Highland Lady

by Colleen French

  "Ah, that's right. Young Cerdic." She gave a humorless chuckle.

  "So ye know him?"

  "He came in your stead when we invited ye to sup with us so my father and I might thank ye for the part ye played in the recapture of our land. 'Twas summer, I recall, ere my father fell seriously ill."

  He paused. "Perhaps that was a poor decision, my not coming."

  It was her turn to watch him carefully.

  "It is just that the Burnards and the Forrests have been... adversaries for so long," he explained, somehow managing to make it sound like an acceptable apology.

  "Ye think my father wanted ye at his table?" She gestured. "He only invited ye out of his sense of honor."

  "And my brother made a fool of himself, I take it?"

  She shrugged. "Nae. Not really. He was polite enough to my father. My sister found him entertaining. He simply dinna strike me as a mon who could be left to defend one's castle."

  Munro ran a hand through his hair. "That is plain to be seen, isn't it?"

  That made her chuckle with sincerity.

  He glanced up, smiling. "What?"

  She shook her head, coming closer. She was tired to the bone. It had been a long day, and she was greatly worried about her sister. "I'm sorry. It really isn't funny, this situation we have here."

  Now he laughed. "Actually, it is. The great Earl of Rancoff, laird of Clan Forrest, is kidnapped, and no one seems to care." He slid over on the pallet and patted it. "Your steward is right. Ye look tired," he said gently.

  She hesitated, though the invitation seemed inviting. Perhaps if she sat for a moment, she would feel better. But then she really would be consorting with the enemy, wouldn't she? What would her men think? What would Munro think?

  Why did she care? She obviously had the upper hand here.

  Elen slowly lowered herself to the pallet, her hand on the dirk at her waist, and leaned against the cold stone beside him. For a moment they sat in silence, staring at the three flickering flames of the candles that burned on the floor, giving the tiny chamber a glow.

  "Your father would be proud of ye," Munro said, his voice still with a quiet calming tone to it. "Ye command your men well. They have great respect for ye, 'tis plain to see."

  They sat a hand's width apart. She could feel the warmth of his body, smell his bathed skin. He was very distracting, this virile stranger. "What do ye know of my father?" she asked.

  "Actually, I fought with Sir Murdoch at Invervurie and Perth. He was a fine mon." He fiddled with the corner of the woolen blanket beneath them. "My father greatly admired him. In fact, he used to say that if the Burnards weren't always trying to steal our land, he would have made a marriage union between our two clans."

  "A Burnard would never steal land," she argued, but it was half-hearted. "We wish only to have returned what was ours."

  He glanced at her. "''S truth, I don't know why either of us would care. We each have enough land to serve us and our people. The Lord has been good to us."

  She set her jaw. "It's the principal of the thing. What is Burnard land, deeded to my great ancestors, is Burnard land. I am sworn to protect it, as my father ere me."

  "And what is Forrest land is Forrest land." His tone was slightly mocking, but she couldn't tell if he was mocking her or himself.

  "So now what?" he asked after a pause.

  She lifted one shoulder. "We wait. I suppose eventually word will be sent." She glanced fleetingly at him. "Would he hurt her?"

  "Cerdic?" He frowned. "'Tis nae in him. He's a lazy lad for the most part. Nae ambitious, unless it directly relates to his cod."

  She ignored the crude comment. If there was one thing she had learned from her father, it was that men could be greatly influenced by what hung between their legs. "So why would he do this, if he is indeed responsible for the kidnapping and nae ye?"

  He glanced sideways at her. "I dinnae order your sister kidnapped." He let his gaze linger. "Honestly, I cannae ken any earthly reason why Cerdic would kidnap a woman." He gave a short laugh. "Why he would have need to. My brother has a... let us say certain charm with ladies."

  Elen wasn't certain what he meant by that, but she thought perhaps she didn't want to know.

  "I wonder," he continued slowly, "if it is a possibility she could have gone willingly with those men."

  Elen was shocked by his suggestion. "She was mishandled. My men saw it. She was struck and thrown o'er the rear end of a pony."

