Torn Between Two Highlanders

by Laurel Adams

  Malcolm didn’t smile. Didn’t respond at all. Instead, he panted…

  …and the eyes rolled back in his head.

  Even before the big bleeding warrior began to fall, Arabella tried to brace him with her own shoulder. But he was too heavy. He crashed down. It was only because Davy’s hand darted out to catch his friend’s head that Malcolm’s skull didn’t crash to the ground with a thunk like the rest of him.

  Davy cursed, a catch in his voice. “Is he dead?”

  Arabella felt the pulse of Malcolm’s life’s blood and put her ear to his mouth, to hear deep, reassuring breaths. “Not yet.”

  “Can you ride?” Davy asked, grasping his friend under the arms and hauling him upright. And when Arabella didn’t answer swiftly enough, he repeated the question. “I asked if you can ride, lass.”

  “Aye. What self-respecting Highland girl cannot?”

  Davy didn’t seem to concern himself with Scots pride. Instead of trying to hide how exhausted he was—instead of pretending that he could manage his friend on his own, he said, “Help me get Malcolm onto my horse then ride his.”

  She found it strangely reassuring to be asked for help again. Strangely thrilling that he treated more like a comrade-at-arms than a damsel in distress. So she grasped the slumped warrior around the waist just as Davy whistled for his bay stallion. “A well trained horse,” Arabella said with delight, when the horse trotted over.

  “Animals like me,” Davy explained. “Women, too. So be on your guard, lass. These dimples of mine, you might find hard to resist.”

  Arabella sputtered, having no reply to that. Was he actually flirting with her in the midst of this bloody carnage and danger, while she nearly bowed under the weight of his dying friend?

  As he hoisted the unconscious man over the saddle, Arabella helped him, shoving with all her strength. Not being overly careful where she might touch the big warrior’s body, either. And when they finally got him onto the horse, Arabella was shaking from the effort.

  Davy leapt up onto his horse behind his friend’s body, steadying him with one hand. “What are you waiting on lass? Malcolm’s horse is the black one.”

  “A moment,” Arabella panted, having fetched the claymore to take along with them. “I’m a little breathless.”

  “Och, aye. I have that affect on the ladies, but there’s no time for panting after me,” he said, exasperating her utterly. “If these louts were meaning to meet up with their clansmen, we need to be well away by the time they’re discovered.”

  Arabella climbed atop the black mare, gripping tightly to its mane. “Let’s go then.”

  Davy nodded. “Follow me. We need to get Malcolm back to the castle.”

  He meant the castle at Eilean Donan, where Laird John Macrae served as constable. Feeling the horse’s strong muscles ripple beneath her, she wished never so much as anything to gallop off to the safety of that castle, a place of protection and defense for the clan. But one look at the man slung over the saddle like a sack of wheat, and she said, “He won’t make it all the way back to the castle. We’re too far away. We need to get him somewhere he can be tended to.”

  Davy’s horse pawed impatiently at the ground. “Your father’s cottage then?”

  Arabella bit her lip thoughtfully. “Still too far. I think I know where to go.” She didn’t expect him to simply nod, encouraging her to go on. Arabella’s father preferred that she not speak unless spoken to, so she wasn’t used to men deferring to her as if she had something useful to say. “To my betrothed. He has a secluded farmstead not far from here—on the other side of the wood.”

  “You’re betrothed?” Davy asked, his blue eyes narrowing.

  “Aye,” Arabella said, wondering if it seemed so very unlikely that a man should have agreed to marry her. She wasn’t as pretty or delicate as her older sister Heather; her eyes weren’t an enchanting violet, but a soft brown. It’s true she tended to smile with mischief rather than sweetness, and that she walked sometimes with a gait that her Papa said was too boyish. Still, Conall seemed to like her well enough. “We’re to wed after the next market day.”

  “I see.” No doubt, Davy really did believe she was a witch, because he didn’t look as if he approved. Then he wiped a smear of blood from his cheek with the back of his beefy arm. “Lead the way then.”

