A Warrior's Taking

by Margo Maguire

  Yet when she quirked her brow and threw a stern expression his way, she reminded him of a mighty Druid priestess, one of the very people Eilinora had nearly ruined. They were the very reason the Druzai had created their own kingdom and retreated to it, never to cross paths with the Tuath again.

  But Brogan was going to need her assistance.

  He muttered a quiet curse and wished he’d paid closer attention to Merrick’s advice about the people of this place and time. He could not allow her to suspect he was anything but one of her kind. Having fought against interaction with the Tuath for so many years, he was not going to compromise his principles now.

  Nor would he succumb to the ridiculous tug of attraction he felt for the Tuath woman. She was not of his class, and such a temptation would only interfere with his purpose here.

  He considered whether he could risk using a spell of his own to counteract her appeal. Ana and Merrick had warned against using sorcery, certain that Eilinora’s cronies would be able to hunt him if he made any use of his magic. But he’d never felt a tug of power like the one this Tuath used against him.

  “Sir?”

  “I must have fallen overboard,” he finally said, deliberately turning away from the sight of her unattractive gown and the way it hugged her breasts so snugly. He wondered if their tips were smooth and light pink like her lips, or hardened coral peaks.

  “From what ship?” she demanded with quiet authority.

  He snapped his mouth closed and redirected his thoughts, belatedly understanding that he had to fabricate a story for her. “Ship?” He’d never been so muddle-headed before, and his lack of clarity irked him.

  The lass stalked away, but only a few paces. Her posture was stiff and forbidding, her attitude as haughty as a royal Druzai daughter. Yet no sorceress had ever spoken so condescendingly to him.

  He scowled at her next words. “This is my beach, sir, and you are an intruder. One without a name. When I notify the magistrate—”

  “No magistrate.” Mo oirg, this was becoming complicated. “I simply…fell from my boat when a wave swelled over me.”

  “Hmmpf.”

  Affronted by the skeptical sound she made, Brogan nonetheless realized he was not as convincing as he needed to be.

  He ignored the suspicious gleam in her eyes, and resisted the ridiculous urge to take her down to the sand again and remove layer after layer of her preposterous clothing. He would demonstrate the superiority of a Druzai man over any Tuath lover she’d ever known.

  “Really?” Her sarcasm interrupted his sensual fantasy. “Then what happened to your clothes?”

  Chapter 2

  The Scot did not frighten Sarah, not as the callous boys in Craggleton had done before she’d come to Ravenfield. But she felt certain he was lying. He didn’t want the magistrate called, and somehow he’d lost all his clothes, except for the strange cloth that covered his, er…

  Sarah turned away quickly, before she could embarrass herself any further. She’d already sprawled over him and under him, and had come perilously close to doing the unthinkable—kissing him! She could not imagine what had possessed her.

  Unless it had been the way they’d fallen positioned so intimately that she’d forgotten herself; or the way he’d gazed at her mouth, as if he wanted to devour her. That was certainly a novelty. No man in the parish had looked twice at her in the years since the death of her father.

  She was anything but a good catch, with no property, and no particular lineage. She’d been known as a charity case, the whelp of a drunkard. No one cared that she’d been well-educated and respectable before her father’s decline. She was as capable and intelligent as any young woman in Craggleton, and living off the charity of the parish had not changed any of her abilities.

  If anything, she’d become more independent, and a good deal more cautious in her dealings with the world. She’d learned to become invisible to those who would torment her, to the mean boys who cornered her and tried to molest her, to the spiteful housewives who used any excuse to give her a vicious slap, and to the husbands who thought to make illicit visits to her chamber during the night.

  Invisible or not, Sarah still did not enjoy going into town, knowing that she was remembered as Paul Granger’s whelp. Soon she would have to change that. With the news she’d received from Captain Barstow’s solicitor, she was going to have no choice but to face those same heartless people every day.

  “What have we here?” cried Maud from the shrubs that lined the path to the house. Sarah was exceedingly glad to see Ravenfield’s housekeeper.

