The Protector

by Allison Butler

  Instead of stepping back as she’d expected, he crowded closer still. His rich, brown eyes narrowed.

  ‘The women of the Borders are courteous, as my actions are meant to be.’ His deep-timbred voice rumbled slowly through her. ‘They would give thanks for help given, whether needed, asked for, or not.’ Calloused fingers closed about her hand and turned it over. ‘They’d likely smile to show their gratitude and be on their way.’ He pressed her once again forgotten reins into her palm. ‘But you aren’t from the Borders and it appears you do not know how to smile.’

  Mairi’s heart stopped and then gave an odd thud, as if it had fallen over inside her chest. She did know how to smile. She’d smiled this very morning while visiting her secret glade, the only place she was free to be her true self. Smiling wasn’t part of the heir of Clan Gordon’s daily duties and for Mairi, fulfilling her duty was everything.

  He turned from her, stalked toward his horse and threw himself into his saddle.

  She’d achieved her goal. She’d succeeded in offending him. A necessary distance had been created between them. He’d not touch her again. Or look at her either. It was for the best.

  She nudged her horse into motion, and from the corner of her eye she watched Duff draw alongside. His mount kept pace with hers, but his master also kept a personal distance between them.

  Good.

  An instant and unfamiliar curiosity regarding Duff Elliot was stretching and yawning to life and she didn’t understand why. It shouldn’t matter to her why this man from the Borders was here, so far from home. It shouldn’t matter if there was somewhere he needed to be. He was a stranger, yet she wanted to know so many things about him.

  They topped the rise and Mairi scanned the wooded valley for any sign of trouble. She saw none, other than the man riding beside her. She glanced discreetly at Duff. How terribly strong and masculine he looked, without any effort at all.

  Was there someone special waiting for him? A wife? Small, dark-haired children?

  Stop!

  She forced her gaze from the man she knew was trouble.

  Castle Gordon wasn’t far. Thank the saints she’d not have to abide his presence much longer. The moment she entered the castle grounds, Duff’s duty to escort her home would be done. He’d leave and she could get on with her duty-filled, orderly life.

  Chapter Three

  Duff gritted his teeth so hard he expected them to break. Did the woman’s arrogance know no bounds?

  The chilled stare she’d given him, along with her insult, had been so icy he’d almost shivered. Even her golden beauty failed to thaw the frost from her tone. He’d been a fool to think she was vulnerable. She was a cold one. Cold and self-centred. She wouldn’t understand what it meant to feel vulnerable.

  If he wasn’t honour-bound to deliver her safely home, he’d steer Duncan south and head for Braemar as planned. But he’d given his word to Alastair Gordon. The man had entrusted him, a no one, with his daughter’s life.

  A daughter with spellbinding blue eyes.

  Eyes the same hue as a frozen mountain loch that would numb a man to his soul with a single dip.

  Duff studied the surrounding wood, then for a second time he studied the landscape before them. He’d been unprepared this day already, distracted by the woman who filled his arms to perfection and his senses with her sweet, alluring scent. It would not happen again.

  For the first time in Duff’s life he’d been at the mercy of a man holding a blade to his throat. All because he’d suffered an overwhelming need to save a woman who’d viewed his help as an interference. Her expression of cool boredom at the mention of her wounded clansmen indicated their injuries were nothing more than an inconvenience to her. She showed not an ounce of worry for them.

  He was acquainted with several women of high birth, but none he knew possessed hearts carved from stone. She may have been warm to his touch when he’d held her but he was certain ice flowed through her veins.

  And she’d been desperate to escape his hold.

  Did she sense he was a bastard? A nobody?

  Did she fear he’d taint her highborn-self by touch alone? The women he’d bedded had never complained of him laying hands, or any part of him, on them. But the women he bedded would never have insulted a man who’d tried to assist them.

  It was obvious Mairi Gordon had been spoiled all her life. As the laird’s daughter, she took the lives of the men who fought for her father, as well as a stranger’s assistance, for granted. She obviously wasn’t acquainted with appreciation. She simply expected.

  He silently prayed her family home wasn’t too much farther. His teeth couldn’t take much more.

