“Thank you, and a good night to you, too, my laird.”
So formal. A good reminder of her relationship with him—ward and escort. Exactly what he needed.
“Lock your door, my lady,” he instructed, returning the formal tone and regretting every damn syllable.
7
Rhiannon woke with a start from a dream where she’d been running through the woods, invisible men with axes chasing her. When she’d been about to run smack into a tree, she’d jolted awake, the sound of her body smacking the trunk still echoing in her ears.
She rubbed her eyes, her body slick with sweat.
There was the smack again. What was that noise?
She sat up in the darkened room. A sliver of moonlight cast through the window, illuminating the small chamber in murky shadows. From the heaviness of her eyes, she didn’t think she’d been asleep long. Maybe an hour or two.
Goosie hissed from somewhere near the chamber door at the same time that the floorboards outside her rented room creaked. Rhiannon sucked in a breath, gooseflesh rising on her skin, suddenly very much awake.
If her cat was on high alert, that meant someone was approaching who shouldn’t be there. Could be another guest. Her room wasn’t the only one in the inn, but she couldn’t shake the thudding sound that had woken her. Something wasn’t right.
She tried to think, her mind picking apart the pieces of her recent memory, which was filled with dreams of Ian, nightmares of running through the woods from her brother, and at the tail end of it, a loud bang that had woken her.
There it was again. A thud so loud it felt as though it was rumbling the floor beneath her bed. Her fingers curled into the blankets as if holding tight to them might ground her.
She strained to listen. There was a bang now and then, as if someone had knocked into a chair and sent it crashing to the floor. Or maybe backed up into a table or tripped and fell.
The same sounds one might hear of a bar fight. Though lacking in shouts as she would have suspected.
A creak again outside her door. And even in the shadows now, she could see Goosie’s back curving, tail up, ready to attack whoever came through. This was not someone passing by on the way to their rented quarters. This was someone lurking. And Goosie was an extraordinary cat who understood danger and was ready to fight for her mistress. Rhiannon wasn’t going to leave her to be the only one defending this sanctuary.
She slipped out from beneath the covers, trying not to make a sound, her bare feet frozen against the floorboards. The dagger was still in its brace at her wrist, but the one she normally kept in her boot was on the nightstand beside the bed. She picked it up, prepared to hurl it at whoever came through the door.
Muffled voices. One deep, stern, the other belligerent. She couldn’t make out the words, only a dull murmur through the door. A thud, then another. She realized those were the sounds of fists hitting flesh. Two men were fighting outside her door. She prayed one of them was Ian and that he was winning.
The door to her chamber shuddered as a body landed against it and then again. She held her breath, her body braced and ready to fight. As the men continued hitting the door, Goosie gave up on her bravado and hid under the bed. Rhiannon couldn’t blame her. She, too, might wriggle her way under the mattress, close her eyes and will the nightmare away.
More scuffling. Sweat poured down her back; her hands were damp. “Oh, come on,” she urged. “Come through the door. Let’s get this over with.”
This torment of “will they or won’t they” was going to drive her mad. Mad enough that she might even open the door herself. Besides, if they took too long, she was liable to miss her mark with her slick hands, making it hard to grip the dagger for a proper through. Rhiannon rubbed dampened palms on her chemise—the only thing she’d had to sleep in given she’d not exactly packed for this trip—then resumed her stance.
If they didn’t come through the door in the next thirty seconds, she was going to open it. The anticipation was too much. She’d be no good during a siege. Patience was not a virtue she possessed.
Deciding that she couldn’t wait any longer to end this, she started to march toward the door when it shuddered again with a great bang and this time, the wood splintered. Had someone kicked it?
Hard to tell. But her fear renewed, sending her heart skittering to somewhere near her feet, and she backed away from the door, her muscles tense, her eyes scanning, ready to injure whoever came near her.
“Where are you, Ian?” she muttered, hoping it was indeed him on the other side of the door trying to fight off her would-be attackers.
Another crash as something slammed against the door, and then there was a foot poking through. She didn’t hesitate. Rhiannon flung her dagger toward the foot, catching it in the middle. Only as it sunk into the sole of the man’s foot did she think that perhaps she should have ascertained that it was not Ian’s. Then again, if he was kicking in her door, that was a lesson he needed to learn. And unless something had changed in the few hours she’d been asleep, he would not be the one trying to break in.
The man yanked his foot loose of the splintered wood, bellowing his pain and anger.
Ian’s face appeared in the hole where the foot had been. “Well done, lass.” And then he disappeared again, the sounds of the scuffle quick as he put an end to her attacker, and silence reigned on the other side.
Ian reappeared in the hole. “Would ye mind opening the door, my lady?”
Rhiannon wanted to laugh with relief. At the same time, she wanted to be furious. Instead, she settled for a quiet huff and a large breath of relief as she hurried over and lifted the bar from where she’d placed it a few hours ago. Even with the damage, it was relatively easy to yank open the ruined door, though it creaked a little more on the hinges than she remembered.
“Who is he?” she asked, staring at the felled man outside her door.
