Highland Lady

by Colleen French

  "Come back here," Munro shouted. Gone was his playful tone. Now he was most definitely angry. "Do ye hear me? I don't care whose daughter ye are. Come back here and listen to me."

  The men in the doorway chuckled with amusement. It had been a long time since Dunblane's oubliette had held a prisoner, and the entertainment value could not be matched.

  Elen crossed the rush-covered floor, her gaze drifting over the men and women who served her. Most of the males in the room were her father's clansmen. Some served her year-round, living here in the castle, and many served a few months at a time. They gathered in clumps on stools and on benches, their supper on their laps. Maids had brought chargers of roasted venison in from the kitchen to the dais table meant for her to sit at, though she rarely did. From there, the men helped themselves, carrying their bread trenchers heaped with food back to their benches.

  The smells of the gathering room assaulted Elen's nostrils: burning wood, meat, ale, bodies, with the underscent of dirty rushes, dogs, and fowl. Absently she wondered when last the floor rushes had been changed.

  In the home where she and her father and sister had previously resided, the rushes in the main hall had been changed regularly and scented with dried herbs. There had been no hounds nor falcons left to defecate where they might. But Elen's aunt had been talented in housewifery and had run her residence with an iron fist. Elen had lands to manage—men, women, and children to defend and feed. She had no time for housewifery.

  Elen lifted her father's horned cup, now her own, from the table, and a boy filled it. As she drank, she turned back to the doorway. Munro was quiet in the oubliette now. That, or he couldn't be heard for the men's laughter, the squawking hawks in the corner of the room, and the growling dogs fighting for scraps beneath the dais.

  Finley approached her slowly, as if trying to sum up her mood. He tended to avoid her when it was foul.

  "How are ye feeling?"

  "Fine," she snapped.

  "No pain yet?"

  She rubbed her eyes, achy from little sleep the night before and from the smoke that clouded the room. She really needed to send a boy up the chimney and have the flue cleaned.

  "I said I am well."

  He paused, giving her a moment. He knew how much she hated this singular physical weakness, how she resented it, how she preferred to pretend it did not exist when it was not present.

  The scorching, debilitating headaches had begun when she was fifteen, just days before her first woman's bleeding started. For more than a decade now, she had suffered the blinding headaches as regularly as the moon's phases. Though she had tried many potions, many tinctures, even leeching, nothing brought relief but the onset of her monthly cleansing.

  Now she simply accepted the headaches as a part of her life, her woman's curse. What she hated most was that everyone in the castle knew of her ailment. Her clansmen, her vassals, her servants, even the blessed goat girl knew when her cycle was expected, knew when the mistress of the manor would be incapacitated for one to three days.

  Her cross to bear. The thorn in her side.

  "He has nae provided any information as of yet," Elen told Finley, gesturing with her cup in the direction of the oubliette and her handsome prisoner. "He still maintains he knows naught of Rosalyn's disappearance."

  "Shall I send Banoff down to jostle his memory?"

  She glanced downward at her mud-encrusted boots as her stomach gave an involuntary lurch. She knew the necessities of dealing with the enemy. She knew torture worked, but somehow she just couldn't bring herself to consider ordering the torment of the man she held below. Somehow it seemed sacrilegious to disfigure such a glorious example of maleness.

  "That isnae yet necessary," she told him briskly, trying to cover her true reasoning. "Let him sleep overnight without water or bread heel, and we will see at first light if his memory has improved."

  Finley nodded. "Anything I can do for ye ere I retire?"

  She glanced up, meeting his brown-eyed gaze. "Nay." She reached out and squeezed his arm. "Thank ye for today. Ye served me well."

  He lifted his hands. "The only way I know to serve ye."

  She flicked her wrist, waving him off. "So to bed with ye. If I need anything, I can well get it myself."

  "Ye should turn in, too. The hour is late and ye should save your strength."

  For the impending onslaught of the next headache, he meant. It was due any day.

  "Good night," she bid Finley and watched him walk away.

