Highland Champion (5 page)

“I am certain he didnae learn
that
in a monastery,” she muttered.

“I wouldnae be too certain of that. None of the monks were born there, after all,” said Liam.

“Weel, if Kester isnae careful, when Sir Kinnaird finally stumbles inside, he will be fair to frothing at the mouth after having had to endure so many insults.”

“The lad will be fine. He may nay be able to walk two yards without tripping o’er his own feet, but he is quick-witted. Now, lead on. It may yet occur to that bellowing laird that someone should stand guard in the stable.”

Keira started down the tunnel, alarm at that possibility spurring her onward. She closed her mind to the tight quarters of the tunnel, to the pervasive smell of damp earth and thought only of the opening at the other end. There lay freedom. She just wished it meant freedom from Liam. Keira knew he would be at her side for a while yet, and she suspected he would reside in her heart and mind for many years to come.

Once at the end of the tunnel, Keira handed Liam the lantern. She climbed the ladder to the hatchway and carefully lifted the door just enough to peer around the stables. To her relief, there was no sign of any of Laird Kinnaird’s men, and even better, it appeared that Kester had almost completely shut the stable door after attending to the animals that morning. There was little chance that anyone besieging the cottage would be able to see her and Liam in the stables. She hurried to climb out of the tunnel, then after setting down all she carried, knelt by the tunnel opening to take Liam’s belongings as he handed them up to her.

Liam inwardly cursed as he had to be helped up the final step of the ladder by Keira. Although he was deeply grateful for all of her help and knew he owed her his life,
he was weary of being an invalid. He knew a great deal of his irritation at the moment was because it was his problem that had sent them fleeing the comfort of the cottage, yet he had to depend upon a boy and a tiny lady to extract him from it. Once inside the stable, he quickly gathered up his things and hurried to ready his horse as Keira covered their route of escape. This much, at least, he could do for himself, he thought crossly.

As Keira moved to saddle her dark gray mare in the stall next to Liam’s horse, Gilmour, she said quietly, “There is a way out at the rear of the stables. Once outside, there are, oh, five yards or so of open space before ye enter the wood. A few more yards after that, and the wood grows thick enough to hide us.”

“Mayhap we should lead our horses o’er that more open ground,” said Liam.

Keira glanced at his right leg, still swathed in linen bandages and wooden slats. He wore breeches with the right leg sliced open to just above the knee. Over the bandages and wood he wore an odd sort of deerskin boot one of the monks had sewn for him. The foot of the boot had been made a little too big to allow for swelling, and the shaft of the boot was simply two flaps of leather brought up front and back and tied onto his damaged leg with lengths of rawhide. It all worked to make it nearly impossible for Liam to bend his leg at the knee.

“If we were to be seen doing that, we would have to mount quickly, and I think ye will find that ye cannae do that,” she said.

Liam looked down at his strapped up leg, thought about how he needed to move to mount his horse, and silently repeated every curse he could think of. He had gotten so good at managing his everyday needs that he had deluded himself into thinking he was self-sufficient. Now he knew he could not adequately defend himself, or others, from an enraged husband or even mount his horse without assistance. He might be able to forgive Maude for the beating he had suffered, but he doubted he would ever forgive her for this constant battering of his pride, this seemingly unending helplessness.

“Aye, ye are right,” he replied, unable to keep all of his anger out of his voice. “S’truth, I think ye will have to help me mount.” He led his horse out of the stall and waited for her to give him a hand.

Keira led her mare out of her stall, then moved to give Liam help in mounting. She beat down the sympathy she felt for him by reminding herself of the reason why he was so injured. The punishment had been too harsh, but a man had to expect some retribution from a husband he had wronged. Keira knew a lot of her anger was born of hurt, of feeling like a complete fool. One glimpse of Lady Maude’s stunningly beautiful face had been more than enough to harshly remind her of her own lack. For a brief time, she had actually begun to believe his pretty words and sweet smiles were for her alone, that they had truly meant something. The truth was bitter. A man who could win a woman like Lady Maude could never really be stirred by a woman like her.

Once Liam was settled in the saddle, Keira said, “I must needs shut the door after we leave, so just ride into the wood. Dinnae wait for me until ye are deep into the shelter of the trees.”

Liam hesitated only a moment before nodding. He had feared that Keira might try to leave him now, setting her own trail, but her words implied that she would ride with him for now. After having to be helped into the saddle, he was hard-pressed to believe he could still be her ally, her champion, but he knew that sense of defeat would pass. If nothing else, he could help her gather the men she would need to retake Ardgleann.

