Highlander Redeemed (Guardians of the Targe Book 3)
Page 4
“How is she to do that? How is she to take responsibility, to grow up, when no one here—not even me”—until this day, he realized suddenly—“treats her like anything other than an overgrown child?”
Both women were silent then, and Duncan thought perhaps he had overstepped.
“He is right, Rowan,” Jeanette said, and Duncan let out a quiet sigh of relief. “It is difficult not to treat her as if she is always about to cause trouble.” The three of them stood there in silence for long moments, the murmur of those clan folk still awake and the occasional pop of the fire the only sounds.
“Duncan,” Jeanette said, settling a hand on his arm, “you have always been the one to understand her, to watch out for her far better than any of the rest of us. What do you think we need to do to help her make this change?”
The image of Scotia whirling through her exercise this morning, fierce, determined, focused entirely on what she meant to master, flashed through him. She was so intent on her quest that she had even agreed to his deal.
“You need to let her roam,” he said, trying to answer their questions without lying, and without revealing Scotia’s secrets, for he knew if he let on what she was really up to, Rowan, Jeanette, and pretty much everyone else would hobble Scotia like a horse and throw her into the back of a cave until she came to her senses . . . which would be never. “She is unhappy, and here she is surrounded by disapproval and your happiness.”
“Happiness? Here where we hide in the bens, driven from our home by the English?” He could see the silhouette of Rowan’s curly auburn hair tremble with each angry word.
“Aye,” Duncan replied, letting his own anger lend weight to his words. “You accuse her of selfishness, yet the two of you flaunt your newfound happiness, your husbands, and your places as Guardians, in front of her, without a thought to how it makes her feel.” Or the rest of us, he thought. He did not mean to tarnish the joy these two women had managed to find in spite of the trials that had overtaken the clan of late, but he knew he found it difficult to watch their happiness when he had none of his own. He could only imagine Scotia felt the same. “She is grieving and she needs time and understanding to move through that. She does not have a Nicholas or a Malcolm to teach her that happiness and grief can go hand-in-hand, nor does she have the responsibilities of a new Guardian to distract her from it, so she will have to learn how to grieve on her own. I will do what I can to keep her safe and out of trouble, but I think only she can figure out how to move past the hurts and betrayals.”
When neither Rowan nor Jeanette spoke he said, “I am sorry. I did not mean to make you feel discomfited because you are happy. I would not take that from either of you. I only meant to show you how you look to Scotia.”
“And you have done that very well,” Rowan said, but he could tell he had offended her from the flatness of her voice, even though he could not see her face well in the dark.
Duncan looked down at the plaid clutched hard in his fists. He did not like hurting these women. They had lost so much, but they had gained much, too, in these last weeks, and he was genuinely happy for them.
But for now Scotia was his priority.
Jeanette sighed. “You seem to see her more clearly than either of us can. Will you continue to watch over her, Duncan? I ken you would rather be out keeping watch for the English, or preparing battle plans with the council, but right now watching over Scotia is every bit as important. Rowan and I can only concentrate on our training and preparations for the coming battle if we know she is both safe and not endangering the clan.”
Duncan’s mind raced. Of course he would agree, but was there anything that might help him keep Scotia’s secret while he kept his promise to the Guardians, even if ’twould not be in exactly the way they expected?
“I will continue to watch over her safety, as I did today, but I must ask for two things from you,” he said, choosing his words with exquisite care.
CHAPTER FOUR
SCOTIA SAT JUST inside the mouth of the main cave, wrapped in her blanket, but unable to sleep after the eventful and surprising day, when she watched first Jeanette, then Rowan, casually leave their places by their husbands and follow Duncan into the council circle.
She knew what was happening even though she could not hear their voices, and could barely make them out against the dark forest background. She knew Rowan and Jeanette were about to interrogate Duncan on what he had learned of Scotia’s activities this day. Doubt sprang alive in her, gnawing at her confidence and whispering betrayal in her heart. Rowan and Jeanette always got their way, and Duncan would be no match for the two of them if they really wanted to make him tell Scotia’s secrets. She knew better than to believe anyone would be on her side, an ally in her quest for vengeance. Even Duncan, the one person she could always depend upon to defend her, even when he was himself chiding her for whatever her latest debacle was, couldn’t stand up to the clan’s Guardians. She wouldn’t be surprised if, when the women were done with him, she ended up in shackles, taking away her freedom and leaving her helpless to defend herself or anyone else, on top of all the other losses she had suffered.
Scotia rose slowly and made her way out of the cave, slipping almost silently through the night-black shadows at the edge of the clearing and into the wood, heading carefully through the darkness for her cache of weapons, as if a beacon lit her way. If they came for her with shackles, at least she’d be ready to defend herself, even if it meant fighting off those she loved.
She hadn’t made it far when a man jumped out of the wood not far in front of her. She stopped, tried to make out who it was in the near total lack of light, then took a few steps backward, the memory of just such an ambush with Myles fresh in her mind. At least this time there was no one else with her to be murdered.
