The Truth of Her Heart (Highlander Heroes Book 5)

by Rebecca Ruger

  She stood, enlivened. “Do I need to—what shall I bring?”

  Archie chortled. “Ye bring yerself, lass. Let’s go.”

  “Won’t you come?” Maggie asked of Iain.

  “Next time, lass,” Iain answered. “I’m a wee bit suspicious of a smiling Archie.”

  Maggie grinned yet again, and Iain watched them leave. His frown came as soon as they were out the door and Iain followed Artair, who had disappeared, likely ducked into his office.

  Artair’s office was a small square of a room, with so much of the space—walls and floors and furniture—covered with records and journals and papers. A small table served as his desk, and Artair stood from the chair behind it, shaking the note at Iain.

  “This has come from the baron Garioch, George Menking,” Artair explained. “The man has a web greater than my own. I had reached out for any word on movements from Carlisle, all the comings and goings.”

  “And?”

  “Sutherland has left the city. We can assume that those at Blackhouse must have finally gotten word to him of your taking of Maggie Bryce.”

  “He may well come here directly,” Iain surmised.

  Artair frowned. “But how could he? Would he not have to go to Blackhouse, regroup and plan from there?”

  “I wouldn’t,” Iain said, giving this some thought. “If I’d just been informed that a man had stolen my wife, I’d be running straight for him.”

  “You say this, with Maggie Bryce being the wife in question, and likely you would stop at nothing to recover her, but would he?”

  “If not for her, then for pride,” Iain guessed. He would do it for her alone, he knew. “But he does have his entire army—or the bulk of it—with him. They’ve been idle for months in or around Carlisle, essentially ready to go.” He paced a bit, not allowed many steps with all the stacks of books and whatnot on the floor. “We ken we dinna want to wait for him to come to us, which makes it imperative that we ken his direction.”

  “You’ve got those other units already keeping watch on Blackhouse and elsewhere,” Artair reminded him.

  “Aye. Mayhap I need to send out several more, not large, just for scouting. I dinna want to leave ourselves vulnerable here. I’ll speak with Duncan, put a handful of men on the routes from Carlisle to Blackhouse and then Carlisle to Berriedale. I want to meet him in the open, not here at Berriedale.”

  “Aye, lad.”

  Iain stopped directly in front of Artair. “And you ken what I said about Maggie Bryce? If running up against Sutherland dinna go my way, you and she and my mother get down to Jamie and Ada at Aviemore, or if needs be, by sea, then, to Lach up at Hawkmore.”

  “Aye.”

  THE SKY WAS CLOUDLESS, the wind non-existent, and the soft swaying motion of the boat on the water was everything that was peaceful and wonderful.

  Maggie did not think the boat was regularly equipped with plaids and blankets, but it was today. She suspected Archie had filched these items with an eye toward her comfort but managed to leave off teasing him about so chivalrous an act as it was simply too sweet to make fun of.

  So she laid in the bottom of the boat, upon the soft blankets, and Archie sat on the lone plank that crossed the width of the boat at one end and served as his seat while he rowed, tirelessly and rhythmically, moving them horizontally along the shore, but not taking them out too far into the sea.

  The beauty of this exact moment was the complete freedom it offered—freedom from fear, from worry, from conversation even, as Archie seemed as content as she to enjoy each other’s company without words right now.

  Honestly, she truly did feel more herself today. She mourned still, would no doubt mourn for quite some time, but her earlier chat with Artair had done wonders for her. She could—and she would—mourn all she liked, or all she needed, he’d told her, but she must allow time for everything else as well, the rest of life.

  Closing her eyes, Maggie considered that her grief had been shared. With Glenna and Artair and even Archie and Duncan, who’d surprised her by visiting her chambers. Archie had been awkward and shuffling but so very dear for all the things he’d clearly wanted to say but couldn’t quite put into words so that Maggie had only nodded, understanding his sorrow was for her. Duncan had sat in the chair, not as close to the bed as Iain had set it, and had talked non-stop, of nothing of any import. And he’d kindly allowed her to respond not at all, had sometimes asked questions and assumed her answer that he kept right on talking. Nervous chatter, Glenna had called it later. “People deal with grief, and the consoling, in different ways,” Iain’s mother had said, “and not one of them is wrong.”

