The Recruit (Highland Guard #6)(97)

She gasped in horror. Both men were helmed but stripped to the chest, wearing only their braies and chausses. Sweat and blood stained their broad, muscled chests as they attacked each other with a ferocity she’d never witnessed before. There was nothing elegant, nothing noble. It was a contest of raw strength and brutality. Each man wielded one crude weapon in addition to his fists. The taller and more leanly muscled of the two had a crude-looking hammer; the heavier-set man, with a neck as thick as his head, held a stave with a mace. Unlike in regular tournaments, the weapons were not blunted.

The sight of such brutality alone would have made her knees go weak. But that wasn’t what made her stomach lurch to the ground and her legs turn to jelly. Despite the steel helms they wore to mask their identities, Mary instantly recognized the taller of the two men as her husband. She would know those arms and chest anywhere.

Any relief she might have felt from discovering that he wasn’t in some tawdry tavern with a woman was overwhelmed by the more immediate concern of the danger he was in both from the man trying to kill him and from Sir John, were it discovered that he was fighting in an illegal tournament.

The question of why he was fighting here and not with the other English soldiers floated to the back of her mind to be answered later. She had to get Sir John and his men out of here.

She spun around on her heel to insist that they leave, accidentally bumping into the man next to her. Under normal circumstances it wouldn’t have been of any circumstance, but at that moment something happened in the pit that caused everyone to lurch forward. Unbalanced, as much from the movement as from her pregnant stomach, Mary cried out and started to fall.

She would have fallen backward into the pit a dozen feet below if Sir John hadn’t caught her.

She was still leaning toward the pit, her arms latched around his neck, when their eyes met.

His were stunned. “You’re pregnant!”

Something was off tonight. For nearly a month Kenneth had fought twice—sometimes three times—a week in the Pits of Hell, as the secret combat tourney was called. He knew it was risky to fight in the illegal tournaments, but Felton’s taunts had only worsened as the weeks passed, and his control where his wife was concerned was stretched to the breaking point. The fighting had provided both the outlet he needed to take the edge off his anger and a means of preparing himself for the upcoming war and his place in the Guard. Ironically, it was MacKay’s hidden-identity appearance in the Highland Games that had inspired him.

He was undefeated. A champion and a crowd favorite. Normally, the shouts of Ice—the war name he’d jestingly given himself as a reminder of why he was here—invigorated him. Got his blood rushing and made his muscles flare with anticipation.

But not tonight. Tonight he felt none of his usual excitement and bloodlust. He exchanged punishing blow after blow with his opponent, more with an eye to ending the fight as soon as possible than to savoring victory.

His thoughts weren’t on the fight but on the conversation earlier with Mary. She’d been trying to tell him something, but he’d been too focused on what he needed to do to listen. Time was running out, and he had to get her to safety. Removing her from the castle would be the first step. But of course, she hadn’t understood. How could she, when she didn’t know the truth?

Distracted, his head snapped back when his opponent’s meaty fist connected with his jaw. A swing of his mace followed. Narrowly evading the sharp points in his ribs, Kenneth realized he’d better focus on the thick-necked brute doing his best to kill him.

He’d just landed a rib-crushing blow of his hammer on his opponent’s side and followed it with a leaping kick that sent him careening to the ground, when a cry pricked his senses. A woman’s cry.

His gaze shot in the direction of the sound. He saw a flash of movement—a woman lurched toward the pit before being pulled back by a man.

Not just any woman. He tried to tell himself it wasn’t possible. But every flared nerve ending in his body told him it was his woman.

He didn’t know whether it was the delayed panic of almost seeing her tumble into the pit, knowing that he wouldn’t have been able to do anything to stop it, that made him snap or the fact that the man who did stop it—and who now held her in his bloody arms too tightly and for too long—was Felton.

He looked as if he were about to kiss her, damn it.

Catapulting out of the pit by stepping on a piece of the broken wall, he launched himself at Felton. “Get your hands off her!”

Felton looked up at him in shocked recognition.

“Kenneth, no!” Mary cried, extracting herself from the other man’s embrace.

But he was too far gone to heed her plea. His frustration. His heart-knotting confusion of feelings for his wife. His fear that he might lose her. Seeing the man who’d been taunting him for weeks with his hands on her. All came together in one mind-numbing rage.

The bastard was going to have the fight he’d begged for. One fist connected with the steel of Felton’s helm, the other with his mail-clad gut.

Felton’s men would have rushed forward to the knight’s aid, but someone in the crowd shouted “soldiers” and the crowd surged toward the wynd. Thinking they meant to attack, Felton’s men drew their swords, and then did find themselves under attack as the crowd reacted to the threat.

Felton tried to grab his sword as well, but Kenneth anticipated his movement and knocked it from his hand.