Authors: Susan Sizemore
Allen nodded. “Burke tells me they took her prisoner and left him for dead on the shingle. He crawled away at sundown. I found him trying to reach Cape Wrath—trying to bring his plea for aid to
you
, Murray—just an hour ago. He’s blood-soaked and 142
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frantic for the safety of his woman, but he’s determined to get her back or die trying.
The damn fool,” he added, but Rowan thought the Allen sounded strangely proud of his brother despite his words.
Rowan was halfway to being proud of the fool himself. No, not quite half, but a man had to admire another man’s daring and determination, at least a wee bit. Burke had always been so honorable in his courtship of Micaela and in his assertion that there could be peace between the clans that Rowan had never expected him to run off with the girl like a normal man. There was something about Burke that was likable—for a Harboth—but he was still a Harboth who had put a Murray in danger.
“I don’t understand much of this, you know,” Maddie said. “What’s going to happen to Micaela?”
When he looked Maddie in the eye, Rowan saw that she knew very well what could happen to a woman captured by a band of ruthless raiders. She was a woman herself after all, one who’d been tossed into an alien landscape, vulnerable as all women without men to protect them were. She wanted to hear reassuring words about Micaela, he knew, not tales of rape and degradation and slave trading.
Fortunately, he had some hope to offer her. “Capturing and selling slaves is a good way to spend the summer for these Orkney traders. They think of their profits from these occasional raids before they think of satisfying their lusts.”
“Occasional? You mean slave raiding is just a sideline?” she asked in surprise.
“Aye, they sell smoked fish and woolens most of the year,” Allen answered. “But sometimes they deal in humans as well, especially if the fishing’s been bad.”
“How—Viking of them.” She turned her worried gaze back to Rowan. “But?”
“Pretty young girls are more valuable untouched,” Rowan explained. “Micaela’s a beauty.”
“A Moorish, Byzantine or Italian lord will pay more for her if she’s still a virgin,”
Allen explained.
“She better still be a virgin,” Rowan said as he turned a dark look on Allen. It was a threatening brotherly look that Maddie was sure was really directed at Burke.
“She’s going to be sold into a harem?”
“Or a brothel,” Allen elucidated.
“I didn’t need to hear that,” she complained to the far-too-sophisticated-about-his-world Harboth.
“Nor did I,” Rowan added. “Take me to your brother,” he ordered Allen.
“Aye.” Allen gave Maddie a quick, beseeching look. “He needs aid, lass.”
She didn’t bother explaining that first aid wasn’t her strong point but lifted her heavy skirts and followed the men out of the house and down the steep hillside.
Burke Harboth was propped up against a big boulder halfway down the track. The White Lady was already with him. So was a belligerent-looking group of men.
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“Murrays,” Allen Harboth snarled angrily. He stepped up beside his brother and put his hand on his sword. “Touch the lad and I’ll take a dozen of you down with me.”
The White Lady from her position kneeling next to the prone Burke swatted Allen on the back of one bare leg. “Hush. Besides, there’s only eight Murrays standing there for you to try to kill.”
“Still pretty stupid odds,” Maddie said quietly. She couldn’t help but exchange an amused look with the White Lady on the display of male bravado. Then she remembered that she was furious with the bogus wisewoman and looked away.
Rowan heard his wife’s words and put a hand on her arm. “Allen Harboth’s not to be underestimated,” he warned her quietly. “Be careful of him, lass.”
She had the obscure feeling that he meant the words in more than one way. He stepped up beside his men before she could ask what he meant. No one paid her any mind as Maddie stepped back and leaned against another of the many gray boulders that strewed the mostly barren hillside. The sky overhead was typically gray with low clouds, wispy white fog clung to the hilltops in the distance. A cool wind blew inland from the sea a few miles away, mixing the scent of salt with that of pine and heather.
She was left feeling alone and left out as the Murrays began to talk.
“Micaela’s gone,” Father Andrew reported.
“For nearly two days now,” Walter added.
“Ran off with the Harboth lad,” Angus reported. “Left a message for you with Rosemary about not being able to wait any longer.”
“We tracked him here,” Father Andrew said. “Micaela’s not with him but we thought we might kill him anyway after we found out what he did with her.”
