Taming a Wild Scot: A Claimed by the Highlander Novel (14 page)

After a brief hesitation, the constable accepted the clothing. “Good night to you.”

She leaned against the doorframe as Hurley handed Niall the lèine. They gave him a moment to pull the shirt over his head, then prodded him forward with the butts of their pikes.

Niall gave her a long, even look before he acquiesced to their demand.

Then they marched off toward the manor, and an empty silence fell upon the bothy.

•   •   •

Niall was beaten repeatedly en route to the manor. By the time they dragged him down the stairs to the dungeon and shackled him to a stone wall, he had welts and bruises too numerous to count. But he still held himself strong and sure.

The constable tugged off his gloves, handed them to a guard, and then rolled up his sleeves. “You’re not truly Ana’s husband,” he said nicely. “That much I know. Tell me your real name.”

“Robbie Bisset.”

Hurley shook his head. “Lies will only earn you pain.”

He signaled to another guard—a tall Frenchman whom Niall recognized as Ana’s harasser from the cellar—and was handed a sturdy wooden club. With a finesse clearly born of regular practice, he swung it at Niall’s ribs. The wood collided with his flesh with a dull thud and a rush of mouth-souring pain. His shoulders instinctively curled.

“Let’s try again.” Hurley stood back. “What is your name?”

“Robbie Bisset,” Niall said, through clenched teeth.

His answer earned him another blow, this one on the opposite side. “Why were you trying to break into the baron’s coffers?”

“You have the wrong man,” he said, barely able to draw a breath.

The constable paced the ground before him, the club resting on one shoulder. “I knew you were trouble the moment I laid eyes on you,” he said. “You look like no common laborer I’ve ever seen.”

Niall straightened against the wall.

“You think I don’t recognize the calluses of a trained swordsman?” Hurley used the club to flatten Niall’s right hand and expose his palm. “I’m not a fool. Now tell me who you truly are.”

“Robbie Bisset, husband of Ana Bisset. Dockworker.”

Hurley smiled—a tight, thin-lipped grimace. Then he swung the club again, this time at Niall’s knee. Wood crunched into bone with a sickening flash of agony. “The body is a remarkably frail piece of equipment,” the constable said. “This knee, for example, will be nothing but broken bone and swollen tissue after five or six solid blows.”

Surfacing from a sea of red-hazed pain, Niall accepted those words as fact. If he left this dungeon at all, it was likely to be as a crippled man—because he sure as bloody hell wasn’t going to speak the truth. Ana would pay the price of every word.

“You have the wrong man,” he repeated hoarsely.

There was a commotion outside the dungeon door; then the portal swung open, revealing a very angry baron. The nobleman wore a rumpled sleeping robe and his hair was widely askew. “What in the name of our Exalted Father is going on?” he demanded. “The healer roused my wife and me from a good night’s sleep, insisting her husband has been falsely accused of some crime.”

“He is not her husband,” Hurley replied. He pointed the club at Niall. “This man was caught trying to break into your coffers.”

The baron’s eyebrow’s soared. “Really?”

“That’s a lie,” Niall spat out. His only hope of surviving lay with his ability to sway the baron. “Ask any witness. The constable dragged my wife and me from our beds this night. He did not find me here in the manor.”

Duthes shifted his attention back to the constable. “It appears we have a difference of opinion. Did you catch him in the cellars, or not?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Hurley said. “We found a helmed man in the cellars, but he escaped. I know this man to be other than what he says, so I sought him out immediately.” Hurley went on to explain the calluses and the scars on Niall’s body that he swore were battle injuries.

The baron listened, tapping his finger against his lips. When Hurley was done, he said, “If you are convinced he is not the goodhealer’s husband, that should be easy enough to prove.” He strode over to Niall. “How long have you been wed to Ana Bisset?”

Niall experienced a sharp pang of regret. Perhaps he ought to have rehearsed a few lies with Ana after all. He was about to dig himself a very deep hole. “Five years,” he lied.

“And where were you wed?”

“Aviemore,” he said smoothly, as if his words were not about to cause both him and Ana a heaping midden of grief. Aviemore lay on the other side of the Cairngorm Mountains and it would take a week or two to prove him wrong. But, of course, proof was the least of his worries.

“The name of the priest who wed you?”

“Brother Ben.”

The baron nodded. “We’ll ask these same questions of the healer in the morn. I trust your answers will match.”

