Highland Destiny

by Hannah Howell

  And then there was Balfour, she thought, tears welling up in her eyes. Or, rather, there was not Balfour. She would wait for a little while, but she felt sure it would be a sad waste of time. He would never return to her bed, probably never even wish to see her from a distance. She had not betrayed him in the way he had thought, but she had betrayed him in some ways. She had lied to him and, at first, had planned to use him to gain her own ends. Maldie was sure that was not something such a proud man could easily forgive. She would wait, however, right there in the room where they had shared so much, for hope was a hard thing to kill.

  Even the soft light of dawn hurt Maldie’s eyes as she peeked out of the window. She had not slept at all, merely dozed from time to time throughout the long night. Balfour had not come to her. The only person she had seen had been a sullen Jennie, who had delivered her evening meal and hastily left. That she had been served in her room and not invited to dine with the others in the great hall had been telling in itself, but she had still waited. There was no point in waiting any longer.

  Slipping on her cloak and picking up the small bag she had packed during the long night, Maldie slipped across the hall to Nigel’s room. She was not surprised to find a sleepy-eyed Eric there sharing a very early breakfast with an equally tired-looking Nigel. They did not seem particularly surprised to see her either.

  “Ye are giving up faster than I thought ye would,” murmured Nigel.

  “I am not one to beat my head against a stone wall,” Maldie said.

  “Maldie, but wait a little longer,” urged Eric.

  “I cannae.”

  “Why? Is not Balfour worth a little patience?”

  Maldie could tell that Nigel had told Eric everything, more than she had, and far more than the boy ought to know. She cast one sharp glance at Nigel, who just smiled faintly and shrugged. It had been her plan to simply come and say a quick farewell, but she realized that had been a failed plan from the start. Nigel and Eric thought she ought to stay, and they would never keep that opinion to themselves and simply let her walk away. She set down her bag, nudged Eric to the side, and sat down, helping herself to a piece of the bread he and Nigel devoured.

  “If ye mean to talk me to death, I will help myself to a last meal,” she muttered.

  Eric rolled his eyes and took a long drink of cider. “This is cowardly, ye ken.”

  “So, I will just add that to my many faults. I can be a coward as easily as I was a liar.”

  “Maldie, ye had no choice but to lie. If ye had told everyone the truth from the beginning, ye would have spent all this time sitting in Donncoill’s dungeons. No one would have listened to ye and no one would have believed you, no matter how often ye told them that ye would never help Beaton. Ye are his daughter. That is all that would have been considered. To a Murray, I fear the idea that ye wouldnae help your kinsmen, that ye might even want him dead as much as they did, would simply have been unbelievable.”

  “So, my lies can be explained. It really doesnae matter. ’Tis clear that they cannae be accepted. I cannae be accepted.”

  “Nay, I will nay believe that.” Eric briefly clasped her hand in his. “I have been accepted. Everyone kens now that I am Beaton’s son and, aye, there was shock, but nothing else. Ye were right. To all here I am still just Eric. As James said, I just went from being a blood son to a foster son. ’Twasnae a big change in most people’s minds.”

  She kissed him on the cheek. “I am glad for you. Howbeit, our situations are a wee bit different. I wasnae raised here. I havenae been one of the family for thirteen years. I but appeared on the road to Dubhlinn and hid the truth for my own purposes. And, when ye recall that my purpose was to murder my father, ’tis nay a very laudable one.”

  “That may be hard for some to understand, but, considering the mon Beaton was, I dinnae think ye will be condemned for that,” Nigel said. “And ye went to save Eric. Ye did save Eric.”

  “Nay, once the battle began there was little chance that he would be harmed. In truth, I put him at more risk by taking him out of the dungeon than by leaving him within. Any danger to him would not have come until the battle was over and, if, by some miracle, the Beatons had won but their laird had died. Beaton wanted Eric alive, and all of his men kenned that.”

  “Ye are too modest. Mayhap that is why ye are so quick to believe no one can forgive ye for what are truly verra small wrongs.”

