Highlander Avenged (15 page)

“Cursed?” Something felt wrong about his assessment of the beautiful grotto. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes to calm her racing heart but it only raced faster as she remembered what had toppled her into the water. This was a sacred place. Even more powerful than the wellspring near the castle. But what had happened to give her such certainty? She retraced her actions this day—the stag, finding the grotto, making love with Malcolm. Her entire body flushed at that memory.

“What is it, Jeanette?” His warm hand smoothed over her cheek and cupped the back of her neck. “Open your eyes and look at me. Whatever bedevils you is not real. Look at me.”

She opened her eyes to find lines of worry creasing his handsome face. She waited for the twinkle to return to his eyes, but it did not.

“I remember lying in your arms,” she said.

“And that causes you worry?”

“Nay. I have no worries, nor regrets, Malcolm.” She kissed him, letting the strength of this man envelop her and support her. She took his face in her hands and looked him in the eye. “I love you. I know it has not been long since we met, but in this I am certain: I am yours and you are mine.”

“I love you, too,” he said, kissing her again. “And I share your certainty.” He brushed her tangled hair back from her face. “Will you wed with me, Jeanette?”

“Are we not already?”

He grinned at her then, and she could not help but grin back at him.

“It would seem so. We have declared ourselves, but I think your family would prefer to be present to witness our union. Do you not think so?”

“I do.”

“Then we shall wait until we can get your father’s blessing. Perhaps I can send word to my kin so they may be here to witness our marriage and share our joy, too.”

“Aye, that is the proper way to wed, but I do not want to wait long. I think I shall like sleeping in your arms every night.”

“Sleep might not be exactly what you get in my arms.”

She snuggled into his embrace where she could feel the low rumble of his teasing laughter reverberate through her body, and gave thanks that such joy had come to her, reminding her that even in this time of such sorrow there was hope for a better future. The moment she thought of the word “future” she remembered what had happened upon the rock.

“Jeanette? What is it? What ails you?”

She scrunched her eyes closed to shut out the images that bombarded her once more, but it did not help, for they had nothing to do with her eyes. Her breaths came fast and hard, as if she were running for her life over rough ground. She tried to push the images away, to stop them, to bottle them up and send them back from whence they came.

“Can you tell me?” Malcolm’s voice cut through the onslaught and she reached for it, for him, until she could feel the strength of him surrounding her, protecting her, loving her. His arms pressed her to him. His lips brushed her forehead.

“Visions,” was all she could say around the lump that filled her throat and the trembling that overtook her body.

“You are safe with me, Jeanette,” he said quietly. “Do not fight them and perhaps they will come more gently. I’ll not let anything happen to you.” He waited, gently massaging the base of her skull as if he knew that that’s where all her tension gripped. Gradually, lulled by his silent ministrations and the need to calm his worry over her, she pushed aside her apprehension and let herself remember.

Visions stormed through her, though this time it was just the memory of them. She took another deep breath and burrowed into his arms. She needed to be grounded in the real as she relived what had occurred. He wrapped his arms around her, one more tightly than the other, and snuggled her against his chest, her head tucked under his chin.

“Tell me, angel. Whatever it was, I’ll not let it hurt you again.”

She actually chuckled, just a little, at his avowal.

“I swear it.”

“I know, Malcolm, but I do not think this is something you can protect me from.”

He pulled back just enough to look into her eyes. “I will do everything I can to keep you from harm. Do you doubt me?”

“Nay.” Now she reached up and laid her palm against his scratchy cheek, then kissed him lightly and whispered against his lips, “I do not doubt you.”

“Then tell me why you do not think I can protect you from whatever happened.”

“Because it was all visions—nothing physical—though I feel as if I’ve been in a battle.” She remembered his injury earned in real battle, and amended her words. “A fight. Malcolm, as soon as I finished the prayer of protection—”

“With your hands in the air?”

“Aye. As soon as I finished, ’twas as if a dam broke within me. Visions flowed through me so swiftly, I could not focus on any one of them.”

“They hurt you?”

“Not exactly. ’Tis more like they rubbed the inside of my skin raw from passing through so quickly.”

He ran a hand down her arm as if he searched for injuries, but he did not look away. “Has this happened before?”

“Like this? Nay. But you said yourself you think I am a seer, and we were led here by the stag for a reason. I think the reason was to release my gift. On the stone, out in the water, there is a symbol I have seen on the Targe stone, and another I have seen painted on the inside of the sack it is carried in. Mum always called it the mirror—a symbol for visions, for seers.”

He stilled. “What did you see?”

She shook her head. “I do not ken exactly. The visions all went through me so fast, as if they had been trying to get out for a long time. I cannot separate one from the other enough to understand what I was being shown.”

“ ’Twas the future?”

She shook her head again. “I cannot say that, either, though I think it likely.”