  Moments later, they rode over a slight crest and he saw the answer to his prayer.

  Aged, brown stone walls surged at least forty feet from the ground up. Two round towers, a good ten feet taller than the surrounding curtain wall, marked each front corner of the enclosed structure. Further behind, Duff glimpsed another circular tower to the left, jutting out like a whore’s hip in a tempting pose, and a matching tower in the distance to the right. Inside the curtain wall, and to the rear of the imposing fortress, a great rectangular tower, easily measuring fifty feet, soared high into the air.

  Thatched cottages dotted the grasslands to the castle’s south where the occupants looked to be busy working on their small plots of land. Duff shifted his gaze from the sight of prosperity and focussed once again on the castle.

  Two guards manned each side of the wall above the castle’s gate. Two more stood at each corner tower. As they rode closer, Duff saw the gate was in fact a drawbridge, presently lowered and lying over the deep moat surrounding the east, west and south sides. Midmorning sun shone down on what appeared to be a large land-bound loch protecting the north side of the formidable, sprawling structure.

  Duff dropped back to allow the laird’s daughter to lead them across the drawbridge. The clatter of hooves beating on wood drew the attention of many.

  Mairi Gordon raised one hand high for the guards atop the wall, then nearing the castle’s plain arched entrance, kicked her mount into a gallop and thundered inside. Once she was safely within, he’d be free to leave and go south.

  Duff followed and heard his charge calling for a man named Iain before her horse had drawn to a halt. Despite knowing his assistance would again be unwelcome, Duff couldn’t ignore the code of chivalry he lived by. He vaulted to the ground in time to catch Mairi as she leapt from her saddle.

  His hands spanned her slender waist. He heard the hitch in her breath at the same time her fingers settled on his shoulders. Their gazes locked. Bewitching blue stared back. He lowered her to the ground and released her. The heat of her palms seeped into shoulders. An unexpected look of yearning peered back at him. He barely drew breath for fear of breaking the spell. Running footsteps sounded.

  ‘What is it, lass?’ said a man as he ran toward them.

  ‘Dear God,’ she whispered, and snatched her hands from Duff as if she’d been burned.

  He stared at Mairi. She’d acted as if she hadn’t known she was still holding onto him. Was comfortable touching him. Not the reaction of a woman who detes—

  Rough hands seized Duff from behind. He let them.

  ‘Leave him,’ Mairi ordered. ‘He is with me.’

  Her defence of him surprised Duff. For a moment, the protected had become the protector. But the look of yearning quickly vanished and was replaced by cool control.

  ‘Who is he, Mairi?’ said the same man who’d answered her call. He glared at Duff, and then his gaze returned to the laird’s daughter and softened. Duff sensed the man’s feelings for Mairi ran deeper than duty alone.

  ‘He is nae one, Iain.’ Mairi turned away from Duff, as if she’d dealt with him and he no longer existed. ‘He is free to go.’

  Duff’s gut knotted at his dismissal, but he heard the familiar sound of indifference return to her tone as she addressed the man named Iain.

  ‘Father
and his men were attacked near the southern rise. Take three others and ride out to help him bring the wounded home.’ She issued her commands with confidence, using the same detached tone that sucked the life from her voice and gave no hint of concern for her clansmen or her father.

  ‘Aye.’ Iain turned to go, but turned back. ‘Are you alright, Mairi?’

  ‘Of course.’ Iain remained where he was, as if he doubted her response. ‘Go, Iain and be sure the rebels aren’t lying in wait.’

  An elusive, raw note in her voice gave Duff pause.

  Iain finally left to do her bidding.

  Mairi watched him and the others leave.

  Duff studied Mairi.

  From behind, he had a perfect view of the way she held her head high. The even line of her shoulders. Of her elbows resting at her sides.

  But as he continued to watch her, he noticed she was holding her head impossibly high, her neck at full stretch. He witnessed the subtle tremor that rippled across the rigid line of her shoulders. For a man with an eye for detail, he wondered how he’d missed the way her bent arms pressed tightly against her sides.

