Morganna (The Brocade Collection, Book 4)

by Jackie Ivie

  “Left-handed?” she reminded.

  He moved the blade into his other hand. “This is ridiculous,” he complained.

  “Toss it. Don’t pump your arm, like this,” she mimicked what he did. “Just look at your target, envision planting a knife in it and then do it. Now.”

  He tossed the blade. Not only did it completely miss the target, it didn’t even reach it. Morgan laughed delightedly. Zander swore.

  “You put too much strength into it.”

  “If you ruin my throwing aim, lad, I’ll have your hand.”

  “Then, I’d best not ruin it, hadn’t I? Watch. I’m going to do it very slowly. Watch.”

  Her hand was shaking because he was watching, but she forced herself to ignore it as she placed three dirks between the fingers of her left hand, blades out. Then, she held the hilt of one between her thumb and forefinger.

  “I use an under-handed motion. Against everything you’ve been taught. It’s more effective, and more accurate. You aren’t coming down, guessing on things like winds, rain and battle conditions, you’re coming upward, where there’s less to interfere. Watch.”

  She turned to the target, and flung a blade. Before it hit, she already had another loaded between her forefinger and thumb. “Don’t watch the target! ’Tis too late to change that blade. Watch the hand!”

  She showed him how she had another blade in place before she turned and flung it. He was watching as she maneuvered the third into place and set it flying. When she looked up, all three were trembling from the dead center of his target.

  She walked over to pull her knives back out, ignoring the fact that he might be watching, and then blushing because when she turned around, he was definitely watching.

  She walked toward where he stood, trying to keep every bit of sway out of any part of her walk, and held the knives out to him. “Now, you try,” she said.

  “What?”

  He pulled his eyes from where they’d been, on what part of her bare legs was showing beneath her kilt and looked at her with a befuddled expression. Morgan sucked her tongue up over her upper teeth and ran it over them, making her upper lip jut out. Then, she finished, with a snapping, sucking type of sound, and lifted the knives to a point below his chin.

  “Take the knives and put them in the target,” she repeated, and watched a flush go over him, turning those eyes even more intensely blue when he looked over her hand at her.

  “I’m na’ good enough,” he replied.

  Morgan rolled her eyes. “I’ll do it again, then, but this time, hold to my hand and feel the release. Here.” She turned and backed up until she reached his chest, and put out her arm. “Hold onto the outside of my arm. Zander?”

  She waited until he did as she asked, although his shuddering was making a connection difficult. Morgan didn’t dare turn around to see the cause. She was afraid of what made the pressure against her thighs. Zander FitzHugh was every inch a man, and he had a woman in his arms, and he didn’t even guess it? It was amusing if she thought of it.

  She didn’t.

  “Hold to the back of my hand, Zander. Mold your fingers around mine.”

  “Oh, sweet Jesu’,” he murmured into her hair, but he did as she asked, his palm easily covering the back of her hand, and then he was weaving his fingers through hers.

  Morgan’s knees were knocking and her breath was coming too shallowly and quick. She swallowed the increased moisture in her mouth and concentrated. “Now, feel how we’re holding the blade in our fingers.”

  His answer was too garbled to decipher, and Morgan ignored it and went right on talking. It was the only thing she could think to do.

  “We’re going to fling it now. It takes about a one-to-two, finger-length of movement. Ready?”

  She didn’t wait to hear his answer, she simply moved her hand as she’d done for years, and his was right there with her. The knife struck dead-center. She moved another blade into place, and felt his fingers moving with hers. Her insides were turning to liquid, and her throat was closing off too much to swallow.

  “We’re tossing the other one.”

  She flung it, and heard it thump against the wood. She was concentrating on putting the final blade into place and attempting to ignore every nerve-ending in her body that was in contact with his.

  It was an impossible chore.

  “Are you ready, Zander?” she whispered.

  The answer was groaned into the back of her neck. Morgan didn’t have any recourse but to fling the final blade, and she listened to it clang against the others before her entire world was upended and completely and irrevocably changed. Forever.

