The Outcast Highlander

by R. L. Syme

  “I can take you to the place you seek.” Broc pulled Gaidel around and began to retreat slowly. He did not wait for her to follow, for fear he would continue to gape at her like an untried boy.

  He was a man now, and while her assumption of his status was correct, his manners left something to be desired. His father would have given him a backhand if he’d gaped at a pretty girl like that in the old man’s presence.

  Then again, his father rarely passed up the opportunity to give Brock the back of his hand, no matter how he treated women.

  When he heard the hoof beats behind him, he breathed a thankful sigh, but kept his pace. Surely, if he kept to the flats, he could stay just ahead of her and preserve her integrity for his brother—as though Duncan deserved such a beauty.

  Not that Broc deserved her any more.

  Of course, Duncan was the heir now, with their father gone. He deserved whatever he could secure. A lord’s daughter, educated in France, ready for the English court, and beautiful as a vision would be more than Broc ever thought had been his own due. Nothing would be too good for Duncan. And no one.

  His father would have seen to that.

  ***

  Kensey MacLeod barely managed to keep up with the giant, bearded stranger on his beast of a horse. Brid was no match for the long gait of the black stallion, and Kensey hadn’t ridden a horse on the open country in years. Her legs already ached from the hours spent on horseback yet this morning.

  “Thank you,” she ventured as he rode on ahead of her. “Sinclair?” She added the name as a curious afterthought, wondering if her suspicions were true. When he turned his head and slowly nodded, a thrill chased up her spine. Her father had warned her away from him, from them all. The Sinclairs in the wilderness. The castaways. She had not been allowed to hear the story of how they had been stripped from their families and homes. No doubt, her father thought it too scandalous for her ears. But now she was faced with one, she must know the story.

  “I’ll accompany you.” He held his reins in one hand and pointed off into the, apparently, western distance. “I’ll deliver you intact, as any honorable man should.”

  She did not say as much, but she was glad for the escort. There was so much of the country she didn’t yet recognize, and he had really rescued her from wandering the hills until something looked familiar. He quickened the pace gradually, and rode a bit ahead.

  Kensey kicked Brid’s side to catch up with him, but her small, young mare was no match for the deft Highland stallion he rode. She lagged behind him for quite a stretch, until they finally crested the large hill they had been climbing and she began to recognize their location.

  “In those trees, right?” she asked as they stood, looking over the small valley together. He nodded, pointing ahead where two hills came together and between them, hidden inside a pocket of trees, would be the small shelter. In the distance behind the two hills, she could see the purple-blue outline of the mountains. This, she remembered.

  And had missed.

  His voice boomed. “Now, can you find your way from here?”

  “You will not come all the way with me?” she asked.

  Now they’d stopped, she noted he wasn’t as old as she’d initially imagined. The beard and his sheer size made her assume he was in his thirties, or even older, but his face was so young, still unweathered. His light brown hair, shaggy and feathered down past his shoulders, held no trace of age, and his dark eyes sparkled youth. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-four, and she guessed even younger.

  Albert was twenty-four, so perhaps she just compared everyone to him. That familiar tickle crept up the back of her throat. Don’t cry. Please, just don’t cry.

  Instead, she met the Highlander’s eyes. She wanted to know his story more than she’d ever wanted to know another in her lifetime. Her mother would be scandalized, of course, but she longed to know exactly how this man had left the protection of his clan. And yet why he stayed so close. The ghosts of the misty mountains. She saw them as protectors, these cast-out warriors, not as the highwaymen her father assumed. This man was no criminal. He’d saved her day, maybe even saved her life, if she’d been lost enough.

  The man turned away and surveyed the area, breaking into her fantasy of his heroism. He spoke without looking at her. “I trust you can find your way, and I should leave you to your companion.”

  “How can I ever thank you, sir?” Kensey asked. Right now, the thought of him riding off into the hills again made her unexplainably sad; although the thought of him remaining as her companion filled her heart with a tightness she couldn’t explain and quickened her breath with nervous anxiety.

