The Raider (A Highland Guard Novel) Read online

  Robbie refrained from asking him why he had signed up—other than the fact that his dead hero brother had been Bruce’s closest companion.

  “That ‘boy’ is Clifford’s heir, and a squire old enough to wield a blade at Fraser. The woman got in the way and will be released as soon as it is feasible. As to why, I should think that would be fairly obvious. The taking of hostages is common enough on both sides.” He paused, unable to resist adding, “Even for English knights.”

  It was the truth. Hostage taking, particularly of an heir to serve as surety, had been an established practice undertaken throughout Christendom for centuries. Both sides did it. Not even Seton could argue with that.

  “Hostages are given, not taken,” Seton said stubbornly.

  “As I did not feel like waiting around to ask someone, I’d say the distinction is meaningless. But feel free to return to Norham and wait for Clifford so you can negotiate. Although I would think from previous experience that you might not like the way those negotiations turn out.”

  Seton knew better than to wade into that cesspit. The manner of their capture at Kildrummy was still a sore point even after all these years. His teeth clenched until the muscle in his jaw ticced. “I don’t like it.”

  “You don’t have to like it,” Boyd replied bluntly. “The king wants Clifford’s truce, and the boy will ensure that this time Clifford negotiates in good faith.”

  His partner didn’t say anything, although it was clear he wanted to.

  Suddenly, Robbie understood what it was, and in spite of the current tension between them, it packed a surprising sting. “Hell, Dragon, after all that we’ve been through, you can’t think I’d hurt the lad?”

  Seton pinned his gaze to his, his mouth pursed in a hard line. “I don’t want to think so, but I know how much you hate his sire.”

  Robbie’s fists squeezed at his side. “Aye, I want vengeance, but against Clifford, not a green squire. Despite my reputation to the contrary, I do not slaughter innocents or make war on those weaker than me.”

  His partner should know that.

  Perhaps Seton realized it as well. “Everyone’s weaker than you,” he said dryly.

  Robbie managed a small smile at the jest, and what he suspected was meant as an apology. “You know what I meant.” He couldn’t abide bullies. Perhaps because of his strength, he was even more conscious of fighting worthy opponents.

  Seton bent down, picking up his helm and handing it to him. “You intend to let the woman go?”

  Robbie tucked the helm under his arm. “I wouldn’t have taken her in the first place, but she’d latched on to the boy and Fraser was having a difficult time separating them. I figured the boy would put up less of a fight if I took her.”

  “Who is she?”

  Robbie shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably a servant—a nursemaid, perhaps.”

  “She isn’t a nursemaid,” Fraser said, approaching them from the trees where they’d left the horses. MacLeod’s young brother by marriage, Sir Alexander Fraser had become one of their regular companions in the war along the Borders.

  Robbie frowned. “How do you know?”

  “One look at her face.” He shook his head. “If I had a nursemaid who looked like that, I would never have left the nursery.”

  So the nicely shaped bottom wasn’t an aberration. Still, Robbie was sure Fraser exaggerated.

  “I wasn’t aware that beauty precluded servitude, but I’ll take a Scottish serving maid over an English Rose any day,” Robbie said.

  “My partner here is convinced nothing of any worth grows below the Roman wall,” Seton added.

  “Aye, well, be prepared to change your mind,” Fraser said.

  Suddenly curious, Robbie glanced through the trees to where he’d left the hostages. The dense trees and thickening mist prevented him from seeing anything. He scanned the area around him, frowning when he saw Malcolm kneeling by the stream, apparently filling up his skin with water. The young warrior stood and started back up the hill.

  “Who is watching the boy and the woman?” he asked Fraser.

  “I thought you told Malcolm to. I left Clifford’s whelp with him before I came to find you.”

  Robbie swore.

  “What’s wrong?” Seton asked.

  But Robbie was already striding toward the horses. He reached the clearing only moments after Malcolm, who was standing there stunned, looking around.

