Laird of the Mist (3 page)

“Be still with ye, lass.”

“Dear God, it pains me,” she groaned, covering her face in his shoulder.

“Let the pain settle.” His pitch lowered to a comforting murmur. His arms loosened around her while she tried to slow her breathing. He turned to his men, who were exiting her home.

“Argyll isna inside,” one of them called out. “We found only a few servants, nae old men among them.”

“They must be there.” Kate fought the MacGregor’s hold on her and then swooned as red-hot agony tore through her arm.

“Yer brew,” the chieftain commanded to another one of his men, and then caught something in his hand. “Drink this.” He held the nozzle of a small hide skin sack to her lips. “It’ll dull the pain.”

She glared at him with tears misting her eyes. “Did you kill Amish and John?”

He stared at her, unaffected by her sorrow. “I dinna kill old men. They are no’ here. Now drink the brew.” The intensity of his piercing gaze compelled her to obey.

She covered his hand with hers and took a long guzzle. Then she began to choke. Mother Mary! She had never tasted anything so foul! It was like drinking liquid fire. Her skin tinged green, and she shivered so violently her teeth rattled. She brought her hand to her mouth to stop herself from crying out . . . or from throwing up.

“It’ll pass.” Her captor moved slightly away and commanded her to look at him. When she did, his eyes fastened onto hers, and something in their ardent depths told her he did not expect to see weakness in her. She inhaled deeply. He would not find it.

“It’s poison,” she finally coughed.

“’Tis only whiskey.” A smile lurked at the edges of his mouth, but that was the only evidence of softness in his striking features. An instant later, even that was gone. “Where is yer uncle?”

“For the last time, I don’t know.” Kate closed her eyes to stop herself from weeping all over her enemy. Amish and John had been like foster fathers to her and Robert. Dear God, where were they? Where was her uncle? “He was here earlier. We were to leave for Inverary tomorrow. He must have fled when he saw the McColls.”

“True to his cowardly Campbell nature.”

Kate looked up at him. Cowardly was killing old men, or slicing open her father’s spine as one of this vermin’s kin had done. “Take your filthy hands off me, MacGregor.”

For a terrifying moment, Kate thought she might be looking at the Devil MacGregor himself. For his eyes were the color of fire: blue-gold embers that singed her flesh as they regarded her beneath the sable fringe of his lashes. Then his mouth crooked into a ruthless smirk as he opened his arms and released her.

Kate grasped his forearm to keep herself from slipping from his lap and crashing to the ground. She gritted her teeth as a fresh assault of withering pain ripped through her. “Damnation,” she swore, narrowing her eyes on him through a haze of tears. “You bastard.”

Her insult earned her a look of cool indifference. “Though ye look like ye could use some coddlin’, I dinna have the heart fer it.”

“I expected no less from a MacGregor,” she countered, then stiffened and grimaced when his arm snapped around her again.

The pain was beginning to dull, along with her senses. Dear God, she’d never been wounded so. Damn the McColls. Raiding her cattle was one thing. Trying to kill her was another. They had never done the like before. But today, because her uncle’s guardsmen had joined in the melee, the McColls had fought to kill. When two of the Highlanders swung at her, she’d had no choice but to unsheathe her blade and fight back. After over a quarter of an hour, her strength had been drained and she knew she could not hold them off much longer. She’d thought she was going to die. Though she had spent many years learning to wield a sword, no straw opponent could have prepared her for true fighting. She had been frightened many times in her life—three years ago, when the crop had failed and she’d thought her small family was going to starve. When her nursemaid Helen grew ill with the fever and did not recover. And after that, when Robert left and the wind howled and battered against her door at night, like a demon trying to enter. But she had never been as frightened as today, too weary to save her life, waiting for the strike of someone’s cold blade to cut through her flesh. Then
he
came.

She was not afraid of the MacGregor laird, though when she had first laid eyes on him sitting atop his great warhorse, the hilt of a bloody claymore clutched in his hand and a dozen dead McColls around him, she had been certain her death was imminent. But instead of killing her, he saved her life. Even after she had wounded him, he fought to protect her. Why would a MacGregor do the like?

Her head suddenly felt too heavy to hold up. Just before her eyes closed, she gazed up at the warrior cradling her in his arms. He smelled of heather and mist. The scent covered her, going straight to her head. The sun hovered just behind him, splashing light over his shoulders like a golden mantle, reminding her of Robert’s tales of Camelot. She smiled and then went limp in his arms.

