Once Upon a Christmas Past Page 37

  “My lord?” Andrew cantered forward. “What deal did you agree to with Mr. Grant?”

  “Her maidenhead, if she still possessed it as of last night,” the marquess sneered. “In exchange for an escort to the MacGregor holding.”

  Andrew’s anger pulsed thick in the air. For a moment he seemed too furious to even speak. Then said, “She means nothing to you then?”

  “I admit,” Douglas said sounding a bit impatient, “at first I agreed to wed her with the hope that one of you would give me the information I wanted. I mean, you did spend months living with the MacGregors. Who better to bring me to their secret holding? But you all refused.”

  “We will not betray them so that you can gain favor with Prince William.”

  Hell, Finn thought, hearing the tremor in Andrew’s voice while he spoke, things could go from dangerous to deadly in an instant. Where the hell was Colin, his brother, Tristan? He was tempted to look over his shoulder at the roof to make certain Will was there. At least ten of the marquess’s men had pistols. Half were aimed at him. The other half, at Andrew.

  “And I will not betray my sister by letting her wed a man who holds her in such little regard.”

  The marquess tossed his head back and laughed. “I no longer want or need your sister, Harrison. In fact”—he slipped his pistol free of its holster and waved it at Andrew—“after this tavern performer brings me to his brethren, I’ll have no further use for any of you at all.”

  Finn wasn’t sure if it was Douglas’s proof of treachery toward them all or the sight of Tristan MacGregor appearing like a wraith at the tree line that drained the last bit of color from Alan Harrison’s complexion.

  When the marquess looked over his shoulder to see what brought such fear to Alan’s face, Finn knew he had to do something. He didn’t want Tristan getting shot at while he was too far away to defend himself.

  “Douglas!” Finn shouted. “Drop yer weapon and order yer men to do the same. Do it!” he commanded, cocking one of the pistols he’d pilfered from Alan and aiming it directly at the marquess while he stormed forward. “Or watch them all die before yer eyes.”

  “Oh?” Douglas asked, dipping his gaze to Finn’s pistol. “You’re going to kill all my men with one ball?”

  “Put down yer weapon,” Finn shouted, ignoring the echo of almost a dozen pistols being cocked. He knew his kin were there, hidden and deadly. “I’ll not warn ye again.”

  The marquess laughed, turned his barrel on Finn, and closed one eye to aim. “Why don’t you come take it?”

  The first arrow flew by Finn’s temple and into Douglas’s pistol, knocking it out of his hand and onto the ground, useless. Another followed on its tail and entered a pistol-toting guardsman’s chest. Another man to Douglas’s left fell from his mount, his side cleaved almost in half by Connor’s heavy claymore. Someone cried out on the right as Tristan’s stallion reared up and his quick blade met its mark. Two more arrows flew, skimming close enough to Finn to make him look up at the roof of the inn and glare at Will.

  Someone fired his weapon but missed his target when Colin’s dagger landed in his throat. For a moment, Finn watched everything, taking in every swipe, stroke, and crushing blow. It was his duty to remember moments like these. The men of Camlochlin were like a wave of destruction, striking over and over, without mercy or pause, staining the ground red.

  A woman’s shrill scream carried on the wind from somewhere behind him. It stilled his thoughts and froze his blood. He turned to look back at the inn and saw Leslie running toward him, terror and the crisp morning air paling her to a deathly white. He held up his palms to stop her approach. Nae! He didn’t want her to see the dead, or suffer the sight of seeing her brothers possibly killed up close. He had to get to her, so he began to run.

  As they drew closer, her voice became clearer.

  “Finn! Behind you!”

  Chapter 13

  Leslie grew unaware of whether or not she was still screaming. She had for certain, though, stopped running. She watched, frozen and paralyzed, while Finn fought for his life against one of the marquess’s men. If he died…If he died because she’d distracted him…She couldn’t finish the thought.

  She pleaded with God to let him live. They had just found each other, just days ago proclaimed their love to each other. They had their whole lives to live and Leslie wanted to live hers with him. She’d almost given it up. She knew better now. What was life without Finlay Grant’s radiant smile, his easy laughter illuminating any darkness? She wanted to wake up with him every morning the way she had today.

