“Drop your weapon or I’ll kill her.” The hard look in the man’s eyes gave Rourke no doubt he would indeed.
But the man’s words sang through him: kill her. He could not kill a woman who was already dead.
Hope flared.
He tossed his sword to the ground, but in the same move, whipped out his small eating knife and flung it. The knife buried itself cleanly in the soldier’s arm, whipping it back, sending the dagger that threatened Brenna’s life flying.
As the soldier cried out, Rourke pulled his own dagger and hurled it, end over end, burying it deep in the soldier’s chest.
He leaped off his mount and grabbed Brenna before the dying soldier knocked her off and crushed her beneath him. Narrowly missing the man’s arcing boot, he pulled her safely into his arms and backed away. The scent of bile filled his nostrils and he knew why when he saw her stomach’s meager contents streaked down the forelegs of the soldier’s mount.
Cradled against his chest, she groaned, the sound melting the fear that had encased his heart since he’d found the blood.
“Wildcat.” He pulled her tight against him, burying his face in the curve of her neck, inhaling her warm scent.
As he laid her on a patch of soft, rain-pearled clover, he caught sight of the dark bruise on her cheek and the swell of her bloody lip. Rage sliced through him all over again and he was suddenly sorry he’d killed the two soldiers. He would happily kill them all over again, slowly this time. Painfully.
Sliding his hand out from beneath her head, he saw the blood. His hand came away streaked with thin stripes of red.
Her eyes fluttered open. “Rourke?”
“Aye, lass. ’Tis me. You are safe now.”
“I think I’m going to throw up again.” She tried to roll over and he helped her onto her side as she heaved what little was left in her innards onto the ground.
He wiped her mouth on his wet sleeve and helped her sit up.
Brenna sneezed, then sneezed again. She was as soaked as he from the rain, but she was injured and far more fragile. Her wounds needed tending. What she needed above all else was a dry gown and a warm bed. Food. And safety.
He closed his eyes against the knowledge of what he must do, then took a deep breath and lifted her carefully into his arms. Setting her on his mount, he swung up behind her and cradled her in his lap, then turned the horse toward Monymusk. He would take her where he should have this morning. The one place she would have been safe. The last place he wanted to go.
Picktillum Castle.
Home.
“Did you find Hegarty?”
Rourke glanced at the woman tucked against his chest, half hidden by the plaid he’d thrown around her. She’d slept fitfully during most of their long ride back to Monymusk, but now her green eyes peered out at him from the wool.
“Nay. I will go back another time,” he told her. “How do you feel?”
“Like I’ve been used as the puck in a hockey game, but I think I’m through throwing up.”
He didn’t know what a hockey game was, but from her strained tone understood that she hurt. “Forgive me, Wildcat. I shouldna have left you behind.”
She shuddered and leaned against him, as if seeking protection from what she’d endured. “Remind me to kick you in the balls when I feel better.”
He smiled and pulled her closer. “I shall. ’Tis the least of what I deserve.” He stroked her arm, offering the comfort he’d stolen from her when he’d deserted her.
Slowly they made their way up the steep track to Picktillum. The rain was through, but the sky remained as gray as death and the wind tore at his hair. Though he’d kept a keen eye out, he’d seen no sign of Cutter.
“Wildcat . . . was Cutter with the soldiers who took ye?”
Her head moved against him, but he could not tell which direction. “He tried to kill me.”
“He was the one who clouted you?”
She stiffened, but instead of pressing closer, she straightened, pulling away. “No. Soon after you left, Cutter and the three bluecoats showed up. They rode right up to the cave as if they knew I was there. I think the bluecoats wanted to capture me for the earl. Cutter just wanted to kill me.”
Rourke ran his hand down her back, needing to touch her, to reassure himself his Judas of a bosun had not succeeded.
She glanced up at him, meeting his gaze. “He pulled his knife and started toward me, but one of the bluecoats stopped him. He said the earl wanted me delivered unharmed.” Her expression turned wry. “What fun is killing me if I’m already dead?”
