A Highlander Never Surrenders (3 page)

W
e have all been betrayed.

Satan’s balls, she wasn’t going to die this way! Claire Stuart glared at the man’s head buried between her breasts. With a final tug that confirmed how tightly her wrists were bound to the oak behind her, she gritted her teeth and then sank them into the mauler’s shoulder.

“Ahh! You bitch!” Her attacker reeled away gripping his bloodied wound. “I’ll kill you for that!” He lunged for her, mindless that her legs were free. None of the men had thought to secure her feet to the tree. After all, it was her arms that had wielded a sword so expertly against them, killing six of his comrades when they came upon her this morning. But her attacker realized his oversight an instant after, when she kicked him square in his nether regions and sent him straight to his knees.

“You’re a feisty wench.” Another man strode toward her with an arrogant swagger. Claire silently promised to rid him of it the moment she was free—if she could just get her damned hands loose! “Brave . . .” He stepped over his writhing companion and, with a smile of purely naked male intent, pointed the tip of his blade at her throat. “. . . and foolish enough to travel alone. Mayhap I shall bring you back to London with me. Surely General Lambert would grant me a wife for all my years of service.”

“Lambert?” Claire glowered at him while she struggled against her restraints. “What are Lambert’s men doing in Scotland?”

“We are paving the way for our leader, and killing a few Royalists along the way. Someone must fulfill the task, since Monck sits idly in his castle doing little to stop them.” He dipped his eyes to the creamy swell of her bosom, half exposed by her torn shirt. Then lower, to her shapely hips and legs, encased in snug-fitting trews and boots. “Strange attire for a lady,” he said, meeting her fired gaze. “What is your name?”

Hell, he was as dense as a wall. Did he think she would give him her true name if she was a Royalist? Which, being the king’s cousin, she was. She gave him an exasperated sigh. How long were these two going to waste her time? Her sister could be being forced to marry some despicable Roundhead soldier at this very moment. “I am a Campbell, and if you release me now I will beg my father to spare your worthless life.”

“She’s lying, John. No Campbell would let his daughter ride alone.” The man she’d kicked staggered to his feet rubbing his injured groin. “Kill the bitch. Better yet, let me do it after I shove my cock up her arse.”

“Touch me again,” Claire’s voice was a low warning growl, “and I’ll cut out your innards and then strangle you with them, you filthy son of a whore.”

He came at her quickly, and pushing John’s sword out of his way, cracked her hard across the face.

“Geoffrey, stand down!” John commanded, stepping away from Claire’s treacherous boots. “If she is a Campbell we’ll be flogged for striking her.” He angled the edge of his sword against her throat to keep her still, then lifted his other hand and swept a strand of flaxen hair off her cheek. “We’ll take her back to camp and find out who she is.” John inched closer to her, so that when he spoke his breath touched her clenched jaw. “If she is lying, I will take her first and then give her to the rest.”

Claire closed her eyes, sickened when he spread his tongue over the seam of her mouth. She beseeched God and all His saints to give her the opportunity to kill these two Puritan Roundhead bastards quickly. She had to find her sister.

Dear God, Anne. Poor Anne. She’d been taken from their home by General Monck’s army, but how long ago, Claire did not know. She’d been at Ravenglade Castle, awaiting her brother’s return from England, when she received word that he had been killed. Immediately, she’d gone home to Anne to give her the terrible news, but her sister was gone. A message left for Claire, written in Monck’s own hand, told her that he had promised their guardian that he would keep them protected from the fanatical Independents in England. Claire did not believe it. Not after what had happened to Connor. The General had the audacity to add in his missive that he believed their lives were in danger, and he’d come to take them to Edinburgh.

He was going to marry them off. With Connor now out of the way and the king exiled in France, the Stuart lands could be given to a man of Monck’s choosing. No. She would never obey the man behind her brother’s death. She was going to kill Monck first and then rescue her sister.

