Border Bride (17 page)

A dozen clansmen crowded around. Addressing them all, Malcolm said, "The lady collided with Phantom Oak."

Alexander grimaced and said, "We should've made kindling of that dead tree years ago."

Alpin thrust up her chin and gave Malcolm a knowing glare. "My words exactly, Mr. Lindsay."

Making a basket of his arms, Malcolm twisted in the saddle. "Here, Alexander. Take her before she draws blood with her tongue."

The crowd of soldiers murmured and chuckled. Alexander took Alpin, and as her weight left Malcolm's hands, she said, "You can put me down, Mr. Lindsay."

"Aye, my lady." He set her down.

Malcolm dismounted.

Alexander said, "There's trouble, sir."

Thinking he needed more problems about as much as he needed another woman in his life, Malcolm turned to his first order of trouble. "You go inside, Alpin, and tend to those wounds. You know where Mrs. Elliott keeps the medicinals."

Looking weary, she nodded and walked away.

"What's happened?" Malcolm said to Alexander.

The other men snickered and traded knowing glances.

Alexander cleared his throat. "'Tis the Moor and the African miss."

Irritation sapped Malcolm's patience. To top it off, Alpin had heard and rejoined them. "Where are they?" she demanded.

"Go into the castle, Alpin," Malcolm said through clenched teeth. "I'll take care of it."

Ignoring him, she said, "Where are they, Mr. Lindsay?"

From the stubborn set of her chin, Malcolm knew she'd wait out the Second Coming before she'd leave without an answer. "Tell her, Alexander," he said.

"Saladin has her locked in the walled garden," the soldier said.

"Why?" said Alpin. "Has he gone mad?"

"She's the one who's mad," Rabby Armstrong said. "Angrier than a newly sheared ewe. Wouldn't you say so, Mr. Lindsay?"

Alexander shook his head. "Afraid so, my lord. 'Tis a war going on back there."

Alpin marched across the yard, a limp hampering her steps, her skirt swirling about her ankles. Thinking of the leather breeches that clung to her in all the right places, Malcolm pursued her. Alexander and the others followed.

When he caught up with her, Malcolm said, "You're hurt, Alpin, and your scratches could fester. Go inside. I'll send Elanna to you."

She slowed her steps. "No. I want to see for myself."

They rounded the corner tower. Malcolm leaned close and whispered, "Don't you trust your handfast husband?"

"It's not that. I'm responsible for Elanna. Sometimes she can be contrary."

"She had an expert tutor. Like mistress, like maid. I just hope she's declared a holiday today," Malcolm said.

A larger crowd milled around the side yard adjacent to the walled garden. Saladin sat on the ground, his back propped against the squat wooden door, his legs splayed. Against his cheek he held a wad of gaily flowered cloth that looked vaguely familiar. "Welcome home, my lord," he said.

"What happened?"

"That woman disturbed my prayers."

From beyond the garden wall the unseen Elanna yelled, "Here's what I think of your prayers, Muslim." Bits of paper sailed over the wall.

"That's the Koran she's ripping to shreds," Saladin said, staring at the shower of debris that fluttered to the ground.

"What did you do to her?" Alpin demanded.

"To
her
?" He took the rag from his cheek, revealing a bruise the size of a plover's egg.

Elanna yelled, "Tell them what you did, you ecky-beckie beast!"

"I did nothing," he shouted back.

"Ha! And my father was a mosquito-eating Eguafo with boar's bones growing out of his nose."

Malcolm knelt beside his friend. "Tell me what happened."

"She flirted with me and dared me to kiss her."

"You lying blackamoor!"

Sighing, Saladin closed his eyes. "I don't know what came over me. I did try to kiss her, and you see what she did to me. She's big trouble."

"Betcha that, you monkey-faced slave catcher."

"Oh, Lord, Saladin," Alpin murmured. "You've unleashed a wild woman."

"Have I?" he countered smoothly. "A man has his limits. Any other would have done the same when faced with a half-naked woman bearing fruit."

Malcolm wondered where he'd gone wrong, what he'd done to turn his life into a comedy of errors. "My friend, let her out."

"Yes," Alpin said. "Open that door."

"Certainly," Saladin said, as amenable as a missionary with a cause. "When she apologizes."

Elanna laughed. "This African princess will go white like a fish belly all over before she sings sorry, sorry song to some perverted Moor."

Tilting her head back, Alpin called out, "What did he do to you, Elanna? Are you all right?"

"He jabbed his tongue in my mouth. Oooh." Her voice quivered with disgust. "He tastes like that mush he eats for breakfast."

"You served it to me, wench," Saladin snapped.

"You begged for it and more," she shouted.

Saladin scowled and reached for his scimitar. The curved and polished blade glinted like gold in the fading light of sunset. "Stay there, then. Perhaps a night in the open will cool your hot temper."

"Temper?" Elanna said. "You one stupid man, Saladin Cortez. You ruined my dress."

"Malcolm! Do something," Alpin demanded.

The men in the yard howled and slapped one another on the back. Malcolm coughed to cover his own laughter. "Did you ruin her dress, Saladin?" he asked, choking.

"I hardly call a short length of cloth a dress." He waved the rag. "And I only took a piece of it."