She could see the calculation happening within him as he weighed what she had said.

“ ’Twould be a powerful weapon against the English if you could see into the future, if we could ken, ahead of time, where they would be, or how many of them gathered to attack Dunlairig—or King Robert.”

Jeanette swallowed hard. “I will have to learn how to use it before it will be of any use to anyone.”

“Aye.”

She pulled herself out of the comfort of his lap and faced the pool, only then realizing that all she had was her arisaid to wrap about her nakedness.

“What are you doing?” Malcolm asked, standing beside her. “You are not going back into that pool, not this day.”

“But what if this is the only place the visions will come to me?”

“Then we will return here tomorrow, or the next day.” He pushed a bannock into her hand. “Eat, angel, then we must head back to the caves before it gets too dark to do so safely.”

She could feel Malcolm watching her as she nibbled on the bannock and considered everything that had happened in this grotto and what could be learned from it. She had given herself to Malcolm, and of all that had passed this day, that was the one thing she understood completely. Yet part of it was not so clear, for it was as if they needed to become lovers, as if she needed his strength, before she could even see the stone in the pool, before she could open up her heart enough for her gift to flow through her as she perched upon the stone. And if the symbols on the stone in the pool were also on the Targe stone and its sack, and she had been led here to discover this, to discover her gift of second sight . . .

Her gift. Impossible. Never in all the studying she had done with the Guardians’ records had there been mention of more than one Guardian at a time. Never. The power shifted from one Guardian to the next. It was never shared. Did that mean Rowan was no longer Guardian? That Nicholas would no longer be the Protector and chief? Would her gift work better with the Targe stone, as Rowan’s did? And was that rush of visions that almost burned up through her feet and out through her body really the power of the Targe claiming her as a Guardian, or simply the next stage of the second sight coming upon her?

And if it was the Targe choosing her . . .

She dared not look at Malcolm. If she was Guardian, then she was once more tied to Dunlairig, to her clan, and he was destined to be chief of his. Tears filled her eyes at the implications. He was hers but she could not let him abandon his destiny just because hers had once more changed. She would have to tell him.

But not until she was sure.

“We must get back to the caves,” she said, still not looking at him, for she did not want him to see the sadness that swamped her at the mere thought of being parted from him. “I must tell Rowan of this place and what has happened here immediately.”

“We cannot keep it our secret?” he said, wrapping his arm around her waist and tucking her against him as they gazed over the pool in the dim light.

She leaned back into his embrace. “Some, aye, some is just for us, but the rest—I cannot keep that secret. I would if I could.” She laid her head against his shoulder and stared at the darker spot in the pool where the stone lay hidden just beneath the icy water. “I would if I could.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

O
NCE
M
ALCOLM AND
Jeanette had made their way down the steepest part of the trail from the grotto, the rain that had threatened all afternoon poured down upon them in cold, heavy sheets. Malcolm looked for shelter as he walked behind her, following close enough so he could reach out and steady her when she stumbled. And she was stumbling more and more. But he saw nothing more than trees to shelter under, and the rain was hard enough that even the thick canopy of leaves did not stop it.

They had no choice but to get back to the caves as quickly as they could. When the trail widened, Malcolm drew even with Jeanette and took her icy hand. She did not need to be drenched in icy water twice in one day without ever properly warming up in between. Worry lodged in his gut and knotted in his throat. She had been so glassy-eyed just before they left the grotto and he had not been able to decide if it was unshed tears or the onset of fever. The temperature of her skin said ’twas not fever, but then if it was tears, he did not understand why. She had been so happy until she’d seen that stone, so passionate and alive in his arms. And he had been alive in hers, something he had not felt in longer than he could remember.

Was she afraid of the visions? Had she seen something that disturbed her that she had not shared with him?

Jeanette stumbled, then slipped on a muddy patch, Malcolm’s hold on her hand the only thing keeping her upright.

“We can slow down, love,” he said, pulling her close enough to wrap his arm around her, simultaneously pulling her nearer and holding her up more firmly, though she did not slow her pace. The need to protect her, to take care of her, was so fierce it shook him.

“Nay.” She wiped the rain from her face but did not look at him. “The rain is getting harder. If we slow down, the entire trail may be impassable. We need to get back to the caves and then I need to go to Rowan at first light.”

“If the rain has stopped and the trail is passable.”

“Even if those conditions still exist.” She trudged on, almost dragging him with her.

He could not help but admire her determination even as he struggled not to tell her what she could and could not do. He needed her to be safe, to be well, but he also understood the importance to her clan of what she had discovered today. The question was how to honor her need to share the news of her gift with her cousin, and to keep Jeanette safely at the caves until he was sure she was not falling ill from so many drenchings. He could go himself at first light, though he did not know these bens well, and had no idea where the camp of warriors was now, since they moved it every day.

