The Saint: A Highland Guard Novel

by Monica McCarty

  Muriel had her back to her. When she spoke, her voice had an odd tightness to it. “I … I haven’t told him. The earl has been busy with the king, and I did not wish to interfere. I hoped that you might tell him for me?”

  Helen couldn’t blame her. There’d been something bothering Will for the past few days—since she’d seen him in the corridor during the feast. Had she not been seeking any opportunity to see Magnus, Helen would have been attempting to avoid her irritable brother as well. Not that she’d had much luck in that regard. It seemed that except for meals—where Magnus took care to avoid her—the men had been locked in her brother’s solar for the past two days. Focused on Magnus, and her quickly disappearing time, she hadn’t given much thought to her brother’s poor humor. But she suspected it was a result of their discussions.

  “Will has been distracted with all the talk of his marriage,” Helen said.

  Muriel appeared to flinch. Her narrow shoulders trembled as she paused in her packing. “It has been decided, then?”

  Helen shook her head, watching her closely. “Not formally. But according to Kenneth, the king has offered his twice-widowed sister Christina as a bride once she is released from the convent in England. An alliance my brother would be hard pressed to refuse even should he wish to.”

  “And why would he wish to.”

  It wasn’t a question but a statement. There was something vaguely unsettling about Muriel’s dull voice. For a moment, Helen wondered—

  No. It wasn’t possible.

  She frowned, the idea refusing to let go. “I’m sure he would wish to know of your leaving. Will owes you so much for what you have done—we all do. But I will tell him, if that is what you wish.”

  Muriel turned around to face her, and the calm evenness of her expression relieved some of Helen’s fears. “Thank you. I’ve been happy here, Helen. After my father died, you and your family made a place for me. I owe you much for that. I will never forget it.”

  “You will always have a place here,” Helen said. “Promise me you will come back if Inverness is not to your liking.”

  Muriel smiled, knowing what she meant. “I promise, but I am not easily intimidated. Especially by a group of cantankerous old men. But you must promise me something as well.”

  Curious, Helen nodded.

  “Don’t let anyone force you down a path you do not wish to take. If you have a chance at happiness, take it. No matter what anyone says.”

  The intensity of her words made Helen wonder how much of the truth her friend had guessed.

  A wry smile curved her lips. “You do realize what you are advocating is tantamount to heresy. As a woman—a noblewoman in particular—I have no path other than that which is chosen for me. Duty has very little concern for my happiness.”

  “But you don’t really believe in that, do you?”

  Helen shook her head. Perhaps that was her tragedy. She sought a life of happiness in a world that did not value such emotion.

  “I almost forgot.” Muriel crossed the short distance from the bed to the kitchen. The stone cottage was warm and cozy, but small—perhaps ten feet by twenty. The bed was built into the far wall. In the middle there was a table, bench, and chair set out before the brazier. At the other end was the small kitchen. Muriel reached up on one of the open shelves and pulled down a small pot. “Take this,” she said.

  Helen pulled off the lid and sniffed, smelling the strong scent of camphor. Though it was usually used for sweets, Muriel’s father had learned from an old crusader that the Infidels used it to relieve aches. “A muscle salve?”

  Muriel nodded. “It might help. MacGregor mentioned that MacKay’s arm was still giving him some pain. I was going to bring it to him, but I thought perhaps you would like to instead?”

  Helen stared at her, knowing Muriel had guessed quite a lot. Including how desperately she’d been trying to find a way to see him. “What if he doesn’t want it?”

  What if he doesn’t want me?

  Muriel gave her a solemn look. “Then you’ll have to convince him he does.”

  Helen nodded. If only it were so simple.

  After two long days of being locked in a room with three men it had been Magnus’s duty to despise since the day he was born—who made that duty bloody easy on him—it felt damned good to be outside with a sword in his hands again.

