Once a Warrior (12 page)

He shifted slightly, told himself he was being ridiculous, and tried to recapture the tranquillity he had enjoyed only a moment earlier. But something had changed. The massaging of his back seemed less firm and therapeutic, and somehow had become more of a caress that was almost sensual, as if it were a woman exploring his back instead of a young boy. Rob leaned closer, until Malcolm could feel the sigh of the lad’s breath against his wet skin as Rob’s small hands trailed over his shoulders.

Appalled by the sensations flooding through him, Malcolm jerked away, sloshing water onto the floor.

“That’s enough,” he commanded brusquely. “Leave me.”

The boy looked at him in confusion. “But I haven’t finished. I brought a liniment—”

“I don’t want your liniment,” Malcolm snapped. “I want you to get the hell away from me. Now.”

His face was dark with fury. Ariella stared at him in bewilderment, unable to comprehend what she had done to make him so angry. She had felt his muscles relax beneath her touch. Yet now he sat there, his body taut, as if he were in great pain.

“Fine, MacFane,” she shot back.

She stomped across the chamber and slammed the door behind her.

Something had changed between them, she realized. Because at some point in that hot, herb-scented chamber, she had gone beyond merely trying to alleviate his pain. Her touch had evolved into a forbidden exploration of his body, which was heavily scarred but still warm and firm and seething with power.

And although loath to admit it, she had enjoyed touching him.

C
HAPTER
6

“What has happened between you and MacFane?”

Ariella shifted uneasily in her seat. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?” repeated Dugald in disbelief. “You used to be the one person he would talk to. Now he goes directly to his chamber after training and sees no one at all.”

“He sees Agnes,” pointed out Andrew. “She brings him his dinner and attends to his bath.”

Irritation pricked Ariella. Since the night she had massaged his back, something had changed between her and MacFane. The following day he had completely ignored Rob, as if he were angry with the boy. Annoyed by Malcolm’s rudeness, Ariella had sent Agnes to organize his bath that night, knowing he did not want the girl around him. Instead of turning Agnes away as she had anticipated, MacFane had welcomed her in and insisted she attend him each night as he bathed.

“He won’t take his evening meal in the hall anymore,” remarked Gordon. “He trains the clan all day, then shuts himself in his chamber and doesn’t come out. What is he doing there?”

Niall snorted. “Probably drinking.”

“You don’t know that,” countered Duncan, irritated. “And even if he was, what does it matter, so long as he is up and training us the next morning?”

“The lad should dine with the clan and enjoy himself a little,” said Angus. “When I was young—”

“If MacFane wants to stay in his chamber, that is up to him,” interrupted Ariella. “It has no bearing on his ability to train us.”

She did not want the council to know the extent of MacFane’s dependence on alcohol. This past week he had gradually lifted her clan’s confidence, making them believe that perhaps they could actually fight back if they were attacked. Each time he demonstrated some new movement or taught them a different tactic, he won another scrap of their admiration. The knowledge that he collapsed in a drunken stupor of self-pity every night would certainly erode that newfound respect.

“I don’t understand why we are wasting our time with this foolishness,” complained Niall. “We could be attacked again at any moment, and we are heaving ourselves at oversize dolls and waving wooden swords at each other. How much longer before we find a real warrior with a strong army to protect us?”

“I suppose until that man appears, or Alpin has another vision,” returned Ariella shortly.

Dugald looked at Alpin. “You haven’t had another vision, have you?”

There was a moment of expectant silence. Alpin stared at them knowingly, enjoying being the center of attention. Finally he sighed and shook his head. “No.”

“As we have no way of knowing when either event might happen, we must continue to have MacFane train us,” concluded Ariella.

“I don’t believe this,” growled Niall. “Ariella has to dress as a boy to stay alive, while we train under the direction of a cripple. It is ridiculous.”

“He is
not
a cripple,” retorted Ariella.

“We are forgetting about MacFane’s great army,” said Angus brightly. “Perhaps they will soon be able to join him here. Then we will have nothing to fear, from Roderic or any other.”

