“Argh, lass,” he growled against her soft lips, his hands again at her hips. “You’ll no want an audience, I think.” He tipped his head back toward Inesfree. Tess’s gaze followed and he smiled inside at her deflated expression.
TESS SCRAMBLED OFF his lap then and sat just beside him.
They rested side by side at the shore of the loch, loathe to give up this moment. Shoulders pressed together with Tess’s head tilted toward Conall. It was peaceful and comfortable, and she didn’t want to ever leave.
“You have your garden all settled for winter?”
Tess nodded. “All but the fencing. I never did quite get that properly repaired or installed, but there’s time yet. I’ve started the seedlings down in the cellar—would be nice to have a door thereabouts, might keep it just a bit warmer over the winter.”
“Aye, that can be arranged.”
“Actually, if there’s to be a wedding soon—” she felt the muscles of his arm tighten against her shoulder “—the entire courtyard and hall will need some attention. Has Fynn yet asked for your permission?” His hard arm relaxed.
Conall nodded. “Aye, no sooner was I returned when he pounced on me.”
Tess laughed at this. “He’s a good man, Conall. You should be happy Serena has found someone who loves her so.”
“And I am. Her life hasn’t always been easy, either.”
Tess agreed wholeheartedly that Serena deserved such bliss. But then she used this as a weak transition to introduce a topic she dreaded having to discuss, though knew they must.
“At least her sire didn’t massacre her lover’s clan,” she said softly, and now knew she did not just imagine the tensing of his entire body.
He turned his head so that his chin rested on his shoulder. He considered her, giving a little nod, though this seemed only to be acceptance that she knew of this, and that it needed some recognition.
“You should have told me, Conall,” she insisted, her voice still calm and low, “at the very beginning.”
“Would you have married me then, lass? Would it have changed anything?’
She had given this some thought, had wondered this same thing so many times over the last few days. She believed she spoke truth when she answered, “I’d like to think I would have.” She shrugged though. “But I really don’t know. Maybe I wouldn’t have believed you. I was plenty terrified then.”
“You weren’t,” he insisted. And then, with a bit of humor, “You were annoyingly brave.” Did she detect pride there as well?
“I am sorry, more than you can know, for what my father did to you.”
Conall only nodded.
“Do you think we should talk about it?”
This made him frown. “I ought no to relive it... no anymore. And what purpose would it serve to talk it out?”
“It stands between us.”
“Nae, it doesn’t. Truth be told, it hasn’t for some time.”
This was, if she understood him correctly, both very revealing and especially perplexing. Her present circumstance, while much preferred to her original situation at Inesfree, had her in a rather awkward role. It was possibly no secret what their relationship actually was now—"there’ll never be secrets where there be servants”, her mother had often cautioned—and she enjoyed Inesfree very much, far more than she ever had Marlefield. But she was his leman, and nothing more.
For allowing her Bethany, for bringing Angus to Inesfree, she’d promised she’d no more try to escape. She’d essentially given her life to Inesfree. She would never leave, not so long as Conall lived. But to have this, and nothing more—would it be enough?
Conall turned fully sideways and took her hand in his.
“You and I were betrothed once.”
He watched her face for a reaction, but she gave him only but a blank stare.
“Pardon me?”
“Actually, almost betrothed,” he said. “That’s why the Munros had come to Marlefield that night. We were to be betrothed.”
Her mouth formed a small o. “But for my father and his brutal crime.”
Conall nodded.
“Did he—oh, he planned it for a while then.” It only made it worse.
“Or,” Conall allowed, “it started true enough, but he found a plan better suited to his greed and acted on that.”
Tess looked into his blue eyes and wondered what might have been different if her father had gone forward with the betrothal rather than what atrocity he had carried out. Would she have loved Conall still? She would have, she was sure.
“Lass, I haven’t asked in a while, because I needed to ken, or needed you to ken it dinna have anything to do with—”
A noise, just the snapping of a twig, but rather unnatural in the quiet of the wood behind them, sent Conall diving for his sword, only a few feet away. Just as his hand might have closed around its hilt, a foot slammed down upon it. Conall lifted his head to find himself surrounded by several dozen soldiers, all bearing the blood red crest of the Munro upon their chests. He stood straight, contemplating quickly his odds without a weapon until the point of a blade was aimed at his own chest, staying any further movement.
