Highland Destiny (13 page)

“What ails ye, mistress?” Jennie asked as she moved to the side of the bed and placed a comforting hand on Maldie’s arm.

Maldie cursed Balfour as she looked into the young, brown-haired maid’s soft blue eyes. It was his fault that she was going to have to hurt Jennie. Even though she had no intention of doing the girl any real harm, she hated the thought of hitting her. Jennie did not deserve it, nor did she deserve the trouble she might get into for letting the prisoner escape.

“What ails me is that I am locked away like a mad aunt,” she muttered, then swung her fist, hitting poor Jennie square on the jaw.

It greatly surprised Maldie when Jennie was felled by the first blow. She had expected a little bit more of a struggle. Then she grew concerned and quickly looked the young maid over, relieved to discover that the girl was alright. Despite having had little practice at knocking someone down, she had obviously hit Jennie in just the right place with just the right amount of strength. She felt a brief surge of pride, then was angry. Balfour was the one who deserved to get punched in the jaw, not poor shy little Jennie.

As she hefted the girl onto the bed, Maldie hoped that Jennie would not suffer too lurid a bruise or ache for too long. She gently tucked the girl up in her bed, pulling the covers up high to hide her lighter hair. The guard would probably not step into the room, afraid he would somehow become involved in female problems, Maldie thought with a faint sneer, but he would still be able to see the wrong color of hair from the doorway.

She softly cursed as she tried to hide all of her hair beneath the linen scarf she had taken from Jennie. It was a little warm for a cloak, but Maldie put one on, pulling the hood up to further hide her hair and her face. If Grizel could get all the way out of Donncoill and to the other side of the village so often with no one paying her much heed, then it ought to work for her. Maldie stepped up to the door, took one last look toward Jennie to reassure herself that nothing could be seen, and softly rapped.

Her heart stood still as she stood in front of the guard, fighting to keep her face averted, and her voice slightly higher, as Jennie’s was. “I need to go into the village for a few rags and—” She choked to a halt when the guard tugged her out of the room and nudged her down the hall before locking the door again.

“Just go, lass,” he muttered. “I dinnae need to ken the what or the why.”

Maldie tried not to let the ease with which she walked away from the guard make her too cocksure. It was a long way to the front gates. If too many people spoke to her, or someone found Jennie, she would never make it. With every step she took, Maldie prayed that she would not meet up with Balfour, James, or anyone Jennie was close to.

As she neared the gates, Maldie had to fight the urge to run. That would certainly draw attention to her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Balfour and James talking near the stables and she took the chance of slightly quickening her step. It was not until she was yards away from the high walls of Donncoill that she released the breath she had been holding. Her body was soaked in sweat and she knew it was not all because she wore a dark, heavy cloak on a sunny day. She was not surprised that she was already exhausted. Keeping her cloak clutched tightly around herself, she began to walk faster. Until she was on the far side of the village there was still a chance that someone could discover her.

The moment she stepped into the thick wood bordering the village fields, Maldie flung off her cloak. She allowed herself a brief respite to dampen her linen scarf in the cold water of the brook which meandered along the edge of the wood and bathe the sweat from her face. Since it was already late in the afternoon, she knew she would not make it to Dubhlinn before the sun set. She would have to spend the night in the forest. That did not frighten her as much as the possibility that Balfour would be hunting her down. Maldie doubted she would get much sleep. She would either be listening closely for sounds of pursuit or running from it.

“And once I am within the walls of Dubhlinn I will be safe from Balfour,” she said, then grimaced. “I will only have to protect my back against the Beatons who live there. I surely have gone mad if I thought this would work.”

She cursed and flopped onto her back, wishing she was in the mood to enjoy the shade and the cool grass. For a moment she decided she was safe enough. She could rest for a little while and try to think. The wisest thing she could do was get as far away from Donncoill and Balfour and Dubhlinn and Beaton as she possibly could. Maldie told herself that again and again, but herself was not feeling inclined to listen.

