by Emma Prince
But he had also learned long ago that trying to hold on to Mairin was like grasping sand. The tighter his grip became, the faster she slipped through his fingers.
He’d once thought to hold her close, to reach for something tender in her mysterious heart. But she wanted naught to do with him. He’d accepted that—or at least he’d tried to. He thought he’d walled off his desire for her, but it always seeped back the way water found a path through stone.
“Listen, English,” she said, her voice knife-edged. “I dinnae—”
Ansel’s sharp shout cut her off. “A rider approaches.”
Chapter Two
Their sparring drill instantly forgotten, Mairin’s gaze darted to the surrounding woods.
But to her irritation, Niall swiftly stepped in front of her, blocking her view and using his body as a shield between her and the unknown rider.
She didn’t need protecting, damn it. She could go toe-to-toe with any of the men in the Bodyguard Corps. Aye, they were all bigger than she was, and stronger, and more experienced, but she’d bested each of them more than once in training.
Yet they all treated her like their wee, helpless sister—Niall most of all. He acted as though she were made of glass. It was already challenging enough to be forced into such close quarters with an Englishman. His coddling only made the whole situation worse.
With a huff of frustration, Mairin strained on her toes to peer over Niall’s broad shoulder. A cloaked figure on horseback ambled through the trees toward the camp. Something hanging across the back of his saddle kept his progress slow. Was the rider a peddler of some sort? Mayhap he’d gotten lost in the snow and stumbled upon the camp, which was tucked away in a remote corner of Sinclair lands.
Before Ansel could call out to the man, a low, trilling whistle drifted to them.
A whistle Mairin knew well.
Without hesitating, she darted around Niall and took off at a sprint toward the rider.
“Mairin, nay!” Niall shouted behind her, but she didn’t slow.
Just before she reached the rider, he swung down from his saddle and spread his arms wide.
“Logan!” Mairin plowed into her brother’s chest, wrapping him in a fierce hug.
“Little Bird.” Logan grunted as she squeezed him tighter.
Several months had passed since Logan’s last visit to the Highlands. Though it had been her choice to train at the Corps’ camp rather than live with Logan and his wife Helena at Craigmoor Castle in the Borderlands, Mairin still felt the absence of her family—a family she’d only recently regained after so many years of isolation—keenly.
“I’m glad to see ye, too,” he said in response to her vise-like grip on his middle.
Behind her, she heard the crunch of snow as the others approached.
“Mackenzie,” Ansel said, a touch of warmth in his voice. “It is good to see ye, man. What brings ye to the Highlands?”
Mairin drew back abruptly. “Is Helena well? And the bairn?”
“Aye, aye, all is well,” Logan replied quickly. “Helena is round as the moon, and in fine health. She says it is impossible that the bairn willnae come for another two months, for she cannae fathom how she’ll manage to grow any bigger.”
At Mairin’s relieved exhale, Logan scrubbed the top of her head with his hand as if she were a wee lass of only five summers instead of a woman grown. She jerked away, giving him a mock glower as she smoothed her hair.
Logan turned then to greet the others. Ansel stepped forward to give him a quick forearm shake. A heartbeat later, Kirk moved in for a bear hug, complete with several manly pounds on the back.
Kirk had befriended Logan when they’d both worked for the Order of the Shadow. Logan’s time as a bounty hunter cast a dark shadow across both his and Mairin’s lives, but thanks to Kirk, Logan had found a way out of the Order and earned a place in the Bruce’s Bodyguard Corps.
Will’s greeting, however, was decidedly cooler. As Kirk’s friend and confidante, Logan was an adversary by association in Will’s view. Will gave Logan a nod, but didn’t extend his arm for a shake.
Yet coldest of all was Niall. He stood at the edge of the circle of men, his vibrant blue eyes shockingly frosty. It was yet another fissure within the Corps.
The men in the Bruce’s inner circle were forced by close proximity and allegiance to the Scottish cause for independence to trust each other. Yet they were also all fiercely protective of their families and loved ones. Mayhap none more so than Niall.
And Logan had crossed that boundary.