  Munro took his time before speaking again. "I must tell ye, there were rumors my brother was meeting someone on the beach after nightfall. Ye know how servants gossip. Ye nae think it could have been your sister?"

  She drew her knees up. The headache was closing in. Her mouth was dry and she felt weak. "Certainly not," she said loudly. "Certainly not," she repeated with less certainty.

  Could Rosalyn do such a thing? She was to marry shortly. She had seemed pleased with her father's choice for her. She had seemed happy. To all outward appearances, she was the glowing bride-to-be.

  But there was a part of Rosalyn no one but Elen knew. Aye, Rosalyn was sweet and agreeable most of the time. But she could also be conniving, petty, and childish. But couldn't we all be those things?

  It was too much to think about right now. Too much to contemplate with a headache so imminent.

  "I cannae imagine what my brother is thinking," Munro reasoned aloud. "Perhaps he has lost his mind."

  Elen lowered her forehead to her knee, feeling lightheaded. The pain was coming on faster than usual. "Perhaps we all have," she said, not realizing she had voiced her thought until it was too late.

  Munro stared at her in the flickering candlelight. "Are ye all right?"

  He leaned closer, enveloping her in his presence. The headache was now at her door, its iciness slipping through the cracks.

  "I... I nae feel... well," she managed. Suddenly she was dizzy. Finley had been right. She should have gone to bed. But usually she had more warning than this.

  "Elen?"

  She felt Munro's arms wrap around her. In her confusion, she thought how good it felt, how solid and yet gentle at the same time.

  Munro rose and hurried to the hole in the ceiling of the oubliette. "Up there! Finley!" He spoke with such an air of authority that Elen wondered absently just who was in charge here. Was she in his prison, or he in hers?

  "What do ye want?" Finley called. But his voice seemed far off, distant, as if floating on the waves that lapped the shore.

  "The lady has taken ill."

  She heard Finley swear.

  "Toss down the ladder," Munro ordered.

  "If this is some trick—" Finley warned suspiciously.

  "Drop the futtering ladder, or I will guarantee you'll be skinned, mon," Munro shouted.

  Elen winced as the words reverberated in her head. Dust motes floated before her eyes and her vision blurred.

  Suddenly Munro was at her side again. He lifted her into his arms. She wanted to tell him she could walk, but she didn't have the strength. She closed her eyes tightly, for even the dim light of the candles sent daggers of pain through her eyeballs and into the depths of her head.

  "Elen, Elen, what is wrong?"

  She felt him move, carrying her securely in his arms. "Is she taken to some sort of fits?" Munro demanded.

  There was a great deal of confusion above, such confusion that she wished they would all go away and leave her alone with her pain. Every sound around her seemed intensified. Men shouting. Dogs barking. Time crept slowly, as if she were in a dream.

  Elen shrank against Munro, praying he could protect her from the noises.

  "It's all right," he hushed, holding her tighter against his broad, muscular chest. "We'll get ye abed."

  "Give her to me." It was Finley's voice again. She felt him touch her. But Munro held her secure in his arms.

  "Let me carry her up," Munro voiced quietly, but with an authority a man could only be born with. "Ye willnae manage with thos
e scrawny shoulders."

  "Ye are a prisoner. Ye willnae leave this hole until my lord orders it so or Kingdom come."

  Finley's words shot through her head. Why was he shouting? Didn't he know how much it hurt her?

  The two men were fighting. Fighting over her. Even in the daze of pain she knew it. What was Munro saying? Finley could not carry her up the rope ladder. Munro was right.

  "Finley," she mouthed. "I fear I cannae walk. Let him carry me above."

  "What? What do ye say?" Munro's breath was warm on her face, soothing...

  "Finley. Let him," she whispered.

  "One false move and I cut out your liver," came Finley's voice.

  She would have smiled if it would not have hurt so much.

  Again, she felt movement. Munro was carrying her. Strong arms. Nice neck. Her arms were around his neck, though she barely had the strength to keep them there.

