“Aye, I dinnae see anyone else here!” she said, looking around with a laugh.
“Are ye sure yer father will approve?” he asked her. It was a fair question, as Freya was thinking much the same. However, she felt sure once he had heard about what happened he would allow it.
“Aye, I’m sure,” she said, trying to sound more confident than she really was.
“Och, I dinnae…” Wallace began, once again dropping his eyes and looking uncomfortable. Then, to his chagrin, his stomach blabbed out the truth with a giant rumble.
“If yer cast out, where are ye going to sleep tonight?” she asked pertinently.
But Wallace just shrugged. “I’ll find a place,” he said.
“Och, aye. Sure ye will, but then what will ye eat?” she asked. Looking closely, she could already see the strain of life in the clanless taking its toll, with barely a pick of fat showing on his lean, contoured frame.
But at the same time, she could see an underlying nobility in his face. But for a simple change of clothes and a meal, he would be every bit as dashing as the courtiers and soldiers who frequented their keep.
“Eat? I’ll get by on what I can catch,” bluffed Wallace. In actual fact, it had been a long time since he had eaten. Right now, he was so hungry, he would probably have devoured that rotten fish concoction of his mother’s.
Freya paused a moment as a giant bumblebee flew in between them, momentarily showing an interest in Wallace’s glistening face. He shooed it away and watched her thoughtfully. His mind was still whirring itself into gear in order to think of some way to turn her down. But deep inside was another story.
“I’m sure yer a canny hunter, but we have game, roasts of beef an’ hog as well as wine, an’ yer welcome to have some…” she boasted.
Her words had the desired effect. Wallace’s eyes almost popped out of his head. His stomach griped sorely for food. But it would not do to give in so easily. Understanding this, Freya made it easy for him.
“Besides, ah, um, I could use a hand to drag this deer home!” she said.
Wallace looked around, surprised. “Deer?” he said. “I dinnae see any?”
“Ah, it’s over there
somewhere,” said Freya pointing vaguely. Wallace nodded slightly, and without further word, the pair moved off to the keep, a couple of miles away.
They walked in silence for several minutes, Wallace’s tale hanging heavy in both their minds. Eventually, they reached a secondary copse of trees. There, Freya took him by the hand and tentatively led him through the glade to the spot where the body of a young doe lay bleeding. Then she withdrew her grip, leaving Wallace buzzing.
“You really caught something?” said Wallace in disbelief, trying to damp down his ardor. “A wee pip like ye?”
“Don’t look so surprised, I’ve been hunting since I was five!” retorted Freya, trying her hardest to shift the corpse of the deer, but it was difficult.
Normally, Robbie and Brodie were on hand to help with things such as this. But this was Freya’s first foray into the moors alone.
“Here, let me do that,” said Wallace, effortlessly slinging it over his shoulder. Then, he stopped, wondering something. “So, is this the first thing ye’ve ever caught on yer own?” he asked with amusement.
Although slightly peeved at his amusement, Freya nodded. She watched closely as he carried the doe along the hilltop, sweat dripping down from his forehead.
For just a moment, Wallace had a vision of slipping his hand quietly back into hers. He didn’t know why, but it just felt right. Then, embarrassed at his thoughts, he withdrew slightly.
As they walked, they climbed higher into the mountainside that surrounded the clanless. From here, the land could be seen for miles around—including Wallace’s tiny blackhouse, still bilging out smoke even in the cloying heat of a summer’s day. For a moment, they paused, staring down at the minuscule village from their vantage point.
“Looks so peaceful from here,” said Freya, with a quick glance at him.
Conflicting emotions rippled in Wallace’s face. He had never told this many lies before, let alone to someone he liked so much.
Freya seemed affected by his troubled expression. Her hand hovered over his shoulder, and just for a second, connected with it.
Immediately, Wallace leaped a mile, as if he had been scalded. “Aye,” agreed Wallace, his shoulder still tingling oddly. He peered down on the row of blackhouses that lined the glen. Doubtless, his mother would be in there now, peeling and poring over her chores.
Slowly, he felt for the oblong box he had discovered on the moors and buttoned back his guilt for the part he had played in his mother’s plan. Then Wallace bit down on the gnawing disquiet inside him and gave his attention to Freya.
“It looks peaceful, but it isnae! I can tell ye!” he hissed, his low voice catching Freya’s immediate concern. “It’s just a den of hate, resent an’ envy…I never felt like I fit in there, even since I was a wee…”
He watched as she turned to face him, his mind reeling from the lies he was spinning.
“It’s just a life of never-ending toil, fighting feuds. No one has got anything, an’ everyone is suspicious of each other. Most of all, they’re suspicious ay my mother an’ me. Because we remind them of their shame. It’s nae life at all. It’s high time I went out on my own…”
To his surprise, Wallace felt his shoulders shake with emotion. Not everything he said was untrue, and his words resonated from deep within himself.
