Becca St.John (3 page)

Determined not to be caught again, he forced himself to continue his assessment, to find what was different. He’d reached her hair, dark and silky, hidden inside her collar.

Except it wasn’t in her collar. It was gone, hacked off, leaving coarse chunks sticking out.

“What the hell happened to your head?” He hadn’t meant to shout. Tried to correct it, but even then, his mourning came through. “Oh, lass, you’ve gone and cut your hair.”

How had he missed it before? But he knew how. You either looked Seonaid in the eye or you didn’t look. She had a wicked tongue on her, could slay a dragon. He’d gotten off lightly earlier, when she caught him looking at her breasts, but that’s because he’d caught her off guard. Told her he knew something was different.

He’d spent whole nights thinking about that hair. Anticipating the slide of it along his fingers. The tickle of it on his skin.

She ducked her head, turned away from him. “Aye, I’ve cut my hair, and Deian calls me brother around any others.”

“Brother?” Padraig shook his head. “And you think people will believe you?” He gestured toward Deian. “He’s just a boy. How’s he to remember?”

She turned on him them, fierce, challenging. “He’s smart enough.”

He was but a child. “Aye. Let’s hope he doesn’t need to be.” She’d cut her hair to look like a man. Padraig didn’t think anyone would be fooled, even with her garb, her hair. Whatever she did to hide her breasts, despite the lankiness of her figure, there was just something womanly about her.

“Dona’ you need to be helping the Laird?”

Their Laird, The Bold, knew where he was and who he should be helping, but he’d give her space if that’s what she wanted.

“Aye, I’ve work to do.” He patted Deian on the head. “I’ll be seeing you two,” he promised.

“Do you have to go?” Deian shuffled in place, head down, tears blooming.

“Oh, you wee bairn.” He grabbed him, held him close. “You’ll be fine now, lad, just fine.” He wanted to let him know he’d never truly desert them, but it wasn’t fair to give a wee lad secrets. Too hard to hold. Seonaid should know that.

He nodded to her, not pleased but he’d appease. He set off, mourning her cut hair, hurting for the wee lad. It was not right, that she should leave her own, but he didn’t know how to break through her stubbornness.

CHAPTER 2 ~ ADVENTURES

“Why isn’ Padraig with us?”

“He had other things to do.”

“Canna’ he come with us?”

“No!”

“I want him to come with us.”

I do, too.

She thought Padraig meant to join them, was ready with a right bollocking if he dared to. He’d whittle away at her strength, have her leaning on him. She couldn’t do that.

Then he didn’t stay with them and she wished he had.

She tugged at Peregrine’s reins. Deian squirmed in the saddle.

“I want to walk.”

“No.” He’d be off exploring if she let him down and they had a long way to go.

“You walk.”

Seonaid refused to scream, even though they’d just had this argument. Had been having this argument for a quarter of the day.

Ever since Padraig left them.

“My legs are longer,” she answered, once she’d gotten her sharp tongue under control.

“I can run.”

“Aye,” she sighed. “You can run.” She snapped, lifted him from the saddle, so he could wear out his short little five-year-old legs and be happy in the saddle.

“There you go, run like the wind.”

He walked at first, a bit wobbly with the hours in the saddle, but only for a wee bit. Soon enough, walk turned to hop, and hop turned to skip, as he made circles beside his mother.

“I wish Eba and Ingrid were here.”

Though she expected this, she still wasn’t prepared. “I do as well.” Ingrid had a way with both Deian and her niece, young Eba. But Seonaid had killed Ingrid’s sister, Eba’s mother. Not her best moment. Temper out of hand. She’d stolen the clan’s right to punish. Had taken that away from them, killing Deidre with one swift stab of the knife.

Saved the woman from a cruel and drawn-out punishment.

But wrong. So many wrongs.

They’d been friends. Except the Deidre she had befriended was not the Deidre who deserved to die. How had Seonaid not known, not suspected, the evil in the woman?

And now, Seonaid had no more friends. Except, perhaps, Padraig, only he did not feel like a friend. He felt like something entirely different, something she dared not go near.

Deian skipped ahead, stopped to study some insect or hole or something on the ground, then popped up to run after a butterfly. She should have given him the chance to walk sooner. He needed to be moving. He could always ride when tired.

