Page 350 of Wicked Highland Heroes

He started to move out of the doorway and into the great hall, but Maude halted him. “Nay,” she said. “Take her through the kitchen door and around to the front entrance.”

Barry gave her a curious look and opened his mouth as though to say something, but Maude was ready for him. “Never mind the questions, just do as I say.” She shook the knife at him that she’d been using on the pig and his brows rose in amusement. “Off with you,” she added before returning to work.

Shrugging, he ambled toward the door with Victoria close behind.

“When you are ready to go back to your cottage, get one of the lads to take you,” Maude called over her shoulder as they left the warmth of the kitchen behind.

As expected, Jillian slept peacefully. Victoria brushed back the hair that had fallen in the girl’s face. “Sleep well, lass. ’Tis a far sweeter world where you are now than the one you will face tomorrow.” Victoria pulled the covers closer around Jillian’s shoulders, then set out to make her way through the labyrinth of corridors leading to the main entrance.

Victoria stepped from the castle into the cloudy night. She shivered, not from the cold, but from the memory of violence. Her attempted escape had been a close call. Iain had driven that point home after Kevin Robertson left. Still, the decree that she should not again leave the castle came as a hard blow. Iain no longer called it a punishment, instead saying it was for her safety. His enthusiasm on the point was so thinly veiled Victoria didn’t believe he thought her gullible enough to believe it.

“’Tis a harsh world outside these walls,” he had said, “and there is no mercy for the ignorant.”

No amount of reasoning had moved him. “Impossible to reason with a barbarian,” she muttered, even as the argument fell flat in her own mind.

The whoops and indistinguishable Gaelic coming from a group of passing men drew Victoria from her thoughts. She felt their eyes following her progress across the compound and Maude’s warning sprang to mind. She slowed in the darkness and realized serious misgivings through what now felt like a vast forest instead of the small grove she had grown accustomed to.

Her heart pounded at the sounds of rustling leaves. She stumbled over a small branch, lurched forward, then caught herself. Victoria looked over her shoulder, but seeing nothing in the shadows, faced forward again. The abrupt appearance of a large form loosed the scream lodged in the back of her throat. Footsteps sounded behind her, and she whirled to face the new phantom. The sight of yet another apparition sent her back a couple of steps. The muttered oath behind her confirmed that the wall she had collided with was indeed human, if she could consider Iain MacPherson human.

Her attention focused on the approaching figure as his hand shot out in the darkness to grope for her. Left with little choice, Victoria pressed herself against him. His arm slid around her waist, and a familiar sense of reassurance emanated from the heat of his body. Iain growled a few Gaelic words only to have his opponent snarl a vicious response.

Iain shoved her behind his large bulk and bent, pulling something from his boot. Victoria took a step back at the sight of a tiny glint bouncing off what Iain gripped. A dagger. She recalled the knife when he’d cut her bonds on the trip to Fauldun Castle. More heated words flew between the men, all in Gaelic, but Victoria didn’t miss the name. Iain MacPherson. At last, the man mumbled a response, then turned back the way he’d come.

Iain faced her and Victoria found he stood so close she was forced to angle her head almost directly up in a wasted effort to discern his expression in the darkness.

“What are you thinking, out alone on a night like this?” he demanded.

The accusatory tone in his voice brought an instant rebuttal to her lips, but she faltered with the memory that Maude had warned of just such an incident. “I was going home.” She waved a hand in the direction of her cottage.

“I can see risk taking is a habit of yours,” he said.

Victoria leaned away from him, aware he must have consumed more than just the ale she’d witnessed him drinking. From the smell of things, whiskey had followed after she’d left.

“What sort of mischief are ye thinkin’ to find tonight, lass?”

She was startled by the sudden loss of proper speech she’d been accustomed to hearing him speak, but it was the soft tone of his voice that made her throat go dry.

He stepped closer. “Are ye finding yourself in need of company?”

He gripped her shoulders and drew her against him. Her heart jumped. Her keeper was in no better a mood than the stranger who had followed her.

“Or perhaps you were thinkin’ to find your friend along the way?” he asked in a voice that was suddenly thick.

“Friend?” Victoria repeated, her confusion growing worse with each heavy breath she felt him make.

“Any fool can see the way he was talking to you,”

Iain went on. “And you did not seem to mind.”

“What in the name of—” Victoria stopped, realizing he meant Johannas. “You cannot mean—”

“I am no more a fool then you are,” he broke in. “You were damned friendly with him in the hall,”

Iain said, his grip on her tightening with each word,

“but dinna’ deign to speak a civil word to me.”

“Why should I? You are but my captor.” The instant the words were out of her mouth she remembered her desire to throw herself into his arms the day he faced Kevin Robertson. The disconcerting recollection ended with the awareness of his body so close to hers.