  “Try not to get lost again.” He pointed toward the bothan. “I’m sure he will help you find your way home.” With that, he was gone again, galloping down the hill they’d just crossed. He did not turn around and she felt herself warming at the memory of his eyes on her. After grieving for so long, the prospect of another man, even a stranger, was more welcome than it should be.

  Chapter Two

  Kensey dismounted at the bothan warily, studying the unknown horse for signs of its owner, and finding none. She wished again that the Highlander had stayed, at least until she’d laid eyes on Duncan.

  She tied Brid to a different tree and rounded the small hut, keening her ears for some clue as to who was there. Her brother had warned her the bothan might be in use, and with the English about, a lass couldn’t be too careful.

  With a shaky hand on the dagger sheathed at her waist and concealed in the length of her hair, Kensey approached the door. Before she could close the distance, the weathered wooden barricade swung open and a young man stepped out.

  A smile curved his lips. “Kensey.”

  She hadn’t known she was holding her breath until she exhaled with such relief, she almost toppled herself. “Duncan.”

  They hadn’t seen each other in so long, she wouldn’t have known him. He was a full-grown man now, not the boy who once promised to marry her.

  Duncan Sinclair was dressed for heavy travel, in a weighty brown cloak and high boots, his long braids cascading in dark red. He carried a bag with what looked like more clothing in it, and another parcel that must have been food and water. His sword was strapped to his back and the handle protruded over his head with menacing readiness.

  “It is good to see you.” He dropped the parcels near the door, took her hand and bowed over it. “I have heard of little else from Fiona as she prepared to have you back in Scotland.” His voice was heavy, and his face carried something familiar. The curve of his nose, perhaps, or the set of his golden eyes. Likely, she just saw echoes of the boy she’d known.

  At the mention of Fiona, Kensey faltered. A silent sadness passed between them and Kensey wanted to touch him, to reassure him they would find a solution. It was so improper, but he felt so much like her brother, there could be nothing wrong in it. She resisted only because he moved beside her and put his hand under her elbow.

  “I worried at the late hour.” He led her into the bothan and the earthy, musty stench of the years tickled her nose. “Where is your chaperone?”

  Kensey squirmed and pulled at the edge of her sleeve. It wasn’t proper for her to be without a chaperone, but when she’d arrived at Inverness to find neither her mother nor her father or brother waiting for her—only her father’s steward—she had known the days of the proper Miss Kensey MacLeod and the French Court were behind her. War was upon them, and some matters were too important to bother with waiting for appropriate chaperones.

  “There was no one to accompany me. Mother is still too ill to be moved and I sent my attendants back to France, where they would be safe.”

  Duncan’s head bowed, as though some sadness were weighing it down. The unplaited strands of his red hair rustled in the low wind that passed through the small, open windows.

  “It is not safe in Scotland,” he agreed.

  “If we had not been m
eeting in secret, I would have brought my brother.” At the mention of Robert, Kensey’s stomach lurched and she walked past Duncan to the small table at the other side of the hut.

  “You were so ambiguous in your letter.” Duncan produced the worn piece of parchment with her broken seal on the back.

  “I wasn’t certain it would come to you, and I needed to know first, if you were on our side, or an enemy.”

  Duncan’s hands were rough on her shoulders and he turned her around with uncanny speed. “You mean you wrote that letter and then came alone, not knowing if I would capture you or aid you?” He searched her eyes, but must not have found what he was looking for, because he continued to gape in confusion.

  “Duncan, you must understand. I’ve come home to a different world than I left.” She pulled at his wrists and he released her. “I couldn’t risk Robert, not my father’s heir. There was no one to come with me, and my father…” Her voice quivered and she held back tears once again.

  “Och, lass.” He shook his head and stepped back. “But of course, you’re right.”

