The Raider_A Highland Guard Novel

Seven





Rosalin didn’t like what she found at all. It was horrible—every bit as devastating as what she’d witnessed at Norham. How could people do this to one another? But war and the horrors committed in its name were something that she’d never understood. Her brother was right. Her heart was too soft for this.

Perhaps it might be different if she hadn’t been raised so far away. In London, she didn’t have raids, devastation, and suffering with which to contend. The kind of hatred Boyd possessed was foreign to her, but perhaps also justified if what he’d said was true.

Had his father really been killed so treacherously? Though Cliff had tried to keep her insulated from the war, she recalled hearing a story about the Barns of Ayr, which sounded much like what Robbie described. She also recalled the brutal retaliation by Wallace and the Scots.

But it was his reminder of the fate of the Countess of Buchan and Mary Bruce, who’d been imprisoned and hung in cages from Berwick and Roxburgh castles, that made her realize what a naive view she’d had of chivalry. Barbaric acts had been done by both sides—knight or brigand.

From the crest of the hill looking over the small valley below, she could see the burned-out shells of two stone houses, with a third still burning. Four wooden outbuildings had been reduced to a black skeleton of charred posts and fallen beams. A fifth was burning, with two more in danger of catching fire. At least three dozen people—mostly women and children—were racing back and forth to the river, frantically filling buckets to put out the roaring flames in what seemed to be a task of Herculean proportions.



Boyd was already shouting orders in Gaelic as they charged down the hillside. From what she could discern, half the men were put to the task of helping the villagers put out the fires, while he and the other half-dozen men went to work clearing the dead grasses and shrubs from around the handful of buildings, presumably to stop the flames from spreading farther.

She and Roger hadn’t been forgotten. In English, which she suspected was for her benefit, Boyd ordered Malcolm to take them down by the river where it was safe and to not let them out of his bloody sight. Unlike his father, Malcolm did not appear to harbor any bad feelings toward her. She’d apologized for taking advantage of his gallantry, which seemed to surprise him as much as embarrass him.

For what seemed like hours, but was probably only a fraction of that, they watched from a safe but frustrating distance as the men worked tirelessly and efficiently to put out the fire and stop it in its tracks. It was an impressive sight to behold. The same fierce intensity she’d noticed in the Scots’ fighting was displayed in their well-coordinated and strategic attack on the flames.

Unbidden, her eye kept straying to the captain of this pack of unlikely heroes. It was clear the single-minded determination that she’d noticed earlier to win the war at any cost helped to make him an exceptional leader. He was focused, decisive, and confident. Watching him like this, she could almost believe that he hadn’t changed as much as she’d thought. That there were still vestiges of the noble warrior for whom she’d risked so much. That maybe she hadn’t been completely wrong about him.




The Scots appeared to be well on their way to winning the battle when disaster struck. The wind, which to that point had been a light breeze, shifted and started to gust, whipping up the flames with renewed frenzy.

A handful of villagers screamed as one of the walls of what appeared to be a barn started to fall back on them. They were saved only when some of Boyd’s men rushed forward to hold it back long enough for them to get out of the way.

“We should do something to help,” Rosalin said.

“The captain said to stay here,” Malcolm replied dutifully, although it was clear he agreed with her and would much rather be with the other men than guarding them—apparently his punishment for allowing them to escape.

The sound of another crash, this one much closer, caused Rosalin to jump.

“What was that?” Roger asked.

Malcolm pointed to the burned-out stone house closest to them. As it was the largest of the buildings by far, it probably belonged to the reeve—the most important man in the small village. “The last bit of roof has collapsed. One of the beams must have fallen.”

She was about to turn away, when she heard something. “Do you hear that?”

“What?” Malcolm said.

“Listen.” They stood silently for a moment, but with the wind, the roar of the fire, and the shouts of the villagers and men fighting the flames, it was hard to pick anything out.

Malcolm frowned. “If this is another one of your tricks—”

“There!” she said. “Did you hear it? Someone is crying for help.”



“I didn’t hear anything.”

But Rosalin was already racing toward the burned-out cottage where the roof had just fallen.

“Wait, my lady! You can’t go in there. The captain said to wait here.”

“Hurry!” she said, not listening. “It sounds like someone is hurt.”

