by Aileen Adams
“Yes, I spoke to her—”
Jake turned toward her, eyes wide with surprise. “Did she tell you why she wanted to learn how to use weapons?”
It was obvious that Sarah did not want to say.
“Well?”
Sarah lifted her chin. “She did not. But I do have to say that I don't appreciate you sneaking around behind my back—”
“Now that's not fair, Sarah. I felt that if anyone was going to teach her the proper use of weapons, it should be me. And if I was the one teaching her, I know that she'd be safe at the same time.”
Sarah's shoulders drooped. “I know that you’re just doing what you can to look after her. I am appalled at the thought of her sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night, venturing through the woods on her own, alone and without any weapons. But why is she so bent on this? Did she tell you why she feels this desire to learn how to fight? What is she planning?”
Jake didn't answer, but he felt it wouldn't hurt to divulge a few facts. “Actually, she's quite good with archery, and at defending herself with a dirk. I’ve even shown her how she might defend herself against an attacker without any weapons at all.”
“Indeed?” she asked, and eyebrow raised, a foot tapping impatiently against the floor.
“Indeed.” He scowled at her. “Would you rather I allow her to continue sneaking off by herself?”
“And that's just it!” Sarah exclaimed. “Why is she doing this? What is she so afraid of?” She turned to Phillip, confused. “Have you known about any of this?”
“Not until Maccay said something.” He turned to his brother. “How long has this been going on?”
“I’d only been teaching her for a couple of weeks before we went out on patrol. Before that, she was meeting one of the village lads in the meadow. I have no idea how long it was going on.”
Sarah and Phillip exchanged a glance.
He could tell that Sarah was worried. “I'm not going to let anything happen to her,” he tried to assure her. “But I don't find anything terribly wrong with her wanting to learn—”
“But why?” Sarah demanded.
Her gaze riveted to his.
He offered a lame shrug and then turned to Phillip. “I'm hungry. And after I eat, I want nothing more than to collapse into my bed. We can talk more about this in the morning—”
“You know why, don't you?”
He glanced at Sarah. “I'm not sure I know what you're asking.”
“I think I know you well enough by now, Jake, to know that you wouldn't engage in such activities with my sister without a good reason. And I know very well that her desire to learn how to use weapons would not have been enough to satisfy you. You would have demanded that she tell you why. You know. What did she tell you?”
Jake didn’t answer but glanced at his brother. “I'm not sure it's my place to say. Why don’t you ask her yourself?”
“I did, and she didn't tell me.” Her expression grew dark. She placed her hands on her hips and took a step toward him, her expression brooking no refusal. “Jake Duncan, you tell me right now what my sister is up to. Please.”
He didn't want to say, but maybe it was time for the truth to come out. “She wants to join the men fighting under the King of Scots and fight the Norsemen to avenge your father's death.”
Silence.
Jake counted to five before a disbelieving grunt erupted from Sarah's throat.
“She what?”
“Oh, I have no intention of allowing her to go traipsing off to war, you know that. I thought maybe if I indulged her whim to learn how to use weapons, it would distract her, satisfy her immediate needs to feel more self-confident, more capable of taking care of herself—”
“To fight the Norsemen?” She glanced at her husband, face pale, eyes wide with dismay. “Now wherever did she get that idea?” She looked at Jake, doubtful.
“Well, I didn't give her the idea,” he defended himself.
“She can't!”
“Like I said, Sarah, I have no intention of allowing her to go off and—” he growled with frustration. “Look, let's talk about this in the morning. We can all talked to Heather then and—”
Sarah lifted her hand to interrupt Jake and turned toward her husband. “Phillip, Heather and I had a bit of a disagreement this afternoon when I found out that she was sneaking off to train with weapons. But she hasn’t come back. Not for supper… and it's growing darker out.”
Jake immediately forgot the pain in his leg, his weariness, and his hunger. “You mean she's been gone for several hours? No word to anyone where she was going?”
Sarah shook her head, plainly worried now, hands tightly clenched together in front of her.
“I’ll go check the meadow. That's her favorite spot.” He turned to leave the room, but before he passed through the threshold glanced back at a now pale Sarah. “Don't worry, I’ll find her.”
But he didn’t.
Though he looked most of the night, he didn’t find her.
She was hiding, likely sulking, in a shelter she had made for herself nearby.
The pain in his leg had nearly become unbearable. With a growl, he returned to the manor.
She would sneak back in when she was good and ready. If not, he’d go out at first light looking for her again.
And when he found her, he would give her the tongue lashing she deserved.
11
Heather was lost. She wasn't sure how it had happened. Yes, she was. She had been distracted, true, but to the point where she had no idea where she was? She had fallen asleep under the tree.
Just before dawn, still angry and feeling betrayed, she had crept from beneath the boughs and simply began to walk. Occasionally running, enjoying the feel of the early morning breeze in her hair. That and to keep warm.
The day had come, the sun rising, warming the land and causing wafts of mist to rise slowly from the ground. It was wild out here. Beautiful.