  "It's all right," he kept murmuring. "Try to hold tight, sweeting."

  She didn't know how he climbed up, her in one arm cradled against his hard, lean body, his other arm pulling them both out of the dark hole.

  Then there was more light. More noise. She cringed and shrank against him.

  "The light, ye idiot. It pains her," Finley hissed. She felt the weight of something thrown over her head, and the excruciating light dimmed. "Give her to me."

  "Show me to her chamber."

  Their voices were all drifting now. Her clansmen talking. Benches scraping on the stone floor. A bird squawking. But Munro did not hand her over. She felt the cold as they walked outside, then warmer when they entered the tower.

  Steps. Many steps. As a child, it had seemed to take a lifetime to reach the tower chamber where her parents slept.

  But it was easy now. Easy because he carried her.

  His foot hit the door with a bang, and a moment later she felt herself being eased into the softness of her feather tick. Then, as he withdrew his arms, she felt a slight pressure on her forehead. Warmth. Gentleness. She knew that feeling, though she couldn't quite place it. Something from her childhood.

  A kiss?

  The sounds grew loud again as Finley entered the room. She shrank into her inner self. The last she heard was Munro's heated voice and a crash as someone fell. Then she eased thankfully into unconsciousness.

  Chapter 5

  "Where is she?" Munro shouted furiously. "I insist upon seeing your mistress or knowing why she willnae come. I demand to know what word comes from my keep!"

  "M'lord Rancoff, ye are nae in a position to demand anything," Finley said coolly. "Now shut up afore I shut you up."

  Munro glared up at the little weasel, but said nothing more. Last night when he had demanded an audience with Elen, the cur had dumped a bucket of slimy water into the cell, soaking not only Munro, but also his bedding. Out of a sense of self-preservation, nothing more, he did not call out again.

  In truth, he was not so much worried about himself and his position as he was concerned about Elen. She was obviously gravely ill, but with what illness? And why did the men and women of her castle take the malady so calmly? Munro had asked Finley if she had been taken to such fits in the past, but had received naught but a cuff in reply.

  Munro stroked his sore jaw absently as he paced from one end of the tiny, damp cell to the other. It had to be late afternoon. Already the dim light that filtered into the cell from above was beginning to wane. Another night in this hellhole? He wasn't certain he could stand it. If only he could speak to Elen, perhaps he could be moved elsewhere in the castle. Under guard was acceptable, but this... this was not.

  Munro turned sharply at the wall he faced and strode in the other direction. Elen. He could not get her out of his mind. The woman had guts. She was intelligent. Men respected her as few respected anyone, male or female, in these times. She was all he could imagine in a woman. And when he thought of feeling the roundness of her breasts in his hands, he suspected she was more.

  Were circumstances different, he would have considered petitioning her father for her hand in marriage. Clan Forrest had been urging him for years to wed again. When he was eighteen, he had been married, but it had lasted only a few short years. The lass, a distant cousin to his mother, had been called Mary Ann. She had died in childbirth when he was off fighting the English with his father.

  Munro had been saddened by her death and that of his premature child, though when he closed his eyes, he could barely remember the pale-eyed, timid girl. His marriage to Mary Ann had been purely political, and he had not met his bride until just prior to the wedding. He had liked her well enough, but she was not the kind of woman he could ever have loved.

  Now this woman, this Elen of Dunblane, was another matter. She was a lass Munro sensed he could give his heart to.

  He smiled, thinking of the feel of her weight in his arms when he had carried her up the Jacob's ladder and then up to her tower. It was odd how the considerable burden had felt weightless because it was Elen. All that had mattered to him was protecting her. Keeping her safe.

  He had never felt such a need before, and even now didn't quite understand it. Had that woman he had felt so protective over truly been the same woman he had sat up all night conceiving vile names to hurl at when next he saw her?

