“I will do it,” she hastily replied. “How do you suppose I should proceed?”
He hated that he had to use her at all, but he knew the knights would not hurt her. A simple plot was often the best one. “Step forward on my say and call out for help. Hopefully, they’ll both come to yer aid and I can catch them unawares.”
“That’s a sound plot. There are no other reasonable choices, as there is only one entry,” she replied, to his amusement. Marion’s mind seemed to work more like a man’s than a woman’s, calculating danger and assessing risks. Iain liked it. “I don’t know either of those knights. They must be new, so I don’t think I can coax them to trust me, so yes, your plot is best.” Iain bit back a smile as she continued. “What should I do when they are upon us?”
“Move back and ye duck.”
“That’s your idea?” she demanded, her voice incredulous.
“Yer lack of faith is noted,” he grumbled under his breath. “There are only two of them.”
“Indeed,” she whispered sarcastically. “I suppose it takes at least ten Englishmen to bring a Scot down.”
“Nay. I’ve seen a Scot brought down by one,” he replied. “But I’m nae weak or foolish. Twelve is the likely number it would take to fell me.”
“Only twelve?” She cocked her head. “Hmm…I’m not sure I should marry a man who can be felled by a mere twelve knights.”
He laughed softly. He liked her sense of humor and the fact that she was not afraid to tease him. God’s truth was he liked almost everything he’d learned about her so far. Except her stubbornness. He was used to protecting and fighting for himself, but a burning awareness that he once again had someone to guard rose in his chest, made his heart pound and his blood course through his veins and rush in his ears. What if she was accidentally injured?
He gripped her chin and turned her face to his. “Dunnae forget to duck the moment I stand.”
“Why don’t you give me a weapon?”
He was about to argue, but the rightness of it made perfect sense. He’d seen her wield a dagger with skill. He withdrew one of his sheathed blades and handed it to her. “Ye’ll nae need to use it,” he promised.
She touched her hand to his heart and pressed her fingertips there. “I’m sure I won’t.”
An ache, poignant and sweet, throbbed. Whatever that feeling was, he didn’t have time for it now. Grasping his sword, he nodded. “Go. Now.”
As she sprang up and called to the guards, he tensed and readied himself to move. Both knights rushed toward her as Iain had hoped, and when they were upon her, Iain leaped up, wielded his sword, and struck the first knight in the chest. The man fell to the ground, dead, and as Iain pulled his sword out of the man’s chest, the other knight was lifting his sword to strike. Just as the sword dislodged and Iain raised it again, Marion sprung forward and stabbed the knight in the leg with her dagger. Iain scowled that she should risk her life but was impressed by her still. He lunged toward the knight as the man howled and felled him with another blow to his legs. When the knight went down, Iain gave him a swift punch, making him swoon, and retrieved the dagger he’d lent Marion. He rose and glared at her.
“Ye could have been killed,” he growled and turned away not waiting for her reply. He was certain she’d argue, and he had neither the time nor the patience. He charged into the chapel, which was empty except for one knight, the priest, and Angus—who was tied to a chair.
The knight came at Iain with his sword raised high. Iain didn’t hesitate. He swung his sword low, slashed his gut, and when the knight doubled over, Iain hit him in the back. The man fell to his knees, and while he was trying to get back to his feet, Iain withdrew his blade and used the hilt to knock the man in the head hard enough that he swooned. The knight fell forward onto the ground.
“You must be the MacLeod,” the priest said, his eyes wide and his hands twisting together.
Angus grinned from the chair to which he was tied. “He is, Father John, but dunnae fear. He’d never harm a godly man.”
“Unless the man was trying to kill me,” Iain retorted, purposely eyeing the priest while stepping around the felled knight and striding toward Angus.
Before he even reached the Scot, Marion sprinted past him and kneeled in front of the man. “Angus!” she cried out. “I’m so happy to see you!”
She threw her arms around him, and Iain faltered for one moment, struck deep to the core with the love she had for this man. Had Angus been like a father to her when her own had not? It had to be so. Angus was far older than she was for it to be anything else.
“I’m safe and so are ye,” Angus said, soothing her.
