Beloved Warrior

by Patricia Potter

  Her eyes opened wide. Then she flung herself into Patrick’s arms. Against his best intention, he put his hands on her shoulders. To create a wall, he told himself, but she would not allow that. She stood on tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “Rory and Lachlan will finally be content,” she said in a voice filled with what sounded like bliss.

  He stood totally bewildered. Surely she would not wish to give up her position. But he saw only welcome in her eyes.

  She was enchanting. Not beautiful in the accepted manner but full of life and, from the look of her eyes, laughter. She filled the room with pure joy.

  “Do not make me jealous, love,” Rory said. He moved over to his wife and put an arm around her possessively. “He has two ladies he wishes us to keep captive.”

  To Patrick’s astonishment, Felicia Maclean’s laughter filled the halls of Inverleith.

  Chapter 14

  PATRICK could only back away and regard his sister-in-law with astonishment and mayhap a bit of horror.

  Had his brother married a madwoman?

  The lass must have deciphered his expression, because the laughter stopped, though the smile in her eyes remained.

  “You must forgive me,” she said, “but you see your brother held me prisoner here for some weeks.”

  “Why?”

  “His men were looking for a bride for him,” she explained. “They thought they were taking Janet Cameron. They took me, instead.”

  He remembered Janet Cameron as a young lass. He’d even thought about making her his wife until the death of Rory’s first wife reminded him of the curse. No woman—none with reason—would wish marriage to a Maclean.

  He searched Felicia’s face for any resemblance to Janet Cameron’s blond hair and delicate features, but there was none. “And who might you be?” he asked.

  Rory’s arms went protectively around his wife.

  “A Campbell,” she replied.

  Patrick stiffened. A sudden suffocating darkness swept over him as he sought reason from the statement. Hadn’t Lachlan just told him the Campbells killed his father? Hadn’t they all experienced the devastation to Maclean soldiers and lands over the years? Hadn’t they buried enough Macleans who died at Campbell hands? He’d sworn a blood oath against them. As had his father.

  And in their absence, his brother had betrayed both of them by marrying one.

  The feeling of betrayal seeped deep in his soul.

  “A Campbell?” He knew his voice had hardened.

  “Aye,” Rory said steadily.

  Patrick’s gaze pierced his brother. “You would betray Fa? All of us?”

  “Not betrayal, Patrick. It was time for the feud to end. Time to bury that bloody curse for all time. I did not know she was a Campbell when I fell in love with her, and then it did not matter. She has the bravest and most loving heart of any woman. She saved my life, and Lachlan’s. King James himself blessed the union.”

  “I care not if a king blessed the union.” He turned to look back at the lass. She was slender and small, and it was difficult to imagine her saving his brothers’ lives. “I am grateful that she may have had a hand in aiding you in some way, but to wed . . .”

  “I would have agreed with you years ago, Patrick. But Felicia has won the hearts of every Maclean.”

  The lass, Felicia, did not move. Did not flinch. The laughter left her eyes, though. “I would like to think your father would be pleased to have grandchildren. Happy ones,” she said.

  “Fa would not have permitted it.”

  “Fa did not permit very much,” Rory said. “I remember how and why you left. His hatred harmed this clan far more than the Campbells. Would you wish it to continue until we were all gone and dead?”

  Patrick heard the reasoning, but he could not accept it. He had been taught to hate and despise the Campbells since he was old enough to crawl. Almost that long he’d been training to kill them. His family’s history was laced with betrayals by the Campbells.

  “Do ye remember the last time a Maclean married a Campbell?” he said, lapsing into his Scottish brogue.

  “Aye, he disgraced our name.”

  Patrick felt as if the world had turned upside down. Being taken prisoner by the Spanish had been a known risk. He had been a soldier. He’d accepted the fact he could be killed, maimed or imprisoned.

  But this . . .

  This was something else. Unanticipated. Incomprehensible. Certainly unacceptable.

  “Fa must be spinning in his grave,” he said.

