Authors: Anna Markland
“At Blair Castle?”
“Aye.”
“Who is her betrothed?”
“The Master of Atholl, Robert Stewart, and he’ll be outraged at the treatment afforded his future wife.”
In the utter silence that followed, Margaret held her breath, unsure whether to stay hidden. She was a noblewoman, not some peasant obliged to hide like a criminal. Her betrothed was of royal lineage. She swallowed her fear, gathered the blanket round her shoulders and stepped from the rear of the wagon. “I am Lady Margaret Ogilvie,” she announced with as much conviction as her parched throat allowed.
She gripped the cart when the black stallion’s breath warmed her forehead, not sure her legs would sustain her when she looked up into the bleak face of Rheade Robertson.
“Ye’ve had a wasted journey, Lady Margaret,” he growled through gritted teeth. “Robert Stewart willna be marrying anyone. He is one of the kingslayers.”
He turned his horse aside and shouted, “Arrest them.”
As her knees buckled she felt a strange sense of relief. At last she now understood Robert Stewart’s lack of interest in their betrothal.
CAPTURED
The men under Rheade’s command surged forward upon hearing his order, no doubt assuming they’d apprehended the assassins. He wished he’d been less enthusiastic. The startling sight of a beautiful lass descending from the cart had momentarily stolen his wits.
The simpleton carried on his incessant wailing. The driver urged him to be calm as the two were dragged from the wagon and forced to lie on their bellies on the frozen ground. The elderly knight protested as he was hauled from his panicked horse and herded into the wagon. The large woman who must be his wife lay in a moaning stupor, bundled in blankets.
“Logan,” Rheade yelled as he slid from his horse to gather up the young woman who’d faltered, “there is no need for violence. We’ll escort them to the castle.”
“Aye,” his brother replied, sheathing the broadsword he’d continued to brandish aloft. “Tannoch will want to interrogate them.”
Dread filled Rheade as he looked down at the feather-light woman cradled in his arms who stared mutely into nothingness. He was filled with an urge to ensure his brute of a brother didn’t ride roughshod over this delicate creature. Tannoch deemed it his God-given right to beat his own wife.
Margaret Ogilvie was the most stunningly beautiful blonde lass he’d ever set eyes on, but then there were no silver-haired women in Dunalastair. The auld man had said they were from Oban. He’d heard of it, but never traveled so far from home. He wondered if all the women of the western shores were as lovely.
Her pale skin was flawless, marred only by a red nose. The blanket had slipped from her shoulders to reveal appealing mounds of female flesh straining at the fabric of her
léine
as she struggled to breathe.
A cruel trick of fate had destined this remarkable woman for the traitor, Robert Stewart. She shivered as gooseflesh marched over the bared skin of her neck. An erratic pulse in Rheade’s throat threatened to cut off his breath, and he felt a flush creep over his face. For the first time in days he was warm. But the effect on his manhood was pleasantly startling. His shaft had stood to attention upon hearing a sultry voice utter the words,
I am Lady Margaret Ogilvie
.
But what to do with this ragtag group who’d arrived at the worst possible time? He inhaled deeply and gave the woman in his arms a gentle shake. “Lady Margaret, I regret we must take ye and yer companions to Dunalastair.”
She seemed to recover her wits and stared at him, her blue eyes wide. “Dunalster?”
In different circumstances it would have been easy to tease her about the mispronunciation of the name of his castle home, to work his charm to make those ice blue eyes flash with—
What was he thinking? There was no flirting with the betrothed of a traitor. Tannoch would make garters of his guts. He cleared his throat, stiffened his shoulders and set her on her feet. “Dunalastair Castle is the seat of the Robertson clan. It’s not far from Loch Tay.”
She gathered the blanket around her shoulders, her teeth chattering. He had an urge to draw her to his body, to breathe his warm breath on her, but he took a step back, colliding with Dubh. The horse nudged him playfully, but with enough force to nearly send him careening into Margaret.
