A Highlander's Woman

by Aileen Adams

  There was nothing. Not even the sound of breathing.

  Still, she stayed close to the wall as she descended, eyes searching the darkness for any sign of a witness to her escape. There was nothing there, nothing waiting to surprise her. No threats.

  She passed through the door and out into the courtyard with her heart in her throat. Would that she could thank them for giving her so much in such a short time.

  Would that she could beg their forgiveness for her lies.

  Would that she could kiss him just once more—or even look upon his face.

  It mattered little, as she would carry him with her forever. The only man she would ever love.

  “Goodbye,” she whispered into the night as she fled to the woods.

  20

  Padraig’s first instinct upon seeing a small figure in lad’s clothing slipping out of the house was to charge at him, to cry out warning and bring the other men on the run. There was no reason for a lad such as the one tiptoeing down the stairs and through the door to be in the house at all, much less to do so at night while those who lived inside were sleeping.

  He did not recognize the lad, though the hat covering half of his face might have been the reason why. No matter. He would see to it that the lad was caught and relieved of anything stolen.

  He touched a hand to the dirk at his belt, reminding himself of its presence before hurrying after the retreating figure. A quick-footed lad, to be sure, slight of stature. It took a bit of doing for Padraig to move as silently as his prey did, but he did not gain the lad’s attention as they ran to the woods.

  What if there were several more waiting there? What if there were thieves out there after all? Just because Moira had spoken falsely about her fight with Margaret did not mean the woods were safe.

  Even so, he gave chase. No one stole from him.

  It was a good thing he’d lost track of time while at his work, then nearly fallen asleep in his chair when he had. He might have missed this entirely and woken in the morning to find they’d been robbed.

  A lad from the village, no doubt. Margaret had been correct about the state of some of the villagers.

  He strained his eyes in order to see once he entered the shadow of the wood. The full moon proved fortunate, as the beams of silver light shining here and there through gaps in the limbs made it possible for him to keep watch on the lad. He held one hand at his waist, prepared to draw his dirk at a moment’s notice.

  The soft whinnying of a horse slowed him, and he peered between two thick spruces to find the lad patting the neck of a mare.

  A mare fitted with one of his own saddles.

  This was not to be borne.

  He opened his mouth to cry out a warning and was fully prepared to do just that.

  Until the lad removed his hat.

  And a thick, lustrous braid unwound down his back.

  No. Her back.

  She turned to the side, catching her breath after running from the house. Her profile was one he would know anywhere. He’d carried it in his heart for weeks, after all.

  And she was stealing from him.

  She thought she could steal from him.

  She thought she could leave him without a single word.

  She thought he would allow this.

  She was wrong.

  “What do ye think you’re doing?”

  She spun in place, the light from the full moon showing him her wide, fearful eyes. The way her mouth hung open in surprise. Every muscle in her body tensed, as though she were prepared to spring on him like a wild animal might upon being cornered by a threatening presence.

  In spite of this, in spite of her obvious fear, he repeated himself. “What do ye think you’re doing, lass? Running away from my house in the wee hours, without taking the time to say farewell to those who’ve come to care for ye? Stealing my horse?”

  “I was not stealing anything,” she whispered, as though either of them needed to whisper while in the middle of the woods. There was no one anywhere nearby to hear them. They might have everything out then and there.

  He found himself hoping for the chance to do just that, as there was quite a deal he wished for her to hear before she took her leave.

  He’d never taken her for a coward. She could have been many things—anything at all, since she had shared so little of herself with him—but a coward was something he’d never have considered her. Not with her confidence, her sometimes unfortunate habit of speaking her mind.

  Which meant he’d either been far off the mark when judging her character, or that he was gravely misunderstanding what took place before him.

  Would that it were the latter.

  “It seems to me ye were just about to take my horse away while dressed as a lad and without telling anyone in the house of your plan. How can ye say ye were not stealing?”

  “I left money on the bed for the horse,” she hissed. “And the kirtle Sorcha gave me. Everything I have is mine.”

  “I never agreed to sell ye the horse, so it does not belong to ye.”

  “Are we truly going to fight over a horse?” she demanded. “That is not what you are upset about, not truly. Why not say what is truly on your mind?”

  “All right, then.” He took another step closer, then another, and the fact that she did not back away seemed a good sign. “What are ye on about? What happened to make ye leave this way? Why could ye not tell me ye wished to go?” Why did she not give him the chance to make her want to stay?

  For he would have given anything if only she would stay. Anything in the world, anything within his power or even beyond him. He’d have moved mountains in her name if only she would have stayed.

  This he could not say. This was not the sort of thing a man said to a lass when she was in the act of running away without a single word.

  “Padraig, there is far more to this than you could ever understand.”

  “I dinna know about that,” he muttered, stroking his beard. “I can understand quite a bit. Did ye not praise how sharp my mind is? Or was that a lie? Was everything ye ever told me a lie?” His voice grew louder with each word, until he was nearly shouting.

  “Yes!” she spat, standing very near the mare as though she needed its protection. “Yes, everything I told you was a lie. I need to go. Hate me if you wish—I would prefer it that way, in all honesty.”

