And Then He Loved Me (A Highlander Novella Book 1)

by Rebecca Ruger

  Without even a parting glance at his sister, Gavin smiled and rushed off.

  Isla turned on the chief’s son as soon as her brother was gone. “You have no right.”

  “Aye, but I do, lass,” he said evenly. “I dinna do it to cause you pain, or him harm.” When she said nothing, just stood there clutching the loaves so tightly, he touched her arm.

  Isla glared at him and shook off his hand. With one last loathsome glance, she pivoted and left the kitchen.

  JAMES SIGHED WITH SOME annoyance and watched her leave. Stubborn lass.

  “Frances,” he called, and faced that woman. “She’s to have whatever she needs from the kitchen.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  James had always appreciated how capable Frances was of keeping all reactions away from her face.

  He left the kitchen, heading upstairs to the private family quarters. He hadn’t had, or made, time yesterday to see his father and was determined to rectify that today.

  His parents had always maintained rooms on the third floor, for as long as he could remember, a bedchamber and the solar next to it, for receiving guests or more often, simply to escape the hall, which only rarely offered privacy.

  His mother sat next to the bed in their chamber. She turned and smiled at James, her blue eyes only in recent years showing the crepiness above and below. She was still beautiful, with thick auburn tresses, streaked only minimally with gray. She stood, sweeping the skirts of her heavily embroidered kirtle behind her, and greeted her son, kissing one cheek and then the other.

  “My son,” she said, and showed another happy smile for his coming. She latched her arm in his and led him toward the bed. There lie his father, the once great Edmund Cameron, much as he had for the past several months since his seizure, eyes open but unseeing, having as well lost the ability for speech and almost all movement. Occasionally, he would lift a hand, just the right one. The left hand drooped and curled, in the same manner as the left side of his mouth.

  James kissed his forehead, still uncomfortable with the sight of the once formidable and fearsome warrior lying so immobile, so broken, upon the thick mattress. His sire seemed to have shrunk greatly over the many weeks lying here so that he now seemed so small and feeble.

  Directing his mother to sit again, he took the chair at the opposite side of the bed.

  “No change?”

  Lady Isobel Cameron shook her head, offered a grimaced smile.

  “When was Edine last here?” He asked of the healer.

  “Three days ago. She offered no hope.”

  “You still moving his legs and arms every day?”

  His mother nodded. “I am, and he still eats two meals every day and I still talk to him. James, you needn’t ask the same questions with every visit. We will continue on, as we have, until he wakes, or until he dies. That is all.”

  His mother was ever practical. Not that she didn’t love her husband, she was just a perennially sensible person. In her mind, worry, premature grief, suppositions—these had no place near the sick bed.

  “We held the court yesterday,” James said, by way of conversation, and as a lead in to questions he hoped to have answered. There was little that his mother did not know of Wolvesley.

  “Nothing out of the ordinary? Likely, it lasted longer, as we’d had to put off the last few courts while your father was a bed, and you were away.”

  James shrugged. “Heard thirty-seven cases, few hours longer. Walter and Matilda de Warenne appeared again. I thought about fining her, simply for congesting the agenda.”

  “Matilda de Warenne has a pea for a brain,” Isobel Cameron said, with some disgust. “She has not changed in all the thirty years I’ve known her. I promise you, her good husband, God rest his wretched soul, likely begged to be put down in Falkirk.”

  James grinned at this. “Mother, are you familiar with the Gordons?”

  Isobel pursed her lips. “Aye, a more foul man you will never meet. I do not care for people who are mean, just for the sake of being mean.” She taken up her embroidery again when she’d sat, and now pointed a needle at James. “There’s another poor soul gone—dear Mistress Gordon—who, like as no, did not mind when the good Lord took her.” She was thoughtful for a moment, plopping the fabric and threaded needle into her lap. “Aye but she had children, a girl and a boy, if I recall, and God help them. Aye, the daughter came up to the keep last year, her father had broken his leg....”

  “And now, from his sickbed, he’s charged her with laying with a man. She paid six pence yesterday.”

  Raising a brow at her son, “Did Alastair say she was guilty. I cannot imagine that meek child....”

