Captured Heart

by Heather McCollum

  “That would, indeed,” Ewan said slowly, as if tasting some new brew of mead.

  All three men turned toward the mystery woman sitting as royal as one could sit naked beneath a wool blanket. She couldn’t be, could she? She was English. They were close to Yorkshire and traveling near the main road in and out of Scotland.

  Caden strode across the clearing, barely aware that Ewan and Donald followed. His legs stretched out before him, his muscles taut.

  She didn’t resemble Alec Munro. In fact she was quite opposite the obstinate, stab-you-where-you-stand, burly Highlander with his red hair and fuzzy beard.

  She watched them walk over to her. Caden stared down at her. Was she really Alec Munro’s beloved niece?

  She cleared her throat. “Donald and I were talking about how you could use my help treating the injured while you journey back to the Highlands. I would like to strike a deal with you. My help for your escort to my aunt’s home.” She paused. “I will not interfere with your mission here in England.”

  Caden’s hands fisted at his sides. “I would have yer name if ye will be traveling with us.” He watched her face for any signs of dishonesty. “Yer Christian name.”

  Her chin rose a bit, displaying the lovely line of her throat. The splash of firelight on her exposed neck darkened with a blush. “I didn’t tell you my name before because I thought it was prudent not to give strangers that information while I traveled.”

  “Traveled alone,” Caden reprimanded.

  Annoyance flashed through her eyes but she covered it with a tight smile. “I travel with my wolf and my mount. Not alone.”

  Ewan opened his mouth to say something, but Caden raised his hand to stop him. “Yer Christian name, milady.”

  “My name is…Meg Boswell.”

  “Niece to Alec Munro?” Caden shot out, his blood surging within. His hands clasped and unclasped at his sides.

  She glanced at Donald, who still fidgeted, and then back to Caden. “My mother’s sister is married to the Munro chief. I wish to journey to their holding. Donald has said that their land borders yours.”

  “I told ye,” Donald said beneath his breath.

  The woman pushed off the ground to stand. Caden’s gaze moved over her slight frame, down to the bare little toes that squeezed upon each other in the grass.

  “I understand having a woman along may seem odd, but I promise not to interfere with your mission—”

  “Our mission is completed,” Caden said abruptly. His fists clenched.

  “Well, then, I couldn’t possibly interfere. I will just take care of your injured and will follow you back to the Highlands. A mutual gain.”

  A gust of wind scattered wood smoke this way and that. Several of the lass’s curls tugged free of the blanket and floated out around her face. She looked like she’d been tupped, her hair in beautiful disarray. He could imagine it fanned out across the soft fur on his bed. One side of the blanket slipped, exposing the creamy milk-white skin of her shoulder. Caden’s jaw ached.

  “Have we set a bargain, then?” She chewed a bit on that luscious bottom lip.

  Caden nearly groaned watching those lips, so soft, so perfectly formed.

  “Aye.” His gaze moved from her lips back to her lash-framed eyes. “We have set a bargain. Donald, make certain a tent is set up for Lady Boswell so that she may dress and sleep.”

  Donald hurtled away from them.

  “And Donald, not a word to the men yet. I will tell them about our guest.”

  “You may call me Meg,” she said. “I don’t hold tightly to formalities and we have a long way to go.”

  Caden watched her pull the blanket up to cover the bare shoulder and frowned. “Get some sleep. We leave England at dawn.” He turned on his heel, dismissing her. The wave of lust, however, was harder to ignore.

  Was she frowning at his rude departure, her lovely eyes glaring at his back? Meg Boswell was certainly no fainting flower. She had spirit and courage. She was most definitely glaring.

  Caden let out a long breath. They’d be back on Scottish soil on the morrow. Why, then, did he welcome an excuse to slice someone through?

  Ewan jogged to keep up with Caden’s long strides across the camp.

  Caden stopped and turned to him. “Alert the men that we leave at dawn for home. Make sure they understand that Meg,” he said, stressing the name she bade him use, “is our guest.”

  “Are you going to tell her—?”

