by Lily Maxton
Mal thought she was beautiful. He’d been to an art exhibition in Glasgow once, had seen paintings of Grecian myth, women lounging about in barely there wisps of white fabric. Catriona had the body of one of those ancient goddesses. Although she didn’t seem to be much of a lounger. And her dress, if he wasn’t mistaken, was a sturdy linen-wool blend, practical for the mercurial Highland weather, and certainly not transparent.
Which was unfortunate. He wouldn’t mind seeing her draped across a Grecian sofa, gauzy muslin shadowed by the dusky tips of her breasts.
After a pause, he realized Lachlan was still glaring at him, waiting for an answer.
“You canna just let her in without having her prove herself. It shouldn’t matter that she’s a woman.”
Mal could do anything he wanted. He was the one who made the decisions, not Lachlan.
But he wondered, suddenly, if the other men felt the same way. If Catriona was going to help them on their next raid, she needed to earn their respect. If she didn’t have their respect, if they couldn’t work together amiably, there was no point in letting her stay. Discord that ran unchecked was a dangerous thing in a group that relied on one another for survival.
He cocked his head, thinking. “Did you see the clearing on the far side of the isle?”
Lachlan nodded.
“What did you think of it?”
“It would be perfect for…” He trailed off. When he spoke again, his voice was low and reverent. “Camanachd.”
Mal lifted his shoulder. “If she can keep up with us there, she can keep up with us on a raid.”
“If she can win,” Lachlan said. Mal must have looked like he was going to protest, because Lachlan continued. “You don’t know anything about her. In a few days, an angry father or husband might show up wanting her back. If we fight for her, I want to know she’s worth it.”
Mal was silent for a moment. The thought that Catriona might be married didn’t sit well in his gut. But Lachlan was right. It was certainly possible—and if she was running away from an overbearing husband, it wasn’t like she’d volunteer the information.
So even though he didn’t like it, he nodded. “Fine. If she wins, she stays.”
…
Georgina found Ewan by following the rhythmic thunk of wood being chopped through a thicket of pine trees and called out a greeting. He spun around, wide-eyed. The ax dangled from his hands.
“I said I was sorry!” he exclaimed.
“Pardon?”
“About this morning…I never would have…I didn’t…I forgot you were there, ye ken? I don’t go around pissing on trees when there are ladies present.” When he realized he’d sworn in front of her, his face flushed a deep, painful red. “I’m sorry! Again. My ma always said I had a bad habit of putting my foot in my mouth.”
“Ewan,” she said firmly. “It is forgiven. Now give me that ax.”
He eyed her. Eyed the ax. “You’re not going to swing at my head, are ye?”
She sighed. “Mr. Stewart told me I could assist you. You may call me Miss MacPherson, by the way.”
“Mr. Stewart?” he stared at her blankly.
“Mal?”
“Ah, why didn’t you say so?” He turned the ax around and pointed the handle toward her.
“I’ve never done this before,” she admitted, turning to the fallen tree. Ewan had already chopped all the branches off and moved them aside. Now all that was left was the trunk.
She lifted the ax, let it swing down in a heavy arc, and then jolted as the blade made contact. It took nearly all of her strength to dislodge the blade so she could swing again. But Georgina wasn’t a quitter. She kept at it.
“How did you come to be…” A thief was what she was thinking, but she wasn’t certain if it was polite to call someone a thief to their face. “With Malcolm?”
For a moment, the only sound was birds chirping to one another in the trees above their heads. She glanced over her shoulder at Ewan, surprised to find him staring at his feet, his mouth twisted miserably. He was young. Barely more than a boy.
“You don’t have to tell me,” she said, feeling a pang of sympathy for him. She turned back to work.
“I was begging for food at an inn,” he said quietly. “But the innkeeper didn’t have any to spare. I went outside and sat against the wall, shivering, and Mal found me and bought me some bread and milk, and he told me he could keep me fed and clothed. All he asked in return was my loyalty.”
