At The Laird's Command (Sword and Thistle Book 3)

by Laurel Adams

  Brenna’s eyes darted to the unmade bed, then to me, then away as if she couldn’t bear to think of how low I’d fallen. “I’ve been saving something for you. Now is as good a time to give it to you as any.” With that, she drew from a pocket in her apron two biscuits and a little pot of heather-laced honey. “The biscuits are hard enough to chip your teeth, but I remembered how much you liked the honey. And it’s the last we have in the castle.”

  “Oh,” I said, my mouth watering for it, even as my stomach tossed. “But tell me you didn’t steal it from the larder…”

  If she’d gotten past Malcolm to do that, we’d both be hanged!

  “Of course not. The cook doled it out to me in compensation for giving up my salt-beef to the warriors. I thought I’d share it with you, since you once shared yours with me, when you first came here, and the laird wished to spoil you so…”

  My heart swelled a bit that she remembered me kindly. I felt very selfish for it. “I’m so grateful, but I really couldn’t eat a bite. You have it. Enjoy it for me.”

  She dipped the biscuit into the honey, as if to entice me. “Oh, I should think you need it more than I do. You’ve been through so much. I cannot imagine how it’s been for you, Heather. To nearly be killed by assassins then abandoned by the laird.”

  Abandoned by the laird.

  Those words still thudded into my chest and stole my breath away. That was exactly the way of it. And I wondered if it would ever stop hurting.

  “Take the honey,” Brenna said. “Keep your strength up. I imagine Ian Macrae is a demanding man.”

  There was something in the way she said his name that held a note of reverence, but also a touch of possession. Another glance at the rumpled bed told me how resentful she was of my sleeping arrangements.

  That was the my only warning. The only thing that sent the hairs up on my nape. The only reason I pulled back just as she raised the biscuit to my lips. “I said I’m not hungry, Brenna.”

  “Of course you are,” she replied, her eyes hardening to mean little slits. “Voracious as any harlot. So why not open your mouth wide for a little honey the way I’m sure you open it wide for the men you seduce.”

  The beckoning glitter of the honey in the light was as sharp as a dagger tip. I grasped her by the wrist to stop her from pushing it into my face. “What’s in the honey, Brenna?”

  “Don’t you know? You took it from me and then I took it back.”

  There was a certain madness in her expression, and the squeak gone from her voice. She’d always seemed a timid thing to me, in everything except for her love for Ian Macrae. Was that what she meant? “I didn’t take anything or anyone from you.”

  But her eyes darted to the windowsill and when I looked, I realized something was missing. The jar with the rune symbols. I hadn’t returned it to my sister because I hadn’t quite figured out the mystery of it, but it was gone from my windowsill where I’d left it. How long had it been gone? I’d been too busy helping the castle with its dwindling supply of water to notice it’s disappearance. And now a terrible suspicion welled up in me that Brenna had taken it, and that she knew exactly what was in it. “T’was the jar you took, was it? And it was poison.”

  “Belladonna,” she confirmed, with a malicious snarl.

  I cursed myself for a fool. Belladonna. Beautiful woman. It was there for me to see all along if I had been clever enough to see it. I didn’t have knowledge of herbs and poisons—that was my sister’s realm. But I knew enough to deduce that if Brenna had taken it and laced my honey with it, she wanted me dead.

  I might have told her that what passed between Ian and I at night was entirely innocent, or at least mostly so. I might have tried to defend my conduct. But the thought that I might be with child brought forth in me nothing but a fury of indignation. “Get out, you jealous little viper. And find some hole to hide in before I tell the laird and his men that you tried to murder me with food you probably did steal from the larder after all.”

  “You won’t tell anyone anything when you’re dead,” she said, breaking free of my grasp. The biscuit and the poisoned honey fell to the floor, but from her apron she drew out a knife. “Now I must gut you, when you could have done it easier. Poison isn’t so painful. A flush, a rash, a bit of stumbling and hallucination before you fade away…”

  My hands flew up and away at the sight of the butcher knife, my heart thumping wildly. Even though I could scarcely think of anything but the sharpness of it, her words slowly penetrated through the haze of fear. The symptoms she was describing were the same as she’d suffered…

  “Come to your senses, Brenna. The poison has destroyed your mind!”

