Return of the Highlander

by Julianne MacLean

  A flock of starlings flew in a circular pattern overhead. She stopped to look up and catch her breath. Not ravens circling death…. Her feet were wet with dew and stinging with blisters, but at least there was light in the sky now. It wouldn’t be long before she found the clearing where the soldiers had come upon them and shot Darach in the back.

  The idea of it caused a severe pounding of dread to begin in her core, for she wasn’t sure she was prepared to look upon Darach’s pale corpse. It was a strange and macabre quest she had begun, and she had to wonder if she was half mad to have come here.

  Something drove her on nonetheless, albeit with a degree of hesitancy. She picked up her skirts and waded into the water.

  * * *

  Larena’s heart nearly quit beating in her chest when she emerged from the woods and beheld the place where her father had lain on the ground, bleeding to death. Her frantic gaze darted around the clearing, searching for the exact spot where Darach had fallen, but the glade was empty.

  Was she in the right place?

  Yes…yes she was. She recognized everything from the giant juniper on the other side, to the chips in the tree trunk where the musket balls had found their marks.

  She ran toward the patch of grass and knelt down where she was certain Darach had fallen. Indeed, there was a bloodstain on the ground. But where was Darach?

  A spark of hope lit in her veins.

  Rising to her feet, she looked around again and listened for any sound that might alert her to the presence of others, but she heard only the rapid tattoo of a woodpecker in the distance.

  Turning her attention back to the ground, she searched for some evidence of tracks. Was Darach alive? Had he walked out of there? Or had someone carried him off? Her stomach turned over with dread at the possibility that Gregory had already sent soldiers back here to confirm that Darach was dead and they were the ones who had carted him away.

  Within seconds she identified a single boot-print, then another.

  Through the chilly, shifting haze of the early morning light, she followed the tracks through the woods until she emerged from the trees, onto the valley floor where a crofter’s cottage came into view. Her heart burst with hope.

  Picking up her skirts, she sprinted toward it.

  Chapter Thirty

  Darach woke to a loud, violent pounding on the front door of the cottage. His first thought was that the English soldiers had learned of his survival and come to arrest him.

  Sitting up, he searched the room for his weapons. Then he remembered that he’d lost them during the attack. He had nothing with which to defend himself. Not that he could, since he would be outnumbered against a battalion of Redcoats at the ready. Besides that, he had a hole the size of an acorn in his shoulder blade. He doubted he could lift a sword if he had one.

  His ears alerted to the sound of John answering the door.

  Voices….

  A woman…?

  Larena!

  Within seconds, the curtain across the doorway was thrust open and he found himself staring in openmouthed shock at the woman he loved more than anything in this world.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked. “How did you get here? Where’s your father?”

  Larena covered her mouth with her hand. “My God. You’re alive.”

  “Aye.”

  Though he was stiff and sore from the waist up, nothing could keep him from touching her and holding her in his arms. He tossed the covers aside and rose to his feet.

  Larena crossed the tiny room in a few swift strides, wrapped her arms around his waist, and rested her cheek on his chest. He stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head. “Ah, lassie,” he softly said. “I was going to come back for you. Just as soon as I could walk out of here.”

  “I thought you were dead,” she whispered. “They said you were.”

  “Nay, lass. Nothing could keep me from you. Not even a musket ball in the back.”

  Loosening her grip, she stepped away and looked up at his face with a frown. “I don’t know what to say. I didn’t expect this.”

  His heart squeezed like a fist, for he saw a haunted look in her eyes that he’d never seen before. Then he understood.

  “Your father?”

  “Dead,” she replied, regarding him with reproach. “It happened on the way back to Leathan.”

  Darach bowed his head and shook it. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Are you? How could you be, when you were the one who put the knife in his belly to begin with?”

  God, oh God…

  Darach lifted his gaze to regard Larena in the dawn’s pink light. The disappointment he saw in her eyes was worse than a stinging slap across the face.

  “Not on purpose,” he replied.

  “You expect me to believe that? Your brother made it clear how he felt about my father, and Gregory informed me that he remembered you from his youth. He said you were one of the bullies who taunted him. And he heard the rumors—that my father had murdered yours. He suggested that you wanted revenge.”

  Darach’s hands clenched into fists. Why was everyone giving her this false information? And why was she believing it?

  “I asked my father about it before he died,” Larena continued. “In the glade, after you were shot, when they were taking us away…. I asked him if he killed your father. He assured me that he didn’t. He gave me his word. What do you have to say about that?”

  “I’ll say that he was lying, because he admitted it to me.”

  Her mouth fell open and tears filled her eyes. “But why would he lie to me when he must have known he was going to die?”

  Darach spoke gently. “Because he didn’t want you to know the truth about what he’d done. Because he did kill my father.” Darach didn’t want to add more pain to her grieving condition, but she needed to know the truth. The future—their future—depended on it. “He admitted it to me in the glade.”

  Her eyebrows lifted. “And that’s why you killed him?”

  “Nay! He’s dead because he came at me, full of hate and aggression. He hated me because I was the son of his enemy—a man he despised enough to kill. And he’s dead because I was forced to defend myself.”

