The Firebrand (5 page)

“Perhaps you can, but we are discussing something quite different.”

“I disagree!”

She reached for the map on the table, but he slapped her hand away. Taking hold of her chin, he raised it until their eyes met again.

The jolt Adrianne felt in her belly when he touched her was followed by a fluttering sensation that whirred upward through her with surprising speed. As she stared, she realized that, for the first time in her life, she was flustered by a man’s good looks. Strong jaw. Full, firm lips. A weathered face with skin angling sharply over perfectly proportioned cheekbones. Wyntoun MacLean’s piercing green eyes seemed to bore right into her, setting off sparks that seemed to burn holes right through the pulsing wings that continued to flutter inside of her.

“When you spoke of watching the men and learning, what were you talking about?”

“Watching them train for battle, of course.”

The hard lines of his jaw visibly softened, and Adrianne was even more shocked to see the glint of humor in the warrior’s eyes. He let go of her chin and straightened.

“Before we go any further, Mistress Percy, I am not a paid mercenary—apelike or otherwise. I came to Barra at the request of your sisters.”

She’d already heard as much while she hid amid the weapons stored in the shuttered cabinet beneath the cabin’s bed. But there were other things that she’d heard, too. Things that made her realize she should not trust him.

“Tell me again, though. What was it exactly that you did when you went to the stables in Yorkshire?”

Though she had a few questions of her own to ask, she could see the determination in his eyes as he again focused his gaze on her.

“I watched my father’s men training from a place in the loft.”

“And you started doing this when you were fourteen?”

She snorted, shaking her head. “Nay! I started that when I was a child, old enough to reach the first rung of the ladder. I used to go up into the haylofts and lie there for whole afternoons, watching the men train with swords and spears, axes and halberds. The courtyard was alive with fighting in those days.”

“And what exactly happened in the last stall to the left when you were fourteen?”

Adrianne felt her face flushing with heat. “I watched the scullery maid.”

“Who?”

“The new scullery maid who had come to us from the village. After that, she would often meet there with men from the household and the farms.”

“She met men?”

“Aye, she summoned them...you know...”

“Nay, I don’t.”

Adrianne glanced up, realizing that he was toying with her, and her temper flared. Spinning off the chair, she shoved it at him as she snatched the map off the table.

“I’ll take that.” His voice was low, threatening, and his eyes dark again with anger.

With her back to the table, she knew she had no clear path of escape. But at the same time, she wasn’t ready to surrender, either. She held the map behind her.

“‘Tis mine and you know it. You were not to touch it—not to break the seal.”

“I was entrusted with protecting the contents of that casket...and I do not take on a responsibility unless I know what ‘tis that I’m protecting.”

“You lie. You said nothing of this to the abbess.”

“I am the master here...not the abbess.” Drawing himself to his full height, the Highlander’s head nearly brushed the cross-beams in the cabin ceiling. “Give me the map.”

Adrianne edged back farther until her hip bumped the table.

“I heard you and the other man talking before. Who is really your master? I do not believe my sisters sent you here.”

The two gazed at each other for a long moment of unbroken silence. His anger seemed to disappear. At the dull sound of heavy chain clanking and men shouting on deck, he nodded at her.

“You may believe what you want, but ‘twas at the request of Catherine and Laura that I came after you.”

“Why?”

“Is it so strange that those who are kin to you--?”

“Do not treat me like a fool. Why did my sisters need to send someone after me? Why now in the middle of winter? Why not wait for spring?”

With a look that bordered on amusement, he raised a hand over his head and leaned lazily against the cross-beam. “You are far too untrusting…you ask far too many questions.”

She tried not to stare at the muscles of his arms bulging through the black sleeves of his shirt. “And you are giving far too few answers.”

As he’d done before, his gaze drifted down the front of her body in a way that made a strange heat suddenly pool in her belly. She knew she was still wet. She could feel the weight of the wet wool of her clothes, even without the tartan shawl she’d stripped off her shoulders when she’d climbed aboard the vessel. Without the wrap, she was still dressed in a woolen blouse and a skirt made of MacNeil plaid. Still, there should not have been anything about her attire that should warrant so much of his attention.

