MacFarland's Lass

by Campbell, Glynnis

  She shrugged uneasily. "Ye didn't mean to shoot me." Then she gave him a sharp glance. "Did ye?"

  His brows came together, as if she'd dealt him a bewildering blow. "I told ye before," he whispered passionately, his gaze—more piercing than his arrow—leaving her breathless, "I would not for the world harm a maid."

  For a moment, she could only stare back. She'd been wrong about his eyes. They were far richer than chrysolite. They were as fathomless and crystalline as the most precious aquamarine beryl. The silence grew strained. His proximity and the way her heart was wobbling began to unsettle her. She wiped sweating palms on her skirts and gave a brittle little laugh. "How ye mistook me for game, I cannot imagine."

  He reached out, startling her by gathering a fistful of her skirt. "Your garments. They're a most unfortunate shade."

  'Twas true, she realized. Her gown was pale beige. Half hidden in the branches, she must have looked like a ranging buck.

  "Aye. Well. The next time I flee into the forest," she said with nervous humor, "I shall be certain to dress in bright scarlet."

  He released her skirt, and she released her breath.

  But he wasn't finished with her. Without warning, he caught her under the arms and lifted her effortlessly up onto the low fridstool. While she was reeling from that shock, he propped up her chin with his finger to peer at the scratch on her cheek. She tried to draw away, but he held fast with his thumb and finger, apparently intent on scrutinizing her every scrape.

  "Thank Odin ye're all right," he murmured.

  Her face grew hot under his stare, her nerves strained. "Thank God ye're a terrible shot," she retorted.

  His gaze held hers then, and he released her chin, but his mood was far from light. Indeed, he met her eyes with chilling sobriety.

  "I never miss," he told her. "If I hadn't turned the bow aside at the last instant, ye'd be dead."

  Chapter 5

  The priest returned at that moment, thumping the dust from his Bible, to hear her confession. "Vermin in the vestry, and Methuselah's gone missin'. Lad, will ye meander outdoors and see if ye can find him?"

  "Missin'? But I saw him only—"

  "Lad," the Father interjected pointedly, "I'm certain he's somewhere outside the church."

  "Ah," Rane nodded, taking the hint. "Aye."

  Florie was glad to see him go, for the man was definitely a distraction, and his uninvited touch had left her as bristly as a kitten in a lightning storm.

  Now that the priest stood beside Rane, she saw how improbably tall the archer was. Taller even than Wat, who, when he wasn't slouching, stood a full head over Florie. Rane's legs were long, his hips narrow, yet he possessed no dearth of muscle. Still, for all his clearly mortal flesh, he was as handsome as an angel.

  Out of habit, she began to consider what jewels would best suit his build and coloring. A simple wide cuff of hammered gold about his wrist, she decided, and a medallion set with chalcedony upon his chest.

  "M'lady?" the priest prompted.

  She watched Rane swoop up his discarded cloak, shake out the wrinkles, and whirl it about his shoulders. It needed a gold cloak pin in the form of a bow and arrow, she thought, to set off his hair, which shone like a sheet of gold leaf.

  "M'lady?" Father Conan repeated.

  Rane tightened his leather belt, the one that bore the marks of her teeth, and Florie noted again how nimble his fingers were, probably from years of hunting with the longbow. The belt, of course, would have looked better with a heavy buckle of gold. She studied him as, giving her a nod of farewell, he swaggered down the length of the sanctuary—confident, agile, splendid. By the rood, he was magnificent, the perfect foil for a goldsmith's wares.

  "M'lady!"

  The church door closed behind him. Only then did Florie whip her head toward the priest. "Aye?"

  She would have sworn the Father's filmy eyes sparkled. "Do I have your attention now?"

  She cleared her throat, painfully aware he'd been addressing her for some time. "Aye."

  "Poor lass, ye must be a victim o' the curse," he said enigmatically.

  She frowned. "Curse?"

  "Indeed." He leaned forward. "Hearken, m'lady, and I'll tell ye the tale." He rubbed his palms together, warming to his subject like a well-traveled bard.