When he’d worked for the Order, Logan had been sent on a mission to kidnap Rosamond Beaumore—Niall’s older sister. Finn Sutherland, a fellow Corpsman, had managed to save her. But Mairin knew from the glint of anger still burning in Niall’s vivid eyes that he had neither forgiven nor forgotten Logan’s actions against his family.
“Beaumore,” Logan said evenly by way of greeting. Mairin thought it wise that he hadn’t called Niall “English,” as those in the camp had taken to doing.
Niall tilted his russet head, the faintest acknowledgement. The corners of his mouth angled downward, and his gaze remained steady and frigid.
“It is good to hear that all is well at Craigmoor,” Ansel cut in. “But ye still havenae said what brings ye to the camp, man.”
“And are those…birds hanging from yer saddle?” Kirk asked, looking past Logan.
Mairin followed Kirk’s gaze. Indeed, there was a wooden pole fastened to the back of the saddle. From either end of the pole dangled two woven baskets—each with a pigeon inside.
“Are those for me?” Mairin blurted, turning to Logan.
“Aye.”
She felt her brows furrow. “That is verra kind of ye, brother, but my dovecote is already nearly full, and with so many laying pairs there are sure to be even mo—”
He held up a hand to halt her. “They arenae for yer dovecote, Little Bird,” he said quietly. His slate-gray eyes, so like her own, flicked to Ansel. “I come with news from the Bruce. And a mission.”
Ansel’s features grew serious, but his voice remained even. “Mayhap we should discuss it over a hot meal. Ye are no doubt weary from yer journey, Logan, and our drills are done for the day.”
Aye, the sun was close to setting behind the steely clouds overhead, and the air bore a sharper edge, though Mairin wasn’t sure if it was from the deepening cold of evening or the sense of foreboding chilling her gut.
Logan nodded his assent. Kirk took the horse’s reins and led the animal, birds and all, toward one of the camp’s barns.
Hastily unknotting her skirts now that their sparring session was concluded, Mairin fell in beside the others as they began to trudge toward the collection of huts on the far side of the clearing.
“Where is Angus?” Logan asked, glancing around over his shoulder for the grizzled, aged MacLeod warrior.
“He is at my father’s keep looking after things for me,” Will replied.
“I dinnae think the old bear minds having an excuse to cease training with these damn bairns,” Ansel said, jerking his head toward Niall, Mairin, and Will.
Logan snorted softly. “The man has earned some respite for putting up with ye lot.”
They continued on toward what they’d started referring to as the keep. A few years past, several more of the members of the Corps had lived and trained in the camp. Nine huts had been constructed in all, each with just one or two rooms and only the most rudimentary needs in mind—eating and sleeping, mainly.
But now that only four of the cottages were regularly occupied—by Niall, Mairin, Will, and Kirk and Lillian, who shared one of the larger huts—they’d decided to make some modifications. They’d selected two of the huts that were situated close to one another and built a wide connecting corridor between them, which they used as a dining and meeting hall of sorts.
As they strode toward the keep, the doors on the original cottage to the right opened and John Sutherland darted out.
<
br /> “Close the door behind you, John!” Isolda, John’s mother and Ansel’s wife, called from within the cottage.
Instead of doing as his mother bade, John scampered toward the approaching group, his blue eyes wide. “Did ye practice with swords today, Da? Or sparring? Did ye kick any of the men’s arses, Mairin?”
Mairin felt her lips curve even as Ansel gave John a serious frown. “Language, lad,” he admonished, softening the stern words by tousling the boy’s brown hair.
John was twelve—going on thirteen, he readily reminded anyone who would listen. Though Ansel, Isolda, John, six-year-old Alice, and the new bairn, Calloch, lived a handful of miles away in the village at Roslin, Ansel had begun to allow John to tag along to his training sessions at the camp. Isolda and Ansel had agreed that John could begin working on his aim with a bow, but that blade work and sparring would have to wait until he turned thirteen.
