Highland Destiny

by Hannah Howell

  Balfour spared one brief glance for Maldie, then swept Eric up in his arms. Maldie could feel the wealth of confused emotion seizing Eric as he returned Balfour’s hug. The boy loved his brothers, still felt a deep kinship with them, and knew that he was about to tell them a truth that could destroy all of that. This could well be the last time he enjoyed such open, easy affection from the men who had raised him, and Maldie shared his grief. She had to fight the urge to weep, not only for the pain Eric was in, but also for the pain the others would soon suffer.

  She began to wonder what Balfour’s furtive glances toward her meant. It was impossible to sense what feeling was behind those almost nervous looks her way. She did not even bother to try to reach out to him with her senses. She was bound too tightly to all Eric was feeling, and her own emotions were in such turmoil she felt almost nauseous. Even if she could sense what was going on in Balfour’s mind and heart, she doubted she would have the clarity of mind to understand any of it. Considering all she was about to tell him, she was also sure she would not want to sense any of the feelings those truths would stir. It was safest to close herself off from the man.

  “Are ye alright, Eric?” Balfour asked as he set his young brother down and studied him.

  “I am fine. I am but a wee bit bruised,” Eric answered, pulling away from Balfour and standing next to Maldie, who slowly rose to her feet and took him by the hand.

  Balfour frowned at the pair standing before him and began to feel a little uneasy. Eric looked almost tormented, as if he steeled himself for something distasteful. Maldie looked sad. He wondered how much she had told the boy about what had passed between them. Eric had a keen sense of justice and might well be very angry about the accusations his brother had flung at the young woman.

  “I saw the man ye had to kill,” he said, suddenly anxious to talk about something, anything, other than what Maldie and Eric appeared prepared to say. “I am sorry ye had to endure that. I should have been there to protect you.”

  “Ye cannae be everywhere, Balfour,” Eric said kindly. “And, ’twas no glorious battle that felled that mon. In truth, he backed into the sword I held.”

  “The first time one spills another’s blood is always hard.”

  “I ken it, but dinnae fret o’er me. I also ken that he was going to kill Maldie and a skill with words was not enough to change his mind about that. ’Twas her or him and I am truly glad that it was him.”

  “So am I,” Balfour said quietly, looking at Maldie and feeling very uneasy when she could not, or would not meet his gaze. “Why was the mon so eager to kill you?” he asked Maldie.

  “He blamed the defeat he faced upon me,” she replied. “He decided that the only way ye could have gotten within the walls of Dubhlinn was if I had been helping you, spying for you.”

  Balfour winced. “Ye have suffered greatly from wild accusations, havenae ye.”

  Maldie shrugged. “I try too hard to be a stranger. One must expect such things when one does that. Ye won the fight with Beaton?”

  “Aye, the bastard is dead.”

  “Then justice has been served,” she murmured.

  He grimaced and dragged his hand through his sweat-soaked hair. “I begin to think that I am the only one who kens that we have won this battle.”

  “I ken it,” said Nigel, even as he stood and moved next to Balfour, but his gaze was fixed upon Maldie and Eric and he frowned. “Methinks what ails these two has naught to do with this battle.”

  “There are some things we must tell you,” Eric said, standing straight and finally meeting the gazes of both men directly.

  “They can wait, laddie,” said James. “We will be riding back to Donncoill soon. There we can have us a fine feast, and ye may talk all ye want.”

  “After I tell ye what I must, ye may not wish to share bread with me.”

  “Now, Eric, if ye still fret o’er Malcolm’s death, I told ye that ye were not at fault,” Nigel said, trying to reassure the boy and frowning when it did not lighten Eric’s solemn face at all. “He fears he revealed that he kenned who Malcolm was with a look, but I said that wasnae enough, that ’twas Malcolm’s attempts to rescue the lad that got him killed.”

  “Nigel is right,” Balfour said, but he knew concern over any possible complicity in Malcolm’s death was not what troubled the boy.

  “’Tis nay Malcolm or his death that troubles me,” Eric snapped, his brief flare of temper causing Balfour, Nigel, and James to stare at him in surprise. He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck.

