Highlander Redeemed (Guardians of the Targe Book 3) (19 page)

“Och, lass, did I hurt you?” His words were soft with concern.

“Not as much as I shall hurt you,” she said, pushing herself up to a sitting position, “once I get my breath back.” She glared at him, intent on returning their relationship to what it had been before . . . before it had changed. “At least I got your attention,” she snapped at him.

Duncan sat back. “You always have my attention.”

“Only when I dinna want it.” She tried not to wince as his eyes went hard, but she did not let his reaction stop her. “I did what you bade me. Are you angry because I made your order better?”

“Nay.” But he did not look at her.

“Do not lie to me, Duncan. For a moment you did think well of what I did, but then you denied that, to yourself and to me.
Why? Why would you do that? Is it because I forbid you to”—she hated that her voice wobbled—“to touch me again?”

Still he did not look at her. She started to rise, and he reached out and grabbed her arm, holding her in place. “You are right, Scotia,” he said looking at her now, but she could not read the emotion in his eyes. “What you did was smart. You used your knowledge of strategy creatively—”

Warmth began to wash through her with his words and the feel of his hand on her. She started to smile but he pressed his lips together and sighed.

“—an excellent trait in a leader, but you are not a leader. You might become one, one day, but that is a long way off.”

“And you are a leader?” she asked, getting to her feet and picking up the useless waterskin.

“When you and I are training, aye, I am. In battle, nay, I am not. I have not the knowledge and experience of Malcolm, Nicholas, Kenneth, or any of the other seasoned warriors of this clan. In battle I must do exactly as I am told. To do anything else will put other lives in danger, and likely my own, for I will not be where I am needed, or prepared to do what is needed, if I change the plan on my own.”

He looked up at her, then stood slowly, locking his gaze to hers.

“’Tis why Myles is dead,” he said, his voice quiet but his words ringing like a blacksmith’s hammer in her head. “You did not do as your chief bade you, to remain in camp where you put no one’s life at risk, where you could not draw someone else—Myles—from where he was supposed to remain and into danger. If you had not taken it into your own head to change the order Nicholas gave you, Myles would very likely be alive today, and you would not be shunned by your own clan.”

“’Twas not me who killed Myles,” she said, though her heart pounded as his accusation circled in her mind. “I did not—”

“You did not strike him down yourself? ’Tis no excuse. He
would have been safely hidden in that tree if he had not had to climb down to follow you, to stop you from doing something even more dangerous than you had already undertaken by leaving the protection of the warriors’ camp.”

She started to deny it, but the words refused to leave her mouth. She blinked. She swallowed. She shook her head.

“I thought you were on my side. I thought you were different from the others of the clan.” She shook her head harder. “You only meant to keep me under close watch after all. Yesterday was just another ploy to bend me to your will.” She pivoted and strode through the wood, not caring how much noise she made as she remembered the feel of his kiss and his hands on her, as she remembered the way he had looked at her over the fire last night, the way her heart had softened until she struggled to remember that her purpose left no room for soft feelings for anyone. She turned back and Duncan almost crashed into her.

“And that look you gave me over the fire last night.” She poked a finger hard against his chest. “You feigned the cow eyes of an infatuated lad when ’twas only another weapon to keep me close, and I almost fell for it. I almost fell for you. I am truly an idiot, a complete bampot. I knew not how skilled you were at mummery.” He had played her as masterfully as a bard on a clarsach, a harp. He was a master of strategy in a completely different way than he had taught her.

“Scotia, none of that was—”

“Dinna lie to me!”

“I have never lied to you.” Now his ire grew. He narrowed his eyes and stood his ground. “That kiss was real. What happened yesterday, though I never meant for it to happen, was real. I ken not what the look on my face was last night, but the feelings I had . . . I have . . . for you are changed every bit as much as you are changed . . . or at least as I thought you had changed.”

“I have—”

A cry resounded through the wood. A man’s voice in surprised pain. And then just as suddenly as it had started, it ended.

“Brodie,” Duncan said, sprinting back in the direction they had come from. Scotia followed without a word, the rush of emotion that had fueled their argument now fueling her feet. After they had covered a good distance, Duncan slowed and gave her the hand signal for silence that had irritated her so much not long ago, and another to hold her ground.

Without a thought, she ducked behind a large tree, and worked hard to quiet her rasping breath as Duncan crept forward. She tried to quiet her mind, to
know
something of use, but all she
knew
was that Duncan was still nearby. The quiet call of a tawny owl had her peeking around the tree enough to see Duncan signaling her to join him. She moved silently, and when she was even with him, she crouched beside him. He pointed through the thick greenery.

There, at the foot of an ancient oak tree, her kinsman Brodie lay crumpled and broken upon the ground, a Welsh arrow through his heart.

S
COTIA AND
D
UNCAN
returned to the Glen of Caves well before sundown, just as the clan was gathering for the evening meal.

“Get something to eat, Scotia,” he said, giving her a little push toward the cook circle where a kettle bubbled over the fire, sending a mouthwatering scent through the clearing. “I must report to Nicholas.”

Scotia glanced at the council circle at the other end of the narrow clearing and found, as she’d expected, Nicholas, both Guardians, and Malcolm there.

“You’ll not tell them of our bargain,” she reminded him.

Duncan closed his eyes and sighed. “Nicholas already kens what we have been about.”

Scotia’s eyes grew big. She blinked. “He kens? You told him? You promised—”

“I did not tell him,” he interrupted her, pulling her as far away from the people gathered for their meal in the clearing as was possible.

“Then how?” Scotia just glared at him, and he could not help himself, he smiled at her consternation and shrugged.