  “Where are they?” Robbie demanded.

  Malcolm’s face paled. “The lady fainted. I went to fetch her some water. I was only gone for a few minutes.”

  Robbie swore again. He was really beginning to regret not being the type of man who would knock a lass out of the way.

  The young warrior shirked back in the face of his anger. Robbie didn’t need to tell him that he’d made an enormous mistake. And he would be reprimanded—but later. Right now, all Robbie was focused on was getting the hostages back.

  He quickly organized his men into a search party. In a low voice that contemplated no other result, he ordered, “Find them.”

  “Hurry!” Rosalin grabbed Roger’s hand, pulling him into the river behind her. “They’re coming.”

  The icy water splashed at her knees as they raced toward the felled tree. She was almost too scared to notice how cold it was—almost. Heart pounding, every few feet she glanced around behind her, expecting to see the beasts snapping at their heels.

  Knowing they wouldn’t be able to outrun a dozen warriors on horseback, Rosalin had ignored the instinct to run and instead used the precious few minutes of lead time they had to search for a place to hide. Not an easy task in the barren wintry countryside, but as opportune hiding places went, the felled tree was better than she would have dared hope.

  Propped up on one end by a rock, the tree must have been there for some time, as the inside was partially hollowed out. Moss and ferns had grown over the log almost like a blanket, creating a space underneath that was just large enough for her to crawl under.

  Roger didn’t need to be told what to do. He practically dove into the hollowed-out tree as she did the same underneath the mossy curtain.

  It was just in time. No sooner had they scampered into position than she heard the sound of voices.

  “They couldn’t have gotten far.”

  Her heart stopped, recognizing the deep voice of her captor. Shivering, and not just from the cold, she waited for them to approach.

  “Damn, I wish we had Hunter with us,” another man said. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought it might be the man who’d objected to their abduction.

  “The ground is too hard, and there are too many tracks,” the deeper voice said. “I can’t tell which are theirs.”

  That voice…a chill ran down her spine. There was something familiar about it.

  She quickly pushed the thought away. It couldn’t be. Her captor’s voice was deep, but hard and humorless, with a clipped, authoritative cadence. The prisoner’s—Boyd’s—had been softer. Kinder. He’d sounded like a man who knew how to smile, not a harsh, unforgiving brute.

  “Do you think they crossed the river?” the second man asked.

  “I don’t think so,” her captor replied. “We would see some dampness on the ground where they came out.”

  “Unless they decided to swim farther downstream.”

  “If they did, they won’t have gotten far—not if they don’t want to freeze to death. You take some men and go on the other side of the river. I’ll try down this way.”

  “Captain, here!” she heard a shout, possibly from the young warrior whom she’d tricked. “Tracks!”

  “Go,” her captor said. “I’ll see what Malcolm has found.”

  He moved out of hearing distance for a while, and all Rosalin could hear was her heart pounding and the chattering of Roger’s teeth.

  “Do you think they’re gone?” he whispered.

  “Not yet,” she replied. She sensed her captor with the hard, uncompromising voice
wouldn’t have given up that quickly.

  A few minutes later, she heard footsteps and froze. Well, as she was actually already frozen, she just stopped breathing.

  “Do you see anything?”

  Now her heart stopped. It was the young warrior, and by the sound of it, he was standing right by the felled tree.

  “Keep looking,” her captor shouted from farther away. “They’re here, damn it. I can feel it.”

  The anger and frustration in his voice gave her an unexpected burst of hope. Sweet heaven, this might actually work!

  From her place scrunched up under the log, Rosalin watched through the blanket of moss as one of the barbarians walked right by the tree on the opposite side of the hollow. Fortunately, he didn’t stop, probably assuming that no one could hide inside. “I don’t see anything. They must still be running.”

  It was the young warrior. Malcolm, her captor had called him.

  Her captor swore, and although it was a word rarely uttered in her presence, she was thrilled to hear it, as it only buoyed her hopes further.

