Seduced by a Highlander (12 page)

She pushed through four more shrubs and stabbed her finger on a prickly leaf. What did he have to be so happy about? Cursing, she brought her bloody finger to her lips and kicked Tristan from her thoughts for the thousandth time.

She had to find the plant soon. Patrick needed her. Damn Alex anyway. He was a grown man, and she refused to worry over him. If he chose to leave his family for risk and adventure, there was nothing they could do. They would all split up his chores and make do without him.

Would Tristan stop his savage family from cutting Alex down? Was Alex with Tristan right now, sharing ale and secrets with him in one of the king’s grand rooms? Dear God, she prayed that Tristan kept his word and did not try to befriend her brother.

Ye’re a flame, Isobel. And a flame is more allurin’ than a pile of embers.

She patted her cheeks with her palm and muttered an oath about Tristan’s wily tongue. “Go away from me now, ye bastard.” Hiking her skirts above her ankles, she trampled through the next line of bushes, determined to forget him.

She spotted a dense patch of foliage in the distance and picked up her pace. Even if she could search tomorrow, she’d have to start from this point, hours away from her home. As she grew closer, one of the shrubs brought
a thankful smile to her face. There it was, her miracle plant. Her mother had been giving her butterbur tea since she was a babe. Not too much and never dry, for it could harm the liver. Isobel never asked how her mother knew these things. Mothers just did. Oh, how Isobel missed her. But the plant was becoming scarce, and it frightened Isobel to think of her life without it. Ox-eye daisies could be used as well, but butterbur worked faster.

She reached out to graze her fingers over one of its heart-shaped leaves, bigger than her entire hand. She’d need to dig up the—

Her thoughts ended abruptly at the click of the pistol somewhere behind her head.

“What are ye doing on m’ land, lady?”

Isobel closed her eyes and willed herself not to scream. Who the hell would hear her? “I… I was just going to…”

“Speak up!”

She nearly leaped from her skin and instinctively turned around to face him. When she saw the man’s barrel aimed at her face, she caught a breath that felt like the last one in her body.

“I need yer butterbur,” she said, trying to regain control over her breathing. “Please, lower yer pistol, sir.”

He was old, likely in his fiftieth year. His skin was tanned and weathered with wrinkles. His hair was long, scarce, and oily. He squinted at her and then turned his head and spat something out of his mouth.

“I have a… condition”—(her mother had taught her to never use the word
sickness,
lest others think her contagious)—“and the butterbur heals me. I have searched long fer it and have only found it here. I only need a small part to plant in my garden.”

For a moment, he looked about to refuse and shoot her between the eyes. “Take it. Then be gone and dinna’ come back. I know ye are the sister of those three red-haired, demon-spawned Fergusson lads. If I see them near my horses again, I’ll shoot them dead.”

Later, after Isobel returned home, she lingered over the small patch of freshly turned soil in her garden and admired her prize. Her feet were blistered, her hands lacerated, and she’d looked down the barrel of a pistol. But she had found it, and she would nurture it until it grew strong. Just as she had done with her brothers.

As dusk settled over the glen she wiped her hands and spread her gaze over the violet-hued hills. She spotted her brothers bringing in the last of their sheep and raised her arm over her head. They all did the same and she smiled. They were all she had in the world. All she needed to be happy.

That is, as long as no man ever kissed her again the way Tristan MacGregor had in the king’s Privy Garden.

I
t is not like you to be so dismal.” Kate MacGregor reined her horse in beside Tristan’s as they traveled home. “Why, you look as if your closest friend just fell to the sword.”

Tristan glanced sideways at his mother. He could not tell her the truth about what was plaguing his thoughts. Alex Fergusson was not his closest friend. In fact, Tristan didn’t care for him at all, but that hadn’t stopped him from fearing for the fool’s life ever since they left Whitehall. “I was thinkin’ of Mairi and Colin,” he told her instead. It wasn’t really an untruth. “D’ye think ’twas wise to let them remain in England?”

“Aye, your father believes they will be safer there for now with Connor and the rest of the king’s army. If, heaven forbid, Camlochlin is attacked by the king’s enemies, your brother and sister would be the first to join in the battle.”

Tristan nodded, knowing she was correct. His younger siblings loved the sword as much as Rob loved the land. Neither of them would think twice about skewering Alex Fergusson to one of Whitehall’s painted walls if he
insulted the MacGregors in their presence. Hell, Isobel would never forgive him.

“I should have remained in England with them.” When Tristan realized he had spoken aloud, he flashed his mother a quick grin. “Alone, Connor doesna’ stand a chance against Mairi.”

Kate rolled her eyes heavenward and laughed, lightening Tristan’s mood. “I think the captain can take care of himself without your help.”

“Aye, but Mairi is his weakness.”

“True,” his mother conceded. “But it is Colin who concerns me more. He seemed to take a liking to the king. I fear he might find himself more suited to a life in the English army, as Connor did.”

“The captain had little choice; he has Stuart blood.”

Tristan looked up to find that his father had slowed his mount until they caught up with him.

