by Aileen Adams
This man was not half the man they were.
And she would never see any of them again. Perhaps not even her father.
She barely held back a sob of regret, of longing, of pain as they started off again, riding south while the sky began to lighten in the east. Dawn was approaching, and with it the first day of the rest of her miserable life.
24
The sun was well over the horizon before Boyd caught the first sign of them.
He had followed the path of the River Esk, knowing they would need to water themselves and the horses eventually. The sight of a torn bit of linen on the ground told him his instincts were spot-on.
For the knotted linen held strands of brownish-red hair. Her hair.
Even knowing George Ainsworth had cost her a few strands of hair made him gnash his teeth in fury. How dare he so much as place a hand upon her?
Gather yourself, he thought, closing his eyes and drawing one deep breath after another. It would do neither of them any good for him to lose hold of his senses.
He continued on from there, taking pains to conceal himself whenever he could but moving as quickly as possible just the same. It was no easy feat, managing both at once. He simply had to catch them, but it would do no good to catch up to them if George Ainsworth realized he was near.
The sun climbed higher, and Boyd knew each passing hour placed them closer to the border. Once they’d crossed into England, there was little he could do. Time was of the essence, yet it passed so quickly. It seemed the sun raced upward, mocking him and his efforts to save the woman he loved.
He knew that after a time, the river curved sharply to the east before turning south again, leaving him to wonder if he might not be able to cut around and head the party off. It was worth trying. Anything was better than trailing them all the way to the border, meeting them when it was too late for anything to be done.
He guided the palfrey over streams which extended like fingers from the river, watching the woods to his right all the while. Listening. The trickling water made it difficult to catch the sound of voices.
Not for his mount, however. The horse’s ears twitched, turning to the right. He heard something.
Boyd walked him slowly, watching all the while for signs of movement. When a pair of male voices rose up from behind a cluster of young spruce, he knew he’d found at least some of George’s men.
He tied the palfrey off before slipping silently through the underbrush, holding his breath. Watching his step, careful not to tread upon a pinecone or twig.
He realized the men were relieving themselves, which could well have been the greatest gift Boyd could imagine. A man was never as vulnerable out in the open as when he was relieving himself, for he thought not of his sword when he had something else in his hand.
As for himself, he drew his sword and circled around, not making a sound until he was behind them. Not that it mattered much, for the pair of them were in the midst of fervent whispering. Neither of them sounded glad.
“Pardon me, but ye might both remain where ye are,” he murmured, tapping them with the sword when they made a move as if to draw their own. “Still, ye ken. Dinna move.”
They did move, however, looking over their shoulders. Both of them were young, dirty, with circles beneath their eyes speaking of a lack of rest. Little wonder they had sounded unhappy in their whispered conversation.
“I know ye are ridin’ with George Ainsworth,” he whispered. “And ye have taken Olivia Smythe. Is that so?”
“Yes,” the one to the left whispered.
“How many are ye?” he demanded.
“Only three of us, and the woman.”
“Ronald!” the other grunted, upset that his friend would give them away so easily. While Boyd could not imagine why anyone would be faithful to a man such as Ainsworth, he had to respect loyalty.
“If ye know what is good for ye, ye shall make haste to leave. Now.” He moved the sword back and forth between them, just grazing the backs of their necks.
“You cannot threaten us,” the man on the right muttered through clenched teeth.
“Now, that was the wrong answer.” He drove the sword through the back of the man’s neck, cutting clean through until the tip of the blade pierced the trunk.
He withdrew it quickly, before the second man had a chance to cry out, and allowed the dead man’s body to hit the ground with a thud. “Turn around,” he commanded.
“Do—do not kill me,” the man begged, shaking until his knees knocked together. George Ainsworth had certainly not chosen from among the best, or the bravest, to be his trusted guardsmen, had he? The man’s eyes were red, welling with tears, as he faced Boyd and his sword.
