Highland Jewel (Highland Heroes #1)

Chapter 12

“Lass! Come back!" Leith roared, but it was no use, for nothing but black silence answered him.

Damn it to unholy hell! This was not a safe place for a warrior fully armed, much less a slip of a girl with no clothes and very little wits. Leave it to her to stumble into the river in her haste to escape him.

What had set her off? One moment she lay warm and soft in his arms and the next she was fleeing like a hare from a wolf! Women! They were a plague upon mankind.

But there was no time to waste now. Folding his plaid into quick pleats, he lay down on the thing, rising a moment later to belt it rapidly about his waist. His shirt was gone, he learned with a scowl. So the lass was not bare-ass naked after all.

Thrusting his claymore and dirk into his belt, Leith ran barefoot from the shelter. He'd tied the horses only a short distance from the small cave but only the stallion remained, fretting against his tether as he tossed his thick mane and pranced in place, lifting heavily feathered legs in rhythmic displeasure.

The knot of the saturated rope was hard and stubborn, resisting Leith's hurried attempts until he finally wrestled it free. In a moment he was astride and they were off, racing through the thick underbrush after the midnight mare.

Wet branches slapped at Leith's face and legs. Mud slipped beneath the stallion's churning hooves. To their left a stream tumbled southward, swelled and turbulent from the recent rains.

A sturdy tree limb thumped Leith's wounded shoulder, stunning him with pain and nearly knocking him to the ground, but he gritted his teeth and grappled for Beinn's mane, holding on by sheer tenacity.

The stallion slipped, heading downhill. Through tattered clouds the moon skittered overhead. Ghostly mist rose from the glen below. A pale, motionless figure could be seen, seeming strangely disembodied. "Rose," Leith whispered, realizing now that the pale fairy was the lass, encased in his saffron shirt and riding the black mare that was nearly invisible in the darkness.

She was safe. All was well, he thought, but a man's scream jerked him to reality. Leith twisted about, not seeing Rose slip to the ground.

Danger! Where? Leith searched for it, his gaze skimming the darkness until he saw his shirt flitting through the night.

Dear God, what was she doing? For a moment Leith remained frozen, stunned by her foolishness, until he saw the warrior, his weapon raised. And another form that stood before him.

The warrior raised his axe again.

"No!" It was Rose who screamed the word, diverting the attacker's attention and causing his blow to go slightly awry, only skimming the other man's head.

Nevertheless, his victim fell backward, tumbling into the rolling burn behind.

The warrior turned, weapon raised, and in a heartbeat Beinn was galloping, thundering down on the man, hungry strides eating the distance between them.

Every detail was sharply etched in Leith's mind. Rose was running along the burn toward the south—the warrior following. Sweet Jesu! He carried a battle-axe! But who was he? Only a few horses' lengths lay between Forbes and his quarry and at the last moment Leith turned his claymore, holding the blade in his bare hand as he swung for the warrior's head. There was the sound of metal against bone and the man crumpled.

Beinn turned with the lithe speed of a giant cat. Leith's eyes searched the riverbank, but she was gone. God's wrath! Where? Had she fallen? Had the other man...

There! He caught sight of his shirt again, close to the earth now.

"Sweet Jesu!" he rasped. She'd been felled, but how?

"Catch my hand!" Her voice was loud and strong, jerking Leith from immobility.

"My hand!"

What now? Leith urged the stallion on until they skidded to a halt only inches from the girl's squatting form.

"Here!" she yelled to someone in the water, one hand gripping a branch as she strained farther over the rushing burn. "My hand!"

Above the boiling river a head bobbed and an arm reached, grasping her small hand in a slippery grip. "Hold now! Hold!" she commanded, but her own small body was sliding, pulled along by the ferocious power of the swollen water. "Oh!" She shrieked as her body hit the stream, and with a vehement curse Leith followed. The water was cold as hell and shocked his senses with the efficiency of a blow from a soldier's club, but he caught her about the waist and held on, fighting for footing in the sliding sand.

The man's head bobbed above the waterline again, and in that moment Leith realized the truth. Rose had caught the injured man and now held on as desperately as he did to her.

"Let him go!" Leith roared, hauling back with all his might, but she would not and in the end he battled his way ashore, dragging the two along behind him until all three lay gasping and panting on the rough, soggy slope beside the river.

"Ye could have..." Leith panted, gritting his teeth against the pain in his chest as he gripped Rose's arms in rough hands. "Ye could have been kilt."

"And so could have... he," she managed, nodding toward the dark form that coughed and sputtered near her bare leg.

