by Paula Quinn
It was Janet on his mind, not Ravenglade, when he took off running into the wall of fire and leaped across the sticky tar-soaked grass. He landed on the other side with a thud and rolled to a stop beyond the fire. He unwrapped his head and doused the burning patches of his clothes with the rag.
He looked around. As he’d expected, visibility was better with the light behind him. He knew which way to go and… His thoughts ended abruptly when his eyes caught a ball of fire bursting through the flames.
Someone had followed him. He leaped forward with his dripping rag and jumped on top of the body to douse the burning embers charring the fool’s clothes… skirts. No! She would never… She wore a soaked cloth just like his around her head. He yanked it free.
“Janet!” He wanted to shake her, check every inch of her to make certain she wasn’t hurt. “What the hell are ye doin’, lass?”
The wet springy hair falling over her eyes only partially veiled her relief at seeing him above her. All too soon, though, it was gone. “I want to have a part in my future, Darach. I want to know what decisions are being made about my life. What is so terrible about that?”
Nothing. Hell, he would want the same thing.
“I didna’ see ye following me in the tunnel.”
“I knew ye would be leaving Ravenglade tonight to visit the Menzies, so I left the tunnel before ye and waited in the woods.”
Darach wanted to throttle her. Clever wench. He could feel the rapid pounding of her heart beneath him, her heavy breath against his neck. He didn’t move off her but looked into her eyes. She had a right to be involved in her own future, and he would tell her everything in the morning, but right now she needed to listen to him.
“Ye need to stay here and—”
He didn’t expect her to cup his face in her hands and pull him down for a kiss. Her mouth was, not surprisingly, warm, having just come through the fire. It was the shy dip of her tongue into his mouth that seared his blood. She tasted of willful defiance, determination, and desire. Was this about her feelings for him, or an attempt to get what she wanted?
He didn’t care.
She groaned from somewhere in the back of her throat and he deepened their kiss, basking in the feel of her beneath him. He moved over her, dipping his hips and thighs against hers. His hardening body apparently unnerved her and she broke free of his mouth.
“I want to come with ye, Darach,” she said in a husky whisper against his lips. “I gave my consent for a future with Menzie, but I need it back. I can’t marry him. I need yer help to get him oot of my life.”
He lifted his head and stared down at her. “Ye’re a resourceful lass, Janet Buchanan. Usin’ yer sweet mouth to lure me into compliance.”
“I’ll use anything to wed the man I love, not the one I dislike,” she said with a hint of breathlessness.
“Who is the man ye love?” he asked her. It was him. It had to be. The thought of her marrying someone else revolted him.
“Ye smile because ye mock me, Darach. Ye think, because ye stole my letters and read them—”
“I didna’ steal them,” he said. “And ’twas only one I read.”
“I’ll never fergive ye,” she promised quietly and turned her face away from him.
“I’ll wear ye doun,” he countered close to her ear.
“Mayhap ye will.” She shrugged and then looked at him again, their lips almost touching. “Or ye can let me come with ye.”
He smiled on her mouth and then kissed her before withdrawing. “All right, ye can come. But when I tell ye to stay put, ye’ll do it or ye’ll see me do things ye willna’ ferget fer a long time.” When she nodded her compliance, he sprang to his feet, doing his best to ignore the feeling of emptiness their separation left him with.
Pulling her to her feet and cursing his puny mettle, he turned his face to the forest and his attention to his instincts. He trusted them to lead him to the Menzies.
“We’re goin’ to discuss this lack of obedience ye’re cursed wi’ later,” he said, holding her hand in the darkness when they entered the trees.
“I obey God only, and earnestly, not as often as I should.” The passion in her voice was replaced by bland disinterest. “And despite what ye think, ye’re not Him.”
In front of her, he grinned. Damn it but he liked spending time with her. Would it be absolutely thoughtless and reckless to fall in love with her? Was he ready to give his life to one woman? Did he care what others thought about who he loved? Hell. He was damn near sure he loved her.