“I know you are trying to distract me with your insolent gaze. But it will not work.” Holding the map in one hand, she moved it close to the flame of the wick lamp burning on the table. Though he made no visible movement, she saw his eyes narrow with concern as they followed the movement of her hand. This was better than a sword to his throat, Adrianne decided silently.

“Perhaps now you will be persuaded to answer my questions.” The green eyes shifted back to her face. “Who, if anyone, really sent you here?”

“You already know everything that concerns you.”

“Answer the question.” Clenching the map tightly in her fist, she held it closer to the flame.

“You will not burn it.”

Adrianne raised her chin in challenge. “Are you so certain?”

“‘Tis part of your heritage. The honor of your family’s name depends on that which you hold in your hand. You will not destroy the map to Tiberius.”

“You know what this is. You mentioned it before.” A heavy weight settled in her chest. Her hand moved still closer to the flame. She could feel the heat on her fingers. “But you are wrong. I
will
destroy this to stop the likes of you from ever getting hold of it. I will not let you meddle with what is sacred.”

Adrianne steadily held his gaze, but suddenly the ship heeled to one side, forcing her to take a step for balance. This was all the advantage the Highlander needed, and he was on her in an instant. Once again, she found herself overmatched by sheer strength.

Holding tight to the hand that held the map, the warrior pushed her behind him, prying open her fingers as she punched him with her free hand. Finally, biting his arm just above the elbow, she found herself being spun around and pressed flat against the wall of the cabin. She continued to fight him, but he had her fist open and the map out of it in a moment. Shoving the document into the thick belt at his waist, he turned to her.

“You have forged on to the very end of my patience,” he growled close to her face. “I’ll have you shackled and caged until we reach our destination.”

“I’ll escape.” She glowered at him. “And before you know it, I’ll be back in this cabin with my knife to your throat. And this time I won’t give you a warning. You’ll be dead before you have a--”

One strong hand encircled her throat, and she choked back the rest of the words. The ship leaned, and his body pressed more intimately against hers. She fought back the tumult of sensations at the feel of his aroused manhood. She lifted her eyes to his. Behind the deep green, she saw anger and fire.

“Now that I think of it, I have a better place to keep you.”

The breath caught in her throat as his hand released her throat and moved slowly downward. She felt the brush of callused fingers against bare skin just above her right breast. Glancing quickly down, she stared at a long tear on her blouse—where his fingers were tracing a seductive path on the exposed curve of her breast.

“I...Stop!” She struggled against him, and he moved, allowing her to bring a hand between their bodies and pull the torn material together. “I...I must have torn that climbing aboard.”

He was no longer touching her, but Adrianne could still feel the scorching heat of his hand on her skin, the strange tightness in her belly that his closeness seemed to be making worse with each passing moment.

“I warn you...my passion runs far cooler than my aunt’s. But if you continue to provoke me...” At his pause, she looked up and met his eyes again. “If you push me too far, I can devise far more creative...treatment... than anything you’ve encountered so far.”

The fight drained out of her in an instant as his hands moved up and cradled her face, holding her head motionless against the wall. She watched his eyes linger on her lips.

His mouth descended until his words were just a breath upon her skin.

“This is only a sample of the consequences that await you, if you should choose to provoke my passions.”

He might as well have hidden in a grave.

The incessant chattering of Gillie’s teeth echoed dully inside the damp wooden staves of the barrel. For hours, it seemed, his legs had been alternating between feelings of pins-and-needles and total numbness. Pressing his thin chest tighter against his kilted legs, the boy blew on his hands, trying to breathe some warmth into the chilled bones.

The bay’s water had been much colder than he’d thought it would be. The swim to the ship, much farther in the whipped-up water than he’d ever tried swimming in winter. Halfway to the ship, he had felt his mind starting to wander, but he’d forced himself onward. Onward in pursuit of his protector—his friend—the one person in the entire world who had cared enough to treat him with any kindness. Onward in pursuit of Mistress Adrianne.