  Two days of listening to the earl find countless ways to avoid committing to an alliance by diversion, excuse, or condition, of enduring the endless questions by the surprisingly tenacious Kenneth Sutherland about the circumstances of Gordon’s death, and of pretending he didn’t hear Munro’s barely concealed slurs had taken its toll. Magnus was ready to take off someone’s head. As the truce made that impossible, he settled for a good, hard sword practice in the yard.

  With MacGregor standing watch by the king, who had uncharacteristically retired to his chamber to rest rather than join Sir William and his men falconing, it was left to Sir Neil Campbell—Ranger’s eldest brother—to help Magnus get the lead out of his muscles and exorcise the demons from his blood.

  Exorcising one particular demon had proved harder than he’d anticipated. Being near Helen, seeing her every day, even if only from across the dais, stirred painful memories, reminding him of feelings he wanted to forget and proving far more of a temptation than it should.

  He’d loved her once with his entire soul. Though that love had been crushed, vestiges of it still remained. A laugh would remind him of an afternoon spent sitting in the grass, watching as she plucked flowers for a chain—he could almost feel the warmth of her hair on his shoulder; a mischievous smile would remind him of how she’d used to try to hide from him, making it a game to find her; an absent tuck of an errant strand of hair behind her ear would remind him of the day she’d showed up with her hair chopped around her face so it wouldn’t get in her eyes.

  Style and fashion were irrelevant when it came to practicalities. If her skirts dragged in the mud or got in the way of her climbing, she tied them up without thought or artifice. How could he not have been enchanted?

  There had been only a dozen or so meetings between them, but every minute had been firmly imprinted on his mind. No matter how many times he told himself she’d changed, that even if he thought he’d known the girl he did not know the woman, he couldn’t force himself to believe it. The things he’d fallen in love with—her openness, her verve for life and thirst for happiness, her strength and passion—were still there.

  But she was no longer his to love.

  He drove the venerable knight back in a relentless attack, putting all his anger and frustration behind every swing of the sword.

  Though Sir Neil was one of Bruce’s greatest knights, he had trouble keeping up with Magnus today.

  When one particularly violent swing landed a little too firmly, the other man put down his sword. “Damn, MacKay. Take it easy. I’m on your side.”

  Magnus lowered his sword, the heaviness of his breath and pain in his shoulder telling him exactly how hard he’d been going.

  God’s bones, it felt good!

  He smiled. “All this peace has made you soft, old man. Perhaps I can find a nice Englishman for you to practice with?”

  “Bloody hell, I’ll show you soft.” The knight attacked, coming damn close to taking Magnus’s mind off his problems.

  Until the source of those problems appeared out of the corner of his eye, distracting him just enough to suffer a blow to his arm—his bad arm.

  He swore as the flat of the steel landed with full force on his exposed shoulder, causing his sword to fall from his hand.

  Campbell looked stunned. It wasn’t often Magnus gave an opponent an opening like that, and to be the recipient of such a lapse surprised him. “Christ! Sorry about that. Did I hurt your shoulder?”

  As Magnus was grabbing the offending shoulder he could hardly deny it. “Just give me a moment,” he said, furious at himself.

  But it only got worse. Helen rushed up
to him, putting her hand on his arm and setting off every nerve-ending he’d fought so hard to contain. “Oh Magnus, are you all right? Your arm—”

  “My arm is fine,” he lied, his arm stinging as sharply as his pride. “What do you want?”

  Campbell had moved away, but Magnus could feel him watching with unabashed interest.

  “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

  Her cheeks heated when he didn’t say anything, but just continued to scowl at her. Summer was less than two weeks away, but she looked as fresh and sunny as a warm summer day. With her fair skin, blue eyes, and dark red hair, yellow shouldn’t look so good on her. But the buttery shade brought out the warmth of her complexion, and made him think of bread fresh from the oven that he couldn’t wait to sink his teeth into.

  Damn.

  He apparently growled.

  She took a step back, eyeing him uncertainly. “Muriel gave me some salve for your arm. She said it might be giving you some pain.”

