Page 20 of My Scot, My Surrender
Sorcha sighed. Once they parted ways, it was unlikely she would ever marry again, even if her maidenhead remained intact. Too many men feared the look of her or feared her father and brothers. The arrangement with Malvern had been a matter of duty, until she’d seen the disgust in his eyes when he’d come face-to-face with her years ago.A maimed harlotwas his latest insult, but she’d heard them all. She was unfit to be anyone’s wife. Simply looking in a mirror while unclothed told her that. Aric had had the right of it. She bit down on the inside of her cheek, his voice invading her mind.I’ll no’ look at such a beast again.
The rain had tapered, though the leaky roof still dripped in multiple spots around the one-room cottage. Dusk had settled over the valley, and as Sorcha finished with another tale, this one about Evan wrapping their cousin Gavin in bedsheets and hanging him out one of the castle windows until Gavin apologized for calling him a hell-bound heathen, she fell quiet.
Brandt held his hands to the flames, which he’d built time and again with more wood scavenged from around the property. She’d dried out and warmed up long before, and now her limbs had that satiated, loose feeling that reminded her of lazy summer afternoons in the fields near home. Or after hours of rugged training with her sword and bow and arrow. She drew his cloak closer around her and inhaled, yet again, the oddly comforting combination of soap, leather, and horses.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
Brandt allowed his eyes to meet hers. “What for?”
“For calming me,” she answered. “My brothers infuriate me to no end, but they also remind me of home.”
It was a place where she knew she would not be able to return anytime soon, and it saddened her. She prayed if she stayed away, it would also keep Malvern away. It was a foolish hope, though, and she knew it.
“What if he goes to Maclaren?” she asked.
Brandt didn’t need to ask to whom she referred.
“He won’t kill Niall,” he said. “Your father, your brothers and people…they won’t stand for it.”
Sorcha didn’t believe they would, either, but she’d seen how intimidated they were by Malvern. People called her the Beast of Maclaren, and she had spent years honing her skill with a sword and bow, determined to live up to the name in a way no one had ever intended. But how could she have possibly found anything but pain and degradation as Malvern’s wife? He loathed her, saw her as little more than an animal. The wolf had stolen more than her flesh; it had stolen her dignity.
“We could go there,” Sorcha heard herself saying, her stomach tight with the same burden of ugly shame she’d borne for much of her life. “To Maclaren. We could warn them that Malvern has been wronged—”
“No. It’s too much of a risk.”
“But I can’t leave them to—”
“Your presence won’t save anyone. They can fend for themselves, Sorcha. Your father is a chieftain and your brothers are trained Highland warriors. They’ll protect their own. You’remyresponsibility now, and I’m bringing you north to your sister.” Brandt stood and dusted off the seat of his trousers. “I’m going to take Ares and retrace our last few miles, make sure no one has discovered our tracks.”
But just as he rose, the sound of hoofbeats—a small army of them—rent through the air. Sorcha jumped to her feet, her heart hammering as she tugged her dry dress over her head. Without Brandt’s help to redo the fastenings, she looped his cloak around her shoulders, and hurried to where he stood peering out through the dirty window into the darkness.
“Who is it?” she asked. “Can you see?”
“They haven’t yet come over the rise, but it will prove difficult to see anything without moonlight. The clouds are still thick.”
Sorcha tried to push past him to get a clearer look, but he restrained her with a rigid, powerful arm. She’d forgotten how deceptively lean he was. The man was as strong as an ox.
“Stay put,” he told her, crouching to douse the flames with ash. “And stay out of sight. Whoever it is may ride straight past.”
Or come banging on the door.
Anyone heading out this way to an old goat herder’s hut wasn’t going to be riding past, especially when they scented woodsmoke on the air. And if it was Malvern’s men, she wanted to be prepared, not cowering without a weapon in hand. She ducked out of his reach and grabbed hold of one of his pistols that he’d brought in from his saddlebag. There was no way she was going down without a hell of a fight.
Pressing a finger to his lips, Brandt met her eyes and nodded. She’d expected him to demand the weapon back and tell her to go hide in a corner, but he only palmed the second pistol and gripped his sword hilt in its scabbard. Sorcha wished she had her own sword, but she had left it behind in the wagon in Selkirk. She hefted the gun.
“Do you know how to use that?” Brandt asked in a low voice.
Sorcha set her jaw grimly. “Yes.”
She was an excellent shot. Ever since she’d been betrothed to the man who had cruelly maimed her brother, she’d practiced with single-minded purpose. For so many years, she’d bided her time, training herself. If the chance arose to kill Malvern in a way that would not implicate the Maclarens, she would take it without hesitation.
“I always hoped one day Malvern would be vulnerable, and I planned to be there with a weapon in hand.”
“You’re a bloodthirsty lass.”
She grinned, pleased at the compliment.
The pounding of the hooves drew closer. The noise was thunderous, and Sorcha’s heart banged in time with the rhythmic sounds as she and Brandt took up places behind a large overturned barrel. His face was calm, but his body seemed bunched and ready. It struck her again that her taciturn husband was far more than he seemed. The look on his face was one that she had seen many a time on the faces of Maclaren soldiers—the look of a man not afraid of death.
