Highlander Avenged (6 page)

“I only wish I could do the same for you,” he said, looking over at her.

She looked around at the people gathered in the bailey. Some of the women were already up and clearing the table. Lasses were at basins of hot water, washing out the bowls and pots, while others dried them and one of Peigi’s sisters directed the packing of the dinnerware that they were to take with them.

“I have only ever lived here, in this castle,” Jeanette said quietly. “I find it hard to imagine that I will not wake up here in the morn, that I may never wake up here again.”

Malcolm leaned his shoulder against hers. “Do not give up, angel. The battle is not yet joined and from the looks of this clan, you all are determined to return to this glen and this castle. In my experience, those defending their homes are much more dangerous in a battle than those hired to fight.”

He looked about at the people of Dunlairig, most of whom he hadn’t properly met yet, and saw a spirit and strength that spoke of a pride and love for their home, but he also saw only a few warriors and wondered if they would be enough to protect this clan, and not just this night as they left the castle behind them.

He wondered if he would make any difference in their battle.

A
S SOON AS
it was full dark the first group left the castle
through the bolt-hole. Several warriors went with them to keep them safe as they traveled, just in case there were English soldiers about. It would take each group several hours to get to the caves, for they would be walking in the dark over sometimes difficult terrain. Peigi and her sisters went with the first group so they could help organize everyone as they arrived. Jeanette would go with the last group. Forced to sit quietly lest the castle was being watched, she found herself envying those who had already left, not because they were the first to go, but because they did not have to wait for the inevitable with only the melancholy thoughts of all she had lost and all she was leaving behind to occupy her.

Malcolm sat nearby, flexing his hand and fisting it as best he could, but even in the dark she could see it pained him.

There was something she could do besides just sit and wait through most of the long night. She pushed up from where she sat on the cold ground and crossed over to him.

“Come with me,” Jeanette said. “I need to tend your arm while the torches still burn enough to see by.”

She led him to where a torch was set into a sconce on the curtain wall near the tower. “Roll up your sleeve,” she said, sorry that she would not get to see all that tawny skin the man had.

When he did, she unwound the binding and handed it to him, and gently pulled away the moss padding to reveal what was still an angry gash on his arm, but was already better than it had been this morning. The red streaks that had begun to reach out from it were gone. She laid the back of her hand next to it, feeling the fever that was still there.

“This must hurt a lot,” she said.

“ ’Tis nothing I cannot bear, lass. ’Tis far better than when ’twas new.”

She nodded, well believing that, for this was a wound that had clearly been very deep. “You are lucky the bone was not broken by this blow.”

“Aye.” His voice was tight and when she glanced up to see if she was causing that tightness by hurting him, she saw not pain, but anger in his normally cheerful eyes.

“How did this happen?” she asked, her curiosity suddenly flaring as she dug out the salve Morven had given her to keep wounds from festering. She was hoping it might also aid in treating a fester such as this man had.

“I had a moment’s distraction during the battle of Dalrigh and one of the English bastards got lucky.”

“Your kinsmen must have been distracted, too.” She’d seen her father and Uilliam train the warriors of her clan often enough to know they seldom fought alone if they could help it. As the son of their chief, Malcolm would have the warriors who would become his advisors and his champion when he himself became chief, fighting with him no doubt, as Uilliam had always fought beside her father.

Malcolm grunted as he handed her the binding and, without prompting, held the moss in place. Jeanette whispered the healing chant she had used at the wellspring as she once more wrapped the strip of linen around his arm to hold the moss in place. When she had tied off the wrap, she laid her hand gently over the covered wound and once more whispered the chant.

“Why were you not taken home?” she asked. “Surely they were not so distracted—”

Malcolm’s arm went tight beneath her hands and when she looked up, he was staring out toward the inky loch, his mouth set in a hard line as if she’d said something that angered him. She thought back, and realized that if his kinsmen had not taken him home after he was injured, it was likely they had not lived. Perhaps it was grief she saw in him, not anger.

“Oh, Malcolm.” She rolled his sleeve down for him so she could stand close to him for a little longer. “I am sorry,” she said, genuinely ashamed that she might have opened another wound in the man, for the loss of his close kinsmen could not be easy to bear. “My curiosity sometimes outruns my sense.”

“Nay, angel, ’tis only that the battle was very nearly a rout of our army and though I do not remember it, I got myself off the field and into a thicket. Someone bound my arm—I do not ken who, perhaps it was even me—but it kept me from bleeding to death. I do not know if my kin survived or not, but I suspect they did.” He did not say why he thought that and she did not want to press him to reveal things he did not wish to reveal.

He touched her hand, holding it gently against his arm for a moment. “My arm feels better already.”

He took a deep breath and she could feel him relax as he slowly backed her out of the bright circle of torchlight and into the deep shadows where the tower and the curtain wall met. He ran the back of his fingers over her cheek, then leaned in and laid a gentle, chaste kiss where his fingers had been.

