Return of the Highlander (3 page)

Still not sure if she could form words, Larena blinked up at him and beheld muscle-bound arms and massive, dangerous hands. She could only imagine the rippled brawn of his hips and abdomen beneath the loose white shirt and heavy tartan.

This one was a warrior, no doubt about it, built like an iron-tipped battering ram. Her gaze rose to his face—a shockingly beautiful display of masculine features, sculpted with clean lines and compelling angles. Yet there was softness in those full, moist lips…lips strangely familiar to her, as if she’d encountered them in a dream.

“I asked you a question.” One dark eyebrow lifted. “Do you remember striking me in the head, lass?”

Suddenly it all came rushing back to her…the ambush on the road, the violent deaths of her British escorts, and Rupert galloping off with the King’s pardon that was meant to save her father’s life.

Dear Lord. Her father
…

Heart suddenly pounding with apprehension, she attempted to rise up on an elbow, but a wave of dizziness swirled through her head.

The golden-haired Highlander urged her back down on the pillow. “Not yet, lass. You’re not strong enough.”

“Where am I?” she asked.

Her first words, spoken at last.

“Kinloch Castle,” the darker one replied.

Frustration sparked in her veins. “Kinloch…”
Please, no
. “Am I being held prisoner here? You have no right.”

“Aye, we have every right,” he replied, his voice husky and low. “You’re a Campbell, are you not?”

“Aye, but—”

“No buts, lass. The MacDonalds of Kinloch have long standing issues with the Campbells of Leathan. You know it as well as I do, so I’m not sure what you were thinking, crossing onto our lands in the company of British soldiers.”

She struggled to think clearly but her brain was still a fuzzy, tangled up mess. She covered her eyes with a hand. “I didn’t realize we’d entered MacDonald territory.” Heaven help her, it had been too hot and humid. She hadn’t slept in days. “Please accept my apologies for that, but I really need to go. I must return home.”

“What’s your hurry?” the dark one asked. The antagonism in his eyes and the threatening note of suspicion in his deep, smoky voice was enough to send a bolt of alarm straight into her heart.

She tried to sit up again. This time the golden-haired one made no move to stop her. He rose from his sitting position on the edge of the cot to stand beside the taller one.

Side by side—one dark, one light—they were an alarming sight to behold.

Larena touched her bare feet to the floor. “I must leave. I’ve lost too much time already. Oh, God, what day is it?”

Nausea poured into her stomach. She had no choice but to pause and grip the edge of the hay-filled mattress and wait for the wooziness to pass, for she wasn’t certain she could rise without falling over.

“You won’t be going anywhere, lass,” the dark one said. “Not until you tell us what you were doing with the Redcoats and why they’re all lying dead on our laird’s road.”

She scoffed. “You’re asking
me
? Aren’t
you
the ones who ambushed us?”

Her two captors exchanged a curious look.

“Nay, lass,” the golden one said. “We had nothing to do with that, and you’re lucky we came upon you when we did, or you’d still be out there on your own. Dead most likely.”

Larena studied their expressions. “It wasn’t you who attacked us?”

“Nay.”

Still not sure if she believed them, she exhaled heavily and strove to remain calm. If she had any hope of leaving here peacefully, she had to keep things affable.

“Well, then, I apologize for the misunderstanding and I thank you for your assistance. But I must leave now, and I need my horse.” Then she recalled that Rupert had spooked during the conflict and run off into the forest.

Feeling defeated, she cupped her forehead in a hand. “Please tell me you have him?”

“Why does it matter, lass?” the dark Highlander asked with narrowed eyes.

She raised her chin. “Because he’s carrying an important document. If you didn’t find him, I must go and search for him.” Neither of the men responded to that, so she elaborated. “He was spooked during the conflict and galloped off. I tried to stop him and that’s when I fell into the ravine.
Please.
It’s a matter of life and death. If I don’t find him and return home straightaway—”

The dark-haired one reached into the folds of his tartan and withdrew a rolled letter. “Is
this
what you’re looking for?”

Larena stared at him with wide eyes, leaped to her feet, and tried to snatch the document from his hand.

He shoved it behind his back. “Easy, now,” he said, giving her a fierce look of warning. “First you’re going to tell us what this is all about and who you are. And we’ll need your full name, lass—especially the part that ends in Campbell. Then we’ll see about letting you go.”

Without hesitation, she said, “I’ll tell you everything you need to know. Truly, I’ll do anything you want—
anything
—if you promise you’ll return that document to me.”

Something darkly sensual danced across his face, and he took a step closer, crowding her up against the bed. “That’s a very tempting offer, lass. I can think of all sorts of interesting ways you could deliver on that promise, but I’ll have to respectfully decline, because you’ll be coming with me now.”

For a few heart-stopping seconds, Larena’s muddled brain couldn’t process the meaning behind his suggestive reply. She was too overcome by his physical nearness, the impossible bulk of his sheer brute size, and the sultry, outdoorsy scent of his body.

He wrapped his big hand around her elbow, which effectively yanked her out of her confounding stupor.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked as he led her to the door.

He banged on it three times with the edge of his big fist. The bar lifted and the heavy oaken door swung open.

“You’re about to be presented to the Laird of Kinloch,” he replied.

Good God
.

“You plan to hand me over to Angus the Lion?”

She’d heard the stories. Angus was the most fearsome, ruthless laird in the Highlands. Some even speculated he might secretly be the infamous Butcher.

“I don’t intend to simply hand you over, lass,” her captor replied. “I plan to be right there at your side, listening to every word that comes out of your comely little Campbell mouth.”

With that, he thrust her forward into the torch-lit corridor, while the golden one remained behind.

