Page 104 of Keeping Kate
Blocking Grant’s capable strikes against his blade, Alec retreated, then thrust forward. Grant tried again to shift away from the sun’s strong golden light in his eyes. Seeing the angry fire in the man’s narrowed glance, Alec had no doubt Grant would do his utmost to strike a lethal blow if he could get so much as an opening.
Hang guard, step forward, thrust—this time Alec found flesh and whipped open a wound in Grant’s cheek. Slapping a hand to his face, the colonel shifted. Alec shifted too, stepping back, keeping the sun like a glowing ally at his back.
When Grant stepped backward, Alec pursued with a volley of strikes. The other man stumbled and turned, whirling so fast that Alec danced to the side. The action brought both of them perilously close to the outer wall that flanked the esplanade, with the castle looming to one side and the city sloping away to the other. Just an arm’s length away was a straight drop down a sheer cliff to the ground hundreds of feet below.
For an instant, Alec saw Kate, saw the soldiers watching them, saw the expression on their faces, all of them looking helpless to stop the lethal swordfight in progress. He shifted again, sidestepped, his shoe heel scraping the base of the wall, the wind brisk and cold as it whipped his hair across his eyes. The slope threw him off balance and off guard, and the curving wall edging the hill’s drop was scarcely waist-high just here. He tried to put distance between him and the stone wall as Grant advanced again.
This time the tip of his blade caught Alec’s injured arm, ripping through bandages, slicing and opening the wound. For a moment, Alec saw the world go gray, but he kept his feet stable under him, ignored the blood, and whirled.
She was there, just there, a sunbeam beside him, her back to the wall and the sunlight. Just when she had stepped too close to the danger, Alec was not sure. But he could not risk looking at her, though he felt the lure of it.
“Step back—Kate, get away!”
She did not move. And suddenly Grant saw her, slowed, gaped at her in bewildered distraction. He faltered. In that instant, Alec thrust again.
Grant recovered, but kept glancing toward Kate as if he could not keep his focus. Alec advanced again, turning. Kate turned with them, walking just beyond the circle of their swordplay. She was incandescent, a flame in the sun, her hair in loose waves like a halo about her.
Alec saw it then, saw the glamourie come over her like an inner glow.
But he did not falter, was not distracted. He felt stronger suddenly; the pain in his arm vanished, his stamina reviving. She was there like a comrade at his back, in her way, her magical way. And he felt strangely as if he, too, were part of that magic somehow, as if he, too, had a touch of the glamourie about him.
Grant slowed, stared at both of them, one to the other, as if stunned. Then a wild and stormy grimace passed over him, and he lunged at Alec, sword flashing in the sun.
Alec leaned back as the blade went past his chest and struck outward. Grant stumbled forward with his own momentum, hit the waist-high wall, and tipped over.
Alec stretched, lashing out his arm to catch the man, grabbing the tail of his coat, pulled forward by the effort. He let his sword clatter to the cobblestones as he snatched the man’s coat with both hands, pulling with all his strength, knees against the stone wall now, head and shoulders tilting over the edge. Grant dangled, shrieking, over the side of the wall.
Alec felt Kate’s arms close about his waist, felt her pull back. Then two or three soldiers ran forward, lending their strength, reaching for Grant, grasping, pulling hard backward with Alec. But the weight of the man dangling from their hands was far too great. The tail of woolen cloth in Alec’s hands slipped, rasping over his skin as it tore away. Grant fell swiftly, silently, to thud on the ground far below.
Pounding a fist on stone in desperate frustration, feeling a torrent of regret, Alec shoved away from the wall and turned, sinking, his back to stone, limbs shaking, and set his hands to his head.
“Sir,” one of the soldiers said, turning away from the wall. “He’s gone—looks as if he’s dead down there.”
“Run and see,” Alec said, and began to stand again.
“He tried to kill you, Captain—would have done so if he could,” said another man. “We all saw it. A fearsome attack.” He turned with two other redcoats to run down the hill toward the outer gate and beyond.
Kate ran to Alec, looping an arm around his waist, her breath as ragged as his own. “Dear God,” she whispered. “I thought you were gone—I thought you would be killed—but you are safe. Thank God, you are safe now.” She lay her head against his shoulder.
“Safe, aye. I will have to answer for this,” he said wearily, drawing her into the circle of his right arm, his left dripping blood from the opened wound.
“Your arm,” Kate said, pulling the pale kerchief loose from her bodice to wrap around his arm. He let her, leaning his cheek to her head, his breath slowing. He was aware that more soldiers clustered around them now. And there was little he could do to get his wife free of the risk.
There was no getting clean away now, he realized. The dungeon guards would have discovered that three Highlanders had escaped, and two of those involved simply stood by the wall, breathless, spent, trapped.
“Go,” he urged then in a harsh whisper, pushing Kate away. “Get out of here. Go!” But she clung to him, shaking her head. “Kate, dear God, I love you,” he murmured. “But run from here, lose yourself in the closes and the side streets. Make your way to my uncle’s shop and make as if you had never left there. I beg you.”
She shook her head. “I cannot leave you here.”
“Sir,” said an officer then, approaching. Alec looked up. “Captain, sir, three prisoners have just escaped. You were there—what do you know of it?”
“Prisoners?” Alec asked, feeling dazed. He saw the two sergeants who had guarded the dungeon area, following the officer toward them.
“Lieutenant, the captain knows nothing of this, I believe,” said one sergeant.
“But you said he was there just before the men disappeared, and a lady with him, along with other ladies—four or maybe six, you said.”
“Aye, there was an officer in the gear of the Highland watch, but there are many such about in the castle, day and night. A lady was with him—several ladies. And one was a beauty. But not this lady,” the sergeant went on. “Not this one, I think.”
