Clara’s Vow

by Madeline Martin

  A low growl of frustration rumbled in his chest.

  “Ye’re a gruff one,” Sister Agnes said without sympathy as she approached.

  “How long do I have to stay here?” he groused.

  She lifted a shoulder. “Ye’re no’ a prisoner. Ye can leave as soon as ye’re hale and hearty enough to do so.” She arched a brow, and the lines along her brow crinkled like aged parchment. “And by hale and hearty, I mean ye dinna fall into a stupor and drop from yer horse.”

  He grunted in irritation at her unwelcome assessment.

  Aye, he wasn’t held in place with chains, but he felt a prisoner just the same with the women clucking and fluttering around him every time he stood to relieve himself.

  “Clara should have returned by now,” he said. “She may have need of me. I should be there. To protect her.”

  Sister Agnes scoffed. “To get yerself killed, more like.”

  He glared at her.

  She tossed him a look of bored disinterest in return. “Do ye really think ye could fight in yer condition? That ye could save her if need be?”

  He scowled.

  Sister Agnes nodded. “’Tis as I thought.” She lifted a strip of linen and wound it with a maddeningly slow precision as if everything in the convent moved at an interminable pace. “Ye care for her, aye?”

  “Of course,” he replied bitterly. “She’s my sister.”

  Sister Agnes lifted her blue eyes heavenward as if seeking help for patience from the Almighty himself. “If ye knew I dinna believe that…” She lowered her head and settled a pointed gaze on Reid.

  He said nothing.

  “I believe ye truly do care for the lass.” Sister Agnes set aside the bound linen and picked up another bit of linen. “It’s obvious she cares for ye as well.”

  Reid’s chest tightened. “Aye,” he admitted grudgingly. “She does.”

  “Well,” the older woman huffed as she began to wind the linen. “I know I’m only a nun and dinna understand such things as matters of the heart, but I canna see why ye’re no’ married to the lass.”

  “Because she’s my sister,” he hedged.

  Sister Agnes sent him a long-suffering look that was not at all what would be expected from a nun.

  It was Reid’s turn to roll his eyes. “Fine,” he conceded. “’Tis complicated.”

  “Aye, it always is.” She set the neat linen on the table and looked into the small jars one by one as though taking stock.

  “She’s to join ye here at the abbey.” He kicked his legs where they dangled over the edge of the bed, sending the narrow cot rocking gently.

  “Does she want to?” Sister Agnes asked in a manner that was almost innocent.

  Almost.

  Reid didn’t answer.

  “Surely ye’re no’ that daft.” The nun gave an exasperated sigh.

  He smirked at her assessment. “’Tis no’ my place to say.”

  She nodded in understanding. “But ye know what she wants, dinna ye?”

  He swallowed.

  There was no point in feigning ignorance. The older woman was far too perceptive and clearly intended to continue digging until she had the truth. With him having nowhere to go, he was at her mercy.

  “I canna give her what she wants,” he said at last.

  “Does she want all the gold in Scotland?” Sister Agnes asked. “A unicorn? A castle floating in the clouds?”

  “Ach, who wouldna want such things?”

  Sister Agnes’s mouth twitched. “Ah, he does have a sense of humor after all.” She winked at him and continued checking the jars, pausing to add one to a pocket somewhere in the voluminous folds of her habit. “So, what does yer lass truly want?”

  What Clara longed for was simple and natural. Saying her desires out loud made him feel foolish, and so he remained silent.

  A man on the other side of the room cried out in his sleep. Sister Agnes didn’t so much as glance at the other man, but remained by Reid, her stare unbreaking. “Well?”

  The man cried out again, hoarse and rasping.

  “Should ye no’ go to him?” Reid asked.

  Sister Agnes shrugged. “He has night terrors. He does this all the time.” She looked over her shoulder to the sleeping man. “Ye’re fine, Richard. The English are no’ here.”

  The man quieted, and the nun turned back to Reid with a cocky smile. So much for the sin of pride…

  Reid dragged a hand through his hair. “She wants a husband. A home. Bairns.”

