Instinctively Shaw stepped before her, shielding her. Kerrick jumped off his horse, striding forward, indignant fury in each step. Damn, he couldn’t kill the man for wanting to protect or seek revenge for Alana, so he sheathed his own sword.
“Ye stealing, raping, foking bastard,” Kerrick yelled.
“No!” Alana pushed past Shaw, placing herself in front of him. “It is not like that.”
Kerrick didn’t take his eyes off Shaw. “So, he did not steal ye away from the festival? Him and his Sinclair warriors?” Kerrick glanced quickly behind them but didn’t ask where the others were.
“Well…there is a good and honorable reason for it,” Alana said. “And he has agreed to help me save my mother.”
“And this?” Kerrick yelled, lowering his sword, the point moving between the two of them. “Ye are…ravished.”
“It is not how it looks,” she said again.
“Ye do look ravished,” one of the ladies said from her horse, a grin on her face. The young, mute one in their group sat before her on the horse. She made gestures similar to Mungo’s gestures, and another woman nodded.
“Very ravished,” the second woman said.
“Son of a whore,” Kerrick yelled. He dropped his sword, balling up his fists as he charged forward.
Shaw yanked Alana behind him and met the attack, his fist going straight into Kerrick’s fury-pinched face. The man had sought to wrap his arms around his middle, but the impact of the punch caught him off guard, and Shaw easily sidestepped his attack, letting him fall in the dirt.
“Stop it,” Alana yelled. “If anyone was seducing and ravishing, it was I who ravished him!”
One woman gasped, but Shaw was focused on the cursing man as he spit on the ground.
“Fok,” Kerrick said, coming to his feet. He wiped blood from his nose across the back of his hand. “Alana?” He finally met her angry face.
“I said, I ravished him.” Her words were strong, challenging. “He is honorable and is helping to save a babe from slaughter.”
“I knew there was a bairn involved,” another woman said. “We found the glove with the milk in one finger on the ground inside our tent.” She looked to the one woman who frowned fiercely at him, her hands resting on her hips. “Why else would she have put milk into her glove and poked a hole in the end?” the first asked.
“I hadn’t seen a single bairn at the festival,” the frowning woman replied.
Shaw’s gaze stayed on Kerrick while the ladies bickered. The man wiped his bloodied nose in a rag he yanked from his belt.
“And Shaw has agreed to help me free my mother from the Covenanter prison in Edinburgh before returning us to Finlarig,” Alana said. “Without waiting for Grey.”
Kerrick’s face remained hard, and he looked to Shaw. “In payment for letting him climb atop ye?”
Shaw exploded forward, barreling into him, knocking him and his crass tongue back onto the ground. He planted his boot on Kerrick’s chest, holding him there as he leaned down. “Ye will never speak like that to Alana again, or the next thing ye will feel is my blade slicing through your chest.”
They stared hard at one another for a long moment, Shaw aware that most of the women had lowered their daggers, though he couldn’t see them all.
“Now, ye will apologize to the sister of your chief, the one who is in charge of your group, the one who is currently saving your tongue from being cut from your foul mouth,” he said, raising his gaze to take in the ladies around them. When Kerrick didn’t immediately respond, Shaw pressed harder with his boot.
“Aye, aye, alright,” Kerrick said, and Shaw stepped back, letting the man rise, but ready to knock him back in the dirt.
“I am sorry, Alana,” Kerrick said, and the words sounded sincere. “’Twas a slight at the Sinclair, not ye.”
“If she did not want to be…ravished,” one of the women called, “she would have stabbed him.”
Alana glanced at Shaw, and he knew that she was thinking about the start to their journey. “This is all very complicated,” she said, shaking her head. “Let me get dressed, and we will explain while we ride toward St. Andrews.”
“I thought we were headed to Edinburgh,” one lady with an English accent asked from her horse.
“After we deliver a babe to a ship in St. Andrews,” Alana said.
“Is the babe inside?” the lady who had thrown a near-perfect dagger strike at the festival asked.