By the look on her face, they had affected Freya too. He gave her a pertinent little glance and wished that she did not look so innocent. Her gentle face was beginning to make the tale he must tell all the harder.
“So ye decided to gae?” Freya said, casting her eyes over his slim frame and lack of possessions. “Where’s all yer stuff?”
“Stuff?” asked Wallace, uncertain as to her meaning. A sudden surge of panic, mixed with irritation at his mother for putting him in this predicament raged through him.
“Aye, things…surely ye’ve got a knapsack?” she asked him quizzically.
Of course, he thought. She was bound to be suspicious without any proof. Wallace’s face prickled with heat as his brain raced triple speed to come up with something, anything, to explain this.
“Nae, not really. There wasnae the time after the fight. I had to clear out…” he said, his voice deliberately trailing off, watching to see if she was on board.
“Fight?” said Freya.
“Aye,” said Wallace, warming to his tale. It wasn’t hard to invent a fight, especially where he was from where sudden violence was so commonplace.
“A group of lads, they jumped me on the way home in the dark, at night. One of them held a dagger to my throat an’ told me if I didn’t leave, they’d slit it…” Here, his eyes narrowed as Freya’s widened in fear; she bought it. For good measure, he added. “An’ my mother’s too!”
“Och, Wallace, that’s shan,” cooed Freya, her vivid jade eyes trained on his. “What about yer mother?”
“Ach, they said if I went, they’d leave her be. Tis me that they can’t tolerate. I’m a living reminder of Seoras an’ their downfall…,” Wallace explained further, a mixture of reticence and desire to convince her rising in equal measures within him.
“So, yer alone?” Freya asked as she looked watchfully into the lad’s burnt face. Her eyes were wide and sad.
Wallace tried to stem the desire to reach over and stroke her hair. “Aye. All alone,” he said sorrowfully. Despite his sad words, Wallace felt a strange energy charging all around inside his head. Instead of feeling good about getting the girl on board, guilt was threatening to overwhelm him. Quickly, he pushed the thoughts to the back of his mind.
“Well, yer nae on yer own any longer,” said Freya sweetly.
Wallace felt a tug on his heart. Deep inside him, his conscience was stirring. “Och, I’m always on my own, lassie,” he quipped, standing up from where they had bee
n seated. Wallace hadn’t remembered sitting down on the wilting grass beside her. There was so much that didn’t seem to be making sense today.
And he did feel alone. Alone with his feelings, battling it out in his heart. On the one hand, he had his family loyalty to uphold. But on the other hand, now there was this woman before him. A real, breathing person with feelings. She was vulnerable and open to his lies. All he really wanted to do was to stop this plan and take her to safety.
But then Wallace pulled himself up sharply. It must be the heat, warping his mind and making him soft and weak.
It was certainly too hot to continue walking in the glare of the vicious noontide sun. From beside him, Freya fanned herself with a large green leaf. The small copse of trees provided the only shade for miles around, and both of them were equally loathe to leave its cool confines.
“So, what about ye?” Wallace asked softly. He was still curious to find out more about Freya, and listened, eager for her reply. But the only answer he received was snoring.
Looking around, Wallace saw she was fast asleep in the long shade cast by the oaks surrounding them, her arm touching his gently through the long grasses.
“Freya,” he whispered, but he didn’t have the heart to disturb her. Not when she looked like that. So still, so perfect. As he watched her pert bosom rise and fall, a strange feeling inveigled him, burning to the pit of his stomach.
His mother’s words flashed through him. “Are ye my son—a man or a mouse?”
Yes, he felt guilty for what could so easily have been a tragedy. And Wallace had to swallow down his anger at his mother’s blasé attitude towards the girl’s safety. If anything had happened to Freya, he did not know what he might have done. But the fact was that he did rescue her, and no harm had become her.
Wallace’s mind raced excitedly. The last twenty-one years had all been leading up to this moment, and now the clanship was finally within his grasp.
That sleeping maid at his feet was going to lead him—lead them all—to great riches. He just had to be patient and not to allow himself to be distracted by her great beauty.
Everything she stood for was false, built on his father’s blood. Wallace reminded himself of the facts as he fought the rush of emotion that raced around his veins. He had to try and get himself back in check, and soon, before she awoke.
No way could he let himself be subverted by this fiery-eyed maiden. Wallace steeled his resolve.
He had lied about the fight, he had lied about being cast out from his home, and if he needed to, he would lie again.
He was so close now it hurt.
Chapter Six
“I’m giving ye this one chance to save yer wee hide, so get out of here now! If yer smart ye’ll nae return, sonny!”
The enraged voice of her father dominated the darkened rooms of the keep. From the threshold, Wallace hung in the shadows that elongated inside the castle.
The narrow windows to the keep only let in a streak of light, throwing up stark contrast between the illuminated segments of pure color and shuttered darkness.
