Desire in Tartan: 2 (Highland Vampires) (5 page)

The kiss.

The declaration.

I’m your man.

His hand dropped away but the heat, the sizzle, remained. He stepped back.

The ostler handed her the reins and she turned her attention back to the matter at hand, adjusting her seat. She slid her foot into the slipper stirrup, settling herself facing forward, though with her legs twisted. Her ankle ached, though less than she’d dreaded.

She breathed deeply, allowing her stays to support her back. She found that she sat the horse more comfortably than she’d anticipated. Her breasts pressed against her new pink shift, quite the finest chemise she’d ever owned. Her nipples rubbed against the silk, a pleasant sensation.

She felt…good.

Dugald handed her a short whip and she took it in her right hand. “Well, Mary,” she said gaily. “Shall we?”

“We’ll make for the Kilbirnies first.” Dugald rode beside her on a massive gray gelding. “They’re to the southeast, nearish to the River Garnock.”

“The Kilbirnies?”

“Our distant clansmen. The Kilburns come from the Kilbirnies, ye ken? We’re an offshoot, but we’re friends. Allies.”

They’d left Glasgow the next morning, with Dugald explaining that haste was necessary. They’d be racing the Highland storms to Kilburn Castle, which was far to the northwest.

She squirmed on her seat atop Mary, occasionally flexing and relaxing her ankle. She hoped that she could manage a long day of riding, because Dugald didn’t seem inclined to stop. The countryside around Glasgow was heavily populated, and he appeared to want to avoid notice, taking narrower byways rather than wider roads, clearly unconcerned about the dangers that the quieter trails presented, footpads and the like. She had heard that many a traveler to the Highlands wrote their final will and testament before setting out, so dangerous was the savage country.

On the other hand, Dugald and his mates were likely the wild Highlanders whom such travelers feared. The Kilburns were a fierce group. Each featured the same dark, almost threatening good looks. Each rode a massive steed and, once they were clear of town, each bore weapons that she knew had been forbidden.

Moreover, some drew from their horses’ panniers lengths of tartan in two shades of blue crossed with thin yellow and red stripes. Her heart raced. These were not the common shepherds’ plaidies of black and white. This had to be the Kilburn tartan, which the men now wore without a shred of fear, despite its illegality.

Yes, the Kilburns were a frightening lot, but not a threat to her—or so she hoped. She still stayed clear of the trio she thought of as the Tupping Threesome—Murdo, Malcolm and Blain—while trying to avoid the appearance of clinging to Dugald. Men such as he didn’t like clinging females.

After they’d left Glasgow, the countryside had quickly turned from gray and gloomy to…gray and beautiful, in its own way. Though the fog persisted, the land itself was green and good, with tilled fields in the flatlands and forests shrouding the hills.

When evening approached, a tired Alice hoped that their first day’s travel was close to its end. Mary, a smaller mount than the rest, lagged behind as Dugald led the group along a mist-laden trail that clung to the hill above a narrow glen. Below, a river—the Garnock, she assumed—rushed in a torrent toward the sea.

Mist gathered on the brim of her new hat, falling in fat drips onto the thick felted wool of her habit. She was warm and dry but doubted that the charming feather in the hatband had survived with any degree of dash. A shame, that.

She sniffled before pulling out a hanky from where she’d stuffed it under one ruffled cuff, and wiped her nose. She shoved it back with a proud glance at the finely stitched linen. She’d never had blouses so lovely. They stuck out just the right distance from the green wool sleeve, an elegant touch, and the white lacy ruffle contrasted beautifully with her dark leather gloves.

Mary stumbled and went down on one knee. Alice barely managed to keep from pitching over the horse’s head by clutching the mane. She untangled her foot from the slipper stirrup and dismounted.

Mary had righted herself but stood shivering. Droplets of condensation clung to her thick coat, and she looked as thoroughly miserable as Alice felt.

She patted the mare’s coarse black mane. “There, there, darling. I know it’s a bit of a change from your nice cozy stable, but we’ll be all right soon.” Going to Mary’s left front leg—the one that had scraped the ground—Alice stooped and inspected it carefully. The lingering memories of her horsemanship lessons told her that Mary’s knee needed to be cleaned and poulticed at the earliest possible moment.