  He parried and jabbed with some skill and was, in fact, managing quite well. Still, she was terrified for him. When she saw Connor Grant catch sight of his brother and kick his mount forward, relief flooded her veins. Her own brother, far less deadly with a sword and already on his way to Finn, didn’t evoke the same reaction. What if they were both killed?

  But Finn was tiring. He needed assistance against the trained soldier and Andrew was closer, so she prayed for her brother to hurry.

  When the guardsman suddenly went down from a crushing blow from Finn’s sword, she screamed and then began to cry. He lived! Her beloved lived!

  She wanted to run to him, but Andrew leaped from his snorting mount and reached him first, shouting for her to remain where she was.

  Finn took a moment to share a smile with her but his gaze rose above her head to someplace behind her and what he saw vanquished his relief and darkened his expression.

  Leslie turned to follow his gaze. The roof! Will was about to shoot at her brother!

  “Nae!” Finn sprang at Andrew, shielding him from the arrow that whistled by Leslie’s ear—the arrow meant for her brother but taken deliberately by Finn instead. He’d saved Andrew. For her. He’d kept his promise. Leslie dropped to her knees, watching her beloved go down.

  “Finn!” Connor’s horse nearly barreled Andrew over before skidding to a halt to eject its rider.

  All around her men were shouting, their voices harsh with disbelief and the terror of losing their brother and bard. But it was Will’s voice, coming up behind her, stark as the morning and out of breath, that finally ripped a sob from her throat.

  “Does he live? God’s mercy, tell me, does he live?”

  Oh, please, please, I beg You, Father, let him live.

  “Aye, I live,” Finn called to Will from somewhere beyond his brother and hers.

  Leslie nearly fainted at the sound of it. She fought the urge, needing her strength to run to him.

  When she reached him, she had to break through a barrier of brawn before falling to her knees beside him. The arrow had pierced his side, possibly breaking a rib if the heart-wrenching grimace on his face was any indication.

  “You live,” she breathed against his cheek, unconcerned with the men around them. “Will you always do such things to please me?”

  “Aye,” he promised, reaching his mouth to hers. “Always.”

  “Why did ye shoot yer arrow, Will?” Connor demanded while he examined the wound by poking at it and distracted Finn.

  “I thought Harrison was goin’ fer him.”

  “Finn jumped into it to save me,” Andrew explained as his brother, the only other man left alive, besides the marquess and the Highlanders, joined them.

  “Why would you do that?” Alan asked from somewhere above her and Finn’s heads.

  Tristan, who’d joined them, sighed gustily. “’Tis love, lads. It makes men go a wee bit mad.”

  “Is that true?” Leslie looked into Finn’s vivid green eyes, then traced her vision over the angle of his cheekbones, the hint of a shadowy crease in his cheek growing deeper as his mouth curled into a softer, less strained smile.

  “Aye.” Forgetting his pain, he touched his fingers to her face and drew in closer. “’Tis true. In my case, riotously, soul-shakingly, life-alteringly mad. ’Tis going to inspire me fer years to come.”

  Oh, how had she won this man when so many wanted
him? He’d traveled miles alone in the snow for her. For her, he’d boldly risked his life by suggesting the price of his assistance to the marquess. For her, he’d offered his life in exchange for her brother’s.

  She would be a fool to let him go. She wanted to kiss him right there in front of his friends. Later, she would tell him how much she loved him.

  Colin’s stallion stopping inches from them snapped her back to the real world.

  “Fer someone shot by one of Will’s arrows,” he said, looking down from his saddle, “ye look remarkably well.”

  “’Tis a flesh wound,” Finn assured him while Connor and Tristan helped him to his feet. “Where’s the marquess? Ye didn’t kill him did ye?”

  “Nae,” Colin answered with a slight pout quirking his mouth. “He’s tied to a tree and will be dealt with momentarily.” He set his clear, hazel eyes on the arrow jutting out of Finn’s side, then on Will. “’Tis the most fortunate day of yer life, cousin. His father, and quite possibly his mother too, would have killed ye if yer aim had been more accurate.”