"The piece covering my breasts! You threw what was left in the fountain," Elanna screamed. "It's wet."

"Fountains usually are," Saladin murmured.

Alpin had heard enough bickering. Her wrist ached. From her scalp to her toenails, she felt bruised to the bone. Considering the amused glint in Malcolm's eye and the way he stood, legs apart, arms crossed over his chest, she suspected he would never force his friend to relent. How could he? Judging from the red stain on Saladin's lips, he'd tasted Elanna's berry brew. At present neither man was blessed with an overabundance of rational thought. But Alpin knew of another way into the garden, a way uncluttered with prideful men and curious onlookers.

Besides, she thought cheerfully, she'd lured Malcolm into proposing today. Why force him to choose between loyalty to his friend and obligation to her?

So she slipped away and went to her room to fetch her ring of keys and a dress for her friend. Taking a lighted lamp from the lesser hall, she entered the tunnel. By the time she made her way to the right corridor, thoughts of a hot, soothing bath and the absence of snakes and trip wires revived her. She passed the alcove outside Malcolm's study and smiled, for now that he'd proposed she wouldn't need to spy on him again.

She passed the darkened stairway leading to the tower room she'd once called home, but refused to dwell on those lonely times. Malcolm was correct, and she refused to pity the frightened child she'd been so long ago.

When she pushed open the iron door at the other end of the tunnel and stepped into the walled garden, her mouth fell open in surprise. Elanna stood on the garden side of the squat wooden door, Saladin's prayer rug draped over her shoulders. Smiling with sweet satisfaction, she ripped out the last pages of the Koran and flung them, along with the leather binding, over the wall.

"You forgot something, Muslim," she trilled and pitched his prayer rug over the wall. Brushing her hands together, the last Ashanti princess of the Kumbassa people strolled toward Alpin. Head high, shoulders squared, Elanna stood as naked as she had a decade ago when Charles had purchased her at a slave auction in Barbados.

But it wasn't Elanna's nudity that shocked Alpin; it was her friend's dishevelment. Elanna looked like a woman who had been thoroughly seduced. Without her head wrap, her shoulder-length hair lay in a wild tangle. Her lips appeared swollen and pouting with sensuality. The haunted expression in her jet black eyes confirmed Alpin's conclusion. She knew the look well, understood the blatant yearning Elanna displayed. Having fallen victim to the charming allure of Malcolm Kerr, Alpin felt bound by the same kind of love spell.

Once at Alpin's side, Elanna touched her tattered sleeve and quietly said, "Island girls got big trouble."

Alpin nodded, and from the other side of the wall she heard Saladin say, "Let's go hunting, my lord. I've a hankering to get away from these women and kill something my religion forbids me to eat."

Chapter Nine

So close their shoulders touched, Elanna and Alpin stood at a window in the upstairs solar. In the darkened yard below, Malcolm stepped into the stirrup and swung himself into the saddle of his white stallion. Torchlight illuminated a score of tartan-clad soldiers who waited nearby, their masculine banter rising in the yard, their horses kicking up dust.

Through the diamond-shaped panes, Alpin saw Alexander approach his laird. Malcolm leaned over and spoke to him at length. She couldn't hear what he said, but he pointed to the tiltyard, to the falcon mews, and waved a silk-clad arm indicating the whole of the compound.

Alexander made a fist, then stuck his thumb in the air. He spoke, held up his index finger, spoke again, then unfurled his middle finger.

Malcolm nodded and continued his instructions.

Alpin fumed, but not because he was leaving; she needed some time to regain her sense of self. Still, he could have consulted her, for she was capable of managing his affairs.

He hadn't sought her out since she left him an hour ago to rescue Elanna from the walled garden.

Since then Alpin had cleansed her wounds and donned her nightrail and robe. She'd changed her mind, too. She didn't want him to go. But Malcolm seemed more interested in hunting than in consummating his handfast marriage.

"So much for passion," she mused.

"Island girls better off alone," Elanna said.

Feeling dejected, Alpin scraped at the dirty glass with her fingernail and wondered if he would even say good-bye.

What would she do if he traipsed off without so much as a glance in her direction? She'd wring his selfish neck, that was what she'd do. It wasn't that she expected a dramatic farewell. But she had a role to play, and how in the name of all that was holy was she supposed to act like a devoted bride if he wouldn't bother to play the smitten groom? Because he wasn't smitten, she admitted silently. He felt only lust, and even that might vanish when the potion wore off.

Rabby Armstrong sprang up in his stirrups and shouted to Malcolm. All of the men looked toward the stables. A moment later Saladin popped into the pool of yellow light. Tail swishing, neck tucked close to its chest, his pitch black mount sidestepped like a winning racehorse on parade.

"My blackamoor one mighty fine man. Betcha that."

Taken aback, Alpin said, "
Your
blackamoor? Do you want him?"

Elanna shrugged. "For a time." Then, referring to an oft-cited tribal custom, she said, "Ashanti princess must look into the eyes of the father of her forever mate."

Alpin watched Saladin effortlessly maneuver his horse through the throng and to Malcolm's side. In an alien land he had made a fine life for himself. "Saladin is bastard-born. He doesn't know his father."