  Kensey’s head reeled for a moment as she took in all that she’d just said. She was utterly and truly alone in this fight. Fiona, who’d been Duncan’s own betrothed and Kensey’s oldest friend, would instead be given to an Englishman.

  “When I boarded that ship in Calais, I brought not only my attendants, but my friends. We spent the journey to Inverness dreaming of long days in the Highland sun and long nights filled with feasts and music and boys to parade before, to mitigate my… quite public grief… with some happiness at last.” She exhaled loudly, feeling a burn in her lungs. “Instead, I find my father in prison, my homeland filled with lawless brigands and English soldiers, my mother near death, and my dearest friend, who should have been well-married to the Earl of Caithness with a Scots baby in her belly instead practically a prisoner in her own home. Set to marry a known brute, and an Englishman at that, and abandoned to her fate by a father who now makes peace with the marauding English in order to preserve his title.”

  She took a breath, surprised she’d managed through it without crying. There had been too much of that lately.

  “I go to Berwick now, upon the death of my father.” Duncan leaned against the black wall of the bothan and looked through the open window. “I leave my brother, Malcolm, at the helm of our household in my stead. While I am gone, if anything should happen, you can trust Mal.”

  “My letter.” Kensey reached into the long sleeve of her dress. “Please see my father gets this.”

  Duncan took it and slipped it into the pouch at his waist that had produced the note she’d written him. He collected the opened missive from the table and threw it into the low-burning fire. After a moment, he shifted the logs with the toe of his boot and kicked the fire out until it smoked heavily.

  “Let us never discuss the contents of that letter.”

  “You cannot ignore the fact I suggested it.” Kensey stood next to him, watching the fire go out.

  He slipped his hand around the crook of her arm. “You grieve. I grieve. We will forget it was even mentioned.”

  “Then what sort of plans should I make?”

  “Meaning?” Duncan raised an eyebrow.

  He was going to make her say it. Kensey balled a fist and pressed it into the side of her leg. “With my father gone and my brother so young, we are in danger of being overtaken. Colin Ross does have a brother.”

  The name sent a chill through the room. Fiona’s new intended had an expansive eye, it was told. And the holdings of the Earl of Sutherland would be soon not enough.

  Duncan strained his neck and dropped his head. “I’ll bring your father back with me. I promise. It is undoubtedly a mistake.”

  Kensey shifted on the balls of her feet. She hadn’t come all this way to be placated. Or to be turned away.

  “If anything arises, send someone for Malcolm. We are less than half a day’s ride from Assynt. I will return as quickly as possible.”

  She bit the inside of her mouth to keep the retort in check. She’d practically taken her life in her hands writing the letter to begin with. It contained evidence of collusion against the English and could solidify her father’s imprisonment.

  But she couldn’t stand by and do nothing. Not after Albert.

  “We must all go.” Duncan sat on the rickety bench and pulled a piece of cloth from his satchel, pooling it on the table. “If only to protect our people. And I am ready to do what needs doing.” His pleading gaze rose to hers. “But I worry for Fiona. I have received no message, and no news comes from anywhere in Ross.”

  A drop of compassion pooled inside. Fiona had spoken openly and warmly in her letters of her future with Duncan Sinclair, but Kensey was now getting to see Duncan’s care for what should have been his own Highland bride.

  This was why he’d refused her. She recognized the signs of waiting.

  “I have heard nothing.” She joined him, sitting at the table. Out the window, over his shoulder, the trees moved with the wind. Kensey thought of the ride home and winced. Her legs still ached, and getting lost hadn’t helped.

  “I will send someone to check on Fiona under some pretense of being there, and if there is a worry, I will send a messenger to you in Berwick, or at St. Claire. Or I will come myself.”

  Duncan pushed out a tight breath that verged on a sob. “I just want to ride to Balconie and take her away from there.”

  Kensey brushed her fingers over his hand. “For now, you must do what your people require of you, and I will do what my friend has asked of me.”

