“Maybe that’s what worries me,” the husband grumbled.
“When I left,” Joshua said, “there was talk of starting a school to teach writing, reading, and cipher. Both for lads and lasses.”
The woman smacked the man’s arm. “She could be educated, too.”
The man nodded thoughtfully. “My angel is very clever.”
Alyce looked back to Kára. “We will go with you, the three of us.” She yanked her husband’s arm, and they walked toward the door where several small groups still spoke.
Hilda sat beside Kára. “Will Robert call on his nephew, the king, to harass the Sinclairs for giving us a place to live?”
“I do not intend to tell him where we are going,” Kára said. “He may not even realize that our numbers have declined until spring when he comes to round us up to work on his new fortress in Kirkwall.”
“But when he discovers that we have gone with Joshua,” Harriett said, glancing his way, “if he puts in a complaint to the king, James could ride against the Sinclairs.”
Before the death of his father, Joshua had heard his sire’s plans to take over all of Scotland, dethroning King James. He had kept such treasonous ideas only among his four sons and himself. Since his death, Gideon tried to plant the seed of treason in his eldest brother’s ear. Of all the Sinclair brothers, the third eldest was the one with far-reaching plans for success. But Cain had seemed to care little for taking the throne of Scotland, despite him being raised as the Horseman of Conquest.
Joshua met Hilda’s wise eyes. “King James would be a fool to waste his resources battling the combined strength of the Sinclair, Sutherland, and Mackay clans for a mere one hundred people. If Robert petitions for intervention, my brothers and I will see that nothing comes of it.” Surely, Gideon could convince the king that turning the Sinclairs and their allies against him would not be in the best interest of the Scottish realm.
“And will you wed my granddaughter?” Harriett Flett asked.
Kára coughed into her hand. “Amma, I have no plans to marry again,” she said, passing a glance his way before turning her gaze back to her grandmother.
Harriett looked directly at Joshua, assessing him, and he saw the resemblance to Osk in her fiery stare. Turning back to Kára, she crossed her arms over her chest. “You should make plans to, then,” she said.
Kára did not want to marry again? Would she turn him away if he asked Kára right then and there? His heart beat a little faster at the thought. Of what? Of him tying himself to one woman in a union before God or her saying no to the idea? His jaw clenched, and he made himself release the crushing press of his upper and lower teeth.
“Amma—” Kára started.
The woman held up a hand. “Aye, this journey would be to help your people, but you are a young woman who should remarry. A husband is helpful in many ways, especially if children come from your carnal adventures.”
Kára dropped her forehead into her cupped hands.
Carnal adventures? Joshua looked between Kára and her grandmother, ignoring her elderly Aunt Hilda whose gaze made him think she would ask him to strip for her medical assessment of his manly virtues. No one said anything for a long moment, and he cleared his throat. “Ye are wise to worry about your granddaughter,” he said. “I will not abandon her or any who decide to journey to the mainland.”
Harriett pointed at him. “You should marry her.”
He’d never had a grandmother, or any family member, want him to wed a lass from their family. The Horseman of War had never been serious enough to attract a woman who might want marriage. They certainly wanted his jack and strength, but not his heart.
No plans to marry. He frowned. Was Kára Flett another lass who wanted him only for the pleasure he could bring her? Before, that would not have mattered in the least. Before what? Before he’d committed to helping move her people to safety? Or before he couldn’t go an hour without thinking of the taste of her lips, the warmth of her touch, and the sound of her laughter and moans?
The room was slowly emptying. “I must check on Fuil,” he said, walking out of the tense room. The constant wind whipped around the eaves of the three aboveground houses, the cold hitting him like an icy slap. Aye, he needed to go back to Caithness before he lost bits of himself to frost, likes toes and the tip of his nose. He raised and lowered his shoulders to conceal his shiver and stomped forward toward the barn. Bloody hell, everything on Orkney was cold. Except Kára. She was warm. A fire to his ice. With her beside him, he could withstand the worst strike of cold.
