Sorcha groaned and leaned against Lockie after leading him to water, where he drank thirstily. Brandt frowned. “You’re hurt,” he said, noticing the strip of red across the side of her shirt beneath the plaid.
“It’s nothing, a flesh wound.”
“Let me see,” he said and lifted the edges.
She snatched at the plaid, but Brandt had already caught sight of the weeping incision that traversed the span of two lower ribs. It was a shallow cut, though it seemed to be bleeding profusely, making the scarlet-hued linen stick to her flesh. Sorcha grimaced as his fingers snagged on the cloth. “We should clean it.”
“I’ll be fine, I told ye!”
“Not if you invite infection. Don’t be stubborn, Sorcha.”
The look she sent him spoke volumes. “Stubborn,” she hissed. “Perhaps ye should have considered that before ye stayed and took me to wife, instead of running like I told ye to. Then you wouldnae have the burden of regret on yer shoulders.”
Brandt did not respond to the anger in her voice, if only because of the sheen of tears in her eyes. “I’ll regret if you die on my watch when I’ve just given my word to your brother to keep you safe. Now let me see that wound.”
Grudgingly, she let him examine her, and though he was gentle, she still flinched away from his touch. He took a piece of linen from his saddlebags and soaked it in the icy river before applying it to her split skin. Sorcha winced but bore the pain in silence as he cleaned the wound and bandaged it with another wide strip of clean linen.
She eyed him quietly the whole time, not saying a word until he had finished the wrapping. Brandt couldn’t help noticing she kept both forearms banded tightly over her breasts, allowing him only a limited view of her torso. Not that she had need to worry—open, ragged wounds had a way of deterring carnal urges.
“There,” he said. “Good as new.”
“Shouldn’t you be on your way to England by now?”
Her brogue was gone, he realized. Brandt met her blazing blue gaze. “That can wait,” he said. “We need to leave before we’re discovered. We aren’t far enough away for my liking.”
“Why do you even care?” she asked. “It’s exceedingly obvious you don’t wish to be saddled with a wife…or me. You should leave while you can. I can look after myself.”
“I don’t doubt that, but I gave your brother my vow.”
“You seem to hand out vows rather easily, Mr. Pierce.” Her nostrils flared. “Your word is not worth the breath that expelled it.”
“Sorcha—”
She spun on her heel and moved toward the grazing horses, but froze at a crashing sound from the nearby bushes.
“She went this way, I tell you,” a man’s voice said. “I saw her and the Englishman with that gray horse of hers.”
“Are you sure, Coxley?”
Brandt frowned. Damn. Malvern’s dog…the twisted, belly-slitting ex-colonel who had been at his liege’s side in the Selkirk stable yard. If Coxley was here, it meant Malvern was close. Brandt met Sorcha’s eyes and placed a finger to his lips, wishing that the horses were closer and not at the river’s edge. But it was too late to make a run for it, or to whistle for Ares. The approaching sounds grew closer, and then Coxley and his guard emerged from the other side of a large tree, his expression triumphant as it fell on the two of them.
“Well, well, what have we here,” he crowed, pointing two pistols right at them.
Chapter Nine
Sorcha couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move. They were standing in the wide open, with nowhere to hide. Nowhere to run. And blast it all to hell, she’d left her sword and bow with her horse!
Brandt had planted himself directly in front of her, obscuring her view of Malvern’s two men a split second after each of them aimed their pistols right at Brandt. A spike of fear took hold inside of her, a lick of fire racing up the back of her neck and sending out a frenzied beat of panic.
“Send the Beast over here,” Coxley said, beckoning with his free hand. The words did not bother her, but the sight of the man, as always, made her feel nauseated. She loathed Malvern, but Coxley made Malvern seem like an angel in comparison. “We’ve instructions to deliver her unharmed.”
“She isn’t going anywhere with you,” Brandt replied, his tone flat and obstinate and so bloody certain. Was the man addled? He sounded far too confident, as if there weren’t a brace of pistols a crack away from ending his life.