She cursed herself for meeting with the resistance at Ravenglade, and not being home to protect Anne. Her sister was delicate and mild-mannered. She didn’t have the blood for fighting the way Claire did. After Charles was banished from Scotland, she never showed the slightest bit of interest in the rebellion. Anne had refused to lift a blade, even after their parents were killed. Instead, she locked herself away with her books, never complaining to her elder siblings about their long absences from home.

They were supposed to protect her, and Claire had failed. She prayed it was not too late, else she’d have to make her sister a widow. All she had to do was get rid of these two dimwits and she’d be on her way.

“Geoffrey,” John turned to his companion after getting no reaction from her. “I’ll get the horses. Do not untie her until I return.”

Claire stood alone facing the grinning soldier. Geoffrey stepped closer, pulled her dagger from her belt, and traced the tip along her cheekbone. “Not so bloody fierce now, are you. Think you will still want to kill me after I fuck you bent over backward?”

Every muscle in Claire’s body ached with the need to end this pig’s life. “I’m certain I will kill you just for breathing on me.”

He raised his fist to strike her again, but a powerful command to halt stopped his hand in midair.

Claire looked over his shoulder to see two men mounted on great black warhorses approaching cautiously, one surveying the six dead men scattered along the ground, the other surveying her.

“Release that lady at once, and give me an account of what happened here.”

“Who are you to command me?” John gained his saddle and trotted toward the two men with his hand poised on the hilt of his sword. Claire saw the reason for his caution. One of the men was a Highlander. They were easy to spot, these warriors of the north, they were bigger than the English in their belted plaids and bare legs.

“I am Lord Robert Campbell, Earl of Argyll.” While he spoke, his rougher-looking companion slipped off his mount and began walking toward her and Geoffrey.

What was a Highlander doing traveling with a Presbyterian Campbell? Another traitor to the throne, Claire thought sourly, giving the earl a look of black contempt, and then turning it on the Highlander. She was only mildly aware of John’s sputtering voice asking if she belonged to the Campbell house, as she took in the full sight of the warrior fast approaching. He moved without pause, his shapely calves tight with muscle, his boots pounding a path straight for her. His hard gaze was made even more threatening beneath the shadow of a brimmed bonnet of deep indigo wool, much like her own. As he grew closer, he tilted the bonnet jauntily over his mop of honeyed curls.

Claire raised her chin in direct challenge as his potent green gaze swept over her from foot to crown, lingering momentarily on her barely concealed breasts.

She’d been correct to think Geoffrey a dimwit, for he brandished her meager dagger at the intruder, readying for a fight. His bluster ended with a swift,bone-crunching fist that shattered his nose and sent him reeling backward, unconscious.

Seeing the fate of his companion, John drew his blade and swung it at the Earl of Argyll. The Highlander produced a dagger from a fold in his plaid, sliced it across the rope binding Claire’s wrists, then hurled it end over flashing end into John’s chest.

Finally free, Claire stepped closer to the warrior who’d just rescued her.

“Graham Grant,” he introduced himself with a sensual grin as deadly as his reflexes. “Commander of . . .” While he was speaking, she snatched his great claymore from its sheath and turned the other way. When she reached Geoffrey, she raised the sword in both hands then brought it down with a resounding thump into his chest.

After retrieving her dagger from Geoffrey’s lifeless hand, she strode back to the Highlander, and offering him neither smile nor thanks for freeing her, shoved his bloody claymore from whence it came. Boldly, she tilted her gaze to meet his, expecting to see the disbelief and disapproval of men when they saw her fight. But this one’s eyes glittered with approval. Pity there was no time to spare him another moment, she thought, stepping away. She had to keep moving. Forgetting him, she began searching among the dead. When she found the one she was looking for, she snatched up the cap he had shoved into his pouch and tucked it under her belt.

“Were you harmed, lady?” Grant’s companion asked.