  “Small?” She laughed and shook her head. “Nay, not small at all. Ye ken better than I that your brother values the truth above most anything else. I rarely told that mon the truth. Nay, not e’en when he asked me directly, tried to get me to say something to help him set aside the suspicions he had. He wanted to believe me, poor mon, and I gave him nothing.”

  “If ye truly believe that your crimes are so vile, then why do ye think he should come to some decision on them in but one night?”

  “Oh, there is a clever question,” she said as she stood up and picked up her bag. “Mayhap, Eric is right. Mayhap I am naught but a coward. I was able to brave one night of waiting and I cannae brave any more. The longer I must wait for him to speak to me, the more I think I willnae be able to bear what he has to say.”

  Eric hugged her. “Please, Maldie, give it but one more night.”

  She briefly ruffled his thick curls, then gently pulled free of his hold. “Nay, not even one more hour.”

  “Ye are a stubborn lass,” said Nigel.

  “Verra stubborn.”

  “Where will ye go?” asked Eric.

  “I am nay sure.”

  “Go to your kinsmen,” advised Nigel.

  “The Beatons?” she asked.

  “Nay, fool,” he said and laughed softly at her scowl. “The Kirkcaldys.”

  “Oh, nay, I cannae go there.”

  “And why cannae ye? Ye have ne’er met them, have ye?”

  “Weel, nay, but I have heard all about them,” she said, starting to feel a little uneasy, suffering a growing suspicion that there was something she had not considered, and that Nigel was going to show her what that was.

  “Aye? And who told ye all about them?”

  “My mother,” she whispered.

  “I have no wish to add to your pain, lass, but this time it may be for your own good. Your mother lied to ye and used ye. Is it nay possible that some of those lies she told ye were about her own family? Mayhap she saw things in them that arenae there. And, mayhap, she told ye they were all unforgiving bastards who would make your life a pure hell because she did not want to go back and face them herself. What better way to make ye cease to ask about them than to make ye think they are all hateful?”

  Maldie felt the start of a throbbing in her head. She rubbed at her temple, and tried to think through what Nigel had said without adding to her growing headache. It was odd how she got one each time she tried to think of her mother and all the things the woman had done.

  Nigel was right and she knew it. She really did not have to consider it long to know that. What angered her was that she had not thought of that herself. She obviously still had a very large blind spot when it came to her mother and all of the woman’s duplicity and cruelty. It all made a horrible sense. Her mother felt she had been shamed, and her pride would not let her family see that. She chose poverty and degradation for herself and, to some extent, her child, rather than go back to her own family.

  “There may have been some truth in what she thought,” she finally said. “Bringing home a bastard child is not always a welcome thing.”

  “Nay, true enough. But ye will never ken for sure until ye go and see them for yourself, will ye? Now, I dinnae ken the Kirkcaldys, but then I have ne’er heard anything verra bad about them either. I think ye owe them a chance, dinnae ye?”

  “I suppose,” she admitted grudgingly. “’Tis at least a destination and I didnae really have one when I came here.”

  “Good. I think it willnae be as hard as ye think.”

  “Nay? If they do welcome me, t
hen I shall have to tell them about their kinswoman. ’Tisnae a pretty story. Nor is my own. Ye are asking me to prove that my mother told me yet another lie and then to have to go through the ordeal of telling all those distasteful truths again. I think that could prove to be verra hard indeed.”

  “As I said, ye willnae ken all of that for certain until ye go.”

  “Ye do have a choice,” said Eric. “Ye could stay here.”

  Maldie shook her head. “And such a choice that is. Nay, I will go to the Kirkcaldys.”

  “And ye will send us word of how ye fare?” asked Eric.

  “Aye, I will send ye word and, trust me, Nigel Murray, if ye are wrong, ’twill be a harsh word I send.”