They moved through the trees like an arrow toward its target. Going against the breeze, his senses perked for any peculiar sound or out of place scent… like wood smoke.
They were close. As they drew closer to the Menzie camp, the men’s voices picked up more clearly on the wind. He turned to Janet, held a finger to her mouth, and commanded her to not to move.
Coming around from the eastern edge of the tree line, he looked around the fire. He fastened his gaze on the chief, asleep beneath a canopy, and slipped his dagger from his belt. This was what he trained for, what he lived for. To fight. The only thing better than the victory was the fight.
He crept up, closer to their campfire, risking for the briefest of moments being seen in the firelight or in the moonlight in the clearing by the men on watch. But Darach had learned how to move in the shadows and no one saw him. As silent as a wraith in the deep of the night, he came up behind his first victim and slipped his dagger across the man’s neck. He let the man wilt down his chest and then he disappeared again into the shadows of the trees.
He found Roddie again, snoring. Poor, fat sot. Janet would make his life a living hell if he forced her to wed. Menzie should thank him for what he was doing.
Without so much as the sound of a twig breaking beneath his feet, he killed the next casualty of the battle Roddie Menzie had brought upon his kin. It didn’t matter that it was a quiet battle. Darach would win.
Finally, he came to the chief and crouched in the shadow of the tree behind him.
“Get up,” Darach whispered against his ear and ran the tip of his bloody dagger over the chief’s neck. “Go take a piss or I’ll kill ye where ye sit.”
Some men didn’t understand, or respect, mercy, and living in as hostile an environment as Scotland, one learned to fight in whatever way would keep him or her alive. “I already took doun the man two places to yer left and another four places to yer right.”
Since Menzie wasn’t facing him, Darach couldn’t tell if the chief was looking toward those spots to see empty space instead of his kin when he claimed not to believe Darach.
Darach didn’t care if he looked now or not. The truth would be revealed when the sun came up.
Roddie scratched his groin and stood to his feet. “I need a piss,” he called to the men around him, then walked into the shroud of shadows beyond the fire.
They walked to the far edge of the tree line, where Menzie’s men couldn’t hear them.
“Take yer men home, Roddie,” Darach warned him when they stopped. “If ye’re here tomorrow, I’ll return and take more of ye. Ye willna’ stop me. I’ll take ye doun one by one and save ye fer last.”
“I’ve no trouble leaving as soon as I get what was agreed upon,” Menzie said.
“No agreement was made with me”—Darach moved closer to him, clenching his dagger in his fist—“actin’ lord of Ravenglade in m’ cousin’s absence. Ferget Miss Buchanan as fast as ye ferget Ravenglade, Menzie. Or I vow ye’ll regret it.”
“Why, Grant? What do ye care about the wench? Her name and her kin make her yer enemy. Is she yers that ye so vehemently deny me?”
Hell, what was he to say to that? Janet Buchanan, his. He almost laughed at the madness of it. What man in his right mind would want to be saddled down with such a sharp-tongued viper?
“Aye, she is.”
“She is what?” Menzie asked.
“Mine.” Hell.
“When ye say she’s yers”�
Darach wanted to kill him, but he wanted to kill himself more when he answered, oddly unable to control his own tongue, “She’s m’ betrothed.” Damn it! What the hell was wrong with him? He had no control over his own damn mouth. Why would he say such a thing? Well, it was better than a mere common interest and certainly better than his wife. If it kept her safe from this grunting pig, he’d say it. Now that he had, he might as well make Roddie believe it.
“Ye think m’ cousin Malcolm would hand over the care of his castle to Buchanans if there wasn’t a promise between us? Ye know the Buchanans and the Grants are no’ friends. We make a union to bind relations fer the sake of Ravenglade. Dinna’ come between that or ’twill no’ go well fer ye.”
Roddie snorted. “Ye have balls to come into my camp and threaten me.”
“Yer camp. Our land,” Darach reminded him caustically. “As fer a threat? Take m’ words as ye will, but know that I’ll stand by them.”