  Maud’s well-worn apron was tied about her waist, her sleeves rolled to her elbows, and she was flanked by one little blond-haired girl on each side. Catching Sarah’s glance, she approached, just as curious as the children. “Oh my dear saints! The girls told me they’d found a drowned man!”

  Maud had worked for the Barstow family much longer than Sarah, doing the cooking and cleaning, and helping to care for Margaret before Mrs. Barstow’s death in childbirth. Sarah didn’t know what she would have done without the round, robust little woman with her pewter-gray hair and warm, mother’s heart. Still, she knew Maud wanted to retire and go down to Ulverston to live with her widowed sister. She’d stayed at Ravenfield only to help Sarah after Captain Barstow’s death.

  “I’m no’ drowned, as you can verra well see,” growled the stranger.

  It was the most he’d said yet, and Sarah was struck again by the unusual cadence of his speech.

  He pushed up to his feet, grimacing in pain. This time, he did not reject Sarah’s assistance. For such a well-muscled man, he was as wobbly and feeble as a newly walking child.

  “Oh dear, dear, dear,” Maud said as the stranger stood up to his full height.

  Sarah was unsure where she should take hold of him. Surely every rule she’d ever learned was being broken now, but what choice was there? The man had no clothes, and they needed to get him back to the house, to get warm and dry. It was no time to stand on ceremony.

  Taking hold of the arm with the burnished torque, she draped it over her shoulders, then wrapped her own arm around his waist. Maud came to his opposite side and did the same.

  “You’ll ride in the pony cart,” Sarah said.

  “I’ll walk,” he protested, as though he did not quite grasp how weak he was.

  “Not all the way home,” Sarah countered. “’Tis too far for a man in your state.”

  “What happened to your clothes?” Maud asked, squinting her eyes to see him more clearly.

  Sarah waited to hear if the man would answer, or ignore the question once again.

  “As they were, ah…pullin’ me down in the water, I discarded them.”

  “I see. Well, ’tis no matter now. We’ll find you something suitable at Ravenfield.”

  “Ravenfield?”

  “Aye. Our home,” Maud said, raising her brow at the emphasis he placed on the word. “You know of it?”

  Sarah was entirely taken aback when the Scot let out a harsh growl and suddenly doubled over. His legs buckled under him and she could not hold him up, even with Maud’s help. They eased him back down to the sand, where he lay unconscious and gray-faced once again.

  Sarah crouched down, alarmed by the stranger’s deathly pallor. “Maud, what do you think is wrong with him?”

  “I don’t know, but for certain we won’t be able to help him until we get him into a bed and call for the doctor,” said Maud. “Go get the cart, girls.”

  “You’ll never lift him into the cart,” said Margaret.

  “Aye, we will. He’ll rouse enough to get himself in.”

  “But how—?”

  Maud removed her apron and hurried down to the sea, bending to the surf to soak the cloth in the cold water. When she returned, the woman wrung it out over the man’s face.

  Roused by the splash of cold water, the man coughed and sputtered nearly as much as before. He muttered a word Sarah did not understand, then looked up at Mau
d. “What in holy Hades—”

  “Watch your language, if you please, sir,” Maud said, and the girls drew the cart closer. “Come now, you’ll have to help us.” Somehow, they managed to wrestle him into it, then took him all the way up to the house while Jane chattered happily about the Scotsman’s good luck, and Margaret made the occasional dire prediction.

  He roused himself enough to help them get him inside. He remained pale and weak, and nearly insensible when they put him in Captain Barstow’s too-short bed in the room on the first floor of the house.

  “He’s got to be over six foot,” said Maud. “And such a comely one!”

  “Maybe so, but he is terse and overbearing. And his manners leave much to be desired.” A gentleman would never have pulled her down with him…Nor, once down, would he have insinuated his leg between hers. And rolling her to a position beneath him was utterly indecent. She was a respectable woman, certainly no pauper to be indecently used as the well-heeled men in town would have done.