Tess startled and turned. Atop the hill above the loch, silhouetted by the late afternoon sun, stood her father. She paled, her fear for Conall immediate and overwhelming.
CHAPTER 30
"My daughter, Tess!" Arthur Munro boomed as he descended and drew to within a few feet of her. "I see I have come too late, my dear."
"I have been here for half a year," Tess challenged.
"Long enough, it seems, to have grown to like rape."
Tess colored a bit, suspecting that her own father may have spied upon Conall and her for some time. But she defended, "It is not—it has never been rape."
Raising a brow, Arthur said, "But sinful. And treacherous. Tell me, has he married you?"
Tess shook her head slowly.
"And then he stopped demanding the marriage, did he not? Perhaps when he learned that Marlefield was no longer connected to your dowry. This, of course, makes you nothing more than a whore, as well as traitor to your clan."
But Tess ignored the purposeful insults. Conall had not mentioned marriage to Tess in months. A question in her eyes, she turned to Conall, but found his burning gaze upon her father.
Arthur motioned to the soldiers surrounding Conall. "Let us find this Inesfree. I’d like to unseat another MacGregor and claim it as my own."
Six men, allowing for no mercy, prodded Conall with the tips of their swords, not daring closer contact. As it was, Conall rose head and shoulders above Munro's men, and likely his legend even higher. As they passed Arthur, the older man baited, "I do hope, MacGregor, that this manse is in as fine a condition as the last one I took from you."
To his credit, Conall ignored the barb, meant only to rile him and scatter his thoughts. Refusing to rise to such pointed provocation, he offered Sir Arthur an infuriatingly untroubled grin.
They marched up the hill and through the wood, toward Inesfree.
"Father? Father!" Tess cried, stretching her legs to catch up with her sire. "What do you plan to do with him?"
Arthur continued walking. "Do with him? Why, nothing at all, daughter." And just as her relief expelled itself in a sigh, he added dangerously, "I only mean to kill him."
Tess cried out and from the middle of the moving line of soldiers, Conall turned at this sound, toward the rear where walked Arthur and Tess, to ascertain the reason for her cry. For his attention, he was summarily knocked to his knees by the flat side of a sword swung sharply against his head.
Tess screamed again at this and made to race forward.
Arthur grabbed her by the arm, spinning her around.
"I am prepared to spare you, daughter, though your betrayal be great. Plead not for MacGregor or it will go the worse for you."
"For what reason do you seek to kill him?" Tess demanded hotly. "Surely not for me—”
"Reason? I need no reaso
n," Arthur hissed in her face. "But let it serve as a warning that none should dare to take what is mine."
"I am—”
"I refer—” her father cut in bitingly “—to Marlefield."
"Of course," Tess murmured as Arthur dragged her forward. “I’m guessing you will justify this with the same reasoning behind your slaughter at Marlefield all those years ago?”
He seemed not at all surprised that she knew of his perfidy of more than a decade ago. “It remains true that those disloyal to our overlord will be punished.”
“That is only what you tell yourself to shroud your true motives.”
He did not demur. “Of course. And that is what I will tell the nobles and our king, if they should even care, though I much doubt it.”
Tess was disgusted and disheartened by his complete lack of honor. She must think of a way to save Conall. Begging would gain her naught. Likewise, offering her own life instead would likely serve only to have them both killed.
But what were her father's plans? Inside Inesfree, his pitiful force of three dozen or so soldiers would face a massive MacGregor army, primed and eager, no doubt, for battle.
What little hope this calculation fostered inside her was demolished as they exited the wood and approached Godit's Rise. There, to Tess’s utter dismay and rising fear, waited the remainder of her father's army. Nearly three hundred strong, armed, poised.
Tess’s heart sank to her knees with the loss of hope.
In the distance, she saw Inesfree, its walls lined with soldiers, surely unnerved by the growing party gathering at its door, and likely fearful for Conall, outside and outnumbered.
Arthur shoved her off as the two parts of his force met. Tess followed frantically as her father approached Conall.
"Open that gate."
