Page 74 of Defy the Highlander

Titus folded his big arms across his chest; he had a very regal appearance, a man who had fine bloodlines. Something about him was refined and noble, but his suggestions were quite surprisingly realistic.

Take yer woman and run.

Perhaps that statement emphasized just how serious the situation was.

“Is that what ye would do?” Brody asked. “Knowing what ye know now, ye’d still run away?”

Titus nodded faintly. “Ye’ve only been here a short while, but I’ve seen enough,” he said. “Ye never needed tae be trained as a warrior, Brody. Ye already knew how tae fight. Ye said yerself ye only came tae make money. ’Tis true ye gave yer oath, but Lady Currie doesna have honorable intentions when it comes tae buying yer services. She wants a stud, not a warrior.”

“Let her buy ye and then run off afterwards,” Isadora said quietly, watching the men turn to her. “It would serve her right. Let her pay sixty pounds for a man who’s going tae run off. Clegg would have her money and she’d be out not only the sterling, but the man she bought in the first place.”

Cam looked at his wife, puzzled. “What are ye saying, Is?”

Isadora looked straight at Brody. “If yer lady serves Lady Currie, then ye’ll have tae go tae Lady Currie’s home tae get her,” she said. “Why not make it easy and let Lady Currie buy ye? It’ll put ye intae her house and hold, right where ye need tae be tae take yer lady and leave.”

“I have a better idea.”

The four of them turned to see Clegg approaching with Axel behind him, emerging from between a pair of cottages much as Titus had done. Since the cottages were so closely packed, it was an easy thing to overhear a conversation, even one as clandestine as this. Clegg and Axel walked up on the quartet, but Clegg’s attention was on Brody.

“M’laird?” Brody asked, somewhat warily. “I’m sorry if ye thought we were being subversive. We were simply discussing the situation with Lady Currie.”

Clegg was wrapped up in his usual fine robes, looking somewhat out of place in the dirt and filth of the warrior’s village. But his gaze was intense.

“I know,” he said, glancing at the group. “I heard what you were speaking of and I think it is an excellent idea.”

“Which idea, m’laird?” Brody asked. “We’ve been discussing several.”

Clegg shook his head. “The only idea as far as I am concerned,” he said. “Letting Lady Currie buy you and then going to Hawkhill to collect your young lady who serves there. Cam told me that your young woman serves Lady Currie.”

“She does, m’laird.”

Clegg’s intense gaze lingered on Brody. “Lady Currie did, indeed, come to The Cal to buy you,” he said quietly. “Sixty pounds sterling, which is an enormous sum for a warrior. You understand that I could not refuse that, Brody, but it was with a purpose in mind. It wasn’t strictly business.”

Brody looked at him, torn between outrage and curiously. “Then ye accepted her offer?”

“I did. But I have a reason.”

“What is the reason?”

Clegg turned to Axel and extended his hand. Axel produced two large leather pouches, jingling with coins, and heaved them both into Clegg’s arms.

“This is what she paid me,” Clegg said. “Or, I should say, what her husband paid me. You see, I know Greer Currie. I have for years, since before he ever married Blanche Ireby. That’s Lady Currie’s real name, you know. Greer deals in fine goods and I have purchased many things for my collection from him – Roman coins, vases, rings. Greer is a very nice man who married a viper. I do not like Lady Currie; I never have. She shames her husband daily with her ventures here to The Cal to fornicate with my warriors. But I took her money because I want you to do something for me.”

Brody was quite intrigued. “If I can, m’laird.”

“You can and you will,” Clegg said, handing the heavy leather pouches of coinage that amounted to sixty pounds sterling to Brody. “You will return with Lady Currie to her home of Hawkhill. You will return Greer’s money to him and then you will take your lady and flee. Go wherever you wish; but just go. That way, Greer gets his money back, you have your freedom, and Lady Currie gets nothing. And that’s the way I want it.”

Brody stared at him in shock when he realized that Clegg agreed with Isadora’s suggestion. “Ye want me tae run?”

“I do.”

“As ye wish, m’laird.”

“But there is one more thing.”

“Anything, m’laird.”

“Stay away for a while, just long enough so that thoughts of you will cool in Lady Currie’s mind,” he said. “Then, I want you to return here to fulfill your oath to me.”