  He just laughed. Maldie hastily said her goodbyes, kissing each of them on the cheek and slipping out of the room. The walk to the gates of Donncoill was a torturous one. Each step of the way she feared meeting with Balfour, seeing the cold hate she was sure he now felt for her. When she finally stepped through those gates without being stopped she thought it odd that she did not feel any better, did not feel relieved or even free.

  “And where are ye off to, lass?”

  That deep voice startled her so much she nearly dropped her pack. Fighting to calm herself, she turned and scowled at James, wondering where the man had come from. She had kept a close watch for him or Balfour, but had seen nothing.

  “My grave if I get too many frights like ye just gave me,” she snapped.

  James just smiled and asked again, “Where are ye going?”

  “To see the Kirkcaldys.”

  “A good choice.”

  “What? No attempt to make me stay?”

  “Weel, I figured that ye arenae in the mood to be dissuaded, if Nigel and Eric couldnae stop ye.”

  “Ye ken that I was with them? Ye are a verra sneaky mon, James. Verra sneaky indeed.”

  “Go on, lass, and take care. I dinnae like the thought of ye wandering about alone, but ye have been doing it for a verra long time so I shall try not to worry about ye. Ye need to see the Kirkcaldys, I am thinking, more than ye need to stay here.”

  “Mayhap ye are right, James.” She gave him a kiss on the cheek and smiled when he blushed. “Take care.”

  “God be with ye, lass.”

  As Maldie started on her way she tried not to think too much on how easily everyone was letting her go. It may be exactly as they said, that they felt she really needed to see her Kirkcaldy kin, and not that they believed she had no chance with Balfour. Or worse, she mused, did not want her to be there so that she could even try to win the man back.

  She shook that thought aside. It was unkind and possibly very unfair. No one save Balfour had shown any difficulty in accepting the truth about her, and understanding and forgiving it. They could just as easily be sending her on her way so that she did not linger at Donncoill and face further heartbreak at Balfour’s hands.

  It was going to be hard to try and push Balfour out of her mind and heart. She loved him, more than even she could understand. Simply walking away from Donncoill and possibly relinquishing all chance of being with him again was killing her, but she could not turn back. If Balfour truly wanted her, he would not have to work too hard to find her. She briefly wondered if that was why James, Nigel, and Eric had all steered her toward the Kirkcaldys, then told herself not to be a fool. There was only one thing she had to think about, and that was getting to her kinsmen safely and as quickly as possible. There would be time enough in the days and years ahead to deal with her pain.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Where is she?” demanded Balfour of the trembling guard at the gates of Donncoill.

  Duncan groaned and rolled his eyes. “Ye have lost her again?” He took one long look at the dark expression on Balfour’s face and swiftly took a few steps back. “I dinnae ken,” he muttered, then turned and hurried away. “I havenae seen her.”

  Balfour cursed and dragged his hands through his hair. Poor Duncan was soon going to refuse to stand guard over anything. Even when the man was not guarding Maldie herself, he found himself the object of his laird’s fury when the girl disappeared. This time Balfour had no idea of why Maldie was nowhere to be found, did not even know whether to be angry or afraid. It appeared that she had walked away from him yet again, but why?

  He turned and walked back into the keep, then headed straight to Nigel’s bedchamber. It hurt, but Balfour knew that Maldie still felt more comfortable talking of some things with Nigel and now Eric than she did with him. He had spent one very long night and nearly all of the day thinking on all she had told him. Now he was ready to talk to Maldie about it all. Balfour began to fear that he had waited too long, that Maldie had decided she no longer wished to discuss it with him. Or maybe telling him the full truth and walking away had been her plan from the very beginning.

  The moment he entered Nigel’s bedchamber, Balfour knew there was something he needed to do first, even before he gave another minute of thought to Maldie. Nigel was sprawled on his bed talking quietly with Eric who sat on the end of the bed, his back against one of the tall posts. The wary looks both of them sent his way made him feel somewhat ashamed of himself, a feeling enhanced when, after that first glance, Eric just stared at his hands.