  Now that Rane had gone, Florie couldn't help feeling impatient. What would become of her goods at the pavilion? Was there any chance she could return to Wat if she hobbled like a hunched old crone all the way back? She planted her hands on the low arms of the fridstool and started to push up. "I really should be—"

  "'Tis a short tale," he promised, "and worth the hearin'."

  "But—"

  "Long, long ago," he intoned, undaunted by her protest, "a Viking warrior came to the Highlands to claim a Scots bride. He was a strong and stalwart man, generous in manner, but iron hard in his ways."

  Florie sighed, settling back onto the fridstool. Apparently the Father was iron hard in his ways as well. She supposed there was no way to politely evade the man's story. He was a priest, after all, and Florie, unlike Rane, had been taught to respect men of God.

  The Father continued. "He wedded and bedded his new young wife and soon got her with child." He frowned, shaking his head. "But she despised her foreign husband. So spiteful was she o' his Viking seed that she prayed the bairn would die ere 'twas born."

  Florie scowled. She hoped this wasn't one of those long Norse sagas. Time was a-wasting.

  "When the Viking learned o' her prayers, he grew livid with rage. He damned the wicked wench and all her ilk with a powerful curse. For all eternity, he swore, no lass born on Scottish soil would be able to resist the charms of a son sprung from his Viking loins."

  The priest lifted expectant brows then, and Florie furrowed her own. Was that the tale? All of it? 'Twas not a very good one. It didn't have much of an ending. Well, no matter, she decided. She might as well take advantage of the lull.

  "A charmin' tale, Father. Thank ye for your charity," she said, pressing up from the fridstool once again.

  "Rane MacFarland," the priest interrupted, "is such a son."

  Florie froze. Rane? The spawn of Vikings? That explained the size of him and his fair hair. But cursed with charm? Irresistible?

  Faugh! Florie didn't believe in bewitchery. Nor was she charmed by the archer, despite the way her heart stumbled in his presence. She only found him…unsettling. "I don't hold much with curses," she muttered, "nor, should I think, would a man o' God."

  The priest quickly crossed himself. "Nae. Nae. Certainly not. 'Tis but a legend, after all. Only the Lord God steers the fate o' man."

  But though he spoke the words with solemn haste, as if he feared lightning might strike him at any moment, Florie suspected Father Conan preferred such fanciful tales to his usual Gospel fare.

  He also insisted upon hearing her confession. He wanted to know every detail of what had transpired, which she painstakingly related…except for her real reason for coming to Selkirk.

  And the truth about the pomander's significance.

  And the bit about Rane shooting her.

  About that, she told him merely that she'd injured herself in a fall…which was partially true.

  Afterward, he made her swear to the customary conditions of sanctuary—to remain peaceful, to carry no sharp weapons, and to aid if the church caught fire.

  She restlessly endured the procedure, while the priest penned the tedious record of her confession in a book. He dipped his quill in a vial of black ink and, using one finger as a guide, scratched words across the page with such meticulous sloth that Florie was sorely tempted to snatch the quill from him and do it herself.

  The morn grew later and later. Meanwhile Wat, back at the fair, was surely wondering where the devil she'd gone.

  As he scribed, the priest spoke to her of thievery, as she supposed he must in good conscience, advising that she trust in God's will and surrender herself to His judgment, for only then would her s
ins be erased. Only then might she leave sanctuary after the allotted forty days.

  Of course, Florie had other ideas. She intended to leave sanctuary the instant she was able to walk.

  At long last the Father made his halting way toward the door, muttering something about fetching supper, assuring Florie that she would be safe with Rane nearby, extolling the archer's selfless attributes as if the man were a saint.

  Florie wondered what the priest would say if she revealed that his saintly archer had shot her. It didn't matter, she decided. She never would reveal it.

  Now was her chance, she thought. With the priest gone, she could test her leg and see if it could hold her weight without reopening the wound.

  But to her chagrin, no sooner did the Father close the church door than it swung open again, admitting Rane.

  Her heart quickened when she saw him again, this time with the knowledge that he was the son of savage Vikings. Indeed, she found it far too easy, as he strode toward her, to conjure up visions of him in warrior garb, mounting an invasion, his jaw set, his ax in hand, his mind fixed on ravishing and plunder.

