To Love a Highlander (31 page)

She mattered more than his lifelong plan to avenge himself on the old chieftain, returning the hurts of ages. He now had other wishes, more important considerations than striding into MacNab’s windblown and rocky home for the sheer pleasure of shunning him.

The hills in the distance, always such a beacon, now represented Mirabelle.

Not his wish for vengeance.

Soon, he and Mirabelle would be wed. It was a truth that upended and changed his world, but one that also filled him with pride, triumph, and love such as he’d never known. Someday, their children would walk those distant hills, playing, laughing, and growing strong there. For their sake, and Mirabelle’s, he’d make his peace with Archibald MacNab, if grudgingly and without any feeling of kinship on his part. Mirabelle apparently liked the man, and their bairns deserved to know their grandsire, to enjoy their birthright that was Duncreag Castle.

So he stared out across the familiar countryside, looking in that direction, blinking against the steely glint of the Forth as the river began to catch the first light of the day.

A small party of horsemen followed the river’s course, cloaked and hooded men racing along the foreshore, the rider in the lead carrying something in front him, draped like a bundled sack across his galloping steed.

Frowning, Sorley narrowed his eyes, lifting a hand to his brow to see against the rising sun.

Fury swept him, swift and boundless.

The
bundle
before the rider was a woman, held facedown by her captor.

He was sure she was Mirabelle.

“Saints, Maria, and Joseph!” He ran along the wall, his heart thundering, the edges of his vision turning red as he stared at the hard-riding party.

If the woman’s streaming, burnished red hair, shining like a balefire in the morning light, didn’t prove she was Mirabelle, then the familiar wicker basket tied to the horse’s saddle horn did.

There could be no doubt.

Mirabelle and Little Heart had been taken.

And he knew their captor.

Sir John had seized her. There was only one place he’d take her: Dunraine, in its deep, dark wood of no return, where the only living females were either servants to his twisted lusts or full crazed from having endured them.

“By the gods!” Sorley raced for the tower stair, hurtling down the winding steps.

He burst into the hall, tearing down the center aisle, dodging tray-laden servants and leaping over sleeping men and castle dogs. When he gained the bailey, he made for the stables, shouting to the first sleepy-eyed, stumbling stable-lad he saw.

“Lyall!” He grabbed the lad, shaking him to wakefulness. “A horse, saddled now! The best and fastest you have, a destrier or charger!”

Lyall blinked, rubbing his eyes. “I don’t know…” He frowned. “You ne’er ride such—”

“I’ll ride a damned lightning bolt to hell and back!” He gave the lad a shove into the stables, keeping on his heels. “Make haste, then find Munro MacLaren. He should be at the Red Lion. See he’s told that his daughter’s been taken,” he ordered as Lyall hurried a spirited charger out of a stall, quickly saddling the beast. “Alert the King, his guards. Riders have her, heading along the river.” Sorley swung up into the saddle, keeping Sinclair’s name to himself. He’d have done with the bastard singlehandedly,
making sure he never again had the chance to hurt Mirabelle, or any woman.

He grabbed his steed’s reins, vaguely aware of Maili emerging from the shadows in the back of the stables.

“Sorley! What’s happened?” She started toward him, looking confused, mussed, and just as sleepy as Lyall.

Sorley waved her back and kneed the horse so that the powerful beast surged forward in a great burst of speed, almost flying away from the stables and out across the open countryside, tearing up the earth as Sorley spurred him ever faster toward the river and the woods beyond.

“Sinclair!” He roared the fiend’s name again and again as the charger splashed along the river’s foreshore and then pounded into the trees, low branches from the thick-growing pines slapping against him. He scarce noticed, only urged on the speeding horse.

“Mirabelle!”
He shouted for her even louder, lifting his voice above the roar of his blood in his ears.

No one answered him.

And the only thundering hooves he heard were those of his own horse.

They plunged on, deeper into the forest, man and beast as one. Mist swirled everywhere, the trees a rushing blur of darkness against the gray. Half-sure the devil had given him wings, Sorley crouched low over the horse’s neck, determined to pursue Sinclair to the ends of the earth, farther if need be.

Then the mists thinned and he saw he had, as a deep chasm opened before him.