  “Meek? I would no call her meek.”

  Isobel pursed her lips briefly. “You saw and did not listen? Saw those eyes, no doubt, and judged her guilty?” Lady Cameron shook her head, applying her hands again to her embroidery. “Your father would have heard her out. Or did she imply or admit guilt?”

  James only shook his head.

  With a sigh, Isobel changed the subject. “I’ve had a letter from my cousin, Christina. Our king shall return soon, and with him an army to make the English envious—so says Christina.”

  “Aye, I’ve had news of this as well. Only wait for word where to meet him.” James stared at his father, who gave no indication that he heard any of their conversation. He hadn’t blinked in several minutes while James had watched.

  “Could this be it?” Isobel wondered, weary of the long years of war. “They say Edward will be dead soon.”

  James suspected people generally feared Edward I of England for all the known brutality he had shown to Scotland, but he thought it unwise to underestimate the son upon only the assumption that no two people could so equally be set upon Scottish subjugation.

  “Aye, but his son is less predictable so I’m no sure it will get easier.”

  “And yet, it needs to be done.”

  “Aye.”

  Chapter 4

  When the next day presented both sunshine and milder air, Isla decided to be out of doors. A bit of foraging would do her well, and their pantry, too. Gavin had barely spoken to her this morning, though she had begged conversation from him, even asking him about his first day training with the Cameron army. Mayhap, he’d only been so stingy with his replies to avoid inviting more recriminations from Isla. As it was, he’d dashed out of the house shortly after they’d broken their fast, leaving Isla to see to their father. She’d changed him and had once again tried to feed him, to no avail, so that Isla began to think he only wanted to die now. She knew when he was seriously depleted of wit or health when his verbal jabs at her came so rarely, when being mean seemed too much effort even for him.

  She walked into the wood, behind the village and the pasture, collecting seeds and roots. Her hair was covered again; she was unlikely to repeat the mistake of yesterday, mindful of her father’s oft-repeated claim that a maid’s loose hair was akin to entrapment. And, too, she could not forget the curious gaze James Cameron had set upon her wild mane only yesterday.

  Her cloak hung around her shoulders loosely, no need for a hood today because of both the fair weather and the wimple she’d once again donned, which covered all her hair and even her ears. On her arm swung her gathering basket, repaired many times, as so many of her daily items were. She walked slowly about the woods, keeping her eyes on the ground, at first frustrated that this patch closest to the village was very picked-over, either by herself over the last few months, or others from the village. But after a while, and a foray deeper into the wood, Isla did manage to amass a notable bounty that then sent her off to the loch, where she hoped the ice might have diminished at the shore that she might collect some seaweeds.

  In the warmer months, and before her father had become so ill, Isla spent so much glad time equally in forest or by the water. Humming a bit as she carried on, Isla exited the wood and found the well-worn grass path to the loch. It sloped upward which put her on higher ground
and gave her a fair view of the distant practice field. With a hand over her brow to impede the sunshine, she spied dozens of soldiers, on horseback and on foot, in different sections of the long open meadow. From this distance, she could discern neither her brother nor the son of Cameron, though why she might be looking for the latter, she did not know. She wasted only a moment’s conjecture upon this question and continued along the path for another few minutes before it sloped downward now and into the rocky shore, where only scattered chunks of ice remained.

  Large deposits of seaweeds and larger kelp dotted the landscape of the shore and Isla withdrew the knife from her waistband to scrape away those that had come in with the tide still attached to rocks, choosing only the freshest. She wasn’t precisely a lover of seaweed, but it did add subtle flavor and more texture to the pottage, when little else was available.

  She was about this chore for only minutes when an unnatural sound, a clink of metal, reached her. She stood and turned quickly, her back to the loch. To her dismay, she saw four men approach her from the south side, furthest away from the castle. Isla had only ever encountered Cameron soldiers, those with their earthen tunics and leather breastplates. She judged these men soldiers as well, but had never seen tabards so bright, the red so stark against the colors of nature. Their chain mail was plentiful, showing on their arms and legs and necks. A quick glance around showed there were no others, just these four, and no horses ambled nearby, as if recently dismounted.