It was vitally important to her to prove her innocence to Balfour. She was not sure if that was because of her strong pride, or her deep love for the man. Whichever emotion pushed her, she knew she could not and would not leave until the matter was resolved. Either she gave Eric back to the Murrays and proved her innocence that way, or she got caught, Beaton killed her, and the Murrays realized through her death that she had been falsely accused.

There was one other thing that prompted her to continue with her plan. Eric could well be her half brother. If he was a blood relation, then she had a duty to try and rescue him. She also had a deep need to see the truth with her own eyes. If she fled now, ran away from it all, she might never know.

Maldie stood up and brushed herself off. It was clear that she did not want to listen to the voice of wisdom. She started the long walk to Dubhlinn. The gates would be closed tight long before she could get there, and that left her with two choices. She could sleep on the hard ground and pray that it did not rain or grow too cold, or she could return to the tiny cottage of the kindly old couple who had first taken her in and hope that they would do so again. Maldie decided to try her luck with the old couple, although she hated
herself for using them.

Life, she mused, had become far too complicated since arriving at Donncoill. She had walked away from her mother’s grave with but one plan, to get to Dubhlinn and kill William Beaton. Now she was accused of helping the very man she wanted to kill, had one brother not so secretly in love with her and one who was her lover, and the boy they all fought so hard to save from Beaton’s clutches could well be her half brother. If she tried to tell someone about all of this, Maldie was sure that he would never believe her.

Her thoughts turned to young Eric as she walked through the thickening trees. No one at Donncoill had ever had a bad word to say about the boy. She wondered sadly if that admiration and love would continue if he did prove to be Beaton’s son. It was one of those secrets that would be best kept, one that should die with anyone who knew it. Unfortunately, she herself was the reason it would soon no longer be a secret. Balfour had seen the mark upon her back, soon he would learn that she was Beaton’s daughter, and thus he would learn the truth about the boy he had called brother for so many years. Beaton, she thought angrily, had a true skill at destroying people’s lives. She swore that, if Eric was left alone, cast out by Beaton and Murray alike, she would take him with her. It was the least she could do for inadvertently causing his life to shatter, and it would be nice to have family again.

It occurred to her that she had lost that blind need to kill Beaton. Maldie suspected that her hatred for the man still rested in her heart, for it had been nurtured within her by her mother from the day she had been born. It could probably flare up in a blinding glory if she set eyes on the man, but it was no longer the only thing in her heart or her thoughts. Even now, as she marched straight toward the lion’s den, she barely thought of revenge at all. It was Balfour and an undoubtedly frightened boy named Eric who held all of her attention. She found it a little strange that thoughts of Balfour, which caused her a deep pain, were more welcome than ones of a well-earned and long overdue execution.

“Weel, mayhap fate will smile upon me,” she muttered as she climbed over a moss-covered, fallen tree limb. “Mayhap I will not only free Eric and thus prove my innocence, but be able to rid this land of the curse of William Beaton as weel.” She grimaced and softly cursed as a branch tore a small hole in her skirt. “All I must do is get to Dubhlinn in one piece.”

“Where is she?” Balfour yelled, then cursed as the trembling maid grew as pale as the fine white linen sheet she was sprawled on.

He could not believe that Maldie had slipped away beneath their very noses, but that appeared to be exactly what she had done. Intending to speak to her one more time, and ruefully admitting that he simply wished to see her, he had brought her her evening meal. When the guard had told him that she had fallen ill, he had been concerned. But, as the man unlatched the door, he complained about how Jennie had never returned with the things she had rushed away to get, and Balfour’s concern had turned to alarm. He was infuriated but not completely surprised when he had entered the room to find a barely conscious Jennie sitting up in bed and clutching her head. He had bellowed insults at the guard, then bellowed for James, and was now bellowing at the poor terrified maid. His lack of control was getting him nowhere and he waved James over to the side of the bed.

