Lord Keeper

by Tarah Scott

  “So, you now have the lass acting as engineer?” Iain asked.

  Johannas cocked his head, his expression a mixture of amazement and admiration. “I never saw the likes of it. Even Rory could not have done better. Why did you not tell me she was your engineer? Granted, ’tis a bit strange.” He laughed. “Where did you find a Sassenach wench willing to leave the comforts of her English home?”

  “Montrose Abbey,” Iain grunted. “And she was not so willing.”

  * * *

  Too much ale, Iain thought. Then again, his mind countered, as he reached for the mug in front of him, mayhap not enough. His eyelids felt heavy as he tried to focus on the postern door when it opened. Afternoon had given way to night. His mouth tightened. No sign of the lass. Christ, he’d have to go in search of her again. He looked across the table at Johannas, who still wore a wide grin. Iain knew the wine had contributed to his clansman’s good mood, but also knew the tale of kidnapping an unwilling woman was at the heart of his delight.

  “By heaven,” Johannas said, “but I would have given a week’s harvest just to have seen you take her.” He allowed the boy who passed the table with a pitcher of ale to refill his mug. One of the large hounds bound into the hall and made for Johannas. “Surry, laddie.” He gave the dog several affectionate scratches before throwing a bone some distance from the table. Once free of the animal, he finished off the contents of his mug and motioned for more.

  The night wore on and even the large quantities of ale Iain consumed didn’t lighten his mood when the lass failed to appear. It struck him that she would likely use the excuse that her patient needed her more than he did. Iain gave a word of command to one of the serving girls to fetch her and, as expected, she soon emerged from the staircase.

  Her expression said she didn’t appreciate being summoned, but Iain was having none of that. With a jerk of his head, he indicated she take the vacant seat to his left. Once she lowered herself into the chair, he set a goblet of wine in front of her.

  Iain reached for his ale. “Do not to try my patience further by moving from that chair until I give you leave.”

  “Evening, lass.” Johannas raised his mug in salutation.

  Iain kept his gaze fixed on Johannas as she answered in a soft tone. The two huddled together in her cottage flashed in memory. How much Johannas was to blame was yet to be seen, but Iain felt sure the lady had declined to advise him she belonged to another. No doubt due to the fact that she refused to acknowledge it herself. Seizing the mug in front of him, Iain ignored the ale that sloshed onto his hand as he again drained the contents.

  * * *

  The merriment seemed as if it would go on all night. Victoria had been surprised to enter the great hall and find what appeared to be a celebration in full swing. As it turned out, the men had simply decided the night was made for drinking. She cast a cautious glance in her keeper’s direction, then at the kitchen door. Her gaze came back on Iain, and she read the warning in his eyes.

  “’Tis a busy night,” Victoria muttered. “Maude would be glad of my help in the kitchen.”

  “Now, lassie,” Johannas laughed good-naturedly in response to the scowl Iain dispatched in her direction, “why would you want to trouble yourself in the kitchen with fine lads like us here in the hall?”

  “Fine lads.” She snorted.

  “What did you say?” Johannas asked before making an exaggerated show of understanding her words. “See there, Iain,” he lounged sideways in his chair, “’tis a fine lass who can appreciate a good Highland man, even if she is Sassenach.” He gave Victoria a broad wink.

  Victoria felt a rush of blood to her face and cursed the knowledge that it was more the curious regard of her keeper that flustered her, rather than the actions of his foolhardy guest.

  At last, it seemed the men had forgotten her. They had left the table and were standing at the hearth where a modest fire burned. Iain leaned against the mantle, his expression lending the appearance of being engrossed in conversation with his companion. Johannas laughed at something Iain said, and Victoria glanced in the direction of freedom. Up and out of her chair before circumstances could go against her, she cast a quick look over her shoulder as she entered the kitchen. Johannas’s attention flickered onto her, but thankfully, another round of laughter kept Iain from realizing her flight.

  Greetings were made around the kitchen. “Where are you going?” Maude asked when Victoria didn’t linger.