  The men were beginning to file out of the hall as well, most done with their meals, bidding their good nights, headed for bed or a shift watch. She observed as the servants began to carry away the trenchers of food that would be brought out again on the morn.

  Elen kicked at a bone tossed to the floor by one of her men, wondering how her sister was faring right now. She prayed she wasn't too frightened. Prayed she was being kept well. She tried to convince herself her sister was all right. Everyone knew ransom was paid only for that which was well cared for.

  She walked to the north window that overlooked the walled garden and stared through the darkness in the direction of Rancoff Castle. The inside shutter had been left ajar so she could feel the cool breeze on her cheeks and taste the bite of the salty air.

  "Hold fast, little sister," she whispered. "Hold fast and I will save ye."

  * * *

  "Nay!" Roslyn screamed and darted forward out of Cerdic Forrest's reach on the four-poster bed in the master bedchamber. Her golden-blond hair had come undone and her braids trailed down her bare back, one unraveling as she crossed the cold stone floor.

  "Come back here," Cerdic ordered, attempting to seize one long, wayward braid as she escaped from his arms.

  Dragging a bedsheet behind her to cover her nakedness, she let out another squeal as she bounded forward from the bed and he grabbed her around the waist.

  "Nay, Cerdic, nay!" she shouted.

  He lifted her off the floor and she wiggled around in his arms to pummel his chest. "Let me down, I say. Let me down."

  The bedsheet fell away and he smacked her bare bottom with the flat of his hand.

  "Ouch!" She shrieked and slapped him in return.

  Cerdic threw back his dark head and laughed, tossing her onto the furs that covered his brother's grand curtained bed.

  Rosalyn screamed again and tried to roll away to escape him, but he was too fast for her. He fell over her, trapping her beneath him and pressing her into the goosetick so she could barely draw breath.

  "Cerdic! Please! Enough."

  He lowered his head over hers and nipped at her swollen lower lip with his teeth. "Enough? There can nae be enough of ye, my sweet Rosalyn."

  She lifted her blond lashes to meet his gaze and broke into an errant smile. "So ye say now, but what of later? What of when ye tire of me and my games?"

  He caught her nipple between his thumb and forefinger and gave it a tweak.

  She grabbed a handful of his chest hair and tugged viciously.

  He laughed again. "I could never tire of ye, my love," he whispered thickly in her ear.

  Already Rosalyn could feel her lover's rod hardening against her bare leg. Already she could feel herself growing wet and needy.

  He buried his face in her tangled hair and she stroked the back of his head.

  "If ye don't let me up to go to the closet, I'm liable to piss right here in your bed." She giggled.

  He licked her earlobe, then thrust his tongue in her ear. "Will ye piss on me?"

  She grabbed two handfuls of his hair and roughly jerked his head upward to gaze into his blue Forrest eyes again. "That is revolting."

  He grinned. "Just why I thought you'd like it, pet."

  She reached around and slapped him on his bare buttocks, harder this time. "Ye are a vile mon."

  "I know." Cerdic grasped her around the waist and lifted her upward, thrusting into her, taking her breath away. "And that is why ye can nae live without me."


  Chapter 3

  "Hey, come back here! I demand to speak to Elen," Munro hollered upward, his hands cupped around his mouth.

  Men passed over the grate above and filthy bits of rushes fell from the bottoms of their boots to drift downward into the oubliette.

  Munro coughed and waved his hands in front of his face to keep the filth out of his eyes. The rushes smelled musty with the definite odor of dog crap. He brushed bits from his hair, grinding his teeth angrily. "I know ye hear me, you imbecilic curs! Ye fetch me that witch and ye fetch her now, or ye will regret the day your mothers whelped you!"

  A pair of boots halted overhead and Munro glanced up. In the darkness of the pit and the torchlight above, he could make out only the silhouette of a man.

  "Ye up there," Munro ordered. "Fetch your mistress."

  "She's gone to bed."

  Munro recognized the man at once. He had always been good with voices, even as a child. The man was her steward Finley, and he stuck to Elen of Dunblane like crap stuck to Burnard boots. His first impression was that he didn't like him, maybe because Finley obviously had an eye for his mistress. It was just as obvious that she was oblivious to his mooning.

