Highlander Enchanted (5 page)

The warrior-laird’s tunic clung to his muscular shape, and Isabel found herself staring, her jaw slack at the broad shoulders, chiseled back and lean torso perfectly outlined by his wet clothing. Her eyes drifted lower than his back, and she crossed herself quickly before turning away.

She had already committed one sin today by stealing his horse. Lust was an even greater one, according to Father Henry, one that had never tempted her before this savage.

Flinging off her soaked cloak, she crawled so as not to hurt her shin and climbed onto the grassy bank. “Can you … kill me with mercy without a sword?” she asked, trembling from more than the cold.

“Yea.”

She squeezed her eyes closed, too weak to run or resist. “’Tis a kinder death than I deserve.” Though sooner than she would have liked. To have made it this far and failed at the door of the man she sought was a testament of how foolish her journey was.

“Sir, I owe you a debt of gratitude for saving my betrothed.” The haughty statement made her breath catch.

Any hope she had that this day would end without her death vanished at the familiar voice. Isabel did not weep, but she bowed her head in defeat and began to pray in silence.

Chapter Six

Cade climbed to his feet, at once alarmed and angry with the Englishmen who stood on his land.

The man who addressed him was a nobleman in finery not often seen in the clannish Highlands and bearing a coat of arms Cade did not recognize from his service with the English in the Holy Lands. The well-dressed man was slender with dark hair, pale skin and a condescending glint in his light eyes that Cade instantly despised. It was a reminder of how the few nobles Cade met at battle had treated him, until they saw what he was able to do.

The rest of the men stayed back with the horses near the narrow road that paralleled the stream.

“Yer betrothed,” Cade repeated, casting a quick look towards the woman who claimed to be promised to him. Was this her scheme? To lure in men with wealth or land by lying? If so, did she not know he had no land or gold?

Isabel stared at the ground before her. Too well disciplined to fidget, she had clasped her hands in her lap. There were no more tears on her face. She had gone completely still, an animal braced for a beating. Something about her defeated stance, combined with the flicker of fire he had seen in her eyes when she claimed never to beg for mercy, disturbed him more than he wanted it to.

“Lady Isabel is my betrothed, yes,” was the response. “I am Lord Richard of Saxony. I have been chasing my beloved for weeks now. I fear she did not take well to the thought of marriage.” His smile held tightness and coldness was in his eyes.

Saxony.
Cade’s jaw clenched, and the coiled wariness returned to his stomach. One coincidence he was able to dismiss. Two?

“Ye both trespass on my land,” Cade stated.

“For which I seek your pardon, m’lord. You are the laird of … this?” Lord Richard appeared to be trying to be polite.

“Yea.” Cade did not fall for the act. If anything, it made him more suspicious. For what reason did a wealthy English lord bother seeking forgiveness from a Highland savage when he was in his right to claim his property, the woman promised to him?

Many years before, Cade had not known the depths of evil that ran in men’s hearts. The Crusades changed that, showed him that he, too, was a tarnished soul unable to resist the temptation of evil. He acknowledged his own weakness while becoming grateful for his ability to recognize it in others. Lying, cheating, lust, theft, murder. They became a way of life before his return to his home. There was not one great sin he had not committed countless times.

Isabel’s face and words held no such evil, even when she lied to him. He saw only great sadness and despair. She believed what she said was true and had admitted her real reason for being there, to kill him. She was a good woman, if ill guided.

Lord Richard, however, was not a good man.

Isna my battle,
Cade told himself. “Yer betrothed stole my horse,” he said.

“My apologies, Laird …”

“Caderyn MacLachlainn.”

Surprise crossed the Englishman’s face. He suppressed it fast. “Cade … Black Cade?”

“Yea.”

“You are a legend. I have heard tales of your deeds, of the great many Saracens you slaughtered in their sleep.”

Lord Richard’s praise left him unsettled, and he had an inkling it was because of the soaked noblewoman nearby.

“I would be delighted to hear such tales when told by the legend. Perhaps you would join us this day when we break our fast? I would be honored for the chance to recompense you for the wench’s theft of your horse.” As he spoke, the nobleman went to the woman he claimed as his and gripped her arm, pulling her up.