  She didn’t reply, but swiped with the knife. I shrieked and jumped back from the slash of her blade, throwing a chair down between us to stop her. And in spite of my fear, another realization struck me.

  Assassins, she had said. Not assassin.

  The laird had told everyone it was a lone assassin. Only me, Malcolm, and Ian knew differently. And I gasped, “By the blood of Christ, Brenna. You’re the traitor, aren’t you? You let those assassins into the castle to kill the laird. But why?”

  “I did it for Ian,” she said, thrusting again with the knife, the tip catching the lace of my sleeve and tearing it open. “So he would become laird. He would never take it himself. He’s too honorable. Someone had to do it for him. I’m going to make him the laird of Clan Macrae, which he should have been from the start. When I do, he’ll see that your love is tawdry and cheap and for sale. But my love is true.”

  “Your love is true?” I asked, in outrage, scrambling with my hands along the dressing table for something to use to defend myself. “You nearly killed him that night, did you know that? He was wounded fighting the assassins you let into the castle. That’s what comes of your love.”

  “He shouldn’t have been anywhere near the laird’s chamber! I think it’s your fault he was. I don’t know how, but I have my suspicions. I know that the laird shares women, and I’ve heard you moaning like the whore you are in his rooms. I won’t let you corrupt an upright warrior like Ian Macrae.”

  With that, she thrust her knife again and this time she struck true. I didn’t feel the blade go into my side—at least, it felt more like someone had punched me rather than stabbed me. But the warm gush of my own blood told me what had happened.

  Another woman would have fallen to her knees with the pain, I suppose. But the dark games I played with the laird conditioned me to take pain and turn it to something else. Sometimes lust. In this case, fury.

  And in my fury I struck Brenna so hard that stumbled. Her foot caught in the sticky honey on the floor. She fell, hard, the knife skittering out of her hand. I grabbed it up before she could rise. “Guards!” I screamed, wondering why I hadn’t thought to do it before. Perhaps it was the shock of it.

  But Brenna was nothing if not wily. Apprehending her danger, she too began to scream for the guards. In fact, she staggered to her feet, then made for the door, shouting, “Help! I’ve found the traitor!”

  Then she ran.

  It was a castle under siege. There was no where for her to escape, was there? But perhaps she meant to give some sort of signal to our enemies.

  “Guards!” I cried again, giving chase.

  Flying down the staircase, her fair hair flying free of its bonnet, Brenna called back to me, “Who do you think they’ll believe? A good girl like me or a scheming strumpet whose witch of a sister keeps poisons in the physiker’s laboratory?”

  “They’re going to believe me,” I said, entirely sure of it. And finding strength in myself because I was sure of it. Leaving a trail of blood behind me, I staggered after her as she ran out—not into the castle courtyard, but towards the sea wall, where a cold wind blew fiercely underneath clear winter skies.

  Maybe she did have a plan of escape. Was there a boat waiting for her at the sea gate? How deep did the conspiracy go? I caught her by the hair just as she reached the first no
tch in the wall, and whipped her back against the stones. She grasped me too, trying to throw me from the wall.

  In this, she was foiled by two things.

  First, though I was bleeding badly from the injury in my side, I was too strong for her. Second, we’d come upon Arabella at the sea wall, watching for Davy’s corpse to wash up, as was her daily habit. And upon hearing my shrieks, my sister sprinted toward us, shouting, “Brenna! What are you doing?”

  “She’s the traitor,” I cried over the wind, while Brenna scratched and bit and kicked at me.

  Arabella saw the blood on my dress, then her eyes narrowed at Brenna. “It was you? You vile, tattling, little rodent!”

  “That’s rich coming from the other castle whore,” Brenna spit. “Fortunate thing that Davy died with a good name before he could marry you and sully it.”

  In a flash, my sister hurled her fist like a man and cracked Brenna in the nose. The blow should have felled the maidservant. Truly it should have.

