Jossalyn’s breath
caught in her throat, but she kept her eyes downcast and her tongue still. She
sensed that her brother was already in a foul mood, and her questions always
seemed to annoy him. She had learned over the years how to avoid his rage—or at
least she had become better at it. Raef was as unpredictable as the weather
here in the Borderlands.

She waited, her
hands clasped in front of her, while her brother moved to the other side of his
huge oak desk, shuffling the papers that lay strewn across it. Finally, he
continued.

“The King is
believed to be ill, which means that I may be able to leverage a Barony at
last.”

This had her
snapping her head up. Despite the years of practice biting her tongue, she
opened her mouth without thinking. “I could help! I could try to heal—”

His hand slammed
against the top of the desk, rattling his ink pot and causing her to jump.

“Silence! How dare
you insinuate that you could help the King, and with your little herbs, no
less!”

She had done it
now. His rage was going to boil over, and he would take it out on her. She
tensed, waiting for him to dart like lightning from behind the desk and strike
her.

Instead, he
smoothed back his sandy blond hair with one hand, inhaling through his nose to
try to calm himself. “The only reason I called you here was to let you know
that I would be away, and to warn you not to disobey me.” He stepped back
around the desk toward her, his glaring eyes locked on hers. “But if you defy
me one more time, sister, I will name you a witch and have you burned alive,
blood relation be damned.” His voice was calm, but deadly so.

Jossalyn lowered
her head once more, giving her brother what he wanted—her utter submission. But
if she had met his stare, her eyes would have revealed her defiance. She was
not broken or cowed, no matter what Raef might think.

A little piece of
her heart squeezed at the thought. She had been sneaking to the village outside
Dunbraes Castle for years, tending to the people unfortunate enough to be under
the rule of her power-hungry brother. Yes, she had been found out a few
times—and had borne his rages, insults, and even his fists—but it was worth it
to help people, to save lives with her healer’s abilities.

“Perhaps this
visit to the traveling court will give me the opportunity to marry you off as
well. Then you’ll be someone else’s problem,” he said coolly. “Who knows, it
may even help me toward my Barony. I hear the Earl of Suffolk is looking for a
new bride. Someone young.”

Her stomach
twisted, but she forced herself not to react. Her brother had made mention of
arranging for her marriage before—after all, she had just turned twenty—but his
threat about the Earl made her nauseated. The Earl of Suffolk had visited
Dunbraes several months ago to discuss the mounting war between England and
Scotland. He was old enough to be her grandfather, and had already worn through
three wives. The first night of his visit, he had become so drunk on the castle’s
store of fine wine that he had tried to grab Jossalyn. When she had twisted out
of his clawing hands, he proceeded to vomit on her slippers.

She swallowed. “How
long will you be gone?”

He grabbed her
chin, forcing her eyes to meet his. “Likely only two weeks, but it depends if
the King dies or not,” he said bluntly. “And don’t get any ideas about making
one of your little trips to the village, sister. I will have you watched and
followed. I can’t have my best bargaining chip with the Earl getting into anything…unseemly.”

Her heart sank,
but she didn’t let the mask of meekness slip from her face. His hazel eyes bore
into her for a moment longer, seeming to be trying to reinforce his threats. He
didn’t need to, though. Jossalyn knew from years of experience that her brother
wouldn’t hesitate to punish her should she defy him.

“That is all,” he
said finally, releasing her chin and turning his back on her.

She curtsied
despite the fact that he couldn’t see her, then silently crept out of his study
and toward her chamber. As she walked up the stone steps toward her door, she
felt a shadow following her and glanced over her shoulder. Trailing her from
several feet back was Gordon, one of her brother’s soldiers. He stopped when
she did, but merely stared back at her, his coarse face and dull eyes flat in
his obedience to Raef’s order to follow her.

So, this was to be
her hound while her brother was away. Gordon was hulking and imposing, but at
least he wasn’t particularly bright. Perhaps there was still a way for her to
do her work in the village while Raef was in Cumberland. It would probably have
to involve some discomfort for Gordon, unfortunately.

She turned back up
the stairs toward her chamber, her mind running over her most potent herbal
laxatives.

Chapter 2

You are to stay
no longer than a week, collecting as much intelligence as you can.

The words were
burned into Garrick’s mind, along with his older brother Robert’s serious tone
as he had said them. Garrick had been chewing on his Laird’s words like a
bitter cud for the entirety of the week-long journey from the Sinclair clan
holdings at Roslin in the farthest northeast corner of Scotland all the way to
the Borderlands. Despite Garrick’s protestations, Robert thought it best to
send him to the border to conduct a covert information gathering mission—along
with Robert’s right-hand man, Burke Sinclair.

But Garrick worked
alone.

He always had, and
except for this mission, he always would. If Robert hadn’t invoked his
authority as Laird of the Sinclairs, Garrick would have rejected the mission
outright. He was needed elsewhere. Then again, his King, Robert the Bruce, had also
agreed to lend Garrick for the operation, and he couldn’t very well go against
his Laird older brother
and
his King. So here he was, stuck with Burke,
a distant cousin and clansman, a mere day’s ride from Raef Warren’s Borderland
holding at Dunbraes.

