Highland Conquest

by Alyson McLayne

  * * *

  Amber gripped the old nag’s mane as the mare, who had resisted leaving the castle earlier, now ran full tilt toward it despite the clangs, crashes, and shouts of warfare coming from inside. Most likely the determined pony was deaf and unaware of the danger it ran toward, thinking only to get a meal and warm stall to sleep in.

  The portcullis was up and the gates wide open when she reached the curtain wall. Torches lit the night—she’d never seen so many in use before, not even when the old laird was alive. People hurried out of the entrance, mostly women and children.

  None who might be Murray’s men, she realized.

  Amber jumped down from her pony, trying not to put weight on her sore ankle, but she stumbled as she landed. Pain shot through her foot and stole her breath. She leaned against the stone wall for just a moment, trying to will away the tenderness and work up the courage to take another step.

  A lad with hair as black as night ran past her. “Ian!” She just managed to snag his plaid before he was out of reach. “You’re free! Are you all right, lad?”

  He spun around, his face dirty and his eyes wide with fright. His expression brightened when he recognized her, and he wrapped skinny arms around her. She squeezed back just as tight.

  “Amber, I thought for sure you were dead. Laird Murray was so angry when you called him a thieving toad. They threw me in the dungeon, but then the fighting broke out. Men I didn’t recognize let me out.”

  “’Tis the MacKays and the MacLeans. They’re after Machar Murray and his dogs. If they catch him, he’ll be hanged. He killed Laird MacKay’s brother.”

  “Verily?”

  “Aye. Ian, it’s over. We can take back the castle and the clan. Live without fear that we’ll be dragged from our beds at night. You and Breanna willna have to go hungry anymore. You can come and live with me, if you like, or we’ll find a place for both of you at the castle.”

  He hugged her tight again, his body trembling. “Does that mean we’ll have a new laird? One who’ll take care of the clan?”

  Amber’s breath stopped as she thought about Lachlan. “I hope so.”

  She heard a scream of pain from inside the castle and pushed Ian away. “Run as fast as you can to my cottage and bring back my satchel—the one with my bandages and herbs in it. I’ll need it to help the wounded.”

  “What about Breanna?”

  “She’s safe. Doona worry about your sister. I stashed her with Nell before I came to speak for you at the castle earlier. Go now—and be careful!”

  Ian ran down the path and disappeared into the night.

  Pulling her plaid up over her butchered hair, Amber stepped lightly onto her sore foot and limped past the curtain wall. She’d gone barely ten paces and could see MacPherson men huddled together on the ground, when a young warrior in a MacKay plaid stepped in front of her. He held his sword loosely at his side, but she could tell he was alert.

  “No one’s allowed in, lass.” His stance was firm but non-threatening.

  “I’m a healer. I just want to tend the wounded—MacPhersons and MacKays. I doona support Machar Murray.”

  “Aye, ’tis good to hear, but I have my orders.”

  She stepped closer and pulled her cloak back while keeping the ends of her hair covered. His eyes widened, and she hoped it would be enough to sway him. “But Lachlan—Laird MacKay—asked me to come. Callum too. Surely you wouldnae want anyone to die because I couldnae help them in time.”

  He had to clear his throat before speaking. “Nay, lass. You canna enter. I’m sorry.”

  She laid her hand on his arm. “Please. I’d be most grateful. Perhaps even enough for a kiss afterward.” Aye, she’d kiss him, covered in blood and worse, and smelling of death. She’d treated several serious injuries before and knew she wouldn’t look bonnie by the time she was done. The thought almost made her smile—if she weren’t talking about grievous injuries.

  A slight tremor ran through his muscles, but still he didn’t move. Curse Lachlan MacKay and his finely trained men. She considered a physical assault, but even if she made it into the bailey, the other guards would soon take her down.

  “Malcolm, let her pass. I’ll speak to her.”

  “Aye, Hamish.”

  The guard she’d been talking to stepped aside, and she recognized the grizzled warrior behind him from Lachlan’s camp—the one who’d told Lachlan that Adaira was in the tree. She quickly pulled up her plaid lest he recognize her too.