He walked into the barn. With only two horses in it, the air was still icy, but the wind was blocked. Joshua ran a hand down his horse’s neck. “We will be back to Girnigoe Castle before the winter is fully here. I promise.”
Fuil tossed his head as if he understood, making Joshua smile. The door opened behind him, and his hand grabbed the hilt of the Sinclair sword that had been returned to him. He released it as Kára’s light tread moved over the dirt floor. She stopped to greet her horse, Broch, who lowered her head over the stall door for her to scratch.
“I think most of them will go,” she said. “And Amma will make sure Osk comes with us.”
He turned, leaning against the stall door. Kára stroked her horse, her strong, nimble hands following the pits and bony rises of her horse’s uniquely colored face. “Ye will not wed again?” he asked.
Her hand stayed for a moment but then continued. She did not look at him. “I married when I was seventeen. My heart was young and unguarded. When my husband was killed…the emotions of giving birth early, of worrying I would lose my babe as well…” She shook her head, not willing to look his way. “The more connections one makes, the more that can be lost, and the losses make me weak.”
“The thoughts of a warrior,” he said, crossing his arms.
“I am a warrior,” she said, giving him a small frown with a glance.
“Aye.” He heartily agreed with that. “Your heart can be armored, standing alone as a leader and warrior. But is it enough?”
Kára dropped her hands to rest on top of the stall door and turned her body toward him. “Enough for what?”
He shrugged. “Enough for being happy. ’Tis a long life if ye are lucky. But will it be years of bitter loneliness with your heart so guarded?”
She narrowed her eyes, a wry grin growing on those luscious lips. “You speak to me about matters of the heart, Horseman of War?”
“I know very little about the subject,” he conceded. “Although it seems lasses need more than…” He flipped his hand in the air, searching for the right words, words he did not know.
“More than what?”
“More than just leading and protecting,” he said, but the inflection made it sound like a question. The squinting of her eyes triggered his warrior instincts. “I thought lasses wanted more.” He shrugged.
“Wanting and needing are very different things,” she said, tipping her head to the side as she studied him. She stepped a little closer. “Like right now I want to touch you.”
His jack twitched in answer. Joshua raised an eyebrow as she stood right up against him, her breasts pressed into him slightly. “Ye do not jest?”
She shook her head, and he pulled her into him. The clever woman had ended their conversation about her not wanting to wed, but at the moment he did not care. His lips hovered directly over hers to where he could feel her shallow exhale as she waited for him to act.
“Ye want to touch me…” He inhaled the fragrance of her skin, sliding over to her ear. “But I will make ye need my touch, Kára lass,” he whispered there, his lips trailing over her warm neck. He felt her shiver, and his arms wrapped completely around her, pulling her up against his hard body.
Looking down into her face, flushed with want that he would turn to need, she was an angel with the desire for sin. She was the per
fect match of heavenly beauty and delicious wickedness, and he felt his own desire turn to need.
Joshua watched her eyes close as he descended, and then he was lost in the feel of her open lips against his. Her fingers crept over his shoulders to tangle in his hair, pulling him to round down over her, engulfing her and surrounding her at the same time. He felt her leg hitch up over his hip, grinding the crux of her against his already raging jack.
“Kára!” Osk’s voice broke through the fire surging through Joshua.
He lifted his face from Kára’s, her lashes splayed under her closed eyes.
“Kára! Erik! ’Tis Chief Erik,” Osk yelled, and Kára’s body stiffened, pulling out of the circle Joshua had created with his arms.
“Erik?” Kára asked, her breath coming fast like Joshua’s.
“Aye,” Osk said, casting a glance between the two of them, but his gaze landed on his sister. “He has returned.” He shook his head, anger tightening his face. “But he is…” Osk shook his head, “altered.”
Chapter Seventeen
“The quality of decision is like the well-trained swoop of a falcon which enables it to
strike and destroy its victim.”