Despite her obvious distress, a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Yer horse looks fearsome, but he’s playful,” she said.
Relieved to see some of the sadness leave her beautiful face, Rheade returned the smile. “Aye, Dubh likes to play.”
He should have shoved away his next foolish notion. “Mayhap ye can ride to Dunalastair with me.”
~~~
Margaret took a quick glance inside the wagon. Uncle Davey sat with his arm around his wailing wife’s shoulder, trying to comfort her, his face betraying indignant fear. Edythe trembled, clearly terrified, her head on Davey’s chest.
Riding with an intimidating Highlander atop a monstrous horse seemed more appealing. “I should stay in the wagon with my aunt and uncle,” she said hesitantly.
“I assure ye no harm will come to them,” Rheade replied, taking the reins in one hand and holding the other out to her.
She put her hand in his. The sheer size and enveloping warmth of it did strange things to her innards. His skin was rough, as she’d expected for a man who looked like he lived most of his life outdoors, yet his touch was gentle.
She threw caution to the winds. Their lives might depend on charming this attractive brother of the chief of the clan. She had never been flirtatious, but decided this was the time to learn. She fluttered her eyelashes as she’d seen maidservants do at Ogilvie House when serving tankards of ale to handsome young men. “’Tis clever of ye to call yer horse Dubh,” she teased. “He is Black.”
She wondered if she’d gone too far when he looked at her curiously. “Aye, Dubh is black, that’s why I gave him the name.”
She resisted the temptation to roll her eyes. Like most men of her acquaintance this one had no sense of subtle humor. “I’ve never ridden such a horse,” she lied, hoping Uncle Davey wouldn’t contradict her.
“Dinna worry,” he replied with great seriousness. “Ye’ll be safe with me.”
Before her stood the kind of man many young women dreamed of marrying, one she sensed meant what he said. She had no doubt Rheade would protect her—if she were his. But she wasn’t his. She was betrothed to a traitor. The bitter truth left her empty, hollow.
In the fog of her lonely despair it came to her that Joss was still wailing. “My retainers,” she said. “They are good men.”
“Logan,” he shouted. “Get them up from the ground. They can drive the wagon.”
She breathed more easily. “Thank ye,” she murmured. “Joss may seem simple, but—”
She stopped abruptly when he brushed his thumb across her palm. The gesture likely meant nothing to him, but it sent a jolt of yearning spiraling up her thighs. She fluttered her eyelashes again without meaning to, unsure of what was happening.
“They willna be harmed,” he assured her. “And I imagine yer uncle would prefer to ride into Dunalastair on his own mount instead of in a wagon.”
Davey must have overhead and was out of the wagon in the blink of an eye. “Thank ye,” he said gruffly, heading off towards his gelding. Margaret had no recollection of ever seeing him move with such speed.
Edythe had fallen silent.
Margaret got the feeling Rheade was struggling to hide a smile. He cocked his head in the direction of the wagon, his eyes wide, then lifted her up on the back step of the contraption.
“I’ll ride with ye,” she whispered, as if they were co-conspirators. The notion thrilled her, until she thought again of the king’s murder. “Who conspired with Robert Stewart?” she murmured.
The humor left his face. “His grandfather, Walter Stewart, Earl of Atholl, and Robert Graham.”
“And they are all still at large?”
“Aye,” he replied, mounting Dubh. “But not for long. My brother has sworn to hunt them down, and he’s a bloodhound.”
He held out his hand and pulled her from the wagon into his lap, wrapping his plaid around her. She nestled into the reassuring comfort of his strong thighs, inhaling the dampness of the wool, struggling to undo the knot of dread in her belly. She was not looking forward to meeting the chieftain of Clan Robertson.
DUNALASTAIR
Rheade wasn’t sure what he was going to do with his captives once they arrived at Dunalastair. Logan rode beside him, his brother’s frown echoing his uncertainty. They were drawing men away from the search. The assassins weren’t hiding at Dunalastair.