Ducking to pass through the door she had opened, Liam made his way toward the wood, waiting tensely for any outcry every step of the way. Once sheltered within the trees, he watched Keira carefully make her way toward him and breathed a sigh of relief when she reached his side unseen by Kinnaird and his men. Whatever Kester was doing, it was working to keep all attention fixed upon the cottage.

“We shall ride to my cousin’s keep Scarglas,” he told her.

“I intended to return to my kinsmen,” Keira said.

“Nay alone, and until this leg of mine heals, I am hindered in my ability to protect ye. Scarglas is but three days ride from here. Mayhap more if we run into any trouble. There will be men to escort ye home there, and supplies for the journey.”

It made sense, too much sense to argue with, so Keira nodded. “Lead on.”

Liam began to do just that, hiding his face in case his expression revealed the relief he felt over her acceptance of his plan. Taking her to Scarglas was a good plan, but it would also give him time alone with her. He would probably need every moment of that time to ease her anger and regain the ground he had lost owing to Maude’s arrival at the cottage. By the time they reached Scarglas, he wanted her to have told him of the challenge she faced and to have accepted his part in the battle ahead. He also hoped to renew his wooing, to regain her trust. One glance at her face told him that might prove to be the hardest battle of all.

Keira glanced over at Liam and silently cursed. The man looked so pale she was surprised he was still in the saddle. Her anger and disappointment had obviously smothered the healer in her for a while for she had not taken a moment since fleeing the cottage to consider what a long, hard ride might cost him. Even she was feeling a bit sore, and she was not suffering from any injuries. Since he had taken the lead in their flight from the enraged Lord Kinnaird, she wondered why he had said nothing about the pain he was so clearly suffering. Manly pride, she supposed, and shook her head over such foolishness.

“I think ’tis time we stopped for the night,” she said.

“’Tis still light enough to ride,” Liam said, although he ached to get off his horse and rest his leg.

“Aye, but ye look ready to fall out of that saddle.”

Liam hated the fact that she could see how he suffered with each movement Gilmour made. “Nay, I—”

“Sir Liam, I am nay strong enough to catch ye if ye start to fall or move ye from wherever ye land, and a fall could cause serious damage to your leg. Ye are but a fortnight from having all of that binding off. Do ye truly wish to start at the beginning again?”

He gave her an ill-tempered grunt in reply. “About an hour from here, there is a wee village. We can rest there.”

She knew it was all the concession he would make, so Keira said nothing more. Men could become stubborn when their pride was at stake. There was a chance that if she pushed the man too hard, he would try to ride even further than the next village, and she had no wish to spend the coming night keeping a vigil over his unconscious body or resetting his leg. Instead, she decided just to keep a very close watch on him until they reached their destination. She just hoped the man had the good sense to give up before he swooned.

By the time they rode into the little village, Liam could barely see straight. He reined in before a small alehouse that let rooms to travelers and fought the urge to let himself just fall to the ground. Taking slow deep breaths, he pushed aside his pain and struggled to steady himself before Keira came to help him dismount. He hoped she was quick for he desperately wanted to get into one of old Denny’s surprisingly clean and comfortable beds.

Keira studied Liam closely as she helped him dismount. For the last few moments of their ride, he had looked so poorly she had been tensed and ready to hear his body hit the ground. He was still pale, but once off the horse, he no longer looked in danger of fainting. She did, however, keep close to his side as they entered the alehouse. A moment later, she heartily wished herself miles away as a fulsome, dark-haired woman cried out his name and nearly knocked him off his crutch with the force of her embrace. Liam had obviously passed this way before, she thought crossly.

He was cursed, Liam decided, as he gently, but firmly, extracted himself from the buxom Mary’s rather tenacious embrace. Although he was willing to concede that he may have been greedy in his enjoyment of women, he did not think he deserved this amount of punishment for his sins. There was no need to look at Keira to know how she was taking this smiling proof of his somewhat intemperate past. He could almost feel the chill
of her anger. This was going to make it even harder to convince her that Lady Maude was simply deluded.

“’Tis good to see ye again, Mary,” he said politely, his hands on her arms to hold her at a distance.

“Och, aye, ’tis good to see ye again as weel,” Mary said. “’Twill soon be e’en better, when we—”

“Allow me to introduce my wife,” he interrupted hastily, not wanting Mary to get too precise in her reminiscing. Keira undoubtedly knew he had bedded this woman, but she did not need to know the how, the when, or the where.

