Just in Time for a Highlander (9 page)

She was already climbing the rise, and Duncan had to jog to catch up. “Wait. I’ve changed my mind.”

“I canna teach a man who dinna wish to learn.”

“I want to learn! I swear I want to learn!”

She turned. “You will do as I say when I say it, aye? And you will learn to do it
before
I say it?”

“Yes.”

“Then get down on your knees, and make your oath to me. I am your chieftess and master.”

He fell to his knees, bowed as much by her words as by the force of her will. “What do I say?”

“The words must come from you.”

Duncan had never made an oath. He’d grown up in the Presbyterian Church, which seemed to require nothing more than regular attendance and some careful listening. He’d never been a scout or a fraternity brother, or even a husband. He’d never promised anyone anything. How had he gotten to be thirty years old without making a promise to something beyond himself?

He looked at her, so purposeful, so sure. What had she given up to take on this role? He thought of his own self-interested life, working hard, playing hard, pursuing any and every amusement he found interesting.

“I—I dinna have the words, Lady Kerr. I’m no speechmaker.”

“For this, I am Kerr,” she said gently but in a manner that brooked no deviation. “I stand for every Kerr who lived and breathed and every one who will live and breathe. The sentiment must be yours.”

He closed his eyes and searched, but found no feelings to put into words. Then he thought of Abby, alone and determined, and something stirred in his chest.

“I swear to your purpose, Kerr, whatever it may be. I swear to protect you in the best way I know and to get to know better ways—the best ways. I swear to put your needs before mine in all things. I swear myself to you for as long as I am with you.”

“Longer,” she said quietly. “Forever.”

“Forever.”

“If you’re a spy, MacHarg, I shall cut out your tongue and stuff it down your throat.”

“I’m not.”

He opened his eyes, and a smile had come to rest on her mouth.

“Well done—er, I mean to say you did well.”

“Do I get knighted?”

She chuckled, a beautiful contralto trill that reminded him of something out of one of the Bach concertos his grand-da used to play. “I do not knight people, MacHarg. I am nae a queen.”

“No, a queen does not require quite so much sacrifice.”

The chuckle turned into a full-throated laugh.

“Surely I get
something
for such a pledge.” He knew what he’d have chosen had the world been a different place.

She pulled an arrow from her quiver and laid the tip on his shoulder as if it were a scepter. “You are a clansman of the Kerrs. You are of us and with us, as if you’d been born to a Kerr mother. Your blood is ours and your body is ours, just as our body is yours.”

She made no acknowledgment of the other meaning one might derive from the last of her words, though he knew she had realized it because her voice had changed just the tiniest bit when she said it.

“Are ye ready, MacHarg?”

“Yes.”

“Then stand. ’Tis time for your first lesson.” She started down the rise again, toward the chapel.

He climbed to his feet and brushed off his plaid, looking around. “What can I learn here?”

“
Och
, there’s always something to be learned from a church, don’t ye think?”

“I…guess.”

She walked to the back of the chapel and stopped. After a look around, she removed a ring of keys from her pocket.

“I thought you said the chapel was abandoned?”

“I said it was in ruins, MacHarg, not abandoned. Scots do not abandon things that are useful. Dinna make me doubt you’re a Scot.”

She stripped off her quiver strap and laid it and her bow against the chapel wall before dropping to her knees. Closing her eyes, she stretched her arm behind some brambles that hugged the corner of the structure. He heard the scrape of metal and against metal. Then she withdrew her hand, returned the key ring to her pocket, and reached back. She withdrew one sword and then another from the place she’d unlocked.

“Hidden storage. Impressive.”

She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “One never knows when a few weapons will be needed.”

He picked up the sturdier of the two swords. It was considerably plainer than Bran’s sword. Nonetheless, it was serviceable and striking, with a well-honed edge to the blade. He didn’t dare swing it. Not after what had happened the last time. “Are they both for me?”

She chuckled. “Neither is for you. Unless you earn one, of course.”

“And how might I do that?”

She picked up the remaining sword and swung it hard enough to have sliced his belly wide open had he not leaped for his life.