She felt free, unencumbered by the knowledge that she should be in the manor now, perhaps helping Agnes prepare breakfast. But this felt better. Stubbornly, she continued on, exploring. Followed a deer for a while, then paused to watch the antics of several rabbits near the base of a tree.
The sun rose higher, but she paid it no mind until probably near the noon hour, when she suddenly paused. No longer angry and hurt, but thirsty and hungry. The sky had grown partly cloudy, the air cooler.
At that moment, she realized she didn’t know where she was.
Sarah would be worried. Had she already ventured into Heather’s room to give her a scolding only to find that she had not returned home the previous night, snuggled under her bedcovers?
How far she had traveled? How could she have allowed this to happen?
She had sat under the tree for quite some time, feeling sorry for herself, trying to struggle her way through her anger with Sarah and Jake's betrayal.
Then she just left.
She realized that Sarah, and begrudgingly Jake, were only concerned for her safety, but that wasn't the only issue she struggled with. It was her sister’s perception.
Sarah didn't know what it was like to be uncertain. If she did, she certainly never shown it. Did she know what it was like to be afraid? Constantly afraid?
Maybe she was wrong. Maybe Sarah didn't know the depth of her feelings. Maybe she couldn’t understand because she’d never experienced them. Even if she did, she was superb in hiding it.
Her conversation with her sister earlier this afternoon had caused her to wonder about so many things.
Some that deeply concerned her, while other thoughts were illuminating and filled her with a deep sense of pride.
The first was that she realized she had truly grown emotionally since they had arrived in the Highlands. That growth had been encouraged by her sense of freedom. No longer having to worry every second about doing something wrong, or attracting her stepfather's unwanted attention or anger.
In the Duncan househol
d, peace reigned. She was pretty much left to her own devices. Everyone was pleasant. No one had any expectations of her. At first that had troubled her. She wasn't used to that. Back home in Kirkcaldy, she and Sarah had constantly been busy.
Because Sarah spent so much of her day gathering herbs, making her concoctions, and visiting with sick or injured villagers, it had been left to Heather to do much of the work around their home. While Sarah did most of the cooking, Heather did just about everything else.
She wasn't used to being idle. But with that idleness came self-reflection and a deeper understanding of who she was and the person she wanted to become. In her bedchamber yesterday, she had poured her heart out to her sister, divulged her innermost desires.
To be self-sufficient. The desire to rely on herself and not lean on her sister, her brother-in-law, or any of the Duncans for anything.
It wasn't as if she intended to strike out on her own. That would just be foolish. But she was no longer satisfied with being the person she had been in Kirkcaldy. Never again did she want to be that mouse, the one the cowered in fear at a raised voice or hand.
And so she had become fascinated with weapons. Not because she wanted to wage war or pick fights. No. To defend herself. To find some purpose for her life. It wasn't just about the weapons. It was about improving herself as a person. Learning how to stand up for herself and feel empowered. To gain the confidence that she knew she needed. The confidence that Sarah had without even realizing it.
Of course, she realized that Sarah had known fear in her life. She must have been terrified when she'd been kidnapped. Even so, Heather could never imagine her sister cowering, crying, pleading for her life. If she knew Sarah, she had fought with her captors, made things as difficult for them as she could. Perhaps even argued with them.
A person would glean no indication of Sarah’s past if they met her today. Always calm, resolute, going through her days with purpose.
Purpose.
Heather envied that in her sister. What was her own purpose? She had gone over this over and over again in her mind. She didn't know what she wanted to do, or who she wanted to be. She had no special skills.
Who was Heather MacDonald? Would she always be identified as Sarah’s younger sister or the laird’s sister-in-law?
As the noon hour waned toward mid-afternoon, it had grown cooler. She had wandered too far; her attention captured watching the antics of squirrels in the trees, the flight of birds, an occasional deer.
Not long ago she had paused to watch as a beautiful doe meandered her way through the trees and only belatedly noticed her standing there. The deer had stopped, so close that Heather could have reached out and touched her with her hand. They had stared at one another for an endless moment.
Heather smiled, her heart warmed by the lack of fear in the doe’s large hazel eyes. Finally, the doe had blinked and casually moved past Heather to disappear into the forest.
The brief interaction had warmed Heather’s heart. Such trust. The doe had instinctively sensed that Heather would not hurt her. A cool breeze had tugged at the hem of her kirtle, reminding her that the afternoon waned.
She had not dressed for a long excursion, wearing only her skirt and kirtle and slipper shoes. She had not grabbed her wrap nor a cloak before she rushed outside in her highly emotional state. All she had thought about was getting away before she began to cry, her emotions overflowing.
She couldn't understand why she was so temperamental lately. She seemed to continually hover on the verge of tears, sensing that in her desperation to find something that she was good at, she was setting herself up for disappointment.
While she had improved with her weaponry skills, she knew, deep down, that she wasn't a warrior. She didn’t want to be, not really. She would never venture off and fight with men.
Jake had made her realize that she wouldn't be able to create a disguise that would hold her in good stead for months at a time.
