“Ye can tell me the stories,” Ian said. “I like the idea of ye being a playful lass who sticks out her tongue and crosses her eyes to make her wee brother laugh.”
A knock came at the door, and they both startled.
“It’s Percy,” Kyle said. “Her fever still isna going down. I think it’s getting worse.”
Sylvi sat up quickly, and the ache in her arm exploded with enough ferocity to render her momentarily frozen.
“A moment,” Ian called. “We must dress.”
Sylvi tried to climb out of bed and was rewarded with a sharp spear of agony shooting up her arm. “We must hurry.”
The thud of Kyle’s boots on the wooden floor indicated his departure.
“Nay. There is time,” Ian said in a calm voice. “We still need to break our fast, ready the horses, and Liv needs to be told.”
Ian held out a hand to Sylvi to help her from the bed.
She looked at his offer of assistance and swung her legs over the side of the bed. “I can still get up on my own.”
Ian shrugged, nonplussed. “It doesna mean I’ll ever stop being a good man. My mum would be appalled to think I’d no’ used the manners she forced into me.”
Panic beat in Sylvi’s mind despite Ian’s soothing resolve. She grabbed her trews with one arm and awkwardly thrust one leg into the limp fabric. It sagged into a crumpled heap at her ankle.
Ian raised a brow.
Sylvi sighed and tossed the trews at him. “Oh, fine, you can help.”
“I think I’ll dress first.” He pulled his léine on. “I like seeing ye naked.”
Irritation rankled Sylvi. Did he not see the severity of their situation? “Ian, Kindrochit is two days away. And that’s if we ride hard.”
She bit off the last word, refusing to continue with her following thought: that with her arm in such bad condition, she could not ride hard. No matter what it took, she would see Percy safe. Even if it meant two days of jostling on the horse. Kyle’s tincture would be a huge help, but it would not be without pain.
Ian lay on the floor to buckle his plaid. “Aye, but Dunstaffnage is only a few hours.”
He’d said it with such nonchalance, but she knew the weight of such a decision.
“You haven’t been home in over a year,” she said.
He adjusted several pleats before popping upright and taking her léine from the back of the chair. “Aye, and now it’s time I finally go home.”
•••
It was hard not to regret the decision to go home. Ian rode at Sylvi’s side, having lost the argument to try to keep her on the same horse as him. In the end, he knew it would be easier on the horses to have only one rider for their journey to Dunstaffnage.
Liv rode ahead of them in a cart they’d procured. Fianna could easily sit at her side, and Kyle and Percy could ride in relative comfort in the back. The cart had been a risk. If danger found them, their party would not fare well in their attempt to escape or defend themselves.
But it was not danger on the road that concerned Ian. It was what awaited him at home. His stomach knotted with trepidation. There was a father who would no doubt comment on his inability to stay and face responsibility, and a home without the camaraderie of his best friend or the warm light of his mother.
It had been easy to push aside the idea of her death while he was not home. Going back to Dunstaffnage with her not being there would be like walking into a castle without a great hall.
The heart of their home had stopped beating.
“You never told me what happened,” Sylvi said from where she rode beside him. Her father’s bracelet still twinkled where it lay on her wrist.
“Hmmm?”
She turned slightly to regard him and kept her injured arm cradled in her lap. “Why you left home.”
Ian drew in a deep breath to ward off the inevitable wincing of his heart. “Aye, I suppose it is time to share this story with ye.”
Sylvi gazed forward, but he knew she listened.
“I had a friend when I was a lad,” he said. “We were so close, he was more a brother to me than Kyle at times.”
The two of them had been inseparable most of their lives, sharing the same thoughts and ideals.
Ian sighed at the thought and let the memory press heavy on his shoulders. “Simon’s da had no’ been paying his taxes. But it was more than that. He’d been offering to bring his neighbors’ coin to my da for them. But then he kept it.”
Sylvi cast a hard look at him but said nothing.
“My da found out,” Ian continued, “and meant to punish Simon’s da by hanging him. As an example to others.”