“They are engaged elsewhere,” Ariella reminded him. “We cannot depend on them to assist us.”

“Rather odd, isn’t it?” remarked Niall. “That the Black Wolf’s army would be off fighting without him?”

“Ariella has determined he is not the next laird,” said Duncan, “so it is irrelevant where his army is. He is here to help us temporarily, nothing more.”

“And as it is obvious we will never be able to fight off an attack, we should stop this nonsense and apply ourselves to finding the next MacKendrick,” asserted Niall impatiently. “Our clan will not be safe until Ariella marries and bestows the sword.”

Silence fell over the hall as the elders considered this.

“You may be right,” allowed Gordon finally.

Ariella’s spirit sank. If Niall and Gordon felt this way about MacFane and his training, how many others in her clan did as well?

Malcolm leaned low against Cain’s neck, trying to ignore the pain the movement cost him as he rode deeper into the green and gold of the forest. The woods trembled as Gavin, Ramsay, and Hugh thundered past, their bows clutched in their fists, racing after the handsome red deer they had spotted. Malcolm steeled himself and urged Cain faster. But his body rebelled, and he was forced to succumb, slowing his mount to a walk.

He shook his head in disgust.

It was not easy, accepting these limitations. It was frustrating, demeaning—unmanning, even. Especially since coming here, where his every movement was watched with an insufferable mixture of pity and disappointment. He felt as if he were constantly being appraised and found pathetically lacking.

Which was not surprising, as he judged himself the same way.

He inhaled deeply, savoring the scent of earth, horse, and leather, trying to enjoy the simple pleasure of slowly riding in the woods on this fading summer afternoon. Since his arrival there two weeks ago, he had ventured no farther than the castle’s courtyard, preferring to attend to his duties, then retreat to the privacy of his chamber. But the MacKendricks had worked hard this past week, and because they responded well to compliments, he reasoned they would also appreciate a reward. And so he had offered a day away from the rigors of training and building, in which they could either rest or join him on a hunt. To his surprise, this morning most of the men had assembled in the courtyard at their now customary early hour, eager to demonstrate their skills at riding and shooting. The surrounding woods were rich with wildlife, and they had killed several dozen rabbits and birds, and three red deer. Tonight a hearty feast would be prepared, and there would be music and dancing to celebrate the success of the day’s hunt.

A pity he would be too racked with pain by then to attend.

He soaked in a hot bath each evening, as Rob had suggested. Although this did relax him somewhat, it could not begin to match the effects of several pitchers of wine. So he indulged in both, hoping that together they might ease the ache of his tortured muscles and bones. Shy, plain Agnes dutifully brought him soap and towels, kept her eyes modestly averted as he stripped and stepped into the tub, then asked in a trembling voice if he needed anything else. On the first night she appeared, Malcolm realized Rob was purposely trying to annoy him for having ordered the boy out the evening before. Instead of dismissing Agnes, Malcolm ordered her to wash his back. Her small brown eyes grew wide, but she obeyed. As he endured the frightened, tentative skim of her wet cloth, he wearily wondered why he had made the request. Perhaps because it had been so long since a woman had touched him, and he longed to remember what it was like to feel slim, gentle fingers sweep across his flesh. Surely that was why he had experienced those disturbing sensations when Rob touched him the other night. His mind had been languid, his body soothed, and in that quiet, liquid moment he had imagined it was a woman’s hands gently pulsing over him, instead of the hands of a filthy slip of a boy. Shocked by his reaction, he had treated Rob harshly the following day, as if the lad were somehow to blame. He knew it was wrong to punish the boy for his own bizarre response. But he felt a need to distance himself from him, thinking this might eradicate that unsettling moment. He ignored the lad completely during training and managed to avoid him the rest of the time. At night he retreated to his chamber, and Rob never came to speak with him as he used to.

He found he missed his prickly little friend.

