She peeked over her shoulder to assess Reid’s finery.
He wore no plaide. Instead, he was garbed in violent colors; a purple surcoat clung to his broad shoulders over a white lèine shirt. Tight black breeks tucked into shiny black boots rolled to a perfect crease at the knee. Two red sashes painted more color into the ensemble—one at his waist, the other at his knee. What purpose they served she knew not, lest it was to hide his weapons.
S’truth, he looked like a giant jester. He belonged at the border faire, not here. She would never admit it aloud, but she envied his obvious good fortune. Why would he return to this bleak land, if he’d found prosperity?
Little thought was needed for her to answer her own question. He’d come back to claim the chieftainship. “Eoin leads the clan now. Ye’ve no place here.” She tucked herself inside her arisaid, wrapping the wool tight around her and fighting the need to shiver. Her jaw ached from the effort it took to keep her teeth from chattering. When she tried to step passed him, he grabbed her arm and drew her close.
He was warm. So warm.
Silver eyes rimmed with sapphire blue held her gaze. “I did not return to lead the clan. I came for you.”
For me? Blast him! Robbie reared back and slapped him hard. Her next two heartbeats seemed to pass painfully slow. The stinging crawled into her hand as Reid rolled his head atop his shoulders and wiped a drop of blood from his lip. He said nothing, but his gaze fell, and the rise and fall of his chest increased the longer they stood in silence.
“Ye have no honor, and ye dinnae deserve me. Ye are a coward the same as your da.”
“Da was not a coward,” he defended, but not in a harsh voice.
Trembling, Robbie jerked out of his grasp. “Nay? What other name would ye give a man who flees his people, knowing his enemy intended to seize his lands?”
“’Tis not true. Da did not flee. He went in search of a better place.” Denial darkened Reid’s pale eyes.
She assessed him from the top of his head to the tips of his polished black boots. “Well, I suspect he found it.”
“He did, and I want to take ye there, Robbie.”
Galled by his assumptions, she retrieved the torch and stomped toward the mouth of the cavern. Blast him to Hell and back! The man had dung for brains if he thought she would just leave with him. Too many people depended on her. The same people he’d left behind.
She rubbed her stinging hand against her skirt and demanded her quivering legs to carry her far away from Reid bluidy MacGregor. Turning her back to him, she exited the cavern into a night black as pitch, but a dark-skinned demon stepped into her path.
She dug her heels into the dirt. Her breath turned into a lump in her throat. She held the torch in front of her, more as a weapon than a means of light.
The man blocking her way wore a heavy fur and was like no one she’d ever seen. He was bald, save for a single black tassel of hair atop his head. His skull was marked with black symbols, and his face was pierced with bits of ivory. Or were they bones?
Grandda had told her stories of the savages from the New World, but the man before her didn’t resemble the image she’d conjured up from those tales.
He reached out to touch her hair.
Robbie reared back, her pulse quickened in her throat and nigh burst through her neck.
“Sak kan woman?” His black eyes shifted from her face over her shoulder.
“Aye.” Reid positioned himself beside her. “This is Mary-Robena Wallace. Robbie, meet Yaxkin. He is known by his people as Running Spirit, but I call him Jax.”
Running Spirit? What breed of man bore the name Running Spirit?
This man, Running Spirit…Yax…Jax, cocked his head and studied her. He raised her skirt off the ground and bent to examine her feet, then without warning he squeezed her small breast.
“Ack!” She jerked backward and was about to shove her torch up his nose when Reid latched onto the savage’s wrist.
“Nay.” Reid calmly eased him back. “’Tis not their way.”
Jax shrugged. “Sak kan woman, too bek´ech.”
She blamed curiosity for why she remained in their circle and turned toward Reid. “What is a sak kan woman?”
“Sak kan means white serpent.” Reid’s mouth lifted at the corner into a crooked grin. “The Mopán people call me White Serpent.”
Jax pointed at Reid. “White Serpent.” Then he pointed at Robbie. “White Serpent’s woman.”
“Nay.” Robbie held out her hand and shook her head. “I. Am. Not. White Serpent’s woman.”