  Zander pivoted her body in the enclosure of his arms, grabbed both sides of her head with his hands, and launched his mouth into hers. Morgan didn’t have time to gasp a denial, or even one of acceptance, before he was marauding about in her mouth, seeking nourishment from her tongue where he sucked on it, and enticement from all her tissues, as he brought her to the brink of heaven and held her there. Morgan’s hands grabbed onto his belt to keep her from falling as he took every bit of sod beneath her and turned it into bog. Her knees no longer worked, her ankles were too far away to matter, and her thigh muscles were trembling with a fire-and-ice combination she didn’t know enough about to name.

  His breath filled her nostrils, his taste filled her senses, and his tongue was a driving force not to be denied. Morgan’s mind ceased functioning, her heart ceased beating and her lungs forgot to breathe. All she could hear was the harshness of his breathing.

  Then he raised his head and met her gaze. Wonder glimmered momentarily in those midnight-blue eyes and then such horror that his eyes widened to complete circles.

  “Nay!”

  The cry came from the depths of his gut, and it was just as brutal-sounding. He flung Morgan from him and spat, wiping his hand across his mouth like he’d rather it was a dirk slicing it off. She landed hard, taking the brunt of force on her elbows and knees. She felt the jolt all the way up her spine to the back of her head. She would have twisted to look up at him, but the moment she tried, a twinge in her neck stabbed at her, taking her breath.

  He came around to face her, and then yanked her to her feet. Morgan couldn’t prevent the cry of pain as her neck snapped again.

  “Damn you! Damn you, and your soul, to hell!”

  “Yes,” she whispered. The agony in her neck was throbbing to the middle of her back, and painful enough to make her physically ill. It could also have something to do with how he held to her, his fists wrapped about her upper arms, and her toes barely touching ground, just as he’d done the previous evening, while he shook her. All things considered, she wished she was back at the whore’s croft and had another chance at the morning, she decided.

  “I’m leaving, Morgan of no-clan, and no-name,” he spat, and waited until she looked at him. “I go to seek a priest for absolution. Tell no one of this while I am gone.”

  “I won’t be here when you return,” she whispered.

  “Oh yes, you will. You leave, and I’ll hunt you down and kill you, and I will very much enjoy it. You ken?”

  He flung her down again, and she didn’t have the ability to halt her cry as her neck snapped a third time.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Zander was gone six days, and in that time, Morgan managed to conceal her injury, continue her hunting and keep the others from each other’s throats. She couldn’t do anything about the blow to her self-confidence, however. She, who had hated the FitzHughs beyond all reason, beyond even seeking a normal life for herself, she had betrayed everything, and for what?

  A stolen kiss from one of them.

  She still slept on the ground in his tent, because there wasn’t any other place for her. She only toyed with running away. There wasn’t anywhere she could go. She didn’t know the direction home; she was clad in FitzHugh colors; and she was seriously injured.

  Not one of the others knew it, though. Morgan settled onto her floor the sam
e way she’d done it all week, by going first to her knees, easing to her buttocks, and then falling in one swoop onto her side, gasping at the pain as she did so. No one else noticed if she made any noise. They didn’t note that she never sat. They didn’t notice anything about her, although they brought her the choicest pieces of meat and the most cylindrical of their open-fire biscuits.

  Zander had been mistaken, too. Amelia made passable biscuits. Morgan often told her of it, too, and received the girl’s dimpled smile in reply.

  On the sixth day, there was more than one horse arriving, there were at least eight. The noise alone told of the number, and Morgan caught the tears of self-pity before she rolled onto her hands and knees, preparing to rise. Once she made it to her feet, she had a chance of appearing normal and well. If, she made it to her feet.

  “FitzHugh!”

  It sounded like Martin calling out the name, and the others joined in with greetings, so it wasn’t an uninvited and armed group. That was a good thing, since she hadn’t made it to her feet yet, and until she did, her mobility was questionable.