  It haunts me to this day that it did not.

  Because in her desperate jealous fury, Brenna twisted and turned, trying to shove me off the wall with all her weight. And when I let go and ducked down…she went right over.

  I heard her howling scream.

  I heard the horrifying thump of her body on the rocks below.

  I didn’t look to see where she landed.

  When I did look up, it seemed every guardsman in the castle had come running. Not just them, but the laird and Ian, too. And seeing these men, my heart sank, for both my laird and Ian were bleeding from the nose and mouth as if they’d been in a fight for their very lives. Had they been battling each other or was the entire castle under attack?

  “Heather!” both men called to me in distress.

  God help me, I felt a tenderness for them both.

  But the heart does not lie in such moments.

  “My laird,” I cried, panting, on the cold, hard, ground. “You’re bleeding.”

  His face was a mask of terror and grief as he dropped to his knees by my side. “Oh, lass. Lass! You’re bleeding. Oh, my Heather…”

  “She’s been stabbed,” Arabella snapped, shoving him out of the way to press her hands against the wound. “No thanks to you, laird.”

  “It’s not his fault,” I whispered, but I felt my breath tighten and shorten as the laird squeezed my hand. “But the child…”

  I trailed off, my eyelids seeming very heavy suddenly.

  “Don’t close your beautiful violet eyes, Heather,” the laird commanded. “Stay with me, Heather. Stay with me.”

  Stay with me.

  Those seemed the only words I had ever wanted to hear from him, but were they too late now? Moments later, Malcolm was on the sea wall, eyes flashing for danger he could use his sword to conquer. “What’s happened?”

  “Davy’s dead,” Arabella sobbed. “That’s what that little bitch said. And she tried to kill my sister, too.”

  From the far away place I was drifting in the cold, I had the absurd thought to scold Arabella for using such language. It wasn’t ladylike. But my senses returned a bit as I heard Malcolm say, “Davy’s not dead.”

  “You can’t know that,” Arabella cried, her tears wetting my cheeks as she tried to staunch the bleeding from my wound.

  “I think I do,” Malcolm said, as we heard horns sound in the distance.

  Ian braced himself against the sea wall, peering in the direction of the sound. “There are ships coming. The shields are MacLennans.”

  And Malcolm actually smiled.

  “That’ll be Davy on the prow, then,” the laird said. “He snuck out of the castle and went for reinforcements. He got them.”

  “It’ll be a real fight now,” Malcolm said. “And one we can win, laird. Sgurr Uaran!”

  That was the Macrae battle cry.

  And it was the last thing I heard before my world went black.

  Chapter Eleven

  Never leave my side.

  Stay with me and be mine for all your days.

  These were the words I heard whispered over me as I came in and out of consciousness. At some point, I became aware of bandages around my ribcage, and an intense pain whenever I shifted.

  “She couldn’t have been luckier in the placement of the wound,” came the voice of the physicker above me, instructing Arabella. “It was deep enough to penetrate the muscle, but managed to merely graze all the most vital things inside.”

  Given the throbbing agony, I didn’t feel especially lucky. But I was alive, and in the laird’s bed, I saw, when I finally opened my eyes. It seemed as if half the castle was crammed into his quarters. The laird was in an armchair at the side of the bed, holding my hand. My sister was there, too, hurrying to fetch me something to drink. And Ian was at the window, staring out over the loch with a faraway gaze.

  “What happened?” I asked, though my voice was a scratchy, throaty sound.

  “The siege is ended,” Arabella said, excitedly. “Davy did it! Clan MacLennan broke the blockade and sent Donald ships to the bottom of the loch. What remained that were fool enough to attack the castle walls were shot down or cut down and sent to a watery grave.”

  The siege was ended. I could scarcely make sense of that, and how it changed our circumstances. For so many months we had lived as prisoners in these castle walls, suspicious of one another, unsure of the future. But now it was over…

  “What of the laird’s marriage to the Donald girl?” I asked, for I was sure that must have been part of the negotiation to end the battle. “Or will it be a MacLennan bride, now?”

