The Truth of Her Heart (Highlander Heroes Book 5)

by Rebecca Ruger

  Iain laughed, happy for his friend. “Good for you, Lach.” And he meant it. Lachlan Maitland was an authentic hero, and a genuinely good man, and Iain’s best friend.

  ALL OF BERRIEDALE WAS agog with curiosity as the alarm horn peeled out across the keep and yard.

  As soon as it was heard, Artair had collected Glenna and Maggie and steered them deep within the keep, into tunnels which Maggie hadn’t known existed.

  “A boat comes to shore,” Artair explained, “and we will wait here until the party is identified. If they be hostile, I have instructions to get you both over to Aviemore, if necessary.”

  Maggie was surprised when Glenna rolled her eyes at this.

  “Really, Artair,” she said with no small amount of disgruntlement, “I’m expected to abandon my home?”

  “Mistress, are you suggesting that if danger comes knocking, we simply greet it with a smile?”

  “I’m suggesting no such thing,” Glenna answered pertly. “Meet with spears and swords and fire, mayhap, but I’ll not waste a smile on evil.”

  “We—the three of us—will not clash with an enemy, Mistress.”

  It had already been an impossibly long day, Maggie’s nerves on edge with worry for Iain. This then, the half hour they spent hidden in near total darkness underground, did nothing to buoy her spirits. Glenna had not been herself at all today. For all that she’d given Maggie so much grief about not putting her fears onto Iain, the woman had no qualms visiting her own anxieties onto Maggie.

  “I will not be made to run, Artair—” Glenna continued, until Maggie cut her off.

  “Please stop,” Maggie begged, holding her fingers to her temples. They quieted at once, naturally unaccustomed to Maggie lifting her voice above theirs. Staring them down, she wondered, “Shall we not wait and see who the boat brings before we engage in this discourse?”

  Artair immediately clamped his lips, possibly remorseful for partaking in such a useless argument. Glenna frowned at Maggie and looked for the space of a second as if she would upbraid Maggie for her interference, but Maggie spoke first.

  “The alarm has stopped.” She could no longer hear the screech of the horn.

  “We must wait,” Artair insisted yet. “One of the lads will fetch us if the party be friendly.”

  The party was indeed friendly, having come from Hawkmore where Iain and the army had gone. More anxious people come to Berriedale, the boat carrying Lachlan Maitland’s mother, Diana Maitland, and some of her castle staff, including her cook and the castle steward and several kitchen lasses, and two young lads. They stepped into the yard of Berriedale just as Maggie and Glenna and Artair emerged from the keep.

  Glenna rushed forward, embracing her old friend, Diana. Artair greeted his counterpart, the steward Oliver, and Maggie smiled encouragingly at the younger folk, inviting them inside the keep while Glenna and Diana had their heads together, exchanging news and worry, it seemed.

  Maggie introduced herself by name only, having no actual position or title to add, and learned that the girls were Florie and Edie and the younger lads, possibly not having reached their teen years, were Robert and Rory. The four of them appeared pale and frightened.

  “Were you very long in the boat?” Maggie wondered, ushering them inside.

  The girl Florie spoke up. “Too long, but it weren’t the lads’ fault. They rowed as best they could.” She ruffled the hair of the boy, Robert.

  “Sit here,” Maggie said, indicating one of the trestle tables, close to the kitchens. “I’ll bring you some vittles, as supper won’t be for hours yet.”

  Not any person from Hawkmore could offer any pertinent information on the battle waging, as they themsevles had been locked away as soon as the enemy came. Only the lad, Rory, who was longest in the yard, shared what he knew.

  “There...were so many of them,” he said, his eyes staring off into the flames of the nearby hearth.”

  “And then Mari hopped out of the boat at the last minute,” Florie said, looking as if she were about to cry. “And we...we couldn’t wait, and she wouldn’t listen, and...”

  She ducked her head and Edie wrapped her arm around her.

  “Who is Mari?” Maggie wondered, assuming she might be another kitchen lass, and questioning why she’d have left the boat.

  “She’s our friend,” Edie said. “She wouldn’t leave him.”