“You can’t let something like that go unpunished,” Sylvi said. “Or others will see you as weak and take advantage.”
“I know that.” Ian tried to keep the edge from his voice. “But this was Simon. The boy I’d grown up with. Our friendship survived many obstacles, and even as our paths split, with him being a farmer and me being laird someday, it remained intact. I tried to stop the hanging,” he said. “But my da said exactly what ye did. He had a responsibility as a laird, and friendship couldn’t interfere with that. It was then I decided I dinna want to be a laird. I tried to tell him, but he wouldna have it.”
“And Simon’s father died,” Sylvi surmised.
“No’ just Simon’s da. Simon took his own life after as well.” Ian steeled himself against the memory. “He hung himself, dying the same as his da.” Though a year had passed, his stomach still knotted. “I tried. But I could have tried harder. I could have saved them both if I had just tried harder.”
“I’m sorry, Ian.” Sylvi’s brow furrowed with her earnestness.
A soft cry from Percy pulled their attention to the cart, where Kyle bent over her with anxious determination, the way he’d done with the small forest animals he saved when he was a lad.
Though no one had said it aloud, Percy did not look well. The stitches beneath the linen on her face were red and glossy with swollen anger. The fever had so taken her, she cried out to people no one else knew, the sounds pitiful and heart pulling.
Their progress was slow, mindful of the injuries they’d all sustained.
For her part, Sylvi had made no comment, even when she swung up on the horse and jostled her bad arm.
Percy whimpered from the cart again. “No.” Her voice was a whisper of a gasp, small and scared. “Please don’t.”
Sylvi tensed beside Ian.
He edged closer to her. “She’ll be better when we get to Dunstaffnage.”
“All her things are at Kindrochit.”
Percy sobbed and was immediately quieted under Kyle’s indiscernible soothing.
“Kyle has many herbs and healing remedies at Dunstaffnage,” Ian said. The image of Kyle’s small room flashed in Ian’s mind, the wall of shelves with various small bottles, all shadowed with herbs and powders and liquids of varying gray, green, brown, and white.
To even think of it made it seem like Ian had never left home, as if he were remembering a life lived yesterday and not a year ago. Going home became suddenly very real, and he had the urge to pull on his horse’s reins and reverse their progress.
“He is skilled at caring for others,” Ian said, fixing his gaze on the open road. “He willna let anything happen to her.”
Ian did not state that Percy would doubtless not survive the trip to Kindrochit. It would be too far for her to travel in such a condition.
The gray-black tip of a castle showed through the trees. Ian pulled in a deep breath. They were near Dunstaffnage.
Sylvi brought her horse closer to the cart, and Ian followed suit.
“We’re almost there.” Kyle glanced up at Ian. “Da isna upset with ye like ye probably think he is. I believe ye’ll find he’ll be glad to see ye.”
Kyle, always trying to make everything right.
Ian smirked. “Ach, aye. Glad to have his heir back after real
izing ye’d no’ be up for the task of being laird?”
Kyle smiled. “Aye.”
The tip of the castle dipped behind several trees and then came into view in flashes through the trees beyond. Sea water tinged the air with the familiar salt and pine scent of home. They were so close. Too close.
Damn it, Ian did not want to do this.
Kyle glanced down at Percy. “Things are no’ the same since Mum’s death.”
Ian nodded vigorously in an attempt to rush his brother’s unwanted speech along. Ian did not wish to speak of any of this any more than he wanted to face it.
Kyle fell wonderfully silent.
Sylvi gave Ian a worried look. “I know you’re dreading this.”
“Is it so apparent?” he asked wryly.
“Well, you are gripping your reins rather tight.”
Ian regarded his white knuckles and relaxed his hold.
Sylvi smiled gently in understanding, and he was suddenly glad she understood him so well, that he didn’t have to explain what he could hardly bring himself to even acknowledge.
