Beloved Warrior

by Patricia Potter

  Then another woman joined them. The newcomer had flaming red hair and dark blue eyes that sparkled with good humor. “And I am Felicia, Rory’s wife. We will do all we can to make you comfortable.”

  Juliana doubted a prisoner had ever been greeted so effusively by her captors. If she had not been so worried about her mother, she might even have been amused by it. Now she considered it only an impediment, though her fear faded.

  She nodded with no compulsion to do more, considering the fact that she was here against her will. Or perhaps she should befriend these Maclean wives, hoping to have sympathetic ears and perhaps even someone who would help her. At the very least, she had to get word to her mother that she had not been lost at sea.

  But then her father would know the ship arrived safely somewhere, and she knew he would turn the earth upside down to find her. She also knew what that might mean to the Scot, to the Spaniard, to the others who had taken over the ship.

  But her mother . . .

  Her mother would have no one. Juliana could not even think of her pain when she heard . . .

  She had to get word to her. Somehow she must.

  Chapter 16

  PATRICK threw all his energies into unloading the ship. He did not want to think about Juliana Mendoza and what he was going to do about her.

  Much less what he wanted to do.

  Rory had appropriated all the Maclean boats, most of them small fishing boats. Scores of Macleans—some Patrick recognized and others he did not—appeared to help with the unloading. They stared at the Moors, and the Moors stared back, then they all started working together.

  Lachlan had decided to ride to Glasgow and captain the ship back to the sound. It would take at least a week as they would have to round the north of Scotland.

  As the oarsmen loaded the boats waiting beneath, the Scots rowed the boats to shore, where others passed the items from one man to another until they reached a wagon drawn by two large horses.

  Arriving in the first boat, Rory swung up the ladder and asked Patrick to show him through the ship. He lingered in the captain’s cabin and went through the charts before folding them up and taking them with him. “These are better than any we have,” he said.

  Then Patrick took him down to the oarsmen’s deck. It still smelled of sweat and blood, and chains lay in the aisles where they had been discarded. Red stains colored the wood planking.

  Rory gazed around. “My God, Patrick. How long were you here?”

  “Six years to my counting. One year in a Spanish dungeon.”

  “Och,” Rory exclaimed. “How did you survive?”

  “I was too angry to die.”

  He pointed to a bench in the middle, right beneath the grate that now stood open. “My position for the six years. The strongest always had the outside seat.”

  “When did you take over the ship?”

  “Two days out of Spain.”

  “Who navigated?”

  “The Spaniard and I.”

  “You hated the sea. I remember the arguments you had with Father.”

  “Aye, I wanted to be a warrior, not a merchant. During the past few weeks, I fervently wished I had paid more attention.”

  “Why are you are willing to stay aboard now? Ride home with me. Lachlan and my Macleans can see to the unloading.”

  “Nay. I made promises. I intend to keep them.”

  “Is that the only reason?” Rory’s gaze seemed to see right through him.

  “Aye,” he lied. The truth was that he wanted the woman out of sight and hopefully out of mind. “I have lived simply these past few years,” he continued. “A good bed might undo me.”

  “Are you sure it is not the woman?”

  “She is Spanish,” Patrick said roughly. “And she knows I killed her uncle. She believes me a barbarian.”

  “Then let her see otherwise.”

  “I am what I am,” Patrick said. “One year of war, one year in a Spanish dungeon and six years on a galleon. Those years did not break me, but they took my soul.”

  “I do not believe she thinks so. Her gaze lingered on the ship.”

  “Because she feared leaving it.”

  “Mayhap,” Rory said.

  “In any event, she is promised.”

  “My wife was promised to someone else,” Rory said. “Promises without love are meant to be broken.”

  “You forget the curse,” Patrick said. “I cannot.”

  “I do not forget anything,” Rory said. “I lost two wives. But I believe my marriage to Felicia broke the curse. We have had no more deaths of young wives in the past five years.”