  “I want to look in on Jillian before I retire.”

  Maude made a clicking sound with her tongue. “How does the lass fare?”

  A warmth softened Victoria’s weary heart. Say what one might, Highland women couldn’t be accused of being inhospitable. So long as the guests weren’t English, she reminded herself. “She will need time to recover. Rachel has been seeing to her.”

  “She is a healer, that one.” Maude nodded. “Just like her mother. No need to worry with Rachel looking after her.”

  “I know, but she asked me to say good night. Though I wager she sleeps so soundly she will never know I was there.”

  Maude gave a knowing, ‘ah,’ and Victoria turned to leave.

  “Why leave by the back door?” Maude asked to her back.

  Victoria turned. Her excuse died at sight of the shrewd look on the housekeeper’s face.

  “It is safer to go up the stairs in the great hall,” Maude said.

  Victoria laughed. To her way of thinking, going around was safer, but to admit that was treachery in itself. Instead, she said, “The fresh air will do me good.”

  “Have you noticed the band of rowdy men prowling the castle tonight?” Maude asked, going back to carving the roasted pig laying on the large chopping block in front of her. “The fresh air is not all you are likely to get.”

  Victoria plucked a piece of chicken off a passing tray. “I have had no trouble in the past.”

  “I would imagine not,” Maude agreed. “MacPherson men know Iain does not hold with force.”

  Victoria choked on the chicken she had just swallowed.

  Maude bustled over and gave her a couple of hearty slaps on the back. “Are you all right?”

  Victoria nodded while motioning for water from the pitcher sitting on the counter. Maude poured it and shoved the cup into her hand. Victoria drank it in large gulps, then cleared her throat.

  “Thank you,” she said in a cracked voice.

  “You should be careful,” Maude admonished. “Talking and eating do not always mix.”

  Further comment on Victoria’s part was forestalled by another fit of coughing. When she regained her composure she said good night.

  “Barry,” Maude called through the kitchen door to one of the men passing by. Sticking his head through the door, the giant of a man ducked in order to miss the doorframe.

  “See V—er, the lassie here to the castle door.”

  He started to move out of the doorway and into the great hall, but Maude halted him. “Nay,” she said. “Take her through the kitchen door and around to the front entrance.”

  Barry gave her a curious look and opened his mouth as though to say something, but Maude was ready for him. “Never mind the questions, just do as I say.” She shook the knife at him that she’d been using on the pig and his brows rose in amusement. “Off with you,” she added before returning to work.

  Shrugging, he ambled toward the door with Victoria close behind.

  “When you are ready to go back to your cottage, get one of the lads to take you,” Maude called over her shoulder as they left the warmth of the kitchen behind.

  As expected, Jillian slept peacefully. Victoria brushed back the hair that had fallen in the girl’s face. “Sleep well, lass. ’Tis a far sweeter world where you are now than the one you will face tomorrow.” Victoria pulled the covers closer around Jillian’s shoulders, then set out to make her way through the labyrinth of corridors leading to the main entrance.

  Victoria stepped from the castle into the cloudy
night. She shivered, not from the cold, but from the memory of violence. Her attempted escape had been a close call. Iain had driven that point home after Kevin Robertson left. Still, the decree that she should not again leave the castle came as a hard blow. Iain no longer called it a punishment, instead saying it was for her safety. His enthusiasm on the point was so thinly veiled Victoria didn’t believe he thought her gullible enough to believe it.

  “’Tis a harsh world outside these walls,” he had said, “and there is no mercy for the ignorant.”

  No amount of reasoning had moved him. “Impossible to reason with a barbarian,” she muttered, even as the argument fell flat in her own mind.

  The whoops and indistinguishable Gaelic coming from a group of passing men drew Victoria from her thoughts. She felt their eyes following her progress across the compound and Maude’s warning sprang to mind. She slowed in the darkness and realized serious misgivings through what now felt like a vast forest instead of the small grove she had grown accustomed to.

