by Laurin Wittig - Guardians Of The Targe 02 - Highlander Avenged
“I suppose we shall,” Malcolm said, smiling back at her, pleased at her gentle teasing. He passed along a basket filled with horn spoons, and another with still-warm bannocks. Soon the crowd grew quiet, with only the occasional murmur of appreciative words and sounds for the meal.
After the stew had been passed around a second time and the bannocks were gone, Rowan stood up from her place near the head of the other table, her auburn hair glinting like copper in the light of the setting sun.
“I speak for all when I say this meal is a great gift to us. Our thanks to Peigi, Aileas, and Teasag”—she nodded at the three old ladies—“and their army of helpers”—she nodded at the weans who had settled on a plaid spread on the ground for their meal—“for bringing it to us.”
Fists banged on the tables in agreement, joining voices shouting the names of their benefactors.
Peigi rose from where she sat at the far end of the table from Rowan along with the other two and raised her hand for silence. Eventually she succeeded in gaining enough quiet to be heard.
“Each does what he or she can. This was our gift to the clan this day in the hopes of sending everyone off with a full belly this night. Safe journey to us all!” She raised her small wooden cup in a toast, then drained it like she was a warrior.
Cheers went up and Peigi blinked her eyes, her cheeks suddenly pink. Malcolm leaned in to Jeanette and whispered into her ear. “That one must have gotten into lots of trouble when she was a lass.”
Jeanette leaned into his shoulder, ever so slightly, and he took that as a good sign.
“Aye. The stories of those three are legend in the clan.” Her voice was wistful.
“And you thought to be a legend in the clan, too?”
She chuckled. “I suppose, but not in the same way.” The humor drained from her face, leaving her once more deeply thoughtful. “I thought I would be the next . . .”—she leaned away from him then and looked across the tables at her cousin Rowan—“. . . wife of the chief.”
He was certain she had been about to say something different but whatever it was, she kept it to herself. An unexpected stab of jealousy curled in his belly as he realized that would mean she, not Rowan, would have been Nicholas’s wife. Did the lass love him? He glanced at Jeanette but did not see a lovelorn lass there. Indeed, if anything, she looked sad, the lovely smile he had seen earlier now replaced by lowered brows and a tightness about her pale blue eyes.
“So Peigi was notorious in her younger days?” he asked, hoping to pull her back out of her dark thoughts. He might not be able to lift whatever burden she carried, but he could help her relax and forget her troubles for an hour or two.
Jeanette glanced over to where the three old women were holding court, clearly telling stories on each other in view of the laughter coming from those gathered around them and the mock indignation of one of them.
“The three of them, sisters, you ken, were notorious for being great beauties, drawing men from far and wide to woo them. They’ve each been married more than once.” She leaned close again and whispered, her breath heating more than his ear. “ ’Tis said they wore their husbands out—and not from nagging.” Now she raised her delicately arched pale brows at him and he could not help but smile back, pleased at her pink cheeks and playful comment.
“Now that is a legend worth striving for,” he said, glad to see a twinkle of mirth in her eyes.
Three boys approached, two of them hanging back behind their leader, wee Ian, all of five winters old.
“Malcolm,” Ian said, reaching up and pulling on Malcolm’s right arm, his small hands gripping just above the elbow, “will you show us how to fight with the ax some more?”
Malcolm couldn’t stop the wince that came even with the lad’s easy grip. He’d worked hard this day, even as his arm ached and burned.
“Not now, Ian,” Jeanette said before Malcolm could respond. “We’ve still a lot of work to do before we can leave the castle tonight, but Malcolm will come to the caves with us.”
“Aye, and I’ll need strong lads like you and your friends to help me keep watch over the women and bairns,” Malcolm said, looking Ian in the eye. “You lads will have to be trained. Do you think you can do that?”
All three little boys nodded at him, their heads bobbing with enthusiasm.
“Go find your mums now,” Jeanette said. “You’ll be leaving with them, soon. We’ll see you at the caves on the morrow.”
Jeanette and Malcolm watched the lads scamper away.
“That was very nice of you,” she said. “You have managed to turn leaving their homes into an adventure and a challenge.”
“I only wish I could do the same for you,” he said, looking over at her.
She looked around at the people gathered in the bailey. Some of the women were already up and clearing the table. Lasses were at basins of hot water, washing out the bowls and pots, while others dried them and one of Peigi’s sisters directed the packing of the dinnerware that they were to take with them.
“I have only ever lived here, in this castle,” Jeanette said quietly. “I find it hard to imagine that I will not wake up here in the morn, that I may never wake up here again.”
Malcolm leaned his shoulder against hers. “Do not give up, angel. The battle is not yet joined and from the looks of this clan, you all are determined to return to this glen and this castle. In my experience, those defending their homes are much more dangerous in a battle than those hired to fight.”
He looked about at the people of Dunlairig, most of whom he hadn’t properly met yet, and saw a spirit and strength that spoke of a pride and love for their home, but he also saw only a few warriors and wondered if they would be enough to protect this clan, and not just this night as they left the castle behind them.
