He liked talking to her. She was witty and observant. There were hidden depths to Gillian MacLeod that no one else had discovered. Just him. It made her even more beautiful, more desirable. If he’d known that ten months ago, would it have made a difference? Her father had told him to stay away from his daughter. Even Fia, his friend, his champion, had warned him off. They hadn’t even been properly introduced. But Gillian, in her own shy, determined, unique way, had found him. He almost groaned aloud. Why was it that whenever he kissed a woman at a masquerade ball, it had life-changing consequences? Twice now. He knew why Dorothea had tried to seduce him, but why Gillian, and why him? “All my life people have told me how to choose, what to do, and I have allowed it. But now—”
But now, indeed.
It would be very easy to fall in love with Gillian MacLeod.
And what then? His hands tightened on the reins as his garron snorted and sidestepped anxiously. He looked quickly at the beast, saw its ears were flat against its shaggy head. A prickle of warning shot through him. John looked around, realized that the woods were deathly silent, that the usual sound of birdsong was absent. The hair rose on the back of his neck.
With a roar he turned the horse, kicked it to a gallop, and raced to cover the gap between himself and the MacLeods. He bellowed a warning as he drew his sword. He saw Gillian, her eyes wide as she stared at him through the warriors that surrounded her.
The first ragged marauder broke the cover of the trees, riding hard for the MacLeods, then another and another appeared. Callum was bellowing commands, drawing his own sword, and the ring around Gillian tightened, became a wall of steel and muscle.
The faces of the attackers were masked or painted. Heathens, savages . . . John felt a forgotten desperation rise in his breast, forced it down, concentrated.
“Get to safety!” John screamed.
But it was already too late. The marauders were upon them.
* * *
Gillian saw John galloping toward them, his sword in his hand, screaming a warning.
Danger.
Callum grabbed her reins even as he ordered the others to surround her, protect her. But John was outside the circle, exposed. What clan? Who dared to attack MacLeods? But their plaids were ragged and mismatched, from no clan at all that she could see. Her stomach caved against her spine. Outlaws and thieves.
The first ones to reach them slashed the lead ropes on the pack horse and dragged the terrified beast off the road and into the wood.
Others set upon her escort with methodical precision, two men or more against each MacLeod.
Gillian drew her dirk as her men closed even tighter around her, protecting her with their own lives, fighting desperately.
Men on both sides screamed as they were wounded, and fell to the road. Blood flowed over the dust, and she saw death and agony. Horses reared, and weapons clashed.
Three of the marauders went down under MacLeod steel, but the others didn’t retreat.
She saw Tam deliver a vicious sword slash that knocked one of his assailants to the ground. Keir was bellowing the MacLeod battle cry as he plied his blade against three men. Callum fought another, and another after that.
And John—she turned to look for him. Terror stopped her breath in her throat. He was fighting two men, trying to reach the MacLeods, and her. When he dispatched them, two more took their places.
She cried out as Lachlan fell, knocked off his horse in a spray of blood. One of his attackers reached for Gillian, grabbed for her reins, and she slashed her dirk across his hand. He bellowed a curse and fell back. She saw Ewan fall, and Keir. She was exposed now, the attackers reaching for her
“Gillian!” She heard John’s bellow, saw him spurring his rearing garron forward, slashing at the enemies that blocked his way to her. Tam fell from his garron and lay still, and there were four MacLeods down, wounded, possibly even dead.
Marauders surrounded her, and she knew a dirk would never be enough. She shoved it back into her sleeve and reached for the bow on her saddle, snapped the ties that held it in place, nocked an arrow and fired. One of the attackers grunted as he fell from his saddle. She fired again, hit another man, so close now that she saw his eyes widen above the mask that covered his mouth before he fell.
A hand reached for her reins, and she bit back a cry and raised the arrow in her hand to stab him.
“Gillian, it’s me!”
She met John’s eyes, stopped the deadly point just in time. She stared at him, the arrow still clutched in her fist. She forced herself to drop it. There was blood on her hand, and she stared at it in horror. Whose blood was it? She twisted in the saddle. She had to help, find bandages, fix this . . .
