Chapter Twelve
When they left the monastery, the afternoon sky had been crisp and clear, but by sunset they were riding into the odd pale light of a brewing storm. It was far too late to turn back and retrace their steps to the monastery. They would just have to endure the storm when it hit. If it hit. Weather in the Highlands was more capricious than he’d expected. Sunny one moment, and stormy the next.
Much like how Brandt’s life had been the past few days.
Brief breaks in the thunderous sky above showed a fiery setting sun, intermittently glazing the vibrant green grass with golden light before the slate clouds shut them out again. They rode west, toward the blocked sunset, squinting when the rays pierced through. Though even then, Brandt felt cold and empty, and yet also filled to the brim with restless energy.
Odd, how he found he had nothing to say to Sorcha, who kept Lockie only a few paces in front of Ares. No, that wasn’t entirely true. He had plenty to say, including an admission that she had every right to be angry with him, considering he’d deviated from their plan. However, the looks she kept sending his way were not ones of anger, but of concern.
Perhaps it was his silence that worried her. Ever since the abbot had spoken the name Montgomery, it had felt like one stone after another piling onto his chest. Until he felt grounded, but breathless. He couldn’t seem to open his mouth to utter one bloody word.
His mother’s ring. His father’s name.
It could not be a coincidence. Brandt’s mother was a Montgomery. He was a Montgomery.
He had no idea what to expect as they rode westward, the feeble protection of the monastery sliding behind the hills and valleys in their wake, and uncertainty over whether they would find welcome and shelter with the Montgomerys weighing heavy. But Brandt could not have continued north, not only because Brodie lands were still days away, and there was the risk of Malvern having already predicted it was their destination. Nor because Sorcha’s wound needed more time to heal while she was inside stone walls that had warriors on guard instead of monks with wooden crosses. No, he could not have continued north because of the unassailable driving need to grasp the one vision his mind had clung to for nearly all of his life.
He wanted to find her…his mother. He wanted to show her what he had become. And then he wanted to leave her with the knowledge that he would never think of her again.
Perhaps it was selfish. Brandt didn’t care.
It was too close. A few days ride, and he would have the answers he’d sought for so long. Answers his father had never been able to truly explain. He’d had an affair with a married woman, but had he loved her? Had he asked her to run away with him, and had she dismissed him without care, as she had clearly dismissed her own infant?
One night, during one of the rare times Monty had been in his cups, Brandt had made the mistake of questioning him and had gotten answers that had cut him to the bone. Loosened by drink, Monty had sobbed, bits and pieces of truth spilling out in incoherent parts. That Brandt’s birth mother had been a Scottish highborn lady. That Monty and Brandt had both been sent away from the clan and begged never to return.
When Monty sobered, Brandt had confronted him with his ramblings, but he had resumed his staunch refusal to talk about the land of his birth or his clan. Only to say that Brandt’s mother hadn’t wanted either of them to come back, and that Brandt had been a mistake she could never recover from.
A mistake.
The knowledge had ruined him.
After that day, Brandt had stopped asking. He’d finally accepted that Monty would never part with the whole truth, and that perhaps, it was for the best. But Anne, even with all the things his stepmother had done to care for him and Monty until she’d died, had still not been Brandt’s mother. He hadn’t seen the same love and adoration in her eyes the way he would when the Duchess of Bradburne would look upon Archer. She hadn’t hugged Brandt, or kissed him good night. She had provided. She had made Monty smile from time to time. And she had never raised her voice, or her hand, to Brandt, but there had always been something missing.
It had settled inside of him, that vacancy. He knew meeting his birth mother would not fill it, but the need to lay eyes upon her was undeniable. Especially now that he knew she was so close. Or at least, her clan. His clan, if the vicar was right. The yearning he’d experienced as a child seemed to return in full force. It boiled down to one thing after all these years; he wanted to know why. He wanted answers. How could any mother abandon her own child?
On his own deathbed, Monty had confessed again. His body had been frail with fever, his eyes rheumy, but he’d beckoned Brandt close. “Sorry, lad,” he’d wheezed. “I never…got chance…tell…truth.” A violent spasm of coughing had rocked through him. “Ye’re…cough, cough…ye must ken…cough, cough…yer mother…”
“All is well, Father,” he’d said, tears falling down his cheeks. “I know what she did. I won’t go looking, I promise.”
