The Touch 0f Her Hand (Highlander Heroes Book 1)

by Rebecca Ruger

  Carnage was all around, the Munros and MacGregors fighting fiercely and to the death. Tess stumbled and swung her gaze around to find Conall, barely visible through the heaving and shoving bodies and the cloud of dry dirt raised and hovering about them. But she found him, watched him destroy with ease first one and then another attacker. He was quick and sure, his movements economical and extremely swift despite his enormous size. And then she heard his voice and knew that he was aware of her present unharmed condition and flight to safety.

  “Archers!” Conall’s voice rang loudly above the guttural and strident noises of the battle. “To Tess! To Tess!”

  Her attention was returned to their flight now as Ranulph stopped so suddenly before her, she crashed into his back. They were just near Tess’s garden, very close to the doors of the hall but were confronted by a Munro warrior. Tess saw little more than his black eyes and horrid smirk as his helm covered most of his upper face. He was large and tossed his sword about, hand to hand, with obvious finesse and with the effective intention of terrifying Ranulph. Ranulph pushed Tess further behind him, holding the long dagger with his left hand. The Munro gave a twisted smile, lunging without striking in a great tease, which had Tess crying out. But then the big man’s chest was littered with perhaps a half dozen arrows, all at once, and so unexpectedly that Ranulph and Tess both turned toward the ramparts near the gate. The MacGregors up there, those watching the inside of the gate, had their bows nocked again already, aimed in front of Tess and Ranulph.

  “Get her inside!” One yelled. Ranulph wasted no time but took up her hand again and pulled her along the edge of her garden. Twice more, Munro men fell in front of them as the warriors on the battlements led them safely to the keep. Ranulph and Tess stood back to back at the large arched doors, as Ranulph banged for entrance while Tess watched the melee they’d barely escaped. Yet another Munro came charging and screaming at her, sword raised, and he, too, fell, as had the others, though this time because his head had been lopped off his body.

  Tess’s shock and fear would not even allow the scream within to come out. Standing now over the headless man was Ezra, without any helm. He nodded curtly, his face still as ugly and unhappy as ever, no softening at all for the life-saving deed he’d just executed. He turned and staved off several more attacks while Tess watched in horror and Ranulph continued to call out for entrance at the door.

  Finally, the door opened and Ranulph and Tess dived within before the door was slammed shut and the brace dropped again. Both crashed immediately to the floor, quivering and crying.

  The first thing Tess heard, before the door shut out so much of the noise was Angus, his voice louder and more ferocious than she had ever imagined, “Goddammit, where is she?” He banged his fist on the table.

  “She’s here now, Angus.” Serena’s voice. “She’s safe.”

  Serena knelt before Tess just as Bridie fell before Ranulph.

  Tess’s palms were upon the floor, trying to steady herself, to stop the trembling. Serena’s hand came under her arm. “Come Tess, away from the door.”

  She felt another hand beneath her other arm. Tess was pulled to her feet by Leslie and Serena. She looked from one frightened face to another as they led her to the table with Angus. She noticed Leslie had two daggers in his normally unadorned belt.

  “Bethany?”

  “The children are safe in the chapel with Dorcas and Moira,” Serena informed her and pushed Tess down at the table across from Angus. Tess reached out her hand to cover his and saw and heard his whimpered relief.

  Ranulph was pressed onto the bench next to her, still shuddering as Tess did. She turned and threw her arms around him, while Bridie, standing, hugged them both and cried.

  And then there was no noise. Suddenly, only a moment later, the clanging of swords, the cries of those speared or gouged or hacked, the gruff and frenzied clamor of battle faded to near silence.

  Everyone inside the hall, only a dozen or so who hadn’t sought refuge somewhere deeper within the keep, stilled and cast anxious eyes toward the doors. All exchanged fretful glances, for what seemed like many long minutes until Tess could stand it no more. She stood and ran to the door, hobbling as her legs wobbled.

  “Lass, no!” Leslie called, at her side, his hand upon the face of the door while Tess fumbled with the heavy brace.

  “But Conall,” she said, turning her worried eyes upon the hapless steward.

  “We wait,” he insisted, trying to be stern, to not be affected by her beseeching gaze. He failed and pushed her gently out of the way, pulling forth a dagger with one hand while lifting the brace with the other.

  “Ranulph, no!” Bridie cried as her husband came to Leslie’s side. The two men nodded at each other, each awkwardly armed, and Leslie opened the door. Ranulph presented his dagger first, then he and Leslie led Tess out.

  The yard was nearly still, but Tess recognized instantly that the only ones standing were MacGregors. Some Munros did survive, but they were on their knees, their hands linked on top of their helmets, grouped together and under guard of several unwounded MacGregor men. Leslie and Ranulph relaxed but kept their daggers ready.

  Dozens of bodies spotted the yard, mostly dead, but some moaning low. Tess was sorry to see so many lives extinguished, and more so because it was her own sire who instigated this travesty. Sadly, she recognized a few more MacGregor soldiers among the dead, though their numbers were not one tenth of the Munros’ losses.

