Читать книгу The Highlander - Heather Grothaus - Страница 9

Conall thought for an instant that he had gone mad.

One moment, he was charging through the hut’s door, sword drawn, ready to oust an ambitious squatter, then in a blink, he was on his back on the hard dirt floor, the largest, blackest, most ferocious-looking wolf he’d ever laid eyes upon pinning him to the ground.

The wolf’s pearly, pointed teeth were bared, the short, bristly hairs of its lips brushing Conall’s. The beast’s head was nearly as large as Conall’s own, and hot spittle misted his face with the wolf’s every growling breath.

The first thought that entered Conall’s mind was: How could a wolf start a peat fire?

And when he saw the ivory angel’s wary face peer down at him from over the wolf’s head, Conall was certain he’d gone completely over the brink.

“Who are you?” the angel demanded. “And what do you want, barging into our house?”

Conall was stunned into silence for a moment. Our house? Our?

Then he realized the angel had spoken English.

“Are you mute?” the English woman asked with a frown. She scrunched her mouth to form Gaelic words with halting difficulty. “What is your name?”

Conall gritted his teeth and answered her in her own tongue. “Call yer hell-beast off me and mayhap I’ll tell you.”

The woman’s eyes narrowed for a moment and then she reached out a slim, pale hand and actually touched the monster. “Come, Alinor—let the rude man up.”

The wolf—Alinor?—growled a final, menacing warning before backing slowly down Conall’s length, the woman’s hand still on the beast’s thick neck. The pair retreated to the hut’s rear wall.

Conall gained his feet slowly, his eyes never leaving the wolf. He spoke to the woman, his sword once more at the ready. “Stand aside, woman—I’ll nae share my home with a bloodthirsty killer.”

“I beg your pardon,” the woman said, stepping neatly in front of the wolf. “You’ll put that weapon away immediately, is what you will do, sir. Alinor could have already supped upon your scrawny frame had she the desire, and should you come one step closer to either of us, I will most certainly let her have you!”

Conall blinked, shook his head to clear it. The woman continued.

“Furthermore, this is our home, and I’ll thank you to adopt a more respectful demeanor while you are our guest.” She sniffed, looked Conall up and down. “Now, tell us your name.”

Conall frowned and then looked to his right hand—aye, his sword, glinting and deadly, was still in his grip, and still pointed at the odd pair before him.

And yet the daft woman—English, at that—dared to order him about? On his own lands?

“You’re a long ways from London, English,” Conall growled. “Trespassing on MacKerrick lands—my house. With one swing I could end your life.”

The woman arched a slender brow. “A poor housekeeper you are then, sir. This cottage was quite abandoned when I found it, I assure you. Had I not come along, ’twould most likely lay completely in ruin by now.” She cocked her head, sending her long, auburn hair swishing about her waist. “You should thank me instead of threaten me. But if you insist on this villainy”—she withdrew her hand from behind her back and Conall saw the small, damaged dagger in her fist—“come on with you, then. We are not afraid, are we, Alinor?”

The wolf growled and stepped from behind the woman, and ’twas then that Conall noticed the wide, pink belt about the animal, complete with a jaunty bow.

Before he could stop himself, he laughed and blurted, “Is that beast wearing a sash?”

The woman flushed scarlet beneath the dusting of freckles on her cheeks, and the wolf’s growl deepened.

“Get out,” she said, flicking her blade toward the doorway behind Conall. “Get out, and do not come back or I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” Conall challenged, a chuckle still in his voice. “Tie me hair up in ribbons?”

The woman’s chest heaved and Conall could not help but notice its fullness beneath the gray kirtle that practically hung on her otherwise slender frame.

“Get out,” she sputtered again. “And stop staring at my breasts.”

Conall felt his face heat at being caught in his appraisal of her body. Any matter, the time for sport had come to an end. Conall’s patience was run out.

“The only one of us who’ll be leaving this cottage is you,” he said, stepping forward. The wolf’s hackles raised. “Now, gather your beast and—”

A chorus of howls echoed from beyond the hut, cutting short Conall’s directive. He heard his sheep—forgotten until now—bleat pitifully from the dooryard.

