Page 49 of Her Highlander’s Darkest Temptation (Highlanders of Cadney #14)

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

“ Y e’re certain this is the place?” Donall crouched beside Ewan, his eyes fixed on the old watch tower in front of him.

It was one that had long since fallen into disuse, with the borders a half-days ride beyond it, but even so, he knew the answer to his question already.

There were tracks of horses, fresh tracks, in the dirt path leading to the tower, and signs of people inside.

“Callum tracked them, me laird. He’s one o’ our best, at least o’ those who werenae guarding the borders or injured.” Ewan responded. Beside him, Callum nodded.

“The riders have doubled back tae hide the trail, me laird, but I’m certain. The tracks are lighter an’ there are tracks o’ other horses… I’m thinkin’ they brought Miss Lydia here tae hand her off tae someone else.”

Someone else…

Donall could guess who it might be. While the wounded were settled and the tracking party decided on, he’d spoken to the guards who still had the energy to speak. None of them had seen any sign of Laird Cameron or Laird Wycliffe in the battle.

He could guess what their strategy was - attack, weaken his clan and test his defenses, while at the same time kidnapping Lydia.

The two lairds would wait for the results of the attack, safe from any harm while they waited for the kidnapping party to return - or for news of the defeat of their forces.

It was a simple plan, and one that minimized the risk for Rory Cameron and his new ally.

He could only hope their plans didn’t include anticipating being followed. If so, he and the four men he’d brought with him weren’t going to be enough. Ewan had pushed for a full dozen, but Donall had argued for speed over numbers, and so only five of them had left Ranald Keep.

“Ready blades, then move fast an’ quiet. We’ll try tae tak’ them by surprise.”

Ewan and the others nodded, and all of them drew their swords. Donall took a deep breath, feeling his muscles coil, then settle into the watchful, relaxed stillness that accompanied a battle mindset.

Half a dozen strides from the tower door, he gestured for them to stop. Donall tipped his head, listening, observing.

No guards that he could see. On the one hand, it was folly if Laird Cameron and Laird Wycliffe really were there.

On the other hand, guards would have drawn attention, so for purposes of concealing their presence, the lack of guards was a wise choice.

Unfortunately for Laird Wycliffe and Rory Cameron, it worked in Donall’s favor too.

He crept two steps closer, then stopped again to listen. Voices. Two men. And one… one woman.

Lydia.

Donall gave a flick of a signal to Ewan, who relayed it to the others. Then, without further delay, he charged forward and rammed into the tower door.

The door splintered like dried peat, and he, Ewan, and the other three warriors of Clan Ranald darted into the building… not quite fast enough.

Donall cursed. Somehow, Laird Wycliffe, the graying man could be no other, had been forewarned enough to grab Lydia. Now he stood behind her, knife pricking her neck, arm in a grip that, from Lydia’s expression, must have been bruisingly tight.

Donall came to a stop, Ewan and the others taking up guard stances behind him. “Let her go.”

“She’s mine.” Laird Wycliffe snarled the words. “My property, until the day I sign her over in marriage to Lord Cameron.”

“’Tis nae gonna happen.” Donall ground the words out.

“Aye, it will.” Laird Cameron stepped forward, an almost feral smile on his face.

“It will happen because if either ye or any o’ yer men attempt tae stop it, one of us will slit her throat.

An alliance in blood o’ a different kind can be forged - especially if we tell the king that ye killed her, an’ we united in bloodsworn vengeance again’ ye.

I would like tae remind ye she was mine long before ye had even met her, and I paid quite a sum fer what now may be damaged goods. ”

Ewan cursed. “Ye bloody-minded, evil bastard…”

“Och, watch yer temper. We wouldnae want Laird Wycliffe’s hand tae slip in anger…” Rory Cameron’s smile was a cold, mocking thing. He had them at stalemate, or even a disadvantage, and he knew it.