  He was older than the rest, with hardened eyes and a lifetime of battle scars. Her feminine wiles wouldn’t work on him, she was sure.

  “What’s your name, lass?”

  “Amber MacPherson. I’m the clan healer. Please, I’ll help your men as well as mine if you let me in.”

  “Aye, you will. This way.” He clamped his hand around her upper arm and led her toward the keep. She had to practically run to keep up, hopping a wee bit to lessen the weight on her foot.

  “You’re hurt?” he asked, coming to an abrupt halt.

  “Just a sprain. I’ll be all right.”

  He kneeled in front of her and lifted her injured foot. “May I?”

  “Um…aye.”

  She couldn’t help being suspicious, and frowned as she watched him unlace her shoe then squeeze and roll her ankle. She bit her lip to stop from crying out.

  “’Tis sprained,” he said.

  Annoyance made her tart. “Really? I had no idea.”

  His lips quirked, then he rummaged in his sporran and brought out a length of narrow linen. Before she could protest, he’d wrapped her ankle up tight and laced her shoe.

  He stood and pulled her along again. She didn’t hobble quite so badly this time—he’d done a good job. Almost as good as she would have done.

  “We’ll bring you a crutch too,” he said.

  “Thank you, but I need supplies—blankets, bandages, old sheets we can cut into strips, needle and thread and some sharp knives. Sticks I can use to set bones if I have to. And I’ll need help. Can you assign me some men?”

  “Doona worry, lass. There aren’t as many wounded as you’re imagining, and none dead that I know of. The battle’s winding down as we speak. ’Tis not that bad.”

  “By the looks of you, Hamish, you’ve seen many battles. Most hard won, I’m sure. What you consider bad isn’t necessarily what I consider bad, so just bring me the supplies and set me up in the great hall to care for them.”

  He grunted, and she thought she detected a wee smile. “Anything else you want while I’m at it?”

  “Aye, you need to let in a lad named Ian when he comes. I sent him for my satchel. I have herbs in there that can help with the healing.”

  He looked sideways at her, his eyes sweeping over her from head to toe. “My mother was a healer. She always gave me foxglove when I had a toothache. She’d mash up the petals in my tea.”

  Amber snorted. “She didn’t love you much, then, did she?”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because you’d be verra sick, possibly dead, if she gave you that.”

  He nodded, and this time his smile was a wee bit wicked. “’Tis true. Have you actually met Laird MacKay and Laird MacLean then?”

  She hesitated for just a second. “Of course.”

  “Ah, ’tis a story there, I can tell. One I canna wait to hear. Maybe I’ll even put it into song.”

  He hummed a few bars, and she knew he was laughing at her. She’d just opened her mouth to rebuke him when she noticed the area they were walking past was not lit up like the rest of the bailey.

  “Surely now’s not the time to save on torches,” she said.

  He looked at her quizzically, then his eyes opened wide, and he shoved her to the ground behind a crate full of firewood. An arrow flew past her, then a second arrow embedded in Hamish’s fore
arm, and his sword went flying. He darted behind another crate.

  “Stay down, lass!” he yelled just as two more arrows crashed into the crate she hid behind, threatening to topple it over.

  “MacKays! MacLeans!” Hamish roared, then let out a sharp whistle. “Archer at the barracks! Hold the perimeter! Hold the perimeter!” He whistled again.

  Another arrow hit her crate and broke it apart, sending the firewood down on top of her. She wrapped her arms around her head and curled into a ball, feeling the thud of three more impacts. One arrow poked through just a hand’s span from her face, the head sharp and shiny, and sent panic racing through her.

  This was how her father had died. An arrow to the face during a “hunting” accident a week before Laird MacPherson died in his sleep—and Machar Murray took over the clan.

  She would not die in the same manner.

  She would run.

