Highland Hero (7 page)

“Malcolm is gone,” Andrew announced.

When Edina cried out in alarm and started to get up, Lucais grabbed her and held her still. “No need to go and look, dearling. If Andrew says he is gone, he is gone.” He looked back at his cousin. “Tell me everything.”

“ ’Tis clear that Simon had someone here that he could use. Mary was knocked on the head and the bairn was taken from his wee bed. No one saw anyone go into the room or come out with the bairn. Mary thinks it happened but an hour or two ago. She cannae say for certain. She was rising to tend to him, for she was sure she had heard him cry out just before sunrise, and that is when she was struck down.”

“No one saw anyone leave with the child?” Lucais demanded as he climbed out of the bed and began to dress.

“Nay, but if it was someone from here, he or she would have kenned how to slip away without being seen.”

“Gar didnae stop them?” Edina asked.

“Nay, he was asleep.” Andrew frowned. “In truth, he was just waking and was a wee bit unsteady. He should have done something, shouldnae he?”

“Aye,” agreed Lucais. “He still stops even me from taking the child out of the room.”

“Something else a person from Dunmor would ken, and they clearly did something to remove that threat. Something in the dog’s food mayhap.”

“Go, ready the horses. We may find a trail we can follow. And begin a search for who is missing. We must learn who the traitor is.”

“I ken where he took the bairn,” Edina said, her voice softened by surprise that she could think so clearly when she was so afraid for Malcolm.

“How could ye ken where Simon will take him?” asked Lucais, waving to the departing Andrew to wait a moment.

“I think he told me that day by the brook. Truly,” she insisted when he frowned. “He said, ‘A bairn should be with his parents. I mean to take him there.’ Where are your sister and her husband buried?”

“Are we there?” Edina whispered as Lucais reined in, slowing his mount from the furious gallop he had maintained for two hours to a walk.

“The burial site is just through those trees, in the yard of a wee chapel where Walter’s kinsmen are always buried,” Lucais answered in an equally quiet voice as he signaled to the ten men riding with him to move and encircle the area.

“Is he there?” She waited impatiently for an answer as Lucais exchanged a few signals with Andrew, who appeared a few yards ahead of them, then disappeared into the trees again.

“Andrew says he is.”

“Is Malcolm still alive?”

“Aye.”

She sensed the anger gripping Lucais so tightly and eased her hold on his waist. “I am sorry.”

“Ye have naught to feel sorry for,” he said as he dismounted and helped her down.

“I should have stayed close to Malcolm as I had vowed to do. Mayhap with two women in the room he wouldnae have been stolen away.”

“Or ye would have been knocked on the head as weel.” He gave her a brief hard kiss, then began to move toward the churchyard that was on the other side of a thick growth of trees. “Now, dinnae forget that ye are here only to care for the bairn. Not to try and save him or to fight, just to care for him when we get him away from that madmon.”

Following close behind him, Edina nodded and idly patted Gar’s head as the dog finally caught up to her. As they crept toward the churchyard, she prayed that little Malcolm was unhurt. Despite Lucais’s assertions that she had nothing to feel guilty about, she could not stop blaming herself for the danger the child was in. If anything happened to Malcolm, she was not sure she could forgive herself.

When Lucais stopped and crouched down, she silently edged up next to him. It took all her willpower not to race out into the churchyard they looked out on. Simon stood before two graves, Malcolm crying at his feet. He held a sword in his hand and six mounted men watched the wood that surrounded them. At any moment Simon could cease talking to the grave and kill the child, and there would be nothing they could do but watch.

“Ye cannae reach him,” she whispered.

Lucais cursed softly, for it did look bad. He suddenly turned and looked at Gar. The dog had worked to divert the men before, but he was not sure it would work a second time. Simon was a lot closer to Malcolm than he had been to Edina and the child that day at the brook.

Edina saw the direction of his stare and also looked at her dog. “If he is seen, Simon can kill Malcolm ere any of us can reach him.”

“I ken it. Do ye think he can get near one of the men without being seen?”

“Simon has himself weel encircled with watchful eyes this time. I cannae be sure.”

