Chapter 37

Nae one appeared to wonder why Rob was back to his auld ways. He supposed they thought his return to spending his days at the training ground was because of the unstable political situation, and why not? The McArthur managed to visit them every day to watch the progress of both housecarls and clansmen in the use of sword, axe, spear and shield. “Only the unprepared are caught unawares,” he told Rob. “My men will be ready to act at the first sign of trouble. Twice we’ve let our guard down and each time almost lost an heir. It will never happen again.”

His father wouldn’t even allow himself the excuse that when La Mont inveigled his way into Cragenlaw, the place had been filled with strangers because of the wedding. That’s why their appearance had gone unnoticed. Rob would rather concentrate his thoughts on that than on the day Doughall Farquhar had sent his most intimate friend to abduct him. Frae that day to this, nae pedlar was allowed inside the castle wall without the wagon being searched.

Abduction wasnae new to Rob, though when he had stolen away with Melinda and his sons frae Wolfsdale, his intentions had been good, not perverse. Thinking back on that day, the fear he had felt hadnae been for his life—not even when he had been bundled off leaving his friend Alexander Comlyn lying dead in the stable yard. It had been the future he had feared and the man carrying him off, his voice a promise of what the future held, with the harsh cutting edge to his voice as he whispered, “Bastard.”

His stomach had turned over, still did at the thought.

He swiped the sharpening stone down the edge of his sword, yet the sound didnae remind him of Kalem, only how he wished he’d had one in his hands with the chance to kill him. To put a sword betwixt his ribs, the way he had Harald.

If he had learned anything that day it was that the wicked had to pay for their sins.

Thankfully, his thoughts were able to take another direction as Maggie appeared through the gate frae the upper Bailey. She was his sister and he loved her, but God’s teeth, nae way did he understand her.

It wasn’t as if she were a tall, lanky lass. Nae, she could almost be described as dainty. At least she could if ye had nae notion of the muscles that helped shape her slight form. She was of the age he had been when he’d arrived at Cragenlaw, but he couldn’t remember being quite so fierce or even kenning how to handle a sword and shield the way Maggie did. And what could he say, or his mother either; the McArthur encouraged her. “Let her be,” he’d say, “These are troubled times. Best she can protect herself.”

Rob thought the times they were living through werenae any worse than they had ever been in Scotland. Their ancestors had been fierce warriors.

His sister had a grinned plastered across her face as she came up to him. “What mischief have ye been up to this morning? I hope ye have been leaving the twins in peace and not teasing the life out of them.”

She shook her head, the long, dark plait she wore bouncing on her shoulders, loose for once instead of pushed under a bonnet or tucked under her short coat. If she had her way, her dark curly locks would have been lopped off for being a nuisance, but Morag refused to let her. He expected that their mother thought it was the only part of her that reminded folk she was a girl. Morag probably didnae recognise that Maggie looked just like her, bonnie—pointed chin and long-lashed big blue eyes.

Being a bastard had never appeared to trouble Maggie as it did him; but, then, his sister had lived all her life at Cragenlaw and had none of the shadows frae Wolfsdale to darken her memories. She had always been protected by living inside the castle walls—by him, by his father, by every man with ties to the McArthur clan. It was outside that danger lay. And if any man touched her, Rob would lop off his hand. He paused the direction of his thoughts for a moment, realising that, from the way Maggie waved her wee sword around, mayhap she would do it herself.

“I have been visiting with Brodwyn.”

Rob grimaced. “And ye got out of her chamber alive. Fortune must favour ye.”

“She wasnae so bad, and Kathryn was there. I merely wanted to see what a wound looked like. It wasnae as gruesome as I expected.”

Rob growled, remembering. “It was on the day.”

“Ye should see how white her skin is; she is even fairer than Melinda, fairer than Kathryn—”

He cut her off, “That’s enough. Dinnae go on about it. I’m not interested.”

“It was her arse I was talking about, not her face. Faces change with the sunshine—”

“Enough, I said. If ye came down to the training ground to practice, let’s be seeing how ye can handle a shield, for I’ve just sharpened my sword.”

As she unstrapped her shield frae her back, so young, he remembered a face that fire had changed, burned. Her eyes hadn’t altered though. He had seen her sweet nature in them as she asked him for a kiss and he’d obliged.

How did one explain the emotion that pierced the heart when ye looked at the lass ye loved? In Lhilidh’s. case a sweet tenderness that had turned to rage as he felt it bubble up into his throat, giving him the strength to kill his first man.

Aye, he had never been fortunate in love. As soon as Melinda’s courses arrived and he was certain she wasnae carrying another child, he would have to do something about this present situation. In one way he would as soon cut off his right arm, but he had to do the right thing—protect the woman he loved.

Maggie was facing him, shield up and at the ready, her toes scuffing the dry dirt underfoot like a wee bull. “All right then, lass, show me how ye hold yer shield, I want to see the first position.”