There were plenty of lads at the caves now who were old enough to be well acquainted with the bens and trails in this area. Perhaps he could ask Peigi which one of them he could send to fetch Rowan and Nicholas. At worst he would send his messenger near the castle, as he and Jeanette had done, to find someone who could take him to the camp. He wished Jeanette’s da, Kenneth, would return from his trip to gather their allies. He had a question for the man that he needed to have answered before he sent for his family to attend his wedding to Jeanette. As much as Jeanette needed to get word to Rowan as fast as possible, he felt the same about speaking to Kenneth so that he could claim Jeanette openly as his, and she could claim him as hers, in front of all her kin.

A chill that had nothing to do with the torrential rain ate inward to settle in his bones as he recalled Jeanette’s glassy eyes. Had she seen something that would keep them apart?

Nay, he would not let that happen, no matter what she had seen. He sped their pace as the trail leveled off and he knew they were now very close to the cave site. He needed to get Jeanette settled and dry, and then he would speak with Peigi.

Moments later they were at the edge of the clearing around the caves and for a moment he feared something had happened, for the place looked as if it had been abandoned abruptly, but then he saw a movement at the mouth of the large cave—Aileas, one of Peigi’s sisters, waved them in out of the rain.

“We were worried for you two,” she said as they stepped out of the downpour and into the dank but relatively dry cave. “Peigi! They are here!”

Peigi came from the back of the cave at a much brisker pace than he’d expect from a woman her age. She had toweling over her arm and was leaving a trail of commands for dry clothes, hot food, and blankets in her wake.

“Ye tarried too long,” she said, shaking her head at the two of them, and it was only then that Malcolm realized he still held Jeanette close against him like the lovers they were. “I hope ’twas worth it.” And with that remark she patted his cheek as if he were indeed a laddie. She barely suppressed a grin while she extricated a now shivering Jeanette from his hold and guided her to sit near the fire at the mouth of the cave, just out of reach of the rain.

“You are a troublemaker, Peigi,” Jeanette said.

“Aye, that I am.” She handed each of them one of the lengths of toweling, but she was looking at Jeanette, who looked even paler than usual, her beautiful blue eyes gone big in her face. “Let us get you both out of those wet clothes,” Peigi said, “afore you catch your deaths.” But she was no longer laughing and teasing as she helped Jeanette get her sopping arisaid off. “Turn your backs, lads,” she commanded as she unlaced Jeanette’s gown. “Betty, where’s a dry kirtle, and we need a plaid or two. She’s cold right through to her bones if I’m any judge.”

Jeanette smiled a little and nodded her head. “Right through to my bones.”

Malcolm turned around, though there was no need for it after this day, but he did anyway, dropping his own dripping plaid to the ground and doing his best to dry his hair. When he was allowed to turn back, Jeanette was sitting near the fire once more, swaddled in a dark plaid with thin yellow and red stripes running through it, her hair spread over her back, while Peigi combed the tangles out of it as if Jeanette were a wee lass. A feeling he was not familiar with warmed him and he decided it was gratitude. He was grateful that Peigi was taking care of his angel when he did not yet have that right. He let the homey image of the two women sink into him, and then he took that opportunity to find his own belongings and change into a dry tunic. He snagged the plaid he’d been sleeping on and wrapped it around him.

“Peigi bade me gather your wet things and hang them to dry,” said a woman he’d seen now and again about the camp.

“I thank you, mistress . . .”

“I am Helen,” she said, picking up the wet tunic he had dropped to the ground. “Thank you for getting Jeanette safely back.” She shook out the tunic. “There has been so much heartache for this clan of late, I don’t know what we would do if something happened to any of the lassies.”

“The lassies?”

She smiled. “Aye, that is what we call them, though they are all grown women now, or almost grown. Jeanette, Scotia, and Rowan. The lassies. The three of them have always held the hearts of the clan as if they belonged to all of us.”

He started to say Jeanette was his now, but he stopped, wondering if his own clan felt the same about him and his sisters. Wondering what this clan would do when he took her to live in the MacKenzie stronghold, when he took her to be his wife. Wondering how Kenneth would react when he asked for his daughter’s hand and took her from the clan.

Helen laid a hand softly on his forearm. “Dinna fash yourself. She will be fine as soon as she gets warm. Jeanette is much stronger than she looks, as are all three of the lassies.” She looked about the ground then. “Where is your plaid?”

He motioned back toward the mouth of the cave, where he had left it in a pile.

Helen nodded. “I’ll just get these things drying then.”

Malcolm followed her back to the fire, only to find Jeanette sound asleep, leaning against the hard stone wall of the cave.

“We should get her to her bed,” he said quietly to Peigi, who sat next to her.