“I will explain as we ride,” Alana repeated, her hand scratching the top of Robert’s shaggy head. She smiled at the women sitting proudly on the horses. “But thank you, for coming this way. How did you find me?”
“We tracked you for over a day thanks to Kerrick’s abilities,” the English lady said.
“A woman in Kinross told us about ye after we told her how worried we were and convinced her we were from your clan.”
“Fiona,” Alana murmured next to him.
The woman with the easy smile who sat a horse with the mute girl continued, “We followed tracks to a small river.” She pointed behind her. “And that is where we found Robert sniffing around. When he jumped the river and started running this way, we followed him.”
The mute girl signed, and another woman nodded. “Aye,” she said looking at Alana fondly. “We knew Robert would not leave ye to be carried away. He disappeared the first night that we found ye gone.”
Kerrick cursed under his breath, a fist rubbing against his chest as if it ached. “Bloody hell, Alana, Grey is going to fo…” He started to curse but stopped, glancing to Shaw and then back to Alana. He shot a hand through his hair, scratching his scalp. “By all that is holy, he is going kill me, ye know that.” His brows rose high. “Gut me, rip my entrails out, and God willing, quickly slice my head from my shoulders.”
Kirstin snorted. “I would worry more about Gram,” she said, perhaps referring to Alana’s grandmother.
“Lord,” Kerrick said, rubbing both hands down the sides of his face. “She is going to bloody poison me.”
Alana smiled broadly, her head high even though she stood wrapped in a blanket after proclaiming that she’d ravished a man. “Don’t worry, Kerrick. My Roses and I will protect you. Just in case, though, do not eat anything Gram gives you.”
…
“Where is the bairn?” Kirstin asked as Alana plaited her own hair while walking toward the waiting horses. The Roses and Kerrick had watered them and finished off the pheasant and hare from the night before while Alana washed quickly and dressed.
“Shaw’s men took her on a different route because we knew Major Dixon and his men were following us.” Martha came closer with Lucy, listening. “If they caught us with the babe, they would kill her,” Alana continued. “But they do not know Shaw has four other men with him.” Cici and Izzy joined the circle. “The English soldiers will not be looking for Rose to be riding with four hardened Highlanders.”
“Rose?” Cici asked. “Her name is Rose?”
“I named her that,” Alana said. “She needed a name.”
“And ye missed us,” Cici finished.
Alana smiled. “Yes, I did, but…” her smile fell. “The wee thing was also branded with the tiny image of a rose on the bottom of one toe.”
“Branded with a rose?” Martha said after she gasped. “Who would do such a thing?”
Lucy held her palm flattened over her chest, her eyes wide. “Queen Mary wears a signet ring of a tiny rose.”
Alana lowered her voice. “Rose is actually…a princess. Queen Mary’s babe.”
“He stole a princess?” Kirstin said, eyes wide. Her glance cut to Shaw where he tightened the saddle on Rìgh.
Alana frowned at her. Kirstin had always thought the worst of people, but she was being exceedingly annoying in believing the absolute worst of Shaw because he was the chief of the Sinclairs. “Loyalists in London took the newborn babe at the request of King James. There is a ship waiting in St. Andrews to carry her over to France to keep h
er safe. Shaw and his men are couriers. Queen Mary has lost five children, and they think now that assassins were responsible.”
“Your parents were severe Covenanters, Alana,” Kirstin said, hands going to her hips. “Do ye think they would like ye helping the English monarchy?”
Alana stared her friend down. “What was I to do? Let English soldiers slice the throat of a wee babe? Little Rose has no religion right now. She is innocent, and I will always help the innocent.”
“And you are certain the soldiers were coming to kill the babe, not take her back to the queen?” Lucy asked, leaning forward. “I would hate to think of how she must feel with her baby taken from her.”