The trees cleared away and opened a wide path to the massive boat-like appearance of Dunstaffnage. As a lad, Ian had often wondered if Noah’s ark had looked similar. A wide hull with a single entrance and everything inside sealed off from the rest of the world.
But the door was not sealed today. The drawbridge was lowered to allow the clan access to their laird. And many tenants were there, all in swaths of plaid with their heads bare against the early spring air.
They nodded their greeting respectfully to Ian and the rest of the party, curiosity and concern on their faces as the cart passed.
Even though Ian knew Simon wasn’t there, couldn’t possibly be there, he found his gaze skimming the sea of faces for his childhood friend. Simon’s absence opened the gates to the hurt he’d dammed up, his failure to help, and the crushing weight of guilt.
Damn it, he did not want to be here.
“There was nothing you could do,” Sylvi said under her breath.
Her words drew him from scanning the crowd for his dead friend. Ian looked once more on Dunstaffnage Castle and the man striding toward them. His plaid was crisp, the colors more vivid than those around him. A band of gold secured the excess of his plaid over his shoulder, and he walked with a sense of authority and purpose.
Donald Campbell, Laird of the Campbell clan and Ian’s father, the very man Ian had been dreading.
Chapter 29
Sylvi had not missed the way Ian had looked desperately at his clan. Though he had not said it, she knew how poignantly he missed Simon at that moment.
“Here he comes,” Ian said from between his teeth.
An older man with graying hair strode toward him, his hands open in a welcoming gesture. “Are these my sons returned?” His gaze fell on Percy where she lay in the cart at Kyle’s side. “And what is this ye have here?”
Kyle climbed out of the cart. “A woman in need of healing.”
Now that they were still, Sylvi could make out Percy’s form with more clarity. A flash of fear struck through Sylvi. Percy had gone white as death. Sylvi hoped coming to Dunstaffnage was the right decision.
Laird Campbell waved a man over. “Get a litter and help Kyle take the lass inside. See he has everything he needs.” He glanced at Percy and clucked his tongue in a sympathetic gesture. “Such a bonny lass, too.”
Liv leapt down from the cart and strode forward, with Fianna trotting at her heels. “I’ll go too.” The deep blue dress she wore belled out around her and called attention to the vivid copper of her hair gleaming in the sun.
Laird Campbell bowed low and took her hand. “Welcome to Dunstaffnage, Lady … ”
“Lady Liv.” She offered a curtsy, an elegant gesture practiced to the point of perfection. “Thank you kindly for welcoming us. Our friend is very ill.”
Liv’s graceful manners, the softness of her tone and demur cast of her gaze, they were all dance steps practiced in another lifetime and gave Sylvi a glimpse of the girl Liv must have once been.
Sylvi realized then the true burden Connor must have faced in training the girls he took in. It must be a difficult thing indeed to take an innocent life, one softened with manners and civility, and twist it into something hard and focused for the purpose of spying.
The longer Sylvi continued with her tasks for pay, the more she understood the mentor she had fought so tenaciously against. And the more she realized it was not a life she could pursue forever. Not when it stained souls and cost lives.
Several men arrived with a litter between them. Kyle carefully shifted Percy to the stretch of padded cloth with their help while Liv watched over them anxiously. Once Percy was secure, the lot made their way up the trail to the castle.
Laird Campbell stared after the small departing party before turning to Ian and Sylvi. Ian slid from the horse and raised his hand to help Sylvi down from hers. She hesitated. To ignore the gesture in front of his men might convey a lack of respect, even if accepting aid chipped at her pride.
She lifted her chin to thwart the discomfort of her own loss and put her hand into the large warmth of Ian’s. A smile immediately lit his eyes, and his fingers curled around hers, enveloping her beneath his palm.
She gritted her teeth and slid from the saddle. Just before her feet hit the ground with a jolting stop, Ian released her hand and expertly caught her waist so she lowered gently to the soft grass. He held her gaze a moment, and the whisper of gratitude for both their actions warmed between them.
“My son. My eldest son.” Laird Campbell clapped Ian on the back.