Donall bit his lip until the blood flowed. Risk the gaol and Lydia’s death, or withdraw? His heart screamed for him to charge forward and yank her to safety, but his head warned it would be folly, and his gut clenched in fear for Lydia and the echoes of old memories.

Then Lydia took matters into her own hands.

Neither man was paying her much attention. Laird Wycliffe and Laird Cameron likely thought her too frail or too cowed to act. Donall could have told them otherwise. As it was, he could only watch in delighted amazement as Lydia put the lessons he’d taught her into practice.

A head toss first, throwing her hair into her uncle’s eyes and narrowly avoiding breaking his nose as he dodged.

Then a stomp, delivered in her sensible, all-weather boots with all the force she could manage.

The blow raked his shin hard enough to take skin off even through the leather trews, and crashed into his instep hard enough to make the boot leather creak under it.

Lord Wycliffe stumbled back with a howl of pain, knife falling away as Lydia turned and hit him as hard in the gut as she could with her bound arms, then whipped the same leg up in a knee strike that Donall suspected ensured that even if he ever found a wife, Lord Wycliffe would never sire an heir.

Laird Wycliffe crashed to the ground in a breathless, gasping heap.

“Ye treacherous, misbegotten little wench!” Rory Cameron lunged at Lydia, his usually cold face a mask of fury and violence. Donall snarled and dove forward.

Rory Cameron was bigger than he was, but Donall was faster. He was also far, far angrier.

Donall knocked away the first strike, then drove in with his own blade, forcing Rory Cameron back in a flurry of blows that rang through the watch tower.

He was vaguely aware of his men spreading out, of Ewan taking a place at Lydia’s side, but all his focus was on the man before him.

The man who’d hunted an innocent girl, who’d attacked his people, killed his men, assaulted his castle - and all for a lass he could have simply asked to have returned, or else given up on and allowed to go free.

Rory Cameron stumbled back a few steps, taken aback by his fury. Then the cold mask slid into place, and he countered, blocked, countered again, then drove in, putting Donall on the defensive in a reversal of fortune.

Donall blocked, parried a strike and dodged a thrust that would have spitted him like a Christmas goose if it had landed, then blocked again and slid sideways in a pattern he’d practiced with Lydia, and drew a dagger from his belt into his off hand.

He feinted right, brought his sword up as if leaving an opening of his own - he faked going for an overhead with too much energy and not enough control to avoid swinging too high - and saw the instant Rory Cameron took the bait. The other man swung hard, clearly intending to cleave him in two.

Donall took one step back, leaped left, parried with his dagger and brought his sword down in a sharp, crescent arc all in the same motion. His chest burned with the strain of it, but it didn’t matter.

The blade cut deep into Rory Cameron’s chest, shattering his mailed surcoat and the ribs on his left side, and shredding the organs underneath.

Cameron choked, blood flooding from his side as Donall wrenched his blade free, then spitting from his lips as he tried to breathe through lungs that had likely been cut apart.

Then he fell, dead before he hit the ground.

Chest heaving, Donall turned toward Lydia. She was standing beside Ewan, her bindings cut and a cloak over her shoulders. She looked tired, battered, bruised and splattered with blood… and she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

He stepped toward her, intending to take her in his arms, then stopped as a groan echoed from the stone wall behind and to her left. Scowling, Donall stepped around her to find Lord Wycliffe, ashen faced and still clutching his injured groin and belly.

“Ye wretch…” Donall stalked forward, raising his sword as he went. He was prepared to drive it home in the man’s gut, when a slim, pale hand on his arm stopped him.

“Donall… wait, please.”

Her head was pounding, her whole body trembling in the aftermath of watching Donall fight Rory Cameron to the death and win. Her heart raced like the winds of a summer storm, and Lydia was certain she’d never felt anything as strongly as she felt relief when Donall emerged victorious.

She saw him turn to her, move toward her, then stop, relief and warmth fleeing from his gaze as he stepped around her and prepared to kill her uncle.

There was a part of her that wanted nothing more than to let him. Even so, Lydia found herself stepping forward. “Donall… wait. Please.”

