The Arrow: A Highland Guard Novel (The Highland Guard) (3 page)

When he pulled it away a moment later, she would have tried to snatch it back had she not been distracted. He was cradling her against his chest, and his heavenly face was so close, all she had to do was reach up and touch it. Green. His eyes were green and framed by the thickest, most glorious lashes she’d ever seen. Unfair—even for an angel.

Alive?
She frowned as his words penetrated. “But you’re an angel.”

She heard what sounded like a sharp laugh coming from behind her. “Hawk is going to have fun with that one.”

Her angel shot an angry glare in the direction of the man who’d spoken, but his words and gentle voice were for her. “You are alive, child. And safe.”

The reminder of what had happened made her clutch at him in renewed terror. With her head pressed against his leather-clad chest—a very hard and broad chest—she glanced behind her, for the first time seeing the three men standing there.

She gasped, shirking in fear. They were massive. Clad in black leather
cotuns
studded with bits of steel and darkened nasal helms (her rescuer’s was on the ground next to her, she realized), the tall, muscular warriors made her shiver. Good thing she hadn’t seen them first or she might have thought she’d died and gone rather south of heaven.

Who were they? Not English, she knew by the soft burr in her rescuer’s voice. She looked again, seeing the dark plaids they wore around their shoulders.
Highlanders
. But which side were they on? The clans from the Highlands
fought on both sides of the war: some with Bruce and some, like the MacDougalls, against him, making them reluctant allies of Edward of England, the self-proclaimed “Hammer of the Scots.”

Were these men with the English?

Her rescuer seemed to sense her fear. “It’s all right, lass—we are not your enemy. We were sent by King Robert to help when he heard the English had retaliated for the shelter your village gave to his men.”

Help? Her mouth drew tight. Bruce was the one who had put them in this position. He was the one who’d done this.

But these men were proof that Scotland’s would-be king hadn’t completely forsaken them. Not that it gave her much comfort; Bruce’s men had come too late.

And there were only four of them! Her heart started to race again, pounding against her chest like a drum. “What if they come back?”

“Who?” he asked. “Who did this, child?”

Tears streamed down her cheeks and a fierce sob tore from her lungs. “English soldiers from the castle. The Earl of Hereford’s men. They …”

She started to cry harder when she remembered what they’d done. He drew her closer to his chest, soothing her with soft words, telling her it would be all right.

But it wouldn’t be all right. It would never be right again. Her mother was gone, and Cate had no one. Unconsciously, her fingers gripped the steely muscles of his arms harder. Except him. This man who looked like an angel sent from God to save her from certain death. As long as he was holding her, she had him. And Cate didn’t want to ever let him go.

Gregor thought he might need Robbie Boyd (or at least his fellow Guardsman’s inhuman strength) to pry the lass’s bloody fingers from his arms, but eventually the mite grew
so exhausted from weeping, she dozed off, enabling him to help the others finish their grim task.

But he kept a close eye on her where he’d left her, wrapped in his plaid by the horses. The wee lass was traumatized, and as he was the one who’d found her, he felt strangely responsible for her. Strangely, because it was an entirely new experience feeling any sort of responsibility toward a woman—even one who was still a child.

But when he thought of what she’d been through, it roused every protective bone in his body. Bones he hadn’t even known existed.

God’s blood, how long has she been in that hellhole? Four days? Five? She’d been close to death—was
still
close to death. Without food and water for so long …

He grimaced. It would be bad enough for a grown man, let alone a young girl with little meat on her bones to spare. Her shredded fingers from trying to climb out of the well were evidence of the torture she’d endured and how desperate she’d been to escape.

He’d thought he’d seen just about every injustice and barbarous cruelty the English could mete out. But who could do something like this to a child? It seemed calculated and almost personal.

Gregor didn’t have much experience with young lasses, but he did have two younger brothers, and she couldn’t be more than eleven or twelve. Still more young girl than young woman. One side of his mouth curved up, recalling the breeches he’d been surprised to discover under her skirts when he’d carried her over his shoulder to climb out of the well.