Conall shook his head, his eyes quickly taking in the whole of Tess and then turning back to Munro.
Munro grinned—a grimace really—and roughly grabbed Tess near again, surprising even his own men with a knife pressed to her throat. "Open that gate," he insisted again.
"Do not!" Tess cried, her eyes upon Conall, whose own eyes were tortured, his jaw tight, lips pursed. "Do not, Conall!" She repeated angrily, knowing that he would do it anyway. She could see it in his eyes as they focused on her. "Oh, Conall," she sobbed when he then lifted his gaze and nodded to her father.
Tess was released at once. She ran to Conall, pushing through two Munro soldiers, flinging herself upon Conall. "Oh, Conall. Why? Bethany, Angus, Serena—everyone! They will all be killed."
Conall ignored her, even as she clung to his chest, arms around his neck. He wouldn’t look at her, his hard gaze fixed on her father. "Tess remains here. She does not come within," Conall insisted.
"But she must," Arthur laughed, "She'll want to plead till the end for your life."
At this, Tess spun away from Conall to lunge at her father, hands raised to claw at his eyes. With one effortless swipe of his gloved hand, Arthur knocked her to the ground. Conall growled and jerked forward. Once again, the swift appearance of several swords at his chest halted him. Angrily, he grabbed the tip of one in his fist, squeezing until he bled, forcing the blade to lower, quite easily against the lesser strength of the young man who held it. But then those other blades pressed closer, two at his neck, just piercing the skin. Infuriated, he flung the blade away, the force sending the soldier into the dirt.
"Bring her," Arthur said, adjusting his gloves as he led the party closer to Inesfree. A man, barely more than a child, helped Tess from the ground.
As the army, now moving forward as one, reached long bow range, Conall was led to the front to walk side by side with Arthur.
"Pray do not disappoint me, MacGregor," Arthur said out of the side of his mouth, eyes upon Inesfree. "You father, you know, whimpered at the end."
Again, Conall did not deign to respond.
"Now give the call," ordered Arthur.
Conall stepped forward. He walked quite a few paces ahead of Munro to be seen and heard. His eyes scanned the wall, then found and stayed with John Cardmore.
"Raise the gate!" He called.
"Conall, no!" Tess cried from behind him.
John Cardmore did not move but studied Conall's face.
"And get those men off the wall," Arthur said.
"Captain!" Conall called. "Get them down from the wall."
John Cardmore's huge form disappeared from view as he walked along the wall, toward the outer gatehouse, behind the other MacGregor men. One by one, the MacGregor soldiers filed down into the bailey. After a moment, the walls were clear, and the portcullis began its slow rise.
When the gate was fully open, Munro soldiers swarmed the entrance, but they found only MacGregor soldiers, those within the courtyard, throwing down their swords.
Tess’s dismay increased as she was dragged inside by her father. He’d waited outside until a sizable number of his troops were inside the yard. Arthur released her arm again and pulled forth his own sword, turning and waiting for Conall to be brought to him. With an ugly grimace and a mocking tilt of his head and sword, he said to Conall, “After you.”
Conall walked, unarmed, across the bridge and into the bailey, with Arthur Munro spurring him forward with his sword at the back of his neck. Someone grabbed Tess’s arm and bade her enter as well.
Inside now, enough Munro soldiers had entered to show their numbers greater already, though still the bulk of them remained outside the gate. They kept their drawn weapons trained on the empty-handed MacGregors and kept a distance of several feet between the two armies.
Tess looked around frantically. She was grateful she saw only soldiers in the yard, no innocents and thankfully not Serena or Fynn or dear Lord, not Bethany or Angus. But anguish tore at her when she considered the very small number of MacGregor soldiers. Even if they had retained their arms, they hadn’t the numbers even to manage the quarter of her father’s guards inside the castle. She sought out the figure of John Cardmore. With Conall unarmed and under the sword, John was their only hope. She couldn’t believe they would surrender, just hand over the castle to her father. But hope was nebulous, and Tess was actually fearful that surrender or no, all of Inesfree was bound to die today.