  The woman before him stood stiff and still and looked as if she’d shatter if even a gentle breeze blew in her direction.

  Was she as heartless and cold as she appeared to be? Or did she care a great deal and fought not to show it?

  Duff had never been more confused about a woman in his life. Or more curious.

  Mairi’s hands suddenly shifted. One dropped to her side in a tight fist, the other followed suit straight after it had tossed her long braid over her shoulder.

  Duff stood staring at the silken rope of thick hair as it swung from side-to-side before settling perfect centre to her spine. As if sensing his attention, Mairi spun on her heel and faced him.

  Her vibrant eyes momentarily flared wide in surprise before narrowing. ‘Why are you still here?’

  Her confusion at his continued presence seemed fitting, considering she was the cause of his.

  ‘Did you think I’d simply disappear once I had you safely home?’

  ‘Your duty is done, there is nothing for you here.’

  ‘My duty?’

  ‘Aye.’ The barely there line that had dared to form between her brows smoothed. Her expression turned superior. ‘Your duty was to escort me to Castle Gordon. I am here and have duties of my own to see to. You may go.’

  With those three words, she turned and marched toward the Great Tower, calling for a stable lad to tend her horse as she did so.

  He’d been dismissed. Again. He was now free to ride back over the drawbridge and continue to Braemar where he’d planned to wait for two weeks for Dair and Cal.

  Duff watched her climb the outer wooden steps of the tower and enter the door at the top of the first floor. She’d dispatched Iain and the others to assist her father home and had now likely gone to prepare the clan’s healer for the coming wounded. Once done, she’d have fulfilled all her father had asked of her.

  Completed her duty.

  Her words and actions proved her duty was something she took seriously. An admirable trait and one Duff completely understood. What he didn’t understand was that now he’d completed his duty, he was strangely reluctant to leave.

  With unhurried steps, he gained his mount’s side as a stable lad led Mairi’s black horse away. He scanned the bailey, filing away the positions of the outer buildings and the number of men peering down at him from the walls. A habit he performed without thought.

  He grasped the linen fabric sticking out from beneath Duncan’s saddle. He’d stuffed Mairi’s discarded cloak under his seat as he’d pursued her, moments before he’d caught her and carried her over onto his lap. He looked at the garment and caressed the linen with the pads of his thumb and forefinger. He looked to the stairs she’d climbed and then the door she’d disappeared through.

  For some unknown reason Mairi Gordon was like a kindling fire in his blood. He’d return her cloak to her, then he’d go. One more icy encounter would likely douse the fledgling flames she’d ignited.

  He started to pull the garment free when a shout rang out from high on the wall. The thunderous sound of hooves on wood echoed through the opening.

  Duff turned to the bailey’s entrance just as the commotion spilled into the yard. The laird rode in first. Duff quickly ran to the injured man slumped over the horse Alastair Gordon held in tow. With a groan, the wounded clansman slipped from the saddle. Duff caught him and was soon aided in holding his weight by the laird.

  ‘To the Great Tower,’ the laird directed him, and with a shoulder beneath each of the wounded man’s arms they carried him to the wooden stairs.

  ‘Not long now, Balfour,’ Alastair Gordon said as they neared the steps, ‘Tavie will see to your wounds.’

  Blood dripped from Balfour’s side and his only reply was a series of grunts between wheezing breaths, as he tried to take his own weight. Two clansmen dashed in and while one took over from his laird, the other lifted Balfour’s legs. Together, Duff and the others carried Balfour to the top and passed through the doorway on the landing above.

  They entered a vast chamber, but the men sharing Duff’s burden headed straight for another doorway to the right. The pungent odour of healing herbs battered Duff’s senses as they neared the opening.

  A tiny woman with more lines on her face than a forest had trees greeted them at the door and ushered them inside.

  ‘Put him there, lads,’ she said, in a surprising singsong voice that did not match her withered appearance.

  Once they’d deposited Balfour on the narrow pallet, they turned to leave, but found their exit blocked by the men who carried in the second wounded clansman.

