by Laurin Wittig - Guardians Of The Targe 02 - Highlander Avenged
As everyone waited their turn at the venison, and then settled down around the fire for their meal with the weans, she knew this was her time, finally, to look to the chronicle scrolls. She hurried to the main cave, grabbed a candle, and lit it from the fire that was kept burning just at the mouth of the sheltering rock, then she made her way to the very back of the cave where she had put the scrolls for safekeeping, protected from the damp by their hardened leather tubes. She would find out if what she had experienced with the stag was some sort of gift that ran in the Guardians, for if she was showing signs of a true gift, at least she would have that connection to her mother, and the Guardians that came before her. At least she would have that when Malcolm returned to his own clan and all else had been taken from her.
MALCOLM RETURNED TO the cookfire with his now empty trencher and refilled it, but not for himself. Jeanette had not joined the clan for the meal. He had hoped she would come and sit beside him, close enough that their hips might touch, and he might be able to lean toward her, whisper in her ear, and feel the heat of her against him. He had thought to tease a laugh from her again, though not in the way he had in the forest overlooking the heather meadow.
His loins reacted to that memory and he had to stop and calm himself. ’Twas a difficult thing to do when the lass had cast him such a look of wanting that he had contemplated dragging her back into that tiny cave she’d been cleaning all afternoon, so he could have her then and there.
He made his way with his laden trencher from the cookfire to the small cave, but it was empty. He looked about, in case he’d missed her, though he doubted he would not have noticed Jeanette’s pale hair. She was not amongst the gathering. Instinct had him moving slowly, so as to draw no attention, toward the large cave where their stores were kept and where Jeanette slept. He stopped just inside the gloom, letting his eyes adjust even though ’twas twilight outside. The faint flicker of candlelight shone from the depths of the cavern. He picked his way carefully past the belongings and stores that were amazingly organized and found Jeanette sitting cross-legged on the floor, at least a dozen large scrolls scattered about her. The candle was stuck in a blob of its own melted wax on a large rock she had pulled close enough to illuminate the scroll she was studying.
“Ahem.” Malcolm didn’t want to startle her.
She glanced up at him, smiled, and motioned for him to sit down. He set the trencher down long enough to move a few of the scrolls, so he could sit close to her, but also so he could look at the scroll that held her attention.
“I brought you food,” he said.
“My thanks,” she said, not looking up from the scroll and not reaching for the trencher he held up for her to take.
“You need to eat, angel. I have not seen you have more than a morsel since we returned.”
She nodded, as if agreeing with him, but she didn’t take her eyes from the scroll as she unwound it more, revealing a stunning illustration of fanciful beasts, surrounded by a border of intricate knots.
“I knew it,” she said, but he was sure she spoke to herself, not him.
His vanity was momentarily bruised by her lack of attention to him, but then he realized really, it wasn’t. She was absorbed in whatever she was reading, her brows drawn down over her clear blue eyes, the left side of her lower lip caught between her teeth. She almost glowed with whatever she was discovering.
Rather than pressing her, he let her focus on the scroll as he awkwardly cut up the meat into bite-sized pieces with his eating knife. He lifted one piece to her mouth and she opened for him, almost as if she didn’t realize what she was doing. Slowly she chewed and when she swallowed, he fed her another morsel. The third time he offered her the juicy meat, she looked at him, locking her gaze with his as she opened her mouth, then caught his hand with hers and closed her lips around his fingers, capturing the juice upon her tongue.
Jeanette’s breath was unsteady, her lids heavy, and the sigh she gave as he pulled his fingers from her mouth made him swallow hard. Twice.
“You are killing me, angel,” he said, knowing his voice revealed exactly how hard he was controlling himself right now. He fed her again and this time, when she closed her eyes and leaned her shoulder against his, he knew he was lost. He would do anything for this woman.
She took the trencher from him then, tugging it from his grasp, and used her own fingers to finish the food.
“Killing is not what I want,” she said, but she did not look at him when she said it.
It didn’t matter. She wanted him as much as he wanted her and that was enough for the moment.
“What are you reading?” he asked, knowing they needed to think of something besides each other, or risk being found in a very compromising position when the others returned to the cave.
She looked about her. “The chronicles of the Guardians. It is not a complete history of the Guardians, for most surely could not read or write.” She lightly touched several scrolls. “These are the oldest.”
He added the knowledge of the chronicles to the growing information about the Guardian and the Targe he had collected since he had first met Jeanette, which seemed like months ago but was really only a little over a sennight.
“What are you looking for?” he asked.
She shook her head slowly. “I do not ken exactly.” She let her hand trace a beautiful but simple drawing of a stag, her hand not touching the scroll, but hovering just over the lines. “You remember the roe deer at the abandoned cottage?”
“Aye.”
“I thought perhaps that might be the manifestation of some gift that runs in the Guardian line.”