“What the
fuck
?”

“That’s a verra impolite word, MacHarg. Have you forgotten there’s a woman present?” She swung the blade again, backing him so far across the uneven surface, he lost his footing.

He fell with a
thump
but managed to hold on to his weapon, and rolled instantly to his feet. He blocked her next swing, barely, and the clang exploded next to his ear. Jesus, was she going to kill him?

He retreated two steps and met another powerful swing. The metal rang in his hand. Adrenaline pumping, he shoved her back and jumped to the right, where her moves were unlikely to be as strong.

For a woman of five two, maybe five three, she had incredible reach.

“I have the longer sword,” she said, answering his thoughts. “Typical man, you chose the heavier one. Now you are paying the price.”

Her sword met his, once, twice. His heart pounded like it never had in class. Of course, in class the blades hadn’t been sharpened.

Sweat poured from him as he fought. Her feet barely moved, yet she always seemed to be a quarter turn from him. “You told me you didn’t know sword fighting.”

“No, I told you my father wouldn’t teach me. Eyes up. I’m not going to kick you. I’m going to slice off an appendage.”

The fog of shock had lifted at least, and his reflexes were there. He caught her blade high and then low.

“Your left side is exposed,” she said. “You might as well drape a target on it.”

He pulled his shoulder back. Her shoulders, straight and true, formed a perfect perpendicular line with her spine and, he noted somewhere in his head, pressed her breasts firmly against the neckline of her gown.

“
Pay
attention
,” she said. “I’m backing you over the same rock that tripped you earlier.”

He held his ground and beat her back a step. His arm felt about as responsive as a bag of sand at this point, despite the electricity charging through it. He took the hilt in both hands for added strength.

“Oh, good,” she said. “You’ve shortened your reach even more.”

She was a deft fighter, replacing height and strength with surprise and finesse. He had held off her challenge with brute force, but he could see the exceptional art in her movement, the deliberate beat of her tanned arms, the stretch and return of her swanlike neck—

His foot turned underneath him and he faltered.

She threw down her sword, exasperated.

“What?” he said, grateful to catch his breath.

“You pay no attention! How many different ways are you going to give me to kill you?”

“Don’t quit. Please.”

Her eyes flashed. “Take off your clothes.”

“What?”

“If you want to learn, get undressed. My father said the only way to get a man to pay attention is to put his balls between him and a sword. ’Tis the way every boy in our clan was taught.” She picked up the sword and stuck the point in the ground, waiting for Duncan’s decision.

Duncan was of several minds about taking his clothes off. However, he was of one very singular mind about putting his balls in harm’s way.

“I dinna think so.”

“MacHarg, have you forgotten the oath ye just took? Take off your clothes.”

Duncan considered his options. He wanted to learn enough of sword fighting to avoid more embarrassment. That was primary. His also knew his only hope of escaping this wretched place was to fulfill his mission as a strong arm, at least according to the witch, and everyone here seemed to bow to her wisdom. There was the oath, of course, though he had a vague sense that being required to satisfy a thirst for voyeurism was beyond the limits of even a clan chief’s powers. But most of all, he had a primitive and surprisingly titillating urge to find out what would happen if he let Abby have her way.

He met her eyes. “I have no problem taking my clothes off if that’s what you want.”

“Then stop talking and do it.”

Despite his bravado, he found himself fumbling with the brooch as he unpinned his plaid. “Tell me,” he said as the fabric’s heavy corners dropped to his waist, “might the opponent sharpen her skills by shedding clothes as well?”

Abby rolled her eyes.

“I’ll take that as a no.” Grabbing the belt’s hasp in one hand, he slipped the supple leather from the silver. The wool fell to his feet. The sark, gleaming white in the morning sun, flapped around his knees.

A light burned in her eyes, but prurient curiosity was only part of it, he thought. Another part was a teacher’s assessment of raw materials. Still another was the self-satisfaction the powerful take in looking at their possessions. Taken as a whole, Duncan found himself reluctant to take the last and final step. He shifted.

