The Highlander's War Prize (The Highland Warlord Series Book 2)

by Tessa Murran

  Lyall place his sword on the ground and wriggled into his braies, all the while locking eyes with the man. He was painfully aware of Giselle still in the water behind him.

  ‘Do you know who I am?’ said his tormentor.

  ‘Someone swollen with his own importance,’ replied Lyall.

  ‘Aye, unlike your cock.’

  More laughter.

  The man glanced sideways to where Lyall had left his mail and bloody tunic slung over a rock. ‘Who are you? One of King Robert’s stray, hunting dogs?’ he asked, with a smirk of contempt.

  ‘My name is Lyall Buchanan, and if you are looking for a fight, take one step closer, and you will find it.’

  The man flexed the fingers of his sword hand and tightened his grip. ‘Buchanan, you say?’ His scowl deepened. ‘I knew a Buchanan once, and she was a deal prettier than you, my friend.’

  ‘I’m not your friend. I’ve told you my name, now tell me yours.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Easier to boast of killing you, if I know your name.’

  ‘Hah, you have courage, Buchanan, I’ll give you that. We outnumber you, in a fight, you would lose.’

  ‘Not before I take you with me.’

  ‘Very well, scrapper. I am William O’Neill.’ There was a deal of arrogance in his words.

  Something stirred in Lyall’s mind, a memory, a fragment of that name. ‘Is that supposed to mean something to me?’ he replied.

  ‘Well, if it doesn’t, maybe I should work harder at building a reputation.’ The men at his back sniggered again.

  ‘What do you want from us, O’Neill?’

  ‘We are on our way back to our ship and bound for our home in the Western Isles.’

  ‘I hear the Western Isles are full of pirates and cutthroats who prey on innocent villages up and down this coast.’

  ‘You hear correctly, and I have no shame in admitting it.’

  ‘We passed a burnt-out village on our way here,’ said Lyall. ‘Did you attack it?’

  ‘I might have. It was an English village, so what of it? Now it’s my turn for questions. I have heard tell of Scots raiding over the border, and you look like you’ve been in a fight, my friend. The King’s justice will be swift, and many Scottish villages will suffer his retribution.’

  ‘Robert the Bruce is King of Scotland, last I heard,’ replied Lyall.

  ‘Try telling the English that. Now, as to the village you mention, aye, ‘twas us who raided it, and such slim pickings to be had, ‘twas hardly worth the risk. We sail our ships along the coast and strike inland. It all aids the war effort, though that is not our intention. We don’t care about King Robert’s desire to keep his arse on the throne. We just take what he want and ask leave of no man.’

  ‘So, you are an outlaw then.’

  ‘I am beyond God’s and the King’s law if that is what you mean.’ William O’Neill kicked the dirt at his feet. ‘Who is this you have with you? Care to trade her?

  ‘No.’

  ‘Perhaps I’ll just take her.’

  ‘If you try and touch her, I will kill you.’

  ‘It’s not worth dying over a woman. Give her up quietly, and we’ll let you continue on your way. I swear she’ll come to no harm with me.’

  ‘You are nothing but a villain, and hear me, touch one hair on her head, and I will gut you.’

  The villain turned back to his men. ‘I think the fool is in love, and he wants a fight.’

  Lyall glowered at him.

  ‘So, who is she, this beauty for whom you would lay down your life? Your wife?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, I sincerely hope she’s not your sister, given the way you were rubbing up against her. Did we disturb a lover’s tryst?’

  ‘Do not speak of her like that,’ snarled Lyall.

  Will O’Neill took a step closer and looked past Lyall’s shoulder.

  ‘Are you wed, lass?’

  ‘Leave her be.’

  ‘If you are a free woman, and have no protector but this dog here,’ he continued, ‘then perhaps you should ride with me instead. ‘Tis a long time since I saw such a bonnie one as you, and I’m partial to redheads.’ He turned back to Lyall. ‘Fiery they say, in bed and out, though you seem to have her docile enough.’

  ‘Leave her be, I said.’

  William O’Neill stepped closer with a bold indifference to Lyall’s hostile glare. ‘Why don’t we let the lass decide if she wants you, or a real man? What do you say lass?’ he said, winking at Giselle.