  "Then get her out of bed," Munro snapped. He had lost his patience. At first, the kidnapping had seemed a bit of a lark. He hadn't felt his life threatened; he saw no imminent danger to himself, his men, or his castle. And it would make a good tale to tell round the fire in winters to come—his being kidnapped by a woman wielding a sword.

  But the fun had worn off by midevening. Now he was hungry. He was tired and his bones ached from the fall from his horse and then the twelve-or-so feet drop into the oubliette. Somehow he had cut the top of his head in the tussle with the men and, though the bleeding had stopped, his entire skull pounded with a headache. Now he wanted nothing more than a solid meal and a hot bath before he turned in on his own feather tick in the master's chamber.

  He knew naught of Rosalyn's kidnapping and was certain, despite Elen's claim, that none of his men were responsible. They would not dare. Though the Burnard and Forrest clans had not been friendly for years due to the ancient land dispute, the animosity was usually kept to the occasional fistfight when the two clans met by accident. In battle, the Burnards and Forrests fought together as Scots and would have died defending the other. Many had died.

  "I willnae wake her," Finley said from above. "My laird is ill-tempered when she's awakened after she's abed. Better to let her sleep and talk with her in the morn."

  "So what I have already witnessed isn't ill-tempered?"

  The bearded man chuckled. "Nae. 'Twould be considered rather good-natured for her."

  Munro scowled, running a hand through his hair. He no longer wished to be amused. He was being held prisoner under false accusations, and it was time they got to the bottom of this. "I could care less what mood she is in." He glanced upward. "And why do ye insist upon calling that she-devil 'my lord'? It's plain to see she is most definitely female, despite how she tries to hide her figure."

  Finley stiffened. Even in the dim light and shadows, Munro could tell he had struck a nerve.

  "She is heir and lord to Dunblane and she is whom I serve," the steward spat. "Now shut up and go to sleep." He started across the grate.

  "Wait!" Munro hollered again. "Ye canna leave me without a blanket or water to quench my thirst. I've had naught to drink for hours."

  Finley halted overhead. "Then drink this."

  A blink too late, Munro realized the cur had tipped a cup. The ale poured through the grate and splashed onto Munro's shoulder and his back, soaking his tunic.

  "Son of a poxed whore," Munro boomed, wiping at his clothing as the ale soaked in, making him colder than he already was.

  All Munro heard was Finley's soft laughter as he walked away.

  "Daughter of a poxed whore," Munro murmured beneath his breath. With a groan of resignation, he retreated to the corner of the prison pit and slid to the floor to wait out the night.

  * * *

  Elen was up with the first streaks of dawn. Relieved that she still felt no signs of the impending headache, she dressed quickly in the cold room. A young servant, Alexi, who slept on a pallet outside her door, brought her a cup of hot water brewed with precious herbs, which she sipped as he stoked the coals in her fireplace. She felt rested after the night's sleep, restored and clearheaded.

  Despite her worries, Elen was certain her imprisoned sister was safe. She was confident Rosalyn would return home to sign the leabhrachadh and complete the preparations for her coming wedding. With the master of Rancoff imprisoned in her oubliette, the castle would have no choice but to return fair Rosalyn.

  Elen did not understand why Munro Forrest would not admit to having masterminded the kidnapping. After all, one kidnapped for gain. How could one gain without claiming the crime? And why would he have been outside the gates of his castle after the offense had taken place? Surely the Forrest clan expected someone to come for the maid.

  The only logical answer was that Munro was not a part of the kidnapping, as he maintained. But Elen wasn't ready to accept that answer, not yet. There had to be something more to the explanation. Perhaps the clever Munro wanted it to appear as though he had nothing to do with the kidnapping. But to what end?

  "Cold this mornin', m'lady," Alexi remarked.

  "Aye. 'Tis only September, and already we hear the cold winds of winter knocking at our door." She pulled her blue and green plaid woolen mantle tighter around her shoulders and fastened it with a small claspbrooch.