“I thank you,” he said.

The touch of his kiss on her cheek lit a yearning deep within her and for once Jeanette did not think. She acted, capturing his face in her own palm before he could move away. She turned to meet his lips with her own. Still, he was tentative, careful, as if he thought she might break if he dared more. And she wanted more.

She took his face in both hands and whispered against his lips, “I will not break if you kiss me.” Truly she did not understand her own actions, but in this moment she did not care. Later she could figure out what had driven her to such boldness, for now, she just wanted him to kiss her.

And he did.

He wrapped his strong arm around her waist, pulling her close. He tilted his head slightly, and the kiss went from careful to . . . more. So much more.

Heat poured into her, starting where her lips met his, then cascading through every part of her, over her skin, and deep inside where the yearning grew into wanting. A rushing, tingling sensation flowed from her feet to where he nibbled at the corner of her mouth, and then laid a trail of kisses to the hollow behind her ear. Wanting grew into needing. He pulled her closer, or maybe she pulled him closer. Their lips met again, hungry, so hungry, and suddenly his tongue slipped inside, twining with hers in a dance she’d never danced before. Her mind was overwhelmed with sensation—with glorious, powerful . . . desire. Her body hummed, as if she vibrated from the inside out. Malcolm pulled her closer still, and though she’d never been with a man, she knew enough to recognize that his desire was just as powerful as her own.

And then he stopped, his forehead leaning against hers. Her body still melded to his. But his lips were too far away. She stopped the whimper that wanted voice just before it slipped out of her.

“Jeanette, angel, we must stop,” he said, but now there was a different sort of strain there. “We must stop,” he said again, as if he spoke the words as much for himself as for her. With a sigh, he released her, steadying her with a hand on her hip until she proved stable on her feet. When he dropped his hand at last, the need within her writhed.

Every nerve in her body was alive and very nearly painfully so, and yet she did not mind. She was sure she would regret her impulsive actions in the morning when she had to face him in the light of day, but in this moment she could not. In the past few hours he had made her remember that there was more to life than fear and grief, with his easy grin, and gently teasing words. And just this once, he’d made her stop thinking, and taught her how to feel.

“I will not apologize for kissing you,” she said.

“I would be offended if you did.” Laughter lit his eyes in spite of the deep shadow in which they stood. “I will not beg your pardon for kissing you, either. Indeed, I intend to do so again, if you would not mind.” He reached for her hand and pulled her just close enough to place one more chaste kiss on her cheek. “I do not think you will mind,” he teased.

“I do not think so, either.” She was suddenly shy with this golden man who seemed bent on making her smile.

He looked out over the bailey and they both realized that the next group was readying to leave the castle.

“Do you think we were seen?” she asked, suddenly aware that they were not in as private a place as it had seemed to be.

“I am sure we were not. Someone would have been over here long before now if we were.”

“Uilliam, for certain. He is my father’s eyes and ears, even when Da is not here.”

The truth of that hit her. If her father were here and had seen them, he would have stopped them, might even have required Malcolm to wed her, though his leniency with Scotia’s trysting made that unlikely. But, still, for the first time, she realized that no longer would the man she wed be required to renounce his own clan and become the Guardian’s Protector. No longer would the man she wed be required to become the chief of the MacAlpins.

Jeanette looked out over the broken curtain wall toward the dark loch that reflected the starlight. For the first time, she considered that her future might not be here in Dunlairig after all.

CHAPTER FIVE

J
EANETTE ALTERNATED BETWEEN
sitting and dozing, and pacing the bailey, as she waited her turn to set out from the castle. The first group should have arrived at the caves by now, and three more groups had followed since, each taking a different route to their sanctuary. Only the final group was left and it was not long before they, too, would abandon their home. She had delayed one last task as long as she could but the time was short and she could put it off no longer.

Malcolm looked her way from his perch on one of the stones that were still strewn through the bailey from the crumbled wall. She smiled at him, remembering the joy and abandon she had felt in his arms when they kissed, and tried to pull those feelings around her as if they could shield her from what she must do now.

She took up a lantern that burned nearby and made her way to the tower. She trudged up the stair, passing the landing that would lead her to Rowan and Nicholas’s chamber. Was it really just this morning that she and Rowan had argued there? It seemed much longer. She continued to the top floor, where she shared a chamber with her sister. But that was not her destination.

Jeanette turned to her right and stood before the closed door of her mother’s solar, a sunny room with windows that looked east and west. A room that had held such happy memories until it had been turned into a bedchamber when her mother took ill last fall. A room that now held only the memory of her mother’s murder at the hands of a spy for the English king.

She hadn’t set foot in it, or even looked into it, since her mother’s body was taken for burial. She did not wish to go in now.