“What would ye have me do?” he asked in the Gàidhlig, hoping Margaret wouldn’t understand. “‘Tis an obligation to extend hospitality to strangers travelling in the Highlands, especially in this weather. I couldna let them ride on to Blair.”
Logan rolled his eyes but offered no response.
Margaret glanced quickly at Logan but she too remained silent.
The men trudging behind him grumbled, understandably disgruntled.
Rheade inhaled deeply, anticipating another rollicking from Tannoch. It seemed nothing he ever did met with his brother’s approval. Margaret’s perfume stole up his nostrils. There was nothing like the scent of a woman to soothe a man’s worries, but it did nothing to calm his arousal. It conjured a memory, but of what? Mayhap the roses his mother had loved? The lass from Oban seemed to have let go of some of her fear and relaxed against him. The only problem was the effect her closeness was having on his manhood. He wondered if she understood the significance of the hard flesh beneath her bottom, but doubted it. Despite her attempt to impress him with her unpracticed flirtation earlier, he suspected she was an innocent.
The notion only increased the pleasant tugging in his balls.
Nor was she the inexperienced horsewoman she wanted him to believe. She seemed perfectly comfortable atop Dubh, more so than many men of his acquaintance. Had it not been for the unfortunate circumstances, he might have thoroughly enjoyed this ride with a beautiful woman nestled in his lap, especially now the sleet had stopped.
But such carefree days were a thing of the past. A king lay dead. Queen Joan had declared herself Regent and now ruled for her infant son, but there were many who would seek to take advantage of weakness in the Scottish realm. The English would turn their greedy gaze once more to their northern neighbor.
“
Bluidy
assassins,” he muttered.
“Aye,” Margaret murmured.
He’d a sudden silly urge to kiss the top of her head, to whisper reassuring words that all would be well. Instead he mumbled, “Not far now.”
When they sighted the sturdy sandstone walls of his home, her body stiffened. It saddened him. Despite Tannoch’s antagonism, he’d been happy here, loved by his parents until their deaths. His mother had died birthing another bairn after Logan, a long awaited daughter who’d survived her mother by only a day; his father had succumbed to his grief not long after.
Looking back on those dark days, Rheade had rebelled against the notion a man could miss a woman so much that life ended when she died. Or had guilt finished his father off? Isobel was years beyond what most considered child-bearing age when she fell pregnant with Màiri, and had lost eight bairns in infancy.
He often daydreamed what it would have been like to have a sister—if Màiri had lived.
“Dunalastair,” he declared proudly in an effort to lift his own spirits as well as Margaret’s. “Seat of Clan Robertson.”
“It’s much grander than Ogilvie House,” she replied wistfully.
His heart went out to this bonnie lass. She’d travelled far from home in hopes of wedding a man who’d turned out to be one of the most hated fugitives in Scotland. And when he was captured, the horror would only then begin. She might be homesick now. Dread filled him. She would soon rue the day she’d ever left Oban.
~~~
Margaret was awed by the incredibly tall tower of Dunalastair. Someone with an eye for beauty had designed and built it. A rare burst of sunlight bathed it in light.
“’Tis pink,” she declared with a giggle.
Rheade chuckled. “Sandstone,” he explained. “That’s what causes the reddish hue. It was constructed two hundred years ago as a royal hunting lodge,” he went on. “Our clan has built onto it since then. Many kings have laid their heads here. Alexander, Edward of England, Robert the Bruce even.”
His obvious pride warmed her heart. If only this place had been the home of her betrothed, and this the braw man she was to wed. She barely knew Rheade, and the circumstances were difficult, but she’d never felt more comfortable with a person of the opposite sex, with the exception of her brothers, of course. In her experience, men were easier to relate to than women. Mayhap it was the reason for the alchemy that drew her to him.
She craned her neck to look way up to the top of the towers. Each tower had four narrow windows spaced at regular intervals. “Judging by the windows it must be four stories high.”
“Aye. We climb up a spiral staircase,” he explained, making a circular motion in the air with his hand.