  “Mayhap,” Rory said. “But that is his problem and no longer mine.”

  “I am the eldest,” Patrick said. “I am heir.” He disliked the arrogance in his voice, but his mind was spinning from the news.

  Rory frowned. “Aye, Brother, and I longed for your return since you left. But things have changed and you cannot turn back events.”

  Mayhap, Patrick thought. Or not. “Someone will be sent to Glasgow immediately for the ship?” he asked, changing the subject.

  “Aye.”

  “And a safe chamber made ready for Senorita Mendoza and her maid?”

  Felicia Campbell stepped forward then. “I know the exact one. I will have it readied.”

  Och, but it was difficult to dislike her. Energy and goodwill radiated from her, and he sensed it was not false. She was obviously eager for him to approve of her because, he thought, she wanted to please her husband. Because she loved him. A Campbell, by God.

  Patrick merely nodded. She disappeared in a whirl of skirts.

  “I will stay on the ship until the unloading is done.” He wanted to keep the Moors content to wait for another ship. And, God help him, he did not want to stay under the same roof with a Campbell.

  Rory’s smile thinned as if he knew exactly what Patrick was thinking. “As you wish,” he said. “Fa’s room is unused. We will refresh it now, and you will have it whenever you wish.” He walked over to Patrick. “We would all like to see more of you.”

  “You will,” Patrick replied curtly.

  “I will send word to Queen Margaret that you returned.”

  “Why would the queen care? James’s loyalty was to the Campbells.” He paused a moment, then asked, “Does Angus still live?”

  “Nay. He died the past year. Jamie Campbell has taken his title.”

  “And Flodden Field? I heard some news on the galley, but the Spanish were celebrating, and I knew not what to believe.”

  “King James was killed along with nine thousand other Scots. The best of us,” Rory said bitterly. “The king. Two abbots. Nine earls. James’s natural son, Alexander, the Archbishop of Saint Andrews. Every loyal family lost their best.”

  “How? Why?”

  “James was no general. The English had longer-range cannons. And James allowed himself to be surrounded because he had too much ‘honor’ to attack the enemy as they crossed a river. They had no such honor.”

  “You were there?”

  Pain and guilt crossed Rory’s face. “Nay. Felicia had just delivered a child, and Lachlan wished to go. He nearly died, and would have if not for an English widow. We lost Hector, as well, and fifty Macleans.”

  “And the Campbells?”

  “They lost many more. They took a larger force.”

  “I should have been there,” Patrick said. “I should not have left.”

  “Then you, too, would probably be dead, and Scotland needs all her warriors. The king is still but a bairn, and the queen is pulled two ways—by loyal Scots and also by others who believe we must form an alliance with England.”

  “How many soldiers do we have now?”

  “About a hundred trained men. Mayhap two hundred who could fight if necessary.”

  The number shocked him. The Macleans were once among the largest clans in Scotland. Their number was now one-third of what it had been when he’d left.

  He would rebuild the forces.

  But now he had to see to the ship. He would get the others home. He would fulfill his promise.
He relaxed slightly, even as he could not quite adapt to the information he’d just heard . . . the loss he had to absorb.

  “Do you have a plaid I can wear?” Patrick asked. “I tire of wearing these Spanish garments. Then I will go to the ship.”

  “I would like to go with you and see this ship,” Rory said.

  “If you wish,” Patrick said. “You can bring the women back then. I want them guarded well.”

  “Aye. Felicia will enjoy the company, as will Kimbra.”

  “Kimbra?”

  “Lachlan’s wife. She is an English borderer.”

  “A Sass . . .” His voice trailed off as he saw the warning in his brother’s eyes.

  Another blow. Surely the devil must have been at work here during his absence. Two Maclean wives: a Campbell and an English wench. Every piece of news was another stroke of the hammer on what he once thought was so predictable. Fight Campbells. Protect Macleans. Fight Campbells. Protect Macleans. Fight the English.

