Claimed by a Laird

by Glenn, Laura

  An exasperated sigh came from in front of her and the hood was flicked back over her face.

  “Yes, I am certain.”

  “The laird will run us through if she’s dead, you know.”

  “I know.”

  The wagon lurched forward and Anna’s eyes welled with tears as she attempted to calm her raging fear. If she did not keep her wits about her, she was liable to miss the opportunity to escape or get the attention of someone who could help her. She had to survive. For her child and her husband.

  And for the life she never knew she wanted until the moment Galen took her as his wife.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Did you find anything?” Adam shouted, running down the steps of the keep and into the courtyard.

  Lachlan shook his head. His brother, Gabriel, cast his gaze to the ground, his lips angrily pursed together.

  “She could not have just disappeared!” Adam insisted, intense fear gripping his abdomen. “Damn it, how long does it take to find a woman so great with child she cannot make it across the courtyard without becoming winded?”

  A horse’s hooves resonated just outside the castle walls and the men turned toward the open gate. Cal came into view, riding atop his beige stallion.

  He reined in the horse next to the group. “I found the midwife. She saw Lady Anna walking toward the cemetery just before evening fell.”

  Mary and Catriona rushed toward them, faces falling as they searched among the men for Anna. Catriona’s lower lip quivered and Mary wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulders.

  Adam closed his eyes briefly, praying for guidance. There was no way Anna would have taken off without alerting someone. Something had happened to her, but what?

  A sudden gasp from Mary and he opened his eyes, his gaze landing on an animal limping into the courtyard with something hanging from his mouth.

  “What the devil?” Lachlan cautiously stepped toward the animal as he drew his sword.

  As the animal came into the light of the torches held by several of the men, Lachlan shouted, “It is Dog!”

  Scruffy and exhausted, Dog moved past Lachlan and did not stop until he reached Adam. He dropped what he carried in his mouth at Adam’s feet and then sank to the ground with a thud, his right paw resting limply in front of him.

  Adam squatted in front of the animal, searching for injuries. Dried blood from a gash just above his right eye had encrusted the fur on the side of his face. His right leg appeared swollen, as did one side of his head.

  “Is that not our lady’s plaid?” Gabriel asked behind him.

  Adam’s eyes dropped to what had been in Dog’s mouth. He lifted the grimy fabric and slowly nodded. Out of the corner of his eye, a small strip of blood-soaked cloth lay upon the ground in front of Dog’s nose.

  It was a piece of brown wool. He stared at it, searching his mind for the memory of what Anna had been wearing earlier in the day. From what he could recall, she had not worn anything that color.

  “Someone has taken her.” Adam rose to his feet in a daze.

  “What?” Gabriel asked. “She has been kidnapped?”

  Adam nodded, fury rising in his throat. “Dog got a piece of one of them.” He tossed the blood-soaked brown wool at Lachlan for inspection.

  “Hell,” Lachlan flicked it to the ground when he finished looking it over. “Gowrie.”

  A new urgency washed over Adam. “Gabriel, gather the men and take torches into the woods near the burial grounds. See what else you can find. Lachlan, you and Cal intercept the laird and Geoffrey. The moon is near to full, so you should be able to make it at least halfway to Cameron lands by dawn.”

  Adam dropped to the ground again and worriedly eyed Dog. Anna would be sick to death at the thought of him being injured in her defense.

  “Shall I get our lady’s healing supplies?” Catriona wiped tears away with the back of her hand.

  He nodded. “I will see what I can do for him.”

  As the men rushed around, gathering torches, Adam lifted his head and spotted Gabriel shouting orders to groups of men.

  “Gabe!” he shouted.

  Gabriel lifted his eyebrows.

  “On the morrow you and I will ride north to the MacBains and the Sinclairs,” Adam declared. “It is time we gather the clans for our laird.”

