The Rogue: A Highland Guard Novella (The Highland Guard)

by Monica McCarty

  Walter nodded. “I hope not, but it seems likely.”

  “I’ll kill him.” Randolph’s voice left no doubt that he meant it. “I’ll find her,” he told Walter. To his uncle, he added, “I’m taking Lamont.” It wasn’t a question, but Bruce nodded as if it had been. Ewen “Hunter” Lamont was the best tracker in the Highlands. If anyone could find her, he could.

  I will find her, damn it.

  “That is gracious of you to offer, Randolph, but it isn’t necessary. I can—”

  Randolph took the lad by the arm and held him up almost off the ground. “I’m going.”

  Wisely, Walter just nodded.

  Randolph started to move off before something niggled. He turned back. “You mentioned a betrothal.”

  “Aye. With Sir William de Vipont, Lord of Langton. She told me to accept him right before she left. I just sent the missive yesterday.”

  It was strange how a body that was burning could turn instantly to ice. She’d agreed to marry someone else? Randolph’s chest twisted for one long painful moment before he turned to his uncle. “I’ll need MacRuairi, too.” The former pirate was nearly as good at tracking as Lamont, and despite being from the Isles, he was one of their best riders. Then he explained to a clearly confused Walter, “She isn’t going to marry him.”

  Walter frowned. “Yes, she is.”

  “No, she’s not. She’s going to marry me.”

  Randolph didn’t realize Hawk had come up behind him. He could practically hear the bastard laughing. “I thought the lass rejected you, Randy.”

  Keenly aware that everyone in the Great Hall was watching, Randolph spoke loudly so that they would all hear. “She has to marry me. I ravished her, and I have every bloody intention of doing so again when I find her.”

  The shocked hush that descended over the Hall was almost comical. The reputation that Randolph had so carefully built since his return to his uncle’s fold had just been shattered.

  But for the first time in eight years, Hawk smiled and gave him a nod of unmistakable approval.

  Izzie didn’t die of heartbreak. Although for a few days it felt as if she might. By the time Walter had arranged for men to escort her home, she was glad to leave Edinburgh Castle—and Sir Thomas Randolph—behind. His angry declaration of love had been the final nail through her heart. That he could utter the words she so longed to hear as if they meant nothing and with such obvious insincerity was proof of his lack of feeling. He would tell her whatever she wanted to hear to prevent her from refusing him and save his pride and reputation.

  Still, she wouldn’t have embarrassed him by making her refusal public. She’d said nothing of the incident, but the men who’d overheard their argument had obviously not been so closemouthed. It had been the talk of Edinburgh—which is also why she’d left. She grew tired of the stares and whispers and hoped that with her gone, the talk would die down.

  “That is the woman who refused Randolph?”

  With Elizabeth having run off after Thomas MacGowan, who’d left the same night that she and Randolph had made… She shook off the memory. Joanna had been the one she confided in. Izzie knew that Joanna’s advice to be patient—that Randolph would figure it out—was kindly meant, but Joanna hadn’t been there. It was too late. He’d hurt her too badly and proved to her that he would never be able to give her what she wanted.

  As much as she loved him, Izzie knew it would be infinitely worse to be married to him and forced to confront that unrequited love every day for the rest of her life. She’d been right in the beginning. Respect, loyalty, and affection were the most she could hope for in a marriage—to want anything more was impractical and would only lead to heartache. She would have that kind of marriage with Sir William, and with no reason to refuse him, she told Walter to send her acceptance before she’d ridden out with the handful of men he’d conscripted to escort her.

  If her heart had ached and she’d had to force herself not to look back over her shoulder at the castle on the rock that would make Randolph a legend, she told herself it would get easier.

  It did for a while. Of course that was because she’d been abducted. When Stephen Dunbar—she refused to refer to him as “Sir” after his barbarous actions—surrounded her handful of men with a dozen of his own, and she’d guessed his intention, she’d been too terrified to think of anything but how she was going to escape. Well, maybe that wasn’t exactly true. She might have experienced a heart-clenching moment of wishing Randolph was there before pushing it aside. The hero wasn’t going to come to her rescue this time. If anyone was going to get her out of this, it was she.

