Free The Intended by May McGoldrick

realizing the skin from his fingers to his elbow was
ablaze with crimson flame. Malcolm continued to fall. The
heather-covered earth opened to receive him.
    The Highlander jerked into consciousness with
a start. The ground beneath him smelled not of heather, but of old,
befouled straw. A noise—the sound of a men speaking—could be heard
from a distance not far off. The pounding in his ears made the
words unintelligible, but the accent was clear. English. Closing
in. They were now getting closer to where he lay. Malcolm tried to
roll to his side, to rise to his feet. His body would not respond.
He set his teeth, willing himself up. Nothing. Move, damn you, he
cursed, trying to reach the short sword strapped at his side. His
broken body defied him still. He couldn’t lift his head, his
arm—not even the weight of a finger. The voices were now upon him.
Malcolm lay still, doomed, helpless, waiting for the final death
stroke to fall. Let it come, he thought.
    But the stroke never fell.
    His face was hot—burning—and yet his chest
and arms were as cold as the grave. He had no legs, so far as he
could tell, but he could feel the droplets of sweat scorching a
trail down his temples, across his neck. A tightness in his
throat—a dryness that threatened to crack open his gullet—consumed
him.
    He tried to remember where he was. A swirl of
pictures, sounds, whirled past his eyes with dizzying speed. A
ship. A French ship! And a wolfish attack by the English ships.
They were outnumbered, outgunned. And then there had been a searing
heat plunging through his ribs, piercing the flesh. The point of
the blade coming though his chest. The flash of white. The world
out of focus giving way to the aching, yellow light and the
wriggling red worm that squirmed across his eyes. And then the rush
of wind, the blackness, and then nothing. That’s what he
remembered.
    A spot cleared far back in Malcolm’s brain.
The vision of his master, the venerable Erasmus, in his study. The
bustling streets of Freiburg in Breisgau, shut out by the walls of
the university, by the crackle of the fire in the small hearth. He
had spent many days at the master’s side. Come, Malcolm Scotus, the
master used to say, the corners of his shrewd gray eyes crinkling
with only the hint of a smile. Let us argue once again the De
Devisione Naturae , but this time, my boy, we argue in
Greek.
    But Erasmus was dead now. And that had been
the reason he’d given to those who asked about his presence aboard
that ship. He’d simply said that he was going to Rotterdam to pick
up a small legacy the great scholar had left him a few years
earlier as a part of his will. He’d never had time to go before
now. He still didn’t have time. But a sense of nostalgia, Malcolm
had told one fellow traveler, for the peace he had once felt as a
student, had drawn him on this trip.
    So in the role of a wayfarer rather than
laird and warrior chief, he had boarded the French ship. So little
had he suspected an attack. Or suspected finding her so soon.
Suddenly, Malcolm’s head cleared of everything but Jaime.
    It hadn’t been a dream. She had been there,
at the prison. He remembered clearly the cold stone and the
stinking air and the gruesome feel of drifting in and out of
consciousness. And then, as refreshing as droplets of rain could be
against the burning walls of hell, he’d heard the rustle of skirts
of a woman and had looked up to see her face. In truth, he had come
on this journey in search of peace—in search of her—and here she
was, appearing before his eyes like some angel emerging from the
mist. His spirit had soared with joy at seeing her, when now he
knew he should have turned his face and welcomed death. The anger
once again boiled within him.
    Traitorous, double-crossing Jaime. He
clenched his jaws together as that painful realization stabbed at
his heart anew.
    There was a yawn and the stirring of straw an
arm’s length or so from where he lay as the