Her Wicked Highlander: A Highland Knights Novella (2 page)

As her leg flailed out, he stepped neatly aside and caught her calf in both hands. He looked at her, brows raised. “That was a good try, lass, but you need to stop thinking you’ve any chance of besting me.” He moved her leg up experimentally, and she nearly fell backward. She would have if he didn’t drop her leg to the ground, quickly grabbing both her bound wrists in one of his hands. “I could drop you on your wee arse easily, now, couldn’t I? But we dinna have time for games.”

He glanced around as if searching for some invisible assailant, then made quick work of lifting her and plunking her atop the horse, holding her with one hand while he covered her with a large, thick plaid. Still pinning her in place, he mounted the horse behind her. His thick thighs locked around hers, and then they were off.

Aila quietly worked at the twine binding her wrists, but it was no use. The wicked man knew how to tie a sturdy knot.

After a long moment of silence, in which they turned onto the north road, she asked, “Where’re you taking me?”

She was glad her voice emerged strong and proud.

“North,” he said, stating the obvious.

She ground her teeth. “You said if I came with you, I wouldna be hurt.”

“Aye.”

“Well, were you telling the truth?”

“Aye.”

This one was a true conversationalist, she thought with an inner sigh.

“D’you intend to tell me what this is about, then?”

He didn’t answer her. In the ensuing silence, her brain worked furiously, the brisk wind against her cheeks rousing her completely, sharpening her mind and her focus.

This had something to do with the King Richard Dagger—the blade that had been passed down in her family for generations. It didn’t seem like this man wanted it—but perhaps he was taking her to someone who did. Maybe he was a hired ruffian, sent to kidnap her then bring her to some villain who’d try to torture her, then steal her dagger...

She needed to escape from him at the first opportunity.

When that would be, she’d no idea. It certainly wasn’t now. Her hands were tied, she was hardly dressed, and before she froze to death, she’d probably break her neck by falling off the horse.

She pressed her lips together and sat up straight, her back stiffer than whalebone. He shifted behind her slightly, and she tried not to think about how she’d never been this close to a man. Too bad that he was a stranger, not a lover. An enemy, not a friend.

Damn him.

For the first time, the true helplessness of her situation washed over her. Gin wouldn’t be back from Inverness for another week, at least. Her neighbors wouldn’t notice her absence—she saw them once a month, if that. Her absence from the village wouldn’t be noticed—she went infrequently and sporadically. Her parents—well, they were long gone, and she had no other family in the area.

She clenched her teeth at that. It was true—she was well and truly alone, with no one to count upon to rescue her.

She would need to rescue herself, then.

The cold breeze whispered over her cheeks, but surprisingly, she wasn’t chilled, even though she was outside and covered by one plaid rather than six. And then she understood why, and the realization brought no small amount of unease. It was because the stranger was so big and impossibly warm, and he was somehow transferring that warmth to her.

“What’s your name?” she asked, and was surprised to hear drowsiness in her voice.

“Maxwell White.”

She dreamed of white things. A brand-new stylish snow-white muslin dress from Paris she’d seen once in Inverness, a snow-covered forest, sun-bleached rocks on the shore of the loch, fluffy clouds drifting overhead…

Drowsily, she opened her eyes. Dawn had gathered on the horizon, turning the sky a flat gray. She must have been asleep for a few hours. Maxwell White’s thighs still encased hers, strong and warm. His arms were wrapped around her sides, holding her steady as he controlled the reins. She realized she was leaning back into his chest.

She sat bolt upright, surging away from him toward the horse’s head. His thighs tightened around her in warning, but he said nothing as the more unpleasant sensations seeped into her consciousness. Her bottom hurt, her wrists were chafed, and all the parts where he didn’t touch her ached with cold.

The road stretched ahead of them, leading to a peak covered with large trees, stark and leafless in the chill of winter. Then she blinked hard, certain what she was seeing was mere illusion. But it didn’t disappear.

A beautiful castle stood at the base of the hill, its granite towers shimmering silver in the early morning light.

She gaped at the sight, suddenly wide awake.