  Now his king was dead at the hands of the English, and his brother had married one. His brother who had intended to be a priest.

  He would leave those explanations for later, though. He knew he had to get back to the ship or face seeing it sail away.

  “You can have one of Fa’s plaids,” Rory said. “They are still in the trunk in his room. I will send a shirt and some fresh water and linens. In the meantime, I will have horses saddled for the women.”

  Patrick nodded and started for the stone steps that led to the bedchambers above. His head was still deciphering the news he’d received.

  “Lachlan lives here as well?” Patrick asked.

  “Nay, he is usually in Edinburgh, or captaining a ship. He’s here now because we were discussing the purchase of a new ship.”

  “You were the one that loved the sea.”

  “Aye, but for the wrong reasons. It was an escape from the bleakness here after Maggie’s death. After you disappeared and Fa died, I was called home. Lachlan believed himself responsible for Fa’s death and could not seem to stir himself to do anything but compose songs. Inverleith was dying. Campbells were constantly raiding. Our Macleans were leaving for clans that could protect them.

  “God knows I didn’t want to come back,” Rory continued. “Too many ghosts. I do not think you or I had a moment’s happiness here as children. Then Archibald and Hector decided to find me a bride despite the fact I had sworn never to wed again. They thought I needed a reason to bring Inverleith back to what it once was.”

  “By marrying a Campbell?” He couldn’t resist the shot. He still could not quite accept what had happened.

  “That was the last of their intentions. They thought they were stealing someone else.” He stopped, then looked away at a tapestry that decorated the wall. “Remember when we all swore the same oath?”

  “Aye,” Patrick said. They had been but boys then, and that was the last time he remembered the three of them joining together. He had been fourteen and far more interested in arms than in foolish lasses. Rory had been ten, and Lachlan only seven, though even then he’d been more curious about books than arms. Shortly after, Patrick had been fostered and trained by another Scottish family. When he returned, his father pitted him against Rory, punishing them brutally when one failed to do the expected.

  “I didn’t really believe in it then,” Rory said. “It was only a legend, and my mother was like so many others who fell to the fever at the time it ran through Scotland. But then my Maggie died. I married again, after you left, a lass named Anne, whom you never met. It was more a marriage of convenience but I learned to care for her. She died of a fever some sailor carried from another port. I swore never to wed again. Two dead brides were enough, as well as our father’s three dead ones.’Twas then I meant the words we spoke so carelessly as children.”

  “But you did wed again.”

  “’Tis a long story, and I will tell you when you have more time. But know that Felicia has stolen every Maclean heart, including Lachlan’s. She will yours, as well.”

  “I have no intention of allowing my heart to be stolen,” Patrick said. “Not by anyone.”

  As he strode upstairs to the chamber that once was his father’s, he knew he spoke the truth. He had hardened these past six years on the galley when survival was all that mattered. He’d felt an odd aching when he reached Maclean land, but little else. He was pleased his brothers lived, but felt little sadness at learning of his father’s death. Or mayhap that would come later. Had his heart so hardened that he felt only emptiness rather than grief? But his father had never been an affectionate or particularly worthy man. He’d allowed his own misfortunes to cloud his responsibilities to the Macleans.

  Was he any better? Patrick did not particularly like that nagging question. He’d locked his emotions in stronger chains than those that had physically imprisoned him.

  A good thing, he assured himself. Unlike his father, he would be ruled by reason, by responsibility, not by self-pity nor, like his brothers, by his heart.

  JULIANA shivered in the cold wind that swept along the sound. This was not her warm, sun-kissed land. Instead, the hills—no, mountains—looked barren and cold. Unwelcoming.

  Despair clawed at her. Would she ever see Spain again? Her mother?

  She shivered, and Manuel was there with her shawl. Ever since she’d nursed his injuries, he’d been her shadow and declared himself her protector. But could a boy defend her from the muscled oarsmen? That he would give his life to do so was touching. But she did not want his life on her hands.

