Highland Avenger (Murray Family #18)
Hannah Howell
Chapter 1
Scotland, spring 1480
Cold salt water matted her hair so badly Arianna could feel it pulling at her scalp. The rising wind did not help, yanking her hair free of its pins and whipping it around her head. It hurt when it slapped her in the face, something it did all too often as she made her stumbling way across the heaving deck of the ship in search of Adelar and Michel, but she had no time to fix it now. When she found the boys she intended to scold them until their ears burned.
The boys were far too careless with their lives, too innocent to be fully aware of the danger they were in. They thought they traveled with her to Scotland to live with her and her family, not really understanding that they were running for their lives. They were too young to heed any warning she gave them for long. Nor could they understand that they were the only part of her ill-fated marriage that she clung to.
There was someone on the ship who wanted her boys dead. Clenching her cold, wind-chafed hand over the hilt of her dagger, she swore yet again that she would do anything to keep them alive. She had thought that, by leaving France, she had escaped pursuit, but the ones after her boys had obviously set one of their men on the ship. She had every intention of burying her dagger deep in the man’s black heart.
“Jesu! The little bastard bit me!”
The angry male voice sliced through the sounds of wind, rain, and creaking ship. Arianna turned toward that voice. Through the sheets of rain pelting down from the sky, she saw two men struggling to hold firm to two writhing, kicking boys as they dragged their small captives toward the ship’s rail.
One dagger. Two men. Not very good odds, she thought as she moved silently but quickly toward them. Her boys were fighting valiantly but she knew they would lose the battle. They needed her help to save them.
She was not sure exactly who had hired the men and doubted she would have the opportunity to gain any answers from them. It did not matter. Arianna knew it was their uncle Amiel or the old, deadly enemy of the Lucettes, the DeVeaux. Or both, she thought, and nearly snarled. Amiel did not appear to care that he was now in league with a family that had caused the death and misery of so many of his own kinsmen. It should not have surprised and shocked her as much as it did. The man was trying to murder his own nephews to gain all they had inherited from their father. And, she strongly suspected, it had been Amiel who had killed their father, Claud, as well, murdered his own brother along with the mother of the boys. Dealing with an ancient enemy was a small sin next to those.
Just as she was within reach of the men, the wind slapped her hair into her face again. Arianna shook her head back and forth to throw off the cold, wet hair that nearly blinded her. As she did so, out of the corner of her eye she saw something that firmly grabbed her attention despite the threat to her boys.
Approaching through the rain was another ship. Unless some miracle occurred within the next few moments, something she had never been blessed with, that ship would soon ram the much smaller ship she stood on in the side. It was not only the boys she had to save now but herself as well. It began to look as if they would all soon end up in the rough, storm-tossed water.
Taking a deep breath as she sheathed her dagger, Arianna screamed as loudly as she could. Both men whirled round to stare at her. Still screaming, she pointed toward the ship bearing down on them. As she had hoped, the men were seized with the need to save their own lives. They dropped the boys on the deck and ran toward the side of the ship the other ship continued to aim for.
Aim for, she thought suddenly as she grabbed both boys by the arms, and knew it was exactly what the larger ship was doing. It was purposely heading straight toward them. There would be no stopping it. Her heart ached for the others on the little ship who were about to die at the hands of her enemy. She could do nothing to help them, however, and turned her full attention to the two small, shivering boys she held. There was a small chance she could save them and that was all she would allow herself to think about now.
“They were going to toss us into the sea,” said Michel.
“Aye,” she said as she dragged them over to the bow where she had earlier seen several empty kegs lashed to the deck. “I fear ye are about to end up in the sea anyway.” She released them and used her dagger to cut the ropes holding the kegs to the ship.
“Then we will die,” said Adelar.