The woman’s demeanor—and that of the wolf as well—instantly changed.

“Is that your animal calling, sir?” she demanded. The wolf whined and circled behind the woman once more, obviously distressed by its brethren’s howls.

“Aye—my sheep,” Conall said. “Why? Is that the rest of your well-dressed pack calling to sup?”

“’Tis the grays, you fool,” she said. “And if you value the animal’s life, you’ll bring her inside before they descend upon her and rip her to pieces, as they nearly did Alinor.”

The black wolf whined again.

Outside, Conall’s sheep bleated insistantly, and the pack from beyond howled in evil, discordant harmony.

“They’re wolves,” Conall said calmly. “Besides this one, obviously”—his eyes flicked to the shivering black—“they’ll keep to the wood.”

The woman looked him up and down, blatantly taking his full measure. “Are you hungry, sir?” she asked after a moment.

Conall frowned. Of course he was hungry. Everyone was hungry this winter. But what business was it of this uppity English woman’s that there was not enough food to be had?

She gave him no opportunity to answer. “Because they are.” She turned to lay a hand along the black’s muzzle. “Stay here, lovely. I’ll return in a thrice.” Her eyes flicked to Conall briefly. “You may take his fat head off should he attempt to harm you.”

Then she stormed past Conall, shoving into him rudely as she fled the cottage, her dagger still in hand. He let her pass, too stunned and bewildered by her strange actions to put up any real resistance.

“Is she daft?” Conall asked the black.

The wolf called Alinor turned from him and skittered into one of the hut’s animal pens meant to house the breed of small Scottish cattle throughout long, harsh winters such as this. But, of course, the MacKerrick clan had no cattle this year. The wolf lay down and whined and shook, the vicious beast of earlier nowhere to be seen.

The wolfsong from the forest sounded closer.

Conall turned with a grimace and a shake of his head and followed the woman from the hut.

Evelyn’s heart pounded as she ran into the dooryard, eyes scanning the close clearing for the sheep.

Was he daft? Or deaf? Could he not hear the gray’s mad, bloodthirsty taunts?

Hungry, hungry…

There! The brown and white shaggy animal ran in frantic circles, its short tether tangling around its forelegs in the dirtied, trampled snow. Evelyn tucked her dagger into the ragged rope belt around her waist and walked toward the sheep calmly, making soft shushing noises. “Easy, lovely. ’Tis all right.” She reached down and unwound the tether from the panting animal’s legs, then tugged it toward the hut. “Come, now. Come along.”

The large interloper emerged from the dwelling, a frown creasing his strong features. In another time—another life—Evelyn would have been terrified of the giant highlander. He was slender, yea, but his big-boned frame suggested that mayhap he had carried more meat on him at one time. His legs were long under his odd, shin-length tunic and tall leather boots, and his belt and sheath hung low across slender hips. His plaid drape strained across the breadth of his shoulders and chest, and his brown hair looked streaked by the very sun, hanging silky and chopped down his back, a thin, leather-twisted braid adorning one side.

He was beautiful, in a hungry, desperate way, and Evelyn sensed he carried a heavy sorrow about him. And a resentment larger than the Caledonian forest surrounding them both.

Yea, this was a thoroughly dangerous man.

He blocked the doorway with his width and Evelyn was forced to stop some lengths away from him, glancing over her shoulder. The grays would emerge at any moment.

“I would think,” he said with a nasty smirk, “that a lass as brazen and foolish as yourself, who squats in another’s home and keeps such close company with wild beasts, wouldna be so fearful of a few stray wolves. Surely you could charm them as you have the black.”

“Verily?” Evelyn challenged. She could allow herself no fear of this man. Not now, when she had fought so hard for her life, for Alinor’s life, in this treacherous land. She had come too far, survived too much, and she would let no one—no one—take it from her. “If all it requires is brazenness and foolishness…”

She walked up to the man, grabbed his thick, bony wrist and slapped the sheep’s tether into his palm. Then she looked up into his eyes—golden, sparked with green and brown—and smiled fiercely.

