Page 8 of The Laird’s Guardian Angel (Highland Lairds #3)

7

T hey surrounded the Sassenach , their swords outstretched toward his neck and those of his companions. Alistair grinned, ignoring the pain in his shoulder as he eyed the band of men they'd been following up and down.

The weaklings were shaking in their English boots, a few of them looked very close to pissing themselves, and one of them definitely already had. Cowards.

"What are ye doing on Ramsey land?" Alistair demanded. The ache in his shoulder made him surlier, and where he might have tried to be nicer to coax what he wanted out of the fools who dared traipse across the border, the pain at the hands of one of their countrymen left little compassion if any inside him.

Och, who was he kidding? He'd never be nice to an Englishman. He hated the bloody lot of them. In fact, they were lucky to be alive. Before he'd met his sisters-by-marriage, he would have killed any Englishman on sight. He only gave pause now in case they were related. Which he doubted very much. Rhiannon and Douglass would give him much praise for his restraint, he was certain. And to be honest, he loved their praise.

"We come in peace," the man who was clearly their leader said, his hands held upright in surrender. Though his voice held no hint of worry, the way he was squinting his eyes said otherwise. It was a good sign then.

"Did you hear me? We. Come. In. Peace." The leader's tone sounded as if he wasn't sure they spoke English, pronouncing each syllable loudly and slowly.

Alistair frowned, exchanging a glance with Duncan and Broderick. Was the Sassenach drunk? There was no way he'd come in peace, and certainly not a way in which Alistair would believe a dammed word out of his mouth. The man was daft if he thought they would. He was also daft for thinking they didn't speak English.

Unable to help himself, Alistair laughed. "Peace ye say? Was it peace that had us fighting your countrymen yesterday? Peace that has us patrolling the borders so ye willna come across to rape our women and steal our livelihoods? Or was it peace that had your king determining that men of your ilk could take our brides on their wedding nights to try and impregnate them?" Alistair shook his head, a cruel smile forming on his lips. "I dinna think peace is the word ye meant, ye maggot."

"Maggot?" The man had the audacity to bluster as if he'd had his feelings hurt at Alistair's insult. His cheeks turned red, and the hands he'd held up in surrender a moment ago turned to fists. "I am no maggot, and you, well, you are a heathen."

Alistair's grin widened. "Och, that's more like it. No more talk of peace, ye insult us both by even saying the word. Let me hear ye tell it how much of a heathen I am so I have reason to finish this business and kill ye and your men. I grow weary, and I'm in need of a good ale."

The man took a threatening step forward, only to be stopped by the tip of Duncan's sword against his chest. "You would not dare!"

Alistair laughed again, and this time, Duncan, Broderick, and the rest of their men joined in. A dozen Scots laughing in his face only made the man's face turn nearly purple.

"Dare?" Alistair asked. "I believe that's my middle name. Enough dallying, I'd like to see ye bleed."

"Peace is the right word," the man blustered, a stamp of his foot as if he were a child in a grown man's body. "I was delivering my late wife's daughter."

Alistair narrowed his eyes. "She died in childbirth? And what sort of man brings his wife to Scotland and delivers the bairn himself?" Heaven help him, but Alistair would never understand the bloody English. What a fok?—

"My wife did not die in childbirth." The man shifted on his feet, seeming agitated now. There was something about the way that he spoke that seemed untrustworthy.

Alistair narrowed his eyes. "Och, so ye killed her then?"

The Sassenach blanched white, even his lips thinned to colorless lines. His mouth popped open and shut like a fish out of water. The men around him stared like they hadn't thought of that possibility until now. Interesting. What exactly had Alistair stumbled upon. The woman's footprints. Did they belong to his wife? Was she now dead? Was he planning to frame the Scots for her death?

"So ye did kill her," Alistair said, clear from the way he was acting that was the case.

"Nay!" the man shouted. "I did no such thing."

Alistair cocked his head. "Ye're no' making sense. And ye look guilty."

"The only thing I'm guilty of is leaving her daughter in this godforsaken land."

Alistair imagined a bairn left out in the wild for anything to pick at her. The poor wee thing. He heard no cries. Either she was far from here, or she'd already been taken by a beast or the fairies, and a changeling would come in her place. Either way, this man was a cruel and heartless bastard who deserved the Fate that Alistair was about to provide him with.

"I assure ye, we've God aplenty here," Alistair said. "Now, say your prayers loudly so he might hear them over the whining from your mouth. It seems God has put ye in our path for us to mete out your punishment for murdering your wife and bairn."

"For the love of…" The man growled under his breath, and it was all Alistair could do to contain himself and not dispatch him right then and there. "My wife's daughter is a grown woman. She is half Scots, and I returned her to where she belongs."

His wife's daughter. Was she not his then?

"Half Scots, ye say?" Now Alistair's attention was well and truly grabbed. Perhaps the tiny footprints they'd seen belonged to this young woman, not his wife? Curious. "Who did ye leave her with?"

"The Ramseys." The man sneered up at him as if that was supposed to be an insult.

Despite their skirmishes over the years, the Ramseys were their allies, especially against the English. If he was insulting the Ramseys, then he was insulting the Sinclairs.