  Nodding, Arabella dug her heels into the horse’s side and galloped off, her two clan warriors following behind. She felt strangely exhilarated. She’d lived through this horror. And she’d escaped with her virtue…a thing her betrothed might well appreciate.

  Before Conall’s farmstead came into view, Davy warned her to be wary. “If the Donald scouts were at your father’s cottage, they might be holed up here too.”

  “I’ll go first then,” Arabella said, her hands tight on the reins.

  “And risk putting yourself back in their clutches?”

  “I risk that either way,” she said, realizing that if the countryside truly was crawling with men of the Donald clan, she was likely to be retaken.

  “True enough, lass,” Davy said, while his comrade groaned from his place slung across the horse. And the sound of his pain made clear to Arabella that she must find help for him. She must.

  “I’ll whistle for you if it’s safe,” Arabella said, dismounting from the war horse that she’d have no way of explaining. She might be able to think up a lie to explain her disheveled appearance and the blood on her hands, though, so she tucked loose hair behind her ears, wrapping the plaid cloak tighter around her. “If it’s not safe, then…”

  Davy waved a hand. He understood. If this farmstead, too, was overtaken by rival clansmen, then they were likely all to die. But Davy didn’t look grim. In truth, he gave her a warm encouraging smile, and his blue eyes were filled with excitement—almost as if he welcomed the danger.

  Both these blood-spattered men were in danger for having come to her rescue, and Arabella knew she must rescue them in return. She hurried across the field, striding purposefully, then bashing upon the door of the humble abode where she was intended to be mistress of the household one day. “Conall!”

  When the door did not open, she banged upon the wood once again. But her answer came from behind her, from the pasture, where her betrothed stood, tending his sheep. He smiled widely, without a trace of alarm. “Is that my Arabella? To what do I owe this surpri—”

  “Are you alone?” she asked, and turned fully in the light, revealing herself to be unkempt, half-dressed and bloody.

  Conall startled. “What the devil happened to you, lass?”

  “Are you alone?” she asked again, hysteria in her voice.

  “Aye, I’m alone.”

  “Thank God,” Arabella cried, falling to her knees in exhaustion and relief. Conall came running to steady her. And she needed steadying because she was going to faint. She was going to swoon away…but before she did, she whistled for Davy and Malcolm.