  Instinctively, she realized that if she tried to oppose Stephen she could very well end up raped before she was forced to wed so she had to somehow make him think it wasn’t necessary.

  It took her only a moment to burst into happy tears. “Thank goodness you have come! I thought you forgot all about me.” She said the last almost chastisingly, as if he’d somehow let her down. Stephen looked at her as if she’d grown a second head. “We must move quickly if we are to get away before my brother becomes worried and sends men after us.”

  Now it wasn’t just Stephen looking at her as if she was crazed—Walter’s men were as well.

  “How did you know how to find us?” she asked, then before Stephen could stop the whirlwind that she was spinning around them and think, she added, “Never mind. All that matters is that you are here now. Do you have a priest?”

  Stephen recovered enough to shake his head and say, “Not yet.”

  Good grief, he was actually believing this rubbish? The louse was more arrogant than she’d realized. Or perhaps Randolph wasn’t the only one who knew how to playact. Her heart squeezed, but she couldn’t think of him now.

  She put her hand to her chin as if deep in thought. “I believe I can think of one, but perhaps it would be best if you let my men go first. They will only slow us down, and it would be better if they do not hear our plans.”

  She may have gone a little far. His eyes narrowed. “They will go straight to your brother.”

  She pretended not to have thought about that. “You are quite right. Good idea. You will just have to tie them up.”

  The captain of the guard who’d accompanied her started to object, but Izzie was trying to avoid bloodshed and knew it would be easier for her to get away on her own. Walter’s men were outnumbered at least two to one, and she feared if they came with her they would try something gallant. She also didn’t want Stephen to simply try to kill them now.

  Fortunately, he went along with her plan as if it had been his own. He ordered his men to tie them up, and a short while later they were riding away. Hiding her fear and pretending to be happy as they left the men behind was one of the hardest things she’d ever done. But she did it, and it paid off later when she had her chance to escape.

  Stephen had gone into the church she’d picked near the coast to speak with the priest. She asked for a moment of privacy. She wasn’t surprised when one of his men insisted on going with her, but the moment he turned his back, she slipped away.

  She’d chosen this church for a reason. As a child, her father had brought her and her brothers to this beach to explore the caves in the sea cliffs. They could be dangerous, depending on the tide, but fortune was with her—at least at first. From her refuge in one of the caves, she heard Stephen and his men riding up and down the beach and surrounding area looking for her all through the night. His tenacity surprised her. It also nearly killed her when the tide came in.

  She’d spent most of the next morning huddled on a rock high in the back of the cave that was largely hidden from site from the beach, hoping that she didn’t have to try to swim her way out. By time the tide receded, it was already midafternoon. She took refuge in the church with the very kind priest who’d been forced to deal with the irate knight the day before—she apologized for that—ate some porridge and bread and accepted his offer of lodging for the night. The following morning he r
ode her to Bonkyll castle on the back of his very old mare with her hidden under a friar’s brown hooded robe that seemed to have more moth holes than cloth left.

  But the disguise proved unnecessary, as they didn’t cross paths with Stephen Dunbar again. Her adventure was over late that afternoon when they passed through the familiar yett of Bonkyll Castle. She wasn’t surprised to hear from one of the guardsmen left behind that her brother and most of his men had ridden out in search of her when she hadn’t arrived as expected. She was relieved, however, to hear that Walter’s tied up men had been found and were part of the search party.

  All Izzie wanted to do was take a bath and collapse in her own bed. She’d accomplished the first part and was walking across the yard with still-damp hair, from the kitchen toward the donjon tower, eager to crawl between those clean bed sheets, when the cry went out that riders were approaching.

  At first she thought it was her brother. It was, but Alexander wasn’t alone. There were at least two score of men, including… Her heart stilled as she saw the familiar red and gold arms of at least a dozen of the men. A moment later their dirty, dusty, and very rumpled-looking leader came into view.

