Chapter 14

Chapter

Fourteen

C lyde came to Esme that night. It was so sudden and unexpected that she was caught unprepared. The first time she learned about his intentions was when he was sliding into bed with her. Shaking off her dreams, Esme awoke with a small scream.

Sitting bolt upright, she gasped. “What are ye doing here, ye great knave? Begone!”

He smelt so alien to her. The grease on his beard, the scent of his skin, and the sound of his fervent breathing; everything about the man repulsed her. There was no way Esme could even pretend to enjoy his touch to save herself. The bile rose into her mouth when his hot breath blasted into her face.

“I chose you for this, girl, and if I remember correctly, you chose me too.”

There was so much wrong about his statement that Esme was lost for words. “I dinnae choose ye! Ugh. I was upset with Bruce, so I went off with ye to spite him.”

She tried to leave the bed, but Clyde grabbed her wrist and stopped her. There was enough moonlight coming through the unshuttered window for them to see one another clearly. Esme did not like the look of rampant lust on Clyde’s face at all. The way he licked his lips with relish as he stared at the outline of her puckered nipples under the soft wool of her shift was repulsive. Never before had Esme realized just how dedicated she was to staying faithful to the Highlander. But she knew it now. She belonged to Bruce, body and soul. She was the very definition of a slave for love.

“If ye lay one finger on me, Clyde,” Esme used all of her strength to push him away from her, “I swear I’ll bite it off!” She spat the words out at him, her face pinched with revulsion.

“I like a woman with a bit of spirit,” Clyde grinned, “It makes the joining of the bodies together so much more pleasurable.”

“Pleasurable for a creeping rogue like ye maybe, but nae for me!”

She knew that once he managed to climb on top of her, his weight would be enough to pin her down. Esme would have to use her wits if she wanted to get out of this. Or at least she would have to rely on her wits to get her to where the dirk was nestled amongst the folds of her kirtle pockets.

Forcing herself to stay calm, Esme lowered her voice to try and sound reasonable. “Master Clyde, if ye give me permission to leave the bed, I will remove me shift for ye.”

This was a very tempting offer. The kirk had held sway over life on the island for many years and the seafaring brigands that made up the Fluga tribe were not immune to it. If the priests could have seen into every cottage bedchamber they would have. The rules for all kirkgoers were clear: to only have intercourse with a wife for the creation of bairns and to do the act wearing nightshirts.

And while the wives were very happy to obey this priestly dictum—especially the ones who were worn down from childbirth and nursing—the husbands champed at the bit to have more sensuality shown to them at bedtime.

Settling himself back on the bolster, Clyde agreed. “Go on then. Give me a display of what you have been hiding under that tunic of yours. But it better be good or else it is not only my prick that will hurt you when you come back to the bed—my hand will deal you a hard buffeting too!”

Thanking her lucky stars, Esme clambered out of the bed to go and stand at its foot. “Watch me closely noo, Clyde, or else ye might miss the best part.”

Taking a deep breath, Esme pulled one side of her shift gown off her shoulder to expose a beautifully rounded, pert breast. It was not gratifying when she heard the air catch in Clyde’s chest. He did not notice as she took a small step back to be closer to her kirtle. His gaze was rapt as she pulled the other side of her shift down. Using both hands, Esme began to massage her breasts, pushing the fingers to pinch at her nipples.

Again, Clyde was oblivious to her movements, his eyes staring at her chest with adoration. While her one hand played sensually with her breast, Esme’s other hand was frantically searching the kirtle pockets. When she found the dirk, she almost let out a sigh of relief before she slipped the weapon into the shift’s neckline at the back.

“Ye braw stud stallion,” Esme tried to remember how Bruce liked her to talk to him while they were making sweet love together, “will ye nae move over a wee bit so that I have more room in the bed? I need all the space I can get to spread me legs nice and wide for ye.”

By this time, Clyde’s eyes were nearly bulging out of the sockets—he was so aroused.

“Move over? Yes, of course, spread the legs.” It was like he was mesmerized by the tempting display she was putting on for him. Just as she had planned, Clyde moved over to be closer to the wall. Positioning her body so that her back was not observable to him, Esme unbraided her long, brown hair so that the thick tresses hid the dirk hilt. And then she went to lie on the bed.

He pounced on her the moment she lay down, sticking his knee between her thighs while his fingers searched to pry open that secret hidden slit of hers. He was a selfish lover, uncaring of whether her body was open and ready to receive him. Esme felt sorry for his poor wife, but her mind was made up.

This man and his family had orchestrated the worst atrocities on her poor village. Clyde’s father had stood by and laughed as the villagers had been burned alive in their homes. Sliding her hand underneath her back as Clyde tried to push himself into her body, Esme retrieved the dirk. She did not need to think twice. The man huffing and puffing with lust on top of her despite her rejection of his advances must die.

Her hand balled into a tight fist to hold the weapon, Esme plunged the dirk tip down onto Clyde’s back.

There were several disadvantages Esme had against her. Firstly, the strength in her arms was not enough for her to stab hard. Secondly, never having stabbed anyone before, she had completely underestimated how resilient the human skin could be. The tip of the dirk sunk less than half an inch beneath the surface of the skin before hitting a thick slab of muscle. The blade refused to go in any deeper.

The stabbing had the desired effect of making Clyde jump off her, scrabbling his hands behind his back to see what strange insect was biting him, but it did not incapacitate him in the slightest. When he felt a thin trickle of blood oozing through the nightshirt fabric, his focus snapped back to Esme, but this time no love-making was on his mind.

“You stabbed me, you poxy jade. I will kill you for that.”

For the first time since her father had swum away from the coracle boat after making her swear to look after herself, Esme realized that she had neglected her father’s order. Her life was meaningless now. She would die by the hand of this man, the son of the man who had slain her family and neighbors, and no one would be left to avenge her or them.

