The Highlander Takes a Bride (Historical Highland Romance)
Lynsay Sands
Prologue
Saidh had just caught up her skirt and started to squat when she heard it: a man’s short, sharp shout that sounded like a death cry. Cold creeping down the back of her neck, she let her skirt drop and straightened, ears straining. At first there was nothing. No running feet, no sounds of battle, nothing to tell her what had happened, and then she caught a high keening that dissolved into weeping.
Cursing, Saidh pulled her sword from the scabbard at her waist and started through the woods, following the sound of those heart-wrenching sobs. She recognized them, knew their source. She’d heard the same sobbing last night from the bedchamber next to the one she’d been given during her stay at Fraser Castle, the bedchamber the bride and groom had been carried to during the bedding ceremony that had followed the wedding feast.
Saidh shook the thought away and paid more attention to where she was going when a branch slapped back and hit her across the face. The spot they’d stopped to make camp was a lovely clearing, but Saidh had wandered far away from it in search of a place to take care of her needs. The distance was a habit with her. She’d learned that she needed to take herself far from camp did she want to avoid one of her brothers finding and somehow either embarrassing or scaring her while she was in the middle of relieving herself. They’d played that trick often enough in the past for her to have learned her lesson.
Mind you, she’d returned the favor a time or two. As the only girl among seven boys in the Buchanan brood, Saidh had quickly learned to defend herself. It had been that or turn into a sniveling, whiny little girl who ran constantly to her mama to tattle on the boys and that was not Saidh. Now sixteen, Saidh gave as good as she got, and had earned the love and respect of every one of her brothers because of it.
Saidh’s thoughts died as she stepped into a small clearing. It was pretty, surrounded by a wall of tall, stately trees and with a low carpet of purple flowers making up the ground, but it wasn’t the picture-pretty setting that had Saidh sucking in a gasp of air. Instead, it was the sight of her cousin, Fenella, sitting, sobbing next to her husband’s prone body, her dark hair a tumbled mess about her round face, her gown torn and disheveled, and a bloody knife in her hand.
“Fenella?” she breathed, finally getting past her shock and moving toward her. “What happened?”
Her cousin lifted her head, peered at her briefly without recognition and then just cried harder and shook her head as she lowered it again.
Frowning, Saidh slid her sword back into its scabbard and squatted to examine Hammish. There was a large circle of blood on his chest with a hole in the middle, and he didn’t appear to be breathing. Saidh felt her mouth tighten, and turned to her cousin to gently take the knife from her unresisting hands. After a hesitation, she tossed it to the side, then caught Fenella by the shoulders and gave her a gentle shake. “What happened?”
She was hoping Fenella would tell her they were set upon by bandits, or some other such thing. Instead, Fenella sniffled miserably and cried, “I killed him.”
“Dear God,” Saidh breathed releasing her to straighten and peer helplessly around the clearing.
“I did no’ mean to,” Fenella sobbed. “I jest could no’ take his rapin’ me again.”
Saidh glanced back to her with a frown. “Raping ye? Ye’re married, Fenella. He was yer husband. He—”
“He was a cruel heartless bastard who hurt and humiliated me all through the night,” she countered bitterly. “By the time he’d finished with me, I was raw, torn and bleeding worse than if I had me woman’s time.” Her gaze shifted to her dead husband and she said quietly, “That was bad enough, but I could ha’e withstood it. I would ha’e withstood it.” Crossing her arms over her chest, she lowered her head and almost whispered, “But then he turned me o’er and took me in unnatural ways, ways even more painful.” She raised her head again, eyes round with a combination of horror and pleading as she added, “And he was going to do it again, right here in the woods like an animal.” Her head swiveled to the fallen man again and she said miserably. “I could no’ let him. I jest could no’ bear it, so when I felt his dagger in his belt I—I did no’ think, I . . .” Moaning miserably, she lowered her head again. “I jest grabbed it and—”
When she broke off and shook her head miserably, Saidh peered at the man on the ground. She believed Fenella. It was impossible not to after what she’d heard on her way to her bedchamber last night. Saidh had been a little the worse for wear at the time. Her brother Rory had goaded her into a drinking contest after their cousin’s wedding feast. Saidh had never much cared for ale or whiskey and her brother knew it. However, she’d also never been able to resist a challenge, especially when it included phrases like “Ye’re no afraid, are ye?” or “Ah, ye’d ha’e lost anyway, ye being a lass and all.” Both of which he’d used last night when he’d apparently decided it would be fun to drink her under the table.
He’d lost the contest. Saidh had been swaying in her seat, but still upright when Rory had slithered off the bench to land in a heap under the table. She vaguely recalled the cheers and congratulations from the others as she’d got to her feet, then she had staggered away from the table, intent on reaching her room before she too fell to the drink. Her memory became clearer though when she reached the upper landing. With the laughter, chatter and music reduced to a dull roar there, she’d paused on the landing as the sound of a woman’s screaming had reached her ears.