Chapter 8
Head held high, Ella turned her back on Calum and walked away.
She already regretted following him. But she did not regret that kiss.
She’d waited for months for him to take her in his arms and kiss her.
Her near-fall in the bailey didn’t count.
He’d saved her, but that had been his only intention.
He’d made no move to take advantage of their closeness.
And perhaps she should take comfort in that.
At the time, he’d thought she was Janet, and he’d taken care of her as he would any lass who needed help.
Tonight, he had indeed taken advantage of her. Of Ella. It was as much her fault as his, but she didn’t regret it. Instead, her body still hummed with longing while burning with irritation and insult at how he still berated her. How he’d compared her behavior and Janet’s.
Her heart had lifted to see him back safe. But they couldn’t go on like this. She couldn’t live in the same keep and avoid the man who’d once been her friend. They would have to come to some resolution. A truce. Some sort of comfortable indifference at least.
She thought back to the conversation she’d overheard as Calum matter-of-factly described how he found the raiders’ camp. His even-toned recounting impressed her. He didn’t brag. With the beating his pride had taken lately, she wouldn’t have blamed him if he had.
She’d known when she did it that the urge to follow him would be foolish, a mistake, a risk she shouldn’t take. But Muireall’s advice had still been loud in her head. Go after what ye want.
So she gave in. She wanted to see him. To congratulate him, hoping perhaps he’d be in a more receptive mood after the success of his mission and his opportunity to tell other Brodie warriors about it.
Receptive didn’t begin to describe it. That kiss!
His lips were warm and firm as they pressed against hers, the hint of his breath ripe with the scent of ale and him.
Her heart threatened to beat out of her chest as her blood heated under his caress.
Her lips had parted a little as she sighed with contentment.
In answer, his began to move lightly over hers, pressing, lighting fires in her body that she’d never felt before.
When the tip of his tongue traced the seam of her lips, she shifted closer, putting their bodies more tightly together, reveling in the heat and solid strength of his chest under her hands.
Since the day he’d held Janet, she’d missed being in his arms. She’d feared it might never happen again.
Smiles and longing glances hardly counted.
But this! He was a furnace against her body, stoking the unfamiliar fire in her blood.
She’d missed him so much, she never wanted that kiss or that embrace to end.
Her former betrothed, Dermott, had never inspired such longing in her.
And when her husband tried to hold her this way, she felt trapped, a prisoner.
But her surrender into Calum’s embrace was what desire and love were supposed to feel like.
She mourned the time wasted with the wrong man.
And mourned that the fire the kiss ignited had gone wrong, like everything seemed to do between them, turning to accusations, irritation, and even anger.
His frown made a lie of what she thought she’d seen in his eyes and felt in his kiss. Her words had been a mistake. She just didn’t know how bad until it was too late.
After a few minutes of trading barbs, she’d been determined to beat him at this game.
But tears threatened. She forced herself to hold them inside, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of seeing how easily he affected her.
Angered her. Hurt her. She had to get away from him.
She’d cede this skirmish to him for now, certain he believed she owed him a victory.
But she sensed that when he kissed her, she’d won, too, even if hers was a pyrrhic victory.
What was it about this man that he thrilled her one moment and infuriated her the next?
She realized he was doing to her what she had done to him since they met. Since she and Thomas Ross divorced. Since Calum saw a clear field to try to win her over. Pulling her to him, then pushing her away. Still wrestling with what to do about her. With her. Just as she had done to him.
Did he realize what he was doing? She couldn’t be certain, but she suspected he knew exactly the game he played. It was a bit of payback, then. She could accept that, but not if it went on for very long.
Later that same day, word spread that Georgie and some of the other lads were missing from the keep. Calum knew the missing lads from weapons training, and he recognized Kyle in the stable where he went to saddle his horse before riding out to search for them, as one of their group.
“Come with me,” he said, intending to have this conversation in Iain’s presence. At the lad’s panicked look, he told him, “Ye are no’ in trouble, but yer friends may be. Do ye ken where they went?”
“Nay. No’ exactly.”
“Let’s talk about what ye do ken.” Calum took him to Iain, knowing Iain would tease out anything the lad knew that Calum might miss.
