Highlander Redeemed (Guardians of the Targe Book 3) (5 page)

He had thought ’twas Scotia isolating herself in her anger and grief, but he realized ’twas more than that. The lassie who everyone for so long had shaken their heads over and smiled at her
antics when she landed in yet another bucket of trouble was now treated as if she did not exist, except by Peigi, who condemned her to forever scrubbing pots.

That Scotia had not lashed out with more than angry words of late, that she had slipped away to the forest instead, was interesting, though he did not understand why she did that . . . but he would.

Not long after they returned, Duncan sat in the gloom of the darkening evening eating the stew that somehow Peigi and the other women had managed to make savory in spite of the small number of rabbits the lads had managed to trap this day. Scotia also sat in the gloom, upon the flat-topped boulder just outside the main cave. She was as far away from the clan as she could get without retreating into the cave itself.

He was glad she had gone back for a second bowl of stew. She had earned it with her hard training. Though his stomach still felt hollow, he had not gone back for more, letting her take his share. There was little enough to go around thanks to the fire that had destroyed most everything in the storage areas under the great hall. And the game was nearly hunted out in this small glen after just a few weeks of hunting and trapping. The lads would need to extend their trapping into other glens soon. It did not bode well for the clan if they had to remain here into the winter.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Scotia rise and take her bowl to the wash station, then she quickly made for the cave. Peigi started to call out to her, one hand in the air, but then cocked her head as she watched the shadow that was Scotia in the gathering gloom, and let her hand drop.

Duncan placed his bowl on a towering pile by the washbasins. He wished he could sit quietly near the fire with a cup of ale or a dram of whiskey, though they had neither after the great hall burned. But even if they did, he could feel Rowan and Jeanette watching him, and he did not want to have to walk that fine line between keeping Scotia’s secret as he had pledged and not lying to them. They were the Guardians. He would never lie to them.

He gathered his bedding and carried it toward the council circle where he slept when there were still people gathered near the cookfire. He only slept in one of the caves when it rained, and then near the mouth. He slept far better in the open than in the dank confines of their temporary shelters. At least he hoped it was temporary.

As he crossed the clearing, skirting the circle of light thrown by the cookfire into the darkness that rapidly deepened to night, he could feel Jeanette and Rowan’s eyes upon him. They had yet to come right out and ask him anything about Scotia, but he could feel their need to gathering strength within them, and he found himself reluctant to tell them anything of the determined, driven, dare he say compliant lass he had spent the day with.

Before he had laid his bedding out Rowan appeared at his left elbow, Jeanette at the right.

“Where did she go?” Rowan asked, pitching her voice low.

“Aye, where did she go and what was she about?” Jeanette added.

“She was wandering the wood,” Duncan said. “She’s angry, and grieving, and embarrassed.” He wasn’t so sure about that last one, but she should be. “Can you blame her for wanting to get away from all the judging looks and whispers?”

“Aye,” Rowan said, “I can. She was told to stay near the caves. She kens well that every time she hares off into the wood someone has to follow her. Today it was you and we could have used your counsel. It is high time she grew up and took responsibility for her actions like the rest of us.”

Rowan’s tone and accusation irritated Duncan, and though he did all he could not to show it, he wasn’t entirely successful.

“How is she to do that? How is she to take responsibility, to grow up, when no one here—not even me”—until this day, he realized suddenly—“treats her like anything other than an overgrown child?”

Both women were silent then, and Duncan thought perhaps he had overstepped.

“He is right, Rowan,” Jeanette said, and Duncan let out a quiet sigh of relief. “It is difficult not to treat her as if she is always about to cause trouble.” The three of them stood there in silence for long moments, the murmur of those clan folk still awake and the occasional pop of the fire the only sounds.

“Duncan,” Jeanette said, settling a hand on his arm, “you have always been the one to understand her, to watch out for her far better than any of the rest of us. What do you think we need to do to help her make this change?”

The image of Scotia whirling through her exercise this morning, fierce, determined, focused entirely on what she meant to master, flashed through him. She was so intent on her quest that she had even agreed to his deal.

“You need to let her roam,” he said, trying to answer their questions without lying, and without revealing Scotia’s secrets, for he knew if he let on what she was really up to, Rowan, Jeanette, and pretty much everyone else would hobble Scotia like a horse and throw her into the back of a cave until she came to her senses . . . which would be never. “She is unhappy, and here she is surrounded by disapproval and your happiness.”

“Happiness? Here where we hide in the bens, driven from our home by the English?” He could see the silhouette of Rowan’s curly auburn hair tremble with each angry word.

“Aye,” Duncan replied, letting his own anger lend weight to his words. “You accuse her of selfishness, yet the two of you flaunt your newfound happiness, your husbands, and your places as Guardians, in front of her, without a thought to how it makes her feel.”
Or the rest of us
, he thought. He did not mean to tarnish the joy these two women had managed to find in spite of the trials that had overtaken the clan of late, but he knew he found it difficult to watch their happiness when he had none of his own. He could only imagine Scotia felt the same. “She is grieving and she needs time and understanding to move through that. She does not have a Nicholas or a Malcolm to teach her that happiness and
grief can go hand-in-hand, nor does she have the responsibilities of a new Guardian to distract her from it, so she will have to learn how to grieve on her own. I will do what I can to keep her safe and out of trouble, but I think only she can figure out how to move past the hurts and betrayals.”

When neither Rowan nor Jeanette spoke he said, “I am sorry. I did not mean to make you feel discomfited because you are happy. I would not take that from either of you. I only meant to show you how you look to Scotia.”

“And you have done that very well,” Rowan said, but he could tell he had offended her from the flatness of her voice, even though he could not see her face well in the dark.