She looked at the men in the churchyard, then back at her dog. The idea forming in her mind could easily mean Gar’s death. Edina patted his big shaggy head and felt like weeping. It was a horrible choice to make, but the child’s life was more important. She briefly hugged the dog, then looked at Lucais.

“There is something he can do that might at least give ye the chance to save Malcolm. Gar can put himself between Simon and the bairn.”

Lucais clasped her hand, squeezing it in sympathy, for he knew how much she loved her dog and she could be sending the animal to its death. “How?”

“I will tell him to go and fetch Malcolm. I will get him to race into the churchyard and try to grab the child and run with him.”

“Would it be better to tell him to attack Simon?”

“Nay, for all Simon needs to do is cut him down as he runs at him. One of those men will see him. If Gar runs for the child instead, it might confuse them, giving ye that brief opening needed to pull Simon away from the bairn so that poor wee Malcolm can be pulled out of harm’s reach. Simon may still kill Gar, but my dog’s body will then be between Simon’s sword and Malcolm for one brief moment.”

“Tell Gar what he needs to do and I will pass along the word to my men.”

Lucais disappeared into the underbrush for a moment and Edina hugged her dog again. Softly she told him what he had to do, finding his eagerness painful. He trusted her completely and could not know that she was asking him to risk death. Even as Lucais reappeared, he nodded, and she sent Gar on his way.

Her heart pounding, Edina clasped her hands tightly together as she watched. It surprised her a little when Gar approached slowly, as if stalking an animal. When one of Simon’s men cried out a warning and everyone looked toward Gar, the dog lunged. He ran straight for Simon, who readied himself to cut the dog down as soon as he was in sword’s reach. For one brief moment Edina thought Gar had misunderstood her command, then he veered. She gaped in wonder even as Lucais cursed when Gar darted around a screaming Simon, grabbed Malcolm by his little nightshirt, and kept on running. Simon and his men moved frantically to catch the dog, and that was when Lucais and his men attacked.

When Simon and his men turned to protect their own lives, Gar trotted back to her, little Malcolm swinging from his mouth. Edina quickly took the baby in her arms and hugged her dog. Following Lucais’s orders to go to the horses and wait if she got Malcolm back safely, Edina rose to her feet. She paused only long enough to look at the men fighting in the churchyard. Already three of Simon’s men had been cut down, and Lucais was facing Simon sword to sword. Edina realized that she did not fear Lucais losing this battle and turned to go to the horse, soothing a frightened Malcolm as she walked.

She had just finished changing Malcolm, and was feeding him some goat’s milk when the men from Dunmor returned. A quick look at the men revealed no serious injuries, and she turned all her attention to Lucais. He came to stand in front of her, bending slightly to pat Gar.

“This dog may be the ugliest animal I have e’er set eyes upon, but he is surely the smartest. Ye shall have to breed him. ’Twould be a true shame if he was the only one.” He reached out to ruffle his nephew’s curls. “Is he unhurt?”

“Aye. He was just hungry, wet, and frightened. Is Simon dead?”

“Aye. It is over.”

It was over, she thought, fighting to hide the sudden sadness that nearly overwhelmed her as she secured Malcolm in his sling and mounted Lucais’s horse behind him. She was glad that Simon would no longer threaten Malcolm, that the child was now safe. But the end of Simon also meant the end of her time with Lucais.

Once back at Dunmor, she used the excuse of caring for Malcolm to slip away from Lucais. She took the child up to her bedchamber, murmuring her good-byes to him every step of the way. The moment she entered the room she handed Malcolm to Mary and used the woman’s distraction with the child to collect up her meager belongings and slip away.

Everyone at Dunmor was caught up in the joy of Malcolm’s safe return and the death of Simon. No one paid her much heed as she crept down the stairs, hurried through the wide doors of the keep, and dashed across the bailey. As soon as she got outside of the gates, she ran, determined to put as much distance between her and Dunmor as she could. There was no outcry from the walls, for they had been emptied upon Lucais’s return. Edina knew that there had never been a better time to make her escape, and she pushed aside all pain and regret and took full advantage of it. Later, when she could stop running, she would think about what she was doing.

“Where is Edina?” demanded Lucais as he marched to the head table in the great hall and faced his two young cousins. “Have any of you seen her?”

“Nay, not since we rode in through the gates,” replied Andrew.

