A Rogue's Heart

by Debra Browning

  Minutes later she burst into the camp and eyed the sixty or so Chattan mounts tethered just inside the wood. A small one would do. She spotted Rob’s white gelding and started toward it.

  “Ho, what are ye up to?” a voice called after her.

  She froze. A Chattan warrior, one of the new arrivals she didn’t know, moved toward her. Mairi cleared her throat, put on her most innocent expression and waited.

  “Ye should no’ be out in this weather,” the warrior said.

  How many times would she have to hear that today? ’Twas just a bloody rainstorm, after all. Fine Scottish weather. She smiled and ignored his comment. “I need to borrow a mount, just for a minute or two.”

  The warrior frowned. “Why?”

  Why, indeed. “Um…” She racked her brain for a reasonable excuse, then her eyes lit on an empty basket next to the flooded fire ring. “That basket,” she said, and picked it up. “Each day I collect downed acorns on the hill.” She glanced at the ridge above the camp. “Just there. ’Tis no’ far, but I can make better time in this foul weather if I ride instead of walk.”

  ’Twas a ridiculous request, but ’twas all she could think of. She forced another smile and prayed the warrior would relent.

  His expression softened, and she knew she’d won. “All right, but be quick about it. Ye’ll catch your death.”

  She gave a brief curtsy and bolted toward Rob’s gelding.

  “Ho, wait!” the warrior called after her. “No’ that one. He’s the gentlest nag o’ the bunch.”

  Aye, that’s exactly why she’d chosen the diminutive white beast.

  “Take mine. She’s more surefooted, and willna slip on that muddy hillside.”

  She would waste no time arguing with him. He saddled the mare and gave her a boost into the saddle.

  “On second thought,” he said, “I could go with ye.” The warrior’s hand rested lightly on her ankle. His dark eyes flashed a hint of desire.

  “Nay,” she said quickly, and spurred the mare to action. “Ye mustna leave your post.”

  The warrior frowned.

  “I’ll be right back,” she lied. “Perhaps then…” Lord, what could she say that would appease him? Wait, she had it. “Perhaps then I could fix ye a bowl of broth? At my lake house,” she added.

  He grinned and arched a brow. “Hurry back, lass. ’Tis been weeks since I had any…broth.”

  Mairi slapped the mare’s rump and they shot into the wood. She’d keep to the forest path and, with luck, she’d overtake Conall before the day was out. He’d slow the black to a walk in this weather, she was sure of it. Conall loved that horse. And she intended to drive her own mount hard, as fast as it would go.

  “B-bluidy hell,” she stuttered as the mare picked up speed and she bounced along in the saddle. “I h-hate horses!”

  Clan war be damned.

  Conall should have killed the bloody whoreson in the wood when he’d had the chance. He’d burned to do it. But for once in his life he’d put his clan’s interests above his own. His interaction with the chieftain had been brief. After threatening to geld him with a dull blade should he ever touch Mairi again, Conall had let Geoffrey Symon live.

  Now, not an hour later, he regretted his decision.

  Near to the place where he’d first made his detour to intercept Symon, Conall dismounted and guided the black under a mossy overhang jutting from the cliff flanking the road. The weather had not let up, and he, Jupiter and the stallion could all use a brief respite from the rain.

  He wasn’t hungry, but he knew he should eat. He couldn’t remember when he’d last had a meal. Yesterday sometime, he supposed. The black’s leather saddlebags were nearly soaked through. He fished around inside one of them and found what he sought.

  There was nowhere dry to sit, so he crouched on a flat rock and propped his back against the cliff. Jupiter plunked down in the mud beside him. Dora had prepared a sack of food for his journey. He opened it and smiled bitterly.

  Smoked ham.

  Exactly like the one Mairi had belted him with the first time he’d seen her. The first time he’d kissed her.

  A flood of memories washed over him like an icy river, and just this once he let himself remember.

  He closed his eyes and conjured the feel of her beneath him. That fearless innocence, those challenging eyes, a will of tempered steel. A man could lose himself, heart and body and soul, to a woman like her.

  “Ah, Mairi,” he breathed, and tossed the shank of ham to the mastiff.