  ‘I would rather die than let a villainous wretch like you put one hand on me,’ said Giselle.

  Will laughed, deep and throaty. ‘English! Upon my word!’

  Lyall rounded on Giselle. ‘Silence,’ he hissed.

  ‘Is she a prisoner, or an English spy, Buchanan? I’d guess prisoner judging by the miserable look on her face when you were fondling her. Are you smuggling her north for some terrible purpose? What will your sister Morna say about it, when you ride into Beharra?

  ‘What do you know of Beharra and my sister?’ said Lyall, as a cold feeling ran down his spine.

  ‘Not as much as I’d like to. Our paths crossed once, and I owe the lass a debt. Is she still as bonnie as all hell?’

  ‘What debt?’

  ‘She saved my life at Bannockburn. There was a small misunderstanding with some of King Robert’s soldiers as to where my allegiance lay. I promised her I would repay her. Perhaps I should travel along to Beharra with you, and become re-acquainted.’

  ‘She is not at Beharra. She is married, long since, and bides in her husband’s house.’

  The man’s arrogance evaporated like a mist, replaced by a look of utter desolation. His fist tightened on the hilt of his sword. ‘Wed you say? Then her husband is a lucky man, and I wish her joy, with all my heart.’ His words were anything but joyous.

  Could this thug have been nursing a fondness for Morna all this time, since Bannockburn, four years ago? If he was, Lyall was sure his talk of Morna being wed had been a blow, but the man was trying to hide it.

  ‘You may pass unmolested, Lyall Buchanan, with your red beauty here, but only for Morna’s sake. Please convey my good wishes to the lass, when next you see her. Tell her, Will has never forgotten her, nor shall he.’

  ‘So, by leaving us alone, you feel your debt has been paid?’ said Lyall.

  ‘Not even close,’ replied O’Neill. When he reached his horse, his arrogance seemed to return. ‘If this scrapper does not please you, lass, you should come along with me. I know how to treat a lady, and you’d be no prisoner of mine.’

  ‘I doubt you know what a lady is,’ Giselle snapped back.

  O’Neill grinned. ‘Quite the mouth on her, this one, Buchanan. I will leave you in peace to put it to good use, though she’s more than you can handle, I’d wager.’

  The men melted away into the trees, and Lyall turned back to Giselle. ‘Get out and get dressed, quickly, we are leaving.’

  ‘But you must turn around.’

  ‘I said now Giselle. It’s a bit late for modesty, and there is a storm coming.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Lyall fumed for miles as they trailed around the edge of the loch. He gripped Giselle hard around her waist, constantly looking over his shoulder to make sure they were not being followed. She was all questions, much to his annoyance.

  ‘Who was that man? Did you know him?’

  ‘No,’ he snarled, turning his horse into the trees.

  ‘But he knows your sister?’

  ‘It would appear so, and when I get back to Beharra, she will have some explaining to do. And next time you decide to speak, Giselle, could it please not be in the cause of letting everyone around know that you are English.’

  ‘Why should I hide the fact that you are dragging me north, as your prisoner?’

  ‘Because I just told you to hold your tongue, that’s why. As for being my prisoner, you weren’t putting up much resistance just now.’

/>   She gasped. ‘That is unfair, and it is cruel, too.’ She hung her head down. ‘You started it,’ she said quietly.

  Why was he calling her a whore? She was right. It was all his fault, not hers. He wasn’t even angry at her, so why wound her? Whoever that Will fellow was, they’d had a lucky escape. Those men could have killed him and then done what they wanted with Giselle. He should never have put her safety at risk like that. He should never have put her virginity at risk with his lust, either. He definitely should not have put his hands on her, because, now that he had, he could not stop thinking about it and longing to do it again.

  ‘Giselle, forgive my anger. It is with myself, not you, and also with that man for the way he spoke about my sister.’

  ‘He has some affection for your sister, it would seem.’

  ‘Affection you call it. Well, I call it something else entirely. Whatever it was, it was strong enough for the brute to spare us, on Morna’s account. That, in itself, gives me cause for alarm. William O’Neill better not come anywhere near Beharra or my sister if he knows what’s good for him.’