As Marion and Angus spoke at once, each trying to ask the other what had occurred since they’d been parted, Iain silently untied Angus and then gripped Marion under the arm and raised her to her feet.
She looked up at him. “What are you doing?”
“Getting married,” he replied, reaching out and snagging the priest by the elbow when the man looked like he might flee. “Marry us quickly,” he commanded the priest.
Marion gasped. “Here?”
“Aye.”
Shock made her green eyes sparkle even brighter. “Now?” she squeaked.
He knew at once she’d hoped to delay, and he could not begrudge her. He had hoped to never marry again himself, but fate didn’t care what they wanted.
He slung his arm over her shoulder without releasing his hold on the priest. “Aye, Marion,” he said gently. “Here and now. It is for yer protection. If I were to be killed, my clan would come for ye as my widow. They would defend ye with their life.”
She heaved in a breath, as if to argue, but Angus stood and spoke. “He’s right, Marion. I ken ye had other ideas—”
“What ideas?” Iain demanded.
She looked up at him, her cheeks turning scarlet. “It’s nothing,” she mumbled.
He released the priest with a warning glare and moved her far enough away that they would have privacy. “Tell me,” he said. He didn’t want to enter into the marriage with secrets between them.
She sighed, her face turning redder than he would have thought possible. “I wished to marry for love,” she whispered and cast her eyes downward.
He felt as if he had suddenly been robbed of his ability to breathe. His lungs tightened. Love. He had no use for the emotion or the word. It pained him to know what he was about to say would hurt her, but he wanted to be certain she understood. “I want no part of love.”
She quickly glanced back up at him, her gaze locking with his, and her lips parted slightly. “You cannot mean that.”
The misery that still haunted him from losing Catriona weighed especially heavy in this moment when faced with the stark truth that he was marrying yet again. “I do mean it, Marion, and I’m sorry. I have been married before. I loved my wife, and when she died, so did my desire and my ability to love that way again.”
It was as if a light went out in her shining green eyes. She stared at him for a moment before inhaling a ragged breath and forcing a sad smile. “I see.” Her voice trembled, and he was afraid she would cry and hated himself for being the cause of it once more.
He grasped her hand. “I will be a good husband. I’ll keep ye safe and treat ye kind. I’ll give ye everything that is mine.”
Her sad smile turned brittle. “Just never your heart.” Sorrow encumbered her words.
“Nay,” he agreed, feeling more like a clot-heid with every word. But he could not change how he felt. “Nae my heart.”
She slipped her hand from his. “Thank you for your honesty. I suppose we better hurry and marry.” She shifted her face away, but not before he saw her lower lip tremble.
He cursed his own miserable self, but with nothing left to say, he turned to the priest and Angus, who glared at him but said nothing. “Get on with it, Father,” Iain said.
The priest paled. “But Baron de Lacy—”
“Is planning to defy his king’s
orders that Marion marry me.” Iain pulled out the scroll, but since it was so soaked it was no longer legible. He threw the useless thing to the ground. “That was the decree, but it’s ruined. Marion has seen it.”
Marion nodded. “King Edward commanded it, Father John. You know I’d not lie to you.”
“I know, Lady Marion,” the priest quickly replied. Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. “Let me see… Where to start…”
“Isn’t the usual place the homily on the sacrament of marriage, Father John?” Marion offered.
Iain glanced at her. She had the most innocent expression on her face yet she had drawn up to her full height, which brought the top of her head to Iain’s shoulder. The woman was slight in body, but in spirit she was a giant. She had stored away the hurt he’d just caused her and was gallantly facing her future. Pride swelled dangerously within his chest.
The priest nodded as he withdrew a white cloth from his robes and dabbed at his forehead. “Your full name?” he asked Iain.
“Iain MacLeod,” he replied. “And Angus MacLeod will be the witness,” he added in an effort to hurry the priest.
Father John frowned at Iain before looking to Angus. “Angus, are you a willing witness, or do you fear the MacLeod will kill you if you decline?”
“Father,” Marion chided. “That was not very fair. Iain would never kill a man for such a thing. He has assured me he only kills those who try to kill him first.”