  The fact that he wielded not a war ax but a bucket of water did nothing to ease her fears, for she knew why he'd returned. He'd come to collect his end of the bargain—the dubious privilege of tending to her wound. Already she could imagine him sweeping her skirts aside with his bold Viking hands to touch her wherever he willed.

  Before her wits could completely crumble she rattled out, "Well, now that I've been absolved o' my sins, I should practice walkin' so that I can make my way to the fair before too long. I'm certain my servant is wonderin' what's become o' me. The fool can hardly tell his left foot from his right, let alone display wares without upsettin' both the goods and the buyers." The closer he got, the shriller her voice became. "Please give the Father my thanks and—"

  "If I didn't know better," he said, lowering the bucket to the flagstones next to her, "I'd say ye were tryin' to worm your way out of our bargain, merchant."

  Against her better judgment, she rose to the bait. "Worm my…" She straightened her spine. "I'll have ye know I'm apprenticed to a member o' the guild and a woman o' my word. I do not worm my way out o' bargains."

  Still, when he crouched beside her and rolled up his sleeves, she instinctively drew her leg back.

  He cocked an eyebrow at her.

  Florie's mind raced. "Ye'll…ye'll rip the bandage loose all at once," she blurted. "I know ye will. Or… or ye'll poke about and cause more damage. Maybe if ye were a light-fingered artisan, I'd not mind. But ye…fightin' men with your bows and arrows and swords and pikes, ye have little finesse. And less patience."

  If 'twasn't quite the truth, Florie thought, 'twas close enough. She'd die before she'd admit that her pulse raced when he looked at her…that she couldn't breathe properly when he drew near…that she warmed dangerously when his fingertips brushed her skin.

  Still, she considered she must be daft to give insult to a man twice her size, a man whose veins ran with the blood of Vikings, a man upon whom, at least for the moment, her welfare depended.

  But to her astonishment, he didn't rage at her. Instead, surprise registered on his face, and he gave a bark of laughter. And aye, as she'd imagined, his smile was indeed brilliant. Not that it mattered. She wasn't some callow maid to swoon over a man's smile.

  "Never fear," he said. One side of his mouth still curved upward, turning his grin devilishly coy and undeniably charming. "I'm not, as ye seem to believe, a fightin' man. I'm a huntsman. And if it puts your mind at ease, I'm told I have quite a soothin' touch."

  It didn't ease Florie's mind in the least. She wondered who'd told him that. Likely one of those Scotswomen who had fallen under the spell of that ridiculous Viking curse.

  Still, whatever her reservations, she was a woman of her word. She'd told him she'd allow him to look after her wound, and she supposed she must. The sooner she let him do so, the sooner she could take her leave. "Ach! Do your worst, then."

  He grinned and crouched beside her, peeling off his jerkin and pulling his outer shirt free of his belt to tear yet another patch from his undershirt. As he rent the linen, her breath suddenly stuck in her throat, for beneath the cloth she briefly glimpsed the narrow strip of his stomach. Unlike Wat's plaster-white belly, which she'd unfortunately seen on occasion when he hitched up his hose, Rane's stomach was firm and flat, lightly gilt by the sun.

  For a fleeting moment her mind was assailed by another image of him as a Viking of old, leaping from his dragon ship, swinging a broadsword, charging bare-chested across the shore, his long hair blowing back over his broad, golden shoulders. The vision brought an inexplicable giddiness to her head and swift heat to her face.

  "Do ye feel well?" he asked with a concerned frown, brazenly planting his palm upon her forehead again and startling her from her thoughts. "Ye look fevered."

  His words irked her. She nervously knocked his hand aside. Curse her childishness, she was blushing like an infatuated maid.

  "Nae, I'm not well," she said, her heart racing. "I've been chased into sanctuary. I have a gapin' hole in my leg. And 'tween the hard floor and the chill o' the night, I hardly slept a wink."

  "Indeed?" If she expected sympathy, she didn't get it. In fact, she would have sworn he smiled as he dropped a linen square into the pail of water. "Your sleepless squirmin' didn't trouble me in the least."

  "What?"

  He only smiled enigmatically, then nodded toward her leg. "Let's see how the wound fares."

