A Warrior's Taking

by Margo Maguire

  He was no healer, and his inadequacy frustrated him. If the Odhar had been lurking outside, he’d have risked his life doing battle for her. As it was, he could only hope and pray she’d not been too gravely hurt.

  At least he knew she’d not been hurt by magic, or he’d have seen a few sparks on her.

  Looking for obvious injuries, he ran his hands over her head and soon found a lump just above her hairline. ’Twas dry, so he knew it had not bled, but he did not know how serious the injury was. “Sarah. Moileen, wake up.”

  Brogan had never felt so helpless, so entirely powerless to act. He called her name repeatedly, and had gone to the door on the verge of going to wake Maud when she made a quiet whimper. At the sound of her distress, he quickly returned to the bed and knelt beside it. “Sarah?”

  She opened her beautiful green eyes and looked at him, furrowing her brow with obvious confusion. He had never felt such intense relief.

  “Brendan?”

  “Aye. How do you feel?”

  “What happened? Why am I…Where am I?” She turned her head to look ’round the room.

  He rubbed one hand across his face, reluctant to remind her what had transpired between them.

  What he could not change.

  “You came back to Ravenfield. Went down to the ruins.”

  She closed her eyes again, as though the lamplight hurt them. “The light.”

  “I’ll put it out.” He started for the lamp, but she stopped him.

  “No. Down by the cave,” she said. A tear rolled from her eye to trail into the hair at her temple, and Brogan’s chest constricted.

  “Andy!” she cried.

  “Aye. I saw him.”

  “H-he fell from the wall,” she said tearfully. “I don’t know why he would go up there. Surely he knew better…But someone else was there. It was too dark to see who it was, but I heard him approaching from behind.” She furrowed her brow, then grimaced as though the movement hurt. “I turned to look, but he h-hit me with something. I…I tried…He came at me before I could get away. There was a peculiar odor…”

  Brogan took her hand in his, aware that he should question her about the intruder, but he was more worried about the bump on her head and the pain he’d caused her. He tucked a stray curl behind her ear and gently brushed his knuckles against her cheek.

  She turned her head, pushed herself up on her elbows, and started to climb out of the bed. “I must get upstairs and see to the girls.”

  “Nay,” he said, alarmed by her pallor, “you need to rest here while I go back to the ruins and see if anyone is still out there.”

  She closed her eyes and visibly composed herself, putting distance between them. “I cannot stop you from going out to the castle, Mr. Locke,” she said, keeping her voice low and detached. “But please lock the door when you leave.”

  He winced at the overt formality of her words.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” she sat up stiffly, “I must see to the girls. I w-wasn’t here when they went to bed, and after all that’s happened…”

  Her voice wobbled as she spoke, and Brogan would have pulled her into his arms had she not held herself quite so aloof. But it was clear she wanted naught to do with him, that she recognized the afternoon’s interlude for the mistake it was.

  “Please go.”

  He clenched his teeth and watched her stand. He reached for her when she staggered, but she refused his assistance. He could only watch helplessly as she left the room and headed unsteadily for the stairs.

  No one was out there.

  Brogan searched the caves and the ruins, and found naught but a few signs that someone had lurked there. A bit of rubble where he knew he’d cleaned up earlier; the torch Sarah had seen had been extinguished, but was still hot.

  He returned to the yard where Andy Ferris’s body lay, and knew the magistrate would certainly be called this time. Sarah had wanted to summon Crowell when Brogan had washed ashore, so he concluded it would be necessary to inform him of Andy’s death.

  His disgust with the Odhar was renewed. There had been no reason to kill an innocent like Andy. The man was no threat to them. With such limited intelligence and virtually no speech, he couldn’t even have told anyone of their presence. But Brogan could not involve himself with it. Sarah would tell Crowell the truth—that she’d heard a noise and gone to investigate. That someone had struck her and left her on the ground.

