The Guardian

by Margaret Mallory

  “I want Dina gone from this house,” Ian said, as he stumbled to his feet.

  God’s blood, his head hurt, but he had to talk to Sìleas. He held onto the walls as he went up the stairs. When he reached her bedchamber door, he tapped softly.

  “Sìl.” He tapped again. “Sìleas. Let me explain. Please.”

  Nothing.

  He went back three times.

  When she still refused to answer the fourth time, he said, “I’m coming in.”

  He tried the door, but she’d pushed something against it. He rammed his shoulder against it, opening it a crack, but jarring his aching head something fierce. Hoping she didn’t have a skillet, he poked his head through the opening.

  The stillness of the room sent a prickle of unease up the back of his neck. He could see now that it was the chest she’d pushed against the door. After giving the door another shove, he stepped inside.

  As he stood in the middle of the empty room, his gaze moved slowly from the clothes strewn across the bed to the yellow gown that she had been wearing, which lay in a heap on the floor. The pounding of his heart was loud in his ears against the silence of the room.

  He turned to look for her cloak on the peg by the door, though he already knew it would be gone.

  It was.

  A blinding fury took hold of him as he guessed where she had gone—to the man waiting first in line to take her from him. After taking the stairs three at a time, he left the house without a word to the others.

  By God, he was going to beat Gòrdan MacDonald to within an inch of his life. And then he was going to drag his wife back home—by her hair and screaming all the way, if he must.

  CHAPTER 21

  Sìleas stumbled several times on the rocky path in the dark, but she kept running, as if putting distance between her and what she saw in the kitchen could dull the sharpness of the pain in her chest. But no matter how fast she ran, the vision of Ian and Dina was always before her.

  The two of them. Together. Naked.

  Seeing her crystal hanging between Dina’s breasts was an even harder betrayal. She had denied Ian her bed. In time, she might have been able to forgive him for giving his body to yet another woman before they were sharing a marriage bed.

  But the crystal was her wedding gift to him. It symbolized the gift of her heart, and Ian knew it.

  The leather pouch tied to her waist slapped against her thigh as she ran along the dark path. She hoped she had stuffed enough coins in it to pay a fisherman to take her across the strait and buy a horse on the other side. Praise God she’d kept Niall’s old clothes for cleaning out the byre. If anyone asked, the fisherman would say he’d taken a lad across.

  What was that?

  Over her breathing, she heard something behind her. A wolf? A bear? She remembered Ian telling her never to run from a wild animal because it made you look like prey. Damn him! Would she never be free of Ian’s voice in her head?

  She ignored it and ran faster.

  The sound came closer the faster she ran. She screamed as the beast slammed into her, sending her sprawling to the ground. Its great weight landed on top of her, knocking the breath out of her and pinning her to the ground.

  “Sìleas, stop kicking me! I’m trying to get off ye.”

  “Niall?”

  The great weight rolled off her, and she sat up, gasping great lungfuls of air. Her limbs felt weak and boneless in the aftermath of fright.

  “Ye scared the life out of me!”

  “Did I hurt ye?” Niall asked.

  “No, but why did ye come after me? Ye saw what I saw in the kitchen, so ye know I won’t go back.”

  “I couldn’t let ye go off alone, with no one to protect ye,” Niall said. “I’m coming with ye, wherever you’re going.”

  She wanted to weep at his kindness but refused to let herself. Once she gave in to tears, she feared there would be no end to them.

  “I can’t let ye come with me,” she said. “Your family would not be happy with ye for helping me get away.”

  “Da is the one who sent me,” Niall said. “He heard ye climb out the window and told me to follow ye and keep ye safe. He gave me money, too.”

  Dear Payton. This time, she did wipe a tear from her eye.

  “Besides,” Niall said with a smile in his voice, “I didn’t want ye going to Gòrdan for help.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with Gòrdan,” she said, and wondered why she hadn’t even thought of going to him.

  “There’s not enough right with him, either—not for you, Sìl.” Niall stood and helped her to her feet. “So, just where are we going?”

