrapped up before Shaw, warm and protected, Alana began to wonder about the scoundrel turned protector.
“Do you have children of your own?” she asked.
“Nay, as ye could tell from my ignorance around the bairn,” he said. She tipped her face upward and saw him looking down at her. “Do ye?”
“No,” she said, leveling her gaze back over the horse’s head. “Just pups.”
“More like that beast?” he asked nodding downward to where Robert sniffed the ground as he moved along in time with the horses.
“Yes, although Robert has grown the largest.” And he had the most endearing smile and a sweet light in his eyes when he looked at her. “He remains mine while I train the others to help the herders keep the wolves and thieves away from their flocks. In time, Ro
bert will sire more litters for me to train.”
“A worthy endeavor for ye,” he said, and his praise bloomed warmly in her stomach. Och, she must be tired to let him lower her guard and smooth her anger.
Two of Shaw’s men rode up next to her. “Your sgian dubh,” Alistair said, holding her dagger up by its tip. It was clean of the English soldier’s blood.
“Thank you,” she said. Her stomach had churned too much to claim it as they dragged the dead man toward the hole they’d dug with a few sharp rocks and a pickaxe. “I thought it had been buried with the man,” she said softly, reaching an arm out of the blanket to take it. It shook slightly, and she pulled it back to her lap.
Mungo rode on Alistair’s outside. She could still see him in the splashes of moonlight that made it down through the leaves. He waved his hand and pointed a finger to his forehead, jabbing it where she’d hit the enemy. He smiled and gave her a nod, the pretense of lunacy gone for the moment.
“He says that your shot was good,” Alistair said. “Seems ye can throw even with distractions like someone aiming a lit musket at ye.” He gave her a nod, too.
The praise from the men, combined with Shaw’s words, brought on a warm feeling inside her chest, filling her there in the chilled darkness of the autumn night. “All Highland Roses are taught to throw with accuracy.”
“Taught, aye,” Shaw said above her. “But likely they do not all learn to use it accurately in the heat of battle.”
Alana blinked, feeling her face flush. “A discovered talent, which I hone,” she said, keeping a coolness to her voice. Pulling the blanket aside, she lifted her skirt to sheath the sgian dubh in the scabbard built into her boot and caught Alistair looking at her leg. Dropping her skirt back in place, she spoke with a warning tone. “I can skewer a wandering eye as easily as a forehead.”
Alistair grunted a chuckle, his glance shifting from her to Shaw and back to her. “Ye, lass, have too kind a heart to kill a man for taking a peek, but aye, I believe ye could.” The man slowed his horse, and he and Mungo fell behind them, leaving Shaw and Alana leading the group.
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