John’s eyes, narrowed and trained on Arthur Munro, strengthened Tess’s tenuous optimism. She knew him well enough to recognize the resolve behind his hard gaze. While her father surveyed the yard, taking stock, Tess watched John’s eyes dart ever so briefly to the ramparts now emptied of soldiers. She hadn’t any idea that any plan or strategy was in place, but something tingled inside her. Her own eyes scanned the ramparts and then many other parts of the castle, but she saw nothing to give her hope. Yet, still she clung to that resolve she’d spied in the captain’s eyes.
“This is disappointing in the extreme,” her father said, while Conall stood still before him, near the middle of the yard, with all the MacGregor soldiers forced back, near to Tess’s garden and the keep. “I don’t mind a good scrum, MacGregor, but your pitiful army just dropped their weapons like they were on fire. At least your father’s army fought back.”
Conall turned and faced Arthur Munro, standing a good many inches above the height of the older man. But his eyes slid past Munro and met with Tess’s, who stood a good distance behind her father.
She met his gaze, trying very hard to appear brave. But his eye had only settled on her for an instant before steadying harshly upon her sire.
“You will fall today,” Conall said. “You will drop to the ground and it will be done.”
Conall’s eyes shifted one more time to meet Tess’s for the briefest of seconds. And Tess understood with this second glance and with these words, he was giving her instruction.
“A bold claim to make, MacGregor,” Arthur Munro said with an over-confident laugh. The snicker ended abruptly. “Kill them all,” he ordered his soldiers. And he raised his sword to begin with Conall.
Tess’s eyes widened. Conall did nothing t
o defend himself, only shouted brutally, “Loose,” as his expression twisted into a menacing mien.
Just as a scream built in her chest, Tess was aware of a strange whooshing noise that rent the still silent air, in just that split second after Conall had roared. Yet even before her scream met air, she watched as a dozen arrows pierced and struck her father’s body, coming from so many directions all at once. The force of the assault spun him around, so that he faced Tess now. He went immediately to his knees and then fell over, face first into the dirt of the courtyard, shafts breaking off underneath him. The last thing he saw was Tess.
The ramparts came alive then, with so many MacGregor soldiers rising from their crouched positions to rain more arrows down upon the Munros within the bailey, and even more upon the front side of the wall, catching the Munros outside the gate unawares and felling dozens with the first wave of sent missiles.
The MacGregors in the yard reached for the swords they’d dropped conveniently close to their own feet. Left with little choice, though their laird be dead, the Munros met them head on. Tess was surrounded by swords swishing through the air and ducked and scurried to the wall near the gate, recalling Conall’s instruction. Crouching there, she watched with panicked eyes as peasants even poured from the hall, knives and daggers raised to lend aid. Conall had taken on the closest Munro, feinting as the man lunged, and rebounding to punch the man square in the face, grabbing the Munro’s sword as he stumbled. John Cardmore dispatched two men who’d charged him, thrusting his right hand and sword to one assailant and impaling the next with the dagger in his left.
Tess heard the sound of the portcullis being lowered, and she knew they planned to trap the Munros inside, now definitely outnumbered. The soldiers on the ramparts stopped sending arrows down, now that close combat was established. Tess shrieked and bent her head as a Munro sword swiped very near, landing in the stone she clung to, only inches from her hand. The MacGregor soldier he’d been aiming for dodged but didn’t turn fast enough and was then skewered by the same blade, falling near to Tess’s feet. Without thinking, Tess fell to her knees beside the wounded man, recognizing Donald. Instinctively, she slapped her hand over the blood oozing from his chest, having no idea that she was now under the blade until a shadow fell over her. That same Munro aggressor raised his sword above his head to deliver a killing blow. Tess had no response but to squeeze her eyes shut, but the blow never came. She opened her eyes and gasped, as a flat blade emerged from the man’s chest. The Munro soldier looked down at the protruding tip before he met Tess’s surprised gaze. He fell before her eyes and there stood Ranulph behind him, his dagger now dislodged from the fallen man. Ranulph appeared just as shocked as Tess, his hand shaking, but he recovered first and grabbed her hand. He pulled her away from Donald, now dead, and headed toward the doors to the hall, his long dagger poised before him, his head and hand jerking left to right, considering all points of attack, clearly ill at ease with this role.
The Touch 0f Her Hand (Highlander Heroes Book 1) Page 29