  Sister Agnes nodded, her brow furrowed. “I can see how such a request would be lofty. She’s no’ even verra nice or even bonny at that.” She gave an exaggerated eye roll.

  “Dinna ye have work to do?” he asked.

  “Ach, I’m doing it.” She pointed to the jars with a grin. “Ensuring they’re well-stocked.”

  “I know ’tis foolish to no’ want what she does.” He looked down at his hands.

  “Even with her?” the nun pressed. “For her?”

  He shifted on the small cot, and the ropes beneath his mattress squeaked and groaned. “Ye’re meddlesome, ye know that?”

  “Aye,” she said without even bothering to appear remorseful. “Is it fear holding ye back, lad?”

  “Of course no’.” He’d responded too quickly, and she knew.

  Like a vulture of the truth, she descended upon him. “Are ye afraid she’ll leave ye?” Sister Agnes innocently checked over the jars once more. Ones she’d already perused earlier, he noticed. “Or that ye willna be a good husband to her?” She slid her gaze to him and narrowed her eyes. “Ye dinna beat women, do ye?”

  “Nay,” he exclaimed.

  “Are ye afraid then that she’ll be taken from ye?” Sister Agnes asked.

  Reid clenched his jaw.

  The nun nodded. “That’s it, then.” The older woman put her hand over his. Her hands were soft and dotted with brown flecks; her nails trimmed so close that only a sliver of white showed above her fingertips.

  He was studying her hands intently, he knew. It was easier than meeting those keenly perceptive eyes and having this difficult conversation.

  “My family was slain in a raid,” Sister Agnes said softly. “They meant to kill me too, but I ran and hid. I stayed where I lay beneath some brush and watched as they killed my whole family. It wasna my proudest moment.”

  “They would have killed ye too,” Reid said without looking up.

  “Aye. I tell myself that a thousand times over, but it willna ever heal that emptiness in my heart.” She withdrew her hand from his and resumed her tasks, examining the jars. “I grew up here after the nuns took me in. I enjoy my life here because I’ve no’ ever known anything different. I never had the opportunity for love. No’ like yer Clara.”

  He nodded and finally lifted his eyes to meet the woman’s gaze, a kindred spirit bound together by the trauma of their childhood.

  “I dinna know yer story, my lad.” She held up a hand to keep him from talking, not that he’d planned to, and continued, “’tis yer story. But I think mayhap ye ought to tell it to her so that she can understand. And I think ye should set yer fears aside and take a risk that ye might both be the happier for.”

  “And if they raid my home?” Anger and fear mixed into one, the effect so overwhelming it made breathing difficult.

  “Then ye kill them, and ye protect yer family.”

  But if he couldn’t?

  The question arose from the darkest depths within him, the ugly dread he never wanted to acknowledge. Even its presence in his thoughts made his heart constrict in such a way that he could scarcely draw breath.

  He couldn’t lose those he loved again. Not when it was still so easy to recall that visceral loss; the emptiness of knowing all those he loved were dead. His gentle da, who worked hard so they always had food on the table, and who promised days by the stream when the sun rose high and bright. His mum who had the sweetest voice as she sang him to sleep. Wee Ewan and how he followed Reid everyw
here.

  “Do ye know what happens if ye dinna let yerself choose the possibility of happiness?” Sister Agnes asked, breaking into those unwanted memories. “If ye never grasp the opportunity for love and a life fully lived?”

  Reid shook his head.

  Her eyes narrowed, no longer friendly but glinting with malice. “Those bastards win.”

  “Sister Agnes,” the man on the other side of the room called. “My bandage.”

  “Ach, did ye undo it again?” She called out pleasantly. With a serious nod to Reid, she went to the other man’s side, crooning over him with attentive interest.

  Reid lay back in his bed, no longer bored as much as he was agitated. The nun had given him much to think on. He wished Clara were there, that he might speak with her, so she would know she was not the cause.