Shielding her eyes from the sun, she watched Deian run ahead, wild with excitement, looking over his shoulder, waving at her. She looked to where he ran and blinked. An edge to nothingness. Short drop, long drop, she hadn’t a clue, but she knew it stopped.

“Deian, lad!” she called, running now herself, but he thought it a merry chase and hurried on, giggling and pumping his legs. “Stop!”

She raced as hard as she could, thought to mount Peregrine, but there was no time. Her heart rose to her throat and then, of a sudden, Deian stopped.

Just stopped, on the edge of the precipice looking down. “Hey, Mama,” he called back to where she hung at the waist, trying to breathe, trying to ease her heart back into its place. “There are people down there. Men!” And he turned back, waving wildly to be seen, to say hello, and her heart jumped back into her throat and her breath caught tight, and she ran.

“No, Deian! Put your hand down.” She tackled him, caught him around the waist and got them both down on the ground using the same maneuver Padraig had used the night before, rolling to cushion her son with her own body.

“Why, Mama?”

“Because we don’t know them,” Seonaid explained, as she set him aside. “We don’t know them and they might not like mamas with their sons. Now be a good little warrior and keep low.” She put a finger to her lips and left his side. “And call me brother.” She searched for a name. “Call me Sean.”

Close enough to her real name, wasn’t it?

He didn’t understand, couldn’t understand, but he kept quiet, as she squirmed to get closer to the edge, to look down, to see how far a drop it was and how far away the men were that he’d seen.

The fall proved short, two feet maybe and not so steep that they wouldn’t survive if they went over. Further on, though, another drop went straight down and yes, below that other dip, on a pebbled beach of an inlet, men stood with horses.

There were five of them, all looking her way, but too far off to be sure of what they saw.

At least, that’s what she hoped. Prayed.

Even as she watched, head and body pressed into the ground, the men separated, scrambled to find a way up the embankment. She would have to run, with Deian. Mount Peregrine and get out of there.

But where to? She’d been aiming west because the Minch, the strait that bordered the highlands on the west, was that way. She wanted to board a boat, go by water down to Wales and then over to the Women of the Woods. She hadn’t a clue what was between them and the coast, she just knew if they followed the path of sunset, they would reach it.

She should have taken a boat from Glen Toric, but she was no sailor and didn’t have the means or desire to hire either boat or crew. So she walked, would walk, as far as she had to go, to reach the western coast.

She wriggled over to Deian. “We’re goin’ on a race. We’re goin’ to run for Peregrine and play hide and seek with the men below.”

His head popped up.

“Come on, now.” Grabbing his wrist, bent low, she charged toward Peregrine. “Here you go.” She lifted him up on to the horse, jumped up behind him. “I’ll get us going fast, you look for places to hide.” She kicked Peregrine into a run. Deian’s head went left and right, she knew the cold narrowing of his eyes. She’d seen it before, when he played at hunting or fighting.

No more than a wee lad, her Deian, but already proving what a fine warrior he would make. If he survived their adventure. If living in a society of women healers didn’t destroy him.

“There, Mama!” he cried, and she looked to see what he had found.

But it wasn’t a place, it wasn’t a cave or a ravine or trees.

It was Padraig.

She looked behind her. The men had reached the top of the cliff without horses. They’d not catch her. Padraig might. She veered away, west again, for a stretch that didn’t drop down, but eased into the roll and sway of land she could traverse. She heard Padraig riding hard to reach her.

Well away from the men Deian had seen below, with Padraig a lone rider on a war horse gaining, she pulled up, her breath in great huffs.

“What the hell happened over there?” Padraig asked, but he knew, could not have missed the five men cresting the rise.

“Deian saw some men below us, to the south.”

“What were they wearing?”

“Clothes,” she snapped.

“Aye, well, that helps.”

It felt good to have him alongside her, a barrier to worries. Not that they would go away, but he would buffer them. For now. She’d best not get used to it.

“Did they have horses?”

Rattled, she closed her eyes, to picture the beach once more. “Aye, there were horses. And boats, three long narrow ones.”

“Can I walk again?” Deian asked.

