Jupiter bounded ahead along the well-worn forest path, making occasional detours into the brush to ferret out hares and other small game.
“Does the beast never tire?” Dougal asked.
Conall grinned. “He’ll be plenty tired tonight.”
“Aye,” Rob said. “Mind, Dougal, he doesna curl up in your plaid with ye.”
Dougal smirked at them.
“Dinna laugh,” Conall said. “He’s kept me from freezing on many a winter’s night in the rough.”
Harry urged his mount even with Conall’s and leaned in close to whisper. “Dougal’s afraid of him, is all.”
“Who, Jupiter?” This surprised him.
“Aye, and who wouldna be?” Harry’s gaze followed the mastiff as he burst from a tangle of gorse and spooked Dougal’s mount. “Look at the size of him. What does he weigh, ye reckon, ten or twelve stone?”
“Fifteen,” Conall said.
“The devil, you say! That’s more than a man.” Harry lifted a brow in appreciation.
“More than most. I’m heavier, but not by much.”
Rob spurred his white gelding up beside them. “Aye, but ye’re no’ a man, Conall laddie, ye’re a giant.”
“Nay,” Conall said. “’Tis just that you’re a dwarf.”
Rob tipped his bearded chin high. “No’ where it counts.”
The three of them melted into laughter. Indeed, over the years Rob had proved quite the ladies’ man in spite of his diminutive size.
“What are ye yappin’ about back there?” Dougal called over his shoulder.
“The usual topics,” Harry said. “Dogs and women.”
“Aye, ye can hang the one,” Rob said, “but I’ll take some o’ the other.”
Harry and Dougal snorted in unison.
Conall was pleased Iain had suggested he take the lads along. They were young and eager, two of the Chattan’s finest scouts. Dougal was a Mackintosh, and Harry a Davidson, but the two clans had lived amongst each other for so long it hardly mattered. The two youths were close as blood kin.
They rode for a time in silence, snaking their way south through the Highland wood. The day was warm for so late in the year, and Conall was glad he’d worn a sleeveless tunic instead of the woolen shirt Iain’s old housemaid had bade him don for the journey.
Their mounts kicked up a firestorm of brightly colored leaves as they cantered along the path. Gold and green and cinnabar—autumn’s palette. The sky changed as morning gave way to afternoon, startling blue against the thick canopy of larch, laurel and the occasional pine. After a time the trees thinned, and they came upon a crossroad leading west. Conall reined his black stallion to a halt.
“Monadhliath lies that way,” Rob said.
Conall nodded and let his gaze drift along the path. Monadhliath Castle, seat of Clan Davidson, his mother’s people. His brother Gilchrist was laird there now—had been these five years past.
“Shall we pay them a visit?” Rob asked. “’Tis but a day’s ride out of our way.”
It had been nearly a year since Conall had seen Gilchrist and his wife. Too long. They’d had another child, so Iain had told him. All the same…
“Nay,” he said, and urged the black onward. “We’d best keep moving. ’Twill be nearly dark by the time we reach Loch Drurie.”
Rob shrugged. “Suit yourself. I just thought—”
Not waiting for Rob to finish, Conall spurred the black into a gallop, outdistancing the rest of their party. He was more than ready for something new, something dangerous, perhaps, and exciting. There’d be plenty of time for family and domestic obligations later.
Much later.
Two hours hence they broke out of the trees onto a rocky ridge. Loch Drurie lay below them, stretched out like a lazy cat warming itself in the afternoon sun. The placid water glimmered a deep, mysterious blue—the color of a woman’s eyes. Not any woman Conall had ever seen, but it reminded him of one all the same.
Rob drew up beside him and nodded to the loch below. “’Tis no’ so big.”
“That’s only the tip of it. The rest is around that bend there.” Conall pointed to what appeared to be the far end of the loch.
“Oh,” Rob said, clearly disappointed. “Well, then, we’d best get down there, eh?”
They rode on as the sun dipped low in the sky, transforming the loch’s surface into a golden looking-glass. He’d seen one once in France, in a lady’s bedchamber. The lady he could not recall, but the glass, now that was something special.