She almost tripped over a thick dead branch. Quickly she caught her balance, then dropped her blanket and picked up the branch, brandishing it in front of her, though it was so heavy it wobbled in her grasp.
“Put that down, Scotia.”
The voice disoriented her for a moment. It wasn’t English, as her mind had been prepared for. ’Twas familiar.
“Put it down, Scotia. If I meant you harm, running and hiding would serve you far better than standing to fight with that. I can see we have a lot of training to do.”
“Duncan?”
“Of course.”
She threw down the branch, barely missing her toes when it bounced unexpectedly back toward her. She stomped down the barely there trail to where the man stood his ground.
“You told them, did you not?” It was both question and statement.
“I did not.”
She was ready to throw insults at him about his manhood, his integrity, his . . . wait. “What?”
“I did not tell them of your secret, and instead I secured their promise not to demand to know where you are going when you leave the cave site, and also that they no longer send lads, or anyone other than me, to follow you.”
“And they agreed to that?” She tried to quash the hope that surged within her.
“They did.”
She took a step closer to him. “And you believe them?”
“I do,” he said without hesitation.
Scotia tried to understand what he’d done. He’d stood up to the Guardians and he’d gotten promises from them.
“You did not trust me to keep your secret, did you?” he said, and she could hear the disappointment in his voice.
She considered telling him she was only going for a walk, but he would know it for a lie, and she did not want to repay his good faith with anything less than her own. “I did not think you were strong enough to stand against both Rowan and Jeanette.”
“Then we have both learned something new of the other this day. Where were you going?” he asked.
“I thought they would throw me in shackles to keep me from my training.”
“So you meant to fetch your weapons and fight your own kin?”
She rubbed her face with both hands, as if she could scrub the daft idea right out of her head. Where did these ideas come from? And why did she never question her own thoughts before she acted upon them?
“Scotia?”
“You will make me admit yet another mistake in judgment?”
“Nay, I only want you to recognize it so that the next time your fears and anger drive you to action, you might take a moment and think through the consequences, or talk to me so that I might help you see them, before you take action. Can you do that?”
She closed her eyes and sighed. “This is part of my training, aye?”
“An important part. A warrior cannot fight with emotion. A warrior must fight with clear eyes and a calculating mind. I am confident, if you really want to be a warrior, that you can learn to do that.”
“And if I do not?” She stepped closer, looking him in the eye, searching for his doubt, his disappointment, his belief that she would fail in this training. But she saw only determination.
“Then I will not allow you into any battle of any sort, for an emotional warrior is a dead warrior, and I do not want your death upon my conscience. Can you agree?”
She closed her eyes again and knew that what he asked was for the best, though her pride ached at the admission. “More than anything, I want to fight with my kinsmen, so aye, I agree.”
Duncan’s fingers grazed her cheek, startling her with his warm touch in the chill night air. “And now you surprise me again.” His voice was soft and for a moment she thought he leaned closer. For a moment she thought he meant to kiss her, but then he dropped his hand, and the moment was gone.
“’Tis time we both got some sleep.” He scooped up her discarded blanket and headed back up the trail toward the caves.
Scotia watched him disappear into the darkness of the forest. She looked over her shoulder in the direction of her weapons and sighed. Becoming a warrior was a trickier business than she had imagined.
THE NEXT FEW days were challenging, to say the least, both for Duncan and for Scotia, but they fell quickly into a pattern. Scotia would rise early, though Duncan was usually already at the cookfire, eating his morning porridge, when she made her way out of the main cave. She ate, and then took off into the wood. Duncan would give her a few minutes’ start, then quietly slip out of the cave site, as if he were only trailing after her, keeping an eye on her. Every day she took a different route to her stash of weapons, Duncan keeping a discreet distance, ready to lead anyone astray who might decide to follow them. Duncan was all too aware that he had received promises from Rowan and Jeanette, but not from the men who led the clan. Still, no one gainsaid a Guardian, and now there were two to stand between Duncan and his charge and the leaders.
But he would not allow the sudden truce between him and Scotia to be threatened by someone taking it upon him or herself to follow them, so he was even more vigilant than usual as they made their way to her weapons cache.
They worked on swordplay, but they also worked on strengthening her body. He devised obstacle courses for her in the wood that tested her speed, agility, and her endurance. In the afternoons they had taken to exploring the glen, with Scotia showing him places she had discovered over the past weeks: passes, other caves, a lochan halfway down the ben at the foot of a waterfall—a wee loch just big enough to bathe in. While they trekked up and down the ben he began to teach her the art of strategy, the art of reading her opponent and the terrain. He also challenged her tracking skills by having her follow animal tracks, teaching her things he had learned in the years since he’d first shared his tracking lessons with her. The parallel was not lost on him—he had taught her tracking to keep her from wandering off on her own and getting herself and the other weans, who inevitably tagged along with the charming and fearless lass, into trouble. She might be ten and eight now, but her fearless streak remained, and unfortunately that still got others into trouble with her . . . only now that trouble included loss of life.
