Highlander Betrayed (Guardians of the Targe) (19 page)

Like Archie.

Archie would not understand. Nicholas didn’t really understand it himself. But he knew one thing. He could not bring more grief to Rowan and her family when they had so much already.

He reached the downed tree where he’d stashed Uilliam’s fishing gear and was just retrieving it when he noticed Rowan approaching. His heart stuttered at the drawn look on her face. He left the gear and slowly moved toward her, almost as if she were a skittish deer.

“How fares your aunt?” He stopped a few paces from her. She looked bruised—not physically, except for the purple shadows under her eyes—but she held herself carefully in a way that spoke volumes about the emotional beating she’d taken since last he saw her.

Rowan sniffed and tried to smile. “There is no real change. She cannot speak. Her breath is labored. Morven says it may pass, but she looks as if she does not think my aunt will see another morn.” Her eyes glistened but no tears fell.

“Rowan.” He stepped toward her and before he knew what he was about he’d opened his arms for her and she had melted into his embrace, her face pressed against his chest and her arms around his waist. She was silent but there was a telltale dampness upon his tunic and the tiniest of tremors that ran through her body, silently revealing
the storm that broke inside her. All he could do was hold her, letting the emotions pour from her until they lost some of their pain. Long after the tears ceased they stood there, arms wrapped about each other, her head resting over his heart.

Finally, she pushed away from him, swiping at her tear-streaked face. He allowed her enough room to look up at him, but he did not release her. He’d never felt protective of another since his mother. The trust Rowan showed by coming to him, allowing herself these moments of reaction that she clearly did not wish to show to anyone, told him he was not imagining the growing feelings between them.

“Is there aught I can do, lass? Anything at all?” He ran a thumb along the purple smudge under her eye, wiping away the last traces of her tears. He hated that he would cause her any more pain, but it was inevitable.

“Nay. There is naught to do but watch and wait.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “She is so frail and Kenneth is distraught. I do not ken if he will ever forgive us for taking her up the ben yesterday.”

“Does Morven think the trek is what caused this malady?”

“She would not say for sure, but she did say that these sorts of fits happen anywhere and anytime, as if they are ordained.”

“So there is no way to ken if it would have happened if she had stayed abed.” He cupped her face in his hands, lightly stroking her cheeks with his thumbs. Her eyelashes were spiked with her tears, her eyes blood-shot, her skin blotched with red and yet she was the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes on. “You and your cousins cannot blame yourself for helping Lady Elspet…” He still did not know what they had been doing on the ben, but that didn’t matter at the moment.

“We should have stopped her.”

“Have you ever stopped her before when she was adamant to do something? It did not look like even Kenneth could stop her the night of the blessing.”

At last he roused a smile in her, a sad smile, but it was an improvement nonetheless.

“No one ever stops Auntie when she gets her mind fixed on something, but it still feels like we let Uncle down.”

“Perhaps, but ’tis done now and naught will change that. We need to look to her comfort and care.”

“She is as comfortable as Morven’s sleeping draughts can make her. She frets terribly when she is awake. She cannot speak except to make those croaking sounds you heard on the ben. She looks so frightened, Nicholas, but at least when we ask if she is in pain she shakes her head nay. I do not think there is much any of us can do for her at this point except to stay with her and try to keep her calm when she is awake. I know she would be more calm if—”

“If?”

She swallowed and would not meet his eyes.

“Rowan, what is it that troubles the Lady? Is there aught I can do to help?”

Rowan shook her head. “There is naught anyone can do. We tried.” She met his gaze, her eyes big. “If she dies…” She closed her eyes and Nicholas could not decide whether to shake her for what she would not tell him or envelop her in his arms again. He wanted to do both.

Instead he gently kissed her, then rested his forehead against hers, weighing the comfort he wished to give against the opportunity to push for confirmation of his suspicions. She was fragile and clearly trusted him enough to come to him for the comfort she could not find amongst her family. He could almost hear Archie urging him to exploit the moment. He closed his eyes.

“Does her agitation have aught to do with the Highland Targe?” He whispered the question—a compromise lest Archie was indeed near enough to overhear their conversation, exploiting the moment, but keeping it as private as possible. “Is she the keeper of it?”

She jerked back far enough to look up at him again, shock sparking in her eyes and he found himself glad that he’d been able to push her grief aside, if only for a moment.

“Why would you think that?” she asked, stepping out of his reach.

He stopped himself from scanning the nearby woods for a shadow that would tell him Archie listened. He dared not give away his
accomplice, though whether it was because he did not want to disappoint Rowan’s trust or Archie’s he cared not to ponder.

“I heard stories in my travels, and then there was the blessing and bits and pieces of conversation. There is the ermine sack, the stone that fell from it yesterday. I guessed. It is true, then, she is the keeper of the Highland Targe.”

“Not exactly. Nicholas, you must not speak of this to anyone.”

He nodded and reached for her hand, guiding her away from the trees and down to the loch shore.

“The Targe is real, is it not?”

She did not answer for a long time. Finally she took a long deep breath and squared her shoulders. Turning to face him, she reached up and laid her palm against his cheek. “I have already said too much. It is not something I can speak of. It is not mine to share, but if it were, I would tell you of it. You have aided this clan in ways you cannot begin to understand. If you were of this clan, you would be elevated to the chief’s counsel just for yesterday’s work. I would see to it.”

The look in her eye spoke of pride in him, of tender feelings for him. He swallowed, but before he could respond she dropped her hand and lowered her gaze to his chest.

“But you are not, and that prevents many things.”