“Hell’s fire!” He hauled on the reins even as his horse reared and swerved away from the yawning abyss. Sorley would’ve sent the beast pounding along the gorge’s length, seeking a way around it, but there was no need.

He’d found what he wanted.

Sinclair and his men were riding out of the trees, surrounding him on three sides.

Mirabelle was still with them, slung facedown over Sir John’s horse, her head turned away from him, which was a good thing.

If she saw him now, his rage would surely terrify her. He could feel fury rising, his jaw clenching so tightly, his muscle tensing with such anger, he’d swear he was turning to cold, deadly steel.

“You’re a dead man, Sinclair.” He drew Dragon-Breath, couching her like a jousting lance. He rode forward slowly, keeping his gaze on his foe. “Release Lady Mirabelle and the kitten or I’ll run you through, skewering your belly, pinching out your life.”

“Sorley!” Mirabelle’s cry was muffled. “I knew you’d come!”

“As did I.” Sir John sneered at him, reached to clamp his hand over Mirabelle’s mouth, silencing her. “Now you, you soiled vixen, will watch him die.

“It is your life that’s forfeit,
Hawk
,” he spoke Sorley’s by-name like a slur. “Or will you fight me and six well-armed men? There’s no escape.” He glanced at his companions, sitting their horses in a ring around Sorley. River mist swirled everywhere again and a thick layer of pine needles slicked the ground. Where the six mounted warriors didn’t block the way, the dense trees and mist did the rest, making a fast run for it impossible.

“So it appears,” Sorley agreed, hedging for time, his mind racing.

Sinclair didn’t have to know that he never took anything on appearance.

Even so, he cast another glance over his shoulder at the chasm behind him. His assessment was confirmed; the bottomless-looking abyss was a death pit, for him and the valiant charger.

One false step and…

Doom.

Even if he could reach Sinclair, maim or kill him in passing, and pluck Mirabelle and Little Heart off Sinclair’s then-riderless horse, there’d be nowhere to go.

He could fight two men, even three, and walk away without a scratch. He’d done so enough times. Taking on six, though he would, wasn’t a promising option.

Still, he had no other choice.

So he edged closer to Sinclair’s horse. He went slowly, leaning forward to stroke his charger’s neck, pretending ease, possibly surrender. If the gods were with him, only he knew that in a moment either he or his foe would die in a fast, bloody clash.

“Mirabelle…” Sorley caught her eye and inclined his head infinitesimally, letting his gaze flick to her left. “The reel, lass,” he looked back at her, holding her gaze. “The night of your uncle’s celebration, the feast when we met. Where was I, after you left?”

He’d been alone, surrounded by a ring of gawkers, but on his own, apart from the rest.

That’s where he needed Mirabelle now.

He hoped she understood. She couldn’t answer because of Sinclair’s cruel grip on her jaw, his foul fingers pressed over her mouth.

But her eyes lifted his spirit, for even now she looked more angry than afraid. He also saw love on her face, her silent message that if all went horribly wrong, she’d given him her heart, gladly.

As she held his—and now he meant to save her, and would.

His gaze locked on her, he inched closer, Dragon-Breath’s hilt already singing in his hand, craving blood. He kept urging the charger forward, nudging him to take a few more steps, slow and easy.

Sinclair looked amused, his sword ready, the blade gleaming brightly in the mist.

His men sat still, watching. Only two of them drew their steel.

“Mirabelle,” Sorley said again, inching even closer. “Remember the reel.”

He willed her to respond.

She did, twisting round to bite Sinclair’s arm before she flung herself to the ground. She rolled to a stop only to spring to her feet, spin about, and snatch Little Heart’s basket off the saddle horn.

She sped into the woods, clutching Little Heart’s basket and running faster than Sorley would’ve believed a woman could move.

“You whore!” Sir John roared after her, rising in his saddle.

“Those were your last words,” Sorley snarled, the fury in his voice echoing as he kicked back his heels, sending his horse charging forward. He let the beast hurtle on, leveling his sword like a spear, striking the noble before he could finish his cry, plunging Dragon-Breath right through him. Slewing the horse round, Sorley grabbed the blade and pulled it free, not waiting to watch Sinclair crash to the ground. The rush of blood and gore from his belly left no doubt of his death.

