A Protector in the Highlands (Highland Roses School) Read online

  “Now, now, now,” she muttered as she yanked on the chain she felt in the shadow of the doorframe, and a popping sound came from inside. At her shove, the door swung inward. “Inside,” she screamed, yanking Caora’s mane to get her to turn and digging her heels into the horse’s heaving flanks.

  Scarlet half fell, half jumped off the horse’s back, coming down hard on her ankle. The pinch of pain forgotten, she threw her weight against the door to slam it shut. She opened her eyes wide in the darkness of the room, frantic to find a bar to drop across it.

  Bang! Thud! The door pitched inward. “Caora!” she yelled, bracing against the door, and the horse moved closer. With strength born of desperation, Scarlet pulled the horse’s leg until the mare moved up against the door, her weight holding it closed as the wolves pushed against it, their nails scratching the wood. “Aiden,” she yelled in frustration. “Where the bloody hell is the bar?”

  …

  Her horse’s tracks were clear in the snow, the moon shining down to light them. What the bloody hell had happened that would send Scarlet fleeing in the dead of night? And in the snow, with no escort or weapons? Even a discontented Englishwoman wouldn’t wake and leave in the middle of the night all by herself. Nay, something terrible must have sent her running.

  “Finlay Menzies is a dead man,” Aiden muttered, rubbing his chin through his short beard. He and Eigh rode next to Caora’s tracks. From their direction, it was obvious that Scarlet was retracing the way they’d traveled yesterday. Why hadn’t she woken him? Why had she even left her room? Finlay must have tricked her into unbarring her door. “Bloody damned dead man,” he said as he tapped Eigh into a canter.

  He wove through the trees and came out the opposite end to race across the field that she’d flown over, the horse’s tracks stretching long with speed. As he entered the next set of trees, he heard a wolf’s howl. “Damn,” he whispered and felt a hollow pain in his gut. The beast was close and likely not alone.

  “Falbh.” He urged Eigh forward to zigzag through the trees. The two of them worked as one, dodging back and forth for long minutes. Aiden leaned low over his horse’s neck, visions of Scarlet bitten and torn into by wolves urging him forward. Why the hell hadn’t he just slept outside her door? He’d have stopped Finlay from whatever trickery pulled her from her room, and she’d be safe and sleeping in warmth.

  Aiden and Eigh broke through the last of the trees, and he glanced down at the tracks illuminated again by the bright moon. “Mo chreach.” Scarlet’s horse had leaped from walking to a full-out sprint. He spied the jumble of wolf prints farther on. “Go!” he yelled, leaning low to fly. The tracks veered away from the loch, up toward the dark shape of his cabin on the rise. He barreled toward it, his stallion’s full weight surging beneath him. Shadows blocked a good view, but the door was closed, and no wolves were in sight.

  He pulled up short of the door. “Scarlet!” he yelled. “Scarlet! Are ye in there?”

  A muffled noise came from inside. “Come, Caora,” Scarlet said, and a moment later the door flew inward. “Get in here!” Scarlet’s hand flapped, beckoning him inside. “With the horse.”

  Eigh whinnied, a high-pitched screech showing his panic. Aiden ducked low, steering his horse under the eaves and into the cabin. Scarlet slammed the door, grunting as she threw the heavy oak bar over it. Kicking his leg over, Aiden dismounted, his boots thudding on the wooden floor of his suddenly cramped home.

  “Shhh,” Scarlet said, her finger before her lips, and Aiden could hear something running around the exterior of his cabin. Scratch! Scarlet jumped back from the door and wobbled on one foot. Blast. She was hurt.

  “They’ve been scratching the door,” she whispered and looked at him. Her eyes were round in the dim light filtering inside, round and full of terror. Her hair stuck out in wild disarray, and a smudge of dirt lay across her cheek.

  Scratch! Scarlet’s hands leaped up in front of her chest where she clasped them together, her gaze snapping back to the door.

  Without thinking, Aiden stepped forward to pull her against him. She shook, her body stiff, but she didn’t push away. His stomach clenched. “Bloody hell,” he whispered over her head. “What ye’ve been through tonight.”

