The Raider (Highland Guard #8)(7)

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 br**sts. 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 see their farm razed and cattle stolen.

He didn’t care if he had to fight for another godforsaken fifteen years, he wouldn’t rest until every last English occupier fled from Scotland and the Lion—the symbol of Scotland’s kingship—roared free.

Freedom was the only thing he cared about. Nothing else had mattered from the first day he’d lifted his sword to fight alongside his boyhood friend, William Wallace.