Isolde nodded and squeezed his hand. The melee would be the following day, but she had no interest in staying to observe the mock battle. “I should like that very much,” she replied. “I’ll return to the castle with Matilda to have my chambers packed for our departure.”
“And I’ll find Graham to let him know we’ll be returning earlier than anticipated.”
Cormac pulled Isolde to his side with his healthy arm, his movements gentle in light of both their injuries. “I enjoyed calling ye ‘wife’ earlier. I look forward to calling ye ‘wife’ henceforth.” He pressed his mouth to hers in a tender kiss.
Isolde wanted to remain locked in the warmth of his arms, kissing his sensual lips, and reassuring herself again and again that he was still alive and that he was hers. However, she had much to prepare for their departure.
“There’s only one final thing I need.”
Cormac gave her a suggestive grin. “And what is that?”
She returned his grin with a coquettish one. “My armor.”
Cormac approached the outskirts of the village where he had promised to meet Isolde. His stomach twisted with apprehension.
She would not be pleased with what he had to tell her. He had gone to Graham to explain his early departure and discovered the Rosses had given his brother no choice but to fight against them. He had, of course, anticipated Cormac would join him.
Cormac didn’t protest. Not when he knew his brother needed him. They never let one another down.
While he was anticipating making Isolde his wife, he was not looking forward to telling Isolde of his plans. She would be upset, especially in light of his injuries.
In truth, he was much better now. The blow to his arm had merely bruised it deeply, but nothing was broken. The injuries to his head had not addled him as thoroughly as he had initially feared.
Suddenly Isolde was there, sauntering torward him and all thoughts of telling her about the melee the following day slipped away. She was awash in the moonlight, wearing a lovely blue kirtle with small beads that winked like stars in the semi-darkness. Matilda was at her side, ready to bear witness to their union, the same as Alan, who followed behind Cormac. Graham had wanted to come but had to see about his own lady
Pip raced toward her with his usual eagerness, excitedly greeting her before Cormac even had a chance. Isolde stood as he approached and smiled at him so broadly and beautifully that his heart squeezed.
She wore a crown of white flowers on her head, her long auburn hair left unbound to blow gently around her in the light breeze. She reached for him as he approached, and he caught her slender hand in his, lifting it to his lips. No longer caring if he looked like a courtier or not. He simply wanted nothing more than her happiness.
Mayhap it would be best to tell her about the melee after they wed. Aye, that’s what he would do. Wait until they were alone and could speak privately.
“Will ye marry me now, my bonny Isolde?” he asked.
“Aye.” She pushed their clasped hands to her chest. “With all the joy in my heart.”
Together, their small party entered the village to where the priest awaited them in the small stone church. They made their vows there, amid several rows of empty pews and whitewash chipping from every corner of the stone walls. Only several candles had been lit, giving off more greasy smoke than light. It was not the typical wedding of an earl’s daughter, let alone that of a chieftain.
But the woman he married was what made it all perfect.
In the end, the priest pronounced them man and wife in God’s eyes and those of man. They kissed chastely, and with that, their souls were bound for all eternity.
They intended to stay the night in the castle, without fear of reproach, in light of their marriage. Their party returned to the Rose Citadel together, with Isolde and Cormac in front and Pip bouncing excitedly back and forth between Isolde and Alan.
Cormac kept Isolde tucked close to him on his good side. This was yet another opportunity that would be perfect for him to confess that he had to fight in the melee the following day. He was in the midst of composing what he meant to say when Isolde spoke.
“Tell me about Sutherland.” She smiled up at him. “I want to learn more about my new home.”
It pleased him that she was so eager to learn of the land where she would be living alongside him, ruling his people. He meant only to tell her of the castle, and several of the servants who would be there for whatever task she needed. But the sparkle in her eyes was so bright and her expression so eager that he found himself going into great detail on the beauty of the land: the emerald-green hills dotted with patches of purple heather and a rich blue sky sprawling endlessly overhead with clouds spread about like tufts of cotton.
“I’m eager to go,” she said.
“As am I. Speaking of it has made me realize how much I miss home.” He led her up the stairs of the Rose Citadel to the guest suites where her rooms were located. Their journey had been quicker than he had anticipated. Once more, he had squandered his opportunity to tell her about the melee.
The main room to her apartment had two carefully packed trunks set to the side. Isolde indicated the trunks. “I’m quite obviously ready for an early morning departure.”
Cormac winced as she pulled him toward the private bedchamber they would share once more. She immediately let go of his hand. “What is it?”
He led her into the chamber, closing the door and latching it behind him. “I canna leave on the morrow.”
She blinked. “Why not?”
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Graham must participate in the melee tomorrow, and I promised I would fight at his side. As we’ve always done.”
She shook her head. “You can’t. You’re injured.”
“I’ve had worse.” He winked at her.
“Not before a fight, surely.” Her eyes welled with tears. “I feared I would lose you forever today. I cannot stand the thought that you would put your life at risk once more. Especially when your body has not fully recovered.”
“It willna be as dangerous.” He took her hand in his and turned her forearm over to reveal the dark bruise on her fair skin. He ran his thumb gently over it. “Ye’re as stubborn as I am when it comes to what ye know ye have to see to. Isolde, I must do this.”