Georgina left the ax in the tree trunk and contemplated him. “But loyalty wasna all he was asking.”
“What do ye mean?”
“Asking you to help him steal isn’t the same as asking for loyalty.”
He shifted uneasily, fidgeting with his kilt. “Mal’s a good man. He saved my life.”
She breathed deeply through her nose. She wouldn’t get anywhere by insulting their leader. Still, she wondered how much of Mal’s decision had to do with helping someone in need and how much it had to do with finding someone who would follow orders unquestioningly. Saving someone’s life meant they would be in your debt forever.
And, regardless of how good a man Ewan claimed Mal was, the outlaw had to have thought the same thing at some point. He couldn’t be that bloody noble.
Before she could stop, she found herself asking, “Do you know much about his life? Before all this?” She gestured widely at the island and the trees to encompass “all this.”
“He doesna talk about his life before this,” Ewan said. “But you could ask him. He doesna lie.”
Georgina snorted before she realized the man was perfectly serious. “What do you mean, ‘he doesn’t lie’?”
“If you ask him a question, he’ll tell you the truth. He doesn’t lie to us.”
She blinked, stunned. “No one tells the truth all the time. And he’s…well…a thief. They go hand in hand.”
Ewan shrugged and lifted the ax, continuing his work in silence. She wondered if she’d offended him. She’d more or less said that Mal had to be a liar.
But most people were liars, weren’t they?
Or maybe she was the liar here. She’d faked a name and an accent, a nationality and a purpose. Maybe she was a genteel deceiver amid honest thieves.
Later, as Georgina and Ewan took a break to eat oatcakes and drink from a small stream of clear, cold water, Malcolm, Andrew, and Lachlan appeared. A strange, almost holy light filled the latter men’s eyes.
“New assignment for you, Miss MacPherson,” Mal said curtly. He didn’t seem quite as enthused as his companions. “Take whatever time to rest you need, and then find a sturdy stick, about this high”—he lifted his hand a bit above his waist—“with a hook in the end.”
Ewan gasped from his seat on the tree stump next to her. “Mal?”
Mal nodded solemnly. “Camanachd.”
“Excuse me?”
She knew it was Gaelic, but the word was so unfamiliar he might as well have sneezed, for all she comprehended. That unsettling fervent look began to shine in Ewan’s eyes, like a fever spreading from man to man.
What in the world was camanachd? And why did they need hooked sticks for it? They weren’t going to beat someone to death, were they?
Oh dear God, what have I gotten myself into?
For perhaps the first time in her life, she rued her impulsive ways. She should have listened to her overprotective brothers—maybe a part of her had always longed for adventure, but she’d rather be safe in her bedchamber than an accomplice to murder.
Mal left them with directions on where to meet, and Ewan almost immediately began scanning the ground, grabbing sticks and then discarding them, trying to help her find the best ones.
“May I ask what is happening?” she said, a little shakily.
“You’ll see,” Ewan answered, a smile playing at his lips.
His response didn’t make her feel better at all.
Chapter Four
Georgina and Ewan picked their way through the isla
nd toward its center, holding sturdy sticks with hooked ends. They came into a large grassy clearing, where Mal, Andrew, and Lachlan were already waiting, a pile of their own sticks by their feet. Sunlight eased past the clouds in rays, as though even the temperamental Highland weather was smiling on this endeavor, and Georgina felt an unwanted shock at the piercing gold-green of Malcolm’s eyes when the light glanced off them.
Mal spread his arm wide, a born showman. She noticed he held a wooden ball in one hand. “This field is a God-given gift,” he said.
The others nodded sagely.
Georgina couldn’t hold her tongue any longer. “For what, exactly?”
“Camanachd. Didn’t I say that?”
She stared at him blankly. She hoped this wasn’t something she should know, considering her fake identity as a Scotswoman. “And what is camanachd?”
“Shinty?” he tried.
That sounded more familiar. She recalled one of her brother’s tenants mentioning the sport once.