  “Leave who?”

  “The chief.”

  “Oh.” Maggie still didn’t quite understand who Mari was, but she comprehended this last, that the girl must be in love with Lachlan Maitland, if she refused the chance at escape if he couldn’t be with her. “Iain McEwen left here with his entire army, minus those few who remained to guard Berriedale,” Maggie told them, “and I promise you, he’ll do all that he can to help save Hawkmore.”

  The remainder of the day was spent in quiet company with those frightened souls from Hawkmore. Indeed, the entire castle was subdued, so many tormented by the agony of not knowing what was happening to their loved ones.

  “YOU’LL BE PLEASED TO ken,” Iain said to Lachlan early in the evening, “that your missive alone, wax seal unbroken and carried by the sea, would have had me moving right quick from Berriedale. But Lach, you start tossing around a wee critical something, and God’s truth, we tore out of there as if the fires of hell were nipping at our backsides.”

  “Aye, but they were already here,” Lachlan said.

  They sat atop their mounts, in the middle of the wide field before Hawkmore. Men moved all around them, clearing the meadow of bodies and all the implements and gear abandoned by the dead and fleeing Ramsays.

  He’d known Lachlan since they were lads under the tutelage of the fierce Alexander MacBriar. They’d bonded instantly at their first meeting as scrawny twelve-year-olds over an impressive awe and a simultaneous fear of the giant earl, MacBriar. The earl had been fair but exacting, pious and then not adverse to taking a man’s life; he’d been sometimes bombastic with a voice that boomed across a room with ease, across a loch without great effort, and over a battlefield with such power a man could certainly mistake it for the voice of God, so resounding and cavernous. Lachlan and Iain had spent two years with the earl at Swordmair, longer than most because of the kinship they’d shared with the earl’s son, Alec.

  “How’d we first use that?” Lachlan asked.

  Iain grinned, though it held no humor. None of his memories of their time in captivity all those years ago did. “Alec started it,” he replied, “when he was trying to trap those mice. Thought they’d make for good eating. Remember? Him crouched in that dark corner, hours on end. I kept asking him what he was about. Finally, he turns—he was right pissed for my nagging, but Christ, what else had I to do?—and says, real surly, I’m working on a wee critical something.”

  Lachlan nodded, possibly recalling it as well now. “They were not good eating,” he said.

  “But they were food.”

  “Aye.”

  After, they’d taunted Alec mercilessly, attributing a wee critical something to so many things. It was the answer to every question for days, served as the only amusement, such as it was, that helped them stay sane, not give in, or give up. And when the old MacBriar had come to save them, his son Alec had supposed to Iain and Lachlan, Aye now, we’ve just survived our own wee critical something.

  “You see him lately? Alec?” Lachlan asked.

  “Not since that mess at Methven.” Iain let out a large sigh. “He’d gone down to MacGregor at Inesfree then, kept company with them over the winter. I only ken this because Tess wrote my mother. There was some intelligence days ago that the English had moved from Carlisle to Doune Castle, intent on taking it. I sent word down to Swordmair, suppose he went that way. You ken how he loves the battle.”

  With some conjecture, Lachlan guessed, “He’s got more anger yet than I.”

  “Aye.”

  “You do well with it,” Lachlan said. “Or at least give the appearance that you do.”
/>
  Iain shrugged, his most recent nightmare brought to mind. “The latter,” he acknowledged. Maggie had asked him which might be better, being harangued by physical scars as Lachlan was, or tortured by terror so often in the night. He still didn’t know. “It’s in the past, Lach. I try to leave it there.” He grinned and revealed, “You ken these wee critical somethings are powerful tools for pushing all that even further away.”

  Lachlan sent a thoughtful gaze to Iain, a grin almost forming. “Aye, they are at that.”

  Passing his gaze once more over the carnage all around, Iain said absently, “Give me the English any day over a traitorous Scot.”

  Lachlan Maitland turned and gave Iain a wry look, exposing the scarred side of his face to his friend, not that Iain needed the reminder. “You sure about that? The English?”

