The Accidental Highland Hero (7 page)

No doubt she had done something evil and had no wish to know her name.

On the way to the stables, she heard Niall’s aunt’s voice and Niall himself headed in her direction. She rushed as fast as her shaking legs could take her down the opposite hall. ‘Twas not the fear of being caught, but the fever and chills that consumed her. Och, it was the fear of being caught also. Who was she trying to fool?

Continuing past another large chamber, she discovered backstairs most likely used by the servants. She hurried down them and found her way to servants’ quarters, a large room with rushes strewn across the floor and sleeping pallets stacked against one wall. Everyone seemed to be at the meal except for Niall, his mother, Tavia, and another man who spoke angrily to them. The laird of the castle?  James?

‘Twould be her luck that they had hidden the fact she was being harbored here against the laird’s will.

Two brawny, bearded Highlanders stood near the main entrance of the keep, blocking her escape. But luckily, they didn’t see her before she slipped outside toward the kitchen where the smell of boar and baked brown bread wafted. Most likely the kitchen doorway led to a garden, and, from there, she could reach the stables. The kitchen staff would be busy serving the meal. Mayhap if she ran fast enough, no one would pay her any mind.

Fraught with indecision, she stood frozen to the cold stone floor, her bare feet growing icier by the second. Men’s voices headed in her direction decided her fate. She darted for the kitchen and ran through it, where women stirred broth in iron pots over fire and others carried food into the great hall. Most didn’t seem to see her. But when Marsali nearly ran down a young girl carrying a platter of cheese, the girl cried out.

“What…?” the cook said, but Marsali bolted outside into the garden of herbs and flowers and for the second time in so many hours felt a sudden rush of freedom.

Having no time to tarry and ponder why she felt such a thing, she ran straight across the inner bailey. She thanked God the men on the wall walk looked out toward the hills, paying no heed to the small panicked woman who would steal a horse under their noses if she could and ride away from here as far as possible. Everyone else was inside the great hall, eating their meal. She prayed.

Dashing into the stables, she found a horse to borrow. He whinnied at her, poking his head over the stall as soon as she entered the stable. She didn’t think a horse oft chose her. But she did think she could ride.

She hadn’t time to saddle him before men shouted from the way of the kitchen. Her heart skittered. The cook must have raised the alarm.

After scrambling atop a stack of hay, she slid her legs over the horse’s back. She prodded him with her feet until he exited the stable. With her heart hammering hard against her ribs and her feverish head pounding, she gasped when several men ran toward her.

Half the laird’s staff she guessed. She was only one wee lass to cause such an uproar. If they hadn’t wished to kill her before, she had surely changed their minds now. The hardened looks on their faces, bearded, smooth faced, young and old, their mouths in grim lines and their eyes narrowed and fierce, like every one of them was ready to do battle, put the fear of God in her.

Kicking the horse, she raced for the open gate, praying if He had any mercy, she would escape.

Someone whistled, the horse halted, and she flew forward on the bony ridge of his back. After nearly throwing her, the horse turned toward the keep to her horror. She quickly grabbed his neck and held on tight, trying to direct him toward the gate, kicking his flanks again, without result this time. Doomed, she waited, shivers shaking her body with vengeance.

“Who are you?” a man asked, stalking toward her with a purposeful stride, his looks similar to Niall, the same stubborn chin wearing a light sheen of whiskers, but a scar marred his cheek. The same auburn hair, except streaked in places by the sun. His intense look and the deep, angry timbre of his voice left her slightly dazed. Or mayhap it was the fever. His eyes the color of burnt umber narrowed when he reached up to grab her. His lips pressed together in a thin, straight line.

His huge hands grasped her arms and pulled her from the horse, nearly causing her heart to stop. His fingers pressing against the brat still covering her sent a scorching flame through the woolen cloth and touched her skin.
‘Twas the fever, naught more.

“Stealing my horse, Lady?”

He…he seemed familiar somehow. Like Niall, and yet she couldn’t remember.

 Niall grinned, seeming to take the man’s actions in stride. “No one but you can ride the ornery creature, James. Think you that you have met your match?”

Her heart fluttered. She should have known by the arrogant tilt of his stubborn chin and the way he carried himself with a rugged elegance that he was the laird of the castle.

James grunted and cradled Marsalis in his brawny arms. “If she is a Dunbarton, you have brought the devil down on our heads.”

He stalked back toward the keep, holding her tightly against his hard chest, not allowing her the freedom to struggle or to keep a modest distance. Although she relished his touch and didn’t wish to get away, or mayhap she did but she was too weak and her mind with fever too muddled to know it.

The men all cleared out of his way.

His mother ran after him, her small footsteps pounding the pavement. “She is ill, my laird. Keep that in mind.”

“I should lock her in the tower for…”  He glanced down at Marsali. His heated gaze locked with hers. Heavens, he was a powerfully handsome man.

For an instant, emotions warred in those pools of umber—concern, anger, a hint of fascination—and if she didn’t know better, recognition. ‘Twas truly the fever making her so confused. For ‘twas a gift she normally had to know other’s feelings before even they did oft times. But her mind was playing tricks with her now.