  “To Stirling.”

  Niall gave a long whistle. “That’s a fair distance. What do ye want to go there for?”

  Sìleas started walking. “I’m going to ask the queen to help me obtain an annulment from the church. And while I’m there, I’ll also ask her help in removing my step-da from Knock Castle.”

  She didn’t want to live in Knock Castle, but it was hers and she needed someplace to live.

  “Asking the queen is a wee bit drastic, wouldn’t ye say?” Niall asked. “You’ve got cause to leave Ian under Highland law. That should be enough.”

  “And before I know it, my chieftain will be telling me who I am to wed next,” she said. “I won’t let Hugh decide my fate, that is for certain. No, the only way to free myself is to put myself in the hands of someone more powerful. I praise God that happens to be a woman at the moment.”

  “But ye won’t have to worry about Hugh for long,” Niall said. “Connor is going to be chieftain.”

  “Connor wants Knock Castle in the hands of someone verra close to him,” she said. “He’ll decide I’ve no cause to leave Ian.”

  “Connor is a fair man,” Niall said. “He’d let ye leave Ian so long as ye take another man in the clan—especially if the man is another close relative of his.”

  She snorted. “Are ye suggesting Alex? I’m verra fond of him, but wedding Alex would be going from the frying pan into the fire.”

  “Take me,” Niall said in a soft voice. “I’m as close a blood relation to Connor as either Ian or Alex.”

  Sìleas felt as if her chest were caving in on itself. She stopped and turned to look into his face, though she could barely make out his features in the dark.

  “Aw, Niall,” she said, reaching up to touch her fingers to his cheek, “ye can’t mean it.”

  “What, do ye think I’m too young?” he said, sounding hurt. “Or is it that I’m not as good as my brother—even after what he’s done to ye?”

  “No, it’s not that,” she said, though he was far too young. She rested her hand on his arm. “I grew up wishing every day I had brothers and sisters. Having you become a brother to me has been one of the great blessings of my life. Don’t ask me to give that up.”

  “You’ve been a sister to me as well,” Niall said, and she could hear him fidgeting in the dark. “But… well, ye are so pretty that I believe I could overcome it.”

  “I do appreciate the offer,” Sìleas said, taking his arm to hurry him down the path. “But I don’t believe I’ll want another husband for a verra, verra long time.”

  “Where is she?” Ian shouted, as he pounded on Gòrdan’s door.

  No candlelight shone in the window or under the door. If Gòrdan had taken Sìleas to his bed this very night, Ian would murder the devil’s spawn on the spot.

  He pounded the door again until the windows rattled. “Come out and face me like a man!”

  When the door swung open, Ian clenched his fists, ready to pound Gòrdan’s pretty face to a pulp. He choked back his fury when Gòrdan’s mother peered up at him from under her nightcap.

  “I’ve come for my wife.”

  “Sìleas?” Gòrdan’s mother clutched her nightshift about her throat. “Don’t tell me the lass has left ye. I always knew she was trouble.”

  It occurred to him that Sìleas and Gòrdan would know this was the first place he
’d look for them. If they weren’t here, then he would track them down—to hell, if need be.

  “I must ask ye to step aside, so I can have a look about,” Ian said.

  Gòrdan suddenly appeared behind his mother.

  “What in God’s name do ye think ye are doing,” Gòrdan said, as he pushed his mother aside, “showing up at my door in the dark of night and threatening my mother?”

  Ian slammed his fist into Gòrdan’s face, dropping him backward into the house. As he stepped inside, he picked Gòrdan up by the front of his shirt.

  “I’ll ask ye but once,” Ian said an inch from Gòrdan’s nose. “Where have ye got my wife?”

  “Sìleas? Is that what this is about?” Gòrdan said, wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. “Has she finally left ye, then? Good for her.”

  “Don’t try telling me ye didn’t know it,” Ian said, as he scanned the room. She was not in sight, so he released Gòrdan and crossed the room. “Where is she?” He stuck his head into the empty kitchen.