  “Honesty,” he scoffed as his chest clenched and his throat closed. Blood rushed in his ears with each frantic beat of his heart. She’d lied to him. What sort of leader was he if he could not see through the lies of a woman?

  “Yes. I am being honest with you now. Please, Padraig, please. If you know what is best for you, you’ll allow me to leave now.”

  “Not until ye tell me why.”

  “I just told you, I cannot!”

  “Why not?”

  “I simply cannot, Padraig.”

  Her voice cracked. That crack, that slight show of feeling, set off a spark of hope he wished most fervently would extinguish itself.

  Yet he could not help but ask himself if she meant everything she said. Was she lying now? “What are ye afraid of?” he asked, taking a chance that his question would not frighten her away.

  She drew a breath as though to answer, then let it out slowly. Her body visibly relaxed as she did, until she all but slumped to the ground. “Padraig. I wish I could tell you. Truly, I do. The less you know, the better for you—please!” she hissed when he attempted to speak over her. “Please, I beg you. You must trust me. I would never do anything to harm you or anyone in the clan. This I vow. That is why I need to leave. There is simply no other way for me to protect you.”

  “Protect me? What makes ye believe I need your protection? It ought to be the other way around, lass.”

  “Many things ought to be other than what they are. But much took place long before we met. If I knew…” She tilted her face upward, moonlight shining down to reveal the dampness on her cheeks. “No. That is not true, either, for there w
as no changing the course which was set for me the moment I arrived there.”

  “Arrived where?” While she never truly answered his questions, never satisfied his curiosity, the way she spoke of this terrible thing which she felt he needed protection from worried him a great deal.

  This was no longer a matter of her running away from him.

  She was running from something else, something which filled her with dread.

  “Why will ye not allow me to help ye?” He reached for her, yet she recoiled from his touch. He would not give up so easily. “It is not in my nature to turn my back on anyone in need of help, and this includes ye. Allow me to help ye.”

  “There is no helping—” She froze, holding her breath.

  “What?”

  She held a finger up to her lips, her body tense once again. Her eyes darted back and forth, all around them. When they met his, she shook her head. “If you wish to help me, let me go. Now. There is no more time to waste. Please, Padraig. If you care about me at all.”

  “Now, now.” The sound of another female voice startled Padraig, whose hand moved to the handle of his dirk as he turned to face this intruder. “While it pains me to interrupt this scene, it seems that someone must before our dear sister manages to escape.”

  “Sister?” Padraig asked as a figure emerged from the shadows. Two figures.

  Tall, the hoods of their cloaks raised that he might not see their faces.

  There was no need to see the face of the woman who spoke of her sister to know the disgust she felt for Margaret.

  “Let him go,” Margaret commanded, and to his surprise, she stepped in front of him. As though it were he who required protection, as though there was anything she could do to fight for him.

  Even so, the strength in her voice and the tense, fighting stance into which she fell spoke of a side to her that he’d never seen until now. The lass was a skilled fighter, accustomed to defending herself.

  “Who is he to you?” the disparaging voice asked.

  “He is nothing,” Margaret insisted, “but he is innocent. He knows nothing of this, nothing of me or any of us. I’ve told him nothing. If you were listening, as I know you were, you know it.”

  “What have ye done, lass?” he whispered, still standing behind her.

  She turned her head toward him, just enough that he might hear her. “Padraig. Go to the house. Now. Run if you must. I’ll keep them here.”

  “You will do no such thing, sister.” The woman lowered her hood, revealing hair which the moon’s light painted silver. Her fine, elegant face was a thing of perfection.

  Yet he saw no beauty in her. Not when she turned her gaze on him, and he found nothing but emptiness in her eyes. He may as well have been looking at nothing at all, at no one. At a shadow. What a strange thought to have at such a moment. Yet there it was.

  “And he will do no such thing, either,” she announced, glaring at him. “You have done this, Margaret. Remember it well.”

  Light struck the blade of the knife the woman threw at his head, giving him the chance to duck before the weapon hit him. It hit the tree behind him, sticking from the trunk.

  He glanced over his shoulder just long enough to understand what had happened before drawing his blade and lunging forward, bringing his arm about in an arc which left a slash in the woman’s cloak but did little else. She jumped back as swiftly and gracefully as flowing water.

  “Ye are on my land,” he snarled, eyes darting back and forth from her to her companion, whose hood was still raised. “I order ye to leave, now.”

  “Your orders mean nothing to us.”

  “I am laird of Clan Anderson,” he spat. “Get out of here unless ye wish to meet every one of my fighters.”

  “Your fighters mean nothing to us, either,” the silver-haired one sneered.

  “Padraig, please.” Margaret was at his elbow. “Please, go.”

  “I will not leave ye,” he vowed, looking away from the silver-haired shadow to assure Margaret. “I will not allow this. No one, woman or man, threatens what is mine.”

  A brief smile, her eyes shining with unshed tears.

  Then came a sharp pain which sent flashes of light swimming before his eyes.

  And darkness.