Seonaid sighed, dismounted, helped Deian down as well. They were well beyond the men on foot. “But don’ go racing off to any edges of land. Do you ken my meaning?” He waved his understanding, already off ahead of them, exploring everything, nothing.

“He’s a good lad.”

She couldn’t respond, for the truth of it welled up inside, clogging any words. Deian was a good lad, a fine lad, but the fear never went away that he would grow up cruel and mean and so smart he could weave his way around people and destroy their lives. Like his father. Like her brother.

She had to get away, get away from here, get her son to a place where no one would ever know the shame and guilt and horror of his birth.

And she had to get away from Padraig, her one weakness.

“Deian willna’ find it easy, being away from his own kin, living with women.”

He reached for her, to comfort. There was no comfort, never had been. Her wicked cruel brother had seen to that. She couldn’t taint Padraig with it, couldn’t risk dependency. As it was, she’d told Padraig too much. He knew her plan, where she was going. That’s how he’d found her.

She faced him, square on. It gave her strength, courage.

“He’ll be with me. I’ll teach him the ways of a warrior.”

Padraig nodded. Mild agreement, when she knew he didn’t agree at all.

“He’ll learn to care for women, protect them.”

His gaze flew to hers. “Are you saying there are no such men at Glen Toric?”

Again, she’d revealed too much, but who was he to question her? Up on his horse, so high and mighty. “So you tell me how it would be for him back there? Let’s see, what would he face…?”

“Now Seonaid, calm down, you donna’ need…” He got off his mount, moved closer to her, but she wouldn’t have it.

“Oh no, you don’. Let’s get this clear. His father was my brother, a vicious, murdering, raping bastard. His girlfriend, my friend!” Seonaid slapped her chest, where her heart should be. “My good, my only friend, Deidre, helped him kidnap, rape, and murder precious young lasses…!”

Padraig tried to pull her into his arms, but she twisted away, wiping at angry tears, spouting all the poisons eating at her soul. “I murdered my friend, right there in front of the clan. I pushed a dagger into her heart!” she sobbed. “I murdered her.” Seonaid crumpled onto the ground. “And the whole world learned how Deian came to be.”

Padraig hunkered down next to her, his hands on her shoulders. “Aye, you murdered a condemned woman.”

“Her daughter has no mother.”

“Eba will be fine. Ingrid did more to mother her than Deidre ever did.”

She lifted her eyes, finally meeting his. “Aye, she did. And she raised my Deian more than I ever did. But what did Deidre do that we don’t know of? And my brother? Her lover? Renegade that he was, gone to all of us. Did she let him near his son?”

In one swift move, Padraig sat down, with Seonaid in his lap. “There was no man in your life, in their life. Someone had to take care of the farming, the protection, and that was you.”

She didn’t argue. No point to it. He spoke nothing but truth, but the truth didn’t make her feel more like a mother. It didn’t make her feel any more of a woman. And it didn’t change what Deian would have to face if they stayed at Glen Toric.

And she felt like a woman, right now, curled up in Padraig’s lap, being held with such comfort. To lean on someone, anyone, it had been so long, too long, if ever, since anyone had watched over her.

“None of us knew how much protecting you needed.”

Oh, aye, she had needed it, with a brother like hers. She learned to fight, to listen for danger, to be on the alert, and still he would catch her.

She had to pull free of Padraig. She had to find her own way. He couldn’t go all the way to Wales and then across land to where the Women of the Woods lived. He still had a home, friends, a family.

She had to pull free.

But just for a moment, she allowed the warmth, the comfort, the caring.

Just for a moment, until he whispered, “Come home with me, be safe, be mine.”

CHAPTER 3 ~ CAPTURE

Obstinate woman.

Padraig rode east, certain she watched him get further and further away. Soon enough she’d realize just how foolish she was, to send him off. So he kept riding, would ride, until she couldn’t see him anymore.

Then he would backtrack, watch over the two of them without being seen.

So things wouldn’t be easy if she went back to Glen Toric. Life wasn’t easy. Not for anyone. But memories of her brother, what he had done, the shadow over her and Deian would fade. She just had to ride out the storm. Instead, off she went, running away to some strange place in England.