Beloved Stranger (38 page)

He took off his jack, then his shirt and wrapped her in it.

She saw then that he was bleeding as well. She did not know whether it was a new wound or the opening up of the one he’d received when he fought the Armstrongs. She thought of him fighting the wolves for Audra and her, and now attacking a man so much superior in strength. Without a thought. Without reservation.

A noble who was truly noble.

“You keep getting wounded,” she said.

“I have never been a good warrior,” he said.

“Nay,” she said softly. “You are the best kind. One that hates killing but does what’s necessary. You did not fight the Armstrongs, but you moved yourself in front of the Charlton to save his life. That takes far more courage.”

His breath was still raspy.

He was silent for a moment, then said, “I let my father die.” He swallowed hard. “We were attacked, and I could not raise my sword against another. He was badly wounded and died a week later. The clan knew . . . or suspected.”

He stopped then, but she heard the agony in his voice, and she remembered the nightmares he’d had. Now she knew why.

“Is that why you were at Flodden Field?”

“Aye. I killed one Maclean laird. I hoped to save the other. And now I do not know if I fought or not.”

“You did. Your friend Jamie said you fought like a tiger next to the king. You never left his side.”

“You saw Jamie?”

“Aye, he kidnapped me.”

“I thought Cedric . . .”

“Nay, it was your friends. They were looking for you, and did not trust me not to reveal their whereabouts.”

Lachlan scowled. “Rory did not tell me that. The Macleans have a bad habit of kidnapping women.”

She reached for his hand, wrapped her fingers in his. “What do you mean?”

“Archibald helped kidnap Rory’s wife. He wanted a wife for my brother and thought one lady would be perfect for him. Unfortunately—or fortunately for us—he kidnapped the wrong one. ’Tis a long story, but you will like her.”

Her fingers stopped moving against his. He seemed to assume she would be going with him. But nothing had really changed, except the danger of Cedric was gone. She was still who she was, and he who he was.

“Wait,” he said and brought his finger to her lips. She listened, then heard a soft whistle, the sound of a morning bird, but it was not morning.

Lachlan whistled a similar call.

Minutes later two men rode into the clearing. She recognized Rory and Jamie immediately as they dismounted. Jamie went over to Cedric. Rory went to his brother and stood over him, then leaned down, offered his hand and helped him up. Then gave him a bear hug.

“You have nine lives, brother. Thank the saints. We saw the other man on the trail. I did not know you are that good with an arrow.”

“Archibald?”

“He should live if there is no infection. When your hobbler ran back to the Armstrongs, Jamie and several other Armstrongs came looking for us. I took one of their horses.”

Then he looked down at Kimbra, his eyes going over her bloodstained clothing and her torn wrists. “My apologies, mistress. I should have listened more closely to you.”

“Aye,” Lachlan said. “She saved my life, not once, but twice. Three times now. I do not know how she did it, but she managed to get partly loose from where Cedric had tied her and passed a dagger to me just as Cedric was ready to finish me. Her wrists . . .”

Jamie came over. “He is dead. The dagger went into his heart. Just as the arrow went into the other scoundrel.” He looked at Lachlan with great admiration. “For someone who doesn’t like to fight, my God, but you are good at it.”

She noticed the compliment did not make Lachlan smile. If anything, his lips tightened. He was, indeed, a reluctant warrior.

Rory urged Lachlan to sit, while he and Jamie looked for wood to add to the fire. When the blaze gave more light, he sat next to each of them and silently tended their wounds with such gentleness that she changed her mind about him.

“Hector?” Lachlan asked.

“We could find nothing of him.”

She saw the pain on Lachlan’s face. “Who is Hector?”

“He was at Flodden Field,” Lachlan said. “He was like a father to me.”

They were silent for a moment, all of them mourning a friend.

The grief on both Lachlan’s and Rory’s faces was stark, and she ached for both of them and all the others who had died that day.

And she knew Rory was most definitely Lachlan’s brother. They both lived—and loved—well.

 
 
L
ACHLAN spent the rest of the night with his arms around Kimbra. He did not care what the others thought. He had come too close to losing her.

