by Amanda Scott
He shook his head. “I would grant you almost any request, my love. However, I know better than to make promises that I know I won’t keep. Art truly pleased to be a married lady again?”
“Aye, sir. I have never been more so. The only thing that could make me any happier would be to learn just what happened to Will. I am still cursed with that nagging feeling that I had a hand in his death and burial.”
“Nay, then, ye did not!”
Dickon had opened his mouth, doubtless to reassure her, but his voice was not female and his lips had not moved. Shifting him aside, Fiona saw Flory behind him.
“Wherever did you spring from this time?”
“I were just walking in the orchard, me lady. I slipped behind yon tree when I seen ye two a-coming, for I didna want to spoil your time together. But I canna let ye think any longer that ye had aught to do wi’ Master Will’s death.”
“But what can you know about it?”
“Nae one kens more,” Flory said with a wary look at Dickon. “Sithee, I did it m’self. Ye had nowt to do wi’ it, ’cause ye was dead unconscious the while.”
“You were not even there,” Fiona protested.
“Aye, sure, I was,” Flory said. “I’d seen that look in his eyes when ye left the stableyard, and I kent fine what it meant for ye, mistress.” Turning to Dickon, she said, “It were Master Will’s currish look, m’lord, like ye’d see on that snarling devil dog o’ Old Master’s or on the devil hisself. I’d followed ye both, m’lady, but I were afeard to get too close, and I kent fine that I couldna stop him hitting ye. Then he knocked ye down. He did nowt to help ye, though ye’d hit your head on the rock. Sakes but he looked as if he’d kick ye in the belly. I couldna let him hurt the bairn.”
“Did you truly believe he would?” Dickon asked. “His own child?”
“He were thinking o’ nowt save punishing her ladyship for back-chatting him,” Flory said. “I’d seen that afore wi’ him, sir, many a time, and I ha’ me doots that he gave any thought to the babe. I didna ask him, though. I just grabbed up a stout branch and clouted him as hard as I could. I meant only to stop him from hurting them, no to kill the man. Must I hang for it, laird?”
“Nay, Flory, I’ll let no one hang you,” Dickon said. “But how did you get him all the way over the hill and into that grave? Surely, not by yourself!”
“Och, I did, aye,” Flory said, looking him in the eye. “Took me nigh the whole night, that did, but I’d rolled him onto an apple sack whilst the mistress lay insensible. I were that scared for her, but even more scared o’ being caught wi’ his dead body. So, I dragged him off the path, amidst the trees, till I’d got her into bed. Jeb’s grave be none so far from there, ’less ye be dragging a body. I kicked a rock in, tipped him in after it, and threw some dirt on him, so that if anyone saw him…”
“They’d think he got drunk, fell into the grave, and hit his head on the rock.”
“Aye, well, he were ape-drunk, and it seemed gey fitting to make it look so after all he’d done to her ladyship.”
“But I don’t remember any of that,” Fiona said, frowning. “Sakes, how did you get me to bed?”
“Ye were stirring when I got back from pulling him into the trees,” Flory said. “I helped ye stand, and ye walked back wi’ me to your chamber. Ye managed them stairs on your own, but I could tell it pained ye, and ye didna speak a word.”
Looking at Dickon, Flory added glibly, “Likely, she were just a-walking in her sleep, sir, as ye might say.”
“Doubtless, you’re right,” Dickon said gently. “I’m grateful to you, Flory.”
She nodded and walked away, avoiding Fiona’s eye.
Fiona stared after her. “Sakes, she cannot think that I’m angry with her!”
“Nay, lass, I think she just fears that you know more than you’ve admitted.”
She looked at him searchingly. “Do you believe that?”
He smiled, easily meeting her gaze. “I just still think you may have seen or heard more than you remember.”
“But what if I helped her?”
“You didn’t,” he said confidently.
