The Truth of Her Heart (Highlander Heroes Book 5)

by Rebecca Ruger

  “I’m headed back,” Iain lied. “I’ll take you up.”

  Curiously, while Maggie looked as if she might refuse, Edgar also appeared to want to reject Iain’s offer.

  Of course, she could not refuse, having no reason to do so. She nodded vaguely and stepped further out of the shed. She smiled up at Edgar—a smile that Iain judged to be quite warm—and then followed Iain’s direction, his raised hand indicating his mount not far away.

  “Good day, Maggie Bryce,” Edgar called after them.

  Maggie turned and waved. “And to you, Edgar.” Her smile widened, but only until she faced the lane again, and then it disappeared altogether.

  When they reached his horse, Iain wondered how she might stand riding with him upon the saddle meant for one, when she clearly abhorred any contact—was it only with him?

  “Might we walk?” She asked stiltedly.

  Much better, he decided, than her sitting so stiffly in front of him. “Aye,” he agreed and led the way around the corner of the lane, and toward the hill. He pulled the reins of the horse, who ambled along behind them.

  “You were gone a little while,” she said by way of conversation, “and your mother is fairly guarded with any information. Am I not supposed to know where you go or what you are about?”

  He shook his head. “No secret, really. We were gone to Stonehaven for a bit—that’s Gregor Kincaid’s land. A few clan chiefs met there, discussing raising more troops for Robert Bruce. I’d like to take you down there sometime. You’d like Gregor’s wife, Anice.”

  “Hm,” she said, noncommittally.

  “Then we went up to Uncle Donald—the MacKay—for the annual Caithness council.”

  “Oh.”

  She’d asked the question but did not seem very interested in the answers.

  “I was surprised that you left with so few to actually guard Berriedale,” she said.

  Iain turned toward her even as they continued to walk up the hill. Ah, now he understood. This, stated with such connived indifference that he could only supposed this, then, was the heart of the matter.

  Iain stopped and waited until she did as well. She did, after a few more steps, that she was further up the hill and nearly eye level with him when she faced him.

  “Maggie, you’re in no danger here. I’d no’ leave if I thought you—any of Berriedale—were at risk.”

  “But how can you know that?”

  “I’ve got a unit embedded down near Carlisle. And Artair has a system of intelligence throughout most of the Highlands. Kenneth Sutherland wouldn’t be within a day of Berriedale before I ken it.”

  “Can you be sure?”

  “I can. I am. Settle your mind in that regard, Maggie Bryce. He’s no’ anywhere near you. And when he comes, we’ll be ready.”

  He hoped to see some relief in her features, hoped maybe this was what had kept her so standoffish. Her expression changed barely at all, though she nodded, accepting his belief in the words, if not her own.

  Iain sighed and followed as she turned and resumed the uphill trek.

  Thinking a silent return to the keep might seem to drive the unaccountable wedge between them yet deeper, he asked, “What have you been keeping yourself busy with?”

  Shrugging a bit while she climbed ahead of him, her skirts lifted out of the way, she answered, “Whatever your mother needs help with. Mending, mostly, but I’ve finished all that for now. I’m not sure what I might get about this afternoon, if she hasn’t another chore for me.”

  “You take some time for yourself then,” he advised.

  She’d reached the top of the hill ahead of Iain. She didn’t stop and wait for him, but he thought she slowed her pace that when he reached the peak as well, they strode nearly side by side.

  Ignoring his suggestion about enjoying some idle time, and while keeping her gaze on the path ahead, she said, “Your mother had said she might travel down to some place called Hawkmore and spend some time with her friend, Diana Maitland. She said I might go with her. Would that be...allowed?”

  Iain’s brow crinkled. “Aye, mother and the Mistress Maitland are verra friendly, cut from the same cloth they are. They visit, here or there, at least once a year. But Maggie, you dinna need permission. You’re no’ answerable to any but yourself.”

  “I just didn’t know if...” she began but left it unfinished.

  “When will you embrace this?” He wondered, a bit of starkness in his tone.

  This stopped her, turned her toward him, her own drawn brow matching his. “Embrace what?”

