“Why did ye let me have yer shot? she asked. “Ye’ll lose the contest now.” The winner received a nice purse of coin, but more importantly, the victor would receive great respect.
He unsheathed his dagger and then looked at her. “Do ye happen to have rope? I used all of mine on Hugh.”
She nodded. “I’m always ready.”
“I dunnae doubt that,” he said on a chuckle and took the rope she handed to him. “I let ye have the shot because I judged it of greater importance for ye to prove to yerself and yer brother what I suspected was so than for me to win the contest.”
For the second time in a brief span, her lips parted in shock. “Ye mean to say that ye suspected I was equal to ye men?”
He offered a grin that made her dizzy. “I may be arrogant, but I’m nae a clot-heid. In truth,” he continued as he strode toward the boar, “I like to think I’m a wee bit smarter than most men.” He glanced back at her and winked. “At least when it comes to the lasses. And I learned long ago to have sufficient regard for lasses.”
She pursed her lips. “Which of the many lasses that ye have joined with taught ye that?”
“My mother taught me that,” he shot back in a chiding tone, “with a few smacks to the head and by beating me soundly in sword-to-sword combat when I was fifteen.”
“Yer mother was a warrior?” She could not keep the surprise from her tone.
He nodded as he tied the boar’s legs together. “She was a fierce one who defended her father’s castle and his life by picking up his sword and killing his enemies when he was too injured to do so. Ye made me think of my mother when ye told me ye wanted to be seen as an equal.” He stood and faced her. “Come then. Let’s find the others.”
She nodded, followed Lachlan to the horse he had tied some distance away, and swung up behind him.
“Hold tight,” he ordered.
She circled her hands around his waist, feeling the hardness of his body. Her insides turned like swirling water. She’d long heard the whispers that the high, sweet singing of the fairies floated on the wind the day Lachlan had been born. People—well, lasses—said he’d been blessed by the fairies. She’d scoffed at that, but now, as she stared at his broad back and thick burnished hair tied at the nape of his neck, she wondered if it was true. She wanted to reach up, let loose his hair, and slide her fingers into it. Oh, she was wicked! He had to have some sort of magic within him because he had captured her heart with a kiss. Now all she had to do was capture his.
Lachlan had watched Bridgette from a distance throughout the feast to celebrate her victory, considering if he should go talk to her. Had he imagined her response to his kiss? He didn’t think he had, yet she’d not looked at him once all night. In truth, it almost seemed she was avoiding his gaze. Just as the thought filled his mind, his younger brother Graham sat down next to him at the same instant Bridgette’s gaze turned Lachlan’s way.
The hum of voices around him disappeared as his eyes clung to hers, analyzing her reaction. Her lashes didn’t lower to conceal a thing. Yearning—he was almost certain—smoldered in her bright-green eyes. Intent on learning the truth, he stood, but Graham’s hand clamped on Lachlan’s arm.
“Did ye hear me?” Graham asked.
Distracted, Lachlan shook his head but glanced down at his brother. “Nay. Can this wait?”
“A lass has my heart,” Graham announced.
Lachlan frowned, torn between the wish to go to Bridgette and the desire to stay and speak with his brother, who rarely sought him out for advice or confidences. He glanced across the room to where Bridgette had stood, but she had moved away and was speaking with his older brother Iain. Lachlan looked down at his brother who stared up at him with a face full of expectancy.
Family first, he thought, sitting once more.
“What lass has yer heart?” he asked.
Graham offered a grin. “Bridgette MacLean. I’m going to marry her someday.”
Before Lachlan could control his astonishment enough to gather his wits and form a reply, Bridgette’s voice rose in anger over the dull roar in the great hall. Silence suddenly fell, and Lachlan glanced to where she stood facing her brother.
Forgetting Graham for the moment, Lachlan stood and made his way across the great hall to the men gathered around her and Alex.
Her head was tilted back to look up at Alex, and Lachlan could see the beat of her heart under the creamy skin of her neck. One look at her hard expression and fiery eyes told him she was angry, and a protective instinct, greater than any he’d known before, flared in him.