Iain laughed at the priest’s suddenly pale face and Marion’s attempt to defend him. He was pleased she was showing such faith in him and such understanding already. “Go on, priest,” Iain commanded. “We must escape this place presently.”
Angus came to Marion’s other side. “Father, I willingly witness for Marion.” She quickly hugged Angus, who patted her back.
Father John nodded and rushed through the rest of the ceremony, sighing when it was over. Iain glanced at the priest, deciding what should be done. “Ye better come with us,” he said. “Baron de Lacy will likely kill ye when he learns that ye married us.”
Marion nodded. “Yes, Father John, you must come.”
“No,” the priest said stubbornly, surprising Iain—and Marion, as well, by the way her jaw dropped open. “I swore long ago to save your father’s soul, my dear, and I’ll not abandon my sacred vow, even if it means my own death because he’s angry that I married you.”
Marion threw her arms around the priest, who looked distinctly uncomfortable with the contact. “I’ll pray for your safety, Father John, and for my father to stay his hand and his temper.”
Father John nodded as he disentangled himself from Marion’s hold. “You should go.”
“It’s daft for ye to stay, vow or nae,” Iain said. “The baron will kill ye, I’m sure.”
The priest shook his head disapprovingly. “I would think a man such as you would understand a sacred vow.”
Iain scowled. “I do, but in this case, I dunnae think getting yerself killed is the best way to keep the vow of reforming the baron. Ye kinnae reform the man if ye’re dead.”
The priest frowned at Iain. “I’m willing to risk such things.”
“There are smart risks,” Iain said, “and then there are dim ones.”
Marion gasped, and Angus laughed. Marion patted the priest on the arm. “I’m terribly sorry, Father John, for Iain calling you dim.”
Iain frowned. “I did nae—”
“In my bedroom,” she continued, cutting Iain off with words and a sharp look, “in the gold cup are my coins. Please take five—no, you better make that six—and give the rest to the poor tenants.”
The priest mumbled his agreement, and Iain’s patience snapped. He grasped Marion’s hand and tugged her toward the door. “Why did ye tell the priest to take the coins?”
“I’m buying indulgences,” she explained. “One is for your sin of pride. One is for the knights you killed. One is for when I lied to my father. Two are for Angus—” She glanced at Angus with a grin and then eyed him with reproach. “He refuses to take up the custom of indulgences and he is almost as proud as you are. And I bought two more for whatever sins you commit during our escape.”
Iain shook his head at her strange ideas of forgiveness as he pulled her to his side and stepped through the exit and into the bailey.
Noise and thick smoke from the burning kitchens hit him like dual waves, and his eyes watered. A white cloud seemed to blanket the entire bailey, which was helpful in that it made it harder to see them, but it also made it more difficult to see their enemies.
As they headed toward the wall they needed to scale to gain the moat, he motioned to Angus behind him, gesturing for him to flank Marion’s other side. The Scot gave a nod, but as he moved to do so, a man came out of the mist with his sword swinging in a high arc. Instinctively, Iain reached for Marion to shove her behind him, but she hurdled forward with a shriek. Iain felt his jaw drop as his heart tripped over itself. He yanked Marion back with a roar as the knight’s sword came within a hairsbreadth of cutting her.
For a moment, Iain could not move. Everything around him seemed to fade away as he stared at the material of her gown. He half expected the material to suddenly gape open and for blood to gush out. When nothing happened, relief flooded him, even as crazed anger consumed him. He wasn’t sure if he was more furious at Marion or the fool knight who’d almost killed her.
He snapped his gaze to the man—Marion could be dealt with later—and took one step to close the distance between them. He was young, his face blanched, eyes wide, and hands trembling. At any other time, Iain may have taken pity on him, but if the fool had possessed a truer aim, Marion would have been bleeding to death right now.
He deflected the oncoming sword with his forearm, grabbing the hilt of it as the knight swung low by Iain’s hand. The man tried to pull back, but Iain easily took possession, swung the sword swiftly upward, the steel slicing through the air with a hiss, and pointed the tip at the man’s throat.
“Ye almost killed my wife,” Iain growled.