Keira opened her mouth to heartily deny Liam’s claim, but a quick, sharp look from him made her choke back the words. Her common sense told her there were some very good reasons for such a pretense. She would rather share a room with a man she was beginning to think was a rampant lecher, than sleep alone and unguarded. Some of the men gathered in the alehouse did not look as if they would be troubled much by a locked door or an unwilling woman. For all of his faults, Liam would never try to force her. It was going to be a long, uncomfortable night, however, she thought as she forced herself to briefly smile a greeting to a gaping Mary. When her mind added a lot of nasty qualifications after the woman’s name, Keira hastily silenced it. It was not Mary’s fault that Liam seemed unable to keep his breeches laced tightly against temptation. She just wished she could stop her mind from filling her head with painful images of Liam and Mary together, in a bed, naked.

“Married?” Mary screeched finally, then quickly took a step back and curtsied somewhat clumsily to Keira. “So that is where ye have been, Liam. Och, aye, and ye have been injured. Your cousins came here looking for ye, ye ken.”

“When?” asked Liam.

“Oh, twice now. They last stopped here three, mayhap four, days ago.” Mary grinned. “A fine-looking crop of braw laddies. We did have fun.”

So, perhaps her mind was not wrong in naming Mary a whore, Keira thought. A pretty, cheerful one at that, and one who made no secret of her wanton ways. It did not matter. She knew men often sought out such women, some even after they were married. Her own kinsmen did so while they were free of all vows and bonds. It did not make it any less painful to know that Liam had done so or to have to look one of those women in the eye.

It does not matter
, she sternly told herself. For a little while she had fooled herself, allowed herself to think she could be of interest to a man like Sir Liam. It was good that she had been awakened from that dream before she had done something there would have been no retreating from.

After gleaning what information he could about his cousins, Liam requested a room, a bath, and a meal. As a still chattering Mary led him and Keira to the small bedchamber they would share, Liam kept glancing back at Keira to make sure she was still with him. Her continued silence was making him uneasy.

There would be no wooing Keira this night, he thought as Mary ushered them into a bedchamber, still talking. Liam idly wondered if Keira would even speak to him, and for a brief moment, thought that silence might be welcome. He had never noticed how much Mary talked, but then, he had been too busy scratching an itch to care, he ruefully admitted. It pained him to admit it, even if only to himself, but his cousin Sigimor may
have been right when he had said there might come a day when he paid for all that scratching. Liam just did not think he deserved to pay so dearly.

Keira remained silent as a bath was prepared for her. She would truly like to speak pleasantly and to act as if she cared not at all that Liam was a lecherous swine, but she feared what might burst out if she opened her mouth. When he left her to her bath asking only that she not take too long for he would also enjoy a wash with warm water, Keira sighed and began to undress. As she sank her weary body into the warm water, she sighed with pleasure and could almost feel sorry for Liam because he would not be able to enjoy this delight. It would be another fortnight before he could sink himself into a bath, and even then, he might need help getting in and out until his leg grew strong again.

Her mind suddenly filled with images of a naked Liam, and she was the one helping him bathe. She could almost feel the muscles and taut skin beneath her hands as she soaped his fine, broad chest. Keira shook her head and cursed herself for an idiot. Liam did have a fine, manly chest, but it was obviously one that had been touched by far more female hands than she cared to think about.

A strong urge to weep swept over her, and she scrubbed herself vigorously until it passed. The man was not worth her tears, although a few of her dreams had been so sweet she supposed they were worth grieving over. Worse, she had the sinking feeling it would be a long time before she could banish the man from her dreams. Keira doubted those dreams would be pleasant ones now either, for her mind seemed to have tenaciously grasped the thought of what Liam had done with all those other women and kept tormenting her with far too many clear images. Now she would probably find that her dreams of him were more like nightmares.

Somehow, she would find the strength to tear the man out of her heart and mind, she promised herself. It had been foolish to allow him to wriggle his way in, but she was through being a fool. From this moment on, Liam Cameron would simply be that man with a broken leg, someone she was helping in her capacity as a healer.

Keira hoped she could act with all the confidence she was bringing forth in these lectures to herself. Liam was hard to resist, even when she was angry with him. Even when fulsome brunettes flung themselves into his arms, she was more hurt and disillusioned than angry. Her gallant knight had feet of clay, and she could almost hate him for that.