His gaze shifted to the plaid blanketing her, and his dark brows rose. “She has even stolen my brat!”

Though he sounded just as angry as before, a trace of humor reflected in his voice. Mayhap he was not as brutish as he appeared.

Niall laughed. “Mayhap that is why your horse accepted her, cousin. He thought she was you.”

James made a half grunt and lunged up the stairs, taking two at a time as if he had to get rid of his charge before she scalded him. “She should not be in the chamber reserved for Catriona who is—”

His mother interrupted. “Catriona is not coming for a fortnight, and I make the bedding arrangements. The young mistress will stay in the quarters she has been assigned.”

His head whipped around to face his mother. “What say you of Catriona? You mentioned it before, but I did not believe—”

“I will speak to you later concerning the matter, James.”

He gave his mother a stern look. “I should have been apprised of the situation at once.” He gave Marsali a cursory glance, refusing to look into her eyes again.

She should have looked demurely away when he had chanced to catch her eye before. But she would not cower before His Lairdship. ‘Twas like staring down a mean-hearted dog. If she gave in, he would win. Well, not that this Highlander looked like any sort of dog, but—

“What if this woman is the lowest of servants?  She should not be staying in the chamber reserved for Catriona.” James scowled at Marsali, and this time, he dared her to look at him with the same kind of fierce determination. She obliged, although her eyes blurred slightly from the fever. She thought his lips turned up just a hair, but she could not be sure.

“She wore the finest of woolen garments, my son. This one is not a servant.”

Somehow, Marsali knew that. At least she was gladdened to hear the news.

Although James seemed to hold only contempt for her, he carried her close to his heart, which beat against her ear with a thunderous roar. His touch was gentle, but firm, his actions and his words not the same. Did he put on a show for his clansmen?  What did he intend to do with her?

What if she could make this man care for her?  What if she could get his clan and hers, if she were a Dunbarton, to cease their hostilities?  She felt no animosity toward these people, and she could very well understand his being angered with her, first, because his people didn’t tell him she was staying in his castle. Second, because she had tried to steal his horse. And third, because she had stolen his brat.

Closing her eyes, she snuggled tighter against the powerfully-built warrior and thought she heard him groan and curse simultaneously under his breath. Mayhap she could steal his heart as well?

Nay, she knew now the fever had thoroughly addled her mind.

****

James glanced down again at the petite woman cradled in his grasp as he carried her to the chamber adjoining his own. Her temple was swollen and purple, her eyes blackened, and the rest of her skin flushed with fever. Yet despite the discoloration, she seemed oddly familiar—the way her sea green eyes boldly challenged him, the way her tongue licked her dry lips—he shook his head. He’d never met the lass before.

Although she was fair whereas his beloved sister, Seana, had been dark-haired, she was much the same way, spirited, ill with fever, and could die like his sister had done in the blink of an eye. And for what?  Because he had forbidden Seana to run off with the Dunbarton’s great nephew?   For over a century there had been bad blood between their clans. There wasn’t any way he would have permitted his dear sister to marry the enemy. Now she was dead. As was the lad she had wished to marry.

James scoffed at himself. Had he allowed Seana to wed, mayhap she would be alive today.

Whatever animosity he felt for the Dunbartons had naught to do with this young woman, he reminded himself. If his mother and the healer could make her well, he gave his blessing.

Her hair draped over his arms in silky red-gold masses, and he imagined the ladies must have washed the seawater from the strands. A faint aroma of lilacs drifted to him, and he tried not to breathe in her subtle fragrance. Although her eyes were clouded with fever, they taunted him, defied him, capturing his gaze more than once.

‘Twas ludicrous that he should feel anything for the lass. Yet just the way she held his gaze and would not look modestly away and the way she snuggled closer to him like some wanton woman, turned his body into a raging fire. ‘Twas because he had left the lasses alone for the past several weeks in anticipation of wedding and bedding the fair Catriona that this lass was setting him ablaze.

When the lass should have been afraid of him, what did she do?  Stared him down like a Highlander readied for a sword fight. Would her tongue be as sharp as the looks with which she speared him?

She barely weighed anything more than an empty sack as her body burned with fever. ‘Twas the reason she had made him so hot, naught more. Although he could not account for the stiffening of his shaft. She was soft and feminine, smelled like a wee bit o’ heaven, and…well, no wonder she had made him as hard as the steel of his sword.

But the business with Catriona was another matter. “What did Catriona say about not arriving on time?  Was there some difficulty?  Is she ill?”

His mother clucked. “‘Tis all the lass’s doing, James. She is not ill and gave no reason for delaying the journey. Mayhap she is shy.”

“Not Catriona.” Not the way she came willingly to his bed or beseeched him to join her in hers. Which bothered James overmuch. What was the reason she had delayed seeing him?  He had made her well aware he had turned down the other ladies and wished to see her promptly. Shouldn’t that have endeared her to him?

Niall cleared his throat, and James glanced back, not realizing his cousin was still following him. “James, if the lady is not betrothed or from a clan we do not get along with, would you mind if I…well…”  He shrugged and nodded at the feverish woman.

His younger cousin could not be meaning he was interested in her.

“Nay,” James said sharply.

“Why not?  You are not interested in her.”