The salty brine was still in his nose, and Gillie snatched the wet tam off his head to smother the sneeze that he felt coming on. The burning itch in the skin of his face was driving him mad. It was a hundred times worse from the seawater, and he scratched at it carefully with the tam. It didn’t help, but Gillie knew how agonizing it would be if he really scratched it as he wanted to. The crusty patches would just open up again, fiercely painful and oozing pus.

The boy forced himself to think of other things. Of Mistress Adrianne.

Hiding amid the rocks on Barra’s shore, he’d kept watch over Mistress Adrianne from the time they’d hoisted the cage up the wall of Kisimul Castle. When the shipmaster had dropped anchor in the bay, and the steward had sent one of the other lads calling for Gillie to help with the stores going to the ship, he’d kept his silence and watched that cage swinging in the winter gloom.

But it wasn’t for her protection that he’d kept his vigil. Gillie knew better than anyone that his mistress was braver and more capable of taking care of herself than most men. He’d been waiting for her to escape. And he’d known where she was going.

For the past five months, for as long as he’d known Mistress Adrianne, she’d been waiting for a ship. Waiting for a way to escape the Isle of Barra and get back to her family. Seeing the tall masts and dark sails swing around the eastern point, Gillie had known that—cage or no—Mistress Adrianne was going to find a way to get on that vessel before it sailed from Barra.

If she ever left the island, the boy had decided months ago, he was going, as well. Gillie had decided that the first moment she had taken the time to notice him.

Aye, he’d known he had to go with her. Except for the fat steward when there was work to be done, no one would miss him if he were to disappear forever. No one here cared about Gillie the Fairy-Borne. Gillie the Scar-Face. Gillie the Bringer of Bad Luck. Nay, no one here would miss him.

No one but Adrianne Percy.

He covered his nose and mouth again to smother another sneeze.

True, Mistress Adrianne cared for everyone. She had always been there to help a wife haul kelp up for a garden, or to lend a hand when a fishing net fouled on the rocks. True, she always watched over a sick child while a woman tended her wee ones. But Gillie knew that she cared for him, as well. Perhaps even more than she cared for the others.

Through the darkness, he’d heard her scream, heard the crash of the cage onto the wave-swept rocks. When he’d seen the men out searching the waters around the castle, though, he’d known that she’d escaped them...again.

And standing on the shore, watching the flaring torches and the small boats bobbing about in the bay, Gillie had even known where Mistress Adrianne had gone. He’d looked at the ship and, without a moment’s hesitation, he had stepped into the icy waters.

The ship was pitching and rolling with the movement of the sea, and Gillie was certain they had gotten underway. He could hear the commands and shouts of the sailors on deck. Each time the ship would roll, the bumping and squeaking of the barrels straining at their lashings would fill his ears. There was a shudder of the ship’s timbers that Gillie felt in his bowels. Shifting his body, he pushed up slightly at the heavy cover of the barrel. Immediately, the foul smell of ship’s bilge filled his lungs, and Gillie smothered another sneeze in the wool cloth of his cap.

The ship pitched forward with another lurching motion. It was even colder outside the barrel, and the boy tried to quiet his chattering teeth. His ragged clothes did little to keep out the winter cold. Wet as they were, they did even less.

In searching for a hiding place when he’d climbed hastily aboard, Gillie had seen a pile of old sailcloth that had been cast aside in the dark hold where he’d found refuge. Deciding that the old sails might offer more warmth than the damp barrel, he raised the cover completely and stood up, pausing to listen.

Aside from the shifting cargo and the water sloshing far below him, the noises were muffled, coming from above decks. The hold was dark as a cave. He pulled the wet tam onto his head and started to climb out of the barrel.

He had one leg out when a pair of sneezes exploded from his head, filling the darkness of the hold. In his rush to cover his mouth, he slipped and fell—boy and barrel cover—on the rough wooden planks.

The barrel cover rolled noisily across the deck, and Gillie scrambled after it. When it crashed into a bulkhead, the boy was nearly upon it. Grabbing it as it fell on its side, he held it and peered upward at the closed hatch doors.