Boyd smiled. “I suppose it is for the best ye emptied yourself before I met with ye, is it not?” he asked. “Or else ye might have wet your hose. Where is the lass?”
The guard raised a shaking arm, pointing further downstream. “You must believe me. I do not agree with what my lord has done to her,” he assured Boyd, eyes wide.
“What. Has he done. To her?” Boyd leveled the sword, dripping with fresh blood, at the man’s throat.
“N—nothing! He struck her once. That is all. But he has been cr—cruel in his words, is my meaning. She is nearly exhausted yet he will not allow her to sleep, and he plans to wed the moment they cross into England.”
“He does, eh?” So, he had found them with barely a minute to spare, for the border could not be more than a half-hour’s ride from here.
Rustling in the brush drew his eye, and the guard took advantage of the distraction. Rather than drawing his weapon, however, he slipped away and tried to run.
Boyd caught him, running the sword through his back. But his pained cry was enough to cause George Ainsworth to call out.
“What is it?” he asked, his voice sharp with irritation.
“Come if ye dare,” Boyd whispered, wiping the blood from his sword using the dead man’s tunic. A pity they were both too foolish to cooperate, as he preferred not to shed blood if it could be avoided. Even English blood, which had never meant much to him.
And come, he did.
With Olivia held before him.
Boyd took her in with a single glance. He took note of the filthy kirtle and torn apron. The hair which hung in snarls around her face. Face bruised along one side.
He could scarcely hold back his rage.
Yet her face lit up when she recognized him, a tremulous sigh escaping before George’s arm clamped tighter about her waist, drawing her close to the front of his body.
“You are a devil,” he whispered, eyes darting this way and that as he took in what remained of his guards.
“Ye might well be speaking of yourself, for only a devil would do as ye have done to the woman ye wish to wed. What is wrong with ye, man? Can ye not see she has no desire to marry ye? Why force the lass into doing something she wishes not to do?”
George’s laughter struck Boyd as sounding genuinely amused. “No, you would not understand. Filthy animals such as yourself do not understand how true nobility perpetuates itself. She is the daughter of an earl. She is the wife I was promised, and I will have her. Contracts must be honored. This is none of your affair.”
Boyd’s gaze flickered down to Olivia, still held before her betrothed. “Och, but it is my affair, for I canna allow ye to take her over the border and marry her. I canna do it.”
George laughed again. This time, a sharp, barking laugh. “And why not? Do you intend to marry her yourself? Is that what this is all about? You believe you deserve this woman? Oh, do not deny it,” he added when Boyd’s mouth opened. “I knew you would follow her. Why do you believe I told that MacNair man that I did not wish for you to be one of the men who searched for her? Because I knew from the way you spoke of my betrothed that you had fallen in some sort of low, common lust with her. Perhaps that is what you people believe passes for love, I could not say.”
He held Olivia tighter still, until she
groaned in either discomfort or dismay. “Is that not so?” George demanded. “Say it, man! Admit it. You led me across the Highlands without taking notice of being followed, and all because of some crude, animal lust for this woman. You are truly vile. And perhaps not the laird you believe yourself to be, if you never took notice of me or my men.”
He looked to Olivia again. Her eyes were wide, filled with hope. Hope that he would rescue her? Hope that George’s words had a ring of truth to them?
“Aye,” he grunted. “Ye speak the truth. Tis my fault this happened. I ought to have paid better attention to what went on about me. Though I admit, I believed ye to have better sense than to search for a woman who does not want ye.”
“Once again. It matters not that she wants me.” George bared his teeth in a snarl. “I want her father’s land. I want her father’s title for my son. I want her.”
“A pity she came third on the list,” Boyd muttered.
“Enough. You have killed my men. You have threatened harm to me and my intended bride by raising your sword.” In a flash, Olivia was discarded as if she were nothing more than a gnawed bone or broken jug. He threw her aside, where she landed in a heap against the base of a spruce.