He took her hand where it had stilled over the drawing and kissed her knuckles. “From what I have been told and have seen myself, there is no doubt that you are of your mother’s line.”
“I ken that,” she said quietly. “I just thought . . . Perhaps . . .”
“Perhaps you were coming into a Guardian gift now?”
She nodded. “ ’Tis silly. I ken it well. Rowan is Guardian and my only job is to see her trained in the ways of the Guardians, though she does not allow me to do that. I can accept her as Guardian. I have. She did not want it, but she has taken on the responsibilities, chosen her Protector—”
“Her what?” he asked, thinking that sounded like a good role for a husband.
“Her Protector. Nicholas. The Guardian chooses her Protector and he becomes both her husband and the chief of the clan.”
“Is that all he gets to do?” He was grinning at her, trying to lighten the mood a little, and he was rewarded for his efforts with a smile.
“He gets to father the next Guardian . . .” And her smile was gone, replaced by a faraway look that he was coming to recognize as Jeanette thinking hard about something.
“Angel?” he prompted her.
“I was just thinking that bearing the next Guardian was another thing that should have fallen to me.” She sighed. “ ’Tis the women of MacAlpin who have always been the Guardian for as long as the chronicle has been kept, until now. I suppose the next Guardian will be of the MacGregor line and I will be only the one to pen the tale.” She laid her hand on what looked to be the newest of the scrolls.
Malcolm didn’t know what to say so he rubbed his thumb over her knuckles where their clasped hands rested on his knee.
“Did you find nothing about . . . hearing animals?”
She smiled again and it was as if the sun shone down upon the two of them, wrapping them in light and warmth.
“There is some talk of animal guides, but it seems to be a part of other, stronger gifts, which I have shown no sign of.”
“Yet,” he said.
“I am well past the time my gift, if I were to have one, should have manifested. Scotia, too.”
“But didn’t Rowan just come into her gift?”
“Aye, but it seem
s she had it when she was a girl and denied it so long, it ceased to function—until it was needed again.”
She leaned against him, once more laying her head upon his shoulder. “I feel so lost, Malcolm. I know not what I am to do with my life anymore. And now Rowan will not let me help her learn the ways of the Guardians just when we need her powers the most.”
Malcolm shifted enough to put his arm around her and pull her closer to him, encircling her with his other arm as she put hers around him.
“I have not known you long,” Jeanette said, “but I feel . . .”
“I feel the same way,” he said, knowing he could not put into words the bond that was building between them anymore than she seemed able. He kissed the top of her head and they sat surrounded by the history of her line in the flickering candlelight until they heard the sounds of fussy bairns being brought into the cave, the first wave of clanfolk settling in for the night.
Jeanette pulled out of his embrace and laid a hand on his cheek. “Thank you for . . .”—even in the faint light he could see her cheeks flush—“for holding me,” she finished.
He laid his hand on her cheek, mirroring her soft touch that shot straight through him. “I would do anything for you, angel. Anything.”
She rewarded him with another smile, not the bright smile he most wished to see, nor the laughter she had gifted him with in the rainy wood, but it was better than the lost look in her eyes that had torn at him.
“The women and weans are well settled here, are they not?” he asked.
“There is still work to be done clearing out some of the smaller caves so we can spread out a bit, but aye, mostly the work of moving in is done. Why?”
“Tomorrow I need to do a bit more exploring of the glen. I have yet to make it much south of here. Would you come with me? You could say you need to search for herbs for your simples and I could protect you while I do my task, too. Would it raise too many eyebrows?”
“Probably, but I do not care.” She gathered up the scrolls and carefully slid them into the hard leather tubes he had seen before. “Peigi will be thrilled if we slip away together.”
“That she will,” he agreed. “So will I.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE NEXT MORNING, as soon as everyone had broken their fasts and work had been handed out, Jeanette and Malcolm quietly took their leave from the camp with Peigi’s full approval, as expected.
Now Jeanette followed Malcolm along a deer trail that tracked along the side of the ben at nearly the same level the main cave was on. Every now and then she’d get a glimpse of the glen below them, spreading out roughly north to south. The pale green of spring’s new leaves was maturing, blanketing the entire valley with the deeper green of summer. A hawk wheeled overhead, soaring higher and higher, screeching now and then, until it was little more than a speck in clear sky.
Jeanette let the quiet of the wood sink into her, bringing a calmness to her mind even while her body hummed with expectation. To be alone with Malcolm, even just walking through the wood in silence, was deliciously intimate. She watched him move ahead of her, sureness in every move the man made. He was graceful, really, though she knew that to be an odd way to describe a man. There was no wasted effort on his part, unlike some men who crashed about. She was certain she could be content just watching him for the whole day, and yet her curiosity was getting the better of her.
“Where are we bound?” she asked.
He glanced back at her and grinned, as he so often did. “This trail leads to a narrow pass over the mountain, according to Scotia. She said I must find it, that it would be a good escape route if the clan needed one. I thought, depending on your ankle, we would investigate it. Peigi packed us some food for our midday meal so there’s no need to rush.”