Alana remembered the words of Major Dixon’s soldier. We would return her to her mother who cries for her stolen daughter. She shook her head at Lucy. “The soldiers chased me and the babe up into a tree and shot their muskets at us.” She touched the partially healed wound on her forehead that she’d already explained. “They would have killed us if Shaw and Robert had not stopped them.” Of course that was the first group of English soldiers chasing them. Major Dixon wore the uniform of a high-ranking soldier loyal to the crown. Could he be from a different group looking for the princess? Had the king changed his mind about sending Rose away? No. Alana’s instincts told her that dark-haired devil was lying.
“Sinclairs are not innocent,” Kirstin said, her voice low. She jutted her chin toward Shaw. “If he is not just lying to ye, he would not help the English king unless there is a good reason that benefitted him,” Kirstin said.
True, but he’d already told her about the benefit to his clan, his poor people who’d been thrown out of their home by the northern Campbells. With five sets of eyes, which ranged from wide-eyed interest to dark suspicion, watching her, Alana decided to keep Shaw’s motivation to herself.
“We should ride,” Shaw called over to them. “Put as many miles behind us as we can before nightfall.”
“Alana can ride with me,” Kirstin said loudly, reaching out to tug Alana with her toward her mare.
“Alana will ride with me,” Shaw said. Alana looked at him, her annoyance with Kirstin transferring to Shaw over his forceful tone. Did he care what she thought? Or about the pressure and questions she was getting from the Roses?
Kerrick mounted his horse, the skin under his eyes already bruising from Shaw’s punch. “There is no reason for Al—”
“I was shot with musket fire on my hip, and she stitched it up,” Shaw said, overriding Kerrick.
“She cannot tend it while ye are riding,” Kerrick said.
Shaw looked directly at him as he hefted his sword, the muscles of his arm bulging against the linen sleeve of his white tunic. “I am not strong enough to hold myself on the horse without her assistance.”
Cici snorted, covering her mouth over the absurdity. Even injured, there was nothing weak about Shaw Sinclair, nothing in the least. “I can show ye the stitches,” he said, raising the edge of his kilt a bit.
“Aye,” Cici called.
“Nay.” Kerrick overrode her eagerness.
Shaw turned his gaze on Alana. “I would have ye ride with me.” It wasn’t a question, but it wasn’t a demand, either.
Alana walked over to him, making her decision without uttering a word. She waited until Shaw lifted himself into the saddle from the wrong side of the horse, putting his weight on his good leg. She fitted her boot into the stirrup and rose to sit before him, the place between her legs tender after their long and adventurous night together.
As she seated herself gingerly, her legs straddling the hard saddle, Shaw lifted her, sliding her back enough that her backside was propped onto the juncture of his thick thighs. She twisted in the seat to look at him, frowning. He leaned slightly forward to speak low into her ear, the heat of his breath sending a coil of warmth through her. “To save ye from discomfort having to ride all day after last night.”
“But I will hurt your hip. The stitches—”
“Are healing just fine thanks to ye,” he said, meeting her gaze with his stormy gray eyes. “I would not have ye cursing my name with every jouncing step.” Although he frowned, there was humor in the lines at the corners of his kind eyes.
Her smile crept across her lips. “How very gallant of you.”
“I am nothing if not gallant.”
Alana sniffed a chuckle and turned forward, enjoying the warmth of Shaw against her back. He tossed a blanket over her, so it wasn’t obvious that they rode up against one another, Alana seated intimately on his lap. He leaned to her ear again. “Ye could even sit sidesaddle if it would feel better. I will hold ye on Rìgh.”
She tipped her head back to catch his gaze. “And here I thought that I was holding you on your horse.”
A wry grin spread across his mouth, a mouth she yearned to taste again. “I have been knocked unconscious before, and this amazing beast kept me on his back as he carried me out of battle. He would never allow me to fall off.”
Even though she smiled, her brow furrowed, a mix of feelings adding to the jumble already inside her. “You could have been killed. Where was this?”
Alana watched the line of his brows dip as his gaze shifted over her head to stare out. “At the battle near Stirling.”
“You could have been killed, too, just for being there.” Alana turned back to see the golden forest under a gray sky, but in her mind she saw Shaw slumped over his horse’s neck while English in red and warriors in kilts battled around him.