  Her heart pounded at the sounds of rustling leaves. She stumbled over a small branch, lurched forward, then caught herself. Victoria looked over her shoulder, but seeing nothing in the shadows, faced forward again. The abrupt appearance of a large form loosed the scream lodged in the back of her throat. Footsteps sounded behind her, and she whirled to face the new phantom. The sight of yet another apparition sent her back a couple of steps. The muttered oath behind her confirmed that the wall she had collided with was indeed human, if she could consider Iain MacPherson human.

  Her attention focused on the approaching figure as his hand shot out in the darkness to grope for her. Left with little choice, Victoria pressed herself against him. His arm slid around her waist, and a familiar sense of reassurance emanated from the heat of his body. Iain growled a few Gaelic words only to have his opponent snarl a vicious response.

  Iain shoved her behind his large bulk and bent, pulling something from his boot. Victoria took a step back at the sight of a tiny glint bouncing off what Iain gripped. A dagger. She recalled the knife when he’d cut her bonds on the trip to Fauldun Castle. More heated words flew between the men, all in Gaelic, but Victoria didn’t miss the name. Iain MacPherson. At last, the man mumbled a response, then turned back the way he’d come.

  Iain faced her and Victoria found he stood so close she was forced to angle her head almost directly up in a wasted effort to discern his expression in the darkness.

  “What are you thinking, out alone on a night like this?” he demanded.

  The accusatory tone in his voice brought an instant rebuttal to her lips, but she faltered with the memory that Maude had warned of just such an incident. “I was going home.” She waved a hand in the direction of her cottage.

  “I can see risk taking is a habit of yours,” he said.

  Victoria leaned away from him, aware he must have consumed more than just the ale she’d witnessed him drinking. From the smell of things, whiskey had followed after she’d left.

  “What sort of mischief are ye thinkin’ to find tonight, lass?”

  She was startled by the sudden loss of proper speech she’d been accustomed to hearing him speak, but it was the soft tone of his voice that made her throat go dry.

  He stepped closer. “Are ye finding yourself in need of company?”

  He gripped her shoulders and drew her against him. Her heart jumped. Her keeper was in no better a mood than the stranger who had followed her.

  “Or perhaps you were thinkin’ to find your friend along the way?” he asked in a voice that was suddenly thick.

  “Friend?” Victoria repeated, her confusion growing worse with each heavy breath she felt him make.

  “Any fool can see the way he was talking to you,” Iain went on. “And you did not seem to mind.”

  “What in the name of—” Victoria stopped, realizing he meant Johannas. “You cannot mean—”

  “I am no more a fool then you are,” he broke in. “You were damned friendly with him in the hall,” Iain said, his grip on her tightening with each word, “but dinna’ deign to speak a civil word to me.”

  “Why should I? You are but my captor.” The instant the words were out of her mouth she remembered her desire to throw herself into his arms the day he faced Kevin Robertson. The disconcerting recollection ended with the awareness of his body so close to hers.

  He leaned into her, his breath fanning the tips of her eyebrows. “Making ye naught but a prisoner?” His voice had grown husky, and his next words were a low whisper, “’Tis war, then?”

  “War?”

  “Aye, you think to make war with me?” His quiet laughter filled the space between them. “Beware, lassie, it is a fine line between love and hate.”

  Victoria shuddered when his arms went around her back and he folded her close.

  “Perhaps you do not know one from the other,” he said.

  She thought she had forgotten the feel of him, but his lips touched hers and memories rose in greedy haste to the surface. The day at the abbey, his rough handling of her, the night the Fraser men arrived in their camp, and the gentle way he held her after their assault, all mingled now in his embrace.

  An unexpected groan from him parted her lips in surprise. Iain wasted no time in exploring her mouth with his tongue. He searched with a slow and thoughtful familiarity that almost buckled her knees. Her fingers curled into the hard muscle of his shoulders as his hands slid down, grasped her buttocks, and pressed her in a circular motion against him. When Victoria sucked in a breath at feel of his arousal, he repeated the motion again and again…and again. His mouth at last broke free of her lips and found her ear.