“Ah, here it is,” Dougal said, wresting Conall from his thoughts.
“Aye, I see it now,” Harry added.
Conall peered ahead through the trees, narrowing his eyes as if that would allow him to see better. He turned to Rob and arched a brow in question.
Rob shook his head. “I canna see a bluidy thing.”
Conall laughed. “Aye, that’s precisely why Harry and Dougal are the scouts.”
They stepped up their pace and followed the two younger men, who seemed to know exactly where they were going. The trees thinned, and then he saw it.
“Saint Columba, will ye look at that!” Dougal said.
Rob let out a long, low whistle.
“This is it?” Harry looked to Conall for confirmation.
Conall shrugged and let his gaze drift over the ramshackle grouping of timber cottages and sheds, rotting docks, and twisted, sunken piers. A good-size fortified house stood on the hill above them. It had seen better days and looked all but abandoned.
Few people were about—women and children mostly, and a few old men. Jupiter barked and bounded ahead, kicking up clods of mud and rocks along the water’s edge. When the villagers caught sight of the huge dog and Conall’s party of mounted warriors, they fled to the safety of their cottages.
“Where are all the men?” Rob asked.
“I know not,” Conall said. “But ’tis clear something’s amiss. We’ll dismount here. I dinna wish to frighten them.” He slipped from the black’s saddle and his men followed suit. They tethered their horses at the edge of the wood and waited for further instruction.
“Rob, come with me,” he said. “Dougal, Harry, wait here with the men. I’ll call if I’ve need of you.”
The two scouts nodded.
Conall and Rob approached the village on foot. Sets of eyes peered out at them from windows draped in tattered furs and bits of dingy plaid. Children’s squeals and women’s hushed censures drifted from behind tight-shut cottage doors.
“Charming place, eh?” Rob whispered.
Conall cast him a cool look.
A branch snapped up the hill to their left, and they whirled toward the sound. Conall’s hand flew to the hilt of his dirk, Rob’s to his bow.
An old man stood in the open doorway of the fortified house, a bucket in each hand. His brows shot up when he saw them. “Ho, visitors!”
“I am Conall Mackintosh,” he called up the hill to the man. “I have business with your laird.”
The old man set the buckets on the ground. “Ye do?”
“Aye, we do,” Rob said.
They climbed the short, steep hill to the run-down house. Conall nodded to the old man. “This is Alwin Dunbar’s clan?”
“Aye, what’s left of it.”
“Is the laird about?”
“Oh, aye, he’s here all right.” The old man looked him over. “Conall Mackintosh, ye say—of the Chat-tan?”
“Ye know us, then,” Rob said.
“I’ve heard o’ the alliance. ’Tis a good thing, methinks.” The old man continued to scrutinize Conall, who quickly grew impatient with the chitchat.
“Where’s your laird?” he demanded.
“Oh, Alwin? Over there.” The old man nodded to a small, overgrown garden at the far end of the house.
Conall made for it, and Rob followed. The so-called garden was a tangled mass of weeds and dead summer flowers. No one was there. No one alive, at any rate. A pile of stones covering what
looked to be a shallow grave dominated the center of the weedy enclosure.
“Where is he?” Conall asked.
The old man appeared behind him, buckets in hand. “Who, Alwin?”
Conall’s patience was at an end. “Nay, the bloody King of England.”
“Testy, ain’t ye?” the man said to Rob.
Conall had had enough. He reached out and grabbed the old man by his shirt.
“Ho, wait—he’s there!” Conall instantly released him. The old man set the buckets down and pointed to the grave. “Alwin Sedgewick Dunbar, laird.”
“What?” Conall snapped. “You mean he’s dead?”
“Oh, aye, nearly a month now.” The old man matter-of-factly dumped the contents of the buckets at the foot of the grave. Ear-shattering squeals pierced the air as two sows raced from the back of the house and devoured the stinking pile.
“God’s blood.” Conall wrinkled his nose in disgust as he sidestepped the pigs. “Who the devil is in charge then?”
“Oh, down there.” The old man nodded toward the loch below.
