Delilah wriggled in earnest to free herself, but the man was too heavy, his grasp on her too tight.
He gripped a handful of her hair and yanked her head back, leaving her throat exposed. A metallic taste filled Delilah’s mouth and ice ran through her body.
For the first time in as long as she could remember, she was truly afraid.
The man’s hand jerked back to strike, a blade gripped in his fist.
She was going to die.
The man’s chest punched outward, and he threw his head back in a yowl of agony. He whirled around and brought the dagger with him.
Away from her.
Leasa stood behind him, her face white and her eyes round with horror. The man leapt off Delilah, revealing her busk blade jutting from his back.
He lunged at Leasa before Delilah had time to stand. Her skirts were too voluminous, her bodice too tight.
Leasa screamed.
No.
Delilah floundered against her clothing in her attempt to rise in haste.
Not Leasa.
Chapter Six
Leasa had saved Delilah, and now she would die for her bravery.
The man raised his knife overhead and Leasa cowered from him. Delilah shoved herself up from the ground, but before she could lurch toward the man, something flashed in front of her—the bulk of a body and a glint of steel.
Kaid plunged his sword into their attacker’s chest so hard, the tip of the long blade showed through his back.
The attacker’s breath choked from his lungs, and his dagger fell with a wet splat into the mud.
Kaid pulled his sword free with a moist sucking sound. For a moment, the man stayed upright on bent knees before finally crumpling to the ground with a long, low exhale.
Delilah stared at the body, wanting to be sure he was dead before she turned her attention from him. Her heart beat so hard and fast, it rendered her breathless.
She’d almost lost her own life. She’d almost lost Leasa.
The man stared into the distance, dull and unfocused with death.
Strong hands gripped her arms. Her body responded by thrusting an arm into her pocket where the dagger lay against her thigh. No sooner had her fingers curled around the hilt than she recognized the face in front of hers as Kaid’s. His blue eyes were fixed on her as if he were trying to peer into her soul.
“Elizabeth.” The name came out in a hoarse cry.
But not her name.
Elizabeth.
The woman she had been paid to become.
Why then did the name cut into her heart so?
Kaid’s gaze ran a wild trail down her body and back to her face. “Are ye hurt?”
Dots of blood peppered his face and stained the front of his shirt. He did not appear injured either, and a wash of gratitude swept over her.
Delilah lifted her head in the haughty manner. “I am uninjured.” She swallowed down a squeeze in her throat. “Your investment is still secure.”
His brow creased, and she knew the barb hit where intended. “That isna why—Elizabeth, I wanted to ensure ye were safe. I—”
She held up a hand to stop him. Her fingers trembled, much to her surprise and dismay. Quickly, she balled her hand into a fist and snatched it back. “I want to check on Leasa and then change before we resume our journey.”
Kaid nodded and stepped away from her. His gaze wandered toward the body at his feet and then to his blood-smeared fingers.
Delilah remembered the nightmare Kaid had had the night before.
They’re all dead.
She faltered, wondering if perhaps she ought to be kinder.
But first, Leasa.
She turned to care for the other woman and found Donnan kneeling at her side. His head was bowed over hers, and he spoke quietly to her. Leasa’s lower lip quivered, and then he pulled her into his arms. She buried her head into his chest, and her sad sobs filled the air.
Donnan continued to hold her thus, the heavy sack of food on the ground beside him.
Delilah turned back to Kaid, to thank him, to apologize, to be the better person as she should have when he first saved her.
And found him gone.
• • •
The awful encounter would add a serious delay to their journey. Obviously she wasn’t responsible for the attack, nor would she have wanted to be, but the time lost was welcome.
She and Leasa both retired to the interior of the coach with the shutters drawn to change into clean garments. Leasa helped her into a yellow dress, something cheerful to lighten the darkness of the mood that had descended upon them all. Leasa shook so terribly, it was a wonder she could even assist Delilah into the gown.
Delilah heard only one sentence uttered between the men from where they conversed outside.
The bodies must be cleared by the time they’re done changing.
It’d been spoken in Gaelic by Kaid. Donnan gave a grunt of approval, and Delilah intentionally slowed her pace to ensure the men had the time they needed. Not that she feared dead bodies, but for Leasa’s sake, and because she did not wish the men to think their protection had been inadequate.
For certainly they had protected the women.
Never again would Delilah stunt her own abilities for the sake of keeping her secret. It almost cost both women their lives.
Delilah pulled at the final ties on Leasa’s gown and squinted in the darkness to knot it securely.
“I want to thank you for saving my life today, Leasa.” She turned the woman around to face her, a feat not easily done in such a cramped space with their removed garments billowing around their feet in great puffs of fabric.
“You’re my lady,” she said. “I’d die to save you.”
Delilah embraced her. “You needn’t do that ever. I don’t want you to be harmed.” A tug of guilt pulled at Delilah for what she was about to do.
She hadn’t intended to ask now, but the poison had been in the same bag as the yellow gown. The timing was awful, especially when Leasa was recovering from their attack, but it might be the only moment they were completely alone.