  It sure as hell was now. For a man who was known for his even-keeled temperment, he sure was having trouble keeping a grip on it right now. “Please thank Lady Muriel for her thoughtfulness, but—”

  “If you like,” she interrupted, “I could rub some on you when you are finished. Or if you’d prefer, after you bathe?”

  Agony. That’s what the images were. If she only knew how her innocent words wreaked havoc on his body! But she didn’t. Nor could he ever let her know.

  He gritted his teeth together. “That won’t be necessary. My arm is fine. I’m fine. I don’t need—”

  “What’s going on here?”

  Perfect. Magnus looked over his shoulder to see that the Sutherlands and Munro had chosen this exact minute to return from falconing. Sir William was glaring daggers at his younger sister.

  Surprisingly, Helen was glaring them back. “If it’s any of your business, Muriel gave me some salve for Magnus’s arm.”

  Magnus’s brows lifted in surprise. He’d never heard her challenge one of her brothers like that before. Nonetheless, he added, “And I was just telling Lady Helen that the salve was unnecessary.”

  Magnus tried not to grimace as Munro hopped off his horse and sauntered toward them.

  “How thoughtful of you, Helen. As a matter of fact, I took a blow to the side yesterday from your brother. Every now and then he manages to land one.” Kenneth Sutherland pricked at the slur. “Perhaps you could try the salve on me?”

  Magnus met the gaze of his enemy over her head. He knew he wasn’t imagining the amusement there.

  The slight tightening of Helen’s mouth—probably noticed only by Magnus—was the only sign that she didn’t necessarily welcome the change of patients.

  Magnus suspected the lines around his own mouth were much deeper.

  Helen glanced at Magnus as if begging him to intercede, but he clenched his jaw, forcing it not to open. He pretended not to see the dejection on her face, but his chest pinched nonetheless.

  “Of course,” she said brightly. “Come with me into the Hall, and I shall take a look at it.” She glanced at her brother. “Will, if you have a moment, I need to speak with you.” The earl looked about to argue, but Helen cut him off. “It’s about Muriel.”

  The sudden flash of alarm in the earl’s expression betrayed him. “Is she all right?”

  Helen had noticed the reaction as well and seemed confused by it. “She’s fine. At least I think she is.”

  The earl’s face darkened, but he followed his sister and Munro—who’d taken her arm, blast him!—into the Hall. If Magnus was relieved to know that there would be a third person present when she rubbed the salve on Munro, it didn’t do anything to take the edge off the much more powerful emotion surging through him.

  Nine

  Panic had started to set in. Time was running out, and Helen was nowhere nearer to convincing Magnus to give her another chance than she had been the day he arrived. Three days had passed since Muriel left, and between the meetings, hunting, falconing, and his duties attending the king, she’d barely had a chance to exchange a few words with him. Worse, it seemed that whenever a chance might occur, Donald appeared by her side.

  It wasn’t by accident. She suspected a conspiracy by her brothers and Donald to keep her far away from Magnus. If only they would do so themselves. It seemed every time she turned around, the three of them and Magnus were arguing or exchanging not-so-subtle barbs.

  The constant tension between her family and the man she loved was wearing on her. Naively, Helen had thought the end of the feud and the recent alliance with Bruce would make her brothers more amenable to Magnus. But every time she saw them together, her doubts of ever being able to reconcile these two important sides of her heart grew. It was clear the hatred and distrust between the men ran deep.

  But she would not let that hatred stand in her way. She’d tried to do her duty to her family, allowing them to persuade her not to marry Magnus, but she would not do so again. If only the men in her life—all the men in her life—weren’t so pigheaded. An alliance between the two neighboring clans could be a benefit, but how could she convince them of that?

  Of course, first she had to convince Magnus. She needed time alone with him. She saw her chance when her brothers and Donald left after breaking their fast to hunt with some of the king’s men. The king himself had begged off at the last minute, claiming he had to attend to some correspondence before resuming his progress the day after tomorrow.