“You should fare quite well.”

Evelyn darted around him into the cottage and slammed the door, dropping the board in place before his first fist-falls pounded the old wood.

“Woman!” he roared from beyond the door.

After a short scrabbling of claw on stone, Evelyn felt Alinor nuzzle her hand and she pulled the wolf’s neck against her hip. “Well, we made short work of him, did we not, lovely?”

The pounding continued. “Open this door!”

“I think not,” Evelyn called. “This home is mine and Alinor’s now. And you are a very rude man.”

She heard the man growl, then let loose a string of vicious Gaelic. The few words Evelyn could understand made the tips of her ears burn.

“If I must, I’ll chop this hut to bits and drag you and your animal out,” he warned. “You’ll nae stay here and that’s the whole of it!”

“We shall see,” Evelyn called.

She knew the instant the grays emerged from the wood by the highlander’s hoarse shout of surprise. She crouched down near the floor to peer through a small knothole in the door. Alinor pressed her wide head to Evelyn’s ear, as if also trying to see.

Evelyn spied the backs of the man’s boots. He was facing the forest now, and had dropped the sheep’s tether. The poor animal bleated in fright.

“Hah!” the highlander shouted, taking a step away from the cottage. “Get from here, you hell-beasts!”

Evelyn kept her eye steady on the view through the knothole and slowly, carefully, silently, reached both arms above her head to remove the bar from the door.

The man took another step toward the edge of the forest and Evelyn saw a flicker of steel swing in a wide arc. “Hah! Get back!”

Evelyn jostled Alinor to the side with an elbow and eased the door open just wide enough to squeeze her hand and forearm through. Her fingers dug in the snow until she felt the sheep’s rough tether. She opened the door a bit wider and pulled hard on the rope.

The sheep bleated and popped through the narrow opening.

The highlander turned with a surprised shout.

Evelyn slammed the door once more and dropped the bar back in place. Behind her, Alinor growled.

Evelyn turned on her heels and rose to see the giant black wolf with her jaws around the back of the small sheep’s neck. The brown and white animal’s eyes rolled in fright and it screamed as its forelegs rose off the floor.

“Alinor!” Evelyn chastised. “Naughty!”

The wolf turned sorrowful, yellow eyes up to Evelyn but did not release the sheep.

“Let her go, immediately.”

Slowly, reluctantly, Alinor opened her mouth and the sheep fell out. Alinor sat on her haunches and licked her muzzle three, four times in rapid succession.

“Naughty,” Evelyn scolded the wolf again as she grabbed for the now slobbery, panicked sheep, who once more ran in frantic circles. She pulled the sheep to one of the pens and shut it safely behind the gate.

The door to the hut thudded again. “Woman, you had better—aaghhh!”

The highlander’s shout was drowned out by a ferocious snarl and Evelyn cringed, trying not to imagine long fangs sinking into the man’s thick neck. Then she heard a shuddering squeal and the snarling was abruptly silenced.

Evelyn rushed to the door again and pressed her ear to it—she couldn’t bear to look through the knothole at the carnage that lay inevitably beyond.

“Sir?” she called. “Sir, are you injured?”

A beat of silence and then a loud groan.

“Oh God, forgive me,” Evelyn breathed. She looked to Alinor. “We’ve killed him!”

The wolf whined.

“I know, he did ask for it, but—” Her conscience kicked at her. “Sir!” Evelyn shouted at the door once again. “Sir, answer me!”

“Och, lass,” the highlander moaned. “They got me, they did. Oh, the pain!”

Alinor lay down near Evelyn’s feet and covered her muzzle with one paw.

A strangled cry of dismay burst from Evelyn’s throat. She drew her dagger from her belt and then grabbed for the bar. “Hold on! I’m opening the door!”

No sooner had the rough length of wood scraped clear of the brackets than the door flew open, knocking Evelyn to the dirt on her backside, her dagger skittering across the floor. The highlander ducked inside quite ably, his face dark with rage. He slammed the door shut and replaced the bar.