  “Not until I have to.” Caden walked purposely toward the cold stream. Perhaps another icy swim would remind his body about his goal. He slapped a low branch out of the way as he strode into the darkness of the trees, tearing the green limb from the trunk of a slender birch. He should be celebrating, not scowling. After all, he had completed his mission on his very first day in England. He had captured Meg Boswell, and she didn’t even know it.

  Chapter Three

  27 July 1517 – Garlic: strong odor, green stalk that flowers white or pink in early summer, white bulb hides underground. Search among the rocks near the mountains of the north. Lorg an lus seo ann an uamh, an fuar uamh le moran na frith-rathaidean agus an blath cridhe anns am meadhon.

  Prevents wounds from oozing. Relieves breathing ailments. Helps stomach pains. Raw juice or boiled for half a day mixed with clean water should be drunk to expel the evilness from the body, although its stench drives away all but family.

  Meg spent the first two hours of the next morning checking behind her, but no one raced after them. The Macbains rode two across with a scout up ahead, Meg in the middle. They traveled so slow, too slow for her. Her journey would be faster if she progressed alone, though who knows where she’d end up? Lord, give me patience.

  She sighed and pulled her mother’s journal out and opened it across her lap. Balancing in Pippen’s familiar sway, she thumbed through the sections of her mother’s notes. After all these years, she knew the words by heart. The more she learned from Aunt Mary about the art of healing with plants, the more she realized that some of her mother’s notes were not quite correct, even though her mother was considered a miraculous healer.

  They stopped for a midday meal of honey cured meat and cold bannocks. Meg checked on Hugh and changed the dressing on his stump. He was still weak from blood loss and had been riding with another soldier.

  Donald Black sat next to her, by a tree.

  “You make a fine lady’s maid,” she said in Gaelic, and smiled at Donald, who handed her a skin filled with water.

  Instead of smiling, he seemed confused.

  “Or perhaps you are my guard,” she teased.

  Donald choked and she patted him hard on the back. Her sensitive touch told her that his heart rate had sped up. Perhaps she’d embarrassed him by naming him her maid.

  “Milady?”

  “No milady, just Meg,” she chided. “I am sorry, Donald. I was only teasing.” She indicated the water and food he’d brought. “You seem to have been stuck with the task of making sure I don’t starve or wander off. I don’t mean to be a bother.”

  His shoulders relaxed. “No bother,” he said. “I have a sister at home. Ann. She’s just your size. I’ve always watched after her.”

  “I will be happy to meet her when we reach the Highlands.”

  “Meet her?” He frowned slightly.

  “We will be neighbors. I will come for a visit once I’m settled.”

  Donald stood. “I need to check the horses.”

  She watched him walk off, and her smile faded. He thought she was strange. Well, I am strange, but they shouldn’t know that just by talking to me.

  Meg stood and breathed in the crisp, autumn-scented air. Colored leaves danced in the trees above as the bright sun glittered down. She loved autumn, the full harvests, the festivals before winter. She ignored the small stab of homesickness as she walked over to Pippen. Certainly the Highlanders had their own bountiful festivities. She ran strong fingers under Pippen’s soft muzzle.

  “I told
you all would work out,” she whispered. The horse nickered.

  “Meg Boswell.” Caden’s soft, steady voice shot through her and Meg whirled around.

  “I didn’t hear you,” she said and smiled timidly.

  Caden stood only a step away. His normal half scowl was in place as he adjusted the saddle on Pippen’s back. He tugged on the saddle as if checking to see if it was secure and then turned to her, crossing his arms. “What has ye watching over yer shoulder all morning? What makes a lass leave her family with only a wolf and bow for protection and a small satchel of food to sustain her?”

  He was so tall, taller than any of the men in the village near her home. His intelligent eyes stared at her as if figuring her out. She didn’t know what to say.

  Caden stepped closer to Meg; his fingers pulled a small birch leaf from her hair. He was close, so close that she could easily lay her hand against his broad chest. At least he had a shirt on this time.