“Colin is a MacGregor,” Callum continued when they reached him. His formidable gaze settled on Tristan first, then softened on his wife. “He’ll never leave Camlochlin to stand with the English.”

Tristan’s graceful smile was tinged with shadows of his boyhood, when both he and his father first began to understand that Tristan was not at all like the rest of his rough-and-ready clan, but rather sought to emulate ancient ideals he had learned from books.

“I’ve nae intention of standin’ with the English when I leave Camlochlin, faither,” Tristan reminded him for the hundredth time. “I simply want to live my own life.”

“In Glen Orchy,” Callum pointed out as if Tristan didn’t know.

Tristan shrugged. “Mother’s home is mine by my birthright. ’Tis the only thing that may ever be mine.”

“Our clan is yers.”

Hell, Tristan thought, looking away. Why did his father fight so hard to keep him at home? His indiscriminate attraction to the fairer sex had brought as much trouble to Camlochlin in the past several years as Callum’s had in his outlaw days. His father should be glad to be rid of him.

“Ye belong at home, Tristan.”

Did he? “Campbell Keep is my home, as well. The men who help me restore the keep may bring their families and stay with me.”

Callum turned his gaze north and remained silent long enough for Tristan to shift beneath the weight of things he wanted to say, but couldn’t.

“I dinna’ understand why ye want to leave,” his father finally said. “I confess I understand
ye
even less.”

Aye, Tristan was aware that the loneliness of no one’s truly knowing him was his own fault. He’d always found it easier to misdirect and confound his father, rather than tell him the truth—that as a boy, he’d often wished Robert Campbell had fathered him. It wasn’t because he didn’t love the man riding beside him, or that his father didn’t love him. They were blood, and nothing could destroy that, but that was all they had in common.

“I love Camlochlin,” Tristan said, wanting from someplace deep within to prove to his father that they were not so different after all. “But I belong in Glen Orchy.” It was the truth and the only one he could give for now.

From atop a windswept crest, Tristan fixed his gaze on the castle carved from the black mountains behind it, its jagged turrets piercing the mist. Camlochlin. An impenetrable fortress built by a clever warrior determined to keep his kin safe from their enemies. Would it be enough
to hold off the Dutch should they come looking for Lady Montgomery?

Watching his father flick his reins and thunder into the vale, Tristan pitied any army that came here. He pitied his brother, as well. Hell, he might have kissed a Fergusson, but Rob had brought Davina Montgomery to Camlochlin, and mayhap an enemy army with her.

Meeting her a short while later helped Tristan understand Rob’s reckless decision to bring her here. She was enchantingly beautiful, with pale, damp locks draping her slender shoulders and enormous silvery blue eyes that grew even wider when she nearly careened into him on her way to meet his parents. He guessed almost instantly that Rob loved her. It would be easy for any man to lose his heart, mayhap even his mind, to such a guileless smile. It had happened countless times in history, according to the tales in his books, tales he had found himself recalling more over the past several weeks, of faithful knights swaying from their duties, even betraying their kings, all for the love of a lass. Tristan had never thought the tales untrue, but he’d been with countless women and never fallen in love with any of them. And he never would. He would never open his heart to such a powerful emotion again. He had already lost the most important person in his life, and it had destroyed him. For ten years he had kept himself apart from everyone else, never allowing anyone to get too close to him. Why would he be so foolish as to risk losing someone he loved again?

He certainly would never allow himself to love a lass his kin hated. He was fond of Isobel Fergusson, but that was all. She was a greater challenge to win than any lass before her. Everything she had lost in her life—everything his kin had lost—was his fault, and he wanted
to make it right. Aye, the more he thought about it, the more he needed to do it.

There was a choice to be made. One that could change his destiny yet again. The path was set before him, and it was about damned time that he followed it. If he failed, he would be no worse off. He would lose nothing he hadn’t already given up. But if he succeeded…

“You have the blood of knights in you and will grow to be a man of honor.”

He would not fail, for he had his uncle urging him on.

Tristan knew Rob would again find favor in their father’s eyes. Colin, too, even after the latter returned to Camlochlin with the king of England and a small army at his back. There would be no such hope for Tristan if anyone discovered where he was going the morning he left Camlochlin. Not that anyone would search for him during his absence. He was the restless son, the reckless one, who did what he wanted and damn the consequences. It was not unlike him to go off alone seeking to wreak havoc on another poor lass.

It was simply… Tristan.

Passing the cliffs of Elgol, he didn’t turn back. He never did when he left on one of his journeys. It was always easier to leave than to try to fit in.

Mayhap, with Isobel’s help, he could change that too.

T
ake back what ye said!”

John Fergusson swung his bow to his shoulder and drew back his arrow. “Why should I when it is true?” He aimed at the skin nailed to the tree fifty meters away, shot, and turned to grin at his brothers. He never saw the small rock coming straight at his head. Only the vast sky filled his vision when he opened his eyes a moment later—that, and young Tamas’s crown of red hair and unrepentant scowl.