The Ghost (Highland Guard 12) (4 page)

“Christ, now I know where she got it from!”

Her brows drew together questioningly.

“Your sister. Christina gives me that look every time she’s done something naughty—which seems to be a daily occurrence.”

Joan couldn’t prevent the tiny pinch in her chest. She’d never regretted the decision not to return to Scotland with her mother after Lachlan had rescued her—Joan had chosen her path and knew it was a solitary one—but she did regret not knowing her young half siblings. She had three now: Erik, who would be five in a few months; Christina, who was three and a half; and Robbie, who was almost eighteen months.

“You know what the Bible says: ‘as ye sow, so shall ye reap.’ ”

Lachlan shook his head with a sigh. “That’s what your mother says.”

She smiled.

He told her what he knew of Edward Bruce’s plan to take the castle, which in her opinion—and Lachlan’s from the sound of it—seemed to be more a “why not take a shot as long as we are here” than a well-thought-through operation.

“So the bulk of the men will attack the main gate, while a small force in black cloaks to blend into the night will attempt to slip over the curtain wall behind the kitchens?” she summarized. “It seems like I’ve heard something like that before,” she added dryly, referring to James Douglas’s taking of Roxburgh Castle and Thomas Randolph’s taking of Edinburgh Castle, which had used similar tactics.

Lachlan shook his head. “The king’s brother will never be accused of inventiveness. But I think he is tired of hearing about Douglas and Randolph and wants to have his own ‘miraculous feat of warfare.’ Just see that you are nowhere near the kitchens after midnight.”

“No late-night snacks for me, I swear it. Even if the cook makes apple tarts.”

He shook his head and chuckled. “Now you sound like Erik. Don’t turn your back on your sweets with that one around.”

She smiled, but when their eyes met, she suspected he’d guessed what she was thinking—there was little chance she’d get that opportunity. At least not while the war was going on and while she remained undiscovered. She was too valuable here. If she were discovered . . . well, they both knew what would happen then.

“That reminds me. I have something for you,” Lachlan added.

“A tart?” she jested, trying to cover the oddly emotional moment.

It didn’t work. “Nay,” he said seriously. “This. You are one of us now, and since a tattoo isn’t appropriate, I thought this might suffice.”

He handed her a gold bracelet. It was about two and a half inches wide and in the shape of a cuff. It opened with a hinge on one side and two tiny latches on the other. It was beautifully designed with a carved ornate pattern on the outside that reminded her of the old crosses in the churchyards back home in Buchan in the northeast of Scotland. But it’s what she saw on the inside that made her gasp.

She looked up at her stepfather with her heart in her throat. The design lightly etched on the inside of the cuff was familiar to her, although she’d never seen it. The Lion Rampant and spiderweb was the mark tattooed on the arms of the members of the Highland Guard. Hers was personalized with something else that was important to her—two tiny roses. The pink rose had become a symbol among the people to protest her mother’s cruel and barbaric punishment.

She didn’t know what to say. She feared if she said anything, he would know how much this meant to her, but hiding her emotions was part of the armor that enabled her to do her job. “It’s beautiful. Thank you,” she managed. “This means . . . a lot.”

Maybe understanding more than she would have liked, he nodded. “Rock made it.” Joan had heard of the newest member of the Highland Guard—and the feat he’d performed in climbing Castle Rock to help take Edinburgh Castle. “I don’t need to tell you to be careful with it. Enough people know what that means.”

She slipped it on. “I will.”

“Leave it with the priest at St. Mary’s if you ever need me.” He looked at her for a few moments longer as if undecided about something. “I should probably go. The others are waiting for me.”

She nodded. It was hard when he left. She always felt so . . . alone. Most of the time she liked it that way. But the short, infrequent meetings with Lachlan were the only time she could talk to someone without being on guard.

Lachlan pulled something out of his pocket and handed it to her. “I probably shouldn’t be giving you this, but here is the powder you requested from Helen.”

Helen MacKay—known as Angel—was the de facto physician of the Guard.

Joan tried not to wriggle under his intense scrutiny, but those eerie green eyes had a way of penetrating. “I’ve been having trouble sleeping,” she explained.

She thought he might call her lie right there, but he refrained. “Helen told me to remind you not to mix it with spirits—the effects are intensified.”

“I’ll remember that,” she said blankly.

He wasn’t fooled. “You better be careful, Joan. If your mother finds out what you are doing . . .”

She lifted her chin. “I can take care of myself, Lachlan. I’ve been doing so for six years.” Eight if she counted back to when her mother left.

“I don’t ask you how you discover all this information—”

“Good,” she said, cutting him off. “It’s none of your concern.”

He ignored her warning. “But I’m hearing rumors.”

She stiffened and gave him a hard look. “You better than anyone know better than to listen to gossip.”

The lies that were spread about him were far worse than anything they might say about her.

“Maybe so, but I also know there is usually a little bit of truth to them.”

She pursed her mouth closed, signaling that she wasn’t going to talk about it anymore.

He sighed. “You keep your thoughts hidden better than any warrior I know—your mother used to do the same thing—but don’t think I haven’t noticed how sad you seem lately. I can’t remember the last time I saw you smile.”

“I’m fine,” she assured him. But seeing that she hadn’t convinced him, she added, “I know you are worried, but you don’t need to be. I know what I’m doing.”

Whatever it takes so that no one else ever has to see her mother in a cage
.

The damned fools were going to get him killed.

Alex was riding at the head of the long train of English soldiers when they first caught sight of the smoke.

“Scot raiders,” their scout confirmed shortly thereafter, having raced back with the news. “A few furlongs ahead.”

Two years later and the word still made every muscle in his body tense with . . . frustration? Anger? A sense of futility?