  What she told Crowell of his part in the night’s events was up to her. Brogan had Odhar to pursue and a riddle to solve.

  He needed to do a thorough search for magic sparks. Quickly altering his vision to do so, he scanned the caves, but he found naught. It wasn’t until he sighted up the walls of the castle that he found a few sparks, directly under the shelf where he’d found one of the clues. ’Twas the spot where he’d destroyed the runes.

  The only reason the Odhar would have used magic was for the purpose of reconstructing the runes. If Eilinora or her cronies had resorted to using their powers, they would soon reconstruct the verses. It meant Brogan had very little time to decipher what the words meant, and locate the stone.

  He tried to follow the scent and the sparks of the magic on the walls, but he was confounded once again. Eilinora had somehow learned a method of concealing her trail. Likely her mentor—the force that had freed her—had the power to hide the sparks and had taught her. Else he’d have been able to track her.

  A confrontation with the witch would be quite welcome right now. Brogan would have liked nothing better than to follow her sparks to her lair and mount a surprise attack. She and her followers would not stand a chance against him, not without the stone.

  He went back to the fountain in the garden. “Colm, there are signs of Odhar in the ruins. I canna say how many were here, but they killed Andy Ferris.”

  The dragheen made a sound of revulsion. “’Tis ominous news, m’lord.”

  “I canna leave Sarah and the others unprotected. I’ll stay out near the ruins, but I’ll need you to keep watch as well.”

  The dragheen’s wings flexed slightly. “Aye, m’lord. I’ll alert you if I see aught.”

  Brogan made a quick jog to the barn and found only the Ravenfield pony inside. The other horses were gone, indicating that Ridley and his men were away. Craggleton was not far, so it was very likely they’d had business in town that had kept them late.

  He saw no evidence of a groom in the small room at the back of the barn, so he climbed to the eaves of the building where there was a good vantage point for keeping watch over the grounds. He made a quick survey of the surrounding territory, then looked toward the house, to Sarah’s window.

  ’Twas illuminated by a low light, the only light in the house. The curtains were drawn, so he could see only an occasional shadow as she prepared for bed. His whole body tensed at the thought of holding her in his arms. He wanted her again.

  He wanted her always.

  It wasn’t possible. What he’d felt before could not have been sòlas. It could only have been the release he’d needed ever since he’d first touched Sarah.

  He dragged the palm of his hand over his face, then across his mouth in frustration. What he’d shared with Sarah had not felt like a simple release of sexual tension. It had been so much more…and certainly not uncomplicated.

  The moon reached its zenith by the time Ridley returned. He and two others rode ahead of a carriage manned by three men. They dismounted at the house and went inside, leaving the men in the carriage to deal with the horses.

  No one took any note of Brogan in the concealed space he’d chosen, and he settled in to keep an eye on the place while he silently repeated the lines of the ancient Druzai verse, trying to decipher their hidden meaning. He had a clear sense that his time was running out.

  Morning came as usual, but Sarah did not feel anything like her normal self. Everything had changed. She’d been attacked in the night, and Andy killed. She’d had disturbing dreams, images of poor Andy, besieged
and terrified by some strange creatures of the night.

  And she’d become Brendan Locke’s mistress.

  She bathed quickly before the rest of the house was astir, washing her hair and drying it by the stove in the kitchen, taking care to avoid touching the sore spot on her head. Trying to forget that Brendan would soon be leaving.

  He had not given their parting even a second thought, telling her that he would make things right for the girls before he left.

  As though that would ease the ache in her heart.

  She had solved nothing by going to his cottage after her disastrous meeting with Mr. Ridley. If anything, she’d made matters worse. The girls were going away to Loncrief, Brendan was going to return to Scotland, and he still intended to find her a suitable husband. Even after…

  She swallowed the sudden burning in her throat. No doubt he had come to accept Squire Crowell as the most likely candidate for her spouse, and would welcome his arrival at Ravenfield to look into Andy’s death. It would give her another opportunity to show the squire what a brilliant wife she would make.