But her courage did not desert her in the face of death. She would sell her life at a price and damn the consequences. “Aye, I stabbed ye, ye great weasel! And I would do it again in a heartbeat!”

Grabbing the dirk off the mattress, Esme held it in front of her as if she were warding off a rabid dog. “Come one, Lairdsson! Come and get me if ye dare!”

The dirk did not perturb Clyde in the smallest way. Swatting the point aside like it was a wasp, he lunged for Esme’s hair. He managed to catch one lock as she tried to whirl away out of his reach. Using her long hair like a halter, Clyde dragged her towards him.

“I will ring your neck like the scrawny chicken that you are, you she-dog,” Clyde grunted with discomfort as the wound in his back pinched him. Esme screamed with pain as a thin lock of her hair was pulled clean from her scalp. Outside, some villagers got up from their beds and began to light torches and rushlights off the embers of the fires.

Uncaring of the pain now that her death was staring her in the face, Esme laughed wildly. “I ken Bruce will avenge me, Clyde. Ye are nothing but a stupid lummox, nay fit to clean his boots after a walk through the mud!”

The words were designed to make him kill her quickly. But as Clyde’s fingers clamped around her neck and began to squeeze, one of those people who had heard Esme’s scream burst through the door.

It was the Highlander. Taking in the scene with one look, he withdrew the sword from his back sheath. “When are ye going to learn to pick on those yer own size, lad?” Bruce commented drily before he kicked out the back of Clyde’s knees. To stop himself from buckling forward, the laird’s son let go of Esme and staggered.

Clyde felt like a fool in front of the strapping Scotsman. It was never going to look impressive for him to be wafting around a woman’s bedchamber in his nightshirt with a dirk hole in his back. “The strumpet spread her legs for me and then stabbed me in the back,” Clyde fumed. “If I don’t kill her now, you can bet your life that my father will have her hanged before daylight rises.”

“Ye should have let us leave when the time was ripe,” Bruce’s sword was hanging down; he would not attack an unarmed man. “But nay, ye had to go and push yer luck with me woman. When are ye going to learn, lad?”

Esme was sharply aware of the fact that Bruce had told her his healing powers had faltered and waned. She wanted to shield him for further harm. He was so magnificent, but this new vulnerability made his protection of her even more heroic.

“This ends now.” Clyde hissed the challenge at Bruce. “You and me, right now. In the village square. Winner takes all. Loser dies. It is a pity you came back from the dead, Highlander, but where my sister failed, I will succeed.”

Bruce pretended to suppress a yawn. “Och, ye’ll give yerself a nosebleed if ye insist on taking life so seriously, lad. But if ye think I’m going to dance around the village square with ye while ye’re wearing yer night shirt, ye must have run mad.”

It was as if the Highlander was deliberately trying to taunt Clyde! Clyde blew air out of his nose in one long stream. “That is why I challenged you! I must change into my clothes first!”

“Och aye,” Bruce put his arm around Esme in a protective gesture. “Pull on some boots and breeks first, by all means, but leave off the armor—if we are fighting to the death, then I want it to come quickly.”

The next thing Esme knew, Bruce was hurrying outside with her. “Forgive me, sweetheart. Me sleep came at a bad time. But noo I am mortal, the stakes are higher.”

She clung to him, unwilling to let him go. “Nay, Bruce! First ye must promise me that ye will nae get injured again!”

Clasping her small hands in his large ones, he smiled down at her in the way he always had done so, the half-humorous, half-teasing twinkle in his eyes. “I have nae doubt that oor luck will hold for one last time, darlin’ lass. Stay true, stay strong, and believe in oor love.”

Esme sobbed. “How can I believe what ye say when Mackenzie McFletcher is going around telling everyone that she is pregnant with yer bairn! Why could ye nae tell me the truth?”

His loving smile did not lessen as he held her close to his chest. “If she is pregnant, Esme, it is with some other man’s bairn, I promise ye. We ask too much from the ancient gods if ye expect the eternal Highlanders to have bairns as well as long life. I would nae lie to ye aboot something as serious as that. But what I must ask ye noo is this. Can ye still love me even if oor union is nae blessed with a wee bairn?”

Her answer was a fervent kiss and a soft whisper. “I will always love ye, Bruce Sterling.”

By the time Clyde had flung himself back into his house, looking for his sword, most of the villagers were awake. Word spread like a wildfire. The Highlander was back and stronger than ever before! He had issued a challenge to the laird’s son! The two men had lit the torches and were getting ready to fight in the square.

When the laird heard this, he came out of his house, buckling his breeks around his waist and calling for more torches. “What is this I hear? Why is no one listening to my orders anymore? If the Highlander wants to leave the island without forfeiture, let him go! Do you think I want a bunch of immortal brethren sailing to the island to challenge my lordship over it?”

Mackenzie came to stand next to her father, shrugging her pretty rounded shoulders. “Let the two men vent the bad blood between them, Father. You can step in before the Highlander goes in for the killer blow.”

“You are remarkably cold-blooded towards your brother’s chances, Mackenzie,” the laird complained.

One of his warriors commented. “As brave as your son is, Laird, he is fighting an Immortal being after all. Not one drop of the Bear’s blood has ever fallen to the ground.”

Then Bruce stepped forward to stake his claim. “Laird, for the third and final time, I ask that ye let me and me woman leave. I dinnae want to fight Clyde to death, but I will. Esme’s family must be avenged by this.”

With all of his warriors urging him to accept the challenge, the laird had no choice but to agree to the terms. Mackenzie shot a look at her brother as the two men moved to square off against each other; brother and sister nodded to one another in a secret agreement. The only one to notice this exchange of looks was Anna.