George drew his sword, falling back in a fighting stance. “Come on, then. Let us learn who is truly the better man.”
“Verra well, then,” Boyd replied, though his gaze swept over to where Olivia fought her way to her feet. “Stay back, lass. Take the gelding, ride.”
“Do not move from this place,” George warned, never taking his eyes from Boyd.
Then, with a cry of rage, George lunged forward while his sword swung in a wide arc. Boyd easily avoided it, ducking and lunging to the side, so his opponent’s blow was spent to no avail. The next swing was like this, and the next, so by the time Boyd tried to strike, George had already begun breathing heavily.
Yet his rage had not been spent, for he met every one of Boyd’s attempted blows with a grunt of rage. Boyd backed him against a trunk, yet he ducked low and drove his head into Boyd’s middle. The force of the collision knocked him off-balance, and an effort to avoid another slashing motion from George’s sword sent him sprawling on his backside.
“Look at the brave man,” George sneered, jabbing at him with the end of his blade. Boyd worked his way backward, his gaze darting between Olivia and George all the while. Back and forth, asking himself what she would do if this man killed him. How she would survive.
He could not let it come to pass.
He kicked out, striking George’s arm, sending the sword clattering to the ground. As he reacted, crying out in anger and pain, Boyd got to his knees, locked his arms about the man’s waist and threw him to the ground.
“This is how a man fights,” he grunted before driving a fist into the man’s smug, pale face. George reached out, clawing at Boyd’s eyes, snarling and snapping and shouting curses. It was like fighting a crazed animal, nails scratching Boyd’s cheeks and neck.
“Enough of this!” Another man’s voice rang out, loud and clear and calm. It was enough of a surprise to make both men stop what they did in favor of turning to look up.
Alec Stewart dismounted, smiling in his smug manner. Never would Boyd have imagined being relieved to see the man’s face.
“Ye are about to be outnumbered,” Alec informed George, extending a hand to help Boyd to his feet. He normally would not have accepted help from one such as himself, but pride meant little when one was bruised and bloodied and out of breath. To say nothing of the exhaustion of many hours of riding.
“What?” George snapped. “Who are you? What business is this of yours?”
“I am captain of the laird’s guard. Calan Stewart. Ye took what was his—a maid,” Alec explained, hauling George to his feet. “I rode ahead, for I’d hoped to see your blood on my dirk. My laird will be along shortly, and ye shall see justice for what ye have done.”
“Like hell I will.”
Boyd had been about to reach for Olivia, but George’s snarl turned his head in time to find the man pulling the dirk from Alec Stewart’s belt and thrusting it into Alec’s chest.
Olivia’s scream rang out, sending scores of birds into the sky. Boyd gaped in horror as Alec fell to the ground, eyes open and staring sightlessly while blood flowed from his half-open mouth.
George stood over him, still clutching the bloodied dirk in his hand. He struck Boyd as having the look of a man not certain of what he’d done.
“Halt! Remain still!” Calan’s voice carried their way on the wind, and moments later he burst through the brush on horseback. His keen eyes took in the scene in an instant. “Drop yer weapon, ye English bastard. Ye have murdered the captain of my guard and the son of my sister. Ye will pay for yer actions.”
“But, wait—” George’s blue eyes bulged horribly as he stared about himself, while one guard after another surrounded him until there was nothing for him to do but admit defeat. He dropped the dirk in the dirt and allowed them to take him captive, binding his wrists and ankles.
Olivia threw herself into Boyd’s waiting arms, clutching him almost painfully tight. “Oh, my love, my love, I thought I would never see you again.”
He took her face in his hands, covering it with kisses. Her love. She had called him her love. “I thought I had lost ye,” he confessed between kisses, her cheeks wet with tears. “Och, my heart’s darlin’, dinna ever leave me again.”
“Nor you, me,” she wept. “I love you. Please, do not leave me again. I will do anything, anything, only—”
“Hush,” he whispered, holding her fast against his chest, inside which his heart beat wildly. For she was his own, as he had dreamed she would be. “Ye need not do anything but be yourself, lassie. ‘Tis all I wish.”