  “You’re free, Maggie. Subject to no one. Threatened by no one. In no danger. I’ve given you my word.”

  The smile she showed him then only attempted to be kind, but without great success. “Apologies, sir. I do not seek to—"

  “Enough,” he bit out. “I am Iain and you are Maggie. I’ve held you in my arms and I’ve kissed you and it was your face I saw when the war was brutal, and I needed something to cling to...so that....” He shook his head. “And I came back for you, and I took you from Blackhouse because I couldn’t let you be...stay married to him. And no’ a day goes by I dinna wish I’d fought for you then.” He closed his mouth, clamped his lips even.

  Maggie bit her lip. Mayhap a bit of remorse played across her features, colored her cheeks.

  Iain stepped forward, reached for her hand.

  She didn’t back away, but she did curl her fingers into her palm.

  Iain withdrew his hand.

  “That would have only served to see all of you killed, of course,” she said stiffly, her expression distant now, purposefully so.

  “Aye, and I still wish I’d no’ let you go then.”

  Her slim shoulders lifted slightly. “What’s done is done.”

  Aye, and that was the problem.

  Chapter Sixteen

  HE HADN’T SLEPT WELL, his mind hammering incessantly with Maggie’s unbearably sparse and gloomy conversation of the day before. She’d been at once skeptical of either or both his ability or his interest in keeping her safe, and then cool and nearly vigorous in her attempt to remain aloof. Possibly the most disturbing part of their stilted chat was his certainty that he was the only one thinking about kissing whenever they were together. This was especially bothersome because the lasting image he’d carried with him for months last winter was the look on her face after he had kissed her so long ago. Before she’d questioned if she were in danger, she’d been filled with wonder, he was convinced, neither immune to his kiss nor undesirous of his attention.

  But that was then.

  Now, she could barely make eye contact with him. And while he was well aware of how much space she took up in his mind, rearranging things inside there for so long, he wasn’t quite sure that he had likewise managed to carve out even some tiny temporary residence in her head.

  Today, he meant to change all that. Naturally, his awareness in how she fared, how she thrived—or did not—at Berriedale were related to his other interest, of kissing her. Somewhere deeper, however, he knew that regardless of whether the spark that had once been lit between them was ever reignited or not, he wanted her to flourish and to find peace at Berriedale.

  With that in mind, he sought her out shortly after he’d broken his fast, determined that he would not allow her to gainsay his plans for her this day, though he was fairly certain she would try. Admittedly, he was a wee bit surprised to hear from his mother that she’d gone down to the beach already and was not yet returned.

  “Gone to the beach for what?” He wondered.

  Glenna raised her brows, ignoring for the moment Rabbie and the conversation her son had interrupted. “Is that not allowed?”

  Iain favored his mother with a roll of his eyes, to which she was particularly well accustomed. “I dinna say that, Mother. I asked about the purpose.”

  “She’s collecting seaweed with young Giric.”

  “Thank you, Mother,” he said and pivoted. He called over his shoulder, “Sh
e’ll be gone the rest of the day.” He exited the keep from the kitchen and made his way down to the beach.

  He saw her at once, on her knees with the lad, Giric, their heads pressed together over something in the sand. Giric’s unruly hair was nearly the same hue as Maggie’s, light and dark, rosy and blonde, that he could not rightly say where one head ended and the other began.

  He made his way downward, the wind billowing his tunic and plaid, curious about what held their attention. Seaweed, he thought, would not have captured such rapt and close scrutiny that they were unaware of his presence until his boots crept into their periphery.

  They both startled at once, lifting their heads, sitting back on their legs. Maggie covered her heart with her hand, very startled indeed. Giric squinted up at Iain, his face scrunched up and revealing a recently lost tooth.

  Iain sent his gaze quickly over the basket, filled to capacity it seemed with their haul of seaweed. He looked into the sand then but saw nothing at first, until Giric pointed specifically to a small dimple in the wet, but not puddled, sand. Giric didn’t touch the sand but it moved.