He turned back to Evelyn, murderous fury sparking to life in his amber eyes. He bore not one scratch on his person, although the length of his sword was bloodied.

Alinor scrambled to her feet and fled to the other pen.

“You…you lied to me!” Evelyn stuttered.

“I’ll do worse than that,” he growled, seizing her arm and jerking her to her feet. He swung her toward the door and his brogue was thick as peat smoke with his next words. “I’ll have nae sneaking, backstabbing, sheep-stealing, English filth in me house.”

The highlander kept tight hold of Evelyn as he slid his sword into the sheath on his belt and then reached for the bar on the door, and Evelyn knew he intended to toss her to the grays.

“You can’t! You can’t!” she screamed, flailing at him as he struggled to lift the bar and retain hold of her. She could fight neither the man nor the beasts beyond the door physically. Her mind raced and she latched on to the one excuse that filtered to the top of her panicked thoughts. “I’m…I’m not English—I’m Scots!”

The man paused, looked down at her with one wry eyebrow raised. “Och, aye—blind I must be, and deaf as well, to nae have noticed yer gentle brogue and fine highland costume before now.” He shook her. “Liar.”

“Nay, listen!” Evelyn insisted, assembling the details of the lie so quickly they began to flow out of her mouth like water. “Listen, I”—she swallowed—“I was born and raised in England, yea. But my mother…my mother was Scots. She was born near Loch Lomond.”

“Well, what are you doing on MacKerrick lands, then? And where is your kin, hmm? You’re nae claiming to have MacKerrick blood in your veins now, are you?”

“Of course not.” Evelyn tried to laugh. “That’s ridiculous. I…I was accompanying a member of my family—my kin—back to her beloved highland home to die.” Evelyn cleared her throat. “Ah, my great-aunt. ’Twas her dying wish, you see. I can take you to her body, should you require proof.”

The highlander smirked. “Unlikely, English. But I’ll humor you through one more falsehood before I toss you out on your skinny arse. Give me the name of your kin, then. You can do that, can you not?”

Evelyn nodded frantically. “Of course.”

“Well?” the man fairly shouted.

“’Tis…Buchanan,” Evelyn squeaked. “My great-aunt was Minerva Buchanan.”

The highlander’s face went the color of the snow piled outside the hut and he dropped Evelyn’s arm as if it were afire. He staggered backward.

“Minerva Buchanan?” he repeated in a croaking voice.

Evelyn was unsure if her answer spelled good or ill for her immediate future, but felt she had no choice now but to press on. “Yea. Sister to Angus Buchanan.” She licked her lips, winced. “Did you know her?”

The highlander shook his head faintly and stared at Evelyn as though she were one of the grays from the forest. “Nae. But my uncle did, before he died. Ronan MacKerrick.” His eyes flicked about the hut. “This was his cottage.”

Evelyn instantly recalled the moments before the old healer’s death, and the moan of the man’s name on her lips.

“Of course,” Evelyn said, breathing a huge, silent sigh of relief. “She spoke of Ronan. I—I’m sorry to hear that he’s passed.”

The highlander’s eyes narrowed. “Have you…have you seen your Uncle Angus, gel?” he asked. “Does the Buchanan know you’re here, on MacKerrick lands?”

“Ah…nay,” Evelyn stammered. “I fear Minerva led us quite astray before she passed, and I have no idea in which direction the Buchanan village lies—I’ve never been there, you see. Is…is it far?” she asked, praying that it was. Too far, any matter, for this man to take her there immediately and out her lie.

“’Tis a town, nae a village,” he said absently. “And ’tis verra far, indeed, for winter travel.” The highlander spoke almost gently now, and Evelyn’s heart was buoyed with desperate relief. He placed one of his large, bony palms upon his chest. “I am Conall MacKerrick. Ronan’s own nephew.”

“And I am Evelyn…Buchanan Godewin.” God forgive my lying tongue.

For the first time, a genuine, if bewildered, smile cracked the highlander’s face. His eyes were alight with amber fire and their sparkle nearly took Evelyn’s breath.

“Welcome home, Eve.”