Jax’s smile deepened the lines at his eyes. “Then I call you C’ak’is Ak’.”
The heathen insulted her. She could tell by the way Reid laughed. “What did he call me?”
“Fire Tongue.”
Robbie growled between her clenched teeth, then stomped away. “S’help me Odin. If I had a blade…”
* * *
“I suspect my Robbie is not fond of her new name.” Reid walked alongside Jax, following a grumbling Robbie at a distance up the hillock and into a blinding mist. Nay longer was Mary-Robena Wallace a wean to be certain. In truth, she’d aged quite nicely. Reid fiddled with the gold doubloon he’d found years ago and wondered how much groveling it would take to convince Robbie and her grandda to come with him.
Picturing her long legs on the Yucatán’s white sandy beach made him ache in places a man didn’t need to be aching given her obvious disdain for him. If he could get her on the ship, he would take her back to Rukux and away from this cold barren place. He would show her a new land. A warm land filled with exotic fruits and food aplenty. But he was far from deluded. It would take more than a ripe guava to get her stubborn arse on the Obsidian.
He would have to tell her about the gold.
“Fire Tongue scrawny.” Jax’s blatant opinion interrupted Reid’s musing. “Too thin. Not at all like Black Dove.”
Jax’s woman was full of figure, so Reid couldn’t argue the comparison. He’d seen skeletons with more flesh than Robbie. He’d caught a glimpse of her sharply defined collarbone before she covered herself with her arisaid, not to mention the hollows beneath her high cheek bones. Robbie’s grandda needed to spend less time with his experiments and more time putting meat in the kettle.
Reid hesitated on that thought. When he and Jax first arrived, they’d gone to Kilchurn Castle only to find the keep had been taken over by scores of Colquhouns. Cautiously, they’d climbed the bailey wall protecting the stronghold and paid visit to Argyle Wallace’s small cot-house, but Robbie’s childhood home had new occupants.
What other name would ye give a man who flees his people, knowing his enemy intended to seize his lands? Robbie’s words echoed through his head. He knew she was wrong. Da had tried to save them, but they’d called him a coward and accused him of madness. S’truth, it was madness to think Da could have saved the entire clan.
Argyle Wallace had been one of Da’s accusers. Only now did it occur to Reid that Robbie’s grandda might have passed. He’d been feeble eleven years ago, always complaining about his aching bones. Her mam had died when Robbie was a wean, and her da died fighting the Colquhouns not long after. She had no one else. If Argyle was dead, how long had Robbie been on her own? And where was the rest of the clan?
Jax shivered beside him, causing the bones in his ears to rattle. “We steal White Serpent’s woman and go back to the Yucatán. Too cold here.”
“Aye, Scotland is not—”
“Nok ol.” Jax’s hand flattened against Reid’s chest.
He narrowed his eyes, searching for the enemy. His instincts sharpened instantly. The first of which was to protect Robbie. He strained against Jax’s hold, but stilled as he watched the flame of her torch bob up the hillock then dissipate into the fog.
The mist prevented him from seeing more than ten feet in any direction, so he tuned his ears to his surroundings.
The hoof beats of multiple riders circled them. The rattle of harness jingle
d, then the smell of horseflesh thickened beneath his nose. A horse’s whinny didn’t hide the whisper of a blade hissing from its sheath.
Positioning himself back to back with Jax, Reid retrieved his basket sword and waited for the enemy ghosts to show themselves. He’d never been one for warfare, but few surpassed his skill as a hunter. However, the land in Scotland was different than the jungle he’d grown accustomed to. Still and all, he’d cut his fighting teeth on this land.
The tip of a sword broke through the mist before the Scot holding the weapon came into focus. Three other men materialized on horseback behind them, each wearing the plaide.
“Lay down your weapons and state your name.”
“Duncan Montgomery,” Reid lied, giving the name of a Scottish laddie employed on the Obsidian. After overhearing a few vagrants blathering in Rosneath where he’d anchored the ship, he knew the edict against the clan was strictly enforced. Any man bearing the name MacGregor either renounced it or suffered pain of death.
“Duncan Montgomery, aye.” The bastaird raised Reid’s chin with the tip of his sword. “Ye dinnae look like a Montgomery.”
