by Willa Blair
He glanced at Ella as he stepped inside. “Out.”
She nodded and moved carefully around him, then ran out the door.
Erik’s lips quirked in what Muireall suspected could have become a grin, if he’d let it. Instead, he closed the door and faced her, expression solemn as a priest.
“I heard what ye said. About gaining the clan’s respect.”
Muireall clasped her hands in front of her. Would he taunt her, or worse, punish her, for her pride?
He leaned against the door and crossed his arms. “Ye would make me a fine wife. Ye have spirit. And ye are comely enough to please any man.”
Muireall barely heard anything he said past the word would. She frowned up at him, leaning, confident and completely at ease, on her door. “Would?”
“Aye. There is another I intend to wed.”
“No’ a Ross, then?” Or Donas and Silas would know about his plan.
“Nay. No’ a Ross. A Rose lass I met in Inverness before ye…arrived. Fiona.”
Muireall crossed her arms, knowing that made her look defensive, but needing the comfort. His choice of words rankled. Arrived, had she? “Where does that leave me?” If he met Fiona Rose before Muireall was taken—nearly a month ago—what had he been doing since then? Why hadn’t he asked Donas to offer for this Fiona? Maybe he had, and Donas had put him off, saying he’d have to marry her instead. Maybe all this time, Erik had been trying to find a way out of doing as his chief bid him do.
Erik studied her so intently, Muireall nearly took a step back. Instead she tightened her belly and stood her ground. When her chin lifted, Erik chuckled.
“I dinna ken. But I think ye’ll do fine, no matter who ye wed.” He paused, then stood away from the door, a thoughtful look on his face. “Only, dinna anger Silas. She never lets a slight go unanswered.”
“Thank ye for the warning. But what do ye think Donas will do when he finds out ye seek to defy him?”
Erik’s expression turned fierce and something dangerous flashed in his eyes. “Ye’ll no’ say a word to Donas unless ye want trouble from me.”
Muireall planted her fists on her hips. “I dinna want trouble from ye or any other Ross. I’ll no’ tell yer secret. All I want is to go home, and take Ella and Tira with me.”
“They canna leave. They’re married. They’re Rosses now.”
“And I can?” She snorted. “So will ye take me home in return for my silence?”
“Yer silence is more easily bought than that, lass.”
His big hands clenched into fists and ice suddenly slid down Muireall’s spine. “Ye wouldna.” This time, her nerve failed her and she backed up a step. “Is that why ye came here? To get rid of me, so Donas willna object if ye marry another?”
“Nay, but ’tis no’ such a bad idea,” he growled.
“’Tis a very bad idea,” Muireall assured him as she eased away. She couldn’t help herself. She knew there was nowhere to run, no way to escape Erik if he truly intended to choke the life out of her, but she backed up another step, anyway.
Suddenly, Erik’s fists relaxed and he laughed.
Muireall frowned up at him, speechless.
“Heed me, lass,” he told her and slipped out the door.
Muireall’s knees went weak. She collapsed in a heap on the earthen floor, shaking, her hands over her mouth and her pounding heart. What had just happened?
And why?
Chapter 5
Another groan from the form in the grass pulled Euan from behind the tree. Not yet willing to throw caution completely aside, he approached carefully, moving as quietly as he was able until the darker shape of a man lying on the ground came into view.
“Calum!” Euan knelt beside his cousin, who at first glance looked bad, at second glance…terrible. “I thought ye were dead.”
“Water…”
“Aye, but we’ll have to go a bit farther to find it.”
“Bloody hell…”
Euan helped Calum sit up, wincing at his yelp of pain. Calum cradled his left arm—broken no doubt.
“Just my luck,” Calum added, “I’ve gone about as far as I can go.”
“Did a Ross do that to ye?” Had the blood on his hands not dried into stiff scabs that would hurt like hell to crack and tear, Euan would have clenched his fists.