Conall turned and immediately stopped breathing. His eyes widened as they followed the length of a narrow pier he’d missed earlier. The floating timbers began at the far end of the village and extended a hundred feet or so out into the loch. A radial raft of logs floated tethered to its endpoint, topped by the strangest-looking house he’d e’er seen.
“What do you make of that?” he asked. “’Tis…round.”
“Aye, ’tis a crannog,” Rob said. “A lake house. Did ye no’ see them in Ireland?”
Conall shook his head.
“Oh, they make fine lodgings—if ye like the water.”
Conall smirked at him.
“Well, we’d best get out there and see the man in charge.”
“What, you mean…out there?” Conall stared at the rickety pier.
“Ye wish to cull the deal, do ye no’?” Rob didn’t wait for an answer. He grabbed Conall’s arm and pulled him down the hill. “Come on, it should be fair easy, given the state o’ this place. I expect they’d take any offer ye make them.”
“If ’tis dealing ye’ve come to do, have a care,” the old man called after them.
Conall wondered what the elder meant by that, but had no time to think. His stomach was already churning at the thought of merely negotiating that pier, let alone the deal.
As they passed through the village, Rob tugged on his arm and let out a low whistle. Conall followed his friend’s gaze to an open cottage window where two blushing maidens leaned on the sill, gawking at them. Conall glared back and they giggled.
“Cloying virgins,” he muttered under his breath.
“Ye dinna fancy them?” Rob asked as he steered Conall toward the pier.
“Nay, I prefer women of substance.”
Jupiter’s high-pitched yelp cut the air. Conall froze.
“What, ye mean like that?” Rob pointed to the lake house at the end of the pier.
Jupiter stumbled on the rickety timbers in a tug of war over what appeared to be a ham. His rival for the savory loin was—Why, ’twas a woman! A barefoot woman with wild red hair and skirts rucked up to her knees.
Jesu, he breathed, and took in the fine curve of her calf silhouetted against the setting sun.
Her hair was a brilliant fusion of cinnabar and sunlight, whipping in the wind off the loch. The huge mastiff cowered as she thumped him squarely on the nose, but he did not release the meat. Conall grinned.
“He’ll take her hand off!” Rob cried, and pushed him toward the pier.
Conall’s grin widened, his gaze fixed on the woman. “If he wanted to, he’d have already done it.”
Conall stepped out onto the pier—“Whoa…w-wait”—and instantly tried to step back again as the unanchored timbers rolled under his weight. Rob moved behind him, a short but solid wall barring his retreat.
“Is this your dog?” the woman shouted at them.
“A-aye, he’s mine,” Conall called back.
“Well, come and get him!” She thumped Jupiter again with the flat of her hand. Jupiter let out a low whine, but did not let go the meat.
Conall drew a breath, fixed his gaze on them and put one foot in front of the other. “Bloody hell.” The pier rocked, but not so violently he couldn’t maintain his balance.
“Come on, come on.” Rob prodded him in the back.
Halfway there. Keep moving. The water was all around them now, and Conall’s stomach tightened.
“Hurry it up,” Rob said.
“Aye, before I decide to butcher the dog instead o’ the ham!” the woman shouted.
Just a…few…more…steps. Conall grabbed the mastiff by his thick leather collar. “Jupiter, drop it!”
The dog obeyed instantly, releasing the ham.
“He’s ruint it!” the woman cried. “Ye’ll pay me for this in kind, d’ye hear?”
Conall stared at her, transfixed. Her face was flushed from her struggle with the dog, and her eyes flashed anger. Blue eyes, deep as the still waters of Loch Drurie.
“Well, are ye dumb? What say ye, will ye pay or no’?”
She was tall for a woman, much taller than Rob, but she still had to tilt her chin upward to look Conall in the eye. He fought to keep his gaze from drifting to her breasts, then smiled at her. She glared back at him, her eyes jeweled daggers.
“Who’s in charge here?” he finally had the presence of mind to ask, ignoring her question.
“I am.” She redoubled her grip on the ham and tipped her chin higher.
“I see. Hmm…”
He liked her. She was bold. His gaze was drawn to her mouth and he found himself wondering if her lips were soft, if she’d taste of honey and wine.