  Iain made a face, half-grimace, half-apology for his thoughts and his poor choice of words. But he teased, as he knew Lachlan would suffer no sympathy. “Not those English, who made you prettier like that, but the other ones—real fighting men, if England ken any such thing.”

  “Aye,” was given with a half grin for Iain’s quip. Reflectively, Lachlan said, “We’ve suffered some attacks in and around Hawkmore last year or so. I thought I’d figured out who might be responsible—but your missive last month had me wondering if I should no’ attribute some of those crimes to that Alpin you’ve named.”

  “Lach, he’s a mean son of a bitch. Violence, mayhem—death for no reason but his own warped pleasure. If you’ve got something fits that mold, he’s the culprit. He dinna leave too many alive. But then, he’s also a Sutherland, and bound to the English now. He’s the one making war as we speak on Doune castle, by my understanding. He’s next on my list, though, soon as he starts heading north.”

  Nodding in receipt of this news, Lachlan said, “Young Edward is moving now, heading from London to Carlisle.”

  Iain nodded. “Bruce says let him come. He’s no’ sure the lad’s got the bollocks to keep up his father’s fight.”

  “So, what now?”

  “We’ll stay a few days, help you get all this settled,” Iain said and let a smile come. “But then, I’ve got to get home to something a wee more critical.”

  His friend narrowed his eyes upon Iain for a moment. “She have a name?”

  Before Falkirk, where they’d been captured by the English, Iain and Lachlan and young Alec MacBriar had spent much time carousing and gaming and sampling the wares of many a bonny lass. But that was then. Jesu, to be that young and ignorant again. That was before Falkirk, where their lives had only been spared upon the field of battle by the Maitland signet ring, which had identified Lachlan as higher born than the rank and file soldiers fighting alongside William Wallace and the redoubtable Andrew Murray. Iain and Alec’s proximity to Lach at that moment—indeed, Lachlan shouting out that his friends were worth more dead than alive as well—was what allowed Iain to stand here now, alive.

  “Aye, Maggie Bryce, she is,” Iain answered. “You’re welcome to Berriedale, come and meet her.”

  “We’ll come down yet this year, aye?” Turning his horse around, Lachlan called over his shoulder, “Dinna forget to send my mother back to Hawkmore.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  KENNETH SUTHERLAND rode somewhere in the middle of the huge horde of soldiers moving north. His head pounded, the initial ache created by the rage that had come with the news from Blackhouse, and intensified day by day, the longer he thought upon it.

  He would string up that bloody steward when he returned to Blackhouse, for allowing his wife to be taken—bloody well snatched from her very own bed!—while in his direct care. Ailith, curse her, might only wish for such benevolence by the time he was done with her.

  The missive had come by way of one of the few soldiers he’d left at Blackhouse, which had then allowed him to interrogate the lad, revealing more of the truth behind the sparse and cryptic note from that worthless Oswald. Snatched from the cells below ground, he’d been informed, and not her bed. Because she’d begged Ailith to help her escape, he’d been told. He’d yet to figure out who would receive the greater part of retribution for this—his wayward bride for even daring to think she might ever flee, or that damnable Ailith, who too often overstepped boundaries, thought herself above any penalty.

  He recognized that to some degree, his absence, keeping at the court in Carlisle, had allowed these things to happen. Left ungoverned and unmanaged, they thought to take advantage of him. When he did recover his bride and they returned to Blackhouse, he would put everything back to rights, would make sure all persons were reminded of their positions and reminded as well of the consequences when he was made to look a fool.

  But the missive was weeks old now, the messenger having first gone to Carlisle, and then marching on to Doune. Of course, Kenneth and the Sutherlands—indeed all the armies that had gone to Doune—had been called away by that simpering fool, the new king. Edward II had essentially abandoned all campaigns save those at the border, to focus on domestic matters, was given as the implausible and deplorable excuse. Kenneth seethed over this as well. All that time pandering and groveling before the English and for what? The old man was dead, taking with him all promises of Sutherland glory. And the new king, curse him, seemed already to give no thought or care to Scotland and its noble families.