John wrapped his arm around her waist and hauled her onto his lap. “We’ve got to get out of here,” he said. “There’s too many—” He held her against him with one hand, swung his sword with the other, cleared a path, and kicked the garron hard.
She felt the horse leap under them and bolt off the path into the wood. She looked over her shoulder, over his, at the desperate fight behind them. She couldn’t see her kinsmen, not any of them. Tears blurred her vision, and she struggled in John’s grip, fought him, trying to stop the racing garron, or climb off. “Go back!” she screamed. She tried to take hold of the reins herself, but he wouldn’t let her. Her hands were still slippery, bloody. “I need to go back—Ewan and Keir are injured, and—”
He held her firmly, his grip like an iron band, and rode on, kicking the garron into the cover of the wood.
“They’re here to keep you safe, Gillian. They’ll hold the thieves off until you’re away,” he said through gritted teeth, concentrating on navigating a path through the trees. “I’ll go back if I can, when I know you’re safe—”
But Gillian twisted, pummeled his chest with her fists, wild with fury and grief. He let her blows glance off his leather jack and kept riding. “Please—they’re dying. Go back, please go back,” she begged over and over again, but he rode on.
John drew to a halt so suddenly she almost tumbled off the horse. He pulled her back against his body and tightened his arm around her. “Stay still,” he muttered. He was staring at something, and she turned to look. High on a boulder beside the path stood a man with a crossbow.
“Well, well—like pigeons flying into a snare . . .” the stranger muttered and grinned. His gaze fell on Gillian, raked over her. Then he shifted the aim of the crossbow and she realized the deadly barb was pointed straight at her. “Now what have we here? Drop your weapons or I’ll shoot her dead.”
There was no choice. John dropped his sword on the ground.
* * *
John felt Gillian freeze, her eyes on the brigand above them. He could feel her heart pounding, but he dared not take his eyes off the crossbowman. He tightened his grip on her waist ever so slightly, warning her to keep still, stay silent. The man on the rock was painted blue from neck to hairline, his plaid was dirty and patched. He wore a strip of ragged cloth around his neck like a stained cravat.
“Get off the horse, or I’ll kill ye both,” the brigand ordered.
Gillian didn’t move. He felt her stiffen, draw a sharp little breath, but it was indignation, not fear. She made no move to dismount.
“Is it ransom ye want?” John called out in Gaelic. “How much?”
The man’s eyes flicked over them appraisingly. “Who’s paying?”
“Alasdair Og Sinclair, Chief of Carraig Brigh. Send the men who were with us back to Carraig Brigh. They’ll bring gold.”
The man’s brows rose as he jumped off the rock. He kept his aim steady as he wipe a bead of sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, smearing it with blue dye, and leaving a clean patch on his skin “Gold? Maybe we’ll weigh your woman and take her weight in gold as ransom. Maybe we’ll weigh ye both together.”
He came closer, looked at Gillian, his eyes hard, calculating little pebbles. He swallowed at her beauty, and John felt heat rise in his neck. He’d kill
the bastard if he touched her. But his sword was on the ground, and the crossbow was still pointed at Gillian’s breast.
* * *
Gillian studied their captor, showed him no fear, though her heart was pounding. He was lean, hungry, and dirty. She saw rage in his eyes, or perhaps it was the glitter of madness, and that made him all the more dangerous. She raised her chin higher.
“A cool one, is she?” he said to John. “Maybe we’ll just keep her, warm her up, and cut your throat.”
She ignored the threat, watched the dirty finger poised on the trigger of the crossbow.
A bead of sweat slithered down her spine. Her dirk was in her sleeve, but he’d kill her before she could reach it, or kill John. She listened for the sound of pursuit, of rescue, but the wood was silent. Did that mean her kinsmen were already dead? Her chest tightened with grief.
“Get off the horse,” their captor commanded again. “First the lass, then ye, Sinclair.”
She dismounted, but not quickly enough. The bowman cursed, gripped the front of her plaid and hauled her down. She fell hard on her hands and knees. John shifted, but the bowman swung his weapon around, pointed it at John’s heart. John froze.
