Torn Between Two Highlanders (2 page)

He was done for. And it wasn’t the sword slash on his arm that would kill him. His death would be her fault. Her poison. Her yew berries. She should’ve felt sorry. God would want her to be remorseful. But she put one palm to his forehead and declared, “You’re a dead man now, sword or no.”

Then she gave him a good push. He toppled from her like a chopped tree to the ground where he died, frothing at the mouth, staring up into her eyes…

He wasn’t the only one staring.

Her laughing rescuer stopped laughing and stared with wide blue eyes. She wasn’t entirely sure it was because she was naked as a newborn. Meanwhile, the rest of Arabella’s kidnappers died swiftly. They collapsed before they could be cut down by the dark demon with the claymore. Until the only sound in the bloody clearing was the panting breaths of the flushed, blood-spattered, and sweaty men who rescued her, both of whom stared at her as if
she
was the demon.

“Witch,” the dark one said, making a sign of the cross to fend her off.

She made a sound, a near hysterical sound between a sob and a laugh. This man—this strong, tall, incredibly athletic man—actually stumbled back from her, and fell, as if he, too, had eaten some of her rabbit stew. He went down hard onto the grass where her skirt had been tossed by one of her would-be rapists. But Arabella’s bitter amusement faded when she saw the fountain spurt of blood shoot up from her rescuer’s leg.

And the man with the claymore finally let go of his sword.

Dropped it, really, where it spattered in the mud.

“Malcolm,” the freckled one said. “You’ve taken a scratch the leg, man.”

As it turned out, his wound was much more than a scratch.

It was a horrible gash.

How had he fought so bravely, so fiercely, with such a wound?

“Which one of them did it, Davy?” the dark one asked, pressing his hands to staunch the blood though it flowed over his fingers.

“Didn’t see who did it,” the one called Davy replied, scrambling through the grass to help his comrade. Then he turned to Arabella. “Come help me bind his leg, lass. But none of that funny business with your palm to his forehead. You do that again, and the best swordsman in clan Macrae is like to swoon away in fear of your magic.”

Malcolm barked, “Shut it.”

Arabella started to say that she didn’t have any magic, but was cut off by the sight of her rescuer gritting his teeth against the pain, going paler with another spurt of blood. She hurried to help, offering the torn scraps of her underthings to bind him. It would be against all justice for such a warrior to die by the unknown treachery of one of the villains who lay dead at her feet, so Arabella did what she could to help.

“Too bad they’re all dead,” said Davy. “We needed one of these bastards alive. Are there more of them, lass?”

“I don’t know,” she said, as a rush of blood warmed her hands.

She could only think about how they might staunch the flow of it. But Davy had other concerns. “Were they scouts for the Donald clan that stole you away or did they come to steal livestock, to start with?”

“I don’t think they came to steal,” Arabella answered, trying to ignore that her bare breasts swayed before then men’s eyes as she finished binding the wound so that Davy could tie it off. “They could’ve taken my father’s livestock at any time, but instead they…they took me.”

Then, and only then, did Arabella finally start to cry.

“No time for tears now, lass” Davy said gently, stooping down to wrap something soft and warm around Arabella’s shoulders. A green plaid cloak, she realized. He must’ve taken from one of the dead men. And though it repulsed her to touch anything belonging to these villains, she used it to cover her nakedness, sniffling into the wool, trying to stifle her tears.

Meanwhile, the wounded Malcolm gritted out, “Take the girl and go.”

Davy squatted down beside his friend. “On any other day, I’d be happy to throw a pretty lass onto my horse and ride off with her. But I’m no’ going to leave you behind. So you’d better let me help you stagger to your feet.”

“Go.” Malcolm’s eyes were glassy and far away. “If there are Donald warriors still about, you’re no match for them on your own.”

“Now that’s just insulting,” Davy replied, with a sunny smile that was belied by the tightness at his eyes. “I might not be able to cut down three men at once with great chops of a monster blade, but I handle two of ‘em just fine even with a dirk. After all, which one of us is sitting in a pool of his own blood?”

Malcolm didn’t smile. Didn’t respond at all. Instead, he panted…

…and the eyes rolled back in his head.