“This one is no son o’ Scotland to be certain,” another man added behind him the same time Jax disappeared from Reid’s rear guard. His Mopán friend had earned the name Running Spirit for a reason. Jax would hold his enemy’s heart in his hand before the wretch realized it no longer beat inside him.
Just then a man vanished from atop his steed with a grunt followed by a boyish scream.
“Cease! Cease!” Robbie burst into their circle. Torchlight exploded on the scene and shone down on a frightened lad sprawled on the ground. Jax held the boy by his throat with one arm, while his other raised hand was poised with lethal intentions.
“’Tis the devil,” the boy choked and squirmed like a beetle trapped on its back.
“Please.” Robbie turned to Reid. “’Tis Shane.” Her voice trembled, and her torch cast shadows beneath eyes filled with fear.
Shane was still in the nursery when Reid last walked these lands. ’Twas no doubt the lad was wishing for Nanna’s skirts right now. “Release him, Jax. He’s my half-brother.”
Grinning, Jax pulled Shane to his feet, wrapped thick arms around the lad and squeezed. “White Serpent’s brother is my brother, too.”
“Brother?” Their presumed leader cocked his head and studied Reid further. “Who the devil are ye?”
“’Tis Reid MacGregor,” Robbie supplied, her wide green eyes fixed on the man still holding a blade on Reid. Her delicate brows drew tight in the middle, and she held the corner of her bottom lip between her teeth.
When he realized she was fretting over his well-being, he warmed inside and out. His smile couldn’t have been more ill-timed.
“Reid MacGregor.” The Scot sheathed his sword and spit a wad of mucus at Reid’s boot tips. “’Tis been a long time. To what honor are we privy to your return, cousin?”
“Eoin?” Recognition took hold. Reid’s cousin was no longer a gangly grunt. S’truth, the man had grown into a bull.
The warble of a fake bird sounded in the woodland. ’Twas a signal, one he’d used in his youth to call upon his kinsmen just before a raid. It seemed the MacGregors were still reaping mayhem across their borders. Years ago, they’d run the raids to repel their enemies from Kilchurn Castle, but Reid suspected the reasons were altogether different now.
Much had changed.
However one thing stayed the same. Eoin still held the same confident demeanor he had in their youth. His cousin didn’t seem the least bit concerned with Reid’s return.
“Join us. ’Twill be like old times.” Eoin cocked a crooked grin and ran his narrowed gaze over Jax. “Bring your friend. He has proven to be resourceful.”
Reid looked at Robbie and wished she would walk away with him. He wished he didn’t have to prove himself according to their code. “I did not come here to pillage. I came for…”
Robbie glared at him and shook her head. A warning.
One he did not take. “…Robbie.”
Silence followed. Every man atop his steed stared at Eoin.
The man drew up another hawker and blew this one over his shoulder. “And what makes ye think my Robbie would be goin’ anywhere with ye?”
My Robbie?
Reid’s gut fell to his toes. He immediately searched Robbie’s hand for a ring, but she wore gloves. He thought he’d prepared himself for every possibility, even her death. He’d vowed to not interfere should he find her married with bairns. If she’d given herself over to the Church, he swore he wouldn’t take her from the cloister. However, finding Robbie wed to his cousin had not been a scenario he’d prepared for.
He should leave. He needed to think. “I have gold.”
If his offer tempted Eoin, the man hid his reaction. He scrubbed his beard, lingering a moment in thought, then pulled the slack from his steed’s reins. “We’ve gold as weel. We just have to steal it.”
He turned to Shane. “Lend your brother your horse.”
“Aye, m’laird.” Shane immediately complied and awaited further instruction.
“Gather the clan at Leckie’s old estate and put the fattest calf on the spit. Let them know their lost son has returned, and we’ve reason to celebrate.” Eoin pulled Robbie onto the back of his steed. “Let’s ride.”
2
~ PILLAGE ~
“Did he take you to wife?” Reid asked in a demanding tone. He was certainly every bit as forthright as he’d been in his youth.
