Chapter 10 #2
“You won’t do that, Scott,” Kincreag drawled. “You want something from me, and ye’ll never get it if you kill her. You’ll only share her fate. So tell me now and let’s end this, aye.” While talking he’d moved closer, circling them.
The man’s breathing quickened. He shifted, turning with jerky movements to keep his eyes on Kincreag. The pressure at her side increased.
“You dinna ken what I want. I swear I’ll kill her!”
With a surge of pure terror Gillian believed he meant to do it. It was unusual for a hostage to be killed outright—they had more important uses, such as ransom—but perhaps it was different in the Highlands.
Kincreag was close enough now that his face was visible.
His expression was hard, uncompromising, black eyes burning in a composed and determined face.
Her captor’s muscles tensed as he stepped back.
Gillian’s blood rushed, gripped with a sudden fearful excitement.
She took advantage of Scott’s uneasiness and jerked away from him.
He cursed, grappling with her. The dirk came at her, jabbing hard beneath her breast while she twisted violently from his hold.
Kincreag was there, forcing himself between them.
He had her kidnapper’s knife arm, and he turned it hard.
Gillian heard a sickening crack. Kincreag backhanded him, and there was another moist, splintering sound.
The blond man stumbled away and fell to his knees, his mouth open on a silent cry of agony, blood streaming from his nose.
“Evan!” Kincreag barked, shoving the man onto the ground with a boot and pinning him there.
Scott lay still, clutching his useless arm and panting.
The dark-haired knight appeared. He looked from Scott to Gillian with furrowed brow, baffled—and afraid, too, his skin paling.
But Nicholas made no mention of his mistake.
Gillian was certain he’d take it up with the knight in private, later.
“Make our guest comfortable,” Nicholas said, smiling darkly at his prisoner. “We’ll visit soon, Scott.” To Sir Evan he said, “Bind his arm. Keep a guard on him.”
Sir Evan helped the Highlander to his feet and led him away.
Gillian rubbed at her ribs, trying to catch her breath. It had all happened so fast. Her hands encountered torn fabric. Relief swamped her, weakening her. One of her fingers poked through a hole in her arisaid. Her hands were pushed aside.
She raised her head and looked into Nicholas’s eyes, intent on her ribs as he moved her arisaid, folding it over her shoulder. His warm fingers slid through a hole in her bodice to her stays, probing beneath. Gillian winced. He pulled his fingers away and looked at them, but there was no blood.
“It’s just a bruise, my lord. Leather stays are as good as armor, methinks.” Even as she said it, her body quivered with delayed fear. Had she really actively aided in her own rescue?
He still stared at his fingers. He dropped his hand slowly and raised his gaze to hers. He said nothing for a long moment. Her belly fluttered sickeningly from vomiting and fear, and she swayed, overcome.
He reached for her, steadying hands grasping her elbows. She leaned into him, her hands curling into his plaid. He remained still and silent, allowing her to regain her composure. He was so strong and steady; she didn’t want to move away from him, but his grip on her elbows slowly tightened.
She tilted her head back to see his face. He gazed down at her, black lashes partially obscuring obsidian eyes, their expression inscrutable. What was he thinking? Was he angry with her for causing so much trouble? She wished he’d say something. His heavy silence made her anxious.
He set her away from him. “That was thoughtless. A countess cannot be so thoughtless with her life.”
“It was not thoughtless. I considered my chances of coming out of the encounter unstabbed. I calculated correctly.” The high-pitched break in her voice belied her flippant words.
He closed his eyes and his jaw shifted slightly, as if he searched for patience.
Was he truly upset? Or had he actually feared for her? Pleasure shivered through her. She lifted her hand to touch his sleeve, but when he opened his eyes and fixed them almost angrily on her hand, she only fluttered it about near him.
“I did not mean to vex you, my lord. Only to aid you. He had the dirk, after all.”
He looked into her face, his gaze no longer harsh or cold—though not exactly warm either. It was as if he considered her for the first time. “We are alone, Gillian. I pray you, address me familiar. We are married.”