  Duff pressed himself flat against the cold, stone wall to allow the men room to pass. The three carefully placed the man he remembered being called Nairn onto another pallet and then quit the room. Duff made to follow but his way was again obstructed, this time by the laird. And his duty-minded daughter.

  The Gordon laird coughed and then acknowledged Duff with a nod before he moved further into the room. Mairi ignored him as she walked passed.

  Duff turned and watched as the aged healer appraised each man’s wounds and whispered her verdict in the laird’s ear. His white-knuckled daughter stood by his side, wearing an unaffected expression, pretending not to care. Alastair nodded slowly and headed toward where Duff waited by the door.

  ‘How do they fare?’ Duff asked, watching Mairi assist the older woman.

  ‘Tavie says both men’s wounds are deep,’ the laird paused to inhale a deep breath, ‘but neither will lose their lives.’

  ‘‘Tis good to hear.’

  ‘Aye.’ Alastair turned to him. ‘Again, I am in your debt, Duff. Thank you for seeing my daughter safely home and also for assisting with the wounded.’

  ‘Your thanks are not necessary,’ Duff said, looking at the older man.

  ‘Nevertheless, you have them.’

  Duff accepted the laird’s hand and his gratitude with a nod before he once more sought out the man’s daughter. Mairi’s face was averted as she tended the wounded Balfour.

  It was time for Duff to leave. Pity his final view of Mairi wasn’t of her bonny face. Not that he’d soon forget what she looked like. But he couldn’t help wishing for her to turn and look his way just one more time.

  ‘It would please me if you stayed this night as my honoured guest.’ Mairi’s head turned swiftly at her father’s invitation.

  Duff’s wish had been granted, but she looked far from pleased.

  Wide blue eyes clashed with his, as if she were ordering him to refuse with her direct look. Her full lips were pressed flat into twin lines of uncertainty. Twin lines that suddenly parted.

  ‘Father, while I am certain he appreciates such a fine invitation, I am sure he has his own plans, now the trouble has passed.’

  Here was the dismissal he’d expected. The woman truly wanted him gone. His reluctance to leave doubl
ed.

  Alastair Gordon stared at his daughter for a few silent moments. ‘And I am certain a single night won’t upset Duff’s plans too much,’ he finally replied.

  Still holding her father’s gaze, Mairi said, ‘We … also have guests arriving tomorrow and there is still much to—’

  ‘But that is tomorrow,’ Alastair said cutting his daughter off. ‘I’m also certain Duff knows it would be an insult to refuse.’ Alastair’s smile assured him no insult would be taken whatever he chose to do.

  ‘I am well acquainted with insults,’ Duff said, turning briefly to look at Mairi. Her lips once again sealed together in a line of displeasure. ‘And I have nae intention of declining.’ He turned back to face her father. ‘It will be a pleasure to stay beneath your roof this night, Laird Gordon.’

  ‘Good. Good,’ Alastair said. ‘Mairi will see that a room is prepared for you once she’s done here.’

  ‘Only if it is nae trouble.’ Duff withheld a smile.

  ‘Nae trouble at all,’ Mairi said, giving Duff a slow nod. ‘It will be my greatest pleasure.’

  ***

  ‘It will be my greatest penance,’ Mairi mumbled as her fingers wrapped about the pillow the troublesome stranger’s head would soon be resting on. She couldn’t believe her father had put his trust in a stranger so easily and then asked him to stay. But he had, and she had no say in the matter. Duty was everything, but she’d also vowed long ago to do always do what her father asked of her. No matter what.

  A drawn-out sigh slipped from her lips. She lifted the innocent bolster and crushed it against her middle. The smell of heather teased her nose as she sat on the edge of the bed.

  ‘Why could the bothersome man not have left the instant he’d seen me safely home?’ Her whisper echoed softly about the chamber located on the third level of the Great Tower. The same level as her chamber.

  She hadn’t wanted to have him so close but the floor below had already been divided into sections for the three men her father had previously invited.

  One of whom would be her husband.

  She clutched the pillow closer to her chest. The thought of taking a husband wasn’t new for her, but with each passing day, precisely who she chose to fill the role became more daunting. What if she chose the wrong man?