Rory and Jamie had taken Cedric’s body somewhere. Lachlan did not care where or how, and then they had taken one look at Lachlan and silently retreated out of sight and sound.

They lay together, both too hurt to do much more than revel in the truth that they were still alive. And together.

He ached to be inside her again, to send both of them on that incredible journey they had shared just days ago. Just the thought sent heat racing through his body. But they both were too bruised, and she had come so close to being raped.

He knew only one thing now. He
had
to persuade her to come with him. He knew what she did not know: that Rory and the others would readily accept her. She had saved his life, not once but several times, and that made her one of theirs. But how to convince her?

He had never met a woman so stubborn. Unless it was Rory’s wife, Felicia. He smiled at the thought of the two of them together. No man would be safe.

He tightened his arms around her. He thought she was asleep. He hoped she was. The pain from those wrists must be agonizing. He would not sleep. He wanted to be aware every moment, to feel her next to him, to hear her soft breathing, which came from such a valiant heart.

If only she would believe in him enough to be his wife.

Dawn crept through the trees, sprinkling rays from a morning sun. He had evidently dozed off, because he saw her gray eyes looking at him with such tenderness that he thought his heart would burst. He leaned down and kissed her cheek, and she snuggled closer to him.

Rory was tending the fire. Jamie was nowhere to be seen.

His brother turned, gazed at him with the somber expression he wore too often since the death of his second wife. Felicia, his third, and their bairns usually brought a smile to his face, but Rory still considered the world cautiously. “Jamie went hunting,” he said. “I found some water. As soon as we get something to eat, we will return to the Armstrongs.”

“Nay,” Lachlan said. “Kimbra will want to see Audra.”

“We can send her back.”

“Like you did the last time? In any event, I gave my word to the Charlton. I do not intend to break it.”

Rory sighed. Then nodded. “Most of the ransom is still back at the Armstrongs. I found the gold, though, that your Cedric stole. We can take that with us.”

“Us?”

“I do not intend to let you out of my sight until we return to Inverleith,” Rory said.

“But . . .”

“You think he is honorable. We will have to rely on that,” Rory said.

Jamie rode in then with two rabbits, and quickly skinned and cooked them. They all ate, then Rory and Jamie saddled the horses.

They rode east on the trail that had brought them there. Halfway there they met a troop of Charltons, led by Thomas Charlton. They were immediately surrounded.

The Charlton approached them, his eyes going from one man to another.

Then he spoke to Kimbra. “Thank God you live. Cedric?”

“Dead. Both he and his brother.”

“By whose hand?”

“Mine,” Lachlan said. “He killed an Armstrong and wounded a man from my clan. He took the ransom money and Kimbra.”

“Good,” the Charlton said. “It will save me the trouble of doing it.” Then, “The ransom?”

Rory joined them. “I am Rory Maclean. I have a thousand pounds in gold. The rest is at the Armstrongs and will be delivered as I think it is safe.”

“Ye question my honor?”

“I do not know you,” Rory said.

The Charlton smiled. “Ye can have him back now. I trust
him.
”

“I will not leave,” Lachlan said. “Not without Kimbra.” He looked at the Charlton. “I want your permission to wed her.”

Kimbra had listened to the conversation with dismay. “Should you not ask your brother first?”

“It does not matter what my brother says. I wish you to marry me, not him.”

She glanced at Rory, obviously expecting an objection.

Rory then grabbed the reins of her horse and led her some distance away. Lachlan followed, and she was only too aware of the Charltons looking on curiously.

“Why do you wish to break my brother’s heart?” Rory asked Kimbra when they stopped.

Kimbra’s hand trembled on the reins. “How could you, your family . . . want me? I stole the crest. I . . . stole from the dead after . . . the battle. I am English. A reiver. I even went on raids.”

To her surprise, Rory threw his head back and laughed. “Holy Mother, but you sound like my wife, Felicia. She impersonated Jamie’s betrothed, then dressed up as a lad and got into one scrape after another. But she has a warm heart.” His voice softened. “And so, I suspect, do you.” He paused, and added, “How could we not want the person who saved my brother?”

“Go away,” Lachlan said. “I can do my own talking.”