  Will closed his eyes and then rubbed his hand over them as if unable to bear the thought of killing his friend.

  “Will.” Finn pushed his hand into Will’s shoulder. “’Twas my fault.” Without giving his friend a chance to reply, he turned away and looked toward their captive, pale, shivering, and tied to a tree a few feet away.

  “What d’ye plan on doing with the marquess?”

  Colin shrugged a shoulder. “I plan on convincing him not to follow us. Right after yer brother…”

  Something cracked. Finn threw his head back and cried out as Connor yanked the broken arrow free.

  “…sees to yer wound,” Colin finished, then looked up at the others. “Well, that’s done. Who wants to join me?”

  Weakened with shocking pain, Finn coiled his arm around Leslie’s shoulder and leaned into her while Connor tore off a strip of his plaid and tied it around his brother’s waist. “Stay with me, my beloved.”

  She nodded, her heart beating so frantically she nearly passed out. She never wanted to leave him. She looked at her brothers, who hadn’t followed Will and Colin while they dealt with the marquess. Andrew winked at her.

  “Forever, Leslie,” Finn whispered into her neck. “I want to be everything ye’ll ever need. Yer servant,”—he lifted his head to cast her a dimpled grin—“and yer master.”

  She giggled like a shy virgin, which, thanks to him, she was no longer. He already was everything and more. She would stay with him. Her heart gave her no other choice. Her family would have to understand. Finn was the joy and the love of her life. She wouldn’t leave him this time.

  “I’ll stay, Finn. I’ll stay with you forever.”

  He kissed her, then groaned with pain.

  “Here now,” Connor said, shoving his arm under his brother’s shoulder and hefting him forward, back toward the inn. “There will be plenty of time fer that later, brother.”

  “Will there?” Alan asked, with his sister noting the new respect in his tone when he spoke to Connor. After seeing them fight, any man would be a fool not to be mindful of his tone.

  “Aye, there will,” Andrew answered. “We can’t return with the marquess after this morning.”

  “Ye can return to Dumfries if ye wish,” Finn corrected him. “The marquess will be allowed to live if he agrees to bring ye nae harm. If he breaks the agreement, we will return fer him.”

  She could have kicked Finn if he wasn’t already hurt. Why would he give her brother an option? She glared at him. He winked at her in response.

  “Perhaps,” Andrew said, pulling his horse along, “it’s time to set down new roots. Our sister Sarah is already in Camlochlin, and now Leslie is staying. Margaret wanted to remain there as well. We should remain together.”

  “I will take my chances in Dumfries,” Alan told him, without a trace of malice in his voice. “I want to go home, brother. And so does Mother. You will always be welcomed there if you wish to return.”

  “If the truth be known,” Leslie told them, “Mother is quite seriously in love with Brodie MacGregor and only wishes to return to Dumfries because she fears betraying Father’s memory.”

  “Well, she—”

  Leslie held up her palm to stop Alan from speaking. “She’s being foolish. Margaret and I will speak to her. Together, I’m sure we can convince her that she belongs in Camlochlin. And brother,” she told Alan, “I’m sure you will always be welcome there if you wish to return.”

  “It’s settled then,” Andrew announced, smiling at his sister. “I’m going to have to start wearing furs.”

  “And plaids,” Finn said, making his way with help from his brother and Leslie back to the inn.

  Andrew laughed and shook his head. “My arse is frozen enough in breeches.”

  “Whiskey will keep out the cold.” Connor’s promise was met with immediate agreement from the others.

  Leslie smiled and looked up at the stark white sky. Highlanders. She couldn’t wait to return to the warmth of Camlochlin and begin celebrating Christmastide and her future with her beloved and his kin.

  Chapter 14

  Choppy gusts of wind swirled the settled snow, blowing it into frigid clouds that glittered under the moonlight. Nothing in the vale or in the surrounding hills moved. Nothing except the jagged fortress carved from the mountain behind it. Lit by a single flame in every one of its hundreds of windows, Camlochlin shimmered golden in the silvery fog, a safe haven touched by God’s fiery finger for the oppressed, the outlawed, and its heirs.