“I am about to scare the child to death,” he said, stepping back and letting James take his place. “Ye tend to her and see what ye can find out.”

“Aye, ye need to calm yourself,” agreed James as he checked the bruise on the girl’s jaw.

“What has happened?” demanded Nigel from the doorway.

“Beside some fool dragging his crippled arse across the hall?” Balfour grumbled as he quickly moved to help Nigel over to a chair set next to the fireplace. “Maldie has slipped away.”

“Ah, so the lass did escape ye.” Nigel could not keep his pleasure over that out of his voice, and he shrugged when Balfour glared at him.

“Did ye ken what she was planning to do?”

“Nay, I but suspected it, and, unlike you, I dinnae act upon suspicion alone.”

“Ye didnae want to. Weel, this proves all of my suspicions.”

“Does it?”

“She has fled. She would only do that if she was guilty.”

“Aye? Mayhap she did it to get away from you.” Nigel smiled coldly when Balfour paled slightly. “Ye accuse her of spying and murder without proof, and expect her to linger here to see what madness will next sieze you? Nay, she did what any other person would do—ran as fast as she could. After all, if ye accuse her and imprison her without proof, might ye not hang her next?”

“I would ne’er have hanged her. Nay, not e’en if she had proven to be guilty,” Balfour said quietly. “Maldie should have kenned that.”

“After the way ye have behaved these last few days, I think the lass felt that she didnae ken ye at all.” Nigel looked at James when the man stepped over to them. “Did Jennie finally find her tongue?”

“Aye,” James replied. “It seems that Maldie feigned some woman’s illness and sent for the lass. Then, when Jennie came in to tend to her, Maldie hit her. The poor maid recalls naught after that.”

“What about Duncan, that fool of a guard I set outside of the door?” Balfour asked, briefly looking around for the man only to find that Duncan had slipped away the moment James had finished speaking with him.

“He says he let Jennie in and thought he had let Jennie out.” James shook his head and laughed softly. “The poor mon was so afeared that one of the lasses would say too
much about a
woman’s ailment
that he didnae pay much heed. Once pressed he realized that Jennie wasnae wearing a cloak when she went in, but she was when she came out. Maldie was a clever lass. Ere Duncan had a moment to look closely at her, she spoke of needing things for a woman’s bleeding time. He didnae let her say much but nearly pushed her down the hall.”

Balfour stared at Nigel and James, aghast when the two men laughed. They seemed uncaring or unaware of the consequences of Maldie’s escape. If she was guilty of all he had accused her of, and he prayed he was wrong, she was headed straight for Dubhlinn to tell Beaton the wealth of information she had gathered. If she was innocent, she was out there roaming the countryside, alone and with little or no provisions. Neither circumstance was something to laugh about.

“I am pleased that ye can find enjoyment in Maldie’s cleverness, but have ye thought of what happens now?” he finally demanded.

“We search for her or we leave her be,” James replied.

“If she is the spy we feared she was, she is running for Dubhlinn to fill Beaton’s ears with who kens how many of our secrets.” He nodded when James grimaced.

“She is no spy,” Nigel snapped.

“She came from nowhere, she told us nothing, and she was verra interested in our fight with Beaton. Too interested,” Balfour said.

“Aye, laddie,” James agreed. “She left too many questions unanswered.”

“Mayhap the answers werenae any of our business,” Nigel said. “She is a bastard and her mother was obviously a whore. That is not a life one wishes to talk about.”

“I ken it,” Balfour said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I wasnae asking for every sordid detail. All I wished was some tiny bit of information that I could have one of my men go and affirm. Some little thing that would prove she was what she said she was, who she said she was.”

