The deeper into the wood they went, the darker it grew. Rika looked up and could no longer see the sky, so knotted were the trees. A couple of times her mare stumbled in the drifting snow. Ottar stopped each time to make certain she was all right.
Grant never looked back.
The light grew flat and white around them, and Rika felt suddenly chilled. She’d worn plenty of clothes—a fur tunic over her brother’s woolen one, and her heavy cloak over all. Still, she shivered.
By her reckoning they should be about a third of the way to her father’s estate. MacInnes had told them they should expect as much as a day’s ride, depending on the weather. Perhaps they should pick up the pace.
She urged the mare ahead, passing Ottar, and drew up even with Grant. “Can we travel no faster?”
Grant eyed her speculatively, as if he was weighing something in his mind, then shrugged. “If ye like.” To Rika’s surprise, he spurred the chestnut forward. She shot ahead after him.
“Hey, wait!” Erik’s voice sounded behind her.
“Come on,” Ottar called. “Keep up, you two.”
Grant urged his steed faster, putting more and more distance between them. “Oh, no,” Rika breathed, and drove the mare harder.
She heard the comforting snorts and snow-muffled footfalls of Ottar’s mount close behind her. A low-hanging branch, heavy with snow, lay in the mare’s path. They were moving so fast, Rika had no time to change direction. She ducked—Thor’s blood, that was close—and promptly heard a stifled cry behind her.
Ottar.
She glanced back just in time to see him land in the snow on his rump. His gelding immediately bolted.
“Wait!” Ottar called after the beast.
She peered ahead into the dense wood but could no longer see Grant. Damn him, what was he doing? Why did he not wait for them? “Grant!” she called out to him.
No response.
A chilling realization shot through her. He didn’t intend to wait. He was giving them the slip. Rika whirled in the saddle as Leif and Erik bounced to a stop beside Ottar. “Help him!” she shouted, then dug her heels into the mare’s sides.
“Wait for me!” Ottar cried.
“There’s no time!”
The mare shot forward, after Grant, and it was all Rika could do to stay in the saddle. The youths called after her, but she ignored them. After a few minutes, their cries faded to an eerie silence.
The chestnut’s footprints were dead easy to follow in the snow. Snaking their way deeper into the wood, they suddenly cut south, to the left, and disappeared up a rise. Bother! Rika fisted the mare’s mane in her hands, leaned into the saddle’s pommel and drove the mare up the rise.
She realized her heart was pounding. Everything of importance to her was riding on that dowry. She must have it—and to get it, she needed Grant.
At the top of the rise, the mare reared.
“Whoa!” Rika flew backward, arms and legs flailing, and landed hard in a snowbank. “Unh.” Before she could scramble to her feet, a rough hand grasped the hood of her cloak and jerked her up.
Grant!
Thank God.
She whirled, ready to tongue-lash him. The words died on her lips. “I-Ingolf,” she breathed. Every muscle in her body tensed.
“Good morrow, whore. I knew you’d come this way, which is why I lay in wait. What a boon that your husband has left you.” Ingolf grinned and raised his fist.
She saw the blow coming, but could not move to save her life. It would end like this then. Murdered in a Scottish wood. Or saved, perhaps, for some crueler fate. Ja, at Brodir’s hands.
A war cry pierced the air behind her. Ingolf froze, eyes wide.
“Use that fist and by God I’ll cut it off!”
Rika whirled and sucked in a breath. “Grant!”
He stood on the rise below her, his face bloodred. Rasmus dangled from the end of his dirk like a piece of rotten meat.
Chapter Thirteen
He was clearly out of his bloody mind.
George sheathed his dirk and thrust the henchman’s limp body aside. A second later, Gunnlogi was in his hand.
Why the devil hadn’t he insisted MacInnes come with them? He’d have been able to entrust Rika and the lads to the Scot’s care and ride on with a clear conscience.
“I shall enjoy this,” Ingolf said, and drew his own weapon.
Rika went for her dagger.