  21

  Margaret watched in horror as Padraig sank to the ground, blood running from the back of his head thanks to the blow Arabella had just delivered. In the moonlight, red turned to black.

  “Why?” she cried, reaching for him.

  Arabella threw herself between them, blocking the way. “Leave him. He means nothing.”

  Such coldness. Such hatred. She met Arabella’s gaze. “You are the most contemptible thing I’ve ever known. You have no soul.”

  “A soul?” Arabella burst out laughing. “Is that what you’ve learned in these months without us? To care whether you have a soul? You’ve forgotten much, Margaret.”

  “And you have forgotten how dangerous a person you speak to,” Margaret murmured, remembering Arabella’s skill in fighting and how strong she was. Yet she also tended to lose control when frustrated, when she felt she was outmatched.

  Which made her easy to defeat.

  When her companion lowered her hood, however, Margaret’s heart sank further than it already had. “Gabriella.”

  Gabriella’s dark eyes gave no hint as to what went on behind them. “Margaret.”

  “You know what this means,” Arabella sneered. “You cannot be allowed to live after having betrayed us.”

  “You would do this to me?” Margaret stalled. Two of them against her at once. She had faced more difficult situations in the past, but Arabella’s eyes held murder. She’d always resented Margaret, for her talent and for the favor which Mother Cressida bestowed upon her.

  The desire for revenge was dangerous indeed. It made a person desperate to win, to drive their foe into the ground and not give up until they were dead.

  “You know the laws set forth by the Order,” Gabriella reminded her in a mournful tone. “You refused to carry out your assignment. You ran from the Order, leaving your sisters behind. You placed all of us in danger when you shirked your duties.”

  “She knows all of this,” Arabella sneered. “And yet she did exactly as she wished.”

  All the while, knowing the fight which was to come, her thoughts returned to Padraig. Was he dying? How hard was Arabella’s blow?

  As though reading her thoughts, Arabella snickered. “If he isn’t yet dead, he shall be. Did you believe you could be his wife, perhaps? That you could forget everything you’ve done, everything you are? Were you truly that big a fool?”

  “I believed no such thing,” Margaret whispered.

  “Do you love him?”

  Yes. With everything in her. Every beat of her heart was for his sake, and every moment she wasted in speaking with Arabella, was a moment in which he came closer to bleeding to death. She had never known love, had never imagined caring so deeply for another person. More than she did for herself or for any Order, for any sisterhood.

  “No.” She held her head high, never flinching. “No, I do not love him. You know as well as I that we are not meant for love.”

  “Then, it will matter not to you if I kill him now. Before you.” Arabella took a step away from his crumpled body, the hem of her cloak trailing through the blood-soaked grass beside his head. “It will matter now, as you do not love him.”

  “Arabella…” Gabriella warned. “Do not do this. We came for one thing and one thing only.”

  “He does not matter,” Arabella snapped. “And he has seen me. No, he must die.”

  There was nothing to be done but strike.

  Margaret thrust the heel of her hand forward, hoping to make contact with Arabella’s throat, but her sister had like as not expected a strike as she blocked the blow, taking Margaret’s wrist and using it to pull her closer before chopping at her neck with the side of her hand.

  Margaret pulled away but found herself
facing Gabriella, who slammed her into a tree hard enough that the breath left her lungs all at once. She struggled to take a breath, but her lungs did not wish to cooperate, and her wounded ribs already screamed with the effort.

  When Gabriella swung a fist toward her face, Margaret raised one foot and drove it into her midsection. She sprang away from the tree, her elbow making sharp contact with the face of the sister she thought was a friend. Blood spurted from Gabriella’s nose as she dropped to one knee.

  An explosion of pain made itself felt in her lower back as Arabella kicked her, but Margaret ignored it while spinning in place quickly enough to take hold of Arabella’s ankle and twist, sending her sprawling to the ground. The sound of her groaning as her face smashed against a gnarled tree root gave Margaret satisfaction she hadn’t known in quite some time.

  Arabella’s dagger still protruded from the tree in which it had lodged when Padraig ducked, and Margaret pulled it free with one hand while withdrawing her own dagger with the other.

  “Come on, then,” she hissed as Arabella got to her feet. “I shall give you a chance to defend yourself, which is better than you gave Padraig.”

  “Once again, you allow pity to rule you,” Arabella sneered, spitting out blood and two broken teeth. “If you hadn’t pitied the earl and his son, we would not have to do this. Just as another of our sisters rode to England to accomplish your discarded assignment, we’ve had to come after you when there was other work to be done.”

  Her assignment. The earl. He was dead. She knew this would be the outcome, did she not? She’d always known another of her sisters would not feel pity as she had.

  She only hoped the child was not present at the time of the murder.

  “Pity is a weakness,” Arabella taunted her, the two of them circling each other while Gabriella staggered to her feet, leaning against a spruce to stay upright. Margaret had stunned her terribly, it seemed, and she was right to have done so. If only Arabella would be so easy to defeat. “You were always the one who never showed mercy. No pity. That was what Mother loved in you. That was why she held you up above the rest of us.”