Even before the big bleeding warrior began to fall, Arabella tried to brace him with her own shoulder. But he was too heavy. He crashed down. It was only because Davy’s hand darted out to catch his friend’s head that Malcolm’s skull didn’t crash to the ground with a thunk like the rest of him.

Davy cursed, a catch in his voice. “Is he dead?”

Arabella felt the pulse of Malcolm’s life’s blood and put her ear to his mouth, to hear deep, reassuring breaths. “Not yet.”

“Can you ride?” Davy asked, grasping his friend under the arms and hauling him upright. And when Arabella didn’t answer swiftly enough, he repeated the question. “I asked if you can ride, lass.”

“Aye. What self-respecting Highland girl cannot?”

Davy didn’t seem to concern himself with Scots pride. Instead of trying to hide how exhausted he was—instead of pretending that he could manage his friend on his own, he said, “Help me get Malcolm onto my horse then ride his.”

She found it strangely reassuring to be asked for help again. Strangely thrilling that he treated more like a comrade-at-arms than a damsel in distress. So she grasped the slumped warrior around the waist just as Davy whistled for his bay stallion. “A well trained horse,” Arabella said with delight, when the horse trotted over.

“Animals like me,” Davy explained. “Women, too. So be on your guard, lass. These dimples of mine, you might find hard to resist.”

Arabella sputtered, having no reply to that. Was he actually flirting with her in the midst of this bloody carnage and danger, while she nearly bowed under the weight of his dying friend?

As he hoisted the unconscious man over the saddle, Arabella helped him, shoving with all her strength. Not being overly careful where she might touch the big warrior’s body, either. And when they finally got him onto the horse, Arabella was shaking from the effort.

Davy leapt up onto his horse behind his friend’s body, steadying him with one hand. “What are you waiting on lass? Malcolm’s horse is the black one.”

“A moment,” Arabella panted, having fetched the claymore to take along with them. “I’m a little breathless.”

“
Och
, aye. I have that affect on the ladies, but there’s no time for panting after me,” he said, exasperating her utterly. “If these louts were meaning to meet up with their clansmen, we need to be well away by the time they’re discovered.”

Arabella climbed atop the black mare, gripping tightly to its mane. “Let’s go then.”

Davy nodded. “Follow me. We need to get Malcolm back to the castle.”

He meant the castle at
Eilean Donan
, where Laird John Macrae served as constable. Feeling the horse’s strong muscles ripple beneath her, she wished never so much as anything to gallop off to the safety of that castle, a place of protection and defense for the clan. But one look at the man slung over the saddle like a sack of wheat, and she said, “He won’t make it all the way back to the castle. We’re too far away. We need to get him somewhere he can be tended to.”

Davy’s horse pawed impatiently at the ground. “Your father’s cottage then?”

Arabella bit her lip thoughtfully. “Still too far. I think I know where to go.” She didn’t expect him to simply nod, encouraging her to go on. Arabella’s father preferred that she not speak unless spoken to, so she wasn’t used to men deferring to her as if she had something useful to say. “To my betrothed. He has a secluded farmstead not far from here—on the other side of the wood.”

“You’re
betrothed
?” Davy asked, his blue eyes narrowing.

“Aye,” Arabella said, wondering if it seemed so very unlikely that a man should have agreed to marry her. She wasn’t as pretty or delicate as her older sister Heather; her eyes weren’t an enchanting violet, but a soft brown. It’s true she tended to smile with mischief rather than sweetness, and that she walked sometimes with a gait that her Papa said was too boyish. Still, Conall seemed to like her well enough. “We’re to wed after the next market day.”

“I see.” No doubt, Davy really
did
believe she was a witch, because he didn’t look as if he approved. Then he wiped a smear of blood from his cheek with the back of his beefy arm. “Lead the way then.”

Nodding, Arabella dug her heels into the horse’s side and galloped off, her two clan warriors following behind. She felt strangely exhilarated. She’d lived through this horror. And she’d escaped with her virtue…a thing her betrothed might well appreciate.

Before Conall’s farmstead came into view, Davy warned her to be wary. “If the Donald scouts were at your father’s cottage, they might be holed up here too.”

“I’ll go first then,” Arabella said, her hands tight on the reins.

“And risk putting yourself back in their clutches?”

“I risk that either way,” she said, realizing that if the countryside truly was crawling with men of the Donald clan, she was likely to be retaken.