Yelling protest, Sinclair’s men surged forward, their swords drawn and slashing. Sorley galloped straight at them, arcing left and right with Dragon-Breath. He caught the first man to reach him with a fast slice across the back of the guard’s neck, almost severing it. Clearly dead, the man slid from the saddle as his horse bolted into the trees.

“Come, you worms!” Sorley let the charger rise and toss his great head, cleaving the air with his huge, iron-clad hooves. “Prove what it takes to steal a helpless woman. I challenge you to show me!”

“You’ll rot for cutting down a lord,” taunted a big, heavy-muscled man. He circled Sorley, coming closer with each pass.

“I define a man of worth differently.” Sorley cut the air with his sword, the blade gleaming red in the mist. “Fight for thon miscreant”—he flicked a glance at Sinclair’s body—“and your guts can join his. The price for your loyalty.” On the words, Sorley lunged, sweeping Dragon-Breath in a lightning-fast blow that would’ve sliced the man in two if he hadn’t veered away with equal speed.

“No man has ever cut me,” he taunted, wheeling his beast back at Sorley, his sword raised again. “Yield now and I’ll make your end swift.”

“I cannae, for my blade is too thirsty.” Sorley swung again, so fast that Dragon-Breath’s steel was a blur of silver and red before it grazed the giant’s shoulder, breaking his record and sending spray of blood fountaining in the air.

The big man bellowed and stood in his stirrups, taking a mighty swing, his blade hissing past Sorley’s ear, missing him by a hair.

They clashed again and again until Sorley drew back his sword, sweeping it round for a scything blow to his opponent’s midsection. Just as the blade struck, a spear pierced the man’s shoulder and his eyes rolled back in his head, his sword slipping from his fingers as he toppled to the ground.

At that, two of his companions fled, galloping off the way they’d come, racing through the trees, heading for the river.

Two yet remained and they still looked bloodthirsty, their swords held high. Sorley flashed a glance at the trees, hoping to see who’d thrown the long spear so well. He knew only one man who could.

William Wyldes.

Then the warrior-innkeeper was there, bursting through the trees. He held a second spear couched at the ready, his red hair unbound and flying behind him, his face murderous.

“I had a time of it catching up with you,” he shouted to Sorley. “Glad you left me some o’ the work!”

Spurring his horse, the innkeeper made swift slaughter of the man who’d turned to challenge him.

“You haven’t lost your skill,” Sorley called after him as he raced off again, seemingly to follow the two riders who’d escaped into the woods.

It was then that Sorley caught the clashing of two swords coming from the edge of the ravine. He glanced round to see Grim, in full Vikingish war gear, parrying his opponent’s sword swipes not with a blade, but with a huge Viking war ax. Grim clearly didn’t need help, so Sorley swung down from his saddle and thrust his own sword into the earth, resting his hands on the hilt as he watched the Nought man fight with Sinclair’s henchman.

Then, as if weary of circling round with the swordsman, Grim raised his great Norse ax and with one swift downward slash nearly cleaved the man in two.

“Ne’er did care for swords,” he called to Sorley as he pulled his ax free from the deep gash in the dead man’s shoulder. He wiped the ax-head on the slain man’s tunic and then strode over to Sorley, clapping him on the back. “I knew there was another reason I felt a need to come down here. Fate, we say at Nought, is inexorable, my friend.

“No’ that you needed the help.” Grim stepped back, looking around. “Or perhaps you do? Thon spear-throwing innkeeper”—he jerked his bearded chin in the direction William had disappeared in—“will surely be back anon, bloodied from putting the other two out of their misery. We spoke on the way here and thought, as your usual friends are away, he and I might be of assistance clearing up this fine wood for you. Unless you’d rather we go looking for your lady instead, and bring her back to her father?” Grim cocked a brow, waiting. “That might be best, eh?”

“Try and you’ll have a fight with me, my friend.” Sorley glanced at the trees, hoping to see Mirabelle returning.

But the woods were empty, quiet now, though the mist was thinning.

It was then that William returned, grinning ear to ear. “Sakes, lads!” He swung down from his horse, his spears notably missing. “That was a fine day’s work.”

He strolled up to them, taking a leather-wrapped flask from his sword-belt. “It’s been a while since I’ve had cause to wield a long spear. I’d forgotten how much I enjoy a good fight.”

“Did Sinclair’s two men feel the same?” Sorley knew the answer.