Sun Tzu – The Art of War
Osk ran out, and Kára glanced back at Joshua where he fought against his hard jack, adjusting it under his kilt. Thank heavens she did not have to deal with such obvious proof of her ardor, since every time she came in contact with the Highlander, fire licked up inside to melt away any mundane intentions.
“I need to go,” she said, pressing cool palms against her heated cheeks.
He nodded. “We will finish later.”
She let a grin settle on her lips and shrugged. “Because I want to.”
A roguish smile spread across his perfect lips, obviously seeing through her baiting. “Want or need. As long as I am buried between your thighs,” he whispered, and the edges of his white teeth came together. The words and the promise-filled gesture made her lower body clench in… It bloody hell felt like need, and she rubbed her hand over the crux of her legs to push the ache away, very much as if she had her own unruly jack with which to deal.
He grinned but only stepped forward to grasp her other hand, and the two of them walked out of the barn. It seemed all of Hillside was gathered around the cottage where the council meeting had finished. Asmund walked over to her, sweat upon his face. “A couple of Robert’s men dumped him in the middle of the village.”
Asmund’s words froze the heat in Kára’s blood faster than the icy wind in her face. Was her uncle dead?
Her people turned to her in silence as she walked forward, frowns on every face and a few women dabbing their eyes. A path opened so she could enter the cottage. Not dead. Erik sat on the center chair that Kára had vacated not long ago. Hilda sat beside him, unwrapping…
“Bloody hell,” Joshua murmured beside her, and Kára rushed forward.
“Uncle,” she said, kneeling down before him to see the bloody stump, his right forearm cut clean away. The pain he must have endured… “Robert cut off your arm,” she whispered.
“My sword arm,” Erik said, his voice rough, as if he had barely survived without proper water. “So I could never raise it against him again. Strangely, I do not remember lifting a sword to any of his men.”
Amma brought him a cup of something, holding it to his lips, but he took it with his left hand. The proud man was dressed in tatters as if his clothing had been rent before being stomped in dirt and given back to him. Joshua said he’d seen him marched into the palace naked.
As if remembering him from the day of his capture, Erik’s pained face filled with hatred as he looked over her shoulder to where Joshua stood. “You are the Horseman of Death to our people. The one training Robert’s warriors to slaughter us.” His face snapped around to Kára. “You have brought the devil to Hillside?”
Kára’s gaze moved between the two proud men. “He is not allied with Robert.”
“I am the Horseman of War,” Joshua said, his face hardened to resemble someone who could bloody well bring the end of the world. “My loyalty is to God and Clan Sinclair, not to Robert Stuart.”
Erik’s dirty, unshaven face still pinched with unleashed fury. “Yet you trained them to kill us.”
“I trained them to defend themselves from raiders, but I tired of Robert’s tyranny and left.”
Erik glanced at Kára. “And are you teaching my people to defend themselves, too? So we can tear each other apart like baited animals?”
“No,” Kára said, shaking her head. “Joshua did not know our plight before coming here. He was on his way back to Scotia but has agreed to help us.”
“I do not want war for your people,” Joshua said. “War will bring only further misery and death.”
“Is not that what you feed on, Horseman?” Erik said.
“King Erik!” Torben called as he strode into the cottage. He cast a dark glance toward Joshua before coming to kneel before her uncle. “A word from you, and my men and I will attack the palace.”
“And all will die,” Kára said. “And incite Robert to order a full attack on our people.”
“When he finds out his son, Henry, is dead by our hand, he will attack anyway,” Erik said, making Kára’s gaze snap to him. “Asmund told me,” he said.
“I killed the foking bastard, not Kára,” Joshua said. “And Robert Stuart or his other son, or his mercenary, The Brute, are welcome to attack me.”
