Highlander Avenged (24 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY

“H
AVE YOU SEEN
Scotia this morning?” Jeanette asked Duncan as she came out of the large cave and blinked in the bright sunshine of midmorning.

He stopped sharpening his dirk and looked up at her. “Aye, she’s down in the glen. Uilliam is with her.”

“He had better keep a sharp eye on her. I do not trust her to stay where she is told.”

“He will. He does not trust her any more than the rest of us do.”

Jeanette sat next to him on the tree trunk that served as a bench near the fire, carefully not looking at the place where she had first slept in Malcolm’s arms. The ache that had taken residence in her heart since he left eleven days ago seemed to grow bigger every time she thought of him. It grew harder and harder to keep up the pretense that she didn’t care that he had left. She thought it would grow easier but she was so wrong.

“Has she yet told you why she left the camp?” Jeanette asked to get her mind away from difficult feelings. She had questioned her sister several times over the last ten days but the stubborn lass would not tell her.

“Nay. I think she is embarrassed,” Duncan said. “She will not look me in the eye, nor even rise to my teasing.”

“She saw much that day that haunts her dreams, too.”

“It was a bloody day for all of us.”

“I fear it will not be the last.” She sighed and looked about to see what task needed tending, but there were so many people living in the Glen of Caves now that most jobs were handily taken care of, leaving Jeanette with too much time on her hands. She had taken to poring over the chronicles for hours at a time, until her back ached and her eyes were gritty with fatigue, as she had been doing since well before dawn today.

“Do you think he will come back?” Duncan asked as he once more took up the sharpening of his blade.

Her heart leapt at the idea, but she ruthlessly killed the hope that Duncan’s words encouraged. “Nay. He will fight with King Robert and when his duty is fulfilled there he will return to his home in the north.” She took a deep breath and tried to swallow the pain that strangled her heart tighter and tighter each day. She rose and decided to find Rowan so they could practice using the Targe stone, as they had done every spare moment since the battle. “He will be chief of his clan,” she said. “It is as much his duty as being a Guardian is mine.”

She could feel Duncan’s eyes on her, could feel the pity he and everyone else seemed to feel for her. She needed to get away by herself, compose herself, a task that seemed almost impossible, but she was determined to go on as if her heart wasn’t broken, as if her life was exactly as she wished it to be, though there was little about her life that was as she wished it. She made herself walk toward the thicker trees that circled the main cave and she had just stepped onto a path when she heard a horn sound from up the ben in the direction of the pass. One blast—friend. Duncan’s last question leapt to her mind but she immediately chided herself for her wishful thinking. It was probably just the scouts who kept watch for the English soldiers, whom she dreamed about nightly, returning to the glen.

She walked a little farther into the wood, then stepped off the path and went to a large boulder that made a perfect seat. She had taken to coming here often when it all got too much for her. This was a place where no one looked on her with pity and no one asked questions she didn’t want to answer. This was a place where she didn’t have to think, didn’t have to feel. This was a place where she could just be. Maybe, if she tried very hard, she could find that calm center she had had before she met Malcolm, before her mother died, before she became a Guardian, before her entire life had turned upside down and left her heart in tatters.

It was not long before she heard a commotion. Whoever had entered the glen must have made it down to the caves fast. And then she heard her name called. Someone must be hurt. She took a deep breath and settled her face into what she hoped was a serene smile, before she rose from her stone seat and headed back the way she came.

“I am here,” she said as she stepped into the open in front of the cave. “Who is hurt?”

A group of seven men she did not know looked at her, then stepped aside.

Malcolm stood amongst them with the same grin he’d worn the day they met.

Jeanette couldn’t move. She couldn’t speak. Her mind kept telling her it wasn’t him, it wasn’t him. But her eyes proved otherwise.

“You . . .” She put her hand over her mouth and tears started to stream from her eyes. “You came back,” she managed to get out as her heart burst free of its chains. “You came back.”

Malcolm’s grin faded to a smile as he closed the distance between them. “Do not cry, angel mine.” He took her face in his hands and kissed her gently, as if she was fragile. He wiped her tears away with his thumbs, then pulled her into a fierce hug. “I came back to you. Are you still mine, Jeanette?” he whispered in her ear.

She smiled through her tears. “Always. Are you still mine?” she whispered in his ear, nuzzling it with her nose.

“Always and forever.”

T
WO DAYS LATER
Jeanette donned a beautiful blue gown the women of the clan had found for her wedding day.

“It is the very color of your eyes,” Rowan said as she laced it closed for her cousin. “ ’Tis a good thing you shall have Malcolm’s help undressing, though, with the laces in the back!”

Jeanette felt her skin go hot, partly from embarrassment that Rowan should speak of such things, and partly from the memory of the things she and Malcolm had shared in the grotto before and would do again this very day.

“I think that was the idea when the women chose this for me.”

“Aye, I’m quite sure Peigi had a hand in the choosing. You ken she takes full credit for this marriage, do you not?”

“I doubt it not.” The two of them laughed quietly together.

Scotia sat nearby, solemnly watching. “I will arrange your hair for you, sister, if you will let me. It should have been Mum’s privilege but . . .”

Rowan patted Jeanette on the shoulder to let her know the lacing was finished.