  ‘No, because you wouldn’t want a man to treat your sister as you just treated me, would you?’ said Giselle.

  Lyall pulled the horse to an abrupt halt before a rocky outcrop and dismounted, pulling Giselle roughly off its back. She leapt away from him as if she had been stung, so he went to secure the horse. The thunder sounded directly overhead, and the light was failing.

  ‘Follow me,’ he said, ‘we have to push through the bushes.’

  It was easy to miss if you did not know it was there, but Lyall had ridden these paths many times. He thrashed about in the undergrowth and found the gaping hole in the rock face, overhung by a jutting rock.

  ‘A cave?’ she exclaimed. ‘You can’t mean us to sleep there. It is nought but a filthy hole, and what about bears and wolves and such?’

  ‘If there are any, they’ll have to clear out, for I want to sleep dry and safe tonight.’

  Rain started to pelt down harder, a few fat drops at first, but worsening.

  ‘Look, Giselle, no tracks in and out means no animals. Get undercover, and I will get some wood to make a fire to scare away any wee beasties that might prey on us.’

  Once Lyall had gone, Giselle sat at the mouth of the cave hugging her arms around her and listening to the rain plopping down onto the leaves, turning the forest to a wet mist. Thank goodness it was a warm day because she felt a chill every time Lyall opened his mouth since their kiss and all the other things he had done, things she should have put a stop to. Oh, the shame of it.

  That big, rough Scot had put his hands on all the secret places of her body, which no man had ever seen before, let alone touched. At the thought of his long fingers all over her she gasped, and reddened. She knew that men and women cleaved together and that they could enjoy and want that strange coupling.

  Some years ago, Giselle had blundered across a servant girl giving herself to a groom in the stables. How scandalised she had been, and how puzzled as to what strange need compelled them to rut like that, amongst the horses and pigs. It had seemed so base. The man had his hand at the girls throat, his breeches round his knees, and she has been spread under him in the hay, so wide and helpless. But as he rocked inside her, she had been calling his name and gasping that she loved him. Surely what he was doing could not have been enjoyable? It had looked so much like violence. But instinctively Giselle knew it was not, and she had hurried away with a burning face and a strange throb between her legs, which shamed her for days afterwards. In a way, she had envied that servant her strange ecstasy.

  Now Giselle understood it, and what a terrifying thing it was. Did that make her a whore? What would Lyall Buchanan think of her now? Had she fallen in his eyes? It had been frightening when he had taken hold of her, what with his size and the evidence of recent violence all over his bruised face. She knew what Lyall could do with his fists and so she had been still, and let him do what he would, in the hope that he would stop and have mercy on her innocence. But it hadn’t taken long for her fear to turn into something else entirely, and for her to want him to continue. Lyall’s kiss had been delicious. It had aroused and thrilled. Where would it have ended, if he had not pulled away?

  The rustle of bushes announced Lyall’s return, with an armful of sticks and dry moss. Giselle could not meet his eye, and by the time the fire was smouldering, the wind had picked up and was lashing the trees from side to side.

  Inside the cave, all was musty and dark. It was barely large enough to stand up fully and did not seem to stretch very far back, though Giselle had no desire to explore it. Nor did she want to stay at the entrance, close to Lyall, who hunched silent and grave, tending the fire and looking out at the rain. She wished to flee from him, but she was trapped between the storm raging outside, and the one raging between them.

  Lyall may be angry with her, and he may be a little frightening, but he stirred something in her breast, which was infinitely more exciting than her girlish dreams of chivalrous knights and courtly love. It was because he was a full-grown man of flesh and blood, and she could reach out and touch him, run her fingers over his warm skin, taste his lips. That thing between his legs, oh my, it had been hard to tear her eyes away from it.

  When Lyall came to hand her some food, he regarded her in a steady, puzzled sort of way, with a furrowed brow. Could this be what Agnes meant? Did she have some power over him? If she did, Giselle had no idea how to wield it.

  ‘I hope the horse is still there in the morning, or else we will be walking to Beharra,’ he said, eventually, breaking the silence and making her jump. He began to spread blankets out on the ground behind the fire, out of reach of the rain gusting in. ‘Tis a good days’ ride from here, and I had hoped to get further before the storm set in. Now it looks like we’ll have to stay here tonight, but tomorrow you will spend a more pleasant night than this, with good food and a softer bed.’

