Rebellion & In From The Cold (4 page)

It was one on one now, for another of the attackers lay dead behind Coll, and Brigham took time to draw a deep breath. Then he saw Coll’s horse slip, nearly stumble. He saw the blade flash and was racing toward his friend. The last man of the band of attackers looked up to see the horse and rider bearing down on him. With his three comrades dead, he wheeled the pony and scrambled up the rocks. “Coll! Are you hurt?”

“Aye, by God. Bloody Campbell.” He struggled not to slump in the saddle. His side, where the sword had pierced it, was on fire.

Brigham sheathed his sword. “Let me see to it.”

“No time. That jackal may come back with more.” Coll took out a handkerchief and pressed it to the wound, then brought his gloved hand back. It was sticky but steady. “I’m not done yet.” His eyes, still bright from battle, met Brigham’s. “We’ll be home by dusk.” With that, he sent his horse into a gallop.

They rode hard, with Brigham keeping one eye out for another ambush and the other on Coll. The big Scot was pale, but his pace never faltered. Only once, at Brigham’s insistence, did they stop so that the wound could be bound more satisfactorily.

Brigham didn’t like what he saw. The wound was deep, and Coll had lost far too much blood. Still, his friend was in a fever to reach Glenroe and his family, and Brigham would not have known where else to find help. Coll accepted the flask Brigham put to his lips and drank deeply. When the color seeped back into his face, Brigham helped him into the saddle.

They dropped down out of the hills into the forest at dusk, when the shadows were long and wavering. It smelled of pine and snow, with a faint wisp of smoke from a cottage farther on. A hare dashed across the path, then crashed through the brush. Behind it, like a flash, came a merlin. Winter berries, as big as thumbs, clung to thorny limbs.

Brigham knew Coll’s strength was flagging, and he paused long enough to make him drink again.

“I ran through this forest as a child,” Coll rasped. His breathing came quickly, but the brandy eased the pain. He’d be damned if he would die before the true fighting began. “Hunted in it, stole my first kiss in it. For the life of me, I can’t think why I ever left it.”

“To come back a hero,” Brigham said as he corked the flask.

Coll gave a laugh that turned into a cough. “Aye. There’s been a MacGregor in the Highlands since God put us here, and here we stay.” He turned to Brigham with a hint of the old arrogance. “You may be an earl, but my race is royal.”

“And you’re shedding your royal blood all over the forest. To home, Coll.”

They rode at an easy canter. When they passed the first cottages, cries went out. Out of houses, some fashioned from wood and stone, others built out of no more than mud and grass, people came. Though the pain was streaking up his side, Coll saluted. They crested a hill, and both men saw MacGregor House.

There was smoke winding out of the chimneys. Behind the glazed windows lamps, just lighted, were glowing. The sky to the west was ablaze with the last lights of the sun, and the blue slate glowed and seemed to turn to silver. It rose four stories, graced with turrets and towers, a house fashioned as much for war as for comfort. The roofs were of varying height, strung together in a confused yet somehow charming style.

There was a barn in the clearing, along with other outbuildings and grazing cattle. From somewhere came the hollow barking of a dog.

Behind them more people had come out of their homes. Out of one ran a woman, her basket empty. Brigham heard her shout and turned. And stared.

She was wrapped in a plaid like a mantle. In one hand she held a basket that swung wildly as she ran; the other hand held the hem of her skirt, and he could see the flash of petticoats and long legs. She was laughing as she ran, and her scarf fell down around her shoulders, leaving hair the color of the sunset flying behind her.

Her skin was like alabaster, though flushed now from delight and cold. Her features had been carved with a delicate hand, but the mouth was full and rich. Brigham could only stare and think of the shepherdess he had loved and admired as a child.

“Coll!” Her voice was low, filled with the music of laughter, rich with the burr of Scotland. Ignoring the horse’s dancing impatience, she gripped the bridle and turned up a face that made Brigham’s mouth turn dry. “I’ve had the fidgets all day and should have known you were the cause. We had no word you were coming. Did you forget how to write or were you too lazy?”

“A fine way to greet your brother.” Coll would have bent down to kiss her, but her face was swimming in front of his eyes. “The least you can do is show some manners to my friend. Brigham Langston, Lord Ashburn, my sister, Serena.”

Not hard to look at? For once, Brigham thought, Coll hadn’t exaggerated. Far from it. “Miss MacGregor.”