“She told me we were not to return until dinnertime,” Jeanette said.
“Aye, she said the same to me. Do you need to rest, angel?”
“Nay. My ankle is much better and I ken well that it will tighten up if I stop moving for very long. There is something renewing about walking quietly in the wood with no one hunting us, no one chasing us.” She smiled at him, amazed that in spite of all the trouble surrounding her clan, she felt almost carefree today. “I think I needed to get away from everything for a while. I think I just needed to set aside my cares for a few hours and remember what it is we are fighting for.”
“Aye,” he said, looking around them at the massive pines and pale birches that surrounded them. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “It smells so good away from the fires and privies.”
She laughed and stepped close enough so that he opened his arms to her. She wrapped her arms around his waist and nuzzled her nose into the crook of his neck. “You smell good, too,” she said.
“You are tickling me, angel,” he said as he managed to capture her lips with his.
Her intention, to simply touch him, changed the instant his lips touched hers. It was as if her skin buzzed and burned all at once. She pressed close to him, moaning when he tightened his arms about her, almost crushing her breasts against the muscled planes of his chest.
How long they stood there, lost in the drugging sensation of the kiss, she didn’t know, but they were interrupted by a snort not far away.
A deer stood in the path sideways to them. His rust-colored hide was glossy and he had a small rack of antlers spiking up from his head, one bent at an odd angle. He turned his head in her direction and looked her in the eye, snorted again, and melted into the wood, heading up the ben.
Jeanette and Malcolm stared after him.
“Was that the same deer we saw before?” Malcolm asked. “Did it warn you again?”
She blinked, trying to merge the real deer she had seen twice now, and the deer that had come to her in her dream, into one coherent idea. The same odd barking they had heard at the ruined cottage came from above them, certainly the same deer they had just seen.
“Jeanette? Do we need to take cover?” Malcolm had released her and was scanning the path ahead of and behind them.
She blinked again, still unable to shake the reality from the echo of the dream.
“ ’Tis the same deer, but I do not think it is a warning this time. He wants us to follow him. I have dreamed this,” she said, now looking at Malcolm. “I know where he is taking us.”
Without so much as another question Malcolm motioned for her to lead the way.
Unlike her dream, at each turning and branching of the deer trail, Jeanette would glimpse the stag in the distance, as if he waited for her. As soon as she spied him, he’d be off again, disappearing into the forest until another decision about direction was needed.
All the while, Malcolm let her take the lead and set the pace as they followed the stag. The man was remarkably accepting of the things he had encountered since they met at the wellspring. He had accepted that this stag had warned her about the English scouts. And now he had not hesitated to follow her and the stag into the forest. He had accepted that the Highland Targe was not just a story, and that Rowan was the Guardian with something other than the usual abilities of lasses. He had not chided Jeanette for being able to read, nor for looking for answers in the chronicles. He had accepted everything with calm. His trust warmed her in a whole different way than his kisses had.
“Jeanette, have you lost him?” Malcolm’s voice was soft, and just behind her, though she had been so lost in her thoughts, she did not know he was there. She had not even realized she had stopped.
“Nay,” she said, just as quietly. “Though I ken where we will find him even if I do lose him.”
She turned to face him, taking his hands in hers, then looking up into his soft brown-and-green-flecked eyes. He smiled at her, but it was a questioning smile. Jeanette took a deep breath.
“I have seen this before.”
“This path? I did not know you
had been this way.”
“Nay.” She shook her head. “I have seen this before, in a dream. The stag, and the entrance to a cave we will find soon.”
He lifted one of her hands and laid a gentle kiss upon her knuckles. Heat raced through her, sizzling under her skin in an almost painful yet delicious way.
“You are sure?”
She swallowed. “As sure as I can be of a dream. I do not ken what the importance of this place is where we are led, nor why I am guided there.”
“Was I in the dream?”
Jeanette closed her eyes and tried to bring the dream into focus but she did not see Malcolm in any of it.
“Nay,” she said.
The stag barked in the distance.
“He is impatient for us to follow,” Malcolm said, pushing her a little away from him.
The cool air that flowed between them helped her ground herself in this moment, allowing her to push the dream back into the depths of her mind where it belonged.
“Aye. We have a cave to explore.” She tried to make light of it but even she could hear the quaver in her voice.
“Is there danger there, Jeanette?” He gripped her arms now, though one was so much tighter a grip than the other.
“Danger? Nay, I dinna think so.”
“Then why do you hesitate?”
“I think . . .” Once more she tried to remember the rest of the dream, searching for a clue as to why she was brought there, but she could not remember anything beyond the deer showing her the dark cleft that led into the mountainside. Her skin prickled at the thought of heading into that passage. “I dinna ken exactly how or why, but I think everything will change in that cave.”
“Good change or bad change?” he asked.
The stag barked again, closer now, and more insistent.