Calum must have heard the fury in his voice, for he was quick to answer and his reply held some of his well-loved humor. “No’ unless the rocks in the cove are named Ross.” He shook his head. “As the Tangie went down, I heard ye yell to get away from the ship.” He stopped for a moment as though trying to swallow, then continued. “So being the excellent follower of orders that I am, I swam clear.” He waved his good arm. “I found a piece of the wreckage afloat and hung on.” He tried again swallow but only managed a weak cough. “With the tide coming in, I thought I would float to shore.” He paused and took a few breaths, shaking his head. “I expect the others did the same. Have ye seen them?”
Euan shook his head, sadness a heavy weight on his heart, and worry another on his head.
Calum cradled his arm and continued. “Well, ah, the waves pushed me into some rocks. My bit of salvage became my enemy, slamming my arm against a rock. That might have been when it broke. I couldna get clear right away. The waves kept pounding…” He pursed his lips, then continued, “I had to protect my head.” He shrugged one shoulder—not the one attached to his broken arm. “A small price to pay to keep breathing, I suppose.”
“I thought I heard ye this morning…”
“Aye, well, as to that,” Calum said and huffed out a breath. “The Rosses found me on their beach. When I couldna tell them where the rest of the crew had gone, they knocked me out and tossed me back in the firth.” He nodded at his arm. “Thinking, I’m sure, with this broken, I’d flounder and drown.” He paused to breathe again.
“Good thing they didna cut yer throat.”
“I’m no’ so easy to kill, praise all the saints and sinners. I woke up spluttering. Water up my nose, aye? Damn thing still burns.”
“Ye are fortunate the Rosses didna stick around.”
“Aye, or they woulda finished the job instead of counting on the firth to rid them of my handsome corpse. I made it back to shore a cove or two down. I lay there like a beached kelpie for what seemed like hours.”
“Then ye climbed up here, looking for fresh water.”
“And if I wasna dry before I told ye my tale, I certainly am after the telling. Since I have nay choice, shall we go?”
“Aye.” As Euan helped Calum stand, he told him, “When I heard ye scream, and then the sound o’ yer voice cut off, we…I…thought they’d killed ye. I’m glad to see ye, cousin.”
“We? I though ye said ye’d seen nay more of our men.”
“’Tis a long tale. Let’s walk and I’ll tell ye.”
Euan kept up a low-voiced rendition of his adventures since the shipwreck and, without going into her history, Muireall’s assumption that the Rosses had killed their captive. He also kept a careful watch, knowing Calum would not be much help defending them if they ran into a Ross patrol.
Calum punctuated his tale with grunts of pain as they began to descend the uneven ground of the far side of the hill. “I wish we’d bound this bloody arm before we started this trek,” he complained.
Euan sympathized, but knew that could wait. Calum’s arm was not bloodied, so the broken bone had not pierced the skin. Once they had drunk their fill of water and perhaps found something to eat, he would do what he could for his cousin.
“That lass I told ye about, Muireall…”
“Aye?” Calum stumbled and Euan held him up by his good arm, earning him a grateful glance and a nod.
“I have to find her and get her away. The Rosses stole her and two others from Munro nearly a month ago. The other two have been claimed. She fears she will be, very soon, and wants to escape.”
“Claimed?”
“Aye, wedded and bedded against thei
r will.”
“Something no Brodie would ever do.”
They’d been following a thickening stand of trees down the hill. Now Euan heard what he’d been listening for—the sound of rushing water. “We’re nearly there. I hear a burn.”
“Good. That is good.”
Calum sounded exhausted, and looked it, too. He’d spent more time in the water than Euan. Chilled and in pain, he’d suffered even more mistreatment and exposure at the hands of the Ross men. “I’ll get ye there,” Euan promised, and breathed a sigh of relief when they reached the rushing burn.
Both men dropped to their knees. Euan began scooping water up to his mouth, frantic to ease the thirst he’d ignored for so many hours.
Calum tried it one-handed, gave up and stretched out on his good side, then rolled to his belly, yelped and rolled back. “Damn,” he muttered, digging into his shirt and down his side with his good hand. He pulled out a slingshot. “I forgot the damn thing was there. I couldna think of another way to keep it with me once I kenned we were going in the water.” He turned it front to back, frowning as he studied it. “I dinna expect it’ll be much use, me with this arm. Shouldha kept my dirk, but I would been pulling it out of my gut by now. Or worse,” he added with a grin and a glance at his crotch.
