Page 61 of The Chieftain
As he worked through his line, practicing with each would-be warrior in turn, he kept one eye on Connor. Again, he begrudgingly approved. Unlike Sorely, Connor never ridiculed the lads’ mistakes. He was patient, but persistent. He corrected, praised, and pushed each young man to improve his skills, which could make the difference between life and death for them one day soon.
After a couple of hours, Connor raised his hand to call for a rest. Lachlan started to sheath his blade, but Connor stopped him.
“Let’s give them another kind of lesson,” Connor said, with a glint in his eye. “I’ve been dying to fight ye since the day ye arrived and knocked Sorely on his arse.”
Unease settled in Lachlan’s belly. Though Connor was smiling now, Lachlan was fairly confident that the chieftain would not like being knocked on his own arse in front of the men.
“Pay attention, lads!” Connor shouted and faced Lachlan in a crouch with his sword in his hands.
Sweat broke out on Lachlan’s forehead as it occurred to him that if he was going to kill Connor, he should do it now. He could slide his blade between the chieftain’s ribs and be done with it. He heard his father’s voice in his head, saying the words he’d said to Lachlan from the time he was a bairn with a wooden sword in his hands.
One day, you will avenge your mother and restore our honor. You must kill him. Kill him! Kill him!
As they circled each other, Lachlan was aware of the shouts and cheers of the men gathered about them. But once Connor sprang at him with a series of powerful blows, he no longer heard the other men—or his father’s voice. He had grown accustomed to being better than every man he fought, but he soon realized Connor MacDonald was his match. The practice with the others had not shown Connor’s skills to their fullest. He was good. Very good.
The chieftain should be tired after hours of training, but he showed no sign of it as he slammed his sword against Lachlan’s time and again. And he was enjoying himself! Lachlan had not had an opponent who truly tested his skills in a long while, and to his surprise, he began to take pleasure in the fight as well. When Connor leaped over Lachlan’s blade after Lachlan was dead certain he had him, Lachlan smiled in appreciation of his opponent’s quickness.
They spun and pounded each other back and forth across the courtyard. Finally, Lachlan got lucky and landed a blow with the flat of his sword against Connor’s thigh. He hit him hard enough that the blow should have knocked Connor off his feet—but it didn’t. Before Lachlan could recover from the force of his swing, Connor spun in a circle.
The next thing Lachlan knew he was lying on his back with Connor’s foot on his chest.
“That was good,” Connor said, grinning down at him. He was breathing hard and beads of sweat were rolling down his face, despite the cold, misty weather.
It was not until Connor held out his hand to help him up that Lachlan saw the blood soaking through the chieftain’s shirt.
Someone shouted, “The chieftain’s been hurt!”
Lachlan froze. In a practice, a man was supposed to fight hard, but never strike to kill. Had Lachlan forgotten himself in the heat of their battle? Had he given in to his father’s admonition ringing in his head?
Anguish twisted in his gut as he saw that Connor was bleeding both from his chest and his upper thigh.
“I did not mean to do it,” Lachlan said, barely speaking the words aloud.
“What?” Connor looked down at himself with a frown. “Ach, ye didn’t do this.”
Several men jerked Lachlan to his feet and held him by his arms.
“For God’s sake, let him go!” Connor thundered. “This blood is from old wounds. They must have broken open in the fight.”
Lachlan staggered when the men released him.
“See, there’s no cut in my shirt,” Connor said, holding it out, then he pulled it off and showed the men the bleeding wound in his chest.
The jagged, circular wound clearly was not made by the blade of a sword, but by an arrow, and Lachlan knew Connor had a matching wound on his thigh.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“I told ye,” Connor said, gripping his shoulder and looking straight into his eyes. “Ye didn’t do this.”
But Lachlan had done it. And not in a fair fight, man-to-man, as Connor deserved.
CHAPTER 23
Someone fetched Ilysa after the fight, and now Connor had to endure the torture of her hands on his bare skin.
“Why are these arrow wounds taking so damned long to heal?” Connor asked.
He gritted his teeth as Ilysa’s fingers drifted down his chest in feather-light touches. This was far worse than the times she had dressed his wounds after they first arrived at Trotternish. Back then, he could convince himself that the nearness of a woman—any woman—would have stirred him. Now there was no escaping that his desire was for Ilysa alone.