"Have ye no sense at all?" Leith rasped, shaking her slightly. "Ye dunna even know this man. He may be a thief! And a murderer!"

"And so might you," she snapped in return, feeling the cold bite her so that she trembled against the wind, though she refused to turn her eyes from his.

"Lass," he growled, feeling such a heavy relief for her safety that it made his arms go weak, "if ye ever do such a foolish thing again I shall—"

The half-drowned man moaned beside them and Rose jerked her arms from Leith's grasp. "Perhaps, my lord," she said, her tone chilly, "you might threaten me later. After we see to the murderer and thief." She bent toward the downed man and Leith watched, noting how his saffron shirt drooped away from her bosom.

"Lie still." She touched the man's forehead, testing the scrape there. "You are safe now."

The man's eyes opened, focused, and widened. He was dressed in a dark plaid and shirt, his left hand bound in a gray bandage.

Quiet held the place, broken only by the sound of water—the rush of the burn behind, the drip of fat drops from nearby leaves.

"Bean-sith?" he whispered into her moon-gilded face.

Leith scowled.

Rose shook her head, not understanding his Gaelic.

Silence again, then, "Be ye a fairy?" he asked, changing his words to heavily burred English.

"No." She shook her head again, brushing dark hair from the man's slight wound. "I am only mortal."

In truth the wounded fellow was little more than a lad, Leith realized, noticing his wide, round eyes, his narrow build.

"Nay." The young man shook his head weakly. "I dunna believe any lass so bonny and slight could have saved me from old Bertram's blow and pulled me from yon burn—unless she be of the magical folk."

"Just rest," said Rose, swiftly pulling open his shirt to check for further wounds. "Do not talk."

The lad stared at her as if he had glimpsed an angel. "It matters na what ye be," he said finally, reaching up to grasp Rose's hand in his own. "I would have ye whether ye be mortal or na."

"Dunna talk!" growled Leith, and curling his hand into a fist, thumped the lad on the head.

The boy looked only momentarily stunned, then slid without a word into unconsciousness.

"What—" gasped Rose.

"Ye said ye didna want him to speak." Leith grunted darkly. "I only aided yer cause," he explained, and rising stiffly to his feet, strode quickly away.

The man he had hit with the hilt of Cothrom was gone. Leith studied the place where he had fallen, then rose to follow the faint, erratic trail that headed north into the darkness. Whoever the warrior had been he would nurse a headache for a time. That realization lightened Leith's mood a bit, but brought his thoughts back to the lad by the stream. Too bad he could not thump that one with the same force he'd hit the seasoned warrior. But Rose would likely take exception after going to the trouble of fishing the lad from the burn.

God's wrath, he had no time for such things. At this moment the MacAulay might be breathing his last. There was no time to waste, and yet the lass was being ... rather difficult to persuade about the rightness of their joining.

First things first, however, and just now he had the bedazzled lad by the stream to be rid of. Turning, Leith strode quickly back to the pair.

Rose was still bent over the boy as if he were her long-lost friend, her bosom only inches from his hand as she patted his fingers.

"Wake up. Wake up, I say."

"Anything to please ye," murmured the lad, gripping her hand in his.

"We must get you dry," said Rose soberly. "Can you gain your feet?"

"I dunna know," said the lad. "Mayhap I will need yer help."

She did not hesitate a moment, Leith noticed, but wrapped her arm about the other's back as if he were an innocent babe.

'There now, lean on me. That’s it," she encouraged as the lad stumbled weakly to his feet, draped cozily against her side. She staggered a bit against his weight and the boy grinned, slipping his arm about her waist as if to gain support.

"Ye liked the water, lad?" Leith asked, close enough to grip the other's arm.

"Nay," he responded, turning toward Leith with a cautious expression.

"Then I suggest ye walk alone," Leith rumbled.

His meaning was not lost on the boy, despite his woozy mind. His arm fell away from Rose and he struggled to stand alone. His legs were not quite ready for independence, however, and his knees buckled, spilling him toward the ground.

Leith caught him by the collar just before his face hit the dirt.

"For the sake of Jesu!" Leith cursed, his teeth gritted and gleaming dully in the light of the besieged moon. "Get yer mare, wee nun, and if ye dunna want the lad to swim again, bind up yer garment."

He strode off then, dragging the lad along as if he were a sack of grain.

She could leave them both, Rose thought with a scowl. But she supposed it was her duty to see to the boy. And too, she was shaking uncontrollably again, and the thought of the fire was too much for her to resist.

Back under the ledge, the blaze was still strong and warm. Leith dropped the boy beside the flames, making no effort to cushion his fall.