  She muttered something entirely unladylike under her breath and started to brush her hair over the stove.

  It was still early when Maud came down. She put on the kettle, then made toast. “I don’t suppose your talk with Mr. Ridley went so well, did it, Sarah?”

  Sarah shook her head. “No. The girls will be going to Loncrief in two weeks.”

  Maud pressed her hand to her heart. “Oh, I hate to see the poor darlings go there. And what will you do once they’re—”

  “Maud.”

  Sarah’s tone stopped the older woman from continuing. “What is it, Sarah?”

  Sarah took Maud’s arm. “Sit down.”

  “You’re frightening me, my girl,” Maud said as they sat at the table.

  “Last night after dark…I heard a noise.”

  “Where?”

  “Out near the ruins. I went to see what it was, and I found…I found Andy Ferris. Maud, he fell from the castle wall. He’s…he’s dead.”

  Maud furrowed her brow and clucked her tongue. “Oh dear. Poor Andy. Always had such a hard way of it. Ah, well, he’s in a better pla—”

  “Someone else was out there.”

  “Mr. Locke?”

  “N-no. A stranger. Someone who knocked me down.”

  She did not want to go into so much detail that she frightened Maud, but it was important for her to take particular care.

  “Well then, we shouldn’t let the girls out of our sight, should we?” Maud said. “At least, not until this prowler is found.”

  “And we need to summon the magistrate. Andy is still…His body is…Well, I didn’t move it after…”

  “Oh dear. Yes, of course,” she said, rising to make the tea. Without warning, two men from Craggleton came to the door and pushed into the kitchen.

  “Who are you?” Maud demanded, startled by their appearance.

  Sarah recognized the two, a couple of the boys who’d taunted her, all grown up. They were much bigger now, and looked a good deal more dangerous than they had as youths.

  “I’m Jack and that’s Roscoe. We’re Mr. Ridley’s new grooms as of last night,” said the taller of the two. “And Frank Tyler will be coming up to the house in a minute. He’ll be doing the cooking from now on.”

  Sarah’s stomach clenched. Frank Tyler had been the worst of the boys, hiding in dark corners, grabbing her when she was carrying buckets of water or bushels of laundry and couldn’t run or defend herself. She clenched her teeth and remembered that she was an adult now, and could deal with Frank Tyler.

  Maud handed Sarah a tray with the tea, a pot of jam, and the toast she’d just made, then took off her apron. “You are welcome to the kitchen, then,” she said, handing her apron to Jack. She took Sarah by the elbow and pulled her from the room.

  Stopping short, she turned back to the men. “One of you needs to run up to Corrington House and summon the squire,” Maud said. “He’s needed to see to the dead man out by the ruins.”

  Maud did not wait for their reply, but hurried Sarah up the stairs to the nursery, passing Mr. Ridley and his London gentlemen on the stairs. Sarah wondered if it had been one of them who’d struck her last night in the castle ruins. She supposed she should tell Mr. Ridley about Andy, but decided the less she spoke to him, the better.

  She and Maud found the girls already up and about in the nursery. They had washed and were fully dressed, but afraid to go downstairs. “He’s already down there,” said Jane. “We saw him through the crack in the door.”

  “May we stay in the nursery all day, Miss Granger?” asked Margaret. “Please?”

  Sarah put the tray on the table and sat down beside Margaret while Maud paced the room, wringing her hands. She did not speak of all the things going through her mind, but Sarah could easily guess.

  Clearly, Maud did not like turning her kitchen over to the ruffians hired by Mr. Ridley, nor did she enjoy the thought of leaving Jane and Margaret at the mercy of their cold, indifferent guardian. But she and Sarah were merely women, wholly dependent upon the whims of their employer.

  Oblivious to the tension in the room, Jane started on her breakfast, and Sarah decided not to tell the girls about Andy, at least not yet. And she wasn’t going to spoil the rest of the day and the Pruitt soiree by telling them about Loncrief, either. Brendan was going to make some better arrangement for them.