Callum watched her head loll back, spilling her hair over his arm. His gaze fell across her throat, over the beguiling mound of her bosom pushed slightly upward by the brown bodice cinching her waist. God’s fury, he must be going daft, but he found her completely mesmerizing. She fit so perfectly in his arms. Indeed, he had the feeling that they had been crafted this way and he hadn’t known she was missing until this very day. Nae, he reminded himself, she was a Campbell, someone he was born to hate.

He had come here to kill the Earl of Argyll, not to save the bastard’s niece. He looked away from her, and his eyes burned with frustration. “Gather the men and let us be away from here.”

“And the lass?” Graham asked before turning to the others.

“Well,
I
dinna want her if she canna hold her whiskey.” Coming up behind them, Angus laughed when his laird tossed him back his pouch.

She had held it better than most, Callum decided, unable to help himself from looking at her again. Others usually retched after just one sip of Gillis’s potent brew. The way this woman had fought the whiskey’s worst effect revealed the kind of strength he valued and had never expected to find in a Campbell.

“I’m takin’ her,” Callum said, raising his gaze back to his men. “If Argyll wants to see his niece alive again, he will have to find me and finally face me in battle.”

“And if he finds our holding in Skye?” Graham asked.

“Let him.” Callum’s snarl was razor sharp. “He fears me and will nae doubt garner another army to bring with him. We will see them coming from ten leagues away and strike them doun as we did in Kildun. Argyll will die slowly, though.”

“What if the lass dies before we reach Skye?” Jamie asked, dropping a small pink bud he’d been inspecting in exchange for the girl. Her skin was deathly pale and her breathing shallow.

“Ye dinna die from an arrow in yer shoulder,” Brodie scoffed.

Angus swiped him in the chest with his fist. “How’s he supposed to know that? We’ve never seen an arrow in a lass before.”

“Women are more delicate than men,” Graham agreed, tossing a lingering glance on the lass in Callum’s arms. “She’s a bonny one too.”

“What in damnation does that have to do wi’ anything?” Angus asked after another deep pull of his brew.

Callum glanced down at her again. “She will live. He shifted his arm to cradle her at a more comfortable angle when his thigh began to ache, and then scowled when she groaned—it sounded to his ears like a purring kitten after a healthy supper. She cuddled deeper against his chest, and his arms came up closer around her, mindful of the arrow jutting out of her shoulder. Here was something that certainly would have torn away his fierce reputation had anyone but his most loyal men witnessed it. A Campbell clutched in the crook of his arm!

“Should we no’ take the arrow oot, Laird?” Jamie asked, keeping a close pace beside Callum as they rode out of the vale.

Callum had considered it, but the thought of causing her any more pain did not appeal to him. Still, he did not want his men thinking he was going soft, and over a Campbell, no less. “We’ll take her to the Stewarts. They’re no’ far from here. Ennis’s wife is a healer. Once the arrow is oot, the lass’ll need herbs to fight infection. I’ll need her alive if I’m to use her as leverage against her uncle.”

“Ennis Stewart is a traitor,” Graham reminded him. “He might not welcome MacGregors into his home.”

“He will if he wants to live,” Callum growled back at him.

Graham studied his best friend with a spark of amusement gleaming in his green eyes. “Here, let me take her. Ye seem more sour than usual since ye put her in yer arms.”

“I’ve got her,” Callum warned succinctly. “Stop gapin’ at her.”

“Aye, stop gapin’ at her,” Jamie intoned with a forced scowl aimed at his brother. “Callum fancies her and willna have his woman fallin’ fer ye like them at Camlochlin.”

“I dinna fancy her, Jamie,” Callum corrected with an extra dose of disgust thrown in for the convincing. “She’s a Campbell.”

While Jamie often proved himself worthy to be ranked among the MacGregors’ most fearsome men, his downy flaxen hair and large blue eyes rivaled those of the most innocent child. “So ye hate her, then?” Those huge eyes looked up to Callum.

Aye,
Callum thought, he despised the blood that flowed in her veins. Her clan was responsible for killing almost every MacGregor laird for the past four generations without pause. They’d tortured the only person in his life he ever dared to love, until naught remained in him but anger, and darkness, and revenge. Aye, he hated her. But he could not find the stomach to utter it. He clenched his jaw tight instead and kicked his mount into a full gallop.