“That is no concern of yours, Campbell,” she said, checking for bloodstains on the shirt of one of her earlier victims. Finding the fabric unsoiled, she bent and yanked it over the dead man’s head. When she straightened, her gaze slid back to the Highlander. She glared at his blatant inspection of her backside. He smiled in return, muddling her senses with two recklessly sexy dimples.

“On the contrary. It is my duty to protect the defenseless.”

Claire cut Robert Campbell an inconsequential glance and pulled the shirt she’d retrieved over her head. When her head poked out of the neckline, she cast her eyes over the ground and then offered Robert a smile that suggested he was as dense as the dead men around him. “I can assure you I am not defenseless.” With a flick of her wrist, she released her long wheaten braid from under the shirt. It dangled like a thick rope to her hips. With little or no regard for the two men watching her, she slipped her hands beneath her new shirt, unlaced the torn one beneath, and wiggled out of it. She knew how to change her clothes in front of men. She’d done the like many times when she rode with Connor and his army.

“You expect me to believe you killed these men?” Campbell asked, dismounting while she began searching again.

“Would you like me to prove it to you?” She spotted what she was looking for a few feet from the tree and bent to pick it up. The sword was rapier thin, its hilt wrapped within worn leather. Blood from an earlier fight glistened along its steel edge. With a graceful sweep of her arm, she positioned the blade flat over her other elbow, pointing its tip at the earl. She arched her brow, waiting for his reply. Her hard gaze inspected him from the tips of his dusty boots to his sable hair. He didn’t look like a Roundhead. His hair was not closely cropped round the head in the fashion that gave Roundheads their name. But he was a Campbell, and Campbells were supporters of Parliament. “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you now.”

“Lower yer sword, lass.”

Claire swung her gaze to the Highlander. His voice was gentle, but the warning in his striking green eyes was anything but. She had no time for another altercation, and the Highlander didn’t look as if he would go down easily.

Straightening, she backed away. “Your duty is done. Be on your way.” She wiped the bloody blade on her torn shirt before tossing the shirt away, then sheathed the sword in the scabbard dangling from her slim waist. It fit perfectly.

“What happened here?” Grant asked.

Claire found it almost impossible not to let her gaze linger on him. The soft honeyed curls peeking out from beneath his cap captured the sun’s rays, giving him an almost angelic look. His mouth . . . Hell, his mouth was hypnotic, with full sulky curves that beckoned her careful attention. Everything else about him was warrior hard. Beneath his tunic and belted plaid, his body was tight and built for speed and fighting. His shoulders were broad and his legs strong. The deep bronze shadow along his cheek and jaw—that did not do enough to conceal those blasted dimples—added to his rugged virility.

“These are Lambert’s men. I . . .”

“Why have Lambert’s men returned to Scotland?” Campbell took a step closer to her. She took a step back and rested her hand on the hilt of her sword.

“They are here to do the same thing you do, Roundhead. Kill Royalists.”

“I’ve killed no one,” the earl defended. “Why were they holding you prisoner? Who are you?”

Claire wasn’t about to tell him. “I am but a servant. They came upon me this morn and thought to ravish me.”

“Ye were alone?” the Highlander asked, looking around at the dead, then back at her.

“How does a servant, a woman servant at that, know how to wield a sword against half a dozen men?” Campbell asked, looking just as skeptical as his companion.

“My brother taught me how to fight,” she said, peering fearlessly into his gold-green eyes. “Do you not believe me?”

“I do,” the young earl replied. “I often practiced swordplay with my sister while we were growing up.”

“This isn’t swordplay, Campbell,” she said letting her gaze drift over the bruises on his face. “Mayhap you should have practiced more seriously. You look as if you’ve been tossed into the side of a mountain a few times.”

She was surprised by his reply, expecting him to bluster about and boast of his great skill, as any other man would do.

“My fight, though I lost it, was a noble one.”

She almost smiled. “So was my brother’s.”

Chapter Three

W
ould that I had known the truth. Now there is naught I can do but think on his death.