"Why did ye no' keep her for yourself?" Alistair was more curious than anything to know why the fool Sassenach would have risked crossing the border to drop a wee thing in Ramsey lands. A grown woman or not, she had tiny feet. Made no sense.

"Keep her? You heathens are all the same. Why would I do such a thing? I loved her mother, not her, and I would never take her to wife. She's too… stubborn. And she's bloody Scots."

"And her mother was no'?"

"No. Mary was full English."

Interesting. This English bastard claimed to have loved her, and yet it was obvious he killed her, too. Perhaps it was good then that he'd brought her daughter to Scotland, returning her to her father so she would be safe. Clearly, she was not in this man's hands.

"Ramsey's daughter, then?" Everyone knew that Ramsey had gotten himself an English bride during a border raid. She'd been around for a time and then left. Rumors spread rampantly through Scotland as to why, but anyone who knew the old bastard just assumed Lady Mary had grown tired of him and run off. Hell, if she'd been a relation of his, he'd have encouraged her to run off. Then came the news she'd been killed. No word until now. How odd.

Then again, this man had said wife. She couldn't be his wife if she was Ramsey's wife. Alistair was an intelligent man, but this situation was a bit much to parse out. He simply shook his head at the fool man.

"Answer me, Sassenach . Was it Ramsey's daughter?"

"I owe you nothing." Stubborn as they came, the man lifted his thin chin.

"That's true, ye dinna. But, perhaps I'll show ye mercy."

Duncan shifted his head, a look of concern etched on his brown. Alistair never showed mercy to the English. Especially not when they were this annoying.

"A quick death for ye and your comrades."

"Ha! You think I'm going to divulge information in exchange for a quick death. You really are stupider than our king told us you were."

Alistair shrugged. "'Tis up to ye, but I'll have ye know, my man right there," he nodded his head toward Duncan, "loves to watch a man die slowly. First, he'll take your fingernails. Then, your fingers. Then your wrists, then to your elbows and shoulders. Chopping until your limbs are in a hundred bloody chunks, but still, ye remain alive."

Duncan grinned wildly, nodding like a hungry beast. He would, of course, do no such thing, but the terror on the Sassenach's face was priceless.

Another stamp of his foot, his hands in the air. "All right, all right, I'll tell you! Just don't chop me up."

"I accept your plea for mercy. Do go on." Alistair stabbed his sword into the ground and crossed his arms over his chest to listen.

"She is Ramsey's daughter. I was her mother's lover, though we called each other husband and wife. The old man wouldn't give her a divorce even when she begged him. But he denied her. She faked her own death. Only now, she is actually dead. An accident."

"I'm surprised he let her go at all," Alistair said.

"Why?" the Englishman shrugged. She hated him; forcing her to remain would only be an embarrassment."

Alistair laughed. "Ye dinna know the Scots verra well then."

"And a good thing. I'd not want to know any of you, and I'm only here out of obligation to my former wife."

"Lover," Alistair corrected. He may not have liked Ramsey, but he wouldn't disrespect him by letting another man call his wife his own.

The man narrowed his eyes, and again, Alistair wondered at his hesitation in just running him through.

"I… humbly beg of you that you allow me to pass. Understand that I did Ramsey a favor in bringing his only daughter back. Would you kill the man who returned her to him?"

The only words the man had said thus far that made any sense at all. Alistair made a disappointed noise in the back of his throat. A good point, he had, and not one that Alistair could find fault with. Ramsey was likely very happy to have his heir back, even if she was a lass. Though having grown up in England with a traitorous mother, and this maggot as her stepsire could not have made her into a strong woman. She would likely be a disappointment.

Still, if Ramsey had let the man go, then it wasn't Alistair's right to kill him. He wouldn't ruin their alliance by doing so.

He indicated that his men should lower their swords. Duncan was the loudest in his disappointment, groaning and stabbing at the earth, which had several of the Englishmen jumping.

"While I would have very much enjoyed watching the lot of ye bleed out, it is no' my place to issue such punishment. Clearly Ramsey saw a reason to keep ye alive. Be gone from here. If I happen across ye again, I will no' hesitate to see my lust for blood sated."

The Sassenach gasped, not so much in shock as he was sucking in air through lungs that had been deprived of oxygen for far too long. Still, he wavered. What the hell?

"Be gone with ye, I said." Alistair shot his arm to the side, waving then on, and Duncan helped him out by slapping the flank of the man's horse, which took off at a gallop without his rider.

The Englishman stole one of his entourage's mounts and gave chase, the rest following at a pace that was likely to drain their horses' energy quite soon. Idiots.

Alistair turned back to his men, a look of disgust on his face. "Why the hell would Ramsey let that man live? He's been foking his wife all these years and claiming ownership? Being a father to his daughter?" Alistair shook his head. "No wife of mine, nor her lover, would survive such."

"Does that mean ye've changed your mind about finding a wife?" Duncan asked the tone of his voice a challenge as well as a tease.

"No' on your life. My lands will go to my brothers' sons, whoever has one first."

"A bloody shame, my laird. For ye'd make some woman?—"

Before his man could finish, Alistair punched him in the shoulder. "Do shut up. Let's ride. I want to stop by the Ramsey keep to make certain we didna just let an enemy of Scotland go."