"I will secure the horses," he said, stepping toward the darkness, then stopping before retreating beyond the ledge. "But if ye remove so much as a thread of cloth from his body, wee Rose, I will tack his carcass to a tree as a feast for the crows."

Rose scowled at Leith's back. He was an arrogant lout, and she hated him with all her strength.

"Ye are wed to him?" asked the boy.

Rose lowered her gaze to him. His eyes were pale-blue, his hair lighter than it had seemed earlier. "I would prefer to be boiled in pitch," she said evenly.

The boy smiled. He had a good face. Not at all like Leith's, but young and merry, with a straight nose and ready smile. "It is glad I am to hear it." He nodded once, watching her as she studied his head wound more carefully. "I am Gregor, the son of the laird of the MacGowans. I—"

“Then I would think ye would have more pride than to be fussed over by a lass," said Leith from the edge of the firelight.

Rose raised her eyes to glare at him. The man moved as quietly as a cat. And what had happened to the idea of securing the horses? she wondered.

But the lad was not concerned with such matters. "It seems ye were na too proud to suffer her ministrations," he said, pointing to Leith's crossed bandages with a good deal of foolhardy arrogance.

"The lass is me—" began Leith darkly, taking a warning step nearer.

"I only journey with Leith Forbes to—"

"Laird Forbes?" Gregor asked, turning his wide gaze quickly to the tall Scot.

Rose scowled, resenting the respect that shone momentarily in the younger man's eyes. "As I was saying," she continued. "I only journey with Laird Forbes to tend an ailing old man. I am a postulate of St. Mary's and will return henceforth to England to renew my vows to my Lord."

"A nun?" The lad's eyes widened even more but as his gaze shifted slowly from Rose's face, down over the well-molded fabric of the oversized shirt to her bare legs, he smiled. "I think na, sweet lass."

Rose frowned. Damn these Scotsmen for their contrary ways. "I think it wise not to argue with a woman of the Lord," she suggested, jerking free the filthy bandage that bound one of his hands.

The boy grimaced with pain and Rose sucked in her breath.

"How old is this wound?"

"I received it from a Lamont blade a fortnight ago," he said, his tone proud.

"And here you are fighting again?" Rose shook her head disapprovingly. "'Twould seem you Scotsmen are slow to learn. Who has been seeing to this injury?"

The lad shrugged, his pallor decreasing a bit. "We have none skilled in healing. But 'tis nothing."

Rose settled back on her heels, only taking a moment to push the tail of her borrowed shirt more closely to a half-bare thigh. "'Tis nothing if you care naught for your hand," she chastised. "But it is deadly serious if you wish to keep it."

The boy paled again. "Is there sommat ye can do?"

"There is much." She rose swiftly and the lad watched, sighing aloud as the shirt fell back past her knees. 'The first of which would be to warn you to cease your foolish battles."

The lad actually laughed. "Cease raiding and warring against the Lamonts? I think na, lass. Especially now that I owe auld Bertram a swim in the burn."

"You enjoy it, don't you?" Rose asked.

Gregor grinned. "A man needs his diversions."

"Diversions!" Rose gasped, but Gregor still grinned and Leith stood silently by, seeming to be in agreement. Men! She shook her head in irritated bemusement. They were a stupid lot, she deemed, and turned, hurrying into the darkness in search of black mud with which to pack the wound.

It was just past the midnight hour when Gregor MacGowan rose from the fire to reach for Rose's hand. His own was freshly bound and his complexion already looked healthier.

"I willna forget yer kindness, lass," said Gregor, raising Rose's fingers to his lips. "Nor yer beauty."

His kiss was gentle and his pale-blue gaze was warm as it touched her face. "Be warned, lady of St. Mary's—I dunna think our Maker would waste such as ye, for ye would look magnificent with a MacGowan bairn at yer breast,"

From across the fire, Leith ran a thumb along Cothrom's razor-sharp edge and wondered if it would be seemly to decapitate the lad for tarrying too long over Rose's hand. He'd wrapped his own plaid about her shoulders, hoping to hide the most luscious of her personal parts from the lad's prying eyes, but MacGowan's interest seemed little deterred.

With a slight scowl Rose pulled her fingers from Gregor’s grasp. "I will be returning to England," she said firmly. "Make no mistake."

"Lad," said Leith, making his tone low and dark as he held Cothrom in both hands before him, "I suggest ye leave now, for me own aim is bound to be more deadly than a Lamont’s."

Gregor grinned, nodding briefly at Rose before turning. "We will meet again, Laird Forbes," he said smoothly. "Rest assured."