  And yet, even as Sister Agnes’s words sank in, even as his head acknowledged the sound logic, his heart stubbornly refused to yield.

  He knew what he had to do to protect himself. To protect Clara.

  It would be better to have her leave him now for the convent than wait until they had built a life together, when there would be so much more to lose. When having it all stripped from his life would be his undoing.

  It was the only way to truly avoid ever feeling that pain again. Because he did not know if he could survive it a second time.

  13

  “I know ye’re back there,” Clara called out behind her.

  No one replied. Not that she had expected them to.

  Whoever they were, they’d been trailing her for the last four days as she journeyed over the straw-yellow grass, going first to the Hamiltons, then to the Maxwells, and later to the Stirlings. Her adherent didn’t attack, nor did they interfere with her visits. They simply followed.

  She hadn’t seen them fully yet, only a shadow from time to time or the rustle of leaves deep in the woods. But they were there. And that prickling unease at the back of her neck crawled with the awareness that there was indeed someone watching.

  The forest thinned away into a clearing with a village at its center. Just beyond the thatch-roofed homes, and clusters of people going about their daily lives, rose yet another castle.

  Clara had been so hopeful when she’d first gone to the Hamiltons, certain they would believe her when Lord Tavish had not. However, without the missive, they afforded her even less trust than did Lord Tavish.

  The problems began with the muted Scottish burr in her accent, flattened by her time in England. Her inability to produce proof of what she claimed as Lord Tavish had kept the missive added to that. And the final nail in her coffin was the fact that she was a woman.

  Never had being of the fairer sex been more of a hindrance than in the business of warfare and saving lives.

  She looked up at the castle whose shadow fell ominously over her as she approached. The soldier guarding it would need convincing that she was worthy of an audience with the laird of the keep, the same as they all did. All that to inevitably pass back through these very gates without success. Again.

  Exhaustion gripped her and begged her to turn back, to go through the forest and to Paisley Abbey, where she could accept her ultimate defeat.

  Reid would be recovered by now. He would be able to go to Dumbarton, and they would finally have to say their farewells. It was where their paths would split, for him to continue to live his peripatetic life, and she to devote her time to the abbey until they agreed to allow her to remain with them and later take her vows.

  She would never see him again.

  Her thoughts shifted once more to the futility standing before her. The castle, the guard, knowing she had to try with the Montgomeries. They were the last clan she planned to speak with. She could go farther south and speak to the Muirs, but time was a persistent issue nipping at her mind and rose more forefront with each passing day. Indeed, she hoped she was not too late, that the English had not already attacked.

  Mayhap the Montgomeries would say yes where the others had cast her aside. If they did, there would be one more army to help protect the villagers outside of Dumbarton Castle.

  The possibility was slight, but she had hope, even if it was foolish to do so.

  She was shown into the keep, more diminutive and less opulent by comparison to the rest, with a great hall nearly half the others’ size. However, the rushes were clean, and she was offered sustenance upon her arrival—a bit of salted butter and bread still warm from the oven, along with a mug of ale. It was more than the others had provided.

  But as well-mannered as the Montgomeries had proven to be, their aged laird regarded her with the same contempt as the others had when she was announced with a message for him. That disdain curled his thin lips when she began to speak.

  “English,” he accused.

  “My da was,” she admitted tiredly. “But I’m the granddaughter of the Chieftain of the Ross clan.” Never in her life had she thought she would admit to such a connection. Certainly, she’d never believed she would say it so often in so many days.

  The laird tilted his head, his gray eyes narrowing as he studied her. “Ye’ve got the look of his wife about ye.”

  Clara hid her surprise. No one had ever told her as much. But then, she wasn’t often around anyone from her mother’s family.

  The laird settled back in his chair upon the dais, his hand smoothing down his considerable beard. After a moment, he nodded. “Aye, I’ll join yer grandda in the fight. We’re always looking for an excuse to kill the English.”

  Her stomach sank. “My grandda won’t be there.”