“How can you be so sure? People can do extraordinary things when they fear for their lives or their children’s. Otherwise, Flory couldn’t have moved Will, either.”
“Fear does give people strength,” he said. “But I think Flory had help.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know for sure, and I don’t want to know. But if I had to guess, I’d say that matters with Will progressed much as she described, except that I believe almost anyone here other than Hod and Will’s most loyal men would have helped her, and that she knew they would. I think she sought help after she got you to bed.”
“Then how could I dream that I’d put Will in a grave?”
“The same way that I realized where he must be after you told me about your dream. The fact of Jeb’s open grave that night was just a piece of the puzzle, lass, a piece that I did not know about and that you had not consciously considered before you had your dream. But the knowledge was in your mind, so when neither Will nor his body showed up after so long a time, you fretted about the possibility that you might have killed him until the dream put that worry and Jeb’s open grave together in as unlikely a tale as the one I first heard you telling the children.”
“But do you really think so many people could have helped Flory?”
“I thought at first that your people all suspected you,” he said. “But I kept seeing one or another watching me, and it is clear now that many are strongly attached to you. I think that they have guarded you well, whenever they could.”
“Aye, perhaps, but if that is true…”
“Shall we go in now?” he said with a suggestive gleam in his eyes. “This is our celebration, after all, so I think our guests will forgive us for abandoning them. We can discuss this all night, if you like, although I might have some other ideas.”
She glanced at the others, still gathered round the trestle table the gillies had set up for their outdoor midday meal. Sir James had an arm around Phaeline, Mairi and Jenny were laughing, and Rob was chatting amiably with Hugh.
“They won’t miss us a bit,” Fiona said, but she smiled as she said it. Everyone looked happy, and she knew just where she belonged.
With Dickon’s arm around her, her baby safe in his cradle, and the rest of her family nearby, all was right with her world—at last.
Looking up into Dickon’s eyes, she gave him another hug and let him take her inside and to bed.
Dear Reader,
I wrote much of Tempted by a Warrior on a laptop with my feet up on a deck chair, looking out over a beautiful lake in the High Sierras. It is the third and last book in the Dunwythie trilogy, which began with Tamed by a Laird (July 2009) and Seduced by a Rogue (January 2010). I hope you enjoyed it.
Archie the Grim did not rout the English from Annandale until 1384, when he besieged Lochmaben Castle and won submission and departure in just nine days. He might have done it sooner. Instead, though, he persuaded the English and other Scottish Borderers to honor and prolong the truce of 1369 until Candlemas (February 2) 1384, which, “coincidentally,” was the day that he began his nine-day siege.
For those of you interested in knowing more about the fairy tale that Fiona is telling the children at the opening of this book, it is the ancient Scottish version of Rumplestiltskin and is called Habitrot. I came across it in Scottish Fairy and Folk Tales, edited by Sir George Douglas (Toronto, 2000). That Dover edition is an unabridged republication of the original text published in New York (no date, but its introduction was first delivered as a speech by the author/editor in January 1892).
Details of geography, towns, and dales come primarily from the Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland, edited by Francis H. Groome (Scotland, 1892).
My primary sources for Douglas history include A History of the House of Douglas, Vol. I, by the Right Hon. Sir Herbert Maxwell (London, 1902), and The Black
Douglases by Michael Brown (Scotland, 1998).
I must again thank the always astonishing Donald MacRae, who introduced me to the Dunwythies by asking if I’d be interested in a woman who nearly started a clan war. Little did he know that that one question would result in three books.
As always, I’d also like to thank my wonderful agents, Lucy Childs and Aaron Priest, my terrific editor Frances Jalet-Miller, production manager Anna Marie Piluso, master copyeditor Sean Devlin, Art Director Diane Luger, Senior Editor and Editorial Director Amy Pierpont, Vice President and Editor in Chief Beth de Guzman, and everyone else at Hachette Book Group’s Grand Central Publishing who contributed to making this book what it is.