Unlikely. But certainly worthy of a mote of hope.

“I’m for my bed,” the baron said. “Mr. Hurley and his men will entertain you until the morrow.”

“How very kind of them,” Niall said drily. Hurley was caressing the club with an expression of barely disguised glee. “Am I expected to be alive in the morn?”

“Of course.” Duthes exchanged a pointed look with the constable, then addressed Niall. “The questioning always goes better on the second day, once the original bruises have had time to spread and swell.”

Lovely.

And the night had started with such promise.

•   •   •

Ana waited in the empty smithy for Gordie to return. He slipped through the door just as dawn was breaking, his older brother, Simon, in tow. Wearing his guard’s tabard and standing a good four inches taller than Gordie, the sandy-haired Simon was quite imposing.

Ana held out her father’s ring. “No one must ever know what we discuss this night. May I rely on your discretion?”

Gordie’s brother examined the ring, then tucked it away. “Aye.”

“Then tell me what you know.”

“Robbie is holding up well,” Simon said, as he shut the door. “Lots of bruises and a few painful ribs, but naught that will cripple him.”

“That’s hardly reassuring,” Ana said sharply. “Can we free him?”

Simon shook his head. “He’s shackled to the wall. The constable holds the only key.”

“How goes the interrogation?”

“Now that the baron is gone, they don’t seem eager to pose questions. Mostly they just taunt him. The big Frenchman has taken a dislike to him, I think.”

“Did the baron query him?”

“Aye.”

Ana prompted Simon. “What of?”

The young man’s face twisted thoughtfully for a moment, then cleared. “The baron asked him a question or two about you.”

“What sorts of questions?”

Simon scratched his head. “When and where you were wed.”

“Did he answer?”

“Aye.”

“Come on then, lad, spit it out. What did he say?”

“That was several hours ago. I don’t recall.”

Ana took Simon’s big hand in hers and squeezed reassuringly. “This is very important. I must know what Robbie said. Think hard.”

The young man looked down at his feet. “He may have said five years.”

“We’ve been wed five years?”

He nodded.

“And where did he say we were wed, Simon?”

Simon heaved a sigh. “I’m sorry, Goodhealer. I don’t recall.”

Ana named a few towns, hoping to prod his memory. “Elgin? Rothes? Old Meldrum?”

He shook his head.

“Braemar? Alford?”

He frowned. “None of those. But it may have been a bit like Alford.”

“Aboyne?”

“I think not.” He groaned with frustration. “But I was fetching a pail of water for the constable at the time. Perhaps I didn’t hear proper.”

“Aviemore?”

His face lit up. “Aye, that’s it! He said Aviemore.”

Ana smiled and gave Simon a tight hug. “Good lad. I owe you both more than I can ever repay.”

•   •   •

When morning came, Ana donned her best gown for her meeting with Baron Duthes—a midnight blue twill with white trim on the bodice. She neatly brushed, plaited, and covered her hair to banish any image he might have of her as a crazed harridan from the night before.

After the fast was broken and the tables in the great hall were put away, one of the baron’s young pages escorted her to his chair by the hearth. The baron was speaking with the steward, so she stood quietly, waiting for him to address her.

Her heart was thudding in her chest.

She could not afford any mistakes. If Simon had misheard any of the information, or she stumbled in the recounting of it, not only would she have failed to free Niall, she’d be joining him.

The baron nodded to Eadgar, then faced Ana.

“Let us dispense with your claim, then. King Alexander will arrive in a few short hours. You say that your husband, one Robbie Bisset, has been falsely imprisoned. Mr. Hurley insists that the man he holds is not your husband. What say you?”

“Mr. Hurley is mistaken. Robbie is most definitely my husband.”

Duthes nodded. “Then it should be an easy matter to settle. Your husband has answered several questions regarding your wedding. Answer those same questions with matching answers and he can go free.”

Ana smoothed her damp palms down her skirts. “Thank you, Baron.”

“Thank me when all is done,” he said. “How long have you been wed?”

“Five years.”

“Where were you wed?”

Ana discreetly crossed her fingers. Please,
please
, Lord. “Aviemore.”

The baron nodded. “And what was the name of the priest who wed you?”

Ana stared back at him, her mind blank. Simon had not said anything about a third question. Her eyes darted to the young man standing several feet behind the baron’s chair, hoping for a miracle. Simon nodded ever so slightly to the left. Her gaze drifted in that direction—and found the pimply face of the young man’s good friend Ben.