  “I’ve deduced that ye aren’t a fool, Meg.” He indicated her leather pouch. “I’ve seen ye reading that book. And yer way with the injured,” he said. “Ye’re not addled, so it must be something dire to make ye run.”

  Meg opened her mouth but then closed it. She couldn’t tell him that she was running from her own father, a traitor to his king, a liar, and murderer of her own mother. She was humiliated enough. “I appreciate your escort, but I—”

  “I like to know what enemy I am making, lass.” He stared hard, unblinking.

  Meg swallowed. She hadn’t thought of it that way. Was she endangering these men just by associating with them? Would her father take out his vengeance on the Macbains for helping her?

  “I…mean, my mother…well, the man…” Her tongue couldn’t form the terrible words. She studied the rounded toes of her leather boots. The flush that burned up her neck and cheeks wouldn’t go away even with slow, steady breathing. The awkward silence stretched until she glanced back up at his strong features.

  “I understand,” she started again. “I should not put you all in peril.” She focused on the blue specks in his gray eyes. “If you could give me some basic directions toward my relations, I will travel on my own. I would but ask that you don’t divulge my name or the direction I am traveling if asked.”

  Caden watched her in silence. He uncrossed his arms. “Ye’re running from something fierce.”

  His observation wasn’t a question, but she tipped her head in a brief nod anyway.

  He took a step closer and Meg held her breath. “Ye have my escort, Meg Boswell, no matter who chases ye.” Caden’s hands moved to her waist, and he lifted her up into the saddle. His hand lingered at her knee. “Just shout out if ye see that the devil’s caught up to us, lass.”

  Caden removed the warmth of his large hand, and she breathed again as he turned away.

  “Thank you,” she said to the back of his head.

  …

  They traveled the north road, which really wound through the lowlands on a northwest direction. Caden watched Meg twist in her saddle for the twentieth time. She most definitely fled someone, someone she expected to follow. A brother? A father or guardian? Perhaps a husband or a lover? His jaw tensed and he rubbed a hand over the scruff that had grown there over the week he’d been away from Druim Keep.

  Fortune’s irony had landed Meg in his lap. There had been no need to steal her away, and now no worry about her running from them. She didn’t cry or complain or beseech him for her freedom. In fact she was grateful for his escort, making this mission much easier.

  Caden raked his hand through his hair, letting the guilt fall flat inside, as if it didn’t matter. Because it didn’t. The lass would play her part in their plan, a plan that must work or many in the protection of the Macbains would die this winter. The feud with the Munros was an old one, but it remained vicious with raiding attacks. The bastards had even gone so far as to burn the Macbains’ fields, even though Alec Munro denied it. Without food stores for the coming winter, many would starve—mostly the elderly and the children. The threat of starvation had prompted Caden to bring the idea of using a hostage to the council. Someone the Munros cared about.

  He watched his captive sway gently in her saddle. She laughed at something Ewan said as he rode next to her. The spirit in the lilting cadence licked along the row of men like wildfire racing across a dry heath. Soon every man within earshot grinned like a foolish arse.

  Everyone except Caden.

  With each pleasant exchange, the lass would hate them more once she knew that she was merely a pawn in a war.

  “It must be done,” he said on a low exhale and his horse’s ears twitched. The faces of the children born under the Macbains’ protection moved behind his eyes. The responsibility of their lives weighed on his shoulders. He wore the cloak of The Macbain, the cloak he had donned the day his father died. He’d do what no other chief had been able to do. And he would do it by kidnapping and using an innocent woman.

  Caden sat up taller in his seat and tapped his mount forward to ride in front of the line, up where the lass’s sweet laughter could not reach him.

  …

  They made camp as the moon rose in a small meadow that sloped toward a pond. Meg washed as best she could and sat by the fire waiting for the rabbit to roast. Even though they’d crossed into Scotland, the mood in the camp was tense. She sat silently, watching the flames as they licked up the large hare on the spit.

  The glow of the fire made reading possible, so Meg dug out her mother’s journal. After hours of contemplation during the day’s ride, she was certain that her mother wanted her to run to Scotland. She flipped to the garlic entry. Garlic grew in many places, but her mother wrote that she should find it in the north. And her mother wanted her to learn Gaelic. Uncle Harold had told her many times that her mother had always loved the rugged Highlands where their sister had settled and that she’d wanted Meg to learn its ancient language.

