Highlander Enchanted (24 page)

Bristling with agitation and confusion, Isabel snatched the tip of his hood and yanked it off.

Her captor’s eyes flew open, and he gazed at her before shoving her away and grabbing the hood back.

She caught herself against the wall, a cry of shock stuck in her throat. The scarred, mangled face beneath the mask stuck in her mind, but it was the striking green eyes – mirrors of her father’s – that left her reeling.

“John,” she breathed.

He sat with his back to her, shoulders hunched and masked head bowed.

“My god. John!” She approached him.

“Stay away!” he said and rose, fending her off with one arm extended.

“But … why? I thought you were dead!” She kept her distance, wringing her hands, her heart flipping over in her chest.

“There is nothing left of the man I was.”

His broken voice, scarred features, limp … tears of relief and pity filled her eyes. “Oh, John,” she whispered. “My sweet brother.”

She took a step towards him once more, shaking with emotion, and pushed his arm down. He made no move to stop her this time, and she slid an arm around him before shifting afore him.

His head was bowed, his eyes closed, as if her touch hurt him.

Isabel wrapped her arms around him and rested her cheek against his chest, silently praying in gratitude for her brother being alive.

John sank to his knees, trembling. She went with him, unwilling to let him go after discovering him again.

“You must tell me what has happened,” she whispered in a quaking voice. “Where you have been. Why you did not return to me.”

“Return? How could I return when I look like this?”

Tears filled her eyes at his pain. Isabel wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him hard then leaned away. She tugged at the mask covering his face. He leaned back and twisted his head away.

She persisted and stretched forward. He tensed without pushing at her, and she gently peeled off the mask.

There was little resemblance of the man before her to her brother. John’s eyes were squeezed close and he was braced as if he feared her reaction. Knotted, thick scars covered his features. A cleft in his lip had healed unevenly, and half of one eyebrow had never grown back.

She rested her hands on his knotted cheeks, and felt the tears spill down hers. “I will always love you, John,” she whispered. “How did you not know how much I love you? How little I would care for your scars?”

Her brother did not speak, barely seemed to breathe. Isabel wrapped her arms around his neck again and pulled him into her body. Gradually, he began to relax, and his arms circled her. He let her hold him as he never had before, and she rocked gently, not wanting to disturb him with more questions despite her burning curiosity. He clutched the material of her dress, his breathing deep and even.

“I wanted to tell you,” he said in his broken voice. “After father died, I wanted to see you.”

“Do not dwell on the past,” she murmured. “You are here with me now. All will be well.”

“Your heart was always so pure.” He lifted his head enough to touch the pink charm dangling on her chest next to the medallion that matched his. “This is seillie magic.”

“Yes.” Isabel shifted to remove the charm, recalling its powers. She draped it over John’s head, suspecting he needed it more than she did. “It will heal the pain inside you.”

“Cade already has healed what could be healed.”

She held her breath. “What do you mean?”

“He took away my madness and made it his own. ‘Twas how he earned the name Black Cade. It was stronger than he thought it was, and it nearly claimed him as it tried to claim me. He wanted to save me, and I destroyed us both.”

“No, John,” she said, hugging him harder. “You are alive, and so is he.”

“I saw what he did in the Great Hall. He unleashed the madness and forced you to wed him.”

“He is a tempest, oft-times too distant to reach you and oft-times, overhead. He forced me to wed but he never hurt me, ever, in the time I have known him.”

“He frightened you.”

“Of course!” she exclaimed. “Did he not ever frighten you?”

John snorted. “He did.”

“Cade is …” She paused. The Highlander was vexing, as moody as the weather, and strong. But he had never raised a hand to her. “A barbarian. But he is good of heart, I believe.”
When he is not tearing off men’s heads with his bare hands,
she added silently. “He wed me for my lands and nothing more.”

“What does a Highlander want with Saxony?” John asked, genuinely confused.

“No, not …” She drifted off once more. “John, Father told me the truth before he died.”

John lifted his head from her shoulder and gazed at her with his piercing green eyes. “That he was not your father.”

