by Paula Quinn
The tinkling music of feminine laughter beyond the barn door caught Tristan’s attention and drew him out from his hiding place. Was it Isobel? Was she alone? He had scrambled to another tree, closer to the holding, when the door swung open. A man stepped outside toting a bucket in each hand. He looked around, as if searching for the same people Tristan had been looking for a moment ago. When he didn’t find them, he shook his head and continued on his way toward the manor house.
From his position, Tristan recognized Cameron Fergusson. Where were the rest of Isobel’s brothers? His gaze settled back on the barn. She was inside. For a moment or two he fought with himself about whether he should go to her. He’d imagined their meeting a thousand times on the road, but now that he was here, his feet felt rooted to the ground.
The barn door opened again, and when he saw the fiery glimmer of her hair against the sun, he took a step forward with no difficulty at all. He watched her as he moved forward, glancing while he went at the manor house. Light of foot, he made no sound as he wove around trunks and bushes, just out of her sight. Instead of going directly to the house, she plucked a large fork off the barn wall and jabbed it into a nearby haystack. She had made two trips back into the barn carrying a small bundle of hay at the end of her spear by the time Tristan left the cover of trees. When she disappeared for a third time, he moved fifty more paces ahead, then stopped. Rather than creep up behind her, he would wait here for her return and let her see him.
Stinging, hot pain flared through his left calf, up to his thigh. His leg gave out and he fell to one knee, already turning to see whose arrow was jutting from his boot. He had reached for his sword (he was not fool enough to travel alone without one) when another arrow tore through his shoulder.
“I vow,” he proclaimed, albeit rather weakly, looking at the three ruddy faces staring back at him, “ye wee buggers will pay fer—” He didn’t finish. The eyeball-sized stone hitting him between the eyes knocked him out cold.
Isobel left the barn just in time to see Tamas fire a rock from his swinging sling. She let out a choked squeal as it struck a man, already on his knees, and felled him dead.
“Oh, merciful God.” She dropped her fork and took off running. “What have ye three done?”
“He’s a Highlander,” Lachlan pointed out hastily, as if it gave him leave to shoot the poor man.
“He was after ye, Bel,” Tamas defended. “We watched him stalking ye from the trees. May I have his horse?”
But his sister was no longer listening, no longer breathing. Tristan. For an instant, the shock of seeing him again stilled Isobel’s blood. What was he doing here alone? Why had he come? She’d made it clear to him that they could never be friends. Had she been correct about him all along and friendship was the farthest thing from his mind? She remembered the man who made her think about knights while they strolled and smiled in the king’s garden. Her breath quickened as she crouched beside him. Was he the devil’s most clever deceiver, or did his arrival have a nobler purpose?
“John!” she wheezed, with relief that her brothers’ victim still lived. “Get Cameron! Hurry! Tamas, we need a blanket to get him into the house.”
“The house?” Tamas recoiled as if she’d slapped him. “He’s a stranger. Patrick is going to—”
“Tamas!” Isobel quieted him with a frosty glare. “Fetch a blanket this instant, or I will tell Patrick about the two dozen eggs ye pilfered from the Wallaces’ farm beyond the river.”
Her brother’s face went white a breath before he dashed for the house.
When they were alone, Lachlan bent to her side and said, with the same alarm in his voice that was coursing through her, “We thought he came to do ye harm.”
Her gaze settled on the decadent shape of Tristan’s mouth and lingered there. “He may have.”
“How d’ye know, Bel?” Lachlan asked. “Who is he?”
Dear God, she could barely breathe, and her butterbur… he’d landed in her butterbur and ripped it away from its roots. Useless. “He is called Tristan. Tristan MacGregor,” she told him as Cameron and John reached her. “I met him in England.”
She looked up at Cam, and then wished she hadn’t. No one knew she had spent time alone with Tristan at Whitehall. No one but Cameron. He hadn’t questioned her about what she was doing with their enemy or what they had been speaking of when he found them. His eyes questioned her now, though. What had she told this MacGregor that made him seek out their home and dare to set foot on their land?
“Cam, he’s alive,” she told him. She would worry about what he thought of her later. “Fer all our sakes, we must keep him that way. If he dies on our land, his family will…”
“I know.” Her brother nodded and questioned her no further.
Chapter Thirteen
He was heavier than he appeared, and Isobel cursed him a little as she and her brothers heaved his limp body onto the blanket and dragged him into the house.
“We have to remove the arrows,” she gasped out as they climbed the oak stairs to the upper floor. “We will put him in Alex’s bed.”
“Alex will not be liking that when he finds out. Ye know how he hates the MacGregors.”
Isobel was tempted to let go of her end of the blanket and slap Tamas in the back of the head.
“Patrick will not be liking it either when he returns from bringing the Kennedys home,” Lachlan added.
Isobel tossed them both an exasperated look. “Would ye have me tend to him in the barn?”
“Alex’s bed is fine,” Cam said quietly, tugging his end. “Quit quibbling with Isobel and do as she says fer a bloody change.”
“I never quibble with her,” John disputed while they carried Tristan into Alex’s room and transferred him carefully to the bed. “It is those two who cause all the trouble.” He motioned with his chin to Lachlan and Tamas, who immediately took offense.