She weighed next to nothing. Practically skin and bone. Fragile, but with a surprising strength to her skinny limbs. Aye, the lass was a fighter. With what she’d survived, she had to be.

It was MacLean who finally asked the question they all
were thinking. “What are we going to do with her? We can’t take her back to camp. It’s too dangerous.”

That was an understatement. They’d been back in Scotland for less than a month after being on the run in the Western Isles for the past six. Bruce’s army had won one minor victory against the English at Turnberry, but they were one lost battle away from being forced to flee again. After the disaster at Loch Ryan, where over two-thirds of Bruce’s force had been killed, they’d been left with fewer than four hundred men in the entire army.

A lost cause it might seem to some, but they didn’t know Robert the Bruce. Gregor would fight by his side for as long as it took, even if they were the last two men standing.

“Was she able to tell you anything that might help?” MacLeod asked.

Gregor shook his head. “Nothing more than what we’d already guessed. It was Hereford’s men.” Though Lochmaben was part of the Bruce ancestral lands of the Lordship of Annandale, its castle was again in English hands after being retaken by Bruce last year. King Edward had given it to Sir Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, and the earl and countess (one of King Edward’s daughters) had arrived not long ago to occupy it. “She is still in shock. She couldn’t even tell me her name. She just kept crying over and over that he killed her mother, and now she was alone.”

Lamont winced. “She witnessed her mother’s death.”

Gregor turned to him grimly. “Aye, it sounds like it.”

“Poor lass,” MacLean said. “She’s too young to have seen something like that.”

An odd look crossed MacLeod’s face. It took Gregor a moment to realize it was compassion. “I was ten, probably only a couple of years younger than her, when I witnessed my mother raped and murdered. I still remember every damned moment of it.”

The men were silent. Apparently Gregor wasn’t the only one to be strangely affected by the lass’s suffering; it had penetrated the stony shell of one of the most feared swordsmen in Scotland—hell, probably in Christendom. Until MacLeod’s marriage last year to Christina Fraser, Gregor didn’t think the Chief of the Highland Guard was capable of smiling.

“Perhaps she has relatives nearby?” Lamont asked.

“No!” The lass’s voice rang out, and the next moment she’d launched herself into Gregor’s arms. Her raw and bloodied fingers were digging into his arms again, clutching tighter if it were possible. “Please, you can’t leave me here. They’ll find me and kill me.”

“Shhh,” he soothed, stroking her head. “No one is going to leave you here. But isn’t there someplace we can take you? An aunt? An uncle?”

She shook her head furiously. “There is no one. My mother is my only family.”

He didn’t correct her tense. “What about your father?”

A hard look crossed her face. “Dead.” From her tone, he gathered her memories were not fond ones. “At Methven.”

One of the many disasters that had felled Bruce’s and his men last year. “What’s your name, lass?”

She hesitated. “Caitrina.”

“And your father’s name?”

Another pause. “Kirkpatrick.”

A common enough clan name around these parts. “You have no brothers or sisters, Caitrina?” Gregor realized it was the wrong question to ask when her face collapsed in grief.

“My mother was eight months pregnant. He was hurting her. I had to try to make him stop.”

Gregor felt rage flare inside him, suspecting the kind of “hurting.” Sick bastards! He squeezed her tighter, though he knew there was no comfort he could give her that would take the pain away.

“I hit him with the hoe, but I missed, and then he …” Tears glimmered in the big brown eyes that dominated her small face. She was a cute little thing (even beneath the dirt) with a wide mouth, slightly upturned nose, softly pointed chin, and dark hair and brows to match her eyes. “He killed her. It was my fault. He killed her because of me.”