  “Can Johannas do that for you?”

  The whispered question broke the spell. Victoria jerked as far away as his grasp would allow. His expression was masked by the shadows, but his heavy breathing gave evidence that he was no less affected than she. Flattening her palms against his chest, she shoved hard. To her surprise, he released her. She whirled in the direction of her cottage.

  Iain caught her by the arm. “Nay.” He pulled her through the darkness. “I will no’ leave you to learn this lesson at the hands of another man.”

  Victoria’s efforts to free herself became a wobbly walk along the path, and she realized he wasn’t as composed as usual. Upon their arrival at the cottage, he pushed open the door and spun her around to face him.

  “Lock this door and do not come out until morning.” He kissed her hard, then shoved her inside. Iain stepped forward and halted in the doorway. Light from sconces on neighboring cottages glinted in his eyes. He reached in and grabbed the door. “And for Christ’s sake, do not open the damn thing for anyone—least of all me.”

  Iain yanked it shut. She stared for a heartbeat, then rushed forward to slide the bolt into place.

  Chapter Twelve

  The voices edged closer.

  With a violent flick of the reins, Victoria dug her heels deeper into the belly of her horse. Strong and sure, the incessant beating of his hooves against moist ground came as a welcome accompaniment to the wild rhythm of her heart. She pushed harder and leaned forward against her companion. Despite the gray distance they left behind, the whispers gained in slow measure.

  Two trees appeared in their path. Victoria yanked back on the reins, and the horse gave a cry that pierced the constant pulse of the murmurings.

  “Cherry trees.” The girl who rode astride in front of Victoria breathed. They neared the tree. “Trouble goes before us.” Her attention shifted toward thunder that rumbled in the distance.

  Victoria followed her gaze toward the darkening clouds.

  “Look.” Her companion pointed heavenward. “A raven. Morrigan has been sent from the heavens to do battle with us.”

  The voices intruded upon them. They grew louder, and Victoria turned their horse in a circle, seeking any form of sanctuary. But the barren land offered none, save that of the two trees. Panic rose. Even the delicate flowers rustling in the w
ind held a terror well beyond that of the phantom voices.

  “Why do you still search?” the girl asked. “You have already found refuge.”

  Victoria urged her steed forward. “Not I, but you.”

  “Me?” the girl repeated as if the thought were as foreign as the countryside around them. “Mayhap,” she sighed, “for a time. But ’tis you who need look no more.”

  Victoria started to deny the possibility, but instead, headed for the hill now visible in the distance. As they drew nearer, men crested the rise. She started to turn away, but slowed when she observed the figure at the head of the band. A man, dark of hair and skin, with eyes that were a reflection of the dark countenance.

  Still, his was not a darkness that instilled fear, but one that held mysteries that called to her as surely as the sirens lured passing ships. To their deaths. Victoria shivered, yet knew destruction wasn’t what she recognized in him, but grief. The din of voices lowered, and a single voice spoke above the rest.

  “Oh, as I begin the lament of my great distress, what mourning shall I strive to utter? Or what Muse shall I approach with tears or songs of death or woe? Sirens, may you come to my mourning with Libyan flute and pipe or lyre, tears to match my plaintive woes.”

  “Ride on,” her companion whispered against the wind of voices. “Do not delay.”

  All is lost, all is lost. Victoria shook her head as her own voice sang the familiar song in her head.

  The struggle seemed greater than it had when they first made this journey—and they had made this journey before. She and the girl had fled those who would have done them both harm—and escaped. Yet, somehow, she had not escaped.

  The men started down the hill.

  Victoria bolted upright, grasping at thin air where reins should have been in her hands. She looked about in a frenzy, blinking against sunlight that streamed through the window and across her bed. Her erratic heartbeat began to slow at the realization that she was safe and far from the vision of hill and men—or, more accurately, safe from the man.