Mal pointed at the end of the clearing, where two trees stood fairly close, and then at the other end, where a tree and a shrub stood about an equal distance apart. “Those are natural goals. It’s as though the fates are smiling upon us,” he said in a loud whisper.
“And the field is the perfect size for this number of players,” Ewan pointed out. “My grandda told me about a New Year’s game between our clan and another where hundreds of men played. He said it lasted until midnight.” After a wistful pause, Ewan said, “There aren’t any clans anymore. Not like that.”
A brooding hush fell over the clearing. An acknowledgment, perhaps, of what had been lost.
And then Malcolm slapped Ewan on the back. “There’s us. You’ll be sitting out this first game, though, to let Miss MacPherson have a turn. It’ll be Lachlan and me against Andrew and MacPherson.”
“Miss MacPherson” wasn’t sure that she wanted a turn. “I’ve never played before.”
Malcolm explained the rules—with much enthusiasm and ebullient gesturing. “I warn you, though, we’ll give you no quarter.”
“Perhaps it would be better if Ewan played,” she hedged.
Mal leaned closer to her, so only she could hear his words. “It isna a choice. I made a deal with Lachlan—if you lose, you have to leave.”
For a second, she thought he was jesting, but then she studied his face—serious, pragmatic, and calm—and something in her blanched. Whatever foolish dream she’d had of going home with her mother’s music box wavered before her eyes, as fragile as illusion. “But you said—” she began, and then she stopped, hating the tremulous note in her voice.
“Don’t look at me like that, lass,” he murmured.
“Like what?”
“Like I’ve betrayed you. I’ve put you with Andrew, and he’s the strongest player… As long as you can manage a goal or two, you should be fine. Think of it as…an initiation. Any group of bandits worth their salt has an initiation, aye?”
She managed a shaky smile. “Couldn’t it have been shooting?”
“Then you wouldn’t have to put in any effort at all. You can do this,” he said. “You’re too fierce a lass to give up now.”
He was encouraging her, calming her—he wanted her to stay, she realized, with a little twist in her heart. Guilt sat like a weight on her chest. She wondered, not for the first time, what he would do if he found out what she was really after. She wondered, too, what would happen to them if her brother found her before she found the music box.
She didn’t want to be the reason they were caught—but now that desire wasn’t simply born out of principle—no, she was starting to see them as men, not just outlaws.
It seemed a dangerous distinction.
Mal stepped back from her, and then eyed their ragtag group. “Now, I’d like to point out that you’re all useless to me with broken limbs or bleeding heads, so let’s keep it friendly…” There was a pause as he seemed to contemplate that statement. “Or, if not friendly, not overly vicious.”
Broken limbs and bleeding heads? Whatever calming effect Mal’s earlier words had had on her vanished with a jolt of fear.
They riffled through the pile of sticks, weighing and choosing, then walked out to the middle of the field. Ewan took the wooden ball and rolled it onto the grass.
And then sheer chaos descended.
Later, when Georgina contemplated hundreds of men playing at once, she didn’t know how every game wasn’t a massacre. Even with a measly four players, she feared for her bodily safety. Shinty was certainly no leisurely game of battledore and shuttlecock or billiards, and Mal hadn’t been lying when he said they wouldn’t give her quarter.
She came up to Lachlan’s side, trying to get at the ball, but he bumped her aside with his shoulder as if she were some trifling annoyance. His stick swept the ground in a long, aggressive arc, colliding with her ankle on its path toward the ball.
She gasped and fell back. Each step sent a sharp throb through her foot. But the other two men didn’t bat an eye—and she soon came to realize this kind of casual violence was normal for shinty.
Lachlan broke away from her, surging toward the goal.
She thought of the music box, gripped her own stick tighter, and trudged forward with new determination.
What she didn’t expect was Mal guarding her. Or her reaction to it.
He wasn’t an overly large man, but he was powerful in a way she wasn’t accustomed to, a coiled strength. His presence felt bigger than his body. When he got close to her, she could smell sweat, and underneath, something heady and crisp, like pine and smoke and earth.