The earth began to vibrate, signaling the approach of another rider. A pearly-gray mare burst through the leafy curtain of trees, a small form pressing low against her back. Rob did not see Malcolm at first, so focused was he on whatever prey he was hunting. After a few seconds the boy realized his quarry had not come that way. He reined in his horse and stroked her neck, smiling as he praised her in an unexpectedly soft and gentle tone. The wind had blown his ragged brown hair off his face, revealing a delicate bone structure that seemed almost feminine, and his gray eyes were sparkling with pleasure, a sensibility Malcolm had not witnessed in the lad before. The mare tossed her head and snorted, then cast her gaze toward Cain. Rob’s eyes followed.

If his first reaction at seeing Malcolm was surprise, he was quick to master it. His slim body slouched, not suddenly, but by slow, nearly imperceptible degrees. This caused the boy’s hair to fall forward and veil the sculpted form of his cheeks. Malcolm watched in fascination as Rob’s expression closed, and the smiling youth who had appeared a moment earlier vanished. He was vaguely disappointed as he realized that his own presence had caused this transformation.

Awkward silence stretched between them.

“Good hunting?” Malcolm finally asked, trying to fill it.

Rob shrugged. “Good enough.”

Malcolm waited for the boy to say something else. When the silence grew between them, he persisted, “I didn’t see you when we left the castle this morning.”

“I joined the hunt later,” returned Rob shortly.
After you were gone,
his gray eyes finished.

It bothered him, this coldness—even though he had invited it with his own surly behavior. A chasm divided them—a strange turn of events, Malcolm thought, as he had never really considered them friends. But he now realized that a bond
had
existed, and he had severed it.

“Your clan has been performing well,” he offered, seeking to repair some of the damage.

Rob snorted. “And what of Agnes?” he drawled sarcastically. “Has she been performing well also?”

Malcolm felt himself on the verge of a smile. The reason for the lad’s animosity was suddenly clear.

“You sound like a jealous wife,” he observed wryly. “If you fancy her for yourself, why did you send her to me?”

Rob looked astounded. “I don’t fancy her!” he sputtered.

“Why not?” prodded Malcolm, enjoying teasing him. “She is comely enough.” In face, Agnes was quite plain, but he suspected that, to a thirteen-year-old boy, her scrubbed face and ample figure might be appealing.

“I just don’t.”

“Then why does it bother you that she tends to me?” persisted Malcolm, trying to hide his amusement.

Rob glared at him. “It doesn’t.”

“She doesn’t have your skill at healing,” he admitted, “but then, she doesn’t have your nagging tongue either.” He pretended to consider this a moment, then sighed. “I suppose I must accept her flaws for the supreme pleasure of the quiet.”

“You have been hired to train my clan, MacFane,” Rob reminded him sourly, “not to bed the women.”

His mouth was set in a prim line, and his gray eyes were cool with disapproval. Unable to control himself, Malcolm tilted his head back and laughed, a low, forgotten sound that spread tremors of warmth through his chest.

Suddenly Rob plowed into his chest, knocking him backward. Malcolm grunted and instinctively wrapped his arm around the boy as they crashed in a tangled heap on the ground.

Pain blazed through him, as if every nerve had been set afire.

“Jesus Christ,” he swore, roughly throwing Rob aside, “what the bloody hell did you do that for!”

The pounding of a horse’s hooves distracted him. He glanced at the trees and saw a cloaked figure galloping into the shadows. Frowning, he looked at Rob, who lay curled on the ground beside him.

An arrow was buried in his upper arm.

Malcolm yanked his dirk from his belt and stood, listening hard as he raked the surrounding woods with his gaze. Convinced they were alone, he knelt beside the lad.

“Don’t touch me!” Rob hissed.

“I need to see how deep it is,” Malcolm told him firmly. “Let me open your shirt—”

“No!” cried Rob, shoving his hands away. “Just leave me alone!”

“If the arrow isn’t buried deep, it’s better to pull it out now rather than ride with it back to the castle,” Malcolm explained, trying to be patient. “Otherwise it will only delve its way in farther.”

“Don’t touch me, MacFane,” the boy warned, his eyes shimmering with tears.

“Oh, for God’s sake.” Before Rob could protest further, Malcolm took hold of his sleeve and sliced the fabric open, revealing the torn flesh from which the arrow protruded.