  At first she feared Magnus would be locked up in the room with him the entire time. But when he and MacGregor headed toward the practice yard, she knew this was it. She’d watched him enough to learn that when he finished practicing, he headed down to the beach to bathe in the icy waters of the North Sea. She pursed her mouth, knowing that it wasn’t just cleanliness driving him but soreness in his arm. Yet the proud warrior was too proud to admit it troubled him.

  Rather than attempt to follow him—which he’d demonstrated a frustrating ability to detect—she decided to wait for him down by the beach. Perhaps she should hide to make sure he didn’t see her and turn right back around?

  If she weren’t so desperate, she might have found it rather humiliating to be chasing after a man who so obviously wished to avoid her. But she was determined not to let him go this time without a fight.

  The sun was still high in the sky as Helen crossed the barmkin, waved at the guards positioned at the gate, and followed the path that led from the castle to the beach. Dunrobin was strategically positioned to overlook the sea, with the curtain wall running along the edge of the cliff. The steep walls made it easy to defend but impractical to descend. Instead, access to the beach was by a path that wound around the forested cliffside.

  She had just turned off the main road when she heard a startled voice say, “Lady Helen!”

  Her heart dropped. She glanced up to see Donald approaching on foot along the very path down which she was headed. He looked just as surprised to see her as she was him.

  Forcing a smile of greeting to her face, she said, “Donald. I thought you’d gone hunting with the others.”

  He shook his head. “I changed my mind.”

  More likely he and her brothers had decided not to leave her alone with Magnus. But why had he been at the beach? The jetty was at the other side of the castle. All that was on this side was a long stretch of sandy white beach and a few sea caves.

  “Where are you coming from?” she asked. Rarely did the men venture down here.

  He grinned. “If you hoped to catch me bathing, you are too late.”

  Helen blushed, embarrassed by the very thought. “You shouldn’t say such things. It isn’t … right.”

  He took a step closer, backing her up to a tree. The scent of the sea enveloped her. It wasn’t wholly unpleasant, but she didn’t feel that overwhelming warmth come over her that she did when Magnus stood near her.

  Actually, she felt a little wary. She’d felt comfortable around Donald her entire life,
but for the first time she realized what an imposing man he was. Tall, thickly built, his rough-hewn features implacable and, she had to admit, attractive, with his dark blue eyes and thick auburn hair that fell in short waves around his bearded jaw. He was around Will’s age, she knew. Older than she by a decade but still in the prime of his manhood.

  She frowned, noticing that his hair had dried rather quickly.

  “Why not?” he said huskily. “Surely you can see where this is headed, Helen?”

  Her eyes widened. He was staring at her so intently, his eyes heavy with something that set off whispers of alarm.

  Desire, she realized. He wants me.

  Her pulse spiked. She felt him leaning closer to her. Like a rabbit who sensed a trap, she looked around for an easy way to escape, but he put his hands on either side of her, bracing himself against the tree and blocking her in.

  “Please, Donald, I don’t want—”

  Her voice caught in a gasp. He leaned in so close she thought he was going to kiss her. His hand cupped her chin, and he tipped her face to his. “Perhaps not now, but you will.” His thumb traced the bottom of her lip. “I can wait. But don’t make me wait too long.”

  Helen’s heart was pounding in her throat. How had this happened? She tried to shift free, but he’d wedged his body to hers. She pressed against him, but he blocked her efforts by drawing her into his arms in a firm embrace.

  “Please, Donald, you’re scaring me.”

  He let her go, as if he’d only just realized she wasn’t welcoming his attentions.

  “Forgive me,” he said with a bow. “I vowed not to rush you.”

  Suddenly, a sound coming from the road drew his attention. A strange look crossed his face. “We’d best get back. Your brothers will return from the hunt at any time.” His eyes narrowed. “What were you doing out here by yourself?”

  Irritation replaced her fear. “I am collecting some flowers for the feast tomorrow. I hope that meets with your approval?”