They scrabbled over the ball at one point, and she felt the touch of warm breath against her lips. Her stomach tightened. She hadn’t known this sort of thing could feel so intimate.
No, she thought, strangely panicked. No. That wouldn’t do at all.
“Mr. Stewart, you are standing in my way,” she said, more breathlessly than she would have liked. Their sticks had hooked together while they both tried to get at the ball.
“That’s how the game is played, Miss MacPherson.”
She looked up, into hazel eyes that were so close to her own. Too close. She could see every individual fleck of gold, warm and shining in the light. He must’ve been a little taken aback by their proximity, too, because he hesitated.
“Yes,” she agreed. “But if you could just…” Ah, there—she’d freed her stick.
“If I could just—”
She screwed up her courage. Hardened her resolve. And then, while he was still speaking, she leaned forward and shoved into Mal’s stomach with her shoulder.
Good Lord, it was painful. Mal’s stomach, unfortunately, didn’t have one ounce of softness to it. It felt like she’d just collided with a rock. But the action did take him by surprise. He stepped back with a low, startled oomph. She used that split second to sweep the ball away.
“Pardon me,” she called over her shoulder, biting back a satisfied smile when she heard a curse ring out behind her.
The field was open. So she ran.
Lachlan came up to her side to cut her off, but Andrew was already waiting. She swung the stick hard. A satisfying clack rang out. The ball sailed toward her teammate, and he drove it straight through the goal.
If Georgina had underestimated the casual violence of the sport, she’d also underestimated its opposite. Andrew, who hadn’t spoken more than two words to her, ran back, grinning with the brilliance of sunlight, a row of endearingly crooked teeth on display. She hadn’t even known the taciturn man was capable of smiling like that. She blinked, dazed, and was jolted back to life when he slapped her shoulder and nearly sent her careening into the ground.
“Now that’s the way it’s done, Cat!” he said.
Taken aback by his enthusiasm, and the radiance of his smile, and being called “Cat,” she blinked again.
He reached out with his stick. She realized he was waiting for her to knock her stick into his, in some
kind of odd celebratory ritual, so she did. He smiled again, and she laughed, a foreign warmth seeping into her chest.
Mal caught her eye on the walk back toward the middle of the field. “You have a taste for ginger?”
She stared at him. “What?”
“You’re blushing.” He moved closer to her. His hand rose like he might touch her cheek. Like he wanted to feel the heat of her skin for himself. He seemed to rethink the gesture and let it fall back to his side.
“Oh.” She stared at him, heart beating too fast. The question had been playful, but there was something searching in his gaze that caught her off guard. He couldn’t possibly care if she did…could he? “He is rather handsome.” It was an understatement. Andrew was one of the most handsome men she’d ever seen, with those high cheekbones and dark-lashed eyes and sunset-red hair.
A woman could be forgiven for being a tiny bit flustered, couldn’t she?
And if she was much more conscious of Mal, walking close to her, Mal, nearly touching her cheek, than she was of Andrew’s good looks…well, no one had to know but her.
Mal’s eyebrows lifted. “I thought I was the handsome one.”
“Wishful thinking doesna make something true.”
“Now you’re starting to hurt my feelings, lass.” His voice was low and gentle and teasing, and it slid across Georgina’s skin like silk.
She lifted her chin. “I doubt your emotions are quite as fragile as that,” she said primly.
They were interrupted by Ewan coming back onto the field to start the next round, and Georgina drew a relieved breath. She kept her eyes on the ball, but her exchange with Mal left her feeling overly warm. She wished she could blame it on physical exertion, but she knew that wasn’t the case. She’d been aware of Mal since the moment they’d met, unwillingly fascinated by the way he moved, by the sharp intelligence in his hazel eyes—she hadn’t thought the feeling might be reciprocated.
“You don’t belong here.”
Her head jerked up to meet Lachlan’s scowling face. This time around, he was sticking to her like flies to a carcass, more determined and more aggressive than he’d been the last round.