The brigand grabbed her arm. “Get up.” The crossbow was still pointed at John, and she shoved his hand away, trying to throw him off balance for a second, to give John a chance to move, but the hand on her arm tightened. The outlaw drew a sharp breath and she knew he’d felt the dirk strapped to her arm.
He yanked her sleeve, tore it, and exposed the weapon. “Take it off and throw it away,” he ordered. “Any tricks and I’ll shoot your man.”
Gillian tossed the dirk into the leaves. There was blood on the blade from the fighting, and it left a trail of gore on her skin. She swallowed bile. The brigand carefully picked up the thin, sharp weapon, glanced at the blood, and assessed the ruby in the hilt. “This is no lady’s eating knife. It’s a killing weapon. What kind of savage lasses do Sinclairs breed?”
John took advantage of the shift in the man’s attention to reach for the dirk in his belt. The brigand cursed him and fired. John ducked, and the bolt disappeared into the wood.
With a howl of rage, the bowman swung the empty crossbow and struck John on the side of the head. It connected with a sickening crack. Gillian cried out as John dropped to the ground and lay still, blood trickling from his forehead.
She crouched beside him, but the brigand grabbed her arm, dragging her away from him. “If he’s dead, it’s his own fault. Do you want the same?”
Before she could reply, she heard the sound of hoofbeats. Her captor dragged her behind a tree, held the hard barrel of the bow across her throat. “If ye scream, I’ll break your pretty neck,” he warned. Gillian stared into the wood, waited for the horsemen to arrive, prayed they were her kinsmen. She glanced at John, lying unmoving on the path, and blinked back tears.
But another ragged outlaw rode up, and Gillian recognized his mount as Callum’s garron. He was dragging the packhorse behind him. This man had a dirty band of cloth tied across the lower half of his face. His eyes narrowed as he drew up next to John’s body and looked around.
Gillian’s captor whistled, then dragged Gillian out of the bush. The man on the horse stared at her, then jerked his head toward John. “Is he dead?”
The crossbowman shrugged. “I haven’t had time to check.”
The newcomer leaned over John. Gillian held her breath.
“He’s breathing.”
“He says he and the wench are valuable, worth their weight in gold if we ransom them,” the crossbowman said.
The other man looked at Gillian again, his blue eyes widening in speculation—or hope. “Aye? What about the rule, Rabbie? No hostages, no witnesses. It’s your own rule—”
The crossbowman tightened his grip on Gillian’s arm, squeezing painfully. It hurt but she refused to give him the satisfaction of making her cry out. “Maybe I’ve changed my mind. Take off your petticoat, mistress.” Her breath caught.
The other man lowered his mask. “What for?”
Rabbie made a low sound in his throat. “Tear it up, use it to bind her man.”
He dropped the empty crossbow and held her dirk under her chin as Gillian untied her petticoat, shimmied out of it, and handed it over. John still hadn’t moved. He was so pale. The second thief used John’s dirk to shred the garment. He grunted at John’s dead weight as he dragged him across the clearing to prop him against a tree. John’s head lolled, but he didn’t wake. He yanked John’s arms behind the tree and tied them. “He’s heavy. By weight, he’ll be worth a fortune indeed. Who’s willing to pay that much?” He searched inside John’s clothes. His hand closed on the leather pouch that Gillian had seen around John’s neck at the farm. “What’s this?”
Gillian’s captor grabbed it from his comrade and shook it, then tossed it aside. “Who cares? There’s no coins in it. Still, he said they’re Sinclairs,” Rabbie said. “Rich folk.”
“Sinclairs?” The man crossed to rub a fold of Gillian’s arisaid between his dirty fingers. She held still, refused to cower. “That’s not a Sinclair plaid she’s wearin’, Rabbie, and he’s got no plaid at all.”
Rabbie grabbed her chin in his hand, tipped her head back, and stared into her face. “Who are ye?”
“A MacLeod,” she said. His fingers dug into her jaw painfully.
“As long as you’re not a Mackenzie.” He untied the dirty rag around his throat and revealed a ropy red scar around his neck. “The MacKenzies tried to hang me.”
“I don’t know the MacKenzies,” Gillian said fiercely. “I do know that if you kill us, it will be you who pays—with your own life.”
