CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Malcolm saw the knife before the man moved.
It was not drawn yet. It sat hidden beneath the rough brown fold of a laborer’s coat, but the man’s hand went to it with the practiced familiarity of violence rather than the frightened instinct of a villager caught where he ought not to be.
At the same moment, Grizel turned from the salt stores.
Their eyes met across the narrow market road.
She did not call out. She did not gasp, nor point, nor do any of the foolish things fear might have excused in another woman.
She only lifted her chin a fraction and moved toward him with deliberate speed.
But Malcolm knew her by then. He saw the warning before she reached him.
He saw, too, the two men she had noticed beyond the shed.
Their caps were pulled low, and their shoulders were bent with the false weariness of workers.
One was watching Tavish. The other was watching Malcolm.
Both kept too near the shadowed side of the salt stores, where a narrow lane cut behind the village and out toward the lower road.
Drummond’s men.
The thought struck cold and clean through him.
Grizel was still crossing the market when Malcolm lifted one hand.
His own men stilled. It was a small motion, barely more than the lowering of two fingers, but the nearest guard saw it, then the next.
The line tightened by degrees. A cheerful errand of wedding gifts altered, in the space between one breath and the next, into something edged and dangerous.
Tavish’s grin faded.
“Malcolm?” Grizel said when she came near enough.
“Stay here,” he urged.
Her lips parted, perhaps to tell him what she had learned, perhaps to warn him that there might be more. He did not wait.
“Take the lane,” he ordered Tavish softly. “Cut off the rear. I want them alive.”
Tavish moved at once.
Malcolm looked to the men by the carts. “You three, left. Duncan, with me. Nae blades unless they draw first. Keep the villagers clear.”
The disguised men understood too late that they had been seen.
The first bolted toward the back of the shed.
The second, however, went for Grizel. Perhaps he was only rushing toward the open way beyond her, toward the confusion of stalls and women and children where a man might vanish if he were cruel enough to use innocent bodies as cover.
Whatever the man’s intentions, Malcolm denied him the benefit of doubt and treated him as a threat.
He moved and the market broke apart around him.
A woman cried out and snatched a child against her skirts.
The spy shoved through a hanging line of dyed wool, tearing it from its peg so that blue and brown cloth snapped loose in the wind like torn banners.
“Clear the road!” Malcolm shouted.
His voice cut through panic. Men dragged women back. One of his guards seized an old villager by the shoulders and pulled him aside just as the running spy swung an elbow hard enough to crack bone had it landed.
Malcolm caught the man’s sleeve. The fellow twisted like a ferret, fast and vicious.
His knife came free in a flash. Malcolm struck his wrist aside.
Steel passed near enough to slice the air beside his ribs.
He drove his fist into the man’s stomach, felt the breath leave him, but the spy did not fall.
He had been trained, or beaten into hardness, or frightened enough of failure that pain could not stop him.
He slashed again, wild this time. Malcolm stepped inside the cut and slammed him back against the corner of the stall.
Somewhere behind him, Grizel’s voice rang sharp and clear. “Eilidh, take the children back!”
Even now, she was thinking. Even now, in danger, she was moving others out of it. A fierce, helpless anger tore through him.
The spy saw where Malcolm’s attention had gone. His gaze flicked past Malcolm’s shoulder, to Grizel. Malcolm knew an instant before it happened. He saw the calculation enter the man’s face, the ugly, desperate little knowledge that there was one way to turn Malcolm’s strength against him.
The spy shoved away from the stall, seized its side frame, and threw his whole weight into it. The cloth seller’s stall lurched. For one suspended moment, it held. Then the supporting leg snapped and the structure came down toward Grizel.
“Grizel!” he shouted.
Her head turned. The stall collapsed in a crash of timber, canvas, baskets, and poles. A shower of folded cloth slid from the table. The heavy crossbeam swung low, dragging the whole frame with it.
Malcolm did not remember crossing the distance.
He only knew the spy was no longer in front of him, because Malcolm had struck him aside with enough force to send him staggering into Duncan’s reach.
He only knew Grizel stood beneath the falling edge, stunned but still furious,looking less like a woman facing disaster than one irritated by the inconvenience of it.
He reached her as the beam came down. His arm went around her waist. He pulled her back hard against him and turned, taking the blow across his shoulder.
Pain burst hot and blunt through him, but it scarcely reached his mind.
The canvas swept over them. A basket struck the ground and split. Splinters cracked underfoot.
Grizel stumbled. Her leg twisted beneath her. The small sound she made was hardly more than breath. It terrified him more than a scream.
Malcolm dragged the fallen cloth aside and caught her before she could sink. “Where?”
She blinked up at him. “What?”
“Where are ye hurt?”
“I am nae?—”
“Dinnae lie to me.”
Her mouth closed. Around them, the village had become noise and motion.
The other had almost made the back lane before Tavish emerged from it like a blade from shadow and struck him across the jaw with the hilt of his dirk.
The man dropped to one knee, then tried to rise. Tavish kicked his legs from under him.
“Stay,” he said, pleasantly enough that the command sounded ominous.
Malcolm saw none of it properly. He was aware of the fight only in fragments, as a captain might register storm damage while watching the mast split above him. Grizel had gone white. That was what mattered.