  Upon reflection, recalling the fury he’d known the minute the soldier messenger had finally caught up with him and had revealed what fate Oswald and Ailith had bestowed upon his bride when she’d arrived at Blackhouse, Kenneth could hardly believe the boy lived yet. Perhaps the shock of it, the shock of all of it, had saved the soldier’s life. Kenneth had sat, rather slumped into the chair conveniently near, so flabbergasted by the news.

  Iain McEwen? Iain McEwen had come for her? The same McEwen who’d allegedly only stumbled upon her in that fierce winter storm months ago?

  He could not escape the possibility that he’d been played a fool this past winter. Yet, he’d believed her tale at the time, imagining her too frightened to have lied to him, thinking also that no Mackay would dare to even think of taking what belonged to a Sutherland. This, then, only added to the rage, that he’d been deceived, and so effortlessly.

  But what did it mean? Why had McEwen come for her? And, Jesu, was this what McEwen had come for months ago when he’d stormed Blackhouse, only days after they’d met on that snowy field in Caithness? When Kenneth had been alerted of this minor siege upon Blackhouse, he’d supposed the identity of Alpin might have been learned, but lost little sleep over this, as he’d been safely ensconced at Carlisle, surrounded by England and English. He feared no one.

  But now, he had to consider that McEwen was not after all aware of Alpin’s true identity, that he was only sniffing after his wife.

  Kenneth frowned, wondering if this were possible.

  His wife was bonny, for certain; her breasts alone were magnificent, though she hadn’t a clue how to use them, or any parts of herself. However, she had little else to recommend her, was meek and could barely form sentences, seemed ever to be pinch-faced, and Kenneth would never be convinced she hadn’t some stick shoved up her backside for how frigid she always was. He considered it abnormal, that she looked as seductive as she did but had no liking and found no joy in coupling. He thought she must be touched in the head, for he knew well that he was pleasing to look upon and that pain and fear only heightened the release.

  He spat forth an oath. Of course, he would mourn her not at all if she were truly lost for good, having no relationship with her but for that inside the marital bed, but damn, if a McEwen—a Mackay!—should be allowed to live, having trespassed so grievously.

  Last winter, he’d allowed those few McEwens to live, a choice he now regretted. Of course, it would not have been his preference. But his uncle, William de Moravia, had only days before unleashed a rage on him, having himself just discovered that Kenneth was Alpin. Uncle William had vowed his own retribution if Ken
neth did not abandon that other identity, had told him at the time that there was greater glory to be found at the side of the English king, that once they’d proven themselves to Edward I, they would be rewarded with land and titles and coin.

  “And you can seek your own depraved pleasures at that time,” his uncle had raged, “but not before!”

  But now, well now everything was changed. Even his uncle could find no fault with this justification for the annihilation of those damn McEwens.

  Iain McEwen would pay dearly for this crime.

  The softly falling rain did nothing to diminish his musings then or his plans for what abuses he might visit upon the McEwen for his extraordinary encroachment.

  Soon, Kenneth felt his headache receding, for the satisfaction his own designs brought to him. He straightened in the saddle, surveying the seemingly endless horizon of green and brown mountains and foothills, thinking they might reach the McEwen’s Berriedale by tomorrow morning at the latest.

  That pitiful Berriedale would have no warning, Kenneth knew. His army and the Welsh mercenaries cost him plenty of coin each quarter, but damn, if sometimes they weren’t worth every penny. Only yesterday his own scouts had run into the McEwen scouts, rather caught them off guard, by his understanding. He smirked, thinking of those bodies left behind and of the others that would fall at his feet come the morrow.

  ARTAIR HAD SAID TO Maggie, “We will keep to the schedule. The people have needs that would surely never be met if they were only to be heard around the timetable of war, or any time the laird is called away on other pressing matters.”

  Maggie agreed, and was happy for the diversion of what Artair referred to informally as the Needs Must Council, where the kinfolk of Berriedale could apply to the laird for wares or items of necessity, or even forbearance in regard to rents or tithes. Artair would sit, as he sometimes did, in the stead of the chief of the McEwens, and Maggie would record the proceedings.