“And if she was who she said she was and so was her mother, what do ye think the people in her village would say about her? Do ye think they would just say aye, she lived here and it sounds as if ye hold the Maldie we kenned? Nay, if her mother was what she said she was, those people would have talked our mon’s ear off, filling it with poisonous gossip and righteous indignation over the low morals of some people. Ye ken what village people can be like. Mayhap she just didnae want us to ken the whole ugly truth, or hear the vicious lies that would be told.”

Balfour sighed and nodded. “I had wondered on that, but such proof was needed. Do ye really think I wanted to lock her up? Aye, or really wanted her to be one of Beaton’s minions working to destroy us? ’Tis the verra last thing I wished, yet I had to consider it. The last time we stood against Beaton we lost good men to his trickery. I couldnae afford to ignore this, to just hope that I was right to trust her.”

“Ye are blinded by your debt to her,” James said gently.

“A debt ye should share. ’Tis nay only my life she saved either. A few of the men she tended to could easily have died from their wounds or, as we now ken, from Grizel’s murderous attentions. She
heals
people,” Nigel stressed. “She oftimes worked until she was exhausted to help people o’ercome their wounds or illnesses. How could ye think that she could show such compassion if she was working for Beaton?”

“There is no gain to be made in discussing this any further,” Balfour said. “We will ne’er agree. Howbeit, innocent or not, the lass is out there in the dark alone and without
any provisions.”

“Are ye sure she has no provisions?”

“Aye, for she had no opportunity to gather any and I dinnae think she would have risked staying here long enough to grab some once she got out of this room.”

“Which means that she is already far away, so why bother trying to catch her?”

“Because until I have proof that she is not working for Beaton, I cannae let her run about free with all she kens about us and Donncoill. If she takes such information to Beaton, we will not only lose the battle to free Eric, but we could lose our lands as weel. Until this is all over and Eric is safely home, I must ken where Maldie is and that she is securely locked away, deprived of any chance to tell that bastard anything.”

“Weel, we cannae begin the search for her now,” James said when Nigel fell into a sullen silence. “We must wait until full light before we hie after the lass.”

“Just promise me that ye willnae hurt her,” Nigel asked, looking from James to Balfour and back ayain.

“I would ne’er hurt Maldie,” Balfour swore. “And whate’er men join in the hunt for her, they will be told that she isnae to be hurt, not e’en bruised.”

“Weel, then, go run after her and drag her back here, but ye will pardon me my smugness when she proves to be innocent and ye prove to be a fool.”

Balfour leaned against the parapet and stared at the sky, impatiently waiting for the sun to rise. He had not slept and had had very little to eat. His emotions were too fiercely confused for him to rest. He was terrified that Beaton would soon know enough to totally defeat them, and that Maldie was out there wandering the land with no food, no water, no blanket, and no protection. Even now he could not make up his mind if she was guilty or innocent.

What troubled him most was that, even if he found her and brought her back to Donncoill, he could never hold her again. If she was innocent, he had shown her that he could not trust her, and that would surely kill any feeling she had for him. Maldie was a very proud woman and he had treated her as if she was the lowest sort of traitor, implying that she was little more than a whore using her body to pry secrets out of the enemy. If she was guilty, he could never trust her again, could not allow her to stay near enough to him to sway him again.

“Laddie, ye shall wear that wee brain out if ye continue to spend all your hours thinking o’er things that have no answer,” James said as he moved up next to Balfour, yawned, and scratched his stomach. “Ye havenae slept at all, have ye?”

“Nay. I paced the floor and stared at the walls of my bedchamber. Now I stare at the sky and curse the sun for being such a slow-moving fellow.”

James laughed and shook his head. “Ye should have rested, for we may have us a verra long day.”

“Weel, aye, there is a lot of land to search and Maldie is a wee lass. She may not be so easy to find.”

“There is that. There is also the fact that we may have to rush to battle.”

“Why should we?”