  He held her, willing his strength into her. He’d seen Scarlet Worthington defiant, stubborn, wry, and floating with joy when riding across the meadow. He’d never seen her filled with fear, and each of her tremors twisted inside him. “They can’t get in here, and ye’ve already proven that ye’re cleverer than they.”

  Placing his hands on her shoulders, he bent so that his gaze would be level with hers and waited until she slid it from the door. “Scarlet, ye are safe now.”

  She blinked and gave a quick bob of her head. He rubbed his hands down her arms, then held up one finger with a half grin. “Shhh,” he said and turned to the door, creeping up on it, waiting.

  Scratch, scratch.

  With the flat of his hands, Aiden slammed into the door, bellowing in a fierce roar. He slapped the door, then pounded with his fists, yelling, letting his anger fly up out of his mouth until his breath gave out. When he turned, Scarlet had gone to the window, pushing back the curtain. “They are running away,” she said and turned to look at him, her mouth open. “You scared away a pack of hungry wolves?”

  “I startled them,” he answered, shrugging, but his gaze connected with hers. “They weren’t expecting it, like Finlay Menzies wasn’t expecting ye to kick his frigger so hard that he’s been puking ever since.”

  She blinked. “You found him puking?”

  He nodded, his gut untwisting enough to let him inhale fully. “Couldn’t even talk, doubled over.”

  “Well, he was drunk, too.” She turned back to the window, looking out at the snow.

  “They should stay away for a bit,” he said. “But they will wander back to their den by morning.”

  He turned to his horse, running a hand down Eigh’s flank, and sighed as the horse pissed on the floor.

  “I’m sorry,” Scarlet said, gesturing toward the horses. “There was no time to find her shelter.”

  He shook his head. “It will scrub up.” He patted Eigh’s white coat before grabbing a bucket. He lifted the bar on the door and filled the bucket with snow to melt. They would all need something to drink, and he doubted Scarlet would want whisky after tonight. Although, perhaps that was what she needed. He set the bucket over the iron grate in the hearth and found his flint for a fire.

  As he struck and blew on the sparks, questions churned inside him, relighting his anger. But the lass was still raw. He didn’t know much about women, but he did know animals. Wild eyes and a stiff spine required a gentle approach. He waited until she moved from the window and took a seat in one of the two chairs set before the table that he’d built from a hundred-year-old oak that had fallen in a storm.

  He kept his gaze on the catching flame. “’Tis late or early, depending on how ye view it. And cold. Finlay must have been the devil himself to drive ye from Castle Menzies.” He added a square of dried peat to the kindling and leaned down to blow on it. Scarlet sat silently.

  Remaining crouched, Aiden swiveled toward her, peering past the tail of her horse. “What happened, Scarlet?” he whispered.

  She looked away, her lips tight.

  Aiden inhaled fully and let his long sigh fill the room. “Ye don’t have to say. I will return tomorrow to kill Finlay Menzies. We will take the sheep to Finlarig.”

  “What?” Scarlet said, her gaze snapping back to him. “You…you can’t just go in and slaughter a man.”

  He shrugged. “I will ask the bastard what he did. If he won’t tell me, then I will assume the worst offense and kill him. If he does tell me, I’m certain it will require me to kill him.”

  Scarlet stood, so Aiden did, too. They stared at one another over the back of her bay, the filly’s tail twitching. Scarlet’s beautiful lips pinched, her brows scrunching together. “I was foolish,” she said, her eyes s
lipping to the table. “He tricked me out of my room.” She shook her head.

  Aiden looked at the once proud woman, who had walked with confidence across Finlarig’s great hall. Her face tilted down, shoulders rounded as if a weight lay across them. To steal the woman’s strength like that, Finlay should be flayed open. “Did he touch ye?” Aiden whispered, his fists clenching so hard, his nails cut into his skin. “Hurt ye?” When she didn’t answer, he cursed. “I will cut off his ballocks before I kill him.”

  “He didn’t rape me,” she said. “Though…I thought he might. So, I…used some of what Grey and Kerrick taught us in classes. Without their lessons…” She let the rest of her thought trail off with a shake of her head.

  His fury pounded with the pulse of his blood, but he kept his voice calm. “But he did touch ye, didn’t he?”