“Aye.” Jamie nodded, and then took off after him. “He hates her aright.”

Chapter Three

E
NNIS
S
TEWART
did not immediately welcome the MacGregors into his home. When he did, it was not with open arms, but with muttered oaths that should any punishment come upon his family for communicating with the outlawed clan, he would never forgive them.

“Ye’re a MacGregor lest ye ferget, Ennis,” Graham reminded the old warrior. “Yer name may have been changed, but yer blood is, and always will be, MacGregor blood.”

Standing aside to allow them entry into his small bothy, Ennis mumbled a few more blasphemies, then poked his head outside after everyone entered. He looked left and right, then slammed the door shut and bolted it.

“M’ faither was a MacGregor,” Ennis acknowledged, turning to Graham. “M’ brother and his family were killed because of it. Lest
ye
ferget, the name MacGregor is
proscribed
. I can be hanged fer aidin’ ye.” He went to his wife, who stood by a small table in the center of the room, wringing her hands together. Ennis put his arm around her and pulled her close as if the door were about to burst open and they be found guilty of harboring the rebels. “Yer defiance will get ye all killed.” He turned to Callum and shook his head with the pity of it. “How long will ye continue yer war? Ye’re strong and young. Life is no’ so bad now. It willna be long before the monarchy is restored under Charles II. MacGregors have fought fer him. Surely he will remember it. Change yer name, fer the mercy of God, and live a peaceful life.”

Angus stepped forward and towered over Ennis with a scowl as cold as a Highland winter night. “Mind yer tongue. ’Tis yer laird ye address.”

Squaring his shoulders, Ennis tilted his head up to look the huge warrior straight in the eye. “M’ laird is Connor Stewart now.”

Angus regarded the old man with a look of disgust. “Ye’re a coward, Ennis MacGregor.”

“Nae! I protect m’ family!”

“So do they!” Graham shouted at him. He stormed forward and slammed his fist on the table, ignoring Mae Stewart’s startled leap back. “They protect their clan and their family name. I’m proud to say the Grants stand at their side.”

“How are they protected?” Ennis demanded. He pushed his wife behind him and faced the group of warriors boldly. “D’ye protect them by arrogantly announcing yer names to yer enemies? How does that protect yer families?”

Now Callum moved forward. When he reached the table, he swept his arm across it, clearing it of bowls and a vase full of flowers. He bent forward, laying the woman in his arms across the surface. Straightening, he closed his fingers around the hilt of his sword.

“I protect them with this. Anyone who thinks to do harm to my clan will die by my sword, and the offense will never be forgotten. If I have sons, I’ll train them to be warriors, as my faither taught me, so that when I die they’ll protect the clan in my stead. And my clan is MacGregor.” His voice grew low with firm conviction. “I will no’ hide my kin in the darkness of fear in order to protect them. If we die, then so be it. We die as MacGregors. Now, I’ve no’ come here to d’ye harm, nor to shame ye fer what ye feel is right, Ennis. This lass is in need of yer wife’s healin’. We’ll be gone before the sun sets.” He turned to Mae. “Will ye help her?”

“Aye.” She nodded up at him. “Ye look in need of some of m’ special salve yerself.” She motioned to his leg, where blood had dripped and dried in thick rivulets down to his knee.

“I’d be most grateful,” he said and watched while she began her examination of the woman on the table.

“Who did this to her?” Mae looked up from pulling the edge of the woman’s bodice and shift off her shoulder.

“One of her uncle’s guardsman,” Callum told her, unable to look away from the smooth complexion of the lass’s shoulder. She moaned, and he blinked his gaze away.

“Her uncle?” Ennis asked, his interest in her piqued. “Who is she, then?”

When Callum told him, Ennis tossed him a doubtful look. “Ye’re aidin’ a Campbell?”

“Aye, but he hates her.” Jamie hastened to stand at his laird’s defense.

“He doesna hate her, whelp.” Brodie shoved his elbow into Jamie’s gut.

“Ye’re all going to have to wait ootside,” Ennis’s wife declared, exasperated by the sudden bickering. Besides, she was going to have to undress the lass to get to the wound, and it was not proper for any man to see her. “Oot with ye now,” she ordered, shooing them away.