  Enough! He could not fathom the changes. Nor did he want to. He had lived these past six years to exact revenge. That goal had kept him alive. And now he was being told that the world had turned upside down.

  “Tell me about the Spaniard,” Rory said.

  Patrick shrugged. “He says much. And little. I know we could not have survived without him, but I don’t like what he hides. I truly do not know whether he can be trusted.”

  “Your life depends on it. That he can be trusted and the others.”

  “Hopefully they will soon be at the other end of the world. I know I can trust MacDonald. And Denny. But I do not know what the Spaniard plans to do. Or where he’ll go. I believe he did some smuggling along the Spanish coast. Beyond that . . .”

  “You said he was a seaman. Mayhap we can use him on one of our ships.”

  “I would not trust him as a captain, and I do not think he would take a lesser position.”

  Rory met his gaze directly. “Do you really believe no one will discover what happened?”

  “Aye, if not for the women. They are the complication.”

  “You were a prisoner of war. You had every right to escape.”

  “You know the law as well as I do,” Patrick said. “There is a reason for it. Too many crews do not like their captains, particularly when the discipline is harsh. The only thing that keeps them in check are the mutiny laws.”

  “We will figure something,” Rory said slowly, then smiled. “We just cannot let Felicia become involved. Her plots are far too complicated. They invariably lead to disaster.”

  Despite the words, there was so much love in his brother’s eyes, an ache formed in Patrick’s throat. He was thirty and seven years, yet he’d never known the kind of tenderness he saw in Rory’s face, had never allowed himself to feel more than momentary lust.

  “We had better get back on deck,” he said. “I do not want to spill any of the goods into the sea.”

  Rory’s eyes held his for a moment, then he nodded. “You won’t go back with me, then?”

  “Nay, not until the cargo is unloaded.”

  They climbed up the stairs from the benches. Once on deck, Rory took a deep breath of fresh air.

  “It is a hell ship,” Patrick said flatly.

  “Aye,” Rory said. “You are right. She should be burned.”

  “If the Campbells see . . .”

  “Neither the Campbells or Camerons will say anything,” Rory said. “Jamie Campbell is a friend and is now married to Janet Cameron. The three clans are united, especially since Flodden. We lost too many to a common enemy to lose more by fighting amongst ourselves.”

  “’Tis hard to consider a Campbell naught but a foe.”

  “I had my problems with that as well,” Rory said. “But he saved Lachlan’s life after Flodden Field. He wouldn’t give up looking for him.”

  “Trust does not come easily to me,” Patrick warned. “Someone betrayed me to the Spanish. I suspect it was a Campbell. There were several fighting with the French.”

  “We will find the truth of it.”

  He hesitated, then clasped Patrick’s arm. “It is a fine thing to have you back.”

  Patrick watched as Rory descended the ladder and jumped into the fishing boat with its small sail. His brother raised an arm to him in farewell.

  Patrick turned away. He did not want or ne
ed emotion. They weakened a man. Locking away those feelings had enabled him to survive these past years. He needed to keep them in control now so he would make no mistakes. He had survived far too long to die at the end of a hangman’s noose.

  JULIANA felt a visitor in a very strange world. If a prisoner she was, she was certainly a privileged one. It seemed that no one could do enough for Carmita and herself.

  She had never met anyone like Felicia and Kimbra, nor had she ever been in a residence like Inverleith. Yet from the moment she walked into the great hall and saw the clean rushes, the tapestries lining the walls, the portraits on the walls, she felt not a prisoner but an honored guest in a place that seemed oddly familiar.

  How could that be?

  Her home in Spain was totally different, a place of space and light, not massive walls of rock. And yet . . .

  Perhaps it was the chattering of her two companions who seemed as close as sisters, though their speech, temperaments and coloring were profoundly different. The one who said she was Rory’s wife practically danced as she walked. Her smile was broad, and her eyes were full of laughter as if she cherished every moment of life. A child of two or three pranced behind her, an echo of her joy.