“It was nae luck that I killed the boar!” she snapped.
Alex stared down at her with unconcealed disbelief. “’Twas luck,” he replied with the obstinacy of a leader who was not used to being questioned. “I’ll nae chance ye being killed by allowing ye to hunt with us again. Yer request is denied.”
Frustration flashed across Bridgette’s face. “But Alex—”
“Nay!” her brother interrupted in a sharp, unyielding tone.
Bridgette’s gaze circled the men around her, and Lachlan suspected she was searching for help from her clansmen. No one stepped forward, though Lachlan was certain the men knew she was the superior archer. It was not his place as he was not part of her clan and she was not his woman, yet he found himself moving toward her as if pulled by some invisible thread.
He stepped to her side and faced her brother. “I was with her, ye ken.”
Alex nodded, his gaze wary yet not closed to hearing what Lachlan had to say.
“It was nae luck. Yer sister is a better shot than any man I’ve ever seen. Ye’d be a fool nae to allow her to hunt with ye and yer men.”
“Lachlan,” Alex spoke, his voice tinged with anger. “Ye overstep.”
“Perchance I do,” Lachlan agreed. “But I’d rather overstep than stand by and watch an injustice.”
Alex’s gaze narrowed, but a hint of amusement danced in his eyes. “Are ye saying I’m serving my sister an injustice?”
“Aye. Her shot was nae luck. If there was a woman in our clan that could shoot as yer sister can, I’m certain Iain would allow her to hunt,” Lachlan said, flicking his gaze to his brother and hoping he’d not misjudged.
“Lachlan speaks the truth,” Iain said.
Alex nodded thoughtfully. “So be it.” He glanced to Bridgette. “Ye may hunt with us.”
Bridgette flew into her brother’s arms and gave him a fierce hug. “Thank ye, Alex!”
Her brother returned Bridgette’s hug, then set her away and pinned Lachlan with an unblinking stare. “If anything should ever happen to my sister on a hunt, I’ll nae forget that ye’re the one who convinced me to allow this.”
“I’ll nae forget, either!” Bridgette said happily as she gave her brother a reproachful look.
Alex turned away with a snort, and the men who were gathered around disbanded, but Lachlan stood unmoving, as did Bridgette. They stared at each other for a long spell, and the air between them felt as it did right before a lightning storm—charged with a great tension. She moved toward him, and he felt an eagerness akin to the anticipation of a great battle. It built within him as she paused so near that her heather scent swirled around him.
“Do ye like to dance?” she asked.
It was only then that he realized the minstrels were singing and playing the lute and that people had started to dance. He was about to tell her that he’d like to dance with her when Graham came up behind her and tapped her on the shoulder. His eyes locked with Lachlan’s and pleaded. Lachlan swallowed and called upon the will that had seen him through many battles and tournaments. Deliberately, he set his awareness of her and his newfound desire for her aside.
“I dunnae dance.” He looked past her to Graham. He heard Graham’s earlier admission in his head, and he recalled in a flash the countless times he’d hoped his relationship with his brother would improve. Now was his chance to make that happen. “But Graham dances,” he said sim
ply.
With that, he offered a hasty incline of his head and turned to depart the great hall. Family first, he repeated to himself as he strode out of the room, all the while fighting the desire to turn back to Bridgette, take her in his arms, and think only of himself and the yearning that was spreading through him like a fast-growing vine.
One
Isle of Skye, Scotland
Dunvegan Castle
1358
The horn announcing the long-awaited return of Lachlan, his brother Iain, and the MacLeod warriors from battle resounded through the MacLeod holding, where Bridgette had been a guest for some months now. The men had gone to England to rescue Iain’s wife—and Bridgette’s dear friend—Marion, who’d been seized and taken back to England. Bridgette threw down the letter she had been writing in response to a note from her brother, which had arrived earlier that day. If it hadn’t been for the information contained within, telling her that Lachlan was alive and well, Bridgette would likely have been sick as she walked down to the arriving ship to learn Lachlan’s fate.