  “Ah well, he did help us to get him into the captain’s room, didn’t he?” asked Maud.

  “Just barely,” Sarah said, shivering away the odd tingle that coursed down her spine. She took the violet satchel from Margaret and once again noted the strange cloth. Besides its unusual color, it looked as smooth as glass and seemed to be holding its own heat, which begged the very question Sarah had been struggling to avoid.

  “I wonder if his wreck was what I saw over the cliffs last night,” said Maud.

  Sarah held her tongue. There was no point in mentioning the possibility that her eyes had played tricks on her. Maud was worried enough about her failing eyes.

  “What’s that in his drawers?” Jane asked.

  Sarah’s face heated, suddenly afraid she’d voiced her own inappropriate question aloud. She’d felt it—the long, hard, masculine ridge that had created a storm of sensation when he’d pressed against her. Her reaction was surprisingly different from her revulsion when the boys in town had pushed themselves against her and tried to touch her breasts.

  “Never you mind, young lady,” Maud admonished as Sarah quickly pulled the blanket over the man’s large frame. “’Tis no concern for the likes of you.”

  Or for Sarah, either, she reminded herself.

  “He’ll probably die,” Margaret said. “And we’ll have to bury him at St. Edward’s, behind the fence. His stone will read, ‘Here Lies the Drowned Scotsman.’”

  “He is so lovely,” said Jane, her voice wistful. “I surely hope he doesn’t die.”

  “Nay, you never call a man lovely, Jane,” said Maud. “Handsome is what you’d say.”

  The girls’ talk of death shook Sarah. “Shall I go into Craggleton for the doctor?” she asked, without considering that they had no money to pay for his ser vices. “Or summon Squire Crowell?”

  Maud shook her head. “His color is better now that we’ve got him home. No doubt a good night’s sleep will cure whatever ails him. It works for most every ill I know of. Come on now, girls, time to get your tea.”

  Maud herded the little ones to the door, then turned back to Sarah. “I expect we’ll find out all about this one in time. No need for the magistrate, at least not yet.”

  Sarah nodded. She put the satchel on the floor beside the bed and tucked the blanket around him before quitting the room behind the others.

  Brogan snapped awake, struggling for breath, thrashing against the weight of the water holding him down. He’d been secure enough for his descent through the deep sea waters to the Astar Columns, but his passage through time had jolted every muscle and nerve in his body, and rattled his mind. He must have lost consciousness for a time, because he had no idea how he’d survived the ordeal and passed to the other side of the columns. He could remember naught.

  The ancient elders must not have anticipated a need for passing through time without any spells to protect the traveler. In ancient times, they’d buried the columns at the bottom of the Coruain Sea with full confidence that any Druzai who had sufficient need to use them would also use the necessary magic to arrive and pass through safely. They had never anticipated Eilinora’s escape and subsequent attack.

  Brogan had a deep awareness of barely having survived. Even now, his body and mind staggered with the trauma of his passage. His disorientation persisted, and he rolled from his resting place to land on his feet, feeling raw and ready for battle. Then he remembered why he had come, and a wave of grief hit him just as hard as the agony that had struck when the Tuath women helped him into the cart.

  His father had been brutally killed by Eilinora and her Odhar, and no magic could return him to this life. Merrick, Ana, and Brogan had sent Kieran off in a funereal swirl of light and thunder, the magnificence of which had never been seen on Coruain. It had been a fitting funeral, yet hardly grand enough for the high chieftain of all the Druzai islands.

  As he sat down on the bed to combat a wave of dizziness, he felt a moment’s regret that Merrick had not presented any grandchildren to their father. Kieran had always said that his sons’ lack of heirs was the one imperfection in his life.

  Brogan had never felt compelled to wed for the purpose of supplying royal offspring for his father. He would settle for no less than a céile mate, one woman whom he was destined to bond with forever. But he was well past the age when Druzai men found sòlas with their one true mate. ’Twas not likely to happen at this late date.