Where on earth had he brought her?

Chapter Two

Max wondered if the Highland Knights had really thought this through. First off, the woman was nothing like he’d expected. His orders had been to retrieve her, take her to Beauly Castle, and then await further instruction.

He hadn’t expected the woman to be a feisty ball of fire, so proud and stubborn that he’d finally had to bind her hands and essentially throw her upon his horse.

And he hadn’t expected Beauly Castle’s front door to simply refuse to open.

Damn it. Frustrated, he yanked the key from the rusty lock, raised his foot, and kicked the door—hard. His charge emitted a feminine gasp as the thick wood—clearly ages old and rotted with damp—buckled under the force of the blow.

He turned to her and shrugged, then kicked it again. The wood splintered.

Well, he reasoned, if the door was that rotted, then the Knights would need to replace it anyhow. Major Campbell had told him to let him know what work needed to be done in the castle, so that would be at the top of his list.

Max reached in and managed to unlock the remnants of the door from the inside.

“Come along.” He hadn’t let go of Aila MacKerrick’s forearm since he’d lifted her from the horse, and now he towed her along as he entered the dim entry hall. The place wasn’t nearly as tidy as he’d expected—the Knights had hired a woman from nearby Beauly Village to keep the interior of the castle from falling into complete disrepair. Evidently, the woman hadn’t taken her assignment too seriously.

Long, dust-covered tables lined the walls in the entry hall, and each of the three walls had a door placed dead in its center. Max led Aila to the back door first and found it led to the dining room, and from there a storage room, larder, and kitchen, as well as stairs leading down, presumably to a basement.

“What is this place?” Aila asked.

Max stiffened, and tightened his hand around her arm in warning. It’d do no good for either of them if she bolted.

“’Tis safe here,” he said gruffly. “That’s all you need to know.”

She huffed at that, and he managed to remain stern, though a smile played at the edges of his lips. He liked how spirited she was. The unmarried ladies he’d encountered in the past several years had been insipid and dull. Aila was a fresh blast of clean Highland air, someone he’d known right away would keep him alert and not allow him to fade to nothing out of sheer boredom, as so many of the women he’d recently associated with tended to do.

They went back into the entry hall, then down each corridor in turn, opening doors to ballrooms, drawing rooms, salons, studies, a library, and what felt like an endless number of other spaces. At the end of each corridor was a watchtower with a winding staircase. When they saw the first one, Aila looked up at the stairs, her bonny lips twisting.

“Are you going to lock me at the top of the tower? Like Rapunzel?”

He gave her a sidelong look. “Are you calling me a witch?”

“I dinna ken. Are you one?”

He chuckled. “Nay.”

“Hm,” she said, scowling, “you canna trust a witch.”

“True,” he conceded.

Finally, they mounted the grand, curving staircase leading from a room just off the entry hall. On the first floor, they found a series of bedchambers, some small, some large, all dusty and unused. The second floor was a duplicate of the first.

“It has to have been a hundred years since anyone lived in this place,” Aila commented.

“You’re right, I think.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Do you have permission to be here, or are you a trespasser here as you were on my lands?”

He gazed at her for a long moment. She was a bonny lass, petite, with reddish-blond curls that extended past her narrow waist, generous hips and bosom. Her face was heart shaped and expressive, her eyes a snapping, intelligent green, her nose a shade too small, and her lips a shade too wide.

He’d never been much of a man for big noses or thin lips.

Looking at Aila MacKerrick reminded Max that he was a man. And that there was a certain part of his anatomy that had been in disuse for far too long.

He cleared his throat, then glanced around. Dusty furniture, peeling wallpaper, tarnished wall sconces. He returned his gaze to Aila. “This place? It’s mine.”

Her eyes widened in disbelief, but he hadn’t told her a lie. As a newly minted Highland Knight, he and the rest of the Knights shared ownership of Beauly Castle. This was their headquarters in the north, though it had never been used by a Highland Knight for that purpose until today.

Aila swallowed hard, and her green eyes sparkled as she glared at him. “I dinna believe you. You’re a liar and a kidnapper. You’ll be hanged for this.”

