One #5
His captain of the guard saw him coming and raised the thick iron-toothed gate. Alec clopped into the bailey, dismounting before the horse completely stopped. He lifted Rachel from her seat. She followed him with downcast eyes like a dutiful prisoner.
“Phillip.”
His friend and second-in-command leapt from the table in the great hall. “Bloody hell, am I glad to see ye,” he greeted and grabbed Alec in a thumping hug. Alec smiled at the obvious worry in his friend. “We found Macbain bodies and ye were gone.”
“Someone was praying for me,” Alec quipped, his glance catching Rachel’s wide eyes.
Phillip’s gaze turned to her, his smile becoming predatory. Alec frowned. “I take it, William Brindle and his other daughter made it here?” Phillip nodded without taking his eyes off Rachel. Alec walked over to stand in front of her.
Phillip’s eyebrow rose at the show of protection. “Aye. They are in the dungeon.”
Rachel gasped.
“Ye placed a woman in the dungeon?” Alec shouted.
Phillip shrugged. “I meant to put her in Dugger’s room, but she wouldn’t leave her father and he deserves the dungeon.”
Alec rolled his eyes at Phillip. “What?” Phillip asked, eyes innocent. “I made sure the lass had plenty of blankets, food and water.”
Alec caught Rachel’s wrist and towed her behind him. He grabbed a torch from the wall as they descended to the cells. Phillip followed. The smell of rotting food and animal waste permeated the air. Alec shook his head. This wasn’t endearing Rachel to him.
“Isabelle! Father!” Rachel called when she spotted them in the dim cell. Alec released her and unlocked the bars. Rachel flew inside, her blue light glowing faintly. If he hadn’t been looking for it, he’d barely notice.
“Good God,” William Brindle rebuked. “Where are the rest of your clothes? Your mark is visible! Cover yourself.” He threw his blanket over the birthmark Alec had noticed on Rachel’s wrist. “And stop that …” he swatted at her and Rachel dutifully let her light go out. She hugged her sister.
“We’re fine, really,” Isabelle said. “What happened to you?”
“I got lost.”
“And ended up nearly naked, out in the night with …” he indicated Alec.
Alec crossed his large arms over his bare chest. “Alec Munro, the chief of Clan Munro and yer captor.” Alec glanced at Rachel. Her eyes seemed large in the darkness. Was she surprised at his title?
William’s lips pressed tight. “You cannot hold an English subject,” but the force had left his voice.
“Ye are charged with thievery and trickery for deceiving my father over the last decade.” Alec watched guilt flash in the man’s watery, weak eyes before Brindle turned them towards the filthy straw floor.
“We will discuss this matter after ye’ve had a chance to think.
” He motioned to Rachel where she clung to her sister.
“Come, we’ll give ye a room above stairs. ”
Rachel shook her head. “We stay with our father.”
Alec waited for Brindle to insist they go above, but the coward kept his mouth clamped. The man gave no comfort to his daughter, who could have died or been attacked during their night apart, yet he let her protect him. Alec stalked past Phillip, almost out of the hearing of the prisoners.
“Place William Brindle in Dugger’s old room. See that his daughters are given my sister’s quarters. Have Maddie bring them some of Catherine’s dresses.” Phillip nodded to each instruction. “Warm baths for the ladies, and Phillip …” Alec paused without turning.
“Aye?”
“Doona touch her,” he said in Gaelic. He switched back to English. “She is mine.”
“Which one?” Phillip asked, but Alec just stalked away.
Five
She was his? What did that mean?
Rachel mulled over the three simple words that had captured her more firmly than the iron bars she’d stood behind just an hour ago.
Now bathed and dressed in a blue gown, Rachel waited with Isabelle for an escort to the evening meal.
She and her sister were now guests. Their father was housed in one of the cramped servant’s quarters, but he probably deserved worse.
Rachel sighed. Her father’s morals had turned dark ever since their mother had died.
His whole life now centred around material wealth and finding a higher placement in the hierarchical ladder at court.
“So he’s the chief,” Isabelle commented, her raised eyebrows adding unspoken questions.
The edges of her mouth turned up subtly.
Rachel nodded with a meek shrug. “And he captured you outside the Macbain’s castle.
” Isabelle already knew this from her sisterly inquisition earlier so Rachel didn’t feel the need to respond.
“And you spent … a whole night together in a cave wearing only your shift.” Rachel ran her fingertip absently along the beaded pattern embellishing her snug velvet bodice.