Duncan looked down at the plaid clutched hard in his fists. He did not like hurting these women. They had lost so much, but they had gained much, too, in these last weeks, and he was genuinely happy for them.

But for now Scotia was his priority.

Jeanette sighed. “You seem to see her more clearly than either of us can. Will you continue to watch over her, Duncan? I ken you would rather be out keeping watch for the English, or preparing battle plans with the council, but right now watching over Scotia is every bit as important. Rowan and I can only concentrate on our training and preparations for the coming battle if we know she is both safe and not endangering the clan.”

Duncan’s mind raced. Of course he would agree, but was there anything that might help him keep Scotia’s secret while he kept his promise to the Guardians, even if ’twould not be in exactly the way they expected?

“I will continue to watch over her safety, as I did today, but I must ask for two things from you,” he said, choosing his words with exquisite care.

CHAPTER FOUR

S
COTIA SAT JUST
inside the mouth of the main cave, wrapped in her blanket, but unable to sleep after the eventful and surprising day, when she watched first Jeanette, then Rowan, casually leave their places by their husbands and follow Duncan into the council circle.

She knew what was happening even though she could not hear their voices, and could barely make them out against the dark forest background. She knew Rowan and Jeanette were about to interrogate Duncan on what he had learned of Scotia’s activities this day. Doubt sprang alive in her, gnawing at her confidence and whispering betrayal in her heart. Rowan and Jeanette always got their way, and Duncan would be no match for the two of them if they really wanted to make him tell Scotia’s secrets. She knew better than to believe anyone would be on her side, an ally in her quest for vengeance. Even Duncan, the one person she could always depend upon to defend her, even when he was himself chiding her for whatever her latest debacle was, couldn’t stand up to the clan’s Guardians. She wouldn’t be surprised if, when the women were done with him, she ended up in shackles, taking away her freedom and leaving her helpless to defend herself or anyone else, on top of all the other losses she had suffered.

Scotia rose slowly and made her way out of the cave, slipping almost silently through the night-black shadows at the edge of the clearing and into the wood, heading carefully through the darkness for her cache of weapons, as if a beacon lit her way. If
they came for her with shackles, at least she’d be ready to defend herself, even if it meant fighting off those she loved.

She hadn’t made it far when a man jumped out of the wood not far in front of her. She stopped, tried to make out who it was in the near total lack of light, then took a few steps backward, the memory of just such an ambush with Myles fresh in her mind. At least this time there was no one else with her to be murdered.

She almost tripped over a thick dead branch. Quickly she caught her balance, then dropped her blanket and picked up the branch, brandishing it in front of her, though it was so heavy it wobbled in her grasp.

“Put that down, Scotia.”

The voice disoriented her for a moment. It wasn’t English, as her mind had been prepared for. ’Twas familiar.

“Put it down, Scotia. If I meant you harm, running and hiding would serve you far better than standing to fight with that. I can see we have a lot of training to do.”

“Duncan?”

“Of course.”

She threw down the branch, barely missing her toes when it bounced unexpectedly back toward her. She stomped down the barely there trail to where the man stood his ground.

“You told them, did you not?” It was both question and statement.

“I did not.”

She was ready to throw insults at him about his manhood, his integrity, his . . . wait. “What?”

“I did not tell them of your secret, and instead I secured their promise not to demand to know where you are going when you leave the cave site, and also that they no longer send lads, or anyone other than me, to follow you.”

“And they agreed to that?” She tried to quash the hope that surged within her.

“They did.”

She took a step closer to him. “And you believe them?”

“I do,” he said without hesitation.

Scotia tried to understand what he’d done. He’d stood up to the Guardians and he’d gotten promises from them.

“You did not trust me to keep your secret, did you?” he said, and she could hear the disappointment in his voice.

She considered telling him she was only going for a walk, but he would know it for a lie, and she did not want to repay his good faith with anything less than her own. “I did not think you were strong enough to stand against both Rowan and Jeanette.”

“Then we have both learned something new of the other this day. Where were you going?” he asked.

“I thought they would throw me in shackles to keep me from my training.”

“So you meant to fetch your weapons and fight your own kin?”

When he said it like that she realized how shameful that would be. She did not want to fight her family. She wanted them to take her seriously, to respect her. Fighting them would never gain her that.

She rubbed her face with both hands, as if she could scrub the daft idea right out of her head. Where did these ideas come from? And why did she never question her own thoughts before she acted upon them?

“Scotia?”

“You will make me admit yet another mistake in judgment?”

“Nay, I only want you to recognize it so that the next time your fears and anger drive you to action, you might take a moment and think through the consequences, or talk to me so that I might help you see them, before you take action. Can you do that?”

She closed her eyes and sighed. “This is part of my training, aye?”

“An important part. A warrior cannot fight with emotion. A warrior must fight with clear eyes and a calculating mind. I am confident, if you really want to be a warrior, that you can learn to do that.”

“And if I do not?” She stepped closer, looking him in the eye, searching for his doubt, his disappointment, his belief that she would fail in this training. But she saw only determination.

“Then I will not allow you into any battle of any sort, for an emotional warrior is a dead warrior, and I do not want your death upon my conscience. Can you agree?”

She closed her eyes again and knew that what he asked was for the best, though her pride ached at the admission. “More than anything, I want to fight with my kinsmen, so aye, I agree.”

Duncan’s fingers grazed her cheek, startling her with his warm touch in the chill night air. “And now you surprise me again.” His voice was soft and for a moment she thought he leaned closer. For a moment she thought he meant to kiss her, but then he dropped his hand, and the moment was gone.

“’Tis time we both got some sleep.” He scooped up her discarded blanket and headed back up the trail toward the caves.

Scotia watched him disappear into the darkness of the forest. She looked over her shoulder in the direction of her weapons and sighed. Becoming a warrior was a trickier business than she had imagined.