  * * * * *

  Anna shifted in discomfort, her left hip growing numb from the pain of having lain on it for so long. Around the edges of the blanket, wisps of morning light reached her swollen eyes. The silent tears, however, had long stopped, ever since she fell into a fitful slumber during their journey.

  The jarring of the wagon lessened and the steeper incline led her to surmise they were on a more well-traveled road that went uphill. She took several deep breaths, instinctively knowing that her wagon ride was nearing the end and she would soon be faced with James.

  He had lied to her, had murdered a man and stolen his identity and had beaten her. She never understood why and she had never really cared to find out. She had simply gone home and picked up the pieces of her life, the horrid events fading into a distant memory. Sometimes it seemed as though her brief relationship with James was merely a dream, especially after having spent so many years studying and working and desperately trying to forget.

  The baying of goats and children’s laughter broke through the rhythmic squeaking of the wagon’s wheels. Soon voices talked excitedly around her. Their words were so jumbled with one another, however, she had difficulty understanding the Gaelic being spoken.

  All of the disembodied voices fell silent. The baby twisted around and stilled as dread uncoiled within her.

  “Do not just stand there!” a voice shouted some distance away. “Help your lady out of the wagon.”

  The wagon bowed under the weight of someone who had hopped into it. The hood was pulled from her head and bright morning light hit her full force. She squinted as someone untied the cloth at the back of her still aching head while someone else tugged on the rope that held her wrists together. She licked her dry lips and wriggled her jaw.

  A young man squatted behind her and slipped one arm around her waist. Taking her upper arm with his other hand, he helped her to sit up.

  Anna’s eyes adjusted to the daylight and she turned toward the man next to her. A gasp escaped her lips as she recognized the young warrior the MacAirths had captured after Adam was wounded—the man she had defended from being beaten to a bloody pulp and whose injuries she had treated.

  He smiled weakly. “I am sorry, my lady,” he whispered as a faint scar beneath his left eye twitched.

  “Me too,” Anna whispered as she tore her eyes from him.

  “What are you waiting for? Get her out of there,” a familiar voice from her past commanded from behind.

  The man next to her helped her scoot to the edge of the wagon where another young man helped her to the ground. Being upright on her feet after so many hours in the back of the wagon sent her head into a tailspin.

  Steadying her by grabbing her elbow, her betrayer guided her around the side of the wagon and her eyes fell upon the one person she dreaded most.

  James.

  He tousled Caleb’s brown hair and dropped a coin into the boy’s outstretched hand before the child bounded happily away, disappearing into the crowd of curious onlookers.

  James lifted his gaze to hers and a lump of fear formed in her throat. The corners around his hazel eyes crinkled as his face broke into a wide grin. “Anna,” he uttered in a relieved whisper.

  She swallowed hard, desperate to push down her fear and remain calm, but flashes of her brief time with him nearly a decade ago plagued her as she stared at the face she once thought she loved. His brown hair had grayed at the temples and his skin was bronzed from long hours in the sun. Lines of what she suspected had been years of anger had carved themselves on his brow. His features appeared hard and unsettling . Why had she considered him at all attractive?

  “Ridiculous.” He glance
d at the men to either side of her. “Untie her immediately. Do you honestly think she would have hurt you?”

  “Sorry, Laird,” the men mumbled in unison as one of them cut through the ropes binding her.

  Anna refused to meet James’ eyes and instead stared at the ground while she rubbed her aching wrists.

  He stepped toward her and tilted her chin up with his finger. “Let me look at you, my love,” he whispered in a deceptively gentle tone.

  She remained stone-faced, focusing just over his shoulder as his gaze roved over her.

  “So very lovely,” he murmured.

  He took a half-step back, his scrutiny centering on her protruding belly. She braced herself for his anger.

  “I am so very sorry, Anna,” he stated in English. He caressed her cheek lovingly, sending a shiver of repulsion down her spine. “A lady should never be forced to endure the attentions of a barbarian like the MacAirth.”

  Her fury got the better of her and she flashed him a withering glare.