  The laird’s brows raised with incredulity. “I’ll no’ risk my men if yer grandda isna willing to do the same.”

  “But innocent people—”

  “My men’s families are innocent too, are they no’?” he asked, his hands spreading out, palm up. “Who will care for them when their fathers and husbands dinna come home?”

  Clara went quiet at that. She knew all too well that no one did.

  With that, she was dismissed from the keep, a failure once again, with her shadow hiding in the tree line to witness her defeat. She kept from the trail as had become her habit, opting instead to go through the forest, where there was less likelihood of running into Englishmen or being harassed by men eager to find a woman traveling alone.

  It was a miserably cold day with a wind that cut through her cloak, and flecks of rain that stung like shards of ice on her face and hands. She traveled for a bit of time with her shadow trailing behind her before finally stopping to rest her mount near a stream.

  Even as she built a quick fire to thaw her numbed hands, the urgency returned. The English would be there soon. She could sense it in the air as if it were something tangible. They could have already attacked, and she wouldn’t be the wiser. She had been gone long enough. Reid would be recovered as long as another infection had not set in, and he could go to Dumbarton Castle to speak with Lord Tavish.

  Surely, they would believe Reid, being that he was Scottish and a man.

  She caught a rabbit to roast before departing for the journey back to Paisley Abbey. Though she’d had a bit of bread, it was hardly enough to fill her belly, and she did not wish to stop until she was at the convent.

  Awareness slinked over her skin.

  She was being watched again. A shiver squeezed down her spine. Her nerves were ragged and raw, shredded with the continual stream of degradation and rejection she’d received; the helplessness of her own inability to save innocent lives. And through it all, this person had continued to observe her, without care or concern for those she wished to save.

  It made rage boil in her veins until she had to fight down the urge to leap to her feet and scream like a madwoman, as she had in the forest with Reid. But Reid wasn’t there to comfort her now. It was only herself and her voyeur.

  A stick snapped in the woods.

  Her patience broke along with it. She’d had enough, and now she had an idea of what direction she
might find her watcher. Energy shot through her muscles, springing her up, a predator descending on her prey as she closed in toward the sound. Movement showed between the trees.

  “Will ye run from a woman then?” she called out. “Am I so terrifying?”

  It was the kind of goading tactic Kinsey might utilize. Her younger sister always was ready to issue or accept a challenge.

  For Clara’s part, she couldn’t stand the watching anymore.

  Whatever had shifted between the trees went still. She wasted no time in approaching the person who had spent so many days shadowing her every move.

  The metallic hiss of a blade clearing its sheath called her attention to a man standing by a thick tree trunk, his hard face set beneath a pair of bushy red brows. He was shorter than her, his body stocky.

  Clara came closer despite the brandished weapon. “Why have ye been following me?”

  “Why are ye going to all these keeps?” the man asked, lowering his blade by only a fraction of an inch.

  “To implore their lords to assist Dumbarton when the English attack.”

  He studied her a long moment, then his red mustache and beard twitched. “Ye’re either daft or brave.”

  She lifted her shoulders in a helpless shrug. “I have hope.”

  “Daft then.”

  “I prefer stubborn.” She smiled at him, and he lowered his weapon entirely.

  “Ye’ll be glad to know I’m done,” she informed him. “Ye can return to Dumbarton, to yer family and nights in a warm bed, secure under yer own roof.”

  “That’s what ye’d say if ye were going to plan something nefarious.” His dark eyes narrowed. “And I dinna have a family.”

  “I am merely venturing to Paisley Abbey to bring back the man who should have been the messenger,” she explained. “He ought to be recovered by now. Mayhap Lord Tavish will believe him.”

  “I canna let ye go without me.” The older man puffed his chest out. “I’m to follow ye and ensure ye’re no’ a traitor.”

  “Then ye are welcome to join me on my way to Paisley Abbey.” She hesitated, regarding him cautiously. “Though it would do well to know yer name. I’m Clara Fletcher.”