  ‘With strangers who will hate me,’ she snapped. Giselle looked down at the black bread and salt pork he had given her for supper, dread churning her stomach. Loneliness crept over her like a shadow.

  Lyall regarded her steadily as he lay down by the fire. ‘It won’t be like that. Come, lass, coory into me and get some sleep.’

  ‘Coory? What is that?

  ‘Come here, and I will show you,’ he said.

  ‘Why would I want to do that?’

  ‘Because I regret my anger earlier, and the way I spoke to you. I would have you forgive me, Giselle, for everything that happened today. Come here to me, and I’ll not lay a hand on you, I swear. I know you are frightened, and I mean only to comfort you.’

  Giselle ignored him.

  ‘Will you not speak to me, Giselle?’ Anger tainted his words.

  ‘Why would I do that, when you have used me so ill?’

  ‘Is that what you think I was doing, using you?’

  ‘What else could it be? You shamed me Lyall, and in front of those men, too. It was awful, the way they looked at me like I was some slattern, some loathsome, dirty thing.’

  ‘Giselle, stop.’

  ‘Oh, don’t tell me it was otherwise, that you are trying to protect me. You can pretend to be honourable and kind all you like, but the truth is, I am your prisoner, and I’ll never be anything else to you.’

  ‘What do you want to be to me?’

  ‘Nothing, I want nothing from you, except my freedom, and for bringing me here, and for doing what you did, you are no better than Banan MacGregor, and that is the truth of it.’

  If she wounded Lyall, she could not see, for she turned her back on him. Silence took the cave, and the only sound was the thrashing of trees outside and the hiss of rain falling.

  When next he spoke, his words were bitter. ‘You think I am like Banan. Let me tell you about him. That whoreson is like a hunting dog when it gets a scent. He will put down his head and follow it, as long as it takes to catch his prey. He will never give up while the
re is breath in his body. I have denied Banan something he wants. If I had not intervened, he would no doubt have raped you, repeatedly and brutally, and then, depending on his whim and who was around as witness, he would have killed you or left you behind, discarded without a second thought. Virtue, purity, honour, these things mean nothing to him. His lust for women and violence are bedfellows, one feeds the other in his twisted heart.’

  Giselle wanted to ignore such harshness, but instead, she felt compelled to reply. ‘Why does Black Douglas tolerate such a man in his ranks?

  ‘Do you think he cares whether or not Banan is a moral man? Lord Douglas sees in him a merciless killer, who hates the English with a vengeance. He is a weapon, albeit one who is hard to control, and his father is a powerful ally of King Robert. Highland clans are a law unto themselves, Giselle. They bicker over land and power and will slaughter each other over the smallest of slights. Each clan chief has his own army and, though they pledge loyalty to King Robert, they can fall into violence in a heartbeat. Robert has to court the allegiance of these powerful men to hold his throne, especially as he seeks to be formally acknowledged as King of Scotland. So Banan is tolerated, because of his father.’

  ‘That is awful of him, grubbing for power, no matter the cost.’

  ‘Aye, it is, but your English King does the same.’

  ‘Then I suppose he is no different from King Robert, as you are no different to Banan.’

  ‘I am very different, and you are undeserving of my protection if you think otherwise.’

  ‘You are horrible, Lyall Buchanan, and you should not have taken liberties with me.’

  ‘I wasn’t taking, you were giving,’ he snarled.

  Giselle was silent.

  ‘I’m not wrong, am I?’ he said.

  ‘Well if I did give myself, then I regret it now.’

  ‘That makes two of us. So we will not do it again, nor speak of it again.’

  Giselle wept silent tears, for herself and for her heart, which now felt a little broken by this rough Scot. Why should she care about his opinion of her, he was nothing but a savage and a heartless seducer? How dare Lyall blame her. But she had to admit, her lack of resistance to his advances had not been out of fear, or a wish to get him on her side. She hadn’t resisted because what Lyall had done to her had felt good, and she hadn’t wanted him to stop.