  His gold eyes shimmered and he nodded with a tight smile. “I want you to take this.” He pressed the length of multi-colored fabric into her hand. “This is a swath of plaid that is only made in Caithness by the Sinclair weavers. Anyone you show it to will know you’ve been sent by me or have my protection.”

  She rolled the warm fabric around her hand until it ran out. The mere mention of Sinclair reminded her of the gold-haired stranger on the mountainside. Her heart quickened and she reached out for Duncan’s hand without thinking.

  He grasped it and smiled. “Let us hope you never have need of it.”

  ***

  Broccin entered the empty bothan to find the remains of a fire and the lingering scent of Kensey MacLeod to torment him. His brother had left the bothan, riding south, and Kensey to the west. Safely back toward her home.

  According to the carter he’d questioned, the young MacLeod girl asked for protection, and for good reason. With her father gone and her brother who couldn’t yet grow a beard, let alone hold a sword, they were an easy target.

  He’d seen the English King do this sort of thing in the Lowlands, as well. Strip a man of his freedom and send in an Englishman to take over the vacant home. It would be a dangerous gamble to reach up this far into the Highlands where neighboring clans could rout him without much trouble, but it wouldn’t be beyond the realm of possibility.

  The remains of the fire smoked away and Broc kicked at the embers to see if it would reawaken. He would need a good fire to cook the goose he’d killed earlier that hung over Gaidel’s haunches.

  His boot overturned a burned piece of parchment and he reached into the cold fire to retrieve it. Half the letter had been burned away, but what remained had such a clear, bold hand, it couldn’t be his brother’s scratched words.

  But I know I have you to watch out for me, Duncan. With the strength of your family to protect us, I know we will survive. Still, with a fervency I cannot communicate in mere words, I want us to be married with all haste. My father would wish it as much as my mother does, I know. And as much as I do. I hope you are able to meet me. If you are not there, I will return each day until you are. I remain hopefully yours, Kensey MacLeod.

  The raw anger that had been building since the first sentence culminated in Broc slamming his fist into the table and letting out a roar that could have cowed wild animals. He s
tood, his fist dug into the wood and bleeding, panting ferociously.

  He told himself he’d known since childhood that she would belong to Duncan, but it did nothing to keep the building rage at bay. By rights, she should have been his. He knew from the first moment they met that he loved her. That boyhood desire hadn’t flamed out and seeing her this day had only solidified his heartbreak.

  It had been a mistake to come back—one he could rectify quickly. He could stay in the bothan this night and then return to Moray after he’d done what he came for and seen his father’s grave. He would better serve his family by fighting for freedom with the brave men who helped Andrew de Moray raid the English strongholds in Scotland.

  Broc picked a small log from the woodpile near the door and placed it atop the smoldering remains of Duncan’s fire. He shoved some small kindling around the base and watched as the dry twigs caught fire.

  The crumpled piece of half-burned paper sat on the table and he could only stare at it. He wanted to burn it again. But perhaps in those moments when his own heart needed reminding that the flame he’d carried since boyhood should be snuffed out, he could touch the parchment and feel the realness of her words.

  She loved his brother. Not him.

  He’d tried once to forget her by loving another, but even the love a man could produce in his heart paled in comparison to what Kensey reignited in him. Side by side, his love for Elizabeth looked a paltry attempt at self-preservation. But perhaps that was all that remained for him.

  He felt the crack inside and searched the room again for something to hit. The walls were so fragile and the table might be on its last legs. Instead, he stuffed the paper into the pouch on his belt that contained his few coins and picked up the axe that had been propped near the woodpile. He needed to damage something. Hit hard. Repeatedly. So he might as well make himself useful in the process.

  Chapter Three

  Kensey feared she would be lost again, and only a day after she’d been lost before. But she pulled Brid in a circle, and nothing in the valley looked familiar. Oh, it was all the same as every other valley in these blasted mountains. If only the existing roads were more direct, she wouldn’t be in this predicament.