He looked down upon her again, stroking the head which rested against him. “Yourself, and my wife, that is.”
Her head snapped up, her eyes wide and wild and searching his as if in disbelief. Who could blame her for not believing him straight off? He hardly believed the words himself, yet they had come from his mouth. “You mean that?” She gasped.
“I do, lass.” He buried his hands in her hair, pressing his lips to her forehead. “I do, with every bit of me. I am nothing without ye. I could not stop my heart from loving ye any more than I could stop myself from breathing. I need ye as I need the verra air, lass, though it might not be right or proper or—”
It was her turn to silence him, touching her fingers to his lips. He kissed them. “That is enough,” she whispered. “You need not say anything more. I do not think I could stand it, to be honest. You have quite taken my breath away.”
“But will ye marry me?” he implored.
“You do not know it?” Her smile was radiant. “I will marry you, Boyd MacPherson. Today, if possible.”
“I dinna know that it would be possible today.” Calan joined them, having given them enough time alone in his mind. “Today, we must turn this cur over to the authorities for murdering my nephew.”
“I am sorry,” Olivia whispered, leaving Boyd’s embrace to turn to him. “For everything, truly. You see why I ran from him, I imagine.”
“Aye, lass. I do at that.” He glanced at George, now slung over the back of Alec’s palfrey, and spat upon the ground. “A filthy, mindless animal, that.”
“And he thinks the same of us,” Boyd mused. It gave him little satisfaction, seeing his foe taken down in such a manner. Men’s lives had been lost, and for what?
There had been no keeping him and Olivia apart, it was clear now. Any effort otherwise was a dreadful waste.
Calan took them in with a glance before shrugging his shoulders. “I suppose what is to be will have to be,” he sighed. “As I said before, only a man in love with a woman would behave as ye have.”
“Aye,” Boyd smiled, no longer caring whether his love was seen as proper or correct. “A man in love.”
25
“My dear, sweet lamb!” Ann was the first to g
reet Olivia upon her arrival at the MacNair keep, sweeping her up in a tight embrace the moment her feet touched the ground.
“Forgive me for any unhappiness I caused you, please,” she whispered against Ann’s shoulder. It seemed all she could do lately was thank people and ask them to forgive her for anything she had put them through.
And as everyone else had done, Ann waved this off. “None of it was yer doing, lamb. I would have run from that polished, preening lad in an instant, as well. And to think of how he mistreated ye.” She barely touched her fingers to Olivia’s cheek, where the remains of a yellow bruise served to remind of what had taken place.
She needed no bruise to remember it. To remember him. He had burned his way into her memory, no doubt, and she suspected he would remain there for years to come.
For who could simply forget the sort of terror she had suffered? The cruelty? The imagining of a life spent without love or companionship or anything of her own. She had suffered an imagined lifetime of cruelty, of days and nights spent alone and joyless and longing for the love she’d lost.
Yes, it would take quite a bit of time before she was able to forget.
When she looked to Boyd, however, it was somewhat easier to discard those dark memories, at least for a moment. He smiled at her from across the courtyard, where he handed off their mounts to a pair of stable lads. She recognized one as the boy to whom she had given two pennies to keep her secret.
Little wonder he avoided her gaze, then. She smiled to herself.
“Tis glad we are to have ye back with us,” Donnan assured her, clasping her arms as was the typical manner of greeting. “Truly, ye gave us all quite a fright when ye ran as ye did.”
“I have already spoken to her of it,” Ann murmured with an elbow to his ribs.
“Aye, but I felt the need to speak of it myself,” Donnan retorted with a wink. “Besides that, I believe there is one other person who wishes to have a word with ye on the matter.”
“Who could that be?” Olivia asked, looking to the two of them in turn. They were the very image of innocence, their faces blank, their eyes wide and unknowing.