He wondered if he would make any difference in their battle.
AS SOON AS it was full dark the first group left the castle through the bolt-hole. Several warriors went with them to keep them safe as they traveled, just in case there were English soldiers about. It would take each group several hours to get to the caves, for they would be walking in the dark over sometimes difficult terrain. Peigi and her sisters went with the first group so they could help organize everyone as they arrived. Jeanette would go with the last group. Forced to sit quietly lest the castle was being watched, she found herself envying those who had already left, not because they were the first to go, but because they did not have to wait for the inevitable with only the melancholy thoughts of all she had lost and all she was leaving behind to occupy her.
Malcolm sat nearby, flexing his hand and fisting it as best he could, but even in the dark she could see it pained him.
There was something she could do besides just sit and wait through most of the long night. She pushed up from where she sat on the cold ground and crossed over to him.
“Come with me,” Jeanette said. “I need to tend your arm while the torches still burn enough to see by.”
She led him to where a torch was set into a sconce on the curtain wall near the tower. “Roll up your sleeve,” she said, sorry that she would not get to see all that tawny skin the man had.
When he did, she unwound the binding and handed it to him, and gently pulled away the moss padding to reveal what was still an angry gash on his arm, but was already better than it had been this morning. The red streaks that had begun to reach out from it were gone. She laid the back of her hand next to it, feeling the fever that was still there.
“This must hurt a lot,” she said.
“ ’Tis nothing I cannot bear, lass. ’Tis far better than when ’twas new.”
She nodded, well believing that, for this was a wound that had clearly been very deep. “You are lucky the bone was not broken by this blow.”
“Aye.” His voice was tight and when she glanced up to see if she was causing that tightness by h
urting him, she saw not pain, but anger in his normally cheerful eyes.
“How did this happen?” she asked, her curiosity suddenly flaring as she dug out the salve Morven had given her to keep wounds from festering. She was hoping it might also aid in treating a fester such as this man had.
“I had a moment’s distraction during the battle of Dalrigh and one of the English bastards got lucky.”
“Your kinsmen must have been distracted, too.” She’d seen her father and Uilliam train the warriors of her clan often enough to know they seldom fought alone if they could help it. As the son of their chief, Malcolm would have the warriors who would become his advisors and his champion when he himself became chief, fighting with him no doubt, as Uilliam had always fought beside her father.
Malcolm grunted as he handed her the binding and, without prompting, held the moss in place. Jeanette whispered the healing chant she had used at the wellspring as she once more wrapped the strip of linen around his arm to hold the moss in place. When she had tied off the wrap, she laid her hand gently over the covered wound and once more whispered the chant.
“Why were you not taken home?” she asked. “Surely they were not so distracted—”
Malcolm’s arm went tight beneath her hands and when she looked up, he was staring out toward the inky loch, his mouth set in a hard line as if she’d said something that angered him. She thought back, and realized that if his kinsmen had not taken him home after he was injured, it was likely they had not lived. Perhaps it was grief she saw in him, not anger.
“Oh, Malcolm.” She rolled his sleeve down for him so she could stand close to him for a little longer. “I am sorry,” she said, genuinely ashamed that she might have opened another wound in the man, for the loss of his close kinsmen could not be easy to bear. “My curiosity sometimes outruns my sense.”
“Nay, angel, ’tis only that the battle was very nearly a rout of our army and though I do not remember it, I got myself off the field and into a thicket. Someone bound my arm—I do not ken who, perhaps it was even me—but it kept me from bleeding to death. I do not know if my kin survived or not, but I suspect they did.” He did not say why he thought that and she did not want to press him to reveal things he did not wish to reveal.
He touched her hand, holding it gently against his arm for a moment. “My arm feels better already.”
He took a deep breath and she could feel him relax as he slowly backed her out of the bright circle of torchlight and into the deep shadows where the tower and the curtain wall met. He ran the back of his fingers over her cheek, then leaned in and laid a gentle, chaste kiss where his fingers had been.
“I thank you,” he said.
The touch of his kiss on her cheek lit a yearning deep within her and for once Jeanette did not think. She acted, capturing his face in her own palm before he could move away. She turned to meet his lips with her own. Still, he was tentative, careful, as if he thought she might break if he dared more. And she wanted more.
She took his face in both hands and whispered against his lips, “I will not break if you kiss me.” Truly she did not understand her own actions, but in this moment she did not care. Later she could figure out what had driven her to such boldness, for now, she just wanted him to kiss her.
And he did.
He wrapped his strong arm around her waist, pulling her close. He tilted his head slightly, and the kiss went from careful to . . . more. So much more.