She took her water bottle from where it hung from her saddle and poured clean liquid over the wound, flushing away bits of mud that clung to the scrape. Mary shuddered but remained still.

Alice wondered if the reddened area ought to be bandaged. She eyed it, noting no ooze of blood, and decided to leave it be. If allowed, p’raps it would heal with no mishap. She didn’t care if Mary had a scar or two.
Most of us do,
Alice thought.
Sometimes they’re not visible, but they’re there.

She had a few, of course, and wondered about Dugald, his oddly rough laugh, his rare but welcome smiles. And his kiss. Did he also bear unseen scars?

She looked up the trail, but the thick mist obscured everything, even the laughter and shouting of the Kilburns.

She was alone.

Buck up, lassie
, she told herself, hearing Dugald’s imagined voice inside her mind.
They’re there, just a bit ahead. We can catch up.

Instead of mounting Mary, Alice took the reins to lead the horse along the trail.

“Mistress! Mistress!” Malcolm emerged from the mist, shouting. “Run!”

She stared, startled into immobility. An arrow flew out of the fog from behind her and struck him in the neck. Blood gushed forth. A scream tore from her throat and she ran, grabbing her skirts up and away from her ankles.

As she neared Malcolm’s fallen body she slowed. He feebly moved his arm, reaching for the arrow, and jerked it out with a pained cry.

She knelt by his side. The fluid that flowed from his torn throat had slowed to a dark ooze. Jerking out her hanky, she pressed it to the wound. Black, sticky blood seeped through the cloth in seconds.

Black blood.

Black blood?

Alice lifted the hanky away from the wound. It was already closing. She gaped.

Behind her, boot heels crunched on stone. Pain blazed through her head and her world went black.

* * * * *

Jolting and jouncing with the world turned upside down and pain stabbing from a sore scalp. Flakes of drying blood on her bare, cold hands from…from where? Wrenching sticky eyelids open, Alice saw mud and rock bouncing beneath her, and gradually realized that she was face down, draped over a horse’s back. Mary? Probably, because her loose hair—where was her hat?—fell uncomfortably close to the ground beneath.

She tried to touch her head, investigate the pain—a bruise?—but couldn’t because her hands were bound. Bound together, and bound to her feet with the rope passing beneath the horse’s belly. Her boots were gone, she realized with mounting despair. Those responsible for kidnapping her knew precisely what they were doing. Even if she managed to escape, she’d never get far without boots. Dread crept through her.

The dried blood on her hands had to be from her head. The blow had been hard enough to tear her scalp, and the blood had flowed down her arms to her hands while she’d been tied in this sickening, horrible, helpless position.

She was going to die. She was sure of that. The rough voices she heard all around her, coming at her through the darkness and the fog, were not the Kilburns. She’d been around them for long enough to recognize their voices. And in any event, they’d never do anything like this to her. For all their strange behavior—she couldn’t ignore the incident with the street whore—they’d never shown her anything but kindness and courtesy.

What was to become of her? She thought about her short life and her failure to do anything of meaning. New pain struck, this time around her heart. She’d never have the chance to discover what could grow from her feelings for Dugald, and his for her. Never have the chance to kiss him again, touch him, love him. Never bear his children.

She realized with more than a touch of surprise that she’d wanted that, wanted him and everything he could give her. A life that held meaning and joy instead of hopelessness and despair.

Tears gathered. She angrily willed them away, choosing instead to scrabble and struggle with the ropes binding her hands. She reached with trembling fingers to her bloodstained cuff and managed to tug out her hanky. She tried to use it to swab her hands, but it slipped out of her grasp and was lost.

She twisted her head to look at it, a tiny dot of grubby white receding into darkness, and fresh pain stabbed from the welt on her head. Even so, she thought that perhaps she could see another horse behind her, another horse, a bigger horse, with a body draped over it.

A body dressed in black. A body that lacked a head.

Malcolm.

Bile rose in her throat and she retched, the vomit splashing onto the ground beneath, but some getting into her hair. Ugh.

She spat, and a grating laugh sounded from nearby.

“Our little lady is awake,” a female voice crooned.

