Much Ado About Highlanders (The Scottish Relic Trilogy) Read online

  “I won’t let him. I don’t give a damn about what he realizes. As soon as we see the boys, I’ll cut the villain down.”

  “It might not work out as you think. You should still take the one I have, just in case.”

  Magnus took the fake tablet out of her hand and put it in a pouch similar to hers. “Nay, daughter. I made a promise to your mother that I would protect the stone. And my sons were kidnapped when they should have been with me. I will get them back, and I’ll not renege on my promise to Sine.”

  “Father.”

  He turned to Alexander and put a hand on his shoulder. “Keep her safe here. We’ll bring the lads back.”

  Even as Kenna watched her father go, the claws of fear raked at her heart. She’d lost her mother when the stone could have saved her life. Now her father was walking into what had to be a trap. Her brothers had been taken for the same relic. She hugged her middle, unable to fight down the panic that was taking hold of her. What she had was no gift, but a curse.

  “What my father is trying to do won’t work. If something happens to my brothers, I’ll never forgive myself.”

  “Last night, we had a half dozen men slip into the village, my love. I don’t know how many people he has, but when he shows his face, we’ll spring the trap. And Colin will be there. I trust him.”

  She looped the pouch around her neck and paced the empty cottage. Alexander stayed near the door, his hand on his sword. She knew there were others nearby, watching the cottage. Time dragged on. The young faces of Giles and Ninian were constantly in her mind. Kenna wished she’d insisted on Alexander sending for them as soon as she arrived at Benmore. Her heart broke at the thought of how frightened the two of them must be.

  When a distant cry of a woman rang in the air, Kenna rushed toward the door. Something had gone wrong. Cries of “Fire!” followed.

  “Stay inside,” Alexander ordered, pulling open the door.

  People were running on the muddy road in front of the cottage. She followed him outside.

  “The cur is burning the village,” he said.

  She looked along the row of cottages. Every thatched roof was on fire, it seemed, and black smoke was billowing thickly all over the village. As they stood there, the cottage they were in burst into flames.

  “I am getting you out of here.” Alexander took her hand.

  He motioned to two men who ran to them. Macpherson warriors, she realized with relief. The sound of the fire had grown to a crackling roar. People were shouting over it.

  “Take her out of the village to the camp.” He turned to her. “I’m going after your father and Colin and the boys.”

  Kenna wanted to go with Alexander, but he was already running in the direction of the market. One hut after the next was now engulfed in flames.

  “Come on, mistress.”

  The two men shielded Kenna on either side and urged her up the road. As they passed a cottage, a young girl ran out, shrieking in panic. Her dress was on fire.

  Kenna broke free of the men and rushed to her, throwing her cloak over the child, pushing her down into the mud and crouching beside her. She slapped at the cloak, smothering the flames while the girl cried hysterically.

  The air was so thick with smoke that it was burning Kenna’s eyes and lungs.

  The girl’s eyes suddenly focused. “My sister! She’s still inside! She’s just a bairn!”

  Kenna motioned to the men to go in. Without hesitating, they dove through the open doorway.

  Just then, as if in a dream, two boys with hoods on their heads, their hands bound at their waist, appeared. They were just a few short steps from her. A man stood behind them, holding a knife. She didn’t need to wonder if he was Maxwell.

  “The stone,” he demanded, his Lowland accent harsh. “Toss it to me and you can have the boys. If you hesitate for even a moment, they die.”

  She pushed slowly to her feet. “First, I need to see their faces.”

  The man raised his knife to one boy’s throat and pulled off the hood of the other. Giles cried out her name when he saw her, but Maxwell cuffed him hard.

  “Now, woman, or they both die.”

  Kenna took the pouch from around her neck. She held it up. “Send them to me.”

  “Throw it to me.”

  They both moved at the same time. The pouch with the stone flew through the air just as the two boys sprawled at Kenna’s feet.