“Just as I’ll stand by mine,” Menzie snarled in a quiet voice. “I gave my word to leave peacefully when I had Buchanan’s sister. Until yer claim to her is sworn before God, she’s free fer the taking. Only after that will I leave without her. Until then, I’ll continue to attack Ravenglade.”
What? Darach’s smile faded. What in blazes just happened? This stubborn bastard wasn’t giving in easily then. He caressed the hilt of his dagger. “Ye’re makin’ me eager to kill ye, Menzie.” How the hell was Darach going to get out of this? How badly did he want to?
“Do it,” the chief provoked, “and my kin, who are spread out as far south as Ayr all the way to the Highland mountains will avenge my death against yer kin on Skye.”
Darach closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. His kin wouldn’t mind fighting, but the Menzies did know the location of Camlochlin and could use it as leverage, and Roddie was bold enough to do it. One thing he’d give the Menzie clan, they were a fearless bunch.
But that didn’t change anything. “Ye’re bold with threats, but next time the Menzies touch foot on our land, they’ll be crushed underfoot beneath the heel of our cannons, our arrows, and, worst of all, our wrath. Before ye threaten me, consider if ye want to lose most of yer clan, beginning here with the twenty-three of ye who are left. Tomorrow night there will be fewer of ye until there are no more of ye. I’ll leave the choice to ye, Chief. The morning light will decide yer future. Go home and live? Live fer a se’nnight longer? Or, if ye dare try to get near m’ betrothed, die quick?”
The chief remained silent. No surprise there. The Menzies weren’t only fearless. They were prideful. Darach would let him think on it until morning.
He took a step back, disappearing into the shadows. Making certain he wasn’t being followed, he made his way toward where he’d left Janet.
He hadn’t gone far at all when he walked right into her.
She’d defied him again. She’d followed him to the Menzies’ camp, risked her damned life to hear what he told Menzie…
Hell. She’d heard what he told Menzie.
Chapter Eleven
“Get movin’.”
Janet felt rooted to her spot. Menzie wasn’t going to leave until she married either him or Darach. How the hell did the men in her life keep getting her into the same troubles? Why would Darach claim to be her betrothed in the first place?
“Janet, come on with ye now.” His voice was so gentle it almost made her weep. She didn’t argue with him. “We’ll discuss this, aye?”
She nodded, still too stunned to take it all in. She had to marry Darach to avoid Roddie. Why would Darach do it? She was stunned by his promise to wed her, shaken to the core. Who was she to him that he should protect her so? How far would he go to prove his claim on her true? Her pitiful heart flipped. She didn’t mean anything to the Highlander. Did she? He was doing this for Ravenglade. Was the zeal of his dark promises to Roddie, should the chief go near her, sincere? Why would it be? He didn’t even like her. Did he?
“D’ye think he’ll be gone in the morning?”
“Nae,” he said behind her. “He’ll be here.” He didn’t sound happy about it, but why would he? Was he truly going to have to take on the Menzies alone? The men at Ravenglade were still recuperating from the last Menzie attack, when the bastards promised a peaceful talk inside. They would be of little help in a fight.
“What will we do?” she asked him, turning slightly over her shoulder. “And don’t tell me not to include myself, Darach. Ye know I will.”
Silence for a moment, then he said, “Aye, all right, then. The first thing we’re goin’ to do is get some sleep.”
She agreed that sleeping was important, but she wasn’t in the least bit sleepy. She looked off into the distance, wondering how far they were from home.
“Has the fire ring gone out?”
“Nae,” he answered quietly. “’Tis on the other side of the forest.”
She turned around to look at him behind her. There was little to see, save for the silhouette of his broad shoulders, the angles of his handsome face cast between darkness and the pale light of the moon. “Are we lost?”
It was mad, she knew, but she could see his eyes in the dim light, vast, moonlit fields beckoning her to join him, to trust him.
“Nae, lass,” he said softly, “we’re no’ lost. The fires are still burnin’ and we have nothin’ wet to aid us in goin’ through them. Fer that reason, and because we’re bein’ followed, we’ll be sleepin’ oot here tonight.”