“His hundred men against you?” Torben said with a bitter laugh. “Cocky arse, go right ahead. You deserve to be slaughtered for killing his son. If he finds that we were involved in any way—”
“If Henry’s death remains a mystery, Robert will have no need to attack,” Kára said, her voice riding over Torben’s tantrum. Her gaze connected with each of the five people in the room, landing on Erik. She had thought Asmund wise enough to keep his mouth shut, although having found their chief, the man would have felt obligated to inform him about what had transpired. Hopefully, Asmund was not now whispering what he knew to all the people of Hillside.
Hilda finished slathering a thick salve over the raw end of Erik’s stump and took clean linens from Amma, wrapping them deftly around it. The only sign that Erik was in pain was his silence and closing of his eyes, the muscles in his jaws twitching as he clenched his teeth. They all waited for him to open his eyes.
Erik let out a weary exhale, looking to Torben. “Ready the men for war. We march tonight against Robert and those who stand with him.”
“Ye will lead your people to death,” Joshua said, his arms crossed.
“You are not expected to come,” Erik said.
Kára stood straight, legs braced. “There is a better way. We are welcome in Scotia. Joshua will lead us to the mainland of Scotland where we can build a safe and—”
Erik held his palm out to stop her and pushed slowly out of the chair. He took a step toward her, a slight limp that made Hilda look down at his leg. “We attack tonight,” Erik repeated. “With or without the Horseman of War.”
Joshua stared straight at him, not backing down an inch. “Then have your women stay behind and dig your graves.”
Erik continued to stare in Kára’s eyes, his brows pinching sharply inward. “Better my grave than a boy’s.”
Boy? Kára couldn’t speak, the world suspended in that moment, waiting to see if the weight would fall off her shoulders or crush her.
“What boy?” Joshua asked, coming up next to her.
Erik did not break the tether of their gazes as he answered. “They have Geir.”
…
“Kára, wait,” Joshua called as he raced after her toward the small stable where they had just kissed. How bloody much could change in a matter of minutes. He caught her at the barn door and wrapped his hand around her wrist. She twisted towar
d him, the wind whipping her hair before her eyes. “Ye cannot get on Broch and ride to Robert by yourself, demanding Geir’s return.”
Her face was a mix of agony and determined fury. Teeth gritted and eyes narrowed, she yanked her arm from him. “The hell I can’t.”
He followed her into the barn, stopping her at her horse’s stall by pinning her arms against the door. “Let go of me,” she ordered.
“I will when ye have moved past blind hatred, which will only see ye dead, into rational thought.” He leaned forward so they stood face-to-face.
He stared into her eyes until her rapid breathing slowed. She blinked. “They will kill him,” she whispered, and he could see the fury give way to despair as the sheen of unshed tears washed across her gray-blue eyes. “Or worse. Torture.” She shook her head and swallowed. “He is only nine.” Her eyes squeezed shut. “Right now…he is so frightened. I know he is.”
Joshua slid his hold on her wrists to her hands, intertwining their fingers. “Geir has the bravery of both his mother and father, Kára. It will keep him strong until we can free him.”
“I must free him,” she said. “I gladly give myself for him.”
He pulled her into his arms even though she was stiff. “I know. Let us do so with a plan instead of running headlong into Robert’s clutches.” He tipped her chin up to meet his eyes. “Trust me. Can ye? To do everything I can to help ye get him back whole?”
Several heartbeats thudded through him before she nodded. “Aye,” she whispered. “I trust you.”
He pulled in a full breath with her words. “Let us go inside and form a plan.”
She gave a small nod and pulled away, but her hand found his on the way to the door. Her fingers tangled with his, and the returned gesture made his chest squeeze with something he had not felt before. It made him want to wrap Kára up so nothing could hurt her. The fact that he could not made the feeling painful. He breathed out, forcing his muscles to relax.
Erik Flett stood in fresh clothing before a group of Hillside men at the top of the hill. Their faces grim, they turned to look at Joshua as he came up. “Have you come to help us fight or continue to talk about my people abandoning their home?” Erik asked.
Highland Warrior Page 19