  Without saying a word, though they stared directly at her, Isla began to step away from the water, and nearer the slope from which she’d come.

  “I think she doesn’t like us, Randall,” said one, exposing his clearly English voice.

  They continued to walk toward her. Isla’s heartbeat quickened.

  “Perhaps I can convince her to like me,” said another, his face ruddy and pocked, light hair sticking out from under his helm. Grunts and guffaws followed this.

  “You’ll have to earn past her knife, seems to be a bit of a deterrent.”

  “I think I can divest one Scots wench of her little needle.”

  “And show her your own!” More grotesque laughter came.

  Isla’s eyes moved from the closest man to the path she wanted to be on, judging the distance, wondering if the chain mail and metal might slow them down. She kept moving, taking small, even steps to her left, hoping to leave the rocks behind before she took off in a run.

  “Aw, you’ve scared ‘er good now, Percival.”

  Her chest was hot and constricted, the breath through her nose coming in short, frightened snorts. Isla had never in all her life felt so helpless or so imperiled. The longer she waited, the closer they came, and she knew now was the best time to act.

  The foremost man, as close as twenty feet now, stared straight into her eyes, his cold gaze suggesting no soul lived within. Isla dropped her basket, turned and ran. She didn’t dare look back but heard now the louder, persistent clang and jingle of metal as they pursued her. When she reached the top of the berm, she screamed as loud as she could, having only a weak hope that those on the practice field might hear. Tears fell as her fear enveloped her. Her lips quivered with each shaky breath, running for her life, she was sure, while some irony muddled her brain, thinking how unlucky she was, to be murdered by the English so close to her own home and the Cameron army.

  They were going to catch her. She ran fast, she thought, but sensed, heard that at least one was nearly upon her. She raced down the lane and screamed again, even while thinking irrationally that screaming might slow her down.

  And then she saw him. A Cameron soldier came, too far away still to reach her before they did, but at least help came. She ran toward him, didn’t care who he was, saw only the green and blue and red Cameron tartan. The mighty Cameron steed chewed up the hard packed earth of the lane and soon she could see that it was none other than James Cameron himself, his ferocious scowl prompting a cry of relief even as she continued to run toward him. His sword was drawn, raised to deliver a blow even as he was still dozens of yards away.

  Amazingly, he did reach her before any who chased her did. At the last moment Isla wondered if he would run her over. She winced as the Cameron raced past her, so close and so quickly her skirts were sent into a flutter, so closely the horse was not just a blur, but possessed of a coat of coarse reddish-brown hair. Isla turned and realized those Englishmen had slowed as they’d witnessed the coming of so magnificent a warrior. Swiping his long blade across the neck of the first man he encountered gave him no pause, seemed not even to shift him in the saddle.

  Isla gasped, terrified and unable to move now. Her knife fell from her hand as she slapped her hands over her mouth as James reined in so hard that the horse reared. He held his seat, actually turning the head of the horse in mid-air so that he landed and move immediately to the right, stabbing his sword into a second man, piercing his heart. The one Isla presumed was Randall wasted no time on his own shock but turned and ran, back from whence he had come, while the fourth man charged toward Isla.

  James Cameron ignored the coward fleeing south and followed the one who neared Isla. Fear immobilized her. She knew the man was almost upon her but kept her eyes on the Cameron, watched his pursuit; his lip was curled, his brow furrowed fiercely, his beautiful eyes darkened with immense fury. He switched the blade from right hand to left and used it with equal proficiency, jabbing it into the man’s back when he was less than a dozen feet from Isla. The man was pushed forward with the impact of the blade, landing almost at Isla’s feet. Cameron directed the horse around Isla, not sparing her one glance, and galloped after the escaping man.

  Her knees trembling, Isla sank to the ground. Every part of her body shook. Tears continued to fall. She held her hands in front of her, at eye level, was astonished that her limbs could quiver with such force. The focus on her fingers blurred as her gaze slid past her hands to rest on the death face of the soldier, staring with truly soulless eyes at her.

