Seduced by a Highlander (23 page)

Hearing him move about inside the barn, talking to
Glenny, as he’d promised he would, Isobel was tempted to peek through one of the cracks in the wall and look at him. He made her smile when she tried her best to hate him. He claimed to want peace between their families. Could she believe him? Did she dare?

And what, oh, what, would he do if he ever discovered the truth?

“Things would be different.”

I
t wasn’t at all odd to hear one or more of her brothers shouting for her aid before Isobel even rose from her bed. Usually it was John or Lachlan calling to report some trouble Tamas had instigated, but this morn, things were different. It was Tamas’s pitiful wails that brought Isobel to her feet and out the door. When she stepped into the hall, doors were opening on every side as her brothers, and even Tristan, rushed from their rooms to answer the call for help.

Seeing her youngest brother lying prone on the floor outside his room nearly stopped Isobel’s heart, and her breath.

Patrick reached him first, swearing an oath when his bare foot stepped on one of the many thistles spreading outward beneath Tamas’s fallen body.

“What in blazes…?” Patrick swore again, kicking the thorny blossoms out of his way.

Isobel followed, and when the path was made clear, she bent to Tamas and tried to help him stand.

“Nae!” he bellowed. “They’re in my feet! Get them out, Bel! Get them out!”

Horrified, she scanned Tamas’s small nightdress. From front to back, he was covered in thistles. Some were still intact, while others had fallen apart, their tiny needles sticking out of the thin wool that covered him.

“They are in my bed,” Tamas cried. “And on the floor. When I put on my boots so as not to step on them, they were in there, too! And then…” He sniffed. “… And then I tripped over that and fell into the rest!” He pointed to a limp length of twine hanging from one end of his doorframe.

Isobel regarded the disassembled trap with fury coloring her cheeks. She looked directly at Tristan and found him standing by his door, a slight smile curling one end of his mouth. “How could ye?”

To her surprise and dismay, John stepped forward. “He—”

“He had it comin’,” Tristan cut him off. “He’ll be fine, though his feet might be sore fer a few days.”

“MacGregor,” Patrick growled at him, “the sitting room. Now.” He continued to bark out orders as he followed Tristan to the stairs. “Cam, carry Tamas to Isobel’s room—and Lachlan, get that grin off yer face and get to work feeding the horses. John, ye come with us.”

John cast Isobel a worried look but did as he was told and marched, along with Tristan, down the stairs.

“Patrick will make him pay,” Tamas whined while his brother carefully lifted him off the floor.

Behind them, Isobel clenched her hands and glared down the stairs. Was this Tristan’s idea of making peace? Oh, she was a fool! He was nothing but a vengeful savage, just like his father.

“Cam,” she said after he helped lay Tamas in her bed. “Go to the sitting room and tell me everything that is said. Make certain Patrick does not strike Mister MacGregor again. More bruises will only keep him here longer.”

When he left, Isobel set about tending to her brother’s hands and feet first. She removed as many spikelets as she could, but some were too small to take out with her fingers. She would need to apply a draw-out balm. The rest weren’t so deeply embedded, caught up in his nightclothes rather than in his skin.

When she was done, she kissed Tamas’s tear-stained face and promised to return with her healing ointment and something warm for his belly. She was about to leave the room when Lachlan’s calls from outside stopped her dead in her tracks.

The Cunninghams were coming.

“Who?” Tristan bounded from his chair in the sitting room and raced Patrick to the door.

“Cunninghams,” Patrick told him, drawing a dagger from his belt. “They have come to burn our crops. Cam, get John above stairs!”

Lachlan’s shouts reverberated through the house as Patrick swung open the front door. The clatter of horses chilled the morning air and Tristan’s heart along with it. In an instant, he was transported back in time, back to that same fear he had felt when his father opened the door to Campbell Keep. Only this time, Tristan wasn’t about to let anyone die.

“Stay here!” he ordered Isobel when he saw her at the top of the stairs. He didn’t wait to see if she obeyed, but ran to Patrick’s side.

Six riders circled Lachlan in the field, laughing at the pitchfork he swiped at them. One of the men carried a lit torch that he poked at the boy like a sword, taunting him while Lachlan tried to protect himself from the flames.

Patrick charged with a roar that shook the ground beneath. He reached one of the riders closest to his brother and hauled him off his mount with one hand. He was quickly surrounded and whirled around for the next rider. The boot to his face stopped him momentarily.

Tristan didn’t wait to see who hit Patrick next but sprinted toward the melee and leaped for the rider about to toss his torch into the harvest. Both men fell to the ground with a heavy thud, Tristan taking less of the blow on top. He didn’t let his opponent catch his breath but rendered him unconscious with a swift, bone-crunching fist to the jaw. Springing back to his feet, he found Cameron beside him stomping out the torch and another Cunningham bearing down on him, his mount only inches away. With lightning-quick reflexes, Tristan pulled Cam away seconds before the rider would have trampled him where he stood. The bastard wheeled around for a second assault but fell from his mount with an arrow in his shoulder. Tristan turned to John and smiled as the boy nocked another arrow, ready to shoot again.

Lachlan shouted a warning to Patrick, and Tristan and John both swung around to see the remaining riders surrounding the Fergusson Chieftain with swords drawn.