  Randolph.

  Just the name made her heart skitter. He looked so unlike himself—so disreputable and unkempt—that were he not wearing his surcoat, she might not have recognized the grizzled, fierce-looking warrior as the famous knight. She turned away before their eyes could meet, knowing she was too raw and emotional from her ordeal to face him right now. Why was he here? Some ridiculous sense of duty upon hearing that she was missing?

  Why couldn’t he just leave her alone? Did he need to make this so hard?

  She turned to address her brother, who was dismounting when she was lifted off the ground and spun around into a familiar pair of steely arms. He crushed her to his chest and buried his face in her damp hair as if he could drink her in. Despite the coldness in her heart, her body wasn’t immune and warmed instantly.

  “Thank God, you are all right. I feared the worst when we caught up with Dunbar and you weren’t with him. Christ, you scared me. What the hell happened? Where did you go?”

  Stiffly, she extracted herself from his arms. It didn’t hurt as much as she expected. She felt surprisingly hollow. “I’m afraid you rode here for nothing, my lord. I managed to facilitate my own rescue. Your services were not needed.”

  She’d never wanted the hero—only the man.

  He frowned at her cool, passionless tone. What had he expected? That she would fall to her knees with gratitude to see him?

  “Sir Harold”—the leader of Walter’s guard—“said that you went with them willingly?” her brother asked.

  “Aye,” she nodded. “I wanted to disarm him—to think that I was happy to see him so he wouldn’t watch me so closely or… do something rash.”

  They all knew what she meant by rash. She thought Randolph made a sound like a growl, but she didn’t want to look at him. Sensing that he might reach for her again, she put a few more steps of distance between them. She gave a brief, concise explanation of the rest, neglecting to mention the perilous tide and long night in the cave.

  “That was quick thinking, lass,” a big, powerfully built warrior who’d ridden in behind Randolph said. He wore a nasal helm like a few of the others, but had pulled it off to reveal blond hair, blue eyes, and an extremely handsome face. She’d seen him with the king before. Erik MacSorley, she thought his name to be—a West Highland Chieftain who had been with the king from the beginning.

  “Apparently, I’m not a bad actor,” she said, returning his smile and ignoring the stiffening of the man who wouldn’t seem to leave her side. She finished her story. “The priest rode me back a short while ago, and fortunately we did not cross paths with Sir Stephen.”

  “Fortune had nothing to do with it,” Randolph said in a flat voice that made her turn to look at him questioningly. “He has been taken care of.”

  “How?”

  Though one side of his mouth curved up, his expression made her shiver. “Suffice it to say that he won’t be bothering you again.”

  Though she had no feelings for Stephen after everything that had happened, she couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. Whatever had happened, if Randolph’s expression was any indication, she would probably rather not know. As he was acting rather possessive for someone who had been refused, she thought it might be best to make things clear. She turned to her brother and looked over at the men behind him. “Is Sir William with you. I thought he might be here by now?”

  It wasn’t her brother who answered, but Randolph. “He won’t be coming.”

  Tired and feeling understandingly vulnerable given the past two days, Izzie lost her patience. “As he is my betrothed,” she snapped. “I suspect he shall be.”

  His expression darkened. “You are not betrothed.” He pulled a folded piece of parchment from his sleeve and held it up.

  She gasped, realizing it must be the missive Walter had sent. A missive Randolph had obviously intercepted. “You have no right!”

  “I have every right.” Apparently, deciding his moment of restraint was over, he pulled her into his arms again. “The only man you are going to marry is me.”

  His matter-of-fact tone sparked her temper. “I believe I already refused you.”

  “Aye, but that was before I realized I loved you. Before I realized that I’d made the biggest mistake of my life in letting you go. I do love you, Izzie. I mean it this time.”

  She stared at him in disbelief. Was he for real or was this another one of his acts? Did it even matter? No, she answered herself. It didn’t.