She sighed and leaned back against him. “Cutter has a real ego problem. When the bluecoat pushed him away from me, Cutter killed him. Shoved his dagger right into his chest. The other two bluecoats turned on him, and he took off running.”
“He escaped?”
Brenna shrugged. “I was more concerned with getting away than worrying about what happened to him. I almost made it. Unfortunately, they saw me before I could get the horse in gear.”
“The soldiers stopped you.”
“One of them yanked me out of the saddle and back-handed me.” She touched her injured cheek. “Then he hit me in the mouth and sent me flying. I remember falling on the rocks, but nothing after that.”
“Ye hit your head.”
“Yeah, I guess. It feels more like they took a jackham mer to it.”
“I killed them, Wildcat. I killed both the soldiers.”
“But not Cutter.”
“Nay. I never saw him.”
He felt her stiffen again. “He might be waiting for us back at the cave.”
“We are not going to the cave.”
She pulled away and looked up at him. “But your pants are there. And my soap.”
He’d shattered her soap in his self-anger. “We’ll get them later.”
She slowly leaned back against him and lapsed into silence as he pushed the mount forward along the muddy, puddled track. As they climbed, his gaze was drawn to the painfully familiar stronghold at the summit. Picktillum Castle stood over the glen, looking the same as it always had despite the fire he’d fled twenty years ago.
He’d imagined the castle destroyed. Had it been rebuilt so perfectly? Its pink harled stone glistened with rain, more welcoming than he could have imagined. It beckoned him, promising sanctuary and peace.
Sudden, intense longing blindsided him, along with a wave of excruciating homesickness. He hadn’t known—hadn’t realized—how much he’d missed the place. How had he not known?
Maybe he had. It was why he’d stayed away. He’d known all along he wanted to go home. But he could never undo the past.
He ran an unsteady hand over his eyes, wanting only to escape as he had for so many years. “I need to get back to sea,” he said fervently.
“You miss the ocean,” Brenna murmured.
“ ’ Tis where I belong. If I had my gold . . . ’Tis no matter. I dinna need money to go back to sea.”
As his gaze drank in the sight of the castle, he wondered at the reception he would receive after all these years. For nineteen winters they’d thought him dead. ’Twas not until a year ago they’d learned the truth when his father’s youngest brother recognized him in London and sent the glad tidings of Rourke’s survival back to Scotland.
A letter from his eldest uncle, James, had quickly found its way into Rourke’s hands. In it, his uncle had expressed joy at his nephew’s survival and begged Rourke to return home. Though he’d stated his heartfelt wish to welcome Rourke back into the clan, a man’s words and a man’s deeds were oft different things.
And Rourke knew he deserved no homecoming.
The horse ambled beneath him, splashing through the mud. His kin would take him in this day with or without welcome. Brenna needed refuge and protection and he would walk through the very fires of hell to see that she got them. He owed her that much.
The rain began to fall once more as they approached the familiar gates of his childhood home
. Like the village, the castle seemed smaller than he remembered. Thick stone walls joined the four towers that made up the corners of the fortress. Three rectangular towers and the single round one with the conical roof that had housed the laird and his family in the old days.
“Who goes there?” the sentry called from high atop the wall. The long-faced man looked familiar, yet not quite, like a reflection of a friend shimmering on a not-quite-still loch.
“Angus?” Rourke replied. “Is that you?”
“Aye, and who be asking?”
Rourke stared up at his childhood playmate, now a man. A strange stillness dropped over him, a sudden, deep reluctance. He could turn and ride away and none would ever know he’d been here.
Brenna sneezed.
“ ’ Tis I. Rourke.”
“Rourke? Rourke?” The man let out a whoop of joy. “Open the gates! Lord Kinross has returned!”
Brenna stiffened in his arms. “Lord?” She glanced up at him, her eyes round.
A shudder tore through him. “Aye.”
“You own this place?”
If things had been different. If he had been different. “ ’ Twas my father’s.”
She shifted in his arms, meeting his gaze. “Why are you a pirate if you own a castle?”