  * * *

  Lachlan closed his eyes and inhaled slowly through his nose, trying to control the mix of anguish and frustration that pushed up from his gut and threatened to send him into a killing rage. He stood with Callum, the steward Niall, and two other warriors in the lit passageway by the laird’s bedchamber.

  ’Twas the last room in the castle to be searched.

  He had little hope Machar Murray was inside. Why would he be? The door was locked from the outside; the person on the other side of this door was a prisoner. The woman the stable master mentioned to him earlier, most likely. Probably crouched behind the bed and frightened to come out.

  Amber, he’d called her. Another victim of Murray’s greed and depravity.

  The battle outside had quieted, the MacPhersons defeated other than a few pockets of resistance—and no sign of Murray or his three friends, commonly referred to as “the laird’s dogs.”

  To have come this far and lose the blackheart after all these years of searching, maybe never to be found again—it sat like a burning, lead ball in his stomach. He clenched his jaw so tight he feared it might break, yearning to batter the door down with his bare hands.

  Instead, he stood by as Niall fumbled his key ring with shaky fingers, peering at each key in turn with squinting eyes, before finally trying to push one in the hole.

  Callum laid a hand on Niall’s shoulder and said, “Thank you. You’ve done enough. If the laird is trapped inside, he may be dangerous. We’ll let you know when you can enter.”

  He nodded and stepped back. Callum easily turned the key and pushed the door open.

  No sound came from inside the darkened bedchamber.

  Still, they moved forward cautiously, weapons raised, eyes sharp. The fire had burned down to embers. They quickly put more wood in the hearth and lit the candles that were on either side of the bed and resting in sconces on the walls. A chair covered in beautiful blue silk with a matching footstool sat in front of the fire, and a shiny silver pitcher with a basin sat beside the bed. On the wall hung a remarkable painting of a laird receiving fealty from his clan.

  ’Twas obviously the richest room in the keep, and one Machar Murray kept for himself.

  Lachlan moved toward the bed, high and well sprung with a draped canopy over the top. The quilt matched the chair other than a pool of orange-gold silk in a pile on top. No, not silk. He reached down and picked up a handful of the long, curling strands that lay on the bed.

  Hair.

  An astonishing color that gleamed in the firelight, the strands were as long as his arm and twisted in big, springy curls. And the feel. He couldn’t get over how soft it was.

  A sense memory came to him. The same silky softness running through his fingers, the same luminescent color, but not in long ropes like this. No, the other had been shorter, jaggedly cut, on a dirty face with startling violet eyes. He found himself holding his breath as his brain sought to make the connection. Then it hit him.

  The lad.

  He spotted a woman’s dress on the floor and picked it up in his other hand.

  “Christ Almighty.”

  Callum glanced over from where he’d been peering out the window into the black night. “What is it?”

  Lachlan showed him the handful of hair, a fine tremor running beneath his skin, his heart feeling like it might burst from his chest.

  Callum frowned as he came over, looking at the fiery tresses. “The lad?”

  “Aye, the ‘lad.’”

  The one he couldn’t stop thinking about, with the bonnie face and soft body despite how wee he was. The lad who’d been so yielding beneath him, pliant—until he’d bitten Lachlan’s hand and smashed their foreheads together.

  The lad whose arse had fit so snugly between his thighs on his horse and in his palm as they’d crawled across the field.

  He looked at his palm. Felt his hand tingle, and an answering tingle in his groin that turned into a surge.

  She’d felt soft. She’d bitten his hand and smashed their foreheads together. She’d fit snugly between his thighs, her arse pressed up against him, his arms around her waist.

  “Nay.” Lachlan raised the hair to his face. Smelled it…so sweet, like lavender. “The lass.”

  He pinned his gaze on Niall, who hovered in the door, wringing his hands. “’Tis Amber. You cut her hair, dressed her like a boy. Did you get her out in time?”

  By the way his face darkened, Lachlan knew Niall understood his meaning—did Amber escape before Murray raped her?

  “Barely. If you hadn’t come when you did, he would have gone after her. He’s…obsessed. Amber held him off for a long time. She pretended to be a witch, as did her grandmother before her. Laird Murray is superstitious.”