Without waiting to see whether they were behind her, Rosalin raced into the building. What appeared to be a hollowed-out shell of stone from the outside was a dark, smoldering maze of beams, posts, roof trusses, thatch, and furniture inside. She had to cover her mouth with the wool of her plaid to stop the smoke from choking her.

“Hello!” she cried out.

“Here!” a faint voice replied.

She followed the direction of the sound and in the farthest corner of the building came to a tangled pile of wood in front of a partially collapsed stone wall. Wedged in what appeared to be a space in that wall was a man who was penned in by rocks and still burning lumber. It was hard to see through all the smoke in the darkness, but he appeared to be barely alive under all the rubble.

“Here!” she shouted back to Malcolm and Roger, who she could hear calling for her. “He’s over here.”

The two made there way to her, their coughing growing louder as they drew nearer. They were both looking at her as if she were a madwoman. “He needs our help. He’s stuck.”

“What was he doing in here in the first place?” Roger asked.

It was a good question—one they could ask him when they got him out. “I don’t know,” she said. “Here, help me with this post—” She yelped in pain as her hands touched the hot wood.

“We’ll do it,” Roger said. “You don’t have gauntlets. Try to move some of the rocks out of the way.”



Rosalin nodded and went to work on some of the smaller rocks. Recalling a man who’d lifted rocks with much more ease, she couldn’t help wishing Boyd were here to help them. He would make quick work of—

She heard a loud creak as the boys moved one of the larger pieces of charred framing out of the way. She looked up just as what remained of the roof came crashing down on them, along with the main beam that formed its spine.

She screamed a warning, but it was too late. Malcolm wasn’t able to get out of the way in time and the beam crashed down in front of him.

“Malcolm!” She tried to lunge toward him but was prevented by a virtual wall of building material that had landed between them. She could no longer see the first man at all.

Fearing the worst, she was relieved when the ash and dust settled enough for her to see Malcolm move. “Are you all right?”

“I think so,” he said groggily. “Help get this off me.”

Protecting her hands as best she could with the wool of her plaid, she and Roger tried to lift the enormous beam, but it wouldn’t budge. It had probably taken a half-dozen men to move it into position when the building was constructed. “It’s no use,” she said to Roger. “We’ll have to fetch help.”

Their eyes met. She could see what he was thinking, probably because the thought had quickly crossed her mind as well. She shook her head. They might not get another chance to escape, but she wouldn’t leave Malcolm and the villager like this.

Roger nodded. “I’ll be right back.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something that made her pulse spike and every nerve ending in her body flare with panic. The fire was no longer smoldering. The falling beams and roof had stirred the embers and reignited the fire.



“Roger!” she shouted. He turned back. She glanced in the direction of the flames, which were no more than a twenty feet away. “Hurry!”



Robbie’s lungs were burning. He was hot and tired, and every inch of his skin felt gritty with soot and smoke, but he faced the fire with the same win-at-all-costs determination with which he faced the English. He was surprised how good it felt to be doing something to help that wasn’t fighting. It had been a long time since he’d lifted anything but his sword in the defense of his countrymen. But the English weren’t going to destroy this village today. Not if he had anything to say about it.

With the break line in the brush established, he was about to start helping Seton carry water when he glanced down by the river and stilled.

Malcolm, Roger, and Lady Rosalin were gone. Letting off a string of oaths, he ran. If she’d tricked the lad again and tried to escape, he was going to tie her up for the rest of the journey and throw her back into that sack.

He was halfway there when he saw Roger Clifford emerge from the burned-out shell of a longhouse-style building. The boy’s eyes stuck out like two white discs in his soot-streaked face, and his golden hair that was so like his aunt’s was matted to his head. He was wheezing heavily as he stumbled toward him. “Hurry!” he managed in a cracked voice. “N-need help.”

Robbie grabbed him by the arm, more to hold him up than in anger. “What happened? Where are your aunt and Malcolm? Are they in there?”

The boy nodded and Robbie took off into the burning building, a flurry of expletives firing in his head. His ears were pounding with a sound he didn’t recognize. It took him a moment to realize it was his heart.

What the hell could have possessed her to go into that building? He was furious. Beyond furious. Out-of-his-mind furious. But most of all he was bloody scared. Enough to admit it.



He ducked through the doorway into the smoky cavern. Covering his mouth with his arm, he blinked through the black haze, his eyes immediately tearing.

“Rosalin! Malcolm!” he choked, trying to see through the maze of smoldering destruction. It looked as if one of Sutherland’s black powder explosions had gone off in here.