  JAMES CHASED DOWN THE last of the infidels, whose fear surely outweighed his cleverness, as he kept to the clear and easily trod path in lieu of the cover of the woods. With practiced ease, James claimed his life, having no interest in preserving an Englishman, any man, who would dare accost a lone female. He dismounted only briefly, wiping the blood from his sword onto the man’s sleeve, as his arm lay unmoving on the path.

  Quickly then, he gained the saddle and galloped back to Isla.

  James had, in all his twenty-eight years, been witness to and part of some truly awful large-scale encounters with the enemy, and even more smaller but equally horrific skirmishes with the English. For the life of him, though, he could not ever recall his blood having come to such a boil as it had today when he’d stupidly, luckily, heard a cry and discovered Isla Gordon sprinting along the old Friock trail. With lightning speed, he’d deduced the situation. Having been provoked to warrior mode upon hearing the scream, watching Isla running for her life toward him had somehow managed to spiral his anger to heights it had never before reached. Jesu.

  Leaping off his steed before it had even come to a halt, James knelt beside Isla, while she held her hands before her face, trembling but otherwise unmoving. James took her hands in his, his skin infused instantly with the cool clamminess of hers. His own heart still raced. If he’d been only a moment longer, if he’d conversed only one minute more with Callum before departing the practice field today, if she’d been too scared to scream....

  “Isla.” He stood and pulled her to her feet, blocking her view of the lifeless body behind him. Her gaze hadn’t shifted, hadn’t moved at all, was centered on his chest. “Isla.” He watched her swallow, she began to blink. This was good. “It is done. Isla, you are safe.”

  She nodded, though he felt her shuddering still, even as he held her hands.

  A fractured picture of his sister, Marguerite, came to mind. Brilliant, sunny Marguerite, her last breaths taken in his very youthful arms. James remembered Marguer
ite’s words, as she’d lain upon the muddy earth some miles outside Edinburgh, “I’m so cold.” And so, without hesitation, he pulled Isla against him, wrapped his very strong arms around her, felt her tiny hands crushed against his chest.

  James held her in his arms for a long time. No words passed between them, no sound at all escaped. But she stayed in his arms, clutched at the thick leather of his breastplate. He pressed his chin against the linen of her wimple atop her head, breathed in the scent of woodsmoke and honey. Possibly it was less than five minutes since his first sword strike when James was aware of a clamor behind him, his army coming. Her horrified screams had reached even as far as the practice fields after all.

  He pushed away from her, held her upper arms. Her eyes found his. He nodded. “Here come the Camerons, they’ll route out any others in the area. You are safe.”

  She nodded, steadier now, though her fingers still gripped the leather at his chest. James put his hands over hers, closed his fingers around hers, pulled them away just as they were circled by forty or more soldiers.

  “Four English attacked the lass,” he explained. “Spread out, make sure there be no more.”

  His captain, Callum, sparing only a brief glance to Isla, nodded and gave further orders, sending groups off in four directions.

  “They came from the south,” Isla said in a voice so low James had to dip his head to hear her. “They hadn’t any horses.” Stronger now, her eyes finally met his. The green of her eyes, when seen so close, were saturated with great depths of color, light and dark green, striped with gold.

  James nodded and passed this on to Callum. Young Alain walked James’s horse over to him.

  “C’mon then, lass. I’ll get you home.” It took her some seconds to process this directive. She turned her head, looked around at the departing soldiers. James grabbed the reins, allowing Alain to catch up with one of the groups. James’s big destrier was pulled close. He put his hands onto her tiny waist. “Up you go.” And lifted her into the saddle. Her cloak was twisted awkwardly around her hips and thighs. “Swing your leg over, lass,” he directed, his hands still at her waist while she adjusted herself. All movements, he suspected, were reflexive now, just obeying. Sitting astride then raised the skirts of her gown to almost her knees. Skin as creamy as her cheeks, inviting touch, stared at him. James shook himself and put his foot into the stirrup, swinging his leg over the rump of the horse, filling the saddle behind her. He flicked the reins in one hand, wrapped the other around her middle, and turned the horse toward Wolvesley.