Wishing For a Highlander (14 page)

“Melanie,” she managed between panting breaths. As her chest rose and fell, he realized her bairn was pressed between them as well as a meal sack meant for Edmund. “Hamish. Dragging her to the keep.”

His body went tight with readiness. He tensed to flee after his wife, but Edmund’s hand fell on his arm.

“What’s this about, lass?” he asked, guiding Fran from Darcy’s arms to his own. “Slow down. Tell us what happened? Why are ye breathing like a mare run twenty leagues?”

“Coming up the path,” Fran gasped, looking back and forth between them like a weathervane in an indecisive gale. “Saw Hamish and Glen. Pulling Melanie along. I hid behind the cart so Hamish wouldna see me, but I saw them through the tack. They have her gagged! She fell, and Hamish pulled her up none too gently and tore your mother’s fine gown, and poor Melanie popped out of the top. And Hamish has a lump of somat under his plaid. Looks mayhap like a box of some sort.”

His vision went red with fury. Hamish had mistreated his wife! His heartbeat pumped in his ears, deafening him to whatever Fran said after she took a mighty gulp of air. Leaving Fran to Edmund, he sprinted from the mill.

“Hail, Big Darcy,” Tallock greeted as he spun the farmer around in his haste to get to the keep.

“Edmund will see to you, Tallock,” he called, not slowing.

His gaze fixed on the keep. His stomach lurched with dread as he pushed his legs to run faster. His Malina was being treated like a criminal and not twelve hours after Steafan had married them and granted her the protection of the Keith. His uncle was feared for his swift changes in mood, but this was strange even for him. What had caused the paranoid bugger to turn on Malina in the span of a single night?

He remembered Fran saying Hamish had somat under his plaid, somat in the shape of a box. The memory collided with another. The faint trace of rosy scent he’d noticed in the tack room last night when he’d found Malina’s box on the floor.

The box hadn’t merely fallen from his saddlebag, as he’d assumed. Someone had found it and dropped it. Someone who tended to be in the stables at odd hours, who smelled like perfume, and who liked to stir up trouble.

Anya.

Snarling, he stormed through the keep’s doors and made straight for Steafan’s office, taking the stairs three at a time. Bursting through the closed door, he was met with a sight that turned the red rage of his vision to a fiery blaze. Glen had Malina on her knees, and Hamish stood ready to strike her. Tears streaked her face and one of her eyes was swollen shut. In her struggles, one of her breasts had spilled from the low neckline of her dress. One sleeve hung by mere threads.

In Steafan’s hands was Malina’s box.

“Release her!” he shouted, advancing on Glen.

“Easy, lad,” said a voice behind him. Aodhan. “’Tis just talking the laird wants with your wife. Isna that so, Steafan?”

“Aye,” Steafan said. “I have some questions for her. Questions she willna answer to my satisfaction, and Hamish has been good enough to persuade her. Hamish, again.”

Hamish cuffed her across the cheek, his hand spanning from her reddened jaw to her swollen eye.

His wee bride cried out as the slap echoed through the room.

He tensed to lunge, but Aodhan caught his arm. “Calm yourself,” he whispered urgently. “Dinna make this worse. If Steafan makes me bind ye, ye willna be able to help her.”

He froze as Aodhan’s words sunk in. Growling sounded from somewhere, and he realized it came from him.

“Easy,” Aodhan rumbled, his fingers digging into his arm. “Answer the question, lass,” he said to Malina. “Answer and Hamish willna strike ye again.”

“Fail to answer truthfully,” Steafan said, “and ’twill be fists next.”

“I already answered,” she said, and her voice was steady and strong despite her trembling. His poor Malina. He shouldna have left her at Fraineach alone. He should have hid the box better. Christ, he shouldna have been so absent-minded as to leave the box in the stables for anyone to spy. He’d let his desire to make her comfortable in their home distract him from keeping her safe.

“I told you the truth,” she insisted. “I’m not a witch, and I don’t do magic. I don’t know how to open the box. It’s not even mine. I’m just taking care of it for someone.”

Steafan’s eyes darted to Hamish, as if he were about to command more violence.