“I would like that,” Jeanette said. Scotia rose, giving her seat on a small barrel to her sister. “I think Mum would be happy today, do you not?” Jeanette asked her.

“I think she would be sad to miss this day,” Scotia said quietly as she began to run a comb through Jeanette’s long flaxen hair, “but happy that you have found Malcolm.”

“ ’Tis a good thing Uncle Kenneth likes Malcolm,” Rowan said as she watched Scotia’s work. “I was not sure, when he first arrived yesterday, if that would be true.”

Jeanette smiled, remembering the sight of her blustering father as he burst into the cavesite yesterday afternoon with Uilliam and Duncan, who had found him already on his way back to Dunlairig, on his heels. Kenneth had been ready to run Malcolm through with his sword. Uilliam, bless him, had calmed Kenneth down enough to give Malcolm a chance to convince her father he was an honorable man who was in love with Jeanette. After several hours of the men conversing by themselves, she watched as Malcolm formally asked for her hand in marriage and her father agreed, giving his blessing to both of them.

Scotia settled a wreath of flowers and greenery on Jeanette’s head, weaving thin braids of her hair about it like ribbons.

“Have you heard aught of whether Da was able to convince any of the other clans to send help?” Scotia asked.

“Nicholas said there were a few chiefs who pledged men,” Rowan said, “but most were unwilling to leave themselves vulnerable in case the English turned their attention upon their clans.”

“And they call us their allies?” Scotia’s voice was a low growl. “Let us see what happens when they need our help.”

“Wheesht, sister,” Jeanette said. “Today is a day of happiness and celebration. Tomorrow will be soon enough to consider our options.”

“I think it is time,” Rowan said.

Scotia tucked one last braid around the wreath, then motioned for Jeanette to stand.

“You make a beautiful bride, Cousin,” Rowan said quietly, and Scotia nodded.

It seemed only moments later that she stood outside the main cave, Malcolm by her side, with her clan and his kinsmen gathered about them as they made their vows, just as they had done the day in the grotto, only this time it was witnessed and they were declared married by her own father.

Somehow, Peigi and her sisters had organized a feast, complete with delicious venison stew and honey cakes.

Rowan came to sit next to Jeanette and leaned close enough to whisper to her. “I have prepared a small cave not too far away for you and Malcolm,” she said, smiling at her cousin. “I wish I had a feather bed for you on your wedding night.”

Jeanette laughed and hugged Rowan. “I have Malcolm now. I do not need a feather bed.”

Malcolm saw them laughing and came over to them. “Are you ready, angel?” he asked, holding a hand out to help her up.

“Aye, my golden warrior.” She could not keep from smiling at this man, her husband, the keeper of her heart.

“Where are you going?” Rowan asked, drawing the attention of everyone nearby.

Jeanette looked down, suddenly sure that everyone could see the anticipation that coursed through her, even though she knew that what they were about was expected on a wedding night.

“We are going someplace special—” Malcolm laughed when Duncan, Jock, Nicholas, and Kenneth all started to complain. “It is not far away, and it is within this glen. I can guarantee that should it come to anything, Jeanette can keep me very safe.” Everyone laughed, though his kinsmen looked at each other as if they didn’t entirely understand why that was funny. Malcolm thought it best they keep the real strength of the two Guardians secret for a while longer and Nicholas had agreed.

Jeanette leaned close to Rowan and kissed her on the cheek. “We are going to the grotto,” she said for Rowan’s ears alone. “Tomorrow we will take advantage of the cave you have prepared.”

Rowan grinned. “I imagine you will.”

Peigi arrived with a basket full of food and a wineskin Malcolm h
ad brought back with him for just this occasion.

“How did you ken we would need that?” Jeanette asked.

Peigi gave a loud cackle. “A golden birdie told me.” She patted Malcolm on the cheek, then Jeanette. “Do not hurry back!”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

M
ANY THANKS, AS
always, to my dear friends and sisters-of-my-heart Pamela Palmer and Anne Shaw Moran. I don’t know what I would do without you two to keep me steady, grounded, and focused. Your friendship makes me a better person. Your critiques make me a better writer. I’m so glad we are journeying through this life together!

An equal number of thanks go to my daily writing friends Phyllis Hall Haislip and Kathy Huffman. Thanks to you two, I have gotten really good at writing every single day. I hope I have had the same effect on you!

And a big thanks and hug for my nephew, Dr. Wesley Watkins, for helping me understand Malcolm’s injury. All errors are my own.

And last, but definitely not least, the team at Montlake Romance has my great thanks for being so terrific to work with!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michael Taylor, 2012

L
AURIN
W
ITTIG WAS
indoctrinated into her Scottish heritage at birth when her parents chose her oddly spelled name from a plethora of Scottish family names. At ten, Laurin attended her first MacGregor clan gathering with her grandparents, and her first ceilidh (“kay-lee”), a Scottish party, where she danced to the bagpipes with the hereditary chieftain of the clan. At eleven, she visited Scotland for the first time and it has inhabited her imagination ever since.

Laurin writes bestselling and award-winning Scottish medieval romances and lives in southeastern Virginia. For more information about all of Laurin’s books, please visit her at
LaurinWittig.com
.