  “Let’s get back on the horses,” her captor replied from closer than before. “We’ll backtrack and see if we can find another set of tracks. They can’t have just disappeared.”

  They’d done it! She couldn’t believe they’d actually done it.

  A frantic scurrying sound from above, followed by a sharp “ouch” from Roger, put an end to her celebration. A moment later, Roger shot out of the tree and was quickly followed by a brown creature about the size of a cat with a bushy tail. Apparently, their log was already occupied—by a pine marten!

  She rolled out from under the log after Roger, praying that the men chasing them hadn’t heard. But one peek over the log quashed that particular fantasy.

  “There!” The young warrior shouted from about forty yards away. “There they are.”

  Panic shot through her. Grabbing Roger’s hand, she started toward the woodland ahead. “Run!”

  Racing over the uneven terrain, she had to release her nephew’s hand so she wouldn’t take him down the hillside with her if she slipped. It was also clear that she was slowing him down.

  The footsteps behind them were closing in. Whatever chance they’d had of escape had disappeared with one angry pine marten, but she had to at least try. “The rocks,” she gasped, already breathing heavily. “Hurry.”

  Roger shot off. Rather than follow after him, she stopped, hoping to slow their pursuers enough to give her nephew time to hide. She hadn’t anticipated the man right on her heels. He lunged for her, catapulting them both back into the dirt and mud.

  She cried out from the force of the ground slamming against her back, and then, an instant later, from the big, solid leather-clad slab of granite that landed on top of her—the very big and very solid slab of granite.

  The air was knocked out of her lungs with a hard jolt. She couldn’t breathe. But in that stunned moment her gaze locked on that of her captor’s, and she felt an altogether different kind of jolt. One of recognition.

  She gasped with all the air she had left in her lungs. Dear God, it was him! Robbie Boyd. The Scot she’d released from prison all those years ago. The handsome, strapping young rebel who’d so captured her young girl’s heart. She was certain of it. Even from a tower window, the strong lines of his face had been burned indelibly on her consciousness. His dark hair was shorter, and his eyes were blue, not brown as she’d assumed from his dark coloring, but God in heaven it was him.

  Her heart leapt. In that one instant of recognition, all the youthful fantasies came rushing back to her in a crashing romantic wave. If she’d secretly dreamed of meeting him again, it seemed her dreams had come true. “It’s you,” she whispered.

  The softly spoken words seemed to break the strange spell that had momentarily entranced them both. Recognition was clearly one-sided. His gaze hardened and his mouth pulled into a tight, angry line. Suddenly, the veil of her memories cleared, revealing not the young warrior of her memories but the cold, merciless man before her now.

  The romantic wave crashed, taking her heart to the ground with it.

  If she’d ever doubted the stories she’d heard of Robbie Boyd, one look told her they were all true. He appeared every inch the ruthless enforcer. Every inch one of the most feared men in England. Every inch the black-hearted devil who’d laid scourge across the Borders.

  He’d changed. She wouldn’t have thought it possible, but he looked even more imposing. The distinctive height and muscular build was the same, but six years of war had honed it to a razor-sharp edge, erasing any vestiges of youth. There was a hardness, a solidness, an imperviousness to him that hadn’t been there before. He looked like a man who did nothing but fight.

  His features were the same, though she would no longer call him handsome. It was far too gentle and civilized a word. And there was nothing gentle or civilized about the terrifying-looking barbarian staring down at her. From the bone-chilling ice-blue gaze to the line of dark stubble that shadowed his blunt jaw, he exuded wild and untamed menace. Fiercely good-looking—perhaps that was more apropos.

  He was older than she’d initially thought—probably close to Cliff’s two and thirty—and he wore the years of battle in every line and scar on his face. And in the fierceness of his expression. It was as if every bit of good humor had been leached out of him.

  Her eyes slid to the mouth that was hovering only inches above hers. It seemed impossible to believe that the wide, sensual lips that had so briefly touched hers in her first kiss could have become fixed in such a cold, hard line.