As it was, she rose on trembling legs, the letter from her brother fluttering out of her lap and to the ground. She reached down, picked it up, and pressed it to her heart, remembering clearly the day in the forest when Lachlan had pressed her fingertips to his chest and then let her kill the boar. It seemed a hundred years ago now, yet it had only been four. Time was a strange thing. She’d spent almost four years convinced that Lachlan would someday be hers, but one brief scrimmage had changed everything when Lachlan’s younger brother Graham had risked his life to save hers, and in so doing, sustained a permanent injury that had almost killed him. When he’d come to, Graham had told her he wanted to marry her someday, and she could not be so dishonorable or selfish as to hurt the man who had been willing to give his life for her.
Bridgette took a deep breath and shoved the note inside her gown. The stiff paper pricked her sensitive skin, but she didn’t move it. The irritation would serve to remind that though her heart had belonged to Lachlan for some time now, Graham owned her future. Somehow, she had to find the will to give her heart to him. Worry that she would throw herself at Lachlan’s feet when she saw him, announcing her yearning for him to his entire clan, strummed through her body.
She proceeded through the great hall and toward the courtyard. In the distance, she could see Graham leaning against a wall outside, still gaunt from his injury and the struggle to survive. Bridgette’s gut twisted as it did every time she saw him. She swallowed repeatedly as she strode toward him until the knot that had lodged there loosened and she thought she’d be able to speak without her voice catching.
She had revealed to him that her heart belonged to another but not that it was his brother. It didn’t matter. Lachlan had captured her heart long ago, unbeknownst to him, and it would remain her secret. Graham needed her. He’d told her he could not get well without her, and she owed him her allegiance. If not for him, she would be dead, and because of her, he was now crippled, possibly permanently.
Graham grinned as she approached him. She tried to focus and only see the tall, lanky, brown-haired, brown-eyed man before her, but Lachlan consumed her mind. She saw him there as he’d looked several months prior on the day he’d boarded the birlinn bound for England, his hair bound by twine to expose his corded neck. The beginning of a beard had shadowed his strong jaw, and when the sun had hit his face, his golden whiskers had glistened. He’d come to make his farewell to Graham and had vowed to avenge him before begging Graham to forgive him for failing him by not being there to fight with him when Graham, Bridgette, and Marion had been ambushed by the knight who’d taken Marion.
Bridgette had tried then to say farewell to Lachlan, but he’d stepped around her as if she were not there, as he’d done ever since the night of the Winter Wild Boar Feast four years prior. It had hurt no less that time than all the others before. Yet, as usual, she could have sworn that not long later, when she happened to glance Lachlan’s way, that he’d been watching her. But as always, the moment he seemed to see her looking at him, he turned away.
Those moments had driven her to arrange to be a guest at the MacLeod hold in the vain hope that he would finally rid himself of what kept him from declaring for her.
Och, she was an eedjit. He had probably never given her a passing thought since the day in the forest. But what if he had? What if he had been watching her as she had thought many times? Why had he not made his feelings known? The question would likely be unanswered forever.
She gritted her teeth as she walked. Why could she not simply put Lachlan out of her mind? She’d not seen him more than a dozen times in four years, yet he haunted her days and nights. Lachlan’s brother Iain had come for visits, but Lachlan had never returned to her home after the day he’d kissed her. When she had gotten to see him, it had been at tournaments or clan gatherings. He had been polite but never more. Still, he always asked how her hunting skills were coming and if she had ever learned to wield a sword and each time had reminded her how he had believed in her and seen her as no one ever had.
She weaved through the thick crowd gathered to greet the returning clansmen and paused by Graham’s side. “Do ye think ye can climb down the seawall stairs to greet yer family?” she asked, trying and failing not to glance at his injured leg.
Graham smiled down at her. “With yer help I can do anything.”
Biting the inside of her cheek at the weight of responsibility his words made her feel, she forced a smile, moved to his side, and slipped an arm around his waist. He was much taller than she was, but Graham had always been the leanest of his brothers, while still solid and muscled. Now she could swear she felt his ribs. Her mouth went dry.