  When she looked up, Maxwell had disappeared into the smoke. Holding Giles close to her, Kenna pulled the hood off his twin brother.

  But it was not Ninian.

  She stared as the shock of recognition struck her hard.

  It was Jock.

  Alexander was not about to lose Maxwell.

  There was no time to gather his men, and Colin and Magnus could fend for themselves.

  The two Macpherson men had come out of the cottage as the roof collapsed, one carrying a baby under his arm, and both hacking from the smoke. Turning Kenna and the boys over to them, he leaped onto his horse.

  Breaking out of the smoke and chaos of the village, he galloped east along the river road. He hadn’t gone far when he realized Kenna was right behind him.

  “What are you doing?” he shouted. “Go back!”

  “Nay. Save your breath. There they go.”

  Alexander looked ahead and saw two riders on a rise. The boy was draped across the neck of one of the steeds. They were following the river road, which made a great sweeping arc around a woody glen just ahead.

  He didn’t have time to fight with her. He knew he wouldn’t win, in any event.

  “This could be a trap, Kenna. Stay behind me and go back for help if you see more men join them.”

  If she heard anything that he said, she didn’t acknowledge it.

  Maxwell had enough of a head start that their only chance was cutting them off. Spurring his horse off the road and into the glen, Alexander rode hard through the woods. Branches tore at him. He heard Kenna’s horse crashing along behind him. Her safety was the most important thing in the world to him. But he knew regardless of what he did, she wouldn’t stop chasing these blackguards.

  It wasn’t about the stone. She had decided already to part with it. It was Ninian. She would never give up until she had him back.

  His steed vaulted over a fallen tree, and he heard her horse land safely. She was as good a rider as anyone, and she was fearless in the face of danger. He’d seen that already.

  And that did nothing to ease his worries. She would take any risk.

  Moments later, they broke out of the glen and into open meadow. Not an arrow shot away, Maxwell and his man turned in their saddles and saw them.

  Encumbered by the boy, they were quickly losing ground.

  Seeing the Highlander hot on their heels, Maxwell motioned to his man to move away from the river and up toward higher ground, where craggy boulders jutted up from brush and patches of scrub pine. He could see a long ridge ahead. If they were going to shake their pursuers, they stood the best chance of doing it there.

  Snatching that fishing lad from the hills by the western sea had worked out better than he’d expected. Maxwell had planned to use him in place of one of the twins from the first moment he laid eyes on them at the hunting lodge.

  The MacKay heir would serve many a purpose once they joined Sir Ralph Evers—who should be waiting not a league from here. Those Highland fools would surely pay handsomely for the lad, but getting clear looked to be the challenge now. He glanced back at the Highlander and the woman. They were steadily gaining on them.

  Returning with the stone was his mission. To hell with the boy.

  “If they catch us,” Maxwell shouted to his man, “you cut the brat and drop him near the ledge. That should give us time.”

  Standing there with the boys in the village, he’d seen the look on the MacKay woman’s face. Never mind the stone—she’d have given her life to get them back.

  Cresting a rise, Maxwell was stunned to see Ale
xander Macpherson riding up the sheer face of the ridge. Drawing his sword, he quickly rode behind a large boulder where the Highlander would reach the top.

  As Macpherson galloped past, Maxwell swung the sword, but the Highlander was too quick. In a flash, he had his own sword up, catching the full weight of the blow.

  The Highlander’s sword was shattered, and the man was thrown from his horse. But it took Maxwell a length of the heartbeat before he felt the searing pain. He looked down. The point of Macpherson’s blade was lodged in his chest.

  Bellowing in fury, he rode to where his man waited with the lad.

  Macpherson was getting back on his horse when his wife appeared.

  “Cut him. Leave him.”

  Maxwell’s man didn’t hesitate for an instant, driving a dagger deep into the boy’s back and dumping him at the edge of the cliff.

  Spurring their steeds, the two galloped off.