Exhausted, frustrated, and terrified, Isobel sank into the closest chair and covered her face with her hands. What was she doing bringing a MacGregor into her home, into her brother’s bed? She needed a little time to think without the lads constantly quarreling in her ears.
“What is the matter, Bel?” John bent to her and asked tenderly. “Are ye squeamish about pulling out the arrows?”
“Why would she be?” Lachlan shoved him out of the way. “She did just fine last spring when Tamas missed his target and shot me in the arm.”
“We could do it fer ye, Bel,” Tamas volunteered with a hint of malevolence in his eager smile. “We do not mind the blood.”
Aye, she knew that well enough. “No, Tamas, I will do it.” She rose from the chair, rubbed her forehead, then pulled herself together for her brothers’ sake. “I will need fresh, boiled water and clean cloths. Tear strips from my bedsheets. I washed them this morn, so they should be safe.” She stepped closer to the bed to examine Tristan’s wounds. God have mercy, she was going to have to remove his clothes. “John, go to my garden—what is left of it—and bring me four leaves from my ribwort plantain. I will need ye to boil them fer me and crush them into a poultice. Lachlan, bring my needles and thread. He will need stitching.” How was she going to do it when her hands were already shaking? She pressed her head to his chest. His heart was still beating, but slower, a little weaker. “Make haste!” she ordered, and leaned closer still to have a better look at the knot above the bridge of his nose. His breath warmed her cheek, and she dipped her gaze to his long, lush lashes.
“What am I to do with ye, MacGregor?” she whispered, cursing her own heart for pounding so feverishly at his return, his nearness, the raw beauty of his countenance.
He opened his eyes and looked directly into hers, filling her, for a terrifying instant, with the promise of retribution. She vaulted away from him, but his fingers closed tightly around her wrist and she nearly dragged him off the bed.
She didn’t see Lachlan reaching for the clay potted plant she’d given to Alex last Christmastide. Dirt and leaves peppered her
face as her brother brought the pot down onto Tristan’s head with a loud crack, knocking him out for the second time that day.
“What in bloody hell did ye do that fer?” She slapped Lachlan’s arm, ordered him out of the room, and then shut the door behind him.
Turning back to Cameron, she found him at the side of the bed, already removing the sword at Tristan’s side, along with his plaid.
“I wonder,” he said quietly, without looking at her, “why he wore either of these to come here and not while he was in England.”
“Aye,” Isobel replied, noting her brother’s careful observation. One could easily forget to notice Cameron amidst the chaos her other brothers seemed to enjoy. But it was foolish to believe that anything escaped his notice. “I wondered the same thing.”
When he moved away from the bed, saying nothing more, she went to him, desperate for him to know the truth and for him to believe her. “I remember what they did to father, Cam. I have not befriended him. I do not know why he came here.”
His smile was genuine. But then, Cam’s smiles always were. “I know that, Bel,” he said, putting an end to the topic. “Now quit talking and get to saving him.”
Isobel had always believed, after her mother died and she was forced, without even time to grieve, to begin caring for her brothers, that was the most difficult task she would ever have to perform. But she was wrong. Peeling off Tristan’s clothes was worse. Even cutting away his boot made her blush with the heat of a hundred summers. Untying the laces of his shirt nearly brought on an attack. She forced herself to breathe and steadied her hands when she spread open his shirt. Her fingers skimmed across his bare nipples, and breathless, despite her best efforts, her gaze slipped down his taut belly. Truly, he was sculpted from some great artist’s dreams. “I… I do not think it proper fer me to relieve him of his breeches, Cam. Ye do it, and when ye are done, cover him with his plaid, and then I will begin.”
Only Cameron and John remained with her while she tended to Tristan’s wounds. They were the only two she trusted, though it was John’s arrow that had done the most damage.
“I could have shot him in the heart instead of his leg, but I was not aiming to kill him.”
“That is good.” Cameron gave John’s shoulder a gentle squeeze while Isobel carefully applied her poultice to Tristan’s calf. “Ye spared his life and saved ours in the bargain.”
Isobel was about to agree when the door burst open and Tamas plunged into the room. “Patrick is back!”
She looked up and shared an anxious glance with Cameron, then went back to her work.
What in blazes was she going to tell Patrick? How was she going to stop him if he decided that their most hated enemy should die for coming here?
“He said to tell ye,” Tamas continued, “that when ye finish, ye are to bind him to the bed.”
Isobel shook her head. “I cannot do that.”
“He also said not to quarrel with him over it.” Tamas grinned, obviously enjoying the turning of the tables.
Setting down her dressings, she gave her youngest brother a level stare. “Did he?” When he nodded gleefully, she stood up from her chair. “And where is he now?”
“Outdoors, tending to the chickens.”
She went to the window and, peering down at the barn, called out to Patrick. She listened for his reply, and when it came she leaned out further. “If I tie his wounded arm to the bed, his shoulder will not heal properly and we will send the Devil MacGregor’s son home lame. D’ye think that is wise?” She waited, breath held, for his answer. She knew Patrick would give his life to keep them safe, but would he spare a MacGregor life for the same reason? Best to know now so she could be better prepared to argue with him later if she needed to.