“Ye would ha stabbed yerself in the leg, no doubt. There’s little else in the way.” Euan’s droll tone expressed his doubts as he reached out a hand. “Here. Let me have that. I can try it,” he offered. He’d seen Calum use it often enough, mostly to frighten persistent seabirds away from their catch on other fishing trips. His aim was deadly, but he preferred clipping their tail feathers with a small pebble, a supply of which he usually kept in a pouch at his waist, to shoo them away.
Calum tucked it into his belt on the outside of his shirt this time. “Nay, ye canna. Ye’ve never been any good with it. Like as no’, ye’d hit me rather than what ye’re aiming for.”
“I’m no’ that bad.”
“Aye, ye are.” With that, he plunged his face into the cold, clear water. When he came up for air, he pushed his hair out of his eyes and dunked his entire head. “Try it,” he said when he came up again. “It feels good to get rid of the salt.”
“That may be so, but dinna think to bathe in it. Yer clothes are dry now. Ye’ll be better served to remain that way.”
Calum rolled onto his back, cradling his broken arm on his chest.
“Ye could put that arm in the cold water. It might numb the pain for ye, and make it easier for me to set.”
“Worth a try…” Calum agreed and rolled back to his stomach. He supported the break with his good hand and extended his arms into the chill water, resting his head on his shoulder. After several minutes, the pinching around his eyes eased.
Seeing that, Euan left to find some stout straight sticks. When he returned, he tore strips from the hems of their shirts, much as Muireall had done for him from the hem of her shift. Thinking of her made him anxious and eager to be on the move.
By then, Calum reported the arm was numb. Euan gave him one stick to bite down on, set the arm, and then bound it tightly, using the other sticks to keep it straight. By the time he finished, Calum was pale and sweating, but the job was done. “That should do until we get home and Mhairi can take a look at ye. Put it back in the stream and let it get numb again. The wet binding will hold the cold a bit longer, too.” Euan tied two wider strips together and fashioned a sling to support the arm once Calum felt able to travel.
Without comment, Calum did as Euan suggested.
Euan let him rest. “This burn flows down toward the Ross village,” he mused after a while. “I can follow it and bring Muireall back here. ’Twould be best if ye stayed.”
“And if they capture ye, how am I to sail for home with this arm? Nay, I’ll go with ye, to keep ye out of trouble.”
Euan eyed him. “I dinna plan on getting into any trouble.”
Calum snorted. “Ye never do. Yet how do ye think we wound up here?”
The next day, everywhere she went, Muireall knew someone watched her. Sadly, the eyes on her were not Euan’s. Always a Ross. Donas’s announcement that she was Erik’s to claim had put a stop to the speculative looks from the rest of the men, but those had been replaced by suspicion and mistrust after her return from the sea cave. She didn’t welcome the attention, not when she hoped to escape.
Oddly, only Erik seemed not to care how she’d spent that day in the cove. His mind was probably on the lass he did want to marry. He seemed determined to avoid being seen with Muireall, though he’d passed through the village between patrols.
The Rosses still hunted for the shipwreck survivors.
Muireall hoped Euan was long gone, but since no one had reported a boat missing from the Ross cove, he must still be in the area. Worse, she feared he would make his way nearby, looking for her. She stayed outside as much as possible, trying to be visible in case Euan hid in the woods surrounding the village on three sides. She hoped once he saw she was unharmed, he would sail for home. If he stayed close, he would be captured, and she could not bear to see him tortured—or killed.
She settled in a sunny spot behind her cot, where the light fell on the needlework in her lap and tried to look busy. In truth, her gaze kept returning to the edge of the woods, searching for any movement that might betray Euan’s presence. Ella soon joined her, and even Tira settled on her other side.
“Ye ken they’re all talking about ye,” Ella told her, low-voiced.