He spat over the
neck of his large warhorse as they continued to move quietly through the dense
forest. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to help the Scottish cause for
independence. In fact, he had devoted his life to it. He had fought in every
major battle of the last ten years, and in quite a few minor ones as well,
first with his brother defending Sinclair lands, and later alongside Robert the
Bruce. It was more the idea that he could
only
collect information. He
had to “blend in,” as his brother had ordered, and talk with locals about what
they were hearing.

Blend in. Talk
.
Him. He would rather have his bow in his hand, sending arrows into the throats
of his enemies, Raef Warren included.

Burke was the man
for the job. He was charming and handsome—or so the lasses seemed to think—and
had a strange way of putting people at ease whenever he talked with them. Of
course, Burke was also a highly trained and skilled warrior, wielding his great
sword better than most men in the Highlands. But he was even more skilled when
it came to interacting with people.

Unlike Garrick. He
had worked alone for too long. His skill with his bow had allowed him to enter
the Bruce’s army, but because he excelled at precision shooting, he had risen
quickly out of the mass ranks to become the Bruce’s most trusted shot.

This meant that he
was sent out on solo missions, waiting for hours and sometimes days at a time hidden
in underbrush or tree foliage before his target came into view. He knew how to
wait. He knew how to kill. Aye, he could go unnoticed anywhere in the
Highlands, but he’d be damned if he could “blend in” within an English-held Borderland
village, chatting up the locals about the English army’s movements.

Resisting the urge
to spit again, Garrick instead moved his horse slightly to the right, taking
them farther into the woods and away from the road. Burke did the same without
comment. Both men had fallen into a sullen silence shortly after departing from
Roslin Castle the week before. Neither wanted to be here, but that didn’t
change anything. Their Laird had given the orders, and they both had to obey.

Thankfully, Robert
was familiar enough with the area from his own days of raiding and information
gathering that he had been able to give them instructions on how to find a safe
house a day’s journey northwest of Warren’s holding. There they would stash
their warhorses, weapons, and armor, all of which would have made them stand
out starkly—and draw dangerous attention.

They would also
need to borrow a cart and draft horse, and the clothing of English commoners.
There was nothing to be done about their Scottish accents besides trying their
best to soften them to the Lowlanders’ lesser bur. The Borderlands had become
so fluid these days that many Scots and English lived together, especially
surrounding the larger castles that kept changing hands. Dunbraes had been
under Warren’s control for several years, but it was surrounded by Scotsmen and
their farmlands, so there was no avoiding interaction between the two
nationalities.

Garrick and Burke
had agreed that their cover story would be that they were two blacksmiths from
a village farther north. They were looking for work, and so had decided to try
to find employment at the largest nearby holding—Dunbraes Castle and its
village. Smithing would explain both men’s large, muscular frames. It was
dangerous to look too much like a warrior these days.

It grated to have
to pretend to be supporters of English rule over Scotland, or at best act neutral,
but times were too volatile to walk into a powerful English holding wearing
kilts and speaking with a Highlander’s brogue.

Garrick urged
Fletch, his chestnut warhorse, forward a little faster. The sooner they reached
the safe house, the sooner they could move on to the village, and the sooner
this damned mission would be over with. Garrick wanted nothing more that to
return to the Bruce’s side and do what he did best—fight. This week was sure to
be tedious, but at least it would be over soon. Aye, this was bound to be the
most boring week of his life.

Chapter 3

Jossalyn peeked
behind her shoulder once again, but she knew without looking that Gordon
wouldn’t be behind her.

A smile itched at
the corners of her mouth. She didn’t relish the suffering he was in currently,
but she could barely contain her excitement to be going into the village—and
only two days after her brother had left for Cumberland!

Besides, she
reminded herself, Gordon would be just fine, though he would likely be glued to
the garderobe or his chamber pot for the next few days. Such were the effects
of a little buckthorn bark seeped in water. Of course, as soon as his symptoms
showed themselves, she had ordered that he be given a tea of chamomile to
soothe his innards and keep him hydrated, which eased her conscience further.

Not minding the
basket under her arm, she nearly skipped through the yard in the middle of the
castle in her excitement. The portcullis was drawn up along the outer curtain
wall, and both villagers and residents of the castle moved in and out freely on
this particularly fine summer day. Perhaps she would even be able to stroll to
the outskirts of the forest near the village to collect herbs before seeing to
some of the villagers.

The combination of
sunshine, fresh air, and freedom were surely going to her head, she thought
giddily and she walked under the portcullis and wound her way toward the
village, which sat just south and slightly lower than the castle a few hundred
yards away.

She weaved her way
around the west side of the village, swinging her basket and humming a tune. Yes,
the forest would be perfect on this warm afternoon. She had heard from one of
the castle’s servants that a villager named Laura had a colicky baby, but she
was running low on fennel, which would treat the colic.