“Here!” a distinctly feminine voice replied. “We’re back here.”


Ploughing through the stacks of beams and posts as if they were twigs, he made his way toward them. It wasn’t difficult. All he had to do was follow the line of flames that seemed to be heading right for them.

For as hard as his heart was pumping, his voice came out remarkably calm when he looked down into her tear-stained, soot-streaked face. “What happened?”

His voice didn’t sound like his own. He hadn’t known it was possible for him to speak so…tenderly.

Her tiny chin trembled and for a heart-wrenching instant, he thought she might fall apart. If she had, he knew he would have pulled her into his arms. He wouldn’t have been able to stop himself.

But she took a deep breath and held her emotions in check. “I heard a man crying for help, and when we came in to help him, Malcolm got stuck when a beam fell on us.”

It was strange how a heart that was pounding so fast could suddenly come to a dead stop. He waited a beat or two for it to start again. He wouldn’t think of her lying under that beam crushed. He wouldn’t. But he started to get a sick, twisted feeling in his gut anyway. He felt something he’d never felt before: weak-kneed.

“Captain? Is that you?”



Malcolm’s voice brought him back. “Aye, lad. I’ll have you free in a minute.”

She looked behind him. “Did no one else come with you?” Her voice shot up in panic. “We aren’t going to be able to move it in time.”

Obviously, she’d been trying to do just that.

“Move back.” He quickly took stock of the situation and realized he needed to have care. One wrong move and the entire pile of rock and beams would come down on Malcolm, crushing him instantly.

Turning his back to the beam, he grabbed the squared edge and using his legs, started to lift. But damn, the thing was heavy, even for him. “See if you can scoot out from under it,” he said from between clenched teeth, every muscle straining.

“Almost,” Malcolm said. “Another inch or two.”

Robbie clenched harder and lifted. His arms burned against the weight. But Malcolm was able to slither his way out. Very carefully, Robbie lowered the beam back into place.

And not a moment too soon. The flames were only a few feet away now. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

“But what about the man?” Rosalin said. “We can’t just leave him.”

Robbie clenched his fists, fighting the anger and fear that made him want to lash out. “Where?” he said tightly.

“Behind that wall.” She pointed to a space that had obviously been built into the wall as a hiding place. Suspecting for what, and exactly why the man was there, Robbie was tempted to leave him for being so reckless. But a few moments later, he’d moved the debris out of the way enough to drag him out. Not wanting to tell her that it was too late, he lifted the dead man over his shoulder with one arm, and with the other wrapped around her waist tucking her up tightly against him—trying not to notice how good she felt—he led them out of the burning trap.



As soon as they hit the fresh air, Malcolm collapsed on the ground coughing. Rosalin stayed on her feet but bent over to do the same, while Robbie let his arm slide from her waist and dropped the body of the villager, then grabbed on to the nearest tree so he didn’t topple over. His lungs and arms were on fire.

Seton, Fraser, Callum, and two more of his men were almost on them. The lad had obviously managed to alert them to the danger. Seton immediately rushed forward to assist Lady Rosalin, as did Callum with Malcolm. “What happened?” his partner asked.

For once, Robbie wasn’t annoyed by his solicitousness. The lass needed tending, and he could barely stand.

It took a few stops and starts for the story to come out. But between Malcolm, Roger, and Rosalin, the details began to emerge. It was hard enough to believe she’d raced in to try to help someone she didn’t know, but when Lady Rosalin reached the point where Malcolm became stuck behind the debris, the men looked at each other in astonishment.

Robbie voiced what all of them were thinking. “You could have left him there and escaped.”

She met his gaze. “He would have died,” she said, as if the explanation were obvious.

For her, he realized it was. She wouldn’t leave a man behind to die, not even an enemy. He should know that better than anyone. Something inside his chest shifted. It was as if a big rock had been pushed out of the way, revealing a small opening.

Callum looked at him as if the world had just been declared round. “But she’s English,” he said in Gaelic.

“I know.” Robbie was at just as much of a loss for an explanation. It didn’t make any sense to him either. This one small lass seemed have more honor in her than the entire English army put together.



Yet the more he watched her, the more he believed it wasn’t an act. She was just as sweet and kind as she looked. He’d noticed how she’d distracted her nephew earlier to keep his spirits up and her natural friendliness toward his men—even in the face of their brusqueness (in most cases, outright rudeness). When she’d demanded to come see what could be done in the village, he thought it was a trick. But it wasn’t. It had obviously been motivated by honest concern. For Scots. She’d run into that burning building to help someone who was her enemy.