  “No one’s here but the two of us,” Gòrdan’s mother said.

  Ian heard her fumbling with the lamp. When the flame took hold, Ian caught the look of worry on Gòrdan’s face.

  “She left in the night alone?” Gòrdan said. “What have ye done to her, man?”

  A blade of fear cut into Ian’s belly. “Are ye telling me the truth, that ye don’t know where she is?”

  “I swear it on my father’s grave,” Gòrdan said.

  Ian swallowed. “I must find her before any harm comes to her.” At the door, he turned and said, “Will ye tell me if she comes here?”

  “I will,” Gòrdan said. “But if Sìleas has chosen to leave ye, I won’t send her back.”

  “Where could she have gone?” Ian ran his hands through his hair as he paced up and down the hall. He was always clearheaded in a crisis, but he couldn’t think at all.

  “Let’s go up to her bedchamber and see if she left something that will tell us,” Alex said.

  Ian ran up the stairs with Alex on his heels.

  When he reached the bedchamber, he picked up her gown from the floor. Before he could stop himself, he held it to his face and breathed in her scent. He closed his eyes. Missing her was a physical pain, like a razor’s edge slicing into his heart.

  How could she leave him?

  “Take a look at this,” Alex said behind him.

  Ian joined Alex at the small table where Sìleas kept the accounts. Alex had ruined her neat stacks, tossing the parchments haphazardly across the tabletop.

  “Read this one,” Alex said, tapping his finger on a sheet that rested on top of the scattered parchments.

  Ian’s heart sank as he read it. God in Heaven, what was Sìleas thinking? It was a letter to the queen, begging for her support in obtaining an annulment from one Ian MacDonald. She also asked for the crown’s assistance in removing her stepfather from her castle and lands.

  “It looks as though this was her first attempt,” Alex said, pointing to where the ink was smudged. “I didn’t find her final version.”

  “She must have taken it with her.” The realization of where she had gone struck Ian with the force of a blow to the chest. “God help me, she’s headed for Stirling.”

  Ian heard light steps on the stairs and turned to see his mother in the doorway. She remained there, worrying her hands. When she finally spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper.

  “Niall is gone as well.”

  It took Ian a long moment to take in the meaning of his mother’s words. “Niall? Niall is with Sìleas?”

  “Your da says it’s good that she’s not alone,” his mother said.

  “God’s blood!” Ian stormed up and down the bedchamber, feeling like a trapped animal. “What can the two of them be thinking? Stirling is not a jaunt down the road—it’s a journey of several days. Christ above, they could be murdered along the way!”

  Visions filled his head of Sìleas raped, the pair of them mercilessly beaten, and their mutilated bodies left beside the road for wild animals to feed upon.

  “Niall is good with a sword,” Alex said, guessing the direction of Ian’s thoughts. “I’m sure your father taught him, same as he did you, to watch for trouble and travel unseen.”

  His mother’s gaze rested on the yellow gown that was somehow still clenched in Ian’s hand, then shifted to the bed. “Niall’s old clothes that she wears to muck out the barn are gone. I washed them and left them folded on the bed for her.”

  “With Sìleas dressed like a lad, the risk is no so great,” Alex said.

  “Even if they do manage to reach Stirling in one piece,” Ian said, raising his hands, “the town itself is a hive of hornets.”

  The untimely death of James IV at Flodden had left Scotland with a babe as king and his mother, the sister of the hated English king, as regent. Ian didn’t need the Sight to know that powerful and ruthless men would be at court vying for control of the babe and his mother.

  “I’m going after them,” Ian said, starting toward the stairs. “And when I find them, I’m going to murder them myself.”

  Alex caught up with him in the hall. “It won’t take us long to collect Connor and Duncan,” he said.

  Ian shook his head. “No. I don’t know how long this will take, and the gathering for Samhain is only a fortnight away. The three of ye must stay here and make certain Connor is chosen chieftain.”

  “We’re coming with ye.” Alex put on his cap and lifted his mantle from one of the pegs by the door. “There’s time to make it to Stirling and back, if we’re quick.”