  “Break camp!” Zander’s voice was loud and clear, and not a bit weak.

  “This late?” someone asked.

  “We’ve three leagues to go to reach Argylle Castle, and I’m bound by troth to my future. Where is my squire, Morgan?”

  Morgan was on her knees, and making every effort to get to her feet, when the flap opened. She hung her head in defeat, and welcomed the agony of fire that settled into the center of her back.

  “Get up,” he ordered.

  Morgan tried. She shoved herself from a kneeling position and used every bit of strength in her thighs. She managed to reach a crouch before collapsing back onto all fours, where she retched from the core of pain, in front of all of them standing there.

  “What did you do to him?”

  Someone was beside her, and it wasn’t Zander, but it was a close relative. Morgan closed her eyes to mask the pain, bit her cheek and tried to move her head, scrunching her face at the effort.

  “He’s hurt,” the man at her side said. “Back? Neck?”

  “Aye,” Morgan whispered.

  “How long has he been hurt?” Zander wanted to know, in that orator-tone of his. “Who among you did the deed?”

  There was an annoying and confusing number of answers from the group outside, and then Zander was in the tent again. She knew it although he was accompanied by too many of his clansmen to count, since her view was what she could see of their lower legs. A lot, she decided.

  “Who hurt you?”

  Zander was on one knee, and lifting her head to look at him. His action made the absolute and complete agony worse, and Morgan cried out with it, before she could stop it.

  “You can’t move his head, Zander. Someone injured his back, and you’re making it worse.”

  “Oh.”

  He rolled into a reclining position to look up at her. Morgan closed her eyes, but when she opened them, he was there still. Even through the blur of tears he was heart-rending and handsome still, she decided.

  “Who hurt you?” he asked.

  “You,” she replied.

  His brows fell, shadowing his eyes, and he frowned. “Last week?” he continued.

  She would have nodded, but it hurt too much. She settled for a whistled “Aye,” through her teeth.

  “You’ve lived with it this long?”

  “Aye,” she replied again.

  “Then, get off the floor and get moving. We’re breaking camp. Cease this and get your dirks. I’ve told my brothers of your talent, and that as long as you have it, I’ll let you live. He’s a robber of the dead, decked out in KilCreggar plaid, as bold as you please, and I took him on as my squire. I’m truly amazed at my generosity, sometimes.”

  He was rolling from her and moving away, and Morgan closed her eyes to keep the emotion in.

  The other FitzHugh was at her side again, and Morgan slanted her eyes to look at him. He was older than Zander, and even more sturdily built, but he wasn’t as handsome, and he was alive, as her own brothers were not. She snarled at him, but lost it in a cough that made her back spasm with pain.

  Tears obliterated him for a moment. She had to wait for them to recede. When they did, he was looking at her with compassion and no small amount of pity. If her back wasn’t as stiff and straight as possible, she’d have been in that position by the look on his face. No KilCreggar accepted pity from a FitzHugh. She’d rather die.

  “Zander says you’re a lad,” he said softly. “Is he blind?”

  Morgan shut her eyes again and caught the sob of defeat. She knew what it was, too.

  “Come along, I’ll try to get you on your feet, without hurting you further. Take a deep breath.” He was above her, and linking his hands under her belly.

  “Get your hands off me,” she snarled.

  The hands disappeared. “Pride at the cost of pain. Good. I like that in a squire. I begin to see why Zander kept you. Come along. Rise by yourself, then.”

  Morgan took two breaths, sucked in the third and pushed herself back into a crouch. Her thighs wobbled with it for a moment and then she locked them. It was easier without an audience, but it was done. She stood, meeting the other FitzHugh’s gaze from an exact level. She watched his eyebrows raise once she reached her height.

  “I can see the mistake,” he offered. “Perhaps Zander isna’ the blind one, but myself.”

  “Appearances...are deceiving,” she replied, and turned stiffly to exit the tent.

  He was at her heels.

  “There you are!” Zander called. “Thank goodness. Here. Take your dirks and pepper my brother, Phineas, with them.”