A long pause stretched. “Did you kiss him?” Isabelle whispered. Rachel snapped a look at her sister.
Isabelle laid her hand on Rachel’s wrist where the bruise from her rescue in the cave shone.
A faint light gave Rachel’s skin a bluish tint as Isabelle dissolved the pools of blood beneath her skin.
Rachel was certain that her sister could also detect her deep blush and the way her heart raced.
Isabelle smiled broadly at the unspoken admission.
“He’s quite handsome in a robust, wild type of way,” Isabelle commented.
“It wasn’t like that,” Rachel defended. “Thank you,” she whispered as Isabelle smoothed her now healthy-looking skin.
“So, how was it then?”
“He’d just saved me from certain death. I was panicky, grateful, overwhelmed.”
“Hmm … ‘overwhelmed’,” Isabelle said, as if understanding, even though Rachel knew her sister had never been overwhelmed in that way before.
A sharp rapping on the door made them both jump off the bed. A smiling face peeked around the frame. “Time to sup.” A little grey-haired lady with more wrinkles than last year’s apples beckoned them.
Rachel and Isabelle grasped hands as they followed the maid down the winding steps.
They walked on silent slippers under an archway into the great hall.
A churning tide of deep, guttural voices ebbed, slowly fading to silence as all eyes turned towards them.
Isabelle nearly squeezed the blood from Rachel’s hand.
The only other women in the room whisked around with platters of meat and baskets of bread.
Two long tables with short benches held tankards and bread trenchers along their polished surfaces. Their father was absent.
Rachel spotted Alec easily by the hearth.
His height and breadth set him apart. Even with the loose linen shirt covering his chest, the broad strength of his form could not be concealed.
Rachel swallowed as she recalled the smooth, hot skin of his stomach, the soft sprinkling of hair across his chest, the thin lines of scars giving evidence of his continued survival in this harsh land.
Her inhale cut off when she met his smouldering gaze.
She couldn’t look away. It was as if an invisible tether tied her.
Isabelle tugged her to a table and Rachel had to break the connection, else trip over her own skirts.
Dinner dragged as Rachel endeavoured to make pleasant talk in broken Gaelic.
Only a few of the Munros spoke English. Rachel had expected hostility from them because of the fact that she and her sister were English and that their father was imprisoned above stairs.
But the Munros only smiled and patiently corrected her pronunciation.
Alec remained on the far side of the room throughout the meal. Towards the end, he walked over. “Chief Munro,” Rachel began formally and lowered her eyes.
“Alec,” he corrected with the hint of a grin in his voice. He waited until she looked up. “Aye?”
“We would know what you have planned for our father,” Rachel said.
Alec’s grin turned to a wry frown. “He’s admitted his guilt.
” Alec looked only at Rachel. “He’s willing to trade one of ye for his freedom.
” Rachel swallowed hard and felt Isabelle grasp at her arm, but she nodded.
It didn’t surprise her. She was certain which one he’d likely give up.
Alec looked away as he spoke. “I told him that I doona take slaves as payment, and a person given away without their consent is a slave.”
Rachel wet her dry lips. Her heart beat hard, the edge of alarm making it hard to speak. “If,” she squeaked, “you have my consent, will you release my sister and father?”
Alec’s gaze swung back. Anger muted the shock cut into his features. “Ye would surrender yerself to save that man?”
“And my sister,” Rachel added.
“No, Rachel,” Isabelle whispered.
“Yer sister is not in jeopardy,” Alec said.
“She will be if you send her back to England without a protector, a father to see her supported and married well.” Determination straightened Rachel’s spine.
“And regardless of his crimes, I am loyal to my family.” Alec must understand clan loyalty.
The silence was uncomfortable. “I could stay on as a servant.” Her gaze trailed one woman carrying two tankards to the far table.
“Ye are no servant, slave, or prisoner. Ye are free to do as would make ye happy,” Alec murmured.
“This I promise.” Rachel’s pulse fluttered and her stomach tightened at the kindness in his vow.
Before she could respond with more than wide-eyed surprise, the door banged open and a man strode across the rushes towards Alec.
“A message from The Macbain.” He handed over a sealed missive. Phillip flanked Alec as he broke the seal. The room hushed, waiting. Alec thumped his fist down on the table making the wooden bowls wobble and Rachel and Isabelle flinch.