“You’re not very bright, are you?” Coxley’s man asked with a bark of mean laughter.
“I just have a better view,” Brandt replied.
Sorcha peered up at her husband’s profile, trying to understand his words, when a shot rang out. She startled and yelped as the man beside Coxley crumpled to the ground, gunpowder smoke clouding the air directly behind him. With a war cry, Ronan leaped from the woods the two men had just come through and collided with Coxley, taking the man to the ground.
“Go!” her brother roared to them as he used his spent weapon to crack the knight across the temple.
Sorcha felt a hand wrench her arm and then she was being dragged back, toward the dense forest, Brandt shouting at her to run.
“Ronan!” she cried, half turning as they stumbled toward the woods to view her brother facing off against Coxley, who’d somehow found his feet. The brutish first knight attacked Ronan with a fist to the ribs, but she didn’t get to see what happened next. Her feet tripped over themselves and she spun forward, nearly falling on the uneven ground. Ronan could handle himself, but she’d seen Coxley’s cruelty before, when the marquess had visited Maclaren. He’d pummeled one of his own men bloody just for looking at a wench he’d been lusting after. The man fought dirty, and without any shred of honor.
“Faster, Sorcha!” Brandt ordered, wringing her arm practically from its socket to keep her from falling. But she couldn’t. Her legs were jelly, her heartbeat thrashing. Her brother was the most powerful and capable warrior she knew, but he had just come through battle and was tired. What if he faltered? What if he lost?
Her eyes stung, and the tree trunks and thick canopy were blurred as she and Brandt entered on foot, their horses left behind at the river’s edge.
“We must go back, we must help him!” she said as they veered around a giant boulder, Brandt still gripping her arm and pulling her, as if he knew she would stop and turn back otherwise. And he was right, she would have. She should. What had she done? Seven of Ronan’s men had died that morning. Seven. And now her brother… She squeezed her lids shut to clear the haze of tears. No. Ronan would not fall. He was the future laird of Maclaren, and he would survive.
But those other men. Their blood had been spilled, their lives extinguished, because of her and her foolish and selfish desire to avoid marriage to Malvern. Her feet turned to lead.
Brandt stopped running then and stooped to wrap his arms around her waist. With an easy toss, he flipped her over his shoulder and took off again, running through the forest’s undergrowth. Her furious shriek snagged in her throat, the blood swamping her head at the ungainly position.
“Put me down, ye wretched amadan!”
“You’re too slow,” he huffed, “and too damned mulish.”
Sorcha pounded him on the back, insisting he let her down, that she could run just as fast as him. But with every pounding step he took, she felt the sharp press from the shallow slice in her ribs. The tip of an enemy sword had sliced into her during the several moments of pure terror she’d spent distracted by the sight of Brandt being tossed from his horse and set upon by that hulking warrior. She’d quickly skewered the man who’d injured her, but the cut hurt like the devil, and now, folded over her husband’s shoulder, she felt the brunt of it.
“Brandt,” she protested again, “put me down!”
She wasn’t by any means light, what with her long legs and the muscle she’d built over years spent in the keep’s training grounds. And yet here this lunatic was, running with her with as much ease as if she’d
been a sack of feathers instead of a full-grown woman. His strength astounded her. If she weren’t so fuming angry and worried, she might have appreciated his brawn and determination. She might have even spent more time viewing the hard, muscled backside and powerful legs that were fully in her view. Even upside down, she felt her pulse quicken.
Diah, she was more of an amadan than he was. Sorcha hissed through clenched teeth. She’d call herself a fool in Gaelic, English, and every other language if she had to. She was no damsel to be rescued, to be scooped into a man’s arms—no matter how sinewy they were—and whisked to safety. She could bloody well take care of herself. Ignoring the burn in her side, she resumed her pounding.
“How dare ye manhandle me! Who do ye think ye are!”
The chill air coming off the river hit her back, and she knew they had come to a crossing. Brandt splashed through the shallow fjord.