  He has a brother named Phineas? she wondered, as pain stabbed at her with just the thought of giggling about it. She sucked in a breath. “I canna’ reach my dirks,” she replied finally.

  “Here. Take the rest, then.” He opened his bag and gave her the other six. Morgan placed three in each hand. “Now, watch this,” Zander said.

  Morgan narrowed her eyes. There were more than two FitzHughs about the enclosure, if their cloth was any indication. “Which one is Phineas?” she asked.

  Zander walked over to another version of himself who was seated on a horse, disdaining the camp about him. This FitzHugh hadn’t the cleft in his chin, nor a full head of hair, nor when he looked down at her, did he have midnight-blue eyes. His were ice-water-blue and cold.

  Morgan let fly, plugging his falcon band, where he held the reins, the brooch on his shield, the handle of his skean dhu, and the heavy leather wrist band on his other arm, twice.

  The gasp turned to applause.

  “My, my,” the one called Phineas said, reaching to pluck out her dirks without the slightest bit of interest showing. “He is good. He is very good. How is he with a bow?”

  “Terrible,” Zander replied. “He’s perfect with the arrows, though.”

  Morgan closed her eyes and caught the sway. She hoped Phineas was the laird. If he was, her life work was almost over, and she could collapse into her own grave where pain such as she was enduring didn’t survive.

  “Come along, Morgan, get your knives. You have them all back now. Am I not the most lenient of masters to my squires? Even the disobedient ones?”

  She looked up at him. “Aye,” she answered with no inflection whatsoever. “That, you are.”

  His grin slipped and she ignored him to go get her dirks back from Phineas. As she reached for them, he lifted them from her reach and smiled. He was missing two of his front teeth, and that wasn’t adding to any attractiveness. Quite the opposite, she decided.

  “Favor me with a kiss first,” he replied.

  She looked down, grit her teeth and backed from him. She had no idea what Zander had told them, and didn’t want to know, but at least the other brother had gotten her gender right. For a moment, anyway.

  This one might even prefer that she was a lad, she surmised.

  “Give them to Za
nder, then,” she said and started walking toward her master. One of her dirks landed on the ground at her right, the other five, in a row, on her left. She looked down at them, then swiveled with her entire body to look over at Phineas.

  “We’ll have some wonderful times together, I think,” he said.

  Morgan didn’t feign the snarl as she locked her jaw and made ready to go to her knees. It was every bit as painful as she’d known it would be, too. The jolt as her knees hit slammed the shoulder pain into her neck and even made the skin holding her hair to her head hurt. She sucked in on the agony and moved to pluck her knives up. It wasn’t any worse than she’d experienced while bringing down the deer three days earlier for their consumption. She just hadn’t had an audience to it.

  “Come along, Morgan. You tarry and we’ve a long walk ahead of us.”

  “Walk?” she asked dully, wondering how she was going to get back to her feet without bursting into sobs.

  “You dinna’ think I’d take you up on my horse, did you?” Zander asked quietly.

  Morgan kept her attention on the hilts of her dirks, then on the motion of putting them into the back of her belt, and finally into her socks. She felt better just knowing she had her weapons back. Then she sucked in breath, gathering the courage to get to her feet. The only one still watching her was the unknown FitzHugh.

  She ignored him.

  ~ ~ ~

  Zander, and his brothers, and the rest of the clansmen he’d brought, made them march through the night and into the next day, intent on distance, rather than subterfuge. Morgan noticed that the lasses hadn’t gone but twenty steps before they were offered rides in front of the men. Morgan wished them well of it. She much preferred walking, to being anywhere in the vicinity of Zander FitzHugh.

  “You interested in a ride, young Morgan?” It was the unknown FitzHugh at her side, looking down at her as he asked it. Morgan kept her eyes steadfastly ahead, and on the backside of her master’s horse, Morgan, ignoring him. It was easier than she’d suspected to give this attitude, since her head wouldn’t move enough to look up at him, anyway.