Ian was caught in a massive embrace by the older man. He was taller than Ian but shorter than Kyle. Closer now, the silver in his hair was almost equally matched with the darker strands, clean and cropped just below the shoulders.
Laird Campbell held his son for a long moment before finally releasing him. “It’s no’ been the same without ye, lad.” He patted Ian’s cheek. “It fills my heart to have ye home again.”
Ian stepped back and put his hand on Sylvi’s waist. A move of ownership. The gesture would have otherwise rankled her had she not been so keenly aware of everything behind the touch, the love, the pride. “Da, this bonny lass is Sylvi.”
Laird Campbell studied her for a long moment with the same laughing, golden-colored eyes as Ian. “I always wondered if ye’d end up with a strong woman to see yer flighty ways laid to land. I see ye have.” He nodded in approval at the weapons tucked at her waist. “Ye any good, lass?”
“Very.” She squared her shoulders.
“One of the best fighters I’ve ever seen.” Admiration tinged Ian’s declaration and warmed through Sylvi despite the chilled wind coming off the nearby ocean.
Laird Campbell looked between the two of them. “So have ye tried to kill him yet?”
“Only twice,” Sylvi answered honestly.
Ian’s father burst into laughter and clapped Ian on the shoulder. “I can see why my son cares for ye. This lad needs a lass like ye to keep him reined in.” He released Ian and offered her his arm on her good side. “Let me show ye around our home.”
“No stealing my lass, Da.” Ian’s playful tone suggested a lifetime of comfortable, friendly banter between the two.
At least Sylvi now knew where Ian got his charm.
His dad waved a hand at him. “Yer mum’s no’ been dead that long.”
The words landed with an awkward heaviness and knocked Ian’s smile away. Indeed, it knocked the wind from Sylvi’s chest as surely as a hit. Ian’s mother was dead. Did he know?
“How did she die?” Ian asked with such hesitation and so little shock, Sylvi realized he already knew.
He knew, and he hadn’t told her. And yet she could hardly be surprised. Ian Campbell was a brave fighter, but he did not like to face difficulties of the heart, especially when there was no way of winning.
“She was found dea
d,” Laird Campbell said simply. “We think possibly outlaws.” He settled a hand on his son’s shoulder, and lines creased his face where they had not been before.
“Outlaws.” The word growled low between Ian’s teeth. “And there’s been no looking into it?”
“Ye sound like yer brother.” His father eyed him suspiciously, then his face broke into a smirk of mirth. “Of course we searched the area, but with no one having seen them and no’ anything left behind … ” Laird Campbell tapered off and shook his head. “For now, let us put the ugliness of it away and introduce Sylvi to our home. Dunstaffnage hasna been the same without ye, lad.”
Ian gave a stiff nod, and Laird Campbell turned away as if the matter had been fully resolved and led the way to the castle. Sylvi caught Ian’s eye and tipped her head slightly.
Regardless of the recent discovery and what it was Ian sought with his father in the conversation, she would be by Ian’s side. They were in this together.
•••
Ian followed his father and Sylvi through the narrow, single entrance of Dunstaffnage. Darkness preceded their arrival, a fitting swath of black cut in front of their eyes where the walls closed in on either side of them.
Above the passage, Ian knew there were portals that opened for hot oil to be poured through, just as there were arrow slits on either side. The long entryway was a deathtrap to those who were not wanted. And while Ian was wanted, it felt to him crushing with responsibility.
And his mum was not there to offer guidance when he needed it most. Her loss hit him like a jouster’s lance.
“How thick are these walls?” Sylvi’s voice echoed in the darkness. She had given no indication of surprise when he’d asked about his mother’s death. He regretted not having told her of his mother’s passing before, and yet could not find the right time, the right way, to bring up something so very painful.
“Ten feet in some areas,” Donald said with great pride. “This is far more than ten feet deep here though as it is the foundation for the gatehouse above us.”
Highland Wrath Page 23
