The Highland Wife

She felt badly for misjudging him last evening and treating him to that wicked temper of hers. Her worst failing was to judge too quickly. He was not the first to suffer for it, but she would make amends.

Likely he had only been tired and out of sorts from the long journey. And very shy, of course. Mairi was firmly convinced that was his greatest problem. Nothing she could not alter, of course. Anyone would vouch that Mairi MacInness harbored not one shy bone in her body.

In a while he got up, replaced his boots and found her shoes and hose for her. While she donned them, he left her to fetch the basket still lashed to her mare’s saddle.

Silently, speaking only with their eyes, they ate, relishing the food and imagining each other’s thoughts.

He held out a sliver of cheese. Mairi leaned forward and accepted it, grazing the tips of his finger and thumb with her lips as she did so. The heat in that gray gaze rekindled the fire inside her his kiss had first ignited. She carefully banked it for now. There were the vows to say yet and he mustn’t think her wanton.

What a strangely intimate meal it was. Now that they had kissed, MacBain’s eyes spoke clearly of what he would rather be doing. Yet he restrained himself, as did she. She chose to believe he did so out of respect for her and applauded that, even as she regretted the rightness of his restraint.

“We should go back,” she said slowly, reluctantly, when they had finished the meal.

He nodded and began to help her gather up the cloths and cups and place them in the basket. Then he rose and offered her his hand.

The instant she gained her feet, he drew her into his arms and surrounded her with his strength. Mairi could feel the warmth of his lips brush the crown of her head.

Never had she felt so protected. And wanted, too. She could hear his heartbeat against her ear when she pressed her head comfortably against his chest. Mairi decided she could stay where she was forever and be content.

The sound of distant thunder distracted her. Puzzling. It had not rained for several days and she had seen no clouds anywhere this morn.

Suddenly he tensed, his hands grasping her shoulders as he set her away from him. When she looked up to question him, she saw how watchful he had become, how alert and still, as though expecting danger.

His nostrils flared as if seeking a particular scent. Then he looked down at her. “Do you hear?”

“Only thunder,” she replied with a shrug. “Still far away, though. It will not reach us for some time yet, but—”

He placed two fingers over her mouth. “Listen.”

Mairi obeyed, tuning her full attention to the rumbling noise. “Not thunder!” she whispered in awe, clutching his forearms. The sound did not abate or vary, but was constant and growing louder. “Hoof beats!” she cried, pushing him away, toward their mounts. “A raid! Coom, we must hurry!”

But MacBain rushed ahead of her. He leaped onto his horse and drew his sword. “Wait here!” he commanded, whirled his mount around and set off at a gallop.

Mairi led her mare over to the same large stone she always used to remount when she came here. In moments, she was right behind him, careful to keep a few lengths distant in the event he would turn and order her back to the glade for safety.

Even some distance away, she heard the shouts and cries and clang of metal. Swords!

When she drew closer, Mairi realized this was no neighborly raid to filch a few of her father’s cattle. Craigmuir was under serious attack.

Rob charged through the open gates of Craigmuir and found hell itself.

Unable to distinguish friend from foe in the melee, he quickly searched for his own men. Markie was down, a dirk in his chest, eyes staring sightless at the sky. On the steps lay the hefty Elmore in a pool of blood. He did not see Newton. Or Wee Andy.

His fleeting gaze snagged on a dark blue mantle spread like wings upon the ground near the well. The laird!

Rob surged toward the attacker towering over his host and slew the raider with one swing of the blade. A small figure darted past the body even as it fell.

“Mairiee!” Rob shouted and swung off his mount. Damn the woman! Had she not heard his order to stay in the wood? Another enemy rushed at him the moment Rob grasped Mairi around the waist. Just in time, he twisted sidewise and thrust his sword up, spitting the oncomer. The opposing blade just missed striking her face.

He roared as he kicked the body off his weapon, furious and frantic to get Mairi to safety. In desperation, he backed against the well wall, trapping her behind him.