“True enough, lass,” Davy said, while his comrade groaned from his place slung across the horse. And the sound of his pain made clear to Arabella that she must find help for him. She
must
.

“I’ll whistle for you if it’s safe,” Arabella said, dismounting from the war horse that she’d have no way of explaining. She might be able to think up a lie to explain her disheveled appearance and the blood on her hands, though, so she tucked loose hair behind her ears, wrapping the plaid cloak tighter around her. “If it’s not safe, then…”

Davy waved a hand. He understood. If this farmstead, too, was overtaken by rival clansmen, then they were likely all to die. But Davy didn’t look grim. In truth, he gave her a warm encouraging smile, and his blue eyes were filled with excitement—almost as if he welcomed the danger.

Both these blood-spattered men were in danger for having come to her rescue, and Arabella knew she must rescue them in return. She hurried across the field, striding purposefully, then bashing upon the door of the humble abode where she was intended to be mistress of the household one day. “Conall!”

When the door did not open, she banged upon the wood once again. But her answer came from behind her, from the pasture, where her betrothed stood, tending his sheep. He smiled widely, without a trace of alarm. “Is that my Arabella? To what do I owe this surpri—”

“Are you alone?” she asked, and turned fully in the light, revealing herself to be unkempt, half-dressed and bloody.

Conall startled. “What the devil happened to you, lass?”

“Are you
alone
?” she asked again, hysteria in her voice.

“Aye, I’m alone.”

“Thank God,” Arabella cried, falling to her knees in exhaustion and relief. Conall came running to steady her. And she needed steadying because she was going to faint. She was going to swoon away…but before she did, she whistled for Davy and Malcolm.

Just as she’d promised.

~~~

Arabella didn’t remember how they got Malcolm into the house—they must have carried him there and put the badly injured warrior into Conall’s bed. Of course, she scarcely remembered how
she
came to be curled up in a blanket by the fire, cleaned up of blood and dressed in some ill-fitting men’s garments, borrowed from her betrothed. The trauma of everything she’d seen—and everything she’d done—seemed to have jolted her mind, so that when she tried to remember certain things, she only saw a blinding bolt of lightning. She had some hazy memory of telling Conall everything in a rush. Telling him about the kidnapping and about the battle, though, for some reason, she said nothing about the yew berries.

She also remembered tending to Malcolm.They’d cleaned him up. They’d changed his bandages. Wrapped him in blankets. Roused him and made him drink some liquor before he drifted off again. “I can make a willow bark tea to ease his pain, but it might otherwise be in God’s hands now.” Having said that, she’d left Davy sitting vigil at the bedside of his dying friend, to join Conall at the fire.

And now, the lad she was to marry, stared hard at her. “Did those animals violate you, Arabella?”

“No,” she whispered, with a distraught shake of her head. “Not for lack of trying, but they all died before they could.” She didn’t tell him how they died and realized now, it was not careless omission, but purposeful. She feared telling anyone—even her betrothed—what she’d done. It was one thing for a brawny warrior to save a girl from her fate by spilling blood on a sword, but for a girl to have saved herself with poison of the yew berry? Well, how would she ever forget the fearful way Malcolm had made a sign of the cross over himself and pronounced her a
witch
?

Conall leaned forward in his chair, then gave a brief squeeze to her hand before seeming to decide something in himself. “I believe you. But no one else will. You’ll have to bear the shame of it. The wedding—well, we’ll have to wait on it now—but I’m willing to marry you anyway.”

“Thank you,” she said, because she thought it’s what she was supposed to say. And because the idea of waiting was strangely appealing. After today, she couldn’t quite imagine making herself pretty and saying vows.

Still, she got the distinct impression that Conall expected more lavish gratitude. “We’ll wait a few months,” he continued. “Until it’s plain to anyone that any child you bear is mine.”

A slow anger started to burn in her belly. She hadn’t expected to marry a warm man. After all, her father wasn’t a warm man. But she had hoped her betrothed might have some kinder words for her than
that
. And the more she thought about it, the more her indignation burned. “So you’re saying that I’ve been ruined, anyway. That whether they took my virtue or not, everyone will believe they did. It worries you what people in the village might say should they hear I was stolen away!”