“Woman!” George flashed her a stern look. “Stand aside.”
She hesitated. He read the bloodlust in her eyes and caught the twitch of her hand hovering a hairsbreadth from her weapon. He was ready, should her emotions overcome her judgment, but they did not. She backed away from them both, her eyes fixed on his.
“Dinna worry,” he said. “’Twill be over in a minute.”
“Too right, Scotsman.” Ingolf lunged.
He deflected the blow, but nearly lost his footing. Ingolf moved in close and swung a broadsword in a wide arc—Gunnar’s sword, George realized.
Here it comes. By God, he was ready. Sparks flew, and the clash of metal against metal split the white stillness as Gunnlogi connected with Ingolf’s sword.
They pushed off each against the other. “Son of a—” George tripped backward over Rasmus’s body. He immediately tried to right himself, but the snow was too bloody deep.
“George!” Rika screamed.
Ingolf’s weapon sliced the air.
George rolled left, his heart in his throat. A sharp burn ripped along his shoulder as he raised Gunnlogi in a defensive posture. Too late. He smelled his own blood and knew ’twas over. Heat spread from his shoulder.
Ingolf moved in for the kill. George looked into the henchman’s murder-glazed eyes as Ingolf smiled and raised his sword.
George.
She’d called him George.
He rallied, redoubled his grip on his sword and waited to deflect the final blow. It did not come. The smile slid from Ingolf’s face, and then he was screaming.
George focused his eyes, not believing what he saw. Rika stood behind Ingolf, her face shining with fear, her dagger dripping blood. She shoved the henchman out of her way and fell to her knees beside George.
“Oh, God, George.” Her gaze flew to his wound. “Is it bad?”
“’Tis naught—ah!—but a flesh wound.” Aye, flesh and muscle. He tried to sit up, grimacing against the pain. “I…I’m fine.” But he knew from the sky spinning above him that he was not fine. Thank Christ ’twas his left shoulder and not the right.
Rika pushed the blood-soaked furs away and gasped.
“It’s…no so bad. Let me up.” His eyes were fixed on Ingolf, who was struggling to his feet, though he bled like a slaughtered pig. George was intent on finishing the job. His head throbbed and his gut heaved. “Bloody hell, woman, let me up!”
Rika ignored him and pushed him back down into the snow. Deftly she slit the tunic’s shoulder lacing and tore away his shirtsleeve. “It will take some stitching, but that I cannot do here.”
Too weak to struggle with her, he watched Ingolf stagger to Rika’s waiting mare, dragging Gunnar’s sword behind him.
“I…I must stop him.”
Ingolf pulled himself onto the steed’s back and shot away into the wood.
Rika heard the commotion and turned. “Nay!”
George saw her intent and grabbed her wrist. Not for anything in this world or the next—not even to see his brother, Sommerled, alive again—would he have let her go after Ingolf alone. “L-let him go.”
“But—”
Ottar’s shouts echoed below them. George craned his neck to see. The three youths were scaling the short hill, leading their lathered mounts.
Rika glanced back to the place where Ingolf had disappeared into the wood. Blood spattered the snowdrift where they’d skirmished.
“D’ye want the dowry or nay?” George said.
Her eyes slid to his. “I want it.”
“Then let him go. ’Tis
more trouble than it’s worth to find him and finish him off.”
“But what if he—”
He stilled her with a look. “He’ll die by nightfall. No man survives a dagger to the back.”
She looked at him for a long moment, then nodded. “Ja, all right, then.”
He released her wrist and fell back into the snow.
Ottar topped the hill, gasping and red faced, and stopped dead in his tracks. “Rasmus!” He knelt before the body and searched for a pulse.
“Don’t bother,” Rika said. “He’s dead.”
“And Ingolf?” Erik examined the hoofprints in the crimson-tinged snow.
“Gone, on Rika’s mount,” George said.
“We must find him!” Leif cried.
“Nay, we will not.” Rika shot them each a hard look.
