Too bad she couldn’t have arrived at nap time instead.
Truth be told, they didn’t look all that different from her father’s Gallovidian warriors; the difference being that her father’s men all knew who she was and wouldn’t look at her so rudely—or crudely for that matter.
Licentious stares were nothing she hadn’t had to deal with before—if on a smaller, less intimidating scale. Still, she was looking rather anxiously for the leaders’ tents. Eoin might have been a regular man-at-arms for his father when she’d met him all those years ago, but it was clear he’d made his way up through the ranks in the intervening years. She couldn’t say she was surprised. Even her father had been aware of his promise. This was always what had been important to him—maybe it was all that had been important to him.
Catching sight of larger tents on the ridge, she started to walk in that direction when an arm snaked around her waist from behind, and her breath jammed as she was jerked against a hard, mail-clad body. She got a quick glance of the grizzled face of a thickset, dark-haired warrior, and a not so quick whiff of pungent days’ old male sweat. The stench was overwhelming, and instinctively she tried to break free.
His hot, ale-laden breath rang in her ear. “Not so fast, lass. Damn, you’re a fine-looking piece.” Good lord, he was drunk. She could feel his hand moving toward her breast and tried to twist to evade the touch, but he managed to get in a good squeeze anyway. “Malcolm and I could use a little company. Isn’t that right, Malcolm?”
A taller, leaner soldier stepped in front of her. He was no less grizzled in appearance, and was missing a few teeth, but he seemed to smell marginally better. Or maybe it was that the first warrior smelled so terribly, he drowned out everything else. Her stomach was rolling, and she was in danger of losing its contents if she didn’t breathe fresh air soon.
“Aye,” Malcolm said appraisingly. “Been a long time since I’ve had company like you. Christ,” he said with a glance down her chest, which was no longer hidden behind her cloak thanks to the first warrior’s groping. The new gown with its too-tight bodice displayed her breasts rather... prominently. “Would you look at the size of those tits!” He frowned. “That’s a fine gown for a whore.”
“That’s because I’m not a whore,” Margaret said angrily, trying to use her elbow to wrench away from the brute. But it was like trying to dent steel. “Let go of me,” she said.
“What’s going on here?” a deep voice said. “I think the lass isn’t interested, Captain.”
“Stay out of this, MacGowan. It’s none of your business.”
“I’m making it my business.” The man came into view, stepping between Malcolm and the man he’d identified as a captain. Margaret had seen her fair share of handsome men, but her breath still sputtered a little. If she weren’t partial to dark-blond hair, midnight-blue eyes, and mysterious, this man might have persuaded her to consider dark—almost black—hair, steely-blue eyes, and dangerous. Good lord, he was a handsome devil, possessing the dark good looks that conjured up all kinds of wickedness. Perhaps a couple of inches taller than Eoin with a heavily muscled build, this man could no doubt hold his own on the battlefield. “Let her go, Captain.”
“You forget who you are talking to, MacGowan. I give you the orders, not the other way around. Get out of here, before I see you tossed in the stocks or flogged for insubordination.”
The man’s eyes met hers. “Are you willing, lass?”
“Most assuredly not,” she said.
No doubt hearing the refined tones of her speech, which in their drunken lust the other two had apparently missed, MacGowan frowned. “What is your name, my lady?”
She almost proudly belted out that she was Margaret MacDowell, daughter to the MacDowell chief. Realizing this might not be the best audience for that information, she quickly changed her response. “The wife of Eoin MacLean.”
The captain let her go so quickly she almost stumbled.
“MacLean isn’t married.”
MacGowan must have heard the same uncertainty in his voice that she had and responded to the captain, “You better hope he isn’t.”
Malcolm’s face had taken on a decidedly ashen hue. “We meant no offense, my lady. It was a misunderstanding.”
Margaret would have been inclined to let it go, if the captain hadn’t decided to take his foiled plans out on her rescuer. Without warning, the captain’s fist plowed into MacGowan’s jaw. A second landed in his ribs. And then a third. In between shots, the captain was mumbling about “knowing his place,” and “peasant get.”
As it was clear, MacGowan wasn’t going to fight back, Margaret tried to put a stop to it herself. Unfortunately, the captain was too angry, too belligerent, and perhaps too drunk to notice that his next punch was headed toward her face and not the young warrior’s shoulder.
She cried out as her head was slammed back with the force of the punch and pain exploded in her head. The last thing she heard before she fell back was a great roar.
19
THE SOUNDS OFa disturbance outside interrupted their meeting. “What in Hades is going on out there?” Edward Bruce asked his squire. “Find out.”
The lad ran out and Eoin tried to get the king’s brother back on track. Of Bruce’s four brothers, Edward was the only who still lived and the only one whom Eoin had never liked. His dislike had only grown after fighting beside him for the better part of five years.
When the king had sent his brother as his lieutenant to try to wrestle the troublesome south and Borders into submission, in addition to Sir James Douglas and Sir Thomas Randolph, four members of the Highland Guard had gone with him: Eoin, Lamont, Boyd, and—until he’d defected to the enemy—Seton. Though they were sometimes called elsewhere for various missions, and at times the rest of the Guard would join them, Eoin had spent most of his time since their return to Scotland in the south with Edward.
At his best, Edward Bruce was an arrogant prig, impetuous, and mercurial. He was both fiercely loyal to his brother and deeply jealous of him. The love that “the Bruce” inspired in his men was conspicuously missing toward his brother. It wasn’t hard to see why. Edward was not half the leader his brother was. He didn’t like taking advice or letting anyone else get the credit, which often put him at direct odds with the members of the Highland Guard—like now.
“We can get in there,” Eoin said with forced evenness. “What harm is there in at least letting us try?”
“The harm is having you killed. What do you think my brother would say if I ordered a mission that had some of his prized warriors killed? Nay. We’ll proceed with the siege. MacDowell won’t be able to hold out for long. You and your brethren have seen to that. There hasn’t been a shipment of provisions that has made its way through in months.”