  “Ye begin to worry me, laddie,” Balfour said, trying to smile and knowing he failed miserably. “Come, what can ye have to tell us that could be so verra bad.”

  “I am not a Murray,” Eric announced in a clear, hard voice. “We have all been wrong for thirteen long years. Ye see, your father may have bedded Beaton’s wife, but he didnae beget me. I am a Beaton.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Maldie did not think she had ever seen men look as stunned as Nigel, Balfour, and James did. They obviously wanted to cry out a denial, but some small part of them held them silent. She wondered if they hesitated because they thought there was some truth to what Eric had just announced, or if they feared that the boy had been driven to madness during his captivity. It soon became clear that they would prefer to believe the boy had lost his senses.

  “Nay, laddie, that is what Beaton wished ye to believe,” Balfour said. “If he was to get the rest of the world to heed his claim about you, then he certainly had to have ye believe it, too.”

  “I am no witless child,” Eric said.

  “Nay, of course not. Howbeit, ye were in that mon’s hold for a verra long time. Even the most clever of men can eventually believe something if it is repeated often enough. Aye, especially if there is no voice of truth to counter the lies.”

  “Ye are trying so hard to turn what I am saying into no more than a Beaton lie, and that is making it all the harder to tell ye the truth. I can see all too clearly that it will be most unwelcome and mayhap so will I.”

  “Ye could ne’er be unwelcome,” James said.

  “I am a Beaton. Believe me when I say that I wish with all my heart that it wasnae true, but it is. Look at me. I carry no look of the Murrays. We have all assumed that I but looked like my mother, but it always struck me as curious that no hint of our father was in me. I am fair and ye are all brown. I am small and none of ye are.”

  “That could still be all from your mother. Not every child takes from both parents,” Balfour said.

  There was a tightness to Balfour’s voice that made Maldie look at him closely. He believed. She wondered if he had always had questions, but had preferred to shrug that doubt aside. If that was the case, she prayed it was because of love for Eric.

  “Aye, but I was right to think there should be some touch of my father in me,” Eric said. “Mayhap it was foresight upon my part. I dinnae ken and I really dinnae care. I found that mark.”

  Balfour suddenly looked at her, and Maldie knew he recalled hers and how it had looked so familiar to him. “Aye, that mark.”

  “Ye are a Beaton too?”

  “Aye. Beaton was the mon who bedded and deserted my mother, who brought her down into the mire she died in.”

  “But ye were going to kill him.”

  “Aye, that is why I came here. To my shame, that is even why I allowed myself to be taken to Donncoill. I had lurked around Dubhlinn for weeks and ne’er gotten close to the mon I swore to kill. Ye wished him dead as weel and I thought I could use ye and yours to get closer to him, to get that chance I had failed to get upon my own.”

  “But, lass, why should ye wish to murder your own father?” asked James when Balfour said nothing, just stood there staring at Maldie, then Eric, and then Maldie again.

  “Because my mother made me swear to do it, made me give her a blood oath on it.” She smiled coldly at their shock. “My mother had hated Beaton since he left her. ’Twas all vanity and stung pride. I use
d to think it was love or shame, but ’twas not. One thing I did gain from my brief sojourn in Beaton’s dungeons was a clarity of mind, painful though that clarity is. My mother raised me to be her weapon against the mon she felt had slighted her.”

  “Other men had slighted her, had they not?” Nigel asked, his gaze soft with sympathy, one she wished she could see in Balfour’s eyes, but his were black and empty.

  “Aye, they had, again and again until she looked only for the coin. I will probably ne’er understand why she felt Beaton was worse than all of the others, but she did. And I was Beaton’s child. She probably felt that there was no better weapon to use against him than his own flesh and blood. Mayhap she even wished to punish me for the sin of surviving my birth.” Maldie shrugged. “It doesnae matter much now. I buried her and came straight here to kill my father, as I had vowed I would do. And I do ask your pardon for it, but I did try to use all of you to help me.”

  “I fear I was the cause of that painful revelation,” Eric said, gently squeezing her hand. “As is my habit, I had a question or two and simply asked them, not caring what they might pull forth.”