Chapter Six

Larena had heard many frightening and gruesome tales about Angus the Lion and how he had taken Kinloch Castle by force a decade earlier, reclaiming it for the MacDonald clan. He had seized it from his enemies, the MacEwens, who had been awarded the ancient MacDonald stronghold through Letters of Fire and Sword from the King, in return for their service to the crown.

When Angus broke through the gates and staked his claim, not even the English army wished to retaliate and wage war upon the great Scottish Lion. The MacEwens, as a result, had been forced to take oaths of allegiance to their conqueror, who had claimed the fallen chief’s daughter as his wife.

And so it remained today—MacEwens and MacDonalds, united by warfare and marriage.

In recent years, it was said that the Great Lion of Kinloch desired peace for his clan. At least Larena hoped that was the case. Her father rarely spoke of the MacDonalds, for there was bad blood between them, ever since the massacre at Glencoe many years back.

“Don’t be shy, lass,” her captor said as he walked behind her up the circular stairs of the North Tower to the solar, where the Lion awaited her arrival. “He just wants to know what’s been going on at Leathan Castle, and why your father’s head is destined for a spike.”

The cruel words spoken about her beloved father sent an icy chill down her spine. “You are horrid to say such a thing to me.”

“I’ll say whatever I please, lass,” he replied as they reached the top, “for he’s a Campbell and so are you.”

Together, they strode through an arched entry into a brightly lit hall with a wide bank of leaded windows. Larena was forced to shade her eyes from the blinding light of the setting sun. An enormous tapestry covered one curved tower wall, but otherwise the space was sparsely furnished.

She sucked in a breath just then at the sight of a large warrior to her left. He stood with his back to her at a sideboard, pouring whisky into three glasses. His silvery-blond hair hung loose down his back, almost to his waist, and he carried a massive broadsword in his belt.

A scalding rush of anxiety coursed through her blood at the mere notion that she was about to meet Angus MacDonald—a man her father had warned her about as a girl.

He is ruthless, without a heart.
He despises the Campbell clan and would see us all dead if he could. Stay away from Kinloch, Larena. Never set foot there…

According to the gossip she’d heard at Leathan Castle, the Lion was monstrous and frightening, horribly disfigured with battle scars, and he bore the look of the devil in his eyes.

But then he turned and regarded her with a pair of ice-blue eyes that made her breath catch in her throat—partly because she was on edge, but mostly because he was not ugly or disfigured at all. In truth, he was astonishingly handsome.

He sauntered leisurely toward her with a glass of whisky in each hand, held one out to her, and spoke in a polite tone. “Welcome, Larena Campbell.”

At the sound of her name on his lips, her ragged nerves snapped and she backed into what appeared to be a brick wall behind her. It turned out
not
to be a brick wall, however, but the dark Highlander who had escorted her to the tower.

Feeling her cheeks flush with heat, she cleared her throat and glanced back at him over her shoulder.

“Take the whisky, lass,” the dark one suggested in that quiet, smoky voice that rode over her like velvet. “You look like you could use a drink.”

Wetting her lips, she searched for some composure and stepped forward to accept the glass from her host. “Thank you.”

The Lion handed the other glass to her captor, then studied her with steely, narrowed eyes as she raised the whisky to her lips and sipped, hoping that it wasn’t poisoned.

Maybe it was, for it burned like a roaring bushfire down her throat. It took every ounce of self-control she possessed not to cough and sputter, because she’d never tasted anything like it.

Fighting to recover, she swallowed hard and met the Lion’s gaze directly.

“So…” he said, returning to the sideboard to pick up the third glass he’d poured. “Darach tells me you got into a little scuffle with some Redcoats not far from here.”

Larena glanced over her shoulder again, realizing she now knew the dark Highlander’s name.
Darach
.

“That’s not what happened,” she explained, facing forward again. “If you would permit me to relay the truth of the situation…”

Angus raised his arm, as if he were about to conduct an orchestra. “Please, feel free.”

Though, on the surface, his words and actions appeared to be cordial, he struck Larena as dangerously unpredictable, a man whose mood could turn in an instant. She imagined him handing her a drink one second and breaking her thumb the next.

Drawing in a deep breath to steady her nerves, she tossed back the rest of the whisky in a single gulp and grimaced in agony. “That’s strong,” she croaked.

“Aye, it’s Moncrieffe Whisky, the very best the Highlands has to offer.”

Still working to recuperate, she allowed Angus to take the empty glass from her trembling hand and lead her by the elbow to a chair.

“Why don’t you sit down, lass?” he said. “You look a little pasty.”

Aye
. She certainly
felt
pasty. Not to mention dizzy from the bloodied lump on her head, the strong whisky, and fatigued and worried for her survival—as well as her father’s.

Aware of Darach, following like a shadow beside her, she sat down on the wooden chair and watched Angus pull up a stool to sit down before her.

“Better?” he asked.

She nodded her head, but her heart still pounded heavily in her chest.

“Now tell me everything,” Angus said in an encouraging tone that made her hope he might prove to be understanding.

“It may surprise you to hear this,” she told him, “but I was not involved in the attack on the Redcoats. I don’t know who was responsible for that, for I was on the receiving end of it. You see…the British soldiers were acting as my escorts back to Leathan Castle.”

“To deliver the King’s pardon that would save your father’s life?” Angus clarified.

“Aye.”

He studied her eyes intently. “Tell me more, Larena. How did this come to be?”

She swallowed hard. “I had ridden all the way to Fort William to meet with His Majesty’s representative there…to plead for mercy on my father’s life. I was very fortunate that he awarded it to me, and for that reason I must leave here and return home as soon as possible.”

“To save your father from the executioner,” Angus added.