Leave it to Brenna to cut to the heart of the matter. He kissed her hair. “I’m not a pirate.”
The gates opened on loud, squeaky hinges and people began slipping through. Men, women, and children alike ran to greet him, heedless of the rain and mud, their faces full of welcome, their eyes filled with tears. He tensed as if for battle as the people swarmed around him, their faces familiar, yet not.
One stooped old man peered up at him suspiciously. “Rourke, is it ye, lad?” Finlay, the blacksmith. He’d always had patience with Rourke when he’d slip inside the warmth of the smithy to watch, loving the way the man could make things out of what seemed like nothing. Horseshoes, kettles, even keys, out of molten iron. ’Twas the blacksmith who’d taught him to whittle, sensing in him a need to make creations of his own.
Rourke met the old man’s gaze. “ ’ Tis I, Finlay.”
“Of course ’tis him,” an older women said. The old henwife, if he was not mistaken. “ ’ Tis the spitting image of his father, he is. Just look at those eyes.”
“All these years we thought ye lost. They told us last summer ye’d been found, but I didna believe.” Tears began to run down Finlay’s weathered cheeks. “I didna believe.”
He’d not be shedding tears if he knew the truth. If he knew what had really happened twenty years ago, he’d be spitting on his lord’s feet instead.
Brenna’s head felt like someone had taken a hatchet to it.
She nestled tight against Rourke’s warm chest as the crowd of people swept the pair through the gates and into the castle’s courtyard. The people were laughing and crying, treating the pirate like a returning hero. If streamers and colorful confetti had been invented, Brenna was sure they’d be cascading down from the high towers.
Rourke swung off the horse and pulled her into his arms.
“I can walk,” Brenna protested. She wasn’t a complete invalid, despite the rock band jamming on her head.
But Rourke ignored her. She levered herself into a better position to watch, looping her arm around his neck, feeling his soft hair brush her knuckles. The movement caused a small groan to vibrate through her nose as pain shot up the back of her skull. Bad, bad headache.
Rourke gripped her tighter as people gathered around them like paparazzi on a movie star. She half expected them to start whipping out cameras . . . or shoving pens and paper at him for his autograph. The tension running through him told her he expected even worse.
This wasn’t the fairy-tale homecoming it might look like from a distance. She didn’t understand what was going on, but she did know the man who held her—the pirate who could set his crew to cowering with a single look—was edgy as a new waiter the first night on the job.
The lord of the castle was not happy to be home.
A man pushed his way through the crowd toward them, the same one who’d first shouted from the wall. Tall and thin as a needle, he moved with the tightly controlled movements of a well-trained athlete.
He slapped Rourke on the back. “Welcome, old friend. Your uncle will be most pleased ye’ve returned, as we all are.”
“I would speak with him,” Rourke said tightly. “But first I must see to my lady’s well-being. She’s injured and in need of a dry gown.”
“Then come.”
“Rourke!” A very pregnant woman in an expensive-looking red gown pushed through the crowd and grabbed his arm. “It is you.” She slugged him on the upper arm. “How could ye not have told us where ye were? All those years ye let us think the soldiers had kilt ye.”
“Kerrie, ye’ve still an arm on ye, lass.”
Brenna watched tears fill the woman’s eyes—eyes the same pale shade as Rourke’s. She was pretty, with delicate features and blond curls to die for.
“Where were you, laddie?”
“ ’ Tis a long story.” Rourke’s tone was weary, yet filled with affection.
“One you’ll be telling us right enough.” Kerrie dashed at the tears on her cheeks and peered at Brenna with both curiosity and welcome. “Is this your wife?”
“Nay.” The word came out like a shot. “She is . . . the Lady Marie.”
Brenna caught her breath on a laugh. He’d named her for his ship. Now that was a switch.
Kerrie peered at her bruised cheek and clucked her tongue. “Thrown from a horse, were you?”
“Aye,” Rourke said.
Clearly, he wasn’t ready to enlighten his family about either her or their situation, just as he’d failed to enlighten her about their existence. Was he intentionally keeping secrets, or just being a man?