  The other, Kimbra, had a broad English accent, more like Juliana’s mother’s, and serious eyes. Her smile was slower but just as welcoming. And her warmth seem to encompass someone she barely knew.

  Juliana was determined not to let them disarm her. They were obviously protecting their brother-in-law, and their goal was opposite to hers.

  Felicia had led the way to a large chamber filled with fresh flowers and a bright blue covering on the bed. Pillows decorated two chairs, and a door led to an alcove for Carmita.

  “Patrick said you were on your way to get married,” Felicia said. “Are you in love with the man you are to marry?”

  It was a personal question, and one Juliana did not feel required to answer.

  Felicia’s smile retreated a bit.“’Tis a personal question, I know, and I have no right to ask it. But you see I was to be married when the Macleans abducted me. I believed Rory a monster. The Macleans and Campbells had been feuding for many, many years and I was told they were barbarians. Worse even than that. Women killers. So I know how you must feel. Afraid and angry and lost.”

  “You were taken captive?” Juliana could not keep the surprise—and interest—from her voice.

  “Aye. Except when I was brought here, the keep was a place of sadness and tragedy and despair. I was terrified, but I could not show it. I kept trying to escape. I can warn you it is very difficult. But I want you to know we understand and would like to be your friends, and we will not let anything happen to you.”

  The words had run on and on, but the sentiment was there. So was that piece of knowledge: I kept trying to escape. I can warn you it is very difficult.

  She said difficult but not impossible.

  Felicia seemed to know what she was thinking. “Both Rory and Lachlan believed Patrick dead these past few years. It means everything to them that he is still alive. And now he will be laird. They will not go against Patrick, and I would do nothing that might bring harm to him.”

  Something hard lodged in Juliana’s throat. Her only knowledge of marriage was that between her mother and father, and that certainly had nothing of the warmth she heard in Felicia’s and Kimbra’s voices, nor the loyalty inherent in Felicia’s words. There was no envy, or greed when they spoke of an older brother returning to take what had been theirs. Only gratitude.

  “You speak English well,” Kimbra noted.

  “My mother is English.”

  “That explains your coloring then,” Felicia exclaimed. “You look more Scot or English than Spanish.”

  Juliana did not reply. She did not want tears to show and they might well do that if she talked about her mother. Instead she determined to seek more information from Felicia. Exactly how had she tried to escape? And how did she become a Maclean bride? The more she knew about the Macleans, the more chance she had to escape them.

  “Your husbands seem nothing like Patrick Maclean,” she said. “They are . . . pleasant.”

  “My husband can be an ogre,” Felicia said. “It runs in the Maclean family.”

  “It does not,” Kimbra said heatedly. “Lachlan is the gentlest of souls.”

  “He does sing rather well,” Felicia admitted with a grin on her face. “You must ask him,” she said to Juliana. “He canna say no.”

  Juliana’s head swam. She’d had few friendships with other girls, who always had duenas with them. Her father did not approve of most of them. Too bold, he’d said. But these two bantered like old friends.

  “I think we should allow Juliana some rest,” Kimbra said. “And some privacy.”

  Felicia flushed. “Kimbra’s right. We do not often have visitors, particularly someone our age. I hope you will join us for supper tonight. I know you must be tired, but there are so few new faces, and I wish to hear all the news from Spain.”

  Juliana was torn. Part of her wanted the company that was offered, the warmth that was so very evident. But would it not be surrendering to the enemy, no matter how charming?

  The more you learn the better chance you have to escape.

  “Si,” she said.

  Chapter 17

  PATRICK Maclean had not been at supper, and the meal had been painful.

  Juliana had been the focus of stares, both hostile and curious. Word of what had happened to Patrick Maclean had obviously traveled quickly, as well as her relationship to the man the Macleans held responsible. Her uncle had enslaved him, and that, she gathered, was the worst thing that could ever happen to a proud, free Scot.