A lump rose in her throat, rendering her unable to comply with his request. Instead, she nodded.
He took her arm. “Come. Until we arrive at Kincreag stay close to me.” He led her through the soupy fog as if he could see clearly. They stopped in front of a large tent, and he nodded to it. “There’s food inside, and then you can sleep.”
“Where will you be?”
“Near. The Campbells are still here and might decide to come for their man.” His brow lowered thoughtfully. “They may come for you again as well. Do not stray from me again. There’s nothing that can’t wait until we’re at Kincreag.”
She shifted uncomfortably, reminded painfully of just why she had strayed. “Actually, there is something. . . .”
His mouth tilted so slightly that she wondered if she imagined it. “There’s a chamber pot inside the tent.”
Gillian sighed thankfully. He started to turn away, but she caught his sleeve.
He turned back to her, a sleek, black brow raised in question.
“Be careful . . . Nicholas.”
His gaze traveled over her face. He nodded thoughtfully, then left her.
Shortly after he left, the shaking set in.
It was odd. Though she’d been frightened, certain the Highlander had meant to kill her, she’d been exhilarated immediately afterward.
Now she felt ill. She’d removed her arisaid and wrapped it around her.
She lay on the ground and stared at the glowing coals of the brazier, trembling violently.
It was beginning to irritate her. She clenched her hands into fists and willed it to stop, but she only shook harder, her teeth chattering together.
The sounds of men settling down to sleep outside the tent comforted her. Nicholas was near, and she was safe. So why did she still shake?
One wall of the tent shuddered as someone untied the doorway. A moment later Nicholas slipped in. He unpinned his plaid and looked down at her. He paused when he saw she was still awake.
“It’s all right,” he said, his voice low and soothing.
Gillian tried to nod brightly but feared it was more of a shuddering jerk.
He wore his plaid like a mantle rather than kilted about his waist and knees as many Highlanders did. He dropped it near her and unhooked his leather doublet, still watching her curiously.
Heat crept up Gillian’s neck. He was coming to bed. With her. She averted her eyes, exhorting herself to have courage, then abandoning it as her shaking increased.
He knelt behind her and removed his boots. When his hand touched her arm, Gillian started and nearly screamed.
“Are you afraid?” he asked.
Gillian shook her head, still not looking at him, willing her body to stop shaking. “I was fine . . . after. Then I started shaking and I can’t stop.”
He made a soft noise of understanding, as if comforting a distraught child, then lay beside her and gathered her close against his chest. His arm was heavy and warm around her. She stiffened, then slowly relaxed when he did nothing more.
“I always feel so after doing battle,” he said. “You feel as if you could climb a great mountain, lift a horse, right after. But then, a short time later, the shaking sets in, and I must be alone.”
“Did you shake tonight?” Gillian asked, assuaged by his words and no longer trying to hide the chattering of her teeth.
“No . . . tonight was nothing.” He’d broken a man’s arm. She’d nearly died. And he called it nothing? She couldn’t stop shaking from it.
“You know that man?” she asked.
“Aye, Scott MacGregor, a broken man, clanless. No doubt he hoped to win a rich ransom from the earl’s bonny new bride.”
“What will happen to him?” She did not miss his subtle compliment, and a smile pressed at the corners of her mouth.
“That’s his decision. He claims he works alone, which I do not believe. When we arrive at Kincreag I’ll break him. A holiday in my dungeons will loosen his tongue.”
His ominous words sent a more violent shiver through her.
He gathered her in closer and whispered, “Fash not, it will stop eventually.”
They lay quiet for several minutes, his arms strong around her, containing the odd rhythmic quality of her tremors. Warm and protected, she snuggled deeper into his embrace. After a time she slept.
It was dark as pitch when she woke. The coals in the brazier had burned out.
She felt him, his arms snug around her, his body pressed warm all along her back.
But he no longer administered comfort. He sensed her wakefulness and rubbed his jaw gently against her hair. His biceps flexed beneath her cheek.