“Donas is waiting for Erik to claim ye and punish ye as ye deserve,” Tira added.
Muireall’s mouth fell open. What a thing for Tira to say. Did she mean it or was she simply repeating what she’d heard?
At that moment, Erik moved across the village center, and Tira sighed. “Ye might be the luckiest of the three of us,” she said, her gaze following him. “I wouldna mind being punished by that one.”
“Tira!” Ella gasped. “How can ye say such a horrible thing? Ye ken what Donas did to Muireall. Besides, I thought ye were happy with Teague.”
“Aye, happy enough, I suppose, but I’d rather have had time to choose a man, if that had been possible, rather than be taken by the first man wanting a woman on the way here. Just look at Erik. Ye’re getting the handsomest man in the village, Muireall. And the one most likely to follow Donas as chief.”
“Perhaps,” Muireall responded, knowing Tira would misinterpret her comment. She wasn’t thinking about his looks. If he had his way, he would marry another, not her. She let a little of how that pleased her show on her face, knowing Tira would misinterpret her expression, too. And as for the rest of the Ross men…Muireall fought to still the instinctive urge to shake her head, denying those possibilities. Of the lot, Erik was by far the best choice. For a fleeting moment, she thought it a shame he wanted someone else. Then sanity returned. Being forced to marry him—or any other Ross—made her stomach turn. She hoped, with Euan’s help, to escape that fate, and soon.
It was a shame, too, that Erik was not already chief of this clan. She suspected things would be very different with him in charge. Silas had lied about him. She shouldn’t be surprised - Silas and Donas lied about many things. Making her terrified of the man Donas threatened to give her to must have been a game to them. One she’d fallen for. And lost sleep over, until Erik had proven them wrong. Despite his rumored temper, Erik had shown her respect and been honest about his intentions. That encounter should have made him more attractive to her, but it did not, not in that way. It did make her willing to trust him, at least a little, and to believe that all of the Ross villagers would be better off under his leadership than under leaders like Donas and Silas.
Suddenly, Muireall wished Euan was close by, ready to steal her away from here.
She picked up her stitching and bent to work. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ella frown at Tira, still watching Erik. He’d paused to speak to another of the men. Then Ella glanced her way and shrugged, as if she’d accept
ed there was no point in discussing anything about their new lives with Tira. Likely anything they said would be reported back to Silas at Tira’s first opportunity.
While Muireall didn’t like being spied upon, she couldn’t blame Tira for wanting to make the best of her new situation. Teague had led the raid on their village and claimed her on the way back to Ross territory, before Donas could give her to anyone else. He wasn’t the biggest or the best-looking warrior among the Ross men, but he was smart and quick, and he did seem to dote on his stolen bride. If Tira took advantage of his infatuation to claim certain freedoms—and to cozy up to Silas—that was her concern, not Muireall’s. She and Ella would have to remember that Tira might have come from their village, but she was all Ross now.
They worked silently long enough for Tira to complain she had other tasks demanding her attention today. Muireall suspected she was bored.
Tira left. Ella stood and stretched then sat back down. “Thank goodness she’s gone. Honestly, I used to like her, but now I dare no’ say anything around her unless ’tis something I want Silas to ken.”
Muireall saw an opportunity to sound out Ella. “Keep yer own counsel, then, or talk to me—quietly. There are more ears than Tira’s in this village.” She glanced around. They were as alone as they’d ever be, Tira having given up her duty to keep an eye on them. “Have ye thought about leaving, if the opportunity were ever to arise?”
“I’m married now. I canna leave.”
“Ye were married against yer will.”
“Do ye think that makes a difference?
“Do ye think it does no’?”
Ella sighed and dropped her mending in her lap. “I dinna ken. I didna chose Thomas, but he does take care of me. And who else would have me, after this?”
“Is he kind? Affectionate? Does he love ye? Do ye love him?”
Ella laughed softly. “Kind? Aye, even affectionate at times, I dinna ken if he loves me, and nay, I dinna love him, though I may grow to…someday. I dinna have much choice in the matter, do I?”