“Not now. She sleeps soundly and I expect that is just what the lass needs.” She picked up a wooden bowl that sat almost in the embers of the fire and handed it to him, along with several bannocks. “Eat. I expect that is what
you
need.”

Malcolm’s stomach rumbled, answering her better than words could. He lowered himself to sit next to Peigi, enjoying the warmth of the fire and the oat-thickened stew. When the bowl was empty, and the bannocks gone, Peigi looked about her, then leaned toward him.

“Are you not going to tell me what happened this day?” There was no teasing in her tone, indeed, she was more serious than he had ever seen her. “Bedding a lad and getting drenched in the rain does not make a lass that pale, or that worried looking.”

Malcolm did not think ’twas possible, but the woman made him blush.

“You did bed her, aye?” she asked, a hint of teasing lightening her voice now.

“ ’Tis none of your business, Peigi.”

“True enough, but an auld woman gets little attention from the lads anymore”—she elbowed him in the ribs—“so I have to live that part of my life through others now.”

“I have never met a woman like you before, Peigi.”

“Nor one like Jeanette, I wager.”

“Never one like Jeanette.” He looked over at his angel where she slept awkwardly against the wall. He moved to sit near her, his back to the wall, his legs stretched out in front of him, his feet almost in the fire, then he carefully lowered her from the wall to pillow her head on his leg so her neck would not afflict her when she woke. He smoothed her rapidly drying hair back from her cheek, noted the warmth of her skin now, and watched her simply breathe for long moments. A calmness warmed him from the inside out. A rightness settled into him.

“What else happened, Malcolm?” Peigi said, just loud enough for him to hear but not loud enough for her voice to carry beyond them.

“ ’Tis not my place to say, but we need to send someone to fetch Rowan, for Jeanette needs to speak with her and she will insist upon traveling to the warriors’ camp at first light tomorrow if we do not fetch her cousin.”

“And Nicholas, the chief, will need to come.”

“—And Nicholas, of course.”

Peigi nodded but said nothing.

“Have you had any word of when Jeanette’s da will return?”

“Nay. You wish to ask Kenneth for his daughter’s hand?” Now she slanted him a look that dared him to say otherwise.

“I do.”

“Does she wish to wed you, too?”

He sighed and smiled, remembering when they had claimed each other as their own in the grotto. “She does.”

Peigi let out a cackling laugh and slapped her thighs. “I kent it! I kent you were the one for her and she for you. You will treat her well, lad.”

“I will, Peigi, of course I will.” He looked down at the sleeping lass. “I love her.”

“As do we all,” she said, then added with a sly grin, “Well, perhaps we do not love her exactly as you do.” With a wink she was off to send a lad to fetch Rowan and Nicholas.

J
EANETTE FOLLOWED THE
deer with the bent antler through familiar wood, past the heather bank where she and Malcolm had trysted, past the shielings, and on down the ben toward Dunlairig Castle. She tried to look about her, for she could not remember how she came to be in the wood, nor even what time of day it was, but everything around her—except the deer and the trees immediately around him—were oddly grey. A thick fog separated her from her surroundings, leaving her with an odd floating sensation, as if she rested in the loch, or among the clouds.

Time had no meaning to her so she knew not how long she followed the deer. When he turned, she followed, understanding that he was taking her somewhere, as he had taken her and Malcolm to the grotto. Warmth infused her entire body at the thought of Malcolm and the memory of what they had shared there.

The stag stopped, looked back at her, and gave that odd bark of the roe deer, as if to chastise her for letting her mind wander from whatever his mission was. She heard shouts in the distance and, at the same moment, the deer took off with a giant bound into the thick forest. He took great leaps through the wood, moving so swiftly and so effortlessly that Jeanette could not keep up, but neither could she make her voice work, though she tried to call out to him to wait for her.

The shouts grew louder now, and the unmistakable sound of swords sliding free of their scabbards sliced through the air, sending unseen birds flapping and squawking from their perches all around her. She ran until she saw the stag, standing still just within the wood at the edge of a small clearing.

In the open area stood a dozen English men-at-arms in a circle, their backs to each other, swords drawn and a look of fear and anger on their faces. Two large, freshly toppled trees, judging by the vibrant green of their leaves, hemmed them in on two sides.

Across the clearing, Rowan stood just within the shelter of the trees, her coppery hair glinting in the shifting sunlight filtering through the leafy canopy. The white ermine sack that held the Highland Targe was clutched in her upraised hands and Jeanette could see her cousin’s lips moving, though she could not hear her voice. A crackling came from Jeanette’s right, like a thousand ropes snapping, one after the other, and then she watched as a massive pine tree tipped toward the clearing, gathering speed as its roots separated from the ground around them and its branches pulled free of its neighbors. With a boom that almost knocked Jeanette from her feet, it landed across the other downed trees, closing a tight triangle about the English.