It hadn't taken Jake long to realize that she was no village lad. She wasn't quite sure what she had done to give herself away, but if Jake had discovered her secret in such a short time, chances were that others would, too.
Those who discovered such subterfuge were not likely to be as understanding nor compassionate as Jake. No, as a woman, she would be considered fair game, ripe for the picking.
It would only be a matter of time before she found herself in an untenable situation.
And so it was that she realized that she had no idea where she was. The air had cooled considerably. The hoot of an owl in the distance echoing over the landscape presaged the advent of dusk.
She didn't recognize her surroundings; couldn't identify any landmarks.
The hills rose up around her, ominous and unforgiving stone edifices, windblown trees, branches curved after years of taking the brunt of prevalent winds from the south.
She hadn't realized that she had been climbing. Turning around, she was able to look out over the terrain and realized she could see into a valley stretching out below.
How far had she wandered from Duncan Manor?
She searched the landscape carefully but saw no sign of it, nor of the village nearby. She realized she faced south when she should be looking east, based on the slow descent of the sun to the west.
She couldn't see very far in that direction; the trees grew too thickly here. Perhaps if she found some high ground, she might be able to determine her orientation and make her way back to the manor house, although it was doubtful now that she would be able to reach it before full darkness.
She scolded herself for her foolishness, for allowing her mind to wander.
This was just the thing that Jake had warned her about. Not paying attention to her surroundings. Getting lost was a fine way to show Sarah that she could take care of herself. Running off in a fit of temper, she had succeeded at nothing but allowing herself to become lost.
She looked up at the darkening sky. No reading the sky tonight. It would be a new moon. Not much help in such rugged terrain.
Above her, spires of rock rose like fingers reaching to the sky. The evening chill created dampness on the slopes of those rocks, making them slippery and treacherous.
She followed no footpath, but wound her way upward. The route she picked out was gravelly in some places, lush grass in others, and yet, as she tried to climb higher, the rocks grew larger, the stones sharper. She bit back a startled cry of pain as she stepped on a rock and cried out, reaching for her injured foot.
She sat down, lifted her skirt, and spied the tear in her slipper shoe. She pulled the shoe off and frowned, cursing her foolishness as she eyed the now bleeding cut on the ball of her foot.
She sighed, looked around, and found a high point she could manage, but she would have to hurry if she was going to make out any landmarks to the west in the growing darkness.
She rose to her feet and gingerly placed her weight on her injured foot. It smarted, but it was nothing she couldn't tolerate. As soon as she got back to the manor, she would soak it.
A breeze picked up, winding its way through the branches of the trees through which she made her way, the slope rising gently yet steadily upward. Another hundred feet or so she might find a point where she could see over the trees to the west. But the slopes grew steeper, the terrain rockier, more rugged. Soon, she found herself reaching for tree branches and shrubs to help her make her way upslope. She tried to hurry, to push herself as fast as she could while at the same time maintain her footing.
Halfway up the slope, her heart pounding, her breath gushing from her chest in pants, she began to feel needles of fear rippling along her spine. Even if she managed to reach the top of the slope before darkness fell, she knew that she might not be able to locate the manor. Traveling at night was dangerous. It was one thing to sneak away from the manor house to the meadow late at night. She knew that way by heart, even in full darkness with no moonlight showing her the way.
She realized she had ventured muc
h further from the manor than she would have imagined.
Miles and miles. She hadn't been paying attention.
Curse it all!
She heard a noise up ahead, something sharp. Something solid striking rock.
She froze and peered into the growing darkness. A gush of air escaped her throat, and she sighed with relief when she realized it was nothing more than a red deer stag making its way down a slope nearby, more than likely to find water for the night. Then, as if on cue, a red kite soared overhead, looking for rabbits or perhaps a vole for supper.
At that moment, she realized how hungry she was. Her stomach rumbled. She paused to catch her breath, watching the kite soaring on the breeze, wings spread wide, floating up and down, its head darting back and forth looking for likely prey.
When she realized dusk was almost upon her, she groaned.
Sarah would be worried. She would have sent someone out to look for her. She wished that she hadn't left the security of the tree under which she could hover for what seemed like hours, but it was too late to worry about that now.
She had to get to the top of the slope, had to at least try to determine her position. She walked with care. If she were lucky, if she spied the manor or the village in the distance, she might, just possibly, be able to make her way back tonight.
“Don't be foolish,” she muttered to herself.
She could just hear Jake gently berating her not only for getting lost, but thinking that she could make her way, in full darkness, in slipper shoes, and without any accurate sense of direction, back to the manor house without trouble.
On second thought, he might even laugh at her foolishness.
No, Jake wouldn't laugh at her. He might scowl, shake his head, and even tsk at her, but he wouldn't laugh at her.
Would he?
She realized she was doing it again, the moment she reached the top of the slope.
Not paying attention to her surroundings, wrapped in her own thoughts. Only she didn’t realize until too late that the top of the slope offered nothing more than a precariously small bit of ground that topped the spine of a steep ridge and continued to wind its way upward. Her momentum to reach the top had indeed propelled her up, but also continued to carry her forward.