But Serena didn’t spare him a glance. “Coll, what is it? You’re hurt.” Even as she reached for him he slid from the saddle to her feet. “Oh, God, what’s this?” She pushed aside his coat and found the hastily bound wound.

“It’s opened again.” Brigham knelt beside her. “We should get him inside.”

Serena’s head shot up as she raked Brigham with rapier-sharp green eyes. It wasn’t fear in them, but fury. “Take your hands off him, English swine.” She shoved him aside and cradled her brother against her breast. With her own plaid she pressed against the wound to slow the bleeding. “How is it my brother comes home near death and you ride in with your fine sword sheathed and nary a scratch?”

Coll might have underplayed her beauty, Brigham decided as his mouth set, but not her temperament. “I think that’s best explained after Coll’s seen to.”

“Take your explanations back to London.” When he gathered Coll up to carry him, she all but pounced on him. “Leave him be, damn you. I won’t have you touching what’s mine.”

He let his gaze run up and down her until her cheeks glowed. “Believe me, madam,” he said, stiffly polite, “I’ve no desire to. If you’ll see to the horses, Miss MacGregor, I’ll take your brother in.”

She started to speak again, but one look at Coll’s white face had her biting back the words. With his greatcoat flapping around him and Coll in his arms, Brigham started toward the house.

Serena remembered the last time an Englishman had walked into her home. Snatching the reins of both horses, she hurried after Brigham, cursing him.

There was little time for introductions. Brigham was greeted at the door by a gangly black-haired serving girl who ran off wringing her hands and shouting for Lady MacGregor. Fiona came in, her cheeks flushed from the kitchen fire. At the sight of her son unconscious in the arms of a stranger, she went pale.

“Coll. Is he—”

“No, my lady, but the wound’s severe.”

With one very slender hand, she touched her son’s face. “Please, if you’d bring him upstairs.” She went ahead, calling out orders for water and bandages. “In here.” After pushing open a door, she looked over Brigham’s shoulder. “Gwen, thank God. Coll’s been wounded.”

Gwen, smaller and more delicately built than her mother and sister, hurried into the room. “Light the lamps, Molly,” she told the serving girl. “I’ll need plenty of light.” She was already pressing a hand to her brother’s brow. “He’s feverish.” His blood stained the plaid and ran red on the linen. “Can you help me take off his clothes?”

With a nod, Brigham began to work with her. She coolly sent for medicines and bowls of water; stacks of linen were rushed in. The young girl didn’t swoon at the sword wound as Brigham had feared, but competently began to clean and treat it. Even under her gentle hands, Coll began to mutter and thrash.

“Hold this, if you please.” Gwen gestured for Brigham to hold the pad she’d made against the wound while she poured syrup of poppies into a wooden cup. Fiona supported her son’s head while Gwen eased the potion past his lips. She murmured to him as she sat again and stitched up the wound without flinching.

“He’s lost a lot of blood,” she told her mother as she worked. “We’ll have to mind the fever.” Already Fiona was bathing her son’s head with a cool cloth.

“He’s strong. We won’t lose him now.” Fiona straightened and brushed at the hair that had fallen around her face. “I’m grateful to you for bringing him,” she told Brigham. “Will you tell me what happened?”

“We were attacked a few miles south of here. Coll believes it was Campbells.”

“I see.” Her lips tightened, but her voice remained calm. “I must apologize for not even offering you a chair or a hot drink. I’m Coll’s mother, Fiona MacGregor.”

“I’m Coll’s friend, Brigham Langston.”

Fiona managed a smile but kept her son’s limp hand in hers. “The earl of Ashburn, of course. Coll wrote of you. Please, let me have Molly take your coat and fetch you some refreshment.”

“He’s English.” Serena stood in the doorway. She’d taken off her plaid. All she wore now was a simple homespun dress of dark blue wool.

“I’m aware of that, Serena.” Fiona turned her strained smile back to Brigham. “Your coat, Lord Ashburn. You’ve had a long journey. I’m sure you’ll want a hot meal and some rest.” When he drew off
his coat, Fiona’s gaze went to his shoulder. “Oh, you’re wounded.”

“Not badly.”

“A scratch,” Serena said as she flicked her gaze over it. She would have moved past him to her brother, but a look from Fiona stopped her.

“Take our guest down to the kitchen and tend to his hurts.”

“I’d sooner bandage a rat.”