Gregor’s voice turned hard as he shook her by the shoulders and forced her to heed him. “It was not your fault,” he said in a voice that brooked no argument—much like MacLeod had spoken to MacLean and Lamont earlier. “You fought back and gave her a chance no one else in this village had.”

“But I wasn’t strong enough.”

“You were strong enough to try, and that’s what counts. Fighting isn’t just about physical strength. Quickness and knowing where to strike can compensate for size.”

She eyed him skeptically. “But I’m a girl.”

He mocked disbelief. “I must have been confused by the breeches.”

A fiery blush stole up her cheeks. “I just wear those sometimes to make it easier to move around.” She paused and looked at him. “Do you really think I could learn to defend myself?”

He nodded, guessing the direction of her thoughts—to prevent a man from doing what had been done to her mother. “I’m certain of it.”

Her dark brows gathered across her nose, and her mouth screwed down tightly in an expression that was oddly fierce. “Then I’ll do it. Will you teach me?”

Ah hell
. He looked to his companions for help, but they gave him a look that told him he’d gotten himself into this.

“Please,” she begged. “Can’t you take me with you? I’ve nowhere else to go.”

She looked up at him with such hope in her eyes, he instinctively
wanted to turn away. No one should pin their hopes on him.

There had to be someplace he could take her. A church? Perhaps a home for foundlings in Dumfries?

But something inside him rebelled at the idea. What would become of her? Who would protect a young girl? And what would happen to her when she wasn’t so young?

Not your concern. Not your responsibility
.

He grimaced. She wasn’t, but he couldn’t force himself to turn away. No matter what MacLeod said, they all bore some guilt for what had happened to this lass and the other villagers.

Perhaps there was somewhere he could take her. Someplace where she would be welcomed—loved, even. His mother had always yearned for a daughter. Since the death of his father and two older brothers, she’d been so lost. He knew his softhearted mother would take one look at the lass, hear what had happened to her, and melt.

“Please,” the lass said with just enough desperation to make his chest pinch.

Though every instinct told him he was making a mistake, Gregor didn’t heed the warning. “My home is in Roro—near Loch Tay in the Highlands. You can stay there with my mother, if you wish. You will be safe there.”

The look on her face was one he’d seen many times before—a cross between adulation and love—and he instantly regretted whatever impulse it had been that compelled him to make the offer.

But it was too late.

“Do you mean it? You will really take me with you?” She launched herself against his chest and wrapped her arms around him. “Oh thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Bloody hell, what had he done?

He looked over the dark head that barely reached midpoint in his chest to see his friends watching them and trying not to laugh—even MacLeod.

“Breaking hearts wherever he goes,” MacLean said to Lamont with a laugh. “Looks like you’ve made yourself another conquest, MacGregor. Though this one’s a little young even for you. The curse of a pretty face, I suppose.”

“Bugg—” Conscious of the lass, Gregor bit back the rest of his normal response.

Instead he gave MacLean a deadly look. It wasn’t funny. Especially as Gregor suspected it might be true.

What had he gotten himself into?

One
 

Berwick Castle, English Marches, 6 December 1312

There is nothing wrong with me
.

Gregor drew his arrow back and let it loose. One shot. One kill. He wouldn’t miss.

He didn’t. The soldier froze in paralyzed shock as Gregor’s arrow found the narrow patch of skin between his eyes—one of the few places unprotected by mail and the steel kettle-cap the soldiers favored. The old Norse nasal-style helm that the Highland Guard wore would have served them better. But even at this close range—Gregor was no more than thirty yards away—such a small target required skill to hit. Skill like that possessed by the greatest archer in Scotland.

A moment later, the Englishman’s mail-clad body toppled to the ground like a felled tree. Before he’d even hit the ground, the next target already had appeared on the rampart. Gregor took quick aim and fired. He didn’t appear to think; his movements were as smooth and precise as a finely tuned engine of war. But the cool, effortless facade masked the intense focus and concentration underneath. Everyone was counting on him, but under pressure was when Gregor MacGregor was at his best.