Today, since there had been no practice with the bow, John had remained indoors with Isolda, Lillian, and the bairns. But clearly he had some energy to burn off after a day spent inside, no doubt dreaming of honing his fighting skills.
“Kirk had us working with throwing daggers,” Mairin told John in a conspiratorial murmur. “And then I sparred with English.”
“Did ye kick his ar—er, that is, did ye land any blows?”
She heard Niall exhale behind her, a huff that sounded suspiciously close to a chuckle.
“Och, aye,” she replied as they reached the keep. “A punch and a kick.”
“You all have excellent timing,” Lillian called through the still-open door. “The stew is ready, and—oh! Logan!”
Logan ducked through the door and into the warmth of the cottage. This side of the keep served as the main kitchen when Lillian cooked for everyone in the camp. He greeted Lillian, who stood before a large caldron, an apron tied over her rounded abdomen, then Isolda, who held wee Calloch on one hip, and not-so-wee Alice on the other.
Lillian and Isolda both welcomed Logan to the camp and ushered the rest of them inside. Their English-accented voices were familiar to Mairin after so many years, their soft feminine pitches no longer causing her to flinch.
“Down you go, Alice,” Isolda said, bending to lower the dark-haired girl to the floor. When she straightened, she lifted a brow at Ansel. “Alice wished to play ‘I’m the bairn, not Calloch’ again,” she said wryly.
“What am I to do with ye, ye wee hellion?” Ansel demanded, scooping Alice up, much to the girl’s delight, judging by her squeals.
Just then, Kirk slipped into the cottage. “Ye shouldnae be on yer feet, sweeting,” he said, moving to Lillian’s side.
She gave him a warm, loving smile in return. “How else are Isolda and I to feed the lot of you ravenous animals if we do not stand over caldrons and fires and the like all day?”
“It’s sweet that he wishes to pamper you,” Isolda said to Lillian as if Kirk weren’t there. “Remind him of how attentive he is being now when the babe arrives and wakes you every few hours throughout the night.”
Kirk placed a hand over Lillian’s rounded belly and gave Isolda a mock-withering glare. “Such hardships clearly didnae deter ye and Ansel, judging from the wee bairn in yer arms,” he shot back, nodding toward one-year-old Calloch, who slept peacefully at the moment.
Isolda chuckled in response. Ansel set Alice down and moved to Isolda’s side, brushing a kiss on her cheek, then on the sleeping bairn’s head. “For yer impudence, I’ll be sure to make yer training extra-grueling when Lillian’s time comes, Kirk,” he said evenly.
Kirk snorted, while Lillian and Isolda shared a laugh.
“Logan, you are lucky we made enough stew and bread to feed an army,” Lillian commented. “What brings you to the Highlands?”
The atmosphere in the cottage abruptly grew more solemn.
“Word from the Bruce, and a mission,” Logan replied.
In silence, the stew was quickly ladled into bowls. Platters of bread and butter were carried to the long wooden table that took up most of the space in the corridor adjoining the two cottages. As they began settling in their seats, Ansel gave Logan a pointed look.
Logan hesitated. “This isnae talk for bairns.” He glanced at Alice and John at the other end of the table.
“Might I stay, Mama?” John pleaded. “I’m nearly thirteen.”
Isolda cast Logan a look, as if to silently ask if the information he bore was suitable for John. Logan gave a curt shake of his head, his mouth set in a hard line.
Unease once again coiled in Mairin’s stomach. Logan’s news was clearly significant, and if he had a mission for one of them, something or someone important to the Bruce’s cause was in danger.
It had been a year and a half since the Bruce had last called upon the Corps members in the training camp. Then, there had been an assassination attempt against the King, and the man responsible had escaped. What danger or crisis could have the Bruce sending for one of his bodyguards this time?
Isolda must have been thinking along the same lines, for her face was grim as she stood with Calloch.
“Nay, Isolda, ye may wish to stay. This affects ye,” Logan said.
Isolda’s pale green eyes flickered with surprise at that.
“I’ll take Calloch,” Lillian volunteered, rising. “Come along, Alice, John,” she said cheerfully as she gently scooped the sleeping bairn from Isolda’s arms. “While we eat, I’ll teach you another clever chess maneuver.”