  “I don’t believe you.” Something darkened in her eyes and her cheeks flushed with color. She stepped back.

  “Wait. Please listen….” A wave of desperation crashed over Darach. He couldn’t let her go. He needed her to believe him. “The minute you were gone, he approached me from behind. He stole the knife from my boot and held it to my throat. Look.” He raised his chin and pointed at the abrasion on his neck. “Then he accused me of seducing you just to spite him. He said I was using you to reclaim my right to be Laird of Leathan. I denied it, of course, but just like you, he didn’t believe me.”

  She stared at him with stricken eyes. “Part of me wants to believe you, but how can I believe a man who has lived his whole life as an imposter?”

  Darach’s heart broke into a thousand jagged pieces. “I told you that in confidence, Larena. I trusted you to understand and see me as I truly am. I thought you did.”

  “And I trusted you to save my father from the Tolbooth, yet he ended up dead.”

  “I told you…that was an accident,” Darach explained again. “When I got hold of the knife, he lunged at me. I didn’t intend to kill him. Sweet Mother of God! I had just rescued him out of the prison for you. I did everything for you.”

  “But why?”

  “Because I love you, dammit!” he told her. “Nothing else mattered to me. Not my brother or my clan. Not even what your father did to mine.”

  She stared at him for a long moment, and he felt sick to his stomach at the look of mistrust in her eyes. The wound at his back throbbed like a son of a bitch and he wasn’t sure if he could continue standing. He needed to sit.

  Down he went. He squeezed the edge of the mattress in his hands and gave himself a moment to recover.

  “Are you all right?” Larena asked.
/>   “Just a bit dizzy.”

  Neither of them said anything for a moment.

  “I still can’t believe you’re alive,” Larena said, more calmly now.

  Darach wet his lips, then looked up at her. “Do you believe me about what happened?

  She hesitated. “How can I? He was my father and I loved him. He was always good and loving to me. Yet you are telling me that he was a liar and a murderer. Why should I believe you when your whole life has been a lie?”

  “Your father didn’t tell you about his Jacobite plots either.”

  She sank onto a wooden chair behind her. Covering her face with her hands, she wept quietly.

  Darach stood and crossed the small room to kneel before her. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I know how much you loved him.”

  She nodded and lowered her hands to her lap. “It was awful,” she said, “when he fell off the horse. I knew he was gone, but the soldiers were so cruel about it. They wanted to place wagers about how long he had been riding without a pulse. It was all I could do not to spit in their faces.”

  Darach took hold of her hands and held them in his.

  “I wish we had never broken him out of prison,” she continued. “I shouldn’t have listened to you. I should have kept my promise to Lord Rutherford. I wish you had never returned.”

  “Don’t say that,” Darach replied. “All you wanted was happiness—for yourself and for your father. You tried. We both did. But sometimes things don’t work out as we hope. We must simply make the best of it and go on living.”

  “Make the best of it! My father is dead!” She shook her head at him. “And how can I go on living when I am pledged to marry a man I don’t love—and for what? Nothing can save my father now.”

  “Then come away with me,” Darach said. “We’ll leave this place. Today. You can put all this behind you.”

  “But I don’t want to put it behind me! I can’t simply move on as if this never happened. I don’t want to forget my father.”

  “You don’t have to, but you shouldn’t have to marry Gregory Chatham.”

  “I promised Lord Rutherford I would.”

  “Whatever contract you had with Rutherford can no longer be enforced because your father is dead. Neither Rutherford or Chatham can fulfill their end of the bargain, so you should not be expected to fulfill yours.”

  She was quiet for a long moment. “How could I go with you, Darach? You killed my father.” The anguished tone in Larena’s voice cut him to the quick. “You say it was an accident, but how will I ever know for sure? And even if it was an accident, it still happened.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “That I don’t think I could ever look at you and not think of that moment when I saw the bloody knife in your hand. I would always remember that you were responsible for my father’s death. That you hated him because of what you believe he did to your father. Our fathers were enemies, Darach.”

  “Just because our fathers were enemies does not mean we have to be. That has nothing to do with us.”

  “Perhaps not, but yesterday….” She stopped. “I should hate you for what happened.”

  “Do you hate me?” He felt as if all the blood in his veins had drained to his toes.

  “Yes. Part of me does. Part of me wishes I’d never met you. Never cared for you. But another part of me is glad that you are alive, and I find that very confusing.”

  His heart began to pound riotously in his chest. “It’s confusing because you still care for me, Larena. I know you do. And if I could undo what happened with your father, I would. But I cannot. All I know is that I need to be with you.” Darach took hold of her hands and raised them to his lips. “I pray to God you can forgive me for what happened. Your father’s death was not what I wanted. Believe me. I’m so sorry.”

  She watched him kiss her hands, then she pulled them away and wiped a tear from her cheek. “Stop it. I can’t simply fall into your arms and forget all this. It did happen. He was my father and now he’s dead.”

  Darach bowed his head and nodded. “Perhaps…in time….”