Rory grinned. “Aye,” and he rode back to the Charltons.

Lachlan turned to her. “I love you, and Audra. I captain a ship. If you are not happy in Scotland, we can go anywhere. We can even come back here if you wish.” He hesitated, then plunged on. “I have never known what being happy was—of belonging someplace—until I met you.”

Lachlan paused, then said slowly, “There is something I should tell you first,” he said. “My family was cursed many years ago. A hundred years ago. One of my ancestors, another Lachlan, chained his wife—a Campbell—to a rock in the sea, hoping the tide would kill her. It did not. Some fishermen found her. But she died of a lung sickness, or a broken heart soon after. A curse was made by a Campbell: ‘No bride of a Maclean will live long or happily, and every Maclean will suffer for it.’”

He paused. “And no wife did live long, and all Macleans did suffer,” he said. “Then Rory, who had lost two wives, fell in love with a Campbell and they wed.”

“Felicia?” she said in a small voice.

“Aye. The curse may not be broken. I cannot say. It is one reason I wanted to be a priest. I did not think I could ever take a bride. But I believe Rory and Felicia, in their marriage, broke that curse. I cannot be sure. Nor can I be sure whether I will hesitate when I am needed.”

The story was heartbreaking. She realized the courage it must have taken for Rory’s Felicia to wed. Not only because of the curse but a hundred years of hatred. Could she be less?

She held out her hand to him. “You have always been the brave one of the two of us, whether you realized it or not. You will now have to be brave enough for three.”

“I love you, Kimbra. And Audra.”

The words—spoken softly and lovingly—curled around in her heart.

He leaned over and kissed her long and tenderly as shouts broke out among the Charltons.

Then, together, they rejoined the Charltons.

The Charlton grinned. “We will have the wedding at the tower, though I will sorely miss Kimbra’s potions, and her remedies.” He hesitated, then added, “I might invite my daughter and her barbarian of a husband.”

Kimbra grinned at him. She was bubbling inside with joy. Then she turned to Lachlan with a question in her eyes.

“Aye, love,” he said, then turned to the Charlton. “We accept with thanks.”

She looked startled, then pleased, at the endearment.

He planned to use it often.

How odd that war had brought him peace. Enemies friends. And a future he’d never dared dream.

He looked at Rory and thought he saw a tear there, but that was nonsense. Not Rory.

Not when his own heart was singing. Looking at Kimbra’s face, he knew she had a song there as well.

He reached out and took her hand. Home, he knew, would be wherever she and Audra were.

He’d finally found it.

A
UDRA bobbed with excitement.

Kimbra knelt beside her. “You look beautiful. ” “I know,” Audra said with confidence. “I have never had such a pretty gown.”

“’Tis not only the gown,” Kimbra said. “As Lachlan says, you are a very bonny lassie.”

“He says it about you, too. ‘My two bonnie lassies,’ ” Audra chanted.

“Aye,” Jane said. She had just finished braiding Kimbra’s hair and twisting it into a knot at the back of her head. Jane had been ecstatic at being asked to be in the wedding, to stand up with Kimbra.

A knock came at the door of her tower room, and Felicia Maclean walked in.

She wore a blue gown, the only one she had with her. But it brought out the blue of her eyes. To Kimbra’s surprise, they’d taken an immediate liking to each other. They’d sensed in each other similar spirits.

There had not been the slightest censure of her, only a warm embrace when Felicia had appeared at the tower just hours after she had arrived with Lachlan. Apparently Felicia had arrived at the Armstrongs just after the kidnapping and had defied every Armstrong warning not to travel to the Charlton tower.

Felicia heard Lachlan’s story with amazement and gratitude and told Kimbra she would always have a place in her home and heart for saving Lachlan. Then she gave her such an impulsive hug that Kimbra believed her.

Kimbra had even confided her fears to Felicia. That sometime Lachlan would come to despise her.

“Lachlan never judges,” Felicia replied. “At least no one but himself. He is the kindest, gentlest man I have ever met, and if not for Rory, I would try to take him from you. Not,” she added, “that it would be possible, not the way he looks at you. And he adores Audra. I hope you have more children. Mine would love to have cousins.”