“Nae…forgive…I’m no’, no’…”
But words had failed Monty then. Words and then breath. And as the light left his eyes, Brandt didn’t care about what he’d been trying to say. Consumed with sadness, he’d simply wept at the loss of the only family he’d ever known.
Brandt felt a dull stinging in his eyes as streaks of lightning brightened the sky over some distant hills. He blinked, and they were gone. He hadn’t thought of the night he’d lost his father for a long time. Until now. A few moments later, a rumble of thunder made Lockie whinny and rear wildly. Sorcha reached forward to stroke his mane and neck, trying to calm him with some whispered words, but the gray kept tossing his head.
Still without a word, Brandt rode to her side. Having Ares canter beside Lockie seemed to calm the gray, and the two mounts rode in time, ignoring another flicker of lightning and the answering toll of the heavens.
“We should find shelter,” Sorcha said when another jagged fork cleaved the sky in two, the white light tearing long fingers into the rapidly condensing fog. Ares reared up onto his hind legs, which was uncharacteristic for him. Brandt frowned, calming the animal with a soothing click of his tongue, but ignored what should have been a clear warning and urged Ares forward. He scanned his surroundings.
They seemed to have ridden into a rocky valley, with two mountainous hills rising on either side. The misty clouds had dropped to obscure the tops of the hills, as well as smoke trailing up from any nearby homesteads, and the Highland fog was already starting to thicken. Monty used to tell him stories of men who had gotten lost in the mists over the moors with only a few misplaced steps. Soon, they would not be able to see two lengths in front of them. Brandt did not want to put Sorcha in danger, but a different furor kept driving him forward.
“A bit farther,” he managed to say, kicking up his speed. Ares shot forward, with Lockie staying close on his heels.
“We aren’t going to get there tonight!” she shouted.
She meant Montgomery lands. Of course she would know what was consuming his thoughts.
Brandt kept riding, determined to reach the end of this narrow crevasse between the two sharply angled slopes. There had to be something ahead, some barn or ruin, a place for them to spend the night. And by the look of the sky and the thunder and lightning crawling ever closer, it would likely be a long, wet, and dangerous night.
Spitting rain flecked Brandt’s cheeks and forehead, and then within seconds, it seemed, the drops fattened, striking his eyes as he rode straight into a wall of rain. It soaked them almost immediately, their mounts galloping at full speed through the quickly muddying ground as more thunder shook the earth. The sound of it echoed off the hills surrounding them, reverberating in Brandt’s ears, and was made even more ominous by the suffocating mist that wrapped them in thick, heavy bands. The wind had picked up, too, howling a mournful sound like an animal lost in the wilderness. It made the hackles on the back of his neck rise and Ares toss unsteadily beneath his seat.
They needed shelter. Now. Finally, a curve in the terrain opened up to show a stretch of valley, the mists moving low over the grassland.
“There!” Sorcha shouted, and when Brandt followed the direction of her pointed finger, he saw what looked to be a small hut ahead. It was a squat stone lean-to, likely built for sheep or goats wanting shelter from either sun or wind or rain. It would have to do, at least until the worst had passed and the fog had cleared.
He and Sorcha rode pell-mell for the shack. He could barely see three feet in front of him by the time they dismounted. The shed was not empty. Two drenched and forlorn-looking sheep stood huddled in one corner, bleating their terror at each cracking peal of thunder. Brandt led Ares and Lockie next to them, and he and Sorcha took up refuge in the opposite corner. The hut provided more protection from the rain and wind than he’d expected. The fourth side was not fully open, and though it let in some wind, for the most part, it kept the rain out.
Brandt stood, his head nearly touching the stone slab of the roof, and inhaled his relief. He nearly gagged. The stench was unbearable, and not just because of the wet sheep. It stank to high heaven of fermented animal excrement. His eyes met Sorcha’s and she wrinkled her nose with a light shrug.
“It’s not that bad,” she said. “You get used to it.”
“You are the strangest female I’ve ever known.” He arched an eyebrow, surprised at her nonchalant response, though he did not know why. He had known that Sorcha was unlike any other woman of his acquaintance. Any other lady would have shrieked or swooned, but not his fierce Highland bride.