  Shared with Iain as well, or mostly, she’d thought, for his coming by with some regularity, for his spending the nights with her. Had he known that the dark and the quiet were the hardest to endure? She’d only thought it just this morning, that because of his attention and attendance, it seemed as if the grief were shared, that someone understood completely. He couldn’t, of course, but it pleased her to imagine he did.

  How dear they all were.

  She was going to be all right, she thought. She needed to understand this.

  Yet, allow time for everything else.

  “Archie,” she said, tipping her head forward on her chest to glance up at him while he continued to row, “did I not once hear that sometimes funeral processions might take this route?”

  “Eh?”

  “I thought once I had been told a tale of a body, deceased, being laid into a small boat, and sent off to sea. The mourners on the shore would send a flaming arrow out to the boat, burning it, sending the entire pyre to the bottom of the sea. Is that real? Does that happen?”

  “Aye, it does. We McEwens dinna do that, but I’ve heard stories of those that do. No’ for me, though. Give me a nice cold crypt in the ground, I’ll be fine.”

  Maggie sat up. “Me as well, but that’s what this lovely interlude put me in mind of, with me lying in the bottom of the boat so still, which is rather ghoulish, when I think on it.” She sat up and backed up against the solid wood corner of the stern, lifting her arms to ride the side walls.

  Archie grinned at her.

  “Did Hew like to be out on the sea?” She been thinking about him these last few days as well. “This quietness seems perfectly suited to him, not a soul around to cause him grief.”

  “He did, actually, but lass, you ken this calm sea is a rare thing.”

  “I did notice that. What else did Hew like?”

  Archie grinned into his chest, then lifted his head and gazed out over the sea while he continued to row. “He liked anything that required order and structure, could no’ stand the chaos.”

  “But then how did he manage to become a soldier? War seems like it would be the ultimate chaos.”

  “Aye, and so he was happy to be rid of it, would do what he could.”

  “That makes sense. I wish he were here.”

  “It’s just no’ right,” Archie said, shaking his head, “the good ones dying young. All that potential and promise wasted. They dinna make ’em like that too often you ken. A shame, that.”

  “Hew certainly was a standout,” Maggie agreed. “Was he always so serious?”

  “Aye,” Arch said, and was thoughtful for moment. “You could no’ rile him. If you did, was only his red cheeks would show it. But he did what was right, always, even when he was ridiculed for it. You could no’ ever take him away from that. I dinna ken many—any, mayhap—like that.”

  “I didn’t know him like you,” Maggie said, “only but a few days, but his heart was good. You’re right, there are too few people like that.”

  Archie tipped his head down to her. “You’ve seen some ugly souls, aye, lass?”

  Maggie nodded now. “No more than you, I’m sure.”

  “Aye, but my soul is no’ so pretty. I can handle it.”

  Smiling up at him, she confessed, “You know, Arch, it didn’t take me long when first in your company to realiz
e that you only like people to be afraid of you, and that you’re naught but a big softy under all that gruffness.”

  His grin was slow and lazy while he considered her. “Ye got me all figured out.”

  Lifting her shoulders, Maggie said, “I once heard some sage thing that suggested like attracts like. Your chief is a good man, and so he surrounds himself with good men, wouldn’t suffer fools or dastardly types, I imagine.”

  “Aye, the lad’s a good man.”

  Quiet.

  “You’re in love with him,” Archie said after a moment. Given as a statement, not posed as a question, his arms moving in that circle fashion that the rowing required though his gaze was on Maggie.

  Maggie nodded. “I think so. If that’s...what this is, that I feel. I haven’t anything to compare it. And it’s silly, of course, for I know him so little, really.”

  “Sometimes it just is.”

  “Maybe it’s just gratitude, though, as he has twice now come to my rescue.”