  Ian met his cousin’s sea-green eyes, which were solemn for once.

  “Connor and Duncan will say the same.” Alex said.

  Ian nodded his thanks and went out the door.

  CHAPTER 22

  Sìleas held onto Niall’s arm as they walked their horses through the crowded, cobbled streets of Stirling. Despite being exhausted and filthy after days of travel, she stared about her. She’d never been in a town of this size before.

  “Can ye let go of my arm?” Niall said in a low voice. “I don’t like the way people are looking at us, with ye dressed like a lad and all.”

  Sìleas snatched her hand away. In her amazement, she had forgotten her disguise.

  “It looks like a palace built for the gods,” she said, looking up at Stirling Castle.

  They had seen it for miles before they reached the town, perched on top of the towering rock cliffs that protected it on three sides. The side of the castle that faced the town was the only way it could be approached, and this was protected by a curtain wall and massive gatehouse.

  “What if the queen isn’t here?” Niall asked. “The royal family has more than one castle, ye know.”

  “Your da says that if the queen has any sense at all, this is where she’s brought the baby king,” Sìleas said. “He says not even the English can take Stirling Castle.”

  They retraced their steps to a tavern at the edge of town that had guest rooms upstairs and a stable behind for their horses. After paying for the night, they took their supper in the tavern.

  Sìleas had never been among so many strangers in her life. Most of the men spoke in Scots, the English spoken by Lowlanders. Although she knew some Scots, they spoke it far too quickly for her to understand much. Most wore the English style of clothes.

  “Will ye stop staring at their codpieces,” Niall hissed and pushed her cap lower over her eyes. “You’re going to get us hurt—or an unpleasant invitation.”

  Sìleas stifled a laugh behind her hand. She had heard that English noblemen wore a padded cloth over their private parts, but she had not truly believed it.

  “I’ll need a bath before visiting the queen.” She looked down at her own clothes and sniffed. “I smell of horse, and that’s the best part.”

  “I’ll ask the tavern keeper to send up water,” Niall said, getting to his feet. “It’ll cost extra.”

  Sometim
e later, she saw a woman carrying two sloshing buckets up the stairs—the closest to a washing those stairs had gotten in a long, long while.

  She and Niall followed the woman up to a small, serviceable room with a single cot. After warning Sìleas to bar the door, Niall returned to the tavern to wait while she had her bath.

  Sìleas shook out the blue gown she’d stuffed in her cloth bag, pleased that in the chaos of her flight she had thought to bring her best gown for court. After spreading it out on the cot to air, she scrubbed herself clean as best she could in the small wooden tub and put on the chemise she would wear under the gown tomorrow.

  When Niall returned, he insisted she take the cot. She lay with her back to him while he took his turn washing in the same water. When he was finished, he wrapped himself in his plaid on the floor in front of the door.

  She blew out the candle and tried to make herself comfortable in the strange bed.

  “Thanks for coming with me, Niall,” she said into the darkness. “I don’t believe I could have gotten here without ye.”

  “To tell ye the truth, I’m not sure we should have come at all,” Niall said. “The town is filled with Lowlanders and worse—there are English here, starting with the queen herself. We’ve no notion what we’re getting into. Perhaps we’d best go home and solve your problems there.”

  “After coming all this way, I’m going to see the queen,” Sìleas said, but she closed her eyes and prayed hard for guidance. Was Niall right? Was coming here a mistake? She had never been this far from Skye. And she felt guilty for bringing Niall with her.

  Niall was silent so long that she thought he had fallen asleep, when he said, “I’ve been thinking a lot about what we saw in the kitchen.”

  “And what about that did ye find worth considering?” she asked, her voice coming out sharp.

  “Well, what if Ian was just taking a bath, and Dina came in, unexpected?” Niall said, hesitation in his voice. “Ye saw the tub, and Ian dripping water.”

  “Ye failed to mention that Dina was naked as well,” Sìleas said between her teeth. “And don’t try to tell me ye didn’t notice.”