  “The revelation was long overdue,” Maldie whispered. “All ye did was make me look at the truths I had fought so hard to ignore. I believe the truth I gave you was harder to bear.”

  “What is this mark?” asked Nigel. “Many of us has a mark or two upon his body. It doesnae need to mean there is a kinship.”

  “This mark is too clear, too distinct, and unique to argue with,” Eric said, even as he yanked off his jupon and showed the men the heart-shaped mark upon his back. “Maldie kenned who she was and who had left that mark upon her skin. Her mother was quick to tell her that much truth. There is no denying what it says.”

  Nigel grimaced, casting a worried glance at a still silent Balfour. “Mayhap your mother was distant kin to Beaton, and ye gained the mark through her and not Beaton.”

  “If I was the only one who carried it, aye, that would do to soothe our fears, but that doesnae explain where Maldie got hers then, does it? Nay, ’tis proof that I am Beaton’s son, his legitimate heir, although that shall take some proving. And that mon we killed also kenned it.”

  “Did Beaton?”

  “Nay, or he wouldnae have taken so long to grab me, would he? George, that mon I killed, said that he was the one who left me out to die. Howbeit, he took a wee peek to see if I carried the mark he kenned Beaton carried upon his back. He always kenned the truth but held fast to it, hoping there would come a time when it could gain him something. When one thinks of how eager Beaton has e’er been to beget a son, it shouldnae be a surprise that he bedded his wife frequently. And when one thinks of how cruel he was, it shouldnae be a surprise to learn that she couldnae stop him from doing so. Thus I was conceived.”

  Eric took a deep steadying breath before continuing, “I also discovered that Beaton himself killed my mother and the midwife who brought me into the world. He didnae want them about as reminders of what he saw as his shame. That was fine with old George, for it also meant that there was no one to tell Beaton the truth, except him. So, not only must I learn to accept that I am not a Murray but a Beaton, but that my father killed my mother and tried verra hard to kill me.”

  “Beaton was a bastard who clearly spread misery where’er he went,” said James as he stepped forward and hugged Eric, briefly reaching out to clasp Maldie’s shoulder in a gesture of sympathy. “It seems he had old Grizel kill your father as weel. Ah, your foster father then.”

  “The men are gathering and must wonder why we linger here,” said Nigel as he looked around, then he grabbed Balfour by the arm and shook him a little. “We should return to Donncoill.”

  “Aye, we should,” agreed Balfour and, after stiffly hugging Eric, he moved toward the horses.

  “All of us,” Nigel called after him.

  “Aye, quite definitely all of us.”

  “Nay,” said Maldie, shaking her head. “I think it would be best if I went in another direction.”

  “’Tis too late in the day for ye to go anywhere, and ye have no supplies,” argued Nigel as he pulled her toward his horse.

  “But after all I have just told ye, I dinnae think ye wish much of my company.”

  “Nay, ye dinnae think that sulking knight riding off will wish to share your company,” Nigel nodded toward the rapidly retreating Balfour as he tossed Maldie up on his saddle, “but he isnae the only one who resides at Donncoill.” He mounted behind her and cast Eric a brief smile, as he and James rode up beside them on the same horse.

  “I dinnae feel right about this, either,” said Eric. “Balfour didnae spit on me, but he didnae welcome me back, either.”

  “Nonsense, lad,” said James. “He hugged ye.”

  “’Twas like being shrouded in ice. He hasnae accepted this, hasnae settled it in his mind. Mayhap me and Maldie should linger here.”

  “Nay. If naught else ye should be close at hand so that Balfour can speak with ye when he overcomes the shock he has suffered.”

  “That seems to be a verra good reason not to be within his reach,” muttered Eric.

  Nigel smiled and reached out to ruffle the boy’s thick fair hair. “The mon was deep in shock. Now, I dinnae ken why this news should hit him so much harder than it did us, although I have a wee idea or two, but he will come to his senses.”

  “Even if he does, it willnae change the fact that I am a Beaton, not a Murray.”