Weapons were drawn at the priest’s words. Rowan held up a hand. “I know what happened. I know where she is. We need a plan to save her.”
After a bit more grumbling and sword rattling, it was the usually cheerful Aidan who pointed grimly at Burke, who had struggled to his feet, and said, “You stole my sister and I mean to see you dead.”
“Save your anger for the Norsemen,” Burke suggested. He had leaned on his brother when he first stood up. Now Burke stood straight and put a hand on his head.
“The White Lady’s fixed this. The pain’s gone.”
“If your head’s working,” Allen Harboth said sarcastically, “perhaps you can think of some way to get your lady back from the raiders.”
Burke looked around. “You should have brought more men after me, priest. It would have saved time in gathering more to attack the raiders.”
“We have eleven men and no time,” Rowan answered. “This will have to do.”
“There’s at least forty of the sea raiders,” Burke said. “With two ships beached at the cove.”
Rowan scratched his chin. “Eleven against forty. How many prisoners?”
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Burke shrugged. “I caught a glimpse of a group under guard but I had no time to count heads.”
Maddie thought hard while the men talked. They looked determined and doughty, tough and ready to fight, but there just weren’t that many of them. She anxiously looked over the gathered group of warriors and murmured, “Eleven against forty. Bad odds—unless…” As an idea struck her, she went quickly up to Rowan. “Do you know what you need?”
The gaze he turned on her was so angrily intense she almost took a step back. “I don’t have time for you now, woman.”
He meant neither rudeness nor disrespect to his woman but he needed to think like a warrior now, not like a husband. Maddie blushed at his words but he saw that it was with anger rather than womanly chagrin. “Go back to the house with the White Lady,”
he instructed, trying to sound as gentle and forbearing as he could. More than anything else he wanted to keep her safe. “I’ll come for you when this day’s work is done.”
Maddie squirmed inwardly at Rowan’s condescending tone. Even if this was the Middle Ages and he had switched from normal human being to laird of the fighting clansmen mode, she didn’t have to like it. She wasn’t able to put up with it either.
Maddie put her hands on her hips. “By ‘this day’s work’, I assume you mean that you’re off to fight a superior force with only eleven men?”
“Aye. I mean just that.”
“It won’t work.”
Rowan could not let anyone, even someone he loved, challenge his authority in front of the Harboths. “Don’t meddle in things it’s better for you to not know about.”
“I do know something about strategy and tactics, sweetheart.” The word dripped with sarcasm rather than endearment. It shamed Rowan to hear her speak so before the other men. “Enough to know how you can get Micaela back without losing all your men in a stupid head-on assault.”
Rowan took her by the arm, intending to lead her away. “We’ve no time for your fool ideas now.”
“Fool?”
He saw that she took his words as a deep insult but he could not call them back.
When she tried to pull from his grasp all he could think of to do was grasp her tighter.
“Ow! Rowan!”
“Come along, lass.”
“Wait,” Allen Harboth called out when Rowan tried to pull the struggling Maddie from the group.
When she jerked violently away from his grasp, it was Allen who caught her by the elbow to keep her from falling. Rowan would have pushed Allen away from his wife but Maddie stepped aside herself. She whirled to face Rowan but again Allen got in the way.
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“What would you have us do, lass?” the laird of the Harboths asked. He flashed a warning look at Rowan. “I’m willing to listen even if the Murrays are not. Burke and I are anxious to help Micaela.”
With the reminder that his sister was in danger and that time was wasting, Rowan swallowed both pride and misgivings and looked to his wife. “What have you in mind?” he demanded. “And be swift about it.”
Maddie tried to tell herself that it was concern for his sister that had Rowan acting like a jerk. She tamped down her own annoyance at him, herself for not being more diplomatic and at the White Lady for simply existing. It took her a great deal of effort but she managed to look at the other woman and ask politely, “Do you have any more dresses we can borrow?”
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“’Tis not right for a man to be dressed like a woman,” Walter complained as he adjusted the cloth over his hips. His kilt had been replaced by a long plaid skirt. “I’m ashamed to be seen like this.”