“Verra well,” he finally shouted back; “bind only one wrist then.”
Isobel turned to offer Tamas a triumphant smile, but he was busy pointing at Tristan.
“He awakens!”
She tried to stop him, almost tumbling over her chair in her effort to snatch the bowl of bloody water from Tamas’s hands. But it came down hard on Tristan’s head, and she finally had to accept the fact that a MacGregor might not make it out of her home alive.
• • •
Isobel remained with Tristan while he slept, mainly to keep him safe from any more objects being smashed over his head. She watched his steady breathing beneath his plaid and wondered again what he was doing here.
It had taken her over a pair of fortnights to get him and the feel of his mouth on hers out of her head completely. How carefully he had seduced her, and in only a few days! He frightened her with his ability to sweep her so effortlessly off her feet. She had thought, had hoped, that she was rid of him. Now here he was, back to haunt her dreams all over again, this time with the vision of his bare male physique sprawled across her brother’s bed like a captive angel. He was taller than Alex, his ankles hovering over the edge of the bed. She let her eyes drift over him slowly, her gaze lingering on his shapely legs—one of which she’d had to shave in order to clean his wound properly. Her fingers tingled at the memory of his warm skin beneath her palm, the length of hard sinew running up his calf to his darkly dusted thigh. Growing more breathless, her gaze rose to the plaid draped low across his hips. He was naked beneath. She felt her cheeks go all hot. How many women had smiled at him while he stripped out of his garments, hard and ready to take them? She swiped the back of her palm across her brow and cursed under her breath. Andrew Kennedy had never had this effect on her. No man had! Then again, she’d never met any with such raw animal appeal in the mere slant of his mouth, or the…
No, they were sworn enemies, with no place for attraction between them. Besides, she was betrothed! At least until she found a way to get out of it. She had to stay focused on the truth. There were only two possibilities for why Tristan had come here. Either he wanted information from her about his uncle’s death, or he had been sent here by his father to murder her family. She should have left him to die in her garden. He’d already killed her butterbur, after all. But his life wasn’t worth the lives of her brothers. She had no choice but to save him, to tend to him despite their hatred for each other.
The door opened and she looked up at Patrick, entering the room for the first time that day. He stood at the entrance, silently taking in the sight of the unconscious man in his brother’s bed. When his gaze settled on the bandages she’d wrapped around Tristan’s forehead, he hooked his mouth into a slight smile that made Isobel look away.
“Where is his sword?”
She shrugged her weary shoulders. “Cam took it.”
“I assume he knows how to use it?”
Isobel remembered how expertly he had wielded it against Alex and nodded. “Quite well.”
Patrick crossed the room and stood at her side, staring down at the bed. “I understand from the lads that ye first met him at Whitehall?”
“Aye.” She nodded. She should have told him. She did now. She told him everything, only leaving out Alex’s foolishness and her and Tristan’s kiss. There was no reason Patrick should know about that. It meant nothing.
“So, he protected Alex from his father,” Patrick mulled thoughtfully, “and ye from John Douglas.”
“Aye, he told John Douglas that ye hacked the lips off the last man who handled me without liberty to do so.”
Patrick’s smile was wider this time, but faded all too quickly. “And why did he do those things?”
“I do not know,” she answered quietly, staring at Tristan, as well. “Fer a name, mayhap.”
Her brother knew what she meant and drew out a long exhalation of breath. “Fetch me when he awakens,” he said, turning to leave the room. “And remember, he is a Highlander. Keep him tied up and his sword carefully hidden. If yer suspicions are correct about why he came here, it will be easier to end this if I do not have to fight him.”
Isobel stared at the door after he left. Well, at least Patrick had more sense in his he
ad than Alex. In truth, he had more sense than all of them did—save when it came to her marrying Andrew. But what could Patrick possibly do against all the MacGregors in Skye if he harmed Tristan? Oh, why had she gone to England? It would have been better for her family to have the king angry with them than to spark the MacGregors’ blood-lust once again.
Tristan moaned her name in his sleep, startling her from her thoughts. She leaned over him, some basic, nurturing instinct taking over. “Ssh,” she whispered, “the worst is over… fer now.” He tossed his head back and forth, as if fighting something in his dreams. Alarmed that he might cause more damage to his already wounded skull, she pressed her hand to his crown and stilled him with a gentle touch. “Sleep, and then be gone from here, Tristan MacGregor—if ye know what is good fer ye.” She smiled to herself, thinking of her unruly siblings. Despite what they had done to him, they meant well. “We may not be an army, but as ye have no doubt discovered, we can protect ourselves.”
She didn’t realize right away that she was stroking her fingers over his silky waves, and when she did, she did not stop. She could not deny that a part of her was painfully attracted to him. He was so perfectly crafted he seemed unreal, and she touched him to convince herself that he was merely a man.
“Oh, why have ye come here? Why d’ye haunt my dreams and call my name in yers? What is it ye want from me?”
He slept, giving her no answers. She knew somehow that getting them from him, even when he awoke, would be impossible.