Her gaze swung back to the baron, who was now frowning.

“My apologies, Baron,” she said, as an icy droplet of sweat ran down between her shoulder blades. “Five years is a long time to remember a name.”

His expression hardened. “Either you know who wed you or you do not.”

Ana swallowed her trepidation and prayed she was correctly interpreting Simon’s nod. “Brother Ben,” she said, cringing as she spoke the words. “I believe his name was Brother Ben.”

A broad smile broke on the baron’s face. “All is well, then. You may collect your husband.” He waved to two of his guards. “Escort the goodhealer to the dungeon and help her retrieve her mate.”

T
he grate of a key in the lock brought Niall to his feet, despite the pain and sapping weariness that beleaguered his body. He swallowed the bile that rose in his throat and shook off the queasy turn of his stomach. He’d be damned if Hurley would see him hanging in his chains.

As the door creaked open, he peered through his knotted and blood-soaked hair at his tormentor. He blinked. Then blinked again. It was not the constable. It was Ana, looking positively regal in a dark blue gown and pristine white brèid. A vision, clearly. But why had his imagination conjured her with that glorious red hair bound and hidden?

“Unshackle him immediately,” she ordered the pair of guards who had accompanied her.

The two men hastened to do her bidding, proving she wasn’t a figment of Niall’s distorted imagination. Unlocking his bindings, they released his wrists and stood back.

Despite being given his freedom, Niall made no attempt to push away from the wall. His legs were trembling. He did not trust them to hold his weight. Not yet. “Am I free to leave?”

“You are,” Ana said. “The baron has apologized on behalf of Mr. Hurley for this very unfortunate misunderstanding.”

Niall snorted. “Truly?”

“As we both had identical answers to his questions, he could not help but side with us on the issue of your identity.”

“Ah,” said Niall, as if he understood. Which he did not. How could she possibly have known what answers he had uttered in complete desperation? He took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and straightened. His badly bruised knee and bludgeoned ribs protested mightily, but by some small miracle he held his own.

“I think he’s quite happy to have the dungeons empty for the king’s visit.” Ana wrapped an arm about his waist and lent him support as they walked slowly through the door toward the stairs. “Duthes will be a shining example of Scottish society, without a single miscreant serving time in the bowels of the keep.”

“The king is a very observant man. He’ll not be swayed by a solitary fact.”

She glanced at him. “Have you met King Alexander?”

“Once.” Niall used the wall to help him mount the narrow stone stairs. “A number of years ago.”

“I’ve heard he’s quite handsome.”

He smiled. “So the ladies are wont to say.”

When they reached the top of the stairs, he unhooked Ana’s arm from his waist and tucked her hand in his elbow. He would not enter the great hall looking like an invalid.

The sparks in Ana’s eyes told him she did not approve, but she said nothing.

They traveled thus, slowly and steadily, all the way back to the bothy. Only when the door was closed behind them did he allow himself to sag. “Bloody hell.”

Ana thrust a bowl of steaming pottage at him and prodded him toward the mattress. The frame of the bed was now a pile of splintered kindling next to the fire pit. Damn Hurley’s soul to hell and back.

“I’ll speak to the carpenter after I sup,” Niall said, sinking onto the soft pallet with a sigh.

She studied him with a critical eye. “It doesn’t appear that they broke any bones.”

He shoveled a spoonful of soup in his mouth before answering, relishing the savory taste on his tongue and the warmth in his belly. The dungeon had been cold and wet, not a single comfort to be had. “Hurley was under strict orders to keep me alive, thanks to you.”

Ana chewed her bottom lip for a moment.

On any other day, Niall would have happily taken on that chore himself, but today, he ached from head to toe, and the soup had greater appeal. “What bothers you?” he asked, after swallowing another spoonful.

“I think the time has come for us to be completely honest,” she said.

He peered up at her. “There’s more? I’d have thought your confession to being a witch was honesty enough.”

“I’m not a witch!” she refuted hotly.

“Call it what you will, but you cannot deny your healing skills are derived from some sort of magic.”

She pursed her lips. “I do not worship the heathen gods, nor call upon the devil to invoke my healing talents. If it’s magic, it comes from no unholy source.”

Niall finished his soup and held out the bowl for more. “You condemn the worship of the old gods?”