“’Tis not hers,” Darcy found himself saying. “The box is mine, and the date is merely a forgery. A simple matter of changing a one to a four.” His heart slammed against his breastbone at the lie, but it was for Malina. It was to spare her from his uncle’s suspicions.

Steafan’s gaze snapped to him. “You never could lie well, lad. Stop defending the wench. She is nothing to you. Had I kent she was a witch, I wouldna have wed you. Hamish, fists.”

“No!” he shouted. “I lied, but Malina is telling the truth.” When Steafan held up a finger to stay Hamish’s ready fist, he pressed on. “I found the box where I found her on Berringer’s field. By the marker. She isna a witch. I’ll swear to it. Mayhap ’twas magic brought her here, but ’twas nay by her doing.”

Steafan flicked a look at Hamish, and the brute relaxed his fist.

He ventured to press his advantage. “Dinna lay another hand on her. She is my wife. A Keith. You married us yourself last night, and I willna agree to a null. And she is with child, damn you. She doesna deserve this. If you must have Hamish using fists, have him use them on me. Malina is my responsibility. I will bear whatever punishment you feel she deserves.”

“With child?” Steafan sneered. “A bastard child? What is that to me? And will you bear a burning on a pile of tinder for her? ’Tis what any witch deserves and well you ken it. The longer we abide her presence in our midst, the more her wicked spirits will seek to ruin us.”

“I’m not a witch,” Malina said faintly. “Oh, God. This can’t be happening.”

His uncle had that gleam in his eye that meant reason was leaving him. The first time the laird had gotten that look had been after Creag Kirk, just before he’d tortured to death with his own hands the traveler to whom he’d granted hospitality but had turned out to be an English spy. Not a dwelling in Ackergill had escaped the grief of the two-day skirmish that spy had instigated, and the keep was no exception. Steafan lost his brother, Darcy’s da, and his son, aged sixteen years, born him by his wife, Darla, who had died of grief soon after. Since then, Steafan had become overly protective of the clan. Any threat, real or merely perceived, was dealt with swiftly and decisively, to the extent where Darcy feared innocent men had suffered unfairly at the laird’s hand. But so far, no woman had been slain. Beaten, aye. Humiliated in the stocks, aye. Imprisoned in the dungeons, aye. But now Steafan was threatening a woman who was neither a stranger nor a threat. A woman who carried a precious, vulnerable bairn.

A woman who had caused his heart to sprout the first tender shoots of love.

He could answer that he was willing to burn in Malina’s place, but he kent Steafan wouldn’t be swayed from what he thought must be done. The gleam in his eye meant his mind was fixed and there would be no talking him out of it.

At his silence, Steafan told Hamish, “Put her in the dungeon. Prepare the pyre and alert the village. We will light the lawn of Ackergill Keep tonight with the spirit purging of a witch.”

Darcy glanced over his shoulder at Aodhan. An understanding cut between them. Once Malina was under guard in the dungeon, he would be powerless to rescue her. ’Twould have to be now or never.

Aodhan afforded the smallest of nods.

He sprang forward and swept his wife up in his arms, tearing her from Glen’s grasp. Cradling her to his chest, he ran.

Steafan’s shouts and Hamish’s surprised stammering sounded behind him on the stairs. As he threw himself into the daylight, the last things he heard from within the keep were Aodhan’s raised voice and then Steafan yelling, “I’ll burn whomever I wish!”

Flying down the steps of the keep, he nearly collided with Edmund, who was leading a trotting Rand up the road.

“Best hurry,” Edmund said as he took Malina from him so he could mount.

Once in the saddle, he drew Malina up to sit before him.

“There’s food in the bags and a wee bit of coin,” Edmund said. “I’ll mind the mill for ye, brother.”

His chest tightened as Edmund slapped Rand’s rump. Steafan’s shouts meant he and the others had emerged from the keep.

“Thank ye, Edmund,” he called as his mount lurched into a full gallop. “Move Fran up to Fraineach. The house is yours.”

He didn’t look back to see Edmund’s reaction. He would never look back.

Chapter 10

“Good lad,” Darcy said with a pat of Rand’s frothy neck. The gelding had raced southwest through Keith and Gunn land and well into the hills of the MacBane by the time the sun dipped too low to risk a gallop. He had stayed off the established paths, but kept a keen eye and ear out for signs of pursuit nevertheless. He didn’t expect Steafan would be able to reach them tonight; even with two riders, Rand was faster than any other mount he’d ever heard of. But he wouldn’t risk Malina to a MacBane out for a hunt, or a wolf stalking for prey.