Her fingers had closed tightly in the front of his coat. Her breath came shallow and controlled, which meant the pain was sharper than she wished him to know. Dust clung to one side of her cloak. A strand of hair had come loose and stuck against her cheek.
“Yer leg?” he asked.
“It caught beneath the table. Only a knock.”
“Only,” he repeated.
She seemed to hear the danger in his voice then. Her hand tightened.
“Malcolm, there are men?—”
“Me men have them.”
“But—”
“Me men have them,” he repeated, because if he looked away from her for too long, some savage part of him feared she might vanish beneath falling wood and market dust all over again.
She had begun to shift her weight from it without meaning to.
“Stand still.”
“I am perfectly able?—”
“Grizel.”
It was not loud. He had not meant it to be. Yet the word came out rough with relief and lingering fear. Her eyes lifted to his. He saw her understand that his anger was not at her.
Tavish came up then, breathing hard, with his blade still in hand. “Both taken. Alive, as ordered.”
“Search them.”
“Already being done.”
“Find who spoke tae them. Someone in this village gave them space.”
“Aye.”
Grizel straightened at that, pain sharpening her mouth. “The wool carrier. And the man by the shed door. They knew.”
Malcolm’s eyes cut to her. “Ye saw that?”
“I was looking.”
“Of course ye were,” Tavish muttered, with something like admiration.
Malcolm’s fear shifted shape. She had seen it all because she looked where others did not.
She had put herself in the space of danger because her mind would not permit her to ignore a pattern once she found it…
all because he had brought her here. He had placed her beside him before the village.
He had named her his lady before men who would carry that word down every road Drummond watched.
The blow to his shoulder throbbed once. He ignored it.
“Bring me a horse,” he ordered.
Grizel’s eyes widened. “Nae.”
He looked at her. She drew herself up, which would have been more effective had she not swayed slightly.
“I willnae be carried away from a village like a fainting child.”
“Then dinnae faint.”
Tavish made a strangled sound that might, on another day, have been laughter. Malcolm ignored him.
Grizel’s face flushed. “I can walk.”
“Ye can barely stand.”
“I said I can walk.”
“And I heard ye.”
“Then—”
“And I am choosing nae tae care.”
That silenced her, though not from meekness. Her eyes flashed beautifully and dangerously. Had they been anywhere else, had she not been hurt, had his heart not still been beating with the memory of timber falling toward her, he might have enjoyed the fight in her.
Instead, he bent and lifted her into his arms.
“Malcolm,” she hissed.
Her arms went at once around his neck because instinct had more sense than pride. Pain caught her as he moved. She turned her face toward his shoulder and breathed through it, one careful, infuriatingly brave breath at a time.
He carried her through the market. The villagers stared. Malcolm did not look at them.
Let them see. Let them carry this tale, too.
Let them say that Laird MacAulay had lifted his future wife from the wreckage himself, had trusted no hands but his own with her, had ridden from Ardbrack with murder in his eyes and the lady held against him as if the clan’s very survival depended on her well-being.
Perhaps then the next man who thought to use her as leverage would count the cost first.
His horse stamped when it was brought, restless from the noise. Malcolm soothed it with one low word, then set Grizel carefully into the saddle. She winced despite herself. His hand closed around the pommel until the leather creaked.
“Yer leg,” he said.
“I’ll be fine.”
He looked at her, furious with relief, furious with fear, furious with the absurd urge to laugh because she was alive enough to quarrel. Then, he mounted behind her.
The saddle dipped beneath his weight. Grizel stiffened at the sudden closeness, but only for an instant. His arm came around her, not tight enough to cage, but firm enough that no stumble, no jolt, no weakness she refused to confess could take her from the horse.
“Hold the saddle,” he whispered near her ear.
“I am.”
“With both hands.”
“I am nae an infant.”
“Nae. Infants are less trouble.”
She might have answered, but the horse lunged forward under his command and the village vanished behind them.
The first stretch of road was uneven, cut with cart ruts and rain-soft mud.
Malcolm held the reins in one hand and kept the other braced close around Grizel’s waist. Each time the horse struck rough ground, he felt her body tense before she could stop it.
Each time, his arm tightened without permission from his better judgment.
She endured it in silence. That was worse than complaint. He would have preferred complaint. Complaint would have meant temper, and temper he understood. This quiet, stubborn effort to master pain while seated before him in the circle of his arm was nearly unbearable.
“Lean back,” he urged.
“I am fine.”
“Lean back before ye fall forward.”
“I will nae fall.”
“Grizel.”
Again, her name betrayed him. She must have heard the fear in it. After a long moment, she yielded enough that her shoulders settled against his chest. The back of her head came beneath his chin. Her body was warm despite the cold air. A loose strand of her hair brushed his mouth.
Malcolm looked ahead and forced himself to breathe.
The horse climbed the road toward the ridge.
Behind them, Tavish and several men would be securing the prisoners, questioning the villagers, gathering what evidence they could.
Malcolm knew what ought to be done. He knew what orders he should have stayed to give.
He knew that a laird did not leave the field before every thread had been tied.
But Grizel had been hurt. The rest could burn for another hour.