So, they came for blood, did they? Tristan’s heart went cold as one of them swung and nicked Patrick across the arm. His dagger fell from his hand. Cameron sprinted to his brother’s side and deflected a second blow with the pitchfork Lachlan had wielded earlier.

John’s arrow flew and caught Patrick’s assailant in the thigh. The man didn’t fall but bellowed an oath that spewed spit from his mouth. He set his black gaze on John and charged.

Tristan’s heart thrashed in his chest, quickening his blood and tuning his senses like a fine violin. They had come for a fight, and Tristan was more than happy to oblige. Drawing in a deep inhalation of breath, he let himself revel in the thrill of besting this bastard who aimed to kill a boy. It didn’t matter that he had no sword of his own. Tristan would take his opponent’s. Unarmed, there would only be one moment in which to do it. He had to let the rider strike first.

With the horse almost upon them, he stepped into his path. The rider swung his massive blade. Tristan ducked in time to hear the sword sing above his head and around to the other side. Springing for the arrow jutting from the man’s thigh, he yanked with all his strength and dragged his victim from his horse, snatching up his sword as he fell and bringing the hilt down with a smashing crunch to the nose. Lachlan made a quick end of him with a heavy rock to the head.

Tristan didn’t look back but took off with his purloined sword toward Patrick and Cam, still fending off the two remaining intruders. A third, the man Patrick had first felled from his horse, crept up behind them, his blade flashing under the morning sun.

One of the boys behind Tristan screamed out to his brother, and Patrick spun around as the sword came down over his head. But only sparks rained down upon Patrick’s shoulders as Tristan’s blade parried the blow, inches from his face.

With a grunt that hauled the assailant away, Tristan
turned on him with a warning smile. “Are ye certain ye want to continue? I give ye the choice.”

The man rushed at him, and the clash of their swords rang throughout the glen. With two swordsmen still threatening Patrick and Cam, there was no time to teach the bastard a lesson in losing gracefully. He’d have to go down quickly.

Smacking his blade against the other, Tristan advanced, feigned a swipe to the shoulder, reversed his direction, and swept the flat of his blade across the back of his opponent’s knees. The man went down on his back and found Tristan’s sword against his throat when he opened his eyes.

“Call off yer kin,” Tristan warned him, close to his face. “Now!” he demanded, digging the sharp edge in deeper. “Or I vow I will sever yer head fer the others to bring back to yer Chief.”

The man did not hesitate, but did as he was ordered, and the two remaining riders backed away.

“Get up.” Tristan yanked him to his feet. He kept his sword pointed at the Cunningham’s chest while he plucked the man’s sword from his fingers and tossed it to Patrick. “Why are ye attackin’ this family and destroyin’ their land?”

“Who the hell is asking?” the man demanded, and quite boldly, too. Tristan poked him with the tip of his blade to remind him who was in charge.

“Tristan MacGregor is askin’. Do I need to ask again?”

“I am John Cunningham, son of—”

Tristan gave him another jab. “I didna’ ask fer yer name. Did I, Cameron?” He flicked his gaze to Cam, then back to Cunningham when the lad nodded. “Ye see? But
yer time fer answerin’ is over.” He raked his gaze over the other two Cunninghams on their horses. “All ye need to know now is that if ye come back here, ye willna’ return to yer kin alive.”

“Since when do the MacGregors stand with the Fergussons?” the one with the sword tip against his chest asked.

“Why, as of today.” Tristan’s smile was as cold as the metal he wielded. “I thought that was quite obvious. Ye may return in a few days to ask the rest of my kin when they arrive. I’m sure they will be eager to prove my words true.”

All three Cunninghams shook their heads. “We will not return.”

“Good!” Tristan’s smile warmed on the man facing him down the end of his blade. “Is that yer word, John Cunningham?” When the man nodded, Tristan released him and swung his blade over his shoulder. “There is one more thing I want from ye before ye’re free to gather yer fallen and go. When next ye see the lady of this manor, ye’ll ask her fergiveness fer frightenin’ her.”

“They can ask her fer it now,” Cameron muttered, looking past Tristan’s shoulder.

Tristan turned and saw Isobel standing close by with John clutched under her arm and the wind fanning her long, loose hair. Her smile, when she met his gaze, began slowly and ended like an arrow shot into his guts at close range.

She didn’t have to thank him. It was all there in her face, her eyes. As if he were some kind of hero who had stepped from the pages of a book, a champion come to win the day, and his lady with it.

She waited, never taking her eyes from his while John
Cunningham repented. When the Cunninghams were gone, she gave Patrick’s wound a quick going over. “It is not serious. Come.” She let her brother pass her and turned to look over her shoulder at Tristan again. “Let us go home.”

I
sobel hadn’t forgotten what Tristan had done to Tamas, but what he did for the rest of them more than balanced his offense. He did not have to put his life at risk by fighting the Cunninghams. Why should he care if they set fire to Fergusson land, or if her brothers were threatened with the sword? She looked at him sitting across the table with her brothers, breaking fast with them, smiling with them. Despite all his artful charm, there was something utterly genuine about him. Could it be that he was what he claimed, a MacGregor who thought another way?