  Munro reached the wall and spun on the heels of his boots, this time pumping his arms as he strode. It was important that he keep up his strength while imprisoned. Even in the short time he had been in these cramped dank quarters, he could feel the weakening of his muscles, and it worried his mind. Ordinarily, he was a very physical man; he relied on his corporal strength and took pride in his agility. He was a man who fought hard, rode hard and—he glanced in the general direction of the castle tower where he suspected Elen still lay in illness—he supposed he could love hard as well.

  In the years before his father's death, the elder Forrest had often chastised his son, claiming he felt too deeply for a man. His father had said Munro was too emotional and would do well to ignore those feelings. They could do nothing but hinder him, Conal Forrest had warned. Weaken his leadership abilities.

  At times, Munro had to admit he wished he had heeded his father's words. He had been hurt, and by those he had loved most of all. His brother, Cerdic, the person he loved most, had caused him the most grief. But no matter how hard he tried, Munro could not deny who he was. With the coming of wisdom, he had learned not to wear his heart so openly on his sleeve. He'd learned to test the waters before diving in. But he could not stifle his feelings altogether. These emotions were a part of what made him who he was. He could no more cut them from his body than he could amputate his own arm or leg.

  Munro met with the stone wall again and cursed in frustration at the size of his cell. He dropped to his hands and knees and began a series of rapid push-ups. Sometimes physical exertion was the only healing balm for ragged emotion.

  As he lowered his body to the cold damp floor and pushed up again, his thoughts turned to Elen once more. Was she ill enough to die? Why would Finley not say what ailed her?

  Munro was not as godly a man as his mother would have liked him to be, but he believed in prayer. As he pushed up again, perspiration beading on his forehead, he prayed she would recover. He prayed he would have the opportunity to see her, speak with her, touch her again. He prayed for quick release from her prison and the settlement of this bizarre situation. For if all could be set right, he hoped to have the opportunity to know her better.

  Know, hell. He might just marry her.

  * * *

  Elen woke to find her chamber deep in late afternoon shadows. Nightfall, but on what day? That was always the question when she recovered from a headache. How long had she been ill?

  She sat up in bed, dizzy and disoriented, but of sound mind. The headache was mercifully gone but for a nagging hum deep in her head, and she knew that she was well again, at least until the next turn of the moon. Within hours, her blood would flow and the cycle would begin anew.


  Elen paused and waited for the dizziness to pass, then slid out of bed. She walked to the side table and splashed her face with icy water left in a bowl for her. It was cold in the chamber, and she shivered. She wore nothing but a thin linen shift, but could not recall having taken off her clothes.

  She grabbed a green woolen tunic left tossed over a chair. She added her girdle with its pearl-handled dirk and a pair of woolen stockings, and then, on impulse, went to the looking glass that hung on the wall above her father's trunk. A precious present for her mother from her father on their wedding day, it was said to have come from the East.

  She glanced in the framed oval and was immediately disappointed. She did not have the slender, comely look of her mother. Instead, she looked like all of the other Burnards, full at the face, with dark lips and green eyes. She pushed the weight of her braids over her shoulder. Not even her hair was her mother's. Rosalyn had inherited the golden tresses, but Elen's portion was not so fine. Her father's mother had been a redhead, and that was where the streaks of morning sun in her hair came from, her father had once explained. And the freckles? She wrinkled her nose. Where on God's sweet earth did they come from?

  Elen was not much for attention to her personal appearance. As long as her hair was tied back and not a nuisance, she cared little what it looked like. But tonight she was feeling differently. She took her time to unwind the plaits and brush out the waves of hair that fell to below her waist. Instead of rebraiding it, she took a discarded ribbon from a pair of stockings and tied it back in a thick mane that fell heavily down her back. It was totally inappropriate... and she liked it.

  Pleased with herself, Elen sat on the edge of her father's bed to pull on her boots. She was delighted to see someone had kindly cleaned them of their crusted mud and polished them for her. It wasn't that she didn't like sweet-smelling clothing and shiny boots, she simply had not time to see to such trivialities.

  "Alexi," she called.

  The door pushed open immediately, as expected, for Finley always made sure her room was well guarded when she was ill.