Their eyes met, there in the gloom. A curious expression twisted his features. “Ye do no’ ken who I am, d’ye, mistress?”
“I am afraid I do no’.” She hoped,hopedhe was one of their own. Yet her heart told her otherwise, and his expression confirmed it. She did not know him because nay, he was not a member of Clan MacBeith.
She blinked and moved her gaze over him, trying to peer beneath the blood. A big man, aye, with something compelling about him even though under all that blood—
He wore MacLeod tartan.
Chapter Two
She looked likean angel, this woman who hovered over him. But no ordinary angel with golden hair and feathered wings, all in white. Nay. She had an oval face, wide, steady eyes, and a lot of hair, all braided. He could not tell its color in the poor light, but it was not fair.
She was beautiful, and ’twas her compassion that made her so.
Now she sprang to her feet and backed away from him, having just realized she’d spent the last moments tending a mortal enemy.
Leith sat up in her wake, a gasp of agony tearing from him. What would she do now? The dead—his and hers alike—lay all around them, but the living remained not far off. He could quite clearly hear them, the members of Clan MacBeith. Carrying their wounded from the battlefield. Dispatching their enemies.
Men like him.
All this woman needed to do was call out. Those men who so efficiently dispatched his fellow MacLeod warriors would come. A quick blade to the throat and his life would end.
He drew a breath, which served to intensify his agony. His wound was bad—he’d known that from the instant he’d taken it. Lying there with the body of his fellow warrior, Carr, weighing him down, he’d been as good as dead.
Then he’d heard her. Moving closer, and closer. She’d appeared above him and knelt down, mercy in her gaze. Gentleness in her hands.
Neither could last.
If he could escape her, he might be able to get away through the dark. If he could stand, that was. At the moment, he doubted it. To reach home, he’d have to swim across the loch or make the long trek around by the burn, away up the glen.
Neither of those things was going to happen, given his present condition. Curse it all, he could not even get to his feet.
What he should do—what he truly should do—was silence this woman before she called out. His sword must be here in the grass, somewhere beside him.
He groped for it with his left hand, since the right refused to obey him. That fact drenched him with horror and sweat. His right hand—the right hand of a warrior—would not serve.
Even as he searched for the weapon, he knew he could not use it on her. Not even to save his life.
Abandoning the search for his blade, he attempted to scramble to his feet and failed. Aye, she would call out now. Realizing who, what he was, she would abandon all mercy and betray him.
Only it would not be a betrayal, would it? She was MacBeith and he MacLeod.
There did all mercy end.
He could hear the others getting closer, her clansmen. She had only to open her lips.
For the span of twenty heartbeats, she remained silent. Forty heartbeats. She must call out. And him, without the strength to rise.
Then, quite suddenly, she bent toward him. “Here.”
Her arms came around him, tight. One slender shoulder lodged at his armpit. Even then it took Leith a moment to grasp her intentions, to accept that she meant to help him up.
They managed it, but not without difficulty, and stood swaying together while he fought back the agony and tried to catch his breath.
Despite his being soaked with blood, she kept hold of him, unwilling to let him fall. He could feel the warmth of her there in the rapidly cooling evening. He could smell her, by heaven, even over the heavy scent of the blood. She smelled like herbs. Like woman.
Leith had known his share of women in the past. Women liked to banter with him. To laugh and tease. To seduce.
None had ever looked at him this way, with her very soul in her eyes.