George knew her censure was meant to protect the youths. Would he have allowed it, she would have gone off after Ingolf herself. But she’d not risk the lads’ lives in pursuit of him.
Ottar knelt beside him, eyeing the wound. “Are you all right?”
“Aye, but it stings like hell.” He sucked in air as Rika washed the wound clean with a handful of snow.
“Ottar,” she said. “Gather up the horses. Leif, can you and Erik…do something with his body?” She nodded at Rasmus’s crumpled form.
“The ground’s frozen through,” Leif said.
“Ja, but we can bury him deep in the snow to keep the animals off him—though he doesn’t deserve it.” Erik gestured to Leif. “Come on, let’s get it over with.”
The youths busied themselves with their tasks. George settled back and allowed Rika to bandage his wound.
“You were nearly killed,” she said to him in low voice so the others wouldn’t hear.
“Nearly, but I live still—thanks to ye.”
She met his gaze. “What else could I do? Stand by and watch him murder you as he did Lawmaker?”
“Most women would have.” Why had he not noticed before how beautiful her eyes were?
She tightened the bandage until he winced. “I’m not like most women.”
“Aye, that’s the God’s truth.”
She looked away, and he fixed his gaze on her mouth, her lips cherry-red from the cold. The urge to pull her down on top of him and kiss her was near overwhelming.
“Why did you come back?” she said softly.
A stab of remorse twisted inside him. “What d’ye mean?”
“You know very well what I mean. You meant to leave us.” She looked at him, not accusingly, but with resignation. “Didn’t you?”
He had, in fact, but had found that he could not. Only after he’d turned around to find them again did he spy the strange tracks in the snow. It didn’t take him long to put two and two together. Had Ingolf hurt her, he would never have forgiven himself.
Ottar knelt beside them in the snow and broke the spell. Rika’s face tightened.
“What have ye got?” George asked him, eyeing the rolled parchment.
The youth unfurled the chart MacInnes had lent them. “How much farther to Rollo’s estate, do you reckon?”
“No far.” George allowed his eyes to linger on Rika’s tense features as she finished bandaging his wound. “If we hurry, we should reach it by sundown.”
Rika sat back on her heels and met his gaze. “You intend to keep to our bargain then?”
He ground his teeth, avoiding giving her an answer.
“Must I dog your every step to make certain of it?” She flashed her eyes impatiently at him. “Say now, Grant—ja or nay. Will you or will you not keep your word?”
“So, it’s back to Grant, is it?”
Her cheeks flushed a pretty shade of pink.
Leif and Erik stopped their work, awaiting his answer. Ottar went stock-still.
George didn’t have to think about it for very long. “Ja,” he said, mimicking her speech.
Her brows arched in surprise and what he thought was a touch of amusement.
“I will keep to our bargain.”
The youths grinned.
He told himself he’d do it because he’d promised. Because she was a woman alone and needed his protection. Though given what had just transpired, he wasn’t doing a very good job of it. She’d saved his life, which was no small thing. He owed her something for that, at least.
Rika rose and offered him her hand. He took it. For a split second the memory of her body writhing beneath his, the taste of her kisses, the slick heat of her, flashed across his mind.
And hers.
He read it in her eyes, saw it in the blush of her cheek, felt it as her fingers softly closed over his.
She pulled him to his feet and abruptly turned away.
The youths mounted their steeds and George did the same, taking care not to pull at his wound.
“What about Rika?” Ottar said. “She has no mount.”
“Gunnar’s sword!” Rika whirled toward the place where Ingolf had disappeared with her mount. A frown creased her soft brow. “His helm and hauberk, too. All were tied to the mare’s saddle!”
“It canna be helped,” George said, and reined his steed beside her. The look of abject misery on her face nearly undid him. “Come, ye shall ride behind me, lass.” He offered his right hand to her.
She hesitated, then took it, and he pulled her up behind him.
“Hold tight,” he said. “The ground is rocky. I wouldna see ye unseated twice in one day.”
She gripped him about the waist, and he felt the comforting weight of her breasts against his back. They turned into the setting sun and rode in silence.