  He clucked his tongue and shook his head. “Shameful. You have been under his power for far too long. Once his brat is born, which from the look of you should be any day now, and the proper amount of time has passed, you will undergo the church’s purification ritual. Then you can rejoin me as my rightful bride.”

  Anna wrapped her arms around her belly in a protective gesture at the chill in his tone. “I am not your wife,” she insisted, staring at him through narrowed eyes.

  He took a menacing step toward her and grabbed her throat. “You are and always will be, my love. ’Til death do us part, remember?”

  “You wouldn’t know this, but I had it annulled,” she whispered, boldly standing her ground. “We are no longer married.”

  He laughed and dug his fingers into her flesh. “You forget. You have come into the past. This annulment you speak of has not even happened yet.”

  “Then neither has our marriage,” she retorted, twisting the words from her throat as he pressed further on her windpipe. “I married you in 2003, but the current year is 1214. It appears the MacAirth got to me first.”

  James’ nostrils flared. “You are mine!”

  A desperate need to hurt him took over and she haughtily lifted her head as much as she was able. Time to fight a thirteenth-century fire with a thirteenth-century fire. Words she never, in a million years, thought she would utter spilled out of her mouth. “I belong to the MacAirth.”

  Her eyes widened in momentary panic as he squeezed her throat again. A struggled exhalation escaped her lips and he shoved her backward, his hands shaking in fury. She fell onto her backside, her hips burning in pain upon impact. The baby startled in her belly.

  He took a deep breath and stepped toward her, his eyes glowing with wrath. Before she could react, he swung the back of his hand toward her.

  Anna’s head fell to the side from the force of the impact, her cheek stinging hotly. The dull throb from where she had been knocked unconscious earlier, renewed with a vengeance. In that moment, she was instantly thrown back ten years as the arrogant fury in James’ eyes bore down on her.

  But now there was no one around to help if she fought back. Alex and Helena weren’t here. The villagers and tourists of Fannich weren’t here. The only people who were present remained still and silent…mere observers of James’ violence.

  She fought the tears stinging her eyes as a desperate longing for Galen’s arms overwhelmed her. The flutter of a little baby foot against her ribs brought reality crashing down on top of her. She was alone and only she could be responsible for her child. She had to keep herself together in order for her and the baby to survive.

  And she had to have faith that Galen would find her before it was too late.

  James grunted in satisfaction, obviously thinking her watery eyes and sudden retreat from her defiant stance were his doing. He took her by the hands and lifted her to her feet.

  Anna cast her eyes to the ground, hoping she appeared remorseful enough for him.

  “Where is my pendant?” he asked, his voice tinged with confusion. “My cousin told me you wore it around your neck.”

  Did he mean the amber pendant? If his letter from some months ago was to be believed, it had been responsible for his appearance in her life a decade prior. Had he used it to travel back and forth through time? What could he want with it now?

  Anna’s belly tightened and she rubbed it, shrugging. “Laird MacAirth will no longer allow me to wear it.”

  His disappointment was palatable and she dared a quick look at him. His brow was riddled with confusion and frustration. “Where is it?”

  Afraid James might launch a raid on the MacAirths before Galen even had the chance to arrive home, she took a deep, calming breath to prepare for the lie she was about to tell. “He traded it for several barrels of whisky.”

  James grabbed her by the shoulders, his cheeks flushed with anger. “What? Who did he give it to?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered, grateful that he did not know her well enough to detect her lie.

  “God’s blood, what an idiot!” He released her with a jerk. “No amount of whisky in the world is worth that pendant!”

  Anna shifted, her feet aching. Was the pendant the only reason why he came after her? But why would he need it now? What was he up to?

  He sighed and caressed her arm as if to soothe her fright. “It is not your fault, Anna. Do not think me angry with you. You could not help what the MacAirth has done. You were only trying to survive, right?”

  She held the muscles of her face motionless, determined to keep her disbelief from being revealed in her features, and nodded, resisting the urge to recoil at his touch.