  Aware that about forty faces were staring at them right now, she carefully extracted herself from his embrace once again and said in a soft voice. “As do I when I tell you that nothing you could say would compel me to marry you.”

  Surprisingly, rather than look at her, Randolph looked to the blond-haired warrior, MacSorley, who just shrugged. “Told you so, Randy.”

  “Randy?” she asked, surprised. She couldn’t believe anyone would dare call the great Sir Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, by a diminutive.

  Randolph ignored her question and shook his head. “I hope you’re right,” he said to the man.

  What happened next was so shocking, Izzie had to blink a few times to make sure she wasn’t imagining what was going on. By then she was already seated on Randolph’s enormous warhorse, having been lifted very unceremoniously off her feet and plopped on top. “What are you doing?” she demanded

  He didn’t answer. Motioning toward his men, he mounted up behind her and they started to ride off through the gate.

  “Wait!” her brother shouted—like her, obviously catching up to what was happened rather late. “Where are you taking her?”

  “To one of my castles until she agrees to marry me.”

  “You are what?” she exclaimed, spinning around to look at him as if he were a madman—which clearly he was. “You can’t abduct me!”

  He looked around. Clearly, no one was making a move to stop him. “And yet I am.”

  She knew how to put a stop to this nonsense. “You can’t do this. It will ruin your reputation.”

  “Too late.”

  “How can it be too late?”

  “I already told your cousin that I ravished you.”

  “You did what?” She stared at him incredulously. “And Jamie didn’t kill you?”

  “I’d like to see him try. But not that cousin. I meant Walter. Although I’m sure Douglas has heard it by now. I did announce it to the entire castle.”

  That stunned her into silence. He seemed not to mind. He pulled her back against his chest, and soon the gentle swaying, warmth, and overwhelming feeling of being safe again were too much to resist. A bed and clean sheets couldn’t compare. Her eyes fluttered a few times, fighting it, but eventually she gave up and fell into an exhausted—and very deep—sleep.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Randolp
h was beginning to suspect that Hawk was either wrong or had played one of his jests on him. Over the three days it took for them to reach his newest castle in the Highlands, which was part of the old Lordship of Buchan, Izzie hadn’t given any indication that she thought his abduction romantic. She’d been deaf to his apologies and seemed to have no reaction to his declaration of love, no matter how many times he’d told her (he’d lost count). She hadn’t softened toward him one bit. If anything, the stubborn lass had only dug in her heels even more.

  By the time they’d arrived at Lochindorb Castle, Randolph’s patience had worn thin. He’d ridden hundreds of miles, hadn’t slept more than a dozen hours since he’d learned she was missing, and had spent every minute of the long hours they’d searched for her scared out of his mind. When one of his men had seen what looked to be a body with light hair floating in the sea—it turned out to be kelp—he’d actually been ill. But Izzie acted as if it—as if he—meant nothing. What the Devil did he have to do to convince her? She couldn’t have fallen out of love with him that fast… could she?

  His heart sank. She’d fallen in love with him quickly, what’s not to say the opposite couldn't be true as well? He’d hurt her. Badly, as he was coming to realize. He’d made her think not only that she wasn’t important to him, but that he thought she wasn’t good enough for him. Which was patently ridiculous. She complemented him in every way that mattered. She reminded him not to take himself so seriously, to find pleasure in life, and to relax. She grounded him. She stood up to him. She’d seen through him from the start, and with her he’d never had to play a part.

  But by refusing to break the betrothal with Elizabeth, Izzie thought that made her second choice. She wasn’t—it had been his word he was thinking about—but she didn’t see it that way.

  He’d been given a chance to prove how much she’d meant to him after they’d made love, but he’d been so sure that he could control his own feelings—that he was immune to them—he didn’t recognize them when they were practically banging him over the head. It had not only felt different, it had been different. He thought he’d experienced everything there was to experience in the bedchamber, but he realized he’d been missing out on the only thing that mattered: making love to someone you loved. It hadn’t been just his body finding pleasure, it had been his soul as well. Ironically, he’d thought she would see the truth when they made love, but instead it had been him.