“Nay, not condemn. I know many a soul who still hold the old gods dear, but I myself have accepted the Christian god.” She ladled more soup into the bowl. “You are surprisingly tolerant of my healing talents.”

He shrugged. “I’ve seen many strange things in my time.”

She was quiet for a while, allowing him to eat his fill. When his belly was full, and the bowl put aside, she favored him with a solemn stare. “Are you one of the painted ones?”

Niall blinked. The question was completely unexpected. “A Pict? Why would you think that?”

She pointed to his left shoulder and the tattoo that lay there. “I saw similar markings on standing stones in Alford. My father said they were Pictish.”

“The Picts are a dead people. They no longer exist.”

“They were conquered by the Gaels several centuries ago,” she agreed. “But a proud history does not die so easily, I think. Monuments attesting to their battles and beliefs lie all over the north and east. To my mind, that means some might still hold their Pict heritage dear.”

“Inkings do not a Pict make.”

“Of course not. But combined with your possession of this, it does leave room for wonder.” She opened her hand to reveal the midnight blue stone from his pouch. The disk carving lay faceup.

He met her gaze.

There was no judgment in her eyes. No condemnation. Just honest curiosity. It was a risk to tell her the truth, but certainly no greater risk than she had assumed by healing his injuries right before his eyes.

“Aye, I’m descended from the Picts.”

A serene calm settled over her beautiful face, as if the answer somehow satisfied all of her concerns. She dropped the piece of slate into his outstretched palm. The stone was warm from her skin. “Why does a Pict seek a ruby necklace?”

“I seek to right a wrong. The necklace was stolen while under our protection and as punishment our lands were seized.”

“Did Duthes steal it?”

“Perhaps,” he said. “Or he may have acquired it without knowing its history.”

“You think him innocent?”

He nodded slowly, reliving a portion of his misadventures during the night. “Not one of the questions I was asked last eve pertained to the necklace. Nor was I asked anything about the events that transpired at Dunstoras the night the necklace was stolen.”

Her eyebrows lifted.

“Dunstoras is my home,” he explained.

Ana sank onto the mattress beside him. “I would ask you not to assume the worst.”

With her soft curves pressed against his side, he struggled to keep his mind focused. “About what?”

“The name in the steward’s records.” Her fingers picked at a nubby thread in her gown. “It’s mine.”

“Yours?” he said hoarsely.

“I can promise you, I did not deliver a ruby necklace to Duthes. Had I been in possession of such a valuable gem, I’d have headed for Aberdeen. I know a man who’d have given me a goodly sum of gold coin for it, no explanation required.”

Her honesty made him smile. “Is the date of the entry a match to your arrival in Duthes?”

She nodded.

“How did you arrive? Alone, or with a party?”

“I traveled with a merchant caravan. For a price, they allowed me to sell my herbs and unguents in their stalls.”

Closing his eyes, Niall massaged his forehead. A pounding ache had begun behind his eyes. The price of his insistence on walking home unaided. “How many merchants?”

“Eight.” A hot hand tugged his fingers away from his temples, and then gently touched his head. Instantly, the throbbing pain receded. “Eleven, if you include the wives.”

“Describe them to me.”

“All of them?”

“Aye.”

“Do you hope to recognize someone?”

Niall opened his eyes and stared into Ana’s eyes. “The arrow you pulled from my chest was shot by one of my own men. The more I know, the better.”

“All but three of the merchants were Flemish.”

He picked up her hand and lightly traced the crimson pattern on her flesh. Her own form of inking. Much finer and more feminine than his. “Then start with the ones who were not Flemish.”

“Thomas of Oban was the leader of the group,” she said. “Large, portly fellow with white hair shorn to his ears.”

Niall followed a delicate swirl to the center of her palm.

“Archibald of Atholl was a leather goodsman.” Her voice was thick. “Short and round. With the biggest arse I’ve ever seen on a man.”

He smiled.

“Miles of Northumberland traded silks and spices from the Outremer. He was dark haired, small, and thin as a willow switch. Oddly pale, except for a large port wine stain on the left side of his chin and neck.”

None were a match to any of his men or Duthes’s men. He was no closer to discovering who had murdered his kin and stolen the necklace. “Did you meet any other Scotsmen of note along the way?”

“I don’t recall,” she said. “My first few days with the caravan are a blur—I lived in constant fear that the caravan would be swarmed by Lochurkie’s men.”