  He flexed his muscles and stretched. His body felt as though it had taken a beating, and his memory of entering this chamber was hazy. The pain in his belly had subsided, but he felt ravenously hungry. His head ached and his legs still felt weak, hard-pressed to hold him up.

  Brogan had heard Merrick’s warnings about the perils of moving through time, but he’d been so anxious to take action that he’d barely heeded them. Merrick always moved too damned slowly for Brogan’s liking, carefully deliberating every possible consequence to his actions. Brogan knew one thing: Coruain was doomed to suffer further assaults by Eilinora if they did not find the blood stones and return to the isles quickly.

  Setting aside his grief and his impatience with his brother, Brogan took stock of his surroundings. ’Twas certain the comely Tuath woman did not sleep here, for the room was cramped and cluttered, and smelled stale, as if it had been closed up and unused for some time. He wondered if he had heard right, that this place was Ravenfield. If so, ’twas going to be an easy task to find the brìgha-stone—even without using magic. Anxious to begin, he rose to his feet again and made a quick search of the room. But he found naught of interest.

  Though he should not have expected immediate success, his failure to locate the stone quickly was frustrating. He could not help but wonder if Ana had seen correctly. Standing nine hundred years in the future, he felt far removed from Druzai magic and Ana’s abilities. What if she was wrong?

  He pulled open the door and stepped into yet another room illuminated by an oil lamp, startling the young woman who’d helped him earlier. She stood abruptly, dropping a large piece of cloth to the floor. “You’re awake!”

  She’d changed clothes, but the plain gray gown was hardly better than the one that had gotten soaked when she’d pulled him from the sea. Brogan could not help but think she would be well-suited wearing the soft gauzes and colorful silks favored by Druzai women.

  He glanced ’round the room. It was poorly lit by the lamp on the table next to her chair, but he could see that the rest of the furnishings were sparse as well as shabby. With its threadbare rug and narrow, curtain-covered windows, the room was clean and tidy, but had seen better days.

  There were two more chairs, a sofa, and a large wooden case that appeared to be a musical instrument. ’Twas unlike anything he’d ever seen on Coruain.

  Brogan returned his attention to the woman. “We’re alone?” he asked.

  “Of course not!” she snapped. In an instant, her eyes changed color from soft green to fawn brown, and he sensed a change in her from unease
to indignation. “Maud is here…” She half turned toward another door that led to a dark hallway. “Well, she’s gone to bed,” she amended, “and so have the children. But they’re—”

  “Not here, are they?”

  He knew he should not goad her. The rapidity of the pulse at the base of her neck was proof of her nervousness, and Brogan supposed he should reassure her, for he might need her assistance.

  He took a step closer and could not help but think how well those soft curves would be displayed in a Druzai tunic. Her scent beckoned him even closer.

  “I willna harm you, if that’s your concern.” He only wanted the stone and a quick exit from this world and his strange reaction to the Tuath woman. He wondered if he could risk asking her for it, then thought better of it.

  “My concern is your lack of clothing, sir. Must you display yourself in such an uncivilized manner?”

  Her words caught him up short. She thought he was uncivilized? “Woman, I nearly drowned in your cursed sea!”

  “But you did not, sir,” she retorted. “And I left clothing for you on the chair beside the bed. Please go and—”

  He put his hands on his hips and braced his feet firmly on the floor. Her ridiculous demands were not going to divert him from his purpose. “What is this place?”

  In spite of his stern question, she crossed her arms and began to tap her foot.

  No woman on Coruain, except mayhap Ana, would ever presume to take such a high-and-mighty attitude with him. Brogan was the son—now brother—of the high chieftain, and commander of all Druzai warriors. If she were not Tuath and he could divulge his identity to her, she would kneel to him and thank him for the honor of his presence in her humble house.

  Folding his own arms, he glowered at her, but she did not relent. With a resolute expression, she surprised him by taking hold of his arm, turning him, and starting to propel him toward the bedchamber.