  A forest lay beyond the next hill. Beyond it, Evers waited. Bending over his mount’s neck, Maxwell pressed his hand to the wound. The blood flowed freely from around the jagged steel. He couldn’t stop the bleeding, and he could taste his own blood. His breaths were coming harder, and his vision was becoming distorted as he struggled to stay on his horse.

  “We’ve lost them,” his man said.

  Reining in, Maxwell slid off his horse and hit the ground. He blinked, looking up at the patches of the sky above.

  The hooves of a horse circled around him. The rider dismounted. Maxwell looked up at the blurred face of his man.

  “In the pouch . . . at my belt . . . the healing stone. Take it. It’s magic. Use it on me.”

  The man reached down and took the pouch. Maxwell closed his eyes. A miracle. Magic. The object of his quest would make him whole again.

  The feel of the blade slicing across his throat caused the Lowlander to open his eyes, but the light was now blinding. And as he drowned in his own blood, Maxwell’s last thought was that no miracle would be coming.

  Alexander reached the boy before Kenna did. They’d stabbed Ninian for nothing.

  Blood already soaked the boy’s clothes. He pulled off the lad’s hood, and blue eyes so much like Kenna’s stared back at him.

  She was beside them in an instant.

  “You came for me,” he said weakly. “I told Giles not to worry. I told him you’d find me.”

  “Of course, my love.” She gathered her brother against her. She looked at the wound. How much blood the lad had already lost!

  “It hurts, Kenna,” Ninian whispered. “Can you make it better?”

  She glanced up at Alexander in despair, her eyes burning with tears.

  Sir Ralph Evers stared at the renegade soldier. So Maxwell was dead. But this man had been able to keep the tablet and deliver it.

  “When a commander loses a trusted fighter,” he said, “it is important to have a good man to replace him.”

  “Aye,” Maxwell’s man said. “That’s what I figured. And I’ll do whatever the job calls for.”

  Evers nodded and emptied the pouch the man had delivered into his palm. He gazed at the stone: the color, the markings, the edges. Right away, Evers knew it was genuine.

  He walked away from the line of men standing and waiting for his reaction. He took out his own portion of the tablet. He held one in each palm. He brought them together.

  They fit perfectly. Like a puzzle. He had two links of the chain. A rush of pleasure washed through him. He was halfway to his goal. He would have it all.

  He walked back to those waiting.

  “No Highlander would be tricking us, Sir Ralph.” Maxwell’s man was all swagger now. “Brought the genuine article, didn’t I?”

  Oh, it was genuine. He had no doubt.

  “Let’s test it, shall we?” Evers asked.

  Taking out his dagger, he stabbed Maxwell’s man in the belly. The Lowlander’s eyes rounded in shock. He stumbled backward.

  “Hold him up,” Evers ordered.

  Men moved on either side and took hold of the Lowlander’s arms, keeping him upright.

  Stone in hand, Evers reached out and touched the bleeding wound. Moments went by, but there was no sensation within him, as there was with the other stone. No heat. He felt no change at all. Blood continued to run from the wound.

  And then it came to him.

  Cairns. The stone sat for some time on the shelf in that dungeon. Many could have touched it, picked it up, studied it. Redcap Sly had done so. But the power had passed on to no one but himself, Evers thought. No one had been able to possess it.

  Not until Cairns was dead.

  Sir Ralph stared at the healing stone in his palm, anger building within him. He had the stone that could provide the gift, but Kenna Macpherson would have to die for him to possess its power.

  And die she would.

  Kenna had nothing to save him. She felt helpless, terrified, but she wasn’t about to let her little brother know the depth of her despair. His time was growing short.

  Alexander continued to talk to Ninian, showering him with praise for his bravery while Kenna looked on. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a faint glimmer of hope was teasing her. But what could she do?

  After giving birth to the boys, her mother had known that she was about to die. But Sine had done nothing to save her own life. Why hadn’t she given the stone to her husband? Why not give it to the midwife, or to someone else she trusted in the household? To anyone? There had to be so many people who could have handled the tablet and then returned it when Sine recovered. Her own father could have done it. But she didn’t give it to him. Why?