“You did know.” She frowned, dismayed.

“I had to know. I was the next Baron of Saxony. Father believed your true father to be invaluable, if we needed his power or influence.”

She sighed.

“Your mother was a courtier to a king. Should you not rejoice to learn you will not suffer the curse of madness befalling Saxony?” he asked.

“Do you think less of me for not being your natural sister?”

“Do you think less of me for bearing this face?” he returned with some of the fire she remembered. Her John had always been strong, direct and quick to call another’s bluff or lie.

Isabel began to smile and held his gaze. “Never. I love you more for bearing your scars.”

“Forgive me for not protecting you,” he said and cupped her cheek in his scarred palm. “Cade knew of your birthright?”

“He does now,” she admitted. “I wanted to find him, to seek revenge for you and Father, and I did not care what befell me. I was careless.”

“Revenge. You tried to kill him?”

“Once or twice.”

John laughed, a sound as broken as his voice. “’Tis your Highland blood, sister.”

Her cheeks grew warm.

“You came so far for vengeance,” he continued, humor fading. “Why did you not wed Lord Richard and remain at Saxony?”

“I could not,” she replied firmly. “I did not belong there, not if you and Father were gone and I was never … we are not blood.”

“Saxony is your home. Our father adopted you as his and you will always be my sister.”

She hugged him. “My heart broke when I heard you died.”

“Richard would have protected you.”

She debated how to tell him about Richard, a knight who had gone on campaigns with John. “It is of no concern now. I am wed to Laird Cade.”

“It can be annulled, if you wish to return to Saxony.”

“Are you to return?” she asked, searching his features.

It was his turn to hesitate. “I do not belong at court with this face.”

“You do not belong here, either, John. Saxony is yours. You must claim it.”

“I have thought long on this,” he said. He moved away from her and stretched for a water bladder. “I am not the man I was when I left. I do not think I can be the man Father would have wanted me to be.”

“Father died believing you dead. All he wished was for you to return. He was consumed by grief,” she said softly. “He would have loved your scars as I do.”

John was quiet.

“If you do not claim your birthright, another will take our home,” she added. “Cade does not want it. He wished for the MacCosse lands that belonged to my mother. Our uncle is regent but there is someone else who has sought our Saxony lands by any means.” She sought some indication in his features he was interested in his home. The competitive knight before her had once been very proud of his nobility.

He seemed to wrestle with himself, his jaw clenched and gaze stormy.

“You cannot think to stay here,” she said with a glance around. “You are the son of a baron favored by the English and Scottish courts. You have been through enough, John.”

“I was not there for you when Father passed. I caused his death, Isabel. I do not deserve Saxony.”

She heard the firmness in his tone and also the conflicted note. She feared saying more about Richard when her brother had been a companion of his. Perhaps, if he witnessed the noble’s ambition, he would be more willing to reclaim his birthright. However, for now, she sensed he was closed to the idea.

The door creaked open. An exotic woman with dark features, hair and eyes entered and paused, looking them over.

John motioned her to enter. “Isabel, this is Fatima. She rescued me from the dungeons and healed me.”

“Because Cade left you,” Isabel said absently.

“I would not let him stay. He and his kin would have died if they did.”

Fatima was tall and trim with her hands clenched in front of her. The pretty woman sat opposite them, eyes on John’s features.

“I am grateful to you,” Isabel said and bowed her head.

“She is my wife,” John said quietly.

Isabel hid her surprise. The Saracen woman had a shy smile and common carriage lacking the training and confidence Isabel had gone through as a lady. She was not nobility. The moment she considered all John’s wife had done for him, Isabel’s disapproval fell away. This woman had saved his life, brought him back to her. Her birth, and lineage, did not matter when John was alive.

“’Tis an honor to meet you,” Isabel said. “You are a great lord and let your wife live in such a place?” She turned to her brother, eyebrow arched.

“I do not care for finery,” said Fatima in halting English.

“John knows better,” Isabel replied. “You also know not to kidnap your sister on her wedding night.”