“Good,” said a man. “We’ll have the other first whilst fattening this one up.”

A sharp finger jabbed Alice in the rump and she squawked.

More laughter. “The Bean’ll be glad of fresh meat,” the woman said.

Alice’s heart froze. “Sawney Bean? But he’s but a legend, and long dead.”

The laughter increased, booming and banging in her ears. She doubled her efforts to loosen the ropes around her hands, but they’d been pulled tight.

Despite the stink of vomit in her nostrils along with the healthier aroma of horse, she thought she detected a fresher scent. The sea.

Of course. Sawney Bean and his family had lived in a sea cave, south of the area through which they’d been traveling.

Mother of mercy. She’d been captured by cannibals.

* * * * *

Riding at the head of the small Kilburn procession, Dugald had noted that Alice lagged behind as the afternoon wore on, and sent Malcolm after her to ensure her safety. But as the gloaming had deepened and neither had appeared, he’d grown alarmed. He gestured, and Murdo detached himself from the rest of the group.

“Lead the others to Kilbirnie while I look for Malcolm and Mistress Alice,” Dugald told Murdo. “Archie will ride with me.”

As they headed back along the route they’d traveled, Dugald became increasingly disquieted. He hadn’t smelled Alice’s distinctive fragrance for longer than he liked, and when he did it was distorted by blood. Blood and the aromas of strangers.

Attackers.

Three had lost blood at a trail junction. He dismounted to track the scents and to fully understand what had happened. Archie did the same, leading the horses a distance away. As always, the well-trained Kilburn mounts stood still when their reins were dropped to the ground.

Dugald closed his eyes the better to focus on the aromas. He sensed when Archie came to stand beside him, but didnae stir.

The strongest scent was that of Malcolm. Malcolm had lost blood, a lot of it. A slight aroma of a horse’s blood—Mary?—and underlying it all was Alice’s enticing fragrance, tinctured with her fear.

He sucked in a deep breath, trying vainly to still the thunder of his pulse. His woman had been attacked.

A few more breaths and he’d calmed his temper enough to focus on the matter at hand.

“Malcolm,” he said, opening his eyes.

Archie lifted his head into the still, fog-laden air and sniffed. “Aye.”

“This way.” Dugald strode along the trail in the direction from which they’d come then stopped, kneeled. A blotch of blood, and droplets leading to the right. Straightening, he followed them to find a ditch, thick with a sickening stench.

He kneeled again the better to examine it. ’Twas damp with only an inch or two of water in the bottom. Sticks, rocks, rotting autumn leaves.

And Malcolm’s head.

Archie exhaled, a sharp and angry explosion of breath.

“Aye,” Dugald said heavily. Pain wrapped around his heart, settled in his soul. ’Twasn’t the first time a man under his command had died, but he mourned the event as though it were, always hoping ’twould be the last. A vain hope, he knew.

He tugged the swatch of Kilburn plaidie off his shoulders and wrapped his comrade’s head in it before tying the bundle into a tree. ’Twas uncertain storage, but probably the head would be safe from scavengers ’til the remains of his fallen cousin could be retrieved and taken home.

He stood for a moment, with Archie quiet by his side, in respect for Malcolm, wondering how Malcolm’s mother would receive the news of her son’s death. Failure lay as bitter as bile on his tongue, roiled his belly and tightened his muscles with anger. He had failed to keep his men—and one fragile woman—safe from the dangers of travel.

He dreaded explaining the whole to his laird. However, milaird well understood the dangers of the road. Better than anyone, Dugald reckoned.

He sighed, shook himself a bit and said to Archie, “Let’s go. There’s no time to be lost.”

* * * * *

Every bone and sinew ached, and she was cold unto her soul. Alice stirred. Chill rock beneath her, small stones jabbing through her…her what?

She shivered violently, and no wonder. Her lovely warm riding habit had been removed along with her cozy quilted petticoats. And she was lying partially in a puddle, her hair sopping.

She blinked. Where on earth was she?

Darkness, lit only by one torch, its flickering light glistening on myriad wet surfaces. Most of the reflections were of rough rock, but others…there were bars a foot or so away from where she lay.