He turned to her with a face like stone. “Why?”

Why indeed?

Lydia turned and looked at the man who had been the bane of her life since she was a child.

The man who’d taken her in after her parent’s death, true, but not out of any sense of affection or love.

Only out of duty, and the hope to use her to further his own ambitions.

He would have sold her, without a thought, to a man who would have delighted in torturing her, all to fill his own coffers and expand his own influence.

“Perhaps he deserves to die. But… he is my uncle. My kin. And if we are to be wed, your kin as well.” She moved closer to Donall. “I would not have you bear that on your conscience.”

Donall snorted. “He’s nae kin yet, an’ I wager I’d sleep easy enough.”

“But I would not.” Lydia shook her head, then hesitated as a new thought occurred to her. “Besides, he is an English lord. Do you truly wish to chance being accused of his murder? The king might have you imprisoned, even killed, if you kill him without any attempt to bring him to justice.”

“He brought mercenaries ontae me land. ‘Tis reason enough.”

“And you had me. Even though I am yours willingly, the argument could be made that he was only coming to reclaim me. And it is an argument his friends will make. My uncle has many powerful friends. Do not let your anger at him lay a trap we may not be able to escape.” Lydia kept her voice soft and entreating.

“She’s right, me laird. Better tae tie him up an’ deliver back tae his own, with an account o’ what happened here.

Let his king an’ his English fellows decide his fate.

” Ewan stepped up to stand at her shoulder.

“Ye dinnae want tae risk the English tellin’ tales an’ comin’ here tae demand retribution fer killin’ one o’ their own.

Clan Ranald willnae ever have any peace tae rebuild that way. ”

Donall considered. Lydia saw his hand clench on his sword hilt, and knew he was warring with himself, the impulse to destroy the threat Lord Wycliffe represented battling with the knowledge that their arguments were sound.

Then, with a snarl and an oath, Donall shoved his blades back into their sheaths.

“Fine. Find the guardhouse manacles, bind him tight, an’ load him on a horse. We’ll take him back.” Donall paused, his jaw working. Then… “Ye’re comin’ with me.”

Lydia yelped as he swept her into his arms without another word and carried her out of the building - a watchtower, she could see now. “Donall! What are you doing?”

“Tak’ng me betrothed away from the sight o’ a dead man.” Donall stalked into the woods, following a little path. It soon opened up into a small clearing, marked with a clear-running rill that danced through the center.

Donall set her down with a grunt, then bent and dunked a cloth in the water. “Here.”

The cloth was cool, refreshing against her skin. Afterward, Donall handed her a dripping water skin, and Lydia drank. She noted that he’d taken the time to wash away the worst of the blood as well.

She drank deeply again, then started to hand the water bottle back to him, only to give a startled gasp as he dragged her into his arms, wrapping her in an almost crushing embrace.

“I thought I’d lost ye.”

Lydia exhaled and buried her face in his sash as she wrapped her arms around him in turn. “I was afraid I would never see you again either.”

Silence fell for a moment, then broke as both of them spoke at once.

“I love you.”

“I love ye. With every beat o’ me heart.

” Donall’s eyes shone like emeralds and the deepest hues of moss in the rill beside them.

“I dinnae ken how it happened, or when, but I dinnae care either. I ken that I love ye, Lydia Wycliffe, enough tae fight the world fer ye. Fight the world or dae whatever else it takes tae keep ye.”

Lydia blinked against the sting of tears in her eyes. Her throat felt tight, her chest aching with happiness so great it was almost painful. “And I love you, so much that I would do whatever it takes to remain with you.”

“Good.” Donall drew her closer, then bent to give her a kiss. It was sweet and tender, his arms around her like a promise, and Lydia melted against him.

Ewan found them ten minutes later, still wrapped in each other’s arms, and smiled. “Time tae go home.”

Lydia smiled back, not even bothering to pretend indignation as Donall swept her into his arms once more. Overhead, the sun was setting and the first stars were appearing. “Yes… time to go home.”