  She glanced down at him. Had any other woman ever shown him the slightest kindness? She doubted it, and her heart ached for him.

  It also ached for herself.

  Since the Scot left the ship, she had heard the whispers. Different groups of oarsmen huddled in corners. The Moors in theirs, the Europeans in another. Only the MacDonald and the Spaniard kept them from lifting anchor and sailing away.

  She looked for Maclean. Villain though he might be, she considered him her only protection.’Twas obvious he had no love for Spaniards, but he had also made it clear to the crew that they were not to touch either her or Carmita. The question was how long could he hold them back.

  Would he take her ashore? She had heard stories about the wild Highlanders who fought their battles naked. She had seen the Scot’s fierceness herself.

  He had been gone hours now. Worry grew in her. Better the devil she knew than the one she did not.

  Manuel went to the railing and stared toward land. “Riders approach.”

  His eyes were better than hers. She leaned forward and finally saw three figures on horseback, two leading saddled horses. Apprehension ran through her. His family. What would they do with her? They must know, as he did, that she was a danger alive.

  She watched as the figures grew larger. The longboat was lowered and six men, one of them the Spaniard, rowed toward shore.

  A tall man dismounted. It took her several seconds to see that it was the Scot. But now he was wearing a strange wool garment over a flowing white shirt. The material was gathered at the waist by a heavy leather belt, and even from here she saw the long dagger that hung from it. His legs were bare, but his feet were covered with soft leather boots. His dark hair now showed hints of red as the sun touched it. Her heart caught at the sight of him, at the rugged features now plain to see without any beard.

  At his side was a man as tall as he was, but with hair that was as dark as midnight. The third man had lighter hair that carried strains of gold. Both wore the same strange garments.

  Despite the difference in their coloring, she knew immediately they were brothers. It was in the way they held themselves, the way they moved. The grace and confidence of warriors.

  The longboat beached. The Spaniard leapt from it and approached the Scot. A few words, and both he and the Scot returned to the boat. In a few moments, they were climbing the rope ladder up to the deck.

  “Senorita,” the Scot said as h
e easily vaulted over the railing to the deck. “A few words with you.”

  He smelled of soap and leather and horse, a remarkably heady scent. And while he’d always carried an aura of leadership, even in a slave’s garments, it was magnified now. She had never seen a man in such a garment before, but she decided she definitely preferred it to the silk and lace worn by men in Spain.

  He touched her shoulder with his hand, turning her toward the hatch. Even through her gown and shawl, his hand burned her. He jerked it away almost immediately. She focused on walking, not stumbling, because her legs did not seem to work properly. He was too close, his presence too strong.

  Still, she managed to reach her cabin and open the door before he could. But she was not quite quick enough and his hand landed on hers. She whirled around, their gazes caught and held. Something in her shifted as an almost palpable tension leapt between them. For a second, she could not move. She felt consumed by the power of the storm raging between them, the heat that surged through her.

  “Senorita Juliana?”

  Carmita’s soft, questioning voice broke the spell, and she whirled around to see her friend’s clear astonishment, her lips pursed in a circle as her gaze took in the Scot.

  Juliana took several steps backward and looked at the Scot again. Despite—or perhaps because of—his new garments, he looked much the barbarian. Something of the savage remained in his eyes, in the athletic grace of his walk, in his hard, determined expression.

  He met her gaze, then turned to Carmita. “You both will ready yourselves to leave the ship. You will be staying at Inverleith.”

  “As prisoners?”

  His cool gaze ran over her. “As guests.”

  “Who cannot leave.”

  “Aye,” he admitted.

  “For how long?”

  “I donna know,” he replied softly.

  He looked around the cabin. “I will have all your belongings moved to the keep.”

  “My dowry?”

  “It will be divided among those who labored so painfully for your uncle.”

  “It will be my mother who will pay,” she said. She swallowed a lump in her throat, but perhaps she could make him understand. “My father blames my mother when . . . anything goes wrong.”