The Raider (A Highland Guard Novel) Read online

  Had she? No. She wasn’t wrong about him. But still, it was one thing to watch a man from a window and admire him and another to have him right next to you. “If I help you, you have to promise to leave without hurting anyone.”

  “I will not leave my friends behind to die.”

  She’d anticipated that. It was one of the reasons she was here—a noble leader would not leave his men. “But you will give me your word you will not hurt any of the guards?”

  He made a sharp sound that might have been a laugh. “My word is good enough for you?”

  “It is.”

  He paused as if her answer surprised him. “Very well, you have my word that I will do my best to see that no one is killed.”

  He spoke the words with the solemnity of a vow. She had no reason to trust him, and yet she did. Enough to drop the rope.

  She moved back, and in a shockingly few moments he was standing in front of her. Looming in front of her, actually. His large, muscular frame seemed to fill the entire room. Jesu, he was even taller and more formidably built than she’d realized! Instinctively, she shrank back, every one of her brother’s warnings suddenly running through her mind.

  Cut your throat…Vile barbarian…Vicious brute…

  He stilled. “You’ve nothing to fear, lass. I will not harm you. I owe you my life.”

  Some of her fear dissipated. He might be built like a brute, but the man inside was noble of heart. She just wished it weren’t so dark. She wanted to see his face up close, but she couldn’t make out much more than shadows. Her other senses worked perfectly, however, and mingled with the dank air of the pit, she caught the musky edge of a well-worked body that was not as unpleasant as she would have expected.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “It’s not important.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  She wasn’t sure she knew herself, but standing here with him, she knew it was right. “It was my fault. I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt—I was only trying to help.”

  “You brought the food.” He said it as if the last piece of a puzzle had just been fit into place, and it still didn’t make sense.

  She nodded.

  “How old are you, lass?”

  Something in his voice caused her to throw up her chin and straighten her spine. “Eighteen,” she lied.

  She could almost hear him smile. He couldn’t be more than a handful of years older than she, but he made her feel so young. Even in the darkness it seemed as if he could see right through her. As if he knew her reason for helping him. He was probably used to women admiring him. Used to young, starry-eyed “lasses” who made themselves silly over him.

  But it wasn’t like that. She was righting a wrong. Mostly.

  “No matter what your age, what you are doing is a kindness, and I thank you for it. What happened is not your fault, though I won’t say I regret your thinking so, since otherwise I would still be in that pit.”

  He stopped, hearing something.

  Oh God, the guard! She’d been so distracted by him that she’d forgotten about the guard. The soldier must have heard something and was coming to investigate. Before she realized what was happening, the Scot grabbed her, pulled her against him, and put his hand over her mouth.

  She gasped soundlessly, first with shock and then with ice-cold fear. She felt as if she’d been enveloped in steel. Every inch of him was hard and unyielding, from the chest plastered against her back to the rock-hard arm tucked under her breasts. She tried to squirm free, but he tightened his clamplike hold, stopping her. When he enfolded her hand in his big, callused one, a strange warmth engulfed her. Not realizing what he was trying to do, she startled—at least she thought the shudder running through her was a startle. Capturing her fingers, he gently folded back four fingers and then three.

  Suddenly, she understood. She pointed one finger. One guard. He nodded and slowly released his hand from around her mouth. She realized that he’d grabbed her only to prevent her from making any startled sound.

  Her mind might know that, but her heart was still slamming against her chest with the aftereffects. Yet she knew that was not the only reason. She was suddenly aware of him. Aware of him in “a woman who’s being held by a man for the first time” kind of way. He might be made of steel, but he was warm. Very warm. And no man had ever held her so intimately. She had the sensation of being tucked in against him, every part of their bodies fitted in snug and tight. She was sure it was highly improper, and she would be shocked later, but right now all she could think was how incredible it felt. Like she was warm and safe and nothing would ever hurt her.

  He inched them against the wall, turning her toward it to protect her with his body. She could feel the muscles in his body tense as torchlight flooded the main chamber of the keep. The light drew nearer and nearer. The guard was coming this way!

  She couldn’t breathe. Both from fear and from being pressed up against a stone wall with a steel one behind her.

  “What the hell?”

  The soldier had noticed the open pit. He walked into the room and held the torch over the pit. The Scot sprang into action. He moved so fast, the soldier never had a chance. A sharp blow to the soldier’s throat and a jab to the stomach pushed him back. He managed a cry of surprise before he fell into the hole. The torch went black and a moment later, the door was slammed shut.

  The Scot spun her around to face him. “I have to go. They’ll come looking for him.”

  She nodded wordlessly, still stunned by how fast it had happened.

  “You will be all right?” he asked. “I will do what I can to make it seem as if we had no help.”

  “I will be fine.” She paused, wanting to say something but not knowing what. “Please, you had best go quickly.”

  But she didn’t want him to go. She wished…she wished she had a chance to know this man who’d captured her heart.

  Perhaps he’d heard her hesitation—and guessed the reason for it. He turned to do as she bid, but then he, too, hesitated. Before she realized what he was going to do, he cupped her chin in his big hand, tipped her head back, and touched his lips to hers. She had the fleeting sense of warmth and surprising softness before it was gone.

  “Thank you, lass. One day I hope we shall meet again, so I can repay you in full.”

  She watched with her heart in her throat as he disappeared into the darkness. She brought her hand to her mouth as if she could keep the moment there forever.

  It had been a kiss of gratitude. The barest brushing of mouths, with no intent of passion. Even brotherly—on his part, at least. But in that one instant, she felt a spark of something big and powerful and magical. Something extraordinary. Something wonderful.

  She might have stood like that until morning, but a sound from the pit prison below roused her from her dreamlike state.

  Rosalin raced out of the keep and back up the stairs to her chamber, knowing that she might live with the repercussions of this night forever, but she would never regret it.

  One

  Hannibal ad portas (Hannibal is at the gates)

  Cranshaws, Scottish Marches, February 1312

  The English would pay.

  Robbie Boyd, King Robert the Bruce’s authority in the Borders, stared at the blackened shell of the barn and vowed retribution.

  His mouth fell in a grim line, the bitter taste of memory as acrid as the smoke burning his throat. He would never be able to see a razed barn without thinking of the one that had served as his father’s funeral pyre. It had been the then seventeen-year-old Robbie’s first lesson in English treachery and injustice. In the fifteen years since, he’d had many more.

  But it would end. By all that was holy, he would make sure of it. No matter what it took, he would see Scotland freed of its English “overlords.” No more sons would see their father’s burned body hanging from the rafters, no more brothers would see their sister raped and brother executed, and no more farmers would se