  But she did remember, and in spite of the circumstances, a flush of awareness ran through her. A flush that turned to a full-fledged shudder as she became aware of the intimacy of their embrace, especially the part of him that was wedged between her legs.

  Over the years of battle, Robbie had been hit on the head a few times by a war hammer. The stunned, discombobulated, slightly dazed feeling was about the same as when he first saw the face of the woman beneath him.

  “Beautiful” seemed too pedestrian a word for the masterful perfection of her delicate features. Big, dark-green eyes framed by long, feathery lashes, porcelain-white skin as flawless and powdery as freshly fallen snow, high cheekbones tinged a delicate shade of pink, a slight, straight nose, a softly pointed chin, and a mouth so cherry-red and sweet it took everything he had not to taste it.

  Long, wavy tresses of softly spun silk were splayed out in a golden halo behind her head. He’d never made a poetical allusion in his life, but this woman could inspire even the most prosaic of men to think of angels and goddesses descending from the heavens.

  When their eyes met, he actually startled. The force of the connection had all the subtlety of a lightning rod prodding at the base of his spine.

  There was something about the way she was looking at him that made him feel as if she knew him. But hers was a face he would have remembered, even in the crowds of women who thronged around him at the Highland Games.

  Then she spoke, and he was reminded why he didn’t know her: she was English.

  His head cleared just enough to make him aware of other things. Such as the warm softness of the body underneath him, the fullness of the breasts crushed against his chest, and most significantly, the opportune placement of his cock nestled in that sweet little juncture between her legs.

  Ah hell. Now that he was thinking about it, he couldn’t stop thinking about it. How good it felt. How good she felt under him. How it had been over a week since he’d had a woman.

  The wave of desire that hit him was so hot, so powerful, so intense that it took him aback. It rushed up between his legs, lengthening a part of him that was far too big to hide.

  Apparently, his previous reaction to the lass hadn’t been an aberration.

  Damn, Fraser was right. This lass made him reconsider some of his preconceived notions about being attracted to an Englishwoman. He stood corrected. He stood very hard and very thickly corr
ected.

  She made a sound—a gasp of shock that reminded him of the less-than-appropriate circumstances for him to be stiffening like a lad with his first maid. He didn’t want to terrify the chit. And the sudden paling of her skin and widening of her eyes told him that she was terrified. But he could have sworn he’d also glimpsed a flicker of awareness on her part that mirrored his own.

  Before he could disentangle himself and assure her that she wasn’t in any danger—especially that kind of danger from him—he felt a hard poke in his back that skidded off to the side.

  “Get off my aunt, you cursed barbarian!” Bloody hell, he realized, his head clearing. That wasn’t a poke, it was the stab of a blade! Robbie barely managed to twist his body out of the way before the boy could strike again. “I’ll kill you if you touch her.”

  Robbie sprang to his feet just as Malcolm was pulling the lad off. “Sorry,” the young warrior said. “He got to you before I could stop him.”

  Robbie wasn’t about to chastise Malcolm for his own mistake. A mistake that could have cost him his life. It was a good thing Robbie had been wearing his thick, leather cotun and the lad wasn’t more adept with a dagger. Christ, the strongest man in Scotland could have been killed by a squire! If Hawk heard about this, Robbie would never hear the end of it.

  But he’d been so struck by the lass, an army could have come galloping up behind him and he wouldn’t have heard it. Glimpsing Seton and his men only a few feet away, he realized they practically had. The lass—

  All at once the truth struck him cold. Aunt.

  Bloody hell. Any flash of desire he might have experienced was quickly doused when he realized that not only had he taken Clifford’s heir, he’d also taken his sister.

  His mouth tightened as he stared at the woman slowly getting to her feet and shaking the dirt and leaves off her skirts.

  “Aunt?” he demanded, as if she’d somehow tricked him.