Over the murmurs of agreement from several other members of the group as they approached the hidden cove, Maddie said, “Right. As if you all don’t normally dress like a bunch of hairy-legged Catholic school girls? What’s a kilt if it isn’t a skirt?”
“It’s not the same,” Father Andrew said. He tugged on the long white veil that covered his tonsured head. It was arranged to also cover his full beard so his voice sounded a bit muffled behind the cloth. “Wearing a priestly robe is all very well for me but a warrior ought to show his knees to the world.”
Maddie knew very well that Father Andrew was considered the finest, fiercest fighter in the Murray clan so his reasoning really didn’t make much sense. Nor did any of their complaints about skirt lengths. “Who’d have thought the Highlands would prove to be such a fashion-conscious place?”
“I just don’t think Walter and Andrew like my wardrobe,” the White Lady said.
“Pink and green don’t suit them. Though I think you look quite lovely in what you’re wearing.”
What Maddie was wearing was a black velvet number embroidered in silver. The dress had a close-fitting low bodice and yards and yards and yards of skirts. It was a lovely dress and she had to admit that it showed off her—assets—of round hips and full breasts—better than anything she’d ever worn.
She’d been told gallantly by Allen Harboth that the black and silver suited her red hair and pale skin. All she’d gotten from Rowan was a tight-jawed stern once-over and a curt nod. He’d also given Allen a similar look, to which Allen had laughed. It was all very weird. The reaction from the two men left her completely confused as to how she really looked.
She’d always been fairly certain that there was nothing appealing in her looks, nothing interesting. Last night Rowan had made her feel beautiful, desirable, loved.
This morning she didn’t know if he’d meant any of it or if it had just been hallucinations. Maybe she’d only dreamed hearing him tell her things she wanted to hear. Still, they had made love, he’d seemed interested in doing it again but the moment he got the chance to get back to being the serious laird of the clan he’d jumped at it.
Then Allen came along and acted as if she were a
girl
and Rowan seemed vaguely jealous, which gave her a certain sense of power. Which was not a very nice way to react, she told herself. She should be ashamed.
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Maybe later, after they’d rescued Micaela, she’d take the time to give herself a good, harsh lecture and sort out just what it was she was feeling. Especially what she was feeling about and for Rowan Murray. Anger, she told herself now. Lots of annoyance at his trying to brush her off as a mere woman when she came up with this hare-brained scheme. Then again, after he’d heard the hare-brained scheme, he’d been the first to agree to it.
“What is with him?” she murmured with a dejected sigh.
It was Aidan who came up behind her and said, “He fears enjoying himself, lass.
He fears being in love.”
Maddie paused to give the teenager a puzzled look. “Why?” As she waited for an answer, she noticed for the first time that Aidan’s aquamarine-colored eyes had a slightly slanted shape and the sharpness of his high-set cheekbones. He’d braided his hair and arranged it on top of his head, saying it looked more maidenly to Norsemen that way. When he tilted his head to one side she noticed something else about him and just barely managed not to gasp. In her surprise, she almost forgot her concern over Rowan Murray. She couldn’t keep herself from saying, “I don’t mean to be rude but do you know that you have pointed ears?”
Aidan gave her a wickedly teasing smile. “Oh aye. They’re my best feature. Very sensitive to a lady’s caressing touch.” He bent his head toward her. “Want to touch?”
“She does not,” Rowan said as he came up behind his wife.
Aidan chuckled and stepped back. Maddie gave him a stinging look and Rowan almost flinched waiting for her response. Instead of any sort of protest, her expression swiftly changed to one of alert attention as all the fighters gathered around him. He was grateful she didn’t waste time arguing that she had every right to talk to her brother-in-law if she wanted to. She seemed well aware that so close to a battle was no time to argue. Rowan almost hugged her and told her he was proud of her but he had no time for that either.
He could hear the roar of the nearby sea, and knew it was loud enough to muffle their voices from the raiders on the shore. They had chosen a narrow break in the cliffs above the cove for their ambush. It was one of many spots where thin rills of rainwater ran down to join the ocean. Gorse, ferns and a few seedling pines grew here, protected from storm winds by a tall granite outcropping.