“Your husband.”
She wriggled, flinching at the sting in her ribs. “Husband or no’, ye don’t have the right!”
“Oh, I do,” he replied huffing. “Even in this Godforsaken place there is law, and by law you are my property. I can do with you as I like.”
Brandt emerged from the river, the splashes of water having soaked Sorcha’s hair, tumbling down over her face. He kept moving, holding her firm even as she struggled for release. How dare he? She was no one’s property!
“Ye brute!”
“Give up,” he grunted.
“Never!”
Blood rushed into her head and through her ears, but within a few minutes the noises surrounding them suddenly muffled. The bright dappled sunlight darkened. And when Brandt finally crouched and slid Sorcha from the prison of his shoulder, she realized he’d taken them into the shelter of a rocky outcropping. Her vision spun from the sudden shift of blood flow, draining now from her head, and Sorcha stumbled.
Brandt’s arms came up and locked her in a steadying embrace. He was breathing heavily from exertion, his skin ruddy and misted with sweat from carrying her. Perspiration had dampened the curls of his hair, turning them to burnt copper as they clung to his brow.
She shoved at him, even with her head feeling faint and black speckles swimming in her vision. “Ronan’s my family, and ye made me run like a coward!”
“You’d have been nothing but a distraction, and you likely would’ve gotten him killed!”
A spear of guilt lanced through her chest. Like the others. She’d gotten the other men killed. Good men. Husbands and sons. Brothers and fathers. Back home at Maclaren their families would mourn them, and they would know…they would know their loved one had died trying to protect a selfish woman.
She felt her body sag, the anger swirling inside of her snuffing out like a doused wick.
“Sorcha,” Brandt murmured, trying to gather her close. She wanted to let him wrap her in an embrace. Wanted to drink in the comfort his arms and strong body offered. But she shook her head and pulled away. This time, Brandt released her.
“Don’t,” he said as she turned from the mouth of the outcropping and sank into a crouch.
“Don’t what?” she asked.
“Don’t blame yourself.” She stiffened, uncertain if she liked, or was annoyed, by the fact that he could read her so well.
“Easy for you to say,” she said.
“It isn’t easy.” The stone cavern reverberated his voice, making it seem louder. Closer. “A part of me is angry with you. Furious even, that I am here, caught in this mess and running for my life. Even to gain a horse I’ve wanted for years—that’s now likely lost for good—it’s more than any sane man should be expected to bear. That part of me longs to cast blame on you.”
Sorcha hadn’t expected such a brutally honest reply. It made her twist and stare up at him. And there was no denying that it gutted her.
She exhaled a ragged breath. “Then why shouldn’t I blame myself? If you do?”
“I said I longed to, but Sorcha…I can’t.”
Brandt dropped into a crouch, too, coming face to face with her. The gold-flecked, autumn-colored eyes that held hers glowed in the muted light. A bevy of emotion—sorrow, compassion, understanding—chased through them. Her chest hollowed with a sudden sharp ache, one that left her confused.
“If for some reason I woke up and found myself back at the festival that day, I’d let you kiss me all over again.”
More heat saturated her, but this time it wasn’t guilt or temper. It swam low in her stomach and snaked out to her thighs. She stared at him, her lips parting in surprise. “Why?”
“Because no woman should ever be made to marry a man such as Malvern. Because I want you to fight,” he answered, his hand reaching for her face. His fingers, the ones that made her skin tingle and flare with every random touch, tenderly stroked her cheek. “Because you wouldn’t be the woman your brothers know you to be, the woman I’m beginning to know, if you’d just lain down and given up.”
She watched his lips moving and heard the words falling through her ears, into her aching, needy soul. They filled her and immediately pushed the tears she’d been holding at bay over the rims of her eyes. He swiped the first few teardrops as they fell, before tugging her close. Sorcha didn’t fight him. She was tired of resisting, and his hands weren’t the enemy. This time, she let him fold her in his arms, both of them sitting on the hard-packed dirt of the cavern.