“You’ll do as I say, and you’ll show the proper courtesy to a guest in our home.” The steel came into her voice. “Once his wounds are tended, see that he has a proper meal.”

“Lady MacGregor, it isn’t necessary.”

“Forgive me, my lord, it’s quite necessary. You’ll forgive me for not tending to you myself.” She picked up the cloth for Coll’s head again. “Serena?”

“Very well, Mother, for you.” Serena turned, giving a very small and deliberately insulting curtsy. “If you please, Lord Ashburn.”

He followed her down through a house far smaller than Ashburn Manor, and neat as a pin. They wound around a hallway and down two narrow flights because she chose to take him down the back stairs. Still, he paid little notice as he watched Serena’s stiff back. There were rich smells in the kitchen, spices, meat, from the kettle hung by a chain over the fire, the aroma of pies just baked. Serena indicated a small, spindle-legged chair.

“Please be seated, my lord.”

He did, and only by the slightest flicker of his eyes did he express his feelings when she ripped the sleeve from his shirt. “I hope you don’t faint at the sight of blood, Miss MacGregor.”

“It’s more likely you will at the sight of your mutilated shirt, Lord Ashburn.” She tossed the ruined sleeve aside and brought back a bowl of hot water and some clean cloths.

It was more than a scratch. English though he might be, she felt a bit ashamed of herself. He’d obviously opened the wound when he’d carried Coll inside. As she stanched the blood that had begun to run freely, she saw that the cut measured six inches or more along a well-muscled forearm.

His flesh was warm and smooth in her hands. He smelled not of perfumes and powders, as she imagined all Englishmen did, but of horses and sweat and blood. Oddly enough, it stirred something in her and made her fingers gentler than she’d intended.

She had the face of an angel, he thought as she bent over him. And the soul of a witch. An interesting combination, Brigham decided as he caught a whiff of lavender. The kind of mouth made for kissing, paired with hostile eyes designed to tear holes in a man. How would her hair feel, bunched in a man’s hands? He had an urge to stroke it, just to see her reaction. But one wound, he told himself, was enough for one day.

She worked competently and in silence, cleaning the wound and dabbing on one of Gwen’s herbal mixtures. The scent was pleasant, and made her think of the forest and flowers. Serena hardly noticed that his English blood was on her fingers.

She reached for the bandages. He shifted. All at once they were face-to-face, as close as a man and woman can come without embracing. She felt his breath feather across her lips and was surprised by the quick flutter of her heart. She noticed his eyes were gray, darker than they had been when he’d coolly assessed her on the road. His mouth was beautiful, curved now with the beginnings of a smile that changed his sharp-featured aristocratic face into something approachable.

She thought she felt his fingers on her hair but was certain she was mistaken. For a moment, perhaps two, her mind went blank and she could only look at him and wonder.

“Will I live?” he murmured.

There it was, that English voice, mocking, smug. She needed nothing else to drag her out of whatever spell his eyes had cast. She smiled at him and yanked the bandage tight enough to make him jerk.

“Oh, pardon, my lord,” she said with a flutter of lashes. “Have I hurt you?”

He gave her a mild look and thought it would be satisfying to throttle her. “Pray don’t regard it.”

“I will not.” She rose to remove the bowl of bloodstained water. “Odd, isn’t it, that English blood runs so thin?”

“I hadn’t noticed. The Scottish blood I shed today looked pale to me.”

She whirled back. “If it was Campbell blood, you rid the world of another badger, but I won’t be grateful to you for that, or anything.”

“You cut me to the quick, my lady, when your gratitude is what I live for.”

She snatched up a wooden bowl—though her mother would have meant for her to use the delft or the china—and scooped out stew and slapped it down so that more than a little slopped over the sides. She poured him ale and tossed a couple of oatcakes on a platter. A pity they weren’t stale.

“Your supper, my lord. Have a care not to choke on it.” He rose then, and for the first time she noticed that he was nearly as tall as her brother, though he carried less muscle and brawn. “Your brother warned me you were ill-tempered.”

She set her fist on her hip, eyeing him from under lashes shades darker than her tumbled hair. “That’s fortunate for you, my lord, so you’ll know better than to cross me.”

He stepped toward her. It couldn’t be helped, given his temper and his penchant for fighting face-to-face. She tilted her chin as if braced, even anxious, for the bout. “If you’ve a mind to chase me into the wood with your grandsire’s claymore, think again.”