  She ran her finger down her mother’s lightly slanted script to the last line of the garlic entry. “Lorg an lus seo ann an uamh, an fuar uamh le moran na frith-rathaidean agus an blath cridhe anns am meadhon,” she pronounced with a slow cadence.

  “‘Find this plant in a cave, a cold cave with many paths and a warm heart in the middle,’” Caden said from where he stood behind her.

  Meg’s heart jumped, partly because he’d startled her and partly because, well, if she’d admit it, because it was Caden Macbain.

  “A cold cave with a warm heart?”

  Caden sat down on the log and turned the spit over the low flames. “What does that mean, lass?”

  Meg huffed out a long breath. “I don’t really know. I suppose there is a cave up north where I need to go to find…” Perhaps if she didn’t stare at the amazingly large, ruggedly handsome warrior sitting so close in the deepening dark, her heartbeat would slow back to normal.

  “What do you need to find?” His tone was casual and it brought her gaze back around. He sat close, watching.

  She couldn’t quite tear her eyes away from that gaze. “I…I don’t know that, either.”

  “Something to do with the devil who’s chasing ye?”

  Meg tipped, just enough that he noticed. His eyes never left hers. She glanced down at her hands. She was a burden to these men.

  “So ye do read.” Ewan sat down on the other side of Meg and peered at the open book. “English and Gaelic?”

  “Mostly English, some Gaelic,” she answered in his language. She concentrated on keeping her breathing normal, even.

  “Most unusual.” He turned the rabbit on the spit. “Ye are the most unusual lass I’ve ever met.”

  Meg forced a little laugh. “I’m just an average Englishwoman raised in the countryside.”

  “Hardly,” Ewan continued. “Ye shoot the bow as well as the goddess Diana.” He motioned to the rabbit, which Meg had shot earlier. “Ye tend the impaired and injured.” He moved his hand in the direction of the men milling around securing the horses. �
�Ye read.” He tapped the book. “And ye’re brave enough to journey alone without an escort.”

  “Foolish enough,” Caden remarked.

  She frowned at Caden, but he’d already beaten her to that particular facial expression. His favorite. She certainly didn’t want to call attention to the fact she was far from the usual English maid, but she also didn’t want this mighty warrior to think she was totally daft. If these men thought her clever, then they’d be less likely to try to trick her or take advantage of her lack of Highland knowledge.

  “As I’ve mentioned numerous times, I had an escort. My wolf, Nickum, was and still is my escort.” She pointed toward the woods. “He never leaves me. The first night we journeyed I thought six wolves would surely take us down. Nickum was just waiting until they tired before he attacked. As soon as I fell off of Pippen, he was right there to protect me.”

  Both men stared at her. Caden’s teeth clenched shut, but Ewan’s mouth hung open like a gasping fish. “Ye were on the ground with six hungry wolves?” he all but yelled.

  “Well, I had shot three of them with my arrows,” she explained and turned her gaze to the snapping flames. “So it was really just three wolves by that time.”

  “Ye could have been killed!” Ewan continued. As his hand brushed hers, she could sense his rapid heartbeat, his empty stomach, and full bladder.

  “I was lucky that I didn’t hit my head on a boulder when I fell.”

  “No, woman! The wolves, they could have torn ye apart,” Ewan said.

  Meg shook her head. “Not with Nickum following me.” She turned to Caden. “So you see, I did not foolishly run away without an escort.”

  She waited for them to agree, acquiesce, or admit that she did know what she was doing, even though she really didn’t. Instead, silence ensued as they all watched the rabbit turn.

  “So ye are running away?” Ewan asked, the normal humor in his tone gone. “From who?”

  Caden’s eyes bored into her but kept her face forward. She needed to tell him something. She’d called his bluff before about leaving them, but she’d be foolish to do so. This band of Highlanders was her best chance of reaching her aunt safely.