Shaw had journeyed south to speak with her father and had ended up pulled into the battle. Had he joined the fight to win her father’s help against the northern Campbells? Or had Shaw and his men fought to help those like her father and mother who wished to worship without the king’s restraint? And yet he was forced now to help a king who was more Catholic even than King Charles.
Questions swarm around in her mind. Maybe he hadn’t told her everything. Why would he hold anything back from her? Perhaps it was just Kirstin’s prejudice making her question his intent.
“Shaw,” Alana started, keeping her eyes forward.
“Aye?”
“Are you a Covenanter?”
Chapter Sixteen
Was he a Covenanter? Bloody hell, Shaw was anything that would win him back his clan’s lands, castle, and dignity. “Not at present,” he said, making Alana twist to look up at him. Her deep green eyes held questions.
Kerrick rode up next to them, his gaze raking over the blanket, but he didn’t say anything about what could be going on under it. It was apparent that he still felt responsible for Alana, even though she didn’t see him in that role. “Do ye have a route to follow or are ye just heading east now?” Kerrick asked.
“We will cross another part of the River Tay, and when we spot open water on our right, we will follow the Firth of Tay to Dundee to catch a ferry across to St. Andrews,” Shaw said.
“And your men with the bairn are waiting for ye there?” Kerrick asked, some of the anger from earlier subdued, but Shaw wouldn’t let his guard down around the man. One never knew what a Campbell might do.
“Aye,” Shaw said, glancing down at Alana. It was true that she was a Campbell, but not like any Campbell he’d ever met before.
“They will wait in hiding with Rose until we get there,” Alana said, “because Shaw is the chief.”
“Chief without a castle or land,” Kirstin said from behind.
Shaw’s arms stiffened where they wrapped around Alana. Mo chreach, the woman surely had the prejudice of a Campbell. She was friends with Alana, yet so different.
Alana kept facing straight ahead, her voice coming strong. “I think that Grey would agree that it seems to be a rather commonplace problem for chiefs.” She spoke of her own castle of Finlarig being taken by English. Did she still resent the English ladies for starting a school there? Even though one had married her brother?
“Finlarig was taken through trickery by English assassins, not in payment for a debt b
y another Scot’s clan,” Kirstin said, riding up. She leaned forward over her horse’s neck, turning her face to frown across at them. “An honorable clan would pay a debt without crying foul instead of trying to renege on it.”
Shaw lifted Alana closer, still cushioning her. He kept himself facing front, his usual mask in place when speaking to denigrating, bastard Campbells. “Until ye live the life of another, ye do not fully understand the circumstances nor motivation for their actions.” His voice was even but held the edge of restrained fierceness. Could the woman hear the warning in it?
He turned toward her, their gazes connecting. Kirstin’s face was marred by her bitterness. “I am more disciplined than most,” Shaw said, “but some of my men, the ones who have watched Campbells slaughter their family members and burn their homes while Campbell warriors yelled obscenities and threats of rape at their mothers and sisters, they will not hesitate to retaliate if ye speak badly of them.”
“Some Campbells have lost family members, too,” Kirstin said, but the force in her voice had fallen back, and she turned to face forward again.
Under the blanket, Alana’s hand slid over to his leg, rubbing there. The gesture was to give comfort. Even though it was light, the support was evident. It twisted inside Shaw. Would she still side with him if she knew the complete truth about his time near Stirling? Fok, he had to tell her what he remembered.
“War between clans only weakens Scotland,” Kerrick said on the other side, pulling Shaw’s focus back outside of himself and the mess he’d created with the warm woman in his lap.
Kerrick nodded, a dark respect etched there as if Shaw’s raw description had influenced his good will. “War between countrymen crumbles honor, making neighbors turn against one another,” Shaw said, remorse pressing hard on his chest where Alana leaned.
A long exhale passed through her lips. “As much as I love Evelyn and Scarlet, and their brother who have helped us gain favor with the English king—”
The Highland Outlaw Page 21