“I am not the one who carries herself so differently ’tis obvious to at least Nicholas that you are training with weapons. And he spied upon us.”

“What? When?”

“I dinna ken, but I do not think ’twas yesterday.”

“But—”

Out of habit, Duncan used the sign for silence that had set her off earlier. “I did not tell Nicholas, and I will not tell the rest, though ’twould surprise me if Nicholas had not already told Rowan, and if she had not told Jeanette, and of course then Jeanette would tell Malcolm.”

Scotia glanced from him to the council circle and back. “’Twas Nicholas who sent us out today, aye? Not you. What were we to do?”

“As I said, a lesson in tracking. I must report to the chief,” he said. “We cannot keep your secret from everyone for much longer.” He inclined his head toward the cook circle, hoping she would get herself something to eat, then he headed for the council.

“What news?” Nicholas asked, taking a seat on the large boulder that commanded the circle by being a little higher than the others.

It was tricky to report on their scouting trip to Glen Lairig without revealing why he’d taken Scotia out of the Glen of Caves to the Guardians and Malcolm, in case Nicholas had kept the secret, but he managed it.

“After we found Brodie, we tracked the English—only two of them,” he added before Malcolm asked. “It looked like they sought the other watchers but they did not find them. I relayed the news of Brodie so our men would know to be even more vigilant. We followed the tracks most of the way to the castle, but did not go any further.”

“And Brodie?” Nicholas asked.

“We went back and buried him in a shallow place we found near where he fell. We covered him with stones, but more will be needed. We did not dare linger there too long.”

“And why did you take Scotia along with you on this scouting trip?” Jeanette asked.

“’Twas my command,” Nicholas said, drawing all eyes from Duncan to him. “I needed to be able to use the skills of our best tracker, but he is also the only one who has been able to keep Scotia in hand. He assured me that she would do as he said, that he would be able to see to her safety, so this was a way to accomplish two tasks in one.”

“But—” Rowan started.

“But nothing, Guardian,” Nicholas said, marking that part of their relationship. “I am chief, love, and Protector of the Guardians. I would make the same decision again.”

“She did as you bade her all day?” Jeanette asked Duncan.

“Enough,” he said before he thought through exactly how to respond. Nicholas’s attention was fully on him with that response. Duncan was more tired than he’d realized to be so careless in choosing his words. “Aye, she did as I bade her,” he added. “And she was much-needed help when it came time to lay Brodie to rest.” He hoped the mention of their dead kinsmen would distract them from the tracking questions, though he knew ’twas not an honorable thing to use a fallen warrior in such a way.

“Scotia can be very helpful when it suits her purpose,” Rowan said, “and she is a decent tracker herself. Has she gotten more canny about tracks and tracking in her daily attempts to evade you?”

Duncan wanted to tell Rowan just how much better Scotia had gotten at tracking and so many other things, but he could not betray his promise, especially now that it was clear Nicholas had kept the truth to himself.

“She has learned a few new tricks,” he said with care, “but she cannot evade me without using her
knowing
.”

There was a short silence as that piece of information sank into the small gathering.

“Did she
know
anything about these English?” Jeanette asked.

“Aye, once she saw Brodie ’twas as if a sunbeam lit the two English soldiers so she could almost see them, or so she said to me. ’Twas Scotia who did most of the tracking after that, like she did when wee Maisie went missing.”

“Could she have directed you to exactly where they were, if you had wanted to engage them?” Malcolm asked, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped tightly together.

Duncan had to think back to all the tests he had put her through these last days, and to what she had told him of her
knowing
this afternoon. “I dinna ken,” he said slowly. “Perhaps if she knew them, had actually seen them, or if they carried something important to her, like the dagger used to kill Lady Elspet, she might. Today, I do not ken if ’twas as specific a
knowing
as would be needed.”

Malcolm let that sink in before he continued.

“’Twould be a formidable weapon in our fight against the English”—he looked from Nicholas to Duncan—“especially if she were to be trained in the ways of warriors.”

Duncan’s heart stopped, then started again with a hard staccato thumping. Malcolm knew of Scotia’s training. Duncan quickly glanced around the group but could not tell if the Guardians also knew or if their husbands and Protectors were also keeping Scotia’s secret.

“My sister would never make a good warrior,” Jeanette said. “She is too headstrong, too impetuous.”

A movement in the deep shadows of a small cave near the council circle drew Duncan’s eye, and he realized Scotia crouched there. He knew not how long she had been listening to their conversation.

He turned his attention away from the cave. “Aye, but she is also smart, agile, strong of heart and mind, and has a gift that, while it may not aid you Guardians in your task, can aid the clan’s warriors in ours.”

“Only if her gift can be used at will, though,” said Malcolm. “Can it?”

“Not reliably, nay, but ’tis something we are working on together.”

“Together?” Rowan asked. “So you are not just tracking her, are you?”

“I told you so,” Jeanette said. “You are spending much time together, aye? ’Tis why she has been so different of late. What else are you doing together, Duncan? Tracking? Her gift? Are you training her to be a warrior?”

Duncan froze. He did not want to lie to a Guardian, or anyone, for that matter, but he also knew he dared not break his word to Scotia or all the work they had done together would be for naught, for she would not trust him enough to go into battle with him.

“He is,” Scotia said, striding into the circle.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

N
OW
S
COTIA UNDERSTOOD
why it was not a good idea to keep secrets. Once they were revealed there was nothing but trouble, no matter how good the intention. Chaos had taken over the council, with Jeanette jumping to her feet demanding details, and Rowan fussing at Nicholas for hiding the truth from her. Which made Jeanette turn on Malcolm, who at least could honestly say he’d only guessed but had not known for sure.