It defied belief.

But it was more than that. Beneath the sweetness he detected a fierce sense of right and wrong that reminded him of someone, although he couldn’t put his finger on who.

When she reached the part where he arrived, he tried to stop her, but she wouldn’t let him. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said. “I don’t know how you lifted that by yourself.”

It wasn’t the first time he’d heard admiration and awe in a lass’s voice, but it was the first time he felt his face growing hot. Bloody hell, he was blushing!

“You should see him at the Highland Games, my lady,” Malcolm offered. “The captain can throw a stone three times as heavy as anyone else. No one has ever come close to beating him. Why, he can defeat ten Englishmen using just his hands—”

“That’s enough, Malcolm,” he said sharply. “The lady doesn’t want to hear about all that.”

She looked like she was about to disagree, when she glanced to the man lying on the ground at his feet. Her eyes filled with tears. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

He nodded.

She looked up at him. “Why would he have done something so dangerous?”

Robbie reached down and pulled a purse from the man’s clenched fingers. “For this. He had it hidden in a space in the wall, along with some grain and other goods. He’d probably put it there when the English came and then tried to get to it once he thought it was safe.”



“All this for a few coins and some grain?” she asked incredulously.

Robbie’s jaw hardened. “Aye, it was foolish, but it was probably all he had to feed his family. These people will have nothing left.”

The realization affected her. There was no denying the real compassion and sadness in those too expressive eyes of hers.

“But you saved some of them,” she said. “The fires are almost out.”

The way she was looking at him…

For a minute, he felt like he’d donned some of Seton’s shining armor.


Bloody hell.

Robbie glanced over to where the rest of his men and the villagers were throwing the final buckets of water. But she was right. They had.



Something had changed. Rosalin didn’t know what, but over the next hour, while Robbie and his men helped the villagers put out the last of the fires and see what could be salvaged from the rest, she detected a difference in the men’s attitude toward her.

Once they’d stopped staring at her as if she had suddenly grown a second head, they actually spoke to her. And not just in grunts and unintelligible words in Gaelic. Men who she didn’t think knew a word of English were suddenly addressing her as “my lady.”

Even Callum. Well, perhaps especially Callum. Just as personally as he’d taken her tricking of Malcolm, it seemed he’d seen her refusal to leave his son in the burning building as the establishment of some kind of bond between them. She couldn’t tell whether he was pleased about it or not, but he’d taken his son’s place in guarding her and seemed to have nominated himself as her protector.



When some village children cautiously approached and started touching her soiled but very fine gown, he’d shooed them away and told them not to get the lady’s gown dirty with their grubby hands. Considering how inelegantly she’d been handled the past twenty-four hours and how filthy she was already, such admonishments were quite laughable. But cognizant of how serious he seemed to be, and his Scot pride, she smothered her smile and told him she didn’t mind just this once.

The children had been entranced with her and had asked some of the most humorous questions, at which she’d struggled hard not to laugh. They must have asked her ten times if she was truly English. That she didn’t have the face of a gorgon, or devil’s horns and tail, was apparently incomprehensible.

It was when talking to the children—a few of whom had lost everything—that she’d had an idea.

Callum hesitated, giving her that strange look again. “You want to give them our food?”

“Aye, do you think some could be found that might be spared?”

He stared at her for a long time, his ruddy, weathered features inscrutable. “I’ll ask the captain.”

From their post by the river, Rosalin watched the older man walk over to where Boyd stood with some of the villagers. Boyd’s head turned in her direction, and even from the distance the intensity of his gaze made her shiver. A few moments later, he nodded, and Callum strode toward the trees where the horses had been tied and started to go through the bags.

With Callum occupied and Roger conscripted to help the other men with the cleanup, Rosalin kept herself busy answering the children’s questions while trying not to let her eyes stray to the man who seemed the center of attention in the village.



She frowned. For one small village, there certainly were a disproportionately large number of young women. And every one of them seemed to be traipsing after Robbie Boyd like he was some kind of hero.

To them, he was, she realized with a start. This man reviled as a devil on one side of the border was lauded as a hero on the other. It was strange what a difference perspective made.