  What could he possibly offer her? He had neither lands nor livestock nor gold. ’Twas true, the Chattan had offered him payment for his work at Loch Drurie. But what Mairi Dunbar needed, what she deserved, was not a thing that could be bought.

  The love of a good man.

  A man who’d stand by her, protect her and her clan. A man she could count on.

  He ran a hand through his tangled hair, wringing the water from it. Could he be that man? Could he love her the way she was meant to be loved?

  He crushed the sack in his hand and something sharp poked him. Reaching inside, his fingers closed around it and he knew what it was. Mairi’s tortoiseshell comb.

  “Bloody Dora.”

  Conall sprang from the rock, and Jupiter followed, tail wagging, the half-eaten ham shank clamped between slobbery jaws. “We’re going back, lads,” he said to his animal companions as he stuffed the comb into his sporran and the food sack back into the saddlebag.

  He mounted and reined the stallion south, back the way they’d come. Jupiter broke into a trot beside them. If he pushed, they’d reach Loch Drurie by dark. The sky was near black as it was, and the rain looked as if it would ne’er stop.

  “Damn,” he breathed, and kicked the stallion faster.

  His head spun with a thousand disconnected thoughts, pummeling him from all directions as did the rain.

  Would Mairi even have him? She’d likely toss him out on his ear. But he had to try. What she’d said that morning in the wood, about marrying Symon, she couldn’t have meant it. She couldn’t have, could she? Nay, not after what they’d shared.

  He urged the stallion faster still and, as they rounded a blind corner where the trees were particularly dense, the horse collided with—

  “God’s blood!”

  The black reared, as did the horse coming from the opposite direction. Jupiter bounded from the path as Conall and the other rider hit the mud in concert with a dull splat.

  “What the—?”

  “Conall!” the rider cried.

  Conall blinked the mud from his eyes and recognized the warrior as one of his brother’s kinsmen. “What are you doing, man? Trying to kill me?”

  The warrior laughed. “Your brother would no’ take kindly to that, methinks.”

  The two of them scrambled to their feet and did their best to wipe the mud from their already drenched garments.

  “Ah, hell,” Conall said, and gave up the impossible task. “The rain will clean us up well enough.”

  They recovered their mounts and checked to make sure neither of the horses was injured. Jupiter watched them with what Conall knew was amusement.

  “Dinna say a word,” he cautioned the dog.

  Jupiter cocked his head.

  The warrior’s name was Alfred, and Conall had met him once or twice at Findhorn. He was surprised that a lone Chattan warrior was so far afield, and wondered what Alfred’s business could be.

  “Where are you headed?” he asked him.

  “I was about to ask ye the same thing. I’ve just come from Monadhliath—a shortcut through the wood. I’m to carry these herbs—” he patted his saddlebag “—from one o’ your sisters-in-law to the other.”

  The warrior’s story made sense. Gilchrist’s wife, Rachel, was a healer, the best among all of the Chattan clans. And Iain’s wife was with child again.

  They remounted, and Conall took a moment to adjust his weapons. “My brother’s summoned me home,” he said.
<
br />   “To Findhorn?” Alfred asked. “Aye, well that’s where I’m headed. We can ride together, then.”

  Conall shook his head. “Nay, I’ve a change of plan.”

  “Oh?”

  “Tell Iain I’m not coming home, not yet, at any rate. I’ve something I must set right first.”

  Conall knew Alfred was puzzled by the message, but he had no intention of going into details. He didn’t have any details to give. He knew not what he was doing, himself. How the devil could he explain it to others?

  Alfred nodded, and Conall gripped the warrior’s gauntleted hand in a gesture of camaraderie and farewell.

  “Godspeed,” Alfred said.

  “And to you.”

  Jupiter barked, impatient as always, and Conall spurred the black south toward Loch Drurie.

  The confusion of hoofprints ended abruptly just off the road near a moss-covered cliff. The rain had stopped some time ago, though the sky grew ever darker. Daylight waned, and, with it, Mairi’s hope of overtaking Conall.

  She had driven the mare as hard as she’d dared, but the steed had a mind of its own, slowing the pace on a whim, and stopping for minutes at a time to munch at the occasional roadside carpet of grass.