  Frowning, and more curious, Iain went onto his haunches between Maggie and Giric and watched more closely. It did it again, sent up a little bubble of sand that burst lightly and settled quickly.

  “What is it?” Maggie wondered.

  “Is it a monster underneath?” Giric asked.

  “It’s something underneath, I would guess,” Iain said. To Maggie, “Air being forced upward. Likely a critter.” He swiped at the sand, removing several inches until his fingers met with a solid but moving thing. He moved more sand away to reveal just the claw of a crab. This quickly disappeared as the animal burrowed further.

  “Crab,” Giric said, his disappointment evident.

  Iain grinned and covered the critter again before standing. He offered his hand to Maggie, who amazed him by taking it, allowing him to pull her to her feet. While she dusted off her skirt, he collected her basket and met her gaze. Perhaps she was a bit less wary of him, her green eyes bright under the morning sun, meeting his, not looking away. She was, as ever, impossibly bonny, freckled and sun-colored, the bulk of her hair twisted into a serviceable knot at her nape, mostly unmoved by the wind save for small and curling tendrils near her cheeks and ears. He would never not be fascinated—enticed, he supposed—by the shape and color of her mouth, her lips perfectly pink and full.

  He lifted the basket of seaweed. “Done for today?”

  “Aye,” She answered. “We were headed back.”

  “Good. I’ve taken over your schedule for the remainder of the day.”

  “Wait. What?” She called after him as he began walking back toward the keep.

  “We’re off to Dunbeath,” he called, handing the basket to Giric with instructions to get that to Rabbie in the kitchen. He watched the lad dash up the hill and turned to face Maggie, sensing that she’d stopped. He set his hands onto his hips, prepared to argue or cajole or persuade, as needed.

  Maggie lifted her hand to her forehead, putting her eyes into shade. “Who’s off to Dunbeath? And what’s in Dunbeath?”

  “The market’s in Dunbeath. We’ll take the cart, pick up some wares.” While this was true, he did acknowledge to himself that he’d rather intentionally made it sound like a chore, like a castle need, having some idea she would not refuse a task. She might well have denied the invitation if he’d revealed its true purpose: getting her away, having her to himself, making her smile. “Eideard’s unit will accompany us.”

  “Oh.” And then, “Very well.”

  Iain made sure not to dissect that response, wasn’t sure he wanted to know if she’d agreed because they would be safe with the armed retinue, or if she’d consented because she expected that the armed guard meant that she wouldn’t be alone with him.

  Ten minutes later saw them seated side by side upon the bench seat of the small wagon, passing through the inner and outer gate and rolling over the small bridge, leaving Berriedale behind them. Eideard and another dozen or so men followed at a similar leisurely pace, leaving a bit of distance between themselves and the cart.

  “Have you ever been to a large market?” Ian asked of Maggie.

  “We had a weekly market in Torish, but that consisted of only the locals, hawking their wares. Mostly it was a trade fair, as people used their own goods to barter for things they didn’t make or couldn’t otherwise afford. I suppose it was not very large, though.”

  “Aye, then you’ll like the market at Dunbeath. It’s held monthly, and is governed and promoted by the MacKay council, so that it draws vendors and merchants from further afield. There have been occasions that tradesmen from as far as France and Italy have made their way to the market.”

  They sat fairly close, that every little bounce or jig of the cart brushed his thigh across the skirt of hers.

  “What did they sell?”

  Iain chuckled. “One fine man, I’ll no’ ever forget his name—Foulques de Merle—sold wine. Once. That was disallowed ever after, too much sampling right there in the market, no’ even waiting until they were away and home. Turned into one big brawl,” Ian said, fondly recalling his own eager participation. “The wine was tasty, I do recall.”

  She turned quickly, steadying her gaze on him. “Did you partake of both the drinking and the fighting?”

  “I may have, but dinna ask me if I ken what the fighting was all about. Was years ago. At that time, if I saw fists flying, seemed only right to join in.”

  “Boyish misdeeds?”

  “I prefer to think of it rather as youthful exuberance.” He shrugged, aiming for innocence, but it was perceived more as devilish.