“Why didna ye go with them?” Iain’s question made color rise in the lad’s face. “Tell us what happened, lad.”
“I didna feel well. Gregor thought I’d slow them down, so he told me to stay behind.”
“And ye didna like that, did ye?”
“Nay, laird. I wanted to help, too, but I’m no’ as fast as the rest of them. Nor as good with a bow. No’ yet. But I will be.” His chin jutted out, making him look stubborn and determined enough to reach his goal.
“Good lad,” Calum said. “Ye will grow, and with practice, ye will get better. Maybe even better than Gregor, aye?”
Kyle grinned. “I would like that.”
“I’ll wager ye would,” Iain said, drawing their attention back to him. “Did they say where they were going to go to hunt? And for what?”
“No’ exactly. Into the woods. Coneys mostly. Birds. Whatever Cook always wanted hunters to bring back.”
Iain nodded and Calum gave the lad a reassuring smile.
Then, Calum and Iain exchanged a glance, both aware the Cook often wanted wild pig or boar.
If the lads tried to take one of those, Calum might find their broken, bloodied bodies.
There were a lot of woods surrounding the Brodie keep on three sides.
With boars and raiders loose in them, too, the lads might find more trouble than they could handle.
“When ye leave the keep to go exploring, where do ye go?” Calum hoped Kyle knew enough to make possible finding the lads quickly. Or at least to narrow where he must search.
“South, toward the old stones,” the lad said. “The glen is level for a long way in that direction and the burn attracts lots of animals. ’Tis easier to walk farther. We heard the stones are haunted. Did ye ken that?”
Calum nodded. “So ’tis said. But I have never seen a ghost there.”
“Nor a Sith?”
“Nary a one.” The more he kept Kyle talking, the more he might recall something that would help his friends.
The lad looked disappointed. “We havena, either.”
“But the Sith are clever at hiding. Ye may yet find one.”
“Dinna encourage this,” Iain admonished. “So ye think they might have gone that way. South, rather than along the coast.”
“Aye, probably.”
Calum had what he wanted, and the lad didn’t seem sure of anything more. “I was nearly ready to ride out to search when I found Kyle here in the stable. I’ll take some others with me. We’ll find the lads and bring them home safe.” Calum stood, so Kyle did, too.
“Ye are the best we have,” Iain said. “Be safe. But find them. And thank ye, Kyle.”
In the great hall, he found Ella, Muireall, and two of their best female archers, ones Calum knew had also been trained by Iain to protect themselves and others with blades.
They were dressed for riding. “We ken ye’ll be going out.
We’re going with ye,” Muireall said. “My brother is out there. And Euan isna here to watch yer back, so we will.”
“It takes four lasses to do what yer husband does? He’ll be pleased to hear of that.”
“And a few of yer warriors, too,” Ella added. “They’re waiting in the bailey.”
“So ye were planning to go even before ye found I would join ye.”
Muireall averted her gaze, but only for a moment, then met his, and gave him a curt nod.
“I should come, too,” Kyle said.
Calum gripped his shoulder. “Nay, lad. Ye have done yer part. Ye may have saved yer friends a great deal of trouble. Now that we ken where to look, we’ll find them. Ye have much to do here to prepare for when we return the horses to the stable.”
Annie joined them. “I just talked Iain out of coming with ye. His place is here. As is mine,” she added with a glance down at her rounding belly. “I ken Calum will find the lads. The rest of ye, keep him safe, aye?”
Calum appreciated their confidence in him, but not that they all thought he needed a phalanx of lasses to guard him. And the few men outside, as well, he supposed.
“We’ll keep the lads safe, too,” Ella answered for them all.
Calum had heard enough. “Let’s go.”
Ella didn’t know whether to be excited or nervous.
They were going on a mission usually reserved for men, but with Muireall’s brother among the missing and her friend’s expertise with a bow, it made sense for her to accompany them.
Muireall had included the other women, and thankfully, with Annie’s implicit approval, Calum could not object. Nor, it seemed, had Iain.
She hoped they didn’t run into any raiders. Calum would not be impressed by her own skill with a bow. But seeing her armed and ready for the kind of trouble he understood should make him think differently about her.