“I doubt that.”

He could hear her teeth grinding together. He turned to the closest bedchamber. “This room’ll be yours.”

“Oh, aye? Not yours as well?”

One side of his mouth twisted up in a smile. “Would you like that?”

Damn, he shouldn’t have said that. He was a Highland Knight now. His duty was to protect the monarchy and its citizens from those who would try to undermine them. Not to seduce those he was trying to protect. No matter how much he wanted to.

She bristled. “Nay,” she snapped. “I would not.”

She tore her arm from his and stomped inside the small bedchamber, slamming the door in his face before he could take a step to follow her.

He stood at the door for a long moment, debating whether to go in. But there was much to be done, and he didn’t have the time to coddle the woman.

Instead, he gripped the door handle with one hand. With the other, he found the ring of keys and inserted them patiently into the lock one by one as she yelled at him from the other side, asking how dare he attempt to lock her in this infernal prison, until, on the fourth key, the lock turned.

“Fine!” she shouted. “I’ll be jumping out the window, then!”

“Go ahead,” he said. “Least that’ll happen is you’ll break a leg. More likely you’ll be snapping your neck.”

She growled in frustration. “I’ll knock down this door, then, like you did.”

“Good luck.” She’d need a great deal of luck, in fact. This door was sturdy wood, not rotted like the entry door.

“This is intolerable,” she cried. “You must tell me what this is about. I ken it’s about the King Richard Dagger somehow, but you canna just kidnap me from my house and not tell me anything!”

Poor lass. She did sound utterly frustrated and confused. But, again, he didn’t have the time to coddle her. Not to mention the fact that his work was shrouded in secrecy, and he wasn’t sure how much he could safely tell her.

Why couldn’t she just comply without question? In his experience, women were compliant, docile souls. Then again, he didn’t have much experience in actually
talking
to the fairer sex.

He simply said, “I’ll be back later,” then he went downstairs.

He found a room that must have been a salon or drawing room. Near the entry hall, it was in relatively good condition, with only the thinnest layer of dust on its furniture and floors, and a working fireplace. He cleaned the space until it was livable, and brought in some of the chopped firewood he found in a storage room by the kitchen. He went to his saddlebags and brought Aila the clothes and shoes he’d found in her cottage. In his own baggage, he found enough food to sustain them until tomorrow, when he’d go into Beauly for market day and fetch enough supplies to last them until he received further orders from the Knights.

He located the well and drew up some water to use for washing. After cooking up a simple midday meal of bannocks and meat and leaving the prepared food on a tray in the drawing room, he went upstairs to fetch Aila.

The window was open, and a cold draft had settled into the room. Aila was nowhere to be seen.

Bloody hell.

He strode to the window and looked out. She’d tied the bedclothes together as a kind of climbing rope—like Rapunzel’s hair, he supposed—and had jumped the remainder of the way. The winter landscape was sparse, and when he scanned it, he could just hardly see her, far down the road, running, her red-blonde hair flying out behind her.

He groaned out loud, then sprinted down the stairs and out the back door to the stables, where he saddled his horse in record time.

She was clearly inexperienced in escape, but he was an experienced tracker. It was one of the skills he possessed that had made the Highland Knights give him a second look.

Aila’s footprints appeared and disappeared at regular intervals based on the saturation of the dirt on the road. Finally, the prints disappeared altogether, and he rounded back, knowing that she must have heard his approaching horse and tried to hide in the foliage.

It was simple to find the broken twigs and crushed leaves where she’d left the road and gone into the forest. He dismounted and secured the horse, knowing that she could only be a few minutes ahead of him.

She was still running hard, if the flattened bushes in her path were any indication. He ran too, easily jogging along the trail she’d created. As he grew closer, though, he stopped and then trod slowly along, careful to make minimal noise. He could hear her ahead, crashing through the forest. A second later, he saw her pushing blindly through a thick bramble of bushes.

He surged forward and, within a few seconds, caught her, wrapping his arms around her.

“Oh!” she gasped. “Damn it. Damn you. Leave me alone!”