A chasm opened up between them where a moment ago there had been understanding and connection, leaving him feeling empty and alone as he had not felt since… He tried to reach for her, but she stepped away, shaking her head. He watched as a tear fell to the ground before she looked up at him. “You are a stranger here… a beloved stranger… and I can share nothing with you.”

Panic raced through him, making his heart pound and his mind spin. He had pushed too hard, too fast, and now he was losing her. He could not bear the cutting pain that caused him, the wrench in his chest, the writhing in his gut. She was his.

The thought shocked him, rocking him back on his heels.

She was his.

He knew it deep in his heart.

She was his.

He reeled at the ramifications of such a thought, such a desire. Did he really want a woman in his life? Did he want the responsibilities, the commitments? And this woman… how could he be true to the king and to her at the same time?

Impossible. Archie would never understand that Rowan was anything other than a pawn in their mission. If he learned of Nicholas’s feelings he would see them as either a grand scheme or a weakness that must be cut out. Rowan’s life would be in danger even more than it was now. His bloody dreams would come true and he would not let that happen. If there was any way to spare her from what he must do, he would, but her survival was more important than the betrayal she would endure at his hands.

CHAPTER TEN

A
RCHIE HAD FROZEN
the moment the woman had appeared. He’d been about to make himself known to Nicholas, to find out what news the “king’s favorite” had discovered since yesterday, but then she’d called out to him, startling Nicholas out of whatever thoughts he’d been lost in. Never had Archie seen Nicholas anything but focused. Never had he been able to sneak up on the man, even when he was sleeping, and yet here he was, not six feet away and he’d not even noticed.

But when Rowan had appeared there was a softness to his expression that Archie had never seen in ten years of knowing the man.

Archie pursed his lips. Yesterday he hadn’t been able to tell, from his hiding place in the woods, exactly what passed between these two, but today it was plain that Nicholas had real feelings for the woman, not feigned. His focus would be shattered, his loyalty in conflict. Could Archie still depend upon him to complete this task? Could the king?

Was this finally a crack in Nicholas’s armor?

Glee crackled through him and he dared not give into the urge to throw back his head and crow.

For years he’d been playing second to Nicholas fitz Hugh. For years he’d been employed because Nicholas saw to it. For years he’d been kept out of the king’s regard by Nicholas—master manipulator of the king’s esteem.

But if his loyalty was compromised by this Scottish wench, then Archibald of Easton’s moment had finally come, and he was not one to let it pass. With the king’s regard came wealth, status, power. Nicholas cared only for the status, but there was so much more
possible. And Archie was just the man to exploit every single one of those possibilities.

Maintaining his position with no movement, not even allowing himself the grin he could feel fluttering in his cheeks, was the hardest thing he had done in years. But everything he had endured with false smiles and feigned camaraderie by Nicholas’s side these many years was about to pay off in a grand way and he could wait a little longer to reveal his true self to Nicholas—but only a little longer.

First, Archie had to make sure. He had to test Nicholas to see if what he had surmised was true. He settled in to watch, and listen, waiting impatiently for his moment.

“I
AM BELOVED?
” Nicholas asked, his eyes wide as if he could not fathom such an idea.

Rowan rolled her lips together, damning herself for speaking what should not have been said, what she hadn’t even realized about her own feelings. But she had spoken and she would not lie to him. “Aye, you are. I do not ken how it has come about so quickly.” She tried to find the words to describe the way he made her feel. “You make me want…” Words failed her.

He closed the distance between them, taking her hands in his. “You make
me
want, too.” He smiled down at her and a giddy lightness lifted a little of the grief from her heart. “Is this so impossible, lass?” He raised her hand and softly brushed his lips across her knuckles. “If I stayed here at Dunlairig, would you have me, Rowan?”

If he stayed? Her breath grew shallow and quick as she tried to understand exactly what he was saying, tried to decide if he spoke his true feelings. “You would do that? Stay here? With me? What about your home, Achnamara? What about the life you left behind?”

“I have never been so much at home as I have been since arriving here, since meeting you. I do not wish to leave.” Winding through his words was a sense of wonder, as if he was only just realizing this himself. “Would you have me, Rowan?” he repeated.

She studied him for long moments, weighing his words, his expression, and the unwavering sense that he spoke the truth. She knew it was possible, likely even, that she trusted him because he said what she wished to hear, but she had always been a good judge of character, as if she had some other sense she was not aware of. It had always served her well.

“If you stayed, and if my family agreed, I would have you, Nicholas of Achnamara.”

A brilliant smile burst upon his face as he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. Every rational thought she’d been struggling to have fled, leaving only Nicholas and the feelings he awoke in her.

She sank into the feel of strong arms about her, tender lips upon her own. She let the scent of Nicholas surround her as completely as his arms did. The man wrapped her in a cocoon of sensation that flooded her mind and her limbs, focusing every thought and feeling on him. Only on Nicholas.

She wanted him as she’d never wanted anyone before. She pressed her body to his, needing to get closer. Needing. She pushed up on her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck, deepening the kiss as he’d done when they kissed before, letting her tongue dance with his.

Her body came alive beneath his lips. He trailed his hands down her sides, up her back, crushing her to him. She whimpered as her breasts brushed against his chest with every ragged breath she took, and nearly cried out in pleasure when he slid a hand between them, lifting her breast and running a thumb over her nipple until her knees went weak. Without thinking, she pressed her hips against his, trapping his need between them. A thrill raced through her, tightening into a restlessness deep in her belly. A low growl rumbled from him as he went absolutely still.