“I’ll have my payment now,” she quipped, and arched a delicate, fiery brow.
Conall ignored her demand. “Where is your husband, madam?”
“Husband, indeed. I have none. Now, my payment if ye please.”
“Payment?” What payment? “Oh, aye, for the ham.” On impulse he grabbed her and kissed her hard on the mouth. Rob wasn’t the only one who had a way with women. Mmm, her lips were indeed soft and her breath sweet. “There, paid in full.” He released her, and she staggered backward on the pier.
For a moment she seemed dazed, then recovered herself. Her eyes blazed murder. “Of all the—”
“Watch out!” Rob cried.
She swung the ham and it caught Conall full in the gut, knocking the breath from him. He grunted, his arms closing over the smoked loin as the force of the blow knocked him clear off his feet.
The next thing he knew he was in the water, flapping arms and legs madly in an attempt to stay afloat. He went under and came up choking. The woman stood at the edge of the pier, hands on hips, smirking at him. Impudent wench!
Jupiter barked frantically and ran back and forth along the rickety timbers. Conall couldn’t tell if the dog was alarmed over his master’s plight or merely upset at the loss of the ham, which had sunk like a rock.
He slipped under a second time, paddling furiously to no avail. His eyes widened in panic.
“What’s wrong with him?” The woman’s smirk melted quickly into a frown.
Rob shook his head. “He canna swim.”
Chapter Two
She was tempted to let him drown.
Mairi tapped her foot impatiently on the pier and waited for the rogue to come up for air. “Waste of a perfectly good ham. He’ll pay for it, the cheeky lout.”
“No’ if he’s dead.”
She glanced at his short companion. “I hadna thought of that.” A flurry of bubbles broke the surface. The dog began to whine. She supposed they ought not let him drown. ’Twould be un-Christian. “Well, dinna stand there gawkin’—fish him out.”
“Who, me?”
“Aye, go on.” She thumped the diminutive warrior on the shoulder.
“’Twill do no good,” he said, eyeing the bubbles.
“Why n
ot?”
“I canna swim, neither.”
“God’s blood! Are all the Mackintoshes this helpless?”
“Aye, where water’s concerned.” He narrowed his eyes. “How did ye know who we are?”
“The clan badge in your bonnet.” She quickly unlaced her gown and pulled it off over her head.
“Aye, a cat with—” His eyes nearly popped from his head at the sight of her in her shift. “What are ye doin’?”
“Savin’ his life, though he doesna deserve it. Bluidy bother.” She took a deep breath and dove headfirst into the chill water.
He was dead easy to find. She merely followed the telltale trail of bubbles to the bottom. He was still struggling. Good. At least she’d not have to revive him. She grabbed him by the leather strap belting his broadsword to his back. Men and their weapons. No wonder the idiot nearly drowned. The sword alone had to weigh more than a stone.
She kicked toward the surface with the warrior in tow. He was heavy as sin. Weapons, garments, boots—what a load. Too bad he hadn’t held on to the ham. She’d remember to send Kip in for it later. The water was barely a dozen feet deep here. ’Twould be easy to recover.
As soon as they broke the surface, the warrior began to thrash about, his arms and legs flailing.
“Be still or I’ll let ye sink.” She pulled him to the pier.
The blasted dog started barking again. The short man patted the mongrel’s head, then knelt to help them from the water. “Is he all right?”
“He’ll live.” She let go of the warrior when his shaking hands grabbed hold of the timbers. “The bluidy fool.” He coughed up another lungful of water, then turned to look at her, breathing hard. ’Twas then she noticed his eyes. They were green. Nay, brown. Hmm…perhaps he—wait a minute! She didn’t give a whit about his eyes. What nonsense.
“I…dinna…know—” he coughed again “—whether to thank you or strangle you.”
She ignored his comment and started to pull herself onto the pier.
“Y-your name,” he sputtered.
For a moment she thought not to give it, then changed her mind. They were green, at least in this light. “Mairi. Mairi Dunbar.” He studied her face, and her cheeks warmed under his scrutiny. She’d rather die than blush, she thought, and bit off a curse.
A Rogue's Heart Page 2