She pulled the blue bottle from her pocket where the glass had grown warm against the heat of her body. “I need you to do something.”
Leasa nodded eagerly. “Of course.”
“Take this.” Delilah dropped her voice to a whisper. “And when we stop to eat, put it into their drinks.”
Leasa hesitated before reaching for the poison. “Will it harm them?” she asked in a small voice.
“It will make them ill,” Delilah said. “Nothing more. A distraction to ensure we arrive later than Elizabeth.”
Percy had said only a few drops would make someone ill for a day, and even more would result in up to a week of nausea, retching, and heavy exhaustion. There wasn’t enough in the bottle to kill anyone, so Delilah needn’t have a death on her conscience.
Leasa scooped the blue glass bottle from Delilah’s palm and tucked it into her own dress for safekeeping. “So long as it will not truly harm them,” Leasa said. “They’ve been kind to us.”
“But they have also taken us.” Delilah’s reminder was not for Leasa alone. She also needed to keep that one glaring thought forefront.
Her mission.
Kaid and Donnan were committing a serious offense and would ultimately need to be brought to justice.
• • •
The blood would never wash out.
Kaid sat once more in the jostling coach, the silence heavier and more uncomfortable than before in light of their recent ordeal.
He continued to stare at the smear of blood on the sleeve of his leine. He’d changed into fresh clothes after they’d disposed of the bodies, but somehow there had still been enough blood on him to leave the stain.
It pulled at his attention like a beacon on a moonless night, and he could not tear his gaze from it.
Nor could he stop the path of his thoughts on their slow downward spiral. He should have avoided the raw memories, but
he curled them into his heart to suffer.
They were his punishment for failure.
“Kaid.” Elizabeth’s voice interrupted his inner turmoil.
He tried to shove aside the grate of irritation at having his penance interrupted. The sun flickered in through the narrow window of the coach, its brilliant light blinking in and out, like a dagger plunging repeatedly into Kaid’s skull.
If only his head did not ache.
He lifted his attention to Elizabeth and found her gaze fixed on him, her brow creased with concern. She was lovely, even when worried.
“Is everything well with you?” she asked.
He wanted to bark a mirthless laugh into the stuffy cabin and burst from its confines in an eruption of rage and sorrow.
Nothing was well with him. Not when so many of his people had been massacred, not when the remaining ones were so displeased, not when he had blood smeared on his clothing to remind him of even more misdeeds. More death.
Nothing would ever be well with him again.
“My head aches fiercely,” he offered finally. It was best not to admit the truth. Lady Elizabeth was a noble woman who had been horrified by the day’s events. He would not prod her pain any further with his own suffering.
“Were you injured?” She sat a little straighter in her observation, her face anxious.
Her concern was a momentary balm for the blazing anguish in his soul.
“Nay, lass. Dinna worry yerself. The headaches just come from time to time.” And they had. Ever since the attack. When sleeplessness had begun to plague him.
The valerian root.
He held the remnants in the pouch at his waist.
His heart raced, and something warm and hungry tingled at the base of his neck.
He swallowed.
Not now.
He must wait until the evening. After what had transpired the previous night, and after everything the women had already gone through, he would not allow himself to sleep in front of them lest he frighten them by having another night terror.
The desire for the vial permeated his thoughts. How he longed to feel the slick glass against his fingertips, to hear the gentle pop of its stopper. He even ached for the bitter taste on his tongue, for what it brought was beautiful and calming and eased him into the velvet nothing of sleep.
He might have nightmares while under the blanket of slumber, but he did not remember them in the morning. For those few hours, he was numb of mind and body. Blissfully, perfectly numb.
“Can I help with anything?” Elizabeth was speaking again.
Kaid clenched his jaw against the consuming weakness of his own desire and shook his head.
She sat forward and took his hand in hers. Her fingers were smooth and delicate, her skin a comforting warmth. “You can talk to me.”
Her gaze was soft, her bonny face open and honest, and for one brief moment, he wished he could speak to her. To share the horror of everything he’d witnessed and see if somehow she could pull him from the hell of his own mind.
He nodded his appreciation, and she sat back with a pensive expression lining her brow.
He glanced down, and his gaze found the blood smear.
The vial.
He wanted it. He needed it.
So much so, he did not notice the coach roll to a stop and hardly acknowledged the women leaving the cabin.
It was not until he heard voices outside that his attention finally caught.
“I’m worried about Kaid.” Elizabeth spoke quietly, as if she did not want him to hear. “Did something happen to him during the fight?”
“No’ this one,” Donnan answered quietly in return. “He wasna injured.”
Silence, and then Elizabeth said, “On another attack, then?”
“Aye,” Donnan said. “Our village was invaded no’ long ago. Many were slain.”
Kaid’s breathing had become hard and ragged and seemed to pulse around him from all sides of the coach.
“He’d tried to help them,” Donnan said. “But he was hit in the head. When he finally woke, everyone was—”
“Enough!” The word exploded from Kaid, and he jumped to his feet. The coach rocked with the sudden movement, and the voices abruptly stopped.