If you enjoyed Tempted by a Warrior, please look for Highland Passion, the first book in my new Highland trilogy, at your favorite bookstore in April 2011.
In the meantime, Suas Alba!
Sincerely,
http://www.amandascottauthor.com
[email protected]
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Chapter 1
The Highlands, Spring 1400
The odd gurgling punctuated by harsher notes that was the Scottish jay’s birdsong gave no hint of what lay twenty feet below its perch, on the forest floor.
The fair-haired young woman silently wending her way through the forest toward the jay’s tall pine tree sensed nothing amiss. Nor, apparently, did the large wolf dog a few feet away to her right, moving like a graceful tarnished-silver ghost through the thick growth of pines, birch, and aspen. However, had the dog not been upwind of the pine tree, it might well have sensed something out of the way.
The breeze hushing through the canopy overhead and the still-damp forest floor beneath eighteen-year-old Lady Catriona Mackintosh’s bare feet made keeping silent easier than it would be after warmer temperatures dried the ground. When a fat, furry brown vole scurried out of her path and two squirrels chased each other right past her and up a nearby tree, she smiled, feeling a stab of pride in her increased ability to move so silently that her presence did not disturb the forest creatures.
She listened for sounds of the fast-flowing burn ahead, but before she heard any, the breeze suddenly dropped and the dog halted, stiffening to alertness as it raised its snout. Then it looked at her and began to tremble.
Raising her right hand toward it, palm out, Catriona stopped, too, and tried to sense what the dog sensed.
The dog watched her. She knew its mind nearly as well as she knew her own and could easily tell that the scent it had caught on the air was not that of a wolf or a deer. The look it cast her was uncharacteristically wary, and its trembling likewise indicated wariness rather than the quivering, bowstring-taut excitement that it displayed when catching scent of a favored prey.
As their gazes met, the dog turned away again and bared its teeth but made no sound. She had trained it well and felt another rush of pride at this proof of her skill.
Moving forward, easing her toes gently under the mixture of rotting leaves and pine needles that carpeted the forest floor as she had before, she kept an eye on the dog, knowing that it would stop her if danger lurked ahead.
Instead, as she began moving, the dog moved faster, easing its way between trees and through shrubbery to go silently before her.
She was accustomed to its protective instincts. Once, she had nearly walked into a wolf that had drifted away from its pack and had gone so still at her approach that she failed to sense its presence. The dog had leaped in front of her, stopping her and snarling at the wolf, startling it so that it made a strident bolt for safety. She had little doubt that the dog would kill any number of wolves to protect her.
That it glided steadily ahead now but continued to glance back reminded her that although it did not like what it smelled, it was just wary, not fearful.
Catriona felt no fear, because she carried her dirk and her brothers had taught her how to use it. Moreover, she trusted her instincts nearly as much as she trusted the dog’s and was sure that no predator, human or otherwise, lay in wait for her.
The jay still sang. The squirrels chattered.
Birds usually fell silent at a predator’s approach, and while squirrels sometimes shrieked warnings of danger, such alerts came in loud, staccato bursts as the harbinger raced ahead of the threat. The only odd thing now was that the two squirrels had grown noisier, as if they strove to drown out the jay’s song.
As that whimsical thought struck, Catriona glanced up to see if she could yet spy either the squirrels or the jay. Instead, she saw a huge black raven swooping toward the tall pine and heard the larger bird’s deep croak as it sent the jay squawking into flight. The raven’s arrival shot a chill up her spine.
Ravens sought out carrion, dead things. This one perched in the tree and stared fixedly downward as it continued its deep croaking signal to others of its kind that it had discovered a potential feast.
The dog increased its pace as if it, too, recognized the raven’s signal.
Catriona hurried after the dog, realizing only as she did that she could hear the rushing burn and that, had she not had her senses so finely tuned to the wolf dog and what lay ahead, she’d have noticed the sounds of the water sooner.