Once done with her bath, Keira wondered what to wear as she dried herself. Since Liam had seen her in her night shift and robe many times, she decided to wear them. As soon as he was done washing himself, she would rinse her clothes out in the bathwater to rid them of the dust and the scent of horses gained from their ride.

She was just braiding her damp hair when Liam returned. He brought in a tray heavily ladened with bread, cold mutton, cheeses, oatcakes, and apples. It was plain fare, but Keira’s stomach still growled with anticipation.

“Dinnae wait on me, lass,” Liam said as he set the tray down on a table, inwardly sighing when her only reply was a cool, stiff nodding of her head.

Keira was just about to sit on the stool by the rough-hewn little table when Liam stripped to the waist. She had to clench her teeth to hold back an involuntary murmur of pleasure. The man was dangerous, she thought crossly as she hastily moved her stool so that her back was toward him.

Liam glanced at Keira as he washed and almost smiled. Her back was so stiff and
straight he was surprised it did not hurt her to sit like that. That she was so angry with him was not amusing in the least, but the way she showed her anger was, if only just a little.

What troubled him more was that he had the strongest feeling he had disappointed her in some way. He doubted she was unaware of how men behaved, especially young men with no wife or betrothed, so exactly how he had disappointed her was somewhat of a puzzle. That she believed he had cuckolded Lord Kinnaird could be some of it, but he doubted all of her kinsmen were innocent of that sin. She had apparently formed some strange idea of him as some perfect, genteel knight, chivalrous and pure. Well, the last few hours had certainly shattered that image.

That, at least, was a good thing, he told himself firmly. If she had envisioned him thus, it was a role he could never play for long. He was better natured than many of his kinsmen, was more able to think before he acted, but he had as many faults as any other man. After living with him for a month, he was surprised she did not know that, but then, he had been on his best behavior.

He could explain Maude, and felt confident that he could get Keira to at least try to believe him. It irritated him that his word was not good enough, but that could be dealt with. If Keira had not met Mary, who had made it painfully clear that he and she had once been intimate, he might have already begun to win Keira to his side. Unfortunately, in Keira’s eyes, that latest meeting had only added veracity to Lady Maude’s claims.

Frowning a little as he sat by the tub and struggled to wash his hair, he wondered if it might be best to just let her stay angry. Everything within him immediately rebelled at that thought. He knew she deserved someone higher born, someone with a fuller purse and someplace fine to call home, but he was now determined to try to win her for his own. Although he was not sure what he felt besides lust, when he looked at her, he saw his mate, his partner, and the mother of his children. If in gaining that, he had to reach high and angered a few people, so be it.

After squeezing the water from his hair, he gave it a brisk rub with the drying cloth and then struggled to his feet. The way Keira started to turn, obviously moving to help him, and then visibly stiffened as she turned back to her meal, caused a flicker of hope to stir within him. She was not completely cold to him. Anger and disappointment he could deal with, bothersome as they were, but if she had utterly rejected him, he feared he would have been at a complete loss as to what to do.

He sat down across from her at the table and helped himself to some food and ale. Watching her closely as he ate, he felt that small spark of hope grow hotter. In the tense way she sat and in the way she would start to raise her head to look at him only to return slowly to staring at her food were proof that she was finding it hard to ignore him. If she were now completely cold to him, looking at him would not be a thing she would need to avoid so strenuously. Regaining her trust would be difficult, but he felt he could do it with hard work and patience.

A small part of him was angry that she would not simply accept his word, but he would do his best to smother that resentment. There was good reason for her to question the wisdom of trusting blindly in his word. In the past few hours, she had heard one woman claim him as her lover, making each harsh response he had made to Maude and his vigorous attempts to avoid the woman look like the actions of a callous man who used women mercilessly for his own pleasure. And then, she had been confronted with Mary, a
woman he
had
bedded. If the situation was turned around, he suspected he would be angry as well. Violently angry, he thought with a little surprise, hastily banishing the images of Keira with another man. He just had to convince her that even though his past might be nothing to be proud of, if he pledged himself to her, he would hold to that vow.

Liam’s eyes widened slightly when Keira made a noise that sounded very much like a soft growl and then abruptly stood up. She moved toward the bath, gathered up the clothes she had worn, and started to wash them in the bathwater. He slowly smiled and began to eat with real enjoyment, his lagging appetite fully restored. Keira Murray MacKail was most definitely
not
cold toward him. Let the battle begin, he thought, and nearly laughed.