His breath frosted the air, which was so cold now it burned his lungs. Shafts of red-gold light set to sparkling the crusted snow amidst the trees. Rika edged closer.
Mayhap he was fooling himself.
Honor, duty, obligation—aye, they were each a formidable motive to stay with her and see their bargain to the end.
But were any the true reason he tarried?
Rika jolted awake as Grant reined the chestnut to an abrupt halt at the edge of the wood. How could she have let herself drift—
“Thor’s blood!”
Grant shot her a backward glance. “My sentiments exactly.”
She unlaced her hands from his waist and wiped the sleep from her eyes to make certain she was not dreaming. Nay, she was not. The stone and timber structure rose up from the moor like a dark bird of prey unfolding its wings against the bloodred sunset.
“It’s a castle!” Ottar said.
Grant snorted. “’Tis a bloody fortress.”
Erik and Leif pulled their mounts up short and exchanged wide-eyed looks. “This is it?” they said in unison.
Grant shrugged. “Dunno.”
Rika slid from the chestnut’s back into the crusted snow. Her breath fogged the icy air. “Ja, this is it—my father’s home.”
“How d’ye know?” Grant said.
A chill shot up her spine, and she pulled her cloak tighter about her. She could not take her eyes from the foreboding structure. “I just do.”
She was vaguely aware of Grant dismounting. He pulled her aside, out of earshot of the others. “We dinna have to do this, ye know?”
“Wh-what?” She shrugged off her unease and snapped to attention. “Ja, we do. I must have my coin.”
“Why? It’s of little import now.”
She frowned, not understanding him.
“Ye heard MacInnes as well as I. There is naught he would no do to protect ye and yours.”
“What do you mean?”
Grant looked at her for what seemed an eternity before answering. “Brodir,” he said finally. “That’s what I mean.”
“Oh.”
“His henchmen are dead, and the man himself unaccounted for. Why return to Fair Isle at all? By your own admission, all those whom ye loved are either dead or gone from there.”
Grant was right, but there was more to it than that.
“MacI
nnes would take ye in a heartbeat,” he continued. “He is well connected from what I can tell—and boasts five score men of his own. Under his protection, ye’d have no need of the coin.”
Or of me, his eyes seemed to say.
Ja, MacInnes would take her, as if she were a cow to be shielded from reivers. Hmph. It was clear Grant was anxious to be on his way. A bride waited for him in Wick.
Rika had considered more than once that day enlisting Grant’s help in freeing Gunnar. The hardness of his eyes in the failing light wiped the thought from her mind for good.
“You don’t understand,” she said coolly.
He glanced at the darkening sky, gone crimson at the edges, then arched a brow at her. “Enlighten me.”
She was not about to tell him the truth of things. Not now. What business was it of his? They had a bargain, plain and simple, and he swore to uphold his end. Must they have this conversation at every turn of events?
“The coin buys my freedom from Brodir, ja, but also ensures my independence—” she tipped her chin at him “—from any man. So you see, Grant—”
“Aye, I see.” His lips thinned into a hard line.
They were so close. Nothing would turn her from her purpose now. She must cinch his commitment one last time. “You’re afraid,” she said, and nodded at the dark fortress.
“What?”
“That’s why you try to dissuade me.”
His eyes blazed, and she knew she’d won. Men were so predictable.
Grant whirled toward the youths who had tethered their steeds just inside the wood. “Mount up,” he barked. “The light’s nearly gone.”
Stars blinked at them from a field of velvet cobalt as their horses clomped along the cobbled walk leading to the castle’s bailey.
Rika tensed as Grant conferred with the sentries. Two of them brought torches from a nearby fire to get what she supposed was a better look at her. God knows what Grant had told them.
Their eyes widened as they surveyed her garb, for she had staunchly refused to don even the simplest of the gowns Mistress MacInnes had lent her for the journey. Ridiculous. Did these folk really expect women to ride beasts the size of MacInnes’s mounts while garbed in normal attire?
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