“Stay!” he commanded.

Instead she wriggled right past him and ran to her father, who had managed to get to his hands and knees. Rob dispatched another who would have cut him down and then joined her.

Half dragging the laird, he sheltered the two in a corner betwixt the castle wall and the armory and stood guard against any who would do them harm.

He chanced to spy Wee Andy on the parapet wielding his short bow with a vengeance. The stout lad made his next shot, waved Rob’s way and pointed to a tangle of bodies around the gate. He raised one hand and rotated his fist, Newton’s name sign, given for his expertise with a flail. Then Andy held a palm up and quickly turned it down. Newton, dead. Damn!

Rob nodded to show he understood. Of the contingent who had come to Craigmuir with him to fetch his bride, only he and Andy were left. He could not wait to quit this cursed land, to take his bride and go from here.

Had the tournaments taught him nothing? He’d been too long away, that was the problem. Soft, he was becoming. Like the gentle lad he’d once been, harboring that profound reverence for life his father had warned him against revealing to those who might do him ill.

Trouville had encouraged him to travel the Continent with Henri, and thereby caused Rob’s absence when the boy king from England had thrust into Scotland two years ago. Now Rob wished he had been there. He sorely lacked experience in this.

Here was no mock battle with rules set by the marshal and a horn to sound the end. Men were dying, three by his own blade thus far! Mairi’s death had been a very near thing and his own barely avoided. While he did not fear death, neither did he welcome it just yet.

The time had come to steel himself, to banish again any empathy or sympathy that would mark him as weak. To be the warrior he had trained so diligently to be. To kill and kill again, or else be killed.

Rob pulled in a harsh breath and observed the fighting, searching for identifying characteristics in the combatants. The few men he did recognize from the evening before in Craigmuir’s hall looked a sight more refined than the great, hairy, half-naked brutes who fought them. A ragged, unwashed band, these raiders who had come to do battle.

And at the moment, they were prevailing.

Quickly he turned and pulled the wounded laird to his feet. “Go in!” he shouted to Mairi. After a quick glance to insure the armory was empty, he shoved her and her father inside. “Bar the door!”

Satisfied that they would be safer there than anywhere else in this godforsaken place, Rob drew another deep breath, dashed forward and fully engaged in the slaughter.

When the clangs and shouts of the fight finally diminished, Mairi heard a frantic knocking. Hurriedly she peered through a crack between the boards and threw open the door. Young Davy, her father’s foundling squire, rushed in.

“Did ye see him, m’laird?” the lad asked as he dropped to his knees on the dirt floor of the armory beside his master. “Afore ye fell, did ye see?”

“So it’s over then?” Mairi asked absently, shoving the gangly bairn out of the way.

“Aye!” young Davy answered, his voice full of awe. “The handful left standin’ turned and ran just now. Laird MacBain gives chase! God’s nails, he’s ruthless, that one!”

Then his gaze dropped and focused upon his master’s wound. “Ach, sire, ’tis verra bad, this here!”

Mairi motioned him back outside. “Get some of the men. We must move him into the keep. ’Tis too dark in here to treat his wound.” Mairi pressed both her hands over the gaping gash in her father’s side. “Make haste, Davy!”

Her sire might not live the night, she reckoned, but she would not give him up just yet. “Hold on, Da,” she whispered, struggling to imbue her voice with hope.

His wan smile worried her more than a gruff reprimand would have done. One of his huge paws wrapped around her bloody wrist. “Lass, get…get you from Craigmuir, lest Ranald find you here when he comes back.”

“Ranald?” Mairi’s disgust made her grimace. “Aye, I should have guessed this was his doing,” she growled. “Greedy wretch! Th’ cowardly bastard didna swing his own sword today, I’ll wager ye that!”

“Nay, he’ll be elsewhere so he can look innocent of it. But he’ll come once he hears I’m dead, daughter. He is my tanist, God rot his hide.”

Mairi tossed her head in disgust. “We can hold Craigmuir against the likes of him anyday.”