The women were practically tripping over each other trying to get him to notice them. Good gracious, had they never seen a handsome man before? She could see the stars shining in their eyes from here.

Why did she care, anyway? She’d outgrown barbarians, hadn’t she? Besides, he’d made his feelings toward her perfectly clear: they were enemies. She would not forget it.

Escape was what she should be thinking about. Not tall, broad-shouldered brutes with excessively muscled bodies.

Tearing her gaze away from the man commanding so much feminine admiration, she focused her attention on the children. When they moved off, she asked Callum if she might wash up before they left. After a quick glance to where Roger stood with Malcolm and another young warrior (he knew she wouldn’t try to escape without her nephew), he nodded and told her to be quick about it.

She hurried down toward the river, heading to the left, where it bent and a copse of trees would protect her from view and give her the privacy she needed.

She hadn’t lied. She did want to wash and soak her hands in the cold water, but she also needed to replenish her supply of ribbon for the trail she was leaving for Cliff. The last few strands of pink were in her purse, but her chemise was decorated on the neck and sleeves with small, light-blue bows of satin ribbon. The costly garment imported from France had raised even her indulgent brother’s eyebrow, but she didn’t think he’d mind its destruction under the circumstances.



Indeed, most of her once luxurious clothing was in shambles. Removing the plaid and cloak, she shook them out as best she could, set them down on a log, and then brushed the dirt and soot off her dark blue wool cotehardie edged at the hem, neckline, and cut sides with gold embroidered ribbon. But she feared not even a good brushing and hanging would save the pretty garment after such abuse.

She grimaced, lifting her skirt up to examine the rest. The lighter blue wool kirtle underneath was in much better shape, except for the muddy hems where it hung below the cotehardie. But she didn’t think to remove her over-gown; she needed every layer for warmth.

The fashion for both gowns was tight in the sleeve and bodice, and it wasn’t without some difficulty that she was able to loosen the laces of the cotehardie on the front and the kirtle on the side to reach the chemise underneath.

After pulling off as many of the ribbons as she could reach, she tucked them into the purse still at her waist. Then, kneeling beside the river, she dipped her hands into the icy water and cupped it to her face. It was cold but invigorating. She washed and scrubbed until the water came back clear and not gray with soot.

It felt so good to be clean that she considered dunking her head in and washing her hair, but she didn’t want to risk the chill of wet hair while they were riding. She did, however, take the opportunity to wash her upper body as best she could with the loosened garments. She was so engrossed in her task, she didn’t hear him approach.

“It’s time to go. The men are…”

His voice dropped off. It took her a moment to realize why. She’d jumped up when he startled her and turned without thinking. His gaze had fallen on her chest and appeared to have become stuck, along with his tongue.



A quick glance down told her why. Her chemise was soaking wet from her washing. Her very thin, very transparent, very revealing chemise, which was now molded to her breasts, revealing every curve, every contour, every point in perfect detail. She might as well have been naked.

She sucked in her breath, which was a mistake, as it only made her breasts rise to even more prominence.

He made a sound low in his throat that was almost pained, but it made every inch of her skin blaze with heat.

She made a move to cover herself, but he grabbed her wrist. “Don’t. God, please don’t.”

Heat blasted her again. It poured off him in a hot, molten wave, making her nipples tighten.

He groaned, a deep, intensely masculine groan that sent a rush of something hot and damp between her legs. It pooled there, growing warm and achy.

His face was harder than she’d ever seen it—sharper—more dangerous somehow. It was as if all the civility had been stripped away, leaving nothing but the fierce, primitive male underneath.

He stared at her breasts as if he had never seen anything more desirable. As if he could barely hold himself back from touching them. From ravishing them.

Their eyes met, and she felt the shock of it radiate like a bolt of lightning up her spine. No one had ever looked at her with such raw lust, possession, and heat.

The air was charged with something she didn’t understand. The fierceness of the emotions crackling between them was too overwhelming.

Men had wanted her before, but never like this. This was different. This was wild, dangerous, and uncontrollable. This was desire unlike anything she’d ever experienced before and, for a moment, it scared her.

He scared her. She might have thought she knew him, but Robbie Boyd, hardened warrior, was not the noble rebel she’d watched as a girl. She was alone with one of the most feared men in Scotland. A man who by all accounts was a scourge, brigand, and barbarian. She was completely at his mercy, and the precariousness of the situation—and her vulnerability—slid down her spine in a terrified chill.