The two outlaws exchanged a laugh. “Aye? Who are ye that they’re so eager to have ye back?” Rabbie asked.
She held her tongue. Rabbie pressed her back against a tree. He held her dirk against her throat while he groped her breasts with his other hand. “What about a raped lass? Will they pay then?”
Gillian kept her eyes on his face. “I’ll cut your throat myself.”
Rabbie laughed. “Och, will ye now?” She held his gaze until he looked away first. He let her go, flung her to the ground, put his foot on her belly. “Tie her, too. We’ll wait for the others to return, decide what to do with her then.”
The other man looked at Gillian. “I want the gold, Rabbie. I say we put it to a vote. Think on it—ye can buy all the whores ye want—willing ones—with all that gold.”
They bound her to a tree away from John. It was growing dark now, and Rabbie sat on the boulder cleaning his nails with her dirk, while the other man paced. “What’s taking so long?”
“Maybe they stopped to bury the bodies,” Rabbie said. Gillian felt horror and icy fury fill her. She curled her fingers into fists, and pulled against her bonds, but they held tight.
“Then who’ll go for the ransom?” the other man asked.
Rabbie looked at the dirk, ran his thumb along the blade. “Maybe we’ll just send one of the lass’s fingers with a note,” he said, looking at her. “Can ye write?” She glared at him and didn’t answer.
“So little to say? Do ye not have a tongue to speak with?” Rabbie asked, crossing to grip her chin. He used his dirty fingers to pry her mouth open to look. She bit down, and he yelped and drew back. She spat blood. With a curse, he doubled his fist and hit her, connecting hard with her cheek. Her head twisted, and she shut her eyes against the flare of pain, tasted her own blood mixed with his. She forced herself to stay conscious, not to give in.
She was a Fearsome MacLeod of Glen Iolair, and she not going to die like this.
* * *
Twilight was turning to night, and Gillian watched the two thieves pace around the packhorse impatiently, waiting for their comrades. They lit a fire for light and warmth, and as a beacon to guide their friends to them.
“I say we open the packs, take what we want and leave the rest. The others can choose for themselves when they get here,�
� Rabbie said, looking at the laden packhorse. He slashed the rope that bound the canvas packs. The horse shied as the bundle fell from its back.
“The rule is we wait for everyone, divide the takings evenly,” the younger man said.
Rabbie held up her jeweled dirk. “Then I’ll start by taking this.”
The younger man’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll tell Duncan, Rabbie. Ye’ll not keep it.”
Rabbie grinned at his fellow thief. “Aye? Ye think not?”
“It’s Duncan’s turn to pick first. He’ll want that dirk. And if he doesn’t, I do. I choose second.”
Rabbie smiled, and Gillian noted the danger in that grin before the younger thief did. “Then you must have it, lad.” A warning gathered itself in her throat, stuck there as the knife flew.
The dirk caught him under the chin. For a moment he stood still, staring at Rabbie. Then the blood gushed, and he fell to the ground. He landed close to Gillian, his eyes wide with surprise, and she could see the reflection of the treetops and the sky in the darkening depths. She felt her gorge rise.
“Seen many dead men, mistress?” Rabbie asked. “When my friends get here, I’ll tell them your man killed him. They’ll cut his throat for it.” He crouched to take the knife back, putting his foot against his friend’s shoulder to pull it free. Gillian stared into Rabbie’s eyes, silently defiant, bold.
“You’re a queer one. No screams? No pleas for mercy, not even a tear?” He reached down and dipped his fingers into his comrade’s blood, then drew lines across her forehead and cheeks. She felt her belly contract with revulsion, but she stayed still, held his gaze.
The sound of a clear whistle, human, not birdsong, interrupted his game, and he rose to his feet. Two men stumbled into the clearing carrying a third between them, badly wounded and barely conscious.
“One of the bastards got Hugh,” the tallest man said. He lowered the injured man to the ground and knelt beside him. Gillian took in the blood-soaked plaid, the gory hand clamped over the hole in his belly, and knew he wouldn’t last the night.
Enchanted by the Highlander Page 11