  Just as she’d promised.

  ~~~

  Arabella didn’t remember how they got Malcolm into the house—they must have carried him there and put the badly injured warrior into Conall’s bed. Of course, she scarcely remembered how she came to be curled up in a blanket by the fire, cleaned up of blood and dressed in some ill-fitting men’s garments, borrowed from her betrothed. The trauma of everything she’d seen—and everything she’d done—seemed to have jolted her mind, so that when she tried to remember certain things, she only saw a blinding bolt of lightning. She had some hazy memory of telling Conall everything in a rush. Telling him about the kidnapping and about the battle, though, for some reason, she said nothing about the yew berries.

  She also remembered tending to Malcolm.They’d cleaned him up. They’d changed his bandages. Wrapped him in blankets. Roused him and made him drink some liquor before he drifted off again. “I can make a willow bark tea to ease his pain, but it might otherwise be in God’s hands now.” Having said that, she’d left Davy sitting vigil at the bedside of his dying
friend, to join Conall at the fire.

  And now, the lad she was to marry, stared hard at her. “Did those animals violate you, Arabella?”

  “No,” she whispered, with a distraught shake of her head. “Not for lack of trying, but they all died before they could.” She didn’t tell him how they died and realized now, it was not careless omission, but purposeful. She feared telling anyone—even her betrothed—what she’d done. It was one thing for a brawny warrior to save a girl from her fate by spilling blood on a sword, but for a girl to have saved herself with poison of the yew berry? Well, how would she ever forget the fearful way Malcolm had made a sign of the cross over himself and pronounced her a witch?

  Conall leaned forward in his chair, then gave a brief squeeze to her hand before seeming to decide something in himself. “I believe you. But no one else will. You’ll have to bear the shame of it. The wedding—well, we’ll have to wait on it now—but I’m willing to marry you anyway.”

  “Thank you,” she said, because she thought it’s what she was supposed to say. And because the idea of waiting was strangely appealing. After today, she couldn’t quite imagine making herself pretty and saying vows.

  Still, she got the distinct impression that Conall expected more lavish gratitude. “We’ll wait a few months,” he continued. “Until it’s plain to anyone that any child you bear is mine.”

  A slow anger started to burn in her belly. She hadn’t expected to marry a warm man. After all, her father wasn’t a warm man. But she had hoped her betrothed might have some kinder words for her than that. And the more she thought about it, the more her indignation burned. “So you’re saying that I’ve been ruined, anyway. That whether they took my virtue or not, everyone will believe they did. It worries you what people in the village might say should they hear I was stolen away!”

  “Of course it worries me,” Conall said, narrowing his eyes. “It should worry you, too, Arabella. After your sister’s disgrace, and now this. You were alone with those men for—”

  Davy stepped into the room, tossing back a fiery lock of hair from his eyes. “I thank you for giving shelter to me and my friend, but now that he’s settled, I’m going to have to trouble you again. The Donalds and the MacDonalds don’t behave so brazenly unless they’re planning an attack. The hills are likely crawling with war bands, ready to descend. I can’t leave my friend, so you’ll need to ride to the castle. Tell the laird we’ll return to fight at his side as soon as Malcolm can ride. Meanwhile, you’ll be safer behind castle walls.”

  Conall nodded, gravely. “Come, Arabella. We’ll leave at once.”

  But just as Arabella started to rise, Davy said, “The lass should stay.”

  Arabella blinked.

  The warrior continued, “Tell the laird that we rescued his harlot’s sister from—” Davy cut himself off, with a quick look to Arabella, then cleared his throat. “We’ll bring her along when we can.”

  “You just said it was safer behind castle walls,” Conall argued.

  “Aye, but getting there is the trick. If you’re stopped by enemy warriors, riding together…” Davy didn’t have to spell out what kind of trouble that might mean. That Arabella might be captured and used in front of her betrothed this time. “You’ll have to go without her and get help if you can.”

  Conall narrowed his eyes again. “You want me to leave her alone with you—after all she’s been through?”

  Davy might have punched Conall in the mouth for the insult to his honor, but instead, he chuckled. “Do you think we tore her from the clutches of those brutes just to do harm to her ourselves?”

  Hearing them argue, Arabella announced, “I’m staying.” It was foolish, and maybe prideful, but she was so angry with Conall at the moment, she didn’t want to go anywhere with him. “I’m too tired to ride another mile, and Malcolm needs healing.”

  “You’re going with me,” Conall replied, grasping her wrist.

  Arabella had enough of being manhandled for one day. For one lifetime. Maybe it was the fact that she was wearing men’s garments that emboldened her, but she yanked her arm back from his grasp. “Don’t tell me what I must do. I’m not your wife yet, Conall.”

  “Nor will you be if you disobey me in this,” he snapped back.