  Warming to their chatter—sooner than Iain might have dared to hope—she asked, “Would you say that you’ve outgrown that? That natural exuberance that dances around so much of our youth?”

  He spared her a glance, appreciating the intriguing lift of her brow, and the fact that she met his gaze with little reticence.

  Cheerily, he said, “I’m no’ sure. I’m feeling fairly spry today.”

  “Must I plead for no fisticuffs then?”

  This elicited another chuckle. “Haven’t heard that word in a while. The old MacBriar—he’s chief down at Swordmair, where I summered a few years—liked that word, was constantly admonishing his son and I and another friend to leave off with the fisticuffs.”

  “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me,” she said, without rancor. “As far as I can tell, you are pretty even-tempered and...affable. I suppose that comes with a pleasing childhood?” She sent a narrowed and suspicious glance up to him, though it was cloaked in good humor. “Were you the spoiled child heir, who could do no wrong? Mayhap a mischief-maker?”

  Iain could not deny this. “Aye, likely someone should have taken a strap to me more often. But I liked my fun, didn’t seek to harm others, yet got in my fair share of trouble. Archie used to say he couldn’t wait for me to outgrow my energy.”

  “Have you?”

  “Mayhap all those boyish ideas in my head were only supplanted by duty. Life happens...some parts better than others. You ken it yourself: you’re forced to grow up right quick, sometimes in the midst of a...horrific experience.”

  He was immediately sorry that he’d revealed so much, and then sorrier still when she quieted, her face lowered to her lap. Damn, he’d been specifically speaking of his own life events, but she either imagined he referred to hers, or it brought her dreadful marriage to mind.

  Not of a mind to let a pall be cast over what was so far a very pleasant, and remarkably easy conversation, he nudged her arm and pointed off the path into the trees.

  “What is that?” She stared at a door—an actual tiny door—added to the bottom of a thick yew tree. It hadn’t been carved into the trunk, but fashioned from another piece of wood, arched and sanded smooth. It had been fixed into a hollow at the base of the tree and was complete with a small window and even a door knob, being in total no taller th
an Iain’s forearm.

  “Faerie house.”

  Maggie gave him a dubious look. “It is not.”

  “Aye, but it is.” He kept his grin in check.

  “Does the door open?”

  “Of course.”

  “Did you do that?”

  Now he laughed. “I did no’. It is no’ wise to court the faeries.”

  “I thought they didn’t like to be called faeries.”

  “Aye, the fair folk they be,” he acknowledged but then whispered, “but you ken they dinna really exist?”

  “I do not ken that and neither do you.”

  “Fair enough,” he allowed.

  “My mam used to tell me stories at night, or anytime we were alone. Magical tales of the faerie realm, and all its inhabitants. She gave them names and narratives, impossibly never forgetting little details she’d presented or what they had or were about to do. It was like a running tale, she just continued to add to it.”

  “Do you recall any of it?”

  “The specifics?” She made a face. “Sadly, barely at all. The faeries were most often associated with water—wells or lochs and even the sea. Each waterway had its own faerie protector. They are very sensitive to humans, enjoy observing us, but do not want to interact with us. Oh, I just remembered—Cailean was the name of the faerie king.”

  Her voice had become wistful and soft.

  “You were close with your mam. You miss her?”

  “Every day.” She chewed her lip for a moment. “I cannot imagine there exists a girl who doesn’t crave her mother when she finds her own self with child.”

  “Like as no’.”

  It took more than an hour to drive to Dunbeath. They engaged in constant chatter, covering mostly generic topics, but Iain was pleased with even this small progress. A fine step forward. Eideard and the rest of the soldiers hung back, allowing for plenty of privacy.

  Dunbeath was a fishing village, sitting at the mouth of the Dunbeath River, which widened considerably before spilling into the North Sea. The market was held on the cliffs of the south side of the river. There wasn’t much to recommend the area, no large town or burgh or castle, but the deep harbor served as a fine port for merchants arriving by sea. Today saw only a half dozen or so boats lined up near the spare harbor, which was no more than a narrow dock built into the side of the cliff.