  Kenna’s hand hovered over the wound. Without even touching it, she felt the heat emanating from it.

  She closed her eyes, allowing her fingers to move where they willed. In her mind, she focused on the place where the dagger had pierced the flesh.

  Suddenly, inside of her, a storm gathered. From the sky above and from the earth below, she felt the surging column of light colliding, swirling, filling her with energy like never before.

  Harnessing the power, she directed it, pushed it, willing the healing to flow out of her arms, through her hands and fingers, and into the thin, cold body of her brother. The ancient instinct was still there, rooted in her mind, in her heart, spreading through the tips of her fingers.

  As always, she didn’t know how long it lasted, but the sound of Ninian’s voice as he spoke to Alexander made Kenna become aware of them.

  “I like Jock. He’s very brave, you know. They treated him very badly, too. Do you think he could stay with us?”

  Kenna stared at the wound. The bleeding had stopped. Ninian’s face was regaining some of its color. He was acting as if he wanted to sit up.

  “It’s you.” Alexander was smiling at her. “It’s not the stone. You are the gift.”

  Kenna leaned her head on her husband’s shoulder. She now knew the truth as her mother had known it before her. The power of the stone stayed with you.

  It was a gift for life.

  Epilogue

  In brief, since I do propose to marry,

  I will think nothing to any purpose that the world can say against it;

  and therefore never flout at me for what I have said against it . . .

  The wedding was to take place in the village kirk, across the river from Benmore Castle.

  For a sennight, the clan folk had all been in high glee, with flowers and banners decking the windows of every cottage and shop. Pipers, dancing, and feasting were the order of the day.

  No one loved celebrating more than the Macpherson clan, and weddings provided the most joyful reason of all.

  For his part, Graeme MacDougall was gratified beyond measure at the prospect of gaining as a son-in-law the second son of the powerful Macpherson laird. James, he felt, was a man with a great future at court, and losing a Lowlander was no great loss. The Macphersons were strong allies to have for a clan perched on the western sea, as the MacDougalls were. Indeed, he would h
ave agreed to have the wedding anywhere, so long as vows were exchanged and he had someone to whom he could hand over responsibility for his beloved Emily and her newly discovered willfulness, impetuosity, and independence. She, he was beginning to think, would be a handful.

  Many guests had arrived for the wedding. Family from far and near. Friends and allies from across the sea. And Alexander’s protectiveness had grown proportionally with the number of guests. Kenna saw it and felt it every time she turned around.

  Descending the steps into the courtyard of the castle, she glowered over her shoulder at the four warriors in gleaming armor who flanked her and Alexander. They were becoming too familiar a sight.

  “Husband, this will not do,” she said.

  Alexander followed her gaze. “It will have to for now, my love. We need to take care since Evers put that bounty on your pretty head.”

  “And what about the even greater reward you’ve offered to anyone who foils an attempt on my life? What has that accomplished? We have a line of blackguards at our door every day with their hands out for the reward, just for saying they’ve stopped some attack.”

  “It’s worth it. You’re worth it.” He kissed her hand. “And stop planning ways of escaping your guards.”

  “How do you know what I’m planning?”

  He kissed her lips, paying no attention to all the heads he turned, showing such affection for his wife. “It’s a gift. You have yours and I have mine.”

  It had taken a little time, but Kenna was now used to Alexander’s ways. It was more than that. She cherished his love, his affection, and his passion—whether it was in public or in private.

  Alexander’s eyes scanned the gathered family as he continued. “But I want you to know that there may be an end in sight to Evers and his bloody bounty. I have some news about the other two who hold pieces of the tablet.”

  “What news?”

  “Their names are Innes Munro and Muirne MacDonnell. They’re the ones he’s searching for now.”

  “Do you know where they are?”

  “We are looking for them. We’ll find them before Evers does.”