Heat poured into her, starting where her lips met his, then cascading through every part of her, over her skin, and deep inside where the yearning grew into wanting. A rushing, tingling sensation flowed from her feet to where he nibbled at the corner of her mouth, and then laid a trail of kisses to the hollow behind her ear. Wanting grew into needing. He pulled her closer, or maybe she pulled him closer. Their lips met again, hungry, so hungry, and suddenly his tongue slipped inside, twining with hers in a dance she’d never danced before. Her mind was overwhelmed with sensation—with glorious, powerful . . . desire. Her body hummed, as if she vibrated from the inside out. Malcolm pulled her closer still, and though she’d never been with a man, she knew enough to recognize that his desire was just as powerful as her own.
And then he stopped, his forehead leaning against hers. Her body still melded to his. But his lips were too far away. She stopped the whimper that wanted voice just before it slipped out of her.
“Jeanette, angel, we must stop,” he said, but now there was a different sort of strain there. “We must stop,” he said again, as if he spoke the words as much for himself as for her. With a sigh, he released her, steadying her with a hand on her hip until she proved stable on her feet. When he dropped his hand at last, the need within her writhed.
Every nerve in her body was alive and very nearly painfully so, and yet she did not mind. She was sure she would regret her impulsive actions in the morning when she had to face him in the light of day, but in this moment she could not. In the past few hours he had made her remember that there was more to life than fear and grief, with his easy grin, and gently teasing words. And just this once, he’d made her stop thinking, and taught her how to feel.
“I will not apologize for kissing you,” she said.
“I would be offended if you did.” Laughter lit his eyes in spite of the deep shadow in which they stood. “I will not beg your pardon for kissing you, either. Indeed, I intend to do so again, if you would not mind.” He reached for her hand and pulled her just close enough to place one more chaste kiss on her cheek. “I do not think you will mind,” he teased.
“I do not think so, either.” She was suddenly shy with this golden man who seemed bent on making her smile.
He looked out over the bailey and they both realized that the next group was readying to leave the castle.
“Do you think we were seen?” she asked, suddenly aware that they were not in as private a place as it had seemed to be.
“I am sure we were not. Someone would have been over here long before now if we were.”
“Uilliam, for certain. He is my father’s eyes and ears, even when Da is not here.”
The truth of that hit her. If her father were here and had seen them, he would have stopped them, might even have required Malcolm to wed her, though his leniency with Scotia’s trysting made that unlikely. But, still, for the first time, she realized that no longer would the man she wed be required to renounce his own clan and become the Guardian’s Protector. No longer would the man she wed be required to become the chief of the MacAlpins.
Jeanette looked out over the broken curtain wall toward the dark loch that reflected the starlight. For the first time, she considered that her future might not be here in Dunlairig after all.
CHAPTER FIVE
JEANETTE ALTERNATED BETWEEN sitting and dozing, and pacing the bailey, as she waited her turn to set out from the castle. The first group should have arrived at the caves by now, and three more groups had followed since, each taking a different route to their sanctuary. Only the final group was left and it was not long before they, too, would abandon their home. She had delayed one last task as long as she could but the time was short and she could put it off no longer.
Malcolm looked her way from his perch on one of the stones that were still strewn through the bailey from the crumbled wall. She smiled at him, remembering the joy and abandon she had felt in his arms when they kissed, and tried to pull those feelings around her as if they could shield her from what she must do now.
She took up a lantern that burned nearby and made her way to the tower. She trudged up the stair, passing the landing that would lead her to Rowan and Nicholas’s chamber. Was it really just this morning that she and Rowan had argued there? It seemed much longer. She continued to the top floor, where she shared a chamber with her sister. But that was not her destination.
Jeanette turned to her right and stood before the closed door o
f her mother’s solar, a sunny room with windows that looked east and west. A room that had held such happy memories until it had been turned into a bedchamber when her mother took ill last fall. A room that now held only the memory of her mother’s murder at the hands of a spy for the English king.
She hadn’t set foot in it, or even looked into it, since her mother’s body was taken for burial. She did not wish to go in now.
But she must. The scrolls that held the chronicles of the Guardians of the Targe, the collected lore of a long line of women, all Guardians in their own time, could not be left behind. Some were so old, the chronicles were pictures only. And there were many gaps in the lore. She did not know if there were missing scrolls, or if there was simply no one from those periods who knew how to write. Her mother’s own tenure as Guardian would have gone unrecorded if Jeanette had not begged her father to find a tutor to teach her reading and writing.
And the end of her mother’s years as Guardian had yet to be added. Neither had the beginnings of the newest Guardian, Rowan.
Shame slithered in Jeanette’s belly. Grief stole her breath. But she could not make herself reach out and lift the latch.
“Angel?”
Jeanette jumped. Malcolm stood next to her, looking down upon her with concern and questions in his hazel eyes. He reached out and ran a hand down her upper arm, a soothing motion like that of a mum quieting a bairn.
“We are ready to leave as soon as you are,” he said, his voice as gentle as his touch.
“I have to get something.”
“From within this chamber?”
“Aye.” But still she did not reach for the latch.
“What is this chamber?” he asked.
She swallowed, started to answer, and then had to swallow again, her throat suddenly clogged with tears she would not shed. She gripped her hands together, hoping he did not notice their trembling. He did not press and at last she thought she could speak.