Page 18 of Highlander’s Ancient Vengeance

The lairds sat down face to face. Malle looked up at her mother, who was almost weeping with happiness.

“They are working together,” she whispered in Malle’s ear.

Malle frowned and raised her eyebrows. “Really?” she mouthed, and Margaret nodded. Malle was not so sure. Hundreds of years of fighting could not be swept away by a few hours of talking between two men.

“Craig—may I call you Craig?” Kenneth asked.

Craig smiled. “Of course, M’laird,” he replied.

“We have decided to work together, your father and I,” Kenneth informed him.

“Which you would have discovered if you had stayed in the room,” Malcolm Dunbar said, voice dripping with sarcasm. Craig said nothing while Kenneth kept on talking.

“We are still talking, and barriers still exist between us, but neither of us want to see any more killing. If none of our workers will come forward with information, then we will go to them. We will each stay on our own side of the Cut and ask questions of our own tenants and crofters. This may help us to gain their trust as well as their cooperation, particularly if they receive a little financial compensation for it. We are sure that they are willing to help, but may be afraid, so we will have to arrange protection for them.”

“And their livestock may also be at risk, so we need to safeguard that too,” Malcolm growled. “When I get my hands on this creature—or creatures—I will make him suffer!” His brow furrowed in a deep frown making his eyes dark and thunderous.

“On that we can all agree!” Kenneth said grimly.

Malle exchanged glances with Craig, and they smiled at each other, but Margaret intercepted the look. She frowned, thinking that she was not ready to trust a Dunbar. Not quite yet.

Malle was looking at Craig’s hands, wondering how it would feel for him to caress her. He was the most desirable man she had ever met, but they were separated by a dispute that had gone on for hundreds of years before she was born, and had nothing to do with either her or Craig. She could have howled with frustration. It was all so pointless.

12

The Accident

When Craig went back to his own castle that afternoon he could think about nothing but Malle. He had been with dozens of women; he had a reputation for his exploits, but he had never found one he could fall in love with before. However, she was different.

She had an intelligence that was missing in many other people he had encountered, and not just women. She was fierce; she could stand up for herself against any man, as she had done with him, and yet he knew that she could be tender and womanly.

He knew it from the kiss, the way her pliant body had yielded to his, and he was beginning to know it from the way she talked to him and looked at him. She was tough and tender at the same time, while still being very feminine. In short, she was everything he wanted, and he realized that for the first time ever he cared about a woman, not for how she could make him feel in a carnal way, but for how she made him feel deep inside his heart and his mind.

He fell asleep thinking about her and he woke up thinking about her, and she stayed at the back of his mind all day.

When he got up, it was another cloudy day that threatened a downpour, and he felt his mood dip with the weather. He knew he was not going to see Malle that day unless he ventured onto MacEwan land, and although relations between the two families had thawed slightly, the guards would still arrest or chase away any Dunbar trespassers. Malle was not likely to venture onto Dunbar land to visit Isobell’s grave for the same reason.

He tried to think of somewhere else he could find her and could think of none, but he was so depressed at the thought of not seeing her that he thought he would write a letter asking her to meet him. Then he could pour out his heart to her, tell her how much he cared for her, and hope that she felt the same.

Having decided on a course of action, he felt better. He decided to pay a quick visit to the church to light a candle and say a prayer for both of them. Perhaps he should have asked God’s advice in the first place, he thought ruefully.

Arthur was in a skittish mood that morning, so even though the sky looked unwelcoming and threatening, Malle decided to take him out for a gallop. This was one of Arthur’s favorite activities, especially when wet weather had kept him cooped up for a few days. If denied this release, he had been known to kick down the door of his stall and make a bid for freedom, causing total chaos among the guards and stable hands. Subduing a horse the size of Arthur was not easy!

Malle wondered if she would manage to see Craig somehow today, then she chided herself for being stupid. How would Craig get onto their land without being arrested for trespass? She determinedly put the thought out of her mind. That way lay folly, but she must have been nursing the idea in her mind without realizing it, because suddenly she found herself riding towards the Cut.

She began to try to turn Arthur around, but he was not in the mood for taking orders; he rarely disobeyed her, but that day he had ideas of his own. He tossed his head and kicked his heels up before galloping at full speed straight for the Cut, then he flew over it with hardly a pause in his stride.

However, for a heavy horse like Arthur, a smooth landing in these conditions was impossible, and his huge feet hit the ground with such force that Malle was literally thrown out of the saddle and hurled into the air. She heard herself scream, and for a few seconds, there was a dizzying jumble of images before her eyes as she flew through the air to land on the wet ground with a jarring thud. It was a moment before the pain came, wave after wave of it hammering through her head.

She groaned and closed her eyes, but when she opened them the world was still swimming in and out of focus and the only thing she could see clearly was the muddy ground she was lying on. She made a feeble attempt to get on her knees so that she could try to sit up, but she did not have the strength, and collapsing on her stomach again brought even more pain. Presently the world disappeared from her sight.

When she opened her eyes again, for a moment, she had no idea where she was. The thumping agony in her head had now been joined by even more pain, stabbing her from her backside, elbows, knees, and hips, and she began to weep. She wondered, in a brief moment of clarity, whether she should wait to die or try to get up and crawl, but a few seconds after that the blackness descended again.

Craig had been riding to take medicine to some of his tenants whose sheep had been suffering badly from foot rot, which was a common complaint in the boggy parts of his estate. His route took him past the church, so he turned his horse’s head that way, and cantered towards the little gray building.

Then he saw the moaning, bedraggled form lying facedown on the ground and vaulted off his mount to see who it was and how he could help, and that was when he noticed Arthur calmly cropping the grass a few yards away.

His heart skipped a beat. “Malle!” he cried desperately. He ran up to her side and gently turned her over on her back, then lifted her shoulders and back onto his lap. His hands were infinitely gentle. “What has happened to you?”