  “I doona understand. The lass is the lad’s sister?” Callum asked.

  “Nay. The lad, with the bonnie face and bright blue eyes, is the lass.”

  Callum’s brow lifted as understanding struck. “Of course. How could we not have seen it? That face, those eyes. And they’re more purple than blue.”

  “Violet,” Niall said. “Same as her grandmother’s in her day.” He sounded wistful.

  “Aye, violet,” Callum said as Lachlan nodded his agreement.

  He glanced around the room, looking for signs of another exit. “How’d you get her out?”

  Niall dropped his gaze to his key ring, fiddled with it. “Och, surely I doona understand what you mean?”

  Callum strode toward a sturdy wooden chest with a shell inlay that sat against the wall by the inner corner. “’Twould be here, most likely.”

  “Aye. It would bring her out right by the hay wagon.” Lachlan had just taken a step toward the chest when he heard a sharp whistle followed by, “Archer at the barracks! Hold the perimeter! Hold the perimeter!”

  His heart raced again as hope filled his breast. Who else would be fighting them now? Not the MacPhersons. And a bow was Machar Murray’s preferred weapon. “’Tis him!” he said, and strode purposefully to the door.

  Callum followed, shouting orders to the men. “Find the passageway and block it off at both ends. Then search for others.”

  Lachlan ran along the corridor and down both flights of stairs. He was almost in the great room when he realized he still carried Amber’s hair clenched in one fist, and her dress in the other. He hesitated. He should drop the hair, let it disappear amongst the rushes, but his hand closed tighter, everything within him rejecting the idea. Instead, he opened his sporran and stuffed the hair inside.

  As he exited the keep and started down the stairs to the bailey, he held on to the dress too. He’d give it to one of his men to return to Amber at the waterfall. He wanted her to know he knew she was a woman. That he saw her.

  He was almost at the bottom when he glanced up and stopped short.

  Aye, he saw her all right. Running across the bailey, her plaid hiked up to her knees, her hood back, looking like the devil was after her when she
should be tied up and under guard at his camp.

  How in the name of all that was holy had she escaped?

  A few weapons lay on the ground and spots of blood stained the grass, but considering how crowded the bailey had been not long ago, now it was surprisingly clear. The MacPherson prisoners were tied up together in the barracks, and his men were all either guarding them or on patrol around the castle and keep. Whoever had been in the bailey had most likely run to Hamish’s aid—as Lachlan should be doing now.

  Instead, he stepped off the last stair and moved to intercept Amber. No one chased her, so he assumed she’d been allowed in, and mindless panic showed on her cleaned-up face. Maybe the archer had frightened her?

  She looked up at the last minute and barely avoided barreling into him. He found himself disappointed, and realized he wanted to feel her against him again, especially now that he knew she was a woman—possibly the loveliest he’d ever seen, even with wood chips in her hair and the cut strands sticking out all over the place.

  Her cheeks were flushed and her violet eyes bright, her lips full and rosy. She panted through her mouth as she caught her breath, and he could see a sliver of pink tongue between her teeth. He wanted to move closer and capture it with his own.

  His eyes dropped lower to her heaving chest, and the blood drummed hard in his temples. God’s truth, she wasn’t built like a boy in the slightest. Her plaid had fallen back and her breasts pressed against the damp white linen shirt. They were high and lush with pebbled nipples he wanted to roll between his fingers. Better yet, on his tongue.

  No wonder she felt soft. He couldn’t believe he’d been fooled.

  She pulled the plaid back up around her shoulders, and when he raised his head to meet her gaze she turned even pinker from embarrassment. Still, she lifted her chin just a notch and crossed her arms over her chest.

  “Laird,” she said, sounding prim and condemning all at once.

  “Lass,” he responded, irritated by her frigid tone. She was a fighter and her spirit was hotter than Hades. He’d seen it. Felt it.

  They continued to stare at each other, neither willing to give quarter. He heard Callum snort with amusement from somewhere behind him, and his annoyance heightened.