“I thought the castle burned.” Rourke carried her across the courtyard, accompanied by what seemed to be half the population of Scotland. She felt the brush of his rough stubble against her hair as he looked around.
“The south range went up,” Angus said. “But the storm kept the fire from spreading to the towers.”
Brenna could see no sign of a fire at all. High stone walls surrounded a courtyard far smaller than Stour’s. Or, at least, far more crowded. Then again, the Stour she’d seen in the twenty-first century had been a ruin. Other than the single restored tower, nothing had been left of it but the stone.
Picktillum was still in its heyday, a fully functioning castle. Against the inner walls stood more than a dozen small buildings, almost like a small village tucked within the castle’s walls. But these structures, made of wood, wouldn’t survive the centuries. By her time, nothing would be left but the stone shell. If that.
They entered the nearest tower by way of a long outdoor stairway. Rourke swept her into a dimly lit entryway, then followed Kerrie up a narrow, curved stairwell off to the right. As the stair turned and turned, Brenna was suddenly very glad she didn’t have to walk. She was getting vertigo just being carried.
Finally, they moved into a hallway to the open door of a pretty blue and yellow bedroom. An old-fashioned four-poster bed sat in the middle of the room, hung with floral bed curtains. The walls were covered in cheerfully elegant yellow and white wallpaper.
The room had a slightly old and musty smell as if it hadn’t been used in a while. Then again, without central air and heat, maybe it smelled this way all the time.
Kerrie turned to them. “This will be Marie’s room, Cousin. I will fetch clothing for the both of you. Will your own things be following you?”
“Nay. We have naught but what we wear.” He looked down at her. “Would ye like a hot bath, Wildcat?”
At her gasp of delight, a smile lit his eyes, crinkling the corners for the space of a couple of seconds.
Kerrie put her hand on Rourke’s arm. “I’ll have baths sent up to both your chambers. Since you’ve admitted she’s not your lady wife, you’l
l not be sharing her chambers, my cousin.” She laughed and turned away. “Put her down and come along, Rourke. Though I should call you Kinross now. I’ll show you to your chamber.”
“I’ll be there forthwith. I would speak with my lady alone.”
Kerrie turned back, her mouth opened as if to argue. Then her gaze moved between the two of them, and she rolled her eyes with a wry smile.
“Aye, have your time alone. I’ll send for the baths.”
Brenna smiled at the woman. “Thank you, Kerrie.”
Kerrie grinned at her, tears suddenly sparkling in her gray eyes. “ ’ Tis a great day, this. A muckle great day.” Then she turned her pregnant bulk and made her way from the room, closing the door behind her.
As the latch clicked, Rourke buried his face in Brenna’s hair. She felt an earthquake of a shudder rip through him.
“That bad, huh?” She reached up and stroked his hair.
“Aye.”
“You never intended to come home, did you?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. Instead, he carried her to an upholstered chair before the cold fireplace and lowered her carefully, then went to tend the hearth.
She watched him, admiring his strong profile, the jut of his chin, the line of his straight nose. He was a good-looking man. An amazing man, really. A sea captain. A warrior. Yet there was something in the bend of his shoulders as he lit the already-laid fire that made him seem lost somehow.
“Why haven’t you ever come home, Rourke?”
“I dinna wish to speak of it, Wildcat.” Despite a heavy dose of weariness, his voice brooked no argument. He turned to look at her. “Dinna tell them who you are or where you’re from. I dinna think any of my kin would hurt you, but I’ve not been here for a long time and there may be those loyal to Slains. In the morn, I’ll seek Hegarty.”
Brenna nodded, waiting for the familiar rush of relief at the thought of finally going home, but all that came was a trickle. Gumming the flow was a pervasive melancholy at the thought of leaving the pirate. She couldn’t stay here. She didn’t want to stay here. But the thought of never seeing him again lodged like a rock beneath her breastbone. As badly as she wanted to go home, she had a feeling she’d be leaving a piece of herself behind.
Sapphire Dream Page 16