A plucky grin rose to her lips, her face illuminated by a bright slash of lightning. Her face was ghostly in the strange gloom left behind from the flash and the undulating mists. Brandt couldn’t help thinking that she looked like a woodland fairy with her wild hair and shimmering eyes.
“When we were children, my mama always used to say no weeping for shed milk.” She shrugged. “We’re here and we have to make the best of it. It could be worse. We could be out there in that, unable to see our heads from our arses.”
Brandt laughed. Somehow, he could not imagine ever losing sight of that particular asset belonging to her. He’d practically memorized it on the way to the monastery. “Speak for yourself, lassie. I have eyes in the back of my head.”
“Bold words for an Englishman.”
His humor faded. Not English. Scottish. Montgomery Scottish.
Sorcha must have seen the expression falter on his face in the eerie pale gloom, because she busied herself with feeding the horses some mash from the abbey. Once they were settled, she moved back to the corner with two extra plaids from her saddlebags wrapped over one arm and a bundle of sticks in the other.
“Where did you get those?” Brandt asked, eyeing the sticks.
“I learned the hard way when I was hunting with my brothers to always keep a stack of firewood wrapped in oilskin with my tack. The rain and the mists can roll in quicker than you can blink, and without heat, the Highlands are a frigid mistress. We can probably start a small fire in that corner,” she said pointing to the unoccupied space. “It’s out of the rain and cold. But we’re both going to have to get out of our wet clothes or risk the chill setting in.”
Amazed at her foresight and calm, he nodded, and a few moments later, Brandt could hear Sorcha undressing behind him as he set himself to task with the fire. He tried not to pay attention to the intimate rustling sounds or imagine the glow of her pale skin by storm light. She would look like a pagan Celtic goddess. It took every ounce of willpower he possessed not to turn around and see for himself. When she moved to settle in beside him, bundled in one of the Maclaren plaids, he saw that she had hooked her damp dress and underthings to a nail that jutted out on the wall.
“I’ve left a plaid for you there,” she said and turned her face away.
Brandt noticed the rosy tinge of her cheeks—clearly, she was as potently aware of him as he was of her. And for good reason. She was stark naked beneath that covering. Gritting his teeth, he ignored the dangerous knowledge that made lust simmer to life within him.
He removed his own clothes swiftly and found other nails on which to hang them. By the time he was finished, Brandt was shivering, but the warm woven plaid felt like heaven as he squatted beside Sorcha.
“How long do you think the storm will last?”
“Hard to tell with squalls like these. Sometimes they can last for minutes, other times for hours.” She peered through the door opening. “This one looks like it means to stay a while.”
“We should get some rest, then,” Brandt said. He rose and went over to the horses, where he unrolled the pallet he had saved from Ronan and spread it on the hard, filthy ground behind them. He was grateful for it, mostly for Sorcha’s sake. She might have been accustomed to rough conditions, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t appreciate the small comfort. He also grabbed two apples and handed her one.
“Thank you.”
Sitting together, they ate the fruit in silence, watching the small flames that fought valiantly against the occasional burst of wind that slivered through the entryway. They threw the two cores to the horses. It had become only marginally warmer, even with the body heat of four animals and two humans, as well as the meager heat from the fire, and Brandt noticed that Sorcha was still shivering. He drew her toward him.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her eyes going wide.
“Warming you,” he said. “And me.”
Even through the layers of two plaids, her body was like a slab of ice. Her damp hair had already started to dry in tangled curls, but it seemed that the chill had already sunk into her bones.
“You’re so warm,” she breathed, wriggling closer.
“I spent many cold nights in the stables as a lad. I suppose my body got used to it.”
Brandt tried not to react to her closeness and the faint lavender scent of her—vastly preferable to the other smells surrounding them. She sighed contentedly, snuggling against him. The loose plaid pressed between them was not much of a deterrent to his stiffening body, but Brandt steeled himself. He wasn’t a beast, driven by rutting. She needed warmth, and he was simply providing it so she wouldn’t catch a chill.
Or so he told himself.
“What do you know of the Montgomerys?” he asked, his tone gruffer than he’d intended.