  Scarlet sat in the chair, her gaze dropping to the table where she splayed out her fingers. “He said a woman was burning, and I must come help, so I unbarred the door. The woman was below…naked and…being pleasured by another man. Finlay trapped me with his arms and made me watch. He was aroused and made motions that made me fear that he would rape me, so I kicked him.” She said the words quickly, numbly, without emotion.

  She swallowed but still wouldn’t look at him. “I…I fled without thinking through my plan.” The delicate line of her jaw worked. “I wasn’t counting on wolves.”

  Aiden breathed slowly, but his anger still tightened his fists. Finlay would pay, but saying so would only worry Scarlet. He exhaled long and shook his head. “Och, Scarlet, I am sorry I wasn’t there.”

  “’Twas my foolishness,” she murmured. “I always thought I was a clever girl growing up, quick with a witty comment to make people laugh.” Her face tipped up, her eyes following the lines of his exposed rafters. She gave a dark chuckle as she stared upward. “But turns out I cannot even decipher the simple trick of a fiend.” As if noticing that her hands shook, Scarlet balled them into fists and pulled them to lay in her lap.

  He hated to see her frightened and even more so to see her blaming herself for the base actions of a dimwitted bastard. Aiden walked around the backside of her horse and threw himself into the chair opposite her. “Yet ye took care of the problem, didn’t ye?” He gave her a nod. “With a kick so hard, the bastard may never father children. Ye are a warrior, Scarlet Worthington.”

  She leveled her gaze at him. “I was panic stricken the whole time.”

  He shrugged. “I’ve known many a frightened warrior. It does not matter how ye feel inside, just what action ye take. In fact, ye are even braver when ye act while filled with fear.” He nodded slowly to back up his words.

  Her lips twitched slightly, but it wasn’t a smile. She narrowed her brow. “How do warriors go out to battle all the time, knowing they could face torture and possible death?”

  Aiden rested his fists on the table between them. “We prepare, become strong and skilled with weapons and hand-to-hand combat. We learn to anticipate attack and train on how to respond to each situation. When an attack comes, we focus on our defense. It blocks out the fear and saves our lives.”

  Scarlet shook her head. “To have the strength of a man… ’Tis unfair that women are weaker in muscle.”

  “Yet it is women who are strong enough to birth life,” he said. “Brave enough to act, even when it means torture and possible death.”

  Scarlet snorted. “Women don’t usually have a say in if they get pregnant.”

  “And warriors don’t usually have a say in if they are attacked.”

  They stared at one another for a long moment. “Teach me then,” Scarlet said. “How to defend myself, to prepare for an attack.”

  “The only thing that Finlay Menzies and I might actually agree upon is that Grey and Kerrick have apparently done a fine job at teaching ye to defend yourself.”

  “Not enough,” Scarlet said, glancing down. She lifted her hands and held them over the table, letting him see them shake. “I escaped because the man was drunk, slow, and surprised. Yet my fear almost killed me in the end.” She glanced up at her horse. “Me and an innocent beast, because fear drove me into the night without thought.” She clasped her hands on the table. “I need more lessons, lessons so I can release this heavy mantle of fear.” Her gaze dropped. “I have carried it too long, and I am weary,” she whispered.

  Carried it long? Firelight played off Scarlet’s loose curls, adding a golden shine to the dark tresses that lay over her shoulders. “Ye’ve been frightened before? Another attack?” She didn’t say anything, and he replayed conversations he’d had with Grey about the Worthington sisters coming alone to Finlarig. Scarlet came to help her sister start a school and her brother start a sheep farm. Or was there more to her journey north into the wilds of Scotland?

  “Did ye flee England because of a man, Scarlet? One who frightened ye like Finlay Menzies?”

  Fire crackled in the stone hearth behind him as he waited. The horses shifted, their breath and bodies helping to heat the room. The lack of denial answered for her. “Damn,” Aiden said, his voice as low as the wind blowing around the eaves. “Was he a suitor? Someone in your circle?” It didn’t matter, but he wanted to know, know the demon who sent her fleeing her home in England. “Someone of high rank?”

  Scarlet’s eyes were dark in the night shadows as she lifted them to meet his gaze. “The highest.”