  Balfour knew that, selfishly, he had given little thought to the boy while he had been sunk deep in his own misery. Everything Eric had believed in, everything he had come to depend upon, had been taken from him. He needed to know, without doubt, that his parentage made no difference. Balfour knew that stiff hug he had given the boy just before fleeing Dubhlinn and all the ugly truths Maldie had told him, was simply not enough. Eric needed a great deal more assurance of his acceptance than that. Balfour walked to the end of the bed and put his arm around the boy’s slender shoulders, regretting the stiffness he could feel in Eric and hoping he could talk it away.

  “It seems that we were both cursed in our fathers,” Balfour said.

  “Your father just cuckolded men. My father killed them,” Eric said, but he relaxed a little.

  “Lad, no clan and no family is without its bastards. Ye ken better than most that the Murrays have had their share. Ye have heard all of the stories. Every now and then someone or something twists a person, pulls the darkness up from deep in his soul until it poisons his every act and thought.”

  “A bad seed.”

  “’Tis what some people call them. I suppose there can be such a thing. Most evil men are made. We all ken who made Beaton.”

  “His father.” Eric grimaced. “And Beaton killed him for it, didnae he?”

  Balfour was so shocked he stepped back a little. “Beaton killed his own father?”

  “I am sure Maldie and I said so.” Eric shrugged. “Mayhap not to you though. I cannae recall.”

  “And mayhap I just didnae hear it. I didnae hear much at all after I was told that Maldie was Beaton’s daughter and that ye were his son.” He frowned. “And that Maldie tried to kill her own father.”

  “So, like father, like daughter? Nay, Maldie rather proves your feeling that someone or something twists a person, doesnae she. With Maldie ’twas her own mother. She isnae like Beaton,” Eric said firmly.

  “I ken it, lad, and I could tell her that if I just kenned where she was.” Balfour tensed when both Nigel and Eric suddenly averted their eyes. “Where is she?” he demanded.

  “Why should ye think that we would ken where she is?” asked Nigel, crossing his arms behind his head.

  Balfour moved to stand at the side of the bed and scowled down at his aggravatingly calm brother. “Where is she?”

  “And I have a question for you. Why do ye wish to find her?”

  “To talk to her, of course.”

  “Ah, of course. It took ye a full night and a day to think of what to say. I hadnae thought ye were so slow of wit, Balfour.”

  “Nigel,” Eric murmured, watching the two older men nervously. “I dinnae think this is a game ye ought to play.”

 
“Ye would spoil my fun, lad?” Nigel asked, smiling faintly at the youth.

  “Aye, this time I would.”

  “She has fled Donncoill again, hasnae she?” said Balfour, suddenly feeling exhausted and defeated.

  “Aye,” replied Nigel. “She fled from here this morning. She has gone to meet with her Kirkcaldy kin.”

  “But she has always said that they dinnae want her.”

  “So her mother said, but ’tis clear that her thrice-cursed mother wasnae much concerned with the truth. Maldie decided to go to her mother’s kinsmen and try to find out what that truth is.”

  “So, ’tis over,” Balfour whispered, desperately wishing he was alone, but knowing that he could not simply run away. That would tell his brothers far too much about the feelings he had for Maldie. He suspected that they had already guessed the sad state of his heart, but he saw no reason to give them hard proof.

  “Over?” Nigel sat up straight, rubbing his leg when the abrupt movement brought him a twinge of pain. “The lass has gone to see her kinsmen and that tells ye that it is over?”

  “And what else am I to think?”

  “That she grew weary of waiting for ye to decide whether or not ye liked what she had told you?”

  “No one could like what she told me.”

  Nigel cursed softly. “A poor choice of word. Accept, forgive, understand? Do they sit better on the tongue?”

  “I needed time to think. Why is that so difficult to understand?”

  “We didnae need more than a few minutes. What do ye think it told her when ye needed so much longer? Ye love the lass, but ye dinnae really ken much about her, do ye?”