  “You must be exhausted,” he remarked. “A soft bed and some nourishment, perhaps?”

  She nodded again, allowing her shoulders to relax in relief. Hopefully, she would be afforded time alone so she could formulate some sort of plan to get word to Galen or to escape.

  James snapped his fingers and a young woman rushed forward, bowing her head. “Take your lady to the eastern chamber. Feed her and make her comfortable,” he commanded in Gaelic.

  The young woman nodded and stepped to the side, motioning with a wave of her hand for Anna to walk ahead of her. Anna swallowed the despair rising in her throat and avoided James’ eyes as she moved past.

  Grateful for the reprieve, she exhaled in relief. Her belly tightened again and she rubbed it, praying it was only more false labor contractions.

  “I will have the midwife at the ready, Anna,” James stated in English as he touched her arm.

  Anna stopped, a chill running up her spine. “You will not touch my child,” she warned through clenched teeth. “I will die first.”

  He sighed and shook his head as though she were addle-brained. “I am not cruel, my love. We will send it to the convent once it’s born and I will avenge your dishonor.”

  James reached up to caress her cheek, but Anna flinched and stepped back. “Don’t touch me.”

  A sinister flash of anger crossed his face. “Be careful, Anna. Not cooperating with me will have consequences. For you and the brat.”

  He barked in Gaelic to the servant girl to continue into the keep with Anna and then turned his back on them to walk away.

  She bit her lower lip, her lids moist with tears.

  Galen, please, hurry home…

  Chapter Twenty

  Restless, barely-checked rage coursed through Galen’s veins as he stood from his crouched position in the woods near his clan’s burial grounds. He lifted his eyes from the tuft of Dog’s fur at the base of the tree to Geoffrey, who ran toward him.

  “They carried her out of here on a wagon of some sort,” the young man breathlessly reported as he stopped next to John and several of Galen’s warriors. “They headed south.”

  Galen’s heart froze like a block of ice and it took every ounce of his control to not roar his anguish into the silent forest. It was bad enough he’d had to worry a
bout Anna dying in labor all these months. But now that she had been taken by the Gowrie, he was plunged into a maddening darkness he had never experienced before.

  “Find me a fresh horse,” he commanded. “I am going to get my wife.”

  To his complete disbelief, his brother defiantly shook his head. “The Camerons will meet us halfway to Gowrie lands.”

  John nodded. “And, if all goes well, Adam and Gabriel will be back with the Sinclairs and the MacBains just after nightfall. You should wait.”

  “Wait?” Galen shouted in incredulity, every muscle in his body contracting painfully. “The Gowrie has my wife and you tell me to wait?”

  “Yes, damn it.” John crossed his arms and stared at his young cousin. “What good are you dead to your poor, wee wife? Besides, she would strangle me with her own two hands if I allowed you to go into battle outnumbered by the Gowrie and his allies.”

  “The longer I wait, the more likely it is she will be dead,” Galen replied, his stomach twisting as if a blade had been thrust into it.

  No one spoke as he stared at each of them in turn. He shook his head.

  “If that is the case then it does not matter what happens to me,” he muttered as he turned his back on the men and walked away.

  The oddity of that last thought stopped him in his tracks. He stared at the ground as Anna’s cheerful smile floated across his memory and then faded, leaving a dark emptiness within him. As he envisioned his future without her, he saw nothing and his heart seemed strangely absent from his chest.

  A brief flash of the pain on his father’s face when Galen’s mother’s lifeless body had been carried into the courtyard flew through his mind. Is this what had happened to his father? Had he loved his mother so much his own heart had died with her, turning Malcolm into a heartless shell of a man?

  Had he fallen in love with Anna?

  A tentative hand gripped Galen’s shoulder and he turned to find Geoffrey peering at him in concern.

  “What reason would the Gowrie have to kill her?” his brother asked. “From the sound of what was in his letter to her several months ago, he seems to be under the impression you somehow stole her from him.”