The only thing John loved more than the idea of training with the men was learning chess from Lillian. He eagerly scampered from the table, Alice chasing behind.
When the door to the cottage closed quietly behind Lillian, Logan’s gray gaze traveled around the table.
“The Bruce has gotten word that Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, nearly died in a siege against Tickhill Castle no’ long ago.”
For a long moment, silence hung thick around the table. Then Kirk exhaled in relief. Will eased back in his chair, his shoulders relaxing. Even Mairin felt the knot in her stomach loosen.
The English Earl was well known to be a cruel, calculating man, one who’d crossed the Bruce and the Scottish cause for freedom more than once. His death—or near-death, in this case—was welcome news.
Ansel spoke what they were all thinking. “Good,” he said, practically spitting the word into his stew. “If only he’d actually been killed. The world would be better for it.”
Isolda let a breath go, although she held her tongue.
Niall’s copper brows drew down, his mouth set in its normal serious line. “If that is the news you bring, what is the Bruce’s mission?” he asked carefully.
Logan’s jaw worked for a long moment, as if it pained him to have to speak his next words.
“The Bruce wishes…he is ordering that…bloody hell,” Logan muttered. He scrubbed a hand over the long scar that traveled from the corner of one eye to his jawline. Mairin held her breath, sensing her brother’s internal struggle.
At last, he finished. “The Bruce wants Lancaster protected. And he wants the Bodyguard Corps to do it.”
Chapter Three
A stunned silence swept around the table. It was shattered when everyone started talking at once.
“What it—”
“Bloody hell.”
“That cannae be.”
Niall held his tongue, letting the others shout for answers. Only he, Mairin, and Isolda remained mute. Mairin watched Logan, her brows knit together, while Isolda had turned an ashen shade of gray. She fumbled to bring a cup to her mouth, but her hand shook so badly that the cup slipped from her fingers and crashed against the table.
Those in the room quieted then, seeming to sense Isolda’s distress.
“What the bloody hell is this nonsense?” Ansel demanded with barely-leashed rage. “The Earl of Lancaster has more than earned a place in Hell for himself. Why in God’s name would the Bruce wish for us to protect him?”
Logan held up a hand to
calm Ansel. “I was just as stunned when the Bruce told me his plan. I dislike this as much as ye.”
“I doubt that,” Ansel growled. “No’ given what that bastard did to Isolda, and what he tried to do to John—using the Order of the Shadow, yer old organization, Logan.”
Both Kirk and Logan stiffened at that, but they managed to keep their tempers. Ansel had every right to be furious. The animosity between his family and Lancaster ran especially deep.
It hadn’t taken long in the training camp for Niall to realize that John wasn’t Ansel’s blood son. The lad had brown hair like both Isolda and Ansel, yet he’d inherited neither Isolda’s pale green eyes nor Ansel’s dark brown ones. Instead, he had bright, pale blue eyes. And though the child had been raised in Scotland from the time he was five summers old, his voice still bore the traces of an English accent from his earlier years.
Niall had carefully broached the topic with Ansel several years ago, who’d explained all. Isolda had been seduced, used, and set aside by the Earl of Lancaster when she’d been a mere seventeen-year-old girl. When she’d borne his child—John—Lancaster had sent both her and the babe to a remote corner of Northumbria to be kept out of sight and out of mind.
But when Lancaster, the cousin of England’s King Edward II and likely just as rich and influential as the King himself, sought even more power, he’d hired a bounty hunter from the Order of the Shadow to kill both John and Isolda. That way, his bastard son and the woman who’d borne him could not be used against Lancaster as he positioned himself to make a play for the English throne.
Ansel had been sent by Robert the Bruce to protect John and Isolda. The Bruce had understood that not only were they innocents caught in the cross-fire of the vicious war between England and Scotland, but that they would be powerful tools in case Lancaster did indeed succeed in becoming King. Such were the workings of the Bruce’s mind—he was always planning moves and countermoves in his quest for Scotland’s freedom.