  “It will be a MacLennan bride,” our chieftain said, exchanging a tense glance with his second-in-command. Ian crossed his arms over himself—a gesture I now knew was one of self-protection rather than defiance.

  Ian was in pain. Terrible pain. I could guess why. And it did not all have to do with me—or even that Brenna had schemed against us for his sake. The last time I saw him, I had confessed to him the laird’s command that I win his affections. That I was supposed to lure him into loving me so that he might take me as his own once the laird was dead and gone. And Ian had exploded into a temper of both wounded pride at being manipulated, and the deepest hurt at being so mistrusted by the man he had dedicated his life to.

  “Fetch some more water for your sister,” the laird commanded Arabella, taking the cup from her hand.

  “There’s a whole jug right here by the bed,” she said.

  “Go get another one,” the laird snapped, with a hard stare, making it plain that he wished for her to go. “Or do whatever it is that you must do to prepare for your own wedding, which you can have on the first day Heather is strong enough to see you respectfully married.”

  Arabella glanced at me as if she would argue, but I nodded.

  So she kissed my cheek and reluctantly went to the door. “Do not tax her, my laird. And if you make her cry again…”

  The laird raised an eyebrow to see what Arabella would threaten.

  She should have cowered but she stood her ground, her nostrils flaring, and letting him guess what revenge she might take upon him.

  “Her heart is as precious to me as it is to you,” the laird finally said.

  Arabella harumphed at that, but went on her way, leaving me alone with the laird and the man he had given me to.

  For Arabella’s sake, I’d kept the tears from my eyes, but now wetness gathered on my lashes. “Have you met the girl you’re going to marry?” I asked, too weak to lift my head from the pillow, but trying to muster the strength to accept it. I was a mistress either way. Men kept wives and mistresses both. Whether I was Ian’s mistress or the laird’s mistress or a harlot for any man in the castle, there would always be wives to contend with.

  The laird brought my hand to his lips. “Lass, I told you in my own way, I would be as faithful to you as a husband. You must know that. I was never going to marry the Donald girl and—”

  “He wasn’t, ye ken,” Ian broke
in, his eyes still on the loch. “He was going to make me kill him, instead.”

  I gasped at this.

  “That wasna precisely the plan, Ian,” the laird snapped.

  “Near enough, though,” Ian replied, grinding his teeth. “Whether I was the one to run the sword through your guts or let someone else do it, the end is the same. So, I’ll have you know the truth, Heather. He was—”

  “Was never going to marry the Donald girl!” the laird shouted, then calmed himself when he saw me startle, wincing at the pain. “And thanks to Ian, I won’t have to marry the MacLennan girl either.”

  I glanced at the window, curiosity swirling in my chest. “Thanks to Ian?”

  Ian rolled his neck, as if it pained him. “I’m the laird’s kinsman. I have holdings of my own. Some women—not you, of course—would find me to be a catch. I have offered myself as a groom in the laird’s stead, and if it be acceptable to the MacLennans, the laird will release me from my vow of fealty and I will swear it to the MacLennan, instead.”

  Oh, the hurt I felt for Ian in that moment. It left me nearly breathless. He wanted to be released from his vow to the laird; he wanted to get away from us both. He felt betrayed and wronged and abandoned, and yet, he still wished to do this one last service to his chieftain. And to me.

  “So you see, lass,” the laird said, kissing my palm softly. “I will not have a wife. Only you. If you will still have me…and I realize this may be no easy answer for you. I don’t know that you can forgive me. I should not blame you if you hated me to the marrow of your bones. But you are alive, and safe, and that is more than I could have asked for only a few days ago.”

  As my heart swelled with his words, Ian turned, his cheeks puffing in anger. “More than you could’ve asked for? No. You could’ve asked. You could’ve asked me. ‘Look after her, Ian. Love her as I do.’ And I’d have done it or died in the trying. You could’ve asked, but you didn’t. You asked it of her. You trusted her. But never me. No matter what we’ve shared. Battles. Strategies. Pleasures of the flesh. You’ve never trusted me when I have proved nothing but worthy of your trust. Let that be on your head.”