  “Ye are a Murray. Mayhap not in blood or in name, but in all else,” Nigel said firmly, and James nodded his hearty agreement. “We raised ye as one of our own for thirteen years. Did ye really think we could just cast that aside? And ye are still the wee bairn James found cast on a hillside to die. Ye are still the child of a woman our father loved, as much as our father loved any woman leastwise, fickle rogue that he was. None of that changes. And did ye not think that once in all these years it might have occurred to us that ye were not our father’s bastard?”

  “Ye ne’er said a word to me.”

  “Of course not. The thought, when it came at all, was but a fleeting one and of no great importance.”

  “Then why is Balfour so upset?”

  “That, I fear, has little to do with ye, lad,” Nigel murmured.

  Maldie flushed when all three men glanced at her. Such interest was one reason why she did not want to go to Donncoill, but Nigel was right. It was too late in the day to go anywhere else. It would be nearly dark by the time they reached Donncoill, and that was closer than any place she had to go, except Eleanor’s, but that would probably not be safe for a while. The grief of those who had lost a loved one would have to ease before they could look at one of those they felt responsible for their defeat without hatred. And, if she was going to journey anywhere, she did need a few supplies. It was probably not right to take anything from the Murrays after she had deceived them so badly, but she would. A little loss of pride would be easier to bear than hunger and cold.

  All the way back to Donncoill there was no sign of Balfour. When they reached the keep, he had already retreated to his bedchamber. To Maldie’s dismay she was led to the same bedchamber she had fled from by a painfully quiet Jennie.

  “I am verra sorry I hit you,” Maldie said as she stepped into the room then turned to face the young maid. “I had to get away from here.”

  Jennie sighed, stared up at the ceiling for a moment, and then finally met Maldie’s gaze. “It hurt, ye ken. I still have a wee bit of a bruise.” She pointed at the yellowing bruise on her small chin. “And poor Duncan hid from our laird for two days. I think he might still be trying to stay out of the mon’s sight.”

  “I had to get out of Donncoill.” Maldie sighed and shook her head. “Ye will hear all of it verra soon, I am certain. And I dinnae think it will make ye think much better of me than ye did when all thought I was betraying the Murrays. Howbeit, please believe me when I say that I am verra sorry I hit ye.”

  “Weel, I suppose. Howbeit
, if ye decide ye have to leave again, dinnae call for me.”

  Maldie winced when the young maid left, shutting the heavy door behind her with a distinct thud. She moved to the bed and flung herself onto it, staring blindly up at the ceiling. Even though she was probably not going to stay at Donncoill for very long, she had a feeling that it was going to feel like years.

  Balfour giving her this room again could mean several things and she knew she ought not to think on it very much, but her mind refused to be stilled. Perhaps he did just need time to think. She had told him some things that were very hard to accept. Nigel and James apparently accepted and understood, so perhaps Balfour would after he had had a little time to ponder it all. He had put her in this room so that, after he was done thinking, he could come to her. When her heart started to pound with hope and anticipation, she decided she should think of something else. Balfour could have had her put in this particular bedchamber because it was the only one he had free.

  She hurt, and she knew it was not simply because of the ordeal she had been through in the last few days. Her body was badly bruised, but most of her pain was from within. In a way she had lost her mother, the truth she had had to face about the woman stealing away the last of her self-deluding lies. She had never really had a mother, had simply lived with a woman who had grudgingly fed and clothed her while raising her up to kill a man. Maldie supposed it would have devastated her more if she had not already suspected it.

  Then there was the matter of her father, a man she had planned to kill. Although she was very glad she had not stained her hands with that sin, she was content about his death. Her mother had always spoken of the man as a deceiver and deserter, but he was far worse than that. He had deserved killing for far more reasons than Margaret Kirkcaldy’s stung vanity. It had been hard to finally meet him, however, to see with her own eyes the evil that had spawned her.

  Deep in her heart she was afraid that some of that evil was within her. Maldie suspected that Eric suffered from the same fear. She knew it would be a long time before she stopped questioning every action she took, stopped wondering if some small taint from Beaton was making her think a certain way or do a certain thing. No matter how often she told herself that she did not have to grow to be like her father—that just because his seed had made her it did not mean she had to be like him in even the smallest way—it would be a very long time indeed before she could believe that completely.