  "Anything else I can git ye?" Alexi asked from the doorway.

  She shook her head. "Nay. Now run down to the kitchen and get yourself a bowl of hot mush."

  "Shall I bring ye some?"

  She shook her head.

  With the boy off, Elen left the morning solitude of her father's bedchamber and then took the long flight of stairs to the bottom room of the tower. She went out the door and cut across the bailey. Already men and women were about, trudging across the partially frozen yard, tending to their morning duties. At least the cold snap would put an end to the damned mud.

  Elen pushed through the hefty iron-hinged door to the great hall. Someone had already stoked the fire, and she could feel the heat through the doorway. It was inviting, but she halted inside the entryway on the oubliette grate and glanced down.

  Her prisoner peered up.

  "Munro." She didn't know what made her use his Christian name, or why it rang so oddly in her ears.

  "Elen."

  He looked cold, dirty, tired, his knees drawn up for warmth. As he arose from his seated position, she saw he was stiff as well. In the light of the morning, she noticed a crust of blood on the top of his head. One of her clansmen must have gotten a little heavy-handed when they tossed him below.

  She gazed down into his intriguing eyes. "Are ye well?" she asked softly. She felt as if she were drugged, as if she were watching herself speak to this man. It was the oddest feeling.

  "Well enough."

  She smiled, feeling a sudden sense of tenderness and having no idea why. She was not, by nature, a tender creature. "Ye are a poor liar, sir." She gazed down at the grate and then waved to a dirty-faced lad dawdling in the hall doorway. "Lift this grate and fetch me a basin of warm water, a hot brew, and some bread."

  The boy blinked.

  Elen gave him the eye. "Are ye addlepated, laddie?" She pointed. "Lift the grate."

  The boy tripped coming down the steps to her aid. He leaned over and gave the heavy iron grate a tug. It clanged and screeched as he dragged it from its place, across the stone.

  "And a ladder. I'll need a ladder."

  "To git down, m'lady?"

  She frowned, dropping to her hands and knees to lower herself into the hole. "Nay. To get back up."

  Munro barely had warning enough to lift his arms as Elen of Dunblane dropped through the oubliette hole. He caught her beneath her buttocks and let her slide through his hands.
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  Even through the rough fabric of the tunic and the bulk of her woolen mantle, he could feel her feminine shape. And shapely she was. As he withdrew his hands, still startled by her sudden descent, he inadvertently brushed over her round breasts that were firm, though not overly large.

  He released her the moment she touched the stone floor and stepped away, not because he did not like the feel of her in his arms, but because he knew he must stink to the high heavens. If she noticed he had clumsily touched her in a way he should not have, she gave no indication.

  For a moment, they both considered each other awkwardly. There was a tightness in the air Munro knew well as sexual energy, but he sensed the woman didn't quite recognize the signs.

  He cracked a grin and opened his arms wide, then bowed. When in doubt, he found that humor always came to his rescue. "Welcome to my humble lodge, my lord."

  She removed her mantle and tossed it to him. "Aye, jocular ye are for a mon who has gone all night without food and drink." She sniffed the air. "And was forced to piss on the wall."

  He caught the mantle in midair. He considered refusing, but he was cold and she owed him this much after kidnapping him under false pretenses. He wrapped the plaid around his shoulders, noticing the faint scent of woman on the wool. Her smell was different than any other he had known—almost masculine, yet most definitely female at the same time.

  A Jacob's ladder dropped into the hole, tied above somewhere, no doubt.

  "Thought much of your predicament?" Elen asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

  "Nae much else to do." He drew the mantle tighter, not knowing if he did it for the warmth or to envelop himself in her scent. It was madness to feel this attraction to her after what she had done to him, but he was unable to stifle such an utterly physical response to her.

  "Any conclusions?" She met his gaze, eye to eye, as any fair opponent would.

  He shrugged. "A few. Your sister is missing. Ye think me responsible, but 'tis nae true. The obvious next step is to figure out who is responsible."