Each day with Scotia made Duncan see her with fresh eyes. She was fierce, determined, focused, as he’d never seen her before. She was driven by something other than the next lad she fancied. And she was turning out to be a talented warrior.
“Once more,” Duncan said, knowing he was pushing Scotia past her endurance, expecting her to snap and turn on him, wagging a finger in his face and calling him names only Scotia could devise.
But she didn’t.
Her breath was ragged, and sweat streamed down her face. Her hair, once neatly contained in a thick braid, wafted about her face in strings. She pushed it out of her way and took a few slow, deep breaths as he’d taught her to calm her heart and steady her mind. She swallowed, pushed her sleeves back above her elbows, made sure her skirts were kilted up securely, and went back to the beginning of the line of obstacles he’d set up in the wood to challenge her.
Duncan tried to hide a smile, but from the glare Scotia sent him he didn’t think he was successful.
“You are enjoying torturing me all too much,” she said, then she took off, sprinting for the first downed tree. She scrambled up onto it, not as gracefully as the first four times she’d done this, but she got there. She ran down the length of the trunk, leapt off it, easily missing the wide mud puddle that was in her way. She dodged under the branch of another downed tree, swung up onto its trunk, drew her stick sword from a loop of rope at her waist, and danced through the intricate steps of one of the exercises he’d taught her just yesterday, resheathed her stick sword, and hurtled through another five obstacles and tasks he’d set up. Skidding to a stop just in front of him, she bent over at the waist, bracing herself with her hands upon her thighs, her sides heaving.
“You are a beast,” she said without looking up at him, but there was no heat to her words. She sat back, hard, her breath whooshing out with a very unladylike grunt.
“And you are getting stronger and faster every day. I do not think there is a lad in the clan who could manage that as fast.” He was not flattering her, just telling her the truth. She was remarkable at these physical tests of endurance and agility.
She peered up at him. All of her hair had escaped her braid now and it cascaded around her narrow face in sheets of ebony, accentuating her icy green eyes. The doubt in her eyes bothered him.
“’Tis the truth, Scotia.” He reached out a hand to help her up, and was a little surprised when she took it. He pulled her up, and for no reason he could think of he did not immediately release her hand, enjoying the heat of it against his and the feel of the calluses beginning to form on her soft skin.
She met his gaze and for a moment he saw confusion, then a glint of irritation as she pulled her hand out of his and stepped back, putting a little distance between them. “I told you not to treat me like a lass. Do you help the lads up when they are tired?”
“Sometimes, aye, but I will not help you again, unless you ask it of me.” He was irritated by her reaction for some reason, though he knew ’twas nothing out of the usual for Scotia. “We are done for the day. Tomorrow we shall spar and see if you can take the exercises you have learned and turn them to use.”
Her eyes lit. “Finally.” He shook his head at the intensity of that one word.
“It has only been five days since we began. I did not think you would be prepared so soon, but you have worked hard. In truth, I did not think you would.” He picked up a waterskin and handed it to her. “You have surprised me, Scotia.”
“Then you seriously underestimated my determination to kill my enemies.”
He nodded, the irritation disappearing as he once more saw her in a new light.
“I did. You are not the same girl you were before the English took you. In an odd way, they have given you a purpose, a focus that you have never had before. I like it.
”
She took another long draw from the waterskin. When she lowered it she met his gaze. “I like it, too.” She quirked an eyebrow at him, a teasing gesture he remembered well but had not seen in many years. “But that does not mean I like you or this arrangement any better.”
He could not help but grin at her, glad that somehow her newfound passion for fighting had also resurrected the teasing lass he’d known when she was a child. “I would not expect you to.” Though he suspected she did.
He certainly enjoyed his time with her, far more than he would have thought possible. Here in the wood she was a fierce warrior, sure of herself, capable, with her eyes fixed on her goal. Inevitably, when they returned to the cave site, she would revert to the sullen, angry lass she’d been of late.
“When are you going to let the rest of the clan know who you are becoming?” he asked.
“Not until I can kick their arses when they treat me like a child.”
“If you stopped acting like a child around them, you would not need to kick anyone’s arse.” He knew he should have kept his mouth shut even as the words spilled out of it.
She handed him the waterskin, her eyes gone hard and her pink lips tightened over what he knew were clenched teeth. “You have worked me so hard I cannot go back to the caves like this lest someone ask me why I am such a mess. I am going to the lochan to wash up, and you have my word I shall return directly to camp. You may not follow me.” She wagged her finger at him. “Do you understand?”
“You ken I cannot leave you alone away from the caves, aye? I will give you privacy, but I will await you near the lochan—” She started to interrupt, but he kept going. “I promise to keep my distance so you can bathe in private.”
“I will not—”
“’Tis the only deal I can make, Scotia. You have done an admirable job in gaining my trust, though my trust is not unshakeable yet. The rest of the clan, though? They do not trust you at all, which is why I was tasked to keep an eye on you in the first place. I will not break my word to the Guardians. ’Twould be a terribly unwarriorlike thing to do, and it would shame me greatly. Would you break your word to me: me with you at all times in exchange for training you to be a warrior?”