She nodded solemnly. She understood as he knew she would. He didn’t like it any more than she did, but he could not leave his brother to defend himself in the melee.
They kissed then, a hungry, desperate kiss that spoke of their concern for one another, for all the feelings words could never adequately convey. And later, when they joined together, they took their time loving each other. They learned each other’s bodies, pleasing one another until their skin was slick with sweat and their limbs trembled with exhaustion. They cherished the night before the next day’s fight, not stopping until they fell into a languid sleep.
For the following day would be another battle. Brodie’s visage flashed in Cormac’s mind just before sleep claimed him: the twisted mask of rage.
Cormac would do well to mind his enemy, for surely Brodie would come seeking vengeance.
16
The following morning, Isolde woke to Cormac sleeping next to her. No longer was this the day they journeyed to Sutherland. This would be the day of the melee, with Cormac once more placed in danger.
Only this time, she had a plan at the ready.
They took their time rousing; their bodies loathe to pull away from one another. Yet as he rose from the bed, the heat of his skin against hers was lost. Protests circled in her mind regardless of how many times she shoved them away.
“I wish you would not go.” Isolde settled her feet on the cool wooden floors and drew herself upright from the bed as well.
“I’d prefer to be leaving for Sutherland instead.” Cormac belted his hose and drew his tunic over his head. “And we will. On the morrow.”
He crossed the room to stand before her and opened his powerfu
l arms. She allowed him to pull her against the heat of his strong chest, where the steady beat of his heart ticked its rhythm against her cheek. How she wished she could stay like that forever, locked in the comfort of his embrace.
“Be safe, husband.” She rose on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his mouth.
“With ye to come back to, wife, no’ even heaven itself could stop me from returning.” He smoothed a hand over her hair and cupped her face.
It wasn’t heaven she worried about. It was the Rosses. Particularly Brodie Ross, who had proven to be an adversary that did not readily admit defeat. “Who is it Graham seeks to fight against in the melee?” Isolde asked.
Cormac hesitated long enough for her to know the answer before he replied. “One of Brodie’s brothers.”
As she had anticipated. She nodded. “Do not underestimate him.”
“Dinna worry after me.” Cormac kissed her. The brush of their lips was quick but still intimate. It made her want to keep him there for all eternity.
“I can’t help it,” Isolde said in a pained voice.
“I’ll return posthaste.” With one final kiss, he was gone, leaving the castle for his tent where Alan would help dress him in his armor.
As soon as Cormac departed, Isolde found Matilda in the main room by the fire as she worked on the mending. “I require your assistance,” Isolde said.
Matilda practically threw her sewing to the floor and flew to her feet. “Of course, my lady. Anything.”
“Prepare me for the melee.” Isolde leveled her gaze at her maid. “As my brother.”
Matilda’s brows drew together with concern.
“I am going to ensure Cormac remains safe,” Isolde explained. “He sustained injuries yesterday. I only want to reassure myself no harm will come to him.”
Matilda’s shoulders relaxed from their tense perch, and she quickly rushed to do as Isolde bid. First, she bound Isolde’s hair back in a thick braid, then put on the gambeson and hose, followed by the chainmail and surcoat. Once done, Isolde dropped the helm over her head. She suppressed a shudder at her limited visibility and how vividly it reminded her of the fight with Brodie.
Cormac had been correct when he’d said she would have died against Edmund. After witnessing the blows Cormac had endured, Isolde knew she would have been incapacitated after the first one.
She would not have walked away from that fight. Cormac had kept her safe, as he’d promised he would the day he’d made the vow to protect her.
Now, as his wife, she would do the same for him.
She waited until the first charge on horseback was over and several knights had descended into hand-to-hand combat before joining the field on foot. She needed to be as close to the warriors as she could get, and horseback wouldn’t allow that. After all, she wasn’t there to win. She was there to protect.
Several knights attacked her as soon as she entered the field. One came at her from the right, but she blocked his blow and managed to evade the thrust of his pike as someone else locked him in combat from the other side. Another came at her head-on, swinging his iron-spiked club.
These were lethal weapons being used in a melee that was supposed to be absent death.
She shifted her horse away from the attack as the knight strode off toward another hapless victim. A band of tall men with red-and-white surcoats traveling in a group together caught her attention. She recognized their surcoats as the Ross clan’s. No doubt, the five brothers and several of their warriors. The group didn’t appear to be fighting actively, so much as heading in a specific direction.
Isolde could make out the Sutherland crest on Cormac and Graham’s surcoats in the distance. Which was exactly the direction that the Ross brothers were heading.
No doubt to exact revenge.
Cormac could practically smell the odor of the Ross clan advancing toward them. They stank of weakness, failure and blind vengeance.
“They’re coming,” he said.
Graham nodded and hefted his bladed mace. Lachlan and Duncan did likewise with their pikes. They’d all left their swords back at the tent, knowing the men who would attack them would be using weapons made for getting through chainmail. To do otherwise would put them at a great disadvantage.