  Chapter Six

  Scarlet pulled her frozen nose under the blanket. Feet and nose. If they were cold, the whole body was cold, as if those appendages were a direct conduit to the marrow of one’s bones. Pulling her feet higher under her smock, Scarlet smashed her face into the pillow, listening to the howl of wind beyond the walls. Good God, was it still winter? Was the hearth fire out? She blinked against the gray light in the large bedroom and held her breath. Where was she?

  She inhaled, eyes searching the corners of the room, and the haze over the night’s disaster cleared. “Hell,” she whispered, inhaling the frigid air in Aiden’s bedroom.

  After her revelation last night, she’d refused to elaborate, asking to sleep. He’d given her his bed while he remained below with the horses for the few hours before dawn. The light filtering into the room looked different from the glow of a winter dawn. She sat up, her hand wrapping around one of the beautifully carved posters at the corner of the bed. Vines, wild grasses, and thistle twined up each of the sturdy arms with a matching scene of a moor carved into the headboard.

  Scarlet slid her legs over the edge and looked down at herself. “It certainly makes it easier to dress when one sleeps in her clothes and cloak all the time,” she murmured. Lord, she wanted a soak in hot water. She and Evelyn had found a soaking tub at Finlarig, which she would be using as soon as she could.

  She hurried across the hewn floorboards to the window, wiping the glass with her hand, but snow lay a coating of white crystals across the pane, blocking the view. Wind shrieked beyond the blind. Another storm? Scarlet washed as best she could, listening to the lulls and whistles of the wind. Nothing else stirred. If she didn’t know where she was, she’d think herself completely alone. She paused, half bent over to retrieve her boots. Could Aiden have left to return to Castle Menzies? In the storm? Could the storm have started suddenly after he left? Would he fight his way through the storm and kill Finlay? Would he be arrested? Would she be responsible for Clan Campbell going to war with their neighbor?

  “Aiden?” she called, throwing open the door to hurry down the short hall, past the second unused bedroom, to the stairs. She bent over the wooden railing. “Damn,” she whispered. The horses were gone. Not even the smell of their manure remained, and the floors looked scrubbed clean. Her boots rapped as she ran down and threw open the front door, her stomach twisting at the sight of deep scratch marks in the thick oak. She shivered as snowflakes shot past her into the room and pushed the door shut.

  She rested her back and shivered, despite her cloak and woolen trousers. “Bloody storm,” she
said, taking strength in what seemed to be a favorite curse of the Highlanders. “Where did you go?”

  Above her, the latch rope slid, pulling the toggle. Her head snapped up just as the door pressed inward against her back. She leaped forward, spinning around, hand to her pounding heart as a fur-covered giant blew inside with more swirling snow.

  “Bloody hell,” she yelled.

  “I see ye’ve learned to swear like a seasoned warrior,” the man said, pulling the hood from his head to reveal Aiden, his brows frosty. He shook out of the hood, scattering ice. “Today, we can start teaching ye to fight like one.”

  “Aren’t we going back to Finlarig today?” she asked, her gaze going to the window where the curtain gaped.

  “I didn’t get nearly frostbitten in a gentle breeze, lass.” Aiden continued to pull off wrapping around his legs that he’d tied on with long straps of leather, leaving him in his kilt, linen shirt, and boots. He glanced at the window. “This should blow over by tomorrow, and we’ll go.” As if to show her how deadly it was outdoors, he swung the door open.

  Scarlet retreated toward the fire in the hearth as Aiden dragged in a basket and several frozen parcels. He slammed the door shut on the storm and carried his items over. “An advantage of being stranded in one’s own home is that it is typically full of provisions, if a man is wise.” He set the parcels down with a clunk on the hearth. “Frozen, skinned hare and plucked partridges, a rasher of bacon, and my hens were busy.” Scarlet looked inside the basket to see three apples, two carrots, and ten eggs. “I keep milled flour, yeast, and a crock of lard near the hearth.”

  “Where are the horses?” she asked, pulling an apple to polish it in a fold of her skirt. The gnaw of hunger reminded her that she’d barely eaten the evening before.

  “I have a barn in the back. They are cozy and fed, and my house is again free of their shite.”