Her brother shook his head. “I wanted to rescue you. Laird Duncan and the clans allied with him were to attack after dawn.”

Alarm shot through her. “I was safer there than in Saxony!” she retorted. “Are you certain Laird Duncan meant to attack?”

“I know it,” he said. “I remained after you left the Hall and heard them talking. Cade’s mercy made an enemy of Duncan before you escaped. He hoped you would keep Cade busy for the night, if not another day and night, while he destroyed the keep where the MacDonald’s were.”

Isabel rose. “Then we must return.”

“Did you not hear me, Isabel?”

“I did, and I wish to return.”

“You do not belong at war.”

“I belong with my husband, do I not?”

“And what will you do?” John challenged. “Aside from causing him to worry?”

“Then I will go to the MacCosse lands!” she said. “With the rest of his clan.”

John studied her. “You care for him?” he asked.

Isabel had no real answer. She had been alternately drawn to and frightened by Cade and his magic. “Is it not my duty?”

“You had a duty to stay in Saxony and left,” John pointed out. “We have both changed. The sister I left several years ago would never have left her station or home let alone agreed to wed a Highlander.”

“He has been kind,” she said awkwardly. How did she explain her mixed feelings about Cade? Now that she knew he was not lying about her brother’s death, she began to view him differently. If she asked it of John, he would take her to England. They had the influence to have the wedding annulled, and no English noble would fault her for it.

But no part of her wished for this solution. Cade was surrounded by hostile clans with a chance he did not survive, assuming he awoke at all, and she had no desire to be elsewhere.

Aware of her brother’s scrutiny, she took a deep breath to help her refocus her thoughts. “Will you escort me to my lands?” she asked. “I know this is not your struggle. I do not ask you for more than safe passage.”

“How do you say this?” he asked, irritated. “You are my sister. Your struggle is mine. I owe Cade a life debt, but I will not lose you in order to honor it.”

She smiled warmly at him. “You will never lose me now that I know you are alive,” she promised him. “I do not know what to think of Cade, but I cannot fathom the idea of returning to Saxony. If you do not claim it, then there is nothing for me there.”

“I cannot give you an answer!” he bellowed suddenly and rose, agitated.

Taken aback by the outburst, she gazed at him uncertainly. He paced then went to the door and tore it open, striding out into the cold night.

Isabel watched him go.

“He fears what he will do around others,” Fatima explained quietly. “Since he healed, he has difficulty controlling his temper.”

Isabel released the breath she was holding. “It pains me to know he still suffers.”

“He always suffers.” Sorrow was in the eyes of John’s wife.

“He is a good man. This has not changed.”

“He is honorable.”

Isabel paced in the tiny space, desperate for some word on Cade. “There is a village or keep near here?” she asked.

“Very close, yes.”

“I need to leave.” She faced Fatima. “What happens to Laird Cade is of great concern to me.”

“I will speak to John.” Fatima rose and left the cottage.

Isabel sat beside the fire to wait.

Not long after she left, Fatima returned. “John says we will all travel to the MacCosse lands.”

Isabel sprang up and grabbed her soaked cloak.

Chapter Twenty

The same evening, from the forest, Cade witnessed the walls of his temporary home burn. He whispered a spell for the rain to fall harder in sheets, partially to stop the fire from spreading and partially to shield him and his cousins from sight as they fled. One of the wounds in his stomach had opened and was bleeding heavily, and he held a fistful of cloth over it. He had come out of one fever soon after Laird Duncan’s men attacked early this morning but felt his weakness and knew – without a seillie healer – he was at risk of collapsing into another before they reached the MacCosse lands.

“How many survived?” he asked, resting against the trunk of a tree. The forest seemed to be trying to help him. Brush hugged his legs and tree branches stretched to touch him. He absently nudged leaves out of his line of sight.

“Five,” replied a breathless Brian beside him.

“Five of thirty.” Most of his kin and the few MacDonald warriors had gone ahead with their fleeing clans. The loss of life was not as great as it could be, but it was a sharp blow when they had too few warriors as it was.