She winced. Her gaze was on Cade. The fire burning in the depths of her eyes was present once more, this time aimed at the man she claimed first to be betrothed to and then to want to kill. It was rare when he was unable to decipher a man’s motivation or understand a situation, for his survival in the Crusades had depended upon his shrewd judgment. He did not like the feeling of not knowing what great evil he had brought to his land in the form of a noblewoman he had never before met and the English knights pursuing her. That the noble claimed to be of Saxony caused his gut to twist. Instinct told him to send them all away, swiftly, before they brought unwanted attention to his clan.

Yet touching her had quieted the restless unseillie sorcery that called to him whenever he was in danger. Whatever she was, why ever she had entered his forest, he was unable to deny there was something special about her, English or not.

If not for the whisper of his magic beseeching him to show mercy, he would not have been convinced to humor the English when his own clan’s circumstances were of so much concern.

“Have you forgotten a woman’s duty to be humble and obedient, Isabel?” Lord Richard slapped the beautiful flower of a woman. It was not a hard strike, but the effect was immediate. She dropped her gaze and her shoulders hunched, as if she were expecting more blows to follow. “You will forgive her, Laird Cade. She does not yet understand her place but will be taught it.”

The moment he recalled the shadows in her eyes, Cade caved to the instinct crying out for him to protect her. The noblewoman was in some danger to seek him out and the English lord a little too quick to want to leave him.

Niall and Brian broke through the forest from the direction of a path known to those who grew up in the Highlands. Both reached for their weapons at the sight of the English party, but Cade motioned for them to stay calm.

“It would … please me to have you as my guest.” His words were forced.

Lord Richard stiffened. He looked Cade over with unhidden contempt.

Cade waited, sensing the noble had not been sincere about his desire to sit and regale one another with war tales. “Storms are coming. Ye willna want t’be in the forest when they do.”

Lord Richard gazed at the dark clouds above them and frowned. A crack of nearby thunder helped him decide. “It would be my honor,” the nobleman replied finally.

“Verra well. Niall, lead our guests home.” Cade strode to his horse and motioned for Brian to join him. He made a show of checking the horse’s trappings while waiting for his kinsman. “I doona trust this man,” he said when Brian drew near.

Brian nodded, blue eyes on the nobleman. “He has yer wife.” The only sign of his amusement was in his eyes. His features were stone.

“I doona know what scheme the wench is planning.” Cade finished with the saddle and opened his saddlebags to find his midday meal of bread and jerked meat soaked through. He tossed them, checked his water bladder for leaks then pulled out the oiled cloak he had neatly folded to take up less room. It was a tangled mess, too bulky to ride comfortably.

He shook it out and paused. A small satchel fell from the depths of the cloak. It was dry – and not his.

“The English lass wore one like that,” Brian said.

Cade crouched to retrieve it. After she stole his horse, he had no qualms about searching her belongings and opened it. Inside were several tightly rolled scrolls, a purse that no longer jingled, pungent herbs and a dagger.

Her claim about the royal decree returned to him, along with her determination to kill him despite never having met him before. Cade catalogued the contents mentally and rose. “Take this to Father Adam. ‘Ave him read the writs and tell us what they say.”

Brian accepted the satchel and hid it beneath his tartan.

“Go.” Cade pushed his cousin away and glanced towards the Englishmen.

Lord Richard had his hand wrapped in Isabel’s hair and her head yanked back at an angle Cade knew to be painful. Even when pale and scared, her beauty was unparalleled, her combination of quiet spirit and grace enchanting him. Lord Richard released her and hit her, this time harder, as if not caring who saw. She staggered into his horse, and he shoved her to the ground, speaking too quietly for Cade to hear the words.

Lady Isabel said nothing. She stared at the dirt between her hands, drenched and shaking, her features blank for fear of worsening her fate.

Unseillie magic trickled through Cade as he watched, and thunder rumbled in the distance. He clenched the reins of his destrier in one hand, not yet able to determine what it was about her that drew him to welcome dreaded
Englishmen
to his keep this day.

Aware he was staring, he mounted his horse and wheeled it away, trotting past the English without a look and joining Niall on the road.