  Still a cloud of dust hung low in the air in certain sections of the courtyard. The earth which had settled coated all those fighting men with a fawn colored powder, settling in their hair and upon their faces and over their persons so that from a distance they appeared but one color.

  But Tess recognized Conall still, by the sheer size of him, and forced out a relieved breath. He was coming down from the wall, his sword re-sheathed. He did not see Tess as he made his way directly to a fallen MacGregor. He went to one knee beside the man, almost exactly in the center of the yard. Tess approached from behind without a word.

  The man upon the ground was larger even than Conall, stretched out on his back, with one knee bent. Blood covered his chest and his shoulder. His eyes were closed, his face covered in that fine dusting of buff grime. Tess cried out, recognizing the unmoving body as belonging to John Cardmore.

  “No!” She sobbed and fell to her knees beside Conall, her hands going to John’s chest, searching for the source of the wound. She felt Conall’s hand at her back as she bent over John.

  “Tess.”

  “We have to get him inside,” she insisted. “We have to—”

  “Tess,” this now, with greater firmness, from Conall.

  Tess turned to Conall, distraught at his lack of emotion. “Conall, why aren’t you doing something? We cannot just let him... oh, John,” she wailed, turning back to the captain.

  “Ach, now, lass,” John said, opening his eyes, bright blue within that monotone face of dirt. “I think we’re only waiting on a litter.”

  Her relief was so strong it pained her. Traumatic laughter erupted and she leaned to shower his face with kisses, her tears leaving streaks upon his leathery cheeks.

  “’Tis his shoulder, is all,” Conall said.

  “No like they can carry me, aye, lass?”

  She sat back on her heels, her hand at her chest, leaning into Conall’s shoulder.

  “The Munros outside the wall turned and ran once the gates were closed,” Conall informed her. After a moment, while they both gazed upon the useless killing, Conall said, “I am sorry about your sire, Tess.”

  She looked for and found her father’s body and wondered only briefly at her own lack of sorrow. “I am sad that I am an orphan, now completely,” she said somberly, “but, truth be told, I never really had a father. I should be sorry as well, I suppose, but he... he deserved to die.”

  CHAPTER 31

  Angus sat in a chair near Tess’s garden. In his hands, he held one section of
the wattle fence and at his side sat a basket filled with the thin, pliable branches and twigs used to make them. He didn’t need sight for a chore such as this. Weaving and braiding came easily to him. The lass’s hands were too soft for this; his were hardened and callused, and proudly so. She wanted her garden ‘pretty’, she’d said, for Serena and Fynn’s wedding. He had some idea that she planned to festoon it with some ribbons and girlish fripperies that surely only she and Serena might notice. But he was happy to oblige her.

  While he wove the twigs into a small section of fencing, he thought as he often did of his circumstance here at Inesfree, and how it all began. Before Tess had come to his cottage, he’d not been visited by another soul, excepting his own son, for more than twenty years. It wasn’t living, he’d known, but he’d accepted it, same as he’d accepted his blindness so many years ago, same as he’d endured the death of other tiny bairns after Fynn, and then the passing of his Nan. Angus could still clearly recall how he’d enjoyed the lass’s company that evening, and his lips tilted with the memory. When he’d heard riders coming, though they’d been intent upon stealth, he’d scrambled around and found his only available weapon, an aged and rusty sword. He’d brandished it bravely, imagining this was as good a way to go out as any, protecting a lass.

  He’d stepped outside the cabin while the lass had continued to sleep and walked carefully away from the door just as the riders neared. It had been decades since he’d heard the sounds of an approaching army, but he’d reckoned there to be around fifty mounted men.

  He’d raised his sword, unafraid. “Turn yourselves ‘round,” he’d called out.

  The horses stopped moving, and a set of heavy feet thumped to the ground. He hadn’t moved, and not one ounce of fear had shaken his sword hand. Even without sight, he had sensed the urgency and simmering disquiet which came, rolling off the man who had approached him, well before his deep and uncompromising voice boomed from only a few feet away.

  “We’re looking for a lass.”

  “Ain’t seen none,” Angus had said.

  “Aye, but I’m thinking you have,” the man had replied. “For yourself, I think you’d no bother to stand against us. But for a lass, you might.” He’d stepped closer and lowered his voice. “She does that, makes you want to keep her safe. She dinna even ask, you just want to do it.”

  Angus had hesitated, maybe too long. “Ain’t seen a lass.”

  “Aye, old man,” the mighty soldier had said. “Then you will no mind if I have a look around.”

  It had been pointless to resist or keep up the charade. There had been nothing in this man’s voice that spoke of ill-intent, toward him or the lass.

  “Now what would you be wanting with her? And I’ll be knowing—before you take her away—why she felt she had to run from you.”

  The warrior had not spoken immediately but had stepped still closer to Angus. When he’d answered, it was less the words that came and more the sound, leveled with so much anguish as to be physical as he’d said, for Angus’s ears alone, “I canna breathe without her,” that had convinced Angus to lower his worthless weapon.

  “Are you alone here then?” The big man had asked.