Sorcha went slightly rigid beneath his arm. “Not much. My father used to know the prior Duke of Glenross quite well. Ronan said the old duke used to visit Maclaren on occasion before I was born when he was a lad. But when the new duke—his brother—took his place, things changed. The Montgomerys keep to themselves.” She shrugged, her shoulder pushing into his rib cage. “Much like many other Highland clans, even Brodie. It’s normal…only…”
She glanced up at him, something warring in her expression.
“Only what?” he asked.
“They don’t like strangers.”
His eyes narrowed. “How do you mean?”
Sorcha chewed her bottom lip and sighed quietly. “Well, I suppose you should hear it if they are indeed your kin. There were rumors surrounding the death of the old laird, the Duke of Glenross. He died in a suspicious accident. He was thrown by his horse and fell to his death in the quarry on Montgomery lands, and the one to find him was his younger brother, Rodric.” Brandt stared at her, and she rushed to continue. “Ronan said he heard from Papa that it was near an old mining trench that they used to play in as children. Robert, the old duke, knew that land like the back of his hand. He knew all the traps and the dangerous parts, and yet he fell into a sinkhole.”
“Was it murder?”
“It was never proven, but it was strange that Rodric inherited the title and went on to marry his brother’s widow.” Her voice went quiet. “He’s known throughout the Highlands as the Mad Montgomery because of his rages. Ronan used to tease Finlay, Evan, and me when we were little that the Mad Montgomery was going to come and steal us away in the night.” She shuddered slightly. “I do not know that we will be welcome there, Brandt, even if they are your kin.”
“You will be safe, Sorcha, I promise you,” he said. “Don’t be afraid.”
She drew a slow breath. “I’m not afraid, but I do fear that you won’t find the answers you seek.”
Brandt wasn’t sure he would, either. But it was closer than he’d ever gotten to the truth of who he was. He owed it to himself, and to Monty, to pay his respects. And if he wasn’t welcome, then he would leave.
After a while, they fell into silence, and as her weight slumped into his side, Brandt realized that she had fallen asleep. Gently, he lowered her to the pallet and tucked the plaid around her body. The small fire had already burned out to red embers, so he lay back next to her. Seeking his warmth with a soft sigh, Sorcha turned to fling one arm over him, and his entire body went taut as her forearm draped over the prominent bulge at his groin. He’d sported an inconvenient erection the minute she’d undressed, and now, at her unknowing touch, it swelled further. Christ. Even in sleep, she was going to be the death of him.
He loosed a shaky breath, and angled his hips a quarter turn so that her hand was no longer resting on top of him. And damned if he didn’t miss the slight, innocent pressure of it. God, he was bitterly depraved if that was what he had sunk to. Moving quietly, he shifted his body so that he was resting on his side away from her. Instinctively, Sorcha followed the movement—and the source of heat—snuggling into his back and tightening her hold against his abdomen.
Brandt closed his eyes and tried to ignore the press of a luscious pair of breasts against his back and the spooning cradle of warm female thighs against his buttocks. He groaned as his groin tightened to the point of pain.
It was going to be a bloody long night.
Brandt moaned softly, awakening to warm wet lips nibbling on his chin…and to the sound of low laughter. Opening his eyes, he blinked, and a very large horse’s head came into view as Ares tried to swallow his nose. He pushed the horse away and propped himself up. Sorcha had already risen and dressed and was grinning at him while munching on an apple, her gaze bright with amusement. “Nice dreams?”
“They were quite pleasant until a minute ago, thank you.”
Brandt pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes and stretched, the plaid falling to his waist. Sorcha’s gaze riveted on his bare chest and stomach before she turned hurriedly away toward Lockie. He half wondered what she would have done had he risen upright. His lower half was in no way relieved from the tortures of the night.
“He’s hungry,” she said, and Brandt blinked twice before realizing she was talking about Ares. “But I didn’t want to let him graze without checking with you first. Seems he had the same idea.”
“By eating my face?”
“He was simply bidding you good morning with a kiss,” she said with an irrepressible wink over her shoulder.
He’d have vastly preferred a kiss from her in the vicinity of his lap.
Smirking at the bawdy thought, Brandt grabbed the tartan and stood, making no move to disguise the conspicuous tent at his hips. He was rewarded with a smothered gasp as he strode from the shack. Take that, Highland sprite.