Following the dog into a clearing, she saw the turbulent water beyond. The huge raven, on its branch overhead, raucously protested her presence. Others circled above, great black shadows against the overcast sky, cawing hopefully.
The dog growled, and at last she saw what had drawn the ravens.
A man wearing rawhide boots and a saffron-colored tunic with a large red and green mantle over it of the sort that Highlanders called a plaid lay facedown on the damp ground, unconscious or dead, with his feet pointing toward the tumbling burn. Strapped slantwise across his back was a great sword in its sling, and a significant amount of blood had pooled by his head.
The dog had scented the blood.
So had the ravens.
Sir Finlagh Cameron awoke slowly. His first awareness was that his head ached unbearably. His second was of a warm breeze in his right ear and a huffing sound. He seemed to be prone, his left cheek resting on an herbal-scented pillow.
What, he wondered, had happened to him?
Just as it finally dawned on him that he was on dampish ground atop leafy plants of some sort, a long, wet tongue laved his right cheek and ear.
Opening his eyes, he beheld two… no, four silvery gray legs, much too close.
Tensing, but straining to keep still as the animal licked him again, well aware that wolves littered Highland forests, he shifted his gaze beyond the four legs to see if there were more. He did see two more legs, but his vision seemed blurry, or else his mind was playing tricks on him.
The two legs were bare, shapely, and tanned.
He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again. The legs looked the same.
Slowly and carefully, he tried to lift his head to see more of both creatures, only to wince at the sharp jolt of pain the slight movement shot through his head.
However, through the arch of the silver-gray beast’s legs and body, he had glimpsed bare feet and ankles beyond, clearly human ones with bare calves, decidedly feminine. Now he saw bare knees, bare thighs, and bare…
A snapping sound diverted him, and the animal beside him backed off. It was larger than he had expected and taller, but it was no wolf. On the contrary…
“Wolf dog or staghound,” he murmured.
“So you are not dead after all.”
The soft feminine voice carried a note of drollery and floated to him on the breeze, only there was no longer a breeze. So, perhaps the voice was just in his head, and it had been the dog’s breath he’d felt earlier in his ear. Coming to this conclusion pleased him.
He hadn’t lost his wits then, whatever else had happened to him.
“Can you not talk to me?”
It was the same voice again but nearer, although he had heard no movement, had not sensed her approach in any way. But other than the warm breath huffed into his ear, he had not sensed the dog near him, either. Recalling the shapely legs and bare feet, he realized with some confusion that his eyes had somehow shut themselves. He opened them to the disappointing revelation that her bareness ended midthigh, where a raggedy blue kirtle, kilted-up the way a man would kilt up his plaid, covered much of the rest of her.
“I can talk,” he said, and felt again that odd sense of accomplishment. “I’m not sure I can move. And my head feels as if something tried to split it in two.”
“You’ve shed blood on the leaves round your head, so you are injured,” she said, her voice as soft and calm as it had been before, and still carrying a light note, as if she felt no fear of him or of anything else in the woods. “I can get your sword out of its sling if you will trust me to do that, and the sling and belt off you, too, but you will have to lift yourself a little for that. Then, mayhap you can turn over.”
“Aye, sure,” he said. If she had wanted to kill him, she’d have done it already, and she would not be able to wield the heavy sword as a weapon anyway.
She managed without much difficulty to drag the sword from the sling on his back, but when he raised himself to let her reach the strap’s buckle underneath him, he had to grit his teeth against the pain and dizziness that surged through his head. Still, he decided by the time she had deftly unbuckled the stout strap and slipped it free of his body that little else was amiss with him other than an aching head.
“Now, if you can turn over, I will look and see how bad it is,” she said.
Exerting himself, he rolled over and looked up to see a pretty face with a smudge on one rosy cheek and a long mass of unconfined, wild-looking, tawny hair. Despite the look of concern on her face, her eyes twinkled.