  But even without the stares, she felt uncomfortable. She was accustomed to supper with her mother and father and sometimes with a small circle of her father’s friends and business associates. This . . . custom of dining at a table with some forty men dressed in various forms of plaid and baring naked legs was . . . unsettling. She continually saw in her mind Patrick Maclean in his plaid, recalled the pure masculinity and power—and magnetism—she felt coming from him.

  Even the memory sent warm and tingly feelings through her. Feelings she not only did not want, but greatly resented.

  Despite the courtesy and friendliness offered by Kimbra and Felicia, and even Rory, they were Scots holding her against her will, and their loyalty was to Patrick Maclean, not to her.

  She retired early, but then Kimbra and Felicia knocked at the door.

  “We . . . Felicia and I . . . want to see the ship,” Kimbra said. “We thought we might go tomorrow before they finish unloading it. Would you like to go with us?”

  The offer stunned her, but the suggestion of a ride—going outside the great walls of Inverleith—was heady.

  “What about your husband? Will he agree?”

  “Aye, if we take someone with us,” Felicia said apologetically.

  Juliana quickly accepted the offer and the two left to check on their children.

  The invitation for a ride was welcome for several reasons. A diversion from thoughts of Patrick Maclean. A chance, perhaps, to escape, or at least learn something that would help her in the future.

  Then what would she do? Where would she go? To London and her promised husband? Try in some way to return to Spain? How would she explain her survival without condemning the Maclean, Manuel, the Spaniard and others?

  Sleep was restless that night, and she had little appetite for the meal to break fast. Still, she was ready and eager when Felicia and Kimbra appeared at her door. Both wore plain riding clothes. Like her, neither wore hats, and she felt a moment of kinship with them.

  Felicia gave her a piece of apple. “For Duchess,” she said, and the three of them went down the stone steps to the great door and then to the stables. Five horses had been saddled, including a great black stallion.

  Juliana tried to hide the longing she felt as she watched him move restlessly. Kimbra went up to
him and gave him a handful of apple, and he nickered for more.

  “Greedy one,” Kimbra whispered. Then a pretty child of perhaps eight years emerged from the barn with a big black dog following. “This is Audra,” Kimbra said. “My daughter. The dog is Bear and this great fellow here is Magnus.” Her hand ran along the head of the black stallion.

  Audra curtsied nicely. “My mother said you are Spanish,” she said. “I have never met anyone from Spain.”

  She was a lovely child, her eyes much like her mother’s with their serious regard.

  “And I had never met anyone from Scotland until a few weeks ago,” Juliana said, kneeling so that her eyes met Audra’s.

  “I am not from Scotland,” Audra corrected solemnly. “I am English.”

  “Then you will have to tell me about England. My mother is English, too, but I have never been there.”

  “I like Inverleith better,” Audra said.

  “Come, love,” Kimbra said and lifted her daughter on a small white mare before turning back to Juliana. “The chestnut is Duchess. She’s a royal lady, but slowing down and, despite her name, very amiable.” Then Kimbra led the black horse to a mounting block and swung easily into the saddle. A stable lad appeared at Juliana’s side, laced his fingers together and offered the locked hands to Juliana.

  Juliana stepped into them and swung her leg over in a movement far more awkward than usual. She waited while Felicia mounted, then Rory Maclean joined them and mounted the last horse.

  Her spirits fell. She had hoped there would be only the three women and she’d immediately eyed the black as the most swift of the mounts. Her mind had already been plotting ways to steal him.

  She knotted her hands around the reins and purposely sat like a bag of potatoes. Felicia guided her horse to one side of Juliana, and Kimbra to the other. Protectively, Juliana thought, even as guilt crept into her thoughts.

  Audra rode ahead with the Scot accompanying them while the dog named Bear remained at their heels.

  All of Juliana’s hopes of escape vanished.

  She looked toward Kimbra. “Where is your husband?”