Outside, dawn was breaking across the cloudless skies in bright, pinkening touches. The storm had left everything washed and gleaming. Even the grass seemed greener and the patches of heather more purple. Tucking the plaid around his waist and throwing one end over his shoulder in a loose imitation of what he’d seen on Ronan, Brandt inhaled deeply and moved around to the back of the hut to take care of his morning needs.
“The plaid suits you,” Sorcha said when he returned. Her voice had taken on a husky quality, no doubt from the eyeful she’d gotten.
“It’s a bit too free for me,” he said, grinning and arching an amused eyebrow. It had the intended effect. Her cheeks went scandalously pink as she caught his meaning that he was bare-arsed beneath the fabric.
“Most civilized men wear undergarments,” she said primly. “And shirts.”
“Do they?” he said, jutting his hips forward slightly.
Her face flamed. “This is unseemly conversation, sir, even for me.”
“We are married, Sorcha. We have slept together, multiple times.” He eyed her, enjoying her embarrassment. “Surely, you’re not going to turn into a proper, prissy maiden on me now?”
She scowled. “I’ll have you know that I was brought up to be a lady.”
“Sheathe your claws, wife.” He chuckled and ducked inside to find his clothing. “’Twas only a bit of teasing. I wouldn’t change one wild hair on your head for all the well-behaved ladies in London.” Laughing, he ducked as her apple core came sailing at his head.
After a light meal of oats and grass for the horses and fruit for him, they mounted their steeds and headed west. The night’s rest had done them all a world of good, and their pace was swift. With any luck, even with the delay from the rain, they would make Montgomery lands by the next morning. Sorcha cantered ahead of him, her back straight, her long hair braided into a neat, thick plait. He grinned. Undoubtedly, his comment regarding her “wild” hair had inspired her to be contrary. He had never enjoyed goading a woman more…and provoking the wit and fire of her response.
Suddenly, something whizzed by Brandt’s cheek, tickling the tip of his ear. He glanced at Sorcha, expecting another apple core to come his way, but her back was to him. An arrow lodged itself into the dirt at Ares’s hooves. Blinking, he looked over his shoulder to see two men in pursuit. They were mounted on two horses and dressed in brown striped plaids. Highlanders, then. They couldn’t be Montgomery men—they wore the wrong colors for that. Who were they? Another arrow passed perilously close.
“Sorcha!” he yelled, drawing his sword.
But she had already turned, her own bow nocked. One of the men fell out of his saddle as her shot landed true. The second man released another arrow, and Brandt felt Ares rear up beneath him with a pained whinny. He jumped off the saddle, but there was no sign of an arrow in the horse’s hide. With a furious shout, he ran toward the man, lifting his sword high above his head and swinging into the man’s thigh as he rode past. His attacker toppled to the ground, clutching at his bleeding leg.
Brandt stuck the tip of his sword into the man’s grimy neck. “Who sent you?”
The Scot scowled, his eyes going mutinous.
“It will give me great pleasure to carve your worthless head from your body,” Brandt said softly. “Don’t make me ask again.”
The man paled as the point of the sword drew a drop of blood. “The Marquess of Malvern.”
“Malvern?” Sorcha gasped, dismounting. “How? We’ve been on the road for days. They couldn’t have followed us so quickly.”
“How?” Brandt prodded the man.
“There’s a bounty on yer head, dead fer ye, alive fer the lass.”
Brandt stared at Sorcha. “He must have put the word out the minute we left Selkirk. These men will do anything for coin. We must make haste.”
“What about him?” she asked.
Brandt felt loath to kill the man, even though he had most definitely intended to carry out Malvern’s orders and kill him. He looked to be more desperate than he appeared to be a killer, though. His plaid was ratty and threadbare.
“Remove whatever weapons you’re wearing,” he ordered. The man quickly threw down a blade from his waist and one from an ankle sheath. Brandt then reached into the pouch tied at his hip for a few coins and offered them to the man, with the hope that the obviously desperate Scot would take the money and abandon any notion to come after them again. His eyes widened at the sight of the gold. “Go with your life, and remember the kindness I showed you.”
The man took off, limping on foot, since both horses had disappeared.
“That was a generous thing you did,” Sorcha said. “Though foolish. If there’s a price on our heads, more will come. Scots like that one have likely lost their lands and homes, and Malvern’s gold will be an easy lure.”