“Your wife?” The man glanced at Marion, who nodded.
His eyes grew wide with disbelief. “I would never harm Lady Marion,” the knight said and smiled at her in a way Iain didn’t care for at all. As if there was something special between them. And he wasn’t the first knight who seemed lovesick when he spoke of Marion. The knight Andrew had sounded miserable when he’d said he’d failed to protect her when she went missing, as if her loss was very personal.
Iain scrubbed a hand across his face as the man met his gaze once more and sneered at him. “I was trying to kill you.”
“I ken that,” Iain replied with a nod. “’Tis the only reason I’m going to let ye live. That, and I want ye to deliver a message to Baron de Lacy from the MacLeod.” When the knight didn’t readily agree, Iain pressed the tip of the sword against his throat.
“Iain, please!” Marion cried. “Peter is a good man!”
Iain narrowed his gaze on the knight as he curled his fist tighter. He didn’t like that Marion was pleading for the man’s life as if she cared for him, but then again, he didn’t want his future wife to be uncouth, either. “Marion is mine,” he said, continuing with his message for de Lacy. “If he’s bold enough to defy his king and come after her, then tell him he should be ready to die. Ken?”
“I understand,” the man snarled.
“Good.”
With that, Iain hit the man with the hilt of his sword, causing him to faint. As the man thudded to the ground, Marion moved to Iain’s side and patted his arm. “Thank you for not killing him.”
He glanced down at Marion, and his chest tightened a bit. He wasn’t sure how to feel about it, so he shoved the confusion away. “Quit trying to save me.”
“You needed me,” she retorted, her expression wounded.
He set his jaw. He didn’t know why Marion thought she needed to protect him, but now was not the time to argue. “Come on.”
Within moments
, Iain, Marion, and Angus had scaled the wall and slid down the ditch, plunging into the freezing water once more. As they swam silently across, Iain could not take his eyes from Marion to ensure she was safe. When they reached the other side and he helped her out of the ditch, he felt her body trembling violently.
“Are ye cold?” he asked, drawing her to him with one hand and reaching down to help Angus with the other.
She nodded. “Yes, but also worried about what will happen now.”
He could hear the fear in her voice and feel it in the way her fingers curled tighter around his hand. “Dunnae fash yerself, Marion. Ye’re my wife now, and I’ll defend ye with my dying breath.”
She tugged her hand from his and set both of her hands on her hips. “I’m not worried about that.”
Her confidence in him filled him with pleasure, until he realized she’d not actually said she was not worried at all, just not about that.
As the three of them moved toward the place where Rory Mac and Neil should have been waiting, Iain watched her hips sway in the moonlight, but when he turned to meet Angus’s angry glare, he pulled his gaze away. The man may think of her as a daughter, but Marion was now Iain’s wife, and he was getting tired of the Scot glaring at him.
“What are ye worried about?” he questioned to her back as she marched ahead of him.
“If you don’t know, then it’s not worth my breath to explain,” she snapped without breaking her stride.
Iain let her leave, as he suspected her worry lay with his telling her he would never love her, and there was nothing he could say to ease that worry. Angus coughed, none too discreetly, until Iain finally looked at the man. “What?” he barked.
“Let me ken when ye need my advice,” the Scot offered with a chuckle.
Iain frowned. “I’ll nae need yer advice on how to deal with my wife,” Iain bit out and stalked ahead, each step making him wonder why he felt like there was a possibility he could rue that statement.
Five
Several hours later, Marion clenched her teeth as the horses drove relentlessly forward over the rocky terrain of Scotland. To her right, Rory Mac glared at her, still clearly angry over her taking his horse. She understood, but it seemed to her he could forgive her. After all, he had gotten his destrier back when two of her father’s knights had ridden out of the castle and Rory Mac had apparently overtaken them. He had retrieved not only his horse but one more. She’d said as much to the man after she, Iain, and Angus had escaped her father’s castle and met up with Rory Mac and Neil. Rory Mac had only growled at her as she’d spoken. Apparently, Scots were very attached to their horses.
When a Laird Loves a Lady (Highlander Vows: Entangled Hearts Book 1) Page 8