It was dark, but there was enough light to paint the laird’s small audience succinctly. Wallace did not know who they all were, but he counted the laird, his wife, Freya, and the two goons Robbie and Brodie; both thick lumps, but with enough brawn to bray an Angus bull into a coma. And over in the corner, next to the laird, was another man. But he was so shaded that Wallace could not properly see his face.
From the throng, a low murmur of voices picked up, clacking and quarreling amongst themselves. But despite the furor going on, Wallace could not help but examine the room in more detail.
He had never been in the laird’s keep before. And as he cast his glance around the main hall, he was both incredulous and impressed. The place was even bigger than he had thought!
A stirring jealousy shook him violently. This should have been his father’s—his—home! Now he could understand his mother’s resentment. But as much as she schemed, even she believed it was out of reach; both of them did.
And now, here he was! Of course, he wanted to see the inside of the castle that should rightfully be his, the one which had been stolen from his father and all his family. But this was not the way he wanted to go about it—barefoot and shamed in front of the laird.
A hot passion shot into his cheeks. Wallace vowed the next time he came to the keep, it would be as laird, and those sniveling wretches on the door would shiver in fear. He certainly hadn’t planned on his entrance to the keep being as the gopher for the laird’s spoiled little adopted daughter, but there it was.
“But father, ye have nae listened to a word I’ve said!” argued Freya hotly. “Wallace saved me! He hasnae laid a finger on me!”
Finlay turned his puffed-up face fiercely towards the lad, glaring at his glistening skin and distinctive ginger hair. To Wallace, it looked as if the laird didn’t know what he was angriest at; that he’d had the nerve to come here at all, or at his guilt for what he had done to Wallace’s father.
As much as Wallace wanted to confront the laird with the facts of his murderous past, he knew that now was not the time. Instead, he hung back in the shadows and waited.
“Aye, maybe he didnae lay an actual finger on ye,” conceded Finlay, still looking every bit as homicidal as before, but winding down a little. “But it’s an awfu’ coincidence that every time some danger comes along, he’s there!” he finished, invoking the memory of the last time—the first time—they had ever met.
Neither Wallace nor Freya had forgotten the details of their first encounter; how could they? Five years ago, and the incident still replayed in Wallace’s mind at regular intervals. Wallace glanced over to where Freya stood in the center of the dusty hall, imploring her father to listen to her speak.
But before she could open her mouth, another voice intercepted, the rich baritone of an older man.
“Sir, I think that ye should hear yer daughter out,” he said, making all eyes in the room turn towards him instantly. The man cleared his throat self-consciously, as if embarrassed to have the room’s attention. Then he continued speaking, with the gentle authority of someone used to listening more than talking.
“Continue, Padraig,” said Finlay impatiently.
“…An’ maybe ask the young man himself for his account of what happened,” he finished.
Now all eyes were firmly on Wallace, as he stood in the entrance to the room. But for his part, he was far more interested in the old man. He stepped out of the shadows and came fully into view.
Wallace screwed up his face and tried to reconcile the silver-haired old man in front of him with the demon in the stories.
Padraig! Seoras’s best friend, who betrayed him! Wallace knew all about him from his mother and the tales of the other villagers. He was the Judas, the deserter who turned against him. The one who had defied his father’s orders to kill the usurper, and instead, let him go!
As he stared into Padraig’s steely blue eyes, Wallace’s heart began racing. This was all too much for him to deal with. Being here, in the lair of the beast, Finlay and Padraig all in one place...he should just take his dagger out now and slay the curs.
But now was not the right time. As all the eyes rested on him, Wallace felt himself tremble with rage. Then, he shook himself and got a grip.
“Well come on then, lad, speak!” hollered Finlay, his amber eyes slicing sharply into Wallace’s own.
From behind him, Freya nudged him gently, Wallace feeling the unexpected warmth of her svelte hand on his shoulder. The imprint of her touch lingered a while, even after she had left him, sending a delicious and completely unprecedented shiver up and down his spine.
The afterlife of her touch lingered on, sustaining him and bringing comfort to his wrecked nerves. The strength it gave was enough to calm him down and wipe away all the hurt and anger rushing through his veins. At least for a bit.
As he turned, he saw Finlay’s face staring, unflinchingly.
“Well, come on son, we’re waiting…”
“Father,” murmured Freya softly, but he did not so much as turn to look at her. Instead, Finlay’s eyes continued to burn into his already too-hot flesh.
Sharply, Wallace turned his head to face the laird for the first time, meeting him straight on; eye-to-eye. A pin could have dropped in that room right then; his stare betraying the depths of his emotion. Then Wallace looked up to see them all focused on him, waiting.
“…Cat got yer tongue?” Finlay added.
Wallace’s continued silence opened a hole in the room.
Just then, it occurred to Wallace that Finlay had mistaken his quietude for fear. Immediately, Wallace set about rectifying this.
Highlander’s Twisted Identity (Highlanders 0f Clan Craig Book 2) Page 5