“We’ve only half a day’s ride to Montgomery,” he said, but as he walked toward Ares, the horse shied away. His eyes rolled in his head and a pained sound emerged from his mouth. A streak of worry speared Brandt. He scanned the animal carefully, noticing the way Ares was favoring his foreleg.
“He’s been hurt,” he said, crouching to examine the leg with care. “There’s a shallow cut here. One of the arrows must have nicked him.” He sat back on his haunches and looked behind him to make sure the man was gone. They were in a field with little cover, exposed on all sides. “Damn it!”
“Can he walk?” Sorcha asked, also alert. “I spotted a thatch of trees a mile or so back near a stream. I could tend to it there.”
But Brandt did not want to go back, not knowing if the man had more friends. “Where did you see the stream?” She hooked a thumb to the east, and Brandt pointed to a thatch of trees to the northeast. “We go that way and hope to intersect it. I’ll walk him.”
Ares did not complain, but after a short stretch, it was obvious that the animal was in pain. “I’ll have to bandage it until I can clean it properly,” Sorcha said. “Or it will only get worse.”
Brandt kept watch with Sorcha’s bow at the ready as she tended to the animal. At first, Ares nickered and tried to take a bite out of her shoulder, but the horse calmed at a quiet, though firm, word from her. Sorcha dug in her pack for a few bottles and then proceeded to mix together a hodgepodge of ingredients—moss, lichens, and bark—to make a poultice for the injury. She worked quietly and quickly, and Brandt couldn’t help but be impressed at her knowledge.
“What is all that?” he asked as he traced a citrus-like scent.
“Lovage root and bog myrtle,” she said, her lower lip caught between her teeth in concentration. “I cannot use my mother’s salve until the wound has been washed. It heals so quickly that one speck of dirt can cause sepsis. These herbs will ward away the pain and help with the swelling.”
“Have you always been a healer?”
Brilliant blue eyes met his, startling him for a moment, before they flicked back to their task. “I’m not a healer. I’ve learned bits and pieces over the years, that’s all. My mother’s the true healer.”
She was being modest. The deft way she had tended to her own wound and the care that she was taking with Ares was remarkable. Brandt was surprised that the horse stood so quietly. Ares was a dependable animal, but his reaction to any type of laceration was to bite and kick. It was perhaps due to the weals he’d sustained as a colt. Horses had long memories.
“There,” Sorcha said, tying a linen strip. “That should hold until we get to the stream. I’ll ride ahead to make sure.”
He watched as she rode away, and followed gingerly with Ares, who seemed more confident with each halting step. Though Brandt worried for Sorcha’s safety, he knew she could defend herself. He didn’t like how it felt to watch her leave, as if a part of his own body was riding away upon Lockie. He scowled. Where had that thought come from? That wasn’t it. Her safety was his priority, that was all. And who knew if other bandits would be in hiding, waiting to ambush them?
It wasn’t long, though it felt like an eternity, until she came back over the rise, her expression triumphant. “It’s not far,” she said. “Just over this hill.”
The stream, more of a river now as it turned out, was enough for Sorcha to clean the wound and apply her mother’s salve. Once more, Ares stood patiently, even rubbing his nose into her face at one point. Jesus. The horse was in danger of turning into as much of a ninny as he was.
“We should let him rest,” she said, coming toward him. “Montgomery’s not far.”
“It’s dangerous out in the open.”
A level gaze met his. “Ares is your family. We’ll keep watch. By the morrow, he’ll be well enough to ride.”
Her quiet words shocked him into silence. She knew how much Ares meant to him. Not many did. Ares was a horse…but he was the closest thing to family that Brandt had.
“Thank you,” he said hoarsely.
Her slim hand found his, slipping around his palm and squeezing. “I’m sorry Ares is hurt, Brandt,” she whispered. “This is my fault. I’m so sorry.”
Overcome with emotion, he could only grip back. Brandt knew what she was sorry for, that she felt all of this was on her because of Malvern, but deep down, he felt like a fraud to accept her apology. He’d gone into it with his eyes wide open. It had started with wanting her horse, but over the last few tumultuous days, it had become so much more.
He wanted to help her.
And he also wanted to know who he was.
The problem was, he didn’t know if he could do both.