“I don’t like crying.” She sniffled into his shirt and felt a rumble of laughter echo in his chest.
“And I don’t like losing my temper,” he said. “So we’re both at sixes and sevens.”
She peered up at him with a wry look, slanting her brows. “You wouldn’t know what a temper is, Sassenach. Trust me, with brothers like mine, I’m an expert.”
He matched her expression with one of his own. “I’m learning. My father, Monty, was quite even-keeled.”
“He was English, wasn’t he?”
“No. Scottish.”
“A Scot?” she replied. “If your birth mother was Scot as well as your father, then that makes you—”
“A bastard. They weren’t married, Sorcha. And considering I was raised in England, I don’t consider myself Scottish. I have no ties here. No family that I know of, nor that I want to know of. I know where I belong.”
She sealed her lips, swallowing a ready reply about a person needing to know where they come from. Who they come from. Blood ties mattered, even if a man was born on the wrong side of the blanket.
A pained look shuttered his features, tugging at her insides. Sorcha knew she should pull away. The harsh way he’d admitted his regret about marrying her that morning had hurt something fierce. But resting against him now, sensing his vulnerability and hearing the steady, soothing rhythm of his heartbeat, made everything outside the cavern seem to disappear. It almost made her want to forget what he’d said, but words could scar just as deeply as a pair of claws. Or a sword. She shifted slightly and winced.
“Your wound?” he asked.
“A scratch,” she said, eyeing the grimy linen. “I’ll have to clean it properly and find some packing herbs to ward off infection.” She grunted, feeling a renewed wave of self-disgust. “I was careless.”
“Without you, Sorcha, more men would have died,” Brandt said quietly. “You acted bravely, and you’re one hell of a warrior.”
“You’re a competent fighter, yourself,” she said.
It felt like a truce. Like they were starting afresh. She offered him a slight smile.
“Only competent?” he asked, amusement lightening his tone and drawing up the corner of his mouth.
“For a stable master.”
“I have my skills,” he said.
Indeed, he did. Her gaze dropped to his sensuous mouth and darted away. Unconsciously, she shivered, recalling one of his skills in particular in devastating detail. Their eyes met, and she fought to conceal her thoughts from him. It was a losing battle. That stare of his could unmask the secrets of a saint, let alone
her too transparent desires. Her cheeks flamed, and she licked her lips. His eyes fastened to her mouth, and the inadvertent motion of her tongue wiped the humor from both his face and hers.
It had to be the shortest-lived truce in existence.
“Sorcha,” he began and, knowing what he was going to say, she wriggled from his grasp.
“There’s no need to speak of it,” she said. “It was a mistake, like you said.”
Sorcha knew he’d growled the declaration to what he’d believed to be an empty tent. His conscience, perhaps, had been his only intended audience. Which made it even more painfully honest and impossible to ignore. When this was over, she would gladly give him Lockie and a dozen of her father’s horses for his trouble. It was the least he deserved.
Brandt scrubbed a palm over his face. “I was upset at the situation. And I was…frustrated.”
“Why?”
A sudden smile made his eyes crinkle. “Waking up in the arms of a half-naked woman can do that to a man.”
“Oh. Oh.” Her mouth went dry. He meant sexual frustration. Every nerve in her body came scorchingly alive. Sorcha couldn’t think, couldn’t formulate any response that required more than one syllable.
“Clearly, I’ve shocked the speech from you.” He made it sound like he’d won a badge of honor.
Bristling, Sorcha opened her mouth, closed it, and opened it again when a noise outside the cavern startled them both. Thank God, was her first thought, and then, Oh God, Ronan!
Brandt rocked to his feet, a hand in the air to signal her to wait. She heard the distinct sound of horse tack and an irritated nicker, probably ten yards away, closer to the river. Had Coxley followed them? Found them. Sorcha’s stomach collapsed. Brandt moved slowly to the cavern entrance…and then the tension along his shoulders fell away.
My Scot, My Surrender (Lords of Essex) Page 11