Her heart pumped faster. She looked around but couldn’t see much. “Followed? How many? And why have ye waited until now to acknowledge it? Does nothing faze ye?”
“One. I didna’ mention him right away because there was no reason to tell ye until we come to that bend and I have a better chance of killing him. And verra’ few things faze me. Ye are one of them.”
She stared at his back as he passed her. She fazed him? How? There was no time to ask him as he led them around the bend to a small clearing, where he had a leather bag waiting. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to go through the fire with no protection. She, on the other hand, hadn’t thought her actions through at all.
“Stay here, Janet,” he said while he started a fire. “Give me yer word.”
She gave it. She knew they couldn’t get back inside Ravenglade through the tunnels with someone on their tail. She didn’t want to see what he had to do to keep them all safe and alive. She didn’t want to distract him and risk an injury. She waited by the flames, alone with the night sounds. To keep busy she went through his bag. She found water and a great plaid, which she laid out before the fire. Sitting on it, she rifled through the rest of his things. She found a small dagger and placed it on the blanket next to the dagger she’d brought with her. Feeling a touch safer with two weapons, she bit into an apple. A forest creature moved a little closer and made her wish Darach were there.
She looked down and eyed the plaid. Images of him sleeping… or not, washed over her and she was no longer able to push aside her trepidation about the night. She was going to have to sleep next to him, just as she had in her dreams. Lord help her. What if he kissed her again? What if she couldn’t sleep unless he did? She let the truth of her heart torture her. She loved him. She tried not to. She’d done her best to forget him for seven months, but she loved Darach Grant. The flint of steel in his eyes thrilled her to the bone and infuriated her. His mouth… oh, saints help her, his mouth carved by decadence and sinful pleasure, tempted her beyond all reason, and challenged her at every end. She knew who he was and what it made him, her kin’s enemy, no matter how much they smiled at him while they were the Grants’ tenants, and an extremely dangerous rogue because of the power her heart gave him.
But there were moments… moments when she forgot who he was and saw only a kind, extremely alluring, permanently arrogant, staunchly protective… guardian. Heaven knew she needed help. Was Darach it? She closed her eyes against the stars and drew her knees to her chin. She remembered his words to her the night he arrived.
… ’tis I come to save ye whether ye like it or no’.
Why would he do it? His cousin had sent him here to save his castle. Roddie had agreed to leave if she was handed over. Why was Darach ready to kill him and start a feud… over her?
She heard movement and opened her eyes to see Darach standing over her. Before she could stop herself, she smiled up at him.
He dropped to his knees beside her and smiled back. “Are ye cold, lass?”
She shook her head. “Are ye injured?”
“Nae, just winded. After I dispatched the one followin’ us, I thought there might have been one, closer to ye, that I’d missed, but there was no one.”
Her smile on him didn’t diminish, but widened. “Are ye saying ye raced back here fer me, Mr. Grant?”
“If someone needs to save ye, Miss Buchanan, I’d have it be me.”
He loved to rile her.
Mayhap she loved letting him. She plucked the two weapons off the plaid and held them in her hands. “Would ye like to see how I can fight off one man with two knives, then?”
He looked quite amused and she had the urge to slap him… with a dagger.
“Ye assume ye’ll have to fight me off.” He looked into the flames while he felt around in his bag. “Ye think rather highly of yerself, lass…” Not feeling what he was looking for, he shook the bag.
“Are ye looking fer this, Darach?”
He slid his gaze to the bitten apple in the hand she held up. When he reached for it, she snatched it away. “I figured since ye went through my things, I could go through yers.” She sank her teeth into the red fruit and pulled her lips away, catching a drop of juice on the tip of her tongue as it rolled down her bottom lip. His eyes dipped to her tongue. What the hell was she doing? Tempting the beast was pure lunacy, here, alone in the firelight with him, the damp forest everywhere around them. She wouldn’t survive an encounter with him like the ones she dreamed about.
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