He brought Ana’s hand to his lips and kissed the spot where the vine ended on each of her fingers. “Did any of the merchants meet with Duthes when you arrived?”

“It was Yule,” she said on a light breath. “I did not see the baron meet with anyone, but it’s possible he visited one of their stalls.”

“Continue to think on it. If you recall anyone who seemed out of place, inform me immediately,” he said, lying back on the mattress. With a sharp tug on her hand, he pulled her atop him.

“Nay,” she protested. “You’re injured.”

Sliding her brèid back, he freed her hair to his touch. Burying his fingers in the soft tresses, he held her firm. “Then heal me,” he said softly. And he claimed her lips.

•   •   •

Ana had a thousand excellent reasons to resist Niall’s seduction. But the moment he kissed her, she struggled to remember what they were. Not just because the sensations spinning though her body left her breathless and dazed . . . but also because it was the first time she’d ever been so fully and completely accepted by a man.

Niall knew of her healing skills—and they did not concern him. If anything, he embraced them. She could count on one hand the number of people who’d offered her similar acceptance—her mother and father, of course, and her childhood friend Aifric. Although that last had not ended well.

He rolled her onto the mattress and with masterful lips and fingers wrought her stiff resistance into soft, pliable submission. She released a deep sigh of delight. For the moment, at least, the worry that had been her constant companion since birth was banished. He had not denounced her as the spawn of Satan or recoiled from her in fear. He knew all there was to know, and his eyes still blazed with admiration and desire.

Niall’s lips scorched a damp path down her throat to her collarbone. His tongue dallied in the divot there—teasing, promising, exciting her. As she shivered with need, his fingers nimbly untied her leather belt and shucked her body of the twill overdress. To her surprise, he did not immediately remove her sark—instead, his hands roamed her flesh through the voluminous folds of the lightweight linen shift. With her blood pumping heavily through every inch of her body, her senses were roused to incredible intensity, and the slide of linen weave over her skin was exquisite torture.

She moaned and dragged her fingers down the hard planes of his chest.

Adrift in the sweet chaos of her desire, Ana almost missed Niall’s flinch. But the healer in her reacted instinctively. Her eyes popped open and she drew aside the material of his lèine to look at his ribs. They were a shocking palette of black and blue.

“It’s nothing,” he said.

Pushing him gently away and rolling him back onto the mattress, Ana ignored his protest. She rubbed her hands together, rekindling the heat of her gift, then placed one hot hand on each side of his ribs. As the chill of his injuries flooded into her body, she shuddered. The bones of his chest had taken a brutal beating—it was a wonder he could breathe without pain.

When the last of his bones were mended and bruises healed, she bent over him and kissed him deeply on the lips. Her reward was a low growl of pleasure in his throat—the first truly uninhibited sound he’d released since she found him in the dungeon.

He took her then, hard and fast.

It was a primitive and thoroughly satisfying mating of souls. Every deep stroke and every wet slap of their bodies blending brought her closer and closer to fulfillment. Ana’s release came swiftly and with all the swells and crescendos of a piper’s call to arms. As the last ripples of bliss racked her body, Niall increased the tempo of his thrusts until he, too, reached the pinnacle.

He collapsed to the bed beside her and gathered her back against his chest.

“You’re unusually quiet.”

“I am unusually replete,” she answered honestly.

Although her back was to him, she felt his grin all the way to her toes. “A fine answer.”

“Do not take all the credit,” she chided him. “I had a hand in it as well.”

“Aye,” he murmured into her ear. “Two, if recall. Both very . . . nimble.”

Ana lay in the cocoon of his embrace, as close to happy as she had ever been.

•   •   •

“This changes nothing, of course,” she told him later. “Once you recover your necklace, we will part ways.”

Niall frowned. While he might have uttered those very same words had she not spoken them first, they did not sound nearly as appropriate on
her
tongue. He ran a hand from the satiny curve of her hip to the warm swell of her breast. “Why so eager to see me gone?”

“I travel best with little baggage.”

He snorted. “Did you just liken me to a millstone about your neck?”

She shifted in his arms, clearly uncomfortable. “You have your ambition, and I have mine.”

Wrapping his hand in a silky tangle of her hair, he tugged her head back so he could look in her eyes. The molten passion of moments ago had been replaced by cool solemnity. “What
is
your ambition?”