  Archie chuckled. Maggie liked the sound of it. “As have I and Duncan and Donal.”

  Maggie made a face. “And dear you all are—but that’s what makes me think I might be in love with him, because I sense it’s more than gratitude, more than friendship, just...more.” She shrugged, not understanding it herself, not quite sure how to explain it. “Have you ever been in love Arch?”

  “So long ago, I can scarcely recall.”

  “Of course, that’s not true. If I were removed from Berriedale today, never to see him again, I would...not ever forget him.”

  Archie stopped rowing, bringing both oars to a halt that he rested his forearms on them, gazing out across the smooth surface of the water.

  “Getting on thirty years now, just about,” he said after a while. “She was Sorcha. Not the bonniest lass, though she had her charms. Thought we’d wed and have bairns and keep on with the crofting. And then in comes the army near Glasgow.” His lips twitched, pursed a bit. “Met a soldier, she did. I begged her choose, him or me.”

  “She chose him,” Maggie guessed sadly.

  Archie shook his head. “Nae, but he did her. Dishonored her, not kindly.” He bent his head. His lips moved for several seconds before the rest came. “Told her it dinna matter, but she could no’ get over it. Hung herself. Jesu, from the highest peak in town.”

  “Archie, I’m so sorry.”

  “I dinna think even Duncan knows the tale.”

  “Does it ever work out, then?”

  “What’s that, lass?”

  “Love?”

  Archie harrumphed softly.

  “I cannot think of one instance where love triumphed. My parents, my own marriage. You and your Sorcha. Duncan and his wife. Can it exist? Survive?”

  Archie studied her. “You think no good will come from loving the lad?”

  Maggie shrugged. “It’s not always easy to believe good things will come.”

  “Or stay.”

  “Aye.”

  “You make of it what you will, lass.”

  “How so?”

  Returned to his usual gruffness, he said, “Means what you do with it will define it. You ignore it because you’re afraid, mayhap it’ll go away. You find courage and act on it, mayhap it’ll stay, grow some.”

  She gave this some thought, not quite brave enough to ask of Archie if he thought there was any chance Iain McEwen might also be in love with her.

  “But then,” she said, with a twist of her lips, “I am still wed to another.”

  Archie shook his head. “That’s done, Maggie Bryce, was done the minute we rode through those gates at Blackhouse. You’ll never go back to him. The lad kills him, or he kills every single one of us, but ye ain’t ever going back.” Beginning to row again, he said, “Aye now, that’s enough of that. That’s more words I spoke than all of this year, right here and now. Close your eyes now, rest. You’re a good lass, Maggie Bryce.”

  She smiled at her friend and did as he commanded. “You’re a good man, Arch.”

  Chapter Twenty

  SHE WAS SURPRISED, and then she was not, when Iain entered her chambers late that night, as he had for the last three nights. She’d been prepared to expect him, having changed into her nightclothes some time ago, but then also determined to stave off any disappointment if he didn’t show.

  Maggie was already abed when the soft knock came, and the door was pushed open.

  She was lying on her side facing the door, somewhere between the middle of the bed and the far side. She’d been thinking it had been a good day. She was proud of the strides she’d made.

  Iain closed the door and leaned his back against it, eyeing her across the room with only the soft light of a small blaze in the hearth to guide him.

  “I dinna ken if...I should come.”

  “But you have.” She’d given this some thought as well, wondering if he came to her tonight, what it might mean. Its sole purpose, she’d thought, had been to comfort her, to make sure she did not cry alone in the night.

  “But I dinna need to stay, if you....”

  “I’m glad you’ve come.”

  She’d been sleeping each time he’d come to her previously, that tonight was the first time she watched his preparations. He nodded at her softly given statement and pushed away from the door. With practiced ease, he removed his belt and sword and propped them against the footboard and then began to unlace his leather breastplate. That stiff piece of gear, which he was rarely without, was set next to the sword. He sat on the bed then, his back to her, to remove his boots.