“Yer mad, cousin,” Niall whispered. His glare was on the knights forming a line on the road. “Ye invite ‘em to our home?”

“Yea.” As the chieftain, Cade was under no obligation to explain his decisions. He usually did to his cousins, who were closer to him than brothers. But this time … he did not know what to say.

Niall’s green gaze sharpened. “Ye b’lieve the wench’s tale,” he said, surprise entering his voice.

“I doona ken,” Cade said with agitated restlessness.

“She is enchanting, but what ‘ave ye in yer mind t’do? Yer betrothed, or will be soon. Noble or no, she has no gold that I can see nor land in her purse. We doona wish the English to interfere with our clan!”

“I will ne’er allow harm to befall our kind or clan, Niall.”

Niall scoured his features. “I trust ye with my life, Cade. I want what’s good for us and our kin.”

“As do I. But I ken this is wrong, to let her leave now.”

Cade resisted the urge to turn and make sure Lady Isabel still lived. The Englishman had not thought twice about laying his hands on her, and Cade suspected she would not live long past their wedding night.

The fate of one English noblewoman should not concern him, but he was unable to dismiss her.

“’Tis odd, but so do I,” Niall said, though he sounded unhappy. “Can she be one of us?”

“Nay. ‘Tis not possible,” Cade replied. “She is no seillie.” As the leader of the seillie, a duty he inherited upon the death of his mother – the seillie queen – he alone was able to determine such.

“Then what?”

Cade had no answer.

Chapter Seven

The ride to the keep was short. The forest gave way to the Highland mores – vast, rolling plains of emerald grasses, sweet heather and shrubs broken up by tall hills and patches of woods – beneath a sky that foretold rain.

Isabel shivered in the cool breeze sweeping unhindered across the plains. No longer drenched, her clothing remained damp and her head throbbed from pain. Richard rarely struck her in front of others, and his reaction this day was a warning of what she might expect when they were in private.

He had her reins, or she would have fled him once more. Swiping at angry tears, she settled her breathing, not for the first time since leaving the stream, and looked towards the man she had traveled so far to find.

Black Cade. He was as large as they said but nowhere near as violent. He had shown her mercy upon their first encounter, with the intention of granting her a quick death after she stole his horse, a second display of mercy she would never receive from Richard. She had envisioned the man she came to confront as being more like Richard – with the powerful build of a warrior in addition to a cruel nature.

If anything, she had seen warmth from the man who robbed her of her family and experienced such desire for him that she became almost giddy. The memory of his arms wrapped around her, and his hard frame pressed against her, made her shiver for a different reason.

Richard had never once touched her with affection or spoken to her with tenderness since she met him at court. It was not lost on her that he had already claimed the title of her father, the Baron of Saxony. An ambitious man favored by the king, their marriage had been arranged shortly before her brother died in a dungeon in the Holy Lands. It was unheard of for a woman to inherit her father’s estates, and Richard had been a suitable husband, the younger son of a duke, unable to inherit but bearing a title already. When her father fell ill, however, the contract was never signed, but this seemed lost to Richard.

I, too, am favored,
she reminded herself. The secret that had to remain her last resort was too dangerous to reveal. At moments such as these, it was easy for her to forget how she came to be in the state she was, hunted across the country by the man determined to wed her. She had been given a choice of husband, as a favor to the king’s favorite courtier, her mother, a woman who had been one of his many mistresses for years before she married the Baron of Saxony.

She had thought the granting of that favor a godsend. It had fast become a curse, for Lord Richard’s determination to own her father’s lands became clear. There were no lengths he would not go to, nowhere he would not go to force her to wed him. Her first choice of a husband had turned up dead, stabbed through the heart, soon after it was announced she was to wed him. She mourned – and then planned to run.

The pounding of hoof beats drew her from melancholy. Isabel watched one of the painted warriors gallop past them towards the wooden walls rising out of the mores. In the south, great lords such as her father and uncle had begun to use stone to build their fortresses rather than wood, and she viewed the structure before them with interest. Men lined the walls and manned the gates, while farmland and ranchland stretched in every direction outward from the keep.