  “I don’t know.” They sat in silence for a drawn out moment. Then she stood. “I need to go back before they discover I am gone.”

  Darach stood up as well. “Go back? Nay, you will not be going back there. And you won’t be marrying Gregory Chatham either.”

  “It’s not up to you,” she told him. “It’s my life.”

  “But you don’t love him,” he practically growled. “You love me.”

  “I did,” she replied, “but now everything is cloaked in shadow. I don’t know what I feel.”

  “But you cannot go back there,” he insisted. “I don’t trust the colonel. I cannot explain it, but I saw a streak of cruelty in him.”

  She scoffed. “Says the man who used to taunt and bully him?”

  “Aye, I bullied him. I admit it. But I was a just a childish lad following the lead of my reckless older brothers—and they bullied me just as much, if not more. We were all punished for it. Our father saw to that. I spent the better part of a year thinking about all that I’d done wrong while I dug that hole out from under the castle. I left Chatham alone after that.”

  “Still,” Larena said, turning away, “I need to go back. If I don’t, he’ll search for me. He’ll find the tunnel and he’ll know you’re alive.”

  She made a move to leave, but Darach grabbed hold of her arm. “Let him search. Come with me now and he won’t catch us.”

  “Like they didn’t catch us in the glade yesterday morning?”

  Darach dropped his hand to his side. She might as well have kicked him in the guts. “I would have heard their approach if your father hadn’t been holding a knife to my throat. We could have gotten away. There would have been time.”

  She let out a sigh, as if she were disappointed that he was blaming this on her father.

  But it was Fitzroy’s fault, damn him. If it had been just the two of them—Darach and Larena—they would be halfway to the Great Glen by now.

  “Come with me,” he firmly said, his eyes boring into hers with desperate intensity.

  “Where?”

  “Kinloch. Angus will help us. He’ll hide us. You won’t have to marry Chatham.”

  “But my clan….”

  “They’re already scattered and divided,” he said. “Maybe in time, another leader will rise and take Leathan back from the English, but until then, it’s not your responsibility to provide an heir—and certainly not a half-English one.”

  She considered this. “What makes you think Angus will help us?”

  “He owes me a debt.”

  “What sort of debt?”

  “I saved the life of his young son a few years back.”

  She inclined her head. “What happened?”

  He shook his head quickly as if there wasn’t time for this, but then he explained. “The lad was misbehaving and wanted to avoid being punished, so he ran off with another boy. They were missing for three full days in the dead of winter. I didn’t stop searching until I found them huddling in a cave, half frozen to death. I brought them both back alive, but just in the nick of time. One more night in that cave and they wouldn’t have survived.”

  “I see.” She closed her eyes and shook her head as if to clear it. “All that aside, this is madness. You’re asking me to give up everything I know.”

  “It’s all gone now anyway, lass. Your home is occupied by the English army and your father and brothers are gone. Everything that was important to you is gone. Except me. I am still here and I want to protect you. Forever.”

  She sat down again. “That’s exactly what Gregory said to me.”

  “But you don’t love him,” Darach replied. “You know it’s true.”

  She sighed heavily and said nothing.

  “Just trust me,” Darach persisted. “Trust your heart.”

  She thought about it for a long moment, then looked up at him. “I don’t trust you, Darach.
I can’t. But you’re right about one thing. I don’t want to marry Gregory.”

  All the tension sailed out of Darach’s lungs. It was one small concession, at least.

  “Then let us go,” he said. “We’ll travel on foot until we can purchase a horse in one of the villages north of here.”

  “Fine,” she said, rising uncertainly to her feet.

  Overcome with relief, Darach straightened, and though he was in significant pain, he knew that the loss of this woman would have been far more excruciating than any fatal wound.

  He took her by the hand and they walked out to the main room of the cottage where Mary was hanging a pot over the fire.

  “Thank you for your care,” Darach said to her. “I owe you my life.”

  “You owe us nothing, Darach MacDonald. Or is it Campbell?” She cocked her head to the side.

  He swallowed uneasily. “You were listening.”

  “Aye, but if you are our former chief’s son and you must go into hiding, your secret is safe with us. Now you be careful. Take care of each other.”

  “We will. And please, for your own protection, say nothing to anyone about my presence here. You mustn’t reveal that you ever saw me.”

  Mary quickly set about packing up a sack of food and other provisions.

  Larena turned to John. “There were tracks in the woods where Darach was shot. It’s what led me here.”

  “I’ll take care of that straightaway,” he assured her. Then he moved quickly to pull a basket down from a high shelf, and rifled through it. “Take this.” He held out a knife in a leather case. “I cannot let you leave here without some means of survival.”

  Darach reached for it and slid it out of the leather casing. “This is a very fine blade,” he said, running his fingers over the decorated ivory handle. “I cannot take this from you, John.”

  “Do not be daft,” he said. “Take it. Maybe someday you can return it, if we are fortunate enough to cross paths again.”

  Darach thanked John and Mary, who escorted them into the yard. Darach fastened the leather sheath to his belt, then said good-bye and wished them both well.