  Maggie lifted her hand, wanted to touch him, to feel his back. She did not, just curled her fingers into her palm and pulled her hand away. But she watched, watched the shadows of firelight play across his back, saw the skin and muscles move here and there under his tunic. She liked it very much, thought there was some primal and raw beauty to all that power he possessed, all contained within the fine linen of his tunic.

  Iain pivoted and stretched out on the bed. He did not turn and bend into her as he had previously, as she’d woken each night to the feel of him pressed against her back. He folded his arms under his head and stared at the ceiling, his lips pursed a bit, mayhap with some thoughts.

  Maggie waited, thinking he had some conversation to share.

  “I dinna ken if I would come tonight,” he said, “because it’s no’ so easy to hold you as I have and no’...want to kiss you, which seemed...offensive—I canna think of another word for it—when you were grieving so.”

  “Is that why you are so far away from me now?”

  The smallest hint of a grin touched his mouth. “Aye.”

  Maggie reached out her hand once more, touched her fingers to his side, just laid them there over his tunic, her arm and wrist on the mattress. “Not offensive at all,” she said, “mayhap untimely.” But she understood. She wasn’t ready herself, even as she had been so encouraged by how unafraid she’d been by his touch of late. Yet, “There is a splendor in your arms that I’ve yet to find anywhere else.”

  Now he laughed outright. “Words like that, Maggie Bryce, will do nothing for my resistance.”

  “I’ll be quiet then.”

  “Aye.”

  She wasn’t though. She turned over, presented her back to him, thinking this was safe, from kissing at least. “Now will you hold me?”

  He’d begun to move before she finished the sentence, his arm sliding around her in time to the word, me.

  Maggie sighed and closed her eyes while Iain settled himself against her, his face pressed into her hair, his chest and thighs fitted perfectly against her.

  The silence that followed was different from that which she’d known with Archie today. This was not friendly and comfortable. This was intimate, tinged with heat and so much more.

  “Considering my life as a whole—and not just these last many months—I haven’t often been fearful or filled with dread,” she said after a while, “but I knew the very first time you touched me, certa
inly the first time you put your arms around me, that there was safety and security here.”

  After a moment, he offered, “You could stay here.”

  “In your arms?” She held her breath.

  “Aye.”

  “How can—what would that mean?”

  Long silence until he said, “Canna mean anything until Kenneth Sutherland is dealt with. But then...it could be everything.”

  Maggie closed her eyes, overwhelmed by the meaning behind words that sounded so very ordinary. It could be everything.

  Sometimes joy felt like tears, she decided. “I would like that.”

  IAIN FOUND MAGGIE IN the courtyard a few days later, once again keeping company with Artair. On her hip, she’d wedged a basket, one that showed bits and pieces of linen and other fabrics. Artair, who rarely moved around the keep empty-handed, stood beside her with his ledgers in hand.

  They seemed only to be waiting something, their gazes upon the smithy’s’ shed, or deeper, at the carpenter’s area beyond.

  Duncan’s voice sounded out from within. “It’s coming, lass. Never saw Will Carpenter move so quick but for your request.”

  Maggie laughed and Iain thought the sound the most magnificent he’d ever heard. She called back to Duncan, “We are in no hurry. We can wait.” To Artair, she said in a softer voice, “I was only suggesting—I didn’t mean for it to be done right today.”

  Donal came out of the hall, behind Iain, carrying two stacked chairs, which Iain thought might be from Artair’s office.

  “Where’d you think, Maggie? Sun or shade?”

  Maggie turned, noticed Iain’s watchful presence and smiled, and then consulted Artair. “I’m for sun on our faces, but what is your preference?”

  Artair concurred. “Sun, indeed.”

  “What’s going on?” Iain wondered, approaching the pair while Donal set the chairs toward the rear of the yard, near the bakehouse and away from the comings and goings of the gate.

  “Artair and I decided our labors would be so much more enjoyable if they were undertaken out of doors,” Maggie told him. “Actually, I decided that, and Artair was kind enough to oblige.”