All was quiet as he reined Rand into a dell beside a creek. He hadn’t spoken to his wife during the harried ride, but had taken comfort from the way she leaned forward with him and clung to Rand’s mane without complaint like a woman who understood the necessity of their flight.

He spoke to her now in the quiet of gloaming. “Malina.” He tugged her back against him and searched her face. She raised her gaze to his and his gut kicked with the sight of her puffy left eye. Her cheek was pink, the skin tight and swollen. He lowered his cheek to hers, overtaken by an impulse to comfort her. “I’m so sorry,” he said as the heat from Hamish’s abuse seared his whiskered skin. “Can ye forgive me, lass?”

She pulled back to look him full in the face. How it pained him to see just one green gem sparkling at him; the other nearly obscured by swelling. “Sorry? You’re apologizing to me? Darcy, I’m the one who’s sorry. I’ve–I’ve ruined your life, haven’t I?” She ducked her face and heaved an agonized sob. “I’m so sorry. So sorry for everything.”

He lifted her chin with a finger, hoping only to meet her gaze and tell her she had no cause to apologize to him, but before he got the words out, she pulled him down to her and pressed a lingering kiss to his lips.

His eyes flew wide in surprise, then drifted closed with bliss. Her lips were soft and cool as the most delicate rose petals. Her hand on his neck swept down his arm, her fingers leaving a tingling trail along his skin until they sought the valley of his palm. He closed his hand around hers, so cool and tiny. So fragile.

Mine to protect,
his heart decreed.

He hadn’t kissed a lass in six years, not since Anya. He hardly remembered what to do. Panic made him freeze. Until Malina parted her lips in an invitation his mouth heeded without consulting his stunned mind. He parted his lips too, and tilted his head to slant his open mouth to hers. Their tongues met in a rush of moist heat and he felt the stars fall to Earth to bathe him in their splendor.

He held her close, his one hand squeezing hers possessively but not too tightly and his other wrapped around her middle, touching the firm mound where her bairn grew. That was his to protect, too. All of her was his to guard, to provide for. Only, he had no home now. No income. No laird nor clan. He had only his sword, his dirk, his wits, and whatever Edmund–bless him and his foresight–had packed for them. Sobered by the dire situation into which he’d dragged his bride, he relaxed his hold on her and pulled his reluctant lips back from their heaven.

Malina drew her plump lower lip between her teeth. “I owed you a proper kiss, husband of mine,” she said, her right cheek turning pink to match her left. A wee smile faded from her lips as soon as it had come. “And I owe you a very big thank you. Thank you, Darcy.”

“If that is how a lass shows her thanks, I shall endeavor to earn more of your gratitude in the future.”

He held her gaze, feeling as proud as he could remember, then swung down from the saddle. He brought her down, too, and they stood for some time, his hands on her waist, hers on his chest. She chewed her lower lip again, and if he wasn’t mistaken, he thought she might want to thank him in her special way again. But his cock, hard as steel and reaching for her under his kilt, couldn’t take any more of her thanks. He forced himself to let her go and began removing Rand’s tack.

“How can I help?” she asked, her voice small.

He ached to soothe her hurt. Mayhap he could comfort her by caring for her as well as he could in the wilderness. He wasn’t terribly familiar with living away from Fraineach, but his da had taught him how to make a bow and arrows for hunting, and, thanks to Edmund, he had a full sack of jerky and dry parritch. She wouldn’t go hungry between here and Inverness, where he’d be able to find work and lodging. He wouldn’t be able to provide for her as well as he would with the income from his mill, but he was strong and able, and would work what jobs he could find to give her and her bairn all they desired.

Until he found a way to return her to her home as he had promised.

“Rest, Malina,” he said. “Just rest, and let me tend to ye.”

* * * *

Melanie didn’t want to rest. She wanted to help, needed to help, because whenever she stood still, the pain from the wounds to her face made her relive the senseless horror of being hit over and over again. Refusing to give the memories purchase, she searched for a distraction while Darcy wiped down his horse.