“Lean on me,” she insisted. “I’ll help ye down.”
Graham laid his arm across her shoulder, and they slipped outside of the courtyard. She’d expected to join in at the end of the procession but Cameron—the youngest of the MacLeod brothers—stood with Angus, an old surly Scot who been stable master to Marion’s father yet had protected Marion from the evil man. Behind the two Scots were a sea of MacLeod clansmen and women staring expectantly at Graham. Bridgette realized with a start that they had been waiting on him since he was serving as laird in Iain’s absence.
“Ye took long enough,” Angus growled.
When Graham’s body stiffened, Bridgette bit her lip to keep from chuckling. She caught Angus’s gaze, hoping to convey that he should try to gentle his usual gruffness as Graham might be anxious about taking the stairs for the first time since his injury.
Angus narrowed his keen green eyes on her and then returned his gaze to Graham. “Ye are laird,” Angus said in a low voice, “until I see with my own two eyes that yer two older brothers are both alive, so ye need te act like laird. Ye dunnae make the entire clan wait te progress down te the birlinn so ye can walk with a lassie.”
Bridgette felt her lips part at Angus’s harsh but true words. He did sit on the council that advised the laird, and Iain had bid Angus to guide Graham in his absence, but Graham’s dark expression indicated he did not like it.
She looked from Graham to Angus. The older man had returned to Scotland with Marion when she’d come from England to marry Iain. He had spent many years away from his home on the Isle of Skye while fulfilling his vow to protect Marion. Angus had made the vow to Marion’s mother—who’d been a healer—when she had risked her life to save his wife and unborn child. Though she had failed, Angus had not forgotten what she had done. When her father, laird of the MacDonald clan and Lord of the Isles, had married her off to an English lord for political gain, Angus had gone with her as her protector. And she’d needed it. Her husband was a cruel man, so when Marion’s mother had died when Marion was a young girl, Angus had stayed to protect Marion.
Bridgette had never been able to see the slightest bit of an Englishman in him, despite the long years he had spent there. He was just as outspoken as she was, and in the past few months they had deve
loped a father-daughter affection for each other like the one he had with Marion. Though she’d never told him her secret yearning for Lachlan, the way he often shook his head in dismay at her when Graham would lean on her for aid, made her suspect he might know Graham did not truly hold her heart. Did that have anything to do with his burst of anger now? Either way, she felt compelled to defend Angus if necessary.
“Ye overstep,” Graham snapped.
“I dunnae think that I do,” Angus retorted.
Bridgette opened her mouth to intercede, but Cameron stepped forward, shoving a lock of blond hair out of his eyes as he held an odd-looking wooden stick out to Graham. “The two of ye need to let each other alone until later. We must make our way down to the birlinn. This is for ye, Graham.”
Bridgette felt herself frown at the stick even as she watched Graham scowl but reach out to grasp it. “What is this?” he asked.
“It’s to help ye walk. See how the top part is carved flat?” Cameron pointed as he spoke. “Ye put that under yer arm on yer good side and bear yer weight on it.”
“That’s marvelous, Cameron!” Bridgette exclaimed and started to ease away from Graham so he could try the stick, but his fingers caught her arm. When she looked at him, he shook his head at her.
“I thank ye for making it for me, Cameron,” Graham said. “But I’ll try it later. Now we need to make haste to the ship.”
“But this will likely be easier than leaning on Bridgette,” Cameron protested.
Graham’s jaw tensed. “I’m used to Bridgette’s aid. We have it nicely worked out. Dunnae we? Or…” Graham paused as his gaze found hers. “Would ye prefer I try the stick? Are ye weary of helping me?”
His question—meant to offer her freedom, she was sure—made her feel chained by guilt instead. She shook her head, trying to ignore the vexed look Angus gave her. “Of course nae. But it may do ye good to have the stick when I’m nae around.”
Wicked Highland Wishes (Highlander Vows: Entangled Hearts Book 2) Page 3