Raider, the war name of his former partner in the Highland Guard, Robbie Boyd. The man who’d pushed Alex for seven years until he’d pushed him too far.

You raze me, I’ll raze you more.
The retaliatory raids that characterized the war in the Borders had driven Alex to London two years ago, yet here he was back in the north and the first thing that confronted him was fire—or the smoke from it.

“How many?” Pembroke asked. Aymer de Valence, the Earl of Pembroke, was the leader of the two hundred knights and men-at-arms who were making their way north to answer King Edward’s call to muster.

Since he’d left Scotland and the Guard, Alex had been in the south of England able to avoid the fighting and the prospect of meeting his former compatriots across a battlefield. But no longer. King Edward had ordered him to march north with Pembroke ahead of the army to prepare for battle against Bruce. Like many of his Scot countrymen in Edward’s allegiance, Alex served in an English earl’s retinue.

“Not many, my lord,” the scout answered. “Two score—perhaps less. The man leading them wore a surcoat of white with a red chevron.”

Alex swore silently. That coat of arms was only too well known.

Pembroke could barely contain his glee. “By God, it’s Carrick! We’ve a chance to take Bruce’s only remaining brother. Ready your men,” he ordered the knights around him, including Alex. “We’ll circle around them from all sides. I don’t want any chance of him escaping.”

Despite the English being on the losing end of such confrontations most of the time over the last six years, it apparently never occurred to Pembroke that
they
might be the ones who would need to escape. English arrogance was one of Alex’s many frustrations.

Though experience taught him that it would likely be futile, he tried to urge caution anyway. “Carrick wouldn’t be raiding this far into England so close to Carlisle Castle with only forty men. Perhaps we should wait until the other scouts report back?”

Something about this didn’t feel right, and Alex had learned a long time ago to trust his senses. He’d also learned that things like odds and superior numbers didn’t matter to Bruce’s warriors. And perhaps most important, he’d learned to never rush into battle without knowing exactly what you were up against.

They didn’t even know the terrain they were working with—and it was getting dark.

Pembroke gave him a scathing glare. “And risk losing him?” His eyes narrowed. “You would think the brother of one of the most famed knights in Christendom would be eager to fight and prove himself. Perhaps you aren’t eager to cross swords with your old compatriots?”

Alex ignored the insult and thinly veiled questioning of his loyalty—it had been his constant companion the past nine years no matter what side he was fighting on. Born in England and raised in Scotland, Alex was suspect to both. Sometimes he wondered if he would ever belong anywhere.

But it was much harder to ignore the reference to his brother. Sir Christopher Seton had indeed been one of the greatest knights in Christendom, Robert Bruce’s closest friend and companion, and the person Alex most looked up to in the world. Chris had been executed along with Alex’s other brother, John, eight years ago because of Pembroke’s treachery. At the Battle of Methven,
Sir
Aymer had given his word as a knight that he wouldn’t attack until the next morning, but he’d broken that word and sent his men into Bruce’s camp in the middle of the night.

One of the reasons Alex felt he could no longer fight with the Highland Guard was that he was tired of furtive tactics and wanted to take the fight to the battlefield like a knight. Yet here he was taking orders from the man whose dishonorable treachery had cost him the lives of his brothers.

Irony was a capricious bitch.

It took everything Alex had not to respond and let the pompous bastard get away with the smug reference to his brother. But Pembroke was wrong if he thought Alex needed to prove anything. He might have at one time, but he’d proved himself many times over fighting alongside the best warriors in Christendom. The best of the best; that was why Bruce had chosen them. Each warrior of the Highland Guard had brought an important skill of warfare to the group. Except for Alex, that is. He was good with a dagger, but he’d been recruited because of his brother. Chris couldn’t join—he was too well known—but he wanted his younger brother to be a part of it.

Alex had started out on unequal footing, and it had taken years for him to climb his way up from the bottom rung. But he’d done it. When he’d left, it hadn’t been his warrior skills that were the problem. Hell, he’d even defeated Boyd, the strongest man in Scotland, in hand-to-hand combat, and no one had done that in years.

Though Alex would like nothing more than to prove himself to Pembroke—a fist through that smug smile would be a good start—he resisted the urge. Alex was here to help put an end to this, damn it. If it meant he had to work with arses like Pembroke to do so, he would. The people in the Borders—his people—had been bearing the brunt of this war for too damned long.
No more faces in the flames
. So he gritted his teeth and tried again. “I will be the first one to lift my sword if we determine Carrick is alone. Just give me a few minutes to find out.”

“He could be gone in a few minutes,” Sir Robert Felton, the captain of Pembroke’s household knights (and even more of an arse than his lord), interjected. “It doesn’t take long to steal a few dozen head of cattle.” He gave Alex a hard look. “And I’ll take the lead with Kingston, la Zouche, and Vescy. With your sword arm still weak, you won’t be much use to us. You can stay in the back and protect the baggage cart with your men.”

After a couple of weeks being around Felton, Alex had new respect for Kenneth Sutherland’s ability to contain his well-known temper. Felton had been Sutherland’s nemesis when he’d returned to the English fold as a spy a few years ago, and Alex didn’t know how Sutherland hadn’t ended up killing him. Alex would like nothing more than to do so right now. But then he would have to use his right hand. His arm was fine, but he wasn’t ready to admit that yet.

This time not only were his teeth gritted, but his fists were clenched around his reins as well. “I take orders from the earl. I wasn’t aware he’d put you in charge.”

“He hasn’t,” Pembroke said with an admonishing glance at Felton. “I shall lead.” In addition to Felton and the knights he’d mentioned, Pembroke added a few others, and then turned to Alex. “Felton was right. We need someone to protect the carts, and until your arm is strong enough you are the obvious choice. Stay here, and I’ll send for you if you and your men are needed.”