“We thought she was with you or with Malcolm,” said Ian.

“She is nowhere to be found.” Lucais poured himself a tankard of ale and took a deep drink to steady himself. “I have spent this last hour trying to find her.”

“Do ye think she has left?” asked Andrew.

“Aye, I do. She isnae at Dunmor, that is certain.” He ran his hands through his already badly tousled hair. “I dinnae understand.”

“Weel, she did say that she would stay until the child was safe and she was sure that he would be weel cared for. She kens all that now. Still, ye would have thought she would say fareweel.” Andrew frowned and looked at Lucais. “Unless she feared someone might make her stay for all the wrong reasons.”

“Ye mean me. Do ye think I am a
wrong reason
?”

“Aye, if all ye wanted was a lass to warm your bed.”

“That is not all I wanted, and she kens it.”

“Ah, ye talked to her about that last night, did ye?”

“We didnae do much talking last night.” Lucais began to feel uneasy. “I had thought that there would be time to think about this and to talk. I ne’er thought she would just run away.”

“She probably saw that it was the perfect time to get away without any awkward good-byes or ye trying to make her stay just to warm your bed.”

“Will ye stop saying that?” Lucais snapped, but Andrew just shrugged, unmoved by his cousin’s temper.

“If ye want more than that, then ye have to tell her so.”

“Mayhap she doesnae want any more.” The mere thought that Edina had wanted no more from him than a brief moment of passion was uncomfortably painful, and Lucais tried to shrug the thought away.

Andrew made a derisive sound that was echoed by Ian. “She will take whate’er ye want to give her, or would, save that she has a lot of pride for a wee lass. Ye are probably the only one that hasnae seen how she looked at you. There was more than passion shining in those bonnie eyes. And she was a weelborn maid, an innocent no doubt. That kind of lass doesnae leap into a mon’s bed just because he has a pretty smile. Of course, since she isnae here, ye cannae ken what she thought or felt.”

“Ye think I ought to chase the lass,” Lucais said even as he decided that he would do just that, right to the gates of Glenfair if he had to.

“I think ye ought to. I would. I would run her down and tell her all that is in my heart, for that is what she needs. ’Tis your decision. Of course, she is poor and landless and ye willnae gain anything but her if ye wed her.”

“I think that will be more than enough,” Lucais said as he started toward the door.

“Talk to the lass,” called Andrew.

“Aye,” agreed Ian. “She hasnae had a verra happy life and she needs to ken that ye are offering her more than a warm bed and, mayhap, honor and duty.”

As he strode to the stables to get his horse, Lucais idly wondered how his cousins had come to know Edina so well. The moment his horse was ready, he swung up into the saddle and galloped out of Dunmor. If Edina needed sweet words, he would do his best to give her some, but he would get her back to Dunmor even if he had to drag her back. The moment he had realized that she was gone, he had known that he needed her and that the sweet passion they shared was only a small part of that. Lucais just prayed that she felt the same.

Chapter 8

With her hand shading her eyes, Edina looked toward the hills in the distance and sighed. There was still a long way to go. She was not afraid of the journey. The weather could be harsh in early September, but she knew how to find or build a shelter. Late in the summer the land teemed with food if one knew where to look, and she did. She had Gar, her weapons, and was a skilled hunter, so she did not fear hunger. What twisted her insides into painful knots and made her head ache with the urge to weep was the fact that she was walking away from everything she wanted and needed. At the end of her journey was Glenfair, her cold, dour uncle, and his equally cold, dour people. She had always been alone, but now she knew she would suffer deeply from it. Now she knew that the love, friendship, happiness, and caring she had often dreamed of could really exist. It was going to be torture to live without it.

“Do ye think I have made a mistake, Gar?” she asked the dog sitting at her feet.

“Aye, but I begin to wonder if ye have the wit to ken it.”

Edina was both frightened and elated by the sound of Lucais’s deep voice right behind her. It also surprised her that she had not heard his approach and that Gar had given her no sign that they were no longer alone. She had not thought that she was that deeply sunk into her own musings. When she slowly turned to face Lucais and saw that he was on foot, his horse nowhere in sight, she felt a little less upset about how he had managed to sneak up on her.