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W ESTERN H IGHLANDS

S COTLAND

1272

T hundering hooves echoed through the dark, misty Scottish night.

Robert MacQuarrie leaned into his massive black destrier, urging his mount to give him all the speed the animal could muster.

He rode like a madman, without care or caution, his only thought to reach Merlegh Hall before it was too late.

Before his friend Thomas MacGahan took his last gasping breath.

Thomas was more than a mere friend. If not for him, Robert would have died in battle on the point of a Saracen spear. A spear Thomas had taken in his stead and lived to tell about it.

He owed his life to Thomas.

Robert kicked the sides of the wild beast he rode, demanding more.

Faster.

“He calls for you, MacQuarrie. To be at his side when his spirit departs his poor broken body. To carry out his last request.”

The watery blue eyes of the old shepherd who’d brought Robert the message haunted his memory now.

“I dinna believe he’ll last through the night. You maun ride hard, lad, if yer to fulfill his final wishes.”

Robert had just left an audience with his king, Alexander, when the messenger had arrived. In two days’ time, he was to accompany Alexander to the wedding of a fellow King’s Guard, Connor MacKiernan. Learning his friend Connor had found a woman to settle his wandering ways, Robert had left the king’s chambers with a full heart. Though there was the little matter of the rumored threats against Connor’s safety that concerned Alexander, it should be nothing too serious. Certainly nothing that he and Connor couldn’t handle together. They were, after all, two of Alexander’s finest.

Robert had been on his way to find a celebratory libation or two when the exhausted shepherd had entered his life, sending him on this urgent mission.

For Thomas to die in such a fashion simply wasn’t fair.

Not that Robbie considered himself a man to waste undue thoughts as to the fairness of life. The things he’d seen, the places he’d been had taught him well the lesson that there was little in the way of fairness in this world.

But this, the loss of a warrior like Thomas to such a cruel twist of fate, brought a cry of foul to Robert’s lips.

Thomas, who’d survived more battles than most men ever fought, laid low by a sharp turn in a muddy track at mountain’s edge.

The warrior and his horse had tumbled over the precipice, the great beast landing on top of Thomas on a ledge below. Now, instead of a quick death on a glorious battlefield, Thomas faced the slow agony of drowning in his own fluids.

Ahead of him, the flicker of light caught Robert’s attention.

Torches. He’d reached his destination at last.

The faces surrounding him as he made his way into the hall were a blur, his thoughts focused on one man only.

A woman—a redhead, of all the foul luck—approached, the keys dangling from her waist announcing her position as Merlegh’s chatelaine.

“Come with me. He awaits you.”

Following the woman’s steps, he hurried through the dark hallways. If the shepherd’s warning hadn’t been enough to convince him of the seriousness of Thomas’s condition, the grim faces he saw here certainly did. The expressions of those he passed and that of the chatelaine. A redhead. Always a bad sign for him.

After what seemed an eternity, he entered his friend’s room.

“Robbie? Is that you?” Thomas lay in the center of a great bed, his voice weak as he asked the question.

Shock coursed through Robert. Though his friend was little more than a decade his senior, the man lying in that bed looked to be ancient, his face ashen and drawn with his pain. Only his piercing blue gaze remained the same. A cough wracked his body, sending small flecks of blood to decorate his lips and the linen bedding where he lay.

Robert shook himself to action, crossing to Thomas’s side. “Aye, my friend. I’ve come as fast as I could.”

“I’ve a boon to ask of you.” Thomas paused, a strange gurgling sound coming from his chest as he strained to fill his lungs with air.

“Anything you ask. My debt to you is without bounds.” Robert fought the urge to take his friend’s hand. He recognized the signs of Thomas’s coming end all too well.

“I’ve a daughter,” Thomas rasped. “You must give me yer oath to protect her. When you carry word of my death, my father will be—” His words dissolved in another struggle to breathe.

“You need say no more, my friend. I will go to yer family and see to yer daughter.”

Thomas reached out, his hand wavering unsteadily in the space between them until his fingers clutched at Robert’s wrist. “It’s no that my father is an evil man. It’s just that Isabella is…” He struggled as if trying to find the words he wanted. “She is different, as was her mother. She’s but an innocent child, and with me gone she will need protection and guidance. It willna be easy. Your oath, Robbie. I must hear yer oath.”

“I’ll see to yer daughter’s safety. I swear it. On my honor. On my life.”

“Then it is done.” Thomas’s fingers slipped from Robert’s wrist. “Go now. Leave me in peace to meet my saints.”

A strange tightening of Robert’s throat prevented his speaking. He bowed his head respectfully and turned, leaving his friend for the last time.

Fighting for the emotional distance he regularly wore as part of his persona, he mounted his barely rested horse and set out for his return to Alexander’s court.

As close as they’d been, he’d never known that Thomas had a child. And what had he meant by saying she was different? What would he do with a girl child? He was a warrior. A good one, too. A knight to King Alexander III of Scotland. A family had no part in his plans. Someday, certainly, but not now.

Apparently his plans would have to change.

MacQuarrie Keep had been a fine place for him growing up and though he would not return to his family home to live, he felt certain the child would be welcomed there.

With something of a plan formed, he pushed all thoughts from his mind. None of them mattered for the moment. When he finished the task his king had assigned him, nothing save death would keep him from his oath to see to the safety of Isabella MacGahan.