But she must. The scrolls that held the chronicles of the Guardians of the Targe, the collected lore of a long line of women, all Guardians in their own time, could not be left behind. Some were so old, the chronicles were pictures only. And there were many gaps in the lore. She did not know if there were missing scrolls, or if there was simply no one from those periods who knew how to write. Her mother’s own tenure as Guardian would have gone unrecorded if Jeanette had not begged her father to find a tutor to teach her reading and writing.

And the end of her mother’s years as Guardian had yet to be added. Neither had the beginnings of the newest Guardian, Rowan.

Shame slithered in Jeanette’s belly. Grief stole her breath. But she could not make herself reach out and lift the latch.

“Angel?”

Jeanette jumped. Malcolm stood next to her, looking down upon her with concern and questions in his hazel eyes. He reached out and ran a hand down her upper arm, a soothing motion like that of a mum quieting a bairn.

“We are ready to leave as soon as you are,” he said, his voice as gentle as his touch.

“I have to get something.”

“From within this chamber?”

“Aye.” But still she did not reach for the latch.

“What is this chamber?” he asked.

She swallowed, started to answer, and then had to swallow again, her throat suddenly clogged with tears she would not shed. She gripped her hands together, hoping he did not notice their trembling. He did not press and at last she thought she could speak.

“ ’Tis . . . ’twas my mum’s chamber.”

He was silent for another moment, then sighed. “She died here?”

“She was murdered here. Aye.”

She waited for him to say something, but he simply pulled her into his embrace and while there was no heat to it this time, there was comfort, understanding, and a peace she had not felt in far too long. She wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned into the warmth of him, resting her cheek against his chest, her ear just over his heart where it thumped a slow, steady beat.

She did not know how long she stood there, taking comfort from this man who was still a stranger, and yet was not, but eventually she opened her eyes and noticed the moon was setting, just visible through the window at the end of the corridor. She knew they must leave soon, before the sun could rise. She really could put it off no longer.

“I must get . . . There are things that must come with us for safekeeping,” she said.

He pressed a kiss to her forehead, the sweetest kiss she had ever received. He opened the door, then took her hand and led her into the room.

“Where are these things?” he asked.

Jeanette dared not look at the bed where her mother had been stabbed. She dared not look at anything but Malcolm, who held her gaze as if he knew exactly what she needed of him in this moment. She knew she should not reveal the secrets of this chamber to someone not of the clan, but she did not think she could do this on her own.

“You must promise to tell no one what I am about to show you—” She stopped. Nay. She might not be the Guardian, but she was no weak lass. She was Jeanette MacAlpin, daughter of Elspet, brought up to be strong, resilient. She would do this on her own.

And yet her hands were trembling again.

“I will get whatever it is you require, Jeanette. I will tell no one.”

“Nay. I will retrieve them, but I must ask you to close your eyes and promise me you will not open them until I say so.”

“Do you wish me to wait outside?”

He really was an honorable man. “Nay. I think . . . I need you to stay in here with me, but I will fetch what I came for.” She handed him the lantern.

He nodded and, without another word, closed his eyes.

She steadied her breath, drawing strength from his solid form and silent acceptance, then moved to the tapestry that hung between her mother’s bed and the hearth. She drew back one corner of the heavy tapestry, letting it rest over her back, hiding her from the room and the room from her. In the darkness she reached unerringly for the stone she’d removed many, many times. When the heavy block was free, she set it on the ground, then reached into the cavity and pressed a lever. A cleverly disguised narrow door, just high enough for her to step into if she bent nearly double at the waist, swung into what most believed was the tower wall.

Jeanette knew better. This was where she stored the chronicles, but it was also the entrance to the hidden stair that allowed an escape in a time of need, leading right down to the bolt-hole under the main stair at the bottom of the tower. Once, not long after Rowan had come to live with them, Jeanette had shown this place to her cousin and the two of them had followed the tunnel all the way out into the forest, where the exit was hidden behind a massive boulder.

When they had returned the same way, they couldn’t get the hidden door open again and had finally, hungry, tired, and a little scared, had to retrace their steps and find their way back to the castle through the forest. It was dark by the time they’d stumbled through the gate and discovered that people had been searching every part of the castle, including the well, looking for them for hours.

Elspet, Jeanette’s mum, had scolded the girls, forbidding them from ever doing such a thing again, and extracting their tearful promises that they would never tell a soul outside of the family about the tunnel. She then had put them to task mending everything she could find in the castle that had even a tiny rip in it. But she had also showed them the hidden interior latch so that the next time, if there was one, they could let themselves back in.

Jeanette frowned. She hadn’t been down those stairs since then. If only she’d hidden her mum in here that fateful day . . .