“Are ye under the impression I havena seen a man’s balls before?” she said. “I grew up with a brother, father, sixteen male cousins, and two hundred and thirty fellow clansmen. Be assured your balls will not merit the slightest notice.”

He steeled himself, slipped the linen over his head, and dropped it on the ground.

Between weights, running, and fencing, he had a rock hard stomach and shoulders that were naturally broad and intentionally sculptured. The reaction of various bed partners had taught him he cut a handsome figure. Yet, as he felt Abby’s eyes slowly measure the worth of what she saw, inch by inch, it took all the self-control he had not to jerk his hands into impromptu fig leaves.

“Your arms are workable,” she said without any particular enthusiasm, then, more to herself: “The hocks are strong. Perhaps the balance can be improved.” She chewed her lip, lost in observation. “’Tis not as bad as I imagined,” she announced, bringing her sword to the ready position. “You have the frame of a fighter. Let us try to match that with the trained instincts of one.”

Duncan barely had time to grab his sword before the first swing seared his side. “You cut me!” He glanced long enough to see blood, and she cut him again, this time his shoulder.

“That’s two points for me. Three, and our game is over.”

He could tell from her tone it was not an outcome he should hope for.

Both wounds stung, though he dared not look, concentrating his attention instead on fighting off her parries.

Her swings were harder now, and infinitely more precise. The hair on his neck stood on end with the proximity of mortal danger. He wondered for an instant if she actually intended to kill him, and the thought roused a fierce survival instinct in his belly. As he fought, the world became a blur around the circle that held her face, her hands, and her sword.

In the small space of his forebrain not dedicated to keeping himself alive, he began to muster a tiny offense. For seven or eight entire seconds, he pushed her back from her impenetrable foothold, till an unexpected lunge, whose windy wake tickled the hairs on his scrotum, destroyed any sense of advantage he’d felt.

But he had seen the surprise on her face. And his swings grew more assertive because of it.

That’s right, Lady Kerr. I am not who you think. And you do not own me.

He saw the bored certainty of victory on her face, and it inflamed him. He became an arm and a head, and she, a beating neck, a vulnerable heart, an unprotected flank. They might have been fighting an hour or a minute. The notion of time had no place in the battle being waged.

The mortal danger of the fight was doing something to his thinking. He felt alive, centered, brutish. He’d never wanted to vanquish someone, a longing far different than merely winning, but he wanted to vanquish Abby. He wanted to see her on her knees, abject, at the mercy of his wishes. It was a revolting desire, entangled with a primal longing that flushed his cheeks and tightened his testicles, but no amount of modern scrupulousness could flush it from his head. He was half-hard and didn’t care if she saw it.

Recognizing the fiery determination on his face, her blade work sharpened.

Her eyes flashed, defiant, as she beat him back.

You
willna
reign
over
me. You will know my tyranny.

His breath came ragged now, but his arm was steel. At the third massive blow, the sword flew from her hand.

He thrust himself between her and the weapon and watched the full knowledge of her defeat come over her. It was glorious.

He could kill her now. A tiny animal part of him wanted to, he recognized in horror. She saw the part too, and pulled a knife from her belt.

“I willna kill you,” he said, voice ragged.

The
but
hung in the air between them, as heavy and sharp as an ax.

“Nor will I take you against your will,” he said. “But I will have ye. Fair and square.”

He threw down his sword.

In her eyes a dark, rapturous fire blazed.

“Say ye’ll have me.”

“I am warrior, MacHarg, not a blushing milkmaid. I know what I risked.”

In two strides he was against her, crushing her body to his and tasting her mouth. It was savory and hard, like an exotic, muscular fish. He pulled up her skirts and ran his hands across her bare thighs. Her buttocks were high and round. He squeezed them, savoring the heavy silken weight.

She hissed. “I’m bruised there.”

“And you’ll be more.”

He extracted himself from her biting kisses and pressed her onto her knees. He could see her silent curses for him in her half-lidded eyes. His legs shook and he nearly came, so hungry was he to see her take in the thick, symbolic bit of her defeat.