Eoin had positioned Reid alongside the road north of the brook and Jax in a tall birch tree overhanging the pass, but the moment Eoin went into the valley, Reid deserted his post. He now stood at Robbie’s back where she leaned heavily against a solid tree trunk and prayed for strength.
He’d abandoned the clan. She hadn’t thought about him in years, but now that he’d returned, she couldn’t help but wonder what might have been. Would he have fought to save Kilchurn Castle from the Colquhouns’ invasion? Would she be his woman instead of Eoin’s?
“’Tis a simple question.” He stepped so close she could feel the heat of his body through her arisaid. “Did Eoin take you to wife or no?”
She focused on the approaching carriage, wanting to lie to him. “Not yet.”
Reid’s exhale felt like a gust of hot wind beside her cheek. Why did he think he could return and claim her so easily? “Your relief is unwarranted.”
“I feared I was too late.” His fingertips lightly touched her lower back and filled her empty stomach with fluttering emotions.
She didn’t want him to touch her, or breathe on her, or make her recall unwanted memories—foolish memories of poetic words and butterfly wings. ’Twas drivel. Childhood whimsies reminiscent of a carefree lass who nigh swooned every time Reid MacGregor set a dead moth in her palm and filled her head with honeyed words about beauty and transformation.
Her fingernails dug into the bark. She would not betray Eoin. “Ye are too late.”
“Vows have not been spoken. You do not wear his ring.” Reid’s strong hot hand covered hers and sparked a thousand feelings of regret inside her. She’d lain with Eoin. She cared for him, and he’d been good to her. They had plans to build a home in Rannoch once the proscription was repealed. They intended to raise a hundred head of cattle on the small farm outside Glenstrae, and he’d promised to give her a half dozen bairns. She would not risk her relationship with Eoin simply because Reid bluidy MacGregor came back from the dead.
She pulled her hand out from beneath Reid’s and spun around to face him. His perfection was distracting. The man was positively beautiful. Her heart gave a little jump. ’Twas not her heart aflutter but that of an innocent girl unscathed by reality. The hold between their gazes felt bold, daring…wrong. She licked her dry lips and fisted her hands to cease their trembling. “I am Eoin’s wife in every sense of the word, save for the marital contract, which we cannae get lest we use false names. He promised to set the b
anns for a wedding as soon as we’ve enough coin to petition the king.”
“Do you love him?”
His question caught her unguarded. Love was a foolish sentiment. A word used by poets at court. A word used for wooing the weak of mind into bed. If Reid gave credence to such an emotion, then he was a greater fool than she.
“Aye,” she finally answered after long seconds, but her hesitation sparked a glimmer of hope in his steel-gray eyes.
The scrutiny of his narrowed gaze was suffocating.
She pulled air into her lungs and with it came the smell of salt and sea. But hidden beneath his scent was something exotic, something not of this land, something forbidden.
Holding her breath, she slipped away from him. “Eoin protects the clan. He is honorable and treats me as an equal. He keeps me safe.”
“He involves you in raids. Uses ye as a pawn to stop unsuspecting victims.” Reid gestured toward the approaching carriage. The valley was free of mist, and the moon shone down on a driver guiding four horses along the path. “What if the conveyance is filled with vigilantes? Do ye know they are selling pardons in the tippling houses in Rosneath? Any vagrant can purchase the right to hunt a MacGregor.”
Did he think her ignorant? She wouldn’t take such risks if she didn’t believe in the cause. “Things will be different once King James—”
“King James hated the MacGregors when he sat on the throne in Scotland. Now he sits on England’s throne as well. Do ye truly believe you could ever plunder enough gold to buy the clan back its name?” Reid growled and ripped his fingers through his black hair. “Damn the Devil, Robbie! Are ye adder-bitten?”
Blast him! Her fingers itched to smack him again. “Every man has a price. Even a king.” She turned away from him, raised her skirts, and raced through the wood. Determined to uphold her role in the raid, she jumped the ditch and flattened herself on the road. The cold seeped into her bones as she lay on the ground awaiting the carriage. He was wrong, and he betrayed the clan—his clan—with his cowardly words. The man had no honor, no pride. Like his da, he was concerned only about himself and his wants. She would pay no heed to his words.
Caribbean Scot Page 2