“Why? Ye clearly havenae been spending all night thinking thoughts to help your clan or save your brother.” James reached out and patted Balfour on the arm when the man flushed guiltily. “Nay, dinnae take that as a rebuke. I understand how such a bonnie
lass can consume a mon’s thoughts.”

“Aye, she did, although I doubt I can recall half of what I thought or if it would make sense if I did, for I am verra confused. Did she flee because she is guilty or because she is furious? Is she running to Beaton or to somewhere else, to those kinsmen she ne’er told us about? Is she the worst sort of whore whom I must toss aside, or will she toss me aside because I have so gravely insulted her it cannae be forgiven? Question after question and no way to answer them, for I dinnae have the most important answer of all—is she working for Beaton?”

“And that is the most important question of all at this moment. There is no way of kenning the truth, but we can no longer wait until we have it. Aye, let us see if we can catch her, but nay for long. And, e’en as we hunt our men should be preparing to march upon Dubhlinn.”

“Nigel isnae ready to go to battle.”

“He can drag his pretty arse up onto a horse and be at your side to offer his advice. He shouldnae go at all, but I have allowed him that much for he willnae stay here as he should unless we tie him to his bed. Think, laddie. If that wee lass is a Beaton, she will soon be telling our enemy all of our plans. We must march against him by first light tomorrow if we are to have any hope of catching him by surprise. I would prefer to march ere the sun rises today, but I am nay sure we can be ready so soon.”

Balfour slumped against the wall. James was right. They had no more time to plot or ready themselves. If they did not act quickly, they would have to start all over again. By the end of this day, if Maldie was one of Beaton’s spies, the man would know all about them and almost all about their battle plan. He had already told her more than he should have before he had begun to have doubts about her. Then he frowned, and an idea began to form in his tired mind.

“Nay, we will not march on Beaton yet.”

James gaped at him. “I ken that ye dinnae want the lass to be guilty of what we have accused her of, but ye must at least consider the possibility that she is. If we wait, Beaton will have time to act upon what she will tell him. He will ken all we have said and he will slaughter us.”

“He nearly slaughtered us last time because we tried to throw ourselves against his cursed walls. E’en if he hasnae done all he must, he will certainly close his gates and have his men ready to greet us. Trying to breach those walls will kill us all, or at least cull our numbers so badly that he can then come and take Donncoill.”

“Weel, aye, mayhap.” James grimaced and rubbed a hand over his graying hair. “What choice do we have?”

“We wait and we make a new plan. And I think I already have a good one. I may be verra tired, but it seems like a clever idea. There is one thing Maldie told me—”

“Ye cannae trust what she said, or, rather, ye shouldnae trust in it too much.”

“I ken it, but she didnae tell me this in the way that she told us other things about Dubhlinn. This slipped out as she told me another tale, something humorous that had happened to her on a market day at Dubhlinn. I really dinnae believe she was saying it to trick me into anything. ’Twas just talk. Market day at Dubhlinn is three days from now.”

“And how will that help us?”

“By simply waiting three days, we will already have unsettled Beaton. He will expect us to act immediately when Maldie tells him of how we had suspected her. When
we dinnae come racing to his gates he will wonder if what she said was true, or if she even understood what she had heard. Beaton has ne’er had much faith in the wit of women. A market day brings a lot of people to a town, a lot of strangers,” he added, nodding when James’s eyes slowly widened.

James cursed softly and paced the wall for a moment, muttering to himself and rubbing his chin as he thought. “We could slip a lot of men into Dubhlinn, at least into the town and the surrounding area, without Beaton suspecting anything.”

“So, ye think it is worth a second look? That there is a plan to be made there?”

“Oh, aye. It may e’en be a better one than we had. Now, let us go and find that lass if we can. This new idea of yours would work e’en better if she hasnae gotten to Dubhlinn to warn Beaton that we plan an attack. Aye, much better indeed if he isnae alert and watching for us.”

“Did ye find her?” Nigel demanded, sitting up in bed as Balfour entered his room.