  Mairi rubbed her backside and winced. “Bluidy horses and bluidy saddles.”

  They both could do with a rest, and as the mare was already grazing, she decided this was as good a spot as any. She eased herself off the saddle and cursed the stiffness in her legs and the tiny shooting pains on the outsides of her knees.

  If God had meant for men to ride, he would have—“Ow!” She landed badly in a mud hole and cursed again. He would not have made it so bloody uncomfortable!

  A smooth, flat rock just under the mossy cliff beckoned her. She glanced briefly at the mare and, satisfied the beast would not run off, sat down as gingerly as possible.

  The smells of the forest were heightened by the wet weather. Bay laurel and loamy soil, made rich by an abundance of decomposed autumn leaves, filled her senses. Mairi drew a breath and tried to collect her thoughts.

  “Where in God’s name is he?” She shot the mare a nasty expression. “I suppose ye’ll be no help at all.”

  Even if Conall had driven the black at a brisk pace, she still should have caught him by now. She studied the jumble of hoof- and boot prints under the rocky overhang.

  Perhaps he didn’t wish to be caught.

  The thought hung there, taunting her. A flurry of doubt and anxiety gnawed at her confidence. Until now, she’d pushed all thoughts aside and had focused her energy on the ride. But as the short autumn day drew to a dreary close, she had to face the truth of things.

  Conall was gone. Most likely for good.

  He didn’t want her, and that was that.

  If he’d cared for her, even the tiniest bit, he’d not have left Loch Drurie without so much as a farewell. She’d been foolish to think he…he might have loved her.

  Mairi looked down at her bare, mud-caked feet and tattered gown. Water dripped from her tangled hair. “D’ye blame him?”

  Her gaze drifted again to the place on the road where the hoofprints stopped. She was no scout, but it seemed to her that he hadn’t continued along the road. In fact, for some time now, she’d seen hoofprints going in both directions—north and south.

  Perhaps he took to the wood at some point. After all, he was alone, and who knew what evil things there were in this part of the forest that might prey upon a man.

  Or a woman.

  She wrapped her arms around herself protectively and peered into the thick stands of trees flanking the road. ’Twas cold, and she shivered as she strained to see in the fast-approaching twilight.

  What had she been thinking to ride all this way alone? And for naught. “Fool,” she breathed, and rose stiffly to her feet. The mare was still eating. Mairi grabbed the reins and jerked the beast’s head up. “Come on, we’re going back.”

  She mounted carefully and settled into the saddle with a groan. The next time she had such a bright idea, she’d force herself to think it through before acting on it.

  The mare turned easily and clipped along at a brisk pace, as if it were eager to return to Loch Drurie. Mairi held on to the pommel and let the horse do the navigating.

  After a time, they came to a point in the road that she had noticed earlier but had not wanted to stop to examine. In the half-light of dusk she could barely make out the chaos of hoof- and boot prints in the soft mud.

  She’d passed another spot just like it, a half league or so back, but she didn’t have the same feeling of foreboding about it that she felt here.

  Strange. She leaned from the mare and strained her eyes to see, but couldn’t make sense of what had happened here in the mud. No matter. Conall probably just met up with someone he knew.

  The mare trotted on, and at one point Mairi caught herself drifting off. She stiffened in the saddle and widened her eyes against sleep. She was exhausted, and hadn’t kept a close watch on her bearings. How much farther could it possibly be?

  “Saints preserve us, there she is!”

  Mairi snapped to attention and strained to see ahead in the near dark. “Rob?” she called out, certain the voice belonged to the small warrior.

  “Mairi!” another voice called. “It is her.”

  Relief washed over her. A moment later, the riders reined their wheezing and lathered mounts to a halt beside her. ’Twas indeed Rob, and Dougal, too.

  “Thank Christ,” Rob said, and snatched the reins from her hands. “What the devil were ye thinkin’?”

  “What are ye doing here?” she demanded.

  “The question is,” Rob said in as stern a voice as she’d e’er heard from him, “what in bluidy hell are ye doin’ here? And on your own. Are ye daft, woman?”