When she reached a
likely looking spot on the edge of the forest, she plopped her basket on the
ground and began searching for the distinctive yellow flowers.

She couldn’t
remember the last time she had felt so free. Even when she had been able to get
away from her brother and the castle in the past, she always had to be looking
over her shoulder, and she knew she would catch hell from him if he found out
what she had been up to. But with Raef gone, and his lackey incapacitated for
the time being, she felt like she could fly. She hadn’t felt this way
since—since before their parents had died.

Though it had
happened almost seven years ago, the thought of her parents’ death cut dully
into her joy. It had been some sort of fever. The village healer back at her childhood
home in England, Meg, had done all she could, but death’s grasp on them had
been too strong. Jossalyn’s girlish screams still rang in her own ears. She had
begged Meg to heal them, not understanding the limits of a medicine woman.

Once the initial
shock had worn off, she had begged the healer for a second time, but instead of
asking for the impossible, she had pleaded with Meg to teach her everything she
could about the art of healing. The old woman had resisted at first, but
quickly noticed an unusual aptitude in Jossalyn for identifying plants and
their uses, and her gentleness with the sick and ailing. Meg had called it a
gift. Jossalyn just wanted to help, and if this was her way, then so be it.

A few years later,
when Raef had been entrusted to hold Dunbraes against the Scottish, she had
found another friend and teacher in Vera, the old Scottish wisewoman and healer
of the village. Vera was more than willing to have an eager and knowledgeable
apprentice, despite the fact that she was also the sister of the Lord of Dunbraes
Castle, a very unusual arrangement.

The only person
who seemed to mind, however, was her brother. As the years went on, he set
himself more and more against her work as a healer. At first, he only warned
her that it wasn’t proper for a lady to move around the village so freely. Then
he told her that she couldn’t continue with her work. When she did anyway, he
took to screaming at her, shoving her, and even hitting her.

Though he claimed
that it was merely a problem of propriety, Jossalyn suspected that it went
deeper than that. Her brother had changed, albeit slowly, since their parents’
death.

He had always been
concerned with order, even as a child. But now he seemed poisoned with it, and
with his desire for power. Perhaps he saw illness as the ultimate
powerlessness, the ultimate intrusion onto order and control. He couldn’t save
his parents, nor could a healer, and that had frightened him. While Jossalyn
had turned to healing as a way of dealing with their loss, he had turned to
rage. And she had seen him shudder at the sight of her after one of her trips
to the village, as if illness clung to her, followed her, and threatened to
sink its claws into him as well.

Something had
happened in the last few months to make his rage even worse, too. Jossalyn had
heard rumors that he was to be wed to an English lady, yet nothing had come of
it. And the English army seemed to be mobilizing for a great attack on Scotland
any day now, which had everyone on edge.

Jossalyn pushed
the dark thoughts from her mind. She had chewed on them so much lately and was
tired of them poisoning her just as they poisoned her older brother. She would
enjoy this day, and even when her brother returned and forced her to stay
inside the castle walls, she would have the memory of the warm sunshine on her
hair and back, the smell of soil and plants on her hands, and—

Suddenly she
noticed a faint reverberation coming up through her slippers. The ground was
rumbling—and it was growing stronger.

Her eyes shot from
her feet to her right, back up the faint, overgrown path she had walked along
to reach the edge of the forest.

All of a sudden,
an enormous draft horse pulling a wagon crashed through the underbrush only a
few yards away from her. She jumped back in surprise, but tripped over her
basket, which was still on the ground next to her. She went tumbling backward,
landing on her bottom in the low bushes she had just been scouring a moment
before.

“Whoa!” A
commanding male voice shouted from the wagon, drawing the draft horse to a halt
mere feet away from where Jossalyn had been standing. She quickly tried to get
herself upright and give the rude wagoners a piece of her mind, but her skirt
tangled in the brambles of the underbrush, and her thrashing was only making it
worse. Embarrassment mixed with ire, and she felt a flush moving up her neck.

Just then, she
glanced up and saw the driver of the wagon leap from his seat and stride toward
her. Her thrashing stilled, and she felt her jaw go slack. Walking—no, gliding,
and with deadly grace—toward her was the most dangerously handsome man she had
ever seen.

His frame was
large but lean, his broad shoulders tapering into a trim waist and long legs. He
had on a pair of simple breeches and a white shirt, but due to the day’s
warmth, he had the sleeves rolled back, revealing bronzed and muscular
forearms. His dark brown hair was held back at his neck, and the hard line of
his jaw was slightly shadowed with stubble.

She nearly gasped
when she caught a glimpse of his eyes, though. They were almost black, and
seemed to bore into her with an intense searching. His brow was furrowed as he
took her in, which gave him an even darker, more intimidating look. He finally
reached her, looming so large over her from her position on the ground that he
blocked out the sun.

“Are you all right,
lass?”

If it was
possible, she felt her eyes grow even wider. He spoke with a soft lilt. A
Scotsman.

BOOK: Highlander's Redemption: The Sinclair Brothers Trilogy, Book Two

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