Hoofbeats thundered as the Rosses came at them all at once, a pack of twelve roaring warriors intent on killing with war hammers and maces and skinny-speared pikes. Brodie charged at Cormac as another brother, presumably Baston, went for Graham and the others dispersed between them.
Brodie swiped his war hammer at Cormac’s left arm, exactly over his injury from Edmund. Cormac managed to get his mace up in time to block the blow. Had it struck, it might have been debilitating.
Clangs and grunts echoed as Graham, Lachlan and Duncan fought the other Ross warriors in unbalanced matches.
Two more warriors joined Brodie, all coming at Cormac at the same time. He moved as swiftly as he could to block the blows, but one of Brodie’s hits made it past his defenses and slammed into his back, knocking the wind from his lungs and leaving fire in its place. A second hit followed the first and Cormac rocked on his saddle, his balance shifting. The pain in his back had been so stunning, he couldn't properly catch his balance and pitched from his horse.
He gasped for breath at the hard landing and staggered backward in an attempt to regain his bearings before resuming the fight on foot. Brodie leapt from his own horse, joining Cormac on the ground, and lashing out with the heavy metal head of his weapon.
A perfectly placed blow could easily shatter one of Cormac’s bones.
Another warrior charged at him, one shorter and thinner than Brodie. An easier target.
Cormac lifted his mace and brought it down hard on the warrior’s shoulder. The needle-like blades of the mace sunk through the man’s chain, turning it red with blood. He cried out in agony as Cormac jerked his weapon free. It gave way with a wet, sucking sound.
His opponent doubled over in pain. That was when Cormac caught sight of the person racing toward them with purpose. His heart caught as he recognized the surcoat. Dark blue with white trim and a white moon and sun.
The surcoat of the Earl of Easton.
Which meant the person charging toward the heat of battle between the Sutherlands and the Rosses was Isolde.
Cormac bellowed his disapproval; his attention so fixated on her as she neared them that he did not see the hammer come down upon him. It struck his left arm with a hit that glanced off his chainmail and left his bones rattling. His vision clouded in his agony.
Brodie took a menacing step toward Cormac and lifted the hammer with intent. The pain kept Cormac frozen in place for a half a second too long, leaving him at the momentary mercy of his enemy.
Isolde leapt from her horse, plowing her full body weight into Brodie, so he was jarred sideways. As he drew himself upright, she retrieved the pike his brother had dropped on the ground and came to Cormac’s wounded side.
“Ye shouldna be here,” he growled.
“I see ye’ve called on yer new ally’s aid,” Brodie said from beneath his helm. “I hadna realized Lord Easton harbored such affection for the Sutherland clan.”
Brodie’s injured warrior sat off to the side, gasping and completely ignored by the other warriors who still fought.
“I’ll kill ye both for yer betrayal.” Brodie readjusted the hammer in his hand as one of the men fighting Graham turned away from him and toward Cormac.
“I dinna want ye here,” Cormac said to Isolde. “Go now.”
“Nay.” She hefted the pike in front of her.
“Get Lord Easton away from Sutherland,” Brodie said in a harsh cry as he charged at them.
Suddenly, another warrior was on them as well. Cormac’s arm did not appear to be broken, but neither could he adequately use it, leaving him to swing his mace with only the strength of one arm rather than two. It was a disadvantage that could cost them their lives.
Much as he tried to stop it from happening, Brodie
managed to shove him back with rapid, repeated arcs of his war hammer. In doing so, Cormac and Isolde were separated.
Exactly as Brodie had wanted.
One of the brothers swung his hammer at her, catching her in the head and knocking her forcefully to the ground. She did not rise.
“Nay,” Cormac howled.
The two men battling her turned their attention on him. One, he managed to strike with his mace, but not before Brodie could heft Isolde to her feet and race off with her light frame slung over his back.
Cormac bellowed in rage, his body exploding with energy as he struck at his opponent again and again and again. He didn’t stop until the heavy head of the mace sank into the softness of a chainmail-covered body. The Ross warrior in front of him sank to his knees.
Cormac did not wait to see if the man got back up, or for the other man to attack once more. Nay, he sprinted across the field as fast as his chainmail and thick gambeson would allow, heading in the direction he’d seen Brodie take Isolde. He found Brodie on a horse with Isolde’s limp body secured between his arms, racing away.
Frantic, Cormac scanned the area for his horse, unable to find him after having been unhorsed. A lone black destrier stood beside an unmoving knight. Cormac leapt onto the horse and snapped its reins, guiding the beast to follow Brodie.
No matter what it took, Cormac would rescue his wife.
17
Pain echoed in Isolde’s temples. It rang in her ears with an intensity that slowly brought her to awareness. Darkness surrounded her, and her breath huffed raggedly in her own ears. She shook her head, but the sensation didn’t clear.
Her helm. She still was wearing her helm.
“Why did ye decide to go back on our plan?” Rough hands hauled her upright, and Brodie’s face came into the view of her visor. “We had an arrangement. I’d already set my men into action against yer cursed king. And now ye’ve deprived me of yer sister’s dowry?”
The Highlander's Lady Knight (Midsummer Knights Book 2) Page 13
