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“Don’t be a bloody idiot,” Davy said. “You can’t do it.
”
“It’s my leg that’s wounded, not my arms,” Malcolm replied. “I can row.”
Davy snorted. “But you can’t swim. So you can stand watch at the shore and be able to do nothing at all if things should go bad. Or you can put your fate in with us and we do this together.”
They’d done everything else together, Arabella thought. It seemed wrong to separate now. And though he groused and complained, climbing into the skiff, Malcolm obviously agreed.
In the moonlight, the loch was a beautiful but eerie thing. Cold and foreboding, with deep black waters that beckoned as if to steal their lives and steal their souls. Every soft splash of Davy’s paddle made Arabella’s heart stop. They needed not to be seen or heard by the enemy warriors on the shore. Meanwhile, they needed desperately to be heard and seen and recognized by the Macrae warriors in the castle.
What Arabella remembered most of the castle, on the days she’d been there for market, was that it was well-manned. It was a large, beautiful, wealthy place. A place only for visiting. But she realized now, her sister lived there. Her sister was behind those walls. And so she began to long for it, not only for safety, but because it now meant a place like home.
They were spotted as they neared the sea gate.
Arabella knew, because a flaming arrow came whizzing past her head in the dark before fizzling into the cold, dark sea. “Get down!” Malcolm shouted, pushing her to the bottom of the boat as it rocked and heaved. And, absurdly, as she contemplated her death for the thousandth time in the past few days, she was overcome by the stench of fish. There was a bloated one by her nose, dead and stinking in the boat. She hadn’t noticed it before, but now that it was so close to her face, she nearly retched.
And then she nearly laughed.
A fish. Why did every adventure with Davy involve a bloody fish? Except this time, they weren’t going to live to tell the tale. As another volley of arrows came their way, and one of them stuck in the boat with a thunk.
Davy called out the Macrae war cry. “Sgurr Uaran! Stop shooting arrows, you accursed idiots.”
“Davy?” came the reply.
“Aye, and Malcolm,” he called back into the night.
“For the love of Christ,” someone said. “Get in the castle, you dumb bastards.”
Chapter Ten
“Arabella!” Her name was shouted across the slushy, torchlit courtyard, her sister running toward her with open arms.
Breaking away from the knot of men who had pulled them up from the fishing boat, Arabella cried, “Heather!” She didn’t care that she wasn’t supposed to speak her sister’s name anymore, since she’d been cast out as a harlot. Arabella cared nothing bout any of it anymore. All she wanted was to fly into her sister’s embrace, and that’s what she did.
“Bella,” Heather said, using her childhood nickname, pulling her into a tight and familiar embrace. So familiar, in truth, that tears pricked at Arabella’s eyes. Dear God, she had missed her sister. Arabella had feared to think too much about her family, lest she fall apart. But now that she was near again…
But oh, Arabella’s sister was so different. The same beauty and uniquely violet eyes. But no longer a simple crofter’s daughter, no. Heather was mantled in an expensive fur. Her hair was plaited and styled. Her skin, sweet smelling and clean.
Whereas Arabella smelled like dead fish.
Grasping Arabella by the face and studying her as if to be convinced she was unharmed, Heather let go of a little sob. “The last time I saw you—”
“I know. They took me.”
Now it was Arabella’s turn to sob. Heather had been there when the Donald men attacked. And Heather had fought for Arabella. In spite of the knife at her throat, she remembered that much. “I’m so sorry you were taken, Arabella. So sorry. Conall brought word that you were safely rescued, then the snow storm came and I was so afraid for you. But now…”
But now the castle was under siege. And they were all safely inside, but trapped there too. Arabella understood all this without her sister having to say it. With a shiver of cold and a shudder of fear, Arabella whispered, “I know.”
“Let’s get you inside and tended to,” Heather said, her voice taking on a strange sense of authority. As if she had the run of the castle. As if she could speak for the laird.
Arabella started to follow after her older sister, just as she’d done when she was a child and in need of care. But one look over her shoulder at the men whose bodies she’d found such solace in, and she remembered she was not a child anymore. “Not without Davy and Malcolm,” she said. “They must be tended, too. Malcolm was badly injured. I fear his wound re-opened on the way here.”
“They’re my laird’s men. They will be tended to, never fear.”
Both men were watching Arabella, staring after her with something akin to longing in their eyes, and she wanted to go back to them. “But—”
“We’ll talk inside,” Heather insisted, tugging her by the hand. “Or do you want us all to catch our deaths in this cold?”