  She sat down on one of the chairs and realized that she truly believed he was going to do what he’d promised. Sarah did not know how he would manage it, but she actually trusted him to make things right for the girls.

  Margaret went to the window and leaned against it, gazing outside. “I miss Papa.”

  Sarah’s heart lurched, and she went over to the little girl, taking her into her embrace. “I know, love.”

  “Mr. Ridley doesn’t care for us,” said Margaret. “Not like Papa.”

  “But I do,” she said, hugging Margaret tightly. “And so does Maud.”

  She did not know exactly how much power Brendan had, or how a Scotsman could possibly have any sway over Mr. Ridley, but there was no doubt that he was not going to let the girls languish at Loncrief. Maybe there was another school…perhaps somewhere near his lands in Scotland.

  “We’ll have no lessons today,” she said. She should not allow herself to hope for such a solution. How would he ever manage it? “We’ll spend the morning away from the house, until it’s time to get ready for the party.”

  “I have a bit more work to do on your gown, Miss Granger,” said Maud. “Since my ser vices are no longer needed by Mr. Ridley, I shall work contentedly here in the nursery until you come back. The light is much better in here than in my own room.”

  “Shall we go to my tree?” asked Margaret.

  Their choices were limited. Sarah didn’t want to go too far from the house, nor did she want the girls anywhere near Andy’s body. “Yes, Margaret. We’ll take a nice walk up to your tree.”

  “And will you tell us some tales while we sit in the branches?” asked Jane.

  “Oh yes, please,” said Margaret, brightening.

  “That sounds like a perfect idea,” Sarah said, forcing a tone much brighter than her mood.

  “May we take the Fairy Luck with us?”

  Sarah had never allowed them to take the box outside, but in light of their grim circumstances, she nodded her assent. “Only this once.”

  Brogan had to find out if the Barstow lasses were the descendants of Dubhán. If so, they would surely have the second sight as indicated in the first line of the verse, and mayhap know something of the gift of the fae. ’Twas the only way he could think of to pursue the clues.

  He thought they might not be aware of what they knew, but with careful questioning, mayhap one or both of them would remember something of the ancient tales about Ravenfield and its history. ’Twas even possible they’d heard the term blood stone, or brìgha-stone.

  Before d
awn, Brogan had seen a light in the kitchen. From his place at the top of the barn, he had a perfect view of the kitchen. And Sarah inside, bathing.

  Brogan’s heart clenched in his chest as he watched her, obviously unaware that Ridley had hired some men and brought them to the estate. She moved slowly, as though she carried the weight of the world. Brogan knew that in her mind, she did.

  Even with a distance between them, he could not help but notice her wince when she touched the bump on her head. He blamed himself, for he should have been more wary of the Odhar intruder. He should have given her—as well as Maud and the lasses—a much stronger warning not to wander alone on the grounds.

  She slipped her gown from her shoulders as he watched, and his cock rose at the sight of her perfect skin and the swell of her breasts above her chemise. Their tryst had been ill-advised, and he knew that if anyone learned of it, her chances of a good marriage would be ruined. Yet when he thought of her making a good match, he swore viciously.

  She belonged to no one but him. She was his céile mate, and no amount of denying it would change it. He was in love with a Tuath woman.

  Without waking the men sleeping in the barn, Brogan climbed down from his perch and walked to the site where Andy’s body lay. His skull was cracked, and it looked as though he’d fallen from the wall. Brogan had little doubt that he’d been pushed. How Eilinora had lured him up there, he did not know, nor did it matter. ’Twas the witch’s sheer viciousness that appalled him.

  Brogan returned to the house and took up a post outside the kitchen door. He would not frighten Sarah by appearing unannounced at this early hour, but he intended to make sure none of the men from Craggleton barged in on her, either.

  Chapter 15