He yanked open the door with such rage, it almost tore from its paltry hinges. His muscles burned, and he leapt to the ground.
Both Elizabeth and Donnan regarded him with shocked expressions.
“Go with yer maid,” he told Elizabeth. “And heaven help ye if ye decide today is when ye run off.”
Elizabeth hesitated, as if she intended to say something, then thought better of it and turned toward the forest.
Kaid grabbed Donnan by the shirt and hauled him up against the coach. “Have ye lost yer damn mind?”
Donnan broke Kaid’s hold and shoved him back. “Have ye?” Donnan’s usually carefree expression was hard. “Isna it bad enough we’ve taken these women? Then we exposed them to violence no lass should bear witness to, and now ye act like a man possessed when she asks after ye because she’s worried?” Donnan dragged a hand through his hair, as he’d done the few times Kaid had seen him vexed. “Hell, Kaid, I’m worried about ye.”
Kaid glanced toward the tree line to confirm the women had not yet returned. “Ye needn’t worry about me.”
Donnan’s anger eased from his face. “Let’s let them go. We can leave them at the next town, and we can go back to Ardvreck. There are other options—”
“There are no other options,” Kaid replied in a low growl.
The women emerged from the forest, their expressions somber. Kaid swallowed the remainder of his temper. Donnan was right about one thing: the lasses didn’t need anything else to encourage their fear.
But he’d be damned if he let them go. Not when they were his only salvation.
Not when Lady Elizabeth made him finally feel something other than hurt.
Chapter Seven
Anger was oftentimes a mask for deep hurt.
Delilah knew the fit of it well. She’d experienced such rage herself when she first left London and joined the other women in Scotland. She’d given up her life for the mistake of one night with a man who had suffered no consequences.
But Kaid’s aching went deeper than a lover scorned.
It stole his thoughts and colored every decision he made.
Including abducting her.
He sat across from her in the bouncing coach, his gaze focused on the smear of blood on the sleeve of his leine. It was a scant thing, really. Little more than the tip of her pinky and long since faded from brilliant crimson to a dull and flaking maroon, but it seemed to be enough to capture his thoughts.
Leasa stared at the empty seat beside Kaid, fixed on her own demons.
The silence of the coach was stifling.
Leasa cupped something in her lap.
The little blue bottle.
Delilah’s heartbeat quickened.
She’d been so sure when she’d handed it to Leasa. But now…
The ache in Delilah’s chest was poignant, indicative of her empathy for the unknown horror Kaid had faced, what had so obviously shattered him. Now was not the time to poison him.
Perhaps later.
She tried to catch Leasa’s eye, but the maid continued to look forward.
In an attempt to break Leasa’s plaintive gaze at nothing, Delilah shifted in her seat and gave a delicate cough.
But it was Kaid who looked up. “Are ye well, lass?”
Perhaps Delilah could have lied, easily passed off her own comfort with a dismissive wave of her hand. But she wasn’t fine. She had to speak to Leasa to keep her from poisoning the men. Kaid needed his heart to be well before they so altered the state of his health.
“I need to get out of this coach,” Delilah conceded. She longed for one of the fans from court, or perhaps even the shaded coolness of a garden. To be out of the awfulness of the fashionable corset and into something more serviceable.
Delilah waited until Kaid was climbing from the coach before she grabbed Leasa’s hand and shook her head. Leasa nodded slowly in reply, and Delilah’s anxiety eased into relief.
Leasa understood.
Delilah accepted Kaid’s ready assistance and climbed from the coach into scenery so lovely it gave her pause. Sunlight danced atop a loch in flecks of gold, and the world around it was green and alive with lush trees and hills. The sky stretched endless and high overhead, leaving her feeling small in the most humbling of ways.
She tilted her head back and took it all in, the chill of a breeze on her face, the fresh air in her chest, the liberation from the tight, stale box.
“It’s beautiful,” Delilah breathed.
“They dinna have this in London.” A slight smile touched the corner of Kaid’s mouth. It was closer to a smile than she anticipated seeing on him anytime soon, and it lightened her heart.
Donnan hopped down from the driver’s seat with the food bag in his hand and a wide grin on his face. “I could go for an early midday meal.”
She caught the faint scent of spiced meat and freshly baked bread. Her mouth watered in anticipation.
The food, the entire reason they’d stopped when they did, had been unwanted after the attack. Now she felt as though she could devour the entire sack on her own and said as much.
Donnan laughed and swung the food behind his back. “Then ye’ll no’ get any at all.” He peered playfully toward the coach. “Where’s Leasa?”
Her head poked tentatively from the door.
“Come join us, Leasa. It’s lovely,” Delilah said.
Leasa tucked her lower lip into her mouth and shrank back inside slightly. “I thought you—”
Donnan swept into the coach and emerged with Leasa in his arms along with the bag of food. “I’ve the finest seat for ye.”
She gave a shrill cry, but the smile on her face showed it was all in good fun. Delilah couldn’t help the laugh bubbling up from her throat. A quick glance at Kaid showed a true, genuine smile on his lips.
Highland Ruse: Mercenary Maidens - Book Two Page 6