  “Aye,” she said. “I am, indeed. But I’ve recently come to my senses.”

  “Well, good.” Rob threw the mare’s reins back to her. “Let’s away. ’Twill be full dark soon, and there’s no moon tonight to speak of. Christ, ’Twill be the middle o’ the night by the time we get back to the village.”

  Rob and Dougal turned their mounts and, flanking her, the three of them trotted south toward Loch Drurie. Mairi was glad they’d come after her and doubly glad they’d found her. She didn’t relish the idea of riding back in the dark all alone.

  “How did ye know where I’d gone?” she asked, curious as to how they’d found her.

  Rob snorted. “I’m no’ an idiot. Besides, I knew for a fact that ye werena pickin’ acorns off the hillside.”

  She cringed in the dark. It had been a ridiculous ploy and she was embarrassed about it now.

  “Aye,” Dougal said. “And there’s someone waiting for ye at home.”

  Her heart leaped to her throat and she involuntarily jerked the mare’s reins. “Conall? Is he—”

  “Nay,” Dougal said. “One of his brother’s men. A warrior who says ye owe him…what did he call it? Oh, aye…some broth.”

  Mairi thanked God the two of them couldn’t see the disappointment and humiliation that blazed on her face. She spurred the mare forward. Rob and Dougal fell into step beside her.

  The night grew frigid, and black as Conall’s stallion. By the time they reached the hunter’s camp and the ancient standing stone marking the path skirting the loch, the clouds had all but disappeared, and with them her foolish dreams.

  Mairi tilted her head back and gazed at the brilliant field of stars twinkling through the canopy of trees overhead. She was glad Conall was gone. ’Twas for the best. She had a clan to build, an adopted son to nurture. In less than a fortnight the trade boats would come.

  And with them her freedom.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Three months later

  Mairi clutched the timbers of the lake house pier and retched over the side into the water.

  “Here,” Dora said, handing her a damp rag.

  “Ye’re a saint.”

  “That’s the t
hird time this week. How long, Mairi?”

  Mairi blocked out the vision of Dora kneeling beside her. Her head spun like a drunken dervish, her stomach roiled. The last thing she needed was Dora’s mothering.

  “Go away,” she said, and shot her a miserable look.

  “How long,” the older woman repeated, “since ye’ve bled?”

  Mairi closed her eyes and curled into a ball. The rough timbers of the pier jabbed at her side, but the discomfort kept her mind off her queasiness. She didn’t want to think about Dora’s question, but knew she must. Soon the whole clan would be able to tell. She might as well get it out in the open and have done with it.

  “Since well before Christmas,” she said, and opened her eyes. A brilliant winter sky came into focus.

  Dora smiled and brushed a damp lock of hair from Mairi’s forehead. “I suspected as much. Why did ye no’ tell me before?”

  Why, indeed? “I didna want to believe it.” She stretched like a cat and ran her hand along the soft curve of her abdomen. “But methinks I canna hide it much longer.”

  “Come on,” Dora said, and grasped her hand to help her up. “Let’s go inside. There are things we must settle.”

  Mairi obeyed and followed her into the lake house. Dora closed the door behind them, then bade her sit on one of the two stools flanking the table. The day was icy. Mairi warmed her hands gratefully over the peat fire blazing in the hearth.

  Dora dragged the other stool up beside her and settled in for what Mairi was afraid was to be a long and uncomfortable conversation. “Ye’ll have to tell him, ye know.”

  “Tell who? What are ye talking about?”

  “Rob can send word, or go himself if need be.”

  What Dora proposed was unthinkable. Mairi shot to her feet and felt the blood rush from her head. Another wave of nausea gripped her, stronger this time than before.

  Dora saw it in her face, which Mairi was certain was green as a gillfish in midsummer, and pulled her back down onto the stool.

  “Conall must know, Mairi.”

  “Know what?” She knew perfectly well what.

  “That ye carry his babe.”

  “Nay!” She clutched her stomach protectively and scowled at her. “I’ll ne’er tell him and neither will you—nor anyone else,” she added, remembering Rob and Dougal and Harry, and the rest of the Chattan who’d been with them these past months. “D’ye hear?”