  She should’ve apologized; she should’ve tried to make things right. Because if Conall believed that she was spoiled now—then other men were likely to think so too. Davy had called her sister a harlot just moments ago. Perhaps if Arabella stayed here with these men, that’s what they would call her too. But for some reason, she just couldn’t bring herself to care.

  “Then go on, Conall,” she said, her ire rising, crowding out any more sensible emotion. “Because I can’t rightly envision myself as your bride this market day, or the next one beyond that. And if it means breaking a betrothal, then that’s what it means.”

  Chapter Three

  She should have been sorrier about her broken betrothal, she thought; she should feel something, shouldn’t she? But after Conall stormed out of the house, slamming the door behind him, Arabella had calmly set about making some willow bark tea for the wounded man. She found a stash of the powder in the cupboard. She’d known it would be there, because she gave this pouch of bark powder to Conall when he complained one day of an ache in his head. He had kept it, which Arabella supposed was a testament to the fact that he may have had some feeling for her; at least before he slammed out the door. But Conall hadn’t used any of the bark powder, which bespoke a lack of trust in her judgment and prescriptions.

  “He’ll still ride to the castle and warn the laird, won’t he?” she asked.

  Davy nodded. “Oh, we can be sure of that much.”

  “How?”

  Davy stooped beside her, warming his hands by the fire. “Because he’s a coward, lass, and because there’s likely a war coming, he’ll want strong castle walls to hide behind.”

  “A coward,” she huffed, wondering if she ought to defend the man she’d just broken with. “You’re a bit keen to jump to conclusions when you’ve only just met the man.”

  “I heard what he said to you. Wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, mind you. But it’s a small cottage. I heard him tell you how you must wait and worry over whether the villagers think you’re a ruined woman.”

  A lump rose to Arabella’s throat. “I suppose they will think I’m ruined.”

  “They might,” Davy said, softly. Then, meeting her eyes, he added, “But if you were my betrothed, I’d take you for my wife straight away and tell you not to worry. Because the moment any man said the slightest thing about it, even by implication, I’d give him a pounding he’d never forget. And the next time he said your name, he’d be saying it without any teeth.”

  Arabella thrilled. Was it the threat of certain violence that stirred her blood? No. She’d already seen this man fight for her. It was, she thought, the fact that Davy would tell her not to worry; that he thought to defend more than her honor and her life, but her sanity too. And she suddenly thought him a very rare kind of man. At least until he added, “Not that I’m the sort to take a wife.”

  “Why not?” Arabella asked, surprising herself.

  “That’s a mighty personal question, isn’t it, lass?”

  She blushed, but not as deeply as she might have before this day. “You raised the subject. And given what you witnessed today—knowing that you’ve seen me without my clothes—I feel as if you know quite a bit about me personally…and yet I know nothing of you at all.”

  “Well, I won’t pretend I didn’t see what I saw, lass. But I didn’t enjoy it, if that’s your worry.” Arabella frowned. Davy noticed. “That didn’t come out the way I meant it. I would certainly enjoy seeing you without your clothes, but I didn’t think it right to let myself enjoy it.”

  Arabella continued to frown.

  He ran a hand through his coppery hair. “I’m making a mess of this. You don’t want to hear whether or not a man might enjoy seeing you undressed right now; o
f course you don’t. Not after today. You just want to feel as if you’re not the only one with a patch of skin exposed.”

  Arabella exhaled. “Yes.”

  Davy smiled, with a slight twinkle in his eyes. “I’ll answer yer question. Truth is, I like whores too much to settle for a steady woman. And in the second place, I had the mumps when I was a wee lad.”

  “The mumps?” she asked, utterly confused.

  He nodded, smile fading. “No point in marrying unless you can make a family.”

  The mumps. Suddenly it made a bit more sense. She’d known the disease sometimes robbed people of the ability to make children. “But you can’t be sure that you can’t have bairns—”

  “I’m fairly certain of it. I’ve had my way with plenty of lasses—on account of my aforementioned irresistible dimples—but never one of them got big with child.”

  He said this brazenly, as if he didn’t care, but she noticed that his eyes slid away at the end. And she guessed it bothered him very much.

  Arabella cleared her throat. “But there may be some herb…something that might help. Some remedy—”

  “Aha,” Davy said, pointing a finger. “So you are a witch.”

  She blinked. “I’m only speaking about herbs and their medicinal properties. Whatever you think I did to those men in the clearing…it wasn’t witchcraft.” Would they burn her more readily for poisoning men or for practicing witchcraft? The latter, she decided. Definitely the latter. “It was the stew they made me cook. I put berries in it—toxic ones.”

  “So you brewed up a deadly potion…still sounds like witchcraft to me, lass.”

  She stiffened, insisting. “I’m not a witch!”

  Davy sighed dejectedly. “That’s a shame, if true. You see, I’m pinning all my hopes on your being a witch. Because I fear it will take nothing short of magic to bring Malcolm through this night alive…”

  She was surprised by the emotion in his voice. “Is he a very close friend?”