  It was Christmas Eve, the Night of Candles, when candles were lit to guide the Holy Family to safety. But everyone inside the castle knew that Camlochlin was their fortress in every season. They knew that celebrating Christmastide with any sort of merriment was prohibited, but if the MacGregors were anything, they were a lawless bunch, and they found merriment in many things.

  Tonight, while the wind wailed outside, sounding much like the pipes being played somewhere in the cavernous Great Hall below, Leslie thanked God for the thousandth time for Finn, Camlochlin, and the people sitting with her in the chief’s private solar. While they sipped wassail, a hot, spiced wine that Leslie found even more delicious when enjoyed with Isobel MacGregor’s shortbread and clootie dumplings, the children sang carols led by the chief’s master bard. She smiled at Finn, a response she could no longer control since their wedding yesterday.

  When the song was over, she watched him return to her and wished for the night to be over soon so they could retire to bed.

  “Ye’re flushed,” he said, joining her beneath a woolen blanket on a long, overstuffed settee.

  “It’s the heat.” She blushed and stopped him when he tried to remove the blanket. “Not that kind of heat. You.”

  His dimple flashed, melting her kneecaps and warming her bones in a way the yule log burning in the hearth never could.

  She gave him a gentle push away and laughed. “You’re barely healed of your wound.”

  “I’m healed enough. Let me show ye.”

  “Uncle Finn,” Connor and Mairi’s young son interrupted them, “will ye teach me and Edmund another song?”

  “Of course, Malcolm.” He winked at Leslie and gathered the boys in his arms, beginning another tune.

  Leslie listened with teary eyes while Finn sang of the Savior’s birth. She looked around and smiled at Davina and her two babes, swallowed up in her husband’s chair.

  All the furnishings at Camlochlin were crafted to fit giant, strapping men. It made the settee where she sat with Finn, Malcolm, and Edmund, both boys snuggled in the crook of Finn’s arms, quite cozy. She turned her gaze to Colin, standing by the candlelit window with his newly pregnant wife and watched the sober commander’s breath falter when Gillian smiled at him. Whatever Leslie had seen against the marquess’s men that early morning in Kylerhea, that beast was gone and replaced by a tender, devoted husband and father.

  All of Camlochlin’s sons
were loyal, dedicated, dutiful men, examples of strength, honor, and courage…just like their fathers and uncles before them. Two of whom reclined by the hearth fire listening to a tale Rob was telling them.

  Leslie had no idea how Callum MacGregor must have appeared in his days of glory, riding out of the Highlands like a devil parting the mists, but he looked damned handsome now, laughing with his eldest son and dearest friend. Her father-in-law, Graham Grant, caught her gaze and cast her a dimpled grin, much like his son’s. He may have once been a sinful rake who’d aided in the restoration of King Charles, but he raised two men who honored the worthy and loved their women and their country with passion.

  “Finn?” She waited until his song was done and the boys hopped into Connor’s lap next.

  “Aye, love?”

  She tilted her lips to his ear and whispered into it. “I want to have your child.”

  His arm tightened around her. “Let’s be off then, wife.”

  She laughed and blushed and pushed at him when he would have swept her out of their seat. “We must wait until after the midnight service. You know the traditions. Now please be serious.” She added this even though he looked anything but happy and it was she who couldn’t stop smiling like a dimwit. “Would you prefer a lad or a lass?”

  “A lass.” He smiled down at her. “I want to watch ye teach her to grow into the kind of woman who makes us proud to be her parents.”

  Leslie sighed against his lips and then slanted her gaze toward the door. “Perhaps no one would miss us.”

  “Leslie,” Davina said, proving her wrong and stirring warmth in her belly. “What did you think of Father Lachlan’s supper benediction?”

  “I enjoyed it very much,” Leslie told her honestly. “I wasn’t expecting such passion in his words.”

  Davina nodded, agreeing. “For a man so far in his years, he’s quite humorous too, don’t you think?” She went on without giving Leslie a chance to agree or disagree. “It may seem a bit more somber here than usual but in just a few days the celebration of Hogmanay”—she shared the flash of her smile with Finn before turning back to Leslie—“will begin and there will be dancing and singing and games…”