Her mind refused to relive that day, skittering away from the sharply painful memory. She lifted the six hard leather tubes that protected the scrolls and backed out of the doorway, once more pushing the tapestry away with her back as she closed the doorway and replaced the stone, pressing it even with the others so it would not be obvious should someone look at this section of wall.

She came out from behind the tapestry, her hair in her face and the leather tubes cradled in her arms.

When she had moved back to Malcolm’s side she said, “You may open your eyes.”

When he did, he grinned at her. “Your secret storage, ’tis clearly in need of cleaning.”

“You looked?!” Her heart was beating triple time, though at least now it wasn’t from the fear of her memories, but from her fear that she had compromised the safety of her clan.

“Nay. Nay!” Indignation puffed out his chest, and seemed to make him even taller. “I gave you my word. Do you accuse me of breaking it?” He did not give her time to respond. “I kept my eyes closed, but I could not close my ears, angel. Somewhere in that wall”—he pointed to the tapestry—“is a piece that moves. The hinges are in need of oiling, though the sounds are not loud. And you”—his indignation settled into something softer as he pushed her hair away from her face, then ran his thumb over her cheek, showing her the dirt that came away on it—“are not as clean and neat as you were but a moment ago. A MacKenzie never breaks his word, but neither does he shut down his mind.”

Quickly, he gathered the tubes from Jeanette’s arms with barely a glance at them.

“We need to be away,” he said as if she had not doubted his honor. He nodded toward the door, then followed her out, taking care to close the door behind them, closing off her mum’s chamber, perhaps for the last time.

T
HE TRIP TO
the Glen of Caves had been uneventful, though they had hurried to get there before the sun rose over the horizon. Thankfully, by the time they arrived, the old women had porridge prepared for everyone, and quickly shooed the late arrivals into the large cave, where they could sleep. The next several days were a blur to Jeanette, filled with discovering more caves, cleaning them out, and moving families into them in an effort to clear out as much of the main cave as they could, for storing their supplies and as a “great hall” for the clan. The old men and boys who had come to the caves were busy keeping watch at the passes into the glen, or training with Malcolm and the handful of warriors who had been assigned there.

Jeanette had barely seen Scotia at all, and had only seen Malcolm at meals, and they both looked as tired as she felt. She could not remember if she’d even tended Malcolm’s wound since they arrived there, but she thought it likely she had not. As soon as the evening meal was done each day, she had dropped onto her pallet in the main cave and slept, only to be awakened again and again in the night by strange dreams and nightmares, and then to rise with the sun and repeat the work until she could barely think clearly.

Today, she had spent most of the morning organizing their supplies in the cave, and when she finally came out into the bright sunshine, she could hear people in the distance, but no one was in the cleared area just outside the cave where the cookfires had been set up. She closed her eyes and turned her face up to the sun, letting the heat and the quiet soak into her. This was just the sort of day her mum would take her, Rowan, and Scotia into the kitchen garden and teach them about planting things so they would grow strong and delicious, or she’d take them into the wood and teach them about the plants and animals they saw there, where to find them, what they were useful for, and what the best time was to harvest or trap them.

She rubbed the heel of her hand over a spot in the middle of her chest, pressing against the ache that blossomed there anytime her thoughts turned to her mum.

When she opened her eyes, Malcolm was standing across the clearing, staring at her, a soft smile on his face, and his arms filled with deadfall for the woodpile.

“You are not training the lads this morning?” she asked as they walked toward each other.

“I gave the wee lads the morning off. They need to explore their new home a bit and I”—he dropped the wood on the pile, wincing as he did—“I decided a bit of different work would be good for me, too.”

“I am sorry I have not seen to your arm as I promised.” Jeanette wishe
d she could make his arm better immediately, returning it to all the vigor she was sure he’d once had in it, but in truth she feared he might never have full use of it again.

“May I look at it? I fear there has been no time to tend your injury properly since we left the castle.”

“ ’Tis fine for now, angel. There is much to do and I will do my part to help.”

“You will not be much help if it festers again. If that happens,
you shall be a burden upon me.” She surprised herself with her teasing, but was rewarded with a smile.

“I would not wish to be a burden.”

“Exactly. Take off your tunic. Let me see how your wound fares.”

Now the smile turned to a grin. “As you wish, lass.”

He fumbled with the pin that held the ends of his plaid at his shoulder. Jeanette stepped close, pushed his hand away and unfastened it, letting the fabric fall behind him.

“I dinna think I can take off my tunic without help,” he said, his grin nearly splitting his face in two now.

Jeanette’s cheeks heated, and a little thrill ran through her at the thought of undressing the braw man, but she stepped back, set her hands on her hips, and shook her head.

“I have seen you take off your tunic with nary a trouble, warrior. You do that. I shall fetch my bag of simples.” She turned her back on the grinning man with the twinkling eyes and tried to settle the swirling sensations gathering low in her belly by turning her mind to where she had left her healer’s bag.