The leader of the group’s brows rose in the moonlight, hollowing his temples further. “A Carson ye be, eh? Yer face isna known to me.”
“My name’s Annesley,” Thomas called. “Thomas Annesley. My mother’s family are Carsons.” The wind changed then, blowing wet, flapping leaves and a wash of spray across the gulf, pressing against Thomas’s chest as if warning him back. The men glanced at one another, their expressions unfathomable. “I claim a holding in Edinburgh, and have come requesting help to defend it against an enemy. I can pay. In silver.”
When the gust had swept down the river valley toward the sea, the man replied, “Ye’d best back from the bridge, laird, whilst we cross; ’tis nae place to palaver.”
Thomas glanced past the men to the slope of the night-cloaked wood he had been told led eventually to the sea, a frown forming on his face even as he spoke. “I mean to gain the town proper; I—” Thomas broke off as he realized the woods weren’t nearly as black as they should have been on this western side of the highland hills, and not even as black as they had been when Thomas had started across the bridge. The far undersides of the firs and pines were now flickering with a faint yellow-orange glow…
Thomas brought his gaze back to the leader of the group as he spoke once more.
“Nay, ye doona wish to carry on that way,” the man advised with a slow shake of his head. “Back off the bridge now, lad.”
Thomas felt as though his boots were mortared to the mossy treads. “Are you…Carsons?” he asked. “Are you my kin?”
The leader gestured toward Thomas. “Help him back, lads. The crossing seems to be giving him a wee spot o’ trouble.”
Two men from the group lifted their baskets to the shoulders of companions and then stepped around the leader with sure strides. Thomas lurched backward, the idea of escape coming to him too late as the smooth soles of his boots could find no purchase and he staggered to maintain his footing on the slick trunks. The orange glow beyond the woods grew, and the faintest smell of smoke wafted up the mountain to itch the back of his throat. A rumbling volley of what might have been thunder whispered through the trees.
The long, parched Acras valley above the falls; the laden baskets carried under the cover of darkness…
“You’re poaching the salmon,” he said as he realized the truth. “Did you set the town afire?” he croaked as the men wrapped hard hands around his biceps. They could swing him over the edge in a blink if they chose, but Thomas felt himself being dragged toward the bank.
“Nay, nae we, lad,” the man said, following him across the bridge and over the gulf, the others stepping quickly in his wake with their baskets of gleaming, twitching fish. The men released him when his boots met the firm forest floor, and Thomas stumbled to keep his feet as the leader loomed over him. “It takes more clever tools than what the Blairs can boast to ensure a town of sodden houses should burn. It seems as though the enemy ye spoke of isna behind ye, but afore ye. A mighty foe he must indeed be.”
The man paused and then gave Thomas a sly smile. “In fact, perhaps we’ve saved yer life. What will ye pay for that now, I wonder?In silver?” He looked to the men, waiting silently. “Run ahead up the valley, Geordie-boy, and wake the fine.”
“Even the chief, Harrell?” the owl-eyed man asked with a bewildered expression on his slack, hound’s face. His words were round and softened by a speech impediment, and at this close distance, Thomas guessed he couldn’t be older than a score.
“The chief, especial,” Harrell said. “This is a day the Blairs will speak of for generations, and I’ll warrant all in the town will wish to recount the moment they saw our arrival with their own eyes.” Harrell stepped forward and swiped Thomas’s dagger from his calf before raising up swiftly and bringing the point to dimple the skin beneath his chin.
His smile widened in the midst of his hollowed face, revealing gleaming teeth in the moonlight. “The fortune of Clan Blair, wrapped in a Carson shawl. ’Tis a hero I’ll be.” His chuckle sent a hot gust of breath, smelling of raw fish, into Thomas’s nostrils.
“What, now? Have ye never wanted to be a hero, Thomas Annesley?”
Chapter 1
March 1458
Loch Acras, Town Blair
Scottish Highlands
Lachlan Blair lay his head back against the hard wood of the low chair and closed he eyes as he felt his time drawing near, the woman on her knees before him working her mouth so masterfully, so familiar with the territory she traveled, he knew he could last no more than a pair of moments before he—
His eyes snapped open again as he heard the door behind him scrape open across the dirt. “Lachlan, the chief is call—”
Lachlan reached down to the hatchet in his belt and flung it with a flick of his wrist, its resounding thud in the door frame assuring Lachlan he’d made his point, cutting off the man’s words and heralding his exit by another scraping of the door.
Next time, he would remember to drop the latch.
He looked back down at the woman seated between his legs, disengaged from him now but still gripping him tightly with one hand as her lips, glistening and reddened by the friction of him, curved in a small smile. Her large breasts dangled free and bare above the folds of her crushed bodice.
“Shall I stop? It must be important.”
Lachlan cursed aloud and then sighed and sat up in the chair, forcing Searrach to release him and move away with no more protest than a rueful pout. He stood, squatting to drop his manhood into his braies and lace up his codpiece while Searrach pushed her arms into her bodice and hid her breasts away from his admiring view. Now that his head was clearing of the impassioned fog conjured by the well-rounded brunette, Lachlan could better hear the sounds of commotion through the thick walls of the longhouse. He swiped his brush through his waving auburn locks, using his other hand to gather the length in a long tail at his nape.
“What could it be?” Searrach asked as she pulled the brush from his hand to tidy her own hair.
“I doona know,” Lachlan said, securing the tail with a piece of leather and then rocking his hatchet free from the doorframe and returning it to his belt. “But if it’s nae someone’s death, it soon will be.”