  Still blushing, she nonetheless acquiesced, consoling herself with the fact that soon she'd leave and never have to face him again. She eased aside the cloak to reveal the unsightly dark red stain marring the pale brocade. Then she carefully pushed up her outer skirt. The linen skirt beneath was still stubbornly stuck to the wound.

  She jerked when his fingertips touched her knee, and he glanced at her sharply.

  "Does that hurt?"

  She shook her head, mortified. Nae, it didn't hurt at all. His hand felt warm, welcome, yet deliciously forbidden upon her skin. She tried not to think about it.

  As it turned out, to Florie's great chagrin, the Scotswomen were right. Rane did have a soothing touch, and far more patience than she. He soaked the rag in the pail again and again, sponging the dried blood from the wound, rinsing it, easing the cloth away bit by bit. And not once did he hurt her.

  On the contrary…

  She swallowed hard as the backs of his fingers swept her calf, grazed her knee, brushed the inside of her thigh. Each caress became less threatening and more arousing. The silence between them grew heavier and heavier, until she thought she might suffocate if she didn't speak.

  "I'm…Florie," she finally ventured, her voice cracking.

  He lifted his eyes to hers. They sparkled, translucent aquamarine and full of light. For a moment they held her entranced, speechless, the way a flawless gem sometimes could.

  "That's my name," she finally managed. "Florie, from Stirlin'."

  A smile touched his lips as he lowered his eyes once again to her injury. "Pleased to meet ye, Florie." God help her, even his voice wrapping around her name felt like a caress. "Stirlin'. Ye're a long way from home."

  "I came to sell my wares at the Selkirk Fair."

  "And what wares are those?"

  "Gold. I'm a goldsmith. Well," she corrected, "a goldsmith's apprentice."

  He glanced at her jewelry and nodded.

  She added, "My foster father is the goldsmith." 'Twas not precisely true. Her foster father had been a goldsmith, but since he passed most days in a besotted blur now, Florie did the bulk of the work, or at least repaired his mistakes.

  He looked up. "So he traveled with ye?"

  "Nae, I came with his servant, Wat."

  "He entrusted this servant to watch over ye?"

  She blinked. Why did he make it sound as if she were someone's flock of sheep? "I don't need watchin' over. I'm a grown woman."

  "O
h, I can see ye're a grown woman." His eyes sparkled unnecessarily. "But ye wouldn't have been runnin' like the devil was after ye last night if ye didn't need watchin' over." Before she could digest his words enough to be insulted, he asked, "Where is this servant now?"

  She presumed Wat still tended the goods—after all, they carried a baron's ransom with them. But then she'd presumed the dolt wouldn't be so careless as to sell her heirloom. "Likely still at the fair."

  "I'll have the Father ask after him."

  "I can go there myself."

  "Ye're not goin' anywhere," he told her, "not for a while."

  She bristled. "I most certainly—"

  Rane suddenly whipped out his dagger, eliciting a gasp from her. But he only chuckled and slipped the blade carefully between the bandage and the skin of her thigh, slicing swiftly and cleanly through the linen.

  She steeled herself not to flinch, averting her eyes as he teased the bandage loose with the tip of his knife, and tried to think of anything but the sharp blade so near her tender flesh.

  Eager for the diversion of conversation, she asked, "Did ye find the cat?"

  He smirked as he squeezed the linen rag, drizzling cool water over the wound. "Nae. He was in the church. There's a crack in the vestry door. He sleeps among the altar cloths and holy vessels." He looked up long enough to give her a wink. "But don't tell the Father." Then his brows lowered as he inspected the wet bandage. "He only sent me on a fool's errand to be rid o' me. The Father prefers no distractions when he hears a confession."

  "Distractions? Hmph. I suppose ye believe that silly curse, then." She paled, realizing what she'd blurted.

  "Curse?" he said casually as his fingers inadvertently grazed the back of her thigh in a far too familiar caress. He smirked again. "Which one?" Apparently the priest had a collection of them.

  "Oh…" she fumbled, aghast at her blunder and unsettled by the strangely pleasant touch of his hand. "Just… some bit o' nonsense the Father was blatherin' about…"

  The bandage came loose then, providing a timely interruption. She gasped as her gaze was drawn to the injury. 'Twas an ugly thing.