  “Aye, but I’d hoped I might convince her to stay.”

  “As did I.” This had come not without some critical humor.

  “Then you’d best take me with you,” Angus had said. “I’ll not be just handing her over to you without making sure I’d done right.”

  He’d heard then a slight consenting chuckle and another set of feet hit the ground. His arm had been touched, and he’d been led away and sat upon the back of a cart.

  Now, he tilted his head, taking in all the sounds around him, the yard busy today. It had been well scraped of the battle that had been waged here only a week ago. Angus could still sense it, but he doubted most others could. He heard the pounding of the smithy, hammering out some forged item; he could pick out the voice of Davidh in the stables, lightly upbraiding a young stable hand, who’d forgotten to secure a stall; in the far corner, he perceived the swish of water sloshing as someone hoisted up a vessel from the well.

  John sat beside him, wounded but well, employed with the same task as Angus. He grumbled about the twigs not listening to his hands. Angus heard the lass, in some conversation with Bethany as the two sat inside the garden to the left, where the vegetables had been this summer.

  “We have to make sure the fence is secure within the ground,” Tess was saying.

  “Fence,” said Bethany.

  “Yes, darling. It’s called wattle. And this here is the tool that Conall has given me,” this, with some soft exasperation, followed by a tapping noise, “and why he thinks this will work is beyond me. I couldn’t pound butter with this thing.”

  Laughter came close then, followed by Ranulph’s voice, “Here, milady. I’ve a better hammer for the job.”

  Tess’s tapping stopped, and then Angus heard a more robust drumming, followed by Tess’s happy exclamation, “Much better. Thank you, Ranulph. Conall should focus on soldiering, I think.”

  Angus laughed. “He can hear you, lass.” Angus felt her turn her head, looking around guiltily, he was sure. Of course, Angus had known he was close. He always knew and was continuously surprised that no one else could sense his presence. It didn’t always silence a room or an area, but there was ever an air of heightened sensation that hovered about when the laird was near the lass.

  “Aye, he can,” Conall said, without any reproach in his tone. He greeted Ranulph, and Angus was pleased to hear no thread of hostility toward the man. A sharper and stronger pounding of the fence into the ground followed and Angus knew that Conall had taken the hammer from Tess.

  Tess came to stand near Angus, reaching for the finished sections propped against his chair. But she was stopped. Angus realized by the way her breath caught, that the laird had touched her, maybe moving her out of the way to tackle the wattle fence himself. No, they were still, and close to each other, as told by their short breaths.

  Next to Angus, John stopped fiddling so unsuccessfully with the branches; Angus was sure he watched the pair closely.

  Little by little, movement around the yard ceased. But Conall and Tess hadn’t any idea.

  Bethany came to stand next to him, her hand idly upon Angus’s leg. He imagined her curious little eyes were on the laird and the lass as well.

  “You should wed me now, lass,” Conall said. Angus scrutinized his tone, which suggested he’d been thinking on it, had been planning to say as much, though this now seemed to have just spilled out. As far as proposals went, this one needed work.

  Angus could well feel Tess’s surprise. “Why would you want to wed me...now?”

  “Lass, I dinna think you were as daft as John is convinced I am,” he said, with no small amount of humor, embracing his own carelessly spurted words and even their poor timing and delivery. “Dinna you ken I love you?”

  The lass likely couldn’t discern it, but Angus heard well the anxiousness in the laird’s voice. She didn’t though, not over the thundering of her own heart.

  She tried to speak. Only breath came forth. Finally, a bit exasperated, she announced, “No. I dinna ken.”

  John let out a soft chortle beside Angus.

  “Aye, you do,” Conall said patiently and kissed her briefly. “You feel it in my hands when they touch you. You must see it in my eyes when they find you. You seek it in my kiss, and you ken it’s been with us for longer than even I dare to admit.” The lass caught a startled and happy cry, subduing it. “No more tears, lass. Just say the words back to me and give me your promise it’ll always be so.”

  It took a moment for her to gather herself to speak coherently. Aye, but the lass was ever one for blatting and bawling, Angus thought fondly, never having known a person so filled to the brim with such wayward emotions.

  “I am—I have been—so in love with you, for such a very long time.”

  Angus tipped his head, aware that his
own eyes misted.

  “Promise him!” Came a shout, from somewhere across the yard.

  Tess gasped and Conall laughed. Angus sensed dozens of people watching them, on the wall, some gathered in the yard, their faces wreathed in smiles, he imagined, some women dabbing at their eyes with the corners of their aprons perhaps.

  And now Tess laughed while Conall waited.

  “Promise him!” More calls came. Angus could pick out Serena’s tearful call and Fynn’s happy shout.

  Bethany joined the ruckus, with a cry of “Pomis him!” sounding above them all. Angus chuckled when he heard John’s voice, “Aye, get on with it, already!”

  “I